Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule

I confessed that the incident escaped my recollection.

"Why the cyar-man was a dacent boy, an Mister Morley axed him how was thrade, an' av he was busy."

"No," says the dhriver, "things is quite, very quite," says he.

"Ye'll be busy when ye get Home Rule," says Mister Morley.

"But that'll only last a week," says the cyar-man.

"An' why so?" says the Irish Secretary, bein' curious an' lookin' round at the dhriver.

"Och," says Pat; "'twill only take a week to dhrive thim to the boats."

"Who d'ye mane, wid yer dhrivin' to the boats?" says owld Morley.

"All the dacent folks that has any money to pay for dhrivin'," says Pat, "for bedad they'll be lavin' the counthry."

"That was a thriminjus rap for owld Morley, but 'twas thrue, an' the Divil himself couldn't deny it."

"An' can ye tell me why the farmers should have all the land an' not the labourers? An' could ye say why them murdherin' Land Leaguers in Parliament wasn't hung up, the rampagious ruffians?"

I could throw no light on these points. My friend had much to say about the Land League M.P.'s, and a score of times asked me why they had not been hanged.

A hard question to answer, when you come to think of it. Does anybody know?

Oughterard (Connemara), May 23rd.

No. 27. – CULTIVATING IRISH INDUSTRY

The city of kings. Pronounced Athen-rye, with a bang on the last syllable. A squalid town, standing amid splendid ruins of a bygone time. "Look what English rule has brought us to," said a village politician, waving his hand from the ivy-covered gateway by which you enter the town to the mean-looking houses around. "That's what we could build when we were left to ourselves, an' this is what we can do afther sivin hundhred years of the Saxon." The ruins in question are the remains of fortifications erected after the Norman Conquest of Ireland by the Normans, a great entrance gate, and a strong, oblong keep. The ruins of the Dominican Friary, founded in 1241 by Meyler, of Birmingham, have a thrilling interest of their own, which has its pendant in the story of a Mayence verger, who holds British visitors to the cathedral of that city in breathless rapture as he tells how it is said that a Mayence bishop of eight hundred years ago was said to be of English extraction, or like the Stratford mulberry tree, which is said to be a cutting of a tree said to have grown on the spot where a tree is said to have stood which is said to have been planted by Shakespeare. Galway abounds in ruined fortalices, tumble-down abbeys, ivied towers and castles, none of which were built by the Irish race. The round towers which dot the country here and there, with a few ruined churches, are all that the native Irish can claim in the way of architecture.

The people here are full of interest. The fair at Athenry is something to remember. A very good time it was, cattle selling higher than of yore. The men were queerly, quaintly dressed, speaking Irish, getting extremely drunk on vilest whiskey, leaving the town in twos and threes, tumbling in groups by the roadside, reeking heaps of imbruted humanity. The women were numerous, tall, decent, and modest. All wore the shawl as a hood, the shawls of strange pattern unknown in England. All tucked up the dress nearly to the waist, showing the invariable red kirtle. All, or nearly all, were shod with serviceable shoes, such as would astonish the Parisian makers of bottines. But these shoes were only for show. The ladies walked painfully about in the unaccustomed leather. They seemed to have innumerable corns, to wrestle with bunions huge and dire, to suffer from unknown pedal infirmities. Outside the town the ladies put on their shoes. Outside the town, after the fair, they took them off again, sitting on the roadside, stripping their shapely feet, bundling the obnoxious, crippling abominations into Isabella-colour handkerchiefs, which they tucked under their arms as they bounded away like deer. It was pleasant to watch their joy, their freedom, their long springy step as their feet once more struck their native heath. They do not spare their shoes by reason of economy, but because they walk better without them. Donned for propriety, doffed for convenience. The young lady who is "on the market" is expected to wear leather on high days and holidays, and she submits – another martyr to fashion. Yet even as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, so longeth her sole after her native turf.

It was at Athenry that I first obtained a precise legal definition of the term Congested District, to the effect that wherever the land valuation amounts to less than 30s. per head of the population the district is held to be congested, and may receive assistance under the Act of 1891. The chief item of the Board's income is the sum of £41,250 a year, being interest at 2¾ per cent. per annum on the sum of £1,500,000 referred to in the Act as the Church Surplus Grant. The Board may, under certain conditions, use the principal, if needful. Two other smaller sums are also available, and the unexpended balance of the Irish Distress Fund has been applied to the completion of the Bealdangan Causeway in Connemara. This was Mr. Balfour's suggestion. There is a widespread idea that only the sea-board is touched, and that only fishermen have reaped the benefit of the Act. This is entirely erroneous. The Board works unceasingly at the development of agriculture, the planting of trees, the breeding of live stock and poultry, the sale of seed potatoes and seed oats, the amalgamation of small holdings, migration, emigration, weaving and spinning, and any other suitable industries, as well as in aid of fishing and fishermen. Besides the innumerable direct and indirect methods by which agriculture and industries are assisted in production, the Board has laboured successfully in the establishment of such means of communication, by railway, steamship, or otherwise, as will enable goods to be imported and exported at rates sufficiently low to make trade possible and profitable to producers and consumers in remote congested districts. Another popular error arises from regarding the work of the Board as merely a means of relief during periods of exceptional distress. Mr. Balfour would be the first to deprecate this notion. His scheme was constructed with a view to bringing about a gradual and lasting improvement in the poor districts of Ireland, by putting the people in a way to help themselves, and not by doling out large sums in charity. The works, which are wrongly called "relief works," are in every instance a well-considered effort to permanently and materially improve the trade and resources of a given area in connection with agriculture and miscellaneous industries. Such was the invariable principle of every action of the Board while under Mr. Balfour's administration. The people have been taught better methods, and helped to carry out the instruction they had received. The Royal Dublin Society has in some instances employed an instructor, whose duty it has been to teach the people the best system of cultivating portions or plots of their holdings, and to encourage them by gifts of seed and by giving prizes to those who were most successful in carrying out the instructions of their teacher. It is conceded that by proper management, by the adoption of modern methods of farming such as are well within the grasp of the smallest landowner, the produce of Irish farms might be increased from one-third to one-half. Consider the effect of this unassailable proposition on the eternal question of rent. The question can hardly be over-estimated. Compare the solidity, the practicability, the substantial usefulness of this kind of help, with the weak pandering to sentiment displayed by the present government. The Board admits that no matter how vigorously and constantly agricultural improvements are inculcated, the tenants of Ireland are tardy in their adoption. The small farmers dislike change, and at the present moment they are rapidly slipping back into their old grooves. They believe that the old system will pay when they have no rent-days to meet. The Balfour Administration encouraged honesty, industry, self-reliance. The Morley Government puts a premium on idleness, unthrift, retrogression, and dishonesty. It is easier to half-till the land, paying small rents or none at all, than to get the utmost out of the land with the object of paying the landlord his due.

The Board is carrying on the afforestation of Ireland, which in many parts is almost without trees. When the potato crop failed in 1890 Mr. Balfour commenced to plant trees on the western sea-board. In 1891 a sum of £1,970 was spent in draining, fencing, and roadmaking, and in planting 90 acres of 960 acquired by the Tory Government for the purpose. In 1892 a further sum of £1,427 was spent in carrying on the work. It is said that a previous Liberal Government had rejected the scheme on the ground that trees would not grow in a situation exposed to the salt gales of the Atlantic, but Mr. Balfour's trees have thriven remarkably well. He tried all sorts, convinced that something should be done, and that an ounce of experiment was worth a pound of theory. Sycamore, ash, elm, beech, birch, poplar, alder, larch, Scotch fir, spruce, silver fir, sea buckthorn, elder, and willow – he gave them all a chance, some as main plantations, some as shelter belts. All proved successful except the silver fir. Besides this, three hundred and fifty holdings have been planted with shelter belts, and about six hundred and fifty more were being planted when Mr. Balfour loosed the reins.

An eminent Irishman, a great authority on this subject, assures me that he could dictate similar facts for a week without stopping to search his memory. Mr. Gladstone proposes to place the poor people of Ireland under a Government utterly inexperienced in the administration of great matters, utterly unreliable where the handling of money is concerned, utterly ignorant of business methods and business routine. The fate of the destitute poor and the fortunes of the well-to-do classes are to be at the mercy of men whose business ventures have been absurdly unsuccessful, who believe that to aid the poor you must rob the rich, and that the No-rent Manifesto, the Plan of Campaign, and the Land League, with its story of outrage and murder, were the perfection of modern statesmanship. The Balfour system teaches men to help themselves. The Morley system teaches men to help themselves to their neighbour's goods.

My friend gave a few more instances of useful assistance rendered by what the poor folks call the Blessed Board. Special arrangements have been made to enable the farmers to improve the breed of horses. The Queen presented an Arabian horse named Tirassan to the County Donegal. Bulls of superior breed have been sold to decent, honest farmers at one-third of their cost, and this small figure was payable in two yearly instalments. About two hundred black-faced Scotch rams and Cheviot rams have been located in Donegal and Galway free of charge, and young boars of the pure Yorkshire breed are sold to certain selected farmers at a nominal charge on certain conditions calculated to prove useful to the neighbourhood. The breeding and rearing of poultry has received a world of attention, and the poor folks who make a little money by the sale of eggs have been supplied with the best information and substantial assistance.

In a former letter I described the Aran sea-fisheries, and before that I adverted to the fact that the Shetland fishermen came to the Irish Coast, caught ling, and brought it back salted to sell to Irish fishermen. The Board has engaged an experienced fish-curer from Norway to show Irishmen how the thing is done, and English and Scotch fish-curers have been sent to several stations to give instruction in mackerel and herring-curing. Fifteen fish-curing stations are now in full swing, and the poor Irish fishermen, instead of buying salt ling at 2d. a pound, are now selling it at £18 to £20 per ton. A big steamer has been chartered to carry the salt, the fish, and for other useful purposes.

Contrast this work and these results with the work of the Irish agitators and with that of Messrs. Gladstone, Morley, and Co. Sentiment and starvation versus salt fish and satiety. A red-faced Yorkshireman who knows all about fish-curing, said: – "When first I came here I'm blest if the men wasn't transparent. You could see through 'em like lookin' through the rungs of a ladder. Now the beggars are growin' double chins. Now they're a-gettin' cheeky. They're like a hoss as has had a feed of corn. They was meek an' mild enough when I come over. Now they're a-gettin' perky, an' a-talkin' politics. They usen't to see no agitators. They never had no meetin's; why? there was no chance of a collection. Sometimes I gets down on 'em proper. 'Tother day I says, 'You chaps, wi' yer Home Rule, I says, reminds me of a character in the Bible, I says.' Bein' Catholics, they don't read the Bible for theirselves. The priests read it for 'em. But one of 'em cocks up his nose, an' he says, 'We're like a character in the Bible, are we? Well,' he says, 'who was he?'

"'You're like the wild ass that sniffed up the wind instead of goin' in for sommat more substantial,' I says. That's what I told 'em. They did look down their noses, I tell you. An' they fell to talkin' i' Irish. They couldn't answer me, do what they would."

Before leaving the Connemara district I paid a second visit to Oughterard in order that I might see the progress made by Irishmen in the art of railway making. A gang or two were engaged in the comparatively skilled work of rail-laying, and the way they got over the ground was truly surprising. Two trucks stood on the line already laid, one bearing sleepers, the other loaded with steel rails. Four or five couples of men shouldered sleepers and laid them on the track at spots marked by a club-footed Irishman, who swore at everything with a vigour which spoke well for his wind. Several men lifted a thirty feet length of rail, weighing nearly six hundred-weight, and laid it on the sleepers, when it was instantly bolted and secured. The same having been done on the other side, the trucks were pushed along the newly-laid ten yards, and the process was repeated, the Irish ganger above-mentioned swearing till the surrounding bogs seemed to quake. An unhappy Connemaran having dropped his end of the sleeper a few inches from the right spot, was cursed through the entire dictionary, the ganger winding up a solemn declaration that he had not seen anything so Blankly and Double-Blankly and forty times Blankly idiotic since "the owld goat died." An English ganger hard by never spoke at all, but no doubt his men felt lonely. A labourer who had hurt his foot, and was awaiting a friendly truck to take him home, said of the swearer: —

"He manes no harm, an' the Boys doesn't care a rap for his swearin'. These men want no elbowin' on, for they are paid by the piece, so that the harder they work the more they get. All Irish gangers swear like that. An' Irish farm bailiffs is jist the same. Onless they're cussin' an' rippin' an' tearin' they don't think they're doin' the work for which they're paid, an' they don't think their masthers would be contint wid thim. Av an Irish landlord that kept a bailiff didn't hear him swearin' three miles away, he'd discharge him for not workin'. English gangers an' bailiffs says very little, an' ye wouldn't think they wor doin' anythin'. 'Tis quare at first, but ye get used to it in time."

Travelling in any country is always instructive, no matter how much about that country you previously knew. My lame friend may have unconsciously suggested an explanation of the speeches and conduct of the Irish Nationalist Parliamentary contingent. Unless they kept up the cursin' an' swearin', an' rippin' an' tearin', so that they can be heard across the Atlantic, their American paymasters might not be contint wid thim, and might withhold the sinews of war. Once it is understood that the Irish patriots must revile all and sundry to earn their pay, the situation is to some extent explained. Few of them are likely to fail in this supreme requirement. Six pounds a week for abusing the brutal Saxon is far better than the pound or thirty shillings of their pre-political days. They have no inducement to earn an honest living.

The story of the Galway Bag Factory may serve as a pendant to the story of Mr. McMaster's effort to benefit the Catholic peasantry of the counties of Galway and Donegal. The concern had stopped for lack of funds, and Father Peter Dooley went round the town endeavouring to induce people to take shares in the concern, in order that the poor folks of the district might have employment. The mills were reopened, and at first, just at first, the people attended work with tolerable regularity. They then fell off, coming for half a day, coming not at all. The management actually instituted prizes for regularity of attendance. The people, who professed to be dying for employment, had to be bribed to come to work. Even this was ineffectual, and as a certain number of people were required to work a loom, the absence of one or two made the loom and the other workpeople idle, and as, in order to pay expenses, every loom required to be constantly worked, this skulking was not only annoying, but also a ruinous loss. Mr. Miller, the manager, was compelled to get people over from Scotland, after having long placarded the walls of Galway with notices of vacancies which no Galway girls attempted to fill up. Father Peter remonstrated, and pointed out that as he had been instrumental in reopening the factory, he thought Mr. Miller should oblige him by engaging Galway girls. The manager showed him the placards, and said that if Father Peter would bring the people he would find them employment. Father Peter Dooley went into the highways and hedges, but not a soul could he bring in, although Mr. Miller seems to have been so desperately beset that he would have jumped at the blind, the maimed, the halt, and the lame. The good Father was beaten, but then he had a reason – an excellent reason. When things go wrong in Ireland, it is always some other fellow's fault, just as when the French are beaten in battle they always scream Nous sommes trahis! Bad characters had been admitted to the looms. Manager was surprised. Let Father Peter point them out, and away they go – if Father Peter did not hesitate to cast them again on the streets of Galway. Two girls were dismissed. Some of the old workpeople returned to work intermittently, as before. Father Peter wanted the two girls reinstated. The manager declined to see-saw in this way, and sacrilegious Scotsman as he was, dared to say that nothing went well when bossed by priests! From that moment that manager was blighted. His sight grew dim, his hearing became dull, his liver got out of order, his corns grew more numerous and more painful, and a bald spot was seen on his crown. The people worked as before, by fits and starts, but more fitty and starty than ever. The factory was closed, and the manager died. They buried him about a week ago, a sort of human jackdaw of Rheims without the curse taken off. Protestants say the Galway workpeople wore him down, broke his spirit and broke his heart, but Catholics know better. The only wonder was that instead of being instantly consumed by fire from heaven, Miller was permitted to waste away by slow degrees. But that was Father Dooley's good nature.

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?