Issue of Home Rule in British Politics The Irish and Imperial Questions in La

The Irish and Imperial Questions in Late Victorian Politics

In the 1880s, two distinct but related issues thrust themselves to the fore as concerns in British politics. One was Home Rule for Ireland; the other was the status and character of the British Empire as a whole. In some respects they were quite separate. Ireland was an integral part of the United Kingdom, scarcely a day's journey by train and ferry from London. The Empire was spread across the world, and important parts of it were already semi-autonomous Dominions. Yet they were bound together by the reality of alien rule, and evoked parallel responses from the eminent statesmen of the day. The following essay will explore this complex relationship of policies and ideals.

I. Empire and Imperialism in Victorian Opinion

The British Empire, it has been said, was acquired in a fit of inadvertence. This is perhaps a generous (and exculpatory) overstatement, since it is not as though the British looked around one day and found to their astonishment that they ruled a quarter of the world. Nevertheless, it is true that it was assembled under circumstances as varied as the lands it ruled, and without any grand master plan. The British Empire was a product of British empiricism, and only very late in the game did it formally become an Empire at all.

The empire's colonies and territories can be divided into three broad classes, corresponding to the circumstances under which they were acqui

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ist camp, the debate was also about means rather than ends. If European quarrels were to be globalized, and the dominions threatened by rival powers, they would have to be defended, and it was reasonable to ask them to contribute to the common defense. The lesson of 1776 had however been learned: If they were to share the burden they must have a say in assigning and apportioning it, implying representation in the overall governance of the empire. The "soft" imperialist position, more or less the status quo, was in fact less coherent in principle than either imperial federation or full divestment. Its virtue was that it called for no radical transformation, with the accompanying difficulties of enactment and execution. This position thus had natural appeal to a Gladstone, wrestling with the practicalities of administration. II. The Special Case of Ireland The relationship of Ireland to England, or to the United Kingdom, was almost entirely different from that of any of the lands that made up the British Empire of the Victorian age. When Victorians thought of the Empire, the images evoked in their minds were, in the words of Kipling, of "dominion over pine and palm." They thought for the most part of Ireland as

Category: Foreign - I