are not only traitors to the greatest Irishmen of the age, but also
mean-spirited tools of the Catholic bishops. A man may have proper
respect for his faith, and may yet resent the dictation of his family
priest. I admit his superior knowledge of spiritual matters, but I
think I know what politics suit me best, and I send him to the
rightabout. Let him look after the world to come. That's his business.
I'm going to look after this world for myself. The main difference
between the Parnellites and the Anti-Parnellites is just this--the
Parnellites keep themselves independent of any English party; the
Anti-Parnellites have identified themselves with the English Liberals,
and bargain with them. My view is this, that the English Radicals will
use the Irish party for their own ends, that they want to utilise them
in carrying out the Newcastle programme, and that having so used them
the Irishmen may go and hang themselves. 'We give you Home Rule and
you give us the Newcastle budget'--that's the present arrangement. But
after that? What then? Ireland will want the Home Rule Bill amended.
The first bill (if ever we get it) must be very imperfect, and will
want no end of improvement. It is bound to be a small, mean affair,
and will want expansion and breadth. Then the Radicals will chuck over
the Anti-Parnellites, who will be equally shunted by the Tories, and
we shall be left hanging in the air. The Parnellites aim at getting
everything on its merits, and decline to identify themselves with any
party. They wish to be called Independents. And they one and all
decline to be managed by the priests. The seventy-three
Anti-Parnellites are entirely managed by the Clerical party. They have
no will of their own any more than the pasteboard men you see in the
shop windows, whose legs and arms fly up and down, when you pull a
string. They are just like Gladstonians in that respect."
The Parnellites are hard up, and their organ asks America for cash.
The dauntless nine want six thousand pounds for pocket-money and hotel
expenses. The cause of Ireland demands this sacrifice. After so many
contributions, surely America will not hold back at the supreme
moment. The Anti-Parnellites are bitterly incensed. To act
independently of their faction was of itself most damnable, but still
it could be borne. To ask for money from America, to put in a claim
for coppers which might have flowed into Anti-Parnellite pockets,
shows a degradation, an unspeakable impudence for which the _Freeman_
cannot find adequate adjectives. The priest-ridden journal speaks of
its fellow patriots as caluminators and liars, tries to describe their
"baseness," their "inconceivable insolence and inconceivable
stupidity," and breaks down in the effort. A column and a half of
space is devoted to calling the Parnellites ill names such as were
formerly applied by Irish patriots to Mr. Gladstone. And all because
they compete for the cents of Irish-American slaveys and bootblacks.
The Parnellites are not to be deterred by mere idle clamour. Both
parties are accustomed to be called liars and rogues, and both parties
accept the appellations as a matter of course. Nothing can stop them
when on the trail of cash. Is Irish sentiment to be again disappointed
for a paltry six thousand pounds? Is the Sisyphean stone of Home Rule,
so laboriously rolled uphill, to again roll down, crushing in its fall
the faithful rollers? Will not some American millionaire come forward
with noble philanthropy _and_ six thousand pounds to rescue and to
save the most beautiful, the most unfortunate country in the world
from further disappointment? Only six thousand pounds now required for
the great ultimate, or penultimate, or antepenultimate effort. Another
twopence and up goes the donkey!
Roscommon, June 27th.
No. 41.--THE CHANGED SPIRIT OF THE CAPITAL.
The Dubliners have quite given up the bill. The Unionist party have
regained their calm, and the Nationalists are resigned to the
position. Nobody, of whatever political colour, or however sanguine,
now expects the measure to become law. The Separatist rank and file
never hoped for so much luck, and their disappointment is therefore
anything but unbearable. My first letter indicated this lack of faith
and also its cause. The Dublin folks never really believed a British
Parliament would so stultify itself. The old lady who, on my arrival,
said "We'll get Home Rule when a pair of white wings grows out o' me
shoulders, an' I fly away like a big blackburd," finds her pendant in
the jarvey, who this morning said, "If we'd got the bill I would have
been as much surprised as if one o' me childhren got the moon by
roarin' for it." Distrust of Mr. Gladstone is more prevalent than
ever, and the prophets who all along credited that pious statesman
with rank insincerity are now saying "I towld ye so." The
Lord-Lieutenant is making his Viceregal progress in an ominous
silence. The Limerick people let him go without a cheer. At Foynes
something like a procession was formed, with the parish priest at its
head; but the address read by his Rivirince reads very like a
scolding. It points out that "our rivers are at present without
shipping, our mills and factories are idle, and it is a sad sight to
see our beautiful Shannon, where all her Majesty's fleet could safely
ride on the estuary of its waters, without almost a ship of
merchandise on its surface on account of the general decay of our
trade and commerce." The address further shows that "we enjoy a
combination of natural advantages in the shape of a secure, sheltered
anchorage, together with railway and telegraph in immediate proximity
to the harbour and the pier, and postal service twice daily, both
inwards and outwards, and a first-class quality of pure water laid on
to the pier. The facility for landing or embarking troops, or for
discharging or loading goods or stores is as near perfection as
possible, and having a range of depth of water of twenty-five feet at
low-water spring tide, the harbour can accommodate ships of deep
draught at any state of the tide." These advantages, mostly owing to
British rule, with others, such as the "unique combination of mountain
and river scenery," were not enumerated as subjects for thankfulness,
but rather by way of reproach, the effect of the whole address being a
veiled indictment of British rule. No doubt Lord Houghton's first
impulse would be to exclaim, "Then why on earth don't you use your
advantages? With good quays, piers, storehouses, and a broad deep
river, opening on the Atlantic, why don't you do some business?" But
he promised to do his best to send them a guard-ship, in order that
the crew might spend some money in the district. The Galway folks
asked him to do something for them. My previous letters have shown the
incapacity of the Galwegians to do anything for themselves, and how,
being left to their own devices--having, in fact, a full enjoyment of
local Home Rule--their incompetence has saddled the city with a debt
of fifty thousand pounds for which they have practically nothing to
show, except an additional debt of one thousand pounds decreed against
them for knocking the bottom out of a coaling vessel during their
"improving" operations, which sum they never expect to pay, as the
harbour tolls are collected by the Board of Works, which thus
endeavours to indemnify itself for having lent them the "improvement"
funds. The Killybegs folks showed the poor Viceroy their bay and told
him what wonderful things they could do if they only had a pier, or a
quay, or something. The Achil folks formerly said the same thing. Two
piers were built but no man ever goes near them. The Mulranney folks
pointed out that while Clew Bay, and particularly the nook of it
called Mulranney Bay, was literally alive with fish, the starving
peasants of the neighbourhood could do nothing for want of a pier. The
brutal Saxon built one at once--a fine handsome structure, at once a
pier, a breakwater, and a harbour, with boat-slips and three stages
with steps, so that boats could be used at any tide. I stepped this
massive and costly piece of masonry, and judged it to be a hundred
yards long. There were six great mooring posts, but not a boat in
sight, nor any trace of fishing operations. A broad new road to the
pier was cut and metalled, but no one uses it. The fishing village of
Mulranney, with its perfect appointments, would not in twelve months
furnish you with one poor herring. The pier of Killybegs would
probably be just as useful to the neighbourhood.
The Dublin Nationalist prints make some show of fight, but the people
heed them not. They know too well that their inward conviction that
Home Rule is for the present defunct is founded on rock. In vain the
party writers use the whip. Your Irishman is cute enough to know when
he is beaten. The new-born regard of the Irish press for Parliamentary
purity is comical enough. Obstruction is the thing they hate.
Ungentlemanly conduct in the House stinks in their nostrils. Fair play
is their delight, and underhand dealing they particularly abhor. Mr.
Gladstone is too lenient, and although his failings lean to virtue's
side, his action is too oily altogether. He is old and weak, and
lubricates too much. They in effect accuse him of fatty degeneration
of the brain. Something heroic must be done. Those low-bred ruffians,
the Unionists, must be swept from the path of Erin, while her eloquent
sons, actuated by patriotism and six pounds a week, and spurred on by
the hope of even a larger salary, obtain after seven centuries some
show of justice to Ireland. The Irish wire-pullers demand decisive
action. They declare that they will no longer submit to the
"happy-go-lucky policy of the gentlemen who survey life from the
Ministerial benches." They must "put themselves in fighting form and
show their supporters that they mean business." "Unless the Ministry
mean to throw up the sponge they had better begin the fighting at
once." The Irish party "are looking for the action of the Government
which is to make it evident to the Opposition that the majority mean
to rule in the House of Commons, for unless this be done Parliamentary
government becomes a farce." If Mr. Gladstone continues the policy of
hesitation and waiting on Providence, the fate of Home Rule, and with
it the fate of the Liberal party, are sealed. "Obstruction" (says the
Parnellite paper) cannot be permitted!" It is the revelation of the
impotency of Parliament, and Parliamentary procedure must be replaced
by some quicker means of effecting reform. Mr. Gladstone's feebleness
is an incitement to revolution. The Dublin press would manage these
things better. An autumn session must not be adventured. If the House
should rise before the bill has passed the Commons such a confession
of weakness would fatally damage the Government prestige. The House
must "be kept in permanent session, and not kept too long," which
sounds like a bull, but the next sentence is plain enough.
"The obvious policy is to at once take the Opposition by the throat.
That will excite enthusiasm, and convince the people that a Liberal
Government is good for something."
The Nationalist prints are assuming the office of candid friend, a
part which suits them admirably, and in the performance of which they
make wonderful guesses at truth. The Gladstonian Ministry "are
helpless and impotent in the hands of their opponents. The reforms so
ardently desired by the people are seen to be mere mirages, called up
to win the votes of the people for men who, once in office, make no
real effort to enforce the mandate given to them by the country." The
Liberal Ministry will be "swept out of existence because the people
will come to recognise that their promises and programmes are so many
hollow phrases, incapable of ministering to the needs or satisfying
the aspirations of the multitude." "The real tug of war," says this
Home Rule sheet, "will come in the next election." If Irish
Separatists talk like this, what do Irish Unionists say?
Very little, indeed. They are disposed to rest and be thankful. They
only want to be let alone. They are quiet and reserved, and thank
their stars that the worst is over. The nervousness, the high-strung
tension of three months ago, is conspicuous by its absence. They
feared that the thing would be rushed, and that Mr. Bull would stamp
the measure without looking at it, would be glad to get rid of it at
any price, would say to Ireland, "Take it, get out of my sight, and be
hanged to ye!" Thanks to the Unionist leaders, whose ability and
devotion are here warmly recognised, the Dubliners know no fear. The
ridiculous abortion has been dragged into the sunlight, and ruthlessly
dissected. John's commonsense can be trusted, once he examines for
himself, and worthy Irishmen lie down in peace. The graver Dubliners
prefer to speak of something else. The young bloods still make fun of
the "patriots," and conjure up illimitable vistas of absurd
possibilities under an Irish Government. They invariably place the
hypothetic Cabinet under the direct orders of Archbishop Walsh, and
continue to make fun of that great hierarch's famous malediction on
Freemasonry. The good Archbishop, they say, takes a large size in
curses. They declare that his curse on the Masonic bazaar for orphans
was a marvel of comprehensive detail; that it cursed the
stall-holders, the purchasers, the tea-pot cosies and fender-stools,
the five-o'clock tea-tables and antimacassars, the china ornaments,
and embroidered slippers, with every individual bead; the dolls, both
large and small; the bran that stuffed the dolls, and the very squeaks
which resulted from a squeeze on the doll's ribs. Never was heard such
a terrible curse. But what gave rise to no little surprise, nobody
seemed one penny the worse. These scoffers propose to discontinue the
habit of swearing. When the Archbishop produces no effect, what's the
good of a plain layman's cursing? They declare that the dentists of
Dublin are all Home Rulers, and that the selfishness of their
political faith is disgustingly obvious. These mocking Unionists
discuss probable points of etiquette likely to arise in the
Legislature of College Green, and dispute as to whether members will
be allowed to attend with decidedly black eyes, or whether they will
be excluded until the skin around their orbs has arrived at the pale
yellow stage. Some are of opinion that no Cabinet Minister should be
allowed to sit while wearing raw beefsteak, and a story is going the
rounds to the effect that some of the Irish members recently wished to
cross the Channel for half-a-crown each, and to that end called on a
boat agent, a Tory, who knew them, when the following conversation
took place:--
"Can we go across for half-a-crown each?"
"No, ye can't, thin."
"An' why not?"
"Because 'tis a cattle boat."
"Never mind that, sure we're not particular."
"No, but the cattle are."
There was a great rush for Dynamitard Daly's letter, and some of his
sentences were made subjects of leading articles in the Nationalist
press. One paragraph seems to have been neglected. He writes--"Friend
Jack, you amazed me when you mentioned the names of ex-felons now
honourable members of the Imperial Parliament. And so they seem to
forget the days when _they_ were felons? Ah, well, thank God, the
people did not forget them in their hour of need, and though some of
them may try to palm off their own selfish ambitions on the people to
whom they owe everything as genuine patriotism--oh, it won't do!" John
Daly holds the same opinion of his fellow patriots as is expressed in
a remarkable letter to the Separatist _Dublin Evening Herald_, wherein
the writer says that his party is "disgusted with the duplicity of Mr.
Gladstone," and goes on to say that "No one now believes that the bill
will pass, and almost everyone believes it was never intended to pass.
I have not yet met anybody who expressed themselves as even remotely
satisfied with it. Peace to its ashes." I quote this as proving two
points I have always endeavoured to urge--first, that the Irish
distrust Mr. Gladstone, and are not grateful to him or his party; and,
second, that no bill short of complete independence will ever satisfy
the Irish people. It is what they expect and look forward to as the
direct outcome of Home Rule, which they only want as a stepping-stone.
This cannot fail to impress itself on any unbiassed person who rubs
against them for long. The teaching of the priests is eminently
disloyal, and although the utmost care is taken to prevent their
disloyalty becoming public, instances are not lacking to show the
general trend. Father Sheehy, an especial friend of the Archbishop
Walsh aforesaid, thus delivered himself anent a proposed visit of the
Prince and Princess of Wales to Ireland:--"There is no need for a
foreign prince to come to Ireland. The Irish people have nothing to
say to the Prince of Wales. He has no connection with Ireland except
that link of the Crown that has been formed for the country, which is
the symbol of Ireland's slavery." This priest said he hated
landgrabbers; all except one. "There is but one landgrabber I like,
and that is the Tsar of Russia, who threatens to take territory on the
Afghan border from England." Father Arthur Ryan, of Thurles, the seat
of Archbishop Croke, has printed a manifesto, in which he
says:--"Ever since the Union the best and most honourable of Irishmen
have looked on rebellion as a sacred duty, provided there were a
reasonable chance of success. It has never occurred to me to consider
acquiescence to the Government of England as a moral obligation or as
other than a dire necessity. We have never, thank God, lied to our
oppressors by saying we were loyal to them. And when we have condemned
the rebels whose heroism and self-sacrifice we have loved and wept
over, we condemned not their want of loyalty, but their want of
prudence. We thought it wrong to plunge the land into the horrors of
war with no hope of success."
So much for our trusty and well-beloved fellow-subjects of this realm
of England. Father Ryan is candid, truthful, and outspoken, and
commands respect. Better an open enemy than a false friend. His
summing-up of Irish feeling to England is both concise and accurate,
but one of his sentences is hardly up to date. He thanks God that the
Irish have never lied by saying they were loyal. How many Irish
members can make this their boast? Compared with them, the Ribbonmen
were heroes. The glorious prototypes of the modern member murdered
their foes themselves, did their slaughtering in person, and took the
risk like men. They hated Englishmen, _qua_ Englishmen, and made no
secret of it. The modern method is easier and more convenient. To
murder by proxy, to have your hints carried out without danger to
yourself, and to draw pay for your hinting, is a triumph of
nineteenth-century ingenuity. To pose as loyal subjects and to disarm
suspicion by protestations of friendship and brotherly love may be a
more effective means of attaining your end, but it smacks too much of
the serpent. The Ribbonmen were rough and rugged, but comparatively
respectable. The Irish Separatists are just as disloyal, and
infinitely more treacherous. The parchment "loyalty to Her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen," which Lord Houghton is in some places
receiving, is revolting to all who know the truth. The snake has
succeeded the tiger, and most people hate sliminess. Nationalist
Ireland is intensely disloyal from side to side, and from end to end.
Disloyal and inimical she has been from the first, and disloyal and
inimical she remains, and no concessions can change her character. She
is religious with a mediaeval faith, and she follows her spiritual
guides, whose sole aim is religious ascendancy. So long as the Roman
Catholic Church is not predominant so long the Irish people will
complain. You may give them the land for nothing; you may stock their
farms--they will expect it; you may indemnify them for the seven
hundred years of robbery by the English people--they say they ought to
be indemnified; you may furnish every yeoman with a gun and
ammunition, with _carte blanche_ as to their use with litigious
neighbours; you may lay on whiskey in pipes, like gas and water, but
without any whiskey rate; you may compel the Queen to do Archbishop
Walsh's washing, and the Prince of Wales to black his sacred boots,
while the English nobility look after the pigs of the foinest pisintry
in the wuruld, and still the Irish would be malcontents. The Church
wants absolute predominance, and she won't be happy till she gets it.
Parnell was Protestant and something of a Pope. Tim Healy tried to
wear the leader's boots, but Bishop Walsh reduced him to a pulp. This
good man rules Dublin, and through Dublin, Ireland. You cannot walk
far without running against his consecrated name. At present the city
is labelled as follows:--
"By direction of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, the annual
collections for our Holy Father the Pope will take place on July the
second." The National League and Our Holy Father the Pope between them
cut very close. No wonder that poor Paddy has hardly a feather left to
fly with.
"An ardent Nationalist" thus expresses himself in the Separatist
_Herald_:--"I fear we must reluctantly abandon hope of a Home
Parliament for a few more years. For the present we will have to
content ourselves with Local Government, an ample measure of which
will be given by the _Conservatives_. On the whole, ardent Nationalist
as I am, I do not look on this as an unmixed evil. What kind of
Government would be possible under six or seven factions?" This should
be a staggerer for the English Home Rule party. The italics are in the
original, and the writer goes on to say, "It is open to doubt that we
should be able to at once manage our own affairs without some
preliminary training." The whole letter is a substantial repetition of
the sentiments emanating from a Home Ruler of Tralee, recounted in my
letter from that town of Kerry.
Parnell is still worshipped in Dublin. He looks big beside his
successors. His grave in the splendid cemetery of Glasnevin is well
worth a visit, although there is no monument beyond a cast-iron Irish
cross painted green, which serves to hang flowers upon. The grave is
in a rope-enclosed circle, some twenty yards in diameter, and most of
the space is occupied by big glass shades, with flowers and other
tributes of respect and affection. I counted more than a hundred, many
of them elaborate. The Corkmen send the biggest, a small greenhouse
with two brown Irish harps and the legend DONE TO DEATH. An Irish harp
worked in embroidery lies sodden on the earth. Green shamrock leaves
of tin, with the names of all the donors--this is important--obtrude
themselves here and there. A six-foot cross of white flowers, like a
badge of purity, lies on the grave, labelled Katherine Parnell, in a
lady's hand. The place is swamped with Irish harps, and it occurs to
me that the badge would not be so popular if the patriots knew that
the harp was imposed as an emblem of Ireland by English Henry the
Second. The name PARNELL in iron letters is on the turf, flowers
growing through them, a poetical idea. As I walk past they vibrate
with a metallic jingle, which reminds me of the shirt of mail the
living man wore to preserve himself from his fellow-patriots. Tay
Pay's life of the dead leader proves that his sole secret of success
was inflexible purpose, and that his notion of party management was to
treat the patriot members as dirt. Parnell was an authority in Irish
matters, and his example should be useful to Messrs. Gladstone,
Morley, and Co. An eminent Irishmen to-day said:--"With your
wibble-wobble and your shilly-shally, your pooh-pooh and your pah-pah,
you are ruining the country. Put down your foot and tell the Irish
people that they will not now nor at any future time get Home Rule,
and not a word will come out of them." A word (to the wise) is enough.
Dublin, June 29th.
No. 42.--AT A NATIONALIST MEETING.