and should be of some value in indicating the use Irishmen expect to
make of the Act. Not a single friendly syllable, not a word of
amicable fellowship with England, not a scintilla of gratitude for
favours past or to come, nothing but undisguised animosity, and a
fixed resolution to make every clause of the Act a battlefield. I
speak that I do know and testify that I have seen. My personal
relations with the Irish people have been and continue to be of the
most gratifying kind. In the homes of the highest, in the great
manufactories, even in the lowest slums I have seen much that is
attractive in the Irish character--much that excites warm interest,
and is calculated to attach you to the people. I have conversed with
scores of Home Rulers of all shades, and to the query as to whether
ultimate separation is hoped for, I have received an invariable
affirmative. True it is that the answer varied in terms from the blunt
"Yes" of the uncompromising man to the more or less veiled assent of
the more cautious, but the result was in substance ever the same. Talk
about the Union of Hearts, the pacification of Ireland, the brotherly
love that is to ensue, and the Unionists turn away with undissembled
impatience, the Home Rulers with a chuckle and a sneer. As well tell
reasonable Irishmen that the world is flat, or that a straight line
between two given points is the longest, or that the sun moves round
the moon, or any other inane absurdity contrary to the evidence of
science and their senses. The English Gladstonians who babble about
brotherly love and conciliation should move about Dublin in disguise.
Disguise would in their case be necessary to get at the truth, for
Paddy is a shrewd trickster, and delights in humbugging this species
of visitor, whom he calls "the slobbering Saxon." Then if they would
return and still vote for Home Rule they are no less than traitors to
their country and enemies to their fellow-country men.
The weather is very fine, and the fashionable resorts are fairly well
frequented, but trade daily grows worse. Wholesale houses, says a high
authority, are "not dull, but stone dead." The pious Irish fast and
pray during the week, and the great Roman Catholic Retreat at Milltown
is crowded to the limits of its accommodation. The ladies wear a kind
of half-mourning, a stylish sort of reminder of original sin.
Sackcloth and ashes in Catholic Dublin consist of fetching brown,
grey, or tan costumes, set off with huge bunches of fragrant violets,
tied with a bow the exact shade of the flower, or a dull shade of
purple, a sort of Lenten lugubriousness particularly becoming to
blonde penitents. The ladies are indefatigable in their efforts
against Home Rule, and one distinguished canvasser for signatures to
the Roman Catholic petition has been warned by the police, as she
values her life, to leave Dublin for a time. The ruffian class,
needless to say, has undergone no change, but still demands the bill,
and this delicate lady, for years foremost in every good and
charitable work, is driven from her home by threatening letters--that
accursed resort to anonymous intimidation which so discredits the
Irish claim to superior courage and chivalry. The Catholics of Dublin
are signing numerously, but the number of signatories by no means
represents the opponents of the Bill.
Englishmen cannot be brought to realise for one moment the system of
terrorism and intimidation which prevails even in the very heart of
the capital. Parnellite spies are everywhere and know everything, and
woe to the helpless man who dares to have a mind of his own. And not
only are the poor coerced and deprived of the liberty of the subject,
but the wealthiest manufacturers--men whose firms are of the greatest
magnitude--will caution you against using their names in connection
with anything that could give a clue to their real sentiments. This
difficulty arises everywhere and information can only be extracted
after a promise that its source shall never be disclosed. The priests
are credited with unheard-of influence among the poor. "At the present
moment the ruffians are held in leash. The order has gone forth that
pending the Home Rule debate they are to 'be good.' But if I sign that
petition, although here in Dublin, the thing would be known at Tralee,
200 miles away, before I reached home--and a hundred to one that the
first blackguard that passed would put a match in my thatch, would
burn my stacks, would hough or mutilate my cattle." The speaker was a
Roman Catholic farmer from Kerry. Mr. Morley, in stating that the
prosecution of the Rev. Robert Eager had ceased and determined, was
utterly wrong. The rector's cousin, Mr. W.J. Eager, also of Tralee,
told me that threatening letters with coffins and cross-bones were
still pouring in in profusion. Mr. Eager was calmly requested to give
up land which he had held for 15 years to a man who had previously
rented it, and as the good parson failed to see the force of this
argument he is threatened with a violent death. In England such a
thing could only happen in a pantomime, but some of the Irish think it
the quintessence of reasonable action. These are the class that
support the Bill; these are the men Mr. Gladstone and his
conglomeration of cranks and faddists hope to satisfy. A brilliant
kind of prospect for poor John Bull.
Mr. John Morley should accompany me in my peregrinations among the
intelligent voters who have placed him and his great chief in power,
along with the galaxy of minor stars which rise with the Grand Man's
rising and set at his setting. "The British Government won't allow us
to work the gold mines in the Wicklow mountains. Whin we get the Bill
every man can take a shpade, an' begorra! can dig what he wants." "The
Phaynix Park is all cramfull o' coal that the Castle folks won't allow
us to dig, bad scran to them. Whin we get the Bill wu'll sink thim
mines an' send the Castle to Blazes." But the quaintest, the funniest,
the most sweetly ingenuous of the lot was the reason given by a
gentleman of patriarchal age and powerful odour, whom I encountered in
Hamilton's Lane. He said, "Ye see, Sorr, this is the way iv it. 'Tis
the Americans we'll look to, by raison that they're mostly our own
folks. They're powerful big invintors, but bedad, they haven't the
wather power to work the invintions. Now _we_ have the wather power,
an' the invintions 'll be brought over here to be worked. An' that'll
give the poor folks imploymint."
The poor man's ignorance was doubtless dense, his credulity amusing,
his childlike simplicity interesting. But the darkness of his
ignorance was no blacker, the extent of his credulity no more amazing,
than the ignorance and credulity of English Gladstonian speakers, who,
with a Primitive Methodist accent and a Salvation Army voice,
proclaim, with a Bible twang, their conviction that Home Rule means
the friendship of Ireland.
Dublin, March 30th.
No. 3.--ULSTER'S PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
Ulster will fight, and fight to the death. The people have taken a
resolution--deep, stern, and irrevocable. Outwardly they do not seem
so troubled as the Dubliners. They are quiet in their movements,
moderate in their speech. They show no kind of alarm, for they know
their own strength, and are fully prepared for the worst. They speak
and act like men whose minds are made up, who will use every
Constitutional means of maintaining their freedom, and, these failing,
will take the matter in their own strong hands. Meanwhile they
preserve external calm, and systematically make their arrangements. If
ever they went through a talking stage, that is now over. They have
passed the time of discussion, and are preparing for action. If ever
they showed heat, that period also is past. They have reached the cold
stage, in which men act on ascertained principles and not in the
frenzy of passion. There is nothing hysterical about the Belfast men.
They are by no means the kind of people who run hither and thither
wringing their hands. Neither are they men who will sit down under
oppression. And oppression is what they expect from a Dublin
Government. Mr. Gladstone and his tribe may pooh-pooh this notion, but
the feeling in Ulster is strong and immovable. The tens of thousands
of Protestants thickly scattered over other provinces feel more
strongly still; as well they may, for they have not the numbers, the
organisation, the unity which is strength, that characterise the
province of Ulster. They hold that Home Rule is at the bottom a
religious movement, that by circuitous methods, and subterranean
strategy, the religious re-conquest of the island is sought; that the
ignorant peasantry, composing the large majority of the electorate,
are entirely in the hands of the priests, and that these black swarms
of Papists have a congenital hatred of England, which must bring about
separation. These are the opinions of thousands of eminent men whose
ability is beyond argument, who have lived all their lives on the
spot, who from childhood have had innumerable facilities for knowing
the truth, whose interests are bound up with the prosperity of
Ireland, and who, on every ground, are admittedly the best judges.
Said Mr. Albert Quill, the Dublin barrister:--
"Mr. Gladstone, who in eighty-four years has spent a week in Ireland,
puts aside Sir Edward Harland, who has built a fleet of great ships in
an Irish port, and sneers at the opinion of the Belfast deputation who
have lived all their lives in Ireland." A Roman Catholic Unionist, an
eminent physician, said to me:--
"I fear that Catholicism would ultimately lose by the change, although
at first it would undoubtedly obtain a strong ascendant. The bulk of
the Irish Catholics have a deep animosity to the English people, whom
they regard as heretics, and the Protestants of Ireland would in
self-defence be compelled to band themselves together, for underneath
the specious surface of the Home Rule movement are the teeth and claws
of the tiger. Persecution would follow separation, which is inevitable
if the present bill be carried. A Dublin Parliament would make a
Protestant's life a burden. This would react in time, and Catholicism
would suffer in the long run. And for this reason, amongst others, I
am against Home Rule."
But what are the Belfast men doing? _Imprimis_ they are working in
what may be called the regular English methods. Unionist clubs are
springing up in all directions. The Earl of Ranfurly opened three in
one evening, and others spring up almost every day. The Ulster
Anti-Repeal and Loyalist Association will during the month of April
hold over three hundred meetings in England, all manned by competent
speakers. The Irish Unionist Association and the Conservative
Association are likewise doing excellent work, which is patent to
everybody. But other associations which do not need public offices are
flourishing like green bay trees, and their work is eminently
suggestive. By virtue of an all-powerful introduction, I yesterday
visited what may be called the Ulster war department, and there saw
regular preparation for an open campaign, the preliminaries for which
are under eminently able superintendence. The tables are covered with
documents connected with the sale and purchase of rifles and munitions
of war. One of them sets forth the particulars of a German offer of
245,000 Mauser rifles, the arm last discarded by the Prussian
Government, with 50,000,000 cartridges. As the first 150,000 Mausers
were manufactured by the National Arms and Ammunition Company,
Sparkbrook, Birmingham, it may be interesting to record that the
quoted price was 16s. each, the cartridges being thrown in for
nothing. Another offer referred to 149,000 stand of arms, with
30,000,000 cartridges. A third document, the aspect of which to a
native of Brum was like rivers of water in a thirsty land, was said to
have been summarily set aside by reason of the comparative antiquity
of the excellent weapon offered, notwithstanding the tempting lowness
of the quoted price.
A novel and unexpected accession of information was the revelation of
a deep and sincere sympathy among the working men of England, who,
with gentlemen of position and rifle volunteers by hundreds and
thousands, are offering their services in the field, should civil war
ensue. The letters were shown to me, all carefully filed, and
sufficient liberty was permitted to enable me to be satisfied as to
the tenour of their contents. Among the more important was a short
note from a distinguished personage, offering a contribution of L500,
with his guarantee of a force of two hundred men. This also was from
England, a fact which the scoffers at Ulster will do well to read,
mark, learn, and inwardly digest. The guarantee fund for the first
campaign now amounts to nearly a million and a half, which the best
financial authority of Belfast tells me is "as good as the Bank of
England." What the Dublin police-sergeant said of John Bull may also
be said of the Ulsterman--"He may have faults, but--he Pays!" Funds
for current purposes are readily forthcoming, L50,000 being already in
hand, while promises of a whole year's income seem thick as autumnal
leaves in Vallombrosa. No means is left untried, no stone is left
unturned to render abortive what the dry and caustic Northerners call
the Home Ruin Bill, or the Bill for the _Bitter_ Government of
Ireland.
Moving hourly among people accurately and minutely acquainted with the
local position, you cannot fail to be struck by the marvellous
unanimity with which all Irish Unionists predict the exact result of
such a bill as constitutes the present bone of contention, and their
precise agreement as to concerted action should the crisis arise. They
ridicule the English notion that they intend to take the field at
once. Nothing of the kind. They will await the imposition of taxes by
a Dublin Parliament, and will steadfastly refuse to pay. The money
must then be collected by force of arms, that is, by the Royal Irish
Constabulary, who will be met by men who under their very noses are
now becoming expert in battalion drill, having mastered company drill,
with manual and firing exercise; and whose numbers--I love to be
particular--amount to the respectable total of one hundred and
sixty-four thousand six hundred and fourteen, all duly enrolled and
pledged to act together anywhere and at any time, most of them already
well armed, and the remainder about to be furnished with splendid and
effective weapons, which before this appears in print will have been
landed from a specially chartered steamer, and instantly distributed
from a spot I am forbidden to indicate, by an organisation specially
created for the purpose.
All these particulars--and more--were furnished by gentlemen of high
position and unimpeachable integrity, whose statements, of themselves
sufficient, were abundantly confirmed by the exhibition under
restrictive pledges, of undeniable documentary proofs, with partial
but satisfactory glimpses of the work actually in hand. No vapouring
here, no breathless haste, not a suspicion of excitement. Nothing but
a cold, emotionless, methodical, business-like precision, a
well-considered series of commercial transactions, conducted by men
specially acquainted with the articles required and regularly trained
to office routine. English Home Rulers, unable to see a yard in front
of them, whose training and instincts are of the goody-goody, milk and
water type,--the lily-livered weaklings, who measure the courage of
others by their own,--may be excused their inability to conceive the
situation. They cannot understand the dour, unyielding spirit of the
Ulsterman in a matter which affects his property, his religion, his
freedom. A party backboneless as the Globerigina ooze, and, like that
sub-Atlantic production, only held together by its own sliminess, must
ever fail to realise the grit which means resistance, sacrifice,
endurance; cannot grasp the outlines of the Ulster character and
spirit, which resemble those which actuated the Scottish Covenanters,
the Puritan army of Cromwell, or even--and this illustration should be
especially grateful to Gladstonians--the Dutch Boers of the Transvaal.
But although the surface is placid the depths are turbulent. If Dublin
is simmering, Belfast is boiling. The breed is different. The
Northerner is not demonstrative, is slow to anger, but being moved is
not easily appeased. The typical Irishman, with his cutaway coat, his
pipe stuck in his conical caubeen, his "sprig of shillelagh," or
bludgeon the Donnybrook Fair hero who "shpinds half a-crown, Mates wid
a frind An' (for love) knocks him down" is totally unknown in these
regions. The men who by their ability and industry have lifted Ireland
out of the slough, given her prosperity and comparative affluence,
marched hand in hand with the English people, have only seen, with
wonder, the rollicking Kelt, devoid of care, forethought, and
responsibility, during their trips to the South and West--or wherever
Home Rulers most do congregate. Strange it is, but perfectly true,
that in most cases an Irishman's politics may be determined by outward
and visible signs, so plain that he who runs may read. In Dundalk,
which should be a thriving port, you see in and around the town long
rows of low thatch-covered cabins, with putrid dunghills
"convaynient," dirty, half-fed, barefooted children, and--magnificent
Catholic churches. Home Rule rules the roost. As you move northwards,
the symptoms of poverty gradually disappear. Scarva, the annual
meeting ground of 5,000 to 10,000 Orangemen, who on July 13, the day
after the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, fight the battle
o'er again, with a King William and a King James, mounted respectively
on their regulation white and bay chargers--Scarva is neat, clean and
civilised. Bessbrook, the Quaker colony, is, as might be expected, a
model community. Lurgan is well built, smart, trim, and delightful, a
wealthy manufacturing place with the general aspect of Leamington. As
the train steamed into the station an American traveller took a
general survey of the district, and said to the general company--
"I reckon this is a Unionist place."
A fierce-looking man from Dundalk admitted the soft impeachment.
"Thought so. Can spot a Home Rule town far off as I can see it. Mud
huts, whitewashed cabins with no upstairs, muck-heaps, and bad fences.
Can spot a Home Ruler as far as I can see him. Darned if I couldn't
track him by scent, like a foxhound. That's the rank and file--very
rank, I should say, most of them. And old J. Bull concludes to let the
dunghill folks, powerful lazy beggars they seem, come top-sawyer over
the fellows that built a place like this, eh?"
The Newry man, taking off his hat, revealing a head of hair like a
disorderly halo, took from the lining a little paper which called upon
the Irish peasantry to remember their wrongs, referred to the time
when Englishmen could murder Irishmen with impunity, stated that the
thing had often been done, and called upon every male from fifteen to
fifty to enrol himself in the Irish Independent Army--referring to the
Protestants as "a cruel and bloody minority." The Yankee returned the
bill contemptuously.
"You think this a question of counting noses. Now, I'm a sympathiser
of Home Rule, but if I was J.B. it would be different. I'm hanged if I
would not stick to my clean, clever, faithful friends, though they
were outnumbered by twenty to one. An' I'm a Republican, mind ye that.
Ye might ask me to put the muck-heap men at the head of affairs--ye
might ask till doomsday, but ye'd never get it. An' any man's a fool
that would do it."
A placard announcing the formation of an Irish Army of Independence,
and calling on the people to enrol themselves, has been extensively
circulated, and it is said that the Roman Catholics, like the
Protestants, are industriously drilling, north, south, east and west.
I am careful to use the term Protestants, as the force available is
drawn from the general body of Nonconformists. Orangemen are members
of the Church of Ireland, and have always been regarded as
Conservative. On the contrary, Presbyterians and Methodists are
considered to be advanced Liberals, and herein lies a popular English
fallacy--Gladstonians often refer to the Orange agitation against the
disestablishment of the Irish Church, which they would fain compare
with the present opposition to Home Rule, forgetting or ignoring the
fact that the strength of Ulster resides in the Nonconformist bodies,
and that these were all in favour of disestablishment, leaving the
Orangemen in a hopeless minority. Now, however, the Nonconformists
have joined their forces with those of the Orange bodies, which
creates a very different aspect of affairs. The English Home Rulers
say the opposition will end in smoke. It is said that the most insane
are sometimes wiser than they dream, just as liars sometimes speak
truth by accident. The movement will end in smoke, but it will be the
smoke of battle. Every man who supports the Home Rule Bill incurs the
stigma of blood-guiltiness. The bill that succeeds Home Rule will be
the Butchers' Bill. No doubt Mr. Gladstone will explain away the
"painful occurrences which we all deplore," and will endeavour to
transfer the blame to other shoulders. His talent for explanation is
unapproachable, but unhappily he cannot explain the slain to life
again.
In a former letter I pointed out how cleverly the Nationalists dissect
the bill, how they point out that its proposals are insulting to
Ireland, how they prove that its provisions are inconsistent and
unworkable, how they propose to discount the trumpery restrictions and
the gimcrack "safeguards" of the proposed measure, how in short, they
tear the bill to rags, laugh its powers to scorn, and hold its authors
in high derision. The Belfast men do not discuss the bill, do not
examine it clause by clause, do not quibble over the purport of this
or the probable effect of that, do not ask how the customs are to be
collected, or who is to pay for this, that, or the other. They descend
to no details, enter into no particulars, point out no minor
fallacies, argue no questions of the ultimate effect of any one
section of the bill. They reject the measure as a whole. The principle
is bad, radically rotten, and cannot be amended. With the Home Rulers
they agree that the bill means Separation, and therefore they put it
away _en bloc_. They will have no part with the unclean thing, but
cast it to the winds, bundle it out neck and crop, kick it downstairs,
treat it with immeasurable contempt. They are well versed in the broad
principles of Constitutional law, as it at present exists; will tell
you that the Irish Constabulary is the only force that can be brought
against them for the collection of the taxes, which they will
absolutely refuse; declare that the military can only be used against
them for this purpose by Act of Parliament; cite the preamble of the
Army Bill, which shows that there is no standing army, but only a
force renewed in its functions from year to year; show that the
monarch has ceased to be generalissimo of the British troops since
such a year, refer to the sad case of Charles I., who would fain have
collected Ship-money from a certain John Hampden, and endeavoured to
use the English army for this laudable purpose, meeting a fate at once
horrible and instructive. Then comes the application. Similar causes,
say they, will bring about similar effects, and if the quality and
temper of the people be considered their arguments seem reasonable.