to Ireland, and for other purposes connected with elementary education in that country; and 3. A scheme for modifying the existing system of procedure on Private Bills so far as it affects Ireland. But Her Majesty's Ministers had opponents who thought of nothing but party advantage. The "Mot D'Ordre" for 1892:— "The Liberal party ought next session to make a stand against any further legislation by the present Parliament. An amendment should be moved to the Address, praying Her Majesty to consult at once the electorate. Every vote on account should be hotly contested, and all Parliamentary machinery should be brought into force in order to hinder legislation. The obstruction should be open and avowed."1 And in spite of the earnestness of the Unionist Government this policy of obstruction was largely successful. Local Government Bill.-On the 24th May 1892 the Unionist Government carried by the magnificent majority of 92 the second reading of a Bill giving to Ireland a complete system. of local self-government, on the same suffrage as England and Scotland enjoy, and applying substantially to the same affairs, but owing to the near approach of a general election, and the amount of opposition with which the Bill was confronted, it became evident that there was no hope of passing it in that Parliament, and the Bill was accordingly withdrawn on the 13th June. Under it the Irish local councils would have been elected in the same way, and would have exercised the same powers as the Scottish and English councils, and, indeed, the Irish system would have been more complete, for district councils would have been established under the name of Baronial Councils. The body of electors would have been the same, and there would have been the same freedom of choice in the election of councillors. It was said by the opponents of the Bill that it gave only the shadow of local self-government, and was in reality a mockery; but such statements had no foundation in fact. There was nothing shadowy or unreal about the powers given to Irish County and Baronial Councils. The powers were not only real, but there was no restraint or interference in the exercise of them. The Irish councillors would have been just as untrammelled as are Scottish or English councillors. But there were three peculiarities about Ireland which had to be kept in view, and the Government Bill suggested one method of dealing with each of these, but they were mere suggestions; and if in the course of debate other suggestions had 1 Mr. H. Labouchere, M.P., Truth, October 15, 1891. been found to be of greater practical value they could have been readily ingrafted on the Bill. (1.) During the last ten years, as Mr. T. W. Russell pointed out, ten Boards of Guardians had to be suppressed, partly by Mr. Gladstone's Government, and partly by Lord Salisbury's Government. In each case the reason for suppression was misconduct of a grave character. No Local Government Bill would therefore have been complete which did not provide for the removal of councils determined to misconduct themselves, and for the substitution of others in their places. The Government Bill suggested that the power of removal should be exercised by the judges, and there was something to be said in favour of the publicity which the adoption of that suggestion would have secured, but probably a happier method would have been to leave that power in the hands of a strengthened Local Government Board. (2.) Illiterate electors were in Ireland astonishingly numerous, and it was strongly suspected that the priests had a high standard of education by which the members of their flock were tested before they were permitted to pass in to the polling-booth as persons requiring no assistance to record their votes. The priests take much interest in illiterates. The priest who is their pastor gains the support of their wives and daughters; another. priest escorts them to the entrance of the polling-booth; inside they are met by a third priest, who is present at the marking of the vote. The Sunday before an election threats are hurled from the altar against those who vote otherwise than as the priest thinks proper. The Sunday after an election those who have dared to disobey are excommunicated. The following is an extract from the report which was sent to the Star, a Gladstonian newspaper, by a reporter specially charged to send an account of the Kilkenny election in December 1890. He says: "At Ballyragget, voters as they came up to the station were taken into the priest's house for the last word of good counsel. At Johnstown the priest was in the booth. All over the division priests acted as personation agents. At Gowran each of the three personation agents was in a black frock. In the electoral history of the world there is registered no device to compare with this. Voters found the priests so all-pervading that some of them must have believed a ballot-box itself to be an ecclesiastical appurtenance with a priest inside." This was clearly a matter requiring careful consideration, because it was no light matter to entrust the property of people to a mass of voters of this kind. Over 100,000 illiterate voters polled in 1885. The suggestion of the Government Bill was not disfranchisement, as was largely believed. An illiterate would have got his paper like any one else, but he would have had no aid in the polling-booth. No priest would have been at his elbow, and it was confidently expected that if this suggestion had become law the number of illiterates would have been found to have very largely and very rapidly decreased. The difficulty was that aid in the polling-booth would still have been afforded at Parliamentary elections. But again, the Government proposal was only tentative. (3.) The Government was anxious that minorities should have some little representation, and they suggested the adoption of the cumulative vote, which, though an imperfect, is the only presently known method of securing this object. The Protestant minorities in the South were so very small that even this suggestion would have given them little benefit, but it would undoubtedly have given the Roman Catholic minorities in the North a much more powerful voice than they would otherwise have had. Education Bill.-In Scotland and England the State-apart from any relief in the matter of fees-contributed two-fifths of the cost of education, while the State contribution to Ireland was already about four-fifths of the cost, and it seemed very appropriate that when the Government was proposing to leave illiterates without help in the polling-booth, it should take means to make the burden of education easier for them. Their Education Bill, successfully passed through Parliament in 1892, will be an immense boon to the Irish people. During its passage through Parliament the great bone of contention was as to the position of the Christian Brothers, who had not been able to comply with the rules of the National Education Commissioners, and who, unless these rules were altered, could not share in the benefits about to be conferred on education in Ireland. Mr. Jackson, the Irish Secretary, undertook that the National Education Commissioners would reconsider the question whether the schools of the Christian Brothers should not be enabled to participate in the grant if they were prepared to accept a conscience clause making it clear that no religious instruction other than that on which the parents agreed should be given within the period of secular instruction. Upon this undertaking the principal opposition to the Bill was withdrawn, and it passed rapidly through the various stages. The Constitutional Year Book for 1893 (p. 231) gives the following summary of its provisions: In every municipal borough or town in Ireland, or in every barony to which the Act may afterwards be applied, the parents or guardians of all children between six and fourteen years of age will under this Act be obliged to cause the children to attend school for 75 times in every half-year, unless there is a reasonable excuse for non-attendance. Children over eleven are exempted from compulsory attendance if they have received a fourth-class certificate of proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The causes which constitute a reasonable excuse for non-attendance are defined in the Act, and include distance of more than two miles from school, sickness, domestic necessity, and urgent harvesting or fishery operations. The employment of children under eleven is prohibited, and also between eleven and fourteen unless they have obtained a certificate as above-mentioned, or unless the child comes within the "reasonable excuse" in regard to distance. The formation of school-attendance committees is directed, and powers are given them to enforce the compulsory clauses through the medium of the courts of summary jurisdiction. The Commissioners of National Education are empowered to acquire land, by compulsion if necessary, for the purposes of schoolhouses or teachers' residences, under the provisions of the Irish Public Health Act, 1878. An annual grant of £210,000 is provided for in aid of elementary education, and is to be applied, firstly, towards increasing by 20 per cent. the salaries of teachers; secondly, in granting bonuses to teachers of five years' standing; thirdly, towards the salaries of teachers in very small schools; and fourthly, the residue as a capitation grant in proportion to the average number of children in daily attendance. In any school receiving aid from this grant where the average rate of fees was not more than six shillings a year for each child in average attendance, no school fee is to be charged after October 1st, 1892, for any child; and in any school receiving the same aid where the fees exceeded that amount, the fees to be charged in future are not to be higher than the amount of the excess. The Act thus practically establishes free education in Ireland, and introduces for the first time the principle of compulsory attendance in that country. Private Bill Procedure Bill.—This Bill applied both to Scotland and Ireland, but from the first it was evident that the Nationalist members would have none of it. Obstructive tactics prevented its getting further than a first reading, and a reformation much needed both in Scotland and Ireland has thus been indefinitely delayed. Ireland required that the Unionist Government should have another Lease of Power-And such was the opinion expressed by the majority of the electors of Great Britain at the General Election of 1892; but the Irish priesthood willed it otherwise, and it now remains to be seen to what extent the good work, much of which was only set agoing, will be retarded or perhaps ruined by the fresh outbreak of the Home Rule controversy which has followed the advent of the Gladstonians to power. CHAPTER XII. IRELAND UNDER A SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT. APART from the great question of Home Rule (which is fully dealt with in another chapter), the subjects of greatest interest to the student of contemporary Irish history are: I. THE EXTENT OF AGRARIAN CRIME. II. AMNESTY. III. THE EVICTED TENANTS' COMMISSION. I. THE EXTENT OF AGRARIAN CRIME. Ireland came nominally under the rule of a Separatist Government on the 22nd August 1892, though, as Mr. A. J. Balfour has well remarked, the moral influence of a firm Administration ceased to be operative some six weeks earlier, when the course of the General Election made it manifest that the days of the Unionist Government were numbered. The change of Government at once removed many impediments which for the previous six years had made the administration of the law in the sister isle difficult. The man who had advised the Irish people to "hate the law" was now Prime Minister. Those who had openly and unblushingly laboured to carry this precept into practical operation, and render government by the ordinary law impossible, were his chosen friends, his political allies, the men into whose ears he whispered the great Home Rule secret deliberately withheld from the British public. For the previous six years the watchword had been, "Provoke conflicts with the ministers of justice, defy the arm of the law, let chaos prevail." Now, on the contrary, the watchword is, "Let peace and order prevail." The men who used to go about inciting to intimidation, boycotting, and the like, are now using their influence to prevent anything that might embarrass Mr. Morley. Incitement to non-payment of rent-the great weapon in the hands of the Irish agitators-is, for the time being, laid aside. Political exigencies required a change of watchword. A fine piece of acting was witnessed |