The story of the Galway Bag Factory may serve as a pendant to the story of Mr. McMaster's effort to benefit the Catholic peasantry of the counties of Galway and Donegal. The concern had stopped for lack of funds, and Father Peter Dooley went round the town endeavouring to induce people to take shares in the concern, in order that the poor folks of the district might have employment. The mills were reopened, and at first, just at first, the people attended work with tolerable regularity. They then fell off, coming for half a day, coming not at all. The management actually instituted prizes for regularity of attendance. The people, who professed to be dying for employment, had to be bribed to come to work. Even this was ineffectual, and as a certain number of people were required to work a loom, the absence of one or two made the loom and the other workpeople idle, and as, in order to pay expenses, every loom required to be constantly worked, this skulking was not only annoying, but also a ruinous loss. Mr. Miller, the manager, was compelled to get people over from Scotland, after having long placarded the walls of Galway with notices of vacancies which no Galway girls attempted to fill up. Father Peter remonstrated, and pointed out that as he had been instrumental in reopening the factory, he thought Mr. Miller should oblige him by engaging Galway girls. The manager showed him the placards, and said that if Father Peter would bring the people he would find them employment. Father Peter Dooley went into the highways and hedges, but not a soul could he bring in, although Mr. Miller seems to have been so desperately beset that he would have jumped at the blind, the maimed, the halt, and the lame. The good Father was beaten, but then he had a reason—an excellent reason. When things go wrong in Ireland, it is always some other fellow's fault, just as when the French are beaten in battle they always scream Nous sommes trahis! Bad characters had been admitted to the looms. Manager was surprised. Let Father Peter point them out, and away they go—if Father Peter did not hesitate to cast them again on the streets of Galway. Two girls were dismissed. Some of the old workpeople returned to work intermittently, as before. Father Peter wanted the two girls reinstated. The manager declined to see-saw in this way, and sacrilegious Scotsman as he was, dared to say that nothing went well when bossed by priests! From that moment that manager was blighted. His sight grew dim, his hearing became dull, his liver got out of order, his corns grew more numerous and more painful, and a bald spot was seen on his crown. The people worked as before, by fits and starts, but more fitty and starty than ever. The factory was closed, and the manager died. They buried him about a week ago, a sort of human jackdaw of Rheims without the curse taken off. Protestants say the Galway workpeople wore him down, broke his spirit and broke his heart, but Catholics know better. The only wonder was that instead of being instantly consumed by fire from heaven, Miller was permitted to waste away by slow degrees. But that was Father Dooley's good nature.
The Galwegians say that a Belfast firm has taken the mill, and that therefore its future success is assured. The cutest citizens say that this entirely depends on the manager's theory as to workpeople. If he brings them with him, well and good. The work will be done although the workpeople may be boycotted. And then the Irish will have another grievance. They will be able to point to the fact that of a large number of workpeople only a small proportion of Catholics are employed. This is the trick of Nationalists when speaking of the intolerance of Belfast. The officials of that city, and indeed, of every city in Ireland, are mostly Protestants, not because of this, but because they are better men. The Belfast merchants and the Belfast Corporation have a keen eye to the main chance, as is abundantly proved by their success, and in business matters they will have the best men, whether Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Turks, or Infidels. Whatever the cause, it is certain that Protestantism turns out a far larger proportion of able men, and in Ulster, at any rate, you rarely meet a Catholic who is worth his salt. The Catholics of Ulster lack, not toleration, but brains, industry, and business capacity. Anyone who compares the harbours of Cork and Galway with Belfast will at once appreciate the situation. Wherefore let not the Keltic Irish waste their time in clamouring for the redress of non-existent grievances, but buckle to and make their own prosperity. The destinies of nations, like those of individuals, are in their own hands. Honest work is never wasted work. Selah.
Athenry, May 27th.
No. 28.—COULD WE RECONQUER IRELAND?[ToC]
he country people call this place "the back of God-speed," "the back of the world," and "the divil's own hunting ground," but why they do it nobody seems to know. The village is on the road to nowhere, and I dropped on it, as it were, accidentally, during a long drive to the remotest end of Galway Bay. Yet even here I found civilised people who regard the proposed College Green Parliament with undisguised aversion. Not the inhabitants, but Irish tourists, bent on exploring the wildest and remotest nooks of their native land, among them a Dublin barrister, whose critical analysis of the powers proposed to be entrusted to the unscrupulous and self-seeking promoters of the Land League may prove useful and interesting to non-legal English readers. A Galway gentleman having during the drive pointed out a large number of desolate mansions rapidly falling into ruin, the conversation turned on the universal subject, and my legal friend embarked on a dissertation on the iniquity of the Gladstone land laws, which have had the effect of ruining a large number of the country gentry of Ireland, driving them from their native shores, impoverishing the landlords without any perceptible benefit to the tenants, who appear to be no better off than ever. What surprised him most was the arrant nonsense talked by the English Gladstonians, and the blindness and apathy of the English people generally, who in his opinion were being gradually led to the brink of a frightful abyss, which threatened to swallow up the prestige and prosperity of the British people. He said:—
"Have Englishmen forgotten the previous history of the men she is now on the point of entrusting with her future? Are Englishmen unacquainted with the traditional hatred of the Irish malcontents? Do they not know the aspirations of the Catholic clergy, and are they ignorant of their immense influence with the masses? Surely they are, or they would rise in their might and instantly trample out the present agitation, which has for its aim and end, not the benefit of Ireland, not the pacification of the people, who are perfectly peaceful if left alone, not the convenience of Ireland in matters which should be managed by local self-government, but the absolute independence of the country, the creation of a national army, and the affiliation of Ireland with some foreign Power hostile to England, such as either America or France, as occasion might serve. America is largely in the hands of the Irish electorate, and American politicians would not be particularly scrupulous how they purchased Irish support. No need to point out the embarrassing complications likely to result from giving large powers to men who are essentially inimical to England. You can do justice without putting your own head on the block. It has been my business to analyse the bill, in conjunction with other lawyers, Home Rule and otherwise in political colour, and we are all agreed that the so-called safeguards amount to nothing, and it would be incomparably safer for England to throw over the country altogether. Because that is what it must ultimately come to, and we think it would be better to avoid the inevitable agitation, the terrible difficulties foreshadowed by the measure, difficulties which would assuredly lead to the reconquest or the attempted reconquest of the country.
"Gladstonians say this is an absurd idea, that Ireland could offer no resistance worth mentioning, that the British arms would prove instantly victorious over any show of resistance. But would you have Ireland alone to reckon with? Once give her the prestige of a spurious independence, once give to your enemies control over the resources of the country, and you would find the task of reconquest much more arduous than you think. The fact that England's distress would be Ireland's opportunity has been so often insisted upon, both by Unionists and the Nationalists themselves, that I need say nothing on this point, which, besides, is so obvious as to be in itself a sufficient answer to the Home Rule agitation under present circumstances. But even supposing that you had no Eastern and European difficulty—and we know not from one moment to another when war may break out—supposing you only had Ireland to reconquer, do you think this an agreeable prospect? Do you think that reconquest would settle the Irish question? Do you believe that the shooting of a few hundred patriots by the British Grenadiers would further what they call the Union of Hearts?