No. 54.—A SAMPLE OF IRISH "LOYALTY."[ToC]
he country round here seems especially rich in minerals of all sorts. Bog-ore, to be spoken of as bog ore, is abundant, and manganese is known to exist in large quantities. Soapstone of excellent quality is also plentiful, and the peasantry will tell you that on the passing of the Home Rule Bill they will at once proceed to dig out the inexhaustible stores of gold, silver, lead, iron, tin, and coal, with which the district abounds. Ireland is a perfect El Dorado, and when the brutal Saxon shall have taken his foot off her throat, when Parlimint and the sojers allow the quarries to be worked, the mines to be sunk, the diamonds under Belfast to be dug up, the country will once more be prosperous, as in the owld ancient times, when the O'Briens and O'Connells cut each other's throats in peace, and harried their respective neighbourhoods without interference. Captain Ricky, of Mount Hall, is exploiting the bog-ore, and sending it to England by thousands of tons. The stuff is an oxide of iron and is used for purifying gas. The queerest feature of the use of bog-ore is the fact that when used up it is worth twenty-five per cent. more than before. Delivered to the gas companies at thirty shillings a ton, it fetches forty shillings when the gas-men have done with it. It seems to be composed of peat which by a few millions of years of saturation in water containing iron has become like iron-rust. The soapstone of Killygordon is used instead of fire-clay, and is also made into French chalk. Or rather it might be, but that the Captain declines to proceed with its extraction pending the Home Rule scare. There is much alder on the estate, which is watered by the river Finn. This is the right wood for the manufacture of clogs for the people of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Captain Ricky sends tons of these interesting articles to the sister isle. Men are turning out these favourite instruments of feminine correction, in a rough state, by boat loads. When the coster's done a-jumping on his mother, he should thank Ireland for his clogs. When the festive miner rejoices, his dancing would lack the distinguishing clatter which is its richest charm, without alder grown on the banks of the Donegal Finn. The countries were made to run in harness. One is the complement of the other. The brainy dwellers of Hibernia know this, and stick like limpets to England. Only the visionary, the lazy, the ne'er-do weels, the incompetent, the disorderly, the ignorant, the ambitious, want Home Rule. The contemners of law and order want to flourish and grow fat. The Healys and Sextons and all of that ilk know that while under an Irish Parliament their country would be ruined, yet that they themselves would pick up something in the general confusion, while Dillon, like Mrs. Gargery, could be ever on the rampage, carrying out his promises of dire revenge, and flourishing like a young bay tree. Nobody here rejoiced when the bill was reported amended. They are losing faith in its merits. Their simple faith received a severe shock after the return to power of the Three-acres-and-a-Cow Government. Then the Labourers' Dwellings Act proved a fraud. The peasantry asked the neighbouring landowners for an acre of ground and a new cottage. A neighbouring J.P. to-day told me that he had more than twenty applications from people who are now awaiting the gold mines, the great factories which the new Irish Government are about to open. If you would remain poor, vote for the Unionist candidate. If you would become rich beyond the dreams of avarice, if you would occupy the place of the Protestant landlords, if you would preserve your immortal soul from eternal flames, vote as instructed by Father Gilhooly. A patriot priest yesterday said that the Day of Independence would be the "Day of Ireland." He should have called it the Dies Iræ.
A Scottish Covenanter, not of the straitest sect, has no faith in the Home Rule Bill. He said:—"The people up in the mountains, those who want Home Rule, or rather those who have voted for it and expect to benefit by it, are all of the class no Act of Parliament would ever help. They don't farm their land, and they don't want to farm it. Half of it lies to waste every year, and they cut turf which they get for nothing, and sell it in the small towns about for three or four shillings a load, instead of making the land produce all it will. Go to their houses at ten in the morning, and you will find them smoking over the fire. My people are up and at work by six o'clock every morning in the week. The Scots farmers round Strabane are that keen on getting on that you can't get them away from their work, which is their pleasure. They are so keen on making the most of the ground that they are doing away with the hedges, and substituting barbed wire, merely to gain the difference in area of ground to till. Look at yon brae-face. Every yard tilled right up to the top. The Papist peasantry would never do that. You want to know what's the reason? Goodness knows. All the Protestants round here have got on till they have farms. There are no Protestant labourers. If English working men, agricultural fellows, would settle in Ireland, they would soon get their Three acres and a cow. The people who can and will do the best with the land ought to have it, that's my theory. Ireland everywhere illustrates the principle of the survival of the fittest. The only way to succeed is by work. The Catholic Irish are so accustomed to leave everything to the priest that they have no self-reliance, and in worldly matters they always ask, who will help us? They are all beggars by nature. The Duchess of Marlborough and other kind but mistaken ladies have pauperised some districts of Donegal. The people have a natural indisposition to work, and a natural disposition to beg. As for loyalty and tolerance, they have none of either. You never saw industry without other virtues, you never saw laziness without other vices. These everlasting grumblers are a generation of vipers. They are a peevish and perverse set of lazy, skulking swindlers. They can pay. Every man could pay his rent and be comfortably off if he liked. The Protestant farmers pay and get along. And we agree that the landlords favour the other sect. They know that we will do the right thing, and they let us do it, but the Papists may do less—for less than the right thing is what the landlord expects from them. He thinks himself lucky if his Papist tenants come anyway near the mark. Therefore I say, and any Protestant will say, the Papists are favoured by the landlords."
A staunch Conservative, though not a land-owner, said:—"We want amendment of the Parliamentary voting regulations. No clergyman should be allowed to sit in the Revision Court. Scandals without end could be cited to show the necessity of this. I would, of course, exclude all sects, though no Protestant preacher ever takes part directly or indirectly in any of our political meetings. When a man has to make oath as to the validity of his claim to the suffrage he will often look at the priest who sits watching him. He gets a nod, and he goes on with his swearing. The perjury of the Irish Revision Courts is something fearful, and no one pays any attention to it. The Papists swear just anything. They get absolved, but a Protestant has not this great advantage and that holds him back. That is the Papist explanation. In my presence the Home Rule inspector of this district—we call the people who watch and work the registers the inspectors—swore that James Kelly, of Cross Roads, Killygordon, was the present tenant, the holder of the license, and the freeholder of a public-house at the spot mentioned. Besides this he swore that the name James Kelly was on the signboard. He therefore proposed to poll a James Kelly. Now the person in question went to America in 1888, and never returned. His name was not on the signboard, and the license was for another person. The Judge declined to hear any further evidence from Inspector Francis McLaughlin. That was the only penalty enforced. Such things happen every day in Irish Revision Courts.
"A man named James Burns put in a claim for a vote on behalf of land held at Stroangebbah. He had none there. What he had was at Aughkeely, and this was not sufficient to entitle him to vote. Yes, his name should be spelt Byrnes, but the Irish often prefer the Protestant form of the name. Well, nobody believed that he was the tenant of Stroangebbah; he was said to be a lodger only. The Judge asked him for proof. He presented a paper purporting to be a receipt for rent for Stroangebbah, but in reality the receipt was for the ground at Aughkeely, which did not qualify. He curled up the paper so as to show that his name was on it, and the Judge instantly passed his claim, and placed him on the roll. A young fellow named Robert Ewing at once exposed the trick, but the Judge declared that having placed Burns on the roll, he must remain there until next revision. Judge Keogh was his name. Yes, you would think an Irishman and a good Catholic would have seen through such a trumpery trick.
"When an illiterate declares for whom he will vote, we sometimes have from twenty to thirty outsiders in the polling-booth. In England the Court is cleared, and even the policeman has to go outside. But in this favoured country any blackguard who likes to fill up a declaration of secrecy, and go before a magistrate, can be present at the whole of the proceedings. There is no secrecy for the illiterates. Any corner-boy, any ruffian, any blackguard in the district can come in and hear for whom men vote. These corner boys all get declarations in their fists, and they march in gangs from one booth to another. It's intimidation, no less. Get some M.P. to mention this as having taken place at Stranorlar. The people of whom I complain were not even voters. Anybody could be present. Ridiculous to talk of the ballot-box in Ireland.
"The Morley magistrates are in many cases a disgrace to the country. We used to have an idea in these parts that a small publican could not legally sit on the Bench. James McGlinchy, J.P., is a small publican of Brockagh. Barring his trade, he's not so bad, as he can read and write. But if you saw the lists, and if you knew the men recommended——! Englishmen have no idea what low scoundrels have been placed on the Bench in this country. Imperfect education we do not so much mind when conjoined with character. O'Donnell is not a bad sort, but he couldn't write 'adjourned.' Two magistrates were needed, and nobody else arrived. Therefore the difficult word was necessary, and O'Donnell felt it was beyond him. He called up a policeman, and ordered him to do it. Whereat the county makes merry. There should be an education test. Can all the English magistrates spell 'adjourned'? You think so? That's very good. Not right that a man who can't spell 'adjourned' should give another man a spell of imprisonment."