“Come and see the country and judge for yourself,” said Phineas.
“I should like nothing better,” said Mr Monk.
“It has often seemed to me that men in Parliament know less about Ireland than they do of the interior of Africa,” said Phineas.
“It is seldom that we know anything accurately on any subject that we have not made matter of careful study,” said Mr Monk, “and very often do not do so even then. We are very apt to think that we men and women understand one another; but most probably you know nothing even of the modes of thought of the man who lives next door to you.”
“I suppose not.”
“There are general laws current in the world as to morality. “Thou shalt not steal,” for instance. That has necessarily been current as a law through all nations. But the first man you meet in the street will have ideas about theft so different from yours, that, if you knew them as you know your own, you would say that this law and yours were not even founded on the same principle. It is compatible with this man’s honesty to cheat you in a matter of horseflesh, with that man’s in a traffic of railway shares, with that other man’s as to a woman’s fortune; with a fourth’s anything may be done for a seat in Parliament, while the fifth man, who stands high among us, and who implores his God every Sunday to write that law on his heart, spends every hour of his daily toil in a system of fraud, and is regarded as a pattern of the national commerce!”
Mr Monk and Phineas were dining together at Mr Monk’s house, and the elder politician of the two in this little speech had recurred to certain matters which had already been discussed between them. Mr Monk was becoming somewhat sick of his place in the Cabinet, though he had not as yet whispered a word of his sickness to any living ears; and he had begun to pine for the lost freedom of a seat below the gangway. He had been discussing political honesty with Phineas, and hence had come the sermon of which I have ventured to reproduce the concluding denunciations.
Phineas was fond of such discussions and fond of holding them with Mr Monk — in this matter fluttering like a moth round a candle. He would not perceive that as he had made up his mind to be a servant of the public in Parliament, he must abandon all idea of independent action; and unless he did so he could he neither successful as regarded himself, or useful to the public whom he served. Could a man be honest in Parliament, and yet abandon all idea of independence? When he put such questions to Mr Monk he did not get a direct answer. And indeed the question was never put directly. But the teaching which he received was ever of a nature to make him uneasy. It was always to this effect: “You have taken up the trade now, and seem to be fit for success in it. You had better give up thinking about its special honesty.” And yet Mr Monk would on an occasion preach to him such a sermon as that which he had just uttered! Perhaps there is no question more difficult to a man’s mind than that of the expediency or inexpediency of scruples in political life. Whether would a candidate for office be more liable to rejection from a leader because he was known to be scrupulous, or because he was known to be the reverse?
“But putting aside the fourth commandment and all the theories, you will come to Ireland?” said Phineas.
“I shall be delighted.”
“I don’t live in a castle, you know.”
“I thought everybody did live in a castle in Ireland,” said Mr Monk. “They seemed to do when I was there twenty years ago. But for myself, I prefer a cottage.”
This trip to Ireland had been proposed in consequence of certain ideas respecting tenant-right which Mr Monk was beginning to adopt, and as to which the minds of politicians were becoming moved. It had been all very well to put down Fenianism, and Ribandmen, and Repeal — and everything that had been put down in Ireland in the way of rebellion for the last seventy-five years. England and Ireland had been apparently joined together by laws of nature so fixed, that even politicians liberal as was Mr Monk — liberal as was Mr Turnbull — could not trust themselves to think that disunion could be for the good of the Irish. They had taught themselves that it certainly could not be good for the English. But if it was incumbent on England to force upon Ireland the maintenance of the union for her own sake, and for England’s sake, because England could not afford independence established so close against her own ribs — it was at any rate necessary to England’s character that the bride thus bound in a compulsory wedlock should be endowed with all the best privileges that a wife can enjoy. Let her at least not be a kept mistress. Let it be bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, if we are to live together in the married state. Between husband and wife a warm word now and then matters but little, if there be a thoroughly good understanding at bottom. But let there be that good understanding at bottom. What about this Protestant Church; and what about this tenant-right? Mr Monk had been asking himself these questions for some time past. In regard to the Church, he had long made up his mind that the Establishment in Ireland was a crying sin. A man had married a woman whom he knew to be of a religion different from his own, and then insisted that his wife should say that she believed those things which he knew very well that she did not believe. But, as Mr Monk well knew, the subject of the Protestant Endowments in Ireland was so difficult that it would require almost more than human wisdom to adjust it. It was one of those matters which almost seemed to require the interposition of some higher power — the coming of some apparently chance event — to clear away the evil; as a fire comes, and pestilential alleys are removed; as a famine comes, and men are driven from want and ignorance and dirt to seek new homes and new thoughts across the broad waters; as a war comes, and slavery is banished from the face of the earth. But in regard to tenant-right, to some arrangement by which a tenant in Ireland might be at least encouraged to lay out what little capital he might have in labour or money without being at once called upon to pay rent for that outlay which was his own, as well as for the land which was not his own — Mr Monk thought that it was possible that if a man would look hard enough he might perhaps be able to see his way as to that. He had spoken to two of his colleagues on the subject, the two men in the Cabinet whom he believed to be the most thoroughly honest in their ideas as public servants, the Duke and Mr Gresham. There was so much to be done — and then so little was known upon the subject! “I will endeavour to study it,” said Mr Monk. “If you can see your way, do;” said Mr Gresham — “but of course we cannot bind ourselves.” “I should be glad to see it named in the Queen’s speech at the beginning of the next session,” said Mr Monk. “That is a long way off as yet,” said Mr Gresham, laughing. “Who will be in then, and who will be out?” So the matter was disposed of at the time, but Mr Monk did not abandon his idea. He rather felt himself the more bound to cling to it because he received so little encouragement. What was a seat in the Cabinet to him that he should on that account omit a duty? He had not taken up politics as a trade. He had sat far behind the Treasury bench or below the gangway for many a year, without owing any man a shilling — and could afford to do so again.
But it was different with Phineas Finn, as Mr Monk himself understood — and, understanding this, he felt himself bound to caution his young friend. But it may be a question whether his cautions did not do more harm than good. “I shall be delighted,” he said, “to go over with you in August, but I do not think that if I were you, I would take up this matter.”
“And why not? You don’t want to fight the battle single-handed?”
“No; I desire no such glory, and would wish to have no better lieutenant than you. But you have a subject of which you are really fond, which you are beginning to understand, and in regard to which you can make yourself useful.”
“You mean this Canada business?”
“Yes — and that will grow to other matters as regards the colonies. There is nothing so important to a public man as that he should have his own subject — the thing which he understands, and in respect of which he can make himself really useful.”
“Then there comes a change.”
“Yes — and the man who has half learned how to have a ship built without waste is sent into opposition, and is then brought back to look after regiments, or perhaps has to take up that beautiful subject, a study of the career of India. But, nevertheless, if you have a subject, stick to it at any rate as long as it will stick to you.”
“Bu............