an Irish friend who agreed to lead me by roundabout ways to the
telegraph office. After many narrow passages and devious turns, we
struck the Royal Avenue, a long, long way from our starting place.
Here we took the still advancing procession in flank. It was now 4.45,
and my friend said, "By jabers, there's forty million more of them. I
believe the procession reaches all round the world, and moves in a
continuous band." And, sure enough, they were coming on as fresh as
ever, but I felt that four hours and a quarter of bands and drums was
enough at once, so I made a dash for the wires before they should be
absolutely blocked. My account is not, perhaps, quite perfect, but it
was pencilled under extraordinary circumstances--ten people talking to
me at once, a lady's umbrella in my side, a thousand people leaning on
my right elbow, and five hundred bands sounding in my ear. Surely it
may be said to have been written under fire.
Belfast, April 4th.
No. 5.--HAS MR. MORLEY LIED?
Before leaving Belfast I obtained incontrovertible evidence anent the
growing fears of Mr. Gladstone's Government. Mr. Morley has denied the
existence of any such nervousness, and has repudiated the assertion
that precautions have been taken. But what is the truth of the matter?
Let us see whether his statement is borne out by facts.
In February certain military officers received a confidential
communication having reference to the defence of the Belfast barracks.
They were requested to examine and report upon the possibility of
these buildings being tenable against a _coup de main_, were ordered
to examine the loop-holes for musketry, to prepare plans of the same,
and to duly submit them to the proper authorities, giving their
opinion as to the practicability and sufficiency of existing
arrangements in the event of the buildings being assaulted by
organised bodies of armed civilians, during the absence of soldiers
who might be about the city, taking their walks abroad, after the
regulation manner permitted to Mr. Thomas Atkins under ordinary
circumstances. The order was executed, the plans were duly furnished,
and if Mr. Morley is still unaware of the fact, I have much pleasure
in imparting the information which I have on the best authority
attainable in an imperfect world. He may rely on this statement as
being absolutely undeniable, and to descend to particulars, I will add
that plans were made of the Tram Stables Barracks, the Willow Bank
Barracks, and the Victoria Barracks. As I have said, the instructions
were marked Confidential, and the Irish Secretary may have relied on
this magic word in formulating his denials. The alternative hypothesis
is, of course, obvious enough. The work may have been ordered and
executed without Mr. Morley's knowledge, but it has been done, and,
after proper inquiry, he will not venture to deny it. The circumstance
is a curious commentary on the Gladstonian affectation of perfect
security, and the scornful references of Home Rulers to the alleged
determination of Ulstermen, in the last resource, to push matters to
extremity. I could tell him more than this. It would be easy to adduce
other instances of Governmental nervousness, but prudential and
confidential considerations intervene.
However, while in the vein, let me submit for serious contemplation
the fact that up to the morning postal delivery of Wednesday, April 5,
1893, written offers of personal assistance in the matter of armed
resistance to the exact number of ten thousand and five have reached a
certain Ulster organisation from England and Scotland, the roll
including five generals, with a percentage of Victoria Cross men. This
statement is made on the authority of the Earl of Ranfurly, who told
me that the matter was within his personal knowledge, and that the
whole of these communications were entirely spontaneous and altogether
unsolicited, and that nobody in Ireland was in any way responsible for
their existence. Lord Ranfurly also said that while the hearty
friendship and co-operation of these gentlemen were warmly appreciated
by Irish Loyalists, he was quite certain that their generous aid would
never be required, for that Home Rule was now defunct, dead, and
buried, and beyond the possibility of resurrection. It may be
remarked, in passing, that this is the feeling of the best-informed
Irish Home Rulers, and that many in my hearing have offered to back
their opinion by laying odds. The rejection of the Bill so far from
exasperating the Nationalist party, would positively come as a relief.
To say that they are lukewarm is only to fairly indicate a state of
feeling which is rapidly degenerating into frigidity. They declare
that the Bill is unworkable, and while maintaining their abstract
right to demand whatever they choose, believe that, taking one
consideration with another, the lot of autonomic Ireland would not be
a happy one.
Mr. Richard Patterson, J.P., the great ironmonger of Belfast, observes
that "according to Mr. Gladstone the only people who really understand
Ulster are those who have never been in it." My interview with him was
both instructive and interesting. He is one of the Harbour
Commissioners, and a gentleman of considerable scientific attainments,
as well as a great public and commercial man. He belongs to the Reform
Club and, with his fellow-members, was up to 1886 a devoted follower
of Mr. Gladstone. The name of his firm, established in 1786 on the
very ground it now occupies, is a household word in Ireland, and Mr.
Patterson himself has the respect and esteem of his bitterest
political opponents. He pointed out the unfairness and injustice of
Mr. Gladstone's reference to religion, when turning a deaf ear to the
Belfast deputation. "The report of the Chamber of Commerce," he said,
"was a purely business statement, and had no element of party feeling.
The fact that the Protestant members of the Chamber outnumber the
Catholics is in no respect due to religious intolerance, which in this
body is totally unknown. Anybody who pays a guinea a year may be
elected a member, whatever his religion, whatever his circumstances,
providing he is a decent member of society, which is the only
qualification required. Members are certainly elected by ballot, but
during the many years I have belonged to the Chamber not a single
person has been black-balled. If the Protestants are more numerous,
the fact simply demonstrates their superior prosperity, arising only
from their more steady application to hard work. We live on terms of
perfect friendship with our Catholic countrymen, and we assiduously
cultivate the sentiment. It is only when a weak and ignorant pandering
to disloyalty excites opposition that enmity begins. Only let us
alone, that is all we ask. We were going on beautifully until Mr.
Gladstone and his accomplices upset everything." Speaking of the
difference between the Ulster men and the Irish Kelts, Mr. Patterson
said, "Prosperity or the reverse is indicative of the breed. The
Southern Irish had more advantages than the Ulstermen. They had better
land, better harbours, a far more productive country, and yet they
always seethe in discontent. Put 20,000 Northerners in Cork, and in
twenty years the Southern port could knock Liverpool out of time."
Addressing himself to the Home Rule Bill, he declared that the
practical, keen-witted merchants of Belfast dismissed the whole
concoction as unworthy of sober consideration, and declared that an
awful responsibility rested on Mr. Gladstone. Said this experienced
J.P.:
"The Belfast riots of 1886 were terrible. Forty people were killed in
the streets, and what I saw in my capacity of magistrate was dreadful
in the extreme. The injuries from gun-shot wounds were almost
innumerable, and many a local doctor gained experience in this line
which is unknown to many an army surgeon. The riots began with the
ruffian class, from which this great city is not entirely free, and
gradually rose upwards to the shipbuilding yards. All this disturbance
and awful loss of life were entirely due to the production of Mr.
Gladstone's first bill. And now they tell us that a worse bill--for it
is a worse bill--might become law without any inconvenience. I submit
to any reasonable man that if the mere menace of a bill cost forty
lives in Belfast alone, the loss of life all over Ireland, once the
bill were passed, would be enormous. And all this will be attributable
to the action of Mr. Gladstone, who has never been in Ulster."
Walking down Royal Avenue I met Colonel Saunderson, radiant after the
great demonstration of two days ago, wearing a big bunch of violets in
place of Tuesday's bouquet of primroses. He stopped to express good
wishes to the _Gazette_, and said that the Belfasters were proud of
Birmingham, which city he regarded as being the most advanced and
enlightened in the world. While he so spake, up came the mighty Dr.
Kane, idol of the Ulsterites, towering over the gallant Colonel's
paltry six feet one, and looking down smilingly from his altitude in
infinite space on my own discreditable five feet ten. He agreed with
the Colonel as to the merits of Birmingham, and added that every
Unionist in Belfast cherished a deep sentiment of gratitude to the
hardware city, requesting me to explode the misleading statements of
the Separatist press, which asserts that Tuesday's procession
consisted of Orangemen. "The first two hours," said the Reverend
Doctor, "consisted of bodies who do not processionise, and who never
perform in public, in or out of Belfast, Methodists, Presbyterians,
and the like, while the 25,000 or 30,000 Orangemen who came in at the
tail of the show were a mere fraction of the whole. Colonel
Saunderson, the Earl of Erne, and myself stood up in our carriage and
cheered the Radical Reform Club, a thing we certainly have never done
before." Here the Colonel laughed, and said--
"The union of hearts, Doctor."
"Yes, the union of hearts and no mistake, as the Grand Old Man will
find--to his cost. All classes are united against the common enemy"
(Mr. Gladstone). "But tell me something--How is it that the English
people are deceived by that arch-professor of cant? Tell me that!"
I requested the good doctor to ask me something easier, and he
doubtless would have done so, but at this moment up came the famous
Dr. Traill, the Admirable Crichton of Ireland, and with my usual
thirst for knowledge, I ventured to suggest that the mathematical
intellect of the Trinity College Examiner might possibly grapple with
the problem.
The learned professor smiled, gripped my unworthy fin, shook out some
words of greeting, wagged his head hopelessly, and--bolted like a
rocket.
Dr. Traill is said to be equally versed in Law, Physic, and Divinity,
to sport with trigonometry, and to amuse his lighter moments with the
differential calculus. But "this knowledge was too wonderful for him,
he could not attain unto it," and to avoid confession of defeat, he
fled with lightning speed. This erudite doctor is well known in
England, especially among riflemen. Colonel Saunderson describes him
as a wonderful shot at a thousand yards, and thinks he was once one of
the Irish Eight at Wimbledon. I met him on the stand on Tuesday, when
he amusingly described his adventures on the Continent. "The poor
Poles," he said, "wished to take me to their collective bosom, and to
fall on my individual neck, the moment they found I was an Irishman.
They said we were brothers in misfortune!" Whereat this learned pundit
laughed good-humouredly. It may be that Dr. Traill is the long-range
rifleman of whom a Land League man remarked, on hearing that the
marksman had made a long series of bull's eyes--
"The saints betune us an' harm--but wouldn't he make an iligant
tenant!"
Dr. Kane was not surprised to see the professor run away. He said, "I
cannot understand it all. I must and will cross the Channel
immediately to investigate this strange phenomenon. I have always
considered the English a people of superior mental force, men who
could not be easily deceived. That they should pin their faith to a
man who has proved to demonstration that Home Rule is impossible, who
more than any other has branded the Nationalist party with ignominy, I
cannot understand." The Doctor perhaps momentarily forgot that the
English do not pin their faith to Mr. Gladstone, that the adverse
majority are dead against him, and that this majority is daily
increasing by leaps and bounds. Gallant Captain Leslie, whom I saw
earlier in the day, more accurately hit the situation. This splendid
old soldier said, "The English people are not to be blamed. Living
under social conditions of perfect freedom and friendship they do not
understand the conditions prevailing in Ireland; they cannot be
expected to understand a state of things differing so widely from
anything within the circle of their own experience. But all the same,
if they grant Home Rule, if they listen to the disloyal party rather
than to their loyal friends, if they truckle to treason rather than
support their own supporters, the consequences will be disastrous to
England, and where the disasters will stop is a piece of knowledge
which 'passes the wit of man.'"
Running up to Ballymena, I encountered several interesting
personalities, each of whom had his own view of the all-absorbing
subject, and looked at the matter from his own standpoint. An
Irish-American of high culture, a man of science, looked up from what
he regarded as "the most interesting book in existence," which turned
out to be Thompson's "Evolution of Sex," and said that once Home Rule
were in force the blackguard American-Irish would return in shoals,
and that the Fenians of America might be expected to "boss the show."
"How is it," he asked, "that the English people listen to what appears
the chief argument of Separatist orators--that agitation will come to
an end, that the Irish will be content to rest and be thankful?
Clearly while money and power can be had by agitation, so long will
agitation continue. That seems so obvious to me, that I wonder at the
patience of the North of England men--I was among them during the
general election--in listening quietly to this argument, if it be one
at all. And with all their experience of the past to enlighten them
into the bargain. Was not the disestablishment of the Church to remove
all cause of discontent? Then it was the land. You gave several Land
Acts, most favourable laws, very one-sided, all in favour of the
tenant, far beyond what English, Scotch, or Welsh farmers hope to get.
Have you satisfied Irishmen yet? No, and you never will. The more you
give, the more they ask. They never will be content. ''Tis not their
nature to.' England now suffers for her own weak good nature. The true
curse of Ireland is laziness. I left Belfast at twenty, but I am well
acquainted with Ireland. In the North they work and prosper. In the
South they do nothing but nurse their grievances. Twenty years' firm
government, as Lord Salisbury said, would enrich the country. Do the
right thing by them--put them level with England and Scotland, and
then put down your foot. Let them know that howling will do no good,
and they'll stop it like a shot. Paddy is mighty 'cute, and knows when
he has a _man_ to deal with. Put a noodle over him and that noodle's
life will be a burden. And serve him right. Fools must expect fools'
reward."
A Catholic priest I met elsewhere was very chary of his opinions, and
confined himself to the "hope that England would see her way to
compensate the Church and the country for centuries of extortion and
oppression." This he thought was a matter of "common honesty." He did
not exactly suggest a perpetual church-rate for the benefit of the
Catholics of Ireland, but the thing is on the cards, and may be
proposed by Mr. Gladstone later on. Something ought to be done,
something substantial, for the gentlemen educated under the Maynooth
Grant. Mr. Bull has admitted the principle, and his sense of fair play
will doubtless lead him to do the right thing, always, of course,
under compulsion, which is now usually regarded as the mainspring of
that estimable gentleman's supposed virtuous actions.
Ballymena is a smart looking place, trig and trim, thriving and
well-liking, a place to look upon and live. The people are all
well-clad, and prosperous, well-fed and well-grown. The men are mostly
big, the women mostly beautiful; the houses are of stone, handsome and
well-built. On the bleaching grounds you see long miles of
linen--Irish miles, of course--and all the surroundings are pleasant.
After this, no need to say the place is one of the blackest, most
Unionist, Protestant, and loyal in the whole country. A number of buff
placards issued by Nationalists attract respectful attention. The same
bill is stuck all over Belfast--in the High Street, on the hoardings
facing the heretic meeting houses, everywhere. It purports to present
the sentiments of the great Duke of Wellington _re_ the Roman
Catholics of Ireland, and is to the effect that in moments of danger
and difficulty the Roman Catholics had caused the British Empire to
float buoyant when other Empires were wrecked; that the Roman
Catholics of Ireland, and they only, had saved our freedom, our
Constitution, our institutions, and in short that it is to the Irish
Roman Catholics that we owe everything worth having. Alone they did
it. The priest, in short, has made Mr. Bull the man he is.
Can anybody in England "go one better" than this?
These extracts are plainly taken from some speech on the Roman
Catholic Emancipation Bill, and refer to the valour of the Irish
soldiery, whose bravery in fighting for a Protestant cause was
doubtless invaluable to the cause of liberty. There is an apocryphal
story concerning Alfred de Musset, who on his death-bed is reported to
have conveyed to a friend with his last breath his last, his only
wish, to wit:--
"Don't permit me to be annotated." The Iron Duke might have said the
same if he had thought of it. He could not know that, shorn of his
context, divorced from his drift, he would be placarded in his native
land as an agent in the cause of sedition and disloyalty. This truly
Grand Old Man, who, in his determination to uphold the dignity and
unity of the Empire "stood four-square to all the winds that blew,"
would scarcely have sided with the modern G.O.M. and his satellites,
Horsewhipped Healy and Breeches O'Brien.
One word as to the alleged "intolerance of the fanatic Orangemen of
Belfast."
The placards above-mentioned were up on Tuesday last. They are large
and boldly printed, and attracted crowds of readers--but not a hand
was raised to deface them, to damage them, to do them any injury
whatever. I watched them for four-and-twenty hours, and not a finger
was lifted against any one in the High Street or elsewhere, so far as
I could ascertain.
There are twenty thousand Orangemen in the city, and the Protestants
outnumber the Papists by three to one. Yet the placard was treated
with absolute respect, and although I entered several groups of
readers I heard no words of criticism--no comment, unfavourable or
otherwise, no gesture of dissent. The people seemed to be interested
in the bill, and desirous of giving it respectful consideration. I
have seen Liberal Birmingham, when in the days of old it assembled
round Tory posters--but the subject becomes delicate; better change
our ground. It is, however, only fair to say that the Gladstonians of
Birmingham, who, as everybody knows, formed the extreme and inferior
wing of the old Radical party, can hardly teach the Belfast men
tolerance.
Ballymena, April 6th.
No. 6.--THE EXODUS OF INDUSTRY.
Derry is a charming town, unique, indescribable. Take equal parts of
Amsterdam and Antwerp, add the Rhine at Cologne, and Waterloo Bridge,
mix with the wall of Chester and the old guns of Peel Castle, throw in
a strong infusion of Wales, with about twenty Nottingham lace
factories, stir up well and allow to settle, and you will get the
general effect. The bit of history resulting in the raising of the
siege still influences Derry conduct and opinions. The 'Prentice Boys
of Derry, eight hundred strong, are ardent loyalists, and having once
beaten an army twenty-five thousand strong, believe that for the good
of the country, like the orator who had often "gone widout a male,"
they too could "do it again." They do not expect to be confronted with
the necessity, but both the Boys and the Orangemen of Derry, with all
their co-religionists, are deeply pledged to resist a Dublin
Parliament. "We would not take the initiative, but would merely stand
on our own defence, and offer a dogged resistance. We have a tolerable
store of arms, although this place was long a proclaimed district, and
we have fifteen modern cannon, two of which are six-pounders, the rest
mostly four-pounders, and one or two two-pounders, which are snugly
stored away, for fear of accident." Thus spake one who certainly
knows, and his words were amply confirmed from another quarter.
Derry makes shirts. The industrious Derryans make much money, and in
many ways. They catch big salmon in the middle of the town, and
outside it they have what Mr. Gladstone would call a "plethora" of
rivers. They ship unnumbered emigrants to the Far West, and carry the
produce of the surrounding agriculturists to Glasgow and Liverpool.
They also make collars and cuffs, but this is mere sport. Their real
vocation is the making of shirts, which they turn out by the million,
mostly of high quality. Numbers of great London houses have their
works at Derry. Welch, Margeston and Co. among others. The Derry
partner, Mr. Robert Greer, an Englishman forty years resident in the
town, favoured me with his views _re_ Home Rule, thus:--
"The bill would be ruinous to Ireland, but not to the same extent as
to England. Being an Englishman, I may be regarded as free from the
sectarian animosity which actuates the opposing parties, but I cannot
close my eyes to the results of the bill, results of which no sane
person, in a position to give an opinion, can have any doubt. We are
so convinced that the bill would render our business difficult, not to
say impracticable, that our London partners say they will remove the
works, plant, machinery, and all, to the West of Scotland or
elsewhere.
"About 1,200 girls are employed in the mill, and 3,000 to 4,000 women
at their own homes all over the surrounding country.
"Mr. Gladstone may think he knows best, but here the unanimous opinion
is that trade will be fatally injured. Ireland is no mean market for
English goods, and the market will be closed because Ireland will have
no money to spend. Go outside the manufacturing towns and what do you
see? Chronic poverty. Manufacturers will remove to the Continent, to
America--anywhere else--leaving the peasantry only. The prospective
taxes are alarming. We know what would be one of the very first acts
of a Dublin Parliament. They would curry favour with the poor, the
lazy districts, by an equalisation of the poor rate. In Derry, where
everybody works for his bread, the rate is about sixpence in the
pound. There are districts where it runs to ten shillings in the
pound. The wealthy traders, the capitalists, the manufacturers of the
North will have to pay for the loafers of the South. The big men would
gather up their goods and chattels and clear out. There are other
reasons for this course."
Here Mr. Greer made the inevitable statement that Englishmen out of
Ireland did not understand the question; and another large
manufacturer chipped in with:--