IV—­The Coming of the Janissaries

The late Lord Salisbury, a sad and humorous man, made many public and serious remarks that have been proved false and perilous, and many private and frivolous remarks which were valuable and ought to be immortal.  He struck dead the stiff and false psychology of “social reform,” with its suggestion that the number of public-houses made people drunk, by saying that there were a number of bedrooms at Hatfield, but they never made him sleepy.  Because of this it is possible to forgive him for having talked about “living and dying nations”:  though it is of such sayings that living nations die.  In the same spirit he included the nation of Ireland in the “Celtic fringe” upon the west of England.  It seems sufficient to remark that the fringe is considerably broader than the garment.  But the fearful satire of time has very sufficiently avenged the Irish nation upon him, largely by the instrumentality of another fragment of the British robe which he cast away almost contemptuously in the North Sea.  The name of it is Heligoland; and he gave it to the Germans.

The subsequent history of the two islands on either side of England has been sufficiently ironical.  If Lord Salisbury had foreseen exactly what would happen to Heligoland, as well as to Ireland, he might well have found no sleep at Hatfield in one bedroom or a hundred.  In the eastern isle he was strengthening a fortress that would one day be called upon to destroy us.  In the western isle he was weakening a fortress that would one day be called upon to save us.  In that day his trusted ally, William Hohenzollern, was to batter our ships and boats from the Bight of Heligoland; and in that day his old and once-imprisoned enemy, John Redmond, was to rise in the hour of English jeopardy, and be thanked in thunder for the free offer of the Irish sword.  All that Robert Cecil thought valueless has been our loss, and all that he thought feeble our stay.  Among those of his political class or creed who accepted and welcomed the Irish leader’s alliance, there were some who knew the real past relations between England and Ireland, and some who first felt them in that hour.  All knew that England could no longer be a mere mistress; many knew that she was now in some sense a suppliant.  Some knew that she deserved to be a suppliant.  These were they who knew a little of the thing called history; and if they thought at all of such dead catchwords as the “Celtic fringe” for a description of Ireland, it was to doubt whether we were worthy to kiss the hem of her garment.  If there be still any Englishman who thinks such language extravagant, this chapter is written to enlighten him.