Why did the 'constitutional, gradualist route' of Gladstone's Liberal ministries fail to achieve his objective of a 'pacified' Ireland? Queen Victoria described him as a "half mad firebrand" whilst to large

Gladstone’s concern for Ireland was not only part of his career; it was very much an essential part of his thinking, developing as his liberal philosophy matured. Gladstonian Liberalism was an Irish as well as an English phenomenon. Gladstone believed that all men had certain inalienable rights merely by virtue of their humanity, and by 1868 he was convinced that these rights had been refused to Irish men. As his Liberalism progressed, as his sympathy with the nationalist movements in Europe deepened, Gladstone became convinced that these inalienable rights had been denied the Irish not merely as men but as a nation as well. This development marks his shift from mere pacification to Home Rule for Ireland and can explain, in part, the reason behind the ‘constitutional, gradualist route’ and therefore can explain reasons for failure as Gladstone’s motives changed over time.

Gladstone’s first act was the Irish Church Act of 1869, designed if not to eliminate but to soothe the resentment held by Catholic’s towards the Irish Church. It was hoped that this would reduce social unrest provoked by religious discrimination. Gladstone’s plans were courageous; he had no precedent to go by and the task presented immense difficulties. The Act dissolved the Irish Church’s power; it meant that it could no longer expect tithes from Catholic’s and the Church of Ireland’s dissenters. This did not mean that the Irish were any better off; the tithes still had to be paid but were now paid to the state rather than the Irish Church. Despite the fact that the Act “solved once and for all the major religious grievances of the Irish Roman Catholic’s” in practice it made very little difference to the lives of most Irishmen. It did not, by any means, solve religious differences, Protestants still owned much of the land, and they still dominated the resented landlord class. The consequences of the act were more symbolic than practical, it did very little to pacify Ireland. In retrospect, however, the Act can be viewed as an important milestone, and it is possible to agree with O’Farrell’s assessment. “It was the first breach of the Union, and for those whose benefit it had been established and maintained”.

Most agreed that the key to Ireland’s problems lay in the land question. This “question of questions for Ireland” proved much more difficult than church reform due to the complexities of the Irish land system and the wide range of interests involved. Lord Kimberly wrote “no measures of any kind can satisfy the Irish: the utmost they can do is to lay the basis for 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 Land 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 act’s failed to tackle any one of these problems. It had 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. Despite his performance in pushing through the complicated Land Bill, recent historians have argued that Gladstone again failed to face up to the economic realities of rural Ireland. Morton supports this argument by concluding that Gladstone’s measures “did little or nothing to improve productivity and competitiveness in Irish farming” and the Act had “little economic impact”. 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 Biagini points out, “with the onset of the agricultural depression the extent to which Ireland had not been pacified became evident”. Just as the motives of the first Land Act have been questioned so too have those of the Second Land Act. 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 Second Land Act has been described as “less an economic policy than a political stroke to destroy the ‘raison d’etre’ of the Land League”.The Second Act 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 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 landlords whose control over their estate 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 tents the right to buy their land, were irrelevant. This particular clause, because it gave landlords no incentive to sell and furthermore because Irish tenant farmers could not afford to pay. This 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 one hundred per cent 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 third 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 two 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 in to account the disunity within his party, and he could achieve little without a strong united party. Southgate wrote that what Home Rule did was “turn the growing tide of succeders 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 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.

Gladstone as a politician and leader of his party was burdened with the task of having to keep his party united to be effective in government and to consolidate his position. Therefore it could be argued that Gladstone’s policies in Ireland were employed purely on pragmatic reasons rather than on account of any moral reasons. The Irish Church Act did a lot to unite the party, as the disestablishment of the Anglican Church was a cause many in the party would rally around. By the 1880’s it was clear to Gladstone that his aim to reconcile the Irish to English rule had failed. He had got himself in to a vicious cycle involving popular protest being responded to with the passage of reform and realised that he was getting no where fast. The failure to solve resentment in Ireland brought Gladstone to the natural conclusion that the Irish needed liberty. Cooke and Vincent argue that it was neither the moral or ideological crisis that Gladstone claimed. It was purely a tactical battle in the power struggle at Westminster, where Gladstone strove to keep control of his party in the face of potential threats from the maverick Chamberlain. However Murphy and Weigall argue that Home Rule was a carefully calculated and righteous decision. Gladstone was steadfast in his belief in what he was doing was right and like his master Peel, he was determined to follow a policy which he regarded as just and righteous, regardless of his party’s feelings. Home Rule did not unite the party as Gladstone had hoped. Instead it did the exact opposite. The radical Chamberlain decided to rally the Liberals around a more relevant issue, social reform. This split the party resulting in ninety Liberal MP’s leaving to form the Liberal Unionists. Thus in 1886 argues Murphy, “a great opportunity for solving the Irish question was lost”. Overall Gladstone’s policies did little to unite his party, which if that was the attempt explains why it also failed to pacify Ireland, representing only a cosmetic reform rather than a solution to the problems. The Church Act had been mildly successful at uniting his party, which suggests this was the intention of the bill, however proceeding Acts such as the Irish University Reform Bill served only to highlight divisions within the party culminating in the final disastrous split due to Home Rule.

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 the situation. His Land Acts did not resolve the true problems, rather, especially in the case of the first, they tackled problems that did not exist and ignored the basic problems of poverty. Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill’s were however his greatest failing. As 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 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 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 providence of Ulster are a prime example of this ignorance.
Gladstone’s impact on Anglo-Irish relations however, still exceeds that of any other single individual. What is more important though is that it shows a new angle of approach from the British Government, it shows that at long last measures were being introduced that attempted to tackle toe root cause of Irish grievances. Irish problems would never be tacked on the first attempt and it required more time and more understanding of the nature of the problems before any progress could be made. Gladstone exemplifies the lasting importance of vision and idealism in British politics – a feature too often neglected.

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