Killing Home Rule with Kindness free essay sample

They believed that the people of Ireland did not actually want Home Rule but were led astray by clever agitators like Parnell. And so, to quieten the voice of Home Rule in Ireland, the Tory Government adopted a policy sometimes called as ‘killing Home Rule with kindness’ but more formally known as ‘Constructive Unionism’. Surprisingly, Constructive Unionism originated within the Liberal Party from a leading Radical named Joseph Chamberlain. He felt that the way Britain ran Irish affairs was unfair and undemocratic. The most suitable way to solve this problem he thought was to make local government more democratic. In 1885, Irish counties were run by unelected Grand Juries. Chamberlain wanted to replace them with county councils, elected by people who paid local taxes. He also suggested that Irish MPs and members of the local councils should meet in a ‘Central Board’, which would deal with internal Irish affairs, such as railways and land. We will write a custom essay sample on Killing Home Rule with Kindness or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page He presented this idea to Parnell who originally expressed an interest in the Central Board idea, but later announced that he would not consider it as an alternative to a proper Irish parliament. New agitation began to arise shortly after the formation of the Conservative government with ‘The Plan of Campaign’ being championed by several leading Home Rulers. In response, Lord Salisbury appointed a new chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to deal with it. Balfour planned to use a two-pronged approach to deal with the plan: imprison the leaders of the new agitation while at the same time win over tenants by dealing with the problems they faced. Chamberlain soon wrote a pamphlet called ‘A Unionist Policy for Ireland’. In it he claimed that most people in Ireland did not really want Home Rule, but that they did have real problems with land ownership, poverty and a lack of democracy in local government. If the Westminster Government showed that it could solve their problems, the Irish would realise that they benefitted from the Union and would stop looking for independence. Steps had been taken by the Tory government to win Irish approval with the 1885 Ashbourne Land Act in which ? 5 million was made available for land purchase. However, in 1891 Balfour began to put his own ideas into practice. He began with a major land act. This included ? 33 million being made available for land purchase with tenants repaying the borrowed amount in instalments over 49 years. However, this move proved to be unsuccessful as Landlords were paid in government bonds rather than cash and tenants were to fulfil complicated legal agreements when purchasing their farms. In the 1890s the London Stock Market performed so poorly that the land could not be sold for their full value. Many landlords decided to wait for better times before selling up. The Act also entailed a second part. A new body called the Congested Districts Board was to be set up in order to aid the poorest tenant farmers whose farms were economically unviable. It identified 3. 5 million acres in cork, Kerry, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Leitrim and Donegal as ‘congested districts’. The Board was to increase the size of farms by buying up and redistributing underused land, and by resettling people from congested districts in areas where land was available. Another aim was to improve farming techniques among the poor farmers and also to promote local industries to increase employment. The Board was allocated an annual budget of ? 41,000 which later rose to ? 500,000 a year. The Board remained in existence until 1923 during which it redistributed 2 million acres among farmers to increase the size of their farms. So overall, the 1891 Land Act proved to have both negative and positive elements. In 1892, Lord Salisbury called a general election by which time Balfour could viably claim victory for his constructive unionist policy in Ireland. The country was quiet. In 1886, 1,056 violent crimes were reported; in 1889, only 535 were reported. In January 1887, 4,900 persons were boycotted; in January 1891, not one person was. By then too, the Home Rule movement was weakened, but that was not due to the work of Balfour. It was the Home Rulers themselves, quarrelling over the O’Shea divorce case, who had achieved that. The Conservative briefly lost power in 1892 but were re-elected in 1895. By this time, Balfour succeeded his uncle Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister and remained keenly involved with Irish developments. The Conservatives continued the reforming policy Chamberlain had suggested. Home Rulers mocked it as a policy of ‘killing Home Rule with kindness. One person who influenced the Conservatives’ policy was Horace Plunkett, a unionist who founded the Irish Co-operative Movement. Plunkett adopted ideas from Denmark where farmers solved a food crisis by forming co-operatives. The co-operatives set up shops to buy seed, fertiliser, etc. Plunkett wanted Irish farmers to imitate the Danes. In 1889 he founded a co-operative shop in Doneraile, Co. Cork, and a co-operative creamery in Drumcollogher, Co, Limerick. The movement spread quickly, mostly in the dairy-farming areas. In 1894, Plunkett went on to form the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) to co-ordinate the work of the co-operatives. It soon had 33 affiliated co-ops with a turnover of ? 150,000. He also set up a newspaper, ‘The Irish Homestead’, to spread his message. In 1892, Horace Plunkett was elected as a Unionist MP. He persuaded a few MPs from all parties to form the ‘Recess Committee’. It suggested reforms that were needed in Ireland. One reform proposed was the creation of the Department of Agriculture to. In 1899 the Conservative government set it up, with Plunkett as its head. The Department worked to improve the quality of crops and livestock and to deal with animal and plant disease. Fishing and the planting of forests were also encouraged. By 1914, the Department had 138 instructors travelling the country, telling farmers about new methods in agriculture, horticulture and poultry-keeping. It had some success, but change came too slowly to have any impact. In 1898 a democratic system of local government was introduced to Ireland. The Local Government Act set up elected county, district and urban councils. Ratepayers, both men and women, could vote for these councils. This was the first time that Irish women had time to vote. The councils were responsible for maintaining roads and public buildings, and for water, lighting and sewage services. They could raise local rates and receive government grants to pay for these services. The new councils turned out to be very political. In the south, they were dominated by Home Rulers and in the northeast by the Unionists. In fact, most were one-party bodies and this often led to corruption. Work like road-building was always given to loyal party supporters and bribery and corruption were common. However, some positives were attained from the act. For example, the councils gave some political influence to newly emerging parties, like Labour and Sinn Fein. Some women were elected to them and gained valuable political experience, which was still denied them at national level. The Conservative reforms were valuable but slow to show results. Many small farmers in the West became restless, what most of them wanted was more land. It was this desire which produced a new land movement, the United Irish League, in 1898. It was led by William O’Brien. He wanted the Congested Districts Board to buy up large farms and redistribute the land among the small holders. The League attained massive support and the government feared a new land war, but George Wydham, who became Chief Secretary in 1900, preferred conciliation to coercion. In 1903, Wydham turned the proposal of landlords and tenants into a Land Bill. The ‘Wyndham Land Act’ of 1903 was the biggest land purchase scheme of all and is views by many as the solution to the land question in Ireland. The government set aside ? 00 million for land purchase where landlords received between 18 and 27 times the annual rent for a farm. Tenants received loans to buy their farms which they had to repay over 68 years. The act also encouraged landlords to sell all their land at once as they received a 12% bonus if he did so. The Wyndham Act was a tremendous success as the peaceful revolution in land ownership, which began in 1870, was completed. By 1921, over 390,000 farming fami lies had become the owners of their farms and the power of the landlords was gone forever. The Conservatives hoped that land purchase would make Irish farmers less inclined to support Home Rule. They expected that once farmers owned their land, they would become cautious and unwilling to change the familiar United Kingdom for a new, untried Home Rule. However, the opposite happened. Once they owned their lands, nationalist farmers seem to have moved towards republicanism, rather than unionism. Perhaps they believed an Irish government in Dublin, which depended on their votes, would be more likely to do the things they wanted than a distant Westminster parliament in which they were a small minority.