It is commonly believed—a belief very naturally fostered by their leaders—that, if there is one thing the Irish do understand, it is politics. Politics is a term obviously capable of wide interpretation, and I fear that those who say that my countrymen are pre-eminently politicians use the term in a sense more applicable to the conceptions of Mr. Richard Croker than of Aristotle. In intellectual capacity for discrimination upon political issues the average Irish elector is, I believe, far superior to the average English elector. But there is as yet something wanting in the character of our people which seems to prohibit the exercise by them of any independent political thought and, consequently, of any effective or permanent political influence.
The assumption that Irishmen are singularly good politicians seems to stand seriously in the way of their becoming so; and yet it is a matter of the greatest importance that they should become good politicians in a real sense, for in no country would sound political thought exercise a more beneficial influence upon the life of the people than in Ireland. Indeed I would go further and give it as my strong conviction that, properly developed and freed from the narrowing influences of the party squabbles by which it has been warped and sterilised, the political thought of the Irish people would contribute a factor of vital importance to the life of the British empire. But at the moment I am dealing only with the influence of politics on Irish social and economic life.
I am aware that any political deficiencies which the Irish may display at home, are commonly attributed to the political system which has been imposed upon Ireland from without. If you want to see Irish genius in its highest political manifestation, it must be studied, we are told, in the United States, the widest and freest arena which has ever been offered to the race. This view is not in accordance with the facts as I have observed them. These facts are somewhat obscured by the natural, but misleading habit of reckoning to the account of Ireland at large achievements really due to the Scotch-Irish, who helped to colonise Pennsylvania, and who undoubtedly played a dominant part in developing the characteristic features of the American political system. The Scotch-Irish, however, do not belong to the Ireland of the Irish Question Descended, largely, as their names so often testify, from the early Irish colonists of western Scotland, they came back as a distinct race, dissociating themselves from the Irish Celts by refusing to adopt their national traditions, or intermarry with them, and both here and in America disclaiming the appellation of Irish.[[12]]
Leaving, then, out of consideration the political achievements of the Scotch-Irish, it appears to me that the part played in politics by the Irish in America does not testify to any high political genius. They have shown there an extraordinary aptitude for political organisation, which, if it had been guided by anything approaching to political thought, would have placed them in a far higher position in American public life than that which they now occupy. But the fact is that it would be much easier to find evidence of high political capacity and success in the history of the Irish in British colonies; and the reason for this fact is not only very germane to the purpose of this book, but has a strong practical interest for Americans as well. Irishmen when they go to America find themselves united by a bond which does not and could not exist in the Colonies—though it does exist in Ireland—the bond of anti-English feeling, and by the hope of giving practical effect to this feeling through the policy of their adopted country. Imbued with this common sentiment, and influenced by their inherited clannishness, the Irish in America readily lend themselves to the system of political groups, a system which the 'boss' for his own ends seeks to perpetuate. The result is a sort of political paradox—it has made the Irish in America both stronger and weaker than they ought to be. They suffer politically from the defects of their political qualities: they are strong as a voting machine, but the secret of their collective strength is also the secret of their individual weakness. This organisation into groups is much commoner among the Irish than among other American immigrants, for the anti-English feeling with which so many of the Irish land in America is carefully kept alive by the 'boss,' whose sedulous fostering of the instinctive clannishness and inherited leader-following habits of the Irish saps their independence of thought and prevents them from ceasing to be mere political agents and developing a citizenship which would furnish its due quota of statesmen to the service of the Republic. They lack in the United States just what they lack at home, the capacity, or at any rate the inclination, to use their undoubted abilities in a large and foreseeing manner, and so are becoming less and less powerful as a force in American politics.
The fallacious views about the nature and sphere of politics, which the Irish bring with them from Ireland, and which are perpetuated in America, have the effect not only of debarring the Irish from real political progress, but also, as at home, from gaining success in industrial pursuits which their talents would otherwise win for them. They succeed as journalists owing to their quick intelligence and versatility, and as contractors mainly owing to their capacity for organising gangs of workmen—a faculty which seems to be the only good thing resulting from their political education. They are as brilliant soldiers in the service of the United States as they are in that of Britain—more it would be impossible to say—and they have produced types of daring, endurance, and shrewdness like the 'Silver Kings' of Nevada which testify to the exceptional powers always developed by the Irish in exceptional circumstances. But in the humdrum business of everyday life in the United States they suffer from defects which are the outcome of their devotion to mistaken political ideals and of their subordination of industry to politics, which are not always purely American, but are often influenced by considerations of the country of their birth. On the whole, a quarter of a century of not unsympathetic observation of the Irish in the United States has convinced me that the position they occupy there is not one which either they or the American people can look on with entire satisfaction. The Irish immigrants are felt to belong to a kind of imperium in imperio, and to carry into American politics ideas which are not American, and which might easily become an embarrassment if not a danger to America. Hence the powerful interest which America shares with England, though of course in a less degree, in understanding and helping to settle the complex difficulty called the Irish Question. The Irish remember Ireland long after they have left it. They are not in the same position as the German or English immigrants who have no cause at home which they wish to forward. Every echo in the States of political or social disturbance in Ireland rouses the immigrant and he becomes an Irishman once more, and not a citizen of the country of his adoption. His views and votes on international questions, in so far as they affect these Islands, are thus often dictated more by a passionate sympathy for and remembrance of the land he no longer lives in, than by any right understanding of the interests of the new country in which he and his children must live.
The only reason why I have examined the assumption that Irishmen display marked political capacity in the United States is to make it clear that the political deficiencies they manifest at home are to be attributed mainly to defects of character, and to a conception of politics for which modern English government is very slightly responsible. I admit that English government in the past had no small share in producing the results we deplore to-day, but the motives and manner of its action have, it seems to me, been very imperfectly understood.
The fact is that the difficulties of English government in Ireland, until a complete military conquest had been effected, were of a peculiarly complex character. Before the English could impose upon Ireland their own political organisation—and the idea that any other system could work better among the Irish never entered the English mind—it was obviously necessary that the very antithesis of that organisation, the clan system, should be abolished. But there were military and financial objections to carrying out this policy. Irish campaigns were very costly, and England was in those days by no means wealthy. English armies in Ireland, after a short period spent in desultory warfare with light armed kernes in the fever-stricken Munster forests, began to melt away. For many generations, therefore, England, adopting a policy of divide et impera, set clan against clan. Later on, statecraft may be said to have supervened upon military tactics. It consisted of attempts made by alternate threats and bribes to induce the chiefs to transform the clan organisation by the acceptance of English institutions. But any systematic endeavours to complete the transformation were soon rendered abortive by being coupled with huge confiscations of land. The policy of converting the members of the clans into freeholders was subordinated to the policy of planting British colonists. After this there was no question of fusion of races or institutions. Plantations on a large scale, self-supporting, self-protecting, became the policy alike of the soldier and the statesman.
The inevitable result of these methods was that it was not until a comparatively late date that a political conception of an Irish nation first began to emerge out of the congeries of clans. In the State Papers of the sixteenth century the clans are frequently spoken of as 'nations.' Even as late as the eighteenth century a Gaelic poet, in a typical lament, thus identifies his country with the fortunes of her great families:—
The O'Doherty is not holding sway, nor his noble race;
The O'Moores are not strong, that once were brave—
O'Flaherty is not in power, nor his kinsfolk;
And sooth to say, the O'Briens have long since become English.
Of O'Rourke there is no mention—my sharp wounding!
Nor yet of O'Donnell in Erin;
The Geraldines they are without vigour—without a nod,
And the Burkes, the Barrys, the Walshes of the slender ships.[[13]]