THE GLADSTONIAN GOVERNMENT OF 1892. THE POLITICAL SOCIETIES.
During the Gladstone-Rosebery Government--from 1892 to 1895--matters
in Ireland were quiet. The Nationalists were at first on their best
behaviour, in consequence of the promised introduction of the Home
Rule Bill; and after its rejection by the Upper House, the time was
too short for anything serious to happen. But the period was marked by
the commencement of one great change in Irish administration. It must
be admitted by impartial observers that the old landlord party,
with all their faults, made as a rule excellent magistrates. A large
proportion of them were retired military officers, who had gained some
experience in duties of the sort in their regiments; others were men
of superior education, who studied with care the laws they were to
administer. Living in the locality, they knew the habits and feelings
of the people; and yet they were sufficiently separated from them to
be able to act as impartial judges; and no charges of bribery were
ever made against them. And, the work being congenial, they gladly
devoted their spare time to it. Gladstone's Chief Secretary (the
present Lord Morley) determined to alter all this; he accordingly
appointed to the Bench a large number of men drawn from a lower social
stratum, less educated and intelligent than those previously chosen,
but more likely to administer "Justice according to Irish ideas."
Then the operation of the Local Government Act, by which Chairmen of
Councils (all of course Nationalists) became _ex officio_ magistrates,
completed a social revolution by entirely altering the character of
the Bench. In some localities the magistrates previously appointed
realizing that, being now in a minority, they could be of no further
use on the Bench, withdrew; in others, though the old magistrates
continued to sit, they found themselves persistently outvoted on every
point; so what good they have done by remaining, it is hard to see.
Amongst the men appointed under the new system, there have been
several instances of justices who have continued to act without the
slightest shame or scruple although they have been convicted of such
offences as drunkenness, selling drink on unlicensed premises, or
corrupt practices at elections. But worse than that: the new order
of justices do not regard their duties as magisterial, but political;
they give but little attention to ordinary cases, but attend in
full strength to prevent the conviction of any person for an outrage
organized by the United Irish League; and do not hesitate to promise
beforehand that they will do so. If by any chance a sufficient number
are not present to carry their purpose, the names of the absentees are
published in the Black List of the League--and the result of that is
so well known that they are not likely to offend again. Hence comes
the contemptible exhibition--now not infrequent--of men being charged
before the Bench, and no evidence being offered for the defence;
yet the Stipendiary Magistrate being obliged to say that though he
considers the case proved, the majority of the Bench have decided to
refuse informations. Even a Roman Catholic Bishop has confessed that
now magistrates too often have no respect for their obligations to
dispense the law justly and without favour; and that the Bench is
sometimes so "packed" that the culprits, though guilty, are certain to
be acquitted.
* * * * *
Before discussing the policy of the present Government since it
came into power in 1906, it is well to explain what the principal
societies--secret or other--are which now conduct the Government of
Ireland. In one sense indeed the names are immaterial; for, as in
1798, in whatever various ways the societies have commenced, they are
all working towards the same end, and being controlled by the same
forces.
The Land League, which was founded in 1879 as a league for ruining
landlords as a stepping-stone towards independence, having been
suppressed by Gladstone in 1881, was reformed under the name of the
Irish National League. This was in its turn suppressed in 1887, and in
1898 appeared once more under the name of the United Irish League
with J. Redmond as President and J. Devlin as Secretary. In 1901 Mr.
Redmond explained the objects of the League as follows:--
"The United Irish League is not merely an agrarian movement.
It is first, last, and all the time a National movement;
and those of us who are endeavouring to rouse the farmers of
Ireland, as we endeavoured twenty years ago in the days of the
Land League, to rouse them, are doing so, not merely to obtain
the removal of their particular grievances, but because we
believe by rousing them we will be strengthening the National
movement and helping us to obtain our end, which is, after
all, National independence of Ireland."
And to make the exact meaning of the phrase "National Independence of
Ireland" quite clear, he soon afterwards stated that their object was
the same as that aimed at by Emmett and Wolfe Tone--in other words, to
place Ireland in the scale of nations with a constitution resembling
that of the United States.
By March 1908 (that is, about two years after the present Government
came into power), to quote the words of Mr. Justice Wright, "the only
law feared and obeyed was the law not of the land but of the United
Irish League"; and before the end of that year Mr. Redmond was able to
report to his friends in America:--
"We have in Ireland an organization which is practically
a government of the country. There is in O'Connell Street,
Dublin, a great office managed by the real Chief Secretary for
Ireland, J. Devlin, the Member for Belfast."
The organization of the League is admirable. The country is covered
with a network of branches, to which people in the district are
obliged to contribute under penalty of being boycotted; these branches
are united under provincial executives, whilst the Directory in
Dublin controls the whole. The union between the League and the Roman
Catholic Church is as complete as the union between that Church and
some societies started on a non-sectarian basis became during the
rebellion of 1798; as we have seen, a bishop is one of the trustees,
and other bishops are amongst the subscribers; the Sunday meetings of
the various branches, at which boycotting and other measures of the
kind are arranged, are usually presided over by the parish priests. On
the other hand, few laymen, whatever their religion may be, who have
any stake in the country, can be got to join the League; in the words
of A.J. Kettle, M.P.:--
"On its roll of membership there are no landlords or
ex-landlords, few merchants, fewer Irish manufacturers. There
are few of the men who are managing the business of Ireland
in city or town, connected with the League. The bankers who
regulate our finances, the railway or transit men who control
our trade, internal and external, even the leading cattle men
who handle most of our animal produce, are not to be found in
its ranks."
In further evidence of this it may be noted that in spite of all the
efforts of the League at collecting money, the subscriptions to the
Irish Parliamentary Fund do not amount to a halfpenny per head of the
population; as J. Dillon has remarked: "The National cause in Ireland
could not live for six months if it were deprived of the support of
the Irish across the Atlantic."
Closely allied with the League is the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a
secret political and exclusively Roman Catholic association, of which
J. Devlin, M.P. (the Secretary of the League), is President. It is
also called the Board of Erin, to distinguish it from the American
branch. The American branch, I may remark, is also known as the Molly
Maguires, as it was under that name that it conducted the series of
murders and outrages at the Pennsylvanian mines thirty years ago.
Hence the Irish branch is sometimes nicknamed the "Molly Maguires."
The Order is very religious, in the sense that part of its programme
is to deprive heretics of every means of earning their livelihood; as
a Nationalist who did not sympathize with the operations of the Order
expressed it: "If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if
they are to be deprived of public contracts, and shut out of every
office and emolument,--what is that but extermination?" The political
principles of the Order can be gathered from the Address presented by
them to Captain Condon on the occasion of his visit to Dublin in 1909.
Captain Condon, I may explain, had been a prominent Fenian and member
of the Irish Republican brotherhood, and had taken part in the riot at
Manchester in 1867 which resulted in the murder of Sergeant Brett; he
now resides in America. In 1909 he visited Ireland on the invitation
of J. Redmond; and the address presented to him by the Ancient Order
of Hibernians contained the following words:--
"In you, O'Meagher Condon, we recognize one of those
connecting links with the past which all nations cherish,
and you are ready to-day with voice and pen to give your
unflagging support to Ireland's leaders with as much
enthusiasm as you grasped the sword to lead Ireland in the
dark but historic '67. We are sure it will interest you to
know that the ranks of the Hibernians to-day are composed
of the men and children of those who swore allegiance to the
Irish Republic with you."
The Order has lately acquired additional strength by becoming an
"Approved Society" under the Insurance Act of 1911. In Ireland it is
no more possible for life insurance than for anything else to exist
without being dragged into the vortex of religious and political
quarrels.
The "Clan-na-gael"--that is, the Dynamite Club--still flourishes
in America; but for obvious reasons it does not make any public
appearance in Ireland; and the exact part which it takes in the
movement at the present time, it is impossible to say.
"Sinn Fein" (which means "Ourselves") is another Separatist
Association, aiming at the establishment of Ireland as a Sovereign
State, and teaching that the election of Irishmen to serve in the
British Parliament is treason to the Irish State. As its name implies,
it desires to make use of the revival of the Irish language as a means
towards the end for which it is working. It was founded in 1905.
Why this Society and the United Irish League, whose objects seem
identical, should be ready to fly at one another's throats, is one of
the things that those who are outside the Nationalist circle cannot
understand. But the Clerical leaders, who do their utmost to further
the operations of the League, look askance at Sinn Fein; its ultimate
success therefore is very doubtful.
Then, working in conjunction with these societies is the "Gaelic
League," founded for the "de-Anglicizing" of Ireland, as helping
towards separation. As J. Sweetman (who, besides being a prominent
member of the Gaelic League, is also Vice-President of Sinn Fein and
Vice-Chairman of the Central Council of Irish County Councils and may
therefore be regarded as speaking with authority) has expressed it:--
"Out of the Gaelic League's de-Anglicizing propaganda
have already grown a series of movements not only strongly
political but each and all making for a separate independent
Irish nation, freed from every link of the British
connection."
Were it not for its political object, the folly of this "revival of
the Irish language" would be past belief. The language of Shakespeare
and Milton, of Gibbon and Macaulay, ought surely to be good enough for
ordinary people; and it must be obvious to every reasoning being that
at the present moment of the world's history, English is one of the
most useful languages in existence. It is spoken by 40,000,000 of
people in Europe and twice that number in America, not to mention
Australasia and South Africa. It is the language of commerce, of
science, and of a vast amount of literature. Europeans of various
nationalities learn it, for the sake of its convenience; although, as
we all know, one of the difficulties of modern life is that boys and
girls have too much to study; educationalists everywhere complain
that the curriculum is overloaded. Its position in Ireland can be
seen exactly by the census returns; for the papers contain a "language
column," each person being required to state whether he speaks
English or Irish or both. According to the returns of 1891, the total
population was in round numbers 4,725,000; of whom 4,037,000 spoke
English only, 643,000 both languages, and 44,000 Irish only. And that
trifling minority existed only in certain localities, and was confined
to the less educated classes. The only counties in which a majority of
the population spoke Irish (including those who spoke both languages)
were Mayo and Galway. Yet now it is solemnly said that Ireland,
being an independent nation, must have a language of its own; even in
counties where no language but English has been spoken for centuries,
and where probably none of the ancestors of the present population
ever spoke any other language, Irish is being taught in the Roman
Catholic primary schools, and the unhappy children who might be
studying arithmetic or elementary geography, are wasting their time
over a totally useless language. I say "totally useless" deliberately;
for the arguments usually brought forward in favour of the study,
apart from the political one--that Irish is of use in the study of
philology, and that the MSS. of centuries ago contain fine specimens
of poetry--are too absurd to be worth discussing. The real object of
the Nationalists in "encouraging the revival of the Irish language"
is clearly set out in the following words of T. MacSeamus in a recent
number of the _Irish Review_:--
"Most important of all, the Irish language is one of the
things that distinguish us from England. It is a mark of that
separateness which it is the business of every Nationalist to
maintain and emphasise on every possible occasion. It is one
of the signs--perhaps the chief sign--of nationality.... The
Irish language is a weapon in our fight against England, and
we cannot afford to throw away even the smallest weapon that
may serve us in that struggle."
And the policy of the League as regards the primary schools is made
quite clear by the resolution passed unanimously at their annual
meeting in 1912:--
"That we re-affirm the demand of the last Ard Fheis in regard
to the position of Irish in the primary schools, viz., that
Irish be the sole medium of instruction in the Irish-speaking
districts; that it be the medium as far as possible in all
other schools, and that it be a compulsory subject in every
school throughout the country where parents are not opposed
to it; furthermore, that a knowledge of Irish be required from
all teachers entering for training as teachers, and that no
certificate be issued to those who fail to qualify in Irish at
the final examination, and that none but inspectors having a
knowledge of Irish be employed to inspect schools where Irish
is taught."
It will be seen therefore that if the League carry their point (as
no doubt they will under a Home Rule Government) no graduate of the
Belfast University who wishes to become a teacher in a Belfast school
will be allowed to do so unless he passes an examination in a language
which not one of his pupils will ever wish to learn; and this, not for
the purpose of ensuring general culture, but to further a political
object with which he has no sympathy.
The League leave no stone unturned in their efforts to substitute the
Irish for the English language. For instance, it is usually considered
in other countries that the names of the streets of a town are put
up in order to help people who want to find their way, and not for
political reasons. But in Dublin, where not one per cent. of the
people can read Irish, the names have recently all been painted up in
that language, in the hope of de-Anglicizing the rising generation. An
incident occurred recently which will show how the movement is being
taken up. There is in Dublin an excellent regulation that children
may not become "street traders" without a licence. A bright little boy
came to apply for one. The magistrate, being a kindly man, enquired
of the lad what his circumstances were. The boy explained that part of
his earnings went towards the support of his widowed mother; and that
he was trying to keep up his education by attending a night school.
"And what are you learning there?" said the magistrate. "Irish,"
replied the boy. Even the magistrate could not resist telling him that
he thought his time would be better spent at Arithmetic. Yet from the
boy's point of view, there is something to be said. Irish may be of
use to him in obtaining a Government appointment, however small; for
local bodies (such as the Dublin Boards of Guardians) now refuse
to appoint clerks who cannot send out notices of meetings in Irish,
though no member of the Board to whom they are sent can read them; and
the League fully expect that the Home Rule Government will do the same
with regard to every appointment in their gift. If the railways are
taken over by the Government (as they probably will be) it can be seen
what an immense impetus can be given to the movement.
Then Secondary Schools have been established for the same object. The
_Irish Educational Review_ recently contained the following account of
one of them:--
"At Ring, in the County Waterford, there is already in
existence an Irish secondary school where classics, modern
languages and all the usual secondary school subjects are
taught and where Irish and English fill their rightful places,
the former being the ordinary language of the school, the
latter a foreign language on no higher level than French or
German."
The Act of 1909, which founded the "National" University (to which I
shall refer again), gave power to County Councils to levy a rate for
scholarships. Immediately the Gaelic League saw their opportunity.
They endeavoured to persuade the Councils to refuse to do so unless
Irish were made compulsory at the University. The Councils generally
(except of course in Ulster) agreed to the plan; but some of them
(such as the Kildare Council) were faced by a difficulty. Not a single
child in the county spoke Irish; and so if that language were made
compulsory, no one could compete for the scholarships. So they
compromised matters, by deciding that they would levy a rate if Irish
were made compulsory after 1915, by which time some of the young
people in the county would have been able to learn it; and the
University agreed to do so.
This rating power, I may remark, looks extremely liberal as it appears
in the Act; for the scholarships are to be tenable at any University.
The Irish Unionist members, knowing quite well how it would be
worked, opposed the clause; and as usual were denounced as bigots
and fanatics. It is needless to add that as soon as the Act came into
force, County Councils and Corporations at once passed resolutions
that scholarships derived from the rates should not be tenable at
Trinity College, Dublin, or at Belfast, but only at the National
University--thus practically saying that no Protestants need compete.
Beyond forcing the children to acquire a smattering of Irish, it
cannot be said that so far the efforts of the League as to the
language have been very successful; for the census returns show that
the proportion of the population who could speak Irish in 1891 was
14'5; in 1901, 14'4; and in 1911, 13'3; and the numbers who spoke
Irish only fell from 20,953 in 1901 to 16,870 in 1911.
But the efforts of the League are not confined to the language.
English games, such as cricket, are forbidden; if football is played,
it must be the Gaelic variety with rules totally different from
those observed by the hated Saxon. Even the patients in asylums
are forbidden to play cricket or lawn tennis. And some of the more
enthusiastic members of the League have actually "donned the saffron,"
in imitation of the Ersefied Normans of 400 years ago. However, it
is so hideously ugly, and so suggestive of the obnoxious Orange, that
that phase of the movement is not likely to extend.
Even the "Boy Scout" movement has been made use of for the same
object. As soon as some corps had been established in Ireland, the
Nationalists started a rival organization with an Irish name, in
which all the boys solemnly undertake to work for the independence
of Ireland, and never to join England's armed forces. The boys take a
prominent part in the annual ceremonies in honour of Wolfe Tone, the
Manchester martyrs, and other Nationalist heroes.
The whole thing would be laughable if it were not so very sad. Even
such matters as sports and education, where all creeds and parties
might be expected to work together amicably, must be used as
instruments to bring about separation; and the result already is not
so much to widen the gulf between Ireland and England as the gulf
between the two parties in Ireland; for the Protestant minority in
the south, who know that most of their children will have to leave the
country, are not likely to let them fritter away their youth in the
study of a language which can be of no possible benefit to them in
any part of the world to which they may go; and the idea that the
Ulstermen will ever adopt a Celtic tongue is too ridiculous to be
considered. But perhaps the most painful thought of all is that the
Nationalists should be ready even to sacrifice the prospects in life
of the rising generation of the country in order to satisfy their
blind hatred of England.