Parnell and the Irish Question Why did Gladstone fail to pacify Ireland?

        Most agreed that the key to Ireland’s problems lay in the land question.  This ‘question of questions for Ireland’ (John Devoy) proved much more difficult than church reform due to the complexities of the Irish Land System and the wider range of interests involved.  Lord Kimberley wrote ‘no measures of any kind can satisfy the Irish: the utmost they can do is to lay the basis for a gradual improvement’.  Kimberley’s prognostication was very close to the truth.  Neither Act actually destroyed the root of the problem; the chance to pacify Ireland through land reform was squandered.  Although the Second Act accomplished what the first did not with reference to controlling rents, Gladstone’s failure to pacify Ireland through land reform was largely due to the fact that he failed to see the reality of the situation.  The problem was not necessarily of any injustice imposed upon the tenants by a ‘foul pestiferous social rinderpest’ class of landlords, rather it was the fact that in the West particularly there was little cultivatable land, there was also the problem of a stagnant economy and lack of money for investment.  The Land Acts failed to tackle any 1 of these problems.  It has been written that the First Land Act ‘was the remedy for a disease that was not severely affecting Ireland in 1870’, indeed, the first Act was of the least benefit to the Irish tenant farmer.  The ‘grievances’ it tackled were not ones affecting Ireland at the time; so many of its clauses were insignificant. Some historians have gone further to say that the Act was more to the advantage of Gladstone than it was to the people of Ireland and that it was simply a political stroke to ‘bind Ireland to the Union…by proving that the Westminster Parliament was prepared to legislate for what the mass of Irish people considered to be their legitimate grievances’..  

The failure of the first Land Act to improve the situation in Ireland became apparent within a decade. As Eugenio F. Biagini points out in his book ‘Gladstone’, ‘with the onset of the agricultural depression the extent to which Ireland had no been pacified became evident.’ Just as the motives of the First Land Act have been questioned, so too have those of the Second.  It was at this time that the Land League was particularly powerful. The Land League was believed to be active in promoting the wave of agrarian violence that was sweeping the country in what has become known as the Land War of 1879-81; a campaign launched by aggrieved farmers against a ‘pestiferous’ landlord class.  Ireland seemed to be on the brink of social revolution, Gladstone believed that the only long term solution was further land reform. However, the 2nd Land Act has been described as ‘less an economic policy than a political stroke to destroy the ‘raison d’etre’ of the Land League’.  Act 2 was little better than the first in addressing Irish interests; Gladstone ignored calls from many land reformers for land reclamation and improvement that was desperately needed in rural Ireland.  Instead he concentrated on removing the necessity for violence by granting the tenants their demands, still managing to avoid tackling the heart of the problem.  The Act failed not only in this respect but also in the respect that it demoralised Land Lords whose control over their estates was waning.  

        In both cases Gladstone failed to see the situation for what it really was.  He did not address the fundamental problems as far as land was concerned.  Many of the clauses such as the clause that gave tenants the right to buy their land were irrelevant.  This particular clause because it gave landlords no incentive to sell, furthermore Irish tenant farmers could not afford to pay.  The clause was simply not appropriate for Ireland, in fact, the brief Conservative administration, steered by possessors of Anti-Irish, Anti-Catholic sentiment, pushed through more appropriate measures in this sector; lending the tenant 100% of the money required to purchase the land at a low rate of interest.

        By 1885 Gladstone realised that he had failed in his attempts to pacify Ireland through religious and land reform and vested his hopes in the issue of Home Rule.  However, again the political and economic reality had escaped him.  Gladstone completely underestimated the obstacles that stood in the way of Home Rule, he ignored the significant unionist sentiment in his party, the problem of Ulster and perhaps most formidably the House of Lords, dominated by staunch Unionist feelings.  When Gladstone’s support for Home Rule was publicly announced a Liberal resolution on Home Rule was put to the Commons.  The resolution passed, Parliament was dissolved and Gladstone thus set up his 3rd ministry with the aim of achieving Home Rule.  He lost no time in ‘grasping the Irish nettle’, a ‘faux pas’ which would prove fatal for the administration.  There were 2 fundamental flaws with the first Home Rule Bill.  The first was not so much in reference to the Bill itself but rather to Gladstone’s tactics, ‘the task he had now set himself was undertaken in the worst possible circumstances’.  He failed to educate either the electorate or his party about Home Rule, about his hopes or intentions for Irish legislative independence.  What is more, Gladstone failed to take into account the disunity within his party, and he could achieve little without a strong and united party.  Professor Southgate wrote what Home Rule did was to ‘turn the growing tide of seceders into a flood by presenting a major and dramatic issue’. Loyalty to the Union superseded loyalty to the ‘Grand Old Man’, the Bill failed and the ministry broke up.  Despite this rebuff, even in the face of the deep diversity of opinion within his own party, Gladstone did not lose any of his ardour for Home Rule and attempted another Home Rule Bill in 1893. He faced the same problems as in 1886, and once again failed to fully consider the problem of Ulster, it seemed beyond him to understand that Home Rule could not work in Ireland if it included Ulster with its built in allegiance to the Union.  Due to the complexity of Home Rule and in the face of such incredible opposition especially in the Unionist House of Lords, Home Rule was doomed to fail from the outset.  Even many committed Gladstonians considered that ‘to continue with it in such circumstances seemed…sheer perversity’.  The Bill failed and Gladstone resigned within months.

        Despite Gladstone’s ‘mission to pacify Ireland’ he had failed.  There are various reasons for his failure, not least that he continually failed to appreciate the realities of situations.  His Land Acts did not resolve the true problems, rather, especially in the case of the first, they tackled problems that did not exist.  Gladstone’s Home Rule Bills were however his greatest failing.  As Paul Adelman argues ‘Gladstone’s personal and obsessive commitment to Home Rule resulted in his underestimation of the problems involved in getting a measure accepted.’  Another great blunder was the imprisonment of Parnell who many considered the ‘uncrowned King of Ireland’, this aroused feelings of hostility and indignation in Ireland, damaging to Gladstone’s cause.  It could be argued that Parnell and the Land League contributed to social unrest in Ireland and to the reasons for Gladstone’s failure, however it could also be argued that by not granting the Irish what they sincerely wanted and needed in the first land Act that the nationalism which allowed the Land League to succeed was unwittingly engineered by Gladstone. However, Gladstone’s ultimate failure was that he failed, in almost every area of Irish Policy to produce legislation to satisfy both Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, as Tim Hodge points out ‘He failed to recognise that in any solution to the Irish problem needed to reconcile the interests of both Catholic and Protestant Ireland’.  The Home Rule Bills with their failure to make special provisions for the province of Ulster are a prime example of this ignorance.