Paddy at Home ("Chez Paddy")

by baron de E. Mandat-Grancey

I must now sum up the conversations I have had with these gentlemen during the day. First, I must affirm, that they all declare in the most positive way, that in asking for Home Rule they have no after-thoughts; they do not dream of complete separation. They wish to have autonomy, and power to regulate their own affairs, but they are all ready to contribute to the common expenses. They do not think of independence, still less of a republic. They are quite decided on this point. Besides they also explain, very clearly, that the separation, which would be a wound and a menace for England, would be death for their country. Irish productions are exclusively agricultural, and England is the only market that geography allows them. England can buy whatever cattle or pigs she requires from other places; Ireland can only sell hers in England. Suppose that a lucky rebellion drove every Englishman out of the island; to bring Ireland to her feet, England need not blockade the Irish ports, she has only to close her own against Irish productions. Under these circumstances separation would evidently be suicide.

This once understood, they willingly say when they are asked about the agrarian laws, that they quite acknowledge how much danger State intervention in the relations between the farmers and the landlords involves, and how much the principle of that intervention is opposed to the most elementary laws of economy. “But,” they add, “necessity has no law. With us emigration is a last resource that every man endeavours to avoid.” (This quite upset all my theories; I fancied that Irishmen were much inclined to emigrate.)

“An Irishman never emigrates except through compulsion or force. A ruined man will take a farm at any price, knowing perfectly well that it will be impossible for him to pay for it, but also knowing that the landlord will give him credit for the first year or two’s rent, and that he will thus postpone the day when he must seek work in England or America as long as possible.

“Under these circumstances the law of supply and demand is evidently vitiated, and it is by looking at the question from this point, that we can maintain that the work of the Land League has done good. Without our intervention the landlords would have depopulated one-half of Ireland, for agriculture is in such a distressed state that it is naturally impossible for farmers to pay their rent in the present state of the division of land; the only remedy for this situation is the formation of small holdings, which have so much enriched France.”

Here I stopped them. “But,” said I, “the agricultural crisis is not confined to your country. It exists all over Europe. We, Frenchmen, are suffering so much from it that in my department of the Aisne, one of the richest in France, one-tenth of the land is abandoned, because it is found that at present prices the sale of produce does not cover the expenses of cultivation. The peasant proprietors of whom you speak are absolutely ruined now, because their land has lost all its value. Now, allow me to say, without offending you, that our land and our climate are far better than yours.

“This state of things, which prevails all over Europe and which is the result of facility of transport, can only have two solutions: emigration or protection. Up till now you have had recourse to emigration, and you have managed comparatively well since the failure in the potato harvest, which led to the famine in 1847, when you had nine million inhabitants. In 1877 it only caused less misery because there were four or five million less mouths. It appears that now you do not wish for any further emigration, unluckily, protection is almost impossible. We can apply it at home. We have already done so, and shall do it again. It is possible because we are a very homogeneous people, where all industries work side by side. When we ask the blacksmith to pay a little more for his bread in order that his neighbour, the farmer, may live, he easily understands that if the farmer is ruined he will no longer have horses to be shod. Besides, the farmer is his neighbour, perhaps his relation. With you everything is different. You only produce meat and butter, and only English workmen can possibly buy them. You require their custom, they do not need yours, and, more than this, you loudly proclaim that you do not belong to the same race, that between you and them there is war to the knife, that you wish to be as completely separated as possible, compatible with your own interests without paying the least attention to theirs. How can you hope to succeed when you act in this way?”

In my opinion these gentlemen have not answered my objections in a satisfactory manner. They do not appear to know that the agricultural crisis exists anywhere but here. In principle they would be partisans of the protective system, but they recognise that they cannot hope to obtain it from England, at least for a long time.

What form of government do they intend giving to autonomic Ireland? As a rule these men evade giving any decided information on the subject, and this is very natural. Give us the principle, they say, the first Irish Parliament will regulate all matters of detail. However, before giving the principle, it is natural enough that England should wish to know what the consequences will be. An article in the Nineteenth Century, from the pen of Mr. Barry O’Brien, has recently dealt with this question.

According to him, there are five men who, in public opinion, so completely personify the cause of Ireland that their ideas would prevail whenever it became a question of giving definite form to the Nationalist aspirations. These five men are Messrs. Parnell, Davitt, Healy, Archbishop Croke, and Archbishop Walsh. Now, according to what we know of their opinions, we may form an exact idea of the combination they would uphold. It would consist in:

The creation of an Irish Parliament, sitting at Dublin, and invested with the most extended legislative powers on all local subjects; it would consequently make all the laws relating to questions of property, justice, police, and commerce. But the Imperial Government will preserve an absolute authority upon all the following questions:—Foreign relations—especially the right of declaring war—the army, navy, coinage, posts, and customs. All the Imperial expenses would be covered by means of a tax, collected before any other levy, from the Irish revenue, and the payment of this tax would be received by crown officials.