Read the book: «Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule», page 23

The Galwegians say that a Belfast firm has taken the mill, and that therefore its future success is assured. The cutest citizens say that this entirely depends on the manager's theory as to workpeople. If he brings them with him, well and good. The work will be done although the workpeople may be boycotted. And then the Irish will have another grievance. They will be able to point to the fact that of a large number of workpeople only a small proportion of Catholics are employed. This is the trick of Nationalists when speaking of the intolerance of Belfast. The officials of that city, and indeed, of every city in Ireland, are mostly Protestants, not because of this, but because they are better men. The Belfast merchants and the Belfast Corporation have a keen eye to the main chance, as is abundantly proved by their success, and in business matters they will have the best men, whether Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Turks, or Infidels. Whatever the cause, it is certain that Protestantism turns out a far larger proportion of able men, and in Ulster, at any rate, you rarely meet a Catholic who is worth his salt. The Catholics of Ulster lack, not toleration, but brains, industry, and business capacity. Anyone who compares the harbours of Cork and Galway with Belfast will at once appreciate the situation. Wherefore let not the Keltic Irish waste their time in clamouring for the redress of non-existent grievances, but buckle to and make their own prosperity. The destinies of nations, like those of individuals, are in their own hands. Honest work is never wasted work. Selah.

Athenry, May 27th.

No. 28. – COULD WE RECONQUER IRELAND?

The country people call this place "the back of God-speed," "the back of the world," and "the divil's own hunting ground," but why they do it nobody seems to know. The village is on the road to nowhere, and I dropped on it, as it were, accidentally, during a long drive to the remotest end of Galway Bay. Yet even here I found civilised people who regard the proposed College Green Parliament with undisguised aversion. Not the inhabitants, but Irish tourists, bent on exploring the wildest and remotest nooks of their native land, among them a Dublin barrister, whose critical analysis of the powers proposed to be entrusted to the unscrupulous and self-seeking promoters of the Land League may prove useful and interesting to non-legal English readers. A Galway gentleman having during the drive pointed out a large number of desolate mansions rapidly falling into ruin, the conversation turned on the universal subject, and my legal friend embarked on a dissertation on the iniquity of the Gladstone land laws, which have had the effect of ruining a large number of the country gentry of Ireland, driving them from their native shores, impoverishing the landlords without any perceptible benefit to the tenants, who appear to be no better off than ever. What surprised him most was the arrant nonsense talked by the English Gladstonians, and the blindness and apathy of the English people generally, who in his opinion were being gradually led to the brink of a frightful abyss, which threatened to swallow up the prestige and prosperity of the British people. He said: —

"Have Englishmen forgotten the previous history of the men she is now on the point of entrusting with her future? Are Englishmen unacquainted with the traditional hatred of the Irish malcontents? Do they not know the aspirations of the Catholic clergy, and are they ignorant of their immense influence with the masses? Surely they are, or they would rise in their might and instantly trample out the present agitation, which has for its aim and end, not the benefit of Ireland, not the pacification of the people, who are perfectly peaceful if left alone, not the convenience of Ireland in matters which should be managed by local self-government, but the absolute independence of the country, the creation of a national army, and the affiliation of Ireland with some foreign Power hostile to England, such as either America or France, as occasion might serve. America is largely in the hands of the Irish electorate, and American politicians would not be particularly scrupulous how they purchased Irish support. No need to point out the embarrassing complications likely to result from giving large powers to men who are essentially inimical to England. You can do justice without putting your own head on the block. It has been my business to analyse the bill, in conjunction with other lawyers, Home Rule and otherwise in political colour, and we are all agreed that the so-called safeguards amount to nothing, and it would be incomparably safer for England to throw over the country altogether. Because that is what it must ultimately come to, and we think it would be better to avoid the inevitable agitation, the terrible difficulties foreshadowed by the measure, difficulties which would assuredly lead to the reconquest or the attempted reconquest of the country.

"Gladstonians say this is an absurd idea, that Ireland could offer no resistance worth mentioning, that the British arms would prove instantly victorious over any show of resistance. But would you have Ireland alone to reckon with? Once give her the prestige of a spurious independence, once give to your enemies control over the resources of the country, and you would find the task of reconquest much more arduous than you think. The fact that England's distress would be Ireland's opportunity has been so often insisted upon, both by Unionists and the Nationalists themselves, that I need say nothing on this point, which, besides, is so obvious as to be in itself a sufficient answer to the Home Rule agitation under present circumstances. But even supposing that you had no Eastern and European difficulty – and we know not from one moment to another when war may break out – supposing you only had Ireland to reconquer, do you think this an agreeable prospect? Do you think that reconquest would settle the Irish question? Do you believe that the shooting of a few hundred patriots by the British Grenadiers would further what they call the Union of Hearts?

"These followers of Mr. Gladstone who say, 'Let them have Home Rule to quiet the country, to relieve the House from the endless discussion of the Irish Question so that we can proceed with the disestablishment of the Church, the Local Option Bill, and the thousand-and-one other fads for which English Home Rulers have sold themselves' – the men who say this, and who also say 'If they kick over the traces we can instantly tighten the reins and reduce them to order,' surely these folks cannot be aware that the Gladstone-Morley Government is unable to give Strachan, of Tuam, the land which he has bought and paid for in the Land Courts. The British Government cannot collect the rents of Colonel O'Callaghan, of Bodyke; nor can it prevent the daily cases of moonlighting and outrage which are so carefully hushed up, and which hardly ever get into Irish newspapers. When the British Government cannot make a few farmers either pay their rent or leave the land, the said Government having control over the police and civil officers of the law, how is it going to collect the purchase money of the farms, in the form of rent, when it has not this control?

"The new police will be in the hands of a Parliament, elected by these very farmers, who, so to speak, have tasted blood, have ceased to make efforts to pay rent, have been encouraged in their refusal to pay by the very men Mr. Gladstone proposes to entrust with the whole concern! Will these farmers suddenly turn round and say, 'We declined to pay when English rule would have forced payment, we shall be delighted to pay when nothing could make us do so?' I have been connected with Irish farmers and landowners for thirty years as a land specialist, and I tell you that the thing will work exactly as I have said. Put the Rebel party in power, and see what will happen to you. It is hard to believe that Englishmen will act so stupidly in a matter so vitally affecting their own interests. That is why educated people both in Ireland and England do not believe the bill will ever become law. They cannot conceive the final acceptance of anything so utterly preposterous. But call on me to-morrow, and I will go into the legal possibilities of the question."

So I gathered posies of bog-bean bloom and walked round the big boulders with which this sterile region is thickly strewn. The natives know nothing of Home or any other Rule, and you might as well speak to them of the Darwinian theory, or the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, or the Homeric studies of the Grand Old Man, or the origin of the Sanskrit language. The only opinion I could glean was the leading idea of simple Irish agriculturists everywhere. A young fellow who appeared to be in a state of intellectual advancement so far beyond that of the other Barnans as to be almost out of sight, said: —

"I'm towld that there's to be a Parlimint in Galway city that's to find imploymint for the people, an' that ivery man is to have five acres of good land for nothin', and that if it isn't good land he is to have ten acres, and that there's to be an Oirish King in Dublin, an' that all the sojers an' pleecemen is to be put out o' the counthry, an' all Protestants is to go to England, an' that's all very good, but the Protestants might be allowed to stay, for they're dacent folks, but thin they say that nobody's to howld land but the Catholics."

I met an old lady clad in the short skirt of the Connaught peasantry, walking bare-headed, bare-footed, and almost bare-legged from chapel, carrying a bottle of holy water, probably destined for some important purpose within the sacred precincts of the domestic circle. Perhaps the old man was rheumatic, or it may be that the fairies had spoilt the butther, or that the cow was bewitched, or that the shadow of a black Protestant had fallen across the threshold. She was a promising subject for original conversation, but unhappily she could speak no English. My Galway friend explained the bottle, and said "Here we have true religion. If you want the genuine, unadulterated article you must come to Galway, and especially to Barna. Look how she clings to it, how she holds it to her breast, how reverentially she looks down on it. Suppose she caught her foot on a stone, stumbled, and broke the bottle! Horrid thought, involving (perhaps) eternal damnation, (unless she were quickly absolved by the priest). There is piety for you! As a good Catholic I am ashamed of myself when I think how little religion (comparatively) there is in me. Education has been a curse. How happy I should be if I had that old woman's simple, strong belief in the virtues of holy water, especially when carried home in a well-washed whiskey bottle. But, somehow, the more we Catholics know the less we believe. We go regularly to mass, at any rate I do (my wife is very devout), but I fear that Catholics have less and less faith in proportion to their culture. But for the women Catholicism would not hold its ground among the higher classes of Irishmen for so much as five-and-twenty minutes."

It seems to me that the belief of uncultured Irishmen as to the immense benefits to be derived from Home Rule is exactly on a par with the belief of uncultured Irishwomen as to the immense benefits to be derived from the sprinkling of holy water. No reasonable man, who has carefully examined the subject, will for one moment assert that there is a pin to choose between the two. The votes of these poor folks, admitted by thousands to the electorate, have sent to Westminster the hireling orators whose persistent clamour has turned a slippery statesmen from the paths of patriotism and propriety, and whose subterranean machinations – aided and abetted by men versed in Jesuistic and Machiavellian strategy, and who believe that the end justifies the means – threaten to undermine the British Empire, and to involve the citizens of England in political and financial ruin. A pretty pass for a respectable individual like John Bull. England to be worked by the wire-pulling of a few under-bred, half-educated priests! whose tincture of learning John himself has paid for – poor Bull, who seems to pay for everything, and who would gladly have paid for gentility, too, if the Maynooth professors could have injected the commodity by means of a hypodermic syringe, or even by hydraulic pressure. No use in attempting impossibilities. As well endeavour to communicate good manners or gratitude to a Nationalist M.P.

My legal friend was full of matter, but many of his points were too technical for the general reader. He said: – "Absurd to ask what an Irish Parliament will do, because we know the tendencies of the present men. We must ask what it can do, for it is certain that its members will from time to time be replaced by men of more 'advanced' opinions. Appetite grows by what it feeds on, and the Irish people want to pose as an independent nation. Englishmen and Scotchmen say Ireland would never be so foolish, and I am not surprised that they should say this. But when did Irishmen act on the lines of Englishmen or Scotchmen? They never did; they never will. The peoples are actuated by entirely different motives. Englishmen look at what is going to pay. They act on whatever basis promises the most substantial return. Irishmen are swayed by sentiment."

Here I remembered a remark of Father McPhilpin, parish priest of Kilronane, Aran Isles. He said: – "The Irish people act more for fancy and less for money than any nation on earth. The poorest classes have less sentiment than the middle classes. They are too closely engaged in securing a livelihood. But the great difficulty of the English in managing the Irish lies in the fact that the English people work on strictly business principles, and that the Irish do not. The English people do not at all understand the Irish; and the reason is perfectly clear to me. They do not appreciate the extent to which mere sentiment will move the Irish race, mere sentiment, as opposed to what you would call business principles."

Returning to my barrister. He continued: – "The Dublin bar has decided – has formally decided – that so far as the action of the Executive is concerned the Irish Parliament will be a supreme and irresponsible body. The action of its officers will not be in any way subject to the review of the English Government. What does this mean? Simply that the life, the liberty, the property of every citizen will be entirely in the hands of the Irish Government. Do the English people know this? I think not. For if they did know, surely they would think twice before they committed decent people to the tender mercies of the inventors and supporters of the Land League, with its ten thousand stories of outrage and murder."

"Give instances of what they can do, say you? They can refuse police protection to persons whose lives are in danger from the National League. And, as you know, scores of persons are at this moment under protection in Ireland. Mr. Blood, of Ennis, would be shot on sight; Mr. Strachan, of Tuam, would be torn to pieces, if without the three, or four policemen who watch over him day and night; the caretakers on the Bodyke estate would get very short shrift, once the sixteen policemen who guard the two men were removed. Blood discharged a labourer, Strachan bought a farm. If, under the now régime, a farmer paid rent against the orders of the National League; if a man persisted in holding land from which someone had been evicted years ago; if a man worked for a boycotted person or in any way supported him, although it were his own father, he would be in danger of his life. Would the new Government give police protection to such people? To do so would be to stultify themselves.

"Then again the Irish Executive can refuse police protection to Sheriffs' officers who desire to execute writs for non-payment of rent. No, I do not think they would refuse a police escort to Sheriffs' officers proceeding to distrain on the Belfast manufacturers. I think they would order a strong force to proceed, fully armed, and I am of opinion that the police would require all the weapons they could carry. Not a stiver would they get in Belfast, until backed by the Queen's troops. Then the Ulstermen would pay – to refuse next year. So the process will go on and on, with bloodshed and slaughter every time, the British army enforcing the demands of rebels, against loyalists who sing 'God save the Queen,' Quite in the opera bouffe style of Gilbert and Sullivan, isn't it? Can't you get Gilbert to do a Home Rule opera comique? The absurdities of the situation are already there. No invention required. Immense hit. Wish I knew Gilbert. Money in it. English people might see the thing in the true light, if presented in comic songs, with a rattling chorus. Friend of mine bringing out a Gladstone Suppression Company Unlimited, forty million shares at twopence-halfpenny each. At a premium already. Money subscribed ten times over."

"And won't the new Parliament have a high old time with the new Land Commission. Messrs. Healy and Co. will have the appointment of the Land Commissioners, whose function will be to fix rent. Wouldn't you like to be a landlord under such conditions? Don't you think that the rents will be reduced until the landlords are used up? Remember that the total extinction of the landlords and their expulsion from the country have been over and over again promised by the very men in whose hands you, or rather Mr. Gladstone will place them. No; I exculpate the English people from returning him to power, I know that the brains of England as well as those of Ireland are against him. But the English people stand by and see the thing pressed forward, hoping for the best. They rely on their immense wealth and energy to get them out of any hole they may get into. I am reminded of Captain Webb, who said, 'I am bound to have a go at the Niagara rapids. I know it's infernal risky and therefore infernally foolish, but I must have cash, and I expect I shall pull through somehow.' And I once met a sailor who said that his skipper had not his equal for getting the ship out of a scrape, nor yet his equal for getting into one. Same with England. Webb did not come up again. Might be the same with Bull. England is risking all for peace, just as Webb risked all for money.

"The Irish Parliament may, after three years, break every contract having regard to land, no matter when or how made. Think of the ferment during that three years of waiting. Think of the situation of farmers as well as that of landowners. Who will work the land and do the best for the country without security? Then the College Green folks will have power to establish an armed and disciplined force. The Irish Army of Independence is already recruiting all over the country. For what? Is it to assist England? Is it friendly to England? Why, the very foundation of its sentiment is undying animosity to England. And your English Home Rulers say, 'Quite right, too, the Irish have good reason for their hatred!' Gladstonians come over here, mingle with haters of their native land, and earn a little cheap popularity by slanging John Bull. They get excellent receptions when they speak in that vein, especially if they have any money to spend. But what do the Irish think of them? The poor fools make me sick, splashing their cash about and vilifying England for the cheers of Fenians and the patronage of Maynooth priests. A lady from Wolverhampton, a good, kind lady, was woefully imposed upon somewhere in Connemara. A priest told me; a priest you have met." Here the name was given. "He laughed at the simplicity of this well-meaning benefactor, who was shown nineteen processes for rent, and who shelled out very liberally at the sight."

"Seventeen of them were old ones! The rent had already been paid. But whenever an English gobemouche called around out came the old writs until they were clean worn out. They were a splendid source of income while they lasted."

This reminded me of a Bodyker, who said: – "A man named Lancashire came here from Manchester or Birmingham – I think it was Birmingham – and said he was going into the next Parliament, and that he was a great friend of Mr. Gladstone. He was very kind, and seemed made of money, and said he'd make England ring with our wrongs. My son had his name on a card, but a lawyer in Limerick said the name hadn't got in. I forget it now. D'ye know anybody, Sorr, of the name of Lancashire that's a great friend o' Misther Gladstone, an' that lives in Birmingham, an' that didn't get in?"

These Irish peasants ask more questions than anybody can answer. They have a keen scent for cash, especially when the coin is in the keeping of English Gladstonians. They believe with the Claimant that "Sum folks has branes, and sum folks has money, and them what has money is made for them what has branes." The Bodyke farmers and the peasantry of Connemara believe that English Home Rulers have money. Impossible to escape the natural inference.

Barna (Co. Galway), May 30th.