Introduction. Parnell comments on the negative consequences of Ireland’s Union with England. He believes that it would be wise to protect the Irish manufacturing industry in order to allow it to survive. England in the past protected her own industries at Ireland’s expense. He believes that the government must give the Irish people full legislative liberty and more power to manage her own domestic concerns.

Source. Irish Times, 6 October 1885.

‘… I am of the opinion—an opinion that I had expressed before now—that it would be wise to protect certain Irish industries, at all events, for a time … is impossible for us to make up for the loss of the start in the manufacturing race which we have experienced owing to adverse legislation in times past against Irish industries by England, unless we do protect these industries, not many in number, which are capable of thriving in Ireland. I am not of the opinion that it would be necessary for us to protect these industries very long. Possibly protection continued for two or three years, would give us that start which we have lost, owing to the nefarious legislative action of England in times past. I can think also that Ireland could never be a manufacturing nation of such importance as to compete to any great extent with England.

I believe there are several industries which would thrive and could be made to thrive in Ireland but I think that as regards many other branches of manufacture of which we have now to seek our supply from the English markets, that we should still have to go to their markets for supply, on account of natural reasons, which I have not time to enter into at the present moment. But I claim this for Ireland, that if the Irish Parliament of the future considers that there are certain industries in Ireland which could be benefited by protection, which could be nursed by protection, and which could be placed in such a position as to enable them to compete with similar industries in other countries by a course of protection extending over a few years, that that Parliament ought to have power to carry out that policy.

It is not for me to predict the extent to which that power should be used, but I tell English radicals and English liberals that it is useless for them to talk of their desire to do justice to Ireland when, from notions of selfishness, they refused to repair that most manifest injustice of all—namely, the destruction of our manufactures by England it times past—when they refused to repair that injustice by giving us the power which we think would be sufficient to enable us to build up these comparatively few industries which Ireland is adapted by her circumstances to excel in.

I will proceed a little further, and I will deal with the claim that has been put forward, that some guarantee should be given that the granting of legislative powers to Ireland should not lead to the separation of Ireland from England. This claim is one which at first sight may seem a fair one, it may appear preposterous, and it undoubtedly would be preposterous, to ask England to concede to us an engine which we announced an intention to use to bring about separation of the two countries, and which we accepted silently with the intention of so using it; but there is a great difference between having such an intention, or announcing such an intention, and giving counter guarantees against such an intention. It is not possible for human intelligence to forecast the future in these matters, but we can point to this—we can point to the fact that under 85 years of parliamentary connection with England, Ireland has become intensely disloyal and intensely disaffected; notwithstanding the Whig policy of so-called conciliation, alternative conciliation and coercion, and ameliorative measures, that disaffection has hardened, deepened and intensified from day to day.

Am I not, then entitled to assume that one of the roots of this disaffection-this feeling of disloyalty—is the assumption by England of the management of our affairs? It is admitted that the present system cannot go on, and what are you going to put in its place? My advice to English statesmen considering this question would be this—trust the Irish people altogether, or trust them not at all. Give with a full and open hand, give our people the power to legislate upon all domestic concerns, and you may depend upon one thing, that the desire for separation—the means of winning separation at least—will not be increased or intensified … that whatever chance the English rulers may have of drawing to themselves the affection of the Irish people lies in destroying the abominable system of legislative union between the two countries by conceding fully and freely to Ireland the right to manage her own affairs.

It is impossible for us to give guarantees, but we can point to the past; we can show that the record of English rule is a constant series of steps from bad to worse—that the condition of English power is more insecure and more unstable at the present moment than it has ever been. We can point to the example of other countries, of Austria and Hungary, to the fact that Hungary having been conceded self-government became one of the strongest factors in the Austrian empire. We can show the powers that have been freely conceded to the colonies, to the greater colonies, including this very power to protect their own industries against and at the expense of those of England. We can show that disaffection has disappeared in all the greater English colonies: that while the Irishman who goes to the United States of America carries with him a burning hatred of English rule—that while that burning hatred constantly lives in his heart, never leaves him, and is bequeathed to his children. The Irishman coming from the same village, and from the same parish, and from the same townland, equally maltreated, cast out on the road by the relentless landlord, who goes to one of the colonies of Canada or one of the colonies of Australia, and finds there another and a different system of English rule to that which he has been accustomed to at home, becomes to a great extent a loyal citizen and a strength and a prop to the community amongst whom his lot has been cast, that he forgets the little memories of his experience of England at home, and that he no longer continues to look upon the name of England as a symbol of oppression, and the badge of the misfortunes of his country, say that it is possible.

It is the duty of English statesmen at the present day to inquire and examine into these facts for themselves with their eyes open, and to cease the impossible task, which they admit to be impossible, of going forward in the continued misgovernment of Ireland, and persisting in the government of our people by a people outside herself who know not her real wants. And if these lessons be learned, I am convinced that English statesman who is great enough and who is powerful to carry out these teachings, to enforce them on the of his countrymen, to give to Ireland full legislative liberty, full power to manage her own domestic concerns, will be regarded in the future by his countrymen as one who has removed the greatest peril to the English Empire —a peril, I firmly believe, which, if not removed, will find some day—perhaps not in our time—some year, perhaps not for many years to come—but will certainly find, sooner or later, and it may be sooner than later, an opportunity of severing itself—to the destruction of that British empire for the misfortunes, the oppressions, and the misgovernment of our country.

Tomás O’Riordan