Paddy at Home ("Chez Paddy")

by baron de E. Mandat-Grancey

It was the little tailor shouting at the top of his voice. And then as every one looked at him, he proudly drew himself up and majestically applied a great pinch of snuff to his nose.

His interruption made a great sensation. The shillalahs recommenced to move at the back of the hall. The Fenian at my side uttered from the depths of his chest, a hurrah, which made me jump into the air; his eyes started from his head. Evidently, at this moment, he would give his chance of Paradise to be able to shoot an English policeman; the citizens who surrounded the tailor seemed slightly embarrassed; they evidently considered that things were going too far. Only the Archdeacon retained his imperturbable air.

“Let us see, Mr. X——, you apparently advise us to take guns and blunderbusses and to attack the police?” said he.

The little tailor only answered by a gesture of the arms and head, which said clearly: “If everybody were like me, things would not end like that,” but which at the same time, had the great advantage of giving no handle for pursuit, if things turned out badly. But Father O’S—— soon re-established quiet; the resolution that he proposed was applauded and the meeting soon broke up without further incident.

I have, perhaps, dwelt too long upon the details of this meeting; but they appear to me very curious in many respects. In thinking over what I have seen and heard, I find food for much reflection.

It is the fashion in France to complain bitterly of centralisation, and of the great administration which results from it. M. de Tocqueville, in particular, expatiates everywhere on the beauties of the English system, which completely differs from our own. Amongst us, the Government appoints the officials charged with the collection of the taxes, and lends them to the Communes, or the Department, for the collection of the local rates. Here, on the contrary, the collectors are the agents of the local authorities and are lent to the Government by them. I acknowledge that this system has the advantage of leaving to the local power the greater part of the authority, which they have taken from the state; but this satisfaction appears to me a little platonic. Under the French system if my collector absconds with the cash box, admitting even, though this is almost impossible, that his security were insufficient to meet the deficit, this deficit being divided between thirty-eight millions of taxpayers, I should suffer in an infinitesimal proportion from this theft; whilst, under the same circumstances, the poor people of Kenmare are forced to pay twice over, and they must pay, because in consequence of the decentralisation, they cannot employ a state official amongst them, and, therefore, as their agent is completely independent of the collective populace, there is no reason why the neighbours should suffer through his theft.

There is a school of men that is always lost in admiration of all foreign institutions, and that has the greatest contempt for all that passes at home. Is this a right sentiment? We know our own institutions through experience, but others only in theory. It therefore happens that, whilst we see quite easily the defective side of our own, we are I believe much too inclined to exaggerate the merits of neighbours. The English inhabit an old house. The arrangements, which were excellent in former times, are now frequently found very inconvenient. They make a few reforms, but those are done with the utmost prudence, because when workmen are placed in an old building there is always danger of the walls giving way. They know that if they decide to pull down the old house and build a new one they must spend a good deal, and also sleep outside for some time. In order to avoid this inconvenience, they prefer remaining where they are, as long as it will hold together. I think their argument is just, but they are not as well lodged as they might be.

We are not in the same position; our old house has fallen, we have had all the annoyance and expense of a removal: we had to sleep outside for a long time. Now, the great work of the new one is finished, the roof is in its place; the ensign is still missing and also many small interior fittings, but still, such as it is, we can certainly say, that the service is better done there than in most other establishments.

But to continue the comparison, it is but too evident that great reforms are needed in this country. For instance, this institution of a grand jury, almost omnipotent and absolutely irresponsible, is made to exasperate the people. It is not even a feudal institution, for the feudal law provided that “none could be judged save by his peers.” It is the application, pure and simple, of the rights of conquest. If the Land Leaguers confined themselves to demanding the abolition of such abuses, they would be so manifestly right that every reasonable man would sympathise with them, and the English would be forced to yield at once. Instead of doing this, they claim a number of things that cannot possibly be granted, which would manifestly be either useless or injurious to them if they obtained them, and no one really can tell whether they would reform existing abuses or whether they would not rather content themselves with using them against their political adversaries. Thus the other day the Lord Mayor of Dublin told me that Ireland suffered from too much centralisation. If such cases as that which formed the subject of the meeting at which I was present are of frequent occurrence, it seems to me that it is rather an excess of decentralisation from which she is suffering.