A salient characteristic of the Irish race is that they will not endure condescension towards them. They admire resolution and determination, and will submit to the sternest discipline if it is enforced upon them by a man who understands them and whom they respect. Conversely, they will yield nothing to weakness, and will return any assumption of superiority with hatred and contempt. Hence it is that the English have so often failed in their dealings with the Irish. In spite of the violence the Irish often exhibit in politics, their pride of race and pride in one another remain their notable characteristics.
I recently overheard a remark which illustrates the Irish master sentiment. During the debates upon the Home Rule Bill which took place in the House of Commons in 1912, one of his Majesty's Ministers, having made a long and an eloquent speech in support of that measure, punctuated by enthusiastic cheers by the Nationalist members, had it knocked to smithereens by Sir Edward Carson. Afterwards, I heard one Nationalist member say to another, "Wasn't that grand, now, to see the Irishman knocking spots out of the Saxon!" Yet it was the Saxon who was fighting for the Nationalist cause, which the Irishman, Sir Edward Carson, was strenuously opposing.
CHAPTER XVI
MEMBER FOR WATERFORD, AND COMMANDER, ROYAL NAVY
I shall never forget my first impressions, when, in 1874, I entered Parliament. There was a discussion upon a matter of Local Government. I listened to the speeches made on both sides of the House, each speaker taking a different point of view, and I became more and more doubtful concerning the solution of the problem in hand. At last a Radical member, whose name I forget, drew all the yarns into one rope, making what appeared to me to be a clear, concise and reasonable proposal.
Sitting among my friends, several of whom had been at school with me, I said:
"That is the only man who has solved the difficulty, and if he divides I shall vote with him."
My innocent remark was received with a volley of expostulations. I was told that I had only just joined political life, and that I did not understand it; that the Radical speaker's plan was excellent, but that the other side could not be allowed to take the credit of producing a good scheme, because it would do our side harm in the country; that the scheme would be thrown out for the time, in order that our side might be able later on to bring in the same scheme and reap the credit of it, and so forth.
"Well," I said, "if this kind of tactics is required in politics, it is no place for me. I had better go back to sea."