Have you heard that Mr. Balfour, who went through Ireland without an escort, is unable to move about England without the protection of a hundred and fifty mounted police to save him from English Home Rulers who are burning to avenge the wrongs of Ireland? No? England is badly served in the matter of news. They manage these things better in Ireland. A leading Dublin Nationalist print has a number of prominent headlines referring to the "facts." "The Arch-Coercionist Protected by Police. Caught in His Own Trap." The writer even goes into particulars and tells how "effusively" the ex-Secretary thanked the police for protecting his "frail personality." The Irish moonlight patriots are gratified. Balfour was their aversion. During his reign it could no longer be said that the safest place in Ireland, the one spot where no harm could befall you, was the criminal dock. Balfour stamped out midnight villainy, and helped the industrious poor. Wherefore he is honoured by honest Irishmen and hated by all rascalry. Ireland needs him again with his suaviter in modo, fortiter in re; his fairness and firmness, his hatred of tyranny, his determination to do right though the heavens should fall. With Balfour in office the Irish agitators have hard work to keep the broil agoing. They hate him because of the integrity which won the confidence of the Irish people, and because of the substantial benefit arising from his rule, a benefit there was no denying because it was seen and known of all men. The return of Balfour to power threatens to cut the ground from under the feet of those who live by agitation. They dread him above everything. They are horror-stricken at the prospect of a return to his light railways and heavy sentences. Hence this attempt to damage his prestige. Unhappy Mr. Balfour! To be protected by one hundred and fifty mounted police, and not to know of it! And the venal English press which conceals the fact, what shall be said of it? Where would England be but for Irish newspaper enterprise?
Strabane, July 22nd.
No. 52.—HOW THE PRIESTS CONTROL THE PEOPLE.[ToC]
his is a terribly Protestant place. The people are unpatriotic and do not want Home Rule. They speak of the Nationalist members with contempt, and say they would rather be represented by gentlemen. They are very incredulous, and refuse to believe in the honesty of "honest" John Dillon. They say that Davitt is a humbug and Healy a blackguard. They speak of O'Brien's breeches without weeping, and opine that Davitt's imprisonments and Healy's horse-whipping served them both right. These misguided Irishmen affect to believe that the English laws are good, that Ireland is a splendid country, and that things would be far better as they are. Raphoe is on the road to nowhere, and yet it runs a rattling tweed mill—the proprietor is a Unionist, of course. Queer it is to see this flourishing affair in the wilds of Donegal. Blankets, travelling rugs, and tweed for both sexes, of excellent quality and pretty patterns. Raphoe has a cathedral, but without features of note. The bishop's palace is in ruins. In 1835 the bishopric was annexed to Derry. The police of this district are sad at heart. There are but few of them, very few indeed, and they have no work to do. These Protestant districts afford no pleasurable excitement. Work, work, work, without any intervals of moonlighting and landlord shooting. These Saxon settlers have no imagination. Like mill horses, they move in one everlasting round, unvaried even by a modicum of brigandage. An occasional murder, a small suspicion of arson, might relieve the wearisome monotony of their prosaic existence, but they lack the poetic instinct. They have not the sporting tastes of their Keltic countrymen. They are not ashamed of this, but even glory in it. An Orangeman asked me to quote a case of shooting from behind a wall by any of his order. He says no such thing ever took place, and actually boasted of it! He declared that if the body had in future any shooting to do they would do it in the open. The Nationalist patriots are more advanced. They know a trick worth two of that. The Protestant party have no experience in premeditated murder, and must take a back seat as authorities in the matter. They have not yet discovered that shooting from behind a wall is comparatively safe, and safety is a paramount consideration. Landlords and agents carry rifles, and should they be missed unpleasant results might ensue. The case of Smith, quoted in a Mayo letter, shows the danger of missing. It is not well to place the lives of experienced and valuable murderers at the mercy of a worthless agent. The Nationalist party cannot afford to expose to danger the priceless ruffians whose efforts have converted Mr. Gladstone and his Tail. The patriots need every man who can shoot, and the stone walls of Ireland are a clear dispensation of Providence. To shoot in the open is a flying in the face of natural laws. The patriots are wedded to the walls, or, as they call them in Ireland, ditches. The "back iv a ditch" is a proverbial expression for the coign of vantage assumed for the slaying of your enemy. Like General Jackson, the Irish are Stone-wallers, but in another sense. They have brought the Art of Murder with Safety to its highest pitch of perfection. They are the leading exponents of mural musketry.
A moderate Unionist said:—"To speak of tolerance in the same breath with Irish Roman Catholicism is simply nonsense. You will not find any believers in this theory among the Protestants of this district, although being more numerous they are not so much alarmed as the unfortunate residents in Romanist centres. We cannot believe anything so entirely opposed to the evidence of our senses. A Protestant farmer of my acquaintance, the only Protestant on a certain estate, has confided to me his intention of leaving the district should the bill pass, because he thinks he could not afterwards live comfortably among his old neighbours. A woman who had occupied the position of servant in a Protestant family for forty years, recently went to her mistress with tears in her eyes, and said her clergy had ordered her to leave, as further continuance in the situation would be dangerous to her eternal interests. A girl who had been four years in another situation has also left on the same plea. The progress of Romanism is distinctly towards intolerance. It becomes narrower and narrower as time goes on. This is proved by the fact that formerly dispensations were granted for mixed marriages—that is, Catholic and Protestant—on the understanding that the children should be brought up, the boys in the father's faith, the girls in the mother's. All that is now changed, and dispensations are only granted on condition that all the children shall be Roman Catholics. The absolute despotism of the Catholic clergy is every year becoming more marked. They rule with a rod of iron. A bailiff of my acquaintance who had paid all his clerical dues, was very badly treated because he was a bailiff and for no other earthly reason. No priest in Ireland would perform the marriage ceremony for his daughter, who actually went to America to be married. She was compelled to this, the bridegroom going out in another boat. The ceremony being performed, they returned to Ireland, and the girl's father assures me that the affair cost him fifty pounds. The case of Mrs. Taylor, of Ballinamore, was a very cruel one, which a word from the priest of the district would have altogether prevented. But that word was not spoken, for she was a Protestant. Her brother had discharged a cotter, I do not know whether justly or unjustly, but although Mrs. Taylor had nothing whatever to do with the affair—and it was not asserted that she had—she was severely boycotted. The brother, who was the guilty party, if anybody was guilty, was rather out of the way, and being a substantial farmer, quite able to hold his own, could not be got at. But Mrs. Taylor was a widow, and lived by running a corn mill. Nobody went near it, nobody would have anything to do with the widow, who, however, struggled on, until the mill was burnt to the ground. She was compensated by the County, and rebuilt the mill. This spring it was again burnt down, and she is ruined. Her property is now in the Receiver's hands, and she is going through the Bankruptcy Court.
"The Home Rule Bill has produced, with much that is tragic, some comical effects. Since the passing of the Second Reading our servant has become unmanageable. She is evidently affected in the same way as many of the most ignorant Papists, believing that the time will soon come when, by the operation of the new Act, she will so far rise in the social scale as to be quite independent of her situation. This kind of thing is visible all around. There is work for everyone about here, but the farmers cannot get labourers. In many parts of Ireland the cry is 'There is no employment,' but here it is not so. There is plenty of work at good wages, waiting to be done, but men cannot be got to do it. The Sion Mills, which employ twelve hundred people, eight hundred Catholics and four hundred Protestants, would employ many more if they could be had. The labourers of this district are Catholic, and they prefer to stand loafing about to the performance of regular work. They believe that a perpetual holiday is coming, and that they may as well have a foretaste of the ease which is to come. Up to the times of the Home Rule Bill they were industrious enough. The Catholics of Tyrone and Donegal are not like those of the South and West. They are very superior, both in cleanliness and industry. Having for so long mingled with the Saxon settlers of the North, they have imbibed some of their industrial spirit, and until lately there was no reasonable ground of complaint. Their morale is unhappily now sadly shaken, and whether the bill passes or not it will be long, very long, before they resume their industrial pursuits with the energy and regularity of men who have nothing on which to depend but their own exertions. And whatever happens to the bill, the country will be the poorer for its introduction. Ireland is now an excellent country to live out of, and those who can leave it have the most enviable lot."