Tipperary or Tuam and note the names. Ruane, Magrath, Maguire,
O'Doherty, O'Brien, O'Flanagan, O'Shaughnessy, and so _in saecula
saeculorum_. In Newry you see a striking change. Duncan, Boyd, Wylie,
MacAlister, Campbell, McClelland, McAteer, and so on, greet you in all
directions. You are in one of the colonies. The breed is different.
You are among the men who make railways, construct bridges, invent
engines, bore tunnels, make canals, build ships, and sail them over
unknown seas. You are among a people who have the instincts of
achievement, of enterprise, of invention, of command, who depend upon
themselves, who shift for themselves, and believe in self-help rather
than in querulous complaint. The Newry folk belong to Ulster, where as
a whole the people can take care of themselves. A careful perusal of
the addresses presented to Lord Houghton on his current Viceregal tour
accentuates the difference in the Irish breeds. The aborigines all
want to know what is going to be done for them. We want a pier, we
want a quay, we want a garrison or a gunboat to spend some money in
the district. Will your Excellency use your influence with the powers
that be to get us something for nothing? And let it be something to
enrich us, or at least to keep us alive without work. We can't be
expected to do anything while groaning 'neath the cruel English yoke.
The Newry folks, and all of their breed, abstain from whining and
cadging. The Westport people have endless quarries of hard blue
marble, which they are too lazy, or too ignorant, or both, to cut. The
Ulster breed would have quarried, polished, exported a mountain or two
long since. The universal verdict of employers of labour proves that a
northern Irishman is worth two from any other point of the compass,
will actually perform double the amount of work, and is, besides,
incomparably superior in brains and general reliability. The worthless
hordes who approach the Viceroy with snuffling petitions are
invariably headed by Father Somebody, without whose permission they
would not be there, and without whose leave they dare not raise the
feeble and intermittent cheers which here and there have greeted the
Queen's representative. The lying expressions of loyalty referred to
in a previous letter are severely censured by the Nationalist papers.
One of the leading lights says: "Judging from a sentence in the
address presented by the Mullingar Town Commissioners to the
Lord-Lieutenant on Thursday last, it would appear that these gentlemen
are looking forward eagerly to the day when they can write themselves
down West Britons. This is what they said: 'In your presence as the
representative in this island of her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria, we wish to give expression to our fealty to the throne,
convinced as we are that the day will soon be at hand when we can with
less restraint, and in a more marked manner, testify our admiration
for the Sovereignty of the British Isles.'" The more sincere newspaper
which falls foul of these expressions goes on to say:--
"It is true that Ireland is described in the map made by Englishmen as
one of the British Isles, but it is not so written in the true
Irishman's heart, _and never will be_, in spite of the toadyism of
gentlemen like the Town Commissioners of Mullingar."
This pronouncement embodies the sentiments of every Nationalist
Irishman. The Union of Hearts is not expected to succeed the Home
Rule, or any other bill, and to do Irishmen justice, they never use
the phrase, neither do they profess to look forward to friendliness
with England. I have conversed with hundreds of Home Rulers, and all
looked upon the bill as a means of paying off old scores. The tone of
the Nationalist press should be enough for sensible Englishmen. Nobody
who regularly reads the leading Irish Separatist papers can ever
believe in the friendship supposed to be the inevitable result of the
proposed concession. Once the present agitation is crowned with
success, a tenfold more powerful agitation will at once arise. The
Irish people will have more grievances than ever. Already they are
complaining of insult and betrayal. And their reproaches are directed
against the G.O.M. and his accomplices, or rather against Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Morley, for they know as well as Englishmen know
that the rest count for nothing; that, in fact, they resemble the
faithful and unsophisticated baa-baa of whom we heard in our early
infancy. "Mary had a little lamb, Whose fleece was white as snow, And
everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go." This is the
attitude of the English Gladstonian party, and the Irish people know
it. A Home Ruler I met to-day disavowed loyalty except to Ireland, and
asked what was the Queen and the rest of the British Royal pauper
party to him or to Ireland that he should be loyal? He said:--
"All interest is over here, whether among Nationalists or Unionist.
The fate of the bill affects us no longer. The new financial proposals
are the last straw that breaks the camel's back. Where is the
managing of our own affairs? Where does the Nationalism come in? And
Gladstone, in allowing himself to make in the first proposal a mistake
of one thousand pounds a day, damaged his prestige as the framer of
the bill, and fatally damaged the bill itself. Anybody can now say
that if he was so grossly mistaken in an ascertainable matter like
revenue and figures he stands to be equally wrong (at least) in
matters which are not demonstrable, but which are at present only
matters of opinion and argument. I am not sure that he ever intended
to give us any Home Rule at all. We are being fooled because we have
no leader. The bill, as it stood at first, would never have been
prepared for a man like Parnell. Gladstone dare not have done it. The
whole bill is a series of insults. As a reasonable, fair-minded man
you will not deny that. It purports to come from friends who confide
in us, and yet every line bristles with distrust and suspicion. There
is not one spark of generosity in the whole thing from beginning to
end. Better have no bill at all. For as a business man, I foresee that
the passing of any such bill would lead to a complete upset of trade.
We should have a most tremendous row. The safeguards would only invite
to rebellion. Tell a man he must not have something, must not do
something, and that is the very thing he wants to do. He might not
have thought of it if you had not mentioned it; but the moment you
point it out, and particularise the forbidden fruit, from that very
moment he is inspired with a very particular wish for that above all
things. So with a nation. We want our independence. We want to do as
we like. Otherwise, why ask for a Parliament? Gladstone says, Yes, my
pretty dear, it shall have its ickety-pickety Parliament; it shall
have its plaything. And it shall ridy-pidy in the coachy-poachy too;
all round the parky-warky with the cock-a-doodle-doo. But it mustn't
touch! Or if it touches it mustn't be rough, for its plaything will
break so easily. We don't want this tomfoolery, nor to be treated like
children. We want a real Parliament, and not one that can be pulled up
every five minutes by London. For if the English Parliament have the
power to veto our wishes, where's the difference? We might have just
as well stayed as we were. That's perfectly clear.
"So that I for one will be glad when the farce is over. The present
bill at best was but a fraud, a tampering with the national sentiment.
And I am beginning to think that we have no chance of a National
Legislature until the coming of the next great Irishman. I am not so
disappointed or broken-hearted as you might suppose. For the prospect
of an Irish Parliament under present auspices is not very enticing.
The country might be made to look ridiculous, and the thing, by
bursting up in some absurd way, might make a repetition of the attempt
impossible for a century. I would rather wait for a better bill, and
also for better men to work it. We are not proud of the Irish members.
But we didn't want Tories, and all the propertied men are Tories. What
were we to do? We know the want of standing and breeding which marks
most of our men, but we did the best we could, and came within an ace
of succeeding. Let me tell you the exact feeling of the respectable
Home Rule party of Ireland at this moment.
"Having exerted ourselves with enthusiasm, and having undergone
considerable pecuniary sacrifice with good chances of success, we now
see clearly that all our efforts are for the present thrown away. It
is the fortune of war. The fates were against us, and we rest content
with the hope that we have furthered the ultimate success of the
movement. For the moment, we make our bow, and hope to call on Mr.
Bull at a more propitious season. Of course we expect to win in the
end."
The next politician whose opinions I noted was a horse of quite a
different colour. He bore a Scottish name, and had the incisive,
argumentative style of the typical Ulsterman, who unites the cold
common-sense and calculating power of the Scot with the warmth and
impulse of the Irish nature. He said:--
"The bare existence of Belfast is, or should be, enough to negative
all arguments in favour of Home Rule. The agitators say that Ireland
is decaying from political causes, while all the while this Ulster
town is getting richer and more powerful and influential. While the
people of Cork are begging the Viceroy to please to do something for
their port, to please to be so kind as to ask Mr. Bull to favour the
city with his patronage, the Belfast people, with a far inferior
harbour, an inferior climate, an incomparably inferior position,
surrounded by far worse land, are knocking out the Clyde for
shipbuilding, and running the Continent very close in linen-weaving.
Belfast is actually the third in order of the Customs ports in the
United Kingdom. The Belfast people flourish without Home Rule, and
what is more, they know their neighbours. They've reckoned these
gentry up.
"How is it that the Catholic population, as a rule, are merely the
hewers of wood and drawers of water? They have precisely the same
opportunities as their Protestant countrymen. Where-ever you go you
will find the Protestants coming to the top. Cork is a very bigoted
Catholic city, and the huge majority of the population are Catholics.
How is it that most of the leading merchants are Protestants? Why do
heretics flourish where the faithful starve? Transfer the populations
of Cork to Belfast and _vice versa_, and, as everybody knows perfectly
well, Belfast would at once begin to decay, while Cork would at once
begin to prosper. Therefore it is absurd to say that Home Rule would
cure the poverty existing in Catholic districts. Yes, there is a party
of ascendency. The Protestants are distinctly the party of ascendency.
They have the ascendency which ability and education and industry will
always have over incapacity and ignorance and laziness. Now, I know
something about the linen trade, and also something about the growth
and preparation of flax.
"Linen has made the North, and flax is grown in the North. But it
would grow much better in the South. If they would grow it we would be
very glad to buy it. But they won't. And why not? Because it needs
care and skill, and a lot of watching and management. The beggars are
too lazy to grow anything that wants tending from day to day. It would
pay them splendidly, and the advantages of flax growing and dressing
have over and over again been drummed into them without effect. The
climate and soil of Southern Ireland are far more suitable for flax
growing than the North, and as about three-quarters of all the flax
woven in Belfast is grown on the Continent, it is clear that the
market is waiting for the stuff. The Belfast merchants have done all
that in them lay to bring about flax cultivation in the South. They
have sent out lecturers and instructors, they have planted patches and
grown the stuff, and shown the pecuniary results, and with what
effect? Absolutely none. The people won't do anything their
grandfathers didn't do. They won't be bothered with flax, which wants
no end of attention. Why, if they grew flax, they'd have to work
almost every day! And nobody who knows Irishmen, real Keltic Irishmen,
ever expects them to do that, or anything like it. I've been in India,
and I deliberately say that I prefer the Hindoo to the Southern
Irishman for industry and reliability.
"These people, who are too lazy to wash themselves, expect their
condition to be improved by a Home Rule Parliament. Can anything be
more unreasonable or more unlikely? And because there are more of
them, their wishes are to be taken into account, and the opinions and
wishes of men of whom each one is worth a hundred are to be
disregarded. Where is the English sense of the eternal fitness of
things?
"What the Irish really seek is some effective substitute for work.
They have no idea of developing the resources which lie nearest to
them. Carlyle says a country belongs to the people who can make the
best use of it, and not the people who happen to be found there.
Ireland for the Irish is a favourite cry. Why? Is not England for the
Irish, America, Australia, New Zealand? My ancestors came here in the
time of Henry the Second, and I am told that I have no business in the
country. Wherever English and Scots settlers have been located, there
the country is well worked and the people are thriving. If we can
thrive, why can't they thrive? If we can get on without Home Rule, why
can't they get on without Home Rule? If it were going to be a good
thing for the country we'd all be on it like a shot. If it were good
for them, it ought to be good for us. We have shown by our success
that our judgment is sound. Their failure in everything they
undertake, their dirt, their general habits and character, should
cause their statements and opinions to be looked upon with very great
suspicion. Does it stand to reason that merely by Home Rule, by the
exercise of the privilege of making Irish laws by Irishmen in Dublin,
that these people would gain all we have attained by hard and honest
labour? That is what they expect up here.
"The Catholics are our servants, and in selecting them we seldom ask
their religion. Our employes in most cases expect by the bill to take
the place of their masters. That is their conception of Home Rule.
They have been told from infancy that the British Government keeps
them down because of their religion. They know that the British
Government is Protestant, and they believe that in some occult way the
superior position held by the Protestants in Ireland is due to
favouritism. Under a Home Rule Parliament, that is, a Catholic
Parliament, this condition of things will be reversed, and they will
at once, and by their own innate force, as faithful believers, spring
to the top of the tree, and exchange positions with their former
masters and mistresses."
The general effect of my friend's discourse was well summed up by Mr.
James Mack, of Galway, who said:--
"When I see that the Belfast men who would make fortunes out of river
mud, and who would skin a flea for his hide and tallow, turn their
backs on Home Rule, and declare they will have nothing to do with it,
I feel sure it can be no good. Then my own experience and observation
assure me that, instead of a settlement, it will only be the beginning
of trouble for both countries. Firmness is wanted, and equal laws for
all. At present everything is in favour of Ireland." _United Ireland_
says:--"It would be better to go on for twenty years in the old
miserable mill-horse round of futile and feverish and wasting
agitation than to accept this bill as a settlement of national claims.
And if the bill passes now it cannot deflect the national agitation by
a hair's breadth, or cause its intermission for a day."
Nobody who knows the Irish people ever expected anything else.
Agitators who live by agitation will always agitate, and only a few
namby-pamby Radicals ever thought otherwise. Those who would fain have
sold their souls for the Newcastle Programme also stand to be taken
in. This Home Rule Bill will not do. Another must be brought forward
immediately. Where is this dreary business going to end? When will Mr.
Gladstone consider that England has eaten dirt enough?
Newry, July 4th
No. 44.--THE PROSPEROUS NORTH.
This famous historical city must be eminently offensive to Irish
Nationalists. It is so clean and sweet and neat and tidy that you can
at once see the hopelessness of expecting Home Rule patriotism from
the place. There are no dunghills for it to grow in, and my somewhat
extensive experiences have long ago taught me that Home Rule and
Nationalist patriotism will not flourish in Ireland without manure,
and plenty of it. Anyhow, it is mostly associated with heaps of refuse
and pungent odours arising from decomposing matter, and in the south
and west is scarcely ever found flourishing side by side with modern
sanitation. Home Rule not only, like pumpkins and vegetable marrows,
requires a feculent soil, but like them, and indeed like all watery
and vaporous vegetables, it needs the forcing-frame. Left to its own
devices the movement would die at once. There is nothing spontaneous
about it. It is a weedy sort of exotic, thriving only by filth and
forcing. It cannot live an hour in the climate of Armagh. The cold,
keen air of these regions nips it in the bud. The peculative patriots
who are now monopolising Westminster have from time to time made
descents on the district, to sow the good seed, as it were, by the
wayside. But next day came a frost, a killing frost. The Northerners
are too mathematical. They have taken Lord Bacon's advice. They "weigh
and consider." They want logic, and will not be content with mere
rhetoric. They require demonstrations, and have opinions of their own.
Before accepting a theory they turn it round and round, and test it
with the square, the level, and the line. They care nothing for
oratory unless there is sense at the back of it. They know that fine
words butter no parsnips, and they know the antecedents of the
patriotic orators. They do not believe that a paid Parliament-man is
necessarily a self-sacrificing patriot, and they note that Nationalist
members are making their patriotism much more profitable than their
original and legitimate pursuits, if any. The Armagh folks believe in
work, and in keeping things in order. The Scots element is dominant.
Not so much in numbers, as in influence. The Kelts are easily
traceable, but the races are partly amalgamated, and the genuine Irish
are greatly improved. I paraded the streets for many hours, but I saw
no dirt, rags, wretchedness. It was market day, and the country people
came streaming in from all sides, everyone well dressed and
respectable, and in every way equal to the farmers and their wives who
on market days drive into Lichfield or Worcester. It was a pleasure to
see them, and my Cockney friend, quoted in the Newry letter, might
have been tempted to discard his affected superiority, and drawing
himself proudly up, to smite himself on the chest, and to say "And hi,
too, ham a Hirishman."
The country between Newry and Armagh is very beautiful from a pastoral
point of view. After the savage deserts of the West it "Comes o'er my
soul like the sweet south That breathes upon a bank of violets." Every
yard of ground is going at its best pace. The valleys stand so thick
with corn that they laugh and sing. Immense vistas of highly
cultivated country unroll themselves in every direction. The land is
richly timbered, and tall green hedges spring up everywhere. You are
reminded of Dorsetshire, of Cheshire, of Normandy, of Rhineland. The
people at the wayside stations are all well-dressed and well-shod.
Achil Island seems to be at an immeasurable distance. The semi-savages
who in Mayo demand autonomy have no supporters here. The Ulster folks
eschew them and all their works, and would no more associate with them
than with Hottentots. I use the term because the Irish people have ten
thousand times been told, and told untruthfully, that Lord Salisbury
had applied the term to the nation at large. The people of Mayo and
some other parts of Connaught are for the most part worthy of the
name, if, indeed, it be not a libel on the Africans. The disgusting
savagery of their funeral customs is of itself sufficient to stamp
them as lowest barbarians. I am prepared to prove this to the hilt.
Let their defenders come forward if they dare.
And so it happens that the inhabitants of Armagh city are mostly
Conservatives. They ought to be religious, too, for they have not only
two cathedrals and an archbishop, but also a cardinal archbishop, Dr.
Logue, to wit. I saw this distinguished ecclesiastic at Newry. He wore
the scarlet robe, the extraordinary hat, the immensely thick gold ring
of the cardinalate, in a railway carriage. An ordinary sort of man,
with the round face and mean features of the typical Keltic farmer. He
holds that the people should take their political faith from their
priests, but the Northerners hardly agree, and are not so proud of
their cardinal as they should be, seeing that he has been raised from
the ranks, his father (so they say) having been Lord Leitrim's
coachman, and the coachman who was driving when Lord Leitrim was shot.
The Roman Catholic Cathedral of Armagh has an imposing position on the
summit of a steep hill. The portal is approached by sixty or seventy
steps in flights of five and ten with steep terraces between,
extending over a great space, so that the flights of steps, seen from
the bottom of the hill, seem continuous, and have a fine Gustave Dore
effect of vastness and majesty. On a neighbouring steep stands the
Protestant Cathedral, with its sturdy square tower, memorial of remote
antiquity. The city is piled up between the two cathedrals, but mostly
around the heretic structure, and away from the Papist pile, which
stands among the fields. The Presbyterians have a very beautiful
church, apparently of the Armagh marble of which the city is built,
the perennial whiteness of the stone making the old place appear
eternally young. The market-place, behind the market-hall, and on the
steep slope to the Protestant Cathedral, was very busy indeed. Market
gardeners were there with young plants, useful and ornamental, for
sale. Home-made chairs with rushen seats were offered by their rural
makers. Wooden churns, troughs for cattle, and agricultural implements
were there galore. Crockery was artfully disposed in strategetical
corners, and gooseberry stalls were likewise to the fore. None of
these features are visible in the Western markets. A vendor of
second-hand clothing stood on a cart well loaded with unconsidered
trifles, and this gentleman was especially interesting. A number of
poor women stood around while the salesman, who knew his clientele to
their smallest tricks, displayed his wares and recklessly endeavoured
to ruin himself for the good of the country. Holding up an article, he
would turn it round and round, expatiating on its excellent
qualities, and then, after naming the very lowest price consistent
with common business principles, would run down the figure to
one-tenth or less, with a pause or two here and there for critical
comment on his audience, of which he professed to entertain the most
unfavourable opinion. Then with a final thump, punching the article
contemptuously, he would offer it, regardless of consequences, for
half his previous offer. Sometimes he refused to accept the money
because the customer was not quick enough. Neither might the people
examine his goods. He was master, and more, and found his account in
it. He took up a frowsy old gown. "There ye are. Ten shillin's worth
of stuff in that. An' ten for the makin'. An' that's twinty. I'll take
ten, an' I couldn't afford to take a penny less. Will ye have it?
Don't all spake at once. Ye won't. But I'll make ye. I'll take five
shillin', four, three, two, one, I'll take sixpence. (Thump.) Take it
away. Here! Have it for thruppence. Ye won't? Sweet bad luck to the
one of ye is worth thruppence. Ye wouldn't raise tuppence in the crowd
of ye. Ye want me to clothe ye for nothin'. An' thin ye'd want me to
give ye lodgin' and washin'. 'Twas a black day on me whin I come among
such a ruinatin' lot. Here now, sure this ought to timpt ye. A lady's
jacket, an' a large, big, roomy jacket at that--fit for a lady that
can ate a stone of praties at a male. Thurty shillin's ye'll be
offerin' me, but I won't take it. Ye can give me ten, av ye're only
quick enough. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two
shillin's. Eighteenpence. (Thump.) Take it for a shillin'! Ye won't?
Ye didn't sell yer ducks well. Ye didn't get the money for yer eggs.
Will I lind ye a trifle? What d'ye take me for? Am I to stand rammin'
me bargains down yer throats like wagon wheels? Do yez iver buy any
clothes at all, or do yez beg them? Me heart's bruk to pieces wid
blayguardin' and bullyraggin. Luk at this. A boy's coat. An it's lined
wid woollen linin'; that's the only fault wid it. An' here's a bonnet.
A fortin to any young woman. Will ye be plazed to take what ye want
for nothin'? Tis charity ye want, ye poor misguided crathurs. 'Tis a
pack of paupers I'm discoorsin', God help me."