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VEIRI
M
HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
SISTER MARY FRANCIS CLARE,
- TW Nn o/ KoMun."
Present Case of Ireland
PLAINLY STATED;
A PLEA FOR MY PEOPLE AND MY RACE.
M. F. CUSACK,
New Yokk:
P. J. KENEDY,
MXCSLStQS CA THOLIC PI/BLlSHiyG HOUSE,
S Bakclav Strxbt.
tSSl.
Br izo'75.3S
%
^^ \'i.iy\5- '-^ti
.1
FEB 16 1917'
Copyright, i88i,
P. J. KENEDY
INDEX.
PREFACE : : • ft • • ; iz
THE CASE OF IRELAND STATED— MY CASE . • adU
CHAPTER I. I&KLAMD AND Public Opinion • • • « i ""
CHAPTER IL Landlord AND Tenant . • • ^ • s6
CHAPTER IIL
Thb Trub Considbkation of Irish Atfairi hindbrbd
BY Party Opinion . . • • • 53 \
CHAPTER IV. Irish Outrages • . • I \ J 60 / ^
CHAPTER V. Thb Cause of Irish Outrages • • • • 83
CHAPTER VI. What IS Communism? • • • • • 96
Index.
ViUII
CHAPTER VII. WsAT THB Irish Nation asks • • • • 105
CHAPTER VIIL What Irbland dois not want • « ; • 123
CHAPTER IX Why Irish Land Industry has pailbd • • • 132
CHAPTER X. How Irish Land Industry has bbsn crippled « 0 148
CHAPTER XL
Tub Social Rblations between Landlords and Ten- ants 162
CHAPTER XXL
Social Relations bbtwekn Irish Landlords and Tim*
Jdm^c^miinuid) • • • • • • 177
CHAPTER XIIL
The dipperent Relations between English and Irish
Landlords and Tenants • • • • bob
CHAPTER XIV. The Irish Priests and the Land Agitation • i 222
CHAPTER XV.
The Present repeats the Past— A Tithe Agitation in
Kerry ....*•• 255
CHAPTER XVL The Irish Land Agent « > • 3 • 276
Index.
WMom
CHAPTER XVIL I&I8R Land Agbnts— (rMi/t««r^ . • • • 300
CHAPTER XVIII. Thb Famine Ybaa and Sentimental Grievances . • 532
CHAPTER XIX. India and Ireland — Political Economy in Ireland • 357
APPENDIX No. L • • ^ • • » i
APPENDIX No. II. ••;••«
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTIONS and Prefaces are generally passed over unread, but in the present case I have to ask the special attention of the reader to this Preface. I wish to explain my reason for writing this work, and the reason why I hope to add additional and, perhaps, not altogether irrele- vant information to a subject on which it might appear as if there was little more to be said.
My reason for writing this work has been — that having had the distribution of a large Relief Fund, confided to me by friends of Ireland in all parts of the world, I have neces- sarily derived a great deal of information. A small portion of this Fund came from Protest- ant friends in England, and a small portion from Catholics. While I found amongst both a kind desire to relieve distress, I could not but see that there was an extraordinary and almost total ignorance as to the true state of
Preface.
•
Irish aflfairs. I believe this arose partly from want of correct historical information, and partly from a want of that personal knowledge of this country which could only be obtained by a residence in it, and by a thoroughly confidential intercourse with the people.
I use the word confidential, because it is quite impossible for persons passing hurriedly through the country to know the real feelings or the real wants of the people ; nor can such information be obtained even by a temporary sojourn in Ireland. For the present I must ask to have this statement taken for granted. Later, I hope to prove it.
Further, to understand why the Irish people are sq seriously disaffected, needs some know- ledge of the social state of the poor and middle classes in England. I believe much misery and confusion have arisen from a want of thorough information on this subject. English gentlemen naturally suppose that the Irish peasant, or small farmer, has the social advan- tages of the Englishman of his class, hence, they cannot possibly understand one-half the causes which contribute to make Ireland poor and discontented. The Irish patriot, perhaps,
Pte/ace.
does not always give his English friends credit for their ignorance, nor, probably, unless he has had direct dealings with the poorer classes in both countries, will he understand it.
Besides this, I have had interviews with many gentlemen within the past few months, all holding the most opposite political and social opinions, who came to discuss these subjects. And I may add, as an evidence how much Ireland is misunderstood in England, that just before we were " proclaimed " in Kerry for our supposed social disturbance, the Marquis of Lansdowne left this late one eve- ning, after we had held a long and most interesting discussion, and returned home unattended, unarmed, and in the dark — for in this little town we have not yet attained to the advanced civilization of gas. Further, his lordship informed me that he was leaving in the morning for shooting in Scotland ; and he left his young children alone and unprotected at his place near this. Surely this confidence ought to be a sufficient answer to the cry for " coercion," and the exaggerated reports about disturbances in Ireland.
KxMMARB, October^ i88a
THE CASE OF IRELAND STATED-
My Case is : —
I. That English people do not know the true state of Ireland. They are ignorant of it historically, because they only read the pre- judiced narratives of English historians. Th^ are ignorant of it socially, because they do not read the Irish papers, and English papers give, with few exceptions, only one side of the ques- tion.
That English people suppose the Irish to be a lawless, indolent, ungrateful race, because the English papers report " outrages" which never happened, whereas, in point of fact, there are far fewer outrages in Ireland than in Eng- land. I refer to the present work for evidence, carefully collected, the last (to this date) manu- factured outrage being denied by Mr. O'Reilly, Lord Greville's agent, who said that the man said to have been shot at did not exist. The last English outrage which did happen I find reported in the Echo, where it is stated that
The Case of Ireland stated.
arsenic sufficient to kill 200 people was placed in a haunch of mutton which was sent anony- mously to Mr. Ashdown, the Duke of Cleve- land's agent
That the case of the Irish, or Anglo-Irish, landlords alone is heard in England, when nothing is heard of the manner in which so many of these gentlemen virtually break the law by compelling their unfortunate ten? .its to evade Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill. The English people ought to know that a law made in England for the benefit of Ireland is persistently set at defi- ance by the very gentlemen who are calling the Irish law-breakers, and who are calling out for coercion. Of this I give evidence in the follow- ing pages.
That the English people know nothing of the countless injustices done to the Irish tenant by " rules of estates," an arbitrary code of laws enforced by Irish landlords, from which Irish tenants have no protection. Of this I give evidence.
That the Irish are not lazy when they refuse to pay rents which are extortionate, and will not allow them to have the mere necessaries of life. Of this I give evidence.
That while the Irish people are simply ask- ing for such laws to be made in England as
The Case of Ireland stated.
will protect their lives and enable them to live in peace and on the poorest food, the landlords are clamouring for coercion, so that their tenants may be compelled either to pay rents which will not leave them sufficient for bare existence, or to drive them out of their homes and their country. Of this I give evidence.
That the present Land League agitation is simply the ttrike of a whole nation against unjust government ; that in all strikes, acts of violence are committed, for which the leaders are not responsible ; and that far fewer acts of violence have been committed in this great national strike than in any English strike. Of this I give evidence.
That those who refuse to pay more than Griffith's Valuation, are not doing so from dis- honest motives, or because they are unwilling to pay any rent ; but that they are doing so on the principle on which all English labour strikes, are carried out ; t.^., contending for more to be given to the man, and less to the master — for more to be given to labour, and less to capital.
That the Irish people cannot in justice give all to the landlord, and refuse to pay the shop- keeper, who has given them credit in the Famine ; i.e.^ they know of no moral law which makes it justifiable to give all to the landlord
THE CASE OF IRELAND STATED-
My Case is : —
I. That English people do not know the true state of Ireland. Th^ are ignorant of it historically^ because they only read the pre- judiced narratives of English historians. Th^ are ignorant of it socially ^ because they do not read the Irish papers, and English papers give, with few exceptions, only one side of the ques- tion.
That English people suppose the Irish to be a lawless, indolent, ungrateful race, because the English papers report " outrages" which never happened, whereas, in point of fact, there are far fewer outrages in Ireland than in Eng- land. I refer to the present work for evidence, carefully collected, the last (to this date) manu- factured outrage being denied by Mr. O'Reilly, Lord Greville's agent, who said that the man said to have been shot at did not exist The last English outrage which did happen I find reported in the Echo^ where it is stated that
The Case of Ireland stated.
arsenic sufficient to kill 200 people was placed in a haunch of mutton which was sent anony- mously to Mr. Ashdown, the Duke of Cleve- land's agent.
That the case of the Irish, or Anglo-Irish, landlords alone is heard in England, when nothing is heard of the manner in which so many of these gentlemen virtually break the law by compelling their unfortunate ten? .its to evade Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill. The English people ought to know that a law made in England for the benefit of Ireland is persistently set at defi- ance by the very gentlemen who are calling the Irish law-breakers, and who are calling out for coercion. Of this I give evidence in the follow- ing pages.
That the English people know nothing of the countless injustices done to the Irish tenant by " rules of estates," an arbitrary code of laws enforced by Irish landlords, from which Irish tenants have no protection. Of this I give evidence.
That the Irish are not lazy when they refuse to pay rents which are extortionate, and will not allow them to have the mere necessaries of life. Of this I give evidence.
That while the Irish people are simply ask- ing for such laws to be made in England as
The Case of Ireland stated.
will protect their lives and enable them to live in peace and on the poorest food, the landlords are clamouring for coercion, so that their tenants may be compelled either to pay rents which will not leave them sufficient for bare existence, or to drive them out of their homes and their country. Of this I give evidence.
That the present Land League agitation is simply the ttrike of a whole nation against unjust government ; that in all strikes, acts of violence are committed, for which the leaders are not responsible ; and that far fewer acts of violence have been committed in this great national strike than in any English strike. Of this I give evidence.
That those who refuse to pay more than Griffith's Valuation, are not doing so from dis- honest motives, or because they are unwilling to pay any rent ; but that they are doing so on the principle on which all English labour strikes, are carried out ; t.^., contending for more to be given to the man, and less to the master — for more to be given to labour, and less to capital.
That the Irish people cannot in justice give all to the landlord, and refuse to pay the shop- keeper, who has given them credit in the Famine ; ue., they know of no moral law which makes it justifiable to give all to the landlord
The Case of Ireland stated.
and nothing to their other creditors. Of this I give evidence.
Lastly — ^I am firmly convinced that the prin- cipal cause why Irish grievances are not re- medied is, because Ireland is governed at the caprice of party, and not as an integral portion of the United Kingdom,
In any part of England or Scotland the ques- tion is the general good. For any Irish matter the question is how it ^uits party politicians. Of this also I ^ive evidence from English sources. The Times says : — ^
/ '^ What we do not find in Sir Stafford's speech is a due
sense that the next Session will bring us face to face with a
great national question, and that party ties must give way
before the paramount claims of common state interests.
If Sir Stafford will keep clear of the fourth party and its
troublesome ways he may lea.ve the Government to keep
clear of the dangerous advisers whose influence he professes
to be afraid of."
The Daily News says : —
''Sir Stafford interprets that the three F's are 'fraud, force, and folly.' In that spirit we may presume will all proposals for land reform be entertained by his party, but the hopes of the Conservatives are not in their own strength. Only a lack of thorough union among the Liberals could even in Conservative opinion give the battle into Conser- vative hands."
The Case of Ireland stated. Mr. Bright says : —
'' Until now, from the last hundred years, and from longer, the English Government and the English Parliament have alwa3rs come to the rescue of the landed proprietois. England has done it in the past, and the question now is whether it will do it in the future.** '
The Standard of November writes :—
''Lord Salisbury is not the man to underrate the value of the occasion, but he is too apt to turn it into an opportunity for the display of rhetorical fireworks. He ought to see in the condition of Ireland a theme for something more than the invectives and satire of partisanship. It b not enough to argue, as Lord Randolph Churchill does, that Irish dis- turbance and disaffection are simply due to the mistakes committed by Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. No man of sense believes this.
Sir Staflford Northcote turns the whole ques- tion into ridicule by talking of force, fraud, and folly, and is it any wonder if Ireland has wearied of government which depends too often not on justice, but on whether this or that political party shall hold the reins of statesmanship ?
*'If an Englishman," writes the Spectator^ ''wishes to know what political shame means, let him read the brilliant chapter of historical review in Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's book on 'Young Ireland,' and h€ will fed it far a time a burden almost too great to endured
The Case of Ireland stated. The Echo says :—
^ There is, as might have been expected, a good deal of denunciation of the Government, because exceptional measures have not been taken to prevent crime and outrage in Ireland. But whatever. is done or left undone is sure to be opposed in certain quarters. If the Government had de- cided to call Parliament together to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, or to re-enact some stiingent Coercion Act, they would have been criticised, taunted, and opposed, either because they had not commenced earlier, or done more, and now they have not done so they have exposed themselves to similar acrimonious comments. The truth is that it is impossible that the Government can do anything to please its opponents. The best thing then to be done is, after surveying the whole of the circum.stances, to act for the benefit of the country, and not attempt to conciliate faction or to mitigate the acerbity of irreconcilables."
Just SO. All we ask is, that Ireland will be governed "for the benefit of the country/' But when English writers make such state- ments, Ireland may well be hopeless of justice.
On the motion for the second reading of the Irish Land Act in 1870, Lord Derby spoke as follows : — ^
**I ask you whether the Irish Church would not now have probably been still on its legs but for the Fenian agita- tion ? I will also ask whether this bill, in its present foi^n, would have been likely to pass through both Houses of Parliament if it had not been for long-continued agitation, supported by many most unjustifiable acts of violence ?^
The Case of Ireland stated.
Professor Thorold Rogers, writing from Ox- ford, December i, 1880, says : —
^ At present I am convinced that, under the guidance of Lords Cairns and Redesdale, the Upper House deliberately intended to set the English and Irish people by the ears to increase the difficulties of government and to make concilia- tory legislation impossible or difficult But I trust that the English people will see who is to blame for the, present situation.**
KxMifARi, Irsland, Dtcmber Zih^ xSSa
HICHAEIj DA.V1TT.
THE CASE OF IRELAND STATED;
• ■ •
A Plea far my People and my Race.
CHAPTER I.
IRELAND AND PUBLIC OPINION.
On this matter [the state of Ireland] English opinion shapes itself laigeljin ignorance, and he does good service to the common weal who bears ever so humble a part in making known the truth.— Z^m^
jHERE is one subject, at least; on which we cannot complain of neglect on the part of the English nation. Ireland and Irish affairs occupy so prominent a place in the public press, that it is (especially at pre- sent) impossible to take up a serial or news- paper in which there is not some article on the Irish question. Ireland is, indeed, the best written about country in the world. The press at home and abroad is full of the subject In Paris we have the Figaro^ the, Debats^ and the Univers^ each with its theory or statements
2 The Case of Ireland stated.
as widely opposite as the poles, and so in every continental country. The Cologne Gazette has even reproached England with her mismanage- ment of Irish affairs. It would seem then as if ignorance on Irish subjects could not be the cause of our chronic state of disturbance, yet that such IS the case we can give ample proof. Recrimination is not argument, yet, unhappily, recrimination forms the staple ground of all this press discussion. Where do we find anything like calm, impartial discussion ? and yet never was there a subject which so miich needed it. Ireland, or to speak more accurately, Irish affairs, have been made too long/ the object of party politics ; Irish affairs have not been treated as if they were imperial affairs ; and yet the Irish people are expected to exhibit on all occasions an ardent attachment to the English crown and constitution.
We have asked for centuries to be governed by English laws ; we have been governed for centuries by the caprice of party politics. Might it not be well to try, at least for a time, the effects of governing Ireland as England is governed — ^at least until this is done, do not call us ungrateful, or threaten us with coercion acts.
It is not a little remarkable that the same policy has been pursued as regards Ireland for
Ireland and Public Opinion. 3
•
centuries. It has not been successsful; and might it not be advisable, even as a matter of common sense, to try a new policy ?
But before any policy can be effected, it must be grounded on a thorough and personal know- ledge of the state of Ireland ; and unless this has been obtained, it is equally hopeless to ask or to attempt any legislation for this country.
Now, there are several subjects, the con- sideration of which must precede action, and yet they are precisely the subjects on which English people have the fewest means of obtain- ing reliable information.
English opinion of Irish affairs is based on two separate grounds — it is based on his- torical knowledge and current opinion. Eng- lish statesmen, or, to speak more accurately, the English people, when they discuss Irish affairs, preconceive that they are correctly in- formed on these subjects. Never was there a more fatal delusion. Irish history has been written much as Irish news is written to-day — not from facts, but from opinions. Mr. Froude is nothing if he is not brilliantly inaccurate. He cannot write a page of the history even of the English nation with common veracity, yet he sits down with the air of a judge, from whose sentence there can be no appeal, to pronounce
4 The Case of Ireland stated.
on Irish affairs on the strength of having spent a short time in Kerry, near Kenmare, where his family acted in direct contradiction to his theory by doing acts of kindness to the people. He writes for a public whom he wishes to amuse. He knows it will not criticise any slander he chooses to write about Ireland, whatever may be said to the romance he offers when he writes English history accord, ing to Froude, in amusing contradiction to English history according to fact. All this is of very little consequence as far as English history is concerned. English people have truthful histories of England, and they can very easily test his entertaining fictions by his- torical facts. His brilliant inventions are'amus- ing, and on the whole harmless, because they are known to be the aberrations of a genius. But the more inventive he is as regards Ireland, the more sure he is to be believed ; and, as he is always amusing, he is read. People want amusement; truth, plain naked truth, is not amusing, and they prefer the fiction, of which he is so untiring a narrator. When the truth is known about Ireland people may read his Irish fictitious history as they read his English fictitious history — for amusement ; but they will look elsewhere for facts.
Ireland and Public Opinion. 5
Yet It is from such writers that English people learn Irish history. They have then not only to learn, but to unlearn before they can form a correct opinion on Irish affairs.
Mr. Froude's ** English in Ireland" is from beginning to end a series of inaccuracies. Un- fortunately we have no Irish Freeman to give him the contradiction which justice demands. We can give but one sample of the fiction which he writes. His admiration for the Nor- man invaders of Ireland is unlimited, and in his zeal for his clients he forgets English history. A glance at Cambrensis would have told him the character of the men he delights to honour.
Henry II. landed in Crook, in the county Waterford, on the i8th of October, 11 71.
Contemporary historians do not give a favour- able character of the English king, though he purposed to have come to Ireland to im- prove it
Cambrensis says ''he was more given to hunting than holiness." It would have been well if he had been given to nothing worse than hunting.^
^ He was a tyrant to the nobility ; poshed his encroachments on the holy things of God to a detestable excess, and by a seal for jostice (but not according to sense) combined, or rather confounded, the rights of the State and Church, and would make himself all in «1L The
6 The Case of Ireland stated.
Yet Mr. Froude in " The English in Ireland'* gives a glowing description of the incalculable advantages which the barbarous Celt derived from the administration of the cultivated, en- lightened^and eminentlyhumane Norman prince. As there are nearly as many false statements as there are lines in each page, it would be impos- sible to refute them seriatim. Mr. Froude does not appear to have read contemporary history, either English or Irish.
Some one has said that a fact is always true after it has happened. It remained for this historian to evolve a theory out of his inner consciousness, and then to compose an historical narrative to support it. The method is simple, to a person of fertile imagination it is entertain- ing.
The Normans were perfect, they were " qua- lified and gifted."^ Contemporary writers say they were gifted — ^gifted with no scanty share of depravity, and qualified for any amount of impiety.* A cardinal pronounced Henry to be
revenaes of vacant benefices he tetzed for hit treasury ; and, as a slight leaven comipteth the whole mass, while the treasury plundered the rights of Christ, the impious soldier receives what was due to the priest.— CaiM^r/M/w Eversus^ p. 483. ^^ The English m /rtUmi, vol. i, p. 16.
* John of Salisbury gives the following account of another Norman prince : — " During the reign, shall I call it, or desolating sconige of
Ireland and Public Opinion. 7
an ''audacious liar/' Count Thiebault, of Champagne, warned an archbishop not to rely on any of his promises, no matter how solemnly they were made. His own son thus graphically describes the family characteristics : — " The custom in our family is that the son shall hate the father ; our destiny is to detest each other ; from the devil we came, to the devil we go."
Mr. Froude has said nothing about this ; but he evolves out of his inner consciousness a wonderful account of how he came to Ireland, and what his nobles did there. The Irish were " vagabonds." " They were wild and way- ward \^ but they were not wayward long — at least not in Mr. Froude's history. A mar- vellous tranquility came over Ireland when the Normans landed. There was a whole cen- tury during which the Irish savage had peace and rest and justice and plenty (in the History of Ireland, according to Froude). The poor
King Stephen, OTer clergy and people, there was a nntvenal giaspbg of all things; might was truly the only law of right Many wicked things he did ; bat worst of all, his flying in the face of God and laying violent hands upon his anointed. Bat die bishops, thoagh the first, were not the only victims of Hb fary. Every man on whom his sus- picion fell was instantly the doomed prey of his treachery. But the imprisonment of the bishops was the beginning of the evils of the land in hb day, that even a brief sketch of them would exceed ths horrort of JosephuSi" I Tht Enffiisk in Inland^ P* >?*
8 The Case of Ireland stated.
savages became ^* humane'' and " rational/' and all because (I still quote this very remarkable historian) the English in Ireland ''did not destroy the Irish people."* They only " ham- I mered" the heads of the Celts who were un- willing to submit, and "drove the chiefs into the mountains ;" but it is not explained how all this hammering and driving was carried out peacefully. Contemporary historians, both Eng- lish and Irish, give a very different account to Mr. Froude's, but a person of fertile imagina* tion does not require authority for his state- ments.
The Normans " only took the government of Ireland," just as a man would take his hat and cane to go out for a walk. Let those who doubt look at the original ; but this very calm and just and extremely dignified " taking the government" involved dispossessing the chiefs. Thb " changed the order of inheritance into an orderly succession," according to Mr. Froude ; the Irish annals call it driving out the rightful owners and putting in usurpers. Indeed, as much is admitted in one part of the page, for here he says : — " The new comers rooted them- selves in the soil, built castles, gathered about
• Thi En^Uk in Irtlamd, pp. i6-ll.
Ireland and. Public Opinion. 9
them retainers of their own bloody who over- whelme4 and held down those whom they forced to be their subjects."*
In the interval, too, there was ^Mncessant fighting and arduous police work.'** Yet in the next breath we are assured all was done peace- fully.
Such is the fashion tn which the Irish history of the past has been written, and such being the case, it is little wonder that a very large majority of those who legislate for Ireland are absolutely ignorant of the people whom they govern.
But though the history of the past forms a considerable element in the discussion of the events of the present, there are men who are quite capable of acting on present information.
But what shall be said of not merely suppres- sions of what would serve to prove the cause of the Irish tenant, but of actual and outrageous false reports.
One English gentleman, a Protestant, and, I must add, a generous benefactor to our poor, has been sending me English papers regularly every day for a year or more, with Irish out- rages carefully marked. It so happened that many of these outrages, I might say truly most
* Tht Bnifhk m Ifdami^ p. 17. ' Ibid, p. 18.
lo The Case of Ireland stated.
of them, had been contradicted previously in Irish papers. And note, these contradictions were not made anonymously ; they were made by the very persons to whom they were said to have happened. But the lie had got the start, and there was no one to contradict it, and thou- sands of good Englishmen and women were shaking their heads over the depravity of the Irish people, when the depravity only existed in the wicked imagination of the original in- ventor of the lie. In the Daily Telegraph a writer informs his readers that "to abolish landlordism by shooting individual landlords, these are the end and means of the Land League/' Well, if this is true, the Land League has been a complete failure.*
Ask the next person you find denouncing Irish crimes, and talking as if the Irish people lived in a chronic state of landlord-shooting. How many landlords have been actually shot? He will possibly tell you some hundreds. You cannot take up an English paper in which you will not find it stated, in the plainest language, that murder and assassination and outrage is the state of Ireland at this moment. And what is the fact ? Three landlords have been killed during the last twelve months. And this is how English gentlemen misrepresent
Ireland and Public Opinion. 1 1
Ireland, and try to raise a cry for ** coercion," Yet, if we Irish are to believe English papers, it is England wants coercion, unless, indeed, the life of landlords is so incomparably above the lives of other men that there would be no comparison between the crime of killing a land- lord and the crime of killing numbers of little helpless children and aged men and women, or of murdering strong men for mere gain.
It iS) indeed, a grievous thing that even one landlord should have fallen a victim to the assassin ; but what of the hundreds who have fallen victims to English murderers ? Is there no judgment for them? Is their crime no sin ?
I know that crime in England does not excuse crime in Ireland. But it should obtain some justice in the consideration of Irish crime.
No wonder some crimes have been com- mitted in Ireland in consequence of the cruel evictions and the cruel demands for rent from a starving people. Many of these '* outrages," as we have said, are the pure inventions of unscrupulous men ; but many crimes have been committed. But take them at the most and at the worst If one is to accept the reports of the state of England as given in the English
1 2 The Case of Ireland stated.
newspapers, English people ought t6 come td Ireland for freedom from crime and protection for life and property! When do we hear of jewel and plate robberies in Ireland, such as occur frequently in England and remain unde- tected ? If such crimes took place in Ireland, what cries of righteous indignation there would be I How fearful it would be to live in such a country! Above all, how horrible for such crimes to remain undetected ! Every Irishman and woman would share in the odium for not hunting out the robbers and giving them up to justice. But here in this Ireland, where we are supposed to be in a state of chronic and horrible crime, Irish gentlemen go to amuse themselves shooting in Scotland^ and leave their houses unguarded, and their children in the wilds of Kerry or Connemara, ]as the case may be, sure that they will be safe and happy with their servants and tenants.
And can the Irish people fail to be indignant at the miserable ingratitude of this class of men, who add to their Oppression of the people, with whom they knew their children may be left in safety, the most cruel calumnies on these people ?
A great deal has been said about a few acts of cruelty to animals in Ireland ; but what of
Ireland and Public Opinion. 1 3
the reports in the London papers of prosecu- tions for acts of the most wanton and utterly uncalled-for cruelty to dumb and defenceless beasts ? It need scarcely be said that cruelty in England to the brute creation does not excuse cruelty in Ireland ; but those who con- demn the one ought to condemn the other equally. And what of the wholesale cruelty committed on human beings in Ireland, when in this famine year they were left with little concern half starving, when a pitiful dole of foody only fit for dogs, was all that would be given to them ?
Here is an English account from the Daily Telegraphy of a few days ago, of the state of affairs in England. Let us suppose for one moment that such < a state of affairs could by any possibility be reported as happening in any part of Ireland, and what a cry there would be for " coercion," and for " strong measures/' and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and, above all, for that exercise of ^^ firmness " on the part of the Government, which, during the famine, was Supposed too often to be the proper course to be adopted when we were starving for bread, and which is now declared to be the one thing necessary for the Government of Ireland, when those who have been supported,
1 4 The Case of Ireland stated.
or, to speak more correctly, have been enabled to exist during the famine year on public cha- rity, cannot pay their rents.
If " firmness " was justice to tenants and the poor, Ireland would soon be wealthy. But here is an English account of t/ie state of England.
We confess to rubbing our eyes, and wonder- ing if Blackheath and Lewisham had slipped in by mistake for Belfast and Cork. But we do not know that an English paper has yet declared that we are obliged to go to sleep in Ireland fully armed.
"The good people of Blackheath and Lewisham are already alive to the necessity of going to sleep fully armed, and the inhabitants of that district should by this time think no more of hearing a pistol shot in the night than they might of the deceitful croak of the ventriloquial corn-crake. If all this banging of firearms lately heard had led to the arrest of a single burglar, so much gunpowder would not have been exploded in vain. Unfortunately, the thieves remain more free than welcome. Sometimes the police are on the spot, and occasionally the citizen has to fight his enemies unsupported and unsustained. About two o'clock on the morning of Monday, Constable Mooney, 34 R, had an exciting conflict with a couple of intending burglars at Westcombe Park, Blackheath. The ruffians carried firearms, which they did not hesitate to use, and the brave officer, who was struck on the head and stunned, and whose pluck and determination will, no doubt, have due recognition at
Ireland and Public Opinion. \ 5
the hands of his official superiors, narrowly escaped being shot dead. Almost at the same time when the policeman was being shot at, in the execution of his duty at Black- heath, young Mr. Hopkins, son of a clerk in the Bank of England, was engaged in what might easily have proved a deadly struggle with a burglar, in his father's home at Lewis- ham. The brave lad was awakened from his sleep by hear- ing a noise in the room. He jumped up to lay hold of the intruder, but was suddenly seized by the throat and half strangled. Contriving to escape the grasp of his assailant, he obtained a loaded revolver from a drawer in the room, and fired it point blank at the burglar. The pistol missed fire, just as the rufllian returned the shot, and a ball passed through the young man's shirt As the burglar retreated through the window, Mr. Hopkins fired another barrel, this time taking effect The wounded scoundrel, however, managed to escape, leaving a gold watch behind him.**
After making all possible allowance for sensa- tional writing, which seems inevitable at the present day, and which will save future his- torians of the Froude stamp the trouble of drawing on their imagination, there must be an underlying truth which shows the state of Eng- land to be very dangerous. But suppose some foreign writers were to write of the state of England, even on such grave ground, in the same fashion in which English writers expatiate on the state of Ireland, with what cries of indig- nation they would be met I
To write sensationally of crime in England
1 6 The Cas$ of Ireland stated.
would do no practical harm, and certainly would not affect the lives or liberties of Englishmen ; but to write sensationally and untruthfully of Ireland is a very different matter. To do this is to help to continue a state of things in Ireland which has been denounced even by English statesifien, and it is to bring cruel suffering on a people who have already suffered cruelly.
The Graphic of October says :—
'' Buiglaries around London are as numerous as ever, not- withstanding the fact that extra police patrols and plain- clothes men have been placed on duty in the various districts. The Home Secretary has offered a reward of ^loo for the conviction of the recent burglaries and attempted murders at Lewisham and Blackheath, with a free pardon to any accomplices. It is said that the announcement contains a special clause excluding policemen from participation in the reward. Robberies from churches and schools have also been veiy frequent in the Southern suburbs, and three young men have been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in them."
And we are also informed that Mr. Gladstone was robbed of jewels at Haribury Hall. What a state of social disorder and crime all this reveals I It is no pleasure to record all this ; but it is as rnuch justice to England as to Ireland to do so.
I believe the extent to which falsehood is
Ireland and Public Opinidn. 1 7
circulated about Ireland is not even imagined in England. And now this systematic habit of lying about Irish affairs is extending itself to the Continent. But, let England beware ; to- day it gives continental writers the whole weight of its example and approbation in lying about Ireland. The lesson will be remembered ; and by-and-by, when England in her hour of need and danger is met with a similar fate, she will have only herself to thank.
Onu again, let me ask — is this English honour t
Is it, then, honourable to lie systematically ) Is it honourable, when the lie is refuted, to re* fuse tb admit the denial of the falsehood ? We can quite understand how a false report may find admission into any paper. But when false reports come to be habitually inserted, it looks like malice and deliberate fraud. When it becomes habitual to refuse to deny false reports, there can be no question that they are deliberate. Were such reports purely a matter of accident, honourable men would rejoice to see them con- tradicted, for honourable men do not love lying.
French correspondents are now turning their attention to Ireland ; and, strange to Say, it is the infidel and communistic press that is all in favour of England's oppression of Irelanc)?
1 8 The Case of Ireland stated.
Happy Ireland ! She secures the hatred of the wicked. She is too good, too pure, too holy for the^ir foul tongues to name her, except witli scorn. Men who, forsooth, make a love of liberty their boast, cry out for coercion for Ire- land.
As I am about to reply by facts to the calumnies published in the Debats by M. de Molinari, I will say no more here. My reply will appear shortly in the Univers.
A few persons may be deceived about Ireland by these landlord misrepresentations ; but the people of Europe, the people of America — all civilized nations and peoples see that it is to the eternal discredit of England that Ireland should be in such a state. England, which boasts of her learning, and her position, and her honour I what a discredit that she keeps Ireland for centuries in misery ; that now, in this nineteenth . century, Ireland is as poor, as subject to famine, as discontented as she was 300 years ago !
And foreign countries are not slow to see where the fault lies, or to see that the only re- medy offered by England, or rather by a small and exclusive class of Englishmen like Froude and Disraeli and statesmen of this class, is " coercion." Coercion ! why England has been trying coercion with Ireland for 700 years, and
Ireland and Public Ofiinion. 1 9
It has not yet effected any improvement in the country. Might it not, then, be well for Eng- land to try something else, at least by way of experiment.
When England first invaded Ireland, she tried coercion. The Irish were hunted down like dogs, sold like slaves, treated like beasts ; but all this coercion did not make the country any the more prosperous, nor did the English settlers themselves gain anything by it
When England thought proper to change her religion, Ireland, of course, was expected to follow, and coercion was tried again and again, but to no purpose. Englishmen got no benefit by it, nor did English settlers in Ireland benefit by it. This is the first point which honest Englishmen should consider : Ireland has been governed by coercion for hundreds of years, and no good has been gained by it
Whenever Ireland rebelled ever so little against misgovernment "coercion" was the remedy. It is as if you half-starved a man and then flogged him for complaining.
A famine came to Ireland in this last year, and because the people have complained of the causes they are to be " coerced" again. What do honest Englishmen say to this ? I know what they will say. They will say they will not
20 The Case of Ireland stated.
allow it ; they will stand up in their power and forbid it ; they will not fling away their character for justice because a few Irish landlords will not act with common humanity.
They may indeed, for want of better infor. mation, believe all the evil recorded of Ireland in the past, but their intellect, and perhaps their hearts, are sufficiently large to let that pass, and act in the present. For such persons it is all important that they should be correctly informed as to the present state of Ireland, and yet we can show from indisputable sources that they cannot obtain reliable information frotn the press ; yet it is precisely to the press that such persons look for information. And let this one point be carefully noted, for it is of supreme moment to England as well as to Ireland. Though some just-minded Englishmen may be content to let the dead past bury its dead, yet they believe Irish history as narrated by Froude and other historians of his class. Hence, they are quite prepared to believe reports of out- rages, because they expect nothing else from Ireland. Then, when false reports, when ima- ginary murders or cruelties are narrated with all appearance of truthfulness by the press, they are, so to say, naturally believed. It is only what previous education has led the public to
Ireland and Public Ofiimdn. i t
expect \ the public, therefore, readily accepts as true what, under other circumstancesi it would think twice befote it Would believe.
But in a question which involves such grave issues, surely truth should be the first object.
There is one important point besides delibe* rate misrepresentation of Ireland^ and that is deliberate and wilful suppression of truth. Td suppress truth is to act a lie, because the sup«> preslsiotl is a deliberate act. I now pro* ceed to give example^ of actual afad most mischievous suppression of truth.
The Daily Telegraphy an organ of English opinion read by thousands, perhaps by a million, of just the very class who most need to know the truth about Ireland, has articles frequently on Irish affairs. No doubt it is necessary for an English newspaper at the present day to ht sensational The Daily Telegfaph^ I niu^t admit, is as sehsational on the real crimes which happen in England as on the imaginary outrages that do not happen in Ireland. But people are only amused at the sensationalism as far as England is concerned; as for Irish affairs. Englishmen are so entirely ignorant of them that they take all this sensational outcry as true«
Thus what amuses people in the one case does a positive and most grave injury in the other
2 a The Case of Ireland stated.
case. It is a very serious matter to write what will mislead people on a very important subject
The Daily Telegraph for October nth has an article on Ireland. It treats of the Arch- bishop of Dublin, of Mr. Pamell, of the Com- mission^ of the Land League^ and I do not know what else besides. So far good. These are all subjects of public interest It com- mences with the bitterest attacks on Ireland, and recommends " coercion '* as the only remedy, and it ends with a quite candid admission of Irish grievances, or rather of Irish wrongs. This is precisely how the more honest class of English newspapers write. They dare not say out boldly that Irish landlords are determined to prevent the enactment of laws which would prevent oppression. So they begin their lead- ers with bitter taunts against Ireland, and before they get to the end, their honesty is too much for them, and they admit the truth.
The Daily Telegraph did incalculable benefit to Ireland in the famine by its truthful account of the state of the country. Why has its editor not the courage now to report on the state of the Irish land laws ? Probably because he dare not be truthful, and he does not wish to be false. The article commence: with a criti- cism of Dr. McCabe's Pastoral Letter.
Irtland and Public Opinion. 23
Now, here is one instance of the suppression of truth which is carried out so largely in Eng- lish papers, and which is not creditable to the honour or honesty of England. Why should anything be suppressed if people are not afraid to tell the truth ? Why should a letter, or a leader in a paper, or a report, or a speech give some bits of extracts because they suit the views of the English people-? And why should bits be omitted that would tell strongly on the other side ?
In the condensed summary of news which is the vade-mecum of so many hurried English readers, a bit is given from the pastoral to tell against the Land League ; but one of the most important bits is not given— one which should be written in letters of gold and put before every Englishman as the pronouncement of a distin- guished Irish prelate who condemns all agitation that seems even to hint at violence even in words. His Grace says : —
'' The periodic famines with which our people are con- tinually threatened, the insecurity of their land tenure, which paralyses the most industrious hands^ and the wretched condition of thousands of families, whose domestic arrangements might test the temper of a Slave Coast African — all proclaim that our land laws require a prompt and thorough revision. On this point we are all united* All agree that if peace and security are to be firmly estab-
24 ^^ Ca^e of Ireland stated.
lished amongst us, it must be by the hand which blots out those odious laws that constitute the character of oppres- sion."
Now, this is an old story. Whenever an Irish Catholic prelate says anything which English writers think will tell on their side he is quoted with qualified approbation. The approbation in this case is qualified by strongly expressed remarks about the clerical inferiority of Irish priests. This is no new proceeding. In the year 1797 the then Catholic Bishop of Cork addressed a pastoral to his people im- ploring them not to join the French, who were landing in Bantry Bay, but to remain faithful and loyal to the English Government. So im- portant was this pastoral considered, and of such immense value was it to the Government of the day, that 4,000 copies were printed and circulated by the Government.
The Lord Lieutenant notices the "useful impression" which was made by this "judicious address," in a despatch which was published in the London Gazette of 17th July, 1797; but we do not hear that any further acknowledgment was made of the bishop's services. But it mat- tered little to one who sought no temporal reward for doing what he believed to be his duty.
Ireland and Public Opinion. ^$
Lord Bantry got his peerage for being the first to inform the Government that the fleet was sighted in Bantry Bay.
The Bishop was made use of, and neither he nor his people received any consideration ; nor was the matter made, as it should have been, a reason for helping the Irish people to more justice in religion or legal rights.
Now, there are four subjects on which the whol6 question of the state of Ireland turns. The first and most important question is, no doubt, the relations between landlords and tenants. The next is the relations between those who hold the reins of the immediate government of Ireland. The third subject is the all-important one of the general social state of the people, and it includes the very grave and very important question of Tem- perance. The fourth subject is the state of the industrial resources and trade of Ireland
26 The Case of Ireland stated.
CHAPTER II.
LANDLORD AND TENANT.
"The Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended in the coantiy in 1800, from 1802 till 1805, from 1807 till 1810, in 1814, and from 1821 to 1824. There were select committees upon Ireland almost every year since the Union. Whenever disturbances arose, and distress appeared, Coercion Acts were passed, and select committees appointed. Nothing more was done.*'— (7i9r/rM — Land Queslicn.
IRELAND is exclusively an agricultural country ; hence the Land Question in Ireland has necessarily an importance which it has not in England. It is no doubt a subject of surprise to many persons in England why there is this persistent agitation about land. But land is the one . object of trade, commerce, and commercial speculation in Ireland. We have used the expression commercial specu- lation advisedly, because it underlies all the subjects of discussion. I will not reproach England with having reduced Ireland to this pitiable extremity, and a pitiable extremity it is. In the present state of society, in our advanced stage of civilization, no country can
Landlord and Tenant 27
become wealthy which depends exclusively on agriculture. Civilization, such as we under* stand the term at the present day, requires artificial conveniences, if not conventional luxu- ries, such as never existed, and therefore were never desired, in a primitive state. The earth was tilled then to procure necessary food, and cultivated to procure necessary raiment Nature yields to our demands so far, but when we endeavour to press a further return we fail to obtain it.
Ireland, being, then, virtually a purely agri- cultural country, and this to a degree which is not found in any civilized nation in the world, will give a yield of ordinary food and clothing to her population ; but, if pressed beyond this, there is anarchy and disorder. A moderate return of income can be obtained from land, which will enable the toiler to live, and allow something for the proprietor as well ; but where more is demanded, then nature revolts, and the usurer suffers. Why, then, should usury be permitted in land commerce, when it is for- bidden in every other commerce ?
All the laws against usury have been re* pealed, but notwithstanding their repeal. Courts of Equity give relief against unconscionable bar- gains where the parties are not on equal terms.
dS The Ca^e of Ireland stated.
No civilized government will tolerate the practice of usury, because all experience shows iJiat it is a doubtful gain to one, while it is a certain ruin to many.
But let us suppose that usury was permitted in any nation, and that only one commercial industry was open to that nation, is it not a fore^- gon^ conclusion that s^ unjvers^ national bank-
ruptcy must ensue.
But this is precisely what has happened in Ireland. For years, and at the present time, the practice of u^ury in Irish commerce exists, and until it i|3 legally forbidden Ireland will continue poor, and as a necessary con« sequence discontented.
In Ireland when a man hais any capital to invest commercially, he must speculate in land ; with the miserable exception of the whiskey trade, there is scarcely one Irish manufacture in which capita) can be invested. Hence, usury and usurious competition in land— the ruin of the entire nation.
In a letter to the Chicago Tribune^ the Mar- quis of Lansdowne, replying to an accusation made against him as to the management of his estates, says: "There are in three counties alone about 54,000 holdings, valued at or under £\ a year. Such holdings are niapife^tly too
Landlord and Tenant. ^
small to support a man and his family in com- fort and respectability." This is a grave state^ ment made on very high authority. Multiply this 54yOOO by five or seven, and look %t the number of persons who, in these counties ajone, are living in a state of chronic misery, and then say is there not cause for Irish discontent.
Then, let it be remembered, that these men are liable at any moment to find themselves still further sunk in misery by ^xi increase of rent For the moment we must ask you to take it for granted that such an increase of rent is not only possible, but probable ; of this we can and will give ample proof. Let us sup- pose, what happens every day in Ireland, that one of these 54,000 men improves bis land with infinite toil and labour; his rent is too often raised, and he is taxed for his expenditure of his only capital — ^his labour. But it will be said Mr. Gladstone's Act at once provides for this, and he will get compensation. Compensa- tion! And what can compensate a msui for being ejected from hi3 home— what can com- pensate a man for the bitterness of his heart when he sees his years of toil taken from him, and the place to which he had become attached, even from the very anxiety and care which it gave him, passing into other hands ? Wlut is
30 Tlu Case of Ireland stated.
he to do? where is he to go? He has his choice between the workhouse and emigration, between exile from a country to which he is passionately attached, and a living tomb.
And all this is possible, all this happens daily in every part of Ireland, because usury in land is not forbidden by English law.
The landlord who evicts the tenant, whether he be a noble lord or a country shop-keeper, has the same object in view. He wants money. He wants to get from the land what the land cannot give. He wants to get what the culti- vator cannot give if he is to exist, as the Marquis of Lansdowne has said, ''in comfort and respectability."
Now, if the landlord knew that usury in land was not permitted by law he would not do this. He knows very well if he evicts Patrick Daly to-day because he will not pay him a usurious rent, that Thade McCarthy will take the land at that usurious rent to-morrow, and why ? Because Thade McCarthy has no other re- source, because he has no other way whatever of speculating, because he has a growing family, and he persuades himself that he will be more successful than Patrick Daly, that he will make the land pay him a profit after he has paid the usurious rent. -When Lord Lansdowne's state-
Landlord and Tenant 31
ment is remembered, it is but too plear that Thade McCarthy cannot do this.- But he has tried to do it ; he pays the new rent for a year or so, and in '^his turn is evicted, or lives on, a miserable, discontented, unhappy life — now makingf some spasmodic effort to pay " the rent," and now getting deeper into debt and nearer final ruin.
Perhaps in his intense desire to keep the land, a desire well known, and much, unhappily, calcu- lated on by landlords, he gets help from some of his " boys" who go to America, or some of his girls who go to service in England ; but such help, though it may silence' the clamour of the land agent, is in fact only adding to the general bankruptcy of Ireland. The " boys" may con- tinue the help for a few years, they marry, and have their own families to support. The girls go to America, and in the end either get the old father and mother out to them, or send them a trifle, when they are in turn evicted, to save them from utter destitution.
How much better then would it be for the general prosperity of the country, for the land- lord as well as the tiller of the soil, if usury was forbidden by law.
Unhappily the desire of undue and covetous gain is not confined to Ireland. In England
3 2 The Case of Ireland stated.
the Legislature had to interfere to prevent manufacturers from over- working, from actually destroying the lives of helpless women ^d children. Why> then, should not English law equally protect Irish tenants ?
A great deal has been said in English papers about Irish agrarian outrages. Here is their source and their cause. Remove the source, remove- the cause, and you at once put an end to the outrages. It is the wild justice of revenge. The Land League is credited with doing what ought to be done by English law. Strange that this should be made a cause of complaint. The Land League is credited with organizing a paid resistance to capricious or unjust increase of rent It is credited with in- citing " outrages " on the persons of those who take farms from which men have been evicted because they could not pay usurious rent. It is credited with protecting the many against the avarice of the few, and of using, to do this, the wild justice of revenge.
Yet the whole Irish nation, with the exception of the avaricious few, are imploring the English people for years to protect them by law. When protection by law is refused, are people to be branded as rebels and rioters if they try to pro- tect themselves. The raison d'etre of the Land
Landlord and Tenant. 33
League would cease to-morrow, if to-morrow saw a bill passed through the English Parlia- ment for the protection of Irish tenants.
Strange and amazing inconsistency I The Irish people are spoken of by the English people at large as if they existed only to break the law ; and yet what is the fact ? The Irish nation for centuries have been imploring the English nation to protect them by law I
One is almost weary of hearing it said, that History repeats itself, and, in truth, it does ; but how few profit by the experience thus gained. Certainly politicians seem, of all others, the slowest to do so. The History of Ireland has repeated itself over and over again, yet the same methods which failed in the days of the Norman invasion are repeated as if they had then succeeded to admiration.
If there is no advantage to England in having Ireland in a chronic state of rebellion, surely there should be the calmest consideration of past methods, and the most careful comparison of cause and effect. But no, there is still the same fatal policy.
Whenever any public event or calamity
occurs which makes Irish chronic distress more
severely felt in Ireland, there is "agitation,"
which naturally and necessarily culminates in
c
34 7 /^^ Case of Ireland stated.
more or less violence. To expect a people who have a serious cause of complaint, and who have had this cause for centuries, to agitate without some violence, is to expect them to act like angels rather than like men. Hence the extreme injustice of the loud outcry that has been made whenever acts of violence accom- pany agitation in Ireland.
Those who make this outcry forget the fearful acts of violence which, even in the present century, accompanied public agitation in England. To denounce the Irish people for acts of violence in moments of political excite- ment is adding injustice to inhumanity. I would ask a very careful consideration of this point. The outrages committed in England by trades unionists are within living memory. They were of a most serious character, quite as serious — indeed, far more serious — than any outrages committed during the present agita- tion in Ireland. They excited terror from end to end of England; but as there were no party politics concerned, when the agita- tion ceased, there was an end of the reproach. It was as if a few members of a family rebelled at unjust treatment from the rest. Family ties are too strong to be easily severed. But how differently is all Irish agitation treated.
Landlord and Tenant. 35
Here it is not question of one family or of one nationality, it is made a question of race against race. The trades union outrages were, as we said, quite as horrible as those of which we are accused, and which have not been committed in Ireland — more horrible than any which have really happened here. This is no matter of opinion or conjecture, as those who remember the circumstances know but too well.
Animals were cruelly tortured and were even burned alive. By an almost inhuman device of cruelty, needles were placed by thou- sands in the clay for making bricks, so that obnoxious workmen might be injured in the most terrible manner. Nor were women spared, as they most certainly are in Ireland. One was killed, another was blinded, and yet another was saved from a fearful death by being flung out from a window naked. The great instigator and head of all this fearful violence, William Broadheady was proved to have paid a man io murder another, and it was proved in evidence that men who had no personal quarrel whatever with their victims, were obliged to mutilate them and to inflict horrible punishments.
No one thinks now of reproaching the people of Sheflield or Manchester for those crimes.
36 The Case of Ireland stated*
simply because there is no political or other purpose to serve iri doing so. And people came to see that bad as these crimes were, they were in some degree like the violence of fever. It was better to find out the cause, and try to remedy that, than to think too much of the excesses.
There is unquestionably a remarkable coinci- dence of cause between the trades union com- bination and the present state of Ireland. In both cases it is a revolt of labour against capital. Labour wanted its magna charta. In ancient times there was no law for the labourer, and to say truth, scant justice. Men were compelled to work by English law whether they would or not. Even in the time of Elizabeth every act of legislation was in favour of the master, and against the man. The law was altogether against the trades, and the trades, as an inevitable consequence, against the law. Public opinion was against the trades also, and these acts of violence did not tend to conciliate public opinion. It was on a question of the deepest gravity, and turned on the one point — had a man the right to value his own labour or had he not ? In other words, was he to work under a modified form of slavery, or was he to be a free agent ?
Landlord and Tenant. 37
The question is precisely the one asked now in Ireland. If the question had been settled in England by leaving all the power in the hands of the employers and capitalists, there would have been a revolution in England.
The Irish labourer and farmer ask now that justice shall be done in Ireland between labour and capital. We heard a great deal some years ago of this or that being un-English. Is it not un-English to refuse the calm consideration of such a question, to make too much of the under* lying cause, and to think superficially only of the manner in which it is pressed ?
There is one thing of which I km perfectly certain. If the great mass of the English nation ever realized exactly what Ireland wants ; if they could ever be got to see the exact truth about Ireland, they would do her justice, and I believe this is a general feeling in Ireland. England may be unjust to us, but we do her the justice to believe that she errs in ignorance.
It is not a thousand years ago, nay, it is not even a hundred years ago, since the same bitter clamour existed, or rather was excited about Catholic Emancipation and tithes, as that which is excited to-day about tenant right. The least evil that could happen, if Catholic Emancipation was granted, was the murder of
38 The Case of Ireland stated.
all the Protestants in Ireland ; just as to-dayi the least evil that will happen, if a farmer is allowed protection against the arbitrary es- tate rules of a landlord, is the total extinction of landlords.
In the year 1798, the Irish people asked, as they have so often asked, for the benefit of equal laws with England. How they were then treated, and how their demands were met, is shown, not by any Irish or Catholic histo- rian, but by a Protestant bishop and Pro- testant noblemen who dared to say the truth. Sir L. Parsons' account of the fashion in which "some trivial disturbances" in the west were treated, reads as if he spoke of to-day; save only, and happily, that the government of to-day has not gone the same lengths. But it cannot be forgotten that they have been urged to do so by a certain party in England, and that they risk office and popularity by not doing so.
The following notes are taken from the Par- lianientary report of debates, in the Hibernian Chronicle, Cork, 1798. They will show that there were at least some influential and intelli- gent Protestants who saw and deplored the infatuation which led a powerful minority to treat the Irish like dogs, and then turn on them
Landlord and Tenant. 39
with relentless cruelty if they resented such inhumanity.
The Bishop of Down» after replying in firm but courteous language to the attacks made on himself, said : —
''What is the crime which has provoked such asperity? I am chaiged with having been amongst many highly re- spectable names who dared to petition our common sove- reign, and lay before the father of his people the sufferings under which we labour. Of that measure I am proud. I am convinced from ocular and personal examination of the general state of that part of the country, from the general testimony of its inhabitants, and from the infallible proof which the aspect of the country exhibits, that its manufac- tures and its trade have suffered, almost to annihilation. The noble and learned lord, in a tone of confidence which is so peculiar to him, asserts that I went about soliciting signatures to this petition. I assert, in opposition to the learned lord, that the information which he has received on that subject is false. I deny the fact, but were it true, I see nothing in it which, either as an honest man or a Protestant bishop, 1 should be ashamed oL Is this the conduct of one professing, as the learned lord does, such zeal for the support of the Established Church ? If such be hb treatment of his friends, the Catholics have little reason to regret his friendship. But what is the impropriety in a Protestant bishop unitmg with his fellow subjects in a petition to the Crown."
Again he says : —
''The Chancellor, in that style of interrogatory which seems to imply so much, and which really means so htue,
40 TJu Case of Ireland stated.
asks whether your lordships will meet treason and murder and conspiracy with measures of conciliation, with Parlia- mentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation? I answer, my lords, that these are the only remedies which in our present circumstances are likely to be effectual. Of Catholic Emancipation — a full and complete emancipation — ^an ad- mission to all the rights and privileges which a subject, can claim — I have always been a decided friend. I have always thought it was a measure not merely of sound policy, but of strict right. Nor has anything which has fallen from the noble lord to-night, or at any former time, tended in any degree to shake my confidence in that opinion. Equally convinced am I that a full and fair reform of the representation of the people is a measure of wisdom and necessity. I see nothing but this measure which can now restore in Ireland the blessings of tranquillity and content I have some property in this country ; it is not a great deal, but it is sufficient to interest me in the safety and welfare of the State; I have also my preferment in the Church. Both of these bind me to consult the peace and good order of the country ; and t declare it to be my firm belief, that unless these measures be adopted, my property, and that of every other gentleman in the country — nay, the country itself — ^is gone 1 "
Lord Dunsany said : —
'' I shall take leave, therefore, though it is with much reluctance I enter on so painful a task, to supply, in a small degree, this omission, by recalling to the recollection of the house a few of the many enormities which your lord- ships must have known to be committed. In the County of Westmeath alone — and from the sufferings of this ill-foted county, noble lords may, without fear of being mistaken.
Landlord and Tenant. 41
Infer those of the other counties of Ireland e)qposed to* military execution — ^in this county alone, it is an incontro- vertible fact, that several villages were destroyed by fire, without legal inquiry, trial, or ceremony of any kind. Three men were dragged from their houses, and shot on the fair-green of Baltimore, equally without any form of trial whatever, and time being scarcely allowed them to make their peace with heaven by saying a few prayers. After the bodies ,of the unfortunate victims had been exposed all the day (no friend or relative daring to approach them) the military had them tied on a car, and brought at a late hour of the night to the house of the parish priest, whom they forced to get up, and threw the dead bodies into the house, as if the murder of the dead was too little, without adding to it such an outrage on the feelmgs of the living.
'' Look now, my lords, to another frequent and favourite mode of summary execution. Is it not notorious that several hundreds of his Majesty's subjects have been trans- ported without any show of trial, or legal proofs of any kind ? And are not these grievances ? And will you, my lords, by your vote this night, countenance such cruelties, and become, by such countenance, accessories after the fact ? If you do, consider how you are to answer it to God, your king, and your country.
" The noble and learned lord on the woolsack has been pleased to say that a burst of loyalty took place in the south at the time the French were on our coasts. He does the Catholics of the south but justice in the observation, a justice that prejudice itself cannot deny them. Is it, then, for that burst of loyalty the noble* and learned earl now opposes their total emancipation ? This would be, indeed^ a strange return for loyalty, a strange mode of strengthening attachment, and invigorating affection. My lords, I mu|t state it as my decided conviction, that if conciliatory
43 The Case of Ireland stated.
measures are not immediately adopted,, this country is in^ evitably lost" ^
** Sir L. Parsons brought on his promised motion. He prepared by deprecating the most remote desire to say any- thing on this subject which could in the most distant degree increase the irritfition which unhappily existed at present Nothing could be more far from the wish of his heart than to add to that alarming discontent, which no man in the country could lament more sincerely or deeply than he did. On the contrary he was impelled to come forward on this occasion from the irresistible impulse of that duty which he felt called him, to submit the measure he was about to pro- pose, for the purpose of allaying that discontent, and intro. dudng a system which -should teach the people of this country they had a legislature who were capable and inclined to attend to other measures than those of punishment or extermination. But before he entered into any reasoning to prove the necessity of such a measure as he should pro- pose to the House, he thought it necessary to vindicate the people of Ireland from the heavy charge which had been made on them, as if they were a people whom kindness could not attach, whom unlimited concession could not conciliate. The British Minister at that time (1778) governing Ireland, felt that there was a principle of discon* tent growing into vigour, which the usurpation of Great Britain had given birth to, and he thought it necessary to appease it, and how did he do it ? By granting liberty to Ireland to cultivate tobacco, a plant which would not grow in the island. The people of Ireland, therefore, now began to complain that the manufactures suffered by the unequal terms on which they were obliged to contend with the manufactures of Great Britain, etc It was remembered that while a yard of Irish cloth could not find its way into England without paying a duty of forty shillings, which
Landlord and Tenant. 43
amounted to a total prohibition, the cloth of Great Britain was admitted into the different ports of Ireland at a duty of only sixpence. This inequality between the established manufacturer of England and the languid infant manufao turer of this country was loudly complained of.
'' What was the next measure of irritation to the people ? Some trivial disturbances had taken place in the west — dis- turbances, which, if they did ek[st, were excited by the recallof that nobleman — ^gave an occasion to government to send thither a military force, commanded by a noble lord, no longer in this country. What was the consequence of that measure? The laws were violated in every instance where there could be an example made. The gaol^ were delivered, not by legal trials of the prisoners, but by the visits of a military officer, who, when there was not sufficient proof against the prisoner to commit him, transported him on his own authority ; and mere suspicion of guilt was con- sidered sufficient to transport a man for life from his country. Then for the first time (?) did the government of Ireland hold forth to the people the dangerous example of violating the law ; and from that time may be dated all the atrocities which have been since committed by the people, and brought a disgrace on the national character. It was then that the populace of Ireland were for the first time brought to believe they were not within the protection of law, (?) and then it was that they ceased to respect the law. Let gentlemen consult their own feelings — for the poorest peasant has his natural feelings as sensible and as strong as those of any gentleman who heard him— perhaps his social feelings are stronger, as he is not diverted from his family or his cottage by the distractions of dissipation. When the house of the peasant is burned, even if he be guilty of the crime charged — which is generally no more than that of having concealed arms — ^when his house is burned, and his
44 ^^ C^^ of Ireland stated.
decrq>it parent is sent wandering for shelter about the country, what story does he tell ? Will not his appearance — his houseless poverty, and his grey hairs, speak at once his sufferings and his innocence ? Will not the impression which such an object makes, into whatever cabin he comes, be that of irreconcilable hatred against the government which inflicts sufferings such as these on harmless and help- less age? If the lower order of the people have as strong a sense of injustice, as deeply rooted an antipathy to oppression as the gentlemen of that house, will not the houseless children and forlorn wife of the suffering peasant rouse those feelings wherever they come, and create a wide- spread aversion of laws which show themselves only in such effects ? What in fact has been the effect of these severe laws that have given occasion to such enormities ? It is said the North is tranquilized — it may be so, but what kind of quiet have they introduced ? They have smothered the flame, but they have not extinguished it They have made the North a sleeping volcano, which is every moment ready to burst out and throw forth a torrent of destruction over the land. But if the North had been rendered quiet through die presence and immediate terror of a military force, what has happened in the other parts of the country ? Until within these five months the south of Ireland had re- mained undisturbed. How was it now? If the enemy were again to appear upon the coasts, would the peasantry of the South now stretch forth the hand of affection to the king's troops — ^would they share their scanty food, and give up their bed to the weary soldier ? Would they now, as they did when last the presence of the enemy called forth their loyalty and zeal, labour from mom till night in cutting through the frozen snow a passage for the artillery? Would they yoke themselves like beasts of burden, under the cannon, to ac- celerate the businett and lighten the fatigues of the army 7^
Landlord and Tenant. 45
Some one has said that History is philosophy teaching by experience, but in truth there are few persons whose philosophy is so perfect as to enable them to learn froni history. Irish Protestants were not all destroyed when Catholic Emancipation was granted, and as if to show the utter failure of the prophecy, it is an Irish Protestant gentleman who is leading that very movement to-day which is causing such utterly groundless alarm.
When tithes were abolished, the Irish Pro- testant Church was to fail utterly ; yet, though it has been disestablished by the act of an English Protestant Parliament, it is just where it was before. Indeed, so far has the old bitterness died out, that Protestant rectors and Catholic priests have united together in this famine year in perfect harmony.* \
One of the great misfortunes of England hai
^ I have myself to testify to this harmony. I ha^e in my possessioii many letters from Protestant clergymen thanking me for the help I was able to send the priests of their district. In one case, nerer to be for* gotten, the Protestant clergyman of a large parish in the south of Ireland wrote to me to say the Catholic children had been prepared for Confirmation, that the Catholic bishop was coming to confirm them, but they were so utterly dtstituti of clothing, common decency would not allow their appearance in a church. I was happily able to send him money for clothing at once, and thanks to the energy and teal-* rather I should say to the great-hearted charity of this good rlrrpimn - the Catholic children were clothed in time for Confirmation.
46 TIu Case of Ireland stated.
been that she has treated Ireland as the shuttle- cock of party politics. Whenever the game runs high, Ireland inevitably suffers ; above all, if there is no special political foreign fiasco to distract attention. Lord Lansdowne has recently se- vered himself from his political party, and his management of his Irish property is receiving a good deal more attention than he cares to have ; but it is not so many years ago since the same Lord Lansdowne called the then English Go* vemment to account pretty sharply for their management of Irish affairs.
Would it not be wise, would it not be more just, to treat Ireland as, say, Devonshire would be treated ? Gentlemen who represent political interests, or who meet their constituents in recess, must have something to say ; and men who have no marked ability can dilate with most advantage to their limited power of thought or of expression on a burning ques- tion. Hence Irish '• outrages " form a subject at once attractive and easy of discussion. No one asks, are these outrages true ? And take it at the worst, admit that they are all true, who asks calmly and carefully, is there cause — must there not be something wrong in the govern- ment of a country which is perpetually in more or less open revolt ?
Landlord and Tenant 47
And if there is cause, would it not be wiser to remove the cause than to try and put out the flame for the moment by Coercion Acts ?
Now, it is a hard statement to make, but it is unhappily true, that Irish landlords are getting up all this cry for coercion, simply because they are afraid the light will be let in on their con- duct towards their unfortunate tenants. They are afraid, if the truth was once known, that the English voter would exact a pledge from every gentleman to whom he gave his vote, to do justice to Ireland ; and justice is precisely what they do not want. They want liberty to practice usury, and the only way to obtain a continuance of that liberty is to mise a cry against the unhappy victims of their cupidity. Why otherwise are they so desperately afraid of having their dealings with their tenants regu- lated by law ? This is all the Irish people ask. Why do they Utter these hysterical cries about the rights of property ? Why all that is asked of them is that they will respect the rights of property.
There is a time in the history of most nations when the demand for equal justice between rich and poor is refused. There is a time when the compliance with such a demand would satisfy the populace. But quem deus vult
48 The Case of Ireland stated.
perdere, prius dementat. The aristocracy re- fuse to grant justice to the plebeian, and they forget that power is with the multitudei and with a multitude who are apt, when justice is refused, to ask for something more, and to take somewhat short methods of asserting their demands.
If one must judge from the tone of some English papers, it would be supposed that the Irish people have no cause of complaint whatso- ever. It is forgotten, conveniently, that there are Englishmen who admit that Ireland is governed unjustly, and who admit this from
' personal knowledge and experience of the state of the country.
But for the sake of those who wish to know the true state of Ireland, I must again allude to the miserable influence of English political agi- tation. I take an example of it, as a caution to those who wish to treat Ireland, not as a political play-toy, but as part of thiir own country.
The Pall Mall Gazette having changed hands politically, has changed its opinions about Ireland. Surely those sudden changes of opi-
. nion in an important English paper ought to convince any man with common sense that there are two sides to what is said of Ireland,
Landlord and Tenant 49
and that he ought to consider, not which opi- nion his party maintains, but which opinion is true.
The Pall Mall Gazette of October, 1 880, , writes thus of Irish affairs : —
''Now it is easy enough to talk of siljy misguided peasants urged on by unscrupulous agitators to believe themselves half-starved, miserable, and oppressed, lirhen in fact they are fat, well-looking, and the freest of the free. That may be all gospel truth, though tracts somewhat -tend to show that wily, misguided peasants have at least capacity enough to know whether their bellies are full or empty, whether their landlords are tyrannous and unjust or just and sympathetic But — and that is the matter for us just now-* there are some millions on both sides of the Atlantic who don't believe it. They do not believe that the wholesome deportations of 1847 <^d onwards were conducted in the true spirit of Christian charity, nor for the matter of that, that the Marquis of Lansdowne's estates have been managed in the humanitarian fashion which that able supporter of " freedom of contract " represents in his letter to the Ameri- can newspaper. They hold that they, as well as their friends and relations now in Ireland, have been shamefully used by the landlords and by the English Government which sup- ported those landlords in the maintenance of a system of land tenure that no single human being who has not inte- rests of his own to serve by doing so can be found to advo- cate for a moment Thus thinking they mean some day to fight — partly for revenge, partly for the future of the country that, to do them justice, they love only too well. Now what we vant t^ ask is this. Is it worth while to shut our eyes lo mis bitterness of feeling, and to laugh at the idea of
D
50 The Case of Ireland stated^
Ireland being a heavy handicap to us in the event of serious foreign war? We have tried the game of coercion in the interests of a small minority over and over again. What has it benefited us the English people? What indeed 1 Might we not now try a little steady justice on both sides ? Irish* men go out to America, they go out to our colonies — ^nay, they come to our own cities, and work hard enough. In America, too, they earn enough money to be more liberal to their ow:n kith and kin than any other emigrant race."
What a policy for Ireland! One wonders that English gentlemen who pride themselves on their honour and conscience can stoop so low. It is calmly admitted in a leading English paper, generally credited now with being the organ of a Liberal Government, that England has tried the game of coercion in the interests of a small minority over and over again.
And this is stated deliberately by one of the most important organs of English opinion, and yet we are told that the Irish people have no grievances, that they are a discontented, lazy, thankless race ; always returning good for evil to their beneficent and long-suffering masters, their landlords.
And then the writer asks the very pertinent question, " What has it benefited us the Eng- lish people ? "
Let us hope, when such a broad gleam of
Landlord and Tenant. 5 1
light has come to rulers of Ireland that they will cease to do the evil which they admit that they have done so persistently, and that they will begin to do the good even if they only do it from the lower motive of benefit to England, instead of from the high and glorious motive of eternal justice.
Are there no men in England who love justice for its own sake, and who will rise in their might and see justice done because it is justice ?
The truth is that it has been found on the whole less trouble to govern Ireland on the politics of the moment than on the politics of principle. Whenever the support of the multi- tude was not necessary, Ireland was governed on the principle, or on the want of principle, indicated above. The " small minority " were allowed to coerce as they pleased. How they coerced, we shall show presently from the speech of another Englishman. But where there was fear lest the help of the multitude might be needed, or lest the hindrance of the multitude should embarrass, then, indeed, England becomes afraid lest Ireland should be *'a heavy handicap" to her in the event of a *' serious foreign war," and so some show, of justice must be made.
5 2 The Case of Ireland stated.
And English gentlemen talk of the honour of old England and her love of justice, and they write and read such words, and act thus ; and let it be remembered that if these things are written in England they are read in Ireland. Can it be wondered then if the Irish people are not very devoted subjects of the English nation ?
But another English writer hds even a stronger case to put for Ireland. The editor of Truth says : —
*' The Irish occupiers may be said to have a far stronger moral right in their holdings than Uiust English occupiers. After several bad harvests tboy v • lable to pay their rents. Their means were exhau they claim that if
the land produces nothing, '^ey ought not to be ejected because they do not pay rent i;^ their landlords. The letter of the law is ^ the landlords, but the spirit of the law, if law be equity, is with the occupiers."
In iu48 Gavan Duffy wrote- -
'^ Where Frank and Tuscans spend their sweat,
The goodly crop is theirs ; If Norway's toil makes rich the soil.
She eats the fruit she rears. O'er Main's green sward there rules no lord,
Except the Lord on High, But we are serfs in our own land<^
Proud ma.iters, tell us why?**
The English writer quoted above gives a practical reply;
54 The Case of Ireland stated.
cribed above of coercing the majority for the benefit of the few, was at once put in practice. If a time of comparative prosperity came, and the people did not express their demands with any violence, it was said that they did not want anything, and therefore it was useless to make Land Acts.
Sir M.; Beach, in his speech at Cirencester, referred ' in this style to the state of Ireland, which he characterised as '' more dangerous than anything in the East of Europe." A political necessity again. His party have in- volved affairs in the East in a perilous manner ; it was obviously his business to direct attention from that matter, so Ireland must be the official scape-goat again. He then continued : —
'' Disorder and crime reigned in many parts of Ireland to an extent which, he feared, had hardly been known for the last half century. He had said that his experience in Ireland had taught him one lesson ; it had also taught him another. They must not believe all tlie exaggerated reports they had heard ; they must not consider as true of the whole of Ireland what might be true of one or two small parts of the country. It did not follow that because murder had been committed in the West that, therefore, the City of Dublin was not as safe as the town of Cirencester. He feared that Press correspondents, anxious, no doubt, to gratify the desure of the public for news, were not always particular in the kind of news they supplied, and certainly the Press correspondents in Ireland were not more particular than
True Consideration Hindered. 55
their brethren in England (hear, hear, and cheers). There- fore he had at first been disposed to regard the stories of disorder in Ireland as exaggerated, but when he saw that a deputation representing the Irish landlords of every creed and class and political opinion waited upon the Lord lieu- tenant and Chief Secretary, at Dublin Castle, and when he saw the reply of Mr. Forster, that they were putting law in force, and that it was feared the statements were true, then he began to think that there was really something serious, and something, he was thankful to say, in these times unique in the state of Ireland.*
If ever there was an evidence of the utter unreliability of party opinions on Irish affairsi here is one. I use the word party advisedly, for it is evident from the whole tenor of the speech that it is made in the interest of the Conservative party and policy.
Nor do we intend by this to condemn Con- servatism per se, or to exalt Liberalism. Our question is not whether the one policy or the other is best in the abstract ; we desire simply to show that Irish affairs are not, and cannot be , discussed justly when they are discussed from the standpoint of party.
Observe in what a tissue of contradictions this gentleman is involved. First he announces to an audience quite unable to contradict his assertion, that the state of crime and disorder is worse in Ireland than it has been for the last
56 The Case of. Ireland stated.
half century. Irish people will ask in amaze- ment where this extraordinary state of things ex- ists. He admits, however, that Dublin is ''safe.'' Well, if he had taken the trouble to ascertain facts before he put forward fancies, he might have ascertained easily that Dublin, on account of its mixed population, was the only place in Ireland where there was anything like the amount of crime that is found in every English town. But he has the candour to say that the Press cannot always be relied on. We have shown how utterly fallacious are its reports when Ire- land is concerned ; but he says the " landlords '' have convinced him.
Was ever logic more absurd ! He asks the persons who have the strongest possible in- terest in making it appear that the country is disturbed, and accepts their opinion. As well might he ask the criminal in the dock what he thought of the testimony given by the witness of his crime.
In the year 185 1, even after the Famine, there were 351,000 people in the county Tipperary. In the year 1871 there were but 230,000 ; in that short twenty years of landlord government of Ireland, over one hundred thou- sand people were driven out of their native county by the misrule of Irish landlords, and
Trus Consideration Hindered. 57
yet we are told that to continue and uphold this misrule is the one thing necessary for Ireland.
But if we turn to Irish political opinion on Irish affairs, we find the same hopeless con- fusion, even where there is an apparent desire to act fairly.
The Protestant Bishop of Cork has been addressing his clergy on the subject, which is certainly a question of the most momentous importance to every man, woman, and child in this country.
After the usual platitudes about the con- dition of Ireland being a puzzle to statesmen, his Lordship has the honour and manliness to admit that religion is not the cause of all the ills of Ireland, though that, he says, " used to be said."
Another pfoof of what we have said, that one generation condemns what the previous generation has done ; and that the truth about Ireland, social, political, and religious, is the subject of bitter and acrimonious dispute to- day ; and to-morrow it will be admitted that the Irish claims so disputed were, after all, not so unfair.
To act on party politics in questions of foreign policy may not be a matter of serious moment ;
58 y iia Ci* sc of Ireland stated.
to act on them where the interests of home government are in question, is to inflict a deadly injury on one member of the body politic to the equal hurt of the whole body.
Here is what an Irish Protestant landlord, who is neither Home Ruler nor Land Leaguer , says : —
'' Our manufactures and our trade in raw materials were destroyed to please English monopolists. Smuggling, pei force became the national industry, and did not tend to make a law-abiding people. The Volunteers extorted some concession, but manufacturing traditions had perished irre- trievably ; a craving for independence succeeded the desire for Union, and Pitt's offer of a commercial partnership was refused as tending to tighten the bond between the two nations. When Union came at last, it was unaccompanied by religious freedom, and earned no gratitude. Until 1782 the English Council had a veto on Irish bills, and during that period all the worst laws were passed. The Consti- tution of 1782 was unworkable, but the Irish House of Commons, though elected and managed in the worst way, did what it could (not always wisely or well) to foster trade and lighten Catholic fetters. After the Union power returned to England, and it took thirty years of agitation to gain religious freedom* which was only granted when the Duke of Wellington could no longer see how the King's Government was to be carried on. The Church Establish- ment survived forty years more, and was then destroyed in deference to an agitation which had culminated in rebellion. • . . I am no Home Ruler, seeing the impossibility of that platform, feeling that our best hope lies in strengthening the tardy and imperfect Union. But, before God and man,
True Consideration Hindered. 59
England is responsible for Ireland. Enlightened British
opinion must be the final judge in this cause. I appeal
from the England of test acts and protection, to the England
of free trade and the conscience clause. Englishmen who would understand our case must know our history as they
generally know their own. Mr. Froude and Mr. Leckey.
are in every library ; let them correct one another."
•
The opinion of Irish gentlemen, like Mr. Bagwell, should have weight in England. , But unhappily the opinion of such men is not known there, and there is therefore a general and most untrue impression that all Irish land- lords desire the continuance of a state of things which leaves the tenant at the mercy of caprice, Instead of placing him under the protection of law*
f
Irish Outrages. 6i
already shown that to publish such reports has been a regular practice for centuries. We shall proceed to show that at this very time the very same practice is continued, with the very same result. Now, as I can show that "outrages" are largely and deliberately manufactured, I trust to the high honour of English readers that they will condemn such mischievous, such miserable policy, and assuredly when they know that outrages are invented by the press they will use their common sense, and distrust many of such reports. When this is done sytematically, must there not be some cause for it. And they will then ask what is the cause, and who gains by all this malicious lying.
We fear there can be only one reply. The people ask for English laws to protect them in their farms and houses. The demand is so reasonable and so just, that it would certainly be heard if it was allowed to reach the ears of the British public. But the landlords, and land agents also, are interested in keeping up the social disorder which they cause by their arbi- trary power of eviction, and try to drown the voices of the people. The safest, truest, and quietest way to do this is to manufacture outrages. It may seem a hard thing to accuse gentlemen of doing this, but that it is done, I shall prove,
62 Thi Case of Ireland stated.
and since it is done, who can do It, and would care to do it, save only those who have a spe- cial interest in the doing of it.
Now, I ask English readers is M/^ justice to Ireland ; rather, I would ask, is this justice to themselves? Falsehood may triumph for a while, but even in this world it never succeeds in the end. Besides, do people wish for facts or for falsehood? As I have said before, Irish people are perpetually reproached with a want of truthfulnesss. There is, or I should rather say there was, no more constant accusation against us, and, of course, it was all the fault of our religion. But what of this English want of truth ? Is it any the more honest because it is English — any the more honourable because those who promulgate these falsehoods are Pro- testants ? Then we are repeatedly told in the English papers that the Irish are lazy, that they will not work, that their poverty is all their own fault For that calumny, too, I have an answer, in the very words of landlords who have been betrayed unintentionally into strong admissions of the industry of the Irish people, though the vast majority of landlords deny the industry of the people, even while they are living on it.
Some of the statements made by papers which circulate only amongst the upper class of
Irish Outrages.- 63
English Protestants and Catholics have obser- vations on them which actually contradict them- selves, and would strike anyone not anxious to believe them with their utter absurdity. In one paper it was said that a party of armed men cut off a man's ears while he was in bed, but not being able to get into the house (I) contented themselves with digging a grave outside the door I The statement was contradicted in the Irish papers — but what did that matter ? . and what did it matter to a certain class of English readers whether the whole story bears on its face the marks of a palpaple calumny or not ?
A gentleman — Mr. Barry — wrote to contra- dict the statement of an outrage said to have been committed on him. He denied the whole story, and added that the only foundation for it which he could imagine, was the work of a too enterprising pig, which had attempted a raid upon his hen house I And yet the contradictions of these outrages are never given in English papers ; and if any one attempted to write to an English paper denying them, even on personal authority, their letters are refused insertion.
A re there no Irish outrages t Certainly there are.
We are not yet living in Paradise, nor are we all (it to be canonized saints. But there Is one
64 Tlu Case of Ireland stated.
question I would like to have asked by every one who hears Irish outrages made the subject of conversation. Is it worse to commit a murder in Ireland than in England? and is there any difference in the sight of God between the murder of a gentleman, and the murder of a poor man, or woman, or helpless little child ? For the sake of her own interests, let Eng- land beware. She is not wanting in men of honour and of conscience, and amongst some of her so-called middle classes there is a deep and true spirit of religion. The poor understand the poor. Men who have suffered themselves know what others suffer practically, and there is no knowledge like practical knowledge. In England there is a very large, and very influ- ential, middle class far above the poor in worldly position, yet who are not blinded by the tempta- tion of excessive wealth or high rank. If this class of Englishmen were once convinced of the true state of Ireland, the Irish question would soon be settled. But how are they to know the truth ? Every English paper that is pub- lished is full of the most lying reports of Irish outrages which have never happened, and con- tain the grossest misrepresentations of every- thing Irish, while anything that would go to show the true state of the country is carefully
Irish Outrages. 65
suppressed. Certainly it is difficult to see how the suppression can be otherwise than deliberate since it is persistent. It is carried on on a very large scale, and no sign— ^not even the very least sign — of reparation is ever shown.
For example, I find the following paragraph in the Cork Examiner of Oct. 14 : —
* •
'' The Times has been furnished by a correspondent, who dates his communications from Cork, with the following description of the state of society in the barony of Duhallow : ' The lawlessness which was exhibited in the neighbourhood of Kanturk a few weeks ago has been followed by fresh acts of violence. Organised gangs of men are permitted to prowl about at night, committing violence and outrage, avenging imaginary wrongs, and carrying terror into the hearts of well-disposed men. Kibandism in its worst phases appears to be rampant, and the legitimate exercise of men's rights is opposed and thwarted.' It is much to be deplored that statements of this character should be foisted day after day upon the Eng- lish public by its leading organ to support the clamour fof coercion laws. In nine cases out of the ten the Tltne^ re- ports of outrages in Ireland are simply wicked inventions.''
What a tremendous responsibility rests on men who deliberately and persistently write what is utterly false of a whole nation ! They do well to talk of the honour of England, and they do well to deny God, and to claim their , descent from the lowest types of the brute creation. But a time of reparation will con^e
£
66 The Case of Ireland stated.
most assuredly, not only in the world to come, but in this world. If the English press lie about Ireland, other nations will lie about England. If the English people allow their representatives to treat Irish wrongs with in- difference, and Irish grievances with contempt, they may well tremble for the consequences. It is not man who will judge them — it is God.
The heathen had a saying : " The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small." The Divine books tell us with what measure ye mete it shall be meted to you again. Sooner or later, even in this world, every outrage against justice is punished, because an outrage against justice is an out- rage against God.
It is curious to find History repeating itself, and if the subject were not so serious, it would be amusing. We have already shown the panic which beset and bewildered the lords and magistrates of Bantry and Bandon, and their consequent wild cries for coercion in 1798. We have shown also how they were answered, and how the panic was shown to be of their own causing by a Protestant bishop and Pro- testant gentlemen. To-day there is the same causeless panic, the same cry for coercion and troops ; yet I find, in the Cork Examiner of
Irish Outrages, 67
Oct. 30 (1880), letters from three parish priests denying that there is any disturbance or any need for extra police or soldiers. The Rev. Mr. MacMahon writes from Boherbee, County Cork : —
'' Your informant would seem to wish to leave the public under the impression that danger and insecurity prevailed in these parts. But I unhesitatingly afldrm, that life and property are safer in this locality than in London and its vicinity. There armed burglars commit their depredations night after night, often delivering and receiving fire, and their operations are treated by the English Press as only the ordinary incidents of English life. What a howl they would raise if those outrages had taken place in Ireland. Let us hope that our own journals will not furnish these foul and malignant slanderers with pabulum for their dia- tribes against our wronged and sorely-tried people, \iy giving undue publication to, or attaching groundless im- portance to, those wretched threatening letters, which are obviously the production of idiots or enemies.
" Faithfully .yours,
" P. MacMahon, P.P."
The next letter is from the Rev. M. Shink-
win, of Bantry, contradicting an account of an
outrage on a " paralysed farmer," and simply
saying that no such person existed. The third
letter I give more at length : —
'* To THE Editor of the 'Cork Examiner.'
" DuNMANWAY, Mh October^ 1880. ** Dear Sir — I have read with much surprise in this day's Examiner that a certain number of magistrates of the county
68 The Case of Ireland stated.
assembled in the County Courthouse in Cork yesterday, passed resolutions calling on the Government to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to garrison Bandon, Skibbe- reen, Bantry, apd Dunmanway, with British troops.
*' As no reporter was admitted to the meeting, I am slow to believe that such resolutions could have been passed by gentlemen who live in the midst of the people, and must know how peaceful and quiet they generally are.
''Nothing certainly has yet occurred, nor does there appear reason to apprehend the occurrence of anything to justify so extreme an interference with the civil rights and liberties of the whole community as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. And as regards Dunmanway in par- ticular, with which I am more intimately connected and more fully acquainted than with the other parts of the county, I feel bound in justice to its most peaceful people thus publicly to state that it would be a gross injustice to their character to represent them as a lawless people, or such as needed to be kept in order by the presence of a British garrison. •
''That you were misinformed as to Dunmanway being included amongst the places needing a 'British garrison,' must appear evident from the fact that no less than four magistrates who reside in the parish of Dunmanway are reported as present at the meeting. They, from their con- stant residence among the people, and from their experience at Petty Sessions, know full well that the people of this part of the country were never more peaceful than they are at the present time; that they are quietly and industriously attending to their own ordinary business, and in no way conspiring either against the public peace or individual rights.
" In the fulness of conviction, I venture to affirm that in no county of Ireland and in no shire of £ngland are the
Irish Outrages. 69
people more law-abiding than the inhabitants of Dunman- way. Even during the present great national movement to abolish unjust and cruel laws, they have not been carried away by any violent agitation; they have even generally stood aloof from the Land League ; not indeed from any indifference to the great and necessary reforms needed in the land laws of the country, but from their disapproval of language used, and of principles propounded by prominent members of the League. They rely on peaceful and con- stitutional means to obtain the long delayed redress of their patiently endured grievances. They anxiously, but peace- fully and hopefully, looked forward to the meeting of Parliar ment, when they expect that those really great and truly liberal statesmen, Gladstone, Bright, and Forster, will make such a wholesome change in the land laws of the country as will ensure the proper cultivation of the soil, the reclama- tion of the vast waste lands, and the mucli-needed protec- tion and encouragement to the hard working and badly requited farmers. Such people have not forfeited their con- stitutional rights, nor need they be ruled by a British garrison. — Yours truly,
•*JOHN COTTKR, P.P."
I will not do the common sense of English readers the injustice to suppose that these letters will carry less weight because they are written by priests. I will only again recall to their attention how a similar, and certainly a more excusable panic, was met nearly a century since by Protestant gentlemen who did not allow their religious opinions to render them unjust to their fellow-subjects.
JO The Case of Ireland stated.
But here is another specimen of outrage manufactured in the County Limerick : —
'' Manufactured Outrages. — Much indignation has been evinced by the farmers in the neighbourhood of Drumbanna at the publication of a paragraph in a contem- porary relative to the serving of threatening notices, for which it is stated there was no foundation whatever. The following has been handed to me, with a request that it may be published in the Examiner: — *At Prumbanna, about two miles from Limerick city, a number of threatening notices were discovered posted early yesterday (Sunday) rooming, to the effect that unless a farmer surrendered up a farm of which he had lately got possession an untimely fate awaited him. On the notices was the rude sketch of a coffin. It is alleged that the man has lately taken over a farm from which a farmer has been evicted for non- payment of rent, the latter, however, obtaining ;^5o for his good-will of the place, a holding of some sixty acres, and the incoming tenant paying some three years' rent due.' The foregoing is substantially a fabrication from first to last Not a single threatening notice was found on the day mentioned, nor any other, for the best of reasons, that none were posted or written at all There was no occasion, nor any reason. The late tenant left the farm entirely of his own accord, and was glad to obtain the terms which the incoming tenant, a most respectable Catholic Irishman, afforded. He paid not only £$0^ but altogether, for rent and interest, up to ;^4oo ; and it is a fact that he and his predecessors parted as best of friends."
But I might occupy the entire of the present volume with cases of reported outrages which
Irish Outrages. 71
have been proved false. Unhappily, however, the proof of the falsehood never extends beyond the local papers, while England and Europe are left to stare aghast at crimes which were never committed.
A most terrible qutrage was reported and much commented on in the English papers, as having been committed at Kanturk, where it was said a man's ears were cut off. Doubting the whole story, I wrote to a gentleman there, and ascertained that there was not one syllable of truth in the whole story.
The Times had the following statement last month : —
''At Macroom yesterday a steward in the employmeDt of Mr. Massey, J. P., observed three men lurking about the plantations. Finding that they were watched, they attacked and violently assaulted the steward, and cut his throat It is stated that he was seriously wounded."
But what are the facts ? The man was not Mr. Massey's steward ; but it adds to an outrage, to some minds, to connect it with landlords. He did not see three men, and he was not assaulted. The whole affair was thus dressed up for English readers. But what was the fact ? A poor farmer s son attempted suicide in a wood, and not for the first time. No
72 The Case of Ireland stated.
doubt some future historian will write a chapter on this supposed outrage, and know nothing of the real facts.
In a recent leader the Times says : —
'* Englishmen always like to know the worst about them- selves. If a battle has been lost, or a job perpetrated, or if unsoundness is suspected in any department, the demand is for the full facts. There must be no concealment, no half inquiry, no shrinking from publicity. The. revelation may be a shameful one, but it must not, therefore, be with- held. Out the whole thing must come into broad daylight, and must be seen, and judged, and remedied. This national characteristic is put to a good test by the reports which reach us daily from the election commissions now sitting. Dis- graceful they are in the very highest degree. No Englishman can get through his morning paper without shame at its contents. The Commission Reports are one long record of the most naked and unabashed corruption. A novelist would never have dared to introduce such stories. They are too incredibly bad for fiction. **
•
And so on. Let us hope that Englishmen will show now this highly honourable point as re- gards Ireland, and when they know how they have been deceived, that they will act accord- ingly.
It is especially in the matter of murders that these false statements are so rife. It scarcely answers to venture on murdering any promi- nent Irish nobleman or gentleman in print, as
Irish Outrages. 73
the case would be too flagrant and too easily disproved. . The only way in which misrepre- sentation on this point can be carried out well is by what Americans call " tall writing/' This impresses the public very much. When they are told that gentlemen are obliged to go to balls fully armed, that there is a reign of terror, that landlords are afraid to remain on their estates and are obliged to fly to England, that priests are obliged to get their whole congre- gations to kneel down and swear they will not murder some particular land agent, to answer all the purposes of fact
It was said that Lord Ardilaun Was obliged to leave his Irish estates in consequence of threatening letters, that he had packed up all his household goods never to return, and a pa- rallel was drawn therefrom as to the baseness and ingratitude of the Irish, who could never be satisfied, and who turned even on their most generous benefactors. But what was the truth ? Simply that Lord Ardilaun never had the least intention of leaving Ireland. But the lie answered the purpose all the same. Lord Muskerry was also held up as another useful example of how good landlords were compelled ^ to fly the land, but Lord Muskerry had the good sense to write himself to the Irish papers
74 TIu Case of Ireland stated,
denying the report. Whether it was denied in any English paper or not I have not been able to ascertain, but, to the best of my belief, it was not.
Indeed, Irish gentlemen, if they wish to deny such reports, get little thanks. Another Irish landlord, who wrote to a ** society" paper to contradict a report that he was in bodily fear of his life, and who said he had always h'ved most happily with his tenants, was told that he was an exception, not to the general rule, but to the invariable rule ; and, it was added, with a sneer of contempt, that such tenants were not to be found in all Ireland. The writer of this remark had probably never visited Ireland, or, if he had, knew nothing whatever of the relations between Irish landlords and tenants.
Let the English reader who thinks and who is not actuated by prejudice, ask himself this one question, and the reply will soon settle this part of the Irish question. *
If it is true that Irish landlords live in mortal fear of their lives, that they are always at war with their tenants, and that they never, or rarely ever, can get their rents paid, how is it that they are so anxious to retain possession of their Irish estates ? If one-half the stories were true about the had character of Irish tenants, might
Irish Outrages. 75
you not be assured that Irish landlords would not only accept, but would even press on the government a scheme for the purchase of their, estates.
Is is not enough to alienate a warm-hearted and faithful people, who have made such struggles, as will never* be known to pay their rents, even in times of famine. Let the truth be told about the state of Ireland. We ask no more. And we demand injustice to ourselves, as Englishmen would demand in justice to them, that the truth, and that alone, should be told.
Even on this very day, or while I write, the Irish papers had reports of terrible crimes in England. Amongst others, a painful tragedy at Chiselhurst, where a head game-keeper and his wife were killed, and quite a lot of other outrages. But they are told simply as public news, and are not made the subject of writers on the general depravity of the English people.
But there is another form in which false re- ports are made about Ireland which is scarcely less injurious than that to which we have already alluded.
An Irish landlord, especially if he be a noble- man of any influence, can very easily get a paragraph in the Times y or in a society paper, which will represent him as a model of benevo-
76 The Case of Ireland stated.
lence. Sometimes these statements are made as reports of public affairs without any action on the part of the landlord, but all the same they are utterly misleading and extremely mis- chievous.
In the early part of this year when the dis- tress here was at its height, there was a public dinner of the St. Patrick's Society in London ; what this society does to deserve its name I know not, but let that pass. Two or three Irish noblemen were present, and complimented each other very liberally— one of these gentle- men, the Duke of Devonshire, I think, for I write from memory, complimented the Marquis of Lansdo wne very highly. This nobleman, he said, had at once flown to his Irish estates when the distress appeared, to see what he could do fot his tenants. He blamed himself by implica- tion as he praised his friend, and those who read the report must naturally have concluded that extraordinary exertions had been made by Lord Lansdowne for his tenantry. But what was the fact, beyond the gift of £20 to the fund, which we had collected. Lord Lansdowne did actually nothing for his tenantry. What he did was wholly for his own benefit, and it will perhaps be scarcely credited that the only action taken by him was to improve his property at the
Irish Outrages. . 77
permanendy increased rents of his tenantry, and this in the Famine year.
This subject is too long to enter upon here, but I shall do so in the next chapter.
Again, it .was announced far and wide in the Press that Lord Lansdowne was providing his tenants with seed potatoes. It was left to be inferred — we must fear it was intended to be inferred — as otherwise why should it have been inserted in so many papers as a Press notice, that the potatoes were to be given to his tenantry. But what was the fact ? The pota- toes were all sent down at the full market price. If the people thought that this was done more for the sake of securing Lord Lans- downe*s future rent than for their benefit, they can scarcely be blamed.
Lately his tenantry were not a little amused at a paragraph quoted from a county paper announcing that he was " packing up his traps ** (sic), to exchange Bowood, one of his English estates, for Kenmare, and loudly praising his "generosity" and his "unselfish example of duty," holding him up in fact as a social martyr to the good of his Irish tenants. But what was the fact ? Lord Lansdowne was just leaving Kenmare for his shooting in Scotland.
These may seem trivial matters, but they are
JS The case of Ireland stated.
•
not so when they affect and help to prove opi- nions on very grave subjects — on subjects which affect the well-being of some millions of our fellow-creatures.
''Some time back we had an 'outrage' in the shape of a very neatly made coffin, covered with crape and adorned with a breastplate, left at the Hon. Captain Chichester's gate. He is brother and agent to Lord Templemore. Now, it is absolutely certain that this ' agrarian outrage ' was not agrarian at all, and that the individuals who perpetrated it have no connection whatever with Lord Templemore's estate, nor with as much land on any other estate as 'would tod a lark.' There are two opinions on the subject The first is that it was done simply as ' a lark ' ; the second, that it was the act of certain individuals, not at all con- nected with the estate, who thought if they could frighten away the captain they could more effectually advance their personal interests, on the principle, 'in the cat*s absence the mice can play.' "
" Knockdrimmin, Oct. 29th. — I regret to have to inform you that a pug-dog belonging to Lady Balragget was very badly bitten on the public road in this neighbourhood, some days ago by a dog of mongrel breed, and said to be un- registered, who lives with a tenant named Bryan Sweeny. There were several dogs mixed up in the row, concerning the origin of which there are conflicting accounts, but the interference of her ladyship's pug appears to have been specially resented by several of them, evidently for no other reason than that he belonged to one of the better classes. A branch of the Land League has lately been established in this parish, and there can be no doubt that to its malign influence we may trace the disgraceful occurrence we have mentioned."
Irish Outrages. 79
Letters such as those of Lord Lismore and the Rev. W. B. Wright, which are appended below, show also that there is not quite such a social upheaval as English politicians like to assert.
There is one point of view in which such matters as threatening letters and the very few murders which have occiured in Ireland should be considered. In a state of general excite- ment, the temptation to and the opportunity for revenge for personal wrongs arises more easily. Moreover, many of the acts which have been credited to agrarian excitement, have had nothing to do with it. Those who would have feared detection if they were guilty of the crime of avenging a personal wrong, have the tempta- tion of comparative safety when there is public excitement. It was commonly believed in the North that Lord Leitrim s murder had nothing to do with agrarian causes. There is one crime more detested in Ireland than any eviction, and for that men will take vengeance in their hands when no other cause would move them to do so.
And it should be remembered that while sympathy on false grounds is excited in Eng- land, the truth is known well in Ireland, and it does not tend to promote feelings of amity when men are held up as models of virtue
8o The Case of Ireland stated.
when they are well known to have been simply detested for their vices.
The de martuis nisi nihil bonum theory is carried too far when the dead are praised at the expense of the living, and to the injury of national peace.
The following will give further proof how persistently outrages are manufactured : —
"THE LAND AGITATION.
''To THB Editor of thb 'Freeman.'
^ Athleagub Vicarage, Roscommon^
^ Nov. isL
** Sir, — My strong feeling on the subject urges me to enter my earnest protest against aggravating the trouble now ex- isting in Ireland by the introduction of the religious element, so as to connect the one in any way with the other. That there is no reason for doing so my experience leads me im- plicitly to believe. I have been for nearly ten years resi- dent in the west of Ireland, and I declare with great pleasure that I have never met anything but extreme kindness and courtesy fix>m my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, lay and clerical Religion has nothing to do with the present disorder, the cessation of which is earnestly desired by all peaceable citizens — by Roman Catholics as much as by Protestants. — Yours faithfully,
**W. BouRKE Wright, Vicar of Athleague. * I have sent a copy of this letter to the Dai/y Exfnfs.*'
Irish Outrages. 8i
Here is another instance of manufactured outrages : —
•*A MANUFACTURED 'OUTRAGE.'
''From the 'Freeman's Journal.'
" Ballinasloe, Saturday.
"J. Caulfield, Esq., Sub-Inspector R.LC., Ballinasloe, visited Lismany to-day to ascertain the particulars of the threatening notices which Mr. Pollock and his gamekeeper were reported to have received, and found that there was not a word of truth in the reports which were circulated in Friday's papers. Much indignation is felt at this quiet locality being groundlessly aspersed."
•'THREATENING LORD LISMORE.
["Special Telegram.]
" Last evening the Mayor of Clonmel received the follow- ing letter from Lord Viscount Lismore, with reference to the proposed public meeting to be held in Clonmcl con- demning the outrage committed on his lordship : —
fti •
'31 Old Burlington Street, London, W.
^** Navanber isi^ 1880.
" ' Dear Mr. Mayor, — I see by this morning's Clonmel papers that many kind friends propose to have a meeting called to give expression to their feelings in respect to the letter I received. Although most grateful for the kindness which prompted them, I think that such a meeting, in the present state of our county, would not be advisable. I have always been jealous of the good name of our county, and was proud to be able to repeal at our agricultural dinner
F
82 'I he Case of Ireland stated.
]ast August, that Mr. Forster in Parliament had called it the model county of Ireland. After all, it is possible, and, I think, most probable, that the letter never came from Ireland, and it would be a great injustice to the people of our country to accuse any of them of having written such a letter to me without positive proof. A meeting such as I see proposed would be complimentary to me, but not to the country. Do not think that I am insensible or ungrateful for all your kind wishes, as so plainly expressed. I hope and trust, as long as I live, to continue in the future what I have attempted in the past — the development of the agricul- tural and other interests of our country. — Faithfully yours,
** ' LlSMORE.*"
84 The Case of Ireland stated.
interest to inquire into the causes of agrarian crime ? And when a people are otherwise so free from crime, is there not a presumption in their favour that there must be grave cause for crime in this case ?
There are two points with regard to the Land Question in Ireland that should be tho- roughly understood before the question can be argued on with any degree of justice. First, it should be perfectly and clearly understood that there is no freedom of contract ; and secondly, that there is no other source for the investment of capital
A man must either take a farm at the rent which the landlord chooses to name, or he must continue the occupation of a farm of which he is in possession at an increased rent, or else at once emigrate, or go to the workhouse. Having absolutely no choice, he takes too often the former alternative in a modified form. He takes or continues the farm at a rent which is so high that he can only maintain existence in a condi- tion of semi-starvation. Is it any matter of surprise that a man should commit an outrage on landlord or land agent when the very con- ditions of existence have been made almost impossible to him, toil how he will ?
Let it be remembered that we have already
The Cause of Irish Outrages. 85
stated, on the high authority of the Marquis of of Lansdowne, that there are 54,000 families in three counties alone who cannot live either in decency or comfort. On Lord Lansdowne's own estate, and he is no rack-renter, and as regards rents, is probably one of the most reasonable land- lords in Ireland, there are numbers of families in this unhappy condition. The remedy for all this is another question. At present I am dealing only with facts, about which there is no dispute on either side. Here is what Lord Sherbrooke has said on this question ; and let it be remem- bered he is now by no means favourable to Ire- land. And here is what the Times says on Lord Sherbrooke s article, both showing that extra- ordinary inconsistency between facts and con- clusions which characterises every English writer about Ireland.
The Times says :—
'' The odd thing is that Lord Sherbrooke himself admits in one paragraph that the supposed contracts between land- lords and tenants in Ireland are not contracts at all. ' If we will look the matter fairly in the face, the truth is that the small Irish tenant is too poor to enter into a contract, which presupposes equality between the two contracting parties. In England the tenant can afford to bargain. In Ireland, as far as the contract goes, and speaking about small farms, the landlord lays down the rule, and the tenant submits to it . . . The very idea of equality is banished from
86 The Case of Ireland stated.
such a proceeding. There is no real bargain where one side cannot afford to refuse whatever terms the other sees fit to propose.' Here we get something of a touch of fieurt ; but Lord Sherbrooke makes no use of the truths he seems to have in his grasp. Surely, if his description of the posi- tion of the small tenants in Ireland is right, all his reasoning about non-interference with contract vanishes. The Land Act of 1870 was based on the principle that the relations of the tenants of Ireland with their landlords are more accu- rately regarded as relations of sfatus than as relations of contract ; and it was in the recognition of this view that its provisions were framed. It is, of course, possible that what was then done may require amendment. It was a great experiment, and it would be strange indeed if it were perfect at the first draft. But if anything more is necessary, it must be conceived, we doubt not, on the principles of the Act of 1870 and in the same spirit.**
So far for the question of contract. There is no freedom of contract. But there is another, and a most important point : there is no other , source for the investment of capital ; yet, curiously enough, Lord Sherbrooke overlooks this, and his remarks on this point are thus noticed by a writer in the Standard: —
** In Lord Sherbrooke's paper ' On Legislation for Ireland,' in the Nineteenth CaUury for November, he remarks : — ' The Irish mind is far too extensively given to the cultivation of land, to the neglect of safer and more profitable industries.' Lord Sherbrooke ignores the fact that Irish manufactures were prohibited in the interest of
T^u Catise of Irish Outrages. 8 7
English trade, with the exception of the linen manufactory, ofwhich England had none."
Now no English writer denies that every Irish industry was crushed by England. We are often told to forget the past, to let bygones be bygones. But when the past seriously and materially affects the present, it is no charity to ignore it. '
These two points are the whole source of Irish outrages. Men commit outrages when they find rents demanded from them which they cannot pay even if they starved. Men commit outrages when they find that the want of any other source for investment of capital except land, leads some one else to take the land at a rent which the former tenant could not pay and live.
One cannot help asking then who is to blame for these agrarian outrages. Are they all the fault of a singularly oppressed people ? It is a question for thoughtful minds, and we ask a very careful consideration of it.
No doubt it is very foolish and very unpa- triotic to take a farm from which a farmer has ■ been evicted because he could not pay usurious rent But to the end of the world there will be men to do this. John has, perhaps, ;^2O0 in hand, his little all. He sees no other way of
88 Tlie Case of Ireland stated.
using his capital. Peace, Lord Sherbrooke! there is no other industry open to him, safe or unsafe. And so he unwisely invests his all, only to lose it, or to live out an existence of yet greater misery than that of James, whom he has succeeded. No doubt if Irishmen had the good sense and the patriotism to refuse to take a farm from which a tenant had been evicted for being unable to pay excessive rent, the Irish question would be settled very speedily without legal intervention. But since there will always be persons who will speculate un- wisely, if not ruinously, legal intervention is a necessity.
The Land League has tried to effect by public opinion what should be effected by law. Now, if the outrages which have occurred in Ireland this year are carefully examined, they 'will be found to have arisen from this one cause.
But since nothing can be more ruinous to the morals of a people than to take the law into their own hands, however just may be the grounds on which they do so, it is the first duty of Government to protect the people by law from this demoralising course. A Govern- ment which fails to do so is neither just nor paternal.
The Cause of Irish Outrages. 89
The state of the country with regard to ex- cessive and usurious rents will be shown by the results of the present Land Commission, in a way that will simply amaze the people of England. Instead of expressing horror at the few outrages which have been committed in consequence of this state of things, they will be amazed that these few outrages were not multi- plied by hundreds.
The evidence taken before the Land Com- mission is not yet published, but by permission of the gentlemen who are examined a report can be obtained for the press. The following extracts from the Report of the Commission which took evidence at Killarney in October (1880), I add here. No words are needed to enhance its importance : —
" Rev. Father O'Connor, whose name is so well known in connection ' with the Harenc tenantry, said that the Government valuation was, generally speaking, a fiur tent The disturbed state of the country at present, he said, was owing to the high rents the tenants were asked to pay, and withal they had no security. He was in favour of a peasant proprietary, or a system that would be virtually equivalent to it. He brought forward a number of cases of rack- renting in his district, and said that the rents were on an average double and treble the poor-law valuation. He also cited several evictions that had taken place owing to the inability of the tenants to pay the enormous rents they were charged Father 0*Cppno]r then entered full^ mto thp
90 TJu Case of Ireland stated.
circumstances connected with the Harenc Estate tenantry, and the well-known part he took in trying to secure the farms for the tenants. Although Mr. Hussey professed to be willing to re-sell to the tenants, not a single working farmer had a chance of purchasing his holding. Father O'Connor also said that before the sale peace and harmony prevailed over the property, but at present it was a scene of riot and disorder ; and lately an extra force of constabulary had been drafted into the district to keep the peace.
^ Rev. Arthur Moynahan, Adm., Listowel, in giving his evidence, said that the radius of the parish was three miles, and the number of landlords was twenty, of whom veiy few were resident He gave various instances of rack-renting in the district, and as being favourable to a peasant pro prietaiy. He said there was no peasant proprietor in the parish, and there was not any more hard-working or indur trious farmer to be found in the whole of Ireland. To multiply instances, he said, would be repetition. It was the same tale re-told. The landlords some few years ago seemed to compete in increasing their rent-rolls, to meet which the tenant borrowed from the banks, and the result of it all now was that the whole fabric threatened and shook to its very foundations. To pay those veiy high rents the farmers of the district and their children lived most sparingly — in fact, the farmers gave all to the landlords, and kept nothing for themselves. He quoted a number of instances which showed that the rent was two, three, and sometimes six times as much as Griffith's valuation, and said that beyond any doubt North Kerry was as a rule rack-rented, and the condition of the tenant-farmers was in many cases deplor able. The landlords had, for many years past, raised the rents, and sometimes in a woful manner. Several of the landlord^ Ytre^e non-resident, and as a rule non-improving» and they seized upon eveiy opportunity, by the raising of
The Cause of Irish Outrages. 9 1
rent and enormous fines, to confiscate the improvements of the tenantry. No wonder, he said, the tenantry of Ireland were heartless and dispirited — the land was neglected, and the country was a reproach to its rulers. The present system was radically wrong, and the axe should be laid to the root of the evil. Father Moynahan proposed the fol* lowing remedies : — ist, a peasant proprietary by every possible means ; 2nd, a public means for the fixing of fair rents ; 3rd, no evictions while a fair rent is paid ; 4th, the right to sell, without leave, for the tenant ; 5 th, a measure for advancing moneys for improvements to the tenant him- self without first giving it to the landlord, as at present ; 6th, a measure for facilitating the reclamation of waste lands ; and 7th, a tax on absenteeism. Father Moynahan, in the course of his evidence, gave the case of Widow McCarthy, on Lord Ormathwaite's estate, where the rent was ^^loo, and the valuation ^£33 ; in another case the rent was four- teen times the valuation ; and in the case of John Feeley, a tenant of the Rev. Mr. Moore, the rent was ;f 75, while the valuation was only ;£ 16 los. Another matter Father Moynahan drew attention to was that in his district the landlords were in the habit of raising the rent when a farmer got married ; and, worse than all, one farmer had his rent raised during the past year."
" Mr. Thomas O'Rourke, Tralee, in his evidence gave it as his opinion that the best solution of the land question would be on the lines of Mr. Butt's bill, which went in for fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale, which was almost analogous to the Ulster custom, with the addition of having the Bright clauses of Gladstone's Act of 1870 embodied in f it, and also to have the Government purchase up the four millions of acres of waste lands in Ireland, to be parcelled out amongst cottier tenants at is. an acre, the loans to be repaid in thirty-one year& Labourers* cottages should also
92 The Case of Ireland stated.
be built on the lands at the expense of the Government ; the loans to be repaid in thirty-one years at i^ percent. Those were his ideas as to what a land bill should be that would give peace to the landlords, peace to the tenants, and peace to the Government. He knew of one man, of one tenant, on the estate of Mr. Beale Browne, of Crotto, County Kerry, whose valuation was 15s., and who was now paying a rent of £,\^ ; and he was aware of another tenant on the same property who paid ^^85 los. rent, and the valuation was only ;£ 9 5 s., and this man could not record his vote at the election of 1872 owing to the lowness of his valuation, ht regarded the way in which tenants were compensated for improvements, he instanced the case of & tenant named Dwyer on the property of Mr. G. D. Stokes, J. P., who on being evicted from his holding some few years %o got £,110 compensation from the then Chairman of Quarter Sessions ; but the landlord appealing to the assize court, the tenant was only awarded the small sum of ^£27, and the landlord got ^900 fine from the incoming tenant Another case of hardship was that of a tenant, named Shea, living at Ahane, on the Ballyseedy estate, of which Mr. Hussey was agent, and a great many years ago he got a piece of cut-away bog. He improved it and made it cul- tivable, and he was afterwards evicted for non-payment of two years* rent (;if 20), the rent being ten times the valu- ation. That man and his family were now living in a kind of hut like a wigwam. Mr. O'Rourke also instanced another, case of hardship, that of Mr. Bateman, of Deelis, Castle- gregory, who owed ;^ioo rent, and debts to shopkeepers. Having been served with an ejectment process, he mort- gaged his land to Mr. Patrick Bateman, J. P., Tralee, until the debts were paid, and he (the witness) said the result was, that the tenant was now tumecl out on the wayside, although he had spent ^1,000 in improving the farm. He
The Cause of Irish Outrages. 93
(Mr. O'Rourke) was in favour of the reclamation of waste lands ; there were 4,000 acres of waste lands in Kerry, ar.d one-half of them could be improved. In conclusion, Mr. O'Rourke said he believed that if the tenants got fixity of tenure,' with the right of free sale, the lands to be valued by arl^itration every twenty years, it would be a fair solution of the question. He was also in favour of a peasant pro- prietary, and of tenant right in towns.**
The Mr. Beale Browne who exacts such usu- rious rent demands a special notice. A few weeks since he pubhshed a letter in a Kerry paper, in which he dwelt on the perilous state of the times, and implored all the landlords in Ireland to meet him in spirit at the throne of grace, to pray for their mutual interests. But when the people of Kerry were on the point of starvation, we did not hear that he either prayed for them or gave them any practical proof of his piety. All this is especially noted by a quick-witted people.
Indeed we know another similar instance. Tralee was placarded with announcements that the land agent of a large Kerry proprietor was ** to preach the Gospel '* there ; at the same time he was actually preventing the Gospel from being practised on his master^s estate. He denied the distress which he did not wish to relieve so vehemently, that help was actually prevented from being sent to the people.
94 7"^^ case of Ireland stated.
The following extract from the FreematCs journal o{ October 29th, 1880, will explain an allusion in this chapter : —
" The Whitehall Revieiv stated last week that Mr. Hope Johnstone had been the victim of an agrarian outrage on his estates in Kerry. Mr. Johnstone writes, and gives a flat denial to the canard^ and adds that he lives in the midst of an honest, kindly, and industrious tenantry, being on the most friendly terms with his neighbours. Mr. Legge, who is the responsible editor of the paper, and who signs the series of paragraphs entitled ' Bureau and Salon,' cannot allow the correction to pass without adding the sneer that he cannot regret the original statement, 'because it has elicited the information that there is a place in Ireland where the peasantry are honest, kindly, and industrious. Many of us might have gone to our graves, and never in our wildest dreams imagined such a thing possible.' I may point out to your readers that this is the print in which articles styled * The Morals of Merrion Square ' appeared."
■
Now, there is scarcely ever an Irish paper published which does not contain some such paragraphs as those given below, which show that the above is painfully untrue. How un- fortunate it is for the educated classes in England that the truth is so persistently kept from them, and yet the truth is either denied or carefully concealed ; some very bad motive must exist for doing so : —
"The agent of Mr. P. Bartley, who attended at Westport yesterday, for the collection of rents, allowed to the tenants
The Catise of Irish Outrages. 95
50 per cent on all arrears, and did not press for the pay- ment of the gale now accruing.*' — Cork Examiner^ October loth^ 1880.
»
"Landlord GENEROsrrv.^Mr. Godfrey T. Baker, Fort William, County Cork, has not only made reductions of rent during the past three years to his tenantry at Crough, Knockroe, and Colligan, but even now, when the prospect of the tenant farmer is more cheering, he has allowed his tenantry a liberal reduction on last gale. Mr. Baker, ac- companied by his esteemed agent, Mr. Charles Langley, visited the houses of his tenants, and both landlord and agent addressed to them words of hope and comfort** — Correspondent,
• "to the editor of the freeman.
" CooTEHiLL, October 30M, 1880.
" Sir, — It is my pleasing duty to place on record a noble act of kindness and benevolence on the part of the landlord of this town and district, Edward Smith Esq., J. P., of Bellamont Forest, Cootehill. He has given three acres of land rent free, for ever, in a most eligible position, adjoining his demesne, and in the immediate vicinity of the town, for the erection of a Convent and Schools thereon. By this additional act of generosity, he has entitled himself anew to the thanks and gratitude of his Catholic tenantry. May he be long spared to live amidst a grateful people, and may every blessing descend and abide with him, his excellent lady, and family.
** Faithfully yours,
** Francis O'Reilly, P.P.. V.G,"*
What is Communism f 97
hearing. But I ask each reader of this work, not on my account but on his own, to give a calm and thoughtful attention to each side of this most important question now before the public. He is bound to do so as a Christian desiring the benefit of all his fellow-Christians. He is bound to do so as a man, for he is un- worthy of his manhood who allows himself to be influenced by passion or prejudice. He is bound to do so as a patriot — I venture to use the much-abused word — for a man who does not love his patria, his country, his fatherland, is not worthy of it ; and such a man, most assuredly, has no right whatsoever to take a part in the government of that fatherland.
Let us, then, cast aside recrimination, and send prejudice to the nursery, its proper abode.
It cannot, I think, be denied, that the great majority of Englishmen of all social classes and of all creeds, had a very strong prejudice against Ireland. This was caused, as we have said, by historical inaccuracy ; they naturally believed what was said about Ireland histori- cally, and were prejudiced ; they came to certain conclusions as to Irish character and •habits, contrary to fact, and having formed their judgment on false premises, their conclusions
were wrong — often substantially so.
o
\ 98 T/ie Case of Ireland stated.
But, undoubtedly, there is a change for the better. In the most bitterly anti-Irish articles written to-day in the glow of hot social con- troversy, there are evident gleams of light Even the Conservative Frazer admitted an article on Irish Land Reform^ though with the curiously significant addendum " from an Irish point of view." *
Hence there is a gleam of light, and let us hope the gleam is the precursor of full sunshine.
But there is the difficulty, the almost insuper- able difficulty, of recrimination. It is not logical, and it is not wise. Why should Irishmen be classed with Communists when they ask for reform of the land laws ? Why, the very asking for legal reform should at once protect them from such an imputation. Do those who cast at them the epithet of Communists know what Communism means ?
An immense amount of nonsense, sheer, pure nonsense, has been written on this subject. Communism is not proceeding by the way of law, it is proceeding by the way of violence. But it will be said at once, .and said truly, there is violence in Ireland ; and demands have been made which came very near Communism.
} FrMir*t Mapatint, March, 1880.
What is Communism f 99
There has been violence in Ireland, and though it is made a subject of criminative re- proach in England, one day it will be known how far more deeply and truly it was deplored in Ire- land. But that time has yet to come, and we have to do with the present.
I will ask you to remember the state in which Ireland has been during the winter of 1879-80. Later I shall enter more fully into this subject Here I offer only two English witnesses.
The special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph wrote thus : —
''What with smoke and the lack of openings, these cabins are almost dark even at midday. Such, ye gentlemen of Eng- land, is a Donegal cabin in this present advanced year of grace, and in such manner do thousands livd within two days' journey of the capital of your mighty Empire. The fact, you will admit, is not one to boast of I verily believe that Cete- wayo would not have permitted his Zulus to be housed like these wretched people. Uniformly miserable as are the cabins, the misery of their inmates is a little diveVsified. In one place we find the mother preparing —what do you think ? — a dish of seaweed wherewith to flavour the Indian meal obtained from the relief funds 1 I am not joking. God forbid. Her children have gone to the shore and gathered the stuff, and while I look on she prepares it for cooking.
The truth was the Irish famine was not half credited by England. But when it is remem-
lOO The Case of Ireland staled.
bered that the people of the north-west, and of part of the south and west of Ireland were in such a miserable condition, is it any wonder that there would be outrages — that men who have asked in vain for legal redress take the law into their own hands. The subject of wonder is not that there have been outrages, but that there have been so few. As a proof of this, I may add, that when Mr. Gibson, M.P., strove to excite his Orange audience in the north of Ire- land against their brothers in the south, the worst, and the only case of violence towards women he could find for his text, was one in which two women's hair had been cut off.
But there is a second cause. Every gentle- man who gave a vote against Mr. Gladstone's Compensation for Disturbance Bill is a cause of the present disturbance in Ireland. Now, I do not say for one moment that no outrages would have happened if that Bill had passed, J^ut, undoubtedly, it tore the last hope of legal justice from England from the hearts of a famine-crushed people.
But it will be said that demands have been made that are Communistic. Now we come to deBne our terms, and ask what is Communism ? It is the devil's parody of God's eternal truth.
What is Communism f loi
Evil is the negation of good. Every evil is an exaggeration more or less horrible on what is good ; and the more clearly we see this, the sooner we shall clear the moral atmosphere of our thoughts.
Liberty, equality, fraternity — why, these are divine. But an enemy has sown cockled with the wheat. Liberty! Has not an English poet said : —
" He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside."
Liberty ! Is it not the pride of a nation, of a people, of an individual ? So long as liberty remains pure it is divine; when it becomes licentious, then it ceases to be liberty and becomes evil. This is Communism. It is not licentious for a man to ask liberty — to ask laws which will enable him to live in decency and comfort in his own country.
But when such laws are refused, when the rich and powerful are protected by law; and when the mass of the people are refused redress, and left in a worse condition than the Zulus,^ and in a normal condition which would test the temper of a slave coast African,' then.
I Daily Telegraph Special Correspondent.
' Pastoral of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.
1 02 Tlie Case of Ireland stated.
•
indeed, there is a terrible fear that men may be driven by hopelessness of redress from die law to hopefulness of redress by violence.
Equality ! What is this but an eternal and sublime truth, that the well-being of peer and peasant, of learned and unlearned, are equal ixi the sight of their Maker, and should be equally respected by all. The poor are not often envious, but when a time comes in which they find themselves left to starve with less con- cern than if they were brutes — for rich men care for their cattle — then there is fear lest they should demand an equality which is not divine ; lest they should demand the whole of those good things of which before they only asked a little.
Fraternity! How sublime a word, and yet how often abused to the vilest purpose. Chris- tian fraternity leads us even to sacrifice our-' selves for our brethren ; the fraternity of evil sacrifices all others to its own crimes and violence.
Where was the fraternity exhibited in the Famine year by the rich landlord to the poor tenant ? I am certain that the truth will not be believed, and yet it is not less true. Here is what an American special correspondent has said on this subject, and let it be remembered
What is Communism f 103
that this statement has been read by millions of Irish in America who, remembering a former famine year, but too readily believe it true : —
"^The New York TVibufu sent Mr. James Redpath to Ireland to investigate a£fair& Mr. Redpath is anything but pro-Irish. Yet this is the information he communicates from Dublin : ' There is an impression in America — which I shared — that the agitation against the landed proprietors in Ireland is an agrarian movement. It is nothing of the sort It is an honest effort to remove the causes of the famine. I find that every priest of intelligence— every man whom I have met and who has studied the effects of the present system of land tenure — shares in the indignation so deeply and widely felt among the peasantry against the landlonls and their land laws. The evidence is overwhelm- ing, and comes from every county, to show that the land- lords of Ireland are not contributing a shilling to the relief funds ; but, as a class, they are mercilessly enforcing their legal claims to their pound of flesh from their starving tenants.' "
I know Mr. Redpath personally. He is English by immediate descent; he came to Ireland simply as a matter of business, as corre- spondent to an American paper; not, be it noted, to an Irish American or Catholic paper. Mr. Redpath assured me that so far from IwiV- ing any prejudice in favour of Ireland, he was prejudiced against it, but facts were too much for him.
I
f-^l
1 04 The Case of Ireland stated.
One might as well expect a battle to be fought without murder and plunder and vio- lence, as , expect a great social upheaving of a nation to be carried through without some crime. The statesman who tries to avert the recurrence of war is wiser than the man who writes diatribes of useless invective on its evils. The statesman who calmly considers the cause of social disturbance and removes it, is wiser than the angry politician who utters a torrent of abuse and never attempts a solid remedy. Men who have honoured Garibaldi, welcomed Mazzini, and praised Bismarck, should be the last to reproach Ireland with Communism. Communism denies all the rights of property ; Ireland asks that the rights of property should be protected by law. But some Irish landlords, a vast majority, we fear, wish to have the rights of property in their own hands, and not regu- lated by laW| hincilUe lacryma.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT THE IRISH NATION ASKS. '
" Let not the Uw of thy coantry be the non ultra of thj honesty, not think that always good enough which the law will allow or make good."— 51r Thomas Brawne.
|F what was written above some two centuries since by an English doctor and philosopher, met with more general acceptance, there would be less trouble in the world. It is Christain charity and common sense.
The Irish people do not ask for a complete, or any, subversion of law and order notwith- standing Mr. Froude's wild utterances, over which he must surely have blushed as he wrote them.*
" Seven hundred years have now passed since Henry the Second attached Ireland to the English Crown : for all those years successive English administrations have pretended to govern there ; and as a result we saw in the last winter the miserable Irish people sending their emissaries, hat in hand, round the globe to beg for sixpences for God's sake to save them from starving. The Irish soil, if it were decently cul- tivated, would feed twice the population which now occu-
! Mr. Froude in the NimUttUh Ctniuiy, Sept, i88a
1 o6 y kc Case of Ireland staled.
pies it ; but in every garden there grow a hundred weeds for one potato. If a landlord ejects an inefficient tenant, and gives the land to some one who will grow potatoes and not weeds, gangs of ruffians with blackened faces drive out the new-comer, or the landlord himself is shot, like Lord Leitrim, at his own door, as a warning to his kind The Irish repre- sentatives in Parliament tell their constituents to pay no rent except when it is convenient to them, yet to hold fast by their farms, and defy the landlord to expel them ; while the only remedy which the English Government could devise, since the people would not obey the law, was to alter the law to please them, and to propose that for two seasons at least the obligation to pay their rents should be suspended.**
The gardens where a hundred weeds grow for every potato, must be of a very remark- able character, and we think every case of ejectment in Ireland shows that tenants are evicted, not because they do not " grow potatoes," but because they do not pay impos- sible rents. Irish landlords are not shot every day. Lord Leitrim was not shot at his own door. Irish members of parliament do not tell the people to pay no rent except when con- venient. Irish people knowing how utterly false all this is, what respect can they have for the English nation when they find such utter non- sense stated as if it was gospel truth ?
He has chosen deliberately to misrepresent the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, and, as any one, whether he approved of that bill or not, can
I
What the Irish Nation asks. 107
I
see at a glance that it is misrepresented, we must say wilfully, unless Mn Froude possibly may not be capable of using his reason when Irish affairs are concerned. But all tliis is very well for those who know him, but he appeals to a great number of readers who, not being aware of his idiosyncracy, will take his statements for truth.
He is, however, by no means the only offender on this, point, and probably he is less tp blame than many. Let me then put before the reader, who prefers fact to fiction, what it is the Irish people ask, and why they ask it.
A land meeting took place in Limerick on November ist, to receive and honour Mr. Parnell, and at that' meeting 70,000 people were present.
" Mr. William Abraham, who was warmly received, pro- posed the first resolution >^
**'That we demand, as a strict right from the English Government, such an immediate settlement of the land question as will save us from the capricious raising of rents and eviction, and which will ultimately make the cultivators of the soil also the owners ' (cheers). John Bright, the friend of the Irish people, had said that be could imagine such a state of things in Ireland as would make a settlement of the land question possible — namely, when Ireland was united under the Land League and was menacing England if it refused to ]rield. That was thqir condition at present; they were united to-day, and they
io8 The Case of Ireland stated.
would remain united until the land question was settled (hear, hear)."
*' Mr. Synan, M.P., in supporting it was warmly received. He said — Mr. Chairman, as the day b a day of action and not of words, I will find it necessary to be brief, and I believe I will be brief, and will also do justice to this resolution, by pointing to my acts and words for twenty years in the cause of tenant-right (cheers). The men of the County Limerick know what sacrifices I made twenty years ago, when I raised the standard of tenant-right in this county (cheers). I need only point to the existing monument of that sacrifice, which stands six miles away from the spot on which I address you, and which, I believe, every one of you is acquainted with, where my mother, at the age of eighty-six years, was evicted from a house that cost j^20o, by an absentee landlord, because I raised the standard of tenant-right in this county (cheers). Bad as Mr. Gladstone's Act is, and bad as I thought it always was, that injustice could not now be per- petrated (cheers). You cannot evict a man out of his house now without paying him. She was evicted out of her house without any compensation, and I had to procure another residence for her. Well, I carried out the spirit and the words of that resolution, in opposing the principle of Mr. Gladstone's Bill of 1870, as you will find in my speeches, as reported in " Hansard's Debates." I opposed it, because it was my opinion that it would lead to the consolidation of farms (cheers). It has led to the consolidation of farms.
At a Land Meeting, held at Clonmel, County Tipperary, at which 25,cxx) people attended : —
** Count Moore, M.P., who was warmly received, proposed the first resolution : — ' that the periodical depression, deepen- ing into fiunine, with which Ireland, a fertile country, is
What the Irish Nation asks. 109
afflicted, proves incontestibly that the laws which hamper the cultivation of the soil are unsuited to the present state ' of society, and demand radical changes.' He had, he said, travelled a long distance to be present at that meeting, for he felt not only that it was due to his constituents, but to his own sympathy with every generous impulse and every lofty inspiration that warmed the hearts of Tipperary men. Ill the cause that lay at the root of all their miseries con- nected with the Irish land, was the absenteeism, which drained so much of their money out ot the country. Another cause of the great distress was the harsh and inelastic Poor Law, which never adapted itself to the wants of the Irish poor, but, in fact, set a premium upon extermination. The Irish land laws were not paralleled by the land laws of any other country in the world ; but now, he firmly believed, they were on the eve of a final ^settlement of the land question. Everybody — landlords as well as tenants — ^were calling out for it ; and he believed the landlords were only too anxious for a fair settlement, such as fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale (loud and prolonged , cheering). He wished to see the farmers of Ireland owning their own lands, but he should say frankly that he was not in favour of expropriating the landlords. He did not believe that would better the condition of any dass in the community. He believed that they could and would, next session, get from the Government a measure of peasant proprietary. He would have free land, and by removing the restrictions by which owners were at present hampered, and prevented from selling. He would also have a Grovemment depart- ment to manage the sale and purchase of properties on behalf of the tenantry ; and he would, in the next place, offer inducements to the landlords to sell to their tenants. He would have some pressure also applied to the absentee landlords, who spent their money in London and Paris, and
no The Case of Ireland stated.
gave no aid whatever to relieve the distress of the country. A good deal might be done in that way by putting all the poor rate and county cess on the absentees. The objection often raised to the establishment of peasant proprietary — namely, that the tenants would not pay the rents to the State — ^he believed to be unfounded. For the Irish people were not a nation of robbers, and they never objected to the payment of a just debt. He next warned the people not to be led astray by persons who were trying to cause dissen- sion between themselves and their cleigy, with whom they should stand or fall (applause). The people had the settle- ment of the land question in their own hands, and it could not be prevented, except they took to ways of violence and crime, which would estrange from them the sympathy of all honest men (applause).
"The Rev. Father Meagher, C.C, Irishtown, Clonmel, seconded the resolution, and said that in all constitutional struggles the priests would be faithful to the people, and when wanted they were irresistible. The present land agitation was perfectly legitimate, and if he thought that the Land League directly or indirectly incited to crime he would not, for aU the gold in Peru, have any connection with it They tried to remove the cause of crime in this country, and when they had done that the crime would disappear. What the Irish farmers wanted was fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale.
" The resolution was supported by Mr. Leamy, M.P."
At a meeting at Ballinahinch —
"The Rev. Mr. M*Keon, P.P., moved the first resolution as follows :-^ ,
" ^ That we declare the system of landlordism created by an immoral conquest to be the mainstay of English misrule and oppression in Ireland ; that it has been the cause of the
Wfuit the Irish Nation asks. in
depopulation and impoverishment of a fair and fertile land, created by God for the Irish people, and that the laws that sustain and perpetuate it being contrary to right, reason, justice, and humanity, incapable of adequate amendment, and opposed to the national aspirations of our countrymen, we demand their abolition, and the establishment of such proprietary rights in the soil as will secure to the industrious occupier the permanent possession of his home, and the fruits of his industry.*
They had not assembled for the purpose of doing an injus- tice, or expressing the opinion that they ought to do injustice to any man — they were there to assert their rights. Land- lordism as established in this country was an oppression and a degradation placed upon the industrious farmer. They did not want emigration — ^they wanted the people to live at home, and they wanted from the Government that ruled them strongly but not well, nothing else but a recognition of the right to live in Ireland, created by God for the Irish people."
At a meeting at Bawnboy, county Cavan —
" Mr. Baxter proposed —
*' ' Resolved — ^That as the present system of tenure of land is the cause of our country's poverty, we demand its abolition, and the substitution therefor of a S3rstem that will make the cultivator of the soil the owner thereof.' At the plantation of Ulster the undertakers got their lands at I OS per 60 acres, or at ijd per acre ; but in the moun- tains there were' no rents, and since that time the improve- ments had been made by the fanuers. In the year i8oa there was a valuation of the whole kingdom, and that barony of Tullyhaw lying between two mountains was valued at I OS. They were there that day to support that noble patriot, Charles Stewart Pamell, and the Land League in
1 1 2 The Case of Ireland stated.
tiying to have their grievances redressed, and they would resolve not to pay rents higher than the Government valuation.
" The Very Rev. Dean M'Govem seconded the resolution. There would always be unity between the priests and people of the parish. What brought them there that day ?
" A Voice — • The reduction of exorbitant rents.'
" Dean M 'Govern — Not any communistic or socialistic purpose, but to look for fair play (cheers)— to look for the breaking down of the grievances under which the people groaned. He had been living in the parish for thirty years, and he could safely declare that half of the people were living in a state of starvation; they were processed and decreed and not able to clothe their little ones (true, your reverence). As Bishop Berkeley, a Protestant divine, had said, on the face of the earth there were no people so badly fed or clothed as the Irish people (cheers for Bishop Berke- ley). What did he attribute this to? To the landlords who were taking away the money out of the country, and liad the power of extorting it**
''A meeting was held to-day at Kilreecle, a neat village four miles from Loughrea. Early in the morning contingents poured in from the surrounding districts. A body of five hundred stalwart men from Killalaghlin, wearing green sashes. At the front of this contingent four men carried a green silk •banner, on which was the figure of Erin weeping for her children. The contingent was headed by the Rev. P. Burke, Kilreecle. A contingent from Loughrea, accompanied by the brass band, headed by Fathers Egan and Cunningham. The Loughrea, Killalaghlin, and Donary contingents pro- ceeded to meet the men of Bullane and Gurteen. The procession, with its bands and banners, at the head of which rode the Rev. P. Flanagan and the Rev. P. Coghlan, pre- sented a grand spectacle. The procession then proceeded to the platform, in the centre of a held given by the owner,
What t/u Irish Nation Asks. 1 1 3
Mr. Ryan, for the purpose. The chair was taken anudsT applause by the
" Rev. P. Flanagan, ELilreede. *• Amongst those on the platform were^ — , " Rev. P. Burke, Rev. P. Flanagan, Rev. P. Cunningham, iRev. P. Egan, Rev. T. Head, Rev. D. Coghlan, Rev. J. M'Keigue, Rev. J. Canning, Captain Dunne, Chicago ; J. Ryan, J. Burke, J. Kilmartin, D. Connor Carton ; G. Larkin, E. Kean, J. Sweeney, J. Hubon, J. Kirwan, M. Fahy, M. Egan, T. Grifiin, &c
" A Government notetaker was allowed on the platform A large force of police were present in chaige of S.I. Barry.
" The following letters of apology were received : —
** * Loughrea, October 30th, ** * Sir, — My earnest desire was, and still is, to witness a settlement of the land question on principles that will secure to owners and occupiers those rights that have their sanction in the laws of justice. Less than this neither should accept More than this neither should claim. That a crisis has come which renders an adjustment of those rights inevitable appears to be agreed by all reflecting minds. It may be that extremes on either side may mar or help to defer this adjustment To every observer it is clear a settlement if essential to the prosperity of the country. — I am yours,
" ' + P. DUOOAN.
"'M. Keane, Secretary.'"
"A Voice — • Three cheers for Dr. Duggan.* " Another— 'Three for Dr. Croke.'
" * Ballinasloe, 30th October. ** * Dear Sir, — I have to thank you for your invitation to the meeting to be held. I regret the duties of Sunday will prevent me being witl^ you^ at the ^ame time I concur wit)i
' ' 4 The Case of Ireland stated.
the object of your meeting. I hope it shall be successful The ground you stand on gives evidence of the necessity of agitation and enlightening the public mind of England on the unsatisfactory condition of the land system in Ireland. The beautiful plains between Ballinasloe and Loughrea are entirely depopulated, its former inhabitants driven into exile or perished in the workhouse. Thus the trade of the town is
•
paralysed, while the tillers of the soil are left on the barren lands of the highland. It is time the hand of the victor should be stayed, and the peasant should be secured in his holding. Till this is done * no wonder the energies of our people should be damaged, and industry be wanting. Your meeting, by joining in the demand for a settlement of this question, shall have done much to bring peace to Ireland. — I am yours, , " * J. K. Molony.'"
^ Letters of apology were read from the Rev. M. Badger^ Rev; A. Griffin, Rev. J. P. MThilipin, M. Harris, M. Ryan, and P. Broderick."
All these and the following meetings were held during the last fortnight of October or first week in November.
At Cahirciveen, where the severest distres.« occurred in the famine.
" At three o'clock the chair was taken by the Ver> Rev. Canon Brosnan, P.P., V.G., Cahirciveen. Almost tdl ti:^ cleigy of the deanery were present on the platform, and the traders of the town and the farmers of the barony were well represented. A Government reporter took notes of the proceedings, as did also two amateurs of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
"The Very Rev. Chairman, who was enthusiastically received, proceeded to say, when the cheering had subsided—
What the Irish Nation Asks. 1 1 5
My friends and fellow-countrymen, I have to thank you for the honour conferred on roe of presiding at thjs great meet- ing— a meeting, I am happy to say, which has the sanction and best wishes of our revered bishop. The object of our meeting is to confer together on the great and all-absorbing question of the day — the land question. A mighty effort, unexampled in extent and rapidity, is, you are aware, being now made to settle that question by a thoroughly effective and comprehensive measure of land reform (cheers). Reso- lutions affecting it will be proposed here to-day for your consideration, and, if you so think fit, for your adoption ; and I trust the gentlemen who will address you in reference to them will be listened to with that respectful attention which has characterised other public meetings in this town, and which the present great subject so eminently deserves (hear, hear). I do, indeed, most earnestly hope and pray that no idle or foolish remarks will be indulged in at this meeting, nor anything unseemly occur thereat, or in con- nection with it; and that when the proceedings are over you will all soon set out for your respective homes soberly and peaceably. Fellow-countrymen, I am most willing and determined to further in every way within my humble ability the great and just cause for which we are here assembled (cheers). But you will allow me most respectfully to say that I ban do so only on condition that the movement be peacefully and constitutionally conducted in our midst, and that violence and outrages of all sorts in connection with it (which may God forbid should occur) be reprobated by you as they should ever be. Oh, roy friends, what else, I ask, could such d6 but mar your good cause whilst they war against heaven ? Never, indeed, was that saying of our great and illustrious countryman (great cheering), who drew his first breath yonder there, truer or more appropriate than at the present juncture of the land movement — namely, that
1 16 The Case of Ireland stated,
** He who commits a crime gives strength to the enemy. People of Iveragh, numerous land meetings have been held in various parts of Ireland ; but, I ask you, is there a spot from the Giant* s Causeway to Cape Clear, or from Conne- mara to the Hill of Howth, where one was more needed than in Iveragh ? (Loud cries of ' no, no/) Is there any other place where poorer or more miserable, or more rack- rented, or worse fed, or worse clothed, or worse housed poor people are to be found, aye, in thousands and tens of thousands, than in Iveragh ? Look at this wretched town, the heart and centre of the barony. Look at its filthy lanes and hovels ; look at its highways and byways, its streets and its sidewalks ; look at the country south and west of it, and stretching on for miles — all a dreary picture of misery and neglect ; and all, both town and country, managed by a wealthy corporation. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that strangers coming here and seeing such a wretched condition of things, have painted and described them as a disgrace to humanity and a scandal to the Empire (cheers)? Whatever be said or done about expropriating landlords, can there be I ask, a second opinion that these learned divines and managers ought to be wholly relegated to their books and to their prayers ? (Cheers and laughter.) Then look at the great Liberal renegade's Iveragh tenants — I humbly beg my noble friend's pardon — look at the great Marquis's Iveragh tenants, and see how at almost every decade or recurrence of a few years of sunshine, the poor terror-stricken serfs have been, I won't say pounced upon, let us say visited, with the in- evitable four or five additional shillings in thepound. Thenlook at Roads and Coomnahinshy, at Ballydarrig and the Killurlya. Look at Upper Carham and Cannuge, look at Ardcost, at Fermoyle, and at Ballard — in fact, look all along from Cara Lake to Foilhammerum, and from Kilealan to Bollogha- sheen, and what can you see or find throughout but wretched-
Wliat the Irish Nation asks. 117
ness, and wild wastes, and desolation all round (applause). Let me ask why and wherefore all this ? Iveragh contains thousands upon thousands of acres of reclaimable soil ; and haven't you seen year after year the life-blood of the country flowing off in a constant stream of emigration from Iveragh, leaving the population now consisting almost of poor old decrepid people, broken-hearted parents, aud helpless chil- dren ? Why and wherefore all this ? Haven't you also seen but a few months ago, as, alas, was often seen before, almost the whole of Iveragh on the very brink of destruction, victims of hunger, of misery, and want? Why and where- fore all this ? Ah 1 my friends, the answer to these doleful, dreadful questions is easy to be found. It is on everyone's lips. It is within your hearts. Here it is in your own simple, truthful words : — ' If we improve our lands the rents would be raised' (true for you, sir). This is the cry I have heard yesterday and the day before, and have been hearing nearly every day since I was born. Is it a cry of justice that has pierced the heavens ; may it pierce the hearts of our rulers and of the Empire. At the eleventh hour let justice — full justice — be done to the tenant farmers of Ireland. Let rack-rents disappear ; let the fruits of honest toil and honest labour be meted out and secured to you for evermore. And then, and not till then, may we hope to see peace in the Empire, peace and plenty in the land, our young men and young women staying at home or coming back to Erin, the wastes of Ivemgh growing green, Cahirciveen flourish- ing, and Ireland, all Ireland, becoming what nature intended, and, please God, she yet will be —
" Greftt, glorious, and free, _ First flower of the earth, and first gem of the ^
•*Rev. Father Garvey, C.C, Eyries, proposed the first resolution, as follows : — 'That, as the poverty of the land in
1 1 8 The Case of Ireland stated.
this locality, and the high rents charged for them have so reduced the tenantry of the district that a single bad harvest brings them to the verge of famine, we deem it our duty to declare that any rent higher than the Government valuation is excessive, and should not be exacted.' They were engaged there in a holy war, a sanctified crusade ; and they were there to demand from their lords and masters their rights (cheers). And if they were united, if they were deter- mined, and if they persevered in their efforts, those efforts would be ultimately crowned with complete success (cheers). He had some knowledge of the condition of the tenant" fiBumers in the parish of Eyries, and he would tell those present that it was only removed by a few degrees from simple starvation.**
Mr. Healy, who spoke at this meeting, said :
'' He was informed by the Parish Priest of Adrigole that, out of 2,000 people in his parish, every man, woman, and child, except twenty, were on the relief list during the past
season. (A Voice — That is true.)
Some of Mr. Hutchins' tenants were fishermen, and any of them who had seines, had to pay him extra ; or, as one poor man told him, he taxed them for nine miles of the 'say.' Well, they were all very sorry that Mr. Hutchins was shot at It was a very bad act, but he (Mr. Healy) did not wonder at it j for so long as the Government allowed these outrages to be committed by the landlords, it was no wonder that some slight corresponding attempt at rebellion should be made by the tenants (hear, hear, and cheers). That locality of Bere- haven was so poor that the Poor-rates were the highest in Ireland. In a portion of the town they were 5s. 6d. in the ^i, and in another part of the Union 3s. ad., while the (bounty Cess was as. Out of that locality the landlonls drew a rental of ^£30,000, and not one of them ever visited
What the Irish Nation asks. 119
the district, and they did not spend 30,000 farthings in it. (hear, hear.)
"The Rev. T. Lawler, P.P., Valencia, proposed the second resolution, which was as follows: — 'Some farmers, having so tempted the cupidity of landlords, by offering extravagant rents and fines for other people's farms, owing to their insane competition for land — be it resolved that, for the purpose of self-defence, we pledge ourselves not to take a farm from which another has been unjustly evicted ; nor to purchase cattle or goods seized for non-payment of a rack rent* '
*' Mr. M. J. O'DriscoU briefly seconded the resolution, " Rev. Michael O'Reilly, P.P., Dromid, proposed the third resolution : — ' As rack-rents have been the principal cause of bringing on us in this remote district a famine, from which we were only able to escape by the charity of the world, resolved — that a local committee be formed to receive evidence of the people's grievance, and seek redress by persistent appeals to a sound public opinion.'
Mr. Blennerhasset, M.P., spoke also : —
'* The object of wise men was to bring about reform, not revolution, and to promote salutary changes, by the whole- some agency of public opinion and the legitimate use of the weapons of political power. Many minds were busy with the subject, and a great variety of proposals found advocates and adherents. One thing he especially desired was, that when the question came to be dealt with, it should be dis- posed of thoroughly and completely. A weak and inade- quate measure would be a calamity to every class in the community, and, most of all, to the owners of land. Courage and resolution were wanted to go once for all, to the root of the matter. It was more than thirty years since Lord Devon's Commission reported that it had been shown that
1 20 The Case of Ireland stated.
the master evil of Ireland — ^poverty — proceeded from the fact of occupiers of land withholding the investment of labour and capital from the ample and profitable field for it which lay within their reach on the farms they occupied and that this hesitation was attributable to the reasonable disinclination to invest labour or capital on the property of others without a security that adequate remuneration shall be derived from the investment Had these words been acted upon, and that security been afforded, who could doubt that, in thirty years, the face of the country would have been changed, and the population would be no longer in such a miserable condition that two or three bad harvests reduced them, as they well knew, to the depths of misery, and even to the verge of starvation. He would quote the testimony of an intelligent and impartial Englishman, who had lately visited Ireland on an errand of mercy : — ' Per- haps,' said Mr. Tuke, in his excellent pamphlet, ' apart from the wretched condition of the people and their dwellings, the fact which most impresses itself upon the mind of the traveller is, that nothing is made the best of, thai the resources of the country are never really developed.'
''A Cabinet Minister, in a debate of last Session, quoted from the pamphlet already referred to, a sad and touching story. The writer was visiting one of the poor cottier tenants in Donegal. He had neither cow nor calf, nor ewe nor lamb, nor beast that treads the earth ; but he had a loom, and was sitting upon it. He had neither warp nor woof in it, but he was mechanically moving the frame backwards and forwards. ' When I read that story,' said the minister, * I could not help asking, is this a real story or an allegory?' Are we in the condition of this poor man ? Are we moving backwards and forwards the framework of our laws for Ire- land to no purpose and in vain? Are we for ever working an empty loom, and driving an empty shuttle ? While the
\
What the Irish Nation asks. 121
present system of land laws existed in Ireland, and the great bulk of the population remained without the stimulus to property, or the protection of a secure tenure, all the efforts of Government to improve the condition of the country would be idle and profitless, as the labour of that poor Donegal cottier."
At a Land Meeting at Castletown, Berehaven, in the County Cork, at which the Rev. Father Larkin» P.P., presided, he said : —
'' People of Berehaven, I must commence my observa- tions by congratulating you on this really magnificent gather- ing. Your coming ^here to-day in such numbers is a strong and sufficient proof that this meeting has your approval, as it has mine (hear, hear). Your coming here in such numbers proves that, even in this remote locality, you are at present fully alive to the importance of the cause which the Land League is now advocating throughout the length and breadth of the country (hear, hear). The cause that the Land League advocates is your own. It is a cause that affects each and every one of you. What is that cause, and what is the object they have in view ? I will tell you. It is to put an end to evictions and to rack-renting (hear, hear) ; and to put an end altogether to landlord oppression (cheers). Their object, my dear friends, is that ; or, in other words, to make the Irish tenant-farmer independent, and to put him in such a position that he will be enabled to live comfortably — to support his family, and to clothe them and educate them (cheers). Their object was to give the Irish tenant-farmer a strong and firm grip of his holding (cheers), to root him^ as they say, in the soil of his fathers (cheers) ; to give the farmer security of tenure — to impose upon him a fair and just and reasonable rent, and to insure the farmer that what-
122 The Case of Ireland stated^
ever improvements he makes in his little holding by hit own toil and industry shall be his own (cheers). If that were the case, in a short time, Ireland would be prosperous, she would cease to be the periodical beggar she had been hitherto, aud the children of Ireland would cease to crouch as slaves beneath the frown of the man in power (cheers). That was the object of the Land League. It can be preached in open day, and no one need be afraid to profess the prin- ciples they taught. I ask you, b it at all unreasonable to seek to put the tenant-farmers in the position I have said (no, no). The landlords will say, ' Oh, it is altogether un- ' Reasonable and cannot be expected ;' but I tell you, my friends, and I emphatically say it, that it is a thing most reasonable, and a thing that ought to be, and I hope will toon be (cheers), and if that thing comes to pass, as I have said already, Ireland will be prosperou:i, and Ireland's chil- dren Will enjoy peace, contentment, and the blessbgs of heaven (cheers).
1 24 Tfu Case of Ireland stated.
Socialism, Communism, Parnellism, or any spe- cial leaning to the interests of Irish tenants. He wrote, long and frequent letters in the American papers during the Famine. These were precisely the same kind as the landlord correspondence which has been going on in the Times for the last few months. A candid admission that the Irish people are in a state of chronic distress from no fault of their own — this comes out from an unconscious honesty. A bitter abuse of them because they do not do, what has been, perhaps on the very same page, unconsciously admitted that they cannot do. Such is the inevitable result of looking at a most serious question, not from that point of view which will be for the general good, but from a purely selfish one. This selfishness is, no doubt, unconscious, but it is, nevertheless mis- chievous. Few English gentlemen, however, will exhibit it as freely as Sir George Bowyer^ has done. Indeed we must hope no other Englishman would be guilty of such a public exhibition of self-interest
I This person, who seems to court pablicity by deliTering lectures in the pApen to everyone, from the Protestant Dean of Westminster to the Irish Priests, has actually written to Mr. Gladstone to beg he will put a stop to Iriih agitation, because his "eminent solidtors'* cannot
What Inland dois not want. 125
Lord Dunraven not being one of the mise- rable few who look on public affairs only from that point of view which concerns themselveS| is capable of some justice. He says:—
'* Practically speaking, there are no other industries in. Ireland to which the people can turn their attention. Such was not always the case. Ireland at one time showed plenty of disposition to originate and develop manufacture. £ngland crushed every effort for her own selfish interests."
What an admission, what a calm dispas- sionate statement, what an indictment against England, from the pen of an Anglo-Irish land- lord! If a Land League agitator said what we have quoted from Lord Dunraven and Mr. Bagwell, he would be denounced as setting the people against the English Government and people.
We quoted in a previous chapter a v-efy strong statement from the Times^ about \|he^ desire of English people to know the worst of ^ . themselves ; would that they were all willing to » know it as far as Ireland is concerned. \
find tenants for his farms in England, on aocount .of the Irish Land movement What miserable exposures^ are made when men exhibit the true cause of their hatred of Ireland. This is indeed Communism, which takes all for itself, and would leave its neighbour destitute, which places personal interest as the one great object in life, and the general good last, if anywhere.
1 26 TIu Case of Irelaftd stated.
But Lord Dunraven, like all English writers about Ireland, having made a candid, and, per- haps, involuntary admission, which shows that he is well aware of one of the great causes of Irish discontent, runs off into the usual charges against us : —
^ Very many years have passed since any restrictions have been placed upon the same industry, and the country ought long ago to have recovered from the depression caused by bad treatment, and might have done so if it had been at peace. If, when the people got absolute fair play, they had turned their face to the future and set vigorously to work, the trade would have been started again. But they have never been let alone. They have constantly been agitated about something or other. They have been encouraged to look back, to gloat over grievances of the past, instead of addressing themselves to active exertion in the present, and have been taught to attribute their backwardness in agricul- ture to their lack of industries and their poverty, as com- pared with the wealth of England, to every conceivable cause under the sun except the unalterable difficulties con- nected with the natural characteristics of the country, and to difficulties existing in their own selves, and which they themselves alone can remove. Land may possibly be dete- riorating in value. If so, prices will find their level through natural causes. Any action interfering with natural causes must have evil consequences in the future. It is impossible to reduce the value of land by a strike of occupiers against
owners."
As happily there are few English gentlemen who make the selling or letting of their own
What Ireland does not want. 127
farms their sole object in the consideration of public affairs, I turn to the many who have some public, some true patriotism, and ask their consideration of the following remarks. The whole subject has a most important bear- ing on the present agitation in Ireland, and on the charges of Communism and So- cialism.
First — It is admitted by English gentlemen that Irish industries were purposely destroyed by England. Thus it will be seen that on one point Ireland has not been treated as an in- tegral part of the British Empire. What would be said of an English government which would deliberately destroy the industries of Sheflield or Manchester ? The idea is too preposterous for«consideration, but let it be remembered that this was done in Ireland. Irishmen are very bitterly blamed by some English writers for not loving England, for Speaking of England as a step -mother, for not making themselves one with the English nation. But let honourable * Englishmen remember that England first, yes, and from the first, treated Ireland — ^well, let us . not use harsh words — let us say that she did not treat Ireland as she would have treated Yorkshire and Lancashire. But Lord Dun- raven says Ireland "ought long ago to have
1 28 The Casi 0/ Ireland stated.
recovered from the depression caused by such treatment*
No doubt Ireland "ought*' to have recovered. I Let one remark suffice. In places in England where, from particular circumstances, trade has been destroyed, has it recovered ? Do you know Spitalfields ? I do. Have you ever visited the poor there } I have ; and a more pitiful sight under God s heaven, could hardly be seen. A dead trade. Vast rooms where the rich poplin was manufactured, and if the toil was long and weary, the reward was good and sure. But, then — for I write of some years ago— a ghastly stillness. I saw a poor man there dying, and cursing God and man as he died. The sight will haunt me to my dying hour. He lay on a bed of hard sacking, with scarcely decent covering, at the end of a very long room, where eight or ten empty dust-covered looms showed what had been. The August sun glared in from hundreds of panes of glass — a necessity of the trade, when there was trade. He lay at the head of a steep and narrow flight of stairs, which came into the room, so
I In noting Lord Dunraven's letters so specially, I do so becanse I bdicvt he represents ordinary English opinion about Ireland ; and it is this opinion which needs information and explanation. He does not Indulge in extremes of invective, or manifest contemptible selfishnesSi
What Ireland does not want. 1 29
that he might, if able, at the last hour» call a neighbour s child, his only caretaker. I knew then, I knew from many another empty room, what a dead trade was. Certainly trade " ought" to have been revived in Ireland, but it has not been, and it is no fault of the Irish people; and it ill becomes England to utter one word of reproach on the subject
But Lord Dunraven says, "the people get absolute fair play." When? How? Where? A people depending on land which the best authorities, even those who are most eager to exact the last penny of rent, admit cannot sup- port them in decency or comfort, how were they to get capital to restore a ruined trade again ? How were they to get the business habits so long out of practice ? How were they to get the ear of merchants and traders in foreign lands ?
Trade does not spring into existence like a mushroom forced in a night. It is difificult enough to keep it when secured ; how