narrate the effect of the impending Home Rule Bill on some of the
commercial community. A well-known tradesman says: "A man in
Newcastlewest owed me L24 for goods delivered. He had a flourishing
shop and also an excellent farm. He was so slow in paying, and
apparently so certain that in a little while he would escape
altogether, that I sued him for the amount. It was a common action for
a common debt, between one Irish tradesman and another. But I am a
Unionist, and therefore fair game. I got judgment, but no instalments
were paid. I remonstrated over and over again, and was from time to
time met with solemn promises, the debtor gaining time by every delay.
At last I lost patience, and determined to distrain. Everybody laughed
at me. 'Where will you get an auctioneer, and who will bid? they
asked. I determined to carry through this one case, if it cost a
hundred pounds. I got a good revolver, and succeeded in bringing an
auctioneer from a distance. The debtor said he would brain me with a
bill-hook if I put my foot on his ground, and another man promised to
shoot me from a bed-room window. It was necessary, to carry out the
sale at all, to have police protection. I went to the barracks and
submitted the case. Had I a sheriff's order, &c., &c., &c.? All
difficulties overcome I went to the 'sale.' We seized a cow, a watch,
and some of my own goods, and commenced the auction. Nobody bid but
myself, and when I had covered the amount due the sale ceased, the
aspect of the people being very menacing. Remember, this was not
agrarian at all. The debt was for goods delivered to be sold in the
way of trade. Most of them were there before my face. The debtor came
and said, 'You can't take the things away. But we like your pluck, and
if you will settle the matter for L5 I will give you the money.' I
declined to take L5 for L24 and costs, although the police looked on
the offer as unexpectedly liberal, and the bystanders shed tears of
emotion and said that Gallagher was 'iver an' always the dacent boy.'
When I wished to remove the things the troubles began. I had my
revolver, the police their rifles, but things looked very blue. I
drove the cow to the station and got her away, but the other things
could not walk aboard, and how to get them there was hard to know. I
asked people I knew to lend me their carts--people who were under some
obligation to me, men I had known and done business with for years.
They all refused; they feared the evil eye of the vigilance committee
of a Fenian organisation still in full swing among us, and keeping
regular books for settlement when they have the power. I was
determined not to be beat, so I went to Limerick, nearly thirty miles
away, to get a float or wagon. The news was there before me, not a
wheel to be had in the city. At last, by means of powerful influence,
I got a cart, on condition that the owner's name should be taken off,
and my name painted on. Then I returned to Newcastle and bore away the
goods in triumph. Alas! my troubles were only beginning! I had been
told that the goods were not the debtor's, but belonged to someone
else. The cow, they said, was a neighbour's, who had 'lent' it to my
debtor. The watch, they said, was the property of a friend, who had
handed it to my debtor that he might take it somewhere to be repaired.
The landlord of the house claimed that he had previously seized
everything, but had allowed things to remain out of kindness. I was
cited in four actions for illegal distraint, all of which were so
evidently trumped-up that they were quashed. But the time they took!
And the annoyance they caused. The expense also was considerable, and
the idea of getting expenses out of these people--but I need add
nothing on that score.
"There were six witnesses in one case, and they could never be found,
so long as the judge could have patience to wait. Every lie, trick,
subterfuge you can imagine, was practised on poor me. At last all was
over, but at what a cost! The big chap who had threatened me with the
bill-hook came humbly forward and said: "Plase yer honner's worship,
I'm very deaf, an' I'm short sighted, and I'm very wake intirely, an'
ye must give me toime to insinse meself into the way of it." And that
rascal had everything repeated several times, until I was on fifty
occasions on the point of chucking up the whole thing.
"Before the Home Rule Bill had implanted dishonest ideas in his head,
before the promises of unscrupulous agitators had unsettled and
demoralised the people, that man was a straightforward, good, paying
fellow. Only he thought that by waiting till the bill was passed he
would have nothing to pay. The ignorant among us harbour that idea,
and the disloyalty of the lower classes is so intense that you could
not understand it unless you lived here at least two years."
English friends who praise the affection of the Irish people, and who
speak of the Union of Hearts, may note the lectures of the popular
Miss Gonne, who is being enthusiastically welcomed in Nationalist
Ireland. No doubt the local papers expurgated the text; at the present
moment the word has gone round:--"Let us get the bill, let us get the
bill, and then!" But enough remains to show the general tone.
Addressing the Irish National Literary Society, of Loughrea, Miss
Gonne said that she must "contradict Lord Wolseley in his statement
that England was never insulted by invasion since the days of William
the Conqueror. It would be deeply interesting to the men and women of
Connaught to hear once again how a gallant body of French troops,
fighting in the name of Liberty and Ireland, had conquered nearly the
whole of that province at a time when England had in her service in
Ireland no less than one hundred and fifty thousand trained troops.
She would remind them that France was the one great military nation of
Europe that had been the friend of Ireland"--a remark which was
received with loud and prolonged applause. "And it would be a matter
of some pride to us to reflect that in these military relations the
record of the Irish brigades in the service of France compared not
without advantage with the military services which France had been
able to render to Ireland." This passage clearly refers to the aid the
two countries have afforded each other as against England, and the
whole lecture seems to have aimed at the heaping of ignominy on the
British name. The stronger the denunciation of England, the more
popular the speaker. The Union of Hearts gets "no show" at all. The
phrase is unknown to Irish Nationalists. However deceitful they may
be, it cannot yet be said that they have sunk thus low.
Looking over Wednesday's _Cork Examiner_, I observe that amid other
things the Reverend John O'Mahony attributes the fact that "The
teeming treasures of the deep were almost left untouched," that is,
off the Irish coast, and that this is "a disgrace and a dishonour to
the people through whose misrule and misgovernment the unhappy result
was brought about." Father O'Mahony is a Corker, and should know that
he is talking nonsense. Let me explain.
In Cork I met a gentleman for twenty-five years engaged in supplying
fishermen with all their needs. He said, "The Irish fishermen are the
laziest, most provoking beggars under the sun." He showed me two sizes
of net-mesh and said, "This is the size of a shilling, this is the
size of a halfpenny. The Scotsmen and Shetlanders use the shilling
size. The difference seems small, but it is very important. The
Irishmen use the halfpenny size, and will use no other. They say that
what was good enough for their fathers is good enough for them. When
the fish are netted they make a rush, and many of them escape the
larger mesh, which they can get through, unless of the largest size.
The small mesh catches them by the gills and hangs them. This,
however, is a small matter. The most important thing is the depth of
fishing. The Scotsmen and Shetlanders come up to the Irish coast,
which is remarkably rich in fish, and when they meet a school of fish
they fish very deep and bring them up by tons, while the Irishmen are
skimming the tops of the shoals, and drawing up trumpery dozens,
because their fathers did so. Years ago I used to argue the point, but
I know better now. When the water is troubled, when the wind is
blowing, and things are a trifle rough, then is the time to fish. The
herrings cannot see the net when the water is agitated. The Scotsmen
are on the job, full of spirits and go, but Paddy gets up and takes a
look and goes to bed again. He waits for fine weather, so as to give
the fish a chance. The poor Shetlanders come over long leagues of sea,
catch ling a yard long, under Paddy's nose, take it to Shetland, cure
it, and bring it back to him, that he may buy it at twopence a pound.
At the mouth of the Blackwater are the finest soles in the world, but
the Irish are too lazy to catch them;--great thick beggars of fish
four inches thick, you never saw such soles, the Dover soles are lice
to them, they'd fetch a pound apiece in London if they were known.
Change the subject. Every time I come round here I get into a rage.
The British Government finds these men boats. The Shetlanders
sometimes land, and when they contrast the fat pastures and teeming
south coast of Ireland with their own cold seas and stony hills they
say with the Ulstermen, 'Would that you would change countries!'"
I asked him how he accounted for this extraordinary state of things.
He said:--
"As an Irishman I am bound to answer one question by asking another.
Was there ever a free and prosperous country where the Roman Catholic
religion was predominant?"
I could not answer him at the moment, but perhaps Father O'Mahony, who
knows so much, may satisfy him on the point. Or in the absence of this
eloquent kisser of the Blarney Stone some other black-coated Corker
may respond. Goodness knows, they are numerous enough. All are well
clothed and well fed, while the flock that feed the pastor are mostly
in squalid poverty, actually bending the knee to their greasy
task-masters, poor ignorant victims of circumstances.
Among the many nostrums offered to Ireland, nobody offers soap. The
greatest inventions are often the simplest, and with all humility I
make the suggestion. Ireland is badly off for soap, and cleanliness is
next to godliness. Father Humphreys, of Tipperary, boasts of his
influence with the poor--delights to prove how in the matter of rent
they took his advice, and so on. Suppose he asks them to wash
themselves! The suggestion may at first sight appear startling. All
novelties are alarming at first; but the mortality, except among old
people, would probably prove less than Father Humphreys might expect.
He would have some difficulty in recognising his flock, but the
resources of civilisation would probably be sufficient to conquer this
drawback. Persons over forty might be exempted, as nothing less than
skinning would meet their case, but the young might possibly be
trained, against tradition and heredity, to the regular use of water.
But I fear the good Father will hardly strain his authority so far. An
edict to wash would mean blue ructions in Tipperary, open rebellion
would ensue, and the mighty Catholic Church would totter to its fall.
The threat to wash would be an untold terrorism, the use of soap an
outrage which could only be atoned by blood. And Father Humphreys (if
he knew the words) might truly say _Cui bono_? Why wash? Is not soap
an enemy to the faith? Do not the people suit our purpose much better
as they are? _Thigum thu_, brutal and heretic Saxon?
Killaloe (Co. Clare), April 27th.
No. 15.--THE PERIL TO ENGLISH TRADE.
As the great object of public interest in the city of Limerick is the
Treaty Stone, a huge block of granite, raised on a pedestal on the
Clare side of Thomond Bridge, to commemorate the Violated Treaty so
graphically described by Macaulay, and to keep in remembrance of the
people the alleged ancient atrocities of the brutal Saxon--so the
key-note of Ennis is the memorial to the Manchester Martyrs, erected
outside the town to commemorate the people who erected it. That is how
it strikes the average observer. For while the patriotic murderers of
the Manchester policemen, to wit, O'Brien, Allen, and Larkin, have
only one tablet to the three heroes, the members of the committee who
were responsible for this Nationalist or rather Fenian monument have
immortalised themselves on three tablets. But although party feeling
runs high, and the town as a whole appears to be eminently disloyal
and inimical to England, there are not wanting reasonable people who
look on the proposed change with grave suspicion, even though they
nominally profess to support the abstract doctrine of Home Rule.
Naturally, their main opinions are very like those I have previously
recorded as being prevalent in the neighbouring counties of Limerick,
Cork, and Kerry. They believe the present time unseasonable, and they
have no confidence in the present representatives of the Nationalist
party. They believe that the Irish people are not yet sufficiently
educated to be at all capable of self-government, and they fail to see
what substantial advantages would accrue from any Home Rule Bill. More
especially do they distrust Mr. Gladstone; and although in England the
Nationalist leaders speak gratefully of the Grand Old Man, it is
probable that such references would in Ireland be received in silence,
if not with outspoken derision. A well-known Nationalist thus
expressed himself on this point:--
"Gladstone's recent attack on Parnell was one of the meanest acts of a
naturally mean and cowardly man, whose whole biography is a continuous
story of surrender, abject and unconditional. Parnell was his master.
With all his faults, Parnell was much the better man. He was too cool
a swordsman for Gladstone, and, spite of the Grand Man's tricky
dodging and shifting, Parnell beat him at every point, until he was
thoroughly cowed and had to give in. What surprises me is that the
English people are led away by a mere talker. They claim to be the
most straightforward and practical people in the world. Answer me
this:--Did you, did anybody, ever know Gladstone to give a
straightforward answer to any one question? Straight dealing is not in
him. He is slippery as an eel--with all his 'honesty,' his piety, his
benevolence. But as he reads the Bible in Hawarden Church, the English
believe in him. They have no other reason that I can see. Have you
heard any Irishman speak well of Gladstone? No, and you never will.
How long in the country? Five weeks only? You may stay five years, and
you will not hear a word expressing sincere esteem. About separation?
Well, most of the unthinking people, that is, the great majority,
would vote in favour of it to-morrow. All sentiment, the very romance
of sentimentality. I have been in England, I have been in America, and
you could hardly believe the difference in the people's views. The
Irish are not practical enough. 'Ireland a nation' is bound to be the
next cry, if Home Rule become law under the present leaders of the
Nationalist party."
"But how about the pledges, the solemn and reiterated pledges, of
Michael Davitt and the rest?"
"I suppose you ask me seriously? You do? An Irishman would regard the
question as a joke. The pledges are not worth a straw. Their object is
to deceive, and so to carry the point at issue. Would John Bull come
with an injured air and say, with tears in his voice, 'You said you'd
be good. You promised to be loyal. You really did. Did you not, now?'
Don't you think John would cut a pretty figure? Davitt knows where to
have him. He knows that a quiet, moderate, reasonable tone fetches
him. Parnell, too, knew that the method with John was a steady, quiet
persistence without excitement. John listens to Davitt, and says to
himself, 'Now this is a calm, steady fellow. Nothing fly-away about
_him_. No shouting and screaming there. This is the kind of man who
_must_ boss the show. Give him what he wants.'
"Look how Morley was taken in. And so, no doubt, was many another.
"If England trusts the assurances of these men, and if the bill under
present conditions becomes law, we shall have two generations of
experiment, of corruption, of turmoil, of jobbery such as the British
Empire has never seen.
"Yes, I am a Home Ruler--at the proper time. But Home Rule in our
present circumstances would mean revolution, and, a hundred to one,
the reconquest of Ireland. And in the event of any foreign
complication you would have all your work cut out to effect your
purpose."
A gentleman from Mallow said, "The Gaelic clubs all over the country
are in a high state of organisation, and a perfect state of drill. The
splendid force of constabulary which are now for you would be against
you. The Irish Legislature, from the first, would have the power to
raise a force of Volunteers, and the Irish are such a military nation
that in six months they could muster a very formidable force. I am a
Unionist, a Protestant too, but I find that my Catholic and Home Rule
friends, that is, the superior sort, the best-read, the most thinking
men, agree with me perfectly. But while I can understand Irish Home
Rulers, even the most extreme sort, I cannot understand any sensible
Englishman entertaining such an insane idea. As manager of one of the
largest concerns in Cork I have made many visits to England, and I
found the supporters of Mr. Gladstone so utterly misinformed, so
credulous, so blankly ignorant of the matter, that I forbore to debate
the thing at all. And their assumption was on a level with their
ignorance, which is saying a good deal."
Mr. Thomas Manley, the great horse dealer, a famous character
throughout the three kingdoms, said to me, "The Limerick horse fair of
Thursday last was the worst I ever attended in forty years. There is
no money in the country. The little that changed hands was for horses
of a common sort, and every one, I do believe, was bought for England
and Scotland, tramcar-horses and such like. Home Rule is killing the
country already. I farmed a thousand acres of land in Ireland for many
a long year, and since I went more fully into the horse-dealing
business I kept two hundred and fifty acres going. I have horsed the
six crack cavalry regiments of the British army, and I know every nook
and corner of Ireland; know, perhaps, every farmer who can breed and
rear a horse, and I also know their opinions. Give me the power and I
would do four things. Here they are:--
"I would first settle the land question, then reform the poor-laws,
then rearrange the Grand Jury laws, then commence to reclaim the land,
which would pay ten per cent.
"The Tories should undertake these measures. They would then knock the
bottom out of the Home Rule agitation. The people are downright sick
of the whole business. They expected to be well off before this. They
find themselves going down the nick."
Mr. Abraham P. Keeley said: "There is much fault found with the
landlords, but they are by no means so much to blame as is supposed.
Put the saddle on the right horse. And the right horse is the steam
horse. The rapid transit of grain and general farm produce has lowered
the value of land more rapidly than the landlords could lower the
rent. Every year the prairie lands of America are further opened up by
railways; India and Egypt and Australia are now in the swim, and
Ireland, as a purely agricultural country, must suffer. A curious
illustration of the purely rural condition of the country was
mentioned the other day. Nearly all the great towns drink the water of
the rivers upon which they stand. Cork drinks the Lee; Limerick drinks
the Shannon; you can catch trout from the busiest quay in Limerick.
Now, the towns of England don't drink their own rivers. You don't
drink the Rea at Birmingham, I think?"
I was obliged to admit that the pellucid waters of the crystal Rea
were not the favourite table beverage of the citizens of Brum, but
submitted that Mr. Joseph Malins, the Grand Worthy Chief Templar, and
his great and influential following might possibly use this innocent
means of dissipation.
Mr. Thomas Manley continued: "The tenant farmer has cried himself up,
and the Nationalists have cried him up as the finest, most
industrious, most honest, most frugal, most self-sacrificing fellow
in the world. But he isn't. Not a bit of it. The landlords and their
agents have over and over again been shot for rack-renting when the
rents had been forced up by secret competitions among neighbours and
even relations.
"Ask any living Irish farmer if I am right, and he will say, Yes, ten
times yes.
"The Irishman has a land-hunger such as is unknown over the water. And
why? Because the land is his sole means of living. We have no
enterprise, no manufactures to speak of. The Celtic nature is to
hoard. The Englishman invests what the Irishman would bury in his back
garden, or hang up the chimney in an old stocking. So we have no big
works all over the country to employ the people. And as we are very
prolific, the only remedy is emigration. Down at Queenstown the other
day I saw 250 Irish emigrants leaving the country. A Nationalist
friend said, 'If they'd only wait a bit till we get Home Rule, they
needn't go, the crathurs.' What's to hinder it? How will they be
better off? Will the land sustain more with Home Rule than without it?
And when capital is driven away, as it must and will be the moment we
pass the bill, instead of more factories we'll have less, and England
and Scotland will be over-run with thousands of starving Irish folks
whose means of living is taken away.
"As an Irish farmer, and an Irish farmer's son, living on Irish farms
for more than sixty years, having an intimate acquaintance with the
whole of Ireland, and almost every acre of England, I deliberately say
that the Irish farmer is much better off than the English, Scotch, or
Welsh farmer, not only in the matter of law, but in the matter of
soil.
"In many parts of England the soil must be manured after every crop.
Every time you take out you must put in. Not so in Ireland. Nature has
been so bountiful to us that we can take three, and even six, crops
off the land after a single dose of manure. Of course the farmer
grumbles, and no wonder. The price of stock and general produce is so
depressed that Irish farmers are pinched. But so they are in England.
And yet you have no moonlighting. You don't shoot your landlords. If
the land will not pay you give it up and take to something else. An
Irishman goes on holding, simply refusing to pay rent. His neighbours,
who are in the same fix, support him. When the landlord wishes to
distrain, after waiting seven years or so, he has to get a decree. The
tenants know of it as soon as he, and they set sentinels. When the
police are signalled the cattle are driven away and mixed with those
of other farmers--every difficulty that Irish cleverness can invent is
placed in the way. Then the landlord, whether or not successful in
distraining, is boycotted, and the people reckon it a virtue to shoot
him down on sight. Conviction is almost, if not quite, impossible, for
even if you found a willing witness--a very unlikely thing I can tell
you--even then the witness knows himself marked for the same fate. If
he went to America or Australia he would be traced, and someone would
be found to settle him. Such things have happened over and over again,
and people know the risk is great. But about rack-rents.
"I have told you of Irish avariciousness in the matter of land, and
have explained the reason of it. Rents have been forced up by people
going behind each other's backs and offering more and more, in their
eagerness to acquire the holding outbidding each other. Landlords are
human; agents, if possible, still more human. They handed over the
land to the highest bidder. What more natural? The farmers are not
business men. They offered more than the land could pay. You know the
results. But why curse and blaspheme the landlords for what was in
many cases their own deliberate act?"