I will not record our conversation here, because it differed very little from the conversations that I had with other chiefs of the Land League. I prefer to discuss them all together and then sum up the information that I have collected. If I do not make this rule I shall repeat myself. When I left the office of the United Ireland, I was driven to that of the Freeman’s Journal, where I saw Mr. Dwyer Gray. Mr. E. Dwyer Gray is the son of a man who has played an important part in the political history of contemporary Ireland, Sir John Gray was the owner of the Freeman’s, which, even in his time, brought in, so they say, 200,000 francs, 8,000l., per annum. When I remember the trouble our papers have to pay their expenses I cannot understand the financial prosperity of English and American journals. The Freeman’s, which, after all, is only a small provincial newspaper, prints forty thousand copies; its size almost equals the Times; it keeps a staff of seven shorthand writers in London, who telegraph daily by a special wire the debates in the House; it publishes very well written foreign correspondence, yet it brings in a great deal more since it has been in Mr. Dwyer Gray’s hands than formerly. He opened his political life as a member of the Dublin corporation, then he became lord mayor, and afterwards county Carlow returned him to Parliament where, as a business speaker, he has won a good reputation amongst Parnell’s colleagues. A converted Protestant, he represents a relatively moderate element in politics as well as in religion. A few incidents in his career deserve notice. In his relations with the Municipality he had an opportunity of discovering the embezzlements of the infamous Carey, afterwards so sadly notorious through first founding and then betraying the Invincible Society which assassinated Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke in Phœnix Park, by stabs with a knife. Although Carey was in the main a co-religionist, he did not hesitate to unmask him, and even pursued him so energetically that, later on, during the trial of the Invincibles, it was proved that they had once thought of ridding themselves of him (Mr. Gray) by murder in order to avenge their chief.
Unfortunately, just then the Freeman’s was engaged in a particularly violent series of articles against the Government, and on the evening that preceded the tragedy, the paper contained an unlucky phrase:—“There are rats in the Castle, which must soon be dislodged!” In ordinary times no one would have noticed this; but political passions intervened, and this phrase was at once connected with the murders that followed it so closely, and the, at all events, moral responsibility of the author was carefully pointed out. Is it necessary to add that not one serious man ever attached the least importance to these insinuations?
I had spent some time in the office of the United Ireland, but I only remained in the Freeman’s a few minutes, for Mr. Gray, who was very busy during the day, kindly invited me to spend the evening with him. I had just seen the organs of what, in the secret government that Ireland now obeys, corresponds with the legislative power; for the only laws respected by the country are concocted in these two newspaper offices. I have now to become acquainted with the executive power, i.e., the ministers of the Land League; but I should first like to say a few words about them.
CHAPTER II.
THE LAND LEAGUE—AN IRISH CONFESSOR—CAPTAIN BOYCOTT—A CONSPIRATOR’S CAVE—MR. HARRINGTON—MR. BIGGAR—THE OBSTRUCTION CAMPAIGN—MR. SULLIVAN, LORD MAYOR, POET, PATRIOT, STATESMAN, AND DIVER—A ROUGH ELECTION MEETING—MR. SHACKLETON—A CANDIDATE’S PROFESSION OF FAITH—PEMBROKE HOUSE.
We will first describe the origin of the Land League. To fully understand the subject, we must first trace back Irish history to the year 1847. At that time the population, which in 1845 numbered 8,175,124, had certainly attained, if not exceeded 9,000,000. Then as now, we may say that no manufactures existed in the country. The population lived on the direct produce of the land. The repeal of protection on corn had caused the almost entire disappearance of cereals, for which the soil, and above all the climate, were always unfavourable, and consequently, only two possible industries were left—stock raising (and this was chiefly pig raising), and the cultivation of potatoes. The sale of pigs sufficed to pay the taxes, the landlord, and the few necessaries bought by the people. The potatoes were reserved for food.
Suddenly the potato disease broke out. In a few days, of a harvest which promised abundance, absolutely nothing was left, and by one blow nine millions of people were left without anything to eat. This is the simple history of the famine in 1847. And this history must inevitably be repeated in every country that transforms its agriculture into raising stock, and which yet aspires to support the same number of inhabitants; for it is quite evident that a stock-raising country cannot feed as many people as an agricultural one.
This phenomenon had already happened in Scotland at the end of the last century. The difficulty was solved by the emigration of large numbers of the Highlanders from several counties. The same thing is now visible in France; and if we have not yet encountered the same consequences, it is because our peasants are living, and for some time can still live, on their capital. In Ireland the people had no reserve fund. The misery was therefore awful. One can hardly believe that such things can happen in our century; but it is undeniable that thousands of miserable people died of starvation in the midst of their fields, just as they might have done on a wreck in the middle of the ocean. The official statistics registered 6,058 deaths simply caused by hunger! And the famine preceded, and was followed by an epidemic of typhus, which killed thirty or forty thousand persons.