man in Ireland. He was a young fellow of about five-and-twenty, only a
few years in the constabulary, but somehow he got into sworn meetings
in disguise, and burst the whole thing up. The queerest feature about
this business is the fact that although everybody knew the man not a
shot was ever fired at him. That shows the fairness of the Fenians. A
member of the Brotherhood would have been promptly dealt with, you
bet. But Kennedy was an open enemy, and had a right to circumvent us
if he could. Give us credit for some chivalrous feeling. We certainly
deserved it, as this case amply proves.
"The Land League? The Ruffian League, the Burglar League, the
Pickpocket League, the Murder League--that's what I always called it.
A hole-and-corner way of carrying on the fight, which had been begun
by MEN, but which the latest fashion of Irishmen have not the courage
to canduct as men. The Fenian conception was high-souled, and had some
romance about it. We had a green flag with a rising sun on it, along
with the harp of Erin. Our idea was an open fight against the British
Empire. There's as much difference between the Fenians and their
successors as between the ancient Romans and the Italian organ-grinders
with monkeys. Good morning, Sir, and--God save the Queen."
This was a jocosity if not a mockery, but it was the first time I had
heard the words in Ireland. The tune is almost unknown, and the
current issue of _United Ireland_ ridicules the notion that the Irish
are going to learn it. The band of the Royal Irish Constabulary,
playing in front of their barracks in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, on
Friday evenings, sometimes include the tune in their programme, but
when I heard them it was led up to and preceded by "St. Patrick's Day
in the Mornin'," to which it was conjoined by one intervening chord. A
Castlereagh Protestant said:--
"The children here are taught to curse the Queen in their cradles.
Don't know how it is, but hatred to England seems bred in the bone of
the Catholic Irish. They make no secret of their hopes of vengeance.
The Protestants will have to levant in double-quick time. The people
here hate Protestants, whether English or Irish, likewise anybody who
holds a Government appointment. Some few days ago I was at Westport,
and while in the post office there, a beggar asked Mr. Hildebrand for
alms. You know that every western town swarms with beggars. He said
No, and this tramp immediately turned round and said:--
"'We'll very soon have ye out o' that, _now_.'
"A relative of mine, who holds a sub-office, has been told the same
thing fifty times. There you have the spirit of the poorer people. And
don't forget that the illiterates have the power in their hands. Just
think what this means.
"In England, with all your agricultural districts, with all your back
slums of cities, there was only one person in each hundred and seventy
who could not write his name, or at all events, one in a hundred and
seventy who was unable to manage his voting paper.
"In Ireland the figures were one in every five, and of the remainder
two at least were barely able to perform so simple an operation as
making a cross against the right name. Are these people fit to govern
themselves?
"There were two polling booths in Westport. There were three priests
at each door. Tell the English people that, and see what they think of
it.
"A Scotch gentleman staying in Westport during the late 'mission' was
stopped at the door of the Roman Catholic Church. He was not permitted
to enter, because the priests are ashamed to show civilised people the
credulity and crass ignorance of their congregation. At one of these
services everybody held a lighted candle, and at a given signal, Puff!
out went out the lights, and with them away went the sins of the
people.
"A priest was sent for in Achil. The case was urgent. A man was dying,
and without Extreme Unction his chances in the next world were
reckoned shady. The priest was enjoying himself in some festivity, and
the man died before his salvation arrived. A relative declared he
would tell the bishop. The priest reassured him with a scrap of paper,
whereon were written these words, signed by himself, 'Saint Peter.
Admit bearer.' 'Stick that in the dead man's fist,' said he. The man
went away delighted. These are the intelligent voters whose influence
is now paramount in the Parliament of England. It is by these poor
untutored savages, manipulated by their priests, that the British
Empire is now worked. The semi-civilised peasants of Connaught, with
the ignorant herds of Leinster and Munster, at the bidding of their
clergy have completely stopped the course of legislation, and left the
long-suffering and industrious working men of England and Scotland to
wait indefinitely for all the good things they want. The cry is,
Ireland stops the way. Why doesn't England kick it out of the way?
"Turn about is fair play. Let England have a turn now. Fair play is a
jewel, and Ireland has fair play. Ireland has privileges of which
neither England nor Scotland can boast. The Protestants of Ireland are
everywhere prosperous and content. The Catholics of Ireland are
everywhere impoverished and discontented. Wherever you go you find
this an invariable rule. The two sects may hold their farms from the
same landlord, on precisely similar terms, and you will find that the
Protestants pay their rent, and get on, while the Catholics don't pay,
and go from bad to worse."
"Is this extraordinary difference the result of British rule?"
Many a time I have asked Catholics this question. They cannot explain
the marked difference on the ground of alien government, as both are
subject to the same. They will say, 'Oh, Protestants are always well
off,' as if the thing were a matter of course, and must be looked upon
as inevitable. But why? I ask. That they can never tell.
Stand on a big hill near Tipperary and you will see four Roman
Catholic churches of modern build, costing nearly a hundred thousand
pounds. Father Humphreys will tell you how the money was raised, will
show you over Tipperary Cathedral, and will let you see the pig-styes
in which the people are housed. That is the man of God who wrote to
the papers and complained that it had been reported that the Catholic
clergy of Tipperary had done all they could to stop boycotting. Father
Humphreys said:--"I protest against this libel on me. _I am doing
nothing to stop boycotting._"
A neighbour of my friend spoke of many changes he had witnessed in the
political opinions of people who had become resident in Ireland,
having previously been Gladstonians in England. He said:--"When the
Achil Sound viaduct was opened, chiefly by the efforts of a Northern
Protestant who gave L1,500 towards the cost, a Scotchman named Cowan
was chief engineer. He came over a rabid Home Ruler, and such a
worshipper of Mr. Gladstone as cannot be found out of Scotland. In six
months he was Unionist to the backbone, and not only Unionist but
Conservative. The Achil folks, when once the bridge was built and
given to them, decided to call it Michael Davitt Bridge. It had not
cost them a penny, nor had they any part in it. At the priest's orders
they rushed forward to christen it; it was all they were good for.
They put up a big board with the name. Cowan went down alone, he could
not get a soul with pluck to go with him, and chopped the thing down,
the Achil Nationalists looking on. In the night they put up another
board, a big affair on the trunk of a tree, all well secured. Cowan
went down and felled it as before, watching it drift away with tide.
Then they gave it up. They wouldn't go Three! Carnegie, the Customs
man, came here a strong Home Ruler. Looking back, he says he cannot
conceive how he could be such an ass. A very cute Scotchman, too. Some
of the Gladstonians mean well. I don't condemn them wholesale, like
father does. You should hear him drop on English Home Rulers. He
understands the Irish agitator, but the English Separatist beats him.
I have been in England, and several times in Birmingham, and I have
heard them talk. Father is very peppery, but I moderate his
transports. Speaking of the English Home Rulers he'll say--
"'Pack o' rogues.'
"'No, no,' says I, 'only fools.'
"'Infernal idiots,' says he.
"'No, no,' says I, 'only ignorant.'
"As I said, I have been in England, and have heard them talk, so I
know."
He asked me if I had noticed the external difference between Irish
communities which support Home Rule and those which support the Union.
I said that a contrast so striking must impress the most casual
observer, for that, on the one hand, Unionism is always coupled with
cleanliness and decency, while on the other the intimate relationship
apparently existing between Home Rule and dunghills is most suggestive
and surprising.
Unionism and order: Separatism and ordure--that is about the sum.
Castlereagh, June 24th.
No. 40.--OBJECT LESSONS IN IRISH SELF-GOVERNMENT.
A small town with a great name, about one hundred miles west of
Dublin. There is a ruined castle, and one or two ruined abbeys, but
nothing else of interest, unless it be the herons which stalk about
the streams in its environs, and the Royston crows with white or gray
breast and back, which seem to be fairly numerous in these parts.
Ireland is a wonderful country for crows and ravens, which hop about
the village streets as tame as barndoor fowls. A King of Connaught is
buried in Saint Coenan's Abbey, but dead kings are almost as common as
crows, and Phelim O'Connor seems to have done nothing worthy of
mention beyond dying in 1265. I had hardly landed when I met a very
pronounced anti-Home Ruler, a grazier, apparently a smart business
man, and seemingly well up in the controversy. He said:--"I have
argued the question all over Ireland, and believe I have made as many
converts as anybody. Many of my countrymen have been carried away by
the popular cry, but when once they have the thing put to them from
the other side, and have time to think, they begin to have their
doubts. Naturally they first lean to the idea of an Irish Parliament.
It flatters Irish feeling, and when men look around and see the
country so poor and so backward they want to try some change or other.
The agitators see their opportunity, and say, 'All this results from
English interference. If we managed our own affairs we should be
better off all round.' This sounds plausible, and agrees with the
traditional distrust of England which the people have inherited from
past ages. Men who are fairly intelligent, and fairly reasonable, will
say, 'We can't be worse off than we are at present.' That is a stock
argument all over the country. The people who use it think it settles
the business. The general poverty of the people is the strength of the
Home Rule position. The priests tell them that a Government composed
of Irishmen would see them right, and would devote itself to looking
after their interests; and really the people have nobody to tell them
anything else. Nor are they likely to hear the other side, for they
are only allowed to read certain papers, and if Englishmen of
character and ability were to attempt to stump the country they would
not get a hearing. The clergy would make it warm for anybody who dared
to attend a Unionist meeting. So _that_ process is altogether out of
the question. Isolated Roman Catholic Unionists like myself need to be
in a very strong and independent position before they dare to express
their views. Roman Catholics of position are nearly all Unionists at
heart, but comparatively few of them dare avow their real convictions.
To do so is to couple yourself with the obnoxious land question. The
people, as a whole, detest landlords and England, and they think that
an opponent of Home Rule is necessarily a sympathiser with British
rule and landlordism, and therefore a foe to his country and a traitor
to his countrymen. Few men have the moral courage to face this
indictment. That is why the educated Catholic party, as a whole, hang
back. And then, they dislike to put themselves in direct opposition to
their clergy. Englishmen do not care one jot what the parson thinks of
their political opinions, but in Ireland things are very different. I
am against Home Rule because I am sure it would be bad for Ireland.
The prosperity of the country is of some importance to me, and for my
own sake and apart from sentimental considerations, and for the credit
of Ireland, I am against Home Rule. We should be poorer than ever. I
would not trust the present Irish party to manage anything that
required management. They have not the training, nor the business
capacity, nor sufficient consistency to work together for a single
week. They cannot agree even at this critical moment, when by their
own showing, the greatest harmony of action is required in the
interests of Ireland. I say nothing about their honesty, for the most
scrupulously honest men could not succeed without business ability and
united action. They are a set of talkers, good for quibbling and
squabbling and nothing more.
"They are M.P.'s because they can talk. Paddy loves a glib talker, and
a fellow with a good jaw on him would always beat the best business
man, even if Paddy were allowed his own choice. Of course he has no
choice--he votes as the priest tells him; but then the selected men
were all good rattling talkers, not in the House, perhaps, but in
their own country district in Ireland. Paddy thinks talking means
ability, and when a fellow rattles off plenty of crack-jaw words and
red-hot abuse of England, Paddy believes him able to regenerate the
world. These men are not allowed to speak in the House. They only
vote. But let me tell you they are kings in their own country.
"Since Parnell ordered his followers to contest all the elective
Boards in Ireland, the Nationalist party have almost monopolised the
Poor Law Boards, with the result that nearly every one has been openly
bankrupt, or else is in a state of present insolvency. Mr. Morley has
been asked for particulars but has declined to give them. He knows
that the list of insolvent Poor Law Boards in Ireland, if once given
with particulars, to the British public, would show up the prospects
of Home Rule in such a damaging way that 'the cause' would never
survive the shock. Why does not the Unionist party bring about this
exposure? Surely the information is obtainable, if not from Mr.
Morley, then from some other source.
"Why are they bankrupt? you ask. Partly through incompetence; partly
through corruption. In every case of declared bankruptcy Government
has sent down vice-Guardians receiving three hundred pounds to five
hundred pounds a year, and notwithstanding this additional burden to
the rates the vice-Guardians in every case have paid off all debts and
left a balance in hand inside of two years. Then they retire, and the
honorary Guardians come back to scuttle the ship again. Tell the
English people that. Mr. Morley cannot deny it. You have told them?
Then tell them again, and again.
"In the Killarney Union the Nationalists ran up the rates from one
thousand seven hundred pounds to three thousand six hundred pounds.
More distress? Not a bit of it. But even admitting this, how would you
account for the fact that the cost ran up from sixteen shillings a
head to twenty-five shillings a head for every person relieved?
"The Listowel Union was perhaps the biggest scandal in the country.
The Unionist Guardians relieved the people at a cost of five shillings
a head. The Nationalists got in and relieved them at a cost of fifteen
shillings a head. And there wasn't a reduction on taking a quantity,
for the Unionists only had two hundred on the books, while the
Nationalists had two thousand or more.
"At the same period exactly those Unions which remained under the old
rule showed little or no increase in the rates. Kenmare remained
Unionist, and when the great rise in poor-law expenses followed the
election of Nationalist Guardians Kenmare spent less money than ever.
"The Nationalist Guardians have been vising the poor rates to reward
their friends and to punish the landlords. They have been fighting the
landlords with money raised from the landlords by means of poor rates.
Evicted tenants generally received a pound or twenty-five shillings a
week out-door relief. This punishes the landlords, and saves the funds
of the Land League, now called the National League. Ingenious, isn't
it? These are the men who form the class furnishing the Irish
Parliamentary party. These bankrupt, incompetent, and fraudulent
Guardians are the men with whom English Gladstonians are closely
allied. The Board meetings are usually blackguardly beyond
description. You have no idea to what extremes they go. No Irishman
who loves his country would trust her to the tender mercies of these
fellows."
I have not yet been present at any meeting of an Irish Poor Law Board,
and probably, as my friend remarked, I "do not know to what extremes
they go." The _Mayo News_ of a week or two ago reported an ordinary
meeting of the Westport Board, and I noticed that one Guardian accused
his colleagues of stealing the potatoes provided out of the rates for
the paupers. This was reported in a Nationalist print edited by a
gentleman who has had the honour of being imprisoned for Land League
business. The report was evidently verbatim, and has not been
contradicted. The Westport folks took no notice of the affair, which
may therefore be assumed as representing the dead level of an Irish
Poor Law debate. To what sublime altitudes they may occasionally rise,
to "what extremes" they sometimes go, I know not. The College Green
Parliament, manned by such members, would have a peculiar interest.
The Speaker might be expected to complain that his umbrella (recently
re-covered) had mysteriously disappeared. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer might accuse the President of the Board of Trade of having
appropriated the National stationery, and the Master of the Rolls
might rise to declare that a sanguinary ruffian from Ulster had
"pinched his wipe." The sane inhabitants of the Emerald Isle affirm
that Home Rule would be ruinous to trade, but the vendors of
shillelaghs and sticking-plaster would certainly have a high old time.
An Englishman who has had exceptional opportunities of examining the
matter said:--"I don't care so much for Irish interests as for English
interests, and I am of opinion that no Englishman in a position to
form a correct judgment would for one moment support the bill. The
tension is off us now, because we feel that the danger to a great
extent is over. The bill could not be expected to survive a public
examination. The Gladstonians themselves must now see that the scheme
was not only absurd and impossible, but iniquitous. Under a Home Rule
Bill their native land would cut a sorry figure, such as would almost
shame the milk-sop Radical party, 'friends of every country but their
own.' A Government with a sufficient majority to carry a British
measure might at any time be turned out of office by the eighty Irish
members, who could at any time make their votes the price of some
further concession. And you know the character of the men, how
thoroughly unscrupulous they are. All are enemies of England, and yet
we who know them and the feeling of their constituencies are asked to
believe that they would never abuse their powers. Why give them the
temptation? Then, whatever debts Ireland might incur England would
have to pay, should Ireland repudiate them? The bill provides that
England shall be ultimately responsible for three-quarters of a
million annually for the servants of the Crown in Ireland, such
servants being at the orders of the Irish Legislature. It is a divorce
case, wherein the husband is to be responsible for the wife's debts
incurred after separation. This is Mr. Gladstone's fine proposition.
And then England will have no police under her control to make
defaulters pay up. You can't make the people pay rent and taxes with
all your present force. How are you going to collect the two or three
millions of Ireland's share in Imperial expenditure without any force
at all? The police will be at the orders of the Irish Parliament,
which will be returned by the very men who will owe the money. 'Oh
yes!' say Dillon, Healy, O'Brien, and all the rest of the No Rent and
Land League men. 'We'll see that the money is paid.' The previous
history of these men ought to be enough for Englishmen. But if Tim
Healy and Co. wished the money to be paid, they would have no power.
They must take their orders from the people. How would you collect the
interest on the eighteen or twenty millions Ireland now owes? The
police and civil officers would, under a Home Rule Bill, be the
servants of the Irish Government, and would have no sympathy with
England. A hitch would very soon arise between the two Parliaments
either on the interpretation of this or that clause, or else because
the Irish Parliament fell short of its duty in collecting the tribute.
The Irish Government would stand firm, and would be supported by
priests and people. The British Grenadiers would then come in, and
where would be the Union of Hearts? Irishmen are fond of a catch-word.
Like the French, they will go to death for a phrase. But the Union of
Hearts never tickled them. The words never fell from Irish lips except
in mockery.
"Protection would be the great rallying cry of a Home Rule Government.
The bill refuses power to impose protective duties, but Ireland would
commence by conceding bounties to Irish manufacturers, who would there
and then be able to undersell English traders. No use going further
into the thing, there is not a good point in it for either country. No
use flogging a dead horse. There never will be any Home Rule, and
there's no use in discussing it. A liberal measure of Local
Self-Government will be the upshot of this agitation, nothing more.
And that will come from the Tory party, the only friends of poor
Ireland."
The Parnellites are strong in Roscommon, and to hear them revile the
priests is both strange and sad. These are the only Catholics who
resent clerical dictation. They seem in a quandary. Their action seems
inconsistent with their expressed sentiments. They plainly see that
Home Rule means Rome Rule, and, while deprecating priestly influence,
they do their best to put the country into priestly hands. They speak
of the Anti-Parnellites with contempt and aversion, calling them
rogues and vagabonds, liars and traitors, outside the pale of
civilisation, and yet they work for Home Rule, which would put their
beloved Ireland in the power of the very men whose baseness and crass
incompetence they cannot characterise in terms sufficiently strong.
For the Anti-Parnellites outnumber the Parnellites by eight to one; so
that the smaller party, although monopolising all virtue, grace and
intellect, would have no show at all, unless, indeed, the Nationalists
were further subdivided, on which contingency the Parnellites probably
count with certainty. I interviewed a champagny little man whose views
were very decided. He said:--