in striking contrast on the Marquess of Lansdowne's estate in Queen's
County. Most of the tenants were non-judicial, and the total rents
amounted to L7,000, of which the Marquess allowed L1,100 to be
annually expended on the estate. In 1886 the tenants demanded
thirty-five per cent. reduction on non-judicial and twenty-five per
cent. on judicial rents, threatening as an alternative to adopt the
Plan of Campaign. The Marquess refused to comply with this exorbitant
demand, but offered reductions of fifteen to twenty-five per cent. on
non judicial rents. The tenants declined to pay anything, and the
landlord enforced his rights, Mr. Denis Kilbride, M.P., declaring that
"these evictions differed from most of the other evictions to this
extent,--that they were able to pay the rent. It was a fight of
intelligence against intelligence, a case of diamond cut diamond." Mr.
Kilbride, who held a large farm at a rental of seven hundred and sixty
pounds was one of the evicted. Another of these poor destitute,
homeless tenants, brutally turned out on the roadside to starve, or
die like a dog from exposure, was no sooner evicted than he entered a
racehorse for the great contest of the Curragh. This victim of Saxon
tyranny was named John Dunne, and his holding comprised more than
thirteen hundred acres. Let us hope the colt did him credit. Let us
trust that the evicted quadruped carried off the blue ribbon of
Kildare. For under the Lansdowne "Rack-rents" the struggling farmer
could barely keep one racehorse, which, like the fabled ewe-lamb of
ancient story, was his little all. Perhaps Mr. Dunne's colt was
related to that well-bred travelling horse, of which the picture
adorned the walls of Limerick and its vicinity, and which gloried in
the name of Justice to Ireland. There were no evicted Protestants on
the Lansdowne estate. Every Protestant farmer paid his rent and
steadfastly refused to join the Plan of Campaign.
The injustice of an Irish rent largely depends on the question, To
whom is it due? A good Nationalist may draw a higher rent than a
Loyalist. A sound Home Ruler may ask for and insist on an exorbitant
rent, but he is never denounced by the Nationalist press. The
Corporation of Dublin is red-hot in the matter of patriotism. Its
Parnellite members have from time to time comprised the pick of the
Nationalist agitators. The Dublin "patriot" press has ever been
foremost in denouncing Rack-rents. But the city of Dublin is a
landlord. It has agricultural tenants who are never allowed under pain
of eviction to get into arrears. The members of the Corporation fixed
the rents, and, strange to say, the tenants at the first opportunity
appealed to the Land Commissioners. Six of them holding four hundred
and twenty-seven acres of land, were paying L883 16s. 4d. The rent was
therefore over L2 an acre, which is perhaps double the average. The
Government valuation was L625 10s. The new rent was finally settled at
L683, being an all-round reduction of twenty-three per cent. Lord
Clanricarde is frequently denounced by Nationalists for excessive
rents, lack of conscience, and non-residence. The Land Commissioners
were unable to deduct anything like twenty-three per cent. from the
Clanricarde rent-roll. The Councillors of Dublin were never upbraided,
nor put in danger of their lives. The Loughrea people shot Lord
Clanricarde's agent, his driver, his wife, and several other people,
in protest against the Clanricarde rents and to encourage the landlord
to live on the estate. About a dozen were murdered altogether. Surely
these parallel cases should demonstrate the utter hollowness of the
Home Rule agitation.
The Protestants of Warrenpoint, like those of Newry and Belfast, are
confident of their ability to hold their own. Their attitude is very
different from that of the trembling heretics of Tuam or Tipperary.
They are strong in numbers, discipline, and resolution, and in
addition to upholding their own personal cause they declare that their
isolated co-religionists in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught shall not
be forsaken nor left to their own shifts. A rough and ready farmer
thus spoke forth his mind:--"England may give the Papists a Parliament
to manage Papists, but not to manage Protestants. We should never
begin to consider the advisability of submitting to it. The thing's
clean impossible. What! Let Papists tax us! Pay for the spread of
Popery! Did you ever hear anything so absurd? Not one farthing would
_I_ ever pay. I'd leave the country first. So would all the decent,
industrious folks. We know what happens in every country where Popery
gets the mastery. Look at Spain, Italy, and the Catholic parts of
Ireland. If England sends an army of redcoats to punish us for our
loyalty, we shall give way at once. We've sense enough to know that we
could do nothing against the Queen's troops, even if we wished to
fight them. But to take arms against the soldiers of England would be
quite against our principles. What we should ultimately do, under
military compulsion, we have not yet decided, but we should never
under any circumstances show fight against the Queen. We don't think
the day will ever come when England would send the military to shoot
us for sticking to England. As for the police of the Irish Parliament,
that's another thing. They would have no assistance in Ulster. The
sheriff's officers, when engaged in the compulsory raising of taxes,
would have a lively time, and I am sure they would never get any
money. We don't take it seriously yet. If the bill were actually on
the statute book and an Irish House of Commons doing the Finnigan's
wake business with the furniture legs of the College Green Lunatic
Asylum, even then we would not take it seriously. We shall never think
it worth while to be serious until we see the British army firing on
us. It's too ridiculous. We pay no attention to the Irish Nationalist
members, whom we regard as a bankrupt lot of bursted windbags. Why,
hardly one of them could be trusted with the till of a totty-wallop
shop. To how many of them would Gladstone lend a sovereign? How many
of them could get tick in London for a new rig-out? Dublin is out of
the question, of course, because in Dublin these statesmen are known.
Would Englishmen let such men govern their country? Not likely. Nor
will we."
I submitted that, so far as at present enacted, these very heroes were
really going to govern both England and Ireland. The great organ of
English Roman Catholicism objecting to this has given great offence to
the Irish Papists, and the Nationalist press is shrieking with futile
rage. English Catholicism and Irish Catholicism seem to be entirely
different politically. Englishmen are Englishmen first, and Catholics
next. Irishmen look first to Rome, and cordially hate England,--there
is the difference. The Conservative Catholic organ says, referring to
the retention of members at Westminster:--
"With just as much reason might we import a band of eighty South
Africans, and whether they were eighty Zulus or eighty Archangels in
disguise, their presence in the British House of Commons would be a
gross violation of the principles of representative government. At
present, as members of the common Parliament of an United Kingdom,
English and Irish members have correlative rights, but when Irish
affairs are withdrawn from the Parliament at Westminster, on that day
must the Irish members cease to take part in purely British
legislation. We are asked to grant Home Rule to Ireland in deference
to the wishes of the local majority, and then we are told we must let
the local majority in Great Britain be dictated to by eighty men who
have neither stake in the country nor business in her Parliament, and
who do not represent so much as even a rotten borough between them."
My Warrenpoint friend may well say that he cannot take it seriously.
The dignity of the English Parliament is, however, a matter of great
concern to Englishmen, and that for the present seems consigned to the
charge of Dillon, Healy, and Co. And all to further the Union of
Hearts. Yet Misther Tay Day Sullivan, not content with the management
of both England and Ireland, proposes to oust us from India! The Irish
faction will boss the wuruld from ind to ind. Begorra, they will. Tay
Day says:--
England fears for India,
For there her cruel work
Was just as foul and hateful
As any of the Turk.
But when God sends us thither
Her rule to overthrow,
With fearless hearts rejoicing
To work His will we'll go.
Stupid little England
Thinks to say us nay,
But paltry little England
Shall never stop our way.
There is a tribute of affection! There is an outpouring of loyalty!
There is an anthem to celebrate the Union of Hearts! It should be sung
round a table, Gladstonians and Irish Home Rulers hand in hand, as in
"Auld Lang Syne," and given out by Pastor W.E. Gladstone, as short
metre, two lines at a time. Why not? Stranger things are happening
every day.
Warrenpoint, July 20th.
No. 51.--THE IRISH PRESS ON "FINALITY."
Englishmen who have any doubt remaining anent Home Rule should read
the Irish Nationalist press. Those who propose to concede the measure
for the sake of peace and finality should read, mark, learn, and
inwardly digest the _United Ireland_ leader, which commences: "Let it
be pretended no more that the fate of the present Home Rule Bill is
henceforth a matter of vital interest to us," and afterwards says, "We
shall have to go on fighting--to go on fighting--without even a
temporary intermission, and whether this bill pass or not, this year
or next, or the year after, no matter what becomes of it." "Mr.
Gladstone's bill in its present form is exactly such a Central Council
as Mr. Chamberlain would have agreed to at the time of the Round Table
Conference. If it pass it can be no more than a milestone on our
march. To talk of finality any more would be simply grotesque, and yet
the Gladstonians have urged, in season and out of season, that the
bill would be nothing if not 'final, reasonably final.'" The English
Home Rulers are dealt with as severely as the most hardened Unionist
could wish. The writer speaks of their "disastrous fatuity in
consuming the whole of this session of the Imperial Parliament, and
the greater part of one or two more, over a Home Rule Bill which will
settle nothing, no, not even for three years." Disastrous fatuity is a
good phrase, an excellent good phrase, in sooth. I thank thee, Jew,
for teaching me that word. Those who believe in the security of the
Gladstonian safeguards, and the pacific disposition of the Nationalist
party, will perhaps be able to put a friendly construction on the
passage which begins:--"And it is already settled that no man in
Ireland is to bear a rifle unless he be a soldier of the army of
occupation, which will still be encamped on our soil 'to mak siccare.'
This hateful and degrading prohibition is what no Parnellite can
pretend to consent to for any reasonable or unreasonable fraction of a
period of reasonable finality." Those who believe in the severe
commercial morality and rigid honesty of the authors of the Plan of
Campaign will doubtless find their favourable opinion confirmed by the
succeeding remarkable complaint. "And the Irish Legislature--would it
not be better policy now to refuse to regard it as a Parliament and to
refuse to call it so?--is forbidden to take away any person's property
except by process of law, in accordance with settled principles and
precedents. There's trouble here." There is indeed trouble here. An
Irish Parliament which could not "take away any person's property
except by process of law" would be shorn of its principal functions,
would fail to justify its existence, would fall immeasurably short of
the popular expectation, would have, in fact, no earthly _raison d'
etre_. An Irish Parliament without power to take from him that hath,
and give unto him that hath not, would be without functions, and the
foinest pisintry in the wuruld would instantly rebel against such a
nonentity. The farmers remember the oft-repeated statements of Mr.
Timothy Healy to the effect that "landlordism is the prop of the
British Government, and it is that we want to kick away." And the
benefit accruing from this vigorous action was by the same eloquent
patriot very plainly stated. "The people of this country ought never
to be satisfied so long as a single penny of rent is paid for a sod of
land in the whole of Ireland." And they never will be satisfied, with
or without rent. Their dissatisfaction has enabled Mr. Healy to put
money in his purse. The wail of a great people whose Parliament will
not be allowed to rob from all and sundry is accounted for towards the
close of the article. There will be trouble "as soon as the Dublin
Legislature becomes hard pushed for money, which will be desperately
often from the beginning, as is now plain."
These considerations are closely observed by the people of Strabane,
the best of whom are steady loyalists. The town is bright, brisk,
thriving, and Scotch. Or rather the Scottish element is conspicuous in
the main street, with its McCollum and Mackey, its Crawford and Aikin,
its Colhoun and Finlay, its Lowry and McAnaw. There are several shirt
factories, of which the biggest is run by Stewart and Macdonald. A
number of names which may be either English or Scotch are equally to
the front, Taylor, White, and Simms, cheek by jowl with doubtful cases
like McCosker and McElhinney, which, however, smack somewhat of the
tartan. Macfarlane issues a notice, which is printed by Blair, and
besides White I notice Black and Gray. The establishment of Mr.
Snodgrass, near the Scotch Boot Stores, was remindful of Charles
Dickens, and the small flautist piping "Annie Laurie," put me in mind
of Robert Burns, the hairdresser of Warrenpoint. It became difficult
to realise that this was Ireland. Not far away are two mountains,
named respectively Mary Gray and Bessie Bell. The hills round Strabane
retain their Irish names, but the genius of the place is distinctly
Scottish. There are Irish parts of Strabane, but they are unpleasant
and unimportant. The Unionists pay three-fourths of the rates, but
there is only one Loyalist on the Town Council, which has nine
members, of which number three retire annually in rotation. The Town
Commissioners, as a whole, are not highly esteemed by the people of
Strabane. One of them, the leading light of the local Nationalist
party, is rated at L8. Another, a working plasterer, is the accredited
agent of the Home Rule party in this division of Tyrone, and is
playfully called the Objector-General, on account of his
characteristic method of working in the Registry Court. The Chairman,
who occupies the position of Mayor, but without the title, is rated at
L13. Two small publicans are rated at L12 and L27 respectively. The
remainder, including the Conservative member, are rated sufficiently
high to be regarded as having some stake in the country, and no
objection is taken on this score. But the Strabane Town Commissioners
are intolerant. Apart from the fact that they admit only one Unionist
to a body which derives three-fourths of its funds from Unionists,
they are distinctly intolerant in the matter of employment. They
employ no Protestants. Their solicitor, Mr. William Wilson, is indeed
of the proscribed faith, but he seems to have inherited the office
from his father. No Protestants need apply for any situation, however
small, under the Strabane Town Council, which pays its servants with
the money of Protestants. This is the party which clamours for
equality of treatment, and eternally complains of the exclusiveness of
Protestantism. A well-known Strabaner said:--
"If we are shut out from the Town Council, it is, to some extent, our
own fault. Two causes mainly contributed to this result--the apathy of
the Unionist voters, and the unwillingness of our best men to rub up
against some of the men put forward by the other party. I say some
only, not all. We did not care to be mixed up with fellows of low
class, especially when they are as ignorant as possible. Then again,
we are well represented on the Poor Law Board, which really has all
the power, attending as it does to sanitation and so forth. The
Nationalists greedily snap at every shred and semblance of power, and
leave no stone unturned to get the mastery. There has come a sad
change over the poor folks, that is, the Roman Catholics. Formerly
they were civil and kind, and we all got on famously together. If a
Protestant was out in the country a mile or two away, and rain came
on, they were hospitable with that beautiful old courtesy which was
one of the best things the nation possessed. It was something to
boast of. It was unique, and could not be found in such perfection out
of Ireland. It's all over now. Since Mr. Gladstone commenced to
destroy the country the poor folks hereabouts have changed very much
for the worse, and if you now got caught in a shower while out in the
country you might be drowned before they would ask you to take
shelter. They expect to be enjoying our property very shortly. They
fully believe that they will soon have the land and goods that we have
worked for and earned by the sweat of our brows, while they have stood
by complaining, instead of doing their best to get on. What shall I do
if Home Rule becomes law? Just this--I shall get out of the country in
double-quick time. There will be no security for life or property. The
country will be a perfect Hell upon Earth."
There are three rivers at Strabane, which, notwithstanding the neglect
of the guide-books, is well worth the tourist's attention. The Mourne,
a really beautiful river, runs beside the town, washing the very
houses of a long street, and meeting the Finn, another fine river, in
the meadows near Lifford, which is in Donegal, but for all that only
ten minutes' walk from Strabane. From the confluence the river is
called the Foyle, so that from the splendid bridge leading into
Lifford may be seen the rare spectacle of three considerable rivers in
one meadow. Lifford is very clean and very pretty. The gaol is the
most striking building, and I wandered through its deserted corridors,
desolate as those of Monaghan. There were some strange marks in the
principal square; a number of parallel lines which puzzled me. I
turned to the gaoler who had just liberated me for some explanation.
"Faith, thin, it's the militia officers that made them."
"Studying fortification?"
"Divil a fortification, thin. 'Tis lawn tennis it is, jist."
And so it was. Two courts of lawn tennis in the square of the county
town of Donegal! That will give some idea of the business traffic.
An experienced electioneerer said:--"We had an awful fight before we
could return Lord Frederick Hamilton for North Tyrone. We had all our
work cut out, for although we have on paper a majority of about one
hundred, many of our people are non-resident landlords, or army and
navy men, and they are not here to vote for us. So that our majority
of forty-nine was a close thing, though not so close as we expected.
The other side do not fight fair. Their tricks in the Registry Court
are most discreditable. Both parties fight the register, the
Nationalists expending any amount of time and money, and showing such
enthusiasm as our people never show. And this is the reason. Our Scots
farmers--for they are as Scottish as their ancestors of two hundred
years ago--_will_ stick to their work, and persist in making their
work the paramount concern of their lives. They cannot believe that
objections will be made to their names on the register, and when such
objections have been raised they must appear in person, and there
comes the difficulty. For if it's harvest time, or if engaged on any
necessary work, you cannot get them to the Court. At Newtonstewart
where the bulk of the voters are Protestant, no less than five
substantial farmers were objected to successively. The inspector, that
is, the Nationalist agent who is supposed to look into the claims of
the Unionist party, said that one had assigned the farm to his son, or
that another was not the real tenant, or that something else was
wrong, and as this statement established a _prima-facie_ case, it
became necessary for the persons whose votes were questioned to come
into Court. Now, there is the rub. The objector calculates that some
will not come, for he knows how hard it is to get them to come. Then
they stuff the register with bogus names. They put down dozens of
people who don't exist, with the object of polling somebody for
them--if any of them should escape the scrutiny of the opposite
party--and with the further object of causing the Unionist party
expense and loss of time. For there is a stamp duty of threepence to
be paid for every objection, and then the Loyalist lawyer and his
staff are kept at work for six weeks, instead of a fortnight or three
weeks, which should be the outside time taken. Then the annoyance and
loss of time to the industrious Unionist voters, who have to leave
their work. This does not hurt the opposite party, who have nothing
else to do, and who in these wrangling affairs are in their native
element, thoroughly enjoying themselves. What makes the work so hard
for the Loyalist lawyer is the fact that our folks are all for
business and look upon politics as a nuisance, while the other side
make politics the principal business of their lives. They are
tremendously energetic in this, but wonderfully supine in everything
else. In politics they spare neither time nor money, nor (for the
matter of that) swearing. The lying that goes on in the Registry Court
would astonish Englishmen. The Papist party themselves admit that they
are awful liars, but they laugh it off, and plead that all is fair in
love and war.
"The priest sits in the Revision Court all day long. In these Revision
Courts every priest is an agent of the Separatist party. They watch
the inspectors and witnesses, keeping a keen eye on those who do not
swear hard enough, ready to reward or censure, as the case may be.
Every Sunday the people are instructed from the altar as to their
political action. This eternal elbowing-on keeps them up to their
work, as well as the promises of the good things to come. Our folks
are never worked up. That makes it very hard for us. They came up
pretty well last time, though. But when one side is all for business,
and the other side all for politics, the business folks are
handicapped.
"The Nationalists ran John Dillon on one occasion. We smashed him up.
No respectable constituency would ever return any of his class, and we
resented the attempt to couple us with a man of that stamp. He was
beaten by several hundreds. Then they ran a Mr. Wylie, who had been a
Land Commissioner for this district. We thought that positively
indecent, and we wondered that any gentleman would put himself in such
a position. He had been round here reducing rents, and then he came
forward as a candidate. We accuse him of bad taste, nothing worse. He
only made one speech, though, and that was to thank the people for
placing him at the bottom of the poll. He confined himself to
canvassing. If he had once mounted the hustings we would have heckled
him about the Land Commission business. He knew that and never gave us
a chance. It was a cute stroke of policy to bring him forward. He was
a Presbyterian, and might be Land Commissioner again. At least the
people thought so. Then they tried a Professor Dougherty, of
Londonderry, another Home Rule Presbyterian; for there are a few,
though you could count them off on your fingers, and they are a
hundred times outnumbered by the Conservative Catholics. He belonged
to Magee College, and we trotted out the whole of his co-professors
against him. We never had a meeting without one or other of his
colleagues pitching into him--a great joke it was.
"Over the water Mr. E.T. Herdman tried to get in for East Donegal, a
very popular man who pays thirty or forty thousand pounds a year in
wages. The people promised to support him. The priests promised to
support him. They asked what would they do else, and what did he take
them for? They are so anxious about employment, these good men. All
they want is the good of the people. You saw how they ran after the
Lord Lieutenant saying: Only find us work! You see how they run after
the Countess of Aberdeen, who is encouraging industry (and about whom
there are some pickings). What did the people of East Donegal do,
under the guidance of their clergy? They returned Arthur O'Connor, who
never did anything for them, who never darkens their doors, and who is
utterly unknown to them. What can you say for them after that?"