the Irish Parliamentary party reminds me of something I heard in
Athlone. A great anti-Parnellite said:--"Poor Mat Harris was the
splindid spaker, in throth! Parnell it was that sent him to the House
of Commons. Many's the time I seen him on the roof of the Royal Hotel,
fixin the tiles, an' puttin things sthraight, that the rain wouldn't
run in. 'Tis a slater he was, an' an iligant slater, at that. An' when
he came down for a big dhrink, the way he'd stand at the bar and
discoorse about Ireland would brake yer heart. Many's the time I seen
the ould waiter listenin' to him till the wather would pour out iv his
two good-lookin' eyes. An, thin, 'twas Mat Harris had the gab, rest
his sowl! Ye haven't anybody could come up to him barrin' owld
Gladstone, divil a one." Another Athloner, speaking of an Irish
Nationalist M.P., who luckily still lives, said:--"Mr. Parnell took
him up because he was a wonderful fellow to talk, and so was popular
with the mob of these parts. I think he was a blacksmith by trade.
Parnell got him made M.P., and set him up with a blue pilot coat, but
forgot to give him a handkerchief. So he used the tail of his coat
alternately with his coat sleeve. He never had a pocket-handkerchief
in his life, but he was a born legislator, and the people believed he
could do much to restore the vaunted ancient prestige and prosperity
of Ireland. He came to Athlone, and went to the Royal, but the waiter,
who did not know he was speaking to a member of Parliament, and
moreover one of his own kidney, declined to take him in, and
recommended a place where he could get a bed for Thruppence! And the
M.P. actually had to take it. This was only inconsistent with his new
dignity, and not with his previous experiences. This is the kind of
person who is to direct Irish legislation more efficiently than the
educated class, who unanimously object to Home Rule as detrimental to
the interests of both countries, and as likely to further impoverish
poor Ireland. The men who now represent the 'patriotic' party will
feather their own nests. They care for nothing more."
The Westport folks may not deserve the strictures of their friend of
twenty years, but two things are plainly visible. They are dirty, and
they have no enterprise. The island-dotted Clew Bay and the sublime
panorama of mountain scenery, the sylvan demesne of the Earl of Sligo,
and the forest-bordered inlets of Westport Bay, form a scene of
surpassing loveliness and magnificence such as England and Wales
together cannot show. The town is well laid out, the streets are broad
and straight, and Lord Sligo's splendid range of lake and woodland,
free to all, adjoins the very centre. And yet the shops are small and
mean, the houses are dirty and uninviting, and dunghills front the
cottages first seen by the visitor. A breezy street leads upward to
the heights, and all along it are dustheaps, with cocks and hens
galore, scratching for buried treasure. At the top a stone railway
bridge, the interstices facing the sea full of parsley fern, wild
maidenhair, hart's-tongue, and a beautiful species unknown to me. The
bracing air of the Atlantic sweeps the town, which is sheltered withal
by miles of well-grown woods. The houses are dazzling white, and like
the Rhine villages look well from a distance. Beware the interiors, or
at least look before you leap. Then you will probably leap like the
stricken hart, and in the opposite direction. You will be surprised at
your own agility. Flee from the "Lodgings and Entertainment" announced
in the windows. Your "Entertainment" is likely to be livelier than you
expected, and you will wish that your Lodgings were on the cold, cold
ground. The Westporters are too pious to wash themselves or their
houses. "They wash the middle of their faces once a month," said a
Black Methodist. For there are Methodists here, likewise Presbyterians
and Plymouth Brethren--besides the Church of Ireland folks, who only
are called Protestants. All these must be exempted from the charge of
dirtiness. Cleanliness, neatness, prosperity, and Protestantism seem
to go together. Father Humphreys himself would not deny this dictum.
For the other clause of the indictment--lack of enterprise--the
Westporters are no worse and no better than their neighbours. The
Corkers make nothing of their harbour, spending most of their time in
talking politics and cursing England. Commercial men speak of the
difficulty of doing business at Cork, which does not keep its
appointments, is slippery, and requires much spirituous lubrication.
Cork ruins more young commercial men than any city in Britain, and
owing to the unreliability of its citizens, is more difficult to work.
Galway has scores of ruined warehouses and factories, and has been
discussing the advisability of building a Town Hall for forty years
at least. Limerick has a noble river, with an elaborate system of
quays, on which no business is done. The estuary of the Shannon, some
ten miles wide, lies just below, opening on the Atlantic; and a little
enterprise would make the city the Irish head-quarters for grain. The
quays are peopled by loafers, barefooted gossiping women, and dirty,
ragged children playing at marbles. Great buildings erected to hold
the stores that never come, or to manufacture Irish productions which
nobody makes, are falling into ruin. I saw the wild birds of the air
flying through them, while the people were emigrating or complaining,
and nothing seemed to flourish but religious services and
fowl-stealing. It was during my sojourn in Limerick that somebody
complained to the Town Council of poultry depredations, which
complaint drew from that august body a counter-complaint to the effect
that the same complainant had complained before, and that he always
did it during a Retreat, that is, when the town was full of people
engaged in special religious services--so that the heretic observer,
and especially the representative of the _Gazette_, referred to by
name, might couple the salvation of souls with the perdition of hens,
to the great discredit of the faith. But this is a digression.
Westport should brush itself up, cleanse its streets, tidy up its
shops, sanitate its surroundings, and offer decent accommodation to
tourists. The latter does exist, but is scarce and hard to find. The
people of Cork, Limerick, and Galway blame England and English rule
for the poverty which is their own fault alone. They hate the
Northerners as idle unsuccessful men hate successful industrious men.
Belfast is a standing reproach. The people of Leinster, Munster, and
Connaught have had the same government under which Ulster has
flourished, with incomparably greater advantages of soil and climate
than Ulster, with better harbours and a better trading position. But
instead of working they stand with folded hands complaining. Instead
of putting their own shoulders to the wheel they wait for somebody to
lift them out of the rut. Instead of modern methods of agriculture,
fishing, or what not, they cling to the ancient ways, and resent
advice. The women will not take service; the men will not dig, chop,
hammer. They are essentially bone-idle--laziness is in their blood.
They will not exert themselves. As Father McPhilpin says, "They will
not move. You cannot stir them if you take them by the shoulders and
haul at them." What will Home Rule do for such people? Will it serve
them instead of work? Will it content the grumblers? Will it silence
the agitators? Will it convert the people to industry? Will it imbue
them with enterprise? Will it make them dig, chop, fish, hammer? Will
it make the factory hands regular day by day? Will it cause the women
to wash themselves and cleanse their houses? Will it change their
ingrained sluttishness to tidiness and neatness and decency? Father
Mahony, of Cork, said that the Irish fisherman turned his back on the
teeming treasures of the deep, because he groaned beneath the cruel
English yoke. Since then I have seen him fishing, but I did not hear
him groan. He wanted boats, nets, and to be taught their use. Mr.
Balfour supplied him with plant and instructions. Father Mahony and
his tribe of wind-bags feed the people on empty air. The starving poor
ask for bread, and they get a speech. They are told to go on
grumbling, and things will come all right. Nobody ever tells them to
work. Murder and robbery, outrage and spoliation, landlord-shooting
and moonlighting, are easier ways of getting what they want. The Plan
of Campaign, the No Rent combination, the Land League brotherhood when
rightly considered, were just so many substitutes for honest work.
Ireland will be happy when Ireland is industrious, and not a moment
before.
No need to say that the Westporters are Home Rulers. The clean and
tidy folks, the Protestant minority, are heart and soul against the
bill, but the respectable voters are swamped all over Ireland, by
devotees of the priests. "We think the franchise much too low," said a
Presbyterian. "We think illiterate Ireland, with its abject servility
to the Catholic clergy, quite unfit to exercise the privilege of
sending men to Parliament. We think the intelligent minority should
rule, and that the principles which obtain in other matters might well
be applied to Parliamentary elections. These ignorant people are no
more fit to elect M.P.'s than to elect the President of the Royal
Society or the President of the Royal Academy. And yet if mere numbers
must decide, if the counting of heads is to make things right or
wrong, why not let the people decide these distinctions? The West of
Ireland folks know quite as much of art or science as of Home Rule, or
any other political question. They have returned, and will in future
return, the nominees of the priests."
One of the highest legal authorities in Ireland, himself a Roman
Catholic, said to me:--
"You saw the elections voided by reason of undue priestly influence.
That was because, in the cases so examined, money was available to pay
the costs of appeal. If there had been money enough to contest every
case where a Nationalist was returned, you would have seen every such
election proved equally illegal, and every one would have been
adjudicated void."
The Westport folks are looking for great things from the great
Parliament in College Green. A Sligo man who has lived in Dublin was
yesterday holding forth on these prospective benefits, his only
auditor being one Michael, an ancient waiter of the finest Irish
brand. Michael is both pious and excitable, and must have an abnormal
bump of wonder. He is a small man with a big head, and is very
demonstrative with his hands. He abounds with pious (and other)
ejaculations, and belongs to that popular class which is profuse in
expressions of surprise and admiration. The most commonplace
observation evokes a "D'ye see that, now?" a "D'ye tell me so, thin?"
or a "Whillaloo! but that bates all!" As will be seen, Michael
artistically suits his exclamations to the tone and matter of the
principal narrator, mixing up Christianity and Paganism in a quaintly
composite style, but always keeping in harmony with the subject. The
Sligo man said:--
"I seen the mails go on the boat at Kingstown, an' there was hundhreds
of bags, no less."
"Heavenly Fa-a-ther!" said Michael, throwing up eyes and hands.
"Divil a lie in it. 'Twas six hundhred, I believe."
"Holy Moses preserve us!"
"An' the rivinue is millions an' millions o' pounds."
"The saints in glory!"
"An' wid Home Rule we'd have all that for Oireland."
"Julius Saysar an' Nibuchadnizzar!"
"Forty millions o' goolden sovereigns, divil a less."
"Thunder an' ouns, but ye startle me!"
"An' we're losin' all that"--
"Save _an'_ deliver us!"
"Becase the English takes it"--
"Holy Virgin undefiled!"
"To pay peelers an' sojers"--
"Bloody end to thim!"
"To murther and evict us"--
"Lord help us!"
"An' collect taxes an' rint."
"Hell's blazes!"
Ten minutes after this conversation under my window Michael adroitly
introduced the subject of postal profits in Ireland. I told him there
was an ascertained loss of L50,000 a year, which the new Legislature
would have to make up somehow. Michael bore the change with fortitude.
The loss of forty millions plus fifty thousand would have upset many a
man, but Michael only threw up his eyes and said very softly--
"Heavenly Fa-a-ther!"
Westport, June 6th.
No. 32.--HOME RULE AND IRISH IMMIGRATION.
A bright country town with a big green square called The Mall,
bordered by rows of great elm trees and brilliantly whitewashed
houses. The town is about a mile from the station, and the way is
pleasant enough. Plenty of trees and pleasant pastures with thriving
cattle, mansions with umbrageous carriage-drives, and the immense mass
of Croagh Patrick fifteen miles away towering over all. The famous
mountain when seen from Castlebar, is as exactly triangular as an
Egyptian pyramid, or the famous mound of Waterloo. Few British heights
have the striking outline of Croagh Patrick, which may be called the
Matterhorn of Ireland. Castlebar is always dotted with soldiers, The
Buffs are now marching through the town, on their way to the exercise
ground, but the sight is so familiar that the street urchins hardly
turn their heads. The Protestant Church, square-towered, fills a
corner of The Mall, and there stands a statue of General O'Malley,
with a drawn sword of white marble. Lord Lucan, of the Balaklava
Charge, hailed from Castlebar. The town and its precincts belong to
the Lucans. There is a convent with a big statue of the Virgin Mary,
and the usual high wall. The shops are better than those of Westport,
and the streets are far above the Irish average in order and
cleanliness. The country around is rich in antiquities. Burrishoole
Abbey and Aughnagower Tower, with the splendid Round Tower of
Turlough, are within easy distance, the last a brisk hour's walk from
Castlebar. There in the graveyard I met a Catholic priest of more than
average breadth and culture, who discussed Home Rule with apparent
sincerity, and with a keener insight than is possessed by most of his
profession. He said:--
"When the last explosion took place at Dublin, the first to apprise me
of the affair was the Bishop of my diocese, whose comment was summed
up in the two words 'Castle job!' Now that riled me. I am tired of
that kind of criticism."
Here I may interpolate the critique of Colonel Nolan, who was the
first to apprise me of the occurrence.--"I do not say that the Irish
Government officials are responsible for the explosion. That would not
be fair, as there is no evidence against them. But I do say that if
they did arrange the blow-up they could not have selected a better
time, and if some mistaken Irish Nationalist be the guilty person he
could not have selected a worse time from a patriotic point of view."
Thus spake the Colonel, who has an excellent reputation in his own
district. The stoutest Conservatives of Tuam speak well of him. "All
the Nolans are good," said a staunch Unionist; and another said, "The
Nolans are a good breed. The Colonel is good, and Sebastian Nolan is
just as good. Nobody can find fault with the Nolans apart from
politics." The Colonel is one of the nine Parnellites accursed of the
priests. Perhaps he was present at the Parnellite meeting at Athenry,
regarding which Canon Canton, parish priest of Athenry, declared from
the altar that every person attending it would be guilty of mortal
sin. English readers will note that the Parnellites resent priestly
dictation.
Another interpolation anent "the Castle job." I thought to corner a
great Athlone politician by questions _re_ the recent moonlighting,
incendiarism, and attempted murders in Limerick and Clare. He said--
"All these things are concocted and paid for by the Tories of England.
The reason Balfour seemed to be so successful was simple enough when
you know the explanation. Balfour and his friends kept the
moonlighters and such like people going. They paid regular gangs of
marauders to disturb the country while the Liberals were in power.
When the Tories get in, these same gangs are paid to be quiet. Then
the Tories go about saying, 'Look at the order we can keep.' Every
shot fired in County Clare is paid for by the English Tories. Sure, I
have it from them that knows. Ye might talk for a month an' ye'd never
change my opinion. There's betther heads than mine to undershtand
these things, men that has the larnin', an' is the thrue frinds of
Ireland. When I hear them spake from the altar 'tis enough for me. I
lave it to them. Ye couldn't turn me in politics or religion, an' I
wouldn't listen to anybody but my insthructors since I was twelve
inches high." Well might Colonel Winter, who knows the speaker
above-mentioned, say to me, "He has read a good deal, but his reading
seems to have done him no good."
It is time I went back to Turlough's Tower and my phoenix priest who
was riled to hear his Bishop speak of the Dublin explosion as a
"Castle job." He claimed that "the clergy are unwilling instruments in
the hands of the Irish people, who are unconquerable even after seven
hundred years of English rule. The Irish priesthood is so powerful an
element of Irish life, not because it leads, but because it follows.
Powerful popular movements coerce the clergy, who are bound to join
the stream, or be for ever left behind. No doubt at all that, being
once in, they endeavour to direct the current of opinion in the course
most favourable to the Catholic religion. To do otherwise would be to
deny their profession, to be traitors to the Church. They did not
commence the agitation. The Church instinctively sticks to what is
established, and opposes violent revolutionary action. History will
bear me out. The clergy stamped out the Smith-O'Brien insurrection.
The Catholic clergy of the present day, mostly the sons of farmers,
are perhaps more ardently political than the clergy of a former day, a
little less broad in view, a little more hot-headed; yet in the main
are subject to the invariable law I laid down at first--that is, they
only follow and direct, they do not lead, or at any rate they only
place themselves in the front when the safety of the Church demands
it. The bulk of the clergy believe that the time to lead has now come.
My own opinion, in which I am supported by a very few,--but I am happy
to say a very distinguished few,--is this: The Roman Catholic Church
is making immense progress in England; a closer and closer connection
with England will ultimately do far more for the Church than can be
hoped from revolutionary and republican Ireland. We should by a Home
Rule Bill gain much ground at first, but we should as rapidly lose it,
while our hold on England would be altogether gone. Many of the
so-called Catholic Nationalists are atheists at heart, and the
tendency of modern education is decidedly materialistic. So that
instead of progressive conquest the Church would experience
progressive decline, which would be all the more striking after the
great but momentary accession of prestige conferred by the Home Rule
Bill. My theory is--Let well alone. The popular idea is to achieve
commanding and lasting success at a blow."
The Castlebar folks have diverse opinions, the decent minority, the
intelligence of the place, being Unionist, as in every other Irish
town. A steady, well-clad yeoman said:--"I've looked at the thing in a
hundred ways, and although I confess that I voted for Home Rule, yet
when we have time to consider it, and to watch the debate on every
point, we may be excused if we become doubtful as to the good it will
do. The people round here are so ignorant, that talking sense to them
is waste of time. They will put their trust in coal mines and the like
of that. Now, I have gone into the subject of Irish mines. I have read
the subject up from beginning to end. Wicklow gold would cost us a
pound for ten shillings' worth. The silver mines wouldn't pay, and the
lead mines are a fraud; while the copper mines would ruin anybody who
put their money into them. I know something about Irish coal. Lord
Ranfurly did his best for Irish coal at Dungannon. Mines were sunk and
coal was found, but it was worthless. Well, it fetched half a crown a
ton, and people on the spot went on paying a guinea a ton for
Newcastle coal because it was cheaper in the end. We may have iron,
but what's the good when we have no coal to smelt it? The Irish
forests which formerly were used for this purpose are all gone. Then
the people put their trust in wool and cotton manufactures. They may
do something with the wool, because England is waking up to the
superior quality of Irish woollen productions; but in the cotton
England is here, there and everywhere before us. 'Oh,' say some who
should know better, 'put a duty on English goods, and make the Irish
buy their own productions.' What rubbish! when England buys almost
every yard of Irish woollen stuff, and could choke us off in a moment
by counter-tariffs. Without English custom the Irish tweed mills would
not run a single day.
"As an Irishman, I should like to have a Parliament of my own. I
suppose that is a respectable ambition. At the same time, I cannot see
where it would do us any substantial good. No, I do not think the
present Nationalist members loyal to the English Crown. Nor are they
traitors. A priest explained that very well. There's a distinction. 'A
man may not be loyal and yet not be a traitor, for how can a man be a
traitor to a foreign government?' said he. That sounded like the
truth. I thought that a reasonable statement. For, after all, we _are_
under foreign rule, and we have a perfect right to revolt against it
and throw off the English yoke if we could do it, and if it suited us
to do it. How to do it has been the talk since my childhood, and many
a year before. It is the leading idea of all secret societies, and
hardly any young man in Kerry and Clare but belongs to one or other of
them. The idea is to get rid of the landlords who hold the country for
England. There it is, now. We'll never be a contented conquered
province like Scotland. We'd be all right if we could only make
ourselves content. But the Divil is in us. That's what ye'll say. The
Divil himself is in Irishmen."
The Mayo folks are great temporary migrants. From the County Mayo and
its neighbour Roscommon come the bands of Irish harvesters which
annually invade England. Latterly they are going more than ever, and
the women also are joining in large numbers. The unsettled state of
the country and the threat of a College Green Parliament have made
work scarcer and scarcer, and the prevailing belief among the better
classes that the bill is too absurd to become law, is not sufficient
to counteract the chronic want of confidence inspired by the presence
of Mr. Gladstone at the helm of state. Five hundred workers went from
Westport Quay to Glasgow the other evening. More than two-thirds were
women from Achil Island, sturdy and sun-burnt, quaintly dressed in
short red kirtle, brilliant striped shawl, and enormous lace-up boots,
of fearful crushing power. Though not forbidding, the women were very
plain, ethnologically of low type, with small turn-up noses, small
eyes, large jaws, and large flat cheekbones. The men were ugly as sin
and coarse as young bulls, of which their movements were remindful. A
piper struck up a jig and couples of men danced wildly about, the
women looking on. Five shillings only for forty hours' sea-sickness,
with permission to stand about the deck all the time. Berths were, of
course, out of the question, and the boat moved slowly into the
Atlantic with hundreds of bareheaded women leaning over the sides.
Another boat-load will land at Liverpool, to return in September and
October. The best-informed people of these parts think that under the
proposed change the young female population of Mayo would be compelled
to stay in England altogether, and that their competition in the
English labour market would materially lower the rate of factory wage.
"They live hard and work like slaves when away from Ireland," said an
experienced sergeant of the Royal Irish Constabulary. "And yet they
are lazy, for on their return they will live somehow on the money they
bring back until the time comes to go again, and during the interval
they will hardly wash themselves. They will not work in their own
districts, nor for their friends, the small farmers. Partly pride,
partly laziness; you cannot understand them. The man who attempts to
explain the inconsistencies of the Irish character will have all his
work before him. Make the country a peasant-proprietary to suit the
small farmers, and the labouring class will go to England and Scotland
to live. The abolition of the big farmers will cut the ground from
under their feet. You will have Ireland bossing your elections, as in
America, and cutting the legs from under your artisans. For let me
tell you that once Paddy learns mechanical work he is a heap smarter
than any Englishman."