questions; has always confined his attention to his business affairs.
It was because of this that Mr. Balfour sent for him to confer anent
the light railways, which have proved such a blessing to the country.
It was Mr. Worthington who carried out most of these beneficent works.
Besides this, Mr. Worthington has built railways to the amount of
three-quarters of a million in Ireland alone. He has employed 5,300
men at one time, and his regular average exceeds 1,500 all the year
round. He may therefore be said to know what he is talking about. I
called on him at 30, Dame Street, before I left Dublin, and he said,
"The bill would be bad for England in every way, and would ruin
Ireland. The question is certainly one for the English working man. If
he wishes to avoid the competition of armies of Irish labourers and
artisans he must throw out the bill. And this is how it will work--
"All the railways I have constructed in Ireland have been built on
county guarantees assisted by special grants from the Imperial
Treasury. Without these special grants the work could never have been
undertaken at all. If Home Rule becomes law those special grants from
the Imperial Treasury will be no longer available; and what will be
the result? Clearly that the work will not be undertaken; that the
building of railways will come to an end, and that the Irish peasants
who have devoted themselves to railway work will go to England and try
to find employment there. Once a railway navvy, always a railway
navvy, is a well-known and very true saying.
"For my own part I shall be compelled to compete in England, having
nothing to do in Ireland, and I shall of course transport my staff and
labourers across the Channel.
"The railways of Ireland, fostered by English capital, resting on
England's security, have given vast employment to my countrymen. But
they would do so no longer. Let us give an example to prove my point.
"Before the introduction of the Home Rule Bill the railway stock to
which I have referred stood at a premium of 27 per cent. Since the
bill became public and has been the subject of popular discussion, I
brought out the Ballinrobe and Claremorris Railway--with what result?
Not one-seventh of the sum required has been subscribed, although in
the absence of the bill the amount would certainly have been
subscribed four times over, at a premium of 20 per cent. What does
this prove?
"Simply this--that the farmers and small shopkeepers who invest in
this class of security will not trust their savings in the hands of
the proposed Irish Legislature. The bill, therefore, stops progress,
retards enterprise, drives away capital, and the workers must follow
the money. That seems clear enough. Everybody here concedes so much.
More than this. I can say from my own experience, and from the reports
of my agents and engineers in the South and West of Ireland, that the
Nationalists do not want this bill. I do not speak of Home Rule, but
of this bill only. All condemn its provisions, and universally concur
in the opinion that once it were passed it would be succeeded by a
more violent agitation than anything we have yet seen--an agitation
having for its object the radical amendment of the measure.
"There is a complete cessation of railway work. Already the men are
thinking of moving. But this is not all. I am now at a standstill,
pulled up short by the bill. What is the effect on England? Under
ordinary circumstances I buy largely all kinds of railway
material--steel rails, sleepers, fasteners, engines, and carriages.
Every year I send thousands and thousands of pounds to England for
these things, and surely most of the money goes indirectly into the
pockets of English working men, who are now suffering the loss of all
this by reason of their apathy in this matter. I speak only as a man
of business, anxious for the prosperity of my country. I do not
discuss Home Rule; never did discuss it and never will. But I end
where I began, and I repeat the bill will ruin Ireland, will be bad
for England, and I will add that the British Government will soon be
compelled to intervene to stave off Irish bankruptcy. Home Rulers are
now becoming afraid of the bill; artisans, farmers, and labourers
think it a good joke. They relished the hunt, but they don't want the
game.
"Returning to my own affairs, I say without hesitation that though the
mere threat of the bill has paralysed my business, and that the
passing of the bill would drive my men to England, yet--throw out the
bill, deliver us from the impending dread, and during the next two
years I shall myself expend L150,000 in railway material manufactured
by British artisans. Emphatically I repeat that Home Rule to the
British working man means increased competition and direct pecuniary
loss."
Mr. S. McGregor, of 30, Anglesea Street, Dublin, has been located in
the city for 34 years, and seems to have been a politician from the
first. Coming from the Land o' Cakes, he landed an advanced Radical,
and a devoted admirer of the Grand Auld Mon. Once on the spot a change
came o'er the spirit of his dream. His shop has the very unusual
feature of indicating his political views. Her Gracious Majesty, Lord
Beaconsfield, and Mr. Balfour look down upon you from neat frames. I
am disposed to regard Mr. McGregor as the pluckiest man in Ireland. A
quiet, peaceful citizen he is, one who remembers the Sawbath, and on
weekdays concentrates his faculties on his occupation as a tailor and
clothier. I did not seek the interview, which arose from a business
call not altogether unconnected with a missing button, but his
opinions and his information are well worth recording. Mr. McGregor
said, "I thrust my opinions on none, but I have a right to my
opinions, and I do not affect concealment. The great defect of the
Irish Unionists is want of courage. They dare not for their lives come
forward and boldly state their convictions. If Lord Emly or some other
Irish Roman Catholic nobleman had come forward earlier, it might have
induced weak-kneed members of the party to do likewise. The Unionists
do not exercise the great influence they undoubtedly possess. They
allow themselves to be terrorised into silence. Let them have the
courage of their opinions and they have nothing to fear. The masses of
the industrial population are not in favour of Home Rule. The
corner-men, who want to spend what they never earned, and the farmers,
who hope to get the land for nothing, are the only hearty Home Rulers
in Ireland. I employ ten people, all Roman Catholics, some of them
with me for twenty-five years. None of these are Home Rulers. I became
a convert to Conservatism by my intimate knowledge and personal
acquaintance with many of the leaders of the Fenian movement. I saw
through the hollowness of the whole thing, and declined any connection
therewith. Poor Henry Rowles, who was to be told off by signal to
shoot Mr. Foster, was one of my workmen. He died in prison, some said
from sheer fright, but two or three of his friends were hanged. He was
mixed up by marriage with the Fenian party, and was drawn on and on
like many another. I would rather not name the Fenian leaders I knew,
and the reason is this. I knew them too well. Speaking of the Unionist
lack of courage, you must not be too much surprised. During the last
fourteen years Unionists have had to maintain a guerilla warfare for
existence. But the strangest feature of the present position is
this--the Home Rulers are kicking at the bill! A great Home Ruler of
my acquaintance (Mr. McGregor referred me to him) is getting quite
afraid. He is a farmer holding 300 acres under Lord Besborough, and
says that he trusts things will remain as they are. He has a good
landlord, borrows money by the subvention, and has a perfect horror
of the class of men who will obtain the upper hand in Ireland. A
Nationalist over the way was about to extend the buildings you see
there. Plans were drafted, and offices were to be built. Out comes the
bill and in goes the project. He has no confidence in the Irish
Nationalist leaders; but, strange to say he believes in Mr. Gladstone.
He admits that the Irish M.P.'s are not quite up to his ideal, but
believes that the Grand Old Man's genius for accommodation and
ingenious dovetailing of Imperial interests will pull the country
through. Meanwhile he lays out no penny of money.
"I am a Presbyterian, and what is more a United Presbyterian,
belonging to the Presbyter of Scotland. All Scotch Presbyterians are
advanced Radicals. We have four hundred members here. They came here
worshippers of Gladstone and Home Rulers to the tune of 97 per cent.
The congregation is now 99 per cent. Unionist or Conservative out and
out. Of the four hundred we have only three Home Rulers. What will the
English people say to that? Tell them that our minister, who came here
a Home Ruler, is now on a Unionist mission in Scotland--the Rev. Mr.
Procter, brother of Procter, the cartoonist of _Moonshine_ and the
_Sketch_, to wit. My workpeople, all steady, industrious people, ask
but one thing--it is to be let alone."
Here Mr. G.M. Roche, the great Irish wool-factor and famous amateur
photographer, said--
"Ah! we must have the bill. 'Tis all we want to finish us up. We're
never happy unless we're miserable; the bill will make us so and we'll
never be properly discontented till we get it!"
Passing through the Counties of Louth, Dublin, Londonderry, Monaghan,
Tyrone, Donegal, and Fermanagh, I met with many farmers whose
statements amply confirmed the words of the descendant of the great
Sir Boyle Roche. These unhappy men had been divested of their last
grievance, stripped of their burning wrongs, heartlessly robbed of
their long-cherished injuries. It was bad enough before, when Irishmen
had nothing except grievances, but at least they had these, handed
down from father to son, from generation to generation, along with the
family physiognomy, two precious, priceless heirlooms, remarkable as
being the only hereditary possessions upon which the brutal Saxon
failed to cast his blood-shot, covetous eye. And now the grievances
are taken away, the _Lares_ and _Penates_ of the farmer's cabin are
ruthlessly removed, and the melancholy peasant looks around for the
immaterial antiquities bequeathed by his long-lost forefathers. "Ah;
don't the days seem lank and long, When all goes right and nothing
goes wrong, And isn't our life extremely flat, When we've nothing
whatever to grumble at." The Irish farmer is with the poet, who hits
his harrowing anguish to a hair. He folds his hands and looks about,
uncertain what to do next. His rent has been lowered by 35 per cent.,
he has compensation for improvements, fixity of tenure, and may borrow
money to buy the land outright at a percentage, which will amount to
less than his immortal Rint. What is the unhappy man to do? His
grievances have been his sole theme from boyhood's happy days, the
basis of his conversation, his actuating motive, the very backbone of
his personal entity. Now they are gone, the fine gold has become dim,
and the weapons of war have perished. Once he could walk abroad with
the proud consciousness that he was a wronged man, a martyr, a brave
patriot struggling nobly against the adverse fates, a broth of a boy,
whose melancholy position was noted by the gods, and whose manly
bearing under proffered slavery established a complete claim to high
consideration in Olympus. But now, with heart bowed down with grief
and woe, he walks heavily, and even as a man who mourneth for his
mother, over the enfranchised unfamiliar turf. He peeps into the
bog-hole, and does not recognise himself. He could pay the rent twice
over, but he hates conventionalities, and would rather keep the money.
He is constructed to run on grievances, and in no other grooves, and
the strangeness of his present position is embarrassing. The tenants
of Lord Leitrim, Lord Lifford, and the Duke of Abercorn make no
complaint of their landlords. On the contrary, they distinctly state
that all are individually kind and reasonable men, and while
attributing their own improved position to the various Land Acts given
to Ireland, which leave the actual possessor of the land small option
in the matter, they freely admit that these gentlemen willingly do
more than is ordained by any act of Parliament, and that over and
above the provisions of the law, all three are fair-minded men,
desirous of doing the right thing by their people and the country at
large. Other landlords there were on whose devoted heads were breathed
curses both loud and deep.
The late Lord Leitrim was exalted to the skies, but his murdered
father was visited with blackest malediction. At Clones, in the County
Monaghan, I met a sort of roadside specimen of the _Agricola
Hibernicus_, who explained his position thus:--"Ye see, we wor
rayduced 35 per cent., an' 'tis thrue what ye say; but then produce is
rayduced 50 per cent., so we're 15 per cent. worse off than iver we
wor before. We want another Land Act that'll go to the root. An' that
we'll get from an Oirish Parliament an' only from that. 'Tis not the
tinints that's always the worst off. Many's the time I seen thim that
had a farrum of their own go to the dogs, while thim that had rint to
pay sthruggled and sthrived an' made money an' bought the freeholders
out. For whin they had nothin' to pay they did no work, an' then,
bedad ivery mortial thing wint to the divil. An' that's how it'll be
wid the lazy ones once we get Home Rule, which means the land for
nothin' or next to nothin'. Barney will kick up his heels and roar
whirroo, but call again in a year an' ye'll see he hasn't enough money
to jingle on a tombstone."
My next from the New Tipperary, whither I journey via Kildare,
Kilkenny, and Limerick, _en route_ for Cork and the Blood-taxed Kerry,
where Kerry cows are cut and carved. Now meditation on marauding
moonlighters makes melancholy musing mine.
Limerick, April 11th.
No. 8.--TERRORISM AT TIPPERARY.
Tipperary is Irish, and no mistake. Walking into town from Limerick
the first dwellings you reach are of the most primitive description,
whether regarded as to sanitary arrangements or otherwise. The ground
to the right slopes downwards, and the cabins are built with sloping
floors. The architects of these aboriginal erections stuck up four
brick walls, a hole in, a hole out, and a hole in the top, without
troubling to level the ground. Entering, you take a downward step, and
if you walk to the opposite exit, you will need to hold on to the
furniture, if any. If you slip on the front step you will fall head
first into the back yard, and though your landing might be soft
enough, it would have a nameless horror, far more killing than a stony
fall. The women stand about frowsy and unkempt, with wild Irish eyes,
all wearing the shawl as a hood, many in picturesque tatters, like the
cast-off rags of a scarecrow, rags and flesh alike unwashed and of
evil odour. The children look healthy and strong, though some of them
are almost _in puris naturalibus_. Their faces are washed once a week;
one of them said so, but the statement lacks confirmation, and is
opposed to the evidence of the senses. Scenes like these greet the
visitor to Old Tipperary, that is, Tipperary proper, if he enter from
Limerick. The town is said to be old, and in good sooth the dunghills
seem to possess a considerable antiquity. In this matter the Tipperary
men are sentimental enough--conservative enough for anything. At
Tipperary, of all places, the brutal Saxon will learn how much has
been bequeathed to Irishmen by their mighty forefathers.
The eastern side is better. A grand new Roman Catholic church has just
been built at a cost of L25,000, and in front of the gilded
railings--for they are gilt like the railings of Paris--were dreadful
old women, like Macbethian witches, holding out their skinny hands for
alms. Smartly dressed young ladies, daughters of publicans and
shopkeepers, passed in jauntily, took a splash in the holy water,
crossed themselves all over, knocked off a few prayers, and tripped
merrily away. The better parts of the town belong to Mr. Smith-Barry,
the knock-me-down cabins to Mr. Stafford O'Brien, whose system is
different. As the leases fall in the former has modern houses built,
while the latter is in the hands of the middlemen, who sub-let the
houses, and leave things to slide. The _laissez-aller_ policy is very
suitable to the genius of the genuine Irish, who may be said to rule
the roost in Tipperary.
I interviewed all sorts and conditions of men, but every individual
bound me down to closest secrecy. And although nobody said anything
approaching high treason, their alarm on finding they had ventured to
express to a stranger anything like their real opinion was very
significant. The conversations took place last evening, and this
morning before breakfast a young man called on me at the Station
Hotel, Limerick Junction, three miles from Tipperary, "on urgent
business." "Me father thinks he said too much, an' that ye moight put
what he said in print, wid his name to it. Ye promised ye wouldn't,
an' me father has confidence, but he wishes to remoind ye that there's
plinty in Tipperary would curse him for spakin' wid an Englishman, an'
that dozens of thim would murther him or you for the price of a pot of
porter." Another messenger shortly arrived, bearing a letter in which
the writer said that any mention of his name would simply ruin him,
and that he might leave the country at once. And yet these men had
only said what Englishmen would account as nothing.
New Tipperary adjoins the old, to which it is on the whole superior.
All the descriptions I have seen of the Land League buildings are
untrue and unfair. Most of them were written by men who never saw the
place, and who paraphrased and perpetuated the original error. It was
described as a "mile or two from Tipperary," and the buildings were
called "tumble-down shanties of wood, warped and decaying, already
falling to pieces." The place adjoins and interlocks with the old
town; it is not separated by more than the breadth of a street, is
largely built of stone, and comprises a stone arcade, which alone cost
many thousands. Some of the cottages are of wood, but they look well,
are slated, and seem in good condition. The butter mart, a post and
rail affair, with barbed wire decorations, is desolate enough, and
nearly all the shops are shuttered. Enamel plates with Dillon Street
and Emmett Street still attest the glory that has departed, but the
plate bearing Parnell Street escaped my research. The William O'Brien
Arcade is scattered to the winds, save and except the sturdy stone
walls, which (_a la_ Macaulay's New-Zealander) I surveyed with
satisfaction, sketching the ruins of the structure from a broken bench
in Dillon Street.
A full and true history of the New Tipperary venture has never been
written. As in the present juncture the story is suggestive and
instructive, I will try to submit the whole in a form at once concise
and accurate. The particulars have been culled with great pains from
many quarters and carefully collated on the spot, and may be relied on
as minutely exact and undeniable. Everyone admits Mr. Smith-Barry's
claim to the title of a good landlord, an excellent landlord, one of a
thousand. Before the _casus belli_ was found by William O'Brien all
was prosperity, harmony, and peace. Mr. Smith-Barry owns about 5,000
acres of land situate in the fat and fertile plain of Tipperary, known
as the Golden Vale, with the best part of the county town itself.
Tipperary is a great butter centre. The people are ever driving to the
butter factory, which seemed to be worked in the Brittany way.
Donkey-carts driven by women, and bearing barrels of milk, abound on
the Limerick Road. The land is so rich, grand meadows, and heavy
dairy-ground, that the place prospered abundantly, and was by
commercial men reckoned an excellent place for business. But they have
changed all that. The Tipperary folks were once thought as good as
the Bank of England. Now they dislike to pay anything or anybody.
Their delicate sense of _meum_ and _tuum_ is blunted. They take all
they can get, and pay as little as they can. They affect dunghills and
dirt, and have a natural affinity for battle, murder, and sudden
death. How did all this come about?
First, as to Mr. Smith-Barry's character. The most advanced
Nationalists, the Fenian papers, the Catholic clergy, all concurred in
blessing him. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Cloyne, Canon Hegarty,
P.P., and Tim Healy spoke of him in the character of a landlord in
highest terms. Sir Charles Russell, Tim Harrington, Mr. O'Leary
(Chairman of the Clonakilty Town Commissioners, a violent
Nationalist), and Canon Keller (R.C.) unanimously agreed that Mr.
Smith-Barry must be exempted from the general condemnation of Irish
landlords. They said he was the "kindest of landlords," and that his
tenants were "comfortable, respectable, and happy." They proclaimed
his "generous and noble deeds," declaring that "there have been no
cases of oppression or hardship, and the best and most kindly
relations have existed." All these sayings are gathered from
Nationalist papers, which would supply thousands of similar character,
and up to the time of O'Brien's interference, none of an opposite
sort. But, as Serjeant Buzfuz would have said, the serpent was on the
trail, the viper was on the hearthstone, the sapper and miner was at
work. Thanks to the patriot's influence, the Paradise was soon to
become an Inferno.
A Mr. Ponsonby wanted his rents, or part of them. His tenants had
lived rent-free for so long--some of them were seven years
behind--that they naturally resented the proposed innovation. Mr.
Smith-Barry and others came to Mr. Ponsonby's assistance, and,
endeavouring to settle the thing by arbitration, proposed that the
landlord should knock off L22,000 of arrears, should make reductions
of 24 to 34 per cent. in the rents, and make the tenants absolute
owners in 49 years. This was not good enough. Judge Gibson thought it
"extravagantly generous," but the Tipperary folks resented Mr.
Smith-Barry's connection with such a disgracefully tyrannical piece of
business, and, at the instance of William O'Brien, determined to make
him rue the day he imagined it. They sent a deputation to remonstrate,
and Mr. Smith-Barry, while adhering to his opinion as to the
liberality of the proposition, explained that he was only one of many,
and that whatever he said or did would not change the course of
events. The Tipperary folks required him to repudiate the arrangement,
to turn his back on his friend and himself, and--here is the cream of
the whole thing, this is deliciously Irish--they soberly, seriously,
and officially proposed to Mr. Smith-Barry that in addition to the 15
per cent. abatement they had just received on their rent he should
make a further remittance of 10 per cent. to enable them to assist the
Ponsonby tenants in carrying on the war against their landlord, on
whose side Mr. Smith-Barry was fighting. They said in effect, "You
have given us 3s. in the pound, to which we had no claim; now we want
2s. more, to enable us to smash the landlord combination, of which you
are the leader." This occurred in the proceedings of a business
deputation, and not in a comic opera.
Mr. Smith-Barry failed to see the sweet reasonableness of this
delightful proposition, and then the fun began.
O'Brien to the rescue, whirroo!
He rushed from Dublin, and told the Tipperary men to pay Smith-Barry
no rent. If they paid a penny they were traitors, slaves, murderers,
felons, brigands, and bosthoons. If they refused to pay they were
patriots, heroes, angels, cherubim and seraphim, the whole country
would worship them, they would powerfully assist the Ponsonby folks in
the next county, they would be saviours of Ireland.
And besides all this they would keep the money in their pockets. But
this was a mere detail.