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

The Parnellites are strong in Roscommon, and to hear them revile the priests is both strange and sad. These are the only Catholics who resent clerical dictation. They seem in a quandary. Their action seems inconsistent with their expressed sentiments. They plainly see that Home Rule means Rome Rule, and, while deprecating priestly influence, they do their best to put the country into priestly hands. They speak of the Anti-Parnellites with contempt and aversion, calling them rogues and vagabonds, liars and traitors, outside the pale of civilisation, and yet they work for Home Rule, which would put their beloved Ireland in the power of the very men whose baseness and crass incompetence they cannot characterise in terms sufficiently strong. For the Anti-Parnellites outnumber the Parnellites by eight to one; so that the smaller party, although monopolising all virtue, grace and intellect, would have no show at all, unless, indeed, the Nationalists were further subdivided, on which contingency the Parnellites probably count with certainty. I interviewed a champagny little man whose views were very decided. He said: —

"I think the seventy-three Federationists, as they want to be called, are not only traitors to the greatest Irishmen of the age, but also mean-spirited tools of the Catholic bishops. A man may have proper respect for his faith, and may yet resent the dictation of his family priest. I admit his superior knowledge of spiritual matters, but I think I know what politics suit me best, and I send him to the rightabout. Let him look after the world to come. That's his business. I'm going to look after this world for myself. The main difference between the Parnellites and the Anti-Parnellites is just this – the Parnellites keep themselves independent of any English party; the Anti-Parnellites have identified themselves with the English Liberals, and bargain with them. My view is this, that the English Radicals will use the Irish party for their own ends, that they want to utilise them in carrying out the Newcastle programme, and that having so used them the Irishmen may go and hang themselves. 'We give you Home Rule and you give us the Newcastle budget' – that's the present arrangement. But after that? What then? Ireland will want the Home Rule Bill amended. The first bill (if ever we get it) must be very imperfect, and will want no end of improvement. It is bound to be a small, mean affair, and will want expansion and breadth. Then the Radicals will chuck over the Anti-Parnellites, who will be equally shunted by the Tories, and we shall be left hanging in the air. The Parnellites aim at getting everything on its merits, and decline to identify themselves with any party. They wish to be called Independents. And they one and all decline to be managed by the priests. The seventy-three Anti-Parnellites are entirely managed by the Clerical party. They have no will of their own any more than the pasteboard men you see in the shop windows, whose legs and arms fly up and down, when you pull a string. They are just like Gladstonians in that respect."

The Parnellites are hard up, and their organ asks America for cash. The dauntless nine want six thousand pounds for pocket-money and hotel expenses. The cause of Ireland demands this sacrifice. After so many contributions, surely America will not hold back at the supreme moment. The Anti-Parnellites are bitterly incensed. To act independently of their faction was of itself most damnable, but still it could be borne. To ask for money from America, to put in a claim for coppers which might have flowed into Anti-Parnellite pockets, shows a degradation, an unspeakable impudence for which the Freeman cannot find adequate adjectives. The priest-ridden journal speaks of its fellow patriots as caluminators and liars, tries to describe their "baseness," their "inconceivable insolence and inconceivable stupidity," and breaks down in the effort. A column and a half of space is devoted to calling the Parnellites ill names such as were formerly applied by Irish patriots to Mr. Gladstone. And all because they compete for the cents of Irish-American slaveys and bootblacks. The Parnellites are not to be deterred by mere idle clamour. Both parties are accustomed to be called liars and rogues, and both parties accept the appellations as a matter of course. Nothing can stop them when on the trail of cash. Is Irish sentiment to be again disappointed for a paltry six thousand pounds? Is the Sisyphean stone of Home Rule, so laboriously rolled uphill, to again roll down, crushing in its fall the faithful rollers? Will not some American millionaire come forward with noble philanthropy and six thousand pounds to rescue and to save the most beautiful, the most unfortunate country in the world from further disappointment? Only six thousand pounds now required for the great ultimate, or penultimate, or antepenultimate effort. Another twopence and up goes the donkey!

Roscommon, June 27th.

No. 41. – THE CHANGED SPIRIT OF THE CAPITAL

The Dubliners have quite given up the bill. The Unionist party have regained their calm, and the Nationalists are resigned to the position. Nobody, of whatever political colour, or however sanguine, now expects the measure to become law. The Separatist rank and file never hoped for so much luck, and their disappointment is therefore anything but unbearable. My first letter indicated this lack of faith and also its cause. The Dublin folks never really believed a British Parliament would so stultify itself. The old lady who, on my arrival, said "We'll get Home Rule when a pair of white wings grows out o' me shoulders, an' I fly away like a big blackburd," finds her pendant in the jarvey, who this morning said, "If we'd got the bill I would have been as much surprised as if one o' me childhren got the moon by roarin' for it." Distrust of Mr. Gladstone is more prevalent than ever, and the prophets who all along credited that pious statesman with rank insincerity are now saying "I towld ye so." The Lord-Lieutenant is making his Viceregal progress in an ominous silence. The Limerick people let him go without a cheer. At Foynes something like a procession was formed, with the parish priest at its head; but the address read by his Rivirince reads very like a scolding. It points out that "our rivers are at present without shipping, our mills and factories are idle, and it is a sad sight to see our beautiful Shannon, where all her Majesty's fleet could safely ride on the estuary of its waters, without almost a ship of merchandise on its surface on account of the general decay of our trade and commerce." The address further shows that "we enjoy a combination of natural advantages in the shape of a secure, sheltered anchorage, together with railway and telegraph in immediate proximity to the harbour and the pier, and postal service twice daily, both inwards and outwards, and a first-class quality of pure water laid on to the pier. The facility for landing or embarking troops, or for discharging or loading goods or stores is as near perfection as possible, and having a range of depth of water of twenty-five feet at low-water spring tide, the harbour can accommodate ships of deep draught at any state of the tide." These advantages, mostly owing to British rule, with others, such as the "unique combination of mountain and river scenery," were not enumerated as subjects for thankfulness, but rather by way of reproach, the effect of the whole address being a veiled indictment of British rule. No doubt Lord Houghton's first impulse would be to exclaim, "Then why on earth don't you use your advantages? With good quays, piers, storehouses, and a broad deep river, opening on the Atlantic, why don't you do some business?" But he promised to do his best to send them a guard-ship, in order that the crew might spend some money in the district. The Galway folks asked him to do something for them. My previous letters have shown the incapacity of the Galwegians to do anything for themselves, and how, being left to their own devices – having, in fact, a full enjoyment of local Home Rule – their incompetence has saddled the city with a debt of fifty thousand pounds for which they have practically nothing to show, except an additional debt of one thousand pounds decreed against them for knocking the bottom out of a coaling vessel during their "improving" operations, which sum they never expect to pay, as the harbour tolls are collected by the Board of Works, which thus endeavours to indemnify itself for having lent them the "improvement" funds. The Killybegs folks showed the poor Viceroy their bay and told him what wonderful things they could do if they only had a pier, or a quay, or something. The Achil folks formerly said the same thing. Two piers were built but no man ever goes near them. The Mulranney folks pointed out that while Clew Bay, and particularly the nook of it called Mulranney Bay, was literally alive with fish, the starving peasants of the neighbourhood could do nothing for want of a pier. The brutal Saxon built one at once – a fine handsome structure, at once a pier, a breakwater, and a harbour, with boat-slips and three stages with steps, so that boats could be used at any tide. I stepped this massive and costly piece of masonry, and judged it to be a hundred yards long. There were six great mooring posts, but not a boat in sight, nor any trace of fishing operations. A broad new road to the pier was cut and metalled, but no one uses it. The fishing village of Mulranney, with its perfect appointments, would not in twelve months furnish you with one poor herring. The pier of Killybegs would probably be just as useful to the neighbourhood.

The Dublin Nationalist prints make some show of fight, but the people heed them not. They know too well that their inward conviction that Home Rule is for the present defunct is founded on rock. In vain the party writers use the whip. Your Irishman is cute enough to know when he is beaten. The new-born regard of the Irish press for Parliamentary purity is comical enough. Obstruction is the thing they hate. Ungentlemanly conduct in the House stinks in their nostrils. Fair play is their delight, and underhand dealing they particularly abhor. Mr. Gladstone is too lenient, and although his failings lean to virtue's side, his action is too oily altogether. He is old and weak, and lubricates too much. They in effect accuse him of fatty degeneration of the brain. Something heroic must be done. Those low-bred ruffians, the Unionists, must be swept from the path of Erin, while her eloquent sons, actuated by patriotism and six pounds a week, and spurred on by the hope of even a larger salary, obtain after seven centuries some show of justice to Ireland. The Irish wire-pullers demand decisive action. They declare that they will no longer submit to the "happy-go-lucky policy of the gentlemen who survey life from the Ministerial benches." They must "put themselves in fighting form and show their supporters that they mean business." "Unless the Ministry mean to throw up the sponge they had better begin the fighting at once." The Irish party "are looking for the action of the Government which is to make it evident to the Opposition that the majority mean to rule in the House of Commons, for unless this be done Parliamentary government becomes a farce." If Mr. Gladstone continues the policy of hesitation and waiting on Providence, the fate of Home Rule, and with it the fate of the Liberal party, are sealed. "Obstruction" (says the Parnellite paper) cannot be permitted!" It is the revelation of the impotency of Parliament, and Parliamentary procedure must be replaced by some quicker means of effecting reform. Mr. Gladstone's feebleness is an incitement to revolution. The Dublin press would manage these things better. An autumn session must not be adventured. If the House should rise before the bill has passed the Commons such a confession of weakness would fatally damage the Government prestige. The House must "be kept in permanent session, and not kept too long," which sounds like a bull, but the next sentence is plain enough.

"The obvious policy is to at once take the Opposition by the throat. That will excite enthusiasm, and convince the people that a Liberal Government is good for something."

The Nationalist prints are assuming the office of candid friend, a part which suits them admirably, and in the performance of which they make wonderful guesses at truth. The Gladstonian Ministry "are helpless and impotent in the hands of their opponents. The reforms so ardently desired by the people are seen to be mere mirages, called up to win the votes of the people for men who, once in office, make no real effort to enforce the mandate given to them by the country." The Liberal Ministry will be "swept out of existence because the people will come to recognise that their promises and programmes are so many hollow phrases, incapable of ministering to the needs or satisfying the aspirations of the multitude." "The real tug of war," says this Home Rule sheet, "will come in the next election." If Irish Separatists talk like this, what do Irish Unionists say?

Very little, indeed. They are disposed to rest and be thankful. They only want to be let alone. They are quiet and reserved, and thank their stars that the worst is over. The nervousness, the high-strung tension of three months ago, is conspicuous by its absence. They feared that the thing would be rushed, and that Mr. Bull would stamp the measure without looking at it, would be glad to get rid of it at any price, would say to Ireland, "Take it, get out of my sight, and be hanged to ye!" Thanks to the Unionist leaders, whose ability and devotion are here warmly recognised, the Dubliners know no fear. The ridiculous abortion has been dragged into the sunlight, and ruthlessly dissected. John's commonsense can be trusted, once he examines for himself, and worthy Irishmen lie down in peace. The graver Dubliners prefer to speak of something else. The young bloods still make fun of the "patriots," and conjure up illimitable vistas of absurd possibilities under an Irish Government. They invariably place the hypothetic Cabinet under the direct orders of Archbishop Walsh, and continue to make fun of that great hierarch's famous malediction on Freemasonry. The good Archbishop, they say, takes a large size in curses. They declare that his curse on the Masonic bazaar for orphans was a marvel of comprehensive detail; that it cursed the stall-holders, the purchasers, the tea-pot cosies and fender-stools, the five-o'clock tea-tables and antimacassars, the china ornaments, and embroidered slippers, with every individual bead; the dolls, both large and small; the bran that stuffed the dolls, and the very squeaks which resulted from a squeeze on the doll's ribs. Never was heard such a terrible curse. But what gave rise to no little surprise, nobody seemed one penny the worse. These scoffers propose to discontinue the habit of swearing. When the Archbishop produces no effect, what's the good of a plain layman's cursing? They declare that the dentists of Dublin are all Home Rulers, and that the selfishness of their political faith is disgustingly obvious. These mocking Unionists discuss probable points of etiquette likely to arise in the Legislature of College Green, and dispute as to whether members will be allowed to attend with decidedly black eyes, or whether they will be excluded until the skin around their orbs has arrived at the pale yellow stage. Some are of opinion that no Cabinet Minister should be allowed to sit while wearing raw beefsteak, and a story is going the rounds to the effect that some of the Irish members recently wished to cross the Channel for half-a-crown each, and to that end called on a boat agent, a Tory, who knew them, when the following conversation took place: —

"Can we go across for half-a-crown each?"

"No, ye can't, thin."

"An' why not?"

"Because 'tis a cattle boat."

"Never mind that, sure we're not particular."

"No, but the cattle are."

There was a great rush for Dynamitard Daly's letter, and some of his sentences were made subjects of leading articles in the Nationalist press. One paragraph seems to have been neglected. He writes – "Friend Jack, you amazed me when you mentioned the names of ex-felons now honourable members of the Imperial Parliament. And so they seem to forget the days when they were felons? Ah, well, thank God, the people did not forget them in their hour of need, and though some of them may try to palm off their own selfish ambitions on the people to whom they owe everything as genuine patriotism – oh, it won't do!" John Daly holds the same opinion of his fellow patriots as is expressed in a remarkable letter to the Separatist Dublin Evening Herald, wherein the writer says that his party is "disgusted with the duplicity of Mr. Gladstone," and goes on to say that "No one now believes that the bill will pass, and almost everyone believes it was never intended to pass. I have not yet met anybody who expressed themselves as even remotely satisfied with it. Peace to its ashes." I quote this as proving two points I have always endeavoured to urge – first, that the Irish distrust Mr. Gladstone, and are not grateful to him or his party; and, second, that no bill short of complete independence will ever satisfy the Irish people. It is what they expect and look forward to as the direct outcome of Home Rule, which they only want as a stepping-stone. This cannot fail to impress itself on any unbiassed person who rubs against them for long. The teaching of the priests is eminently disloyal, and although the utmost care is taken to prevent their disloyalty becoming public, instances are not lacking to show the general trend. Father Sheehy, an especial friend of the Archbishop Walsh aforesaid, thus delivered himself anent a proposed visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Ireland: – "There is no need for a foreign prince to come to Ireland. The Irish people have nothing to say to the Prince of Wales. He has no connection with Ireland except that link of the Crown that has been formed for the country, which is the symbol of Ireland's slavery." This priest said he hated landgrabbers; all except one. "There is but one landgrabber I like, and that is the Tsar of Russia, who threatens to take territory on the Afghan border from England." Father Arthur Ryan, of Thurles, the seat of Archbishop Croke, has printed a manifesto, in which he says: – "Ever since the Union the best and most honourable of Irishmen have looked on rebellion as a sacred duty, provided there were a reasonable chance of success. It has never occurred to me to consider acquiescence to the Government of England as a moral obligation or as other than a dire necessity. We have never, thank God, lied to our oppressors by saying we were loyal to them. And when we have condemned the rebels whose heroism and self-sacrifice we have loved and wept over, we condemned not their want of loyalty, but their want of prudence. We thought it wrong to plunge the land into the horrors of war with no hope of success."

So much for our trusty and well-beloved fellow-subjects of this realm of England. Father Ryan is candid, truthful, and outspoken, and commands respect. Better an open enemy than a false friend. His summing-up of Irish feeling to England is both concise and accurate, but one of his sentences is hardly up to date. He thanks God that the Irish have never lied by saying they were loyal. How many Irish members can make this their boast? Compared with them, the Ribbonmen were heroes. The glorious prototypes of the modern member murdered their foes themselves, did their slaughtering in person, and took the risk like men. They hated Englishmen, qua Englishmen, and made no secret of it. The modern method is easier and more convenient. To murder by proxy, to have your hints carried out without danger to yourself, and to draw pay for your hinting, is a triumph of nineteenth-century ingenuity. To pose as loyal subjects and to disarm suspicion by protestations of friendship and brotherly love may be a more effective means of attaining your end, but it smacks too much of the serpent. The Ribbonmen were rough and rugged, but comparatively respectable. The Irish Separatists are just as disloyal, and infinitely more treacherous. The parchment "loyalty to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen," which Lord Houghton is in some places receiving, is revolting to all who know the truth. The snake has succeeded the tiger, and most people hate sliminess. Nationalist Ireland is intensely disloyal from side to side, and from end to end. Disloyal and inimical she has been from the first, and disloyal and inimical she remains, and no concessions can change her character. She is religious with a mediæval faith, and she follows her spiritual guides, whose sole aim is religious ascendancy. So long as the Roman Catholic Church is not predominant so long the Irish people will complain. You may give them the land for nothing; you may stock their farms – they will expect it; you may indemnify them for the seven hundred years of robbery by the English people – they say they ought to be indemnified; you may furnish every yeoman with a gun and ammunition, with carte blanche as to their use with litigious neighbours; you may lay on whiskey in pipes, like gas and water, but without any whiskey rate; you may compel the Queen to do Archbishop Walsh's washing, and the Prince of Wales to black his sacred boots, while the English nobility look after the pigs of the foinest pisintry in the wuruld, and still the Irish would be malcontents. The Church wants absolute predominance, and she won't be happy till she gets it. Parnell was Protestant and something of a Pope. Tim Healy tried to wear the leader's boots, but Bishop Walsh reduced him to a pulp. This good man rules Dublin, and through Dublin, Ireland. You cannot walk far without running against his consecrated name. At present the city is labelled as follows: —

"By direction of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, the annual collections for our Holy Father the Pope will take place on July the second." The National League and Our Holy Father the Pope between them cut very close. No wonder that poor Paddy has hardly a feather left to fly with.

"An ardent Nationalist" thus expresses himself in the Separatist Herald: – "I fear we must reluctantly abandon hope of a Home Parliament for a few more years. For the present we will have to content ourselves with Local Government, an ample measure of which will be given by the Conservatives. On the whole, ardent Nationalist as I am, I do not look on this as an unmixed evil. What kind of Government would be possible under six or seven factions?" This should be a staggerer for the English Home Rule party. The italics are in the original, and the writer goes on to say, "It is open to doubt that we should be able to at once manage our own affairs without some preliminary training." The whole letter is a substantial repetition of the sentiments emanating from a Home Ruler of Tralee, recounted in my letter from that town of Kerry.

Parnell is still worshipped in Dublin. He looks big beside his successors. His grave in the splendid cemetery of Glasnevin is well worth a visit, although there is no monument beyond a cast-iron Irish cross painted green, which serves to hang flowers upon. The grave is in a rope-enclosed circle, some twenty yards in diameter, and most of the space is occupied by big glass shades, with flowers and other tributes of respect and affection. I counted more than a hundred, many of them elaborate. The Corkmen send the biggest, a small greenhouse with two brown Irish harps and the legend Done To Death. An Irish harp worked in embroidery lies sodden on the earth. Green shamrock leaves of tin, with the names of all the donors – this is important – obtrude themselves here and there. A six-foot cross of white flowers, like a badge of purity, lies on the grave, labelled Katherine Parnell, in a lady's hand. The place is swamped with Irish harps, and it occurs to me that the badge would not be so popular if the patriots knew that the harp was imposed as an emblem of Ireland by English Henry the Second. The name Parnell in iron letters is on the turf, flowers growing through them, a poetical idea. As I walk past they vibrate with a metallic jingle, which reminds me of the shirt of mail the living man wore to preserve himself from his fellow-patriots. Tay Pay's life of the dead leader proves that his sole secret of success was inflexible purpose, and that his notion of party management was to treat the patriot members as dirt. Parnell was an authority in Irish matters, and his example should be useful to Messrs. Gladstone, Morley, and Co. An eminent Irishmen to-day said: – "With your wibble-wobble and your shilly-shally, your pooh-pooh and your pah-pah, you are ruining the country. Put down your foot and tell the Irish people that they will not now nor at any future time get Home Rule, and not a word will come out of them." A word (to the wise) is enough.