a hill which cannot be hid. Viewed from the railway the clustered
houses surround the church spire like an enormous beehive. Like other
ancient Irish towns, it possesses the ancient cross, the ancient round
tower, and the ancient abbey, without which none is genuine. It has
not the sylvan, terraced, Cheltenham-cum-Bath appearance of its
neighbour Monaghan, though it somewhat resembles Bath in its general
outline. The ruins want tidying up, and no doubt they will be looked
after when the demand is greater. Ruins are a drug in Ireland, and as
Mark Twain would say--most of them are dreadfully out of repair. The
Irish have no notion of making them attractive, of exploiting them, of
turning an honest penny by their exhibition. The inhabitants of any
given neighbourhood can never give information as to their date, use,
decay, general history, beyond the stereotyped "They were built by the
owld ancient folks long ago." The Clones people are no exception to
the general rule. The town is on the main line from Dublin to
Londonderry, but is little troubled by tourists. The place is quiet
and tidy enough, and like many other Irish country towns seems to live
on the surrounding country, which sends in a strong contingent on
market days. The people are also quiet, civil, and decent, and the
land in the neighbourhood seems fertile and well cultivated. Industry
is evident on every side. Everybody has something to do. A farmer
living just outside the town said he experienced the greatest
difficulty in getting extra hands for harvest time. In his opinion the
people were incomparably better off than in the days of his youth,
some thirty years ago. He said "The labouring classes are far better
housed, better clothed, and better fed, than in old times. They live
far better than the well-to-do farmers of a generation ago. And the
queerest thing about it is the fact that the better off they are, the
more discontented they seem; and during the last few months they are
becoming unbearable. They are giving themselves airs in advance. And
no wonder, when they see the British Parliament entirely occupied with
their affairs, to the exclusion of all English business. They may well
feel important. They boast that they have compelled this attention,
and that they shortly will have their own way in everything. Last
Sunday a drunken fellow was making a row near my house. I told him to
go away, and he said, 'Before long you'll have to go away and every
Blackface in the country. We'll be masters in another month.' He was
alluding to Mr. Gladstone's gagging motion, which the poor folks here
in their ignorance believe to mean that Home Rule will set in about
the beginning of August. They are acting accordingly, and they expect
to have the land which the Protestant farmers now hold--at once. It is
to be divided amongst them by ballot. We feel very anxious about here,
for we feel that we are only staying on sufferance, and we have no
confidence in the support of the present Government. We have expended
our labour and our substance on the land, and if we lose these we lose
all. You may say there is no fear of that, as such a piece of iniquity
would never be tolerated by the English people. But when I see them
tolerating so much, I think we have good reason to feel uneasy and
unsettled. For my part, I have no heart for hard work, when I feel
that somebody else may reap the reward. And with a Catholic Parliament
in Dublin we should very soon have to give up. They can get at the
farming class in so many ways. We Protestants are pretty strong about
here, and all the way to Monaghan, but still we are in a considerable
minority. The mountain folks are Catholics, every one, and that is
where we are outnumbered. We could hold our own if the country were
like the town. We should be bound under Home Rule to suffer a large
increase of taxation, because all grants from Imperial sources are to
cease upon the passing of the bill. Then the country will be more
disturbed than over, because the bill is only valued as a
stepping-stone to an Irish Republic, and the success of the agitators
in obtaining the bill will encourage them and their supporters to
persevere. Instead of the end of the trouble it would only be the
beginning. It is a black look-out for both Ireland and England.
"Most of the Protestant farmers think that land purchase would be
stopped. If that could go steadily on, there would be in time
prosperity and contentment. The people would like this well enough,
and would be quiet enough, if they were let alone. But where is the
money to come from to purchase land? Who would lend money on Irish
securities? Who would trust an Irish Parliament with millions? Then
the better classes, who have money to spend, would leave the country,
and we should be poorer all round.
"The loyal party in an Irish Parliament would always be in a minority,
and for any good they could do, might as well stay away. For no matter
how the Nationalist factions might quarrel among themselves, the
priestly party would always have the pull. The English Protestants
ought to believe that we know the reality of the danger that threatens
us better than they can possibly do. There are nearly three thousand
Protestant ministers in Ireland, and only six or seven are in favour
of Home Rule. Are these men all infatuated? Are they all liars? Are
they in a position to know the facts? Of course they are truthful men,
and they understand if anybody does. Then why not take their advice?
The Meath election petitions ought to have settled Home Rule.
Englishmen cannot have read the reports of these trials. Mr. Gladstone
is fooling the people on both sides the water. He is satisfying
nobody, whether Home Rulers or not. The Nationalists round here say
the bill is an insult, but that they will take it as an instalment.
The end will be that both loyalists and traitors will be more
discontented than ever--a poor result after so much fuss and waste of
precious time."
If my friend had known of it he might have quoted Mr. William Heath,
an Englishman resident for six months in Tyrone. He arrived in Ireland
a bigoted Home Ruler, but six months in the country knocked his
nonsense out of him. He said:--"I have seen enough of Romanism to
convince me that Protestantism would be crushed if Home Rule became
law. I have seen the men who demand it, and I have seen the men who
are determined to oppose Home Rule--the one set idle, dissolute,
poverty-stricken, disloyal, and priest-ridden; the other industrious,
thrifty, comfortable, and loyal to England. I go back to England a
Unionist, and will do all I can to spread the light on the true state
of affairs in this unhappy country. If the people of England and
Scotland saw Nationalists as I have seen them they would not force
Home Rule on the Loyalists of Ulster so as to leave them at the mercy
of such a party." A Primitive Methodist Minister, the Rev. J.
Angliss, who came to Ireland a faithful follower of Mr. Gladstone,
changed his mind when acquainted with the facts, and confessed himself
a convert to Unionism. He said that he had used his influence against
the return of Sir Richard Webster, the late Attorney-General, but
since his visit to Ireland he had come to the conclusion that the Bill
would be a tremendous evil. He was "prepared to go back to the very
platform in the Isle of Wight from which he had supported Home Rule
and to tell the people he was converted. English people who come here
to investigate for themselves must be forced to the conclusion that
the Bill means confiscation and robbery."
A thriving tradesman of Clones said:--"I am surprised that any
Englishmen can be found to pin their faith to Mr. Gladstone, or to any
man with such an extraordinary record of change. Mr. Bright used to
say he could not turn his back on himself, but Mr. Gladstone spins
round and round like a teetotum. I should think that such an instance
has never been known since that good old parson who sung, 'Whatsoever
king may reign, Still I'll be Vicar of Bray, Sir.' Downing Street is
the Grand Old Man's vicarage, and he endeavours to cling to it at all
costs. In 1886 he said, 'I will not be a party to giving Ireland a
legislative body to manage Irish concerns and at the same time have
Irish members in London acting and voting on English and Scottish
concerns.' In seven years and one month he insists on that very thing,
and votes for it, with his crowd of noughts behind him. For I reckon
all his Parliamentary supporters as noughts, to which a value is given
by the figure 1 at their head. Isn't that true? What would the rest be
without him? The bulk of his adherents are precisely the kind of men
nobody ever pays any attention to. There's Morley, a good writer, but
not a man of business. Then there's Harcourt. How can Englishmen stand
such a hollow humbug? He'll say anything, any blessed thing. I prefer
Tim Healy, even, to Harcourt. Tim was roughly brought up, and, as he
gets his living by politics, he is to some extent excusable. The way
that Harcourt attacked the Irish party, so long as Mr. Gladstone
attacked them! The things he said, the strong language he used so long
as that course pleased Mr. Gladstone! Now he turns round and calls
them beauties; and for that matter so they are. It's what I mostly
call them myself. Beauties.
"The arrangement to keep the Irish Nationalists at Westminster is
something for Englishmen to consider. If they can swallow that they
can swallow anything. They can have no pride about them, or else they
are taking no further interest in their own affairs. To give the Irish
members power to vote on all questions coming before the Imperial
Parliament, while conceding to them the privilege of managing their
own affairs without interference, is indeed an eye-opener. The British
Parliament had sunk low enough when it began to heed the clamour of a
set of American-paid blackguards such as the bulk of the Irish members
are, by their own supporters, admitted to be. But how much lower has
England sunk when she accepts the dictation of these men, and says,
'You can manage your own affairs and direct my business too.' These
fellows are to be masters of Ireland _and_ masters of England. For of
course, they can always exert a preponderating influence in British
affairs, holding as they do the balance of voting power. And
Englishmen will submit to this; and will let their members be gagged
and the clauses shoved through the House by hydraulic power.
Englishmen are so fond of boasting of their Freedom and Independence.
Why, they are being treated like fools and slaves. And by such a low
set of fellows. Some of the Nationalist members wipe their noses on
the tails of their coats, and when those are worn out they use their
coat-sleeves. One of them was staying in an hotel where I was, and I
saw him eat eggs. He cut off the top, and worked up the yolk with the
handle of his spoon, mixing pepper and mustard. Then he cut his bacon
into dice, and dipped each square in the egg before stoking himself.
That is a sample of the class now working the British Parliament.
There was an Irish patriot M.P.
"Dillon is comparatively respectable, and if you knew Dillon you
wouldn't think that meant much. Chamberlain showed him up, but why
stop at one quotation? I see the judge is now in Tipperary. That was
the place Dillon, along with O'Brien, got to conspire against the law
with such frightful results. You remember they were sentenced to six
months' imprisonment, but breaking their bail they both ran away,
while the poor men who had got into trouble, without funds to bolt
with, went to hard labour. Dillon once said that if certain people had
cattle on land '_the cattle wouldn't prosper very much_,' and sure
enough a number of cattle near Tipperary have had their tails cut off.
Dillon, I say, is reckoned one of the most respectable. That does not
say much for the others. You are giving these men power. Will they use
that power to wring further concessions? They have often declared that
they will. The English Home Rulers say that they won't, that Irishmen
will be too grateful. They know not what they say. You'll have a
hostile Government at your very doors. What did Parnell say? 'When
England is at war and beaten to her knees, the idea of the Irish
Nationalists may be realised.' And Sexton, this very Sexton who is now
so much to the front, said that the 'one prevailing and unchangeable
passion between Ireland and England is the passion of hate.' Then what
hope is there of friendship in a Home Rule Bill which will infinitely
increase the number of points of dispute? And these men don't mean to
be pleased, either. They don't mean to try to be content. It wouldn't
pay them. They have their living to get. Well, they have shown
themselves clever. They can work England."
A friend has furnished me with a few gems from the orations of the
Dillon aforesaid, whose threat of what would be done to loyalists
under an Irish Parliament has recently attracted so much notice. He
tried to show that this was said in a moment of warmth, in a fit of
exasperation at the "Mitchelstown massacre," which took place a year
afterwards. What had annoyed him when at Limerick he said that any man
who stood aside from the national movement was "a dastard and a
coward, and he and his children after him would be remembered in the
days that are near at hand, when Ireland was a free nation?"--Date
September 20th, 1887. Dillon delights in dates. Again, what had
ruffled the patriot soul, when at Maryborough he spoke of dissentients
in the following terms:--"When the struggle is ended and the people of
this country have obtained that control over their own affairs which
must come very soon, he will be pointed out to his neighbours as a
coward and a traitor?"--January 15th, 1889. It was on November 1st,
1887, at Limerick, that the same friend of England said "let the
people of Ireland get arms in their hands," and promised to "manage
Ulster." It was at Dublin on August 23rd, 1887, that Mr. Dillon
said:--"If there is a man in Ireland base enough to back down, to turn
his back on the fight, I will denounce him from public platforms _by
name_, and I pledge myself to the Government that, let that man be who
he may, his life will not be a happy one, either in Ireland or across
the seas." All this, be it observed, was after the promulgation of the
Union of Hearts. Well might Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Mr. Dillon, who
is now one of his closest allies, say in the House of Commons:--
"The honourable gentleman comes here as the apostle of a creed which
is a creed of force, which is a creed of oppression, which is a creed
of the destruction of all liberty, and of the erection of a despotism
against it, and on its ruins, different from every other despotism
only in this,--that it is more absolutely detached from all law, from
all tradition, and from all restraint." Sir William Harcourt also
referring to Mr. Dillon in the House once said, "The doctrine of the
Land League, expounded by the man who has authority to explain it, is
the doctrine of treason and assassination;" and in addition to this
strong pronouncement Sir William called it "a vile conspiracy." Both
Mr. Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt are now hand-and-glove with the
men of whom Mr. Gladstone said at Leeds:--"They are not ashamed to
point out in the press which they maintain how the ships of her
majesty's navy ought to be blown into the air, and how gentlemen they
are pleased to select ought to be the object of the knife of the
assassin and deprived of life because they do not conform to the new
Irish Gospel." Mr. Chamberlain's exposure of Dillon has brought down
the thunders of the Nationalist press. Did he ever say anything
stronger than this? One Nationalist paper, speaking of the member for
West Birmingham, says:--"There was something devilish in the
exultation of the strident voice and pale malignant face." The Home
Rule penmen are always describing him as "livid with impotent rage,"
"trembling with ill-concealed vindictive passion," "hurrying from the
House to escape the mocking laughter of the amused Senate." The
member for Bordesley is dealt with more lightly. "Mr. Jesse Collings
occupied some minutes with his usual amusing inanity" and so forth.
According to these writers the House rapidly empties when Mr. Balfour
or Mr. Chamberlain would fain hold forth, and fills to suffocation to
hear the noble periods of Dillon, Sexton, and Healy. Mr. Deasy, M.P.
for West Mayo, has recently been before the public rather prominently,
and his opinion of the Irish question may be interesting at the
present juncture. I heard much of this gentleman at Westport, where he
is well known. He is disgusted with the show of loyalty to which his
colleagues have treated Mr. Gladstone, who boasts of their
"satisfactory assurances." He knew that the Nationalist members,
speaking in England, made use of amicable expressions which no Irish
Nationalist audience would tolerate, and speaking of this he said:--"I
have never said on an English platform what I would not say here this
night. I have not been saying that we all want to be part and parcel
of the British Empire--with the lie on the top of my tongue, I am not
going to disgrace my constituency by going over to England and
uttering falsehoods there, and coming back and saying that I was
deceiving England at the time." This speech was made in 1891, only two
years ago. Is not this big print enough? Surely no reasonable person
will any longer believe in the loyal friendship of Nationalist
Ireland. To do so is to violate common sense. Only the fatuous
Gladstonians, Whose eyes will scarcely serve at most To guard their
wearers 'gainst a post, can be expected to take it in.
It is hard to find a decent person in favour of the bill. Its
supporters are eminently unsatisfactory, inasmuch as they furnish no
readable matter, and content themselves with saying that Ireland will
have her freedom, and that prosperity will follow, as the night the
day, in the wake of the bill. But they can never indicate wherein is
their want of freedom, nor can they ever say _how_ the bill will bring
about prosperity. Then, as a rule, the voters for the bill are persons
whose opinion no sane person would act upon in the most unimportant
matter. They never know the population of their own town, nor the
distance to the next. They are mostly sunk fathoms deep in blackest
ignorance, and characterised by most cantankerous perversity, now
rapidly merging, as the bill proceeds, into insolent bumptiousness.
The Lord-Lieutenant has returned to Dublin after having endured such
snubs and slights as Mr. Balfour never encountered. And yet Lord
Houghton waved the olive-branch. Everybody seems to have asked him for
a pier. I have given many instances of useless piers on the Western
Irish Coast. The parish priests who met the Viceroy asked for more,
and again more. Mr. Morley has been asked in the House what is going
to be done about the piers the priests have asked for. Let him appoint
a Commission to inquire into the history of Western Irish piers. The
report will be startling, and also instructive. A Glengariff man
admitted to me that the people of that famous town would make no use
of the pier if they had it. "But," said he, "the building of it would
bring a thousand pounds into the village." The English people are said
to dearly love a lord. The Irish people dearly love a pier.
Clones, July 13th.
No. 48.--A SEARCH FOR "ORANGE ROWDYISM."
Belfast is still of the same mind. Its citizens will not have Home
Rule. They are more than ever determined that the fruits of their
industry shall not be placed at the mercy of men who have consistently
advocated the doctrine of plunder. The law-abiding men of Belfast will
never submit to the rule of law-breakers, many of whom have expiated
their offences in the convict's cell. This debt-paying community will
not consent to be under the thumb of men whose most successful
doctrine has been the repudiation of legal contracts. The famous
merchants and manufacturers of the true capital of Ireland decline to
place their future fortunes in the hands of the unscrupulous and
beggarly adventurers who would form the bulk of a College Green
Parliament. The hard-working artizans of Belfast are firm in their
determination to resist the imposition of a legislature which will
drive capital from the country, diminish the sources of employment,
strangle all beneficial enterprise, and by destroying security
undermine and wreck all Irish industry. They know how the agitation
originates, and by whom it is directed. They have the results of Papal
influence before their eyes. While Belfast as a whole is clean, open,
airy, with splendid streets and magnificent buildings, the Catholic
portions of the city are as much like the pestilent dens of Tuam and
Tipperary as the authorities will permit. The uninstructed stranger
can pick out the Home Rule streets. In Belfast as elsewhere,
sweetness, light, and loyalty are inseparably conjoined, while evil
smells and dinginess are the invariable concomitants of disloyalty and
separatism. Fortunately for the Ulster city, the loyalists number
three to one, which fact accounts for its general cleanliness, the
thriving aspect of its commercial concerns, the decency and order of
its well-kept thoroughfares. And whatever Belfasters want they pay for
themselves. Belfast receives no Government grants for any municipal
purpose, while disloyal Dublin, screaming for equality of treatment,
is largely subsidised from Imperial sources. The Belfast people
entirely support their hospitals. The Dublin hospitals are largely
supported out of the public revenues. The Belfast Botanic Gardens are
kept going by Belfast. The Dublin Botanical Gardens are wholly
supported by Government. Further examples are needless, the facts
being simple as they are undeniable. Dublin gets everything. Belfast
gets absolutely nothing. Disloyalty is at a premium. Motley's the only
wear. The screamers are always getting something to stop their
mouths, a sop, not a gag. Steady, quiet, hard-working folks are of no
account. The Belfast men ask for nothing, and get it. They want no
pecuniary aid, being used to self-help, and liking it best. Stiff in
opinion, they know their own minds, and are accustomed to victory.
They do not in turn threaten and complain and cringe and curse and
fawn. They keep a level course and run on an even keel. They are bad
to beat, and can do with much letting alone. They are pious in their
way, and talk like Cromwell's Puritans. They abhor Popery, judging the
tree by its fruits, a test recommended by their chiefest classic. They
believe that Protestantism is daylight, that Popery is darkness, and
that the sun is rising. They believe with Carlyle that "Popery cannot
come back any more than paganism, which also lingers in some
countries." They also believe with the sage that "there is a perennial
nobleness and even sacredness in Work. Were he never so benighted,
forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man who
actually and earnestly works; in Idleness alone is there perpetual
despair." So they work every day and all the day, save on rare
occasions, and for these holidays they make up by overtime. They think
Home Rule is useless at best, and not only useless, but dangerous.
They declare it would affect their liberties, and this notion is
ineradicable. Touch them in their freedom and the secold Northerners
become aflame. And while the Irish Kelts burn like straw--a flame and
a puff of smoke, and there an end--these Scots settlers are like oaken
logs, slow to take fire, but hard to extinguish. They prosper under
the Union, and therefore, say they, the Union is good. What the poor
Irish need is industry, not Acts of Parliament. The land is rich, the
laws are just, the judges are honest, and industry is encouraged. The
fault is in the people themselves, and in their pastors and masters.
The convergence of Ulster opinion reminds me of an old line, which
fitly illustrates the position of the Irish malcontent party--
_Heu mihi! quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in arvo._ Quaint old
Thomas Fuller (as I remember) has rendered this--
My starveling bull,
Ah, woe is me,
In pasture full
How lean is he!