king, who, since December, 1905, and at present, is John Campbell
Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen. He occupied the same position in the '90's,
and has since been governor-general of Canada. Both Lord and Lady
Aberdeen are well known in the United States, where Lady Aberdeen has
taken an active interest in the work of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union and many benevolent enterprises and social reforms. She will be
particularly remembered as the promoter of the Irish village at the
Chicago Exposition in 1893, and for her successful endeavors to
introduce Irish homespun, lace, linen, and other products, and to make
them fashionable among the American people. She is a woman of great
energy, executive ability, and determination, and has been applying
those qualities very effectively in Ireland in local reforms. She has
organized societies of women throughout the island to encourage the
virtues and restrain the vices of the people, to relieve their distress
and advance their welfare, physically, mentally, and morally, by a dozen
different movements of which she is the leader and director. She started
a crusade against the great white plague, brought Dr. Arthur Green from
New York as an organizer, while Nathan Straus of New York has been
co-operating with her in setting up establishments for the sterilization
of the milk sold in Irish cities. She is president of almost everything,
has a dozen secretaries and agents carrying out her orders, and is
altogether the busiest woman in the United Kingdom.
[Illustration: THE EARL OF ABERDEEN, LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND IN
1906-8]
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has very little to do except to open
fairs, lay corner stones, preside at public meetings, give dinners,
and look pleasant. He is nominally the head of everything as the
representative of his sovereign, the king, and is supposed to rule
Ireland in his majesty's name, but, like the Governor-General of Canada,
the office is a sinecure. Its incumbent is allowed a salary of $100,000,
a castle in the city, and a country lodge in Ph[oe]nix Park, a liberal
allowance to maintain them and to expend in hospitality, a staff of
secretaries and aids-de-camp, a full outfit of servants, and various
other perquisites which would be appreciated by our President and all
others in authority. And all this without any responsibilities, except
to be tactful, amiable, and diplomatic, and to make friends with the
people.
The actual ruler of Ireland is the Chief Secretary to the lord
lieutenant, who is a member of the cabinet of the king, and spends most
of his time in London, where he devises and directs the political policy
of the government toward that distracted but improving portion of his
majesty's empire, looks after legislation in parliament, and attends to
whatever is necessary for the good of the island. He is the Right Hon.
Augustine Birrell, who is carrying out the lines of policy inaugurated
by Mr. Bryce at the incoming of the present liberal government. The
chief secretary is expected to spend a portion of each year in Ireland,
so that he can keep in touch with affairs and get his cues from public
opinion. He has a salary of $35,000 and a residence, fully equipped and
appointed, near that of the lord lieutenant in Phoenix Park.
The man on the ground, the general manager of the government, and the
_de facto_ head of the executive administration, is known as the Under
Secretary, who also has a handsome residence in Phoenix Park and all
worldly comforts provided for him. He presides at the ancient castle in
the center of the city of Dublin, surrounded by a staff of subordinates
and clerks, and supervises the work of the several executive
departments, most of them being scattered in rented quarters in
different parts of the city. The government has long ago outgrown the
castle and has appointed many officials and boards of commissioners and
organized new executive departments without erecting buildings to
accommodate them. Sir Antony Patrick MacDonnell, who resigned the office
of under secretary, and was elevated to the peerage as Lord MacDonnell
upon his retirement, is an Irishman who has spent his entire life in the
service of his king, the greater part of it in India, where he was
governor of four different provinces in succession and showed remarkable
administrative ability. Retiring voluntarily, he came home to Ireland
and was soon appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of under
secretary, where he was very active, very positive in his convictions,
and very determined in his methods. He made numerous recommendations
that have not been adopted, and attempted to carry out a policy that was
not acceptable to the politicians of Ireland, who rejected his plans for
self-government and refused his overtures.
[Illustration: THE COUNTESS OF ABERDEEN]
Sir Antony MacDonnell was the author of what is called the "devolution
policy." That's a big word and has little meaning in America, but in
Ireland it is in common use and full of significance; first being
applied to a certain political project in Ireland by Lord Dunraven in
1904. If you will look in the dictionary you will see that "devolution"
means "the act of devolving, transferring, or handing over; transmission
from one person to another; a passing or falling to a successor, as of
office, authority, or real estate." In its application to the Irish
situation devolution means the devolving upon the Irish people of purely
local affairs, to transfer their management from the British government
with a string tied to them, and that is what the Irish political leaders
will not consent to. Their motto is _aut_ home rule, _aut nullus_. With
the co-operation of the Earl of Dunraven and others, Sir Antony
MacDonnell prepared a plan of limited home rule in 1907. It gave the
government of Ireland entirely into the hands of the people with the
exception of the police, the courts, and the lawmaking power, which were
retained under British control. The proposition was discussed by the
largest convention ever held in the country and was unanimously rejected
on the theory that it did not go far enough. The Irish people will
never be satisfied until they are permitted to make their own laws.
There were many grounds of objection from the Roman Catholic
ecclesiastical authorities and others, who declare that Sir Antony's
plan of government, which was based upon his experience in India, could
not be applied successfully to conditions in Ireland. Sir Antony is a
very positive man, and when his solution of the Irish problem, to which
he had given years of thought and study, was rejected, he concluded that
he was not the man to rule that country and sent in his resignation,
which was accepted with great reluctance by the government and with
sincere regret by a majority of the people, who admire his ability and
have confidence in his integrity and intentions.
His successor is Sir John Dougherty, his chief assistant, who has been
in the office of the under secretary in Dublin Castle all his life, and
has been promoted grade after grade from an ordinary clerkship to his
present position because of his ability and his sterling qualities.
Although he is not a man of marked individuality and initiative, like
Sir Antony MacDonnell, he is considered a safe, conservative, and
judicious administrator.
The next in importance, who, perhaps, should be ranked first of all, is
a mysterious and autocratic official, known as the Treasury
Remembrancer. He was described to me as "a lord over all, and the best
hated man in Ireland. Nobody knows him or cares to know him. His fellow
officials seldom hear or speak his name. He is a spy and a spotter and
has arbitrary authority to disallow accounts, withhold allowances, and
lock up the money chest whenever he likes. There is no statute
authorizing his appointment, and there is no law or regulation defining
his duties or limiting his authority, which he receives from the
chancellor of the exchequer in London and to whom alone he reports." The
office pays $7,500 a year without any known perquisites, although the
remembrancer is supposed to have mysterious sources of revenue that have
never been found out. He cannot, however, spend the money of the crown.
His authority is limited to preventing expenditures. He is "the
watchdog of the treasury" in Ireland, and combines in one the duties and
powers which are intrusted to the comptroller and auditors of the
treasury in the United States. He interprets appropriation bills,
customs laws, and decides how much money can be expended for this
purpose and that. He audits all accounts, rejects many, disallows
overcharges, and makes everybody who has to do with government finances
a great deal of trouble. Hence his unpopularity and his habitual
reserve.
In addition to these chief officials there are numerous secretaries and
assistant secretaries, commissioners and boards of various
jurisdictions, and executive departments, with corps of clerks similar
to those in Washington. Each has its functions over some branch of the
administration and all are subject to the supervision of the under
secretary and the chief secretary in London. Their commissions are
signed by the lord lieutenant, who knows nothing about them, has no
authority over them, and acts only in a formal capacity, as the
representative of the king. There is a great deal of complaint as to the
excessive number of "civil servants," as they call them over there,
although such a term would be resented by the employees of the civil
service in the United States. All railway officials are called
"servants" in Great Britain. Every salaried person comes within that
designation. Any one who will look over the printed register of
government employees in Ireland will conclude that home rule has already
been adopted, because the treasury remembrancer is said to be the only
Englishman on the pay roll, except the lord lieutenant, several of his
secretaries, and the military officers at the garrison, and several
Scotch experts in the employ of the Agricultural Department and
Congested Districts Board. But what spoils it all to the people of
Ireland is that these officials receive their appointments from what
they consider an alien authority. The touch of the English giver poisons
the gift. They will never be satisfied until their commissions are
signed by an Irish name. Nobody in the employ of the government is
loyal. Every man hates and loathes England, and doesn't hesitate to say
so in public and in private, on all occasions, although he draws his
rations from the British government. And when you remind him of that he
answers promptly that the money comes from the pockets of the Irish
rate-payers and England grabs £3,000,000 of it for herself.
Ireland contributes an annual average of £10,500,000 in taxes to the
imperial treasury and £7,500,000 of it is expended in maintaining her
government and constructing her public works. The remaining three
millions is her contribution toward the support of the British empire,
the wages of the king, the expenses of parliament, the support of the
army and navy, and the interest upon the public debt, which is not kept
separately for Ireland, and for various other purposes.
Ireland has twenty-three peers in the House of Lords and one hundred and
two representatives in the House of Commons, of whom eighty-two are
nationalists or home rulers. The remaining twenty are conservatives,
unionists, and anti-home rulers, who believe in maintaining the present
system of government and the existing relations between Great Britain
and Ireland. The Irish members of parliament have been a thorn in the
flesh of John Bull for many years, ever since Daniel O'Connell was
admitted to the imperial legislature in 1829. They have fought fiercely
for concessions term after term, have built fires in the rear of the
government and have attacked it upon all sides until they have
accomplished a great many reforms and are near to the point of achieving
final success. If the liberal party wins at the next election every
patriotic Irishman expects political emancipation, because its leaders
are pledged to complete home rule on the same basis that Mr. Gladstone
proposed several years ago, when he was prime minister.
The Irish peerage, like that of Scotland, are not entitled to all the
rights and prerogatives enjoyed by the British peerage, and have only
twenty-eight seats in the House of Lords. The total peerage of Ireland
consists of two dukes, ten marquises, sixty-three earls, thirty-six
viscounts, and sixty-four barons, a total of one hundred and
seventy-five nobles, of whom seventeen also have titles in the English
peerage, nearly all by inheritance.
The Irish peerage are represented in the House of Lords by twenty-eight
of their members who are elected for life. As soon as one of these
representative peers dies two or more of his colleagues notify the lord
high chancellor of England of the vacancy. The latter thereupon issues a
writ in the name of the king under the great seal proclaiming an
election. Copies of this writ are served upon every Irish peer through
the clerk of the crown at Dublin naming a date for an election. Each of
the one hundred and seventy-five Irish peers has a vote, but they never
assemble. They merely write to the clerk of the crown at Dublin, naming
their choice, and forward a duplicate of the letter to the clerk of the
House of Lords at London.
Scotland has only sixteen representative peers, who are elected by an
assemblage at Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh when notified of a vacancy.
There is considerable formality in the proceedings, and every peer is
required to present himself to answer the roll call before he is allowed
to vote. There is a good deal of preliminary canvassing in both Scotland
and Ireland, and that was particularly the case of Lord Curzon of
Kedleston, who was elected to the House of Lords as an Irish peer after
his return from India. The candidates for the vacancy usually visit
their fellow peers personally and solicit their support. Social
influences go a great way. Lord Curzon was handicapped in many respects,
but was elected by a large majority because of the high esteem in which
he is held.
When the ballots are all in the clerk of the crown at Dublin makes up a
tabulated statement which he sends with his report to the clerk of the
House of Lords. The latter checks it off from his own records and
announces the result to the lord high chancellor and to each of the
Irish peers in person.
The representative peers at present are the Earls of Annesley, Bandon,
Belmore, Darnley, Drogheda, Kilmory, Lucan, Mayo, Rosse, and Westmeath,
Viscounts Bangor and Templeton, and Barons Bellew, Castlemaine,
Clonbrock, Crofton, Curzon, Dunalley, Dunboine, Headley, Inchiquin,
Kilmaine, Langford, Massey, Musckerry, Oranmore, Rathdonnell, and
Ventry.
The premier of the Irish peerage is Maurice Fitzgerald, who is the Duke
of Leinster and also is Marquis of Kildare, and represents the most
distinguished and celebrated family in Ireland. His dukedom dates back
to 1766. The second in rank is the Duke of Abercorn, James Hamilton, who
is also Marquis of Hamilton. The third is James Edward William Theobold,
twenty-seventh Marquis of Ormonde, and the fourth is Rudolph Robert
Basil Aloysius Augustine Fielding, Earl of Desmond, who is also Earl of
Denbigh.
The oldest titles in the Irish peerage are the following:
Baron Kinsale, created 1223.
Lord Dunsany, created 1439.
Lord Timlestown, created 1461.
Viscount Gormanston, created 1478.
Baron Louth, created 1541.
Lord Dumboine, created 1541.
Baron Inchiquin, created 1543.
Viscount Montgarrett, created 1550.
The Earl of Fingal, created 1620.
Viscount Grandison, created 1620.
Earl of Cork, created 1620.
Baron Digby, created 1620.
Earl of Westmeath, created 1621.
Earl of Desmond, created 1622.
Lord Dillon, created 1622.
Viscount Valentia, created 1622.
Earl of Meath, created 1627.
Baron Sherard, created 1627.
Viscount Lumley, created 1628.
Viscount Taffe, created 1628.
All the remaining peerages of Ireland were created later than the year
1700.
The people as a rule are respectful towards the nobility, and treat them
with a consideration which is not always deserved. The bitterness of
politics is more intense in Ireland than in any other country, and, as
Sydney Brooks in his recent book on "Ireland in the Twentieth Century"
says, "Class distinctions are not mitigated by political agreement.
Differences of creed are not assuaged by harmony of economic interests.
The cleavages of racial temperament are not, as in other countries,
bridged over by a sense of national unity. On the contrary, all the
bitterness of caste and creed, of political and material antipathies and
contrast, instead of losing half their viciousness in a multiplicity of
cross-currents, are gathered and rigidly compressed in Ireland into two
incongruous channels. Throughout the country you can infer a man's
religion from his social position; his social position from his
religion, and his views on all Irish questions from both; and nine times
out of ten you infer rightly."
That is strictly true. Nowhere in the world is a man's politics so
influenced by his religion and his social position as in Ireland.
Although you will find home rulers in all classes of the English
population, you will never find them outside one class in Ireland. If
you are told what business he is engaged in or what church he belongs to
in Ireland, it is not necessary for you to ask his politics.
While the ancient nobility of Ireland is gradually becoming extinct and
their estates are being divided up among the farmers who till them, a
new aristocracy is developing. The sons of what is called the middle
class are invading the sacred haunts of the ancient aristocracy and are
taking the places of the dukes and earls as the latter retire. Every
peer that has been created in Ireland of late years has been a son of a
manufacturer, a tradesman, or a country gentleman of the middle class,
and at the present rate the descendants of earls and marquises will be
compelled to stand back and give the sons of brewers, distillers, and
other manufacturers their places at the front of the stage.
A century or even half a century ago no Irish trader or contractor,
lawyer or doctor, unless he could produce the proper sort of pedigree,
could enter the social world or the best clubs of Dublin and other
Irish cities or participate in the sports of the gentry and aristocracy.
But to-day their grandsons have the entrée to that gilded gate which
hangs upon broken hinges and will soon be entirely removed. This is the
result of the decadence of one class and the advance of another. A
brewer or a distiller who can obtain a seat in the House of Lords must
necessarily be eligible to the clubs where his colleagues meet. Nearly
all of the twenty-three peers created by the present government in
England have sprung from families of humble origin and are sons of men
who made their money in manufacturing and trade. And there is room for
more of them in the peerage. You hear irreverent people talking about
"breeding up the peerage of Great Britain," just as they talk about
improving their cattle, horses, and swine, and in the clubs of London
this subject is revived every time the son of a decaying family of the
nobility marries the daughter of a wealthy tradesman, or the daughter of
an earl weds the son of a wealthy commoner.
In Ireland the shopkeeper now educates his son for a profession. The
sons of contractors become architects and civil engineers. The sons of
lawyers and doctors enter the army and navy and diplomatic service.
Among the large families of the middle class you will find one son a
lawyer, another a doctor, and the other two in the army and navy. In
order to keep pace with them and be able to appear properly in the
society which their brothers enter, and in order that they may be
considered suitable wives for the sons of similar families who are on
the upward grade, the daughters of the middle classes of Ireland are
sent to the best schools and colleges and spend their winters in Paris.
For these reasons very little is said about pedigree in Ireland these
days. The army that is advancing does not look back. The decaying
nobility dare not question nor criticise lest they may be trampled upon.
The only people who talk about their ancestors are the peasants, who
trace their descent from the Irish kings.
Mrs. O'Leary met Mrs. O'Donahue one day and in the course of
conversation asked if she had ever looked up her pedigree.
"Phwat's that?" inquired Mrs. O'Donahue.
"The people you sprang from," was the reply.
"I'd have you know that the O'Donahues never sprang from anybody," was
the indignant retort. "They sprang at 'em."
Every influential leader of the liberal party is a home ruler. The Earl
of Aberdeen, the present lieutenant governor, Earl Dudley, his
predecessor, who is now governor-general of Australia, James Bryce,
recently chief secretary for Ireland and now British ambassador at
Washington, and many other influential men in high places, are earnest
in supporting the Irish claims for self-government, and the national
party, which, after the death of Charles S. Parnell, became demoralized
and split into factions under the leadership of John Redmond, John
Dillon, and others, has been a unit since 1900 and is working
harmoniously. The liberal leaders have promised to make home rule the
leading issue at the next parliamentary election, which will probably
occur in two years or so. In the meantime the Irish party in parliament
will continue to pursue the policy that has already been so successful
in securing concessions for the relief of the people and the promotion
of the welfare and prosperity of Ireland.
The city government of Dublin is very much like that of London. The lord
mayor is second in official rank to the lord lieutenant, and within the
precincts of the city takes precedence of everybody except that official
(who is the personal representative of the king), the royal family, and
foreign ambassadors. He precedes the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is
the primate of England, the two archbishops of Armagh, the primates of
all Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the chief secretary for Ireland,
and even the prime minister of England, while the lady mayoress has the
right to walk before every duchess, marchioness, and woman of title in
the kingdom except the royal family. The salary of the lord mayor is
$15,000 a year, and he has a beautiful old house to live in--one of the
most attractive in Dublin. It is situated on Dawson Street near
Stephen's Green and is surrounded by a picturesque garden. Here in olden
times the lord mayor used to entertain like a prince. It was a matter of
pride that the Mansion House should never be outdone by the castle in
the magnificence of its hospitality. But of late years the civic
entertainments, as they were called, have been abandoned and the lady
mayoress has not attempted to shine in society.
The Right Honorable Gerald O'Reilly was Lord Mayor of Dublin when I was
there in 1908, and he managed to look after his private business as
grocer and liquor dealer at Towns End in connection with his official
duties. He was elected to office by the nationalists and the labor
element, who control the politics not only of Dublin but of all Ireland,
and have elected his predecessors for many years. And they have been men
of the people without exception. No aristocrat, no landlord, no member
of the nobility could ever hope to become Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Mr. O'Reilly was born, reared, and educated in County Carlow, where his
father was a groceryman and liquor dealer like himself. When he became
of age he came up to Dublin, went into business on his own account and
prospered. He is not a rich man, but well to do, with a good patronage,
a good reputation, and a large influence in politics. For twenty years
he has served as a member of the common council and the board of
aldermen, where he has proved his usefulness and his right to promotion.
Mr. O'Reilly's predecessor was an actual workingman, G.P. Nanetti, a son
of an Italian artist who came to Ireland fifty years ago to engage in
his profession as a decorator. Mr. Nanetti was born in Dublin, educated
in the national schools, learned his trade as printer in the office of
that ancient and well-known paper, the _Freeman's Journal_, and was
advanced from grade to grade until he became the foreman of the
composing-room. In the meantime he went into politics, became a leader
among the workingmen, was elected to the common council and then to the
board of aldermen, and, after serving two terms as lord mayor, was
elected to parliament as the representative of the business district of
Dublin, which surrounds the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College. Before
him Timothy Harrington was lord mayor for three terms, a longer period
than any of his predecessors since the creation of the title by King
Charles I. on the twenty-ninth day of July, 1641. He, too, was a great
success in the office and was sent to parliament for the district which
includes the docks.