Another form of boycott recommended is for all Irishmen to refuse appointments in the British civil service and the constabulary on the theory that every Irishman who accepts employment from the British government takes up arms against Ireland and becomes the active enemy of his country, “being employed to keep a hostile country up, and to keep his own country down.”
A plank in the platform in which we are directly interested advocates an invitation of the natives of Ireland in America to invest their money in the development of Irish industries and resources. It says: “There are in the United States to-day thirty Irishmen or men of Irish blood whose names on a cheque would be good for £50,000,000. Few of these men take any public part in affairs, but all of them profess in private a desire to help Ireland. We invite them as men of business to undertake a work which will be mutually profitable to themselves and to Ireland.”
These propositions are embodied in a manifesto which has been printed and widely circulated throughout Ireland to explain the purpose of the Sinn Fein movement, and they have attracted a large number of active adherents to the cause and many silent sympathizers. But, as you may imagine, some of them do not appeal very strongly to practical men. If the Sinn Feiners had undertaken to do less, had kept out of politics and had avoided the enmity of the church they might have become a powerful and useful agency in promoting Irish industries and stimulating Irish patriotism, but the leaders have gone too far to retrace their steps. They cannot retract the unkind words they have said about the Irish parliamentary party or their bitter criticism of the interference of the bishops and the priests. It would be fatal for them to amend their programme by omitting the impractical portions. Hence it is not probable that the movement will gain much strength in the future, and, indeed, it is already on the decline.
XV
THE NORTH OF IRELAND
The traveler from the south or west enters a zone of prosperity when he comes within forty miles of Belfast. The northern counties look like an entirely different world. The beautiful rolling landscape, with an occasional grove and flowering hedges, is similar to the rest of the east coast of the island, but the farms are larger and more thoroughly cultivated; very little of the land is given up to grazing, few cattle are seen, but fields of grain, flax, potatoes, turnips, and other vegetables take the place of pastures, and the large farmhouses are surrounded by well-kept gardens and big barns. There are no more filthy one-room cabins, with manure piles in front of the doors, and few signs of poverty or neglect. The people live in two-story houses and sleep in beds instead of on the mud floors; they have cook stoves and ranges instead of boiling their food in pots over a peat fire out of doors. There are no barefooted women; none with blankets over their heads. Every one seems to be well dressed and to have a pride of appearance as well as habits of neatness and bears evidences of comfortable circumstances. Tall chimneys rise from the centers of the towns. We see large factories in every village and square miles of linen cloth spread out upon the turf to bleach.
The north of Ireland is as different from the rest of the country as New England is from Alabama, and there is a corresponding difference in the character of the people. They are not so genial and gentle and obliging in the North; they are not so poetic, but are more practical, and they are looking out for themselves. The manners of the people of Belfast are said to be the worst in the world. They are often offensive in their brusqueness and abruptness, and a stranger is sometimes repelled by their gruff replies. The Belfasters make no pretensions to politeness, and speak their minds with a plainness and directness that are sometimes disagreeable. But they have a reputation for honesty, enterprise, industry, and morality, which they consider virtues of greater importance and of a higher value than the art of politeness.
There is a series of beautiful villages and towns along the coast south of Belfast, and one of them is called Rosstrevor because a gentleman by the name of Ross married an heiress by the name of Trevor, a younger daughter of the Viscount of Dungan. It is situated upon a height, with a background of wooded hills, plentifully sprinkled with villas. The village shows evidence of the fostering care of its late owner, Sir David Ross, and its present owner, Sir John Ross-of-Bladensburg, who is commissioner of police for Ireland, and is a person of great importance in his own estimation as well as that of others. He takes an active part in political and ecclesiastical affairs and is always occupying a front seat when anything is going on. He signs himself John Ross of Bladensburg, because his grandfather, Major General Ross, commanded the British troops at the battle of Bladensburg, and after one of the most bloody and important conflicts in the history of human warfare he led them triumphantly into the capital of the United States and destroyed the palace of the President, the parliament house, and the navy yard! All this and more appears in the much published biographies of the Ross family, and because of the glory thus acquired they added the word “Bladensburg” to their name when they were elevated to a baronetcy.
