watchman. He was, therefore, eminently fitted for both civil
and military administration. The speech of President Pat on
opening Congress developes his policy and his well-digested
plans of legislative reform. Here are a few quotations:--
The Key-stone of Government is the Blarney-stone.
Political progress may always be accelerated by a bludgeon.
Our institutions must be consolidated by soft-soap and whacks.
The People's will is made known by manifesto, and by many
fists too.
Every man shall be qualified to sit in Congress that is a
ten-pound pig-holder, provided that the pig and the member
sleep under the same roof.
Members of Congress will be paid for their services. Gentlemen
wearing gloves only to have the privilege of shaking the
President's hand. The unwashed members to be paid at the door.
Pipes will not be allowed on the Opposition benches, nor may
any member take whiskey until challenged by the President.
Under no circumstances will a member be suffered to sit with
his blunderbuss at full cock, nor pointed at the President's
ear.
Our Ambassadors will be chosen from our most meritorious
postmen, so that they may have no difficulty in reading their
letters.
The Foreign Office will be presided over by a patriotic editor
who has travelled in New South Wales and is thoroughly
conversant with the language.
Instead of bulwarks, the island will be fortified with Irish
Bulls, our engineers being of opinion that no other horn-works
are so efficient.
To prevent heartburnings between Landlord and Tenant, a
Government collector of rents shall be appointed, and
Tenant-right shall include a power to shoot over the land and
at anyone on it.
And this was written half-a-century ago. It reads like
yesterday!
Oughewall, June 10th.
No. 35.--IN A CONGESTED DISTRICT.
This is the first station on the Balfour line which is to run from
Westport to Achil Sound--now in process of construction by Mr. Robert
Worthington, the great Dublin contractor, who has built about a
million pounds' worth of Irish railway, and who is of opinion that
Home Rule means the bankruptcy of Ireland, and that the labouring
population of the country would by it be compelled to emigrate to
England, bringing their newly-acquired skill as railway workers into
competition with the navvies and general working population. The seven
miles of line between here and Westport are not yet packed and
ballasted, and the ride hither on an engine kindly placed at the
disposal of the _Gazette_, was not lacking in pleasurable excitement.
The bogey engine kicked and winced and bucked and cavorted in a
fashion unique in my experience. She seemed to be exhilarated by the
pure mountain air, charged with ozone from the Atlantic main. Watching
her little eccentricities, it was hard to believe her not endued with
animal vitality. She walked the railway like a thing of life. She
ducked and dived and plunged and snorted and reared and jibbed like a
veritable cocktailed nag of the true old Irish breed. Sometimes she
seemed to go from under you as she suddenly dipped into a slight
depression. Sometimes she rolled like a ship at sea, and you began to
wonder if sea-sickness were possible on land. The scenery is not
striking, and the surrounding country, though poor and desolate, is by
no means sterile. No tracts of black bog, no impassable morasses, no
miles of rocks and boulders, but a fairly good grazing country, with
here and there, at long intervals, a white cottage. The engine slows
at one point, where the rails are twisted into serpentine convolutions
by yesterday's tropical heat. Both sides are considerably displaced,
but they still bear the right relation to each other, and the faithful
machine, sniffing and picking her way carefully, glides safely over
the contorted path. A short tunnel, with sides of solid masonry and
roof-arch of brick, again demands extra care, and it is well that the
pace is slowed, for half-way through, a man becomes dimly visible
running a trolley off the line. Mountains arise on the left and in
front, and my old friend Croagh Patrick puts in his Nationalist
appearance. Then Newport heaves in sight, a cemetery on high ground
opposite the site of the station, and overhanging the line, kept in
its place by an immense retaining wall, without which the "rude
forefathers of the hamlet" would fall from their narrow cells and
block the progress of the civilising train. A handsome viaduct ends
the run, _finis coronat opus_, and I walk a hundred yards to see the
awkward spot which at first seemed to have no bottom, but which energy
and industry have conquered, as they conquer everything. The line was
going on happily until this point was reached, when a soft bog was
broached, which threatened to swallow everything, opening its
cavernous jaws with appetite which long seemed insatiable. The
engineer choked it off with a hundred thousand cubic yards of earth, a
quantity which to the untechnical ear sounds like a little kingdom, or
at least like a decent farm, and the bog cried, Hold! enough. The
total length of the line will be twenty-six-and-a-half miles, the
cost, exclusive of the permanent way, which is an extra of some L1,800
a mile, being L110,000, most of which is dispensed among the labourers
of the district, who thank the Balfour Administration for a great work
which would never have been undertaken as a merely commercial
speculation. The congested areas here, as elsewhere, have been
powerfully assisted and benefited by the sagacity which at once
afforded relief, improved the country, and opened the way to great
markets. Temporary assistance is succeeded by a solid and permanent
benefaction.
And still the people are not happy. Most of them are rather below the
Irish average. Their isolated position in the extreme west, and their
want of means of communication, may partly account for this. Few ever
see a newspaper, and when they do they only read stuff concocted for
them by unscrupulous people who write down to their level, and
deliberately endeavour to keep them in total darkness. The men
employed on the line work well, and Mr. William Ross, civil engineer,
tells me they are even better workers than the Galway men, to whom I
gave due credit for industry. The townsfolk are great politicians.
That is, they echo the absurdities they hear, and are ready to believe
anything, provided it is unlikely enough. The country papers of
Ireland are poor and illiterate beyond belief, but their assumption of
knowledge and superior information is amazing. One of the Galway rags
recently treated its readers to a confidential communication having
reference to the real sentiments of Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour as
opposed to those ostensibly affected by those statesmen and to those
with which they are popularly credited. Lord Salisbury is really dying
for Home Rule, and Mr. Balfour would depart in peace if he could once
behold a Dublin Parliament bossed by Tim Healy and William O'Brien.
Lord Salisbury is not so bad as he seems, nor is Balfour altogether
beyond hope of salvation. Both are under a kind of Tory terrorism
which makes them say the thing that is not, compels them against their
wishes to fight, forces them reluctantly to make a show of opposition.
But both of them wink the other eye and have doubtless unbosomed
themselves--in strict confidence--to the editor of the Galway paper.
The poor folks of Ireland swallow this stuff, and will quote it
gravely in argument. The _Irish Catholic_ has a large circulation, and
a glance over its columns, particularly its advertising columns, is
highly suggestive at the present juncture. People offer to swop
prayers, just as in _Exchange and Mart_ people wish to barter a pet
hedgehog for a lop-eared rabbit, or a cracked china cup for a gold
watch and chain. Gentleman wishes someone to say fifteen Hail Marys
every morning at eight o'clock for a week, while he, in return, will
knock off a similar number of some other good things. The trade in
masses is surprising. For a certain sum you get one mass a week for a
year, for a higher figure you get two masses a week _and_ an
oleograph, for a trifle more you get mentioned in special prayers for
benefactors, with a rosary that has touched the relics of
Thomas-a-Becket or has been laid on the shrine of Blessed Thomas More.
One advertisement sets forth the proviso that unless the payment is
regular the supplications will be stopped. No pay, no prayer. _Point
d'argent, point de pretre._ Prayers and advice, political or
otherwise, at lowest terms for cash. No discount allowed. A reduction
on taking a quantity.
A very knowing Newport man explained the present political position.
"'Tis as simple as Ah, Bay, Say. Parnell wint over to France an'
Amerikay, an' explained to thim how the English was oppressin' and
ruinin' the poor Irish people; an' whin the Saxon seen he was found
out, an' whin the Americans sent thousands an' thousands of pounds to
pay the cliverist men in Ireland to fight the English in Parlimint,
thin the English begun to give us back part of what they robbed us of.
Every bite ye get in England manes that much less in an Irish mouth,
an' the counthry is all starvin' becase England is fattenin'. All the
young folks is gone out of the counthry; an' why did they go? Becase
England makes the laws, an' becase she makes the laws to suit herself,
an' to ruin us. Sure nine-tenths of the land is owned by Englishmen,
who make us pay twice, aye, an' four times the rint the land is worth;
an' that's what England thinks us good for, an' nothin' else. We're
just slaves to the Saxon, as many's the time I heard the priest sayin'
it. An' it was thrue for him. Sure, the counthry is full of coal, an'
if we wor allowed to get it we'd be as rich as England in five years.
Sure, Lord Sligo's estate is made of coal, an' although he's a
Conservative, an' a Unionist, an' a Protestant, the English Parlimint
wouldn't allow him to get it because it was in Ireland, an' they wor
afraid the Irish would get betther off. An' sure they want to keep us
paupers, so that we'll be compelled to 'list for sojers, an' fight for
England against Rooshia and Prooshia, an' Injy, an' foreign parts,
that the English is afraid to do for themselves."
His opinions are not below the intellectual average of those held by
the majority of the Irish electorate. The ignorance of the rank and
file of the Irish voters is exasperating to Englishmen, who are quite
unable to understand their credulity, to combat their bitter
prejudices, or to make headway against their preconceived notions.
English Gladstonians who believe that Home Rule ought to be a good
thing will stagger with dismay when confronted with the people who
will rule the roost. For the intelligent are nowhere in point of
numbers. The thick-witted believers in charms, in fairies, in the
curative and preservative virtues of holy water, will have the country
in their hands. The poor benighted peasants, who firmly believe that
Mr. Balfour has the moonlighters in his pay, and that the murders of
the Land League were ordered by Lord Salisbury to cast discredit on
the national cause--these are the people who, voting as they are told
by the priests, would govern the action of the Irish Parliament. They
believe that Home Rule by some magic process will supply the place of
industry and enterprise, will open up innumerable sources of boundless
wealth, and will bring about Mr. Gladstone's "chronic plethora" of
money. But, above all, the people are to be for ever delivered from
the "English yoke." What the phrase means they know not. They only
repeat what they have heard. The dogs around Newport are muzzled. It
would be well for the people if their advisers were muzzled too.
Public feeling is well organised in Ireland. Although the people are
not readers of daily news, the kind of sentiment ordered at
head-quarters is immediately entertained. How it spreads nobody knows,
unless it is spread from the altar. A change has come over the public
sentiment. Among the more intelligent farmers there is a revolt
against Home Rule. At a Unionist meeting held the other day at
Athenry, all the speakers agreed on this point. One said that the
change might be inoperative, because the farmers dare not avow their
true opinions, because they have little or no faith in the secrecy of
the ballot, and because they dread the unknown consequences of ruffian
vengeance. The ignorant masses have also experienced a change. They
have been undergoing a process of preparation for the next agitation.
The poor folks at first believed that when they got Home Rule all
would be well. That consummation devoutly to be wished, was to enrich
them all. The agitators have to guard against the resentment of the
disappointed people. They are hedging industriously. If Home Rule
should come it will do no good, because it is not the right brand.
John Bull has spoilt it all, as he spoils everything. Home Rule would
have done all they promised, but this is not the Home Rule they meant!
They took it at first as a small instalment of what they would
afterwards kick out of the Saxon, but those outrageous Unionists have
shaved it down to almost nothing. It is not worth having, and the only
thing to do, say some Newport politicians, is for the Irish
Nationalist party to rise in a body an' lave the House, an' not put a
fut back into it till they get what they want. I wish my Newport
friends could make their counsel prevail.
The latest phase of feeling, then, is an affected indignation at this
supreme treachery of the English people. Over and over again I have
quoted the opinions of people who said Mr. Gladstone meant to hoax
Ireland again. This was when all seemed to be going quite smoothly.
The Government concessions and the moderate use of the closure have
convinced the doubters that they were right, and they breathe battle
and slaughter. Irishmen like fighting debates, decided measures,
tremendously hard hitting. As a people they do not believe in
constitutional agitation. They would prefer sudden revolutions,
cannons roaring, blood and thunder. They openly avow their preference,
and say that this would have been their method, but that England has
elaborately disarmed the country, which declaration clashes with the
popular opinion, often exultantly expressed, that Ireland is full of
arms. The truth is with the revolutionaries, who would certainly
prefer battle but for its well-known danger. If Ireland could be freed
by moonlighters firing at long ranges from behind stone walls, with an
inaccessible retreat within easy reach, the English yoke would have
but a short shrift.
A frantic Newporter said:--"We never got anything by love, but always
by fear, and compulsion should be our motto. I've no patience wid thim
that'll stand hat in hand, or be going down on their knees to England
for every bit an' sup. John Mitchel an' James Stephens was the only
men of modern times who properly understood how to manage the English.
Of coorse, Parnell did something to advance the cause, an' 'tis thrue
that he had no revolution nor insurrection of the old sort. But the
Land League was arranged to include all the secret associations and to
make use of thim all. Ye had Whiteboys, an' Fenians an' Ribbonmen agin
ye, an' ye can't say but what the secret societies did the business,
an' not what they call the constitutional agitation. Ye might have
talked to the English Parlimint till doomsday an' ye'd not make it
move a hair's-breadth for Ireland. But follow up yer talk wid a bit of
shootin' an' then ye'll see what ye will see. 'Twas very bad, an' no
man could agree wid it; but it did what no talkin' would ever have
done. Compulsion is the right idea. An' what about dynamite? If ye
look properly at the thing, why wouldn't we use dynamite? Haven't we a
right to do as _we_ choose in Ireland? Ought not the Irish people to
be masters of Ireland? We say clear out--lave us to ourselves, take
away yer landlords, yer sojers, yer police, an' _thin_ we'll not have
recoorse to dynamite. We have a right to free ourselves by any means
that comes handy. All's fair in love an' war. No, I'm not sayin' that
I'd do it meself personally. But whin ye come to look into it, why
wouldn't we be justified in usin' dynamite? Ye pitched shells into
Alexandria whin it suited ye. Why wouldn't we blow up London wid
dynamite, if it suited us?"
The Newport people have not heard of the Union of Hearts. A decent old
man who was trying to sell home-spun tweed of his own making,
said:--"The English has been hittin' us for many a year, but whin we
git Home Rule we'll be able to hit thim back. God spare me to see that
day!" And he raised his hat, just as the people mentioned by Mr. A.M.
Sullivan, M.P., "raised their hats reverentially" when they heard that
a landlord or agent was shot. Whenever I hear a friendly sentiment, a
friendly wish, a friendly aspiration in connection with England from
the lips of any Nationalist I will gladly record it, if possible, in
letters of gold. I do not expect this to happen. Speakers who attack
England are most popular. The more unscrupulous and violent they are,
the better their reception. Nationalist M.P.'s who in England have
spoken well of Mr. Gladstone or of the English people are sharply
hauled over the coals. The fighting men are the patriot's glory. The
Irish people believe that the introduction of a Home Rule Bill is due
to the action of their bullies, rather than to the persuasive argument
of their civilised men. A very small minority desire to give John Bull
some credit for fair play, an opinion hotly resented by the mob.
"Ah, now, listen to me, thin."
"Sure, I'm lookin' at ye."
"Don't I know we bate the Bill out of Bull."
"An' how would ye know, at all, at all?"
"How would I know, is it? D'ye take me for a fool?"
"Arrah, thin, sure I would not judge ye by yer looks!"
That is a model bar spar, the combatants drinking dog's-nose,
sometimes called "powdher an' ball"--a drink of neat whiskey washed
down by a pot of porter. The Connaught folk drink whiskey neat, but
usually follow the spirit with water. They take up both glasses at
once, and after a loving sniff at the poteen they pour it slowly down,
the shebeen stuff tasting like a torchlight procession. Then they
hastily toss off the water, making a wry face, and mostly addressing
to the despised fluid the remark--
"Ye'll find IT gone on before!"
The desperate appeal of the Parnellite party for funds has evoked much
merriment among Irish Unionists, and much burning scorn from
anti-Parnellites--who themselves have much need of the money. A young
friend has sent me the following parody, adapted from an old and
well-known, melody:--
The patriot came down like a wolf on the fold,
And all that he asked was their silver and gold;
And he pocketed all that he got, as his fee,
From the shores of the Liffey to rocky Tralee.
Tho' Pat looked as naked and bleak as his soil,
Yet there stood the patriot to sack up the spoil.
And from parish to parish the box went its rounds--
If we give you our speeches you must give us your pounds.
The coming golden time is neatly hinted at. Home Rule will pay for
all:--
When it comes, you no longer shall lie in a ditch,
Every beggar among you at once shall be rich;
The hedger and ditcher shall have an estate,
And drive his four horses, and dine off his plate.
What! you won't? And your champion in want of a meal,
With his coat out at elbows, his shoes down at heel;
With his heart all as black as his speeches in print!
Boys, I know what you'll do: you'll just keep back the Rint.
Now down with your cash, never think of the jail,
For Erin's true patriots the Virgin is bail;
She'll rain down bank notes till the bailiff is blind--
Still you're slack! Then I'll tell you a piece of my mind.
The priest is invoked to compel unwilling subscribers:--
Would you like to be sent, in the shape of a ghost,
To be pokered by demons and browned like a toast?
Or be hung in a blaze with a hook in your backs,
Till you all melt away like a cake of bees'-wax?
Would you like to be pitchforked down headlong to Limbo,
With the Pope standing by with his two arms akimbo?
No matter who starves, plank down on the spot,
Pounds, shillings, and pence; we'll take all that you've got.
The poem breathes the true spirit of Separatism-cum-Sacerdotalism.
Newport (Co. Mayo), June 15th.
No. 36.--IRISH IMPROVIDENCE THE STUMBLING BLOCK.
The further journey from Newport to Mulranney on the _Gazette_ special
engine was yesterday delayed for a few hours by the announcement that
during the night part of the line had sunk into a bog--a circumstance
which might have seemed unusual and ominous to English engineers, but
which Mr. Lionel Vaughan Bennett regarded as a mere matter of daily
routine, hardly worth more than a passing mention. There was nothing
for it but to take another walk round Newport, and after further
admiring the great wall holding up the embankment opposite the
station--a colossal work executed under great difficulties--to look at
the surrounding landscape. Those who are interested in engineering may
like to know the dimensions of this wall, which is two hundred feet
long, thirty-five feet high, and ten feet thick at the base, tapering
off to a thickness of five feet at the top, and is built of a fine
limestone quarried from the railway cutting a little further out. The
view from either of the ridges between which the town is built, is
magnificent, mountain, valley, sea, and river contributing to the
effect. From one ridge you see Clew Bay and the Croagh Patrick range,
with an immense tract of country of varied appearance. From the other,
immediately above the station, an enormous valley stretches away to
the Bogagh mountain in front and the peaked summit of Lettermoughra on
the left. At the latter point of view are some wooden cabins which the
Saxon might mistake for pigsties or small cowsheds until he discovered
they were inhabited by patriots, keen on Home Rule and charitable
coppers. Beware of civility in these parts. From casual passers-by it
nearly always means an appeal for alms, and after a few days'
experience you are apt to fall into misanthropy. Some of these beggars
have a fine dramatic way of opening the conversation. A hale and
seemingly able-bodied man of fifty or thereabouts came up carrying a
wheel, which he dropped when about ten yards away with the fervently
uttered exclamation--
"God help the poor--owld--man!"
This adjuration falling short of its aim, he came up and asked for "a
few coppers," at the same time invoking about sixpennyworth of
blessings in advance, a sort of sprat to catch a mackerel.
"Got no coppers," I said, rather impatiently.
"May ye never have one till the day of yer death," said the good old
man, this time with an unmistakable accent of sincerity. He hobbled
off with the wheel, muttering something which may have been blessings,
and a fine healthy young fellow came up. "Good mornin', an' 'tis a
foin bit of scenery, but we can't ate it, an' we'd die afore we'd go
into the poorhouse, an' a thrifle of money for a dhraw at the pipe
would be as welkim as the flowers of May, an' 'tis England is the
grate counthry, and thim that was in it says that Englishmen is tin
per cint. betther than Irishmen, aye, twinty per cint."--and so
forth, and so forth. There were six more applications in a hundred
yards, one of them from a well-dressed boy of fourteen or fifteen, who
gracefully reclined on a bank with his legs crossed, his arms under
his head. Begging to the Irish race is as natural as breathing. They
have an innate affinity for blessing and begging, and they beg without
need. Anything to avoid work. They are for the most part entirely
destitute of a spirit of independence. They will not dig, and to beg
they are not ashamed. According to a Newport authority they are
growing worse than ever. While I awaited the fishing up of the line he
said:--