Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule

by Robert John Buckley

"Most of the Protestant farmers think that land purchase would be stopped. If that could go steadily on, there would be in time prosperity and contentment. The people would like this well enough, and would be quiet enough, if they were let alone. But where is the money to come from to purchase land? Who would lend money on Irish securities? Who would trust an Irish Parliament with millions? Then the better classes, who have money to spend, would leave the country, and we should be poorer all round.

"The loyal party in an Irish Parliament would always be in a minority, and for any good they could do, might as well stay away. For no matter how the Nationalist factions might quarrel among themselves, the priestly party would always have the pull. The English Protestants ought to believe that we know the reality of the danger that threatens us better than they can possibly do. There are nearly three thousand Protestant ministers in Ireland, and only six or seven are in favour of Home Rule. Are these men all infatuated? Are they all liars? Are they in a position to know the facts? Of course they are truthful men, and they understand if anybody does. Then why not take their advice? The Meath election petitions ought to have settled Home Rule. Englishmen cannot have read the reports of these trials. Mr. Gladstone is fooling the people on both sides the water. He is satisfying nobody, whether Home Rulers or not. The Nationalists round here say the bill is an insult, but that they will take it as an instalment. The end will be that both loyalists and traitors will be more discontented than ever—a poor result after so much fuss and waste of precious time."

If my friend had known of it he might have quoted Mr. William Heath, an Englishman resident for six months in Tyrone. He arrived in Ireland a bigoted Home Ruler, but six months in the country knocked his nonsense out of him. He said:—"I have seen enough of Romanism to convince me that Protestantism would be crushed if Home Rule became law. I have seen the men who demand it, and I have seen the men who are determined to oppose Home Rule—the one set idle, dissolute, poverty-stricken, disloyal, and priest-ridden; the other industrious, thrifty, comfortable, and loyal to England. I go back to England a Unionist, and will do all I can to spread the light on the true state of affairs in this unhappy country. If the people of England and Scotland saw Nationalists as I have seen them they would not force Home Rule on the Loyalists of Ulster so as to leave them at the mercy of such a party." A Primitive Methodist Minister, the Rev. J. Angliss, who came to Ireland a faithful follower of Mr. Gladstone, changed his mind when acquainted with the facts, and confessed himself a convert to Unionism. He said that he had used his influence against the return of Sir Richard Webster, the late Attorney-General, but since his visit to Ireland he had come to the conclusion that the Bill would be a tremendous evil. He was "prepared to go back to the very platform in the Isle of Wight from which he had supported Home Rule and to tell the people he was converted. English people who come here to investigate for themselves must be forced to the conclusion that the Bill means confiscation and robbery."

A thriving tradesman of Clones said:—"I am surprised that any Englishmen can be found to pin their faith to Mr. Gladstone, or to any man with such an extraordinary record of change. Mr. Bright used to say he could not turn his back on himself, but Mr. Gladstone spins round and round like a teetotum. I should think that such an instance has never been known since that good old parson who sung, 'Whatsoever king may reign, Still I'll be Vicar of Bray, Sir.' Downing Street is the Grand Old Man's vicarage, and he endeavours to cling to it at all costs. In 1886 he said, 'I will not be a party to giving Ireland a legislative body to manage Irish concerns and at the same time have Irish members in London acting and voting on English and Scottish concerns.' In seven years and one month he insists on that very thing, and votes for it, with his crowd of noughts behind him. For I reckon all his Parliamentary supporters as noughts, to which a value is given by the figure 1 at their head. Isn't that true? What would the rest be without him? The bulk of his adherents are precisely the kind of men nobody ever pays any attention to. There's Morley, a good writer, but not a man of business. Then there's Harcourt. How can Englishmen stand such a hollow humbug? He'll say anything, any blessed thing. I prefer Tim Healy, even, to Harcourt. Tim was roughly brought up, and, as he gets his living by politics, he is to some extent excusable. The way that Harcourt attacked the Irish party, so long as Mr. Gladstone attacked them! The things he said, the strong language he used so long as that course pleased Mr. Gladstone! Now he turns round and calls them beauties; and for that matter so they are. It's what I mostly call them myself. Beauties.

"The arrangement to keep the Irish Nationalists at Westminster is something for Englishmen to consider. If they can swallow that they can swallow anything. They can have no pride about them, or else they are taking no further interest in their own affairs. To give the Irish members power to vote on all questions coming before the Imperial Parliament, while conceding to them the privilege of managing their own affairs without interference, is indeed an eye-opener. The British Parliament had sunk low enough when it began to heed the clamour of a set of American-paid blackguards such as the bulk of the Irish members are, by their own supporters, admitted to be. But how much lower has England sunk when she accepts the dictation of these men, and says, 'You can manage your own affairs and direct my business too.' These fellows are to be masters of Ireland and masters of England. For of course, they can always exert a preponderating influence in British affairs, holding as they do the balance of voting power. And Englishmen will submit to this; and will let their members be gagged and the clauses shoved through the House by hydraulic power. Englishmen are so fond of boasting of their Freedom and Independence. Why, they are being treated like fools and slaves. And by such a low set of fellows. Some of the Nationalist members wipe their noses on the tails of their coats, and when those are worn out they use their coat-sleeves. One of them was staying in an hotel where I was, and I saw him eat eggs. He cut off the top, and worked up the yolk with the handle of his spoon, mixing pepper and mustard. Then he cut his bacon into dice, and dipped each square in the egg before stoking himself. That is a sample of the class now working the British Parliament. There was an Irish patriot M.P.

"Dillon is comparatively respectable, and if you knew Dillon you wouldn't think that meant much. Chamberlain showed him up, but why stop at one quotation? I see the judge is now in Tipperary. That was the place Dillon, along with O'Brien, got to conspire against the law with such frightful results. You remember they were sentenced to six months' imprisonment, but breaking their bail they both ran away, while the poor men who had got into trouble, without funds to bolt with, went to hard labour. Dillon once said that if certain people had cattle on land 'the cattle wouldn't prosper very much,' and sure enough a number of cattle near Tipperary have had their tails cut off. Dillon, I say, is reckoned one of the most respectable. That does not say much for the others. You are giving these men power. Will they use that power to wring further concessions? They have often declared that they will. The English Home Rulers say that they won't, that Irishmen will be too grateful. They know not what they say. You'll have a hostile Government at your very doors. What did Parnell say? 'When England is at war and beaten to her knees, the idea of the Irish Nationalists may be realised.' And Sexton, this very Sexton who is now so much to the front, said that the 'one prevailing and unchangeable passion between Ireland and England is the passion of hate.' Then what hope is there of friendship in a Home Rule Bill which will infinitely increase the number of points of dispute? And these men don't mean to be pleased, either. They don't mean to try to be content. It wouldn't pay them. They have their living to get. Well, they have shown themselves clever. They can work England."

A friend has furnished me with a few gems from the orations of the Dillon aforesaid, whose threat of what would be done to loyalists under an Irish Parliament has recently attracted so much notice. He tried to show that this was said in a moment of warmth, in a fit of exasperation at the "Mitchelstown massacre," which took place a year afterwards. What had annoyed him when at Limerick he said that any man who stood aside from the national movement was "a dastard and a coward, and he and his children after him would be remembered in the days that are near at hand, when Ireland was a free nation?"—Date September 20th, 1887. Dillon delights in dates. Again, what had ruffled the patriot soul, when at Maryborough he spoke of dissentients in the following terms:—"When the struggle is ended and the people of this country have obtained that control over their own affairs which must come very soon, he will be pointed out to his neighbours as a coward and a traitor?"—January 15th, 1889. It was on November 1st, 1887, at Limerick, that the same friend of England said "let the people of Ireland get arms in their hands," and promised to "manage Ulster." It was at Dublin on August 23rd, 1887, that Mr. Dillon said:—"If there is a man in Ireland base enough to back down, to turn his back on the fight, I will denounce him from public platforms by name, and I pledge myself to the Government that, let that man be who he may, his life will not be a happy one, either in Ireland or across the seas." All this, be it observed, was after the promulgation of the Union of Hearts. Well might Mr. Gladstone, speaking of Mr. Dillon, who is now one of his closest allies, say in the House of Commons:—

"The honourable gentleman comes here as the apostle of a creed which is a creed of force, which is a creed of oppression, which is a creed of the destruction of all liberty, and of the erection of a despotism against it, and on its ruins, different from every other despotism only in this,—that it is more absolutely detached from all law, from all tradition, and from all restraint." Sir William Harcourt also referring to Mr. Dillon in the House once said, "The doctrine of the Land League, expounded by the man who has authority to explain it, is the doctrine of treason and assassination;" and in addition to this strong pronouncement Sir William called it "a vile conspiracy." Both Mr. Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt are now hand-and-glove with the men of whom Mr. Gladstone said at Leeds:—"They are not ashamed to point out in the press which they maintain how the ships of her majesty's navy ought to be blown into the air, and how gentlemen they are pleased to select ought to be the object of the knife of the assassin and deprived of life because they do not conform to the new Irish Gospel." Mr. Chamberlain's exposure of Dillon has brought down the thunders of the Nationalist press. Did he ever say anything stronger than this? One Nationalist paper, speaking of the member for West Birmingham, says:—"There was something devilish in the exultation of the strident voice and pale malignant face." The Home Rule penmen are always describing him as "livid with impotent rage," "trembling with ill-concealed vindictive passion," "hurrying from the House to escape the mocking laughter of the amused Senate." The member for Bordesley is dealt with more lightly. "Mr. Jesse Collings occupied some minutes with his usual amusing inanity" and so forth. According to these writers the House rapidly empties when Mr. Balfour or Mr. Chamberlain would fain hold forth, and fills to suffocation to hear the noble periods of Dillon, Sexton, and Healy. Mr. Deasy, M.P. for West Mayo, has recently been before the public rather prominently, and his opinion of the Irish question may be interesting at the present juncture. I heard much of this gentleman at Westport, where he is well known. He is disgusted with the show of loyalty to which his colleagues have treated Mr. Gladstone, who boasts of their "satisfactory assurances." He knew that the Nationalist members, speaking in England, made use of amicable expressions which no Irish Nationalist audience would tolerate, and speaking of this he said:—"I have never said on an English platform what I would not say here this night. I have not been saying that we all want to be part and parcel of the British Empire—with the lie on the top of my tongue, I am not going to disgrace my constituency by going over to England and uttering falsehoods there, and coming back and saying that I was deceiving England at the time." This speech was made in 1891, only two years ago. Is not this big print enough? Surely no reasonable person will any longer believe in the loyal friendship of Nationalist Ireland. To do so is to violate common sense. Only the fatuous Gladstonians, Whose eyes will scarcely serve at most To guard their wearers 'gainst a post, can be expected to take it in.

It is hard to find a decent person in favour of the bill. Its supporters are eminently unsatisfactory, inasmuch as they furnish no readable matter, and content themselves with saying that Ireland will have her freedom, and that prosperity will follow, as the night the day, in the wake of the bill. But they can never indicate wherein is their want of freedom, nor can they ever say how the bill will bring about prosperity. Then, as a rule, the voters for the bill are persons whose opinion no sane person would act upon in the most unimportant matter. They never know the population of their own town, nor the distance to the next. They are mostly sunk fathoms deep in blackest ignorance, and characterised by most cantankerous perversity, now rapidly merging, as the bill proceeds, into insolent bumptiousness. The Lord-Lieutenant has returned to Dublin after having endured such snubs and slights as Mr. Balfour never encountered. And yet Lord Houghton waved the olive-branch. Everybody seems to have asked him for a pier. I have given many instances of useless piers on the Western Irish Coast. The parish priests who met the Viceroy asked for more, and again more. Mr. Morley has been asked in the House what is going to be done about the piers the priests have asked for. Let him appoint a Commission to inquire into the history of Western Irish piers. The report will be startling, and also instructive. A Glengariff man admitted to me that the people of that famous town would make no use of the pier if they had it. "But," said he, "the building of it would bring a thousand pounds into the village." The English people are said to dearly love a lord. The Irish people dearly love a pier.

Clones, July 13th.