William Ewart Gladstone /

Home Rule

William Gladstone tried all he could to help Ireland. He believed that the problems in Ireland were caused by two main issues: the land problem and the church problem.

Church

The official religion of Ireland was Protestantism, but the majority of the population were Catholic. Catholics had to pay taxes for the upkeep and maintenance of Protestant churches. Needless to say they were not happy about this. In 1868 Gladstone abolished the compulsory payment of church taxes and in 1869 disestablished the Church of Ireland. This meant that Protestantism was no longer the official religion in Ireland.

Land

In 1870, all of the land in Ireland was owned by 3% of the population. This meant that landowners had a lot of power over those who rented property on their land. Those that couldn’t pay the (often high) rents were evicted. Matters were made worse by the fact that most of the landowners were descendants of the Protestant settlers while the majority of the population were Catholics who believed they had a right to own land.
In 1879 Gladstone passed a Land Act to protect tenants against unfair evictions. Although this was a step in the right direction, many Irish nationalists like the Fenians, were not satisfied. They wanted to be able to run the home affairs of Ireland themselves. This was called Home Rule.

Tenants being evicted from their home /

Gladstone supported Home Rule but he did not have the backing of many English MPs and Queen Victoria was also against Home Rule.

Some MPs refused to serve in Gladstone’s government and resigned. Gladstone replaced them with younger men who were more in favour of his ideas. In March 1886, Gladstone and his cabinet formally announced their support for Home Rule.
In April 1886, a Home Rule Bill was placed before Parliament. Its main proposals were:
  • A separate parliament and government should be set up in Dublin.
  • This parliament would control all Irish affairs except defence issues, foreign relations, trade and issues relating to customs and excise. Westminster would deal with these issues.
  • Westminster would no longer have any Irish MP's in it.
There were two main criticisms of the Bill:
1) It failed to take on board the fears of Protestant Ulster who were deeply concerned by a parliament being based in an essentially Catholic Dublin. Who would look after the people of Ulster?
2) Many were concerned that there would no longer be Irish MP's at Westminster. As Westminster planned to maintain control over certain key areas, surely Ireland needed a voice actually in Westminster? Also, as Ireland would continue to pay its share into Britain's budget (regardless of whether it had its own parliament), it should have MP's in Westminster to see where this money was going to be spent.
Sixteen days were spent arguing about the bill. On June 8th 1886, the Home Rule bill was defeated by 30 votes. Of those who voted against it, 93 MP's were Liberals and 46 of these MP's were known to be radicals. Gladstone decided to take the issue to the people. Parliament was dissolved and a general election was set for July 1886.