I IRELAND i \ M EW \ j CENTURY I Ireland in the New Century First Edition .... February, 1904, Reprinted ----- March, 1904 Reprinted - .... April, 1904. Popular Edition (with Epilogue) - April, 1905. Third Edition .... June, 1905. IRELAND IN THE NEW CENTURY WITH AN EPILOGUE IN ANSWER TO SOME CRITICS BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR HORACE PLUNKETT, K.C.V.O., F.R.S. THIRD EDITION (15th Thousand) NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 1908 ,?73 1 90s 494498 TO THE MEMORY OF W. E. H. LECKY, I DEDICATE ALL IN THIS BOOK THAT IS WORTHY OF THE FRIENDSHIP WITH WHICH HE HONOURED ME, AND OF THE COUNSEL WHICH HE GAVE ME FOR MY GUIDANCE IN IRISH PUBLIC LIFE. Preface to Third Edition In this edition I have revised the book, the revision being for the most part mere changes in phraseology with a view to clearness. I have not brought the narrative portion of the book up-to-date, but I may mention here that the progress of the work described in Chapter X. has been satisfactorily maintained. The only important changes I have made will be found in Chapter II. I was anxious to give the reader a deeper insight into what for some years to come will be the chief problem of Irish administration, the establishment of a peasant proprietary upon a sound social and economic foundation. This object is regarded by the best Irish thinkers as being of vital moment to .the future welfare of their country, and towards its attain- ment the Imperial Exchequer' is pledged to make a grant of ;£ 12,000,000 and a loan of ^"100,000,000 upon the security of Irish land. Any help which can be given towards an understanding of the questions involved in this agrarian revolution will, I am sure, be welcome. May 1905. Preface to Popular Edition Some months ago a Roman Catholic priest, who had occasion to write to me on an official matter, thought it would interest me to know the opinions of his brethren upon Ireland in the New Century, which he had gathered at a recent clerical meeting. The minority, who had read the book, were, he told me, agreeably surprised ; the majority, who had not read it, were very emphatic in their disapproval. On the evidence before them they were both right. Ninety-nine out of every hundred Irishmen who have heard of the book have been given a wrong impression of its contents. In the circum- stances, the best defence I can offer is the book itself. Hence this edition issued at a popular price. I have added an epilogue in reply to some of my critics. It will, I think, serve also to elucidate and fur- ther develop the central idea of the book — the applica- tion to Ireland of the principle that all true national progress must rest upon a moral foundation. March, 1905. Preface to First Edition Those who have known Ireland for the last dozen years cannot have failed to notice the advent of a wholly new spirit, clearly based upon constructive thought, and expressing itself in a wide range of fresh practical activities. The movement for the organisation of agri- culture and rural credit on co-operative lines, efforts of various kinds to revive old or initiate new industries, and, lastly, the creation of a department of Government to foster all that was healthy in the voluntary effort of the people to build up the economic side of their life, are each interesting in themselves. When taken together, and in conjunction with the literary and artistic move- ments, and viewed in their relation to history, politics, religion, education, and the other past and present influences operating upon the Irish mind and character, these movements appear to me to be worthy of the most thoughtful consideration by all who are responsible for, or desire the well-being of, the Irish people. I should not, however, in days when my whole time and energies belong to the public service, have under- taken the task of writing a book on a subject so complex and apparently so inseparable from heated controversy, were I not convinced that the expression of certain thoughts which have come to me from practical contact PREFACE. IX with Irish problems, was the best contribution I could make to the work on which I was engaged. I wished, if I could, to bring into clearer light the essential unity of the various progressive movements in Ireland, and to do something towards promoting a greater defmiteness of aim and method, and a better understanding of each other's work, among those who are in various ways striving for the upbuilding of a worthy national life in Ireland. So far the task, if difficult, was congenial and free from embarrassment. Unhappily, it had been borne in upon me, in the course of a long study of Irish life, that our failure to rise to our opportunities and to give prac- tical evidence of the intellectual qualities with which the race is admittedly gifted, was due to certain defects of character, not ethically grave, but economically par- alysing. I need hardly say I refer to the lack of moral courage, initiative, independence and Jrelf-reliance — defects which, however they may be accounted for, it is the first duty of modern Ireland to recognise and overcome. I believe in the new movements in Ireland, principally because they seem to me to exert a stimu- lating influence upon our moral fibre. Holding such an opinion, I had to decide between preserving a discreet silence and speaking my full mind. The former course would, it appeared to me, be a poor example of the moral courage which I hold to be Ireland's sorest need. Moreover, while I am full of hope for the future of my country, its present condition does not, in X PREFACE. my view, admit of any delay in arriving at the truth as to the essential principles which should guide all who wish to take a part, however humble, in the work of national regeneration. I desire to state definitely that I have not written in any representative capacity except where I say so expli- citly. I write on my own responsibility, with the full knowledge that there is much in the book with which many of those with whom I work do not agree. December, 1903. CONTENTS PART I; THEORETICAL. CHAPTER I. The English Misunderstanding. page Fidelity of the Irish to the National Ideal ... ... ... i Disregard of Material Advantage in its Pursuit ... ... 2 Home Rule Movement under Gladstone ... ... ... 3 The Anti-Climax under Lord Rosebery ... ... ... 4 The Logic of Events and the Dawn of the Practical ... ... 5 The Mutual Misunderstanding of England and Ireland ... 7 The Dunraven Conference produces a Revolution in English Thought about Ireland ... ... ... ... 8 The Actual Change Examined ... ... ... ... 10 Future Misunderstanding best averted by considering Nature of Anti-English Feeling ... ... ... ... 12 Illustration from Irish-American Life ... ... ... 13 Importance of Sentiment in Ireland — English Habit of Ignoring 15 Historical Grievances Still Operative ... ... ... 16 The Commercial Restrictions — Remaining Effects of ... 17 Irish Land Tenure — Lord Dufferin on ... ... ... 20 Defects of Land Laws — Their Effect on Agriculture ... ... 21 Right Attitude towards Historic Grievances ... ... ... 25 Plea for Broader and more Philosophic View of Irish Question 27 Simple Explanations and Panaceas Deprecated ... ... 28 A Many-Sided Human Problem ... ... ... ... 29 All CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. The Irish Question in Ireland. PAGE Misunderstanding of the Irish People by the English and by Themselves ... ... ... ... ... 30 Anomalies of Irish Life ... ... ... ... ... 33 The New Movement — Position of Nationalists and Unionists in it 35 The two Irelands — Interest of Industrial Minority in welfare of Agricultural Majority ... ... ... 36 The Question of Rural Life ... ... ... ... 39 The New Agrarian Situation Examined ... ... ... 4 1 Grazing versus Tillage ... ... ... ... ... 46 Necessity for Organisation ... ... ... ... ... 47 Industries Subsidiary to Agriculture ... ... ... ... 49 Foreign Analogies ... ... ... ... ... ... 50 The Irish Peasant Home as a Factor in Rural Life ... ... 52 The Underlying Question of the Irish Character ... ... 58 Outlines of Succeeding Chapters ... ... ... ... 59 CHAPTER III. The Influence of Politics upon the Irish Mind. Legislation as a Substitute for Work ... ... ... 61 Political Shortcomings of Unionism and Nationalism Compared 62 Action of the Unionist Party Reviewed ... ... ... 63 Two Main Causes of its Lack of Success ... ... ... 64 The Contribution of Ulster ... ... ... ... 66 The Nationalist Party ... ... ... ... ... 69 Are Irishmen Good Politicians? ... ... ... ... 70 CONTENTS. Xlii PAGE The Irish and the Scotch-Irish in America ... ... ... 71 America's Interest in the Problem ... ... ... ... 74 Part Played by English Government in Producing Modern Irish Disabilities ... ... ... ... ... 75 Causes of the Growth of National Feeling ... ... ... 77 Retardation of Political Education by the One-Man System ... 78 And by Politicians of To-Day ... ... ... ... 81 Defence of Nationalist Policy on Ground of Tactics Considered ... 82 The Forces opposed to Home Rule — How Dealt with ... 86 Local Government — How it might have been utilised ... 88 After Home Rule? ... ... ... ... ... 89 Beginnings of Political Education ... ... ... ... 90 The Irish Parliamentary Party ... ... ... ... 91 CHAPTER IV. The Influence of Religion upon Secular Life in Ireland. Influences of Religion in Ireland ... ... ... ... 94 What is Toleration? ... ... ... ... ... 95 Protestantism in Irish Life ... ... ... ... ... 98 Roman Catholicism and Economics ... ... ... 101 Power of the Roman Catholic Clergy ... ... ... 105 Has it been Abused? ... ... ... ... ... 106 Church Building and Monastic Establishments ... ... 107 Clerical Education ... ... ... ... ... 109 Responsibility of the Clergy for Irish Character ... ... no The Church and Temperance ... ... ... ... u 2 The Inculcation of Chastity ... ... ... ... ... 115 The Priest in Politics ... ... ... ... ... II7 New Movement among the Roman Catholic Clergy ... ... 118 Duty and Interest of Protestantism ... ... ... ug What each Creed has to Learn from the other ... ... 121 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. A Practical View of Irish Education. page English Government and Education ... ... ... 122 The Kildare Street Society ... ... ... ... 123 Scheme of Thomas Wyse ... ... ... ... ... 125 Early Attempts at Practical Education ... ... ... 126 Recents Reports on Irish Systems ... ... ... ... 127 The Policy of the Department of Agriculture ... ... 130 The Example of Denmark ... ... ... ... .. 131 University Education for Roman Catholics ... ... ... 132 Maynooth and its Limitations ... ... ... ... 135 Trinity College ... ... ... ... ... 136 Its Lack of Influence on the Irish Mind ... ... ... 138 A Democratic University Called for ... ... ... ... 139 National and Economic in its Aims ... ... ... ... 140 Views of Roman Catholic Ecclesiastics ... ... ... 141 The Two Irelands ... ... ... ... ... 143 Lord Chesterfield on Education and Character ... ... 144 CHAPTER VI. Through Thought to Action. A Word to my Critics ... ... ... ... ... 146 The Gaelic League ... ... ... ... ... 148 Compared with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society ... 149 Objects and Constitution of the League ... ... ... 150 Filling the Gap in Irish Education ... ... ... ... 152 Patriotism and Industry ... ... ... ... ... 153 Nationality and Nationalism ... ... ... ... 154 CONTENTS. XV PAGE A Possible Danger ... ... ... ... ... 156 Extravagances in the Movement ... ... ... ... 158 The Gaelic League and the Rural Home ... ... ... 159 Meeting with Harold Frederic ... ... ... ... 161 His Pessimistic Views on the Celt ... ... ... ... 162 A New Solution of the Problem — Organised Self-Help ... 165 English and Irish Industrial Qualities ... ... ... 166 Special Value of the Associative Qualities ... ... ... 167 Conclusion of Part L ... ... ... ... ... 169 PART II. PRACTICAL. CHAPTER VII. The New Movement ; its Foundation on Self-Help. Distrust of Novel Schemes often well justified ... ... 175 The Story of the New Movement ... ... ... ... 178 Necessitated by Foreign Competition ... ... ... 179 Production and Distribution ... ... ... ... 180 Causes of Continental Superiority ... ... ... ... 181 Objects for which Combination is Desirable ... ... ... 182 How to Organise the Industrial Army ... ... ... 183 Help from England ... ... ... ... ... 184 Doubts and Difficulties ... ... ... ... ... 185 Some Favouring Conditions ... ... ... ... 186 The Beginning of the Work — Co-operative Creameries ... 187 The Social Problem ... ... ... ... ... 188 Early Efforts and Experiences ... ... ... ... 189 Foundation of the I.A.O.S. ... ... ... ... 191 Its Present Position ... ... ... ... ... 19a xvi CONTENTS. PAGE Agricultural Banks ... ... .. ... • •• 195 The Brightening of Home Life ... ... ... ... 199 Staff of the Society ... ... ... ... ... 200 Philanthropy and Business ... ... ... ... ... 204 Enquiries from Abroad ... ... ... ... ... 205 Moral and Social Effects of the New Movement ... ... 207 Unknown Leaders ... ... ... ... ... 209 CHAPTER VIII. The Recess Committee. After Six Years ... ... ... ... ... ... 210 Opportunity for State-Aid ... ... ... .. 211 Combination of Political and Industrial Leadership ... ... 212 A Letter to the Press ... ... ... ... ... 213 Mr. Justin McCarthy's Reply ... ... ... ... 216 Mr. Redmond^s Reply ... ... ... ... ... 217 Formation of the Committee ... ... ... ... 218 Investigations on the Continent ... ... ... ... 219 Recommendations of the Committee ... ... ... ... 220 Position of the Nationalist Members of the Committee ... 222 Chief Reliance on Local Effort ... ... ... ... 223 Public Opinion on the New Proposals ... ... ... 224 Adoption of the Bill to give effect to them ... ... ... 224 Mr. Gerald Balfour's Policy ... ... ... ... 225 Industrial Home Rule ... ... ... ... ... 226 CHAPTER IX. A New Departure in Irish Administration. Functions and Constitution of the New Department How it is Financed The Representative Element in its Constitution The Right to Vote Supplies ... 227 ... 231 ... 232 - 235 CONTENTS. xvii PAGE Consultative Committee on Education ... ... ... 236 The Department Linked with the Local Government System ... 238 Successful Co-operation with Local Government Bodies ... 14,0 And with Voluntary Societies ... ... ... ... 241 The New Department and the Congested Districts Board ... 243 The Reception of the Department by the Country ... ... 246 Some Typical Callers ... ... ... ... ... 247 A Wrong Impression Anticipated ... ... ... ... 256 CHAPTER X. Government with the Consent of the Governed. Summary of Previous Chapter ... ... ... ... 257 The Attitude of the People towards the Department ... ... 258 Method of Co-operation with Local Bodies ... ... ... 261 State-Aid, Direct and Indirect ... ... ... ... 262 The Department and the Large Towns ... ... ... 263 The Department's Plans for Developing Agriculture ... ... 263 The Industrial Problem and Education ... ... ... 264 Relation of the Department with Secondary Schools ... ... 264 The Difficulty of Finding Trained Teachers ... ... ... 267 How Surmounted ... ... ... ... ... 268 Difficulties of Agricultural Education ... ... ... 269 Decision to Adopt Itinerant Instruction ... ... ... 270 Double Purpose of this Instruction ... ... ... ... 271 Importance of Domestic Economy Teaching ... ... ... 272 Provision of Teachers in Domestic Economy ... ... 274 Miscellaneous Industries ... ... ... ... 275 Competition of the Factory ... ... ... ... 275 The Department's Fabian Policy Justified ... ... ... 276 Its Support by the Country ... ... ... ... 278 Improvement of Live-Stock ... ... ... ... 279 Best Method of giving Object Lessons in Agriculture ... 281 xviii CONTENTS. PAGE Sea Fisheries ... ... ... ... ... 282 Continental Tours for Irish Teachers ... ... ... 284 Cork Exhibition of 1902 ... ... ... ... ... 285 Things and Ideas ... ... ... ... ... 287 Concluding Words ... ... ... ... ... 287 EPILOGUE. The Book — Its Scope, Purpose, and Difficulties Partisan Public Opinion resents Independence The Intellectual Tyranny — Need for Liberty The Criticism requiring a Reply The Treatment of Character, Religion, and Politics The Two Sides of the Irish Character National Character as affecting Administration And Private Enterprise Politics : Interference with Business. Mr. Redmond's Warning 309 Relation between Politics and Industry ... ... ... 311 Why Clerical Influences had to be examined ... ... 314 Limits of Lay Criticism ... ... ... ... 315 A comprehensive Rejoinder from Maynooth ... ... 316 The Real Issue — Religious and Civic Duties ... ... 319 Roman Catholicism and Rural Economics ... ... 322 Clerical control of Education — Church-Building ... ... 325 Temperance and Chastity ... ... ... ... 326 Clerical Influence in Berkeley's time and To-Day ... ... 329 Unique opportunity of the Clergy in Secular life ... ... 331 Index ... ... ... ... ... ... 333 295 296 298 301 302 303 305 307 PART I. THEORETICAL, "It is hard to say where history ends, and where religion and politics begin ; for history, religion and politics grow on one stem in Ireland, an eternal trefoil." — Lady Gregory. CHAPTER L The English Misunderstanding. Whatever may be the ultimate verdict of history upuii the long struggle of the majority of the Irish people tor self-government, the picture of a small country with large aspirations giving of its best unstintingly to the world, while gaining for itself little beyond sympathy, will appeal to the imagination of future ages long after the Irish Question, as we know it, has been buried. It may then, perhaps, be seen that the aspirations came to nought because they were opposed to the manifest destiny of the race, and that it should never have been expected or desired that the Dark Rosaleen should ' reign and reign alone/ Nevertheless, the fidelity and fortitude with which the national ideal had been pursued would command admiration, even if the ideal itself were to be altogether abandoned, or if it were to be ultimately realised in a manner which showed that the methods by which its attainment had been sought were the cause of its long postponement. Whatever the future may have in store for the remnant of the Irish people at home, the continued pursuit of a separate national existence by a nation which is rapidly dis- B 2 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. appearing from the land of all its hopes, and the cherish- ing of these hopes, not only by those who stay but also by those who go, will stand as a monument to human constancy. The picture will be all the more remarkable when emphasised by a contrast which the historian will not fail to draw. Across a narrow streak of sea another people, during the same period, increased and multiplied and prospered mightily, spread their laws and institu- tions, and achieved in every portion of the globe material success which they can call their own. Yet, although Irishmen have done much to win that success for the English people to enjoy, and are to-day foremost in maintaining the great empire which their brain and muscle were ever ready to augment, Ireland makes no claim for herself in respect of the achievement. It is to her but a proof of what her sons will do for her in the coming time ; it does not bring her nearer to her heart's desire. Although the nineteenth century, with all its mar- vellous contributions to human progress, left Ireland with her hopes unfulfilled ; although its sun went down upon the British people with their greatest failure still staring them in the face, its last decade witnessed at first a change in the attitude of England towards Ireland, and afterwards a profound revolution in the thoughts of Ireland about herself. The strangest and most interest- ing feature of these developments was that in practical England the Irish Question became the great political ENGLAND AND IRISH DEMOCRACY. 3 issue, while in sentimental Ireland there set in a reaction from politics and an inclination to the practical. The twentieth century has already brought to birth the new Ireland upon whose problems I shall write. If the human interest of these problems is to be realized, if their significance is not to be as wholly misunderstood as that of every other Irish movement which has per- plexed the statesmen who have managed our affairs, they must be studied in their relation to the English and Irish events of the period in which the new Ireland was conceived. In 1885 Gladstone, appealing to an electorate with a large accession of newly enfranchised voters, transferred the struggle over the Irish Question from Ireland to Great Britain. The position taken up by the average English Home Ruler was, it will be remembered, simple and intelligible. The Irish had stated in the proper constitutional way what they wanted, and that, in the first flush of a victorious democracy, when counting heads irrespective of contents was the popular method of arriving at political truth, was assumed to be precisely what they ought to have. A long but inconclusive contest ensued. At times it looked as if the Liberal- Irish alliance might snatch a victory for their policy. But when Gladstone was forced to break with the Irish Leader, and Parnellism without Parnell became obviously impossible, the English realised that the working of representative institutions in Ireland had produced not a democracy but a dictatorship, and they 4 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. began to attach a lesser significance to the verdict of the Irish polls. Their faith in democracy was unimpaired, but, in their opinion, the Irish had not yet risen to its dignity. So most English Radicals came round to a view which they had always reprobated when ad- vanced by the English Conservatives, and political inferiority was added to the other moral and intellectual defects which made the Irish an inferior race ! The anti-climax to the Gladstone crusade was reached when Lord Rosebery in 1894 took over the premiership from the greatest English advocate of the Irish cause. The position of the new leader was very simple. In effect, he told the Irish Nationalists that the English party he was about to lead had done its best for them. They must now regard themselves as partners in the United King- dom, with the British as the predominant partner. Until the predominant partner could be brought to take the Irish view of the partnership, the relations between them must remain substantially as they were. And not only must the concession of Home Rule await the conversion of the British electorate, but before the demand could be effectively preferred, another leader must rise up among the Irish ; and he, for all Lord Rosebery knew, was at the moment being wheeled in a perambulator. This appa- rently cynical avowal of the new premier's own attitude towards Home Rule accurately stated the facts of the situation, and fairly reflected the mind of the British electorate, after Irish obstruction had given them an THE DAWN OF THE PRACTICAL. 5 opportunity of studying the bearing of the Irish Question on English politics. If the logic of events was thus making for the removal of Home Rule from the region of practical politics in England, an even more momentous change was taking place in Ireland. Whilst the Home Rule controversy was at its height in the 'eighties and early 'nineties, some Irish grievances were incidentally dealt with — not always under the best impulses or in the best way. The concentration of all the available thought and energy of Irish public men upon an appeal to the passions and prejudices of English parties had led to the further postponement of all Irish endeavour to deal rationally and practically with her own problems at home. But during the welter of contention which prevailed after the fall of Parnell, there grew up in Ireland a wholly new spirit, born of the bitter lesson which was at last being learned. The Irish still clung undaunted to their political ideal, but its pur- suit to the exclusion of all other national aims had received a wholesome check. Thought upon the problems of national progress broadened and deepened, in a manner little understood by those who knew Ireland from without, and, indeed, by many of those accounted wise among the observers from within. Was the realisation of a distinctive national existence, many began to ask themselves, to be for ever dependent upon the fortunes of a political campaign? In any scheme of a reconstructed national life to which the 6 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. Irish would give of their best, there must be distinctive- ness — that much every man who is in touch with Irish life is fully aware of — but the question of existence must not be altogether ignored. At the rate the people were leaving the sinking ship, the Irish Question would be settled in the not distant future by the disappearance of the Irish. Had we not better look around and see how other countries with more or less analogous conditions fared ? Could we not — Unionists and Nationalists alike — do something towards material progress without abandoning our ideals? Could we not learn something from a study of what our people were doing abroad? One seemed to hear the voice of Bishop Berkeley, the biting pertinence of whose Queries is ever fresh, asking from the grave in which he had been laid to rest nearly a century and a half ago ' whether it would not be more reasonable to mend our state than complain of it ; and how far this may be in our own power ? ' These questionings, though not generally heard on the platform or even in the street, were none the less working in the depths of the Irish mind, and found expression not so much in words as in deeds. Yet though the downfall of Parnell released many minds from the obsession of politics, the influence of that event was of a negative character, and it took time to produce a beneficial effect. That fruitful last decade of the nineteenth century saw the foundation of what will some day be recognised as a new philosophy of Irish progress. Certain new principles were then promul- THE MUTUAL MISUNDERSTANDING. 7 gated in Ireland, and gradually found acceptance ; and upon those principles a new movement was built. It is partly, indeed, to expound and justify some, at any rate, of the principles and to give an intelligible account of the practical achievement and future possibilities of this movement that I write these pages. For English readers, to whom this introductory chapter is chiefly addressed, I may here reiterate the opinion, which I have always held and often expressed, that there is no real conflict of interest between the two peoples and the two countries, and that the mutual mis- understanding which we may now hope to see removed is due to a wide difference of temperament and mental outlook. The English mind has never understood the Irish mind — least of all during the period of the c Union of Hearts.' It is equally true that the % Irish have largely misunderstood both the English character and their own responsibility. The result has been that their leaders, despite the brilliant capacity they have shown in presenting the unhappy case of their country to the rest of the world, have rarely presented it in the right way to the English people. There have been many occasions during the last quarter of a century when a calm, well-reasoned statement of the economic dis- advantages under which Ireland labours would, I am convinced, have successfully appealed to British public opinion. It could have been shown that the development of Ireland — the development not only of the resources of her soil but of the far greater wealth which lies in the s THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. latent capacities of her people — was demanded quite as much in the interest of one country as in that of the other. Here, indeed, is an untilled field for those to whom the Irish Question is yet a living one. If I could think that each country fully realised its own responsibility in the matter, if I could think that the long-continued misunder- standing was at an end, nothing would induce me to trouble the waters at this auspicious hour, when a better feeling towards Ireland prevails in Great Britain, and when the Irish people are fully appreciative of the obviously sincere desire of England to be generous to Ireland. But an examination of the events upon which the prevailing optimism is based will show that, un- happily, misunderstanding, though of another sort, still exists, and that Ireland is as much as ever a riddle to the English mind. Now this new optimism in the English view of Ireland seems to be based, not upon a recognition of the develop- ment of what I have ventured to dignify with the title of a new philosophy of Irish progress, but upon a belief that the spirit of moderation and conciliation displayed by so many Irishmen in connection with the Land Act is due to the fact that my incomprehensible countrymen have, under a sudden emotion, put away childish things and learned to behave like grown-up Englishmen. Throughout the press comments upon the Dunraven Conference and in public speeches both inside and out- side Parliament there has run a sense that a sort of IS IT A TRANSFORMATION SCENE? Q portent, a transformation scene, a sudden and magical alteration in the whole spirit and outlook of the Irish people, has come to pass. I feel some hesitation in asking the reader to believe that a great and lasting revolution in Irish thought has been brought about in such a moment in the life of a people as twelve short years. But a lesser number of months seemed to the English mind adequate for the accomplishment of the change. And what a change it was that they conceived! To them, less than a year ago, the Irish Question was not merely unsolved, but in its essential features appeared un- altered. After seven centuries of experimental state- craft — so varied that the English could not believe any expedient had yet to be tried — the vast majority of the Irish people regarded the Government as alien, disputed the validity of its laws, and felt no responsibility for administration, no respect for the legislature, or for those who executed its decrees. And this in a country forming an integral part of the United Kingdom, where the funda- mental basis of government is assumed to be the consent of the governed ! Nor were any hopes entertained that the cloud would quickly pass. During the Boer war the prophets of evil, in predicting the calamity which was to fall upon the British Empire, took as their text the failure of English government in Ireland. When they wanted to paint in the darkest colours the coming heritage of woe, they wrote upon the wall, ' Another Ireland in South Africa ' j and if any exception was taken to the 10 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. appropriateness of the phrase, it was certainly not on the ground that Ireland had ceased to be a warning to British statesmen. I believe, quite as strongly as the most optimistic Englishman, that there has been a great change from this state of things in Irish sentiment, and my explana- tion of that change, if less dramatic than the transforma- tion theory, affords more solid ground for optimism. This change in the sentiment of Irishmen towards England is due, not to a sudden emotion of the incompre- hensible Celt, but really to the opinion — rapidly growing for the last dozen years — that great as is the responsi- bility of England for the state of Ireland, still greater is the responsibility of Irishmen. The conviction has been more and more borne in upon the Irish mind that the most important part of the work of regenerating Ireland must necessarily be done by Irishmen in Ireland. The result has been that many Irishmen, both Unionists and Nationalists, without in any way abandoning their opposition to, or support of, the attempt to solve the political problem from without, have been trying — not without success — to solve some part of the Irish Question from within. The Report of the Recess Committee, on which I shall dwell later, was the first great fruit of this movement and the Dunraven Treaty, which paved the way for Mr. Wyndham's Land Act, was a further fruit, and not the result of an inexplicable transformation scene. The reason why I dwell on the true nature of the THE NATURE OF THE CHANGE. II undoubted change in the Irish situation is not in order to exaggerate the importance of the part played by the new movement in bringing it about, nor to detract from the importance of Parliamentary action, but because a mistaken view of the change would inevitably postpone the firm establishment of an improved mutual under- standing between the two countries, which I regard as an essential of Irish progress. I confess that my appre- hension of a new misunderstanding was aroused by the debates on the Land Bill in the House of Commons. As regards the spirit of conciliation and moderation displayed by the Irish, and the sincere desire exhibited by the British to heal the chief Irish economic sore, the speeches were, if not epoch-making, at any rate epoch-marking ; but they showed little sense of perspective or proportion in viewing the Irish Question, and little grasp or appreciation of the large social and economic problems which the Land Act will bring to the front. Temporary phenomena and legislative machinery have been endowed with an importance they do not possess, and miracles, it is supposed, are about to be worked in Ireland by processes which, whatever rich good may be in them, have never worked miracles, though they have not seldom excited very similar enthu- siasms in the economic history of other European lands. I agree, then, with most Englishmen in thinking, though for a different reason, that the passing of the Land Act marked a new era in Ireland. They regard it 12 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. as productive of, or co-incident in time with, the dawn of the practical in Ireland. I antedate that event by some dozen years, and regard the Land Act rather as marking a new era, because it removes the great obstacle which obscured the dawn of the practical for so many, and hindered it for all. Whatever may have been the expectations upon which this great measure was based, I, in common with most Irish observers, watched its progress with unfeigned delight. The vast majority regarded the hundred millions of credit and the twelve millions of ' bonus ' as a generous concession to Ireland ; and I sympathised with those who deprecated the mischievous suggestion, not infrequently- heard in English political circles, that this munificence was the ' price of peace.' On one point all were agreed : the Bill could never have become law had not Mr. Wyndham handled the Parliamentary situation with masterly tact, temper, and ability. To him is chiefly due the credit for the fact that the Land Question, in its old form at any rate, no longer blocks the way, and that the large problems which remain to be solved, and, above all, the spirit in which they will have to be approached by those v/ho wish the existing peace to be the forerunner of material and social progress, can be freely and frankly discussed. It is true, as I have said, that Ireland is becoming more and more practical, and that England is becoming more anxious than ever to do her substantial justice. But still the manner of the doing will continue to be as important THE ANTI-ENGLISH SENTIMENT. 13 as the thing which is done. Of the Irish qualities none is stronger than the craving to be understood. If the English had only known this secret we should have been the most easily governed people in the world. For it is characteristic of the conduct of our most important affairs that we care too little about the substance and too much about the shadow. It is for this reason that 1 have discussed the real nature of one phase of Irish sentiment which has been largely misunderstood, and it is for the same reason that I propose to preface my examination of the Irish Question with some reference to the cause and nature of the anti-English sentiment, for the long continuance of which I can find no other explanation than the failure of the English to see into the Irish mind. I am well acquainted with this sentiment because, in my practical work in Ireland, it has ever been the main current of the stream against which I have had to swim. Years spent in the United States had made me familiar with its full and true significance, for there it can be studied in an atmosphere not dominated by any present Irish controversies or struggles. I have found this sentiment of hatred deeply rooted in the minds of Irishmen who had themselves never known Ireland, who had no connection, other than a sentimental one, with that country, who were living quiet business lives in the United States, but who were ever ready to testify with their dollars, and genuinely believed that they only lacked opportunity to demonstrate in a more 14 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. enterprising way, their " undying hatred of the English name."* With such men I have reasoned, and sometimes not in vain, upon the injustice and unreason of their attitude. I have not attempted to controvert the main facts of Ireland's grievances, which they frequently told me they had gleaned from Froude and Lecky. I used to deprecate the unqualified application of modern standards to the policies of other days, and to protest against the injustice of punishing one set of persons for the misdoings of another set of persons, who have long since passed beyond the reach of any earthly tribunal. I have given them my reasons for believing that, even if such a course were morally admissible, the wit of man could not devise any means of inflicting a blow upon England which would not react injuriously with tenfold force upon Ireland. I have gone on to show that the sentiment itself, largely the accident of untoward circumstances, is alien to the character and temperament of the Irish people. In short, I have urged that the policy of revenge is un- Christian and unintelligent, and, that, as the Irish people are neither irreligious nor stupid, it is un-Irish. I well remember taking up this position in conversation with some very advanced Irish-Americans * My own experience confirms Mr. Lecky's view of the chief cause of this extraordinary feeling. " It is probable," he writes, " that the true source of the savage hatred of England that animates great bodies of Irishmen on either side of the Atlantic has very little real connection with the penal laws, or the rebellion, or the Union. It is far more due to the great clearances and the vast unaided emigrations that followed the famine." — Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, Vol. II., p. 177. THE FORCE OF SENTIMENT. 15 in the Far West and the reply which one of them made. " Wal," said my half -persuaded friend, " mebbe you're right. I have two sons, whom I have raised in the expectation that they will one day strike a blow for old Ireland. Mebbe they won't. I'm too old to change." I have chosen this incident from a long series of similar reminiscences of my study of Irish life, to illus- trate an attitude of mind, the historical explanation of which would seem to the practical Englishman as academic as a psychological exposition of the effect of a red rag upon a bull. The English are not much to be blamed for resenting the survival of the feeling, but it appears to me to argue a singular lack of political imagination that they should still fail to appreciate the reality, the significance, and the abiding force of a sentiment which has so far successfully resisted the influence of those governing qualities which have played a foremost part in the civilisation of the modern world. The Spectator some time ago came out bluntly with a truth which an Irishman may, I presume, quote without offence from so high an English authority : — " The one blunder of average Englishmen in considering foreign questions is that with white men they make too little allowance for sentiment, and with coloured men they make none at all."* I am afraid it must be added that ' average Englishmen ' make exactly the same blunder in under-estimating the force of sentiment when considering Irish questions, with the not unnatural consequence * Spectator, 6th September, 1902. l6 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. that the Irish regard them as foreigners, and that, as those foreigners happen to govern them, the sentiment of nationality becomes political and anti-English. There is one reason why this sentiment is not allowed to die which should always be remembered by those who wish to grasp the inner workings of the Irish mind. Briefly stated, the view prevails in Ireland that in dealing with questions affecting our material well-being, the government of our country by the English was, in the past, characterised by an unenlightened self-interest. Thoughtful Englishmen admit this charge, but they say that the past referred to is beyond living memory and should now be buried. The Irish mind replies that the life of a nation is not to be measured by the life of individuals, and that a wrong inflicted by a Government upon a community entitles those who inherit the con- sequences of the injury to claim reparation at the hands of those who inherit the government. With this attitude on the part of the Irish mind I am not only most heartily in sympathy, but I find every Englishman who under- stands the situation equally so. In the later portions of this book it will be shown that practical recognition, in no small measure, has been given by England to the righteousness of this part of the Irish case, and that if the effect thus produced has not found as full an outward expression as might have been expected, the Irish people have at any rate responded to the new treatment in a manner which must, in no distant future, bring about a better understanding. THE COMMERCIAL RESTRICTIONS. 17 The only historical causes of our present discontents to which I need now particularly refer, are the commercial restrictions and the land system of the past, which stand out from the long list of Irish grievances as those for which their victims were the least responsible. No one can be more anxious than I am that we should cease to be for ever seeking in the past excuses for our present failures. But it is essential to a correct estimation of Irish agricultural and industrial possibilities that We should notice the true bearings of these historical grievances upon existing conditions. In this connection there arises a question which is very pertinent to the present inquiry and which must therefore be considered. I have seen it argued by English economists that the industrial revolution which took place at the end of the eighteenth and commence- ment of the nineteenth century would in any case have destroyed, by force of open competition, industries which, it is admitted, were previously legislated away. They point out that the change from the order of small scattered home industries to the factory system would have suited neither the temperament nor the indus- trial habits of the Irish. They tell us that with the industrial revolution the juxtaposition of coal and iron became an all-important factor in the problem, and they recall how the north and west of England captured the industrial supremacy from the south and east. Incidentally they point out that the people of the English counties which suffered by these l8 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. economic causes braced themselves to meet the changes, and it is suggested that if the people of Ireland had shown the same resourcefulness, they, too, might have weathered the storm. And, finally, we are reminded that England, by her stupid Irish policy, punished her own supporters, and even herself, quite as much as the * mere Irish/ Much of this may be true, but this line of argument only shows that these English economists do not thoroughly understand the real grievance which the Irish people still harbour against the English for past mis- government. The commercial restraints sapped the industrial instinct of the people — an evil which was in- tensified in the case of the Catholics by the working of the penal laws. When these legislative restrictions upon industry had been removed, the Irish, not being trained in industrial habits, were unable to adapt themselves to the altered conditions produced by the Industrial ReVo- lution y as did the people in England. And as for com- merce, the restrictions, which had as little moral sanction as the penal laws, and which invested smuggling with a halo of patriotism, had prevented the development of commercial morality, without which there can be no commercial success. It is not, therefore, the destruction of specific industries, or even the sweeping of our com- merce from the seas, about which most complaint is now made. The real grievance lies in the fact that something had been taken from our industrial character which could not be remedied by the mere removal of the THE CLAIM FOR REPARATION. 1 9 restrictions. Not only had the tree been stripped, but the roots had been destroyed. If ever there was a case where President Kruger's ' moral and intellectual dam- ages ' might fairly be claimed by an injured nation, it is to be found in the industrial and commercial history of Ireland during the period of the building up of England's commercial supremacy. The English mind quite failed, until the very end of the nineteenth century, to grasp the real needs of the situation which had thus been created in Ireland The industrial revolution, as I have indicated, found the Irish people fettered by an industrial past for which they themselves were not chiefly responsible. They needed exceptional treatment of a kind which was not conceded. They were, instead, still further handicapped, towards the middle of the century, by the adoption of Free Trade, which was imposed upon them when they were not only unable to take advantage of its benefits, but were so situated as to suffer to the utmost from its inconveniences. I am convinced that the long-continued misunder- standing of the conditions and needs of this country, the withholding, for so long, of necessary concessions, was due not to heartlessness or contempt so much as to a lack of imagination, a defect for which the English cannot be blamed. They had, to use a modern term, • standardised ' their qualities, and it was impossible to get out of their minds the belief that a divergence, in another race, from their standard of character was synonymous with inferiority. This attitude is not yet 20 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. a thing of the past, but it is fast disappearing ; and thoughtful Englishmen now recognise the righteousness of the claim for reparation, and are willing liberally to apply any stimulus to our industrial life which may place us, so far as this is possible, on the level we might have occupied had we been left to work out our own economic salvation. Unfortunately, all Englishmen are not thoughtful, and hence I emphasise the fact that England is largely responsible for our industrial defects, and must not hesitate to face the financial results of that respon- sibility. When we pass from the domain of commerce, where we have seen that circumstances reduced to the minimum Ireland's participation in the industrial supre- macy of England, and come to examine the historical development of Irish agrarian life, we find a situation closely related to, and indeed, largely created by, that which we have been discussing. 1 Debarred from every other trade and industry,' wrote the late Lord Dufferin, ' the entire nation flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse as when a river, whose .current is suddenly impeded, rolls back and drowns the valley which it once fertilised.' The energies, the hopes, nay, the very existence of the race, became thus intimately bound up with agriculture. This industry, their last re- sort and sole dependence, had to be conducted by a people who in every other avocation had been unfitted for material success. And this industry, too, was crippled from without, for a system of land tenure had THE BEGINNING OF THE LAND WAR. 21 lEgg f • been imposed upon Ireland that was probably the most effective that could have been devised for the purpose of perpetuating and accentuating every disability to which other causes had given rise. The Irish land system suffered from the same ills as we all know the political institutions to have suffered from — a partial and intermittent conquest. Land hold- ing in Ireland remained largely based on the tribal system of open fields and common tillage for nearly eight hundred years after collective ownership had begun to pass away in England. The sudden imposition upon the Irish, early in the seventeenth century, of a land system which was no part of the natural development of the country, ignored, though it could not destroy, the old feeling of com- munistic ownership, and, when this vanished, it did not vanish as it did in countries where more normal condi- tions prevailed. It did not perish like a piece of outworn tissue pushed off by a new growth from within : on the contrary, it was arbitrarily cut away while yet fresh and vital with the result that where a bud should have been there was a scar. This sudden change in the system of land-holding was followed by a century of reprisals and confiscations, and what war began the law continued. The Celtic race, for the most part impoverished in mind and estate by the penal laws, became rooted to the soil, for, as we have seen, they had, on account of the repression of industries, no alternative occupation, and so became, in fact, if not in law, adscript! glebae. Upon the pro- 22 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. ductiveness of their labour the landlord depended for his revenues, but he did little to develop that productive- ness, and the system which was introduced did every- thing to lessen it* The wound produced by the original confiscation of the land was kept from healing by the way in which the tenants' improvements were somewhat similarly treated. I do not mean that they were system- atically confiscated — the Devon and Bessborough Com- missions, as well as Gladstone, bore witness to the contrary — but the right and the occasional exercise of the right to confiscate operated in the same way. In the Irish tenant's mind dispossession was nine-tenths of the law. An enlightened system of land tenure might have made prosperity and contentment the lot of the native race, and, perhaps, have rendered possible such a solution of the Irish problem as was effected between England and Scotland two centuries ago. What was chiefly required for agrarian peace was a recognition of that sense of partnership in the land — a relic of the tribal days — to which the Irish mind tenaciously adhered. But, like most English concessions, it was not granted until too late, and then granted in the wrong way. The natural result was that, when at last the re- cognition of partnership was enacted, it became a lever for a demand for complete ownership. But this was the aftermath, for in the meantime, from the seed * The title to the greater part of Irish land is based on confisca- tion. This is true of many other countries, but what was exceptional in the Irish confiscations was that the grantees for the most part did not settle on the lands themselves, drive away the dispossessed, or come to any rational working agreement with them. TENANT-RIGHT AND ENGLISH LAW. 23 sown by English blundering, Ireland — native population and English garrison alike — had reaped the awful har- vest of the Irish famine, which was followed by a long dark winter of discontent. Upon the England that sowed the wind there was visited a whirlwind of hos- tility from the Irish race scattered throughout the globe. It would be altogether outside the scope or purpose of this chapter to present a complete history of the remedial legislation applied to Irish land tenure. That history, however, illustrates so vividly the English misunderstanding, that a short survey of one phase of it may help to point the moral. The Eng- lish intellect at long last began to grasp the agrarian, though not the industrial side of the wrong that had been done to Ireland, and the English conscience was moved ; then came the era of conces- sions to which I have alluded, and for over a quarter of a century attempts, often generous, if not very dis- criminating, were made to deal with the situation. In 1870, dispossession was made very costly to the landlord. In 1881, it became impossible, except on the tenant's default, and the partnership was fully recognised, the tenant's share being made his own to sell, and being preserved for his profitable use by a right to have the rent payable to his sleeping partner, the land- lord, fixed by a judicial tribunal. These rights were the famous three F's — fixity of tenure, free sale, and fair rent — of the Magna Charta of the Irish peasant. If these concessions had only been made in time, 24 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. they would probably have led to a strengthening of the economic position and character of the Irish tenantry, which would have enabled them to take full advantage of their new status, and meet any condition which might arise ; and it is just possible that the system might have worked well, even at the eleventh hour, had it been launched on a rising market. Unhappily, it fell upon evil days. The prosperous times of Irish agri- culture, which culminated a few years before the passing of the 1 Tenants' Charter,' were followed by a serious reaction, the result of causes which, though long operative, were only then beginning to make them- selves felt, and some of which, though the fact was not then generally recognised, were destined to be of no temporary character. The agricultural depression which has continued ever since was due, as is now well known, to foreign competition, or, in other words, to the open- ing up of vast areas in the Far West to the plough and herd, and the bringing of the products of distant countries into the home markets in ever-increasing quantity, in ever fresher condition, and at an ever- decreasing cost of transportation. Great changes were taking place in the market which the Irish farmer sup- plied, and no two men could agree as to the relative in- fluence of the new factors of the problem, or as to their probable duration. Whatever may be said in disparagement of the great experiment commenced in 1881, there can be no doubt that it enormously improved the legal position of the THE BREAKDOWN OF DUAL OWNERSHIP. 25 Irish tenantry, and I, for one, regard it as a necessary contribution to the events whose logic was finally to bring about the abolition of dual ownership. But what a curious instance of the irony of fate is afforded by this genuine attempt to heal an Irish sore, what a com- mentary it is upon the English misunderstanding of the Irish mind ! Mr. Gladstone found the land system intoler- able to one party ; he made it intolerable to the other also. For half a century laissez-faire was pedantically applied to Irish agriculture, then suddenly the other ex- treme was adopted ; nothing was left alone, and political economy was sent on its famous planetary excursion. When Mr. Gladstone was attempting to settle the land question on the basis of dual ownership, the seed of a new kind of single ownership — peasant proprietorship — was sown through the influence of John Bright. The operations of the land purchase clauses in the Church Disestablishment Act of 1869, and the Land Acts of 1870 and 1 88 1, were enormously extended by the Land Purchase Acts introduced by the Conservative Party in 1885 and in 1 891, and the success which attended these Acts accentuated the defects and sealed the fate of dual ownership, which all parties recently united to destroy. In other words, Parliament has been undoing a genera- tion's legislative work upon the Irish land question. This is all I need say about that stage of the Irish agrarian situation at which we have now arrived. What I wish my readers to bear in mind is that the effect of a bad system of land tenure upon the other aspects of the 26 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. Irish Question reaches much further back than the struggles, agitations, and reforms in connection with Irish land which this generation has witnessed. The same may be said with regard to the other economic grievances. No one can be more anxious than I am to fasten the mind of my countrymen upon the practical things of to-day, and to wean their sad souls from idle regrets over the sorrows of the past. If I revive these dead issues, it is because I have learned that no man caK move the Irish mind to action unless he can see its point of view, which is largely retrospective. I cannot ignore the fact that the attitude of mind which causes the Irish people to put too much faith in legislative cures for economic ills is mainly due to the belief that their ancestors were the victims of a long series of laws by which every industry that might have made the country prosperous was jealously repressed or ruthless]y destroyed. Those who are not too much appalled by the quantity to examine into the quality of popular oratory in Ireland are familiar with the subordi- nation of present economic issues to the dreary reiteration of this old tale of woe. Personally I have always held that to foster resentment in respect of these old wrongs is as stupid as was the policy which gave them birth ; and, even if it were possible to distri- bute the blame among our ancestors, I am sure we should do ourselves much harm, and no living soul any good, in the reckoning. In my view, Anglo-Irish history is for Englishmen to remember, for Irishmen to forget. PERSONALITY AND NATIONAL TENDENCY. 27 I may now conclude my appeal to outside observers for a broader and more philosophic view of my country and my countrymen with a suggestion born of my own early mistakes, and with a word of warning which is called for by my later observation of the mistakes of others. The difficulty of the outside observer in under- standing the Irish Question is, no doubt, largely due to the fact that those in intimate touch with the actual conditions are so dominated by vehement and pas- sionate conviction that reason is not only at a discount but is fatal to the acquisition of popular influence. Of course the power of knowledge and thought, though kept in the background, is not really eliminated. But it is in the circumstances not unnatural that most of us should fall into the error of attributing to the influence of prominent individuals or organisations the events and conditions which the superficial observer regards as the creation of the hour, but which are in reality the outcome of a slow and con- tinuous process of evolution. I remember as a boy being captivated by that charming corrective to this view of historical development, Buckle's History of Civilization, which in recent years has often recurred to my mind, despite the fact that many of his theories are now somewhat discredited. Buckle, if I remember right, almost eliminates the personal factor in the life of nations. According to his theory, it would not have made much difference to modern civilisation if Napoleon had happened, as was so near being the case, to be born 28 THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. a British instead of a French subject. It would also have followed that if O'Connell had limited his activities to his professional work, or if Parnell had chanced to hate Ireland as bitterly as he hated England, we should have been, politically, very much where we are to-day. The student of Irish affairs should, of course, avoid the extreme views of historical causation ; but in the search for the truth he will, I think, be well advised to attach less significance to the influence of prominent personality than is the practice of the ordinary observer in Ireland. The warning I have to offer, I think, will be justified by a reflection upon the history of the panaceas which we have been offered, and upon our present state. To those of my British readers who honestly desire to understand the Irish Question, I would say, let them eschew the sweeping generalisations by which Irish intelligence is commonly outraged. I may pass by the explanation which rests upon the cheap attribution of racial inferiority with the simple reply that our inferior race has much of the superior blood in its veins ; yet the Irish problem is just as acute in districts where the English blood predominates as where the people are ' mere Irish.' If this view be disputed, the matter is not worth arguing about, because we cannot be born again. But there are three other common explanations of the Irish diffi- culty, any one of which taken by itself only leads away from the truth. I refer, I need hardly say, to the familiar assertions that the origin of the evil is political, that it is religious, or that it is neither one nor the A HUMAN PROBLEM. 30, other, but economic. In Irish history, no doubt, we may find, under any of these heads, cause enough for much of our present wrong-goings. But I am profoundly convinced that each of the simple explana- tions to which I have just alluded— the political, the religious, the economic — is based upon reasoning from imperfect knowledge of the facts of Irish life. The cause and cure of Irish ills are not chiefly political, broaden or narrow our conception of politics as we will ; they are not chiefly religious, whatever be the effect of Roman Catholic influence upon the practical side of the people's life ; they are not chiefly economic, be the actual poverty of the people and the potential wealth of the country what they may. The Irish Question is a many-sided deeply-rooted human pro- blem which has baffled generation after generation of a great and virile race, who complacently attribute their incapacity to master it to Irish perversity, and pass on, leaving it unsolved by Anglo-Saxons, and therefore insoluble ! CHAPTER II. The Irish Question in Ireland. Whilst attributing the long continued failure of Eng- lish rule in Ireland largely to a misunderstanding of the Irish mind, I have given England — at least modern Eng- land — credit for good intentions towards us. I now come to the case of the misunderstood, and shall from hence- forth be concerned with the immeasurably greater re- sponsibility of the Irish people themselves for their own welfare. The most characteristic, and by far the most hopeful feature of the change in the Anglo-Irish situa- tion which took place in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and upon the meaning of which I dwelt in the preceding chapter, is the growing sense amongst us that the English misunderstanding of Ireland is of far less importance, and perhaps less inexcusable, than our own misunderstanding of ourselves. When I first came into practical touch with the extra- ordinarily complex problems of Irish life, nothing im- pressed me so much as the universal belief among my countrymen that Providence had endowed them with capacities of a high order, and their country with resources of unbounded richness, but that both the capacities and the resources remained undeveloped IN A FOOL'S PARADISE. 31 owing to the stupidity — or worse — of British rule. It was asserted, and generally taken for granted, that the exiles of Erin sprang to the front in every walk of life through- out the world, in every country but their own — though 1 notice that in quite recent times endeavours have been made to cool the emigration fever by painting the for- tunes of the Irish in America in the darkest colours. To suggest that there was any use in trying at home to make the best of things as they were was indicative of a leaning towards British rule ; and to attempt to give practical effect to such a heresy was to draw a red herring across the path of true Nationalism. It is not easy to account for the long continuance of this attitude of the Irish mind towards Irish problems, which seems unworthy of the native intelligence of the people. The truth probably is that while we have not allowed our intellectual gifts to decay, they have been of little use to us because we have neglected the second part of the old Scholastic rule of life, and have failed to develop the moral qualities in which we are deficient. Hence we have developed our critical facul- ties, not, unhappily, along constructive lines. We have been throughout alive to the muddling of our affairs by the English, and have accurately gauged the incapacity of our governors to appreciate our needs and possibilities. But we recognised their incapacity more readily than our own deficiencies, and we estimated the failure of the English far more justly than we apportioned the respon- sibility between our rulers and ourselves. The sense of 32 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. the duty and dignity of labour has been lost in the con- templation of circumstances over which it was assumed that we have no control. It is a peculiarity of destructive criticism that, unlike charity, it generally begins and ends abroad ; and those who cultivate the gentle art are seldom given to morbid introspection. Our prodigious ignorance about ourselves has not been blissful. Mistaking self-assertion for self- knowledge, we have presented the pathetic spectacle of a people casting the blame for their shortcomings on another people, yet bearing the consequences themselves. The national habit of living in the past seems to give us a present without achievement, a future without hope. The conclusion was long ago forced upon me that what- ever may have been true of the past, the chief responsi- bility for the remoulding of our national life rests now with ourselves, and that in the last analysis the problem of Irish ineffectiveness at home is in the main a problem of character — and of Irish character. I am quite aware that such a diagnosis of our mind disease — from which Ireland is, in my belief, slowly but surely recovering — will not pass unchallenged, but I would ask any reader who dissents from this view to take a glance at the picture of our national life as it might unfold itself to an unprejudiced but sympathetic outsider who came to Ireland, not on a political tour but with a sincere desire to get at the truth of the Irish Question, and to inquire into the conditions about whicb all the controversy continues to rage. SOME IRISH ANOMALIES* 33 This hypothetical traveller would discover that our resources are but half developed, and yet hundreds of thousands of our workers have gone, and are still going, to produce wealth where it is less urgently needed. The remnants of the race who still cling to the old country are not only numerically weak, but in many other ways they show the physical and moral effects of the drain which emigration has made on the youth, strength, and energy of the community. Our four and a quarter millions of people, mainly agricultural, have, speaking generally, a very low standard of comfort which they commonly attri- bute to some five or six millions sterling paid as agricul- tural rent, and three millions of alleged over-taxation. They face the situation bravely — and, incidentally, swell the over-taxation — with the help of the thirteen or fourteen millions worth of alcoholic stimulants which they annually consume. The still larger consumption in Great Britain may seem to lend at least a respectability to this apparent over-indulgence, but it looks odd. The people are endowed with intellectual capacities of a high order. They have literary gifts and an artistic sense. Yet, with a few brilliant exceptions, they contribute nothing to invention and create nothing in literature or in art. One would say that there must be some- thing wrong with the education of the country; and most people declare that it is too literary, though the Census returns show that there are still large numbers who escape the tyranny of books. The people have an extra- ordinary belief in political remedies for economic ills : D 34 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. and their political leaders, who are not as a rule them- selves actively engaged in business life, tell the people, pointing to ruined mills and unused water power, that the country once had diversified industries, and that if they were allowed to apply their panacea, Ireland would quickly rebuild her industrial life. If our hypothetical traveller were to ask whether there are no other leaders in the country besides the eloquent gentlemen who proclaim her helplessness, he would be told that among the professional classes, the landlords, and the captains of industry, are to be found as competent popular advisers as are possessed by any other country of similar economic standing. But these men take only a dilettante part in politics, and no value is set on industrial, commercial or professional success in the choice of public men. Can it be that to the Irish mind politics are, what Bulwer Lytton declared love to be, " the business of the idle, and the idleness of the busy " ? These, though only a few of the strange ironies of Irish life, are so paradoxical and so anomalous that they are not unnaturally attributed to the intrusion of an alien and unfriendly power ; and this furnishes the reason why everything which goes wrong is used to nourish the anti- English sentiment. At the same time they give emphasis to the growing doubt as to the wisdom of those to whom the Irish Question presents itself only as a single and simple issue — namely, whether the laws which are to put all these things right shall be made at St Stephen's by the collective wisdom of the United Kingdom, aided REMEDIES OTHER THAN POLITICAL. 35 by the voice of Ireland— which is adequately represented —or whether these laws shall be made by Irishmen alone in a Parliament in College Green. It is not, I need hardly say, the purpose of this book to deal with that issue; but it is proper that I should make some reference to the attitude towards Home Rule of both the Nationalists and the Unionists who have joined in social and economic movements which have succeeded in some degree in directing the energies of our countrymen to the development of the resources of our country. Many of my fellow-workers were Nationalists who, while stoutly adhering to the prime necessity for the political remedy, took the broad view, that any movement which is closely related to the main currents of the people's life and subservient to their urgent economic necessities, and which gives free play to the intellectual qualities, while strengthening the moral or industrial character, cannot be held to conflict with any national programme of work, without raising a strong presumption that there is something wrong with the programme. Their belief was that if our movement suc- ceeded, the well-known constitutional changes which were advocated by the political party to which they belonged would be more effectively demanded by Ireland, and more readily conceded by England. Unionists who worked with me were similarly affected by the changing mental outlook of the country. They, too, had to break loose from the traditions of an Irish party, foe they felt that the exclusively political opposi- 30 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. tion to Home Rule was not less demoralising than the exclusively political pursuit of Home Rule. Just as the Nationalists who joined the movement believed that all progress must make for self-government, so my Unionist fellow-workers believed it would ultimately strengthen the Union. Each view was thoroughly sound from the standpoint of those who held it, and could be regarded with respect by those who did not. We were all con- vinced that the way to achieve what is best for Ireland was to develop what is best in Irishmen. And it was the conviction that this can be done only by Irishmen in Ireland that brought together those whose thought and work supplies whatever there may be of interest in this book. It is a commonplace that there are two Irelands, dif- fering in race, in creed, in political aspiration, and in what I regard as a more potent factor than all the others put together — economic interest and industrial pursuit. In the mutual misunderstanding of these two Irelands, still more than in the misunderstanding of Ireland by England, is to be found the chief cause of the still unsettled state of the Irish Question. I shall not seek to apportion the blame between the two sections of the population ; but as the mists clear away and we can begin to construct a united and contented Ireland, it is not only legitimate, but helpful in the extreme, to assign to the two sections of our wealth-producers their respective parts in repairing the fortunes of their country. In such a discussion of future developments chief pro- THE NORTH AND THE IRISH QUESTION. 37 minence must necessarily be given to the problems affecting the life of the majority of the people, who depend directly on the land, and conduct the industry which produces by far the greater portion of the wealth of the country. It is, of course, essential to the prosperity of the whole community that the North should pursue and further develop its own industrial and commercial life. That section of the community has also, no doubt, economic and educational problems to face, but these are much the same problems as those of industrial com- munities in other parts of the United Kingdom ; and if they do not receive, vitally important as is their solution to the welfare of Ireland, any large share of attention in this book, it is because they are no part of what is ordinarily understood by the Irish Question.* Nevertheless, the interest of the manufacturing popu- lation of Ulster in the welfare of the Roman Catholic agricultural majority is not merely that of an onlooker, nor even that of the other parts of the United Kingdom, but something more. It is obvious that the internal trade of the country depends mainly upon the demand of the rural population for the output of the manu- facturing towns, and that this demand must depend * I speak from personal knowledge when I say that the leaders of Irish industry and commerce are fully alive to the practical consideration which they have now to devote to the new conditions by which they are surrounded. They recognise that the intensified foreign competi- tion which harasses them is due chiefly to German education and American enterprise. They are deep in the consideration of the form which technical education should take to meet their peculiar needs ; and I am confident that Ulster will make a sound and useful contribu- tion to the solution of the commercial and industrial problems which confront the manufacturers of the United Kingdom. 38 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. on the volume of agricultural production. I think the importance of developing the home market has not been sufficiently appreciated, even by Belfast. The best contribution the Ulster Protestant population can make to the solution of this question is to do what they can to bring about cordial co-operation between the two great sections of the wealth-producers of Ireland. They should, I would suggest, learn to take a broader and more patriotic view of the problems of the Roman Catholic and agricultural majority, upon the true nature of which I hope to be able to throw some new light. My purpose will be doubly served if I have, to some extent, brought home to the minds of my Northern friends that there is in Ireland an unsettled question in which they are largely concerned, a rightly unsatisfied people by helping whom they can best help themselves. This unsettled question of the well-being of the agri- cultural classes is now assuming a social and economic importance and interest of the most intense char- acter, not only for Ireland North and South, but for almost the whole civilised world. It is becoming in- creasingly difficult in many parts of the world to keep the people on the land, owing to the enormously improved industrial opportunities and enhanced social and intellectual advantages of urban life. The problem can be better examined in Ireland than elsewhere, for with us it can, to a large extent, be isolated, since we have little highly developed town life. Our rural exodus takes our people, for the most part, not into Irish THE PROBLEM OF RURAL LIFE. 39 or even into British towns, but into those of the United States. What is migration in other countries is emigra- tion with us, and the mind of the country, brooding over the dreary statistics of this perennial drain, naturally and longingly turns to schemes for the rehabilitation of rural life — the only life it knows. We cannot exercise much direct influence upon the desire to emigrate beyond spreading knowledge as to the real conditions of life in America, for which home life in Ireland is often ignorantly bartered* We cannot isolate the phenomenon of emigration and find a cure for it apart from the rest of the Irish Question. We must recognise that emigration is but the chief symptom of a low national vitality, and that the first result of our efforts to stay the tide may increase the outflow. We cannot fit the people to stay without fitting them to go. Before we can keep the people at home we have got to construct a national life with, in the first place, a secure basis of physical comfort and decency. This life must have a character, a dignity, an outlook of its own. Although Ireland is to be a peasant State it must not be imagined that a comfortable Bceotia will ever develop into a real Hibernia Paeata. The standard of living may in some * That such a knowledge is still required, though the need is becom- ing less urgent, is shown by an incident which illustrates the pathos of the Irish exodus. A poor woman once asked me to help her son to emigrate to America, and I agreed to pay his passage. Early in the negotiations, finding that she was somewhat vague as to her boy's prospects, I asked her whether he wanted to go to North or South America. This detail she seemed to consider immaterial. "Ach, glory be to God, I lave that to yer honner. Why wouldn't I?" Had I shipped him to Feru she would have been quite satisfied, Why wouldn't she ? 40 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. ways be lower than the English standard : in some ways it may be higher. But even if all the forces of states- manship, philanthropy and patriotism combined can con- struct a contented rural Ireland for the people, it can be maintained only by the people. It will have to accord with the national sentiment and be distinctively Irish. It is this national aspiration, and the remarkable promise of the movements making for its fruition, which give to the work of Irish social and economic reform the fascination which those who do not know the Ireland of to-day cannot understand. This work of reform must, of course, be primarily economic, but economic remedies cannot be applied to Irish ills without the spiritual aids which are required to move to action the latent forces of Irish reason and emotion. The Irish Question is, then, in that aspect which is now uppermost in the mind of our people, the problem of a national existence, chiefly an agricultural existence, in Ireland. I have already traced the successive steps in Irish land legislation by which what was no less than an agrarian revolution was enacted. I have shown how the policy initiated by Mr. Gladstone, falling upon the evil days of foreign competition, left the agricultural classes still unsatisfied. It failed to effect a settlement, because it did not provide any adequate incentive for the adoption of those improvements in technical and com- mercial methods which were urgently demanded in order to meet the altered conditions. The Land Act of 1903, THE NEW AGRARIAN SITUATION. 4 1 with its liberal financial provisions, will, it is hoped, bring about in no distant future the final abolition of dual ownership. The Irish Land Question in its well known form will cease to trouble ; but, as I have already hinted, we shall have to deal with a new agrarian situation, fraught with great difficulties, upon the recognition of which will depend the realisation of its equally great opportunities. The real interest of other parts of the United King- dom in the prosperity of agricultural Ireland is no greater now than it was before ; but a grant of twelve millions sterling, and an advance of one hundred millions on the security of Irish land will keep that interest very much alive for many years to come in the British mind. And unless Irish public opinion comes to be better informed than it is at present upon the character of the problem, the agrarian settlement will be again postponed by renewed agitation, and the object of these generous con- cessions will be defeated by the forces in Ireland which are ever ready to restore the status quo ante fiacetn. The main feature of the situation which we have to consider is the too general restriction of the Irish farm to little more than the dimensions of a labourer's allot- ment. Even if no political difficulties had to be reckoned with, such a re- distribution of land as would satisfy the economic requirements cannot be hoped for at once — if ever. We are not dealing with an area newly opened to settlement, such as an abandoned Indian Reservation in the United States capable of division like 42 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. a chessboard into suitable squares for a limited number of selected applicants ; but with an existing population agriculturally depressed by an untoward history, and with an area subdivided upon no principle known to the agriculturist or the economist. Let us consider for a moment the broad facts of the case. Roughly speaking, the surface of the island is 20,000,000 acres, of which 5,000,000 are described in the official returns as 'barren mountain, bog and waste.' This leaves us with some 15,000,000 acres available for tillage and grazing, which area is now divided into some 500,000 holdings, excluding holdings not exceeding one acre. Thus we have an average of thirty acres in extent for the Irish agricultural holding. But, unhappily, the returns show that some 200,000 of these holdings are from one to fifteen acres in extent. Nor do the mere figures show the case at its worst For it happens that the small holdings in Ireland, unlike those on the Con- tinent, are generally on the poorest land, and the majority of them cannot come within any of the definitions of an 'economic holding.'* The majority of these 200,000 holdings, the homes of * What amount of land of a given quality, and in a given situation as regards access to market, constitutes an economic peasant holding it is impossible to say. It differs widely in different communities and at different stages in the economic progress of the same community. It must obviously depend upon the expenditure necessary for maintain- ing the occupier's standard of comfort, and also upon his efficiency as a producer, and not only upon the technical and commercial efficiency of the individual farmer, but also upon the stage of organisation which the business of farming in the particular locality has reached. Subject to these considerations, the best agricultural authorities I have con- sulted suggest 30 acres for the area of the Irish economic holding} taking good land with bad. DIFFICULTIES OF MIGRATION. 43 nearly a million persons, do not, as at present consti- tuted, provide the physical basis of a decent standard of living. Some still say that the only hope for the poor bog-holders of the West is emigration. This, indeed, at one period was necessary and ought to have been aided and controlled by the State, but it is now no longer a statesman's remedy. In Ireland, as in Ithaca, men form the real wealth of the nation. Others, again, look to the development of fishing and subsidiary industries, and to migratory labour, much of which might be better em- ployed in Ireland than in Great Britain, to supply the subsistence which the land cannot provide. I am, how- ever, convinced that in many parts of Ireland there is no solution except by the migration of a portion of the occupiers, and the utilisation of the vacated holdings in order to enable the peasants who remain to prosper— much as a forest is thinned to promote the growth of trees. This operation is surrounded by many difficulties. In some cases there will be large grazing tracts, in close proximity to the congested area, which might be utilised for the re-settlement ; but where this is not so, and the occupiers of the vacated holdings have to migrate a con- siderable distance, the problem becomes far more diffi- cult. I need not dwell upon the administrative difficulties of the operation, which are not light. I may assume, also, that sufficient land can be obtained elsewhere in Ireland. I do not myself attach much weight to the unwillingness of the people to leave their old holdings 44 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. for better ones, or any weight at all to the alleged objec- tion of the clergy to allow their parishioners to go to another parish. More serious is the opposition of those who live in the vicinity of the unoccupied land about to be distributed, and who feel that they have the first claim upon the State in any scheme for its redistribution with the help of public credit. Mr. Parnell promoted a com- pany with the sole object of practically demonstrating how this problem could be solved. A large capital was raised, and a large estate purchased ; but the company did not effect the migration of a single family. Still these are minor considerations compared with the larger one, to which I must briefly refer. The Land Act of 1903 was framed with a view to the acquisition of grass lands to be parcelled out in economic holdings, but there is this inherent difficulty in making the policy succeed. These farms cannot be given to those best qualified to work them profitably. On the contrary it was the clear and wise intention of Parliament that the Congested Districts Board and the newly appointed Estates Commissioners should work the Act for the relief of congestion, for the abolition, to borrow Mr. Wyndham's phrase, of ' agricultural slums,' and for the establishment of sound agricultu- ral communities. A small sum was provided towards the expenses incidental to uprooting and transplanting peasant families ; but it is obvious that land cannot be handed over as a gift from the State to the families which migrate. They will become debtors for the value THE LAND, THE SYSTEM, AND THE MAN. 45 of the land itself and for such expenditure upon houses, buildings, fences, and other improvements ae might have to be effected before the land could be profitably occupied. Speaking- generally they will have no money or agricultural implements, and their live stock will in many cases be pledged to the local shopkeeper who has always financed them. It will be necessary for the future welfare of the country to give them land which admits of cultivation upon the ordinary principles of modern agriculture ; but Connemara peasants merely transplanted to agricultural holdings, and given no further help, would be more likely to impoverish the land than to enrich themselves. Without working capital, and bringing with them neither the skill nor the habits necessary for the successful conduct of their industry under the new conditions, it will be no easy task to place them in a position to discharge their obliga- tions to the State. The economic holding is but a part of an economic existence. It is but one of many factors in a great complex problem which it will take time and patience, honest and earnest work, to solve. Above all must the authority of those entrusted with the difficult task of impartially dealing with rival claims for the land be upheld. They must be protected in resisting the pressure of those who are opposed to the entire policy through ignorance of the evil which Parliament has set itself to remedy, and they must also be protected from the more powerful influence of a public opinion which has yet to learn that no ' magic of property ' will avail to estab- 46 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. lish an agricultural Utopia by means of the economic holding managed, under an uneconomic system, by the uneconomic man. The only way to deal effectively with this problem is to devote to the system and the man some of the thought and care hitherto monopolised by the struggle for the land. Clearly a radical change in the system of cultiva- tion is required. For a small peasant proprietary, tillage rather than grazing is plainly indicated ; but unhappily throughout the United Kingdom the tendency is all in the opposite direction. The land steadily passes from under the plough and is given over to stock raising \ and the revival of mixed farming, so essential to the estab- lishment of a prosperous community of small farmers, becomes increasingly difficult. The reason generally given for the widespread resort to the lotus-eating occupation of opening and shutting gates, in preference to tilling the soil, is that in the exist- ing state of agricultural organisation, and while urban life is ever drawing away labour from the fields, the substitu- tion of pasturage for tillage is the readiest way to meet the ruinous competition of Eastern Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and Australasia Yet upon the economic merits of this process, as it affects Ireland, I have heard the most diverse opinions stated with equal conviction by men thoroughly well informed as to the conditions. One of the largest graziers in Ireland recently gave me a picture of what he considered to be an ideal economic state for the country. If two more Belfasts could be GRAZING VERSUS TILLAGE. 47 established on the east coast, and the rest of the country divided into five hundred acre farms, grazing being adopted wherever permanent grass would grow, the limits of Irish productivity would be reached On the other hand, Dr. O'Donnell, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Raphoe, who may be taken as an authoritative expo- nent of the trend of popular thought in the country, not long ago advocated ploughing the grazing lands of Leinster right up to the slopes of Tara* Moreover, many arguments have been advanced to show that the decline of tillage, whatever be its cause, involves an enormous waste of national resources. But of practical suggestion, making for a remedy, there is very little forthcoming. Meanwhile a new Department, of which I shall have a good deal to say later on, is gradually spreading a system of agricultural education designed to counteract the influence of causes which have led to the cultivation of the soil being virtually a lost art. No less important than the system of cultivation to be adopted is the organisation of the peasantry for com- bined action both in the production and in the marketing * Yet another view which seems to uproot most agrarian ideas in Ireland has been put forward by Dr. O'Gara in The Green Republic (Fisher Unwin, 1902). His main conclusion is that the present disastrous state of our rural economy is due to our treating land as an object of property and not of industry. He advocates the cultivation of the land by syndicates holding farms of 20,000 acres and tilling them by the lavish application of modern machinery as the only way to meet American competition. His book is able and suggestive, but it is, perhaps, a work of supererogation to discuss a theory the whole moral of which is the expediency of absolutely divorcing the functions of the proprietor and the manager of land at a time when the consensus of opinion in Ireland is in favour of uniting them, and in view of the fact that under the new Land Act the future of the country seems inevit- ably to lie for a long time in the hands of a peasant proprietary. 48 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. of produce. In a future chapter agricultural co-operation will be justified on its economic merits ; but here I may point out that the Irish peasantry belong to the class of farmers to whom this agency of agricultural progress is absolutely indispensable. And this for two main reasons. In the first place, the size of the vast majority of peasant holdings in Ireland has not been determined with any regard to the system of cultivation indicated by their soil and situation. With the existing agricultural population to be provided for and with the area available for redistribution strictly limited, this disadvantage cannot be wholly removed. But it can be considerably modified by organisation, which, among other advan- tages, can bring the machinery, methods and credit of the large farmer within the reach of combinations of small farmers, and can render possible great reductions in the cost of carrying and marketing produce by effect- ing regular consignments in bulk. Secondly, it will often happen that the family in occupation has not, what I may call, a one-man power available for working the land. In these cases the industrially weak families can, under a developed system of agricultural co-operation, delegate several branches of their business to a strong association, with great advantage both to the association and to themselves. There is another almost equally important con- sideration which renders urgent the organisation of our rural communities. From Russia, with its half-com- munistic Mir to France with its modern village commune, PEASANT INDUSTRIES. 49 there is no country in Europe except the United Kingdom where the peasant land-holders have not some form of corporate existence. In Ireland the transition from landlordism to a peasant proprietary not only does not create any corporate existence among the occupying peasantry but rather deprives them of the slight social coherence which they formerly possessed as tenants of the same landlord. A community which has always suffered from the lack of a middle class would certainly not be socially improved by the withdrawal of the upper class. Such an organization of the peasantry, primarily for business purposes, as I have indicated would go a long way towards obviating what might prove to be a serious social defect in the latest land policy. I sincerely hope that the landlords who sell their tenanted lands will elect to remain in the country, and to offer the assistance in establishing the new agrarian order which they are best qualified by their education and local knowledge to afford. If they do so, as the natural leaders of intellec- tual, social, and economic movements, they will occupy a far more enviable position than any they have yet enjoyed. One more factor in the problem of peasant life calls for a passing notice. The necessity for the development of industries subsidiary to agriculture is generally admitted, and most people have a fair know- ledge of the wide and varied range of peasant industries in all European countries where a prosperous peasantry exists. These are of two kinds, those which deal at home E 50 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. with the produce of the farm and garden, such as milk, vegetables and fruit, and those which mostly fall into the category of artistic handicrafts. The rural industries should, as far as possible, be those which allow of inter- mittent attention, and the handicrafts to be promoted must be those which will give scope to the native genius and aesthetic sense. Unless we can supply the demand of the peasant-industry market with products of merit and distinctiveness, we shall fail in competition with the hereditary skill and old-established trade of peasant proprietors who have solved this part of the problem generations ago. Before the conditions I have laid down for the estab- lishment of a prosperous peasant proprietary can be fulfilled in Ireland, many questions with which I shall have to deal must be decided, and much new work, mainly educational, will have to be done. Meanwhile, instances can be cited of peasant proprietaries in foreign countries which maintain a high standard of living upon small, sometimes diminutive, and highly-rented holdings. It is true that in some of these countries rural life is balanced by a highly industrial town life, as, for instance, in the case of Belgium : or is itself highly industrialised by the existence of rural industries, as in the case of Switzerland ; while in one notable instance — that of Wiirttemberg — both these conditions prevail. But we need not wait for too ambitious developments. In Denmark, a country with scant resources other than agricultural, and with a climate not too favourable to THE IRISH HOME. 51 that industry, a community of small peasant proprietors has managed to win from a poor soil the material, and from themselves the spiritual, basis of an almost ideal peasant life. These foreign analogies, though encouraging, are cer- tainly not conclusive, and do not relieve us from the necessity of thinking out our own rural problem and working out our own agricultural salvation. This will be clear when we examine the evolution of any satisfac- tory peasant economy abroad. The order of develop- ment generally proceeds along well recognised lines. First comes an intelligent system of national education, followed as circumstances require by technical education. Then, as a result of the one and as a complement of the other, organisation superadds economic strength upon technical skill. But in Ireland we cannot wait until the character and capacities of a rising generation have been moulded by those educational influences to which the peasant communities, whose lot we envy, owe their happy state. We must, in a sense, set to work at the other end, go straight to the people themselves, and make a direct appeal to them to do things which, in other countries, are done spontaneously, under the in- fluence of a system of education truly national, in its regard for the history and aspirations of the people and for the natural resources of their country. I do not, of course, suggest that any other agency of social and economic progress can be more than a very partial substitute for education ; but only that, in the 52 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. peculiar circumstances of Ireland, we must have recourse to supplementary influences which will produce a more immediate effect upon the practical life of the present generation while its young people are being educationally developed. My meaning will be clear to anyone who is familiar with the Irish peasant home as it exists to-day, and considers the extent to which it must be improved if it is to play the part in our national economy which the home plays in the countries to which I have just referred. I may go a little fully into this subject, because its con- sideration will bring us into touch with causes which have profoundly affected the fortunes of the race, both at home and abroad. And the apparent digression will not take us far from the particular issues we are dis- cussing. To a sympathetic insight there is a singular and significant void in the Irish conception of a home — I mean the lack of appreciation for the comforts of a home. In the Irishman's attachment to his home, as in the larger national aspirations, the ideal has but a meagre material basis, its appeal being essentially to the social and intellectual instincts. It is not the physical environment and comfort of an orderly home that en- chain and attract minds still dominated, more or less unconsciously, by the associations and common interests of the primitive clan, but rather the sense of human neighbourhood and kinship which the individual finds in the community. Indeed the Irish peasant scarcely seems to have a home in the sense in which an English- THE EMIGRATION ILLUSION. 53 man understands the word. If he love the place of his habitation he does not endeavour to improve or to adorn it, or indeed to make it in any sense a reflection of his own mind and taste. He treats life as if he were a mere sojourner upon earth whose true home is somewhere else, an attitude of mind which should probably be attri- buted to historical causes. What the Irishman is really attached to in Ireland is not a home but a social order. The pleasant amenities, the courtesies, the leisureliness, the associations of religion, and the familiar faces of the neighbours, whose ways and minds are like his and very unlike those of any other people ; these are the things to which he clings in Ireland and which he remembers in exile. And the rawness and eagerness of America, the lust of the eye and the pride of life that meet him, though with no welcoming aspect, at every turn, the sense of being harshly appraised by new standards of the nature of which he has but the dimmest conception, his helplessness in the fierce current of indus- trial life into which he is plunged, the climatic extremes of heat and cold, the early hours and few holidays : all these experiences act as a rude shock upon the ill-balanced refinement of the Irish immigrant. Not seldom, he or she loses heart and hope and returns to Ireland mentally and physically a wreck, a sad disillusionment to those who had been comforted in the agony of the leave- taking by the assurance that to emigrate was to succeed. The peculiar Irish conception of a home has probably a 54 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. good deal to do with the history of the Irish in the United States. It is well known that whatever measure of success the Irish emigrant has there achieved is pre- eminently in the American city, and not where, according to all the usual commonplaces about the Irish race, they ought to have succeeded, in American rural life. There they were afforded, and there they missed, the greatest opportunity which ever fell to the lot of a people agricul- turally inclined. During the days of the great emigra- tions from Ireland, a veritable Promised Land, rich beyond the dreams of agricultural avarice, was gradu- ally opened up between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, which the Irish had only to occupy in order to possess. Making all allowances for the depressing influences which had been brought to bear upon the spirit of enterprise, and for their im- poverished condition, I attribute the fact that the Irish were not prominent in that great westward stream, which I watched for many years, to two main causes. The tene- ment house, with all its domestic abominations, provided the social order which they brought with them from Ire- land, and the lack of which on the western prairie no im- mediate or prospective physical comfort could make good ; and, secondly, they were not among the home- seekers because they were not home-builders. In no re- spect has educational policy in Ireland been so uncon- sciously cruel as in its failure to implant in the Irish mind that appreciation of the material aspects of the home which the people so badly need both in Ireland and in HISTORICAL HINDRANCES TO HOME LIFE. 55 America. If the Irishman abroad became 1 a rootless colonist of alien earth,' lot of the Irishman in Ireland has been not less melancholy. Sadness there is, indeed, in the story of ' the sea-divided Gael/ but, to me, it is incomparably less pathetic than their homelessness at home. There are, as I have said, historic reasons for this one- sided view of home to which my personal observation and experience has induced me to devote so much space. The Irish people have never had the opportunity of developing that strong and salutary individualism which, amongst other things, imperiously demands, as a condition of its growth, a home that shall be a man's castle as well as his abiding place. In this, as in so much else, a healthy evolution was constantly thwarted by the clash of two peoples and two civilisa- tions. The Irish had hardly emerged from the nomad pastoral stage, when the first of that series of invasions, which had all the ferocity, without the finality of con- quest, made settled life impossible over the greater part of the island. An old chronicle throws some vivid light upon the way in which the idea of home life was affected by the Anglo-Irish conflict as late as the days of the Tudors. " Con O'Neal," we are told, " was so right Irish that he cursed all his posterity in case they either learnt English, sowed wheat or built them houses ; lest the first should breed conversation, the second commerce, and with the last they should speed as the crow that buildeth her nest to be beaten out by the 56 THF IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. hawk."* The penal laws, again, acted as a disin- legrant of the home and the family ; and, finally, the paralysing effect of the abuses of a system of land tenure, under which evidences of thrift and comfort might at any time become determining factors in the calculation of rent, completed a series of causes which, in unison or isolation, were calculated to destroy at its source the growth of a wholesome domesticity. There is now, happily, no longer any hindrance to the growth of the home idea, and it is essential to the success of the new agrarian policy that it should grow quickly. Without the inducement of a decent, orderly and comfortable domicile, with its modest appurtenances of the garden, the dairy and the poultry yard, none of the conditions which I have laid down as necessary to the prosperity of a peasant proprietary will be fulfilled. The strong and enterprising among our workers will not be satisfied with the standard of comfort of their parents, which was in keeping with the poverty and distress of other days ; and even if, unaffected by the influences of modern life, they remained at home content with exist- ing domestic conditions, that very contentment would preclude the development of the agricultural and the industrial efficiency necessary for the economic salvation of Irish peasant life. The importance of developing in the Irish peasant such a conception of a home as will stir him to sustained effort can easily be seen. The fortitude and industry * Speed's Chronicle, quoted in Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1611-14, p. xix. HOME INFLUENCES AND INDUSTRY. 57 which the western Irish peasant displays when he is faced with the struggle for existence are well known But when this primal instinct has been satisfied he has no adequate inducement to further effort. The migratory labourer, having earned enough in England or Scotland to keep the wolf from the door, will not devote to his own holding either the industiy or the intelligence which he has lavishly applied to the farm and garden of his British employer. He has no sufficient ambi- tion, either for himself or for his family, to make him abandon a life with all the hardships of the nomad- pastoral stage, but without its romance or its flocks and herds, and to build a home. The same diffi- culty stands in the way of developing the subsidiary industries of the kind which I have indicated above, and for which the peasantry along our Atlantic coast seem to display a remarkable aptitude. A skilful teacher can enable a class of Connaught girls to produce lace for which there is an assured demand, at a remunerative price, in the Paris market. But when the trained hands have provided for immediate domestic necessities, not only is the actual limit of output reached, but here again apathy supervenes and seems to preclude the establish- ment of a self-supporting industry. There are two other strong reasons for my insistence upon the importance of an all-round improvement in the Irish home. Upon the necessity for organisation I have sufficiently enlarged. In those districts where organisa- tion is most needed the farmers cannot be organised be- 58 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. cause the business man of the family is absent one-half of the year, and indisposed to exert himself for the other half. The remedy is to be found in such a home life as will be a corrective to the migratory labour habit, which now often continues when the necessity for it has ceased. Furthermore, the home can be made either an auxiliary or an alternative to the public-house. This is by far the most important aspect of domestic economy, but I merely mention it here as the subject of temperance will be treated in another connection. I have now passed in rapid review the Irishman's land, his system of cultivation, the organisation of his main industry, the development of his subsidiary industries, and his home. This list, which embodies a programme of urgently needed work, all, I believe, capable of achieve- ment, does not, of course, exhaust the factors in the problem of rural life in Ireland. Indeed, it leaves out of account the largest factor of all. What we now need is a combination of voluntary effort and wise administra- tion, which will alone enable us to reap where legislation has sown. All public effort in Ireland is so dominated by public opinion that, until some fresh intellectual and moral support, based upon a broad treatment of the problems to be solved, is forthcoming, progress must be slow. And, unhappily, the attitude of public opinion in Ireland is not, at present, very favourable to social and economic reform. Now, public opinion in any country is, I presume, broadly speaking, a reflection of the national character. A PROBLEM OF^CHARACTER. 59 It is this consideration which brings it about that the following pages will have to deal with moral, quite as much as with material issues, indeed, as I come into closer touch with the efforts which are now being made to raise the material condition of the people, the more convinced I become, much as my practical training has made me resist the conviction, that the Irish Question is, in its most difficult and most important aspects, the prob- lem of the Irish mind, and that the solution of this problem is to be found in the strengthening of Irish character. With this enunciation of the main proposition of my book.. I may now indicate the order in which I shall endeavour to establish its truth, and set out the practical conclusions to which it led the writer and his Irish fellow- workers. I propose, first, to review the chief living influences to which the Irish mind and character are still subjected. These influences fall naturally into three distinct categories and will be treated in the three succeeding chapters. The first will show the effect upon the Irish mind of its obsession by politics. The next will deal with the influence of religious systems upon the secular life of the people. I shall then show how educa- tion, which should not only have been the most potent of all the three influences in bringing our national life into line with the progress of the age, but should also have modified the operation of the other two causes, has aggravated rather than cured the malady. I shall submit in another chapter, which will conclude the first, 60 THE IRISH QUESTION IN IRELAND. the critical part of my book, certain new principles of treatment which are indicated by the diagnosis ; and I would ask the reader, before he rejects the opinions which are there expressed, to persevere through the narrative contained in the second part of the book. There he will find in process of solution some of the problems which I have indicated, and some of the princi- ples for which a theoretical approval has been asked, in practical operation, and already, in some instances, pas- sing out of the experimental stage. The story of the Self- help Movement will strike the note of Ireland's economic hopes. The origin, inquiries, deliberations, and unani- mous conclusions of the Recess Committee will be explained ; and the concession of their demand by the establishment of a ' Department of Agriculture and other rural industries and Technical Instruction in Ireland ' will be described. The last two chapters treat of the peculiar constitution of this latest graft upon Irish government and give some account of the methods adopted during its first three years in order to give practical effect to the principles underlying its creation. I hope that by such a treatment of the Irish Question as I have outlined, and especially by the story of small beginnings with which this book concludes, I may be able to prove that, in the neglected sphere of presently active causes, which it is well within our power to control, there are ample opportunities for building up a future commen- surate with the potentialities of the Irish people. CHAPTER III The Influence of Politics upon the Irish Mind. Among the humours of the Home Rule struggle, the story was current in England that a peasant in Con- nemara ceased planting his potatoes when the news of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill in 1886 seemed to bring the millennium into the region of practical politics. Those who used the story were not slow to suggest that, had the Bill become law, the failure of spontaneous generation in the Connemara potato patch might have been typical of much analogous disillusion- ment elsewhere. Even to those who are familiar with our history, the faith of the Irish people in the potentialities of government, which this little tale illus- trates by caricature, will give cause for reflection of another and more serious kind. The moral to be drawn by Irish politicians is that we in Ireland have yet to free ourselves from one of the worst legacies of past misgovernment, the belief that any legislation or any legislature can provide an escape from the physical and mental toil imposed through our first parents upon all nations for all time. 1 The more business in politics, and the less politics in business, the better for both/ is a maxim which I brought 62 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. home from the Far West and ventured to advocate publicly some years ago. Being still of the same mind, I regret that I am compelled to introduce a whole chapter of politics into this book, which is a study of Irish affairs mainly from a social and economic point of view. But to ignore, either in the diagnosis or in the treatment of the 1 mind diseased,' the political obsession of our national life would be about as wise as to discuss and plan a Polar expedition without taking account of the climatic conditions to be encountered. In such an examination of Irish politics as thus be- comes necessary I shall have to devote the greater part of my criticism to the influence of the Nationalist party upon the Irish mind. But it will be seen that this course is not taken with a view to making party capital for my own side. As I read Irish history, neither party need expect very much credit for more than good intentions. Whichever proves to be right in its main contention, each will have to bear its share of the responsibility for the long continuance of the barren controversy. Each has neglected to concern itself with the settlement of vitally important questions the consideration of which need not have been postponed because the constitutional question still remained in dispute. Therefore, though I seem to throw upon the Nationalist party the chief blame for our present political backwardness, and, so far as politics affect other spheres of national activity, for our industrial depression, candour compels me to admit that Irish Unionism has failed to recognise its obligation—- an IRISH UNIONISE. 63 obligation recognised by the Unionist party in Great Britain — to supplement opposition to Home Rule with a positive and progressive policy which could have been expected to commend itself to the majority of the Irish people — the Irish of the Irish Question. To my own party in Ireland then, I would first direct the reader's attention. I have already referred to the deplorable effects produced upon national life by the exclusion of representatives of the landlord and the indus- trial classes from positions of leadership and trust over four-fifths of the country. I cannot conceive of a pros- perous Ireland in which the influence of these leaders is restricted within its present bounds. It has been so restricted because the Irish Unionist party has failed to produce a policy which could attract, at any rate, moderate men from the other side, and we have, there- fore, to consider why we have so failed. Until this is done, we shall continue to share the blame for the miserable state of our political life which, at the end of the nineteenth century, appeared to have made but little advance from the time when Bishop Berkeley asked ' Whether our parties are not a burlesque upon politics.' The Irish Unionist party is supposed to unite all who, like the author, are opposed to the plunge into what is called Home Rule. But its propagandist activities in Ireland are confined to preaching the doctrine of the status quo, and preaching it only to its own side. From the beginning the party has been inti- mately connected with the landlord class ; yet even upon INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. the land question it has thrown but few gleams of the constructive thought which that question so urgently demanded, and which it might have been expected to apply to it. Now and again an individual tries to broaden the basis of Irish Unionism and to bring him- self into touch with the life of the people. But the nearer he gets to the people the farther he gets from the Irish Unionist leaders. The lot of such an individual is not a happy one : he is regarded as a mere intruder who does not know the rules of the game, and he is treated by the leading players on both sides like a dog in a tennis court. Two main causes appear to me to account for the failure of the Irish Unionist party to make itself an effective force in Irish national life. The great mis- understanding to which I have attributed the unhappy state of Anglo-Irish relations kept the country in a condi- tion of turmoil which enabled the Unionist party to de- clare itself the party of law and order. Adopting Lord Salisbury's famous prescription, 1 twenty years of resolute government,' they made it what its author would have been the last man to consider it, a sufficient justifi- cation for a purely negative and repressive policy. Such an attitude was open to somewhat obvious objections. No one will dispute the proposition that the government of Ireland, or of any other country, should be resolute, but twenty years of resolute govern- ment, in the narrow sense in which it came to be inter- preted, needed for its success, what cannot be had under ' POLICY OR POLICE '? 65 party government, twenty years of consistency. It may be better to be feared than to be loved, but Machiavelli would have been the first to admit that his principle did not apply where the Government which sought to establish fear had to reckon with an Opposition which was making capital out of love. Moreover, the sugges- tion that the Irish Question is not a matter of policy but of police, while by no means without influential adherents, is altogether vicious. You cannot physically intimidate Irishmen, and the last thing you want to do is morally to intimidate a people whose greatest need at the moment is moral courage. The second cause which determined the character of Irish Unionism was the linking of the agrarian with the political question ; the one being, in effect, a practical, the other a sentimental issue. The same thing happened in the Nationalist party ; but on their side it was intentional and led to an immense accession of strength, while on the Unionist side it made for weakness. If the influence of Irish Unionists was to be even maintained, it was of vital importance that the interest of a class should not be allowed to dominate the policy of the party. But the organisation which ought to have rallied every force that Ireland could contribute to the cause of imperial unity came to be too closely identified with the landlord class. That class is admittedly essential to the construction of any real national life. But there is another element equally essential, to which the political leaders of Irish F 66 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. Unionism have not given the prominence which is its due. The Irish Question has been so success- fully narrowed down to two simple policies, one positive but vague, the other negative but definite, that to suggest that there are three distinct forces — three distinct interests — to be taken into account seems like confusing the issue. It is a fact, nevertheless, that a very important element on the Unionist side, the indus- trial element, has been practically left out of the calcula- tion by both sides. Yet the only expression of real political thought which I have observed in Ireland, since I have been in touch with Irish life, has emanated from the Ulster Liberal-Unionist Association, whose weighty pronouncements, published from time to time, are worthy of deep consideration by all interested in the welfare of Ireland. It will be remembered that when the Home Rule con- troversy was at its height, the chief strength of the Irish opposition to Mr. Gladstone's policy, and the consideration which most weighed with the British electorate, lay in the business objection of the industrial population of Ulster ; though on the platform religious and political arguments were more often heard. The intensely practical nature of the objection which came from the commercial and industrial classes of the North who opposed Home Rule was never properly recognised in Ireland. It was, and is still unanswered. Briefly stated, the position taken up by their spokesmen was as follows : — 1 We have come,' they said in effect, 1 into Ireland, and not the richest portion ULSTER AND HOME RULE. 6 7 of the island, and have gradually built up an industry and commerce with which we are able to hold our own in competition with the most progressive nations in the world. Our success has been achieved under a system and a polity in which we believe. Its non- interference with the business of the people gave play to that self-reliance with which we strove to emulate the industrial qualities of the people of Great Britain. It is now proposed to place the manufactures and com- merce of the country at the mercy of a majority which will have no real concern in the interests vitally affected, and who have no knowledge of the science of govern- ment. The mere shadow of these changes has so depressed the stocks which represent the accumulations of our past enterprise and labour that we are already commercially poorer than we were.'* My sole criticism of those leaders of commerce and industry in Belfast, who, whenever they turn their atten- tion from their various pre-occupations, import into Irish politics the valuable qualities which they display in the conduct of their private affairs, is that they do not go further and take the necessary steps to give practical effect to their views outside the ranks of their immediate associates and followers. Had the industrial section made its voice heard in the councils of the Irish Unionist * This view of the case was powerfully stated by the deputation from the Belfast Chamber of Commerce which waited on Mr. Gladstone in the spring of 1893. They pointed out inter alia that the members of the deputation were poorer by thousands of pounds owing to the fall in Irish stocks consequent upon the introduction of the Home Rule Bill in that year. 68 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. party, the Government which that party supports might have had less advice and assistance in the maintenance of law and order, but it would have had invaluable aid in its constructive policy. For the lack of the wise guidance which our captains of industry should have provided, Irish Unionism has, by too close adherence to the tradi- tions of the landlord section, been the creed of a social caste rather than a policy in Ireland. The result has been injurious alike for the landlords, the leaders of industry, and the people. The policy of the Unionist party in Ireland has been to uphold the Union by force rather than by a reconciliation of the people to it. It has held aloof from the masses, who, bereft of the guidance of their natural leaders, have clung the more closely to the chiefs of the Nationalist party ; and these in their turn have not, as I shall show presently, risen to their responsibility, but have retarded rather than advanced the march of democracy in Ireland. If there is to be any future for Unionism in Ireland, there must be a com- bination of the best thought of the country aristocracy and that of the captains of industry. Then, and not till then, shall we Unionists as a party exercise a healthful and stimulating influence on the thought and action of the people. I cannot, therefore, escape from the conclusion that whilst the Irish section of the party to which I belong is, in my opinion, right on the main political question, its influence is now for the most part negative. Hence I direct attention mainly to the Home Rule party, as the NATIONALISM AND PROGRESS. 69 more forceful element in Irish political life ; and if it receives the more criticism it is because it is more closely in touch with the people, and because any reform in its principles or methods would more generally and more rapidly prove beneficial to the country than would any change in Unionist policy. In examining the policy of the Nationalist party my chief concern will be to arrive at a correct estimate of the effect which is produced upon the thought and action of the Irish people by the methods employed for the attainment of Home Rule. I propose to show that these methods have been in the past, and must, so long as they are employed, continue to be injurious to the political and industrial character of the people, and consequently a barrier to progress. I know that most of the Nationalist leaders justify the employ- ment of these methods on the ground that, in their opinion, the constitutional reforms they advocate are a condition precedent to industrial progress. I believe, on the contrary, and I shall give my reasons for believing, that their tactics have been not only a hindrance to industrial progress, but destructive even to the ulterior purpose they were intended to fulfil. 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 70 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. 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 inde- pendent 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 Irish genius is to be seen in its highest political manifestation, it must be studied, we are told, in the United States, the THE SCOTCH-IRISH IN AMERICA. 71 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 achieve- ments 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, how- ever, 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 tradi- tions, or intermarry with them, and both here and in America disclaiming the appellation of Irish.* 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 organ- isation, which, if it had been guided by anything ap- proaching to political thought, would have placed them in a far higher position in American public life than that * The term * Scotch-Irish 1 does not mean an amalgam of Scotch and Irish, but a race of Scottish immigrants who settled in north- east Ireland. I may point out that in these criticisms of Irish- American politics I refer, of course, mainly to the Irish-born immigrants and not to the Irish, Scotch-Irish or other, who are American-born. Nobody can have a higher appreciation than I of the great part played by the American-Irish once they have assimilated the full spirit of American institutions. 72 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. 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 clan- nishness, the Irish in America readily lend them- selves to the system of political groups, a system which i the ' boss ' for his own ends seeks to perpetuate. The I 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 organisa- tion 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 ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE IRISH IN THE STATES. 73 ceasing to be mere political agents and developing a citizenship which would furnish its due quota of states- men 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 result- ing 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 1 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 74 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. 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 under- standing 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 adop- tion. 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 under- standing 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 defi- POLITICS AND HISTORY. 75 ciencies 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 super- vened upon military tactics. It consisted of attempts made by alternate threats and bribes to induce the chiefs to transform the clan organisation by the accept- ance of English institutions. But any systematic endeavours to complete the transformation were soon INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. rendered abortive by being coupled with huge confisca- tions 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 con- ception 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.* The modern political idea of Irish nationality at length asserted itself as the result of three main causes. The bond of a common grievance against the English foe was created by the gradual abandonment of the policy of setting clan against clan in favour of impartial * Poems of Egan O'Rahilly. Edited, with translation, by the Rev. P. S. Dinneeti, M.A., for the Irish Texts Society, p. n. O'Rahilly's charge against Cromwell is that he "gave plenty to the man with the flail," but beggared the great lords, p. 167. CONCEPTION OF A UNITED IRELAND. 77 confiscation of land from friendly as well as from hostile chiefs. Secondly, when the English had destroyed the natural leaders, the clan chiefs, and attempted to prosely- tise their adherents, the political leadership largely passed to the Roman Catholic Church, which very naturally defended the religion common to the members of all the clans, by trying to unite them against the English enemy. Nationality, in this sense, of course applied only to Celtic Roman Catholic Ireland. The first real idea of a United Ireland arose out of the third cause, the religious grievances of the Protestant dis- senters and the commercial grievances of the Protestant manufacturers and artisans in the eighteenth century, who suffered under a common disability with the Roman Catholics, and many of whom came in the end to make common cause with them. But even long after this conception had become firmly established, the local representative institutions corresponding to those which formed the political training of the English in law and administration either did not exist in Ireland or were altogether in the hands of a small aristocracy, mostly of non-Irish origin, and wholly non- Catholic O'Connell's great work in freeing Roman Catholic Ireland from the domination of the Protestant oligarchy showed the people the power of combination, but his methods can hardly be said to have fostered political thought. The efforts in this direction of men like Gavan Duffy, Davis, and Lucas were neutralised by the Famine, the after effects of which also did much to 78 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. thwart Butt's attempts to develop serious public opinion amongst a people whose political education had been so long delayed. The prospect of any early fruition of such efforts vanished with the revolutionary agrarian propaganda, and independent thinking — so necessary in the modern democratic state — never replaced the old leader-following habit which continued until the climax was reached under Parnell. The political backwardness of the Irish people re- vealed itself characteristically when, in 1884, the English and Irish democracies were simultaneous!}' endowed with a greatly extended franchise. In theory this concession should have developed political thought in the people and should have enhanced their sense of political respon- sibility. In England no doubt this theory was proved by the event to be based on fact ; but in Ireland it was otherwise. Parnell was at the zenith of his power. The Irish had the man, what mattered the principles? The new suffrages simply became the figures upon the cheques handed over to the Chief by each constituency, with the request that he would fill in the name of the payee. On one or two occasions a constituency did protest against the payee, but all that was required to settle the matter was a personal visit from the Chief. Generally speaking, the electorate were quite docile, and instances were not wanting of men discovering that they had found favour with electors to whom their faces and even their names were previously unknown. No doubt, the one-man system had a tactical THE ONE-MAN SYSTEM. 79 value, of which the English themselves were ever ready to make use. " If all Ireland cannot rule this man, then let this man rule all Ireland," said Henry VII. of the Earl of Kildare; and the echo of these words was heard when the Kilmainham Treaty was negotiated with the last man who wore the mantle of the chief. But whatever may be said for the one-man system as a means of political organisation, it lacked every element of political education. It left the people weaker, if possible, and less capable than it found them ; and assuredly it was no fit training for Home Rule. While Parnell's genius was in the ascendant, all was well — outwardly. When a tragic and painful disclosure brought about a crisis in his fate, it will hardly be contended by the most devoted admirer of the Irish people that the situation was met with even moderate ability and foresight. But the logic of events began to take effect. The decade of dissension which followed the fall of Parnell will, perhaps, some day be recognised as a most fruitful epoch in modern Irish history. The re-action from the one-man system set in as soon as the one man had passed away. The independence which Parnell's former lieutenants began to assert when the laurels faded upon the brow of the uncrowned King communicated itself to some extent to the rank and file. The mere weighing f the merits of several possible successors led to some wholesome questioning as to the merits of the policies, such as they were, which they respectively represented. The critical spirit which was now called forth, did not, SO INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. at first, go very fax ; but it was at least constructive and marked a distinct advance towards real political thought I believe the day will come, and come soon, when Nationalist leaders themselves will recognise that while bemoaning faction and dissension and preaching the cause of 1 unity ' they often mistook the wheat for the tares. They will, I feel sure, come to realise that the passing of the dictatorship, which to outward appear- ances left the people as " sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky," in fact turned the thoughts of Ireland in some measure away from England into her own bosom, and gave birth there to the idea of a national life to which the Irish people of all classes, creeds, and politics could contribute of their best. I sometimes wonder whether the leaders of the Na- tionalist party really understand the full effect of their tactics upon the political character of the Irish people, and whether their vision is not as much obscured by a too near, as is the vision of the Unionist leaders by a too distant, view of the people's life. Everyone who seeks to provide practical opportunities for Irish intellect to express itself worthily in active life — and this, I take it, is part of what the Nationalist leaders wash to achieve — meets with the same difficulty. The lack of initiative and shrinking from responsibility, the moral timidity in glaring contrast with the physical courage — which has its worst manifestation in the intense dread of public opinion, especially when the unknown terrors of edito- rial power lurk behind an unfavourable mention ' on the WEAKNESS OF MORAL FIBRE. Bi paper,' are, no doubt, qualities inherited from a primitive social state in which the individual was nothing and the community everything. These defects were intensified in past generations by British statecraft, which seemed unable to appreciate or use the higher instincts of the race ; they remain to-day a prominent factor in the great human problem known as the Irish Question — a factor to which, in my belief, may be attnbuted the greatest of its difficulties. It is quite clear that education should have been the remedy for the defects of character upon which I am forced to dwell so much ; and I cannot absolve any body of Irishmen, possessed of actual or potential influence, of failure to recognise this truth. But here I am dealing only with the political leaders, and trying to bring home to them the responsibility which their power imposes upon them, not only for the political development but also for the industrial progress of their followers. They ought to have known that the weakness of character which renders the task of political leadership in Ireland comparatively easy is in reality the quicksand of Irish life, and that neither self-government nor any other institution can be enduringly built upon it. The leaders of the Nationalist party are, of course, entitled to hold that, in existing political conditions, any non-political movement towards national advance- ment, which in its nature cannot be linked, as the land question was linked, to the Home Rule movement con- stitutes an unwarrantable sacrifice of ends to means. And G 82 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS I PON THE IRISH MIND. so holding, they are further entitled to subject any pro posal to elevate popular thought, or to direct popular activities, to a strict censorship as to its remote as well as to its immediate effect upon the electorate. I know, too, that it is held by some thinking Nationalists who take no active part in politics that the politicians are justified on tactical grounds in this exclusive pursuit of their political aims, and in the methods by which they pursue them. They consider the present system of govern- ment too radically wrong to mend, and they can undoubtedly point to agrarian legislation as evidence of che effectiveness of the means they employ to gain then- end This view of things has sunk very deep into the Irish mind. The policy of 1 giving trouble ' to the Government is looked upon as the one road to reform and is believed in so fervently that, except for religion, which sometimes conflicts with it, there is scarcely any capacity left for belief in anything else. I am far from denying that the past offers much justification for the belief that nothing can be gained by Ireland from England except through violent agitation. Until recently, I admit, Ireland's opportunity had to wait for England's difficulty. But, as practised in the present day, I believe this doctrine to be mischievous and false. For one thing, there is a new England to deal with. The England which, certainly not in deference to violent agitation, established the Congested Districts Board, gave Local Government to Ireland, and accepted the recom- AGITATION AS A POLIC\. §3 mendations of the Recess Committee for far-reaching administrative changes, as well as those of the Land Conference which involved great financial concessions, is not the England of fifty years ago, still less the England of the eighteenth century. Moreover, in riveting the mind of the country on what is to be obtained from England, this doctrine of ' giving trouble,' the whole gospel of the agitator, has blinded the Irish people to the many things which Ireland can do for herself. Whatever may be said of what is called 1 agitation ' in Ireland as an engine for extorting legislation from the Imperial Parliament, 't is unquestionably bad for the much greater end of building up Irish character and developing Irish industry and commerce. ' Agitation,' as Thomas Davis said, ' is one means of redress, but it leads to much disorganisation great unhappiness, wounds upon the soul of a country which sometimes are worse than the thinning of a people by war/* If Irish politicians had at all realised this truth, it is difficult to believe that the popular movement of the last quarter of a century would not have been conducted in a manner far less injurious to the soul of * Prose Writings of Thomas Dent, p. 2S4 1 The writers of The Nation,* wrote Davis in another place, 1 ha\e never concealed the defects or flattered the good qualities of their countrymen. They have told them in good faith that they wanted many an attribute of a free people, and that the true -way to command happiness and liberty was by learning the arts and practising the culture that fitted men 'for their enjoyment' (p. 176). The thing mat especially extinguished Davis among Nationalist politicians was the essentially constructive mind which he brought to bear on Irish questions, as illustrated in the passage I have italicised. It is, I am afraid, the part of his legacy of thought which has been least regarded by bis admirers. 84 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. Ireland and equally or more effective for legislative reform as well as all other material interests. Now, modern Nationalism in Ireland is open to damaging criticism not only from my Unionist point of \iew, which was also, in many respects, the view of so strong a Nationalist as Thomas Davis ; it is also open to grave objection from the point of view of the effective- ness of the tactics employed for the attainment of its end — the winning of Home Rule- Before examining the effect of these tactics I may point out that this conception of Nationalist policy, even if justifiable from a practical point of view, does not relieve the leaders from the obligation of giving some assurance that they are ready with a consistent scheme of re-construction, and are prepared to build when the ground has been cleared In this connection I might make a good deal of Unionist capital, and some points in support of my condemnation of the political absorption of the Irish mind, out of the total failure of the Nationalist party to solve certain all-important constitu- tional and financial problems which months of Parlia- mentary debate in 1 893 tended rather to obscure than to elucidate. I am, however, willing for argument's sake to postpone all such questions, vital as they are, to the time when they can be practically dealt with. I am ready to assume :hat the wit of man can devise a settle- ment of many points which seemed insoluble in Mr. Gladstone's day. But even granting all this, I think it can easily be shown that the means which the political NATIONALIST TACTICS. 35 thought available on the Nationalist side has evolved for the attainment of their end. and which ex hypothcsi are only to be justified on tactical grounds, are the least likely to succeed ;. and that, consequently; they should be abandoned in favour of a constructive policy which, to say the least would not be less effective towards advancing the Home Rule cause, if that cause be sound, and wluch would at the same time help the advancement of Ireland in other than political directions. Tactics form but a part of generalship, and half the success of generalship lies in making a correct estimate of the opposing forces. This is as true of political as it is of military operations. Now, of what do the forces opposed to Home Rule consist? The Unionists, it may be admitted, are numerically but a small minority of the population of Ireland — probably not more than one- fourth. But what do they represent? First, there are the landed gentry. Let us again make a concession for the sake of argument and accept the view that this class so wantonly kept itself aloof from the life of the majority of the people that the Nationalists could not be expected to count them among the elements of a Home Rule Ireland I note, in passing, with extreme gratification that at the recent Land Conference it was declared by the tenants' representatives that it was desirable, in the interests of Ireland, that the present owners of land should not be expatriated, and that inducements should be afforded to selling owners to continue to reside in the country. 86 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. But I may ignore this as I wish here to recall attention to that other element, which was, as I have already said, the real force which turned the British demo- cracy against Home Rule — I mean the commercial and industrial community in Belfast and other hives of industry in the north-east corner of the country, and in scattered localities elsewhere. I have already admitted that the political importance of the indus- trial element was not appreciated in Irish Unionist circles. No less remarkable is the way in which it has been ignored by the Nationalists. The question which the Nationalists had to answer in 1886 and 1893, and which they have to answer to-day, is this : — In the Ireland of their conception is the Unionist part of Ulster to be coerced or persuaded to come under the new regime? To those who adopt the former alternative my reply is simply that, if England is to do the coercion, the idea is politically absurd. If we were left to fight it out among ourselves, it is physically absurd. The task of the Empire in South Africa was light compared with that which the Nationalists would have on hands. I am aware that, at the time when we were all talking at concert pitch on the Irish Question, a good deal was said about dying in the last ditch by men who at the threat of any real trouble would be found more discreetly perched upon the first fence. But those who know the temper and fighting qualities of the working-men opponents of Home Rule in the North are under no illusion as to the account they would give of DISLOYALTY AND BOYCOTTING. 87 themselves if called upon to defend the cause of Protest- antism, liberty, and imperial unity as they understand it. Let us, however, dismiss this alternative and give Nationalists credit for the desire to persuade the industrial North to come in by showing it that it will be to its advantage to join cordially in the building up of a united Ireland under a separate legislature. The difficulties in the way of producing this conviction are very obvious. The North has prospered under the Act of Union — why should it be ready to enter upon a new ' variety of untried being ' ? What that state of being will be like, it naturally gauges from the forces which are working for Home Rule at present. Looking at these simply from the industrial standpoint and leaving out of account all the powerful elements of religious and race prejudice, the man of the North sees two salient facts which have dominated all the political activity of the Nationalist campaign. One is a voluble and aggressive disloyalty, not merely to 1 England ' and to the present system of government, but to the Crown which repre- sents the unity of the three kingdoms, and the other is the introduction of politics into business in the very virulent and destructive form known as boycotting. Now, hostility to the Crown, if it means anything, means a struggle for separation as soon as Home Rule has given to the Irish people the power to organise and arm. And (still keeping to the sternly practical point of view) that would, for the time being at least, spell absolute ruin to the industrial North. The practice of 88 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. boycotting-, again, is the very antithesis of industry — it creates an atmosphere in which industry and enterprise simply cannot live. The North has seen this practice condoned as a desperate remedy for a desperate ill, but it has seen it continued long after the ill had passed away, used as a weapon by one Nationalist section against another, and revived when anything like a really oppressive or arbitrary eviction had become impossible. There seems to have been in Nationalist circles, since the time of O'Connell, but little appreciation of the deadly character of this social curse ; and the prospect of a Government which would tolerate it naturally nils the mind of the Northern commercial man with alarm and aversion. Again, the democratisation of local government which gave the Nationalist leaders a unique opportunity of showing the value, has but served to demonstrate the ineffectiveness, of their political tactics. North of Ireland opinion was deeply interested in this reform, and appreciated its far-reaching importance. Elsewhere, I think it will be safe to say, people generally were indif- ferent to it until it came, and the leaders seemed to see in it only a weapon to be used for political purposes. To the great vista of useful and patriotic work opened out by the Act of 1898, to the impression that a proper use of that Act might make on Northern opinion, they were blind. It is true that the Councils when left to them- selves did admirably, and fully justified the trust reposed in them. But at the inauguration of local government AFTER HONfE RULE. 89 it was naturally not the work of the Councils but the attitude of the party leaders which appeared to stamp the reception of the Act by the Irish people. It is true, of course, that many thoughtful men among the Nationalist party repudiate the idea that the methods of to-day would be continued in a self-governed Ireland. I fail to see any reason why they should not. Under any system of limited Home Rule questions would arise which would afford much the same sort of justification for the employment of such methods, and they could hardly be worse for the welfare of the country then than they are now. There is abundant need and abundant work in the present day for thoughtful and far-seeing men in a party constitutionally so strong as that of the Irish Nationalists. If those among them who possess, or at any rate can make effective use of qualities of con- structive statesmanship are as few as the history of recent years would lead us to suppose, what assurance can Ulster Unionists feel that such men would spring up spontaneously in an Ireland under Home Rule? I admit, indeed, that a considerable measure of such assurance might be derived from the attitude of the leaders of the party at and since the Land Conference. But this adoption of statesmanlike methods which cannot be too widely understood or too warmly commended is a matter of very recent history ; and though we may hope that the success attending it will help materially in the political education of the Irish people, that will not, by itself, undo the effect of a quarter of a century of (JO INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE 1K1SH INflND. political agitation governed by ideas the very reverse of those which are now happily beginning to find favour. I have thought it necessary to examine at some length the defence on the ground of tactics which is often made for Nationalist politics, because it is the only defence ever made by those apologists who admit the disturbing influence upon our economic and social life of Nationalist methods. A broader and saner view of political tactics than prevailed ten years ago is now possible, for circum- stances are becoming friendly and helpful to the develop- ment of political thought. Though the United Irish League apparently restored ' unity ' to the ranks of the Nationalists, the country is, I believe, getting restless under the political bondage, and is seething with a wholesome discontent. In this very matter of political education, the stir of corporate life, the sense of corporate responsibility which in every parish of Ireland are now being fostered by the reformed system of local govern- ment, must make their influence felt in wider spheres. Even now I believe that the field is ready for the work of those who would bid the old leader-following habit, the product partly of the dead clan system, partly of dying national animosities, depart as a thing that has had its day, and who would endeavour to train up a race of free, self-reliant, and independent citizens in a free state. In this work the very men whose mistaken con- ception of a united Ireland I have criticised will, I doubt not, take a leading part. In many respects, THE POLITICAL WILDERNESS. and these not the least important, no one could desire a better instrument for the achievement of great reforms than the Irish party. They are far beyond any similar group of English members in rhetorical skill and quickness of intelligence and decision, qualities which no doubt belong to the mechanism rather than the soul of politics, but which the practical worker in public life will not despise. But even when tried by a higher standard the Irish members need not fear the judgment of history. They have often, in my opinion, misconceived the true interests of their country, but they have been faithful to those interests as they understood them, and have proved themselves notably superior to sordid personal aims. These gifts and virtues are not common, but still rarer is it to see such gifts and virtues cursed with the doom of futility. The influence of the Irish political leaders has neither advanced the nation's march through the wilderness nor taught the people how they are to dispense with manna from above when they reach the Promised Land. With all their brilliancy, they have thrown but little helpful light on any Irish problem. In this want of poli- tical and economic foresight Irish Nationalist politicians, with some exceptions whom it would be invidious to name, have fallen lamentably short of what might be ex- pected of Irish intellect. For the eight years during which I represented an Irish constituency I always felt that an Irish night in the House of Commons was one of the strangest and most pathetic of spectacles. There were 0,2 INFLUENCE OF POLITICS UPON THE IRISH MIND. the veterans of the Irish party hardened by a hun- dred fights, ranging from Venezuela to the Soudan in search of battlefields, making allies of every kind of foreign potentate, from President Cleveland to the Mahdi, from Mr. Kruger to the Aklioom of Swat, but looking with suspicion on even- symptom of an inde- pendent national movement in Ireland ; masters of the language of hate and scorn, yet mocked by inevitable and eternal failure ; winners of victories that turn to dust and ashes ; devoted to their country, yet, from ignorance of the real source of its malady, ever widening the gaping wound through which its life-blood flows. While I recall these scenes, there rises before my mind the picture vividly drawn by Miss Lawless of their prototypes, the 1 Wild Geese.' who carried their swords into foreign service after the final defeat of the Stuarts : — War-battered dees are we, Fighters in every clime. Fillers of trench and of grave. Mockers, bernocked by Tirr.e; War-dogs, hungry and grey, Gnawing a naked bone, Fighting in every clime Every- cause but our cwr.* Irishmen have been long in realising that the days of the ' Wild Geese ' are over, and that there are battles for Ireland to be fought and won in Ireland — battles in which England is not the enemy she was in the days of * With the Wild Geese. Poems by the Hon. Emily l awless. I have never read a better portrayal of the historic Irish sentiment than is set forth in this little volume. By the way, there is a preface by Mr. Stopford Brooke, which is singularly interesting and informing. AT THE CROSS ROADS. 93 Fontenoy, but a friend and helper. But there will be little gain in replacing the traditional conception of England as the inexorable foe by the more modern con- ception, which threatened to become traditional in its turn, of England as the source of all prosperity and her favour as the condition of all progress in Ireland. In the recent Land Conference I recognise something more valuable even than the financial and legislative results which flowed from it, for it showed that the conception of reliance upon Irishmen in Ireland, not under some future and problematical conditions, but here and now, for the solution of Irish questions, is gaining ground among us. If this conception once takes firm hold, as I think it is beginning to do, of the Nationalist party in Ireland, much of the criticism of this chapter will lose its meaning. The mere substitution of a positive Irish policy for a negative anti-English policy will elevate the whole range of Nationalist political activity in and out of Ireland. And I am certain that if the ultimate goal of Nationalist politics be desirable, and continue to be desired, it will not be rendered more difficult, but on the contrary very much easier of attainment if those who seek it take possession of the great field of work which, without waiting for any concessions from Westminster, is offered by the Ireland of to-day. CHAPTER IV. The Influence of Religion upon Secular Life in Ireland. In the preceding chapter I attempted to estimate the influence of our political leaders as a potential and as an actual force. I come now to the second great influence upon the thought and action of the Irish people, the influence of religion, especially the power exercised by the priests and by the unrivalled organisation of the Roman Catholic Church. I do not share the pessimism which sees in this potent influence nothing but the shackles of mediaeval ism restraining its adherents from falling into line with the progress of the age. I shall, indeed, have to admit much of what is charged against the clerical leaders of popular thought in Ireland, but I shall be able to show, I hope, that these leaders are largely the product of a situation which they themselves did not create, and that not only are they as susceptible as are the political leaders to the influences of progressive movements, but that they can be more readily induced to take part in their promotion. In no other country in the world, probably, is religion so dominant an element in the daily life of the people as in Ireland, and certainly nowhere else has the minister of religion so wide and TOLERATION. 95 undisputed an authority. It is obvious, therefore, that, however foreign such a theme may -prima facie appear to the scope and aim of the present volume, I have no choice but to analyse frankly and as fully as my personal experience justifies, what I conceive to be the true nature, the salutary limits, and the actual scope of clerical influence in this country. But before I can discuss what I may call the religious situation, there is one fundamental question — a question which will appear somewhat strange to anyone not in touch with Irish life — which I must, with a view to a general agreement on essentials, submit to some of my co-religionists. In all seriousness I would ask, whether in their opinion the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is to be tolerated. I leave those who would answer in the negative to consider whether any further efforts to stamp out the Roman Catholic faith would not fail as they did in the past ; and my observations in this chapter will be addressed to those who recognise that in toleration alone is to be found the solution of that part of the Irish difficulty which is due to sectarian animosities. This brings us face to face with the question, What is religious toleration — I do not mean as a pious senti- ment which we are all conscious of ourselves possessing in a truer sense than that in which it is possessed by others, but rather toleration as an essential of the liberty which we Protestants enjoy under the British Constitution, and boast that all other creeds equally QD INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. enjoy ? Perhaps I had better state simply how I answer this question in my own mind. Toleration by the Irish minority, in regard to the religious faith and ecclesiastical system of the Irish majority, implies that we admit the right of Rome to say what Roman Catholics shall believe and what outward forms they shall observe, and that they shall not suffer before the State for these beliefs and observances. I do not think exception can be taken to the statement that toleration in this narrow sense cannot be refused consistently with the fundamental principles of British government. Now, however, comes a less obvious, but, as I think, no less essential condition of toleration in the sense above indicated. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy claim the right to exercise such supervision and control over the education of their flock as will enable them to safe- guard faith and morals as preached and practised by their Church. I concede this second claim as a neces- sary corollary of the first. Having lived most of my life among Roman Catholics — two branches of my own family belonging to that religion — I am aware that this control is an essential part of the whole fabric of Roman Catholicism. Whether the basis of autho- rity upon which that system is founded be in its origin divine or human is beside the point. If we profess to tolerate the faith and religious system of the majority of our countrymen we must at least concede the condi- tions essential to the maintenance of both the one and the other, unless our tolerance is to be a sham. THE WIDER TOLERANCE. 97 bo tar all liberal-minded Protestants, who know what Roman Catholicism is, will be with me ; and for the main purposes of the argument contained in this chapter it is not necessary to interpret toleration in any wider sense than that which I have indicated. Many Protestants, among whom I am one, do, it is true, make a further concession to the claim of our Roman Catholic fellow- countrymea We would give them in Ireland facilities for higher education which we would not give them in England, and we would advocate liberal endowment by the State to this end To us this is not a concession of privilege, but of simple justice, in view of all the cir- cumstances, historical and other. It is, however, only fair to say that those who think otherwise, may be, and often are, actuated by a perfectly legitimate concep- tion of educational principles, or by other considera- tions which are neither of a narrow nor sectarian character. I need hardly say that in criticising religious systems and their ministers I have not the faintest intention of entering on the discussion of doctrinal issues. I am, of course, here concerned with only those aspects of the religious situation which bear directly on secular life. I am endeavouring, it must be remembered, to arrive at a comprehensive and accurate appreciation of the chief influences which mould the character, guide the thought, and, therefore, direct the action of the Irish people as citizens of this world and of their own country. From this standpoint let us try to make a dispassionate survey H gS INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in Ireland, and see wherein their votaries fulfil, or fail to fulfil, their mission in advancing our common civilisation. Let us examine, in a word, not merely the direct influence which the creed of each of the two sections of Irishmen produces on the industrial character of its adherents, but also its indirect effects upon the mutual relations and regard for each other of Protestants and Roman Catholics. Protestantism has its stronghold in the great industrial centres of the North and among the Presbyterian far- mers of five or six Ulster counties. These communities, it is significant to note, have developed the essentially strenuous qualities which, no doubt, they brought from England and Scotland. In city life their thrift, industry, and enterprise, unsurpassed in the United Kingdom, have built up a world-wide commerce. In rural life they have drawn the largest yield from relatively infertile soil. Such, in brief, is the achievement of Ulster Protestantism in the realm of industry. It is a story of which, when a united Ireland becomes more than a dream, all Irishmen will be proud. But there is, unhappily, another side to the picture. This industrial life, otherwise so worthily cultivated, is disturbed by manifestations of religious bigotry which sadly tarnish the glory of the really heroic deeds they are intended to commemorate. It is impos- sible for any close observer of these deplorable exhibi- tions to avoid the conclusion that the embers of the old SECTARIANISM AND PROGRESS. 99 fires are too often fanned by men who are actuated by motives, which, when not other than religious, are cer- tainly based upon an unworthy conception of religion. I am quite aware that it is only a small and decreasing minority of my co-religionists who are open to the charge of intolerance, and that the former extravagances of the July celebrations are now less frequent. But this bigotry is so notorious, as for instance in the exclusion of Roman Catholics from many responsible positions, that it unquestionably reacts most unfavourably upon the general relations between the two creeds throughout the whole of Ireland. The existence of such a spirit of suspicion and hatred, from whatever motive it eman- ates, is bound to retard our progress as a people towards the development of a healthy and balanced national life. Many causes have recently contributed to the un- happy continuance of sectarian animosities in Ireland. The Ritualistic movement and the struggle over the Education Bill in England, the renewed controversy on the University Question in Ireland, instances of bigotry towards Protestants displayed by County, District, and Urban Councils in the three southern provinces of Ireland, the formation of the Catholic Association, the question of the form of the King's oath, and, more remotely, the protest against clericalism in such Roman Catholic countries as France and Austria, have one and all helped to keep alive the flame of anti-Roman feeling among Irish Protestants* * The reproach which is brought upon Irish Christianity mainly by Iqq INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. There are, happily, other influences now at work in a contrary direction. Among the industrial leaders a better spirit prevails. A well-known Ulster manufac- turer told me recently that only a few years ago, when an applicant for employment appeared at certain Northern factories, which my friend named, the first question always put was, ' Are you a Protestant or Roman Catholic?' Now, he said, it is not what a man believes, but what he can do, which is considered when engaging workers. And outside the cities there are most gratifying signs of better relations between the two creeds. We are on the eve of the creation of a peasant proprietary, involving the rehabilitation of rural life, and one essential condition of the successful in- auguration of the new agrarian order is the elimination of anything approaching to sectarian bitterness in com- munities which will require every advantage deriv- able from joint deliberation and common effort to enable them to hold their own against foreign competition. I recall a trivial but significant incident in the course of my Irish work which left a deep impression on my mind. After attending a meeting of farmers in a very backward district in the extreme west of Mayo, I arrived one winter's the extravagances of a section of my co-religionists, to which I have been obliged to refer, came home to me not long ago in a very forcible way. I happened to remark to a friend that it was a disgrace to Christianity that Mussulman soldiery were employed at the Holy Sepulchre to keep the peace between the Latin and Gieek Christians. He reminded me that the prosperous and progressive municipality of Belfast, with a population eminently industrious, and predominantly Protestant, has to be policed by an Imperial force in order to restrain two sections of Irish Christians from assaulting each other in the name of religion. A LESSON IN CHARITY. 101 evening at the Roman Catholic priest's house. Before the meeting I had been promised a cup of tea, which, after a long, cold drive, was more than acceptable. When I presented myself at the priest's house, what was my astonishment at finding the Protestant clergyman presiding over a steaming urn and a plate of home-made cakes, having been requested to do the honours by his fellow-minister, who had been called away to a sick bed A cycle of homilies on the virtue of tolerance could add nothing to the simple lesson which these two clergymen gave to the adherents of both their creeds. I felt as I went on my way that night that I had had a glimpse into the kind of future for Ireland towards which my fellow- workers are striving. It is, however, with the religion of the majority of the Irish people, and only in regard to its influence upon the civic life of its adherents, that I am here concerned Roman Catholicism strikes an outsider as being in some of its tendencies non-economic, if not actually anti-economic These tendencies have, of course, much fuller play when they act on a people whose education has (through no fault of their own) been retarded or stunted The fact is not in dispute, but the difficulty arises when we come to apportion the blame between ignorance on the part of the people and a somewhat one-sided religious zeal on the part of large numbers of their clergy. I do not seek to do so with any precision here. I am simply adverting to what has appeared to me, in the course of my experience in Ireland, to be a defect in the industrial 102 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. character of Roman Catholics which, however caused, seems to me to have been intensified by their religion. The reliance of that religion on authority, its repression of individuality, and its complete shifting of what I may call the moral centre of gravity to a future existence — to mention no other characteristics — appear to me calcu- lated, unless supplemented by other influences, to check the growth of the qualities of initiative and self-reliance, especially amongst a people whose lack of education unfits them for resisting the influence of what may present itself to such minds as a kind of fatalism with resignation as its paramount virtue. It is true that one cannot expect of any church or religion, as a condition of its acceptance, that it will furnish an economic theory ; and it is also true that Roman Catholicism has, at different periods of history, advantageously affected economic conditions, even if it did not act from distinctively economic motives — for example, by its direct influence in the suppression of slavery* and its creation of the mediaeval craft guilds. It may, too, be admitted that during the Middle Ages, when Roman Catholicism was freer than now to manifest its influence in many directions, owing to its practically unchallenged supremacy, it favoured, when it did not originate, many forms of sound economic activity, and was, to say the least, abreast of the time in its concep- tion of the working of economic causes. But from the * 1 Pro salute aniviae meat ' was, I am reminded, the consideration usually expressed in the old charters of manumission. CATHOLICISM AND MODERN ECONOMICS. 103 time when the Reformation, by its demand for what we Protestants conceive to be a simpler Christianity, drove Roman Catholicism back, if I may use the expres- sion, on its first line of defence, and constrained it to look to its distinctively spiritual heritage, down to the present day, it has seemed to stand strangely aloof from any contact with industrial and economic issues. When we consider that in this period Adam Smith lived and died, the industrial revolution was effected, and the world-market opened, it is not surprising that we do not find Roman Catholic countries in the van of economic progress, or even the Roman Catholic element in Protestant countries, as a rule, abreast of their fellow countrymen. It would, however, be an error to ignore some notable exceptions to this generalisation. In Belgium, in France, in parts of Germany and Austria, and in the north of Italy economic thought is making head- way amongst Roman Catholics, and the solution of social problems is being advanced by Roman Catholic laymen and clergymen. Even in these countries, however, much remains to be done. The revolution in the industrial order, and its consequences, such as the concentration of immense populations within restricted areas, have brought with them social and moral evils that must be met with new weapons. In the interests of religion itself, prin- ciples first expounded to a Syrian community with the most elementary physical needs and the simplest of avo- cations, have now to be taught in their application to the conditions of the most complex social organisation and 104 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. economic life. Taking people as we find them, it may be said with truth that their lives must be wholesome before they can be holy. A voluntary asceticism may have its justification ; but it behoves a Church to see that its members, while fully acknowledging the claims of another life, should develop the qualities which make for well-being in this life. In fact, I believe that the influence of religion upon our social progress will be best maintained by co-ordinating spiritual and economic ideals through an interpretation of Christianity broader and truer than any to which the nations have yet attained. What I have just been saying with regard to Roman Catholicism generally, in relation to economic doctrines and industrial progress, applies, of course, with a hundred fold pertinence to the case of Ireland. Between the enactment of the first Penal Laws and the date of Roman Catholic Emancipation, Irish Roman Catholics were, to put it mildly, afforded scant opportunity, in their own country, of developing economic virtues or achieving industrial success. Ruthlessly deprived of education, are they to be blamed if they did not use the newly acquired facilities to the best advantage? With their religion looked on as the badge of legal and social in- feriority, was it any wonder that priests and people alike, while clinging with unexampled fidelity to their creed, re- mained altogether cut off from the current of material prosperity? Excluded, as they were, not merely from social and political privileges, but from the most ordinary civil rights, denied altogether the right of ownership of EFFECTS Or THE PENAL LAWS. IO5 real property, and restricted in the possession of person- alty, is it any wonder that they do not to-day take the lead in industrial and commercial progress? Xay, more, was it to have been expected tnat the character of a people so persecuted and ostracised should have come out of the ordeal of centuries with its adaptability and elasticity unimpaired ? That would have been impossible. Those who are intimate with the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, and at the same time familiar with their history, will recognise in their character and mental out- look many an inheritance of that epoch of serfdom. I speak, of course, of the mass, for I am not unmindful of many exceptions to this generalisation. But I must now pass on to a more definite con- sideration of the present action and attitude of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy towards the economic, educa- tional, and other issues discussed in this book The reasons which render such a consideration necessary are obvious. Even if we include Ulster, three quarters of the Irish people are Roman Catholics, while, exclud- ing the Northern province, quite nine-tenths of the population belong to that religion. Again, the three thousand clergymen of that denomination exercise an influence over their flocks not merely in regard to religious matters, but in almost every phase of their lives and conduct, which is, in its extent and character, quite unique, even, I should say, amongst Roman Catholic communities. To a Protestant, this authority seems to be carried very far beyond what the legitimate I(j6 INFLUENCE Oi- RELIGION IN IRELAND. influence of any clergy over the lay members of their congregation should be. We are, however, dealing with a national life explicable only by reference to a very ex- ceptional and gloomy history of religious persecution. What I may call the secular shortcomings of the Roman Catholics in Ireland cannot be fairly judged except as the results of a series of enactments by which they were successively denied almost all means of succeeding as citizens of this world. From such study as I have been able to give to the history of their Church, I have come to the conclusion that the immense power of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy has been singularly little abused. I think it must be admitted that they have not exhibited in any marked degree bigotry towards Protestants. They have not put obstacles in the way of the Roman Catholic majority choosing Protestants for political leaders, and it is significant that refugees, such as the Palatines, from Catholic persecutions in Europe, found at different times a home amongst the Roman Catholic people of Ireland. My own experience, too, if I may again refer to that, distinctly proves that it is no disadvantage to a man to be a Protestant in Irish public life, and that where opposition is shown to him by Roman Catholics it is almost invariably on political, social, or agrarian, but not on religious grounds. A charge of another kind has of late been often brought against the Roman Catholic clergy, which has a direct bearing upon the economic aspect of this question. CHURCH- BUILDING. IOJ Although, as I read Irish history, the Roman Catholic priesthood have, in the main, used their authority with personal disinterestedness, if not always with pru- dence or discretion, their undoubted zeal for reunion has, on occasion, assumed forms which enlightened Roman Catholics, including high dignitaries of that Church, think unjustifiable on economic grounds, and discourage even from a religious standpoint Excessive and extrava- gant church-building in the heart and at the expense of poor communities has been objected to on the surely not irreligious ground that the best monument of anv clergyman's influence and earnestness must always be found in the moral character and the spiritual fibre of his flock, and not in the marbles and mosaics of a gaudy edifice. If, however, in some cases the sense of propor- tion has been obscured by a misdirected zeal, the excesses complained of cannot be fairly judged without some reference to the past. They may be regarded as an extreme reaction from the per I times, when the hunted soggarth had to celebrate the Mass in cabins and caves on the mountain side — a re- action the converse of which was witnessed in Protestant England when Puritanism rose up against Anglicanism in the seventeenth century. This expen- diture, however, has been incurred ; and no one. I take it. would advocate the demolition of existing religious edifices on the ground that their erection had been unduly costly! The moral is for the present and the future, and applies not merely to economy in ne w 108 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. buildings, but also in the decoration of existing churches * But it is not alone extravagant church building which in a country so backward as Ireland, shocks the economic sense. The multiplication — in inverse ratio to a de- clining population — of costly and elaborate monastic and conventual institutions, involving what in the aggregate must be an enormous annual expenditure for mainte- nance, is difficult to reconcile with the known con- ditions of the country. Most of these institutions, it is true, carry on educational work, often, as in the case of the Christian Brothers and some colleges and con- vents, of an excellent kind. Many of them render great services to the poor, and especially to the sick poor. But, none the less, it seems to me, their growth in number and size is anomalous. I cannot believe that so large an addition to the classes, technically called unpro- ductive, is economically sound, and I have no doubt at all that the competition with lay teachers of celibates ' living in community ' is excessive and educationally in- jurious. Fully admitting the importance of religion in * One of the unfortunate effects of this passion for building costly churches is the importation of quantities of foreign art -work in the shape of woodcarvings, stained glass, mosaics, and metal work. To good foreign art, indeed, one could not, within certain limits, object. It might prove a valuable example and stimulus. But the articles which have actually been imported, in the impulse to get everything finished as soon as possible, generally consist of the stock pieces produced in a spirit of mere commercialism in the workshops of Continental firms which make it their business to cater for a public who do not know the difference between good art and bad. Much of the decoration of ecclesiastical buildings, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, might fittingly be postponed until religion in Ireland has got into closer rela- tion with the native artistic sense and industrial spirit now beginning to seek creative expression RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN EDUCATION. 109 education, I still hold that teachers who have renounced the world and withdrawn from contact with its stress and strain are at a great disadvantage in moulding the characters of youths who will have to take their part in the hard struggle of modern industrial life. But here again we must accept the situation and work with the instru- ments ready to hand. The practical and statesmanlike action for all those concerned is to assist these institu- tions to become as efficient educational agencies as may be possible. They owe their existence largely to the gaps in the educational system of this country which religious and political strife have produced and maintained, and they deserve the utmost credit for endeavouring to supply missing steps in our educational ladder.* If they now fully respond to the spirit of the new movements and supply the demand for technical education by the employment of the most approved methods and equip- ment, and by the thorough training on sound lines of their staffs, they will meet my criticisms. * The following extract from a statement of the Most Rev. Dr. O'Dea, the newly elected Bishop of Clonfert, is pertinent : — ' There is another cause also — i.e. in addition to the absence of university educa- tion for Roman Catholic laymen — which has hindered the employment of the laity in the past. Till very recently, the secondary Catholic schools received no assistance whatever from the State, and their endowment from private sources was utterly inadequate to supply suit- able remuneration for lay teachers. It is evident that a celibate clergy can live on a lower wage than the laity, and they are now charged with having monopolized the schools, because they chose to work tor a minimum allowance rather than suffer the country to remain without any secondary education whatever. Two causes, then, operated in the past, and in a large measure still operate, to exclude the laity from the secondary schools,— first, these schools were so poverty-stricken that they could not afford to pay lay teachers at such a rate as would attract them to the teaching profession, and, next, the Catholic laity as a body were uneducated, and, therefore, unfit to teach in the schools.' — May- nooth and the University Question, p. 109 (footnote). 110 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. But, after all, these criticisms are, for the purposes of my argument, of minor relevance and importance. The real matter in which the direct and personal responsi- bility of the Roman Catholic clergy seems to me to be involved, is the character and morale (still using the terms in the restricted sense which 1 have, I hope, made sufficiently clear) of the people of this country. No reader of this book will accuse me of attaching too little weight to the influence of historical causes on the present state, social, economic and political, of Ireland; but even when I have given full consideration to all such influences I still think that, with their unques- tioned authority in religion, and their almost equally undisputed influence in education, the Roman Catholic clergy cannot be exonerated from some responsibility in regard to Irish character as we find it to-day. Are they, I would ask, satisfied with that character? I cannot think so. The impartial observer will, I fear, find amongst a majority of our people a striking absence of self- reliance and moral courage ; an entire lack of serious thought on public questions ; a listlessness and apathy in regard to economic improvement which amount to a form of fatalism ; and, in backward districts, a survival of superstition, which saps all strength of will and purpose — and all this, too, amongst a people singularly gifted by nature with good qualities of mind and heart. Nor can the Roman Catholic clergy altogether console themselves with the thought that religious faith, even THE CLERGY AND IRISH CHARACTER. HI when free from superstition, is strong in the breasts of the people. So long, no doubt, as Irish Roman Catho- lics remain at home, in a country of sharply denned religious classes, and with a social environment and a public opinion so preponderatingly stamped with their creed, open defections from Roman Catholicism are rare. But we have only to look at the extent of the ' leakage ' from Roman Catholicism amongst the Irish emigrants in the United States and in Great Britain, to realise how largely emotional and formal must be the religion of those who lapse so quickly in a non-Catholic atmosphere.* It is not, of course, to the causes of the defections from a creed to which I do not subscribe that my criticism is directed. I refer to the matter only in order to emphasise the large share of responsibility which belongs to the Roman Catholic clergy for what I strongly believe to be the chief part in the work of national regeneration, the part compared with which all legis- lative, administrative, educational or industrial achieve- ments are of minor importance. Holding, as I do, that the building of character is the condition precedent to material, social and intellectual advancement, indeed to * See, inter alia, an article ** Ireland and America," by Rev. Mr. Shinnors, O.M., in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, February, 1902. ' Has the Church,' asks Father Shinnors, 'increased her membership in the ratio that the population of the United States has increased ? No. There are many converts, but there are many more apostates. Large numbers lapse into indifferentism and irreligion. There should be in America about 20,000,000 Catholics ; there are scarcely 10,000,000. There are reasons to fear that the great majority of the apostates are o Irish extraction, and not a few of them of Irish birth.' 112 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. all national progress, I may, perhaps, as a lay citizen, more properly criticise, from this point of view, what I conceive to be the great defect in the methods of clerical influence. My meaning will be clear to anyone who re- flects upon the influence exercised by the Roman Catholic clergy in the inculcation of temperance and chastity — their failure in the one case and their success in the other. Among temperance advocates — the most earnest of all reformers — the Roman Catholic clergy have an honour- able record. An Irish priest was the greatest, and, for a brief spell, the most successful temperance apostle of the last century, and statistics, it is only fair to say, show that we Irish drink rather less than people in other parts of the United Kingdom. But the real question is whether we more often drink to intoxication, and police statistics as well as common experience seem to disclose that we do. Many a temperate man drinks more in his life than many a village drunkard. Again, the test of the average consumption of man, woman and child is somewhat misleading, especially in Ireland where, owing to the excessive emigration of adults, there is a dispropor- tionately large number of very young and old. Moreover, we Irish drink more in proportion to our means than the English, Scotch, and Welsh, whose consumption is abso- lutely larger. Anyone who attempts to deal practically with the problems of industrial development in Ireland realises what a terribly depressing influence the drink evil exercises upon the industrial capacity of the people. 1 Ireland sober is Ireland free,' is nearer the truth than CAUSES OF INTEMPERANCE IN IRELAND. II3 much that is thought and most of what is said about liberty in this country. Now, the drink habit in Ireland differs from that of the other parts of the United Kingdom. The Irishman is, in my belief, physiologically less subject to the craving for alcohol than the Englishman, a fact which is partially attributable, I should say, to the less animal dietary to which he is accustomed By far the greater proportion of the drinking which retards our progress is of a festive character. It takes place at fairs and markets, sometimes, even yet, at ' wakes/ those ghastly parodies on the blessed consolation of religion in bereavement. It is largely due to the almost universal sale of liquor in the country shops 1 for consumption on the premises,' an evil the demoralising effects of which are an hundredfold greater than those of the 1 grocer's licences ' which tem- perance reformers so strenuously denounce. It is an evil for the existence of which nothing can be said, but it has somehow escaped the effective censure of the Church. The indiscriminate granting of licences in Ireland, which has resulted in the provision of liquor shops in a proportion to the population larger than is found in any other country, is in itself due mainly to the moral cowardice of magistrates, who do not care to incur local unpopularity by refusing licences for which there is no pretence of any need beyond that of the applicant and his relatives. Not long ago the magistrates of Ireland met in Dublin in order to inaugurate common action in I 114 J\ T FIUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. dealing with this scandal. Appropriate resolutions were passed, and some good has already resulted from the meeting, but had the unvarnished truth been admissible, the first and indeed the only necessary resolution should have run, " Resolved that in future we be collectively as brave as we have been individually timid, and that we take heart of grace and carry away from this meeting sufficient strength to do, in the exercise of our functions as the licensing authority, what we have always known to be our plain duty to our country and our God." No such resolution was proposed, for though patriotism is becoming real in Ireland, it is not yet very robust. I do not think it unfair to insist upon the large respon- sibility of the clergy for the state of public opinion in this matter, to which the few facts I have cited bear testimony. But I attribute their failure to deal with a moral evil of which they are fully cognisant to the fact that they do not recognise the chief defect in the char- acter of the people, and to a misunderstanding of the means by which that character can be strengthened. There are, however, exceptions to this general statement. It is of happy augury for the future of Ireland that many of the clergy are now leading a temperance movement which shows a real knowledge of the causa causans of Irish intemperance. The Anti-Treating League, as it is called, administers a novel pledge which must have been conceived in a very understanding mind. Those enlisted undertake neither to treat nor to be treated. They may drink, so far as the pledge is concerned, as MORAL DISCIPLINE. 115 much as they like ; but they must drink at their own expense ; and others must not drink at their expense. The good nature and sociability of Irishmen, too often the mere result of inability to say 1 no,' need not be sacrificed. Even if they were, the loss of these social graces would be far more than compensated by a self-respect and seriousness of life out of which something perma- nent might be built. Still, even this League makes no direct appeal to character, and so acts rather as a cure for than as a preventive of our moral weakness. The methods by which clerical influence is wielded in the inculcation of chastity may be criticised from exactly the same standpoint as that from which I have found it necessary to deal with the question of temperance. Here the success of the Irish priesthood is, considering the conditions of peasant life, and the fire of the Celtic temperament, absolutely unique. No one can deny that almost the entire credit of this moral achievement belongs to the Roman Catholic clergy. It may be said that the practice of a virtue, even if the incentive be of an emotional kind becomes a habit and that habit pro- verbially develops into a second nature. With this view of moral evolution I am in general agreement: but I would ask whether the evolution has not reached a stage where a gradual relaxation of the disciplinary measures by which chastity is insured might be safely allowed without any danger of lowering the high standard of continence which is general in Ireland and which of course it is of supreme importance to maintain Il6 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION" IN IRELAND. The restrictions to which I refer, though not universal, are well-known. Amusements, many of them not necess- arily, and most of them not often vicious, are objected to as being fraught with dangers which would never occur to any but the rigidly ascetic or the puritanical mind. In some parishes the Sunday cyclist will observe the strange phenomenon of a normally light-hearted peasantry marshalled in male and female groups along the road, eyeing one another in dull wonderment across the forbidden space through the long summer day. No Irishmen are more sincerely desirous of staying the tide of emigration than the Roman Catholic clergy, and while, wisely as I think, they do not dream of a wealth}- Ireland, they earnestly work for the physical and material as well as the spiritual well-being of their flocks. And yet no man can get into the con- fidence of the emigrating classes without being told by them that the exodus is largely due to a feeling that the clergy are, no doubt from an excellent motive, taking innocent joy from the social side of the home life. This kind of discipline, unless when really necessary, is open to other objections. It eliminates from the educa- tion of life, especially during the formative years, an essential of culture — the mutual understanding of the sexes. The evil of grafting upon secular life a quasi- monasticism which, not being voluntary, has no real effect upon the character, may perhaps involve moral consequences little dreamed of by the spiritual guardians of the people. A careful consideration of known facts THE PRIEST IN POLITICS. II7 will reveal the tragic story of poor Irish girls driven out into the world by Irish distress ; and a study of the pathology of the emotions might throw doubt upon the safety of enforced asceticism when unaccompanied by the training which the Church wisely prescribes for those who take the vow of celibacy. To go more fully into these subjects might carry me beyond the proper limits of lay criticism. But, clearly, large questions of clerical training must suggest them- selves to those to whom their discussion properly belongs — whether, for example, there is not in the instances which I have cited evidence of a failure to understand that mere authority in the regions of moral conduct cannot have any abiding effect, except in the rarest combination of circumstances, and with a very primitive people. Do not many of these clergy ignore the vast difference between the ephemeral nature of moral com- pulsion and the enduring force of a real moral training? I have dealt with the exercise of clerical influence in these matters as being, at any rate in relation to the subject matter of this book, far more important than the evil commonly described as " The Priest in Politics." That evil is, in my opinion, greatly misrepresented. The cases of priests who take an improper part in politics are cited without reference to the vastly greater number who take no part at all, except when genuinely assured that a definite moral issue is at stake. I also have in my mind the question of how we should have fared if the control of the different Irish agitations had been Il8 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. confined to laymen, and if the clergy had not consistently condemned secret associations. But whatever may be said in defence of the priest in politics in the past, there are the strongest grounds for deprecating a continuance of their political activity in the future. As I gauge the several forces now operating in Ireland, I am convinced that if an anti-clerical movement similar to that which other Roman Catholic countries have witnessed, were to succeed in discrediting the priesthood and lowering them in public estimation, it would be followed by a moral, social, and political degradation which would blight, or at least postpone, our hopes of a national regeneration. From this point of view I hold that those clergymen who are predominantly politicians endanger the moral in- fluence which it is their solemn duty to uphold. I believe however, that the over-active part hitherto taken in politics by the priests is largely the outcome of the way in which Roman Catholics were treated in the past, and that this undesirable feature in Irish life will yield, and is already yielding to the removal of the evils to which it owed its origin and in some measure its justification * One has only to turn to the spirit and temper of such representative Roman Catholics as Archbishop Healy and Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Ross — to their words and to their deeds — in order to catch the inspiration of a new move- ment amongst our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen at once religious and patriotic. And if my optimism ever * This view seems to be taken by the most influential spokesmen of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. See Evidence, Royal Commission on University Education in Ireland, vol. iii., p. 238, Questions 8702-6. THE DUTY OF PROTESTANTISM. IIO, wavers, I have but to think of the noble work that many priests are to my own knowledge doing, often in remote and obscure parishes, in the teeth of innumerable obstacles. I call to mind at such times, as pioneers in a great awakening, men like the eminent Jesuit, Father Thomas Finlay, Father Hegarty of Erris, Father O'Donovan of Loughrea, and many others — men with whom 1 have worked and taken counsel, and who repre- sent, I believe, an ever increasing number of their fellow priests.* My position, then, towards the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy — and this influence is a matter of vital importance to the understanding of Irish problems — may now be clearly defined. While recognising to the full that large numbers of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy have in the past exercised undue influence in purely political questions, and, in many other matters, social, educational, and economic, have not, as I see things, been on the side of progress, I hold that their influence is now, more than ever before, essential for improving the condition of the most backward section of the population. Therefore I feel it to be both the duty * I may mention that of the co-operative societies organised by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society there are no fewer than 331 societies of which the local priests are the Chairmen, while to my own knowledge during the summer and autumn of 1902, as many as 50,000 persons from all parts of Ireland were personally conducted over the exhibit of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction at the Cork Exhibition by their local clergy. The educational purpose of these visits is explained in Chap. x. Again, in a great number of cases the village libraries which have been recently started in Ireland with the assistance of the Department (the books consisting largely of industrial, economic, and technical works on agriculture), have been organised and assisted by the Roman Catholic clergy. 120 INFLUENCE OF RELIGION IN IRELAND. and the strong interest of my Protestant fellow-country- men to think much less of the religious differences which divide them from Roman Catholics, and much more of their common citizenship and their common cause. I also hold with equal strength and sincerity to the belief, which I have already expressed, that the shortcomings of the Roman Catholic clergy are largely to be accounted for, not by any innate tendency on their part towards obscu- rantism, but by the sad history of Ireland in the past I would appeal to those of my co-religionists who think otherwise to suspend their judgment for a time. That Roman Catholicism is firmly established in Ireland is a fact of the situation which they must admit, and as this involves the continued powerful influence of the priest- hood upon the character of the people, it is surely good policy by liberality and fair dealing, especially in the matter of education, to turn this influence towards the upbuilding of our national life. To sum up the influence of religion and religious con- troversy in Ireland, as it presents itself from the only standpoint from which I have approached the matter in this chapter, namely, that of material, social, and intellectual progress, I find that while the Protestants have given, and continue to give, a fine example of thrift and industry to the rest of the nation, the attitude of a section of them towards the majority of their fellow- countrymen has been a bigoted and unintelligent one. On the other hand, I have learned from practical experience amongst the Roman Catholic people of Ire- NORTH AND SOUTH. I2T land that, while more free from bigotry, in the sense in which that word is usually applied, they are apathetic, thriftless, and almost non-industrial, and that they espe- cially require the exercise of strengthening influences on their moral fibre. I have dealt with their shortcomings at much greater length than with those of Protestants, because they have much more bearing on the subject matter of this book. North and South have each virtues which the other lacks ; each has much to learn from the other ; but the home of the strictly civic virtues and effi- ciencies is in Protestant Ireland. The work of the future in Ireland will be to break down in social intercourse the barriers of creed as well as those of race, politics, and class, and thus to promote the fruitful contact of North and South, and the concentration of both on the welfare of their common country. In the case of those of us, of whatever religious belief, who look to a future for our country commensurate with the promise of her un- developed resources both of intellect and soil, it is of the essence of our hope that the qualities which are in great measure accountable for the actual economic and educational backwardness of so many of our fellow- countrymen, and for the intolerance of too many who are not backward in either respect, are not purely racial or sectarian, but are the transitory growth of days and deeds which we must all try to forget if our work for Ireland is to endure. CHAPTER V. A Practical View of Irish Education. A little learning, we are told, is a dangerous thing ; and in their dealings with Irish education the English should have discovered that this danger is accentuated when the little learning is combined with much native wit. In the days when religious persecution was universal — only, be it remembered, a few generations ago — it was the policy of England to avert this danger by prohibiting, as far as possible, the acquisition by Irish Roman Catholics of any learning at all. After the Union, Englishmen began to feel their responsibility for the state of Ireland, a state of poverty and distress which culminated in the Famine. Knowledge was then no longer withheld : indeed the English sincerely desired to dispel our darkness and enable us to share in the wisdom, and so in the prosperity, of the predominant partner. In their attempts to educate us they dealt with what they saw on the surface, and moulded their educational principles upon what they knew ; but they did not know Ireland. Even if we excuse them for pay- ing scant attention to what they were told by Irishmen, they should have given more heed to the reports of their own Royal Commissions. We have so far seen that the Irish mind has been in ENGLISH EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 123 regard to economics, politics, and even some phases of religious influence, a mind warped and diseased, de- prived of good nutrition and fed on fancies or fictions, out of which no genuine growth, industrial or other, was possible. The one thing that might have strengthened and saved a people with such a political, social, and religious history, and such racial characteristics, was an educational system which would have had special regard to that history, and which would have been a just expression of the better mind of the people whom it was intended to serve. Now this is exactly what was denied to Ireland. Not merely has all educational legislation come from Eng- land, in the sense of being based on English models and thought out by Englishmen largely out of touch and sympathy with the peculiar needs of Ireland, but when- ever there has been genuine native thought on Irish educational problems, it has been either ignored alto- gether or distorted till its value and significance were lost. And in this matter we can claim for Ireland that there was in the country during the first half of the nine- teenth century, when England was trying her best to provide us with a sound English education, a compara- tively advanced stage of home-grown Irish thought upon the educational needs of the people. Take, for example, the Society for Promoting Elementary Education among the Irish Poor, know as the Kildare Street Society, which was founded as early as the year 1811. The first resolution passed by this body, which was composed of 124 A PRACTICAL VIEW <>F IRISH EDUCATION. prominent Dublin citizens of all religious beliefs, was set out as follows: — (i.) Resolved — That promoting the education of the poor of Ireland is a grand object which every Irishman anxious for the welfare and prosperity of his country ought to have in view as the basis upon which the morals and true happiness of the country can be best secured. This Society, it is true, did not see or foresee that any system of mixed religious education was doomed to failure in Ireland, but they took a wide view of the place of education in a nation's development, and the character of the education which their schools actually dispensed was admirable. This hopeful and enterprising educational movement is described by Mr. Lecky in a passage from which I take a few extracts : — The * Kildare Street Society " which received an en^ dowment from Government, and directed National educa- tion from 1812 to 183 1, was not proselytising, and it was for some time largely patronized by Roman Catholics. It is certainly by no means deserving of the contempt which some writers have bestowed on it, and if measured by the spirit of the time in which it was founded it will appear both liberal and useful. . . . The object of the schools was stated to be united education, " taking common Christian ground for the foundation, and exclud- ing all sectarian distinctions from every part of the arrangement ; " " drawing the attention of both denomi- nations to the many leading truths of Christianity in which they agree." To carry out this principle it was a funda- mental rule that the Bible must be read without note or IRISH THOUGHT ON EDUCATION 125 comment in all the schools. It might be read either in the Authorized or in the Douay version. ... In 1825 there were 1,490 schools connected with the Society, containing about 100,000 pupils. The improvements introduced into education by Bell, Lancaster, and Pestalozzi were largely adopted. Great attention was paid to needlework. . . . A great number of useful publications were printed by the Society, and we have the high authority of Dr. Doyle for stating that he never found anything objectionable [to Catholics] in them.* Take, again, as an evidence of the progressive spirit of the Irish thinkers on education, the remarkable scheme of national education which, after the pas- sing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, was formulated by Mr. Thomas Wyse, of Waterford. In addition to elementary schools, Mr. Wyse proposed to establish in every county, ' an academy for the education of the middle class of society in those departments of know- ledge most necessary to those classes, and over those a College in each of the four provinces, managed by a Committee representative of the interests of the several counties of the provinces/ 1 It is a matter of impor- tance,' wrote Mr. Wyse, 1 for the simple and efficient working of the whole system of national education, that each part should as much as possible be brought into co operation and accord with the others.' He foresaw, too, that one of the needs of the Irish temperament was a training in science which would cultivate the habits of ' education, observation, and reasoning,' and he pointed * Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, II., 122-4. 124 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. prominent Dublin citizens of all religious beliefs, was set out as follows : — (i.) Resolved — That promoting the education of the poor of Ireland is a grand object which every Irishman anxious for the welfare and prosperity of his country ought to have in view as the basis upon which the morals and true happiness of the country can be best secured. This Society, it is true, did not see or foresee that any system of mixed religious education was doomed to failure in Ireland, but they took a wide view of the place of education in a nation's development, and the character of the education which their schools actually dispensed was admirable. This hopeful and enterprising educational movement is described by Mr. Lecky in a passage from which I take a few extracts : — The u Kildare Street Society " which received an en- dowment from Government, and directed National educa- tion from 1812 to 183 1, was not proselytising, and it was for some time largely patronized by Roman Catholics. It is certainly by no means deserving of the contempt which some writers have bestowed on it, and if measured by the spirit of the time in which it was founded it will appear both liberal and useful. . . . The object of the schools was stated to be united education, 44 taking common Christian ground for the foundation, and exclud- ing all sectarian distinctions from every part of the arrangement ; " " drawing the attention of both denomi- nations to the many leading truths of Christianity in which they agree." To carry out this principle it was a funda- mental rule that the Bible must be read without note or IRISH THOUGHT ON EDUCATION 12$ comment in all the schools. It might be read either in the Authorized or in the Douay version. ... In 1825 there were 1,490 schools connected with the Society, containing about 100,000 pupils. The improvements introduced into education by Bell, Lancaster, and Pestalozzi were largely adopted. Great attention was paid to needlework. . . . A great number of useful publications were printed by the Society, and we have the high authority of Dr. Doyle for stating that he never found anything objectionable [to Catholics] in them.* Take, again, as an evidence of the progressive spirit of the Irish thinkers on education, the remarkable scheme of national education which, after the pas- sing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, was formulated by Mr. Thomas Wyse, of Waterford. In addition to elementary schools, Mr. Wyse proposed to establish in every county, ' an academy for the education of the middle class of society in those departments of know- ledge most necessary to those classes, and over those a College in each of the four provinces, managed by a Committee representative of the interests of the several counties of the provinces.' ' It is a matter of impor- tance,' wrote Mr. Wyse, * for the simple and efficient working of the whole system of national education, that each part should as much as possible be brought into co-operation and accord with the others.' He foresaw, too, that one of the needs of the Irish temperament was a training in science which would cultivate the habits of 1 education, observation, and reasoning,' and he pointed * Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, II., 122-4. 126 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. out that the peculiar manufactures, trades, and occupa- tions of the several localities would determine the course of studies. Mr. Wyse's memorandum on education led. as is well known, to the creation of the Board of National Education, but, to quote Dr. Starkie* the present Resident Commissioner of the Board, ' the more important part of the scheme, dealing with a university and secondary education, was shelved, in spite of Mr. Wyse's warnings that it was imprudent, dan- gerous, and pernicious to the social condition of the country, and to its future tranquillity, that so much encouragement should be given to the education of the lower classes, without at the same time due provision being made for the education of the middle and upper classes/ As still another evidence of the sound thought on educational problems which came from Irishmen who knew the actual conditions of their own country and people, the case of the agricultural instruction adminis- tered by the National Board is pertinent. The late Sir Patrick Keenan has told us that landlords and others who on political and religious grounds distrusted the National system, turned to this feature of the operations of the National Board with the greatest fervour. A scheme of itinerant instruction in agriculture, which had a curious resemblance to that which the Department of Agriculture is now organising, was developed, and was likely to have worked with the * Recent Reforms in Irish Education, p. 7. NEGLECT OF NATIVE THOUGHT. I 27 greatest advantage to the country at large. Sir Patrick Keenan, who knew Ireland and the Irish people well, speaks of this part of the scheme as 'the most fruitful experiment in the material interests of the country that was ever attempted. It was/ he adds, 1 through the agency of this corps of practical instructors that green cropping as a systematic feature in farming was introduced into the South and West, and even into the central parts of Ireland.' But all the hopes thus raised went down, not before any intrinsic difficulties in the scheme itself, or before any adverse opinion to it in Ireland, but before the opposition of the Liverpool Financial Reform Association, who had their own views as to the limits of State interference with agriculture. These examples, drawn from different stages of Irish educational history, might easily be multiplied, but they will serve as typical instances of that want of recogni- tion by English statesmen of Irish thought on Irish problems, and that ignoring of Irish sentiment — as dis- tinguished from Irish sentimentality — which I insist is the basal element in the misunderstandings of Irish problems. I now come to a brief consideration of some facts of the present educational situation, and I shall indicate, for those readers who are not familiar with current events in Ireland, the significant evolution, or revolu- tion, through which Irish education is passing. Within the last eight years we have had in Ireland three very remarkable reports — in themselves symptoms of a wide- 130 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. sidered from the standpoint of its relation to the practical affairs and everyday life of the people of Ireland. The needs and opportunities of the industrial struggle must, in fact, mould into shape our educational policy and programmes. We are convinced that there is little hope of any real solution of the more general prob- lem of national education, unless and until those in direct contact with the specific industries of the country succeed in bringing to the notice of those engaged in the framing of our educational system the kind and degree of the defects in the industrial character of our people which debar them from successful competition with other countries. Education in Ireland has been too long a thing apart from the economic realities of the country — with what result we know. In the work of the Depart- ment of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, an attempt is being made to establish a vital relation between industrial education and industrial life. It is desired to try, at this critical stage of our development, the experiment — I call it an experiment only because it does not seem to have been tried before in Ireland — of directing our instruction with a conscious and careful regard to the probable future careers of those we are educating. This attempt touches, of course, only one department of the whole educational problem, much of which it would be quite outside my present purpose to discuss. But I must guard against the supposition that in our insistence upon the importance of the practical side of PRACTICAL VALUE OF ' THE HUMANITIES. ' 131 education we are under any doubt as to the great import- ance of the literary side. My friends and I have been deeply impressed by the educational experience of Denmark, where the people, who are as much dependent on agriculture as are the Irish, have brought it by means of organisation to a more genuine success than it has attained anywhere else in Europe. Yet an inquirer will at once discover that it is to the " High Schools " founded by Bishop Grundtvig, and not to the agricultural schools, which are also excellent, that the extraordinary national progress is mainly due. A friend of mine who was studying the Danish system of State aid to agriculture, found this to be the opinion of the Danes of all classes, and was astounded at the achievements of the associa- tions of farmers, not only in the manufacture of butter, but in a far more difficult undertaking, the manufacture of bacon in large factories equipped with all the most modern machinery and appliances which science had devised for the production of the finished article. He at first concluded that this success in a highly technical industry by bodies of farmers indicated a very perfect system of technical education. But he soon found another cause. As one of the leading educators and agriculturists of the country put it to him : ' It's not technical instruc- tion, it's the humanities.' I would like to add that it is also, if I may coin a term, the 4 nationalities/ for nothing is more evident to the student of Danish education or, I might add, of the excellent system of the Christian Brothers in Ireland, than that one of the secrets of their 132 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. success is to be found in their national basis and their foundation upon the history and literature of the country. To sum up the educational situation in Ireland, it is not too much to say that all our forms of education, technical and general, hang loose. We lack a body of trained teachers ; we have no alert and informed public opinion on education and its function in regard to life ; and there is no proper provision for research work in all branches, a deficiency, which, I am told by those who have given deep thought and long study to these problems, inevit- ably reacts most disastrously on the general educational system of the country. This state of things appears not unnatural when we remember that the Penal Laws were not repealed till almost the close of the eighteenth cen- tury, and that a large majority of the Irish people had not full and free access to even primary and secondary educa- tion until the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1829. At the present day, the absence of any provision for higher education of which Roman Catholics will avail themselves is not merely an enormous loss in itself, but it reacts most adversely upon the whole educational machinery, and consequently upon the whole public life and thought of that section of the nation. One of the very first things I had to learn when I came into direct touch with educational problems, was that the education of a country cannot be divided into water-tight compartments, and each part legislated for or discussed solely on its merits and without reference to the other parts. I see now very clearly that the IMPORTANCE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 133 educational system of a country is an organic whole, the working of any part of which necessarily has an influence on the working of the rest. I had always looked upon the lower, secondary, and higher grades as the first, second, and third storeys of the educational house, and I am not quite sure that I attached sufficient importance to the staircase. My view has now changed, and I find myself regarding the University as a founda- tion and support of the primary and secondary school. It was not on purely pedagogic grounds that I added to my other political irregularities the earnest advocacy of such a provision for higher education as Roman Catholics will avail themselves of. This great need was revealed to me in my study of the Irish mind and of the direction in which it could look for its higher develop- ment. My belief is based on practical experience ; my point of view is that of the economist. When the new economic mission in Ireland began now fourteen years ago, we had to undertake, in addition to our practical programme, a kind of University extension work with the important omission of the University. We had to bring home to adult farmers whose general education was singularly poor, though their native intelligence was keen and receptive, a large number of general ideas bearing on the productive and distributive side of their industry. Our chief obstacles arose from the lack of trained economic thought among all classes, and especially among those to whom the majority looked for guidance. The air was thick with economic fallacies or 134 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. half-truths. We were, it is true, successful beyond our expectations in planting in apparently uncongenial soil sound economic principles. But our success was mainly due, as I shall show later, to our having used the asso- ciative instincts of the Irish peasant to help out the working of our theories ; and we became convinced that if a tithe of our priests, public men, national school teachers, and members of our local bodies had received * university education, we should have made much more rapid progress. I hardly know how to describe the mental atmos- phere in which we were working. It would be no libel upon the public opinion upon which we sought to make an impression to say that it really allowed no question to be discussed on its merits. Public opinion on social and economic questions is changing now, but I cannot associate the change with any influence emanating from institutions of higher education. In other countries, so far as my investigations have extended, the universities do guide economic thought and have a distinct though wholly unofficial function as a court of appeal upon questions relating to the material progress of the communities amongst which they are situated. Of such institutions there are in Ireland only two which could be expected to direct in any large way the thought of the country upon economic and other im- portant national questions — Maynooth, and Trinity College, Dublin. Whether in their widely different spheres of influence these two institutions could, under THE NATIONAL INFLUENCE OF MAYNOOTH. 135 conditions other than those prevailing, have so met the requirements of the country as to have obviated what is at present an urgent necessity for a complete reorganisation of higher education need not be discussed ; but it is essential to my argument that I should set forth clearly the results of my own observation upon their influence, or rather lack of influence, upon the people among whom I have worked. The influence of Maynooth, actual and potential, can hardly be exaggerated, but it is exercised indirectly upon the secular thought of the country. It is not its function to make a direct impression. It is in fact only a professional — I had almost said a technical — school. It trains its students, most admirably I am told, in theology, philosophy, and the studies subsidiary to these sciences, but always, for the vast majority of its students, with a distinctly practical and definite missionary end in view. There is, I believe, an arts course of modest scope, designed rather to meet the deficiencies of students whose general education has been neglected than to serve as anything in the nature of a university arts course. I am quite aware of the value of a sound training in mental science if given in connection with a full university course, but I am equally convinced that the Maynooth education, on the whole, is no substitute for a university course, and that while its chief end of turning out a large number of trained priests has been fulfilled, it has not given, and could not be expected to have given, that broader and more humane culture which only A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. a university, as distinguished from a professional school, can adequately provide. Moreover, under the Maynooth system young clerics are constantly called upon to take a part in the life of a lay community, towards which, when they entered college, they were in no position of responsibility, and upon which, so far as secular matters are concerned, when they emerge from their theological training, the) 1 are no better adapted to exercise a helpful influence. In my experience of priests I have met with many in whom I recognised a sincere desire to attend to the material and social well-being of their flocks, but who certainly had not that breadth of view and understanding of human nature which perhaps contact with the laity during the years in which they were passing from discipline to authority might have given to them. However this may be, it is clear and it is admitted that education as opposed to professional training of a high order is still, generally speaking, a want among the priests of Ireland, and I look forward to no greater boon from a University or University College for Roman Catholics than its influence, direct and indirect, on a body of men whose prestige and authority are necessarily so unique. It is, therefore, to Trinity College, or the University of Dublin, that one would naturally turn as to a great centre of thought in Ireland for help in the theoretic aspects, at least, of the practical problems upon whose successful solution our national well-being depends. Judged THE NATIONAL INFLUENCE OF TRINITY. 137 by the not unimportant test of the men it has supplied to the service of the State and country during- its three centuries of educational activity, by the part it took in one of the brightest epochs of these three centuries — the days when it gave Grattan to Grattan's Parliament, by the work and reputation of the alumni it could muster to-day within and without its walls, our venerable seat of learning need not fear comparison with any similar institutions in Great Britain. It may also, of course, be said that many men who have passed through Trinity College have impressed the thought of Ireland, and, indeed, of the world, in one way or another — such men as. to take two very different examples, Burke and Thomas Davis — but on some of the very best spirits amongst these men Trinity College and its atmosphere have exerted in- fluence rather by repulsion than by attraction ; and cer tainly their characteristics of temper or though f have not been of a kind which those best acquainted with the atmosphere of Trinity College associate with that insti tution. Still nothing can detract from the credit of having educated such men. But these tests and stand- ards are, for my present purpose, irrelevant. I am not writing a book on Irish educational history, or even a record of present-day Irish educational achievement. I am rather trying, from the standpoint of a practical worker for national progress, to measure the reality and strength of the educational and other influences which are actually and actively operating on the character and intellect of the majority of the Irish people, moulding I38 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. their thought and directing their action towards the upbuilding of our national life. From this point of view I am bound to say that Trinity College, so far as I have seen, has had but little influence upon the minds or the lives of the people. Nor can I find that at any period of the extraordinarily interesting economic and social revolution, which has been in progress in Ireland since the great catastrophe of the Famine period, Dublin University has departed from its academic isolation and its aloofness from the great national problems that were being worked out. The more one thinks of it, indeed, and the more one realises the opportunities of an institution like Trinity College in a country like Ireland, the more one must recognise how small, in recent times, has been its positive influence on the mind of the country, and how little it has contributed towards the solution of any of those prob- lems, educational, economic, or social, that were clamant for solution, and which in any other country would have naturally secured the attention of men who ought to have been leaders of thought Whatever the causes, and many may be assigned, this unfortunate lack of influence on the part of Trinity College, has always seemed to me a strong supplemen- tary argument for the creation of another University or University College on a more popular basis, to which the Roman Catholic people of Ireland would have recourse. From the fact that Maynooth by its constitu- tion could never have developed into a great national NECESSITY FOR UNIVERSITY REFORM. 139 University,* and that Trinity College has never, as a matter of fact, done so, and has thus, in my opinion, missed a unique opportunity, it has come about that Ireland has been without any great centre of thought whose influ- ence would have tended to leaven the mass of mental inactivity or random-thinking so prevalent in Ireland, and would have created a body of educated public opinion sufficiently informed and potent to secure the study and discussion on their merits of questions of vital interest to the country. The demoralising atmosphere of par- tisanship which hangs over Ireland would, I am convinced, gradually give way before an organised system of education with a thoroughly democratic University at its head, which would diffuse amongst the people at large a sense of the value of a balanced judg- ment on, and a true appreciation of, the real forces with which Ireland has to deal in building up her fortunes. To discuss the merits of the different solutions which have been proposed for the vexed problem of higher education in Ireland would be beyond the scope of this book. The question will have to be faced, and all I need do here is to state the conditions which the solution will have to fulfil if it is to deal with the aspects of the Irish Question with which the new movement is practically concerned. What is most needed is a University that will * It was not authorised to s;ive degrees to lay students : and even the admission of lay students to an Arts course was prohibited by Government, lest Catholic students should be drawn away from Trinity College. See Cornwallis Correspondence, III., 366-8. I4O A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. reach down to the rural population, much in the same way as the Scottish Universities do, and a lower scale of fees will be required than Trinity College, with its diminished revenues, could establish. Already I can see that the work of the new Department, acting in conjunction with local bodies, urban and rural, through- out the country, will provide a considerable number of scholarships, bursaries, and exhibitions for young men who are being prepared to take part in the very real, but rather hazily understood, industrial revival which is imminent. Leaving sectarian controversies out of the question, the type of institution which is required in order to provide adequately for the classes now left outside the influence of higher education is an in- stitution pre-eminently national in its aims, and one intimately associated with the new movements making for the development of our national resources. Unfortunately, however, in Ireland, and indeed in England too, there is a tendency to regard educational institutions almost solely as they will affect religion. At least it is difficult to arouse any serious interest in them except from this point of view. I welcome, therefore, the striking answers given to the queries of Lord Robertson, Chairman of the University Commission, by Dr. O'Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, who boldly and wisely placed the question before the country in the light in which cleric and layman should alike regard it : — The Chairman. — (413) : "I suppose you believe a UNIVERSITY REFORM A NATIONAL QUESTION. 14I Catholic University, such as you propose, will strengthen Roman Catholicism in Ireland?" — " It is not easy to answer that ; not so easy as it looks." (414) : — " But it won't weaken it, or you would not be here?" — " It would educate Catholics in Ireland very largely, and, of course, a religious denomination composed of a body of educated men is stronger than a religious denomination composed of ignorant men. In that sense it would strengthen Roman Catholicism." (415) : — " Is there any sense in which it won't?" — " As far as religion is concerned, I do not know how a University would work out. If you ask me now whether I think that that University in a certain number of years would become a centre of thought, strengthening the Catholic faith in Ireland, I cannot tell you. It is a leap in the dark." (416) : — " But it is in the hope that it will strengthen your own Church that you propose it?" — " No, it is not, by any means. We are Bishops, but we are Irishmen, also, and we want to serve our country."* Equally significant were the statements of Dr. O'Dea, the official spokesman of Maynooth, when he said, I regard the interest of the laity in the settlement of the University Question as supreme. The clergy are but a small, however important, part of the nation, and the laity have never had an institution of higher education comparable to Maynooth in magnitude or resources. I recognise, therefore, that the educational grievances of the laity are much more pressing than those of the clergy. . . It is generally admitted that Irish priests hold a posi- tion of exceptional influence, due to historical causes, the intensely religious character of the people, and the want of Catholic laymen qualified by education and position for social and political leadership. What Bishop Berkeley said of them in 1749, in his letter, A Word to the Wise, still holds true, 1 That no set of men on earth have it in * Appendix to First Report p. 37. 142 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION. their power to do good on easier terms, with more ad- vantage to others, and less pains or loss to themselves.' It would be folly to expect that in a mixed community the State should do anything to strengthen or perpetuate this power ; but this result will certainly not follow from the more liberal education of the clergy, provided equal ad- vantages are extended to the laity. On the contrary, I am convinced that if the void in the lay leadership of the country be filled up by higher education of the better classes among the Catholic laity, the power of the priests, so far as it is abnormal or unnecessary will pass away ; and, further, if I believed, with many who are opposed to the better education of the priesthood, that their power is based on falsehood or superstition, I would unhesitat- ingly advocate the spread of higher education among the laity and clergy alike, as the best means of effectually sapping and disintegrating it.* I had for long indulged a hope that a university of the type which Ireland requires would have been the outcome of a great national educational movement emanating from Trinity College, which might, at this auspicious hour, have surpassed all the proud achieve- ments of its three hundred years. That hope was dis- pelled when the cry of ' Hands off Trinity ' was applied .0 the profane hands of the Royal Commission. Perhaps that attitude may be reconsidered yet. There is one hopeful sentiment which is often heard coming from that institution. An opinion has been strongly expressed that nothing ought to be done to separate in secular life two sections of Irishmen who happen to belong to different creeds. Whatever may be the logical outcome of the position taken up towards the University problem by * Appendix to Third Report, pp. 283, 296. TWO SOCIAL CLASSES. 143 those who give expression to this pious opinion, I do not for a moment doubt their sincerity. But I often think that too much importance is attached to the dan- ger of building new walls, and that there is too little appreciation of the wide and deep foundation of the already existing walls between the two sections of Irishmen who are so unhappily kept apart. In dealing with this, as with all large Irish prob- lems, it had better be frankly recognised that there are in the country two races, two creeds, and, what is too little considered, two separate spheres of economic in- terest and pursuit. Socially two separate classes have naturally, nay inevitably, arisen out of these distinctions. One class has superior advantages in many ways of great importance. The other class is far more numerous, produces far the greater proportion of the nation's wealth, and is, therefore, from the national point of view, of greater importance. But both are necessary. Both must be adequately provided for in the supreme matter of higher education. Above all, the two classes must be educated to regard themselves as united by the bond of a common country — a sentiment which, if genuine, would treat differences arising from whatever cause, not as a difficulty in the way of national progress, but rather as affording a variety of opportunities for national expansion. I do not concern myself as to the exact form which the new institution or institutions which are to give us the absolutely essential advantage of higher education should 144 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF IRISH EDUCATION take. If in view of the difference in the requirements to which I have alluded, and the complicated pedagogic and administrative considerations which have to be taken into account, schemes of co-education of Protestants and Roman Catholics are difficult of immediate accomplish- ment, let that ideal be postponed. The two creeds can meet in the playground now : they can meet everywhere in after life. Ireland will bring them together soon enough if Ireland is given a chance, and when the time is ripe for their coming together in higher education they will come together. If the time is not now ripe for this ideal there is no justification for postponing educational reform until the relations between the two creeds have been elevated to a plane which, in my opinion, they will never reach except through the aid of that culture which a widely diffused higher education alone can afford. When I was beginning to write this chapter I chanced to pick up the Chesterfield Letters. I opened the book at the two hundredth epistle, and, curiously enough, almost the first sentence which caught my eye ran : ' Education more than nature is the cause of that differ- ence you see in the character of men.' I felt myself at first in strong disagreement with this aphorism. But when I came to reflect how much the character of one generation must be the outcome of the education of those which went before it, I gradually came to see the truth in Lord Chesterfield's words. I must leave it to EDUCATION, THE CURE FOR OUR DEFICIENCIES. 145 experts to define the exact steps which ought to be taken to make the general education of this country capable of cultivating the judgment, strengthening the will, and so of building up the character. But every day, every thought, I give to the problems of Irish progress convinces me more firmly that this is the real task of educational reform, a task that must be accomplished before we can prove to those who brand us with racial inferiority that, in Ireland, it was not nature that has been unkind in causing the difference we find in the character of men. L CHAPTER VI. Through Thought to Action. I have now completed my survey of the main condi- tions which, in my opinion, must be taken into account by anyone who would understand the Irish mind, and still more by those who seek to work with it in rebuilding the fortunes of the country. The task has been one of great difficulty, as it was necessary to tell, not only the truth — for that even an official person may be excused — but also the whole truth, which, unless made compulsory by the kissing of the book, is regarded as a gratuitous kissing of the rod. From the frying pan of political dis- pute, I have passed into the fire of sectarian controversy. I have not hesitated to poach on the preserves of his- torians and economists, and have even bearded the pedagogues in their dens. Before my stock of meta- phors is exhausted, let me say that I have one hope of escape from the cross-fire of denunciation which inde- pendent speaking about Ireland is apt to provoke. I once witnessed a football match between two villages, one of which favoured a political party called by the name of a leader, with an ' ism ' added to indicate a policy, the other adopting the same name, still further elongated by the prefix ' anti.' When I arrived on the scene the game had begun in deadly earnest, but I noticed the ball lying unmolested in another quarter of an irishman's philosophic doubt. 147 the field. In Irish public life I have often had reason to envy that ball, and perhaps now its lot may be mine, while the game goes on and the critics pay attention to each other. To my friendly critics a word of explanation is due. The opinions to which I have given expression are based upon personal observation and experience extending over a quarter of a century during which I have been in close touch with Irish life at home, and not unfamiliar with it abroad. I have referred to history only when I could not otherwise account for social and economic con- ditions with which I came into contact, or with which I desired practically to deal. Whether looking back over the dreary wastes of Anglo-Irish history, or studying the men and things of to-day, I came to conclusions which differed widely from what I had been taught to believe by those whose theories of Irish development had not been subjected to any practical test. Deeply as I have felt for the past sufferings of the Irish people and their heritage of disability and distress, I could not bring myself to believe that, where misgovernment had con- tinued so long, and in such an immense variety of circumstances and conditions, the governors could have been alone to blame. I envied those leaders of popular thought whose confidence in themselves and in their followers was shaken by no such reflections. But the more I listened to them the more the conviction was borne in upon me that they were seeking to build an impossible future upon an imaginary past. I4S THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. These whe knew Ireland frem within axe aware that Irish thought upon Irish problems has been undergoing a si* en:, and there: ::e to:' lightly regarded revolution The surface of Irish life, often so inexplicably ruffled, and sometimes so inexplicably calm, has just now become smooth to a degree which has led to hasty conclusions as :: :he real :euse :::i the :.rd s:gu:h:a:::e :: the change. To chime in with the thoughtless optimism of the hour will do no good ; but a real understanding of the forces which have created the existing situation will reveal an unprecedented opportunity for those who would give to the Irish mind that full and free develop- ment which has been so long and. as I have tried to show, so unnaturally delayed. Among these new forces in Irish life there is one which has been greatly misunderstood; and yet to its :n£uen:e during "he last rev." years mu:h :: the 'trans- formation scene ' in the drama of the Irish Question is really due It deserves more than a passing notice here, bemuse while its anus as formulated appear somewhat restricted, it unquestionably tends in practice towards that national object of paramount importance, the strengthening of character. I refer to the movement known as the Gaelic Revival. Of this movement I am mvself but an outside observer, having been forced to devote nearly all my time and energies to a variety of attempts which aim at the doing in the industrial sphere of very much the same work as that which the Gaelic movement attempts in the intellectual sphere — the re- THE GAELIC MOVEMENT. 149 habilitation of Ireland from within But in the course of my work of agricultural and industrial development I naturally came across this new intellectual force and found that when it began to take effect, so far from diverting the minds of the peasantry from the practical affairs of life, it made them distinctly more amenable to the teaching of the dry economic doctrine of which I was an apostle. The reason for this is plain enough to me now, though, like all my theories about Ireland, the truth came to me from observation and practical experience rather than as the result of philosophic speculation. For the co-operative movement depended for its success upon a two-fold achievement. In order to get it started at all, its principles and working details had to be grasped by the Irish peasant mind and commended to his intelli- gence. Its further development and its hopes of perma- nence depend upon the strengthening of character, which, I must repeat, is the foundation of all Irish progress. The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society* exerts its influence — a now established and rapidly-growing influ- ence — mainly through the medium of associations The Gaelic movement, on the other hand, acts more directly upon the individual and the two forces are therefore in a sense complementary to each other. Both will be seen to be playing an important part — I should say a necessary part — in the reconstruction of our national life. At any rate, I feel that it is necessary to my argument that I should explain to those who are as ill-informed * This body is fully described in the next chapter. 150 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. about the Gaelic revival as I was myself until its practical usefulness was demonstrated to me, what exactly seems to be the most important outcome of the work of that movement The Gaelic League, which defines its objects as 1 The preservation of Irish as the national language of Ireland and the extension of its use as a spoken tongue ; the study and publication of existing Irish literature and the cultivation of a modern literature in Irish/ was formed in 1893. Like the Agricultural Organisation Society, the Gaelic League is declared by its constitution to be ' strictly non-political and non-sectarian,' and, like it, has been the object of much suspicion, because severance from politics in Ireland has always seemed to the poli- tician the most active form of enmity. Its constitution, too, is somewhat similar, being democratically guided in its policy by the elected representatives of its affiliated branches. It is interesting to note that the funds with which it carries on an extensive propaganda are mainly supplied from the small contributions of the poor. It publishes two periodicals, one weekly and another monthly. It administers an income of some £6,000 a year, not reckoning what is spent by local branches, and has a paid staff of eleven officers, a secretary, treasurer, and nine organisers, together with a large number of voluntary workers. It resembled the agricultural move- ment also in the fact that it made very little headway during the first few years of its existence. But it had a nucleus of workers with new ideas for the intellectual ANOTHER IRISH LEAGUE. I5I regeneration of Ireland. In face of much apathy they persisted with their propaganda, and they have at last succeeded in making their ideas understood. So much is evident from the rapidly-increasing number of affiliated branches of the League, which in March, 1903, amounted to 600, almost treble the number regis- tered two years before. But even this does not convey any idea of the influence wnich the movement exerts. Within the past year the teaching of the Irish language has been introduced into no less than 1,300 National Schools. In 1900 the number of schools in which Irish was taught was only about 140. The statement that our people do not read books is generally accepted as true, yet the sale of the League publications during one year reached nearly a quarter of a million copies. These re- sults cannot be left unconsidered by anybody who wishes to understand the psychology of the Irish mind. The movement can truly claim to have effected the conversion of a large amount of intellectual apathy into genuine intellectual activity. The declared objects of the League — the popularising of the national language and literature — do not convey, perhaps, an adequate conception of its actual work, or of the causes of its popularity. It seeks to develop the intellectual, moral, and social life of the Irish people from within, and it is doing excellent work in the cause of tem- perance. Its president, Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his evidence given before the University Commission* * See Appendix to Third Report, p. 311. 152 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. pointed out that the success of the League was due to its meeting the people half way ; that it educated them by giving them something which they could appreciate and assimilate ; and that it afforded a proof that people who would not respond to alien educational systems, will respond with eagerness to something they can call their own. The national factor in Ireland has been studiously eliminated from national education, and Ireland is perhaps the only country in Europe where it was part of the settled policy of those who had the guid- ance of education to ignore the literature, history, arts, and traditions of the people. It was a fatal policy, for it obviously tended to stamp their native country in the eyes of Irishmen with the badge of inferiority and to extinguish the sense of healthy self-respect which comes from the consciousness of high national ancestry and traditions. This policy, rigidly adhered to for many years, almost extinguished native culture among Irish men, but it did not succeed in making another form of culture acceptable to them. It dulled the intelligence of the people, impaired their interest in their own surround- ings, stimulated emigration by teaching them to look on other countries as more agreeable places to live in, and made Ireland almost a social desert. Men and women without culture or knowledge of literature or of music have succeeded a former generation who were passionately interested in these things, an interest which extended down even to the wayside cabin. The loss of these elevating influences in Irish society probably THE REAL SPIRIT OF NATIONALITY. 153 accounts for much of the arid nature of Irish contro- versies, while the reaction against their suppression has given rise to those displays of rhetorical patriotism for which the Irish language has found the expressive term raimeis, and which (thanks largely to the Gaelic move- ment) most people now listen to with a painful and half-ashamed sense of their unreality. The Gaelic movement has brought to the surface senti- ments and thoughts which had been developed in Gaelic Ireland through hundreds of years, and which no repres- sion had been able to obliterate altogether, but which still remained as a latent spiritual inheritance in the mind. And now this stream, which has long run underground, has again emerged even stronger than before, because an element of national self-consciousness has been added at its re-emergence. A passionate conviction is gaining ground that if Irish traditions, literature, language, art, music, and culture are allowed to disappear, it will mean the disappearance of the race ; and that the educa- tion of the country must be nationalised if our social, intellectual, or even our economic position is to be permanently improved. With this view of the Gaelic movement my own thoughts are in complete accord. It is undeniable that the pride in country justly felt by Englishmen, a pride developed by education and a knowledge of their history, has had much to do with the industrial pre-eminence of England ; for the pioneers of its commerce have been often actuated as much by patriotic motives as by the 154 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. desire for gain. The education of the Irish people has ignored the need for any such historical basis for pride or love of country, and, for my part, I feel sure that the Gaelic League is acting wisely in seeking to arouse such a sentiment, and to found it mainly upon the ages of Ireland's story when Ireland was most Irish. It is this expansion of the sentiment of nationality outside the domain of party politics — the distinction, so to speak, between nationality and nationalism — which is the chief characteristic of the Gaelic movement. Nationality had come to have no meaning other than a political one. any broader national sentiment having had little or nothing to feed upon During the last century the spirit of nationality has found no unworthy expression in literature, in the writings of Ferguson, Standish O'Grady and Yeats, which, however, have not been even remotely comparable in popularity with the political journalism in prose and rhyme in which the age has been so fruitful. It has never expressed itself in the arts, and not only has Ireland no representative names in the higher regions ot art, but the national deficiency has been felt in every department of industry into which design enters, and where national art-characteristics have a commercial value. The national customs, culture, and recreations which made the country a pleasant place to live in, have almost disappeared, and with them one of the strongest ties which bind people to the country of their birth. The Gaelic revival, as I understand it, is an AN APPEAL TO THE INDIVIDUAL. 1 55 attempt to supply these deficiencies, to give to Irish people a culture of their own ; and I believe that by awakening the feelings of pride, self-respect, and love of country, based on knowledge, every department of Irish life will be invigorated. Thus it is that the elevating influence upon the indivi- dual is exerted. Politics have never awakened initiative among the mass of the people, because there was no pro- gramme of action for the individual. Perhaps it is as well for Ireland that such should have been the case, for, as it has been shown, we have had little of the political thought which should be at the back of political action. Political action under present conditions must necessarily be deputed to a few representatives, and after the vote is given, or the cheering at a meeting has ceased, the indi- vidual can do nothing but wait, and his lethargy tends to become still deeper. In the Gaelic revival there is a programme of work for the individual ; his mind is engaged, thought begets energy, and this energy vitalises every part of his nature. This makes for the strengthen- ing of character, and so far from any harm being done to the practical movement, to which I have so often referred, the testimony of my fellow-workers, as well as my own observation, is unanimous in affirming that the influence of the branches of the Gaelic League is distinctly useful whenever it is sought to move the people to industrial or commercial activity. Many of my political friends cannot believe — and I am afraid that nothing that I can say will make them I56 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. believe — that the movement is not necessarily, in the political sense, separatist in its sentiment. This impres- sion is, in my opinion, founded on a complete misunder- standing of Anglo-Irish history. Those who look askance at the rise of the Gaelic movement ignore the important fact that there has never been any essential opposition between the English connection and Irish nationality. The Elizabethan chiefs of the sixteenth and the Gaelic poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the relations between the two countries were far worse than they are to-day, knew nothing of this opposition. The true sentiment of nationality is a priceless heritage of every small nation which has done great things, and had it not largely perished in Ireland, separatist sentiment, the offspring, not of Irish nation- ality, but of Irish political nationalism, could hardly have survived until to-day. But undoubtedly we strike here on a danger to the Gaelic movement, so far at least as that movement is bound up with the future of the Gaelic League ; a danger which cannot be left out of account in any estimate of this new force in Irish life. The continuance of the League as a beneficent force, or indeed a force at all, seems to me, as in the case of the co-operative organisa- tion to which I have compared it, to be vitally dependent on a scrupulous observance of that part of its constitution which keeps the door open to Irishmen of every creed or political party. Only thus can the League remain a truly national body, and attract from all classes Irishmen THE GAELIC REVIVAL AND POLITICS. 157 who are capable of forwarding its true policy. I do nor think there is much danger of a spirit of sectarian exclusiveness developing itself in a body mainly com- posed of Roman Catholics whose President is a Pro- testant. But it cannot be denied that there has been an occasional tendency to interpret the 'no polities' clause of the constitution in a manner which seems hardly fair to Unionists or even to constitutional Home Rulers who may have joined the organisation on the strength of its declaration of political neutrality. If this is not a mere transitory phenomenon its effect will be serious. As a political body the League would imme- diately sink into insignificance and probably disappear amid a crowd of contending factions. It would certainly cease to fulfil its great function of creating a nationality of the thought and spirit, in which all Irishmen who wish to be anything else than English colonists might aspire to share. Its early successes in bringing together men of different political views were remarkable. At the very outset of its career it enlisted the support of so militant a politician as the late Rev. R. R. Kane, who declared that though a Unionist and an Orangeman he had no desire to forget that he was an O'Cahan. On this basis it is difficult to set a limit to the fruitfulness of the work which this organisation might do for Ireland, and I cannot regard any who would depart from the letter and spirit of its constitution as sincere, or if sincere as wise, friends of the movement with which they are associated. Of minor importance are certain extravagances in the I58 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. conduct of the movement which time and practical experience can hardly fail to correct. I have borne witness to the value of the cultivation of the language even from my own practical standpoint, but I cannot think that to sign cheques in Irish, and get angry when those who cannot understand will not honour them, is a good way of demonstrating that value. I should, speak- ing generally, regard it as a mistake, supposing it were practicable, to substitute Irish for English in the conduct of business. If any large development of the trade in pampooties, turf and potheen between the Aran Islands and the mainland were in contemplation, this attempt might be justified. But on behalf of those Philistines who attach paramount importance to the development of Irish industry, trade and commerce on a large and com- prehensive scale, I should regret a course which, from a business point of view, would be about as wise as the advocacy of distinctive Irish currency, weights and measures. And I protest more strongly against the reasons which have been given to me for this policy. I have been told that, in order to generate sufficient enthu- siasm, a young movement of the kind must adopt a rigorous discipline and an aggressive policy. Not only are we thus confronted with a false issue, but by giving countenance to the outward acceptance of what the better sense rejects, these over-zealous leaguers are admin- istering to the Irish character the very poison which all Irish movements should combine to eliminate from the national life. THE GAELIC LEAGUE AND RURAL LIFE. I59 The position which I have given to the Gaelic Revival among the new influences at work and making for pro- gress in Ireland will hardly be understood by those who have never embraced the idea of combining all such forces in a constructive and comprehensive scheme of national advancement. One instance of the potential utility of the Gaelic League will appeal to those of my readers who attach as much importance as I do to the improvement of the peasant home. Concerted action to this end is being planned while I write. It is proposed to take a few districts where the peasants are members of one oi the new co-operative societies, and where the clergy have taken a keen interest in the economic and social advance- ment of the members of the Society, but where the cottages are in the normal condition. The new Depart- ment will lend the services of its domestic economy teachers. The Organisation Society, the clergy, and the Department thus working together will, I hope, be able to get the people of the selected districts to effect an improvement in their domestic surroundings which will act as an invaluable example for other districts to follow. But in order that this much needed contribution to the well-being of the peasant proprietary, upon which all our thoughts are just now concentrated, may be assisted with the enthusiasm which belongs in Ireland to a consciously national effort, it is hoped that common action with the Gaelic League may be possible, so that this force also may be enlisted in the solution of this part of our central problem, the rehabilitation of rural life in Ireland. l60 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. It is, however, on more general grounds that I have, albeit as an outside observer, watched with some anxiety and much gratification the progress of the Gaelic Revival. In the historical evolution of the Irish mind we find certain qualities atrophied, so to speak, by disuse ; and to this cause I attribute the past failures of the race in practical life at home. I have shown how politics, religion, and our systems of education have all, in their respective influences upon the people, missed to a large extent, the effect upon character which they should have made it their paramount duty to produce. Nevertheless, whenever the intellect of the people is appealed to by those who know its past, a recuperative power is manifested which shows that its vitality has not been irredeemably impaired It is because I believe that, on the whole, a right appeal has been made by the Gaelic League that I have borne testimony to its patriotic endeavours. The question of the Gaelic Revival seems to be really a form of the eternal question of the interdependence of the practical and the ideal in Ireland. Their true relation to each other is one of the hardest lessons the student of our problems has to learn. I recall an incident in the course of my own studies which I will here recount, as it appears to me to furnish an admirable illustration of this difficulty as it presented itself to a very interesting mind. During the years covering the rise and fall of Parnell, when interest in the Irish Question was at its zenith, the newspapers of the United States kept in harold Frederic's diagnosis. l6l London a corps of very able correspondents, who watched and reported to their transatlantic readers every move in the Home Rule campaign. An American public, by no means limited to the American-Irish, devoured every morsel of this intelligence with an avidity which could not have been surpassed if the United States had been engaged in a war with Great Britain. Among these correspondents perhaps the most brilliant was the late Harold Frederic. Not many months before lie died I received a letter from him, in which he said that, although we were unknown to each other, he thought, from some public utterances of mine, that we must have many views in common. He had often in- tended to get an introduction to me, and now suggested that we should 1 waive things and meet' We met and spent an evening together, which left some deep impres- sions on my mind. He told me that the Irish Question possessed for him a fascination for which he could give no rational explanation. He had absolutely no tie of blood or material interest with Ireland, and his friendship for it had brought him the only quarrels in which he had ever been engaged. What chiefly interested me in Harold Frederic's philosophy of the Irish Question was that he had arrived at a diagnosis of the Irish mind not substantially different from my own. Since that evening I have come across a passage in one of his novels, which clothes in delightful language his view of the chaotic psychology of the Irish Celt : There, in Ireland, you get a strange mixture of M l62 THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION. elementary early peoples, walled off from the outer world by the four seas, and free to work out their own racial amalgam on their own lines. They brought with them at the outset a great inheritance of Eastern mysticism. Others lost it, but the Irish, all alone on their island, kept it alive and brooded on it, and rooted their whole spiritual side in it. Their religion is full of it ; their blood is full of it. . . . The Ireland of two thousand years ago is incarnated in her. They are the merriest people and the saddest, the most turbulent and the most docile, the most talented and the most unproductive, the most practical and the most visionary, the most devout and the most pagan. These impossible contradictions war ceaselessly in their blood.* In our conversation what struck me most was the influence which politics had exercised even on his philosophic mind, notwithstanding a low estimate of our political leaders. In one of a series of three notable articles upon the Irish Question, which appeared anony- mously in the Fortnightly Review^ in the winter of 1893-4, an d of which he told me he was the writer, he had given a character sketch of what he called 1 The Rhetoricians.' Their performances since the Union were summarised in the phrase 'a century of unremitting gabble,' and he regarded it as a sad commentary on Irish life that such brilliant talents so largely run to waste in destructive criticism. I naturally turned the conversation on to my own line * The Damnation of Theron Ware. This was the title of the book I read in the United States. I am told he published it in England under the title of Illumination— a. nice discrimination ! t They appeared under the signature of * X.' in Nov. and Dec, 1893, and Jan., 1894. THE CELT'S LACK OF INITIATIVE. 163 of thought, and discussed the practical conclusions to which his studies had led him. I tried to elicit from him- exactly what he had in his mind when, in one of the articles to which I have referred, he advocated ' a recon- struction of Ireland on distinctive national lines.' I hoped to find that his psychological study of my countrymen would enable him to throw some light upon the means by which play could be given at home to the latent capa- cities of the race. I found that he was in entire accord with my view, that the chief difficulty in the way of con- structive statesmanship was the defect in the Irish character about which I have said so much. I was pre- pared for that conclusion, for I had already seen the lack of initiative admirably appreciated in the following illuminating sentence of his : — ' The Celt will help some- one else to do the thing that other has in mind, and will help him with great zeal and devotion ; but he will not start to do the thing he himself has thought of.'* But I was disappointed when he bade me his first and last good-bye that I had not convinced him that there was any way out of the Irish difficulty other than political changes, for which, at the same time, he appeared to think the people singularly unfitted. The fact is we had arrived at the point where the student of Irish life usually finds himself in a cul de sac. If he has accurately observed the condition * 1 64 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. to agricultural production and distribution. These things can be done if our practical education is sound, and if we can overcome the difficulty of co-ordinating our teaching of technical agriculture with the general educational systems of the country. When, on the other hand, education is considered as a means for the development of subsidiary industries, w r e come face to face with a wholly different problem. We have no longer an industry which we are seeking to foster and develop going on under our eyes, steadying us in our theorising, and in our experimenting upon the mind of the worker, by bringing us into close touch with the actual conditions of his work. Our chief aim must be to develop his adaptability to the ever-changing and, jve hope, improving economic industrial conditions amidst which he will have to work. To the Department, as has already been explained, was handed over the administration of the Science and Art Grants formerly administered by South Kensington. The Department accordingly drew up a programme of experimental science and drawing, carrying capitation grants, for day secondary schools. The Intermediate Education Board, acting on the suggestion of the Con- sultative Committee for Co-ordinating Education,* adopted this programme and at the same time undertook to accept the reports of the Department's inspectors as the basis of their awards in the new "subject." These steps ensured the rapid and general adoption of this * See ante, pp. 236-238. THE DEPARTMENT'S EDUCATIONAL POLICY. 265 practical teaching- in secondary schools, and, owing particularly to the spirit in which their authorities and teaching- staffs accepted the innovation, the work has been carried out with the happiest results. The introduction for the first time of experimental science combined with manual training for boys, domestic economy for girls, and drawing for both, has already produced a palpably beneficial influence upon the educa- tional aim of these schools. The substitution of a system of inspection, constructive and helpful rather than judi- cial, for a system of written examinations, with their attendant evils of cramming and superficiality — at least so far as science is concerned— has already done much to make this branch of education what it ought to be — a training of the eye, the hand and the brain. But much remains to be done. So long as youths destined by their circumstances for agricultural or industrial careers, are encouraged — or even permitted — to take courses of study leading them only to competitive examinations for Civil Service clerkships, or for the overcrowded profes- sions, so long will our industries be handicapped by the lack of education in touch with practical life. It is not, however, too much to hope that, from the work already done, there will spring a type of school in which the preparation of the young farmer or artisan for his own work in life will be the paramount consideration.. The natural trend of our educational policy will now be clear. Leaving out of account large towns, where our problem is, as I have said, the same as that which con- 265 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. fronts the industrial classes in the manufacturing centres of Great Britain, we are chiefly concerned with the application of science to the cultivation of the soil and the improvement of live stock, and of business prin- ciples to the commercial side of farming ; with the teaching of dairying, horticulture, apiculture, and what has been called farm-yard lore, outside the rural home, and with domestic economy inside. On the industrial as distinct from the agricultural side of the work in rural localities, technical instruction must be directed towards the development of subsidiary rural industries. We early came to the conclusion that we could not expect to find a system which we could simply transplant from some other country. The system adopted in Great Britain, where each county or group of counties maintains an agricultural college and an experimental farm, and many more elaborate systems on the continent, were all found on examination to be inapplicable to our own rural conditions, unsuitable to the national character, and unrelated to the history of our agriculture. Many of these schemes might have turned out a few highly qualified authorities on the theory of agriculture, and even good practical directors for those who farm on a large scale. But we are dealing with a country with great possibilities from an agricultural point of view, but where, nevertheless, agriculture in many parts is in a very backward condition, and where it is probably safe to say that three-fifths of the farms are crowded on one-fourth of the land. We are dealing with a THE TEACHER DIFFICULTY. 267 community with whom the systems of elementary, secondary and higher education have not tended to prepare the student for agricultural pursuits. A system of agricultural and domestic education suited to the wants of those who are to farm the land must recognise and foster the new spirit of self-help and hope which is springing up in the country, and must be made so interesting as to become a serious rival to the race meeting and the public-house. The daily drudgery of farm work must be counteracted by the ambition to possess the best stock, the neatest home- stead and fences, the cleanest and the best tilled fields. The unsolved problem of agricultural education is to devise a system which will reach down to the small working farmers who form the great bulk of the wealth producers of Ireland, to give them new hope, a new interest, new knowledge and, I might add, a new indus- trial character. We were met at the outset by the difficulty which would apply to any system — that of finding trained teachers. This deficiency was felt in two directions — first, in the secondary school, in which the preliminary scientific studies should be undertaken, which are neces- sary to enable a lad to profit by more advanced instruction later on ; and, secondly, in the special training of tech- nical agriculture. It would not have been desirable to overcome these difficulties by any very extensive im- portation of teachers from without. I certainly hold the occasional importation of teachers with outside ex- 268 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. perience to be most desirable, but these should not form more than a leaven of the pedagogic lump ; for it is a serious hindrance when to the task of familiarising students with a new system of education there is added that of familiarising a large body of teachers with the intellectual, social and economic conditions of the people among whom they are to work. The manner in which the teacher difficulty was sur- mounted may be briefly stated, first, as regards the school, and, secondly, as regards the teaching of agriculture. Those already engaged in the teaching profession could not be relegated again to the status pupillaris. There was only one way in which they could assist us to over- come the difficulty, and that involved a great sacrifice on their part, the sacrifice of their well-earned vacation, but a sacrifice which they willingly made. The teachers most urgently needed were those of practical science, with knowledge of experimental work ; and about five hundred teachers from secondary schools, in order to qualify themselves, have attended summer courses specially organised by the Department at several centres in Ireland, while about four hundred have availed them- selves of special summer courses in such subjects as drawing, manual instruction, domestic economy, building construction, wood-carving and modelling. For the provision of a future supply of thoroughly trained teachers of science and of technology, including agriculture, the Royal College of Science has been re- organised. Although this institution was brought under PROBLEM OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 200, the new conditions little more than three years ago, it will be seen that no time has been lost when I state that the first batch of men who have received a three years' course of training under the new programme are already at work under County Committees. For the training of these teachers, scholarships had to be pro- vided, and new professors and teachers, particularly in agriculture, had to be appointed. In regard to agricultural instruction we had to begin by carefully considering what, among many alternative plans, should be our immediate as well as our more remote aims. The Department's officers had studied Conti- nental systems, and some of them had taken part in establishing systems of agricultural education in Great Britain. But it was not until the summer of 1901 that we had sufficiently studied the question in Ireland itself, with direct reference to the history, the environ- ment, and the ideals of the people, to justify us in initia- ting a policy or formulating a definite programme for its execution * The main object was to secure for the youth of the present generation who will later be concerned with agriculture, sound and thorough in- struction in its principles and practice. Everyone who has given any thought to the subject knows how difficult it is to teach technical agriculture unless provision has been made in the general education of the country for instruction in those fundamental * For a full description of the Department's scheme of agricultural education I may refer to a Memorandum on Agricultural Education in Ireland, written by the author and published by the Department, July, 1901. 270 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. principles of science which, recognised or unrecognised, lie at the root of, and profoundly influence agricultural practice. This foundation, as I have shown, is now being laid in Ireland. In our scheme the boy who has managed to avail himself of a two or three years' course of practical science in one of the secondary schools is then prepared to take full advantage of courses of technology, and will have to make up his mind as to the career he is to follow. We are now considering the case of a boy who is going to become a farmer, the class to which we chiefly look for the future well-being of Ireland. It is necessary that he should be taught the practical as well as the technical side of agriculture. The practical work he can learn upon his father's farm during spring and summer, and the techni- cal by continuing his studies during the winter months in a school of agriculture. The establishment of such winter schools is in contemplation. But, in the mean- while, to bring home to farmers the advantages of a first- class agricultural education for their sons, and at the same time to teach these farmers the more practical application of science to agriculture, the Department decided on a preliminary period of Itinerant Instruction. The teacher difficulty, experienced on all sides of our work, was probably felt more acutely in regard to the specialised teachers of agriculture than in any other connection. Here it was necessary to take the young men brought up upon farms and possessed of the normal qualifications of the Irish practical farmer. We then had ITINERANT INSTRUCTION. 2J I to make them into teachers by adding to their inherited and home-manufactured capacities a scientific training. In the training of agricultural teachers the Albert Institute, Glasnevin, has been utilised by the Department. This school has also been re-organised to meet the new programme, and it will probably form in future a link between the winter schools of agriculture and the Royal College of Science in the training of our agricultural teachers. Partly by these methods, partly by the temporary engagement of lecturers on special subjects, and partly by the appointment of trained teachers from England or Scotland, the system of itinerant instruction has been brought into operation as fully as could be expected in the time. Already half the County Committees have been provided with County instructors, while the re- mainder have nearly all drafted schemes and allocated funds for a similar purpose, ready to go to work as soon as more teachers have been trained. The Itinerant Instruction scheme, it may be pointed out, besides one obvious, has another less immediately recognisable purpose. The direct business of the itinerant instructor is, by the aid of experimental plots, simple lectures, and demonstrations, to teach the farmers of his district as much as they can take in without the scientific preparation in which, as adults who have grown up under the old system of education, they are still lacking. But he does more than that. He not only conducts a school for adults, but in the very process of instruction 272 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. he necessarily makes them aware of the vital necessity of a school for the young; and they begin, as parents, to understand and to desire the kind of instruction in the schools of the country which will prepare their children to take more advantage of the advanced teaching in agri- culture than they themselves can ever hope to do. The system of itinerant teaching of Domestic Economy has its own peculiar virtues and defects. It reaches the people in remote districts in a way attained by no other method. Wherever there is a sufficient number of people and a room, the teacher can take her travelling equip- ment and commence a course of instruction. The chief defect lies in the shortness of this course. To meet the claims of other centres it is not found practicable as a rule to extend the period beyond six weeks. Courses of instruction extending over a year have, however, been established in ( Residential Schools of Domestic Econo- my,' of which eight or nine have been organised in con- nection with County Schemes of Technical Instruction. The general reader will be more interested in the actual teaching than in the administrative details. The subjects grouped together under the classification of * domestic economy ' differ only in the manner of their application to town and country. To these subjects the Department attaches great im- portance. In the industrial life of manufacturing towns I am persuaded that far too little thought has been given to this element of industrial effici- ency. From a purely economic point of view a DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 273 saving in the worker's income due to superior house- wifery is equivalent to an increase in his earnings ; but, morally, the superior thrift is, of course, immensely more important. " Without economy," says Dr. Johnson, " none can be rich, and with it few can be poor," and the education which only increases the productiveness of labour and neglects the principles of wise spending will place us at a disadvantage in the great industrial struggle. When we come to consider domestic economy as an agency for improving the conditions of the peasant home, not only by thrift, but by increasing the general attractiveness of home life, the introduction of a sound system of domestic economy teaching becomes not only important, but vital. The establishment of such a system and the task of making it operative and effective in the country is beset with difficulties. The teacher difficulty confronts us again, and also that of making pupils and their parents understand that there are other objects in domestic training than that of qualifying for domestic service. A corps of instructresses in domestic economy is, how- ever, already abroad throughout the country, nearly all the County Councils having already appointed them. Some of these teachers, who have made the best contributions towards the as yet only partially determined question of the ultimate aim and present possibilities of a course of instruction in hygiene, laundry work, cookery, the management of children, sewing, and so forth, have told me that the demand T 274 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. in rural districts seems to be chiefly for the class of instruction which may lead to success in town life. I have heard of a class of girls in a Connaught village who would not be content with knowing the accomplish- ments of a farmer's wife until they had learned how to make asparagus soup and cook sweetbreads. No doubt they had read of the way things are done in the kitchens of the great. This tendency should never be encouraged, but neither can it always be inflexibly repressed without endangering the main objects of the class. Women teachers of poultry-keeping, dairying, domestic science and kindred subjects are trained at the Munster Institute, Cork, and the School of Domestic Economy, Kildare Street, Dublin, both of which have been equipped to meet the needs of the new programme. The want of teachers, and not any lack of interest on the part of the country, has alone prevented all the counties from adopt- ing schemes for encouraging improvement in all these branches of work. I may add that more than one hundred and fifty of these qualified teachers are now at work under County Committees. I have already, in this chapter, indicated that outside large industrial centres, our educational policy is, broadly speaking, twofold. We seek, in the first place, through our programme in Experimental Science and its allied subjects, now so generally adopted by secondary schools in Ireland, to give that fundamental training in science and scientific method which, most thinkers are agreed, constitutes a condition precedent to sound specialised THE HOME A*D THE FACTORY. 275 teaching of agriculture as well as other forms of industry. We seek further, by methods less academic in char- acter — for example, by itinerant instruction which is of value chiefly to those with whom ' school ' is a thing of the past — to teach not only improved agricultural methods but also simple industries, and to promote the cultivation of industrial habits which are as essential to the success of farming as to that of every other occupation. Classes in manual work of various kinds — -woodwork, carpentry, applied drawing and building construction, lace and crochet making, needlework, dressmaking and em- broidery, sprigging, hosiery and other such subjects, have been numerously and steadily attended. It was inevitable that, in carrying out this policy, the Department should have been brought face to face with the problem of the extent to which industries of this type could compete with those carried on in highly organised factories. If the aim were to compete on equal terms in the great markets, it is obvious that the home industries would be heavily handicapped. But this is not the aim. To the small farmer and his family, time is a realisable, though too often unrealised, asset. Our efforts should be directed to the economical employment of their time and energy now running to waste. Even if we can only cause them to do at home what they now pay someone else to do, we shall not merely secure an improvement of the family budget, but shall help to raise the standard of comfort in the home, and thus, in no small measure, aid in the solution of the problem of rural life in Ireland. 276 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. I think the reader will now understand the general character of the problem with which we were confronted and the means by which its solution is being sought. Our policy was not one which was likely to commend itself to the " man in the street" Indeed, to be quite candid, it was a little disappointing even to myself that I could not immortalise my appointment by erecting monuments both to my constructive ability and to my educational zeal in the shape of stately edifices at convenient railway centres, preferably along the tourist routes. We have had to stand the fire of the critic fresh from his holiday on the Continent where he had seen agri- cultural and technological institutions, magnificently housed and lavishly equipped, fitting generations of young men and young women for competition with our less fortunate countrymen. It is hard to prevail in argument against the man who has gone and seen for himself. It is useless to point out to the man with a kodak that the Corinthian facade and the marble columns of the aula maxima which aroused his patriotic envy are but a small part of the educational structure which he saw and thought he understood. If he would read the history of the systems and trace the suc- cessive stages by which the need for these great institu- tions was established, he would have a little more sympathy with the difficulties of the Department, a little more patience with its Fabian policy. I must not, however, utter a word which suggests that the Department has any ground of complaint against the SAVINGS OF INCOME. 277 country for the spirit in which it has been met ; especi- ally as there was one factor to be taken into account which made it difficult for public opinion to approve of our policy. As I have already explained, a large capital sum of a little over ^"200,000 was handed over to the Department at its creation. During the first year, what with the organisation of the staff, the thinking out of a policy on every side of the Department's work, the con- stitution of the statutory committees to administer its local schemes in town and country, the agreement, after long discussion, between the central body and these committees upon the local schemes, and all the other preparatory steps which had to be taken before money could w r isely be applied, it is obvious that the Depart- ment could not have spent its income. In the second year, and even the third year, savings were effected, and the original capital sum has been largely increased. What more natural than that in a poor country a spending Department which was backward in spending should appear to be lacking in enterprise, if not in administrative capacity ? But whether the policy was right or wrong it has unquestionably been approved by the best thought in the country, a fact which throws a very interesting light upon the constitutional aspects of the Department. At each successive stage the policy was discussed at the Coun- cil of Agriculture and its practical operation was depen- dent upon the consent of the Boards which have the power of the purse. A Vice-President A'ho had not these bodies at his back would be powerless, id act would have to 278 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. resign. Thoughtless criticism has now and again con- demned not only the parsimonious action of the Depart- ment, but the invertebrate conduct of the Council of Agriculture and the Boards in tolerating it. The time will soon come when the service rendered to their country by the members of the first Council and Boards, who gave their representative backing to a slow but sure educa- tional policy, and scorned to seek popularity in showy projects and local doles, will be gratefully remembered to them. Already we have had some gratifying evidences that the country is with us in the paramount importance we attach to education as the real need of the hour. Most readers will be surprised to hear that in the short time the Department has been at work it has aided in the equipment of nearly two hundred science laboratories and of about fifty manual instruction workshops, while the many-sided programme involved in the movement as a whole is in operation in some four hundred schools attended by thirty-six thousand pupils. Nothing can be more gratifying than the unanimous testimony of the officers of the Department to the increasing practical intelligence and reasonableness of the numerous Committees responsible for the local administration of the schemes which the Depart- ment has to approve of and supervise. The demand for visible money's worth has largely given place to a genuine desire for schemes having a practical educational value for the industry of the district. County IMPROVEMENT OF LIVE STOCK. Clare is not generally considered the most advanced part of Ireland, nor can Kilrush be very far distant from ' the back of Godspeed ' ; yet even from that storm-battered outpost of Irish ideas I was memorialised a year ago to induce the County Council to pay less attention to the improvement of cattle and more to the technical educa- tion of the peasantry. Under the heading of direct aids to agriculture, rural industries, and sea and inland fisheries, there is much important and useful work which the Department has set in motion, partly by the use of its funds and partly by suggestion and the organisation of local effort. The most obvious, popular and easily understood schemes were those directed to the improvement of live stock. The Department exercised its supervision and control with the help of advisory committees composed of the best experts it could get to volunteer advice upon the various classes of live stock. It is unnecessary to give any details of these schemes. The Department profited by the experience of, and received con- siderable assistance from the Royal Dublin Society, which had for many years administered a Government grant for the improvement of horses and cattle. The broad principle adopted by the Department was that its efforts and its available resources should be devoted rather to improving the quality, than to increasing the quantity, of the stock in the country, the latter function being regarded as belonging to the region of private enterprise. 2S0 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance to the country of having a widespread interest aroused and dis- cussion stimulated on problems of breeding which affect a trade of vast importance to the economic standing of the country — a trade which now reaches in horned cattle alone an annual export of nearly three quarters of a million animals. All manner of practical discussions were set on foot, ranging from the production of the ideal, the general purposes cow, to that controversy which com- petes, in the virulence with which it is waged, with the political, the educational, and the fiscal questions — the question whether the hackney strain will bring a new era of prosperity to Ireland, or whether it will irretriev- ably destroy the reputation of the Irish hunter. The discussion of these problems has been accompanied by much practical work which, in due time, cannot fail to produce a considerable improvement upon the breed of different classes of live stock. In one year over one thou- sand sires have been selected by the experts of the Department for admission to the stock improvement schemes. Probably an equal number of breeding animals offered for inspection have been rejected. Many a cause celebre has not unnaturally arisen over the decisions of the equestrian tribunal, and there have not been wanting threats that the attention of Parliament should be called to the gross partiality of the Department which has cast a reflection upon the form of stallion A or upon the constitutional soundness of stallion B. On the whole, as far as I can gather, the best authorities in the country EXPERIMENTAL PLOTS. 28l are agreed that since the Department has been at work there has been established a higher standard of excel- lence in the bucolic mind as regards that vastly important national asset, our flocks and herds Again for details I must refer the reader to official documents. There he will find as much information as he can digest about the vast variety of agricultural activities which originate sometimes with the Department's officers or with its Journal and leaflets, the circulation of which has no longer to be stimulated from our Statistics and In- telligence bureau, and sometimes emanate from the local committees, whose growing interest in the work natur- ally leads to the discovery of fresh needs and hitherto unthought of possibilities of agricultural and industrial improvement I may, however, indicate a few of the subjects which have been gone into even in these years while the new Department has been trying so far as it might, without sacrifice of efficiency and sound economic principle, to keep pace with the feverish anxiety of a genuinely interested people to get to work upon schemes which they believe to be practical, sound, and of perma- nent utility. A question which has troubled administrators of State aid to every progressive agricultural community, and which each country must settle for itself, is by what form of object lesson in ordinary agriculture intelligent local interest can best be aroused. We have advo- cated widely diffused small experimental plots, and they have done much good. Probably the most useful j8j government and the governed. of our crop improvement schemes have been those which have demonstrated the profitableness of artificial manures, the use of which has been enormously increased. The profits derivable in many parts of Ireland from the cultivation of early potatoes has been demonstrated in the most convincing manner. To what may be called the industrial crops, notably flax and barley, a great deal of time and thought has been applied and much infor- mation disseminated and illustrated by practical experi- ments. In many quarters interest has been aroused in the possibilities of profitable tobacco culture. Many negative and some positive results have been attained by the Department in the as yet incomplete experiments upon this crop. Much has been learned about the func- tions of central and local agricultural and small industry shows, those occasional aids to the year's work which disseminate knowledge and stimulate interest and friendly rivalry among the different producers. The reduction in the death-rate among young stock, due to preventible causes such as white scour and blackleg, is well worthy of the attention of those who wish to study the more practical work of the Department. The branch of the Department's work which deals with the Sea-fisheries can only be very briefly touched on. It falls into two main heads which may roughly be termed the administrative and the scientific ; the latter, of course, having economic developments as its ultimate object. The issue of loans to fishermen for the purchase of boats and gear, contributing to the cost of fishery SEA FISHERIES. J83 slips and piers, circulating telegraphic intelligence, the making of by-laws for the regulation of the fisheries, the patrolling of the Irish fishing grounds to pre- vent illegalities, and the attempts which are being made to develop the valuable Irish oyster fishery by the introduction, with modifications suited to our own seaboard, of a system of culture comparable to those which are pursued with success in France and Norway, may be mentioned as falling under the more directly economic branch of our activities. Irish oysters are already attaining considerable celebrity, owing to the distance of our oyster beds from contaminating influences ; and it is hoped that when the Department's experiments are complete the Irish oyster will be made subject to direct control for all its life, until it is despatched to market. Attention is also being given to the relative value of seed oysters, other than native, for relaying on Irish beds. On the more directly scientific side, the Department has undertaken the survey of the trawling grounds around the coast to obtain an exact knowledge of the movements of the marketable fish at different times of their life, so that we may be guided in making by-laws and regulations by a full knowledge of the times and places at which protection is necessary. The biological and physical conditions of the western seas are also being studied in special reference to the mackerel fishery, with the object of correlating certain readily observable phenomena with the movements of the fish, and so of 284 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. predicting the probable success of a fishery in a particular season. The routine observations of the Department's fishery cruiser have been so arranged as to synchronise with those of other nations, in order to assist the inter- national scheme of investigation now in progress, wher- ever its objects and those of the Department are the same. While these various practical projects have been in operation, we have done our best to keep abreast of the times by sending missions to other countries, con- sisting of an expert accompanied by practical Irishmen who would bring home information which was applicable to the conditions of our own country. The first batch of itinerant instructors in agriculture, whose training for the important work of laying the foundations for our whole scheme of agricultural instruction I have referred to, were taken on a continental tour by the Professor of Agriculture at the Royal College of Science, in order to give special advantages to a portion of our outdoor staff upon the success of whose work the rate of our progress in agricultural development might largely depend. And not only have we in our first three years gleaned as much information as possible by sending qualified Irishmen to study abroad the industries in which we were particularly interested, but we also took steps to give the mass of our people at home an opportu- nity of studying these industries for themselves. With the somewhat unique experiment carried out for this object, I will conclude the story of the new Department's activities in its early years. THE CORK EXHIBITION. 285 The part we took at the Cork Exhibition of 1902 was well understood in Ireland, but not perhaps elsewhere. We secured a large space both in the main Industrial Hall and in the grounds, and gave an illustration not of what Ireland had done, but of what, in our opinion, the country might achieve in the way of agricultural and industrial development in the near future. Exhibiting on the one hand our available resources in the way of raw material, we gave, on the other hand, demonstrations of a large number of indus- tries in actual operation. These exhibits, imported with their workers, machinery and tools, from several Euro- pean countries and from Great Britain, all belonged to some class of industry which, in our belief, was capable of successful development in Ireland. In the indoor part of the exhibit there was nothing very original, except per- haps in its close relation to the work of a government department. But what attracted by far the greatest interest and attention was a series of object lessons in many phases of farm activities, where, in our opinion, great and immediate improvements might be made. Here were to be seen varieties of crops under various systems of treatment, demonstrations of sheep-dipping, calf-rearing on different foods, illustra- tions of the different breeds of fowl and systems of poultry management, model buildings and gardens for farmer and labourer ; while in separate buildings the drying and pressing of fruit and vegetables, the manufac- ture of butter and cheese, and a very comprehensive 286 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. forestry exhibit enabled our visitors to combine profitable suggestion with, if I may judge from my frequent opportunities of observing the sightseers in whom I was particularly interested, the keenest enjoyment. We kept at the Exhibition, for six months, a staff of competent experts, whose instructions were to give to all- comers this simple lesson. They were to bring home to our people that, here in Ireland before their very eyes, there were industries being carried on by foreigners, by English- men, by Scotchmen, and in some instances by Irishmen, but in all cases by men and women who had no advan- tage over our workers except that they had the technical training which it was the desire of the Department to give to the workers of Ireland. The officials of the Department entered into the spirit of this scheme enthu- siastically and cheerfully, some of them, in addition to their ordinary work, turning the office into a tourist agency for these busy months. With the generous help of the railway companies they organised parties of far- mers, artisans, school teachers, members of the statutory committees, and, in fact, of all to whom it was of import- ance to give this object lesson upon the relations between practical education and the promotion of industry. Nearly 100,000 persons were thus moved to Cork and back before the Exhibition closed — an achievement largely due to the assistance given by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society and the clergy throughout the country. This experiment, both in its conception and in its THINGS AND ' IDEES.' 287 results, was perhaps unique. There were not wanting critics of the new Department who stood aghast at so large an expenditure upon temporary edifices and a passing show ; but those who are in touch with its educational work know that this novel application of State assistance fulfilled its purpose. It helped substan- tially to generate a belief in, and stimulate a demand for, technical instruction which it will take us many years adequately to supply. An American visitor who, as I afterwards learned takes an active part in the discussion of the rural prob- lems of his own country, disembarked at Queenstown in order to 1 take in ' the Cork Exhibition. In his rush through Dublin he ' took in ' the Department and the writer. 1 Mr. Vice-President,' he said, before the hand- shaking was completed, 1 1 have visited all the great Expositions held in my time. I have been to the Cork Exposition. I often saw more things, but never more idees.' With this characteristically rapid appreciation of a movement which seeks to turn Irish thought to action, my strange visitor vanished as suddenly as he came. Some readers whose sympathy with Ireland has in- duced them to persevere through this study of Irish possibilities and story of small beginnings, may wonder why I did not dwell upon the effect which a brighter outlook for Ireland would produce upon the mental attitude of millions of Irishmen scattered throughout the 88 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. British Empire and the United States, and so upon the lives of the countries in which they have made their homes. I fully recognise that such a treatment of my subject would possess a far greater interest than that which I have given to it. There was much I could have said about the influence exerted by the unsettled Irish Question upon English politics, and upon the politics of the United States. Still more congenial would it have been to make a carefully reasoned estimate of the part which Irish intellect is qualified to play wherever the civilisation of the world is to be under the control of the English-speaking peoples —more especially where these peoples govern races which speak other tongues and see through other eyes. An attempt to place the small affairs of the small island, in a less gloomy colour than they usually wear, before the mind of that greater Ireland which takes its inspiration from the sorrows, the passions, the endeavours, and the hopes of those who cling to the old home, would have been indeed a labour of love. I have resisted all these inclinations, because I feel that at the present time the most urgent need, from every point of view on which I have touched, is to focus the thought available for the Irish Question upon some de- finite work leading to a reconstruction of Irish life. Such is the purpose of this book. I do not wish to attach any exaggerated importance to the scheme of social and economic reform of which I have attempted to give a faithful account ; nor is it in their practical achievement, be it great or small, that the initiators A BACKWARD GLANCE. 289 and organisers of the new movement take most pride. What these Irishmen are proud of is the manner in which the people have responded to their efforts to bring Irish sentiment into an intimate and helpful relation with Irish economic problems. They had to reckon with that greatest of hindrances to the spirit of enterprise, a rooted belief in the potentiality of government to bring material prosperity to our doors. As I have pointed out, the practical demonstration which Ireland had received of the power of government to inflict last- ing economic injury gave rise to this belief ; and I have noted the present influences to which it seems to owe its continuance until to-day. I believe that, if any- enduring interest attaches to the story which I have told, it will consist in the successive steps by which this initial difficulty has been overcome. Let me summarise in a few words what has been, so far, actually accomplished. Those who did the work of which I have written first launched upon Irish life a scheme of organised self-help which, perhaps more by good luck than design, proved to be in accordance with the inherited instincts of the people, and, therefore, moved them to action. Next they called for, and in due season obtained, a department of government with adequate powers and means to aid in developing the resources of the country, so far as this end could be attained without transgressing the limits of beneficial State interference with the business of the people. In its constitution this department was so linked with the representative insti- u 20,0 GOVERNMENT AND THE GOVERNED. tutions of the country that the people soon began to feel that they largely controlled its policy and were responsible for its success. Meanwhile, the progress of economic thought in the country had made such rapid strides that, in the administration of State assistance, the principle of self-help could be rigidly insisted upon and was willingly submitted to. The result is that a situa- tion has been created which is as gratifying as it may appear to be paradoxical. Within the scope and sphere of the movement the Irish people are now, without any sacrifice of industrial character, combining reliance upon government with reliance upon themselves. That a movement thus conceived should so rapidly nave overcome its initial difficulties and should, I might almost add, have passed beyond the experimental stage, will suggest to any thoughtful reader that above and beyond the removal by legislation of obstacles to progress — and much has been accomplished in this way of recent years — there must have been new, positive influences at work upon the national mind. These will be found in the growing recognition of the fact that the path of progress lies along distinctively Irish lines, and that otherwise it will not be trodden by the Irish people. Much good in the same direction has been done, too, by the generous and authoritative admission by England that the future development of Ireland should be assisted and promoted ' with a full and constant regard to the special traditions of the country.' * But * Speech of the Lord Lieutenant to the Incorporated Law Society, November 20th, 1902. See also p. 170. IRELAND RE-CREATED FROM WITHIN. 20J after all, while these concessions to Irish sentiment, vitally important though they be, may speed us on our road to national regeneration, they will not take us far. It remains for us Irishmen to realise — and the chief value of all the work I have described consists in the degree in which it forces us to realise — the responsibility which now rests with ourselves. We have been too long a prey to that deep delusion, which, because the ills of the country we love were in past days largely caused from without, bids us look to the same source for their cure. The true remedies are to be sought elsewhere ; for, however disastrous may have been the past, the injury was moral rather than material, and the opportunity has now arrived for the patient building up again of Irish character in those qualities which win in the modern struggle for existence. The field for that great work is clear of at least the worst of its many historic encumbrances. Ireland must be re-created from within. The main work must be done in Ireland, and the centre of interest must be Ireland. When Irishmen realise this truth, the splendid human power of their country, so much of which now runs idly or disastrously to waste, will be utilised ; and we may then look with confidence for the foundation of a fabric of Irish prosperity, framed in constructive thought, and laid enduringly in human character. EPILOGUE After a Year of Criticism " Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties." — Milton. EPILOGUE In this ^book I have not placed my countrymen in the dock, on a pedestal, nor on the stage. My offence is more grave — I have criticised them. The reviler, the panegyrist, and the caricaturist of the Irish have each a recognised position, but not the critic. So when a member of the class held chiefly responsible for past mis- government, occupying an official position in the Govern- ment of the day, ventured to place upon Irishmen them- selves a large measure of responsibility for the removal of their present ills, the first effect was bound to be a considerable disturbance, if not a storm. The chances of such a book as this doing good might seem to be, to say the least, problematical. What induced me to publish it when I did was the urgency of the crisis caused by the emigration drain, and by the social and economic revolu- tion now about to be consummated by the transfer of the land from the owner to the occupier. I felt that, with these two dominant and present facts of Irish life upper- most in their minds, men of practical patriotism, to what- ever party they belonged, would understand the meaning of what I said and the necessity for saying it. This expectation has been largely fulfilled. In addi- tion to all the public criticism which the book has re- ceived, it has brought me a voluminous correspondence 2g6 EPILOGUE. from my own countrymen at home and abroad — most of them Nationalists and Roman Catholics — who have wel- comed the frank expression of my opinions, and have, with equal frankness, given me their own in return. It is to these last, who share the feelings of the great majority of the people, that this afterword is gratefully addressed For where they have failed to grasp my meaning they seek explanations, for which they have every right to ask, and which I am the more anxious to give, because 1 see clearly that the misunderstanding is, in most cases, due to a failure to appreciate the exact purpose I had in my mind when I decided to write this book. That purpose was to concentrate thought upon certain social and economic problems hitherto neglected m Ireland, and to expound a practical programme of national development. Thought and work on these lines is to my mind the condition precedent to the solution of the Irish Question. But our people have been taught by history, and under present influences are held to the be- lief, that all such efforts are doomed to failure until that Question has been solved. The foregoing pages may be regarded as one man's endeavour to break this vicious circle in which poor Ireland revolves. The difficulties of such a task are obvious. Those who are familiar with the story of Ireland know how it came about that between the two sections of the Irish people there stands a great dividing wall, the founda- tions of which are racial, the stones political, and the cement religious. Historical causes have left us with a EPILOGUE. 297 public opinion* thus trebly partisan, which has little tolerance for the man who in the search for truth does not seek for it on one side only. And as I took some national shortcomings for my theme, it was inevitable that the greater the truth of what I wrote the more bitterly should I be condemned by those who mould popular opinion in Ireland. Obviously the best defence against my most hostile critics would be to quote some of their pronouncements, as a proof that I had not mis- represented the tone or temper of Irish controversy. But I prefer to be patient, as I dare say their most vehement denunciations are more often prompted by a sense of patriotic duty than indulged in as a congenial pastime. I will content myself with citing a single sentence, which has served as a text for many lay and some clerical sermons, and which will illus- trate only too well the general character of a vast amount of the hostile comment which these pages have provoked. In the course of one of its almost daily attacks upon the Department for the adminis- tration of which I have been chiefly responsible, the most widely circulated Nationalist organ in Ireland solemnly declared that the writer of this book " has demonstrated his unfitness for his position by wantonly and deliberately insulting the character and religion of * By the term ' public opinion ' I mean that part of a people's thoughts and feelings the free expression of which is tolerated by the forces which rule in the matter. I must not be understood as implying that, in the strife and clamour of our public life, the •poken, or even the written word is always an accurate reflection of our thoughts and emotions. 2<)S EPILOGUE, the great majority of the Irish people, to whom he appeals for co-operation."* No man fitted for public life in Ireland would feel even a passing soreness at judgments thus conceived. Nor will any one who has read the book ask me to defend it or myself against any of the charges in this comprehen- sive indictment. It is only in a country where news- papers are much read and books very little, and where people morbidly dread any public association with un- popular men or movements, that attacks like this do harm. But there is another line of criticism which, much as I regret its personal bearings, I am forced on public grounds to meet. Some who are in general agreement with my views, but who are anxious for the success of the prac- tical programme I have described, say that I ought not to have given any opportunity to those who feel bound to renounce me and all my works, to attack the Department and the movement with which I was connected. Even when they have grasped the moral situation in its econo- mic bearings, they think the moral revolution involved in the remedy to be visionary and Utopian. Such critics ask what useful purpose could, in the circumstances, be served by honest criticism, however constructive, and however moderately expressed. The answer to this question may be as complex as are the conditions out of which it arises, but I will try to make it direct and clear. I found in the state of public opinion in Ireland a fatal * Freeman's Journal, 27 th June, 1904. EPILOGUE. 299 hindrance to the work of national development — a hin- drance which, if my diagnosis of its nature be right, would be equally disastrous under any system of govern- ment, however ideal. We cherish the belief that we are a liberty-loving people groaning under the tyranny of alien rule. The contrary would be nearer to the truth. Seldom a Sunday passes but we indulge the luxury of denouncing the Government with oratory which, if pub- lished in the columns of the Continental press, would fill rulers with amazement, peoples with envy, and, possibly, some prisons with editors ! So far, at any rate, in our struggle for freedom we are free ; but on the ruins of the old ascendancy there has been built up by censors, who combine a total disregard for the feelings of others with a morbid sensitiveness for their own, a moral domination more grievous than any repression sustained by physical force. This tyranny, the work of moral cowards — for it is they, and not physical cowards, who are the proverbial bullies — is upheld as a discipline essential to the attain- ment of national autonomy. Meanwhile, many of us, Nationalist and Unionist alike, are sighing for just a little Home Rule in the region of thought. This narrow compass of our liberties escapes the ordi- nary observer of Irish life who has not grasped the wide difference between its surface and its depths. At first sight we appear to be the people of all others who have the courage of our convictions. But alas! it is generally the courage of somebody else's convictions and not our own. Still more mis- leading is the buoyancy of our temperament, which 300 EPILOGUE. seems incompatible with the existence of the moral ser- vitude I have sketched. But that is our historical atti- tude of mind — we had more gaiety in the darkest of the Penal days. Miss Lawless, the best exponent of this aspect of the Irish temperament, in one of her too few Irish poems, admirably hits the impression made upon the foreigner by the Irish soldiers who took sendee in continental armies nearly two centuries ago. One of their comrades asks whether these 1 exiles merry of heart ' can really be ' the men of a thousand wrongs,' of whose woes so much had been heard. Their apologist replies : — * Fool, did you never hear Of sunshine which broke through rain, Sunshine which came with storm, Laughter that rang with pain ? Boastings begotten of grief, Vauntings to hide a smart, Braggings with trembling lip, Tricks of a broken heart ? ' * It is no longer the 1 tricks of a broken heart,' but rather the response of a subdued spirit to the only freedom that it knows, which deceives the observer of to-day. We are more serious in these happier times, but we are still con- tent (if I may use an Irish phrase eloquent of long suffer- ing and inextinguishable hope) to ' enjoy bad health.' The consideration of these national peculiarities is very pertinent to an explanation why this book was written. Their historical origin is easily traceable, their historical excuse is more than plausible ; but none the • ' Clare Coast (circa 1720) ' in With the Wild Geese. EPILOGUE. 301 less a defect in character is clearly indicated. This ' lack of moral fibre ' — whether the cause or the effect of the moral tyranny, or both, it matters not — I gradually came to regard, and in this book treated, as the chief present evil of Irish life It was and is my confident belief that, if once the disastrous effects of the evil were more generally recognised by those who possess political and religious influence, or who wield the power of the press, the remedy would begin to be radically applied.* It was this conviction which led to the publication of my book, having as its main proposition that the Irish Question is, above all and before all, a problem of character. Yet I sometimes find that readers who would willingly admit the truth of this as an academic * A recent utterance of one of the most powerful living: Irish political leaders gives reason to hope that this recognition will come. " A mere physical row," said Mr. William O'Brien, "is the last thing which would daunt an Irishman. I only wish we had as plentiful a supply of moral courage." — (Freeman's Journal, Novem- ber 7th, 1004.) So do I ; and I hope that Mr. O'Brien will go on helping to teach us our needs in this respect. Few men could do more in that direction than one who has so unmistakably shown his possession of both kinds of courage. In this connection the following extract from a letter I have I received from a correspondent in high position in the Roman Catholic I Church in Ireland will be of interest. Alluding to my references to 1 moral fibre and civic virtue, he writes : " I quite understand that it is not precisely in the balance of the Commandments you weigh our people and find them wanting. You are speaking of character with its strength, independence, stability and fidelity ; and none can gain- sav the supreme importance of the foundation. Well, to be sure the rust of slavery has widely eaten its way. But I altogether disagree with the opinion that the desirable ' character 1 is limited to in- dividuals. I know whole glens in this county rilled with people who would shame your Cabinet for character." I gladly endorse the high appreciation of the communities my correspondent has in his mind.|but,fof T course, to the comparison which he draws I must officially'demur^l 302 EPILOGUE. proposition, are as far as ever from grasping its vital practical importance, or from understanding why I was ready to provoke so much hostility in order to drive it home. But surely a little consideration ought to show that, if the proposition be true, it ought to be acted upon by those who are desirous of promoting the real progress of our country. And it is just at this point, where an attempt is made to translate theory into practice, that one begins to tread on dan- gerous ground. I might have reiterated my car- dinal doctrine again and again without ofTence — and without effect. But when I endeavoured to examine the main influences operating on national character, when I introduced such subjects as politics and religious systems into a book, one of the chief objects of which was to explain, and gain support for, a programme of social and economic reform. I no doubt caused grave misgivings in the minds of many who were in intellectual sympathy with my point of view. They fear that I shall retard my work without effecting any change in the body of opinion opposed to my own. But they fail to observe that I do not. want to change either political or religious convictions. I want merely to draw attention to the harmful and unnecessary way in which these convictions are made to affect interests which are neither political nor religious. So much then for the reasons which led to the publica- tion of the book. I shall now try to clear up the exist- ing, and avert further, misunderstanding of both its aim EPILOGUE. 303 and argument. This I can best do by offering to my readers, (1) a brief restatement of the argument as to character ; (2) an explanation of the reasons which made it necessary to dwell on the effects produced upon character, and consequently upon industry, by political agitation ; and (3) a clearer exposition of what I hold to be the relation between religious systems and economic progress. (1) The National Character. As an Irishman I take pride in the high qualities of heart and mind which the race, through much tribulation, has preserved. I am a firm believer in the latent capa- cities of the Irish people, but feel that the time has come when we should search our consciences and ask ourselves why these capacities have remained latent so long ; whether we can honestly say that all the causes of our present shortcomings are still external to ourselves — that the Irish light is really concealed under the English bushel. To these questionings I gave an answer which angered many who deny, and more who feel its truth. I urged that our national character has some defects which, if Ireland is to realise the hopes of her children, call for a great national effort of reform. Unhappily, large num- bers of my readers have completely misunderstood both the meaning and the purpose of my reflections upon the national character. Some seem to have been misled by my use of such terms as ' moral fibre/ and in some cases 304 EPILOGUE. appear to have confused morale with morals. I thought I had protected myself from a misconception so hurtful to the usefulness of the book when at the outset I affirmed my belief that " our failure to rise to our opportunities and to give practical evidence of the intellectual qualities with which the race is admittedly gifted, was due to certain defects of character, not ethically grave, but economically paralysing." I have repeated these words because they were written in the preface, which, I am now told, only reviewers read. They were intended to make it clear that my purpose was purely practical, my criticism constructive. So far from having any desire to be censorious, I have always felt and contended that the moral evolution, even in the economic sphere, which has taken place in Ireland, was largely what might have been expected in view of the past government of the country. If in practical life what is Celtic in us ' reacts against the despotism of fact,' that is the natural outcome of six long centuries of revolt against the fact of despotism. I agree with those who hold that the strongest indictment which can be made against past misgovernment is the demoralising influence it exerted upon the character of the governed, and who explain our failures by insisting that the industrial character and vitality of the people still suffer from the effect of former commercial restrictions, of the Penal Laws, and of the land system before 1 88 1 But I strongly disagree with those who, while cherish- ing the remembrance of these wrongs, denounce those EPILOGUE. 305 who call attention to their inevitable effects. I hold that it is mere demagogy to pander to popular sentiment by proclaiming to the world that we have been morally plundered, and yet are morally whole. The triumph of the race is that on one side of its character — and that, happily, the higher side — it came out of the ordeal even purified by its trials. But it is the folly of follies to say that on its other side the national character has preserved that strength, self-reliance, and sense of responsibility, or that appreciation of true liberty, which a modern people must possess if it is to succeed, or even to survive, in the industrial fight. The importance of this point lies in the fact that the success of a people depends upon those qualities wherein we Irish are, from whatever cause, deficient. To the best of my judgment — and I speak now from official experience — our people are endowed in a high degree with administrative capacity. Compared with the English, who, no doubt, are steadier, they show a remarkable appreciation of the needs, and regard for the susceptibilities, of those within the sphere of their administration. And yet the mere presence of a reporter or of a noisy gallery will be often enough to reveal a sense of irresponsibility, and a lack of moral courage, grievously at odds with the good feeling and good judgment which would otherwise almost cer- tainly prevail. Thus it is that resolutions are passed which are obviously carried by their sound rather than by their significance, and questions of practical importance, X 306 EPILOGUE. with which the meeting is fully competent to deal wisely, are not discussed on their merits. Thus it is that administrative officers are too often appointed, not with regard to their fitness for the work to be done, but under the pressure of influences brought to bear on behalf of the applicants. Indeed, I think it is not irrelevant to add that but too many of the patrons, often in the highest social and official positions, who supply applicants with testi- monials, do not seem to be more richly endowed with moral courage than some of the bodies to whom these reckless panegyrics are addressed.* I gladly acknow- ledge, however, that in the period which has elapsed since new duties in connection with agricultural and industrial development devolved upon them, our local authorities have shown a growing appreciation of the fact that their success depends upon getting the best men to carry out their work. It is only fair to add that the Local Government Board, in their annual reports, bear testimony to the increasing efficiency of the County * Recently a friend of mine was asked to sign a memorial, which was being promoted by the clergymen of the district, both Catholic and Protestant, magistrates, &c, in favour of a prisoner who was described as having been " previously of unblemished character.'' He afterwards learned that there were sixty-four previous convictions recorded against this man ! Personally, I prefer the practice of telling the brutal truth in testimonials, which prevailed where I got my business education — a method well illustrated by the following incident which recurs to my memory. An Indian called at the ranch where I was living at the time and handed me a letter from the Agent of his Reservation. This characteristic and, as I afterwards learned, just testimonial ran : — " Tinbelly is a worthless Indian. Anyone who gives him anything will be that much out." Do any of us know of a country where the: esti- monial would be phrased; — " Mr. P. J. Tinbelly is qualified to dis- charge efficiently and faithfully any duties which may be entrusted to him " ? EPILOGUE. 3O7 and District Councils in the discharge of their local government work. Indeed I would not have hinted at the deficiencies I have mentioned, were I not impressed with the supreme importance of turnmg all the adminis- trative capacity the Irish democracy possesses to the task of applying State assistance to the development of our industrial resources, on the lines successfully fol- lowed in almost every competing continental country. In the sphere of private citizenship the dependence of a country's industrial life upon its moral atmosphere is quite as real as in the case of public administration. Any commercial traveller of wide experience, any one who has conducted industrial undertakings among dif- ferent peoples, will confirm this truth. History and reason ahke approve the judgment that what counts industrially in the long run is character. Both the capitalist, seeking an investment for his capital, and the captain of industry, seeking an opening, make an estimate ot the moral qualities of a community in order to deter- mine whether they will find the business efficiency, the persistence, the sobriety and punctuality — qualities which are far more conducive to success than mere mechanical skill. In measuring the capacity of a country for indus- trial and commercial development, every man of the world gives to these qualities a high place among the deciding factors. I am here considering not the views of moral philo- sophers or other theorists, but the principles which guide the action of practical business men, to whom we must ^ EPILOGUE. look for help in our efforts towards industrial develop- ment. I know the minds of such men, because I have of late years approached many capitalists and captains of industry with a view to getting them to give a lead to Irish capital, which is, at present, significantly shy. The plain truth is that the moral atmosphere m Ireland is not yet considered, either at home or abroad, favourable for industrial enterprise. My own opinions on this vitally important question were formed in the course of active business in Great Britain and the United States, which gave me my standards of comparison. As a result of a fairly wide and varied business experience I state positively that the laws under which we live are now at least as favourable to industrial enterprise as those of any State in the Union ; and, this being so, I am driven to the conclusion that our com- paratively backward industrial state is due to the moral conditions which, however caused, it is the first duty of Irishmen to improve. Fortunately, me adaptability of our people, if not wholly unimpaired, has been mar- vellously preserved ; and this gives us reason to believe that the remedy can be rapidly and effectively applied. Believing, therefore, in the existence of the evil, and in the feasibility of its effectual cure if once it were gener- ally recognised, how could I remain silent and preserve my self-respect ? It is true that I occupy a responsible official position which I should have to vacate the moment public confidence in my character or capacity were withdrawn ; but I cannot enjoy that confidence if EPILOGUE. 3O9 it is to be retained by concealing- thoughts which must affect the discharge of my duties as a public servant. And as for the timeliness or expediency of my candour, I could not persuade myself that, in the admittedly backward state of the country, in face of the continuing outflow of so much that is strong, consideration of this all-essential matter ought to have been shelved or postponed. (2) Politics versus INDUSTRY. In the above survey of certain moral conditions un- favourable to industry, I purposely did not include what one of the unknown correspondents this book has brought me declares to be the principal deterrent to the investment of capital in Ireland — 1 the intricate inter- weaving of politics with business.' This condition, in- cidental to the Land War, is gradually ceasing with the cessation of the strife, and will, we may hope, ultimately disappear as the agrarian settlement proceeds. We shall then be able to make much more rapid progress with the industrial movement, whose hopeful beginnings I have described in the last four chapters. It will be remembered that I treated this movement as being especially valuable on account of its influence upon the adverse moral conditions I have just discussed ; and my chapter on politics was introduced solely because many influential politicians appeared to regard organised EPILOGUE. efforts towards economic improvement with feelings ranging from suspicion to active hostility. Whatever doubt may have previously existed as to the necessity for frankly discussing the attitude of poli- ticians towards our industrial progress, was removed by the publication of the following letter from the leader of the Irish Nationalist Party to the editor of the Irish World of New York. The letter is in effect a denial to the entire industrial movement of the right to exist, on the ground that its ostensible are not its real objects. Even those who think I provoked such an attack will agree that I am in duty bound to make some defence — not of myself but of the movement. Here is the letter : — New York, October 4th, 1904. My Dear Mr. Ford — I am anxious before leaving for home to say a word of warning with reference to an insidious attempt which I find is being made in America by officials and agents of the British Government to divert the minds of the friends of Ireland from the National movement under the pretence of promoting an industrial revival in Ireland. The promotion of Irish industries is so praiseworthy an object that I am not surprised some of our people in America have been deceived in this matter. I myself, indeed, at one time entertained some belief in the good intentions of Sir Horace Plunkett and his friends, but recent events have entirely undeceived me ; and Sir Horace Ptunkett's recent book, full as it is of undisguised contempt for the Irish race, makes it plain to me that the real object of the movement in question is to under- mine the National Party and divert the minds of our EPILOGUE. people from Home Rule, which is the only thing which can ever lead to a real revival of Irish industries. The men who are conducting- this movement are for the most part avowed anti-Home Rulers, and many of them salaried officials of the British Government. I am in- formed that an agent of theirs is about to visit America for the purpose of still further pushing this movement, and I feel it my duty to issue this word of warning to prevent our friends here from being deceived as to the real meaning of this movement. — Believe me, very truly yours, JOHN E. REDMOND. It would be hard to find a more perfect illustration of the disastrous conflict between politics and industry than this letter reveals. It is difficult to understand how it could have been thought necessary to give such a warning to the shrewdest and most progressive section of Irish Nationalists, and I have reason to believe that in the United States it was not taken seriously. But the letter was widely published in Ireland, and there did harm. The definite assertion by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Party that the industrial movement is really a political conspiracy has been used, by th,ose who prefer politics to industry, to discredit the work of econo- mic development described in this book, a work in the initiation of which, it will be remembered, Mr. Redmond himself, in the days of the Recess Committee, bore a prominent part* With accidental irony this letter appeared in the Irish Press on the same day as the first * See Chapter VIII. 312 EPILOGUE. news of the Russian admiral's attack on the British trawlers in the North Sea, which he mistook for Japanese torpedo boats. I have been too long in Irish public life to be easily surprised ; but I did feel that, even on the stormy seas of Irish politics, and in the prevailing mists, the Irish leader should not have mistaken our little industrial craft for a British political destroyer. Mr. Redmond does as little justice to his own sagacity as to my sincerity when he says that I deceived him so long and so successfully. But, leaving aside accusations of personal bad faith, against which I have no desire to defend myself, let us see where the real difference lies between the political leaders and those of the industrial movement. To be quite fair to the former, let me admit that they appeal to a broad well-known principle of poli- tical philosophy, as well as to expediency. The principle is that the sense of responsibility, needful for industrial as well as every other kind of progress, cannot be de- veloped in a people so long as they are denied the essentials of responsible government. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that responsible government does not exist in Ireland, I reply that, in any country where individual freedom exists, a sense of responsibility can be developed in the process of striving for constitutional betterment no less than in the enjoyment of the attained result Every worker in the new intellectual and indus- trial movements acts upon this theory. On the question of principle there are, then, two distinct courses which present themselves as practical politics — constitutional EPILOGUE. 3I3 change as a means to national advancement, and national development as a means towards the attainment of what- ever may prove to be constitutionally best. Whichever course may be theoretically right, I claim for my plan that it at least furnishes the better working hypothesis. On the question of expediency, many Nationalists hold that my plan is opposed to what experience has shown to be the only effective tactics for the Irish Par- liamentary Party to adopt. They point to the fact that much of the legislation which has apparently come from British statesmen, was advocated by Irish repre- sentatives long before it found its way into the pro- gramme of English parties ; and that, until Parnell developed the present system of Parliamentary tactics, Irish demands did not receive even bare attention in the Imperial Parliament. While this is largely true as regards the past, and while it would be hard to exaggerate the debt the farmers of Ireland owe to the Parnellite move- ment, I might remind thoughtful Nationalists that the wise use of the land is quite as important now as was formerly its acquisition. What, however, I am really concerned to urge with regard to the methods introduced by Parnell is that, whatever their tactical justification at the time, they inevitably retarded the development of a political character equal to the needs of these demo- cratic days. Being convinced of the interdependence of political character and economic character, I wrote the chapter upon the influence of politics with the aim of showing that, both from the tactical and the moral 3I4 EPILOGUE. points of view, our methods of political agitation ought now to be modified. I there submitted, for the con- sideration of Irish political leaders, that the particular constitutional changes which they hold to be good for us would not only be more likely to be obtained, but would also be better calculated to fulfil their purpose when obtained, if we learned to cultivate independence of thought and action in ourselves, and to respect it in others. Ireland cannot be prosperous until the political leader makes this, not large but vitally important, con- cession to the political economist. (3) Religion and Economics. Some critics who agree that I could not have ignored the effect of politics upon industry hold that I should not have touched upon the other great power which dominates Irish life. On reflection they will, I hope, see that the available means of improving the material con- dition of a people peculiarly devoted to their religion, could not have been adequately discussed without refer- ence to the influence upon secular life of the clergy to whom the majority of the people look for guidance in questions of faith and morals, and in many other things besides. Where a plea is being put forward for the re- cognition and treatment of defective economic qualifies, and for the formation of a public opinion which would tolerate that freedom of thought and action which is an essential condition of economic progress, a moral ques- EPILOGUE. 3I5 tion arises upon which the clergyman and the economist must take counsel together. My correspondence furnishes gratifying proof that many Irish Catholics, both lay and clerical, have read my remarks upon the influence of our religious systems in the spirit in which they were offered. Others appear to take up the position, which I cannot but conceive to be a weak one, that their church is above criticism, not only as to its doctrinal teaching, but also as to the influence which its ministers exercise upon the society around them. I fully recognise that, unless avowedly entering the arena of religious controversy, I am not entitled to discuss doctrinal issues. All that I claim is the right of a citizen in a free state to say openly what I believe to be the effect which any ecclesiastical body produces upon j the economic and social life of my country. Some, I | know, honestly think that I have transgressed the limits I have here denned. I suspect I have suffered largely for the sins of others, for I frequently find myself in the em- barrassing position of being denounced for having ta£en my opinions from books I had not read, by critics who obviously had not read mine. The following passage in a pastoral letter from the Cardinal Primate to the clergy of the Archdiocese of Armagh, which seriously preju- diced Irish Catholics against this book, furnishes a case in point. " While these theories," wrote his Eminence, u found expression only among a few sore-heads who, for reasons 3i6 EPILOGUE. best known to themselves, seek every pretext to assail religion and her ministers, we could afford to despise them. But when a gentleman whose abilities should have saved him from following the senseless drivel of irresponsible writers, and whose high position should have admonished him to weigh his words, has seriously taken up these theories — as 1 infer from a letter in yesterday's paper he has — it is time to look about for an antidote to the poison."* I cannot, of course, reply to all my clerical critics in detail. But I feel it incumbent upon me to meet the chief objections, emanating from authoritative sources, which have been taken to my treatment of the real and important issues I felt compelled to raise. Fortunately my chapter on the influence of religious systems in Ireland was criticised in a review which may be taken as at least representative, if not authoritative ; happily, too, it is in a form admitting of a succinct reply. This review is from the pen of the Rev. J. F. Hogan, D.D., of Maynooth, and it appeared in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, a publication desenbed in a sub- * The italics are mine. The Pastoral Letter was dated March z, 1904, and the letter referred to in it appeared on March 1, in the Freeman's Journal. A week after the appearance of this condemnation, the Mullingar Rural District Council held a meeting, and, in the course of business, this book came up for discussion. One councillor, who could claim the distinction of having read the book, assured his colleagues that it was " merely a reproduction of Mr. McCarthy's book, Priests and People in Ireland." The following resolution was thereupon proposed and adopted unanimously: — "That we, the Mullingar Rural District Council, condemn Sir Horace Plunkett's book as an insult to Catholic Ireland, and that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to each District Council in Ireland." — Westmeath Examiner, March 12th, 1904. EPILOGUE 317 title as A Monthly Journal under Episcopal Sanction* The article is, of course, written with courtesy, although evidently under feelings of strong resentment. " For our part," he writes, " we much mistake the char- acter of the Irish people if they have not intelligence enough to see through all this mechanism of statecraft, and ' moral fibre ' enough to say what they think of it." This passage shows that when Dr. Hogan and I discuss character from our different points of view, we are talking of two different things. Otherwise he would know that it would require far more moral courage to say a word in defence of this book or its author than to join the crowd in denouncing both. But these are side issues. The real issue is clearly pre- sented by Dr. Hogan in a striking passage where he defends the Roman Catholic position, and at the same time shows a misconception of my meaning, which is quite sufficient to account for his impression that I am attacking his church and faith. The entire review should, of course, be read, but I may quote the following passage without the context, as it is complete in itself. "It is true, of course, that Catholics do not look on wealth as the highest good either of individuals or of * See issue for April, 1904. In thus singling out Dr. Hogan 's review I ought also to mention one by another theologian, which appeared weekly, for almost a year, in the Leader (of Dublin), signed 'M. O'R.' I have not a word to say against its tone, but the writer frequently reads into my words propositions which I certainly never intended to advance. Moreover, a review is usually a chapter about a book, but when, as in this case, it assumes the proportions of a book about a chapter, such space as I could afford to devote to a rejoinder would appear disrespectfully small. 318 EPILOGUE. nations. It is true that they make the value of this life to depend chiefly on its relation to the life to come. Protes- tantism is, on the other hand, utilitarian and worldly. It goes on the principle that as this world is the best we have any experience of we should make the most of it. Catholics even go so far as to think that the highest and most perfect form of life is to leave all this world can offer and take up the cross and follow the footsteps of their Master in detachment and poverty. To Protestants all this is extravagance and folly. But whilst Catholics main- tain that their conception of life is founded clearly on the Gospel, and that the Gospel is neither 'uneconomic or anti- economic,' they also believe that it is better suited than any other to raise up and to maintain a strong, pure, and energetic race. They believe, moreover, that their view of things is justified by history and by the actual condition of the world. 4 One ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory,' says Russell Lowell, and when we find such countries as Belgium, Westphalia, and Lombardy putting British manufactures out of their market, we are not particularly alarmed as to how our religion looks from the economic point of view to an outsider like Sir Horace Plunkett." * I assume that Dr. Hogan is anxious to promote mutual tolerance between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. I ask him, then, to consider the full meaning of his words. He defines Protestantism in terms which apply only to materialism pure and simple, and then proceeds to argue from this definition. He resents even the suggestion, beyond which I did not intend to go, that, in the affairs of this life, the faith and practice of his church, in Ireland at any rate, do not always appear * Irish Ecclesiastical Record, April, 1904, p. 300. EPILOGUE. 3I9 to make for material progress. What, then, must be the feelings of Protestants when their religion — if such a term be appropriate to the commercial asset they are supposed to enjoy in their conception of Christianity — is represented as being diametrically opposed to the very essence of the teaching of Christ? But we may eliminate from this discussion, as not being relevant, the alleged anti- Christian tenets of Protestants, and I hope Dr. Hogan will be able to dismiss them from his mind, as they obviously prejudice his view of my opinions on the issue we are discussing. 1 To raise up and to maintain a strong, pure and energetic race,' is an admirably expressed ideal towards which the minister of any Christian religion and the economist can work together. In seeking to promote such co-operation, I was, of course, concerned with actual life, as I had observed its conditions, and not with conceptions of life, ideal or otherwise. The Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches alike set the final goal of human effort' in another world. But they seem to differ, in practice, at all events, as to the due proportions of economic and religious activities as parts of a Chris- tian life. I was dealing simply with the necessary economic conditions of success in modern times, and nowhere have I contended that Roman Catholicism, as a system, is essentially inimical to such success. A few isolated sentences, sometimes a single word, torn from the context, have sufficed with those who have not rea^ the book to substantiate this complete misinterpre- 320 EPILOGUE. tation of my argument as a whole.* ' Roman Catho- licism,' I wrote, ' strikes an outsider as being, in some of its tendencies, non-economic, if not actually anti-economic.'t This sentence has been largely quoted, but almost invariably without the qualifying words. Indeed, all that survives of the text, in most of the criticisms that I have seen, is the epithet ' non-economic,' or ' anti-economic,' my critics applying to Roman Catho- licism as a system what I applied to " some of its ten- dencies." Developing my meaning, I proceeded to say that certain characteristics of Roman Catholicism " appear to me calculated, unless supplemented by other influences, to check the growth of the qualities of initia- tive and self-reliance." I can account for the heated comments to which this expression of opinion has given rise, only by supposing my critics to have altogether overlooked the important qualifying words in the context. I have been charged with materialism merely because I pointed out that " it behoves a Church to see that its members, while fully acknowledging the claims of another life, should develop the qualities which make for well-being in this life."+ Is it irreligious to con- * Some readers will recall the somewhat similar experience of Mr. Arthur Balfour. In the stormy days of his Irish administration his enemies discovered that he had written a book. It happened to be a brilliant defence of revealed religion against the Positivist attack ; but it bore the suspicious title, " A Defence of Philosophic Doubt. " Thenceforth the term ' atheist ' was added to the otherwise alliterative epithets which usually adorned his name. t Page ioi. X Page 104. EPILOGUE. 321 tend that the command not to be over-solicitous for the morrow does not lessen our obligation to provide for to-day, to practise the virtue of thrift, or to make thoughtful provision for the temporal future of ourselves and our families ? Surely it is obvious that these issues cannot be neglected if Christian principles are to retain their hold on a civilisation which Christianity has been the chief agency in creating. My own opinions on this subject are quite definite, but I find it extremely hard to say exactly where they differ from Dr. Hogan's. To my moderate criticism of what appeared to me to be uneconomic in certain tendencies of Roman Catholicism, he retorts, in effect, that such criticism is beside the point, because the ideal of his church is detachment and poverty. But when I suggest that in Ireland the tendencies referred to are exception- ally pronounced, he develops another line of argument, and proceeds to confute my contention by citing the more than British success of certain other Roman Catholic countries in manufacturing enterprise. I may mention incidentally that, in the chapter he was reviewing, I had myself referred to these industrial achievements. Dr. Hogan apparently fails to observe that I was not dealing with conceptions of Christian perfection, but with the principles of a national economy. So far from setting up two spheres of duty in antagonism to each other, I was seeking to show that no necessary anta- gonism exists. ' To leave all/ in Dr. Hogan's sense, can be the perfect life only for the few, whose v 322 EPILOGUE. example may serve to influence the many in not so greedily following- the economic as to stifle the spiritual life. Must those Catholics who believe that ' the highest and most perfect form of life is to leave all this world can offer,' hold that this is the ideal of life for all as well as for some — for the nation as for the individual? If this were so, Catholicism would not merely be non-economic or anti-economic ; it would be incompatible with a nation's existence. In nothing that I have said is there anything which detracts from the spiritual claims of the Catholic Church ; nor, i p my quali- fying words are taken into account, is there anything which implies a necessary conflict between her ministry and the material progress of nations. The wrong impression as to my opinions upon the re- lations between Roman Catholicism and economic life has led to my being charged with a desire to prove that in Ireland, at any rate, Roman Catholicism is incom- patible with material progress. What I sought to prove, what I have laboured to demonstrate in practical life, is the exact contrary of that proposition. Whether Protestantism or Roman Catholicism better harmonizes with an advanced economic ideal is a merely academic question. I can, however, well imagine that in the circumstances of rural Ireland an economy which does not promise the largest acquisition of wealth may last the longer. Knowing as I do the part which religion plays in the life of Irish Roman Catholics, I rely upon their church to foster contentment under the compara- EPILOGUE. 323 tively low standard of physical comfort, and the limited range of industrial opportunity, which must prevail in Ire- land while the new peasant proprietary is being consti- tuted and organised. I agree with Dr. Hogan that some of his continental brethren have rendered notable service towards the solution of the problem of rural life ; and, what is more encouraging, the working out of the econo- mic salvation of our own peasantry has been begun by a few priests whom I would not exchange even for those whose flocks have thriven so well in Belgium, Lom- bardy, and Westphalia. The exact nature of that w r ork has been sufficiently in- dicated in the second part of this book. Its most im- portant branches are the reorganisation of agriculture on its commercial and technical sides, certain much-needed improvements in the domestic economy of the rural poor, the training of the people for the gradual develop- ment of subsidiary industries, and the furthering of intel- lectual and social movements. These are all integral and necessary parts of the general scheme for building up a decent and comfortable rural life which will keep our people contentedly at home. It is not, I know, the function of the clergy to do the work of such bodies as the new Department, the Agricultural Organisation Society, or the Gaelic League. But they can help them all by influencing a public opinion which is favourable in the abstract to these agencies of constructive en- deavour, but is taught to suspect of ulterior motives every man who devotes himself to their promotion. Ncii£ 324 EPILOGUE. can better help us to realise that it is a sign of strength to be calm, of dignity to weigh our words, and of courage to be moderate. An Irish priest, who is also a practical economist, with whom I discussed this subject, said, in words which his brethren will appreciate, 1 You are merely asking us to furnish the supplementary teach- ing, which must be added to the Rule of Life, for those whose labour supports the nation.' No man, with the opinions I have expressed in this book upon the power of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, could desire to see their moral influence impaired. Taking the view that I do of Irish character, and in the light of certain political events which all can remember, I hold that a conflict between clerical in- fluence and modern life, such as other countries have witnessed, would probably involve in Ireland a moral debacle such as any Christian would deplore. Indeed, my chief feeling on reading the intemperate denuncia- tions coming from certain of my clerical critics, was the fear that they might some day come to realise that, in concerning themselves too much about the straw, they had ignored the wind. I must now revert for a moment to those particular operations of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, my treatment of which has drawn a more angry fire than have certain anti-clerical diatribes I am supposed to have endorsed. I introduced these subjects — the monopoly of education by the secular clergy and the religious orders, the alleged excessive church-building, and the contrast EPILOGUE. 325 between the failure of the clergy to make their flocks temperate and their success in making and keeping them chaste — in order to furnish concrete illustrations in support of the views I had expressed regarding cleri- cal influence upon secular life in Ireland. During five years of active administrative work I have given much attention to the provision of means whereby teachers whose calling is primarily spiritual might increase their efficiency for the work of technical education. I have been accused of squandering public money on monastic and conventual institutions by some of my fellow-Protestants, who are, perhaps, ignorant of the total lack of other educational machinery in the greater part of Ireland. From the opposite quarter, my expressed opinion that the almost total exclusion of lay teachers from secondary schools had some educational disadvantages, has been added to the list of my offences. All I would ask of these critics is that they should read the chapters on religion and on education together, when they will, I think, better understand the relevance and force of what I wrote* My remarks as to the alleged excessive church-building were, I regret to say, made in a form which laid me open to misconception. Some readers feel that I did not make sufficient allowance for the fact that much church- building was absolutely required for the mere physical accommodation of a people among whom regular church * See Chapters IV. and V., more especially pp. 108-9, [and I 3S^> 326 EPILOGUE. attendance is practically universal, and who had been deprived of all the ancient churches in the country. It is also urged that the extravagance complained of is the exception and not the rule. All this I gladly admit. Still, what strikes many observers is the undis- puted fact that while the number of Catholic churches and religious houses is rapidly rising, the Catholic popu- lation itself is rapidly falling. Had the reverse been true, my strictures would have been more open to objec- tion. I trust, however, that I shall give no fresh offence if I express the hope that the zeal now put forth in church-building may find a counterpoise in a vigorous effort to improve the economic condition of a people who must be preserved to the country if the churches are not to be emptied of their worshippers. My references to the attitude of the clergy towards the subjects of temperance and of chastity have been the cause (or the occasion) of a great deal of vehement denunciation. With regard to temperance, I find no serious attempt to dispute the substantial accuracy of the facts as I have presented them. I submitted the suggestion that the ill-success of the clergy in their efforts to deal with this evil was due to a failure ' to recognise the chief defect in the character of the people, and a misunderstanding of the means by which that character can be strengthened.'* This discussion was not only relevant, but essential, to an argument dealing * See page 114. EPILOGUE. 32/ with economic conditions and industrial possibilities. I think my contention was worthy of a more serious reply than that ' of all the social evils imported from England for the ruin of this country, perhaps the greatest was the public-house.'* In this extraordinary passage Dr. Hogan seems to attribute the drink evil to some external power over which Irishmen can exercise no control. Is the influence of the publicans in so many Irish municipal bodies to be ascribed to the English connection or to Irish apathy ? I am convinced that the clergy, to whose zeal in the matter I have paid my humble tribute, could effect a wonderful reformation if they were to realise that nowadays this evil must be combated by work done upon character, and not only upon emotions.! It was to further illustrate this opinion that I intro- duced the more delicate subject of chastity ; and here my point has been missed in a way which, after reading * Irish Ecclesiastical Record, April, 1904, p. 309. •f- A Roman Catholic correspondent, in a letter expressing his agree- ment with my views as to the cause and source of Irish intemperance, writes : — "As for the temperance question, I not only agree with your views (pp. 11 2- 113), but would wish to emphasise the need of the Catholic clergy doing their utmost towards completely rebuild- ing the tissues of the national character. Were this done, the outlook of Irishmen on many things would instinctively readjust itself, and most of our anti-industrial faults — the drink-habit amongst them — would soon die a desirable death. Our priests, I fear, will always be on the wrong tack while their efforts result in fostering that type of disposition which seeks to make up in fitful piety what it lacks in abiding self-control." He adds the following interesting calculation : — " The drink bill of Ireland is now estimated at ^14,31 1,000. In proportion to that of the whole United Kingdom it is as 1 to 1 1 -8. In population Ireland stands to the United Kingdom as 1 to 9*2. Therefore, according to the population basis, Ireland drinks less than her share. Judged, however, according to relative wealth, the proportions are different. It is hard to estimate the relative wealth of the Three Kingdoms precisely, but we can consider it on the basis of 328 EPILOGUE. and re-reading my references to the subject, I am wholly unable to understand.* Because, when discussing the standard of chastity attained in Ireland under the stringent discipline enforced by the pastors of the people, I ventured to question the methods by which the result was attained, I have been widely censured for showing indifference to the result itself. It does not require great erudition, but simply a little knowledge of the world, to be aware of the greater moral efficacy of fixed habits of character than of discipline, the effects of which too often last only as long as it is watchfully applied. In this, as in my other references to religious influences, it was not my purpose to discuss the higher ideals of moral and religious life. I ventured no further than to examine the methods by which it is attempted to realise these ideals in Ireland, in so far as those methods seemed to me to have a bearing upon the material well-being of the country. The sole purpose of such an examination was to lead ministers of religion to consider whether the means they employ might not be so modified as to meet vital tem- reputed fiscal resource. When the Home Rule Bill of 1SS6 was dis- cussed, such a financier as Mr. Gladstone computed Ireland's fair contri- bution to Imperial revenue at i-i4th or i-i5th part. If Ireland only drank in these proportions, her drink bill would fall to £12,071,000, or (for 1-15U1) £11,267,000. Mr. Parnell, however, traversed the British Cabinet's estimate, contending that i-2oth or i-2ist part was the just contribution of Ireland to the Imperial revenue. On this basis, then, Ireland's drink bill should be only £8,450,000, or (for a 21st part) £8,047,000— either of which latter figures contrasts violently with £14,311,000." * See pp. 1 1 5-1 1 7. EPILOGUE. 329 poral needs without losing their efficiency for higher purposes.* I hope that both my Roman Catholic and my Protes- tant readers will now see why I was moved to impress upon the Roman Catholic clergy the urgent necessity for building up an industrial character in a people whom historical causes have economically depressed. I would remind those who regard such action on the part of a Protestant as being either impertinent or futile, of a notable precedent. In his memorable letter entitled A Word to the Wise Bishop Berkeley appealed, from the standpoint of a Protestant economist, to the Roman Catholic clergy for help in the improvement of the material condition of their flocks. ' Give me leave to tell you/ he wrote, ' that no set of men upon earth have it in their power to do good on easier terms, with more advan- tage to others, and less pain or loss to themselves. Your * The correspondent whose views on the temperance question I have quoted in a previous note, contributes in the same letter the following observations on my reference to chastity. " I more than "agree with you as regards the chastity question. Give the people morale and their morals will take care of themselves. Some will tell you that the industrial character has not proved itself consistent with the nicest morals, and they contrast the statistics of illegitimacy in Ireland with those of Scotland and other places. But there is another side to the picture. The known facts regarding the moral shipwreck of so many Irish girls in New York and other large cities, cruelly dissipate the notions we hold of our superiority on this head. Our poor girls have no greater natural tendency towards moral laxity than others : it is not moral sense they want, but moral fibre — character and grit. The lack of industrial train- ing, too, sends them down in the struggle, — many even to th? streets, a result hastened, I fear, rather than hindered by a tutelage which represses the emotions rather than disciplines the will. Both our lads and girls need industrial training to give them that economic self-dependence without which there is no abiding self- respect, and consequently no enduring virtue at all." 330 EPILOGUE. flocks are, of all others, most disposed to follow direc- tions, and of all others want them most.'* In reply to this appeal the Catholic clergy of the Diocese of Dublin assured Bishop Berkeley that they were 1 determined to comply with every particular recommended in it to the utmost of their power ' — a reply which must have heaped coals of fire upon the heads of those responsible for the penal laws. I have, in this work, ventured to renew this appeal with, it is true, no claim comparable to that of the distinguished philosopher, but in times when I should have thought it could be made with less danger of giving offence. The present-day opportunities of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy in the economic field are surely far beyond any which were open to them a century and a half ago. It may be that, in the larger liberty they now enjoy, they have lost something of that influence which they exercised when they shared with their flocks a per- secution mainly directed against their religion. Still they enjoy a prestige and occupy a position among the majority of the people, which finds no exact parallel in any other section of the Christian clergy in the world. Coming from the people, chosen by the discerning eye of the Church from the most promising of the youth under her tuition, their influence upon secular life is of the most far-reaching character, and all the more so because of the emigration which has so largely drained * A Word to the Wise : or an Exhortation to The Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland. By George Berkeley, D.D. Bishop of Clovne. Dublin: Faulkner, 1752. EPILOGUE. 33I the lay portion of the community of every element of leadership other than the political. I think it opportune to point out here that amongst the causes from which the Irish Roman Catholic clergy derive their unique power must be reckoned the later policy of England, in giving them, by the founding of Maynooth College, facilities for higher education, and at the same time withholding the obviously essential counterpoise of a completed system of education for lay Catholics. A consequence of this policy has been to place under the control of the clergy such education as the majority of the people receive. Curiously enough this inevitable result is often most angrily resented by those who have caused it. 1 Clerical domination T is frequently denounced by the very politi- cians to whom is due that difference of educational opportunities upon which the subordination of the Catholic laity to their clergy so largely rests. Such being the educational situation, I turned to the Roman Catholic clergy, with the conviction, based upon study and observation, that they have here and now a unique opportunity of harmonising the furtherance of religious interests with the promotion of economic pro- gress. They may also by this means avert in Ireland those conflicts between religious systems and the feverish aspirations of modern life which are raging elsewhere. If they desire to render this double service to their country and their church, they must not neglect the lower but yet essential conditions of such a consumma- 332 FPTLOGUE. tion, even though the case is presented to them by a lay Protestant student of Irish problems. Despite the angry rejoinders of my less considerate critics, I still indulge the hope that, with men who seriously study the signs of the times, my suggestions will not have been wholly in vain. THE END. INDEX PAGE A. E. (George W. Russell) 200 Agitation as a policy, 82, 83, 309, 313, 314 Agricultural Board, 228, 234, seq. 257 Agriculture :— Agricultural Holdings :— Improvement of, . . 41 seq. Transfer of peasants to new farms, . . 43 seq. Agricultural Organisation : Denmark, . < 131 Department of Agricul- ture and farmers' societies, . . 241 England, Mr. Hanbury's and Lord Onslow's views, . . 242 Irish Agricultural Or- ganisation Society (sec that title) Co-operation (see that title). Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- tion (see that title). Depression in, . . 179 Education in relation to, . 126, 263 seq. 269 Exodus of Rural Popula- tion . 38, 116, 295, 326 State- Aid, . 211, 219, 223, 227 Tillage, decrease of, . . 46 Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act 224, 227, 236, 238 Albert Institute, Glasnevin, . 230, 271 Altruism, appeal to in co- operation, . . 21 America, Irish in : Causes of their success and failure, . . 53 seq. 72, 311 Irish in American politics, 70 seq. Loss of religion in, . Ill Anderson, R. A., Mr. :— Co-operative movement, . 184, 190 Irish Agricultural Organi- sation Society, . . 200 Andrews, Mr. Thomas :— Recess Committee, . 219 A nti-English Sentiment :— Irish in America and, . 72 Nature and cause, . 13 Auti-Treating League, . 114 PAGE Arnott, Sir John :— Recess Committee, . 218 Art, modern ecclesiastical art in Ireland, . . 108 Association, economic, value of, ... 167 Associative qualities of the Irish, . . .166 Bacon Curing:— Denmark, . . 131, 194 Bagot, Canon :— Creamery movement, . 189 Balfour, Arthur :— . .168 Defence of Philosophic Doubt, . . .320 Irish policy, . . 243, 244 Balfour, Gerald :— . . 243, 256 Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 225, 233 Local Government Act, 224, 238, 240 Policy of explained, . 225 Recess Committee Pro- posals; Bill, . . 224 Banks, agricultural credit, . 195 acq. Barley Experiments of the Department of Agricul- ture, . . .282 Belfast Chamber of Com- merce and Home Rule, . 67 Berkeley, Bishop :— "A Word to the Wise" . 141, 329 Irish priests, . .141, 329 On " Mending our state," . 6 "Parties" and "politics," . 63 Bessborough Commission, tenants improvements, &c. 22 Board of National Education, 126 Board of Technical Instruc- tion, . . 228, 234sevz 257 Bodley's France, Madame Darmesteter's review, . 242 Boer war and the Irish attitude, . . 9 Bogs, utilisation of, . . 249 Boycotting, ... 87 Bright, John :— Peasant proprietorship, . 25 Brooke, Stopford, . . 92 Buckle, personal factor in history, v . . 27 Bulwer Lytton, . . 34 Burke, . . 137 334 INDEX. PAGE Butt, Isaac, . . 78 Butter, Danish, . . 131 Cadogan, Lord, . . 224 Capital, shyness of, in Ire- land. . . .806,801 Cardinal Primate, pastoral letter of, . . 315, 310 Catholic Association, . 99 Catholic Emancipation Act, 104, 125, 132 Catholic University (sec Uni- versity Question). Celtic Race, Harold Frederic's opinion, . . 1G1 seq. Character :— Administrative capacity of Irish people, . 240, 305 Associative qualities of the Irish, . . . 166 Education and character, . 144 Gaelic Revival, effect of on national character, . 148. 155 Industrial character, 18, 304, 307-8. 329 Irish inefficiency a problem of character, . . 32, 3u5 Irish question a problem of character, 32, 58, 164, 301, 303-9 Lack of initiative in Irish character, . . 163 Moral timidity of Irish character, 65, 80, 81, 298, 301, 305 Political and Economic character, relation of, . 309-314 Prosperity of Ireland, to be founded on character, . 291, 314 Roman Catholicism and Irish character, . 101-105, 110. 320, 321 Temperament, buoyancy of, 299,30ee that title). Irish Homestead, . . 190, 2"2 Ludlow, Mr.. . . 184 Marum, Mr. Mulhallen, . 189 Middlemen, . . 180 Monteagle, Lord, . . 184 Moral effects, . . 207, 208 Xeale. Mr. Vansittart, . 1S4 Necessity of co-operation for small landholders . 47 seq. Production and distribution problems. . .179, 180 Roman Catholic clergy and, 119, 323 State-aid side, . . 165, 211 Vandeleur estate commu- nity, . . .184 Village libraries, . . 199 Wolff, Mr. Henry W. t . 199 Yerburgh, Mr.. . . 190 Cork :— Exhibition, Department's Exhibit,. . 119, 2S5 seq. Craig, Mr. E. T.- Co-operative Movement . 184 INDEX. 335 PAGE Creameries, co-operative, be- ginnings, . • 187 3eq. Crop improvement schemes of the Department, . 282 Council of Agriculture, . 228, 232 seq. 257 Dairying Industry— Co-opera- tion and, . . 187 seq. Dane, Mi-. :— Recess Committee, . 218 Darmesteter, Madame, Syn- dicats agricoles, . . 242 Davis, Thomas :— . . 137 Political Methods, . 77, 83 Denmark :— Co-operation in, . 50, 131, 194 High Schools, . . 131 Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- tion:— Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 224,227,236,238 Agricultural Board, . 228, 234 seq. 257 Agricultural education, .236/237, 263 seq. 269, 272 Agricultural Organisation, 241 Albert Institute, Glasuevin, 230, 271 Balfour, Gerald, . . 225, 233 Board of Technical Instruc- tion, , . 228, 234 seq. 257 College of Science and, . 230 Congested Districts Board and Department, . 215 Consultative Committee for Co-ordinating Education, 23*5, 237, 264 Constitution, etc., . 228 Co-operative movement and the benefits of or- ganisation, . . 241 Cork Exhibition exhibit, . 119, 285 seq. Council of Agriculture, . 228, 232 seq. 257 ( rop improvement schemes 282 Domestic economy teach- ing, . . .272, 323 Ea fly days' experiences, . 247 seq. Educational policy, . 236, 237, 261. 271 Educational work, . 262 Endowment, etc., . . 231 Home Industries, . . 275 Industrial education and industrial life, . . 130 Intermediate Education Board and, . . 235, 237, 264 Itinerant instruction, . 126, 270 Irish Agricultural Organisa- tion Society and, . . 203 Live Stock Schemes, . 279 Local Committees, . 261 Local Government Act and work of Department, . 239 PAGE Department of Agriculture— co?it. Metropolitan School of Art 230 Munster Institute, Cork, and, . . .230,274 Parliamentary representa- tion, . . . 220, 228 Powers, . . .229 seq. Provincial Committees, . 234 Purposes, . . . 228, 323 Recess Committee's Recom- mendations, . . 220 Royal Dublin Society and, . 279 Rural life improvement, . 159 Sea Fisheries, . . 282 Staff, . . .228 Teachers, . . .267 Technical instruction. 130. 228, 234, seq., 257, 263, 267, 279, 325 Work already accomplished, 278 seq. Devon Commission, tenants' improvements, . . 22 Dineen, Rev. P. S. :— Editor O'Rahilly's poems, . 76 Dixon, Sir Daniel : — Recess Committee, . 218 Domestic economy teaching, . 272, 323 Drink Evil :— Anomalies, . . 33 Anti-Treating League, . 114 Causes, . . . 112 Drink Bill of Ireland, 33, 327, 328 Roman Catholic Clergy's . influence, 112, 114, 325, seq. Dudley, Lord, . .170,290 Dufferin, Lord :— Effect of commercial re- strictions in Ireland, . 20 Duffy, Sir C. G. .77 Dunraven Conference, 8, 10, 207 Ecclesiastical Record, frish, 316 Economic system in Eng- land, individualism of, . 166 Economic thought :— Influence of Roman Catholicism, . 101 seq. 323 Lack of in Ireland, . 133 seq. Education :— Agricultural instruction, . 126, 263 seq. 269 Board of National Educa- tion, . . .126 Christian Brothers, 10^ 131, 325 Clerical control of, 108, 323, 331 Commissioners of National Education, . 235 Consultative Committee for co-ordinating Education, 236 237, 264 Continental methods, , 129 Defects of present system, . 128 Denmark High Schools, . 131 Department of Agricul- ture's policy and work, . 236, 237, 262, 264, 274 Economic, . . 130,133 336 INDEX. PAGE Education— continued. Education Bill, . . 99 English education in Ire- land, . . . 122 Influence of on national life, . . 59, 130 srq. Industrial, . . 130,201 Intermediate Education system, . 128, 235, 237, 201 Irish education schemes, . 123 sea. Itinerant instruction, . 120, 270 Keenan, Sir Patrick, . 126 Kildare Street Society, . 123 Lay Teachers, position of, 108, 325. 331 Literary Education, . 131 Lord Chesterfield on Edu- cation . . 04 Manual and Practical In- struction in Primary Schools, Commission, . 128, 129 Maynooth, influence of, . 134- 136, 138, 139, 331 Monastic and Conventual institutions, . 108, 321, 325 National factor in national education, . . 152, 153 Practical, . .129 seq. Reports of Commissions. . 127 Roman Catholics, higher education, . 97, 132, 133, 331 Royal University, . . 128 Technical instruction, 130, 228, 231 seq., 257, 203,325 Trinity College, influence of, . . 131, 130 scg. University :— Place of the University in education, . . 133 Royal Commission on Uni- versity Education, 118, 128, 110 Wyse's Scheme, . . 125 Education Bill, . . 99 Emigration, causes of, etc., . 38, 116, 295, 320 England :— Anti-English sentiment in in Ireland, . . 13. 72 Co-operation in, 166, 184, 192, 206, 242 Economic system, individu- alism of , . . . 166 Misunderstanding of Irish question, . . 7 scq. Ewart, Sir William :— Recess Committee, . 218 Experimental Plots of the Department, . . 281 Ferguson, Sir Samuel :— National sentiment, . 154 Field, Mr. William, . . 217 Finlay, Father Thomas :— . 119, 208 Irish Agricultural Organisa- tion Society, . . 192 Recess Committee . 218 Fisheries — Department of Agriculture, development scheme, . . 282 seq. PAGE Flax improvement Schemes, . 282 Ford, Mr., Editor of Irish World, New York, . 310 Fortnightly Review :— Harold Frederic on Iri-h Question, . . 1C2 Franco, syndimtx agricolcs. . 212 Franchise extension in 188-3. elfects of on Irish political thought, . . 78 Frederic, Harold :— Views on Irish question . Man. Freeman's Journal, Criticism of present hook, . . Free Trade, effect of in Ireland, 19 Gaelic Revival:— . .USsrq. Appeal to the individual . 155 Co-operative movement ;tndll9jse<7. Gaelic League, aims and objects, . . . 150, 323 Hyde, Douglas, Dr. . 151 Irish language as a com- mercial medium, . 158 National factor in educa- tion, importance of. . 153 Politics and the Gaelic re- vival, . . . 1.56,1.57 Rural life, rehabili tat ion, 159, 199, 323 Gill. Mr. T. P. :— Recess Committee, . 219 Gladstone:— . . 85 Belfast Chamber of Com- merce, Home Rule de- putation, . . 67 Home Rule, attitude to- wards, . . .3,66,67 Irish Land System, . 22 seq. Tenants' improvements, . 22 Glasnevin, Albert Institute, . 230. 271 Grattan, . . .137 Gray, Mr. J. C. :- Co-operative movement, . 184 Grazing, increase of, . 46 Grundtvig. Bishop, . . 131 Haxhl ry, Mr. :— . .251 Agricultural Societies, ne- cessity of, . . 242 Suppression of Swine Fever, 252 Hannon, Mr. P. J.-LA.O.S. . 200 Harrington. Mr. T. C. :— Recess Committee. . 218 Healy, Archbishop, work for Ireland, . .118 Hegarty, Father, work for Ireland. . . .119 Historical Grievances. 11, 17, 75, 104, seq. 120, 147, 300, 301 Hogan. Rev. J. F.. D.D., of Maynooth, review by. . 316 seq. Holdings, small, problem of, . 41 seq. Holyoake. Mr.:— Co-operative Movement. . 184 Home : Improvement of. . 56, 1.59 Domestic Economy Teaching, 272, 323 Irish Conception of, . 52 scq. INDEX. 337 PAGB Home: Improvement of— cont. Irish, " homelessness at home," cause of . 55 se q Home Industries, . 192, 275, 323 Home Rule :— Bill 1886, . 61 Gladstone's attitude to the question . , 3 Irish Industries : Mr. J. Redmond's letter, . 311 Nationalist tactics as a means of attaining 84, 299. 313 Rosebery, Lord, attitude to the question, . . 4 Ulster and Home Rule, 66, 86 seq. Unionist attitude towards, . 35 Hughes, Tom, Co-operative Movement, . . 184 Hyde, Douglas, Dr. . . 151 Individualism of English economic svst( m, , . 1G0 Industrial character of the Irish, effect of commercial restrictions, . 18, 304, 329 Industrial leadership, and political leadership, 212, 309-311 Industry :— Commercial Restrictions, 16-20, 304 Dependence on moral atmo- sphere, . . . 307-8 Education and Industrial Life, 130 Free Trade, effect of, . 19 Gaelic League and, . 155 Home Rule and, . 87, 311-14 Peasant Industries 49, 192, 275, 323 Politics, relation to, 61 seq , 309-314 Protestantism and Industry 100 Roman Catholicism and Industry . 100, 103 seq., 323 State- Aid . 211 seq. 227 seq. Initiative, lack of in Irish character, . . .163 Intermediate Education 128, 235, 237, 261 Irish Agricultural Organis- ation Society :— . . 149, 323 Agricultural Banks, 195 seq. Agricultural Organisation :— Denmark, . . 131 Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Societies, 241 England, Mr. Hanbury s and Lord Onslow's views, 242 Welsh Co. Councils, and, 242 Anderson, R. A., Mr., . 200 Central body, necessity for . 194 Cork Exhibition, tours or- ganised by, . . 286 Department of Agriculture and, 203 Federations, principal, . 193 Finlay, Father Thomas, . 119, 192, 208,218 Funds, . . .202 seq. Gaelic revival and the co- operative movement, . 149 seq. Hannon, Mr. P. J., . 200 Inauguration, . . 191 PAGE Irish Agricultural Organis- ation Society— continued. Irish Homestead, . . 190,202 Monteagle, Lord, . . 192 Roman Catholic clergy and the movement, . 119, 323 Rural life social move- ments, . , . 159, 199 Russell, George W. Mr. (A. E.) t 200 Societies, number, etc. . 192 Staff, &c. . . .200 Village libraries, . . 199 Irish Ecclesiastical Record, . 316 Irish Homestead, . . 190, 202 Irish language see Gaelic League "Irish night" in House of Commons, . . 2 Irish Question :— Anomalies, . . 33, 299 Character, a problem of, 32, 58, 164, 301, 303-9 Emigration, 38, 116, 295, 326 English misunderstanding, 7 seq. Frederic, Harold, diagnosis by. . . . 161 seq. Gaelic Revival and, . 148 Historical grievances, 14. 17, 75, 104 seq., 120. 147, 300, 304 Home Rule (see that title) Human problem, . . 2 Land Act(1903) marks a new era in, 11 Land system (see that title). Moral tyranny . . 299 Our ignorance about our- selves. . . .32 Parnell's death, effect of, . 5 Penal Laws, (see that title) Political remedies, Irish belief in, . 33, 296, 311 Public Opinion, state of 58, 80. 297, 299 323 Rural life, problem, 40, 263,' 323 Sentiment, force of, . 15, 127 Ulster's attitude important, 37 Itinerant Instructors, 126, 127, 270,284 Johnson, Dr., on "economy," 273 Kane, Rev. R. R. :— . 157 Recess Committee, . 218 Keenan, Sir Patrick Itinerant instructors, 126, 127 Kelly, Dr. (Bishop of Ross) :— Work for Ireland, . . 118 Kildare Street School of Domestic Economy. . 274 Kildare Street Society, 123-125 Land Acts :— 1870, 23; 1881, 23, 24; 1891, Congested Districts, . 243 1903 :— 10, 11, 40, 44, 245, 295, 304 Marks a new era in Ireland, 11 Transfer of peasants to new farms, . . 43 Z 338 INDEX. PAO* Land Conference :— . 93 Landed gentry not to be ex- patriated, . . 85 Nationalist leaders' atti- tude. . .89 Land system : — . . 17 Causes of failure in Irish land system, . . 21 Dual ownership. . . 25 Land Acts: 1870, 23; 1881. 23, 24; 1891, 243; 1903, 10, 11, 40, 44, 245, 29*. 304. Legislation, . . 'Xseq. Peasant proprietorship, germs of, . .85 Lawless, Emily :— " With the Wild Geese." . 92, 300 Lc lion, "La Psychologic de la Foule," . . 167 Lea. Sir Thomas :— Recess Committee. , 218 Leader, of Dublin, review in. 317 Leadership in Ireland, politi- cal and industrial, 212, 3'>9-31 1 Lecky, Mr. :— Irish grievances, . . 14 Kiidare Street Society, . 124 Live stock improvement schemes. . 279 Liverpool Financial Reform Association, . . 127 Local Government :— . 83 Balfour, Mr. Gerald. 224, 238. 240 Department of Agriculture and local effort, . : 39 Educative effect of. . 90 Nationalist leaders' attitude 88 Success in working, 88, 240, 306 Lowell, Russell, . . 318 Lucas, Mr., . . .77 Ludlow, Mr. :— Co-operative movement. . 1S4 McCarthy, Mr. Justin:— Kecess Committee, . 215 Manchester, Co-operative Union . .184 Manual and Practical In- struction in Primary Schools' Commission, 128, 129 Manures, Artificial —Depart- ment of Agriculture's en- couragement in the use of, 282 Marum, Mr. Mulhallen— Co-operative Movement . 189 Maynooth. influence of. . 134 136, 138, 139, 331 Rev. J. F. Hogan. D.D., . 316 seq. Mayo, Lord :— Recess Committee, . 218 Memorandum on Agricul- tural Education. . 269 Metropolitan School of Art, . . 230 Middlemen, . . 180 Migration question, 43 seq., 57 PAGE Monasteries and Convent*. increase of, . . 108, 326 Monteagle, Lord : — Co-operative movement, . 184 I.A.O.S. President, . 192 Recess Committee . 218 Moral timidity of Irish character, 65, 80, 81, 299, 301, 305 Morals : - Roman Catholic Clergy's influence on, 115, 116, 325. 327 Mulhall, Mr. Michael :- Recess Committee, . 219 Mullingar Rural District Council : Resolution pass- ed by, . . .316 Munster Institute, Cork, 230, 274 Musgrave, Sir James: - Recess Committee, . . 219 National Education Board. Agricultural Teaching, . 126 Nationalist Party :— Home Rule. 35, 81, 299, 311 Land Conference and, . 89 Ixjcal Government and. . 88 Policy, .00 Qualifications of leaders, . 90.91 Recess Committee and, . 222. 311 Responsibility of leaders, . 81 Tactics :— . Effect of on Irish political character, 89, 84 «