OHEmUBRARY 
 
 'J 
 
IRELAND AND HOME RULE 
 
 THERE are two methods of philosophising. One is to 
 form a theory, and then twist the facts to fit it. The 
 other is to collate the facts, and then draw conclusions from a 
 comparison of them. The former method is the one commonly 
 adopted, when Englishmen discuss Irish questions. They 
 know what they desire, and their reasoning follows their wishes. 
 This is an easy, but a very deceptive process. Suppose 
 we follow the opposite plan ; and instead of making the facts 
 square with a preconceived hypothesis, suppose we try to 
 formulate a theory from the facts. I want to establish my 
 conclusions by arguments as strong as adamant, and, to do so, it 
 is necessary to unfold the tragic record of Irish wrongs, Irish 
 sufferings and Irish misfortunes. It is a painful tale. I will only 
 tell so much of it as stands in the relation of cause to effect. To 
 prescribe remedies, without studying the seat of the disease and 
 the habit of the patient, is empiricism and quackery. 
 
 Seven centuries ago we conquered Ireland. We have held 
 Dublin nearly as long again as the Turks have hel<^ Constan- 
 tinople. When we took it, Russia was a limited Dukedom, 
 Germany was but a historical, and Italy was but a geographical 
 expression. I'he English Kings still claimed supremacy over 
 the greater part of France, and the Moors exercised it over 
 Spain. In the interval, between the landing of Strongbow and 
 the present time, Holland has risen to be the first of maritime 
 Powers, and has sunk again into insignificance. The United 
 States of America have been discovered and colonised, have 
 won their independence, and have grown to be one of the 
 greatest nations upon the earth. There has been time, then, 
 sufficient for English institutions to take root in Ireland. Have 
 they done so ? and what is the fruit they have grown ? Ireland 
 is inferior to no other country in Europe in the gifts of Nature. 
 It is blessed with a temperate climate and a productive soil ; 
 it is intersected by great rivers ; it is indented with noble 
 harbours; it is endowed with valuable minerals; it is possessed 
 of prolific fisheries, and is furnished with water-power capable 
 of turning the machinery of the world. Yet, its agriculture is 
 stationary, and a couple of bad harvests bring the peasants to 
 the verge of starvation. Its fisheries are neglected ; its minerals 
 ■^na. unti B 2 ( 3 ) 
 
4 Ireland and Home Rule, 
 
 are unworked ; its water-power is unused ; its commerce is 
 languishing ; its manufactures, except in one district, are ex- 
 tinct ; and its population is poverty-stricken, dwindling and 
 discontented. The people are disarmed, forbidden to drill, 
 and refused permission to volunteer, while the country swarms 
 with regular and irregular troops. This is the plain, unvarnished 
 truth. 
 
 " When the herd degenerates, the herdsman is to blame," is 
 a maxim as old as Socrates. Ireland has degenerated under 
 English rule. Is England to blame ? Largely, I think. Scot- 
 land is prosperous, contented and loyal. How comes it, that our 
 union with her has been such a success, and with Ireland such 
 a failure ? Because the first was a union and the second was a 
 conquest. The Scotch Commissioners treated with the English 
 Government on terms of equality for a junction of commercial 
 interests — a federal connection, which should regulate the 
 trade, and foreign relations of the two countries, but w^hich 
 left the laws and institutions of each untouched. The bargain 
 was struck on those terms ; but under it the Scotch people 
 have displayed a civic genius unsurpassed since the days of 
 Pericles. They have transformed a barren soil into a garden, 
 raised up arts and manufactures as by the wand of a magician, 
 and metamorphosed one of the poorest countries in the world 
 into one of the wealthiest. The Scotch have thriven, because 
 we have allowed them to work out their own destiny in their 
 own way. They have retained their own law-courts and legal 
 methods, their own church, their own system of education, 
 their own forms of local administration, and their own land 
 and land-tenure. We have shown no such respect for Irish 
 ways and wishes and susceptibilities. We have abrogated their 
 laws and uprooted their courts. We have established a 
 religion which was repugnant to them, and have forced them 
 to support it. We have trampled out every vestige of local 
 government, and centralised all power in an alien camerilla 
 entrenched in Dublin Castle. We have confiscated their land, 
 abolished their system of tenure, and cleared out the peasantry, 
 as in a wild country they clear out the forests, to plant it wuth 
 English adventurers. The different treatments explain the 
 different results. "We have sown dragons' teeth, and they have 
 sprung up rebels." 
 
 To-day is the child of yesterday. No man can pronounce 
 an intelligent opinion on the state of Ireland, or propound 
 any acceptable scheme for its amelioration, unless he has 
 studied the past and understands the present. The; 'a- 
 
 ( 4 ) 
 
Ireland and Ho^ne Rule. 5 
 
 mental facts of Irish history are unknown to the majority of 
 Englishmen, who have been taught to apply different rules 
 of conduct and canons of criticism to the two countries. Before 
 English politicians denounce the Irish as ignorant and un- 
 civilized, they should study the annals of those not remote 
 times, during which education in Ireland was held to be felony 
 by English law ; and before they proclaim Irish peasants to be 
 a race of beggars and assassins, they should familiarise them- 
 selves with the history of Irish landlordism and of Irish law. It 
 is not generally known, or, if known, it is overlooked, that Ire- 
 land, after the six centuries which follow the introduction of 
 Christianity, was the seat of the industrial arts, and the school 
 of the West. Residence there was considered essential to 
 establish a literary reputation ; and to her seminaries and 
 universities students flocked from every part of Christendom. 
 They were Irish missionaries who first presented to the 
 illiterate Saxon the rudiments of literature, science, architecture, 
 music, and even the means of shaping the letters used in 
 writing the English language. Irish monks were the workmen 
 w^ho built most of the early Christian edifices. Old St Paul's 
 Cathedral, in London, and the magnificent roof that spans 
 Westminster Hall, wTre of Irish design. At that time, Ireland 
 was the Christian Greece — the centre of scholastic enlighten- 
 ment and enterprise. 
 
 In the zenith of its reputation, it was ravaged and plundered 
 by Pagan marauders, who desolated the country and disor- 
 ganized its institutions. Intermittent wars, prolonged through 
 centuries, demoralized the civilization which had been a beacon 
 in the midst of darkness. A loose confederacy of princes and 
 chiefs was substituted for the republican monarchy which had 
 so long ruled with acceptance and success. Each sub-king 
 fought for his own hand. Their reckless contests, combined 
 with their dynastic jealousies, afforded an opening for filibus- 
 tering Normans, who sought, and who soon found, a footing in 
 the country. The Irish chieftains were dispossessed of their 
 lands, and driven into the west. The invaders pitched on 
 certain towns, and constructed around them rudely fortified 
 camps, called the " Pale," whose boundaries were shifted 
 according to circumstances. Within the scope of their forces, 
 the Anglo-Normans established their own government, and 
 imposed their own law. Beyond the Pale, the native prince 
 ruled his principality, and the native chief ruled his clan. Fitfully, 
 though gradually, the strangers pushed their power; but it was 
 not until more than four hundred years after the first landing 
 
 (5) 
 
8 Ireland a'nd Ho77ie Rule. 
 
 an army of skilled artizans out of France, have never heard 
 how we drove 150.000 Irishmen into the Continental armies. 
 
 Such of the peasantr\' as survived successive settlements, as 
 they were mildly called, were driven to the bogs and to the 
 mountains. In the productive valleys and undulating meadows, 
 the camp-followers of the conqueror were planted. The 
 strangers took all that was worth having — the rest was left to 
 the natives. The descendants of those strangers hold the 
 same lands to-day, but they do not live on them. They are 
 neither in the country, nor of it — aliens alike in creed and in 
 social sympathy. The perversity that keeps these confiscations in 
 mind is censured by complacent English critics. It is ancient 
 history, they say, and should be forgotten. But defeated 
 nations always dwell on the memories of old losses, even when 
 traces of them are being gradually effaced. England, we are 
 reminded, has been conquered more than once. That is true: 
 but the conquerors absorbed the natives, or were absorbed by 
 them. That has not happened in Ireland. We treated them 
 as enemies to be extirpated, not as subjects to be conciliated. 
 For any English settler to speak the native tongue, to use an 
 Irish name, to wear the Irish apparel, or to adopt any of the 
 customs of the country, was punishable by loss of his land ; 
 while for him to marry an Irishwoman, to trust his children to 
 an Irish nurse, or to give them Irish sponsors at baptism, was 
 constituted high treason. The racial barriers then erected 
 have, unfortunately, not yet been overthrown; and both we and 
 the Irish suffer in consequence. It is eight hundred years 
 since the Normans parcelled out the English land. It is not 
 three hundred since the English parcelled out the Irish, If 
 Irish kings had planted Catholic settlements in choice English 
 counties, as late as the time of the Commonwealth, and driven 
 the Protestant English to the hills and fells, it would have been 
 found that, even to this day, we would not have patiently 
 acquiesced in the transfer. These memories are painful, but 
 who can blot thenp out ? As long as Englishmen gloat with 
 patriotic pride over the records of great deeds done by their 
 ancestors at Agincourt, or at Waterloo, so long will Irishmen, 
 as Sir C. Gavan Duffy eloquently says, be disturbed by 
 agony and wrath over the desolation of Desmond, the 
 spoliation of Ulster, and the brutalities of Carhampton. 
 England, too, is different from Ireland. Here we have 
 many other occupations besides the agricultural. Ireland 
 has none. Hence the earnestness with which her peoj^e 
 bemoan the lo.ss of their land, 'i'he race-resentments, then, 
 ( 8 ) 
 
Ireland and Hone Ride, 9 
 
 are traceable to the Pale ; and the religious antipathies, 
 engendered by our attempts to coerce the j^ople, to Protes- 
 tantism. The agrarian rancour comes down from the planta- 
 tions: and the national distrust, from the penal laws, which. 
 Mr. Burke says, were as elabomte a contrivance for the 
 oppression, impoverishment and degradation of the people, 
 and for the debasement of human nature., as ever proceeded 
 from the perfidy and ingenuit}- of man. 
 
 But, although this generation suners so severely from it, it is 
 not responsible for the past. We cannot annul it, and we need 
 not make party politics of it. But, if we wish to legislate in 
 relief of the evil bequeathed to us, we must keep it before us. 
 When we declaim against Irish ignorance, we should remember 
 that, for generations, we prohibited education — that the penal 
 laws left over four millions of persons unable to read. When 
 we reproach the Irish with want of manuilictures. we should 
 recollect that we deliberately injured their manufactures in the 
 interests of our own, and that one of William the Third's most 
 solemn pledges to Parliament was, that he would do all that 
 in him lay to destroy them. He kept this pledge, although he 
 broke the one he made at Limerick. But no livms: EngUshman 
 has anything more to do with the enactment of the penal law-s, 
 or with the iniquity of the imposition of fatal restrictions on 
 Irish trade, than any living Irishman has to do with the 
 massacre of 1641. For the last fifty years, England has 
 struggled to atone for former wrongs : and because her efforts 
 have not been more effusively acknowledged by Ireland, the 
 Irish are accused of ingratitude. It is not'easy to define what 
 measure of gratitude is due for tardy acts of justice. The 
 English concessions ha\-e been shorn of their grace and merit 
 by being so long delayed, and by being yiekied to pressure 
 rather than conviction and s}Tnpathy. Many of the concessions 
 to Ireland have been carried out by hostile agents : others have 
 l>een allowed to remain inopemtive, or have been administered 
 in a recalcitrant spirit. The American War stimulated the 
 I ,nglish sense of justice. In the hope of averting an Irish 
 rebellion, we gave Ireland a P;irhimient; and, as usual, we 
 sweetened the gift by a general admission of past transgressions. 
 The Parliament was to rectify jxist errors, and redress wrongs ; 
 but no sooner did the danger, which it ^-as called into existence 
 to prevent, disap{x\ir, than it was corruptly and fraudulently 
 destroyed. Catholic Emancipation ^vas promised as a sclatium 
 "or the loss —but it was not granted until thirty years after the 
 L'nio'v vv.l then onlv under compulsion. The Duke of 
 
 (9) 
 
lo Ireland and Home Ride, 
 
 Wellington, when urging the measure on his brother Peers, did 
 not do so that justice might be accomplished, and the long 
 delayed debt paid, but because it was no longer safe to resist. 
 "We have," he said, "to choose between emancipation and 
 rebellion ; and I prefer the former, as the less evil of the two." 
 No one can wonder that the gratitude of Irishmen was not 
 touched by such questionable generosity. The glaring injustice 
 of maintaining a Protestant Church at the cost of the Catholic 
 people was admitted by all ; but it was maintained for genera- 
 tions, and, according to the acknowledgment of the author of 
 the Act, was only finally disestablished because the Fenians 
 blew down a gaol-wall in Clerkenwell, and burst open a police- 
 van in Manchester. It was fear, not justice, that secured that 
 reform. A like indifference to agrarian evils was displayed, 
 until they were positively driven in upon our consideration. 
 In the copious election programmes, of both great parties, m 
 1880, there was no reference to the reiterated demand of Irish 
 peasants for a redress of their grievances. When they were 
 spoken of by isolated Enghsh " Philistines " it was to sneer at, 
 or jest about J them ; but when the Land League paralysed the 
 Castle and its constables, a very different tone was taken. 
 Then the necessity for an Irish Land Act was discovered, and 
 one was passed by the English Parliament in hot haste. When 
 well-meaning Englishmen are chagrined and perplexed, that 
 their efforts at reparative justice are not more warmly recipro- 
 cated, and do not strike a responsive chord in Irish hearts, 
 they may find a reason in this retrospect. It is not the deed 
 itself v/hich is done, but the time when, and the temper in 
 which, it is done, that captivates the recipient. 
 
 Acts, too, good and wise in themselves, have failed from 
 defective and adverse administration. We made the Catholics 
 eligible for office; but we admitted none of them to it. We 
 opened the door; but not a soul was permitted to pass. 
 During the debates on the Emancipation Bill, Sir Robert Peel 
 said, "Catholics are eligible; but because they are eligible, *" 
 they are not entitled to office. Whether they are admitted 
 or not, is in the discretion of the Crown." In other w^ords, 
 the legal ban was lifted, but the social ban was retained. And 
 so it is to this day ! In the county of Cork, where there 
 are ten Catholics for one Protestant, there were, a few years 
 ago, in offices of honour and emolument in connection with 
 the Government — the magistracy, the poor-law and the police 
 — 1,190 Protestant and 185 Catholics. In a lately published 
 report it is shown that, whilst there are 227 Protestant, there 
 
 (10) 
 
Ireland and Home Rtde. 1 1 
 
 are only 45 Catholic officers in the Irish Constabulary. It is 
 an advantage to have the Constitution broadened ; but the 
 benefit is neutralised, if, when Catholics seek admission, they 
 are told there is no room for them ; and that all the places 
 are filled by Protestants, who have secured an entrance in 
 right of confiscated land and penal laws. This class and 
 sectarian exclusiveness — the spawn of prejudice and injustice 
 —applies to every department, from Dublin Castle to the 
 local police-barrack. From the year 1700 to 1800, only one 
 Irishman filled the office of Lord- Lieutenant. Since 1800, only 
 two — and these were Tory noblemen — have been Viceroys. 
 
 The Chief Secretary and the Under Secretary are Englishmen 
 and Protestants ; and out of the twenty-nine officials in the Castle 
 all are Protestants but two. In the Customs, in the Inland 
 Revenue, and in the offices of the Board of Works, all the 
 chief places are filled by Protestants. The minor ones are 
 given to Catholics. And this is half-a-century after Eman- 
 cipation, and amongst a population where only one in five is 
 Protestant. It is impossible to conceive that there are not a 
 large number of Irish Catholics eligible for these places, and 
 that they were excluded through a latent distrust, or a desire 
 to maintain the old ascendancy. In Eastern rivers, you trace, 
 by their colour, the waters that rise in different geological 
 strata. Their courses are distinguishable from their source 
 to the sea. The streams of Irish discontent, springing from 
 different well-heads, are quite as broadly marked. Angry and 
 venomous currents, racial, religious and agrarian, have guttered 
 into and undermined its national Hfe. The Irish policy of 
 the Plantagenets was oppression and hostility ; and of the 
 Tudors, the svford and penal statutes. The Irish policy of 
 Cromwell was the sword, penalties and wholesale confiscation; 
 and that of William and Anne was the sword, repression, 
 renewed confiscation and laws against trade. They all failed. 
 The Hanoverians initiated a more humane policy. The 
 sword was temporarily returned to the scabbard. Proselytism, 
 accompanied by restraints and disabilities, was tried. They 
 were "to be taught to fear, that they might be taught to love." 
 This failed too. A new departure was taken at the date of 
 Emancipation. A policy of alternate coercion and concession 
 — the lash and lollipops — was started. It has failed also. 
 Our measures are never thorough. They are always clogged 
 with reservations. We always leave a splinter in the wound. 
 And we stand now, eighty-five years after the Union, in the 
 presence of as intense and widespread disaff'ection as has ever 
 
12 Ireland and Home Rule, 
 
 moved the Irish people during this century. We have 
 attempted all forms of rule but one. We have never trusted 
 Irishmen. 
 
 Why not try that ? Give them — and by them I mean all 
 classes, irrespective of creeds and origin — the management of 
 their own affairs. What they want, is the right to domestic 
 legislation. The Imperial Parliament would then, as now, 
 have the exclusive power of dealing with all questions affecting 
 the Crown ; of legislating for the colonies and dependencies ; 
 of regulating our relations with foreign States ; of providing 
 and controlling the supplies for national defences ; of uphold- 
 ing the integrity and stability of the Empire. Amongst the 
 attributes of sovereignty would be the right of coining money, 
 of carrying the mail, of regulating the customs, of granting 
 patents and copyrights, and of making wars. The Irish 
 Parliament would deal exclusively with Irish affairs. Its 
 Constitution would be a counterpart of the Imperial. Irish 
 Ministers would be responsible to their Parliament, as their 
 Parliament, in turn, would be responsible to the people. 
 While they constitutionally exercised jurisdiction over all 
 purely Irish business, they would be required cordially to 
 unite with England in proceedings which concerned the two 
 islands in common. The Imperial Parliament would act for 
 the Empire ; and the Irish Parliament would act for Ireland. 
 Each, within its sphere, would be supreme. Is there anything 
 unreasonable, or impracticable, or revolutionary in such an 
 arrangement ? It was because we refused to adopt it for our 
 American colonies, that we lost them. It is because we have 
 adopted it in our other large colonies, that we retain them. 
 
 Federalism is but the application to national life of the 
 principle that we act upon in domestic and civil life. Each 
 family regulates its domestic affairs ; each municipality 
 manages its own lousiness — because they can do so with more 
 knowledge, and will do so with more zeal, than any outside 
 individual, or any distant governing body. But, as regards 
 matters of general concern in the State, the members of the 
 municipality respectively act in unison. The fullest growth, 
 and the widest range of action, both in the individual and in 
 the city, as well as in the country, is compatible with fidelity 
 to the State. Fidelity and independence, in the centre, can 
 be maintained without sacrificing either in the different parts. 
 Every member of the body politic would have free and healthy 
 play ; and the life of the whole would be the life of every 
 section. That procedure I would ap^ly to the political 
 
 (12) 
 
Ireland and Home Rule. 13 
 
 relations between England and Ireland. The earliest forms 
 of political union rest, not upon territorial contiguity, but upon 
 blood relationship. In the lowest savagery, as well as in the 
 highest civilisation — in the old clan, as in the new nationahty 
 — this is the primary, as it is the strongest, ground for 
 sustained common action amongst groups of men. We have 
 not yet reached that condition of positive knowledge when we 
 can say, with an assurance of correctness, how much of pro- 
 gress is due to innate race qualities, and how much to early 
 and later environments. The chief problem of civilisation has 
 always been how to secure concentrated action amongst men, 
 on a large scale, without sacrificing local independence, or with- 
 out doing violence to national sentiment. History says, it is not 
 possible to solve this problem without the aid of the principle 
 of representation applied equally to the different communities 
 in the same State, and to the different citizens of the same 
 community. This association of equal men and equal peoples, 
 mutually aiding one another, each profiting by the resources 
 which the other possesses, and marching onward, free from all 
 fetters, to the realisation of their destiny — indicated by their 
 aspirations,^ by the locality of their birth, by their tradition and 
 idioms — this is the highest form of political organisation which 
 human experience has evolved ; and it is specially adapted to 
 the peculiar relations between England and Ireland. 
 
 This is in accordance, too, with Anglo-Saxon sentiments and 
 sympathies. They were the only race that came out of the 
 ^lediaeval crucible with their conceptions of local Govern- 
 ment intact. England itself was a confederation of States, 
 rather than a united kingdom. The federation was not only 
 of shire and shire, and of province with province, but of realm 
 and realm. All the groups were subordinate, but all were 
 free. They all acknowledged an imperial supremacy. Yet, 
 for all local and administrative purposes, they were independent. 
 Over the Confederated States presided a King, and round him 
 stood the Council of Wise Men. It was out of this organisa- 
 tion that our Empire grew ; and by this organisation it is still 
 guarded. The genius and training of the English people, then, 
 as well as their political and social structures, are all in harmony 
 with the federalists' idea. Centralisation, the Roman idea, is 
 despotic. Federation, the Teutonic idea, is democratic. It 
 was the communities that embraced the latter conception of 
 governing— the Dutch and the Swiss and the Scandinavians — 
 that led the terrible battle for freedom with which the drama 
 of modern history was ushered in ; and it is they who have 
 
 (13) 
 
14 Ireland and Home Rule. 
 
 shown capacity for the completest form of local self-government, 
 combined with federal union. In their mountain fastnesses, 
 the Swiss have preserved the rustic democracy of their fore- 
 fathers. Yet, modern Switzerland is made up of more dis- 
 cordant and unmanageable elements than are to be found in 
 Great Britian and Ireland. Four languages— German, French, 
 Italian, Rhcetian— are spoken within the limits of the Con- 
 federacy; while, on religion, the Cantons are as sharply divided 
 as ever Orangemen, or Cathohcs, are, or can be. But deeper 
 down than even the deep-seated differences of speech and 
 creed. He the patriotic feelings generated by the common 
 possession of political freedom. Complete local independence, 
 and adequate federal representation, give a more intense 
 national cohesion than any centralised Government, however 
 cunningly devised, can secure. Identical results, in very 
 different circumstances and under very different conditions, 
 (have been secured in democratic Scandinavia and in autocratic 
 Austria. There are no two countries in Europe whose course 
 has been freer from domestic discord, or more steadily prosper- 
 ous, than Norway and Sweden since their confederation ; and 
 when Austria ceased to be the master, and became partner 
 with Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, chronic dis- 
 content was transformed into settled contentment. 
 
 But the happiest illustration of dual government — the most 
 conclusive proof that concentrated action can be secured 
 without sacrifice of independent action— is furnished by the 
 United States of America. When it was proposed, it wa^ 
 laughed at and derided in much the same way as Home Rule 
 is to-day. It was declared to be impossible that thirteen 
 colonies, with a population of five millions, would overcome 
 their mutual jealousies so far as to unite in a single political 
 body. Yet, not thirteen, but thirty-nine, free States— stretch- 
 ing over more than three millions of square miles of territory, 
 and containing not five, but fifty, millions of people, as unlike 
 as Connecticut and California, or as Louisiana and Massa- 
 chusetts — have been united, and are held together in bonds 
 as firm as they are free. It is in the flexibility of the union, 
 in the complete independence that is preserved by each State, 
 except when independence conflicts with the federal principle, 
 that lies the surest guarantee for this masterpiece of political 
 wisdom. But, in the British Empire itself, we have an 
 example of federation in another, but equally successful, form. 
 We have accorded to all our larger colonies the full power of 
 Self Government; and we are gradually evolving a compre^ 
 
 ( M ) 
 
Ireland and Home Rule. 15 
 
 hensive federation which will secure to each all the local rights 
 which they now enjoy: while it will bind them, both by 
 interest and good- will, still more tightly to the Imperial 
 community. It is impossible to cite more conclusive evidence 
 of the success of Home Rule than that presented by 
 the Dominion of Canada. For the first forty years of the 
 century, that colony was either in rebellion, or preparing for 
 rebellion. It is two thousand miles from our shores, or forty 
 times the distance of Ireland. It is close to a great and 
 friendly State, which is certainly not unwilling to incorporate 
 it. It has two provinces ; and the people of each differ in 
 race, religion, language and law. Those in one province are 
 French and Catholic, alienated by memories of recent con- 
 quests and harsh legislation. The population of the other 
 — Scotch and Irish settlers — have carried with them inveterate 
 race-feuds and religious animosities. It is not easy to conceive 
 of a country where, or a population amongst whom, Home 
 K-ule could have been less auspiciously attempted. The two 
 provinces were united in the one Parliament, with all the 
 elements of distraction, disaffection and danger. Has the 
 Empire been disintegrated? Has the Dominion joined, or 
 does it now ever talk of joining, the United States? Is it 
 torn by domestic dissension? Has not Home Rule trans- 
 formed a rebellious and languishing colony into one of the 
 most loyal, contented and prosperous that Great Britain 
 possesses ? Provinces that were against each other, in 
 seemingly hopeless discord and antagonism, are now united. 
 French Cathohc and Irish Orangemen, English Catholic and 
 Scotch Presbyterians, meet in one Parliament, and subordinate 
 their strifes and rivalries to the common interest of the 
 country which they control, and the Empire of which they 
 form a part. It is the practice of party politicians to com- 
 plicate what is simple, and to make inextricable what is not 
 complex ; but it is not conceivable that intelligent Englishmen 
 can, or will, permit themselves to be permanently prejudiced 
 against a system of rule, the merits of which they have not 
 fully investigated. I have no faith in my powers of advocacy ; 
 but I feel satisfied that if I had twelve of my countrymen — of 
 any class, or creed, or party— in the jury-box ; and if they 
 allowed me, as Dean Swift wished to do, to plead the case 
 under another name, they would pronounce the Irish grievances 
 proven,- and decide that their scheme for Self Government was 
 in principle sound, and would in practice be workable. 
 
 In Ireland's chequered history, there was a brief period of 
 
1 6 Ireland and Home Rule. 
 
 prosperity. The American War brought England trouble, but 
 brought Ireland liberty. This was the first time, since the 
 invasion of Henry II., that she had had free-trade and a free 
 Parliament. In the twenty years that followed the restoration 
 of her independence, she made great strides in prosperity. 
 Freedom brought her trade and revived her manufactures. Lord 
 Clare, in 1798, said : " There is not a nation on the globe that 
 has advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and 
 manufactures, with the same rapidity in the same period." 
 All classes of the community — Protestant and Catholic, peer 
 and peasant, rich and poor — were united in one bond of sym- 
 pathy, and one common sentiment of triumph, at the legislative 
 independence of the country. But, that Parliament was 
 destroyed by a combination of perfidy and corruption, to which 
 the British annals furnish no parallel. Since the Union, Irish 
 history has been a record of repression and of turbulence — 
 repression on account of turbulence, and turbulence on account 
 of repression. There have been, in the eighty-five years, 
 nearly fifty Coercion Bills ; and there have not been, over that 
 long period, three successive years in which the Constitution 
 has not been suspended. The population has steadily de- 
 creased. It is four millions less than it was in 1847. There 
 have been three positive famines, and repeated periods when 
 distress bordered on famine. Trade has declined. Manufac- 
 tures have all but expired. Agriculture has retrograded. Only 
 two things have increased — pauperism and discontent. 
 Discontent flows from injustice, as surely as heat from fire. 
 How long has this state of affairs to continue ? How long is 
 Ireland to be a menace and a danger, instead of a source of 
 strength and security, to the Empire ? Can any valid reason 
 be given, why we cannot give her the liberty we so fraudulently 
 deprived her of eighty-five years ago? She was prosperous 
 under her own rule. She is miserable under ours. It is 
 marvellous to see liberal-minded and intelligent Englishmen 
 ignoring the fact, written in blood over the chronicles of 
 twenty generations, that Ireland will never be contented until 
 she is ruled by Irishmen, as uniformly as England is ruled by 
 Englishmen. Her national sentiment is an anvil that will wear 
 out many hammers. Her history forms a long battle for this 
 end. All her heroes are men who have fought for her. All 
 her poetry is filled with legends of their struggles ; and we can 
 only extinguish the idea by extinguishing the population. 
 
 It will dissolve the Empire to give Irishmen Home Rule, say 
 some. Those who say so must have forgotten that already 
 
 (16) 
 
Ireland and Home Rule. ly 
 
 there are fifteen Parliaments in the British dominions ; and it 
 cannot be seriously contended that the making of one more 
 will make the difference between unity and dismemberment. 
 But Home Rule, I hold, will consolidate and strengthen, not 
 weaken, the Empire. Whatever Irish policy they may pro- 
 pound, all parties are agreed that Ireland is disaffected. We may 
 disagree both as to the cause of, and as to the cure for the dis-~ 
 affection ; but, as to the disaffection itself, there can be 
 no doubt. A great war with a great Power, or a rebellion 
 in India, would convert a vague sentiment into a purpose and 
 a passion. No captain can safely lead his ship into action, 
 unless he feels confidence in the fidelity of his crew. There 
 could be no confidence in an Irish crew, in their present 
 temper, if the Empire were to get into trouble. Our difficulty 
 would be Ireland's opportunity. Her slumbering disloyalty- 
 would be militant, and another Paul Jones might make a 
 descent on Mayo, or another Hoche might attempt, and 
 this time might succeed, in landing at Bantry Bay. Both 
 would find sympathisers on shore. Most of us have forgotten 
 that, so late as 1840, the French Government consulted Irish 
 rebel soldiers as to the feasibility of a military expedition to 
 Ireland; and the Prince de Joinville, son of Louis Philippe, 
 published a pamphlet to show how easily it could be accom- 
 plished. During our strained relations with the United States, 
 at the time of the Tyler and Polk Presidencies, schemes 
 for invading Ireland, and for attacking Canada with Irish 
 help, were openly discussed. Sir Robert Peel justified his 
 attempt to conciliate the Irish Catholics, by establishing 
 a national system of education, by partially endowing 
 Maynooth, and in founding the Queen's Colleges, on the 
 ground that war was possible both with America and 
 France, and that until Ireland was contented, our diplo- 
 macy was hampered, and our powers of resistance were 
 paralysed. What has been, may be. We are very wisely 
 constructing additional coaling-stations abroad, and fortifying 
 our harbours at home ; but forts, docks, arsenals, battlements, 
 mounds and artillery, are of Httle avail unless they have fervent 
 and stalwart men to defend them. We can, by a simple act of 
 justice, turn four millions of lukewarm or hostile Irishmen into 
 active friends, and build around their section of the kingdom a 
 patriotic and puissant rampart, which will as far excel all artificial 
 batteries as men excel brutes, or brutes excel material nature. 
 
 Why do we not do it? "Because," whisper nervous 
 politicians, "if we left the rival factions to themselves, they 
 
 (17) 
 
■I 8 Ireland and Home Rnlc. 
 
 would tear each other to pieces, and, in the wrangle, the 
 interests of the Protestant and property minority would be 
 endangered." I do not believe it. There is no justification 
 for such fears. Religion ought not to divide a nation; and the 
 Catholic majority need not alarm Protestant Irishmen. Why 
 should it? Belgium is a Catholic country ; and the religious 
 liberty of Protestants is as secure there as it is in England. 
 There are keener clerical controversies in Switzerland than in 
 Ireland ; yet the freedom of all is recognised and respected. 
 Churches, like monarchs, are apt to be tempted into 
 persecuting practices when they possess uncontrolled power. 
 It is a fact, however, to be cited to the honour of Irish 
 Catholics, that on two occasions — during the reigns of Queen 
 Mary and James — they had the opportunity of retaliating, 
 and they refrained from doing so. Their fathers had been 
 mercilessly treated by Cromwell ; but, notwithstanding, James' 
 Irish Parliament displayed unique moderation and absolute 
 forbearance. They inflicted no penalties for religious opinions. 
 They ordered the tithes payable by Protestant farmers to be paid 
 to the Protestant, and the tithes payable by Catholic farmers to 
 be paid to the Catholic clergy. They did not deprive the 
 Protestants of arms, nor of the franchise ; nor impose upon 
 them such penal laws as had been relentlessly levied against 
 themselves, their religion, their property, their family 
 peace, and their political and civil rights. On the other 
 hand, many of the influential Irish Nationalists have been 
 Protestants. The Volunteers, whose action secured the Parlia- 
 ment of 1782, met in the Protestant church of Dungannon, 
 and their chiefs were of that faith. The Constitutional leaders 
 — Grattan and his colleagues — and the leaders of the United 
 Irishmen — Wolfe Tone and Orr and their associates— were 
 Protestants. So, too, were prominent men among the Young 
 Irelanders — Smith O'Brien, Mitchel, Davis, Martin ; while all 
 the Parliamentary leaders the Home Rule party have had— 
 Mr. Butt, Mr. Shaw and Mr. Parnell — have been Protestants. 
 In any scheme for an Irish Parliament, the rights of the 
 Protestants will have to be guaranteed. But, there would be 
 no more difficulty in doing that, than there has been in assuring 
 the rights of the Catholic minority in Canada. Christianity 
 belongs exclusively to no sect, and patriotism to no religion. 
 
 Irishmen are asked to point to the measures that an Irish 
 Parliament will pass, and that an Imperial Parliament will not. 
 This is the cant of despotism. It is what Austria told the 
 Lombards, what the Germans told the Alsatians, and what 
 
 ( 18) 
 
Ireland and Home Rule. 19 
 
 the Czar tells the Poles. The Austrians and the Russians and 
 the Germans may mean to rule their conquered provinces for 
 their good— I do not say that they do so— but the Poles and 
 the Alsatians prefer to rule themselves, even though they may 
 not rule so cleverly. That is also the reply of Irishmen. They 
 say: "We do not deny the competency of the British 
 Parliament, but it has enough work of its own to do ; it cannot 
 do what we want, however able or however willing it may 
 be. Leave us to attend to our business ; and you will have 
 more time to attend to yours. We are a smaller people and a 
 poorer one, but we have interests you do not understand, and 
 wants that you do not know of, or if you do, that you cannot 
 legislate for. We know where the shoe pinches ; 'we require 
 a new pair that will fit our feet, and we want to make them 
 ourselves." That is the Irish contention. Is it not a reason- 
 able one? 
 
 It is not true, however, that Irish measures are promptly 
 passed in the British Parliament. They are passed in earnest 
 only when they become the instruments of party warfare, or 
 when popular discontent developes into insurrection^ and the 
 noblest spirits become rebels. But, their complaint is not so 
 much about specific measures as it is against the whole system 
 of Government. It crushes the energy, it wastes the strength, 
 It destroys the spirit, it neglects the interest, it contravenes the 
 sentiments of the people. A nation is a moral essence, 
 and its feelings are facts. The sense of national pride, 
 the mherited tendencies of generations, the recollections of 
 former grievances, the fame which they wish to enhance, the 
 mdependence which they wish to guard, are as much realities 
 as wealth, or national power. They make up the soul and spirit 
 of the nation. It is futile to attribute, as some do, the perennial 
 movement in Ireland to agitators who transmit from one to 
 another the inheritance of subversive ideas. They might as 
 well attribute the conquest of the world, by Christianity, to the 
 underground labour of secret societies. 
 
 I have reasoned out myconclusions without reference to pend- 
 ing party controversy. Some of these may modify and others 
 may aggravate the situation ; but they are distinct from the 
 over-mastering contention that controls all Irish agitations— 
 that, while forming part of the British Empire and relegating 
 all questions of Imperial interest to the Imperial Parliament, 
 they should manage their own affairs in their own way. It 
 IS this principle that has given such boundless vitahtv to 
 
 (19) 
 
20 Ireland and Home Rule. 
 
 our colonial enterprise ; and however conciliation may lure, 
 or coercion may threaten, there will be no peace in Ireland 
 until this is granted. During the late Government's term of 
 office, Ireland passed through the old sad drama — starvation, 
 conspiracy, murder, arrest and trial. It opened as usual with 
 the razed cabin, and closed with the penal cell and the gallows' 
 drop. The Ministers, equally as usual, stuck a plaster on the 
 raw sore, and affected astonishment that the patient winced 
 under the infliction. The Land Act reduces rents, but does 
 not stop evictions. Over 60,000 peasants have been turned 
 out of their homes and holdings since it was passed. This 
 year, the evicted persons numbered nearly 18,000. The Act 
 benefited a section of the better class farmers, but it has not 
 touched the most necessitous ; whilst the Coercion Acts have 
 done more to embitter Irish feehng against England than any 
 measure passed by the British Legislature this century. 
 
 In conclusion, I will only add that the Irish cause, which is a 
 subject for a sneer to the pohtical " Philistine," has always 
 had for me an irresistible fascination. The Irish Celt, whom 
 English caricaturists usually picture either as a gorilla, or a 
 baboon, has noble qualities. He loves the scenes where he 
 was born, and the roof which sheltered him from birth. He is a 
 dutiful son, a faithful husband and a kind father. He is 
 patient in suffering, and unwavering in trust, when trust is 
 given. Like Ixion at his wheel, he eternally traces the same 
 circle of woes. He tills a few sad acres for bare life, wears a 
 few poor rags for bare warmth, and he softens the hard leaven 
 of his lot with the dews of a simple faith in heaven. The 
 chivalry, the romance, the tenderness and the faithfulness of 
 his nature have often captivated his conquerors, and turned 
 the descendants of English planters into the foremost of Irish 
 patriots ; and it has made one member of the British Parlia- 
 ment, at the least, as faithful a friend of their cause, as ever 
 the green flag of Ireland fluttered over. 
 
 (20) 
 
%vitMj Home ^xiit ^i^mmtion 
 
 Provisional Executive Co:^imittee. 
 
 THE EARL OF ASHBURNHAM, 30, Dover Street, W. 
 
 Vice-Cha inn a n . 
 
 JOSEPH COWEN, ESQ., M.P., 23, Onslow Square, S.W. 
 
 Co?nrnittee, 
 
 Blunt, Wilfrid, S., Esq., 10, James Street, 
 
 Buckingham Gate, S.W. 
 Clark, G. B., Esq., M.D,, M.P., Fenwick, 
 
 West Dulwich, S.E. 
 Clifton, Lord, Dumpton, Ramsgate. 
 Edmunds, W. Martin-, Esq., 24, Great 
 
 Cumberland Place, W. 
 Jo'NKs, Rev. J. S., Vicarage, St. Philip's, 
 
 Clerkenwell, W.C. 
 
 Kenvox, John G., Esq., 24, Dorset 
 
 Square, N.W. 
 Lucas, Edward, Esq., Fern Lodge, Brook 
 
 Green, Hammersmith, W. 
 Marshall, Sir James, Richmond House, 
 
 Roehampton Park, S.W. 
 Shipley, Orby, Esq., 39, Thurloe Square, S.V.'. 
 Thompson, Thomas C, Esq., Ashdown 
 
 Park, Forest Row, Sussex. 
 
 (With power to add to their number.) 
 Joint Honorary Treasurers. 
 Sir James Marshall ; and Thomas C. Thompson, Esq. 
 Joint Honorary Secretaries. 
 W. Martin-Edmunds, Esq. ; E. W. Hope, Esq. ; and John G. Kenvon, Esq. 
 '\To ivhotn all cotmnunications may he addressed.) 
 
 116, Palace Chambers, Bridge Street, Westminster, S.W. 
 
 Publication Sub-Co»iviittee. 
 
 Rev, J. S. Jones ; E. Lucas, Esq. ; and Orby Shipley, Esq. 
 
 {To ivhom communications may be addressed.) 
 
 Ban/cers. 
 
 The National Bank (Limited), Charing Cross Branch. 9 & 10, Charing Cross, S.W, 
 
 Offices 0/ tJu Association, 
 
 116, PALACE CHAMBERS, BRIDGE STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 
 
 The folIoTvhig account is reprinted., with corrections., from The 
 Times of February nth, 1886. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, February loth, 1886, a 
 meeting, convened by circular as a meeting "of Englishmen and 
 Scotchmen favourable to the principle of the establishment of an 
 Irish Parliament in DubHn for Irish affairs," was held at the West- 
 minster Palace Hotel, "with a view to discuss the policy of starting- 
 some Association to promote that object." The circular was 
 signed by W. Scawen Blunt, G. B. Clark, :M.P., Joseph 
 Cowen, M.P., and Edward Lucas. 
 
 Among those who attended were the Earl of Ashburnham, the 
 Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham, Lord Clifton, Mr. 
 Cowen, M.P., Mr. Wilfrid S, Blunt, Sir James Marshall, the 
 Revs, H. V. Arkell, Angelo Lucas, J. S. Jones, W. F. Traies, 
 J. W. Barth, and Messrs. Caithness Brodie, W. Martin-Edmunds, 
 Orby Shipley, John G. Kenyon, E. W. Hope, T. Bateman Napier, 
 James Britten, W. H. Kelke, Edward Lucas, Richard Congreve, 
 Thomas C. Thompson, Edward Walford, S, Glennie, W. H. R. 
 Ashford, W. Clarke, J. P. Bannin, L. Greenberg, J. Rae, J. E. 
 Hawksford, E. T. Bennett, J. Sims, and others, J^Ir. Justin 
 McCarthy, M,P,, was also present by special invitation. 
 
 The Earl of Ashburnham was elected to the chair. 
 
 Several letters were received from gentlemen unable to attend, 
 and they were generally favourable to some united effort to 
 influence English opinion. 
 
' The Chairman, in opening tlie proceedings, said : — I beg to 
 thank you very sincerely for the honour which you have done me in 
 calHng me to preside over your dehberations. If I rightly under- 
 stand the intention with which we are assembled here to-day, we 
 do not stand absolutely committed to advocate the establishment of 
 an Irish Parliament, nor indeed of any other particular form of 
 government for Ireland ; but we are of opinion, that the time has 
 come when the Irish question must be settled. We think that the 
 Irish people ought to have at least the chief voice in its settlement ; 
 and we have heard that voice, so far as it has reached us, through 
 the ordinary constitutional channels raised in favour of a Parliament 
 m Dublin. We are, therefore, favourably inclined rather than 
 otherwise towards that solution of the difficulty. Such, at least, is 
 my own position, and such are my reasons for coming here to-day. 
 Now, I think we may all say, some more and some less, that we 
 have come here at some small risk to ourselves. We may hope 
 that time will justify us ; but at present, I fear that the only 
 indulgence which we can look for from our fellow-countrymen is 
 rhat which may be granted to us as a small and insignificant body, 
 altogether unworthy of serious notice ; and I am afraid that, if we 
 receive any notice at all, it will come to us in the shape of hard 
 names, which, though they may break no bones, are nevertheless 
 apt to inflict very painful bruises. Nothing can be more odious, 
 more intolerable, to loyal and patriotic subjects than to be held up to 
 public reprobation as unpatriotic and disloyal ; yet, I fear, gentle- 
 men, that we must be prepared for this. We may, of course, and 
 shall, repel the charge with indignation ; but this will not be 
 enough. We must also be prepared to disprove it ; and we can 
 only do this by acquiring a very complete knowledge of the 
 foundation upon which it is based. It seems to me that this 
 foundation consists principally of two mere assertions, one or 
 both of which are taken for granted by all the opponents of the 
 Irish cause. It is alleged, that the Irish people care nothing for 
 Home Rule by itself, and that they merely hope to use it as a 
 first step towards a complete severance of Ireland from the 
 British Empire and its establishment as an independent and 
 hostile Power. Some people even go so far as to speak of a 
 possible annexation by some foreign Power. It is alleged, that 
 the beginning of an Irish Parliament would be plunder ; its middle 
 state, anarchy ; and its end, civil war. Now, gentlemen, if I 
 believed either of these allegations, I should not be here now ; 
 neither would you, if you believed them ; for the glorious inheritance 
 of our great Empire and the sacred rights of private property are 
 treasures which it is not only our interest, but also our duty to 
 defend. But, we do not believe these allegations ; and, speaking 
 for myself, I am prepared to say that, even if I suspected that they 
 might possibly turn out true, 1 should still be disposed to give the 
 Irish people a fair chance of proving these suspicions unfounded ; 
 and this could only be done by granting them what they ask for. 
 And I do not see what great harm could result from it, at the 
 worst, because what we give we can take away ; and if the Irish 
 Parliament should show itself to be the reprobate assembly which 
 we are told to expect, we shall certainly, as Englishmen and 
 Scotchmen, be as eager then for its suppression as we can possibly 
 
( 3 ) 
 
 be now for its establishment. In the meantime, as I have already 
 said, we are fa\'Ouraby disposed towards the scheme ; and we are 
 assembled to-day to consider and discuss, whether or not we shall 
 co-operate to give to our theoretical principles some practical 
 expression. 
 
 Mr. Wilfrid S. Blunt, after some remarks on the objects of 
 the proposed Association and the methods of carrying them by 
 lectures, speeches, and publications, moved a resolution in the 
 following terms : — "That this m.eeting is of opinion that the cause 
 of justice and the Empire's best interests will be served by support- 
 ing the Irish people in their demand for legislative government, 
 and in this view agrees to the founding of an association to be 
 called the British Home Rule Association." 
 
 In the course of a general conversation, many remarks were 
 made as to the sympathy manifested by English meetings with the 
 aspirations of Irishmen for more complete Self Government ; and 
 the effect which fuller information as to the history and government 
 of Ireland w^ould have on the course of public opinion in this 
 country. It was urged that, in order to do the work of the 
 proposed Association, it was not necessary to commit it to any 
 particular plan of Home Rule. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Cowen,M. P., said they were agreed as to the principle 
 of Home Rule. How that principle was to be carried out, was a 
 point upon which there were great differences of opinion. Some 
 were in favourof the application to Ireland of the Hungarian system; 
 others, of the Colonial system ; others, of the establishment of the 
 Parliament of 1 782, with modifications. That meeting, however, was 
 not called upon to decide these points. All to which they were 
 required to give assent, was the principle of Self Government to 
 Ireland. And by Self Government they did not mean merely 
 allowing the Irish people to have the management of roads, 
 bridges, and other works under the control of the Grand Juries ; 
 nor did they mean the establishment of Provincial Councils, such 
 as had been suggested fifty years ago by Lord John Russell. 
 What they did mean was this — that they should hand over to 
 the Irish people the management of those of their affairs 
 which did not conflict with the integrity of the Empire. 
 This could only be done, as he understood it, by the forma- 
 tion of an Irish Parliament. How the Parliament was to 
 be established, how the local and imperial interests were 
 to be harmonized — were matters for discussion and con- 
 sideration. But, this the promoters of the meeting wished 
 to say — that they assented to no scheme which would impair the 
 mtegrity of the Empire, or would in any way invalidate the 
 security of property. On these two points they were as firmly 
 agreed, as they were in their desire to have the principle of Self 
 Government conceded. There were many men in England, 
 able and experienced men in public affairs, who believed that 
 these things were incompatible ; that there could not be a Parlia- 
 ment in Ireland, without impairing the integrity of the Empire and 
 without imperilling the security of property. It would be their 
 duty, as an Association, to demonstrate to opponents that they 
 were wrong on these questions. The mass of hostile opinion in 
 
'(: 4; } 
 
 this country was based upon ignorance and supported by pre- 
 judice. The object of this society would be, to disseminate infor- 
 mation by which the ignorant would be enlightened and prejudices 
 would be removed. They would do that in a legitimate and 
 educational manner. 
 
 Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P., being invited to address the 
 meeting, said the Irish party would be exceedingly grateful for 
 any help which an Association of this kind could render them in 
 England. He and other Irish Members were overwhelmed with 
 letters every morning making inquiries as to what Home Rule 
 meant, and what Home Rule would involve ; and if an Association 
 of this kind would undertake the work of educating English public 
 opinion, it would do an invaluable service, provided it began its 
 educational work early enough. He was certain, on the part of 
 the Home Rule party, that there was not the slightest desire to 
 impair the integrity of the Empire, or do anything which would 
 involve the confiscation of property. He further believed that^ 
 under Home Rule, the freedom of Protestants would be as com- 
 plete as it was at the present time, that there was not the 
 slightest desire on the part of any Catholics, identified with 
 the Home Rule movement, to diminish the toleration which now- 
 existed, or in any way to interfere with the perfect freedom of their 
 Protestant fellow-countrymen. The first Home Rule leader, Mr. 
 Butt, was a Protestant ; the second, Mr. Shaw, was a Protestant ; 
 the third, Mr. Parnell, was a Protestant. He knew that Mr. 
 Davitt, who represented the high-water mark of the Home Rule 
 movement, was prepared for the settlement of the land question on 
 the lines laid down by Mr. Giffen. The question had been raised 
 whether Ulster should be conceded a separate Home Rule of its 
 own ; but he said, the people of Ulster had already answered that 
 question for themselves, by returning Members in favour of the 
 Home Rule party, and he believed that \i 2. plebiscite of the people 
 were taken, the same result would follow. 
 
 It was pointed out by a gentleman, that the resolution did not 
 do justice to the sentiments of the meeting, nor lay a foundation 
 for the work of the proposed Association, which was to encounter 
 and remove certain prejudices existing in England and Scotland. 
 He suggested a preamble to the resolution. The preamble met 
 with general approval. It was adopted by Mr. Blunt ; and the 
 resolution, seconded by the Bishop of Nottingham, was unani- 
 mously agreed to, in the following form : — " That this meetings 
 firmly believes that Self Government can be granted to the Irish 
 nation without impairing the integrity of the Empire, or the 
 supremacy of the Crown ; and without involving the risk of con- 
 fiscation, or the sacrifice of the rights of property : that this 
 meeting, therefore, is of opinion, that the cause of justice and 
 the Empire's best interests will be served, by supporting the Irish 
 people in their demand for Self Government, and in this view 
 agrees to the formation of an Association to be called the British 
 Home Rule Association." 
 
 An Executive Committee was appointed to organise the Asso- 
 ciation. Subscriptions were announced, amounting to between 
 ^'200 and ^300. 
 
 The meetincf then separated after a prolonefed conference. 
 
HOME KULE. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWAED SPENCER BEESLY 
 
 Prof essor of History in University College, London. 
 
 " And Pharaoh said, I will let you go ; only ye shall not 
 go very far away." — Exodfs yiii. 2S. 
 
 teh^th: t EC o tj s .a. ist id 
 
 EEEYES & TUENEE, 196, STEAND. 
 
 1886. 
 
 {JPi'ice One Penny.'] 
 
 r' 
 
HOME RULE. 
 
 I do not desire the complete separation of Ireland from 
 England, but I do not fear it. The two countries have 
 many interests in common, both public and ynivate ; and 
 if they can arrange some terms of union which shall ]3e 
 acceptable to each, and shall give to each the inestimable 
 advantage of Home Hule, it will be a happy consummation. 
 But sooner than go on as we have been doing for the last 
 hunch'ed years, and especially for the last ten years, I 
 should welcome complete separation. 
 
 The object of these pages is to advocate self-government 
 for both countries. I say for both countries. For who is 
 so simple, such a slave of phrases, as to maintain that 
 England enjoys self-government, wdien Ireland has a veto 
 upon English legislation. Not indeed a veto in theory ; 
 I could bear that with much equanimity ; but what is far 
 more galhng, a practical and most real veto ; a veto which 
 is felt at every turn and which will certainly continue to 
 be felt as lono' as the union is maintained in its present 
 form. 
 
 What a blinded fanatic that man must be — I do not 
 care whether he is a costermono-er or an ex-Cabinet Min- 
 ister — who can find in our nominal government of Ireland 
 any set off against her real government of England. At 
 the present moment it is her yoke which galls us, not ours 
 which galls her. Just let us reckon up how it works. 
 
 What do the bulk of Irishmen most want ? There is 
 no sort of doubt about it. They want, in Mr. Parneirs 
 w^ords, to keep a firm grip of their homesteads, and to 
 pay only such rent as in their own judgment they can 
 afford. 
 
 Well, they are practically doing just that. There are 
 thirty- two millions of us to less than five millions of them. 
 But we cannot collect those rents, and we cannot evict 
 the tenants. We have tried it, and we have had to give 
 
it up as a bad job. It was practically given up wlien 
 ]\Ir. Morley said that lie would not send the redcoats to 
 support the crowbar brigade except when he thought 
 proper. 
 
 Some people complained that this was very arbitrary 
 talk. But what says the discontented Mr. Chamberlain, 
 who cannot bring himself to surrender the proud supre- 
 macy of the Imperial Parliament? He would make a 
 law to suspend all evictions, and advance the amount of 
 the non-recoverable rents to the landlords out of the 
 public treasury — that is to say, out of Englishmen's 
 pockets — till a settlement can be arrived at. Poor John 
 Bull must grin and bear it, content with such satisfaction 
 as he can get out of the reflection that he still continues 
 to " govern Ireland." Odds whips and scorpions ! if that 
 is the Birmingham alternative to the Land Purchase Bill, 
 I had rather forego the honour. I like not such grinning 
 honour. 
 
 Ireland then has practically got her way already. The 
 supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is nominally intact. 
 Only, the Queen's writ does not run ; and Mr. Chamber^ 
 lain, to save appearances, will make a law that it shall 
 not run. 
 
 But if the English yoke on Ireland has come in these 
 days of Carnarvon and Morley to be easy, and its burden 
 practically light, the Irish yoke on England is a reality of 
 the sternest kind. We have a string of reforms waiting 
 to be carried, and a huge Liberal majority of ninety-six 
 (excluding all Irish members) prepared to carry them. 
 But the Irish (whom we have the proud satisfaction of 
 governing) prohibit us from touching them. A London 
 Municipality? Veto. Secular Education for Board 
 Schools? Veto. County Boards, Land Law Reform, 
 Railway Reform, Water Supply Reform, Enfranchise- 
 ment of Leaseholds, Wind-up of Citv Companies ? Veto. 
 Veto. Veto. 
 
 None of these questions can even be effectively sub- 
 mitted to public opinion outside Parliament. For such 
 is the block of Reforms waiting for legislation that the 
 public will not nowadays bend itself to the serious con- 
 
sideration of any one of them until its turn for consider- 
 ation in Parliament is seen to have arrived. People will 
 not waste their time on projects of law which may have 
 to wait years before they can be dealt wutli. In the 
 meantime, 556 members for Great Britain are kept slaving 
 at Irish questions, great and small, in which the mass 
 of British electors neither have nor feel the slightest 
 interest. This may be very glorious. It may enable Her 
 Majesty the Queen and Empress to hold her head some 
 inches higher among the sovereigns of Europe. It may 
 inflate an upper-class Englishman with a sense of imperial 
 grandeur. But it is time the ordinary elector, the working 
 man and the small tradesman, asked himself how he is 
 a gainer by it. 
 
 " What an ignoble ideal," cries a West-End journalist, 
 " is this that you are holding up before the workman ! 
 Are great questions of policy, on which all educated men 
 agree, to be treated from his purely personal standpoint?'* 
 
 In the first place, Mr. West-End journalist, all educated 
 men are not agreed, as you know very well. But let that 
 pass. ^' Education," as you understand the word, has very 
 little connection with political insight, and still less with 
 true patriotism. What you mean by educated men, are 
 people whose parents could afford to send them to schools 
 and colleges, from wdiicli most of them brought away 
 nothing in the way of education but a wretched smattering 
 of dead languages and mathematics. Say ^* well-to-do 
 people " at once, for that is what you mean. Well, they 
 have had the management of England hitherto, and we 
 see what they have made of it — a very pleasant country 
 for well-to-do people. In future, the Avorking class are 
 going to ha^^e, I do not say the management of England — 
 I am well aware that except in very exceptional moments 
 they will never have that — but considerable influence over 
 its management ; and you may depend upon it that they 
 will try to make England a somewhat pleasanter place for 
 the working class than it has been hitherto. 
 
 There happens to be an important difference between 
 the " personal stand-point " of the workman and tliat of 
 the well-to-do citizen. It has been thus expressed by 
 
Anguste Comte. " The working class is not, properly 
 speaking, a class at all, but constitutes tlie body of society. 
 From it proceed tlie various special classes, which we may 
 regard as organs necessary to that body." From which it 
 follows that any political or social arrangements which 
 are for the true and permanent advantage of the working 
 class, are for the advantao-e of the community as a whole ; 
 and that to aim at such arrangements is to set up not an 
 ignoble ideal, but the noblest that can be conceived. 
 
 Now one of the first things tlie working man is likely 
 to find out, when he comes to consider how he shall use 
 his political influence, is that big states and empires exist 
 mainly for the advantage of big people. There arc few 
 well-to-do Englishmen who have not one or more relatives 
 snugly provided for by posts which would disappear if we 
 gave up the Im])erial business. You yourself, Mr. Jour- 
 nalist, 1 strongly suspect, once drew an enormous salary 
 in India, and are still quartered on the Indian Revenue. 
 Every fresh annexation means new prizes and promotion 
 for officials. The working class has nothincv to do with 
 all this. 
 
 Pride in the ever extending area of British territory, 
 and the vast population subject to our rule, is a feeling 
 confined to the well-to-do. It is a survival of military 
 manners, and of the old belief that the material prosperity 
 as well as the glory of any nation depended on its abihty 
 to bully its neighbours. The working class, inheriting not 
 military but industrial manners and ideas does not share 
 this sentiment. It has no thirst for war, conquest, or 
 dominion. All its aspirations are peaceful, and therefore 
 inconsistent with any political union which is not perfectly 
 voluntary. " Imperial Democracy " has no existence ex- 
 cept in the schemes and dreams of half-trained statesmen 
 and half-crazy publicists. 
 
 Our superior friend, the West-End journalist, is begin- 
 ning to have his misgivings. '^ Demos is henceforth our 
 master. *" * * How will Home Rule affect him '? Has 
 it anything to do with three acres and a cow ? Is not the 
 United Kingdom the work of the rich, and would not Its 
 dismemberment, perhaps, give the poor man his chance i 
 
That is the way in which the poor blind giant is half 
 inclined to consider the question." Yes, my superior 
 friend, and very soon you will find him wholly inclined to 
 consider it in that way. You can have no idea till you 
 come to try it, how hard it will be to make him see what 
 he gains by lending you his strength to hold India or 
 Ireland. Your own case is clear enough. You know on 
 whicli side your bread is buttered. Why should not he 
 consider the question from the same point of view ? 
 
 The workman is quite right in his suspicion, that the 
 bigness of our Empire is an obstacle to the improvement 
 of his condition. He has only to look at the debates of 
 the House of Commons from the beginning of the session 
 to the end. He will find that when the members are not 
 occupied with Ireland, they are busy Avith Egypt or 
 Afghanistan or South Africa ; anything rather than the 
 condition of Eno'lish workmen. On wars in those distant 
 lands, millions of money are squandered with hardly a 
 show of opposition. But in a hard winter like that we 
 have just passed through, when half our workmen are 
 unemployed. Parliament has not a word to say or a penny 
 to spare for them. 
 
 I will A'enture to quote here some words I wrote twenty 
 years ago. 
 
 '^ The v>"ealth, greatness, and glory of England have 
 meant very little for the vrorking man. Eather they have 
 adjourned his emancipation. It is his interest — and it 
 cannot be much longer concealed from him — that public 
 attention should be concentrated on the state of England. 
 The re-casting of our constitution, the redistribution of 
 taxation, the substitution of a system of education for a 
 state chui'ch, the limitation of proprietary rights in land, 
 poor law reform, sanitary reform, legal reform, in a word 
 the subordination of private interests to pifblic utility — 
 these are questions that cannot be dealt with even by 
 public opinion while our energies and attention are wasted 
 on the management of two hundred millions of people who 
 do not belong to us. The direct, though not continuous, 
 intervention of workino; men in the i^overnment of the 
 country will be signalised by a refusal to let it be en- 
 
cumbered any longer with this millstone of an empire. 
 To the working man it is of little consequence whether 
 the Union Jack flies at Gibraltar, Quebec, and Calcutta ; 
 but of infinitely great importance that he have a fair share 
 of the profits of production ; tliat the necessaries and 
 comforts of life be within his reach ; that poison be not 
 infused into the air he breathes and the water he drinks ; 
 that rational education be provided for his children, and 
 tliat his legitimate dignity be not wounded by institutions 
 designed to consecrate and perpetuate social inequality. 
 The present generation must make up its mind to see these 
 questions raised, and the next, probably, to see them settled." 
 
 Since those words were written we have had two 
 Kef orm Bills. The working classes do not yet swamp the 
 other electors because they are handicapped by sly regu- 
 lations about registration, hours of polling, and so on. 
 But CA^en now they weigh heavily, and the first result of 
 their intervention is a movement for Home Rule, which 
 is ra])idly spreading from Ireland to England, AYales and 
 Scotland. When we have Home Bule for England there 
 will be some chance that workmen's questions will come 
 to the front. Workmen and non-workmen will have to 
 be brought face to face in comparatively small govern- 
 mental areas if the former are to have anything like a fair 
 chance of getting their interests attended to. Home Rule 
 for Ireland is the first and most obviously practical step 
 in this direction. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain says he is against the Bill because 
 the tendency of modern Europe is to unification rather 
 than separation. It is a thousand pities that so able a 
 man should be so imperfectly informed. A fuller ac- 
 ([uaintance with facts and a sounder theory of history 
 would have tauHit him the worthlessness of his crude and 
 hasty generalisation. Religious wars in the 16th and 
 17th centuries, commercial wars in the 18th, revolutionary 
 wars in the 19th, have, it is true, driven the peoples of 
 Europe to suspend their abiding and normal, predilection 
 for Home Rule in obedience to the exigencies of attack 
 and defence. But the ascendency of industrial and 
 pacific manners, now near at hand, will remove all induce- 
 
8 
 
 ment for a degree of concentration which sacrifices the 
 full and healthy development of political existence. 
 
 Even during the present century the tendency has not 
 been upon the whole towards unification. Survey Europe 
 from north to south. Kussia has swallowed Finland and 
 Poland, but she cannot digest them. Finland has her 
 separate national institutions, and makes steady progress 
 towards complete Home Rule. The Polish national spirit 
 is inextinguishable, and must sooner or later prevail. 
 Norway was conquered by the Swedish King in 1814 ; 
 but, though the two countries remain under one sovereign, 
 the smaller is completely independent of the larger. The 
 Austrian Emperor, after conquering Hungary and destroy- 
 ing her independence in 1849, was obliged to restore it 
 completely in 1867 ; and his motley dominions are now 
 only held together by the concession of various degrees of 
 Home Rule. Germany has been driven to unify — for 
 military purposes only — by fear of France and Russia; 
 Italy by fear of France and Austria. But that the 
 unification will continue in either case when the danger 
 shall have passed away I do not the least believe. Holland 
 and Belgium were unified in 1815; but the latter re- 
 gained its independence in 1830. The country we call 
 Spain is still known to its own inhabitants as ^'the 
 Spains " ; and provincial feeling remains so strong that 
 when the monarchy disappears it will very likely be suc- 
 ceeded by a Federal Republic. 
 
 Perhaps the argument most persistently brandished in 
 the face of English sympathisers with the Irish demand 
 for Home Rule is that it will lead, and is meant to lead, 
 to separation. It may be remarked in passing that the 
 same people who say this will tell you in the next breath 
 that the bulk of the disaffected Irish really care for 
 nothing but the Land question, and that Mr. Parnell 
 would never have got them even to nibble at Home Rule 
 if he had not baited it with Tenant Right. But the 
 latter of these two conflicting lines of argument produces 
 no effect on the English workman. It appeals to the 
 small but powerful class of Englishmen who own land or 
 hold mortgages in Ireland, or whose relations do; or 
 
9 
 
 who, being Eno-lisli landlords, look on Irish landlords as 
 an outpost of landlordism to be defended as long as 
 possible. Our workmen have heard something of the 
 Irish landlord, and there is no being so hateful to them. 
 But they could hardly be expected to feel much enthu- 
 siasm for Home Rule if it really menaced the safety and 
 welfare of their own country. Let us consider this 
 bugbear. 
 
 There was a time, and it is not so far distant, when in 
 the race for bigness, any weak country did run a risk of 
 being snapped up, merely to add to the acreage and popu- 
 lation of a powerful neighbour. I belie v^e that many people 
 are so unobservant as to imagine that this danger is as 
 great as ever. Certainly, I have often heard the remark 
 that if we dropped Ireland she would be annexed by France 
 or America. One is almost ashamed to undertake a serious 
 refutation of so ludio'ous a delusion. l!^inety years ago 
 the French government of that day did plan a conquest of 
 Ireland; and many Irishmen at that time would have 
 welcomed it. But even then Bonaparte pooh-poohed the 
 scheme, pointing out to the Directory that Ireland Avas 
 much more embarrassino; to Eno-land as she was than if 
 she were a French province. At the present time it may 
 be safely said, that there is not a single Irishman or a 
 single Frenchman who would listen to such a proposal 
 with patience. That many, perhaps most Irishmen, would 
 gladly join the United States, I quite believe. But 
 nothino; is more certain than that if Mr. Parnell A^ent 
 down on his knees for it, and Mr. Gladstone joined in his 
 entreaties, the United States would not accept Ireland at 
 any price. It has been a wise rule of their policy from 
 the first, to annex no trans-marine territory, and Ireland 
 is certainly the last country for which they would break it. 
 
 I have thought it well to notice this absurd delusion, 
 because I know that it 2:)revails widely among ill-informed 
 people. No statesman would think of countenancing it, 
 except perhaps Lord Randolph Churchill, if he found him- 
 self addressing a peculiarl}' ignorant audience, where there 
 happened to be no reporters. Need I stop to examine the 
 fearful probability that four millions and three-quarters of 
 
10 
 
 Irishmen would attempt an invasion of the thirty-two milKons 
 who inhabit this island ? There are people, I know, who 
 measure the distance from Kingstown to Holyhead, or 
 worse still from the coast of Antrim to the Mull of Can- 
 tire, and shake their heads. But there arc some things 
 one cannot argue about with gra^dty. 
 
 The military disadvantages of Home Rule or separation 
 usually dwelt upon, are of quite another kind. It is said 
 we had better hold Ireland fast while we have got her, 
 because it would be a difficult matter to re-conquer her. 
 Certainly it would. And glad I am to think it. To chastise 
 her if she deserved it would be easy enough. But if she 
 were separated from us to-morrow, for any reason or by 
 any means, there would not in twelve months time be a 
 single public man in England who would desire to re- 
 conquer her. Whatever shape chastisement might take, 
 it would not be that. Don't tell me that we should go 
 back to collect taxes or rents, or to take the part of an 
 oppressed Ulster. When once John Bull has tasted the 
 blessing of freedom from the Irish yoke, nothing will 
 induce him to run his neck into it again. 
 
 As for the ancient parties, the certainty that they will 
 have to get along together somehow, and settle their 
 differences without the intervention of Lord Handolph 
 Churchill, is the one thing needed to make them drop 
 their weapons. Material interests will assert themselves. 
 It is not the well-to-do people who have anything to fear. 
 They will manage in the long run to hold their own in 
 Ireland, as they have done everywhere else from the 
 beginning of history; and, for the matter of that, consider- 
 ably more than their own. At present they are heavily 
 weighted by our impotent championship. When the cur- 
 tain rises, and self-governing Ireland is discovered entering 
 on her new career, it will be found that parties have sorted 
 themselves with amazing promptitude, and after a quite 
 unexpected fashion. The sight of Mr. Parnell and Mr. 
 Healy with Down and Antrim at their back, rallying the 
 party of order, restoring confidence, re-enlistiag the old 
 constabulary, suppressing moonlighters, passing an alien 
 act for the benefit of Mr. O'Donovan Rossa, and haggling 
 
11 
 
 witli Messrs. Kothschilcl about the price of issue of a 4 per 
 cent, loan, will make people over here rub their eyes. 
 The landlords who, unwisely relying on Opera-house 
 unanimity, and the political acumen of Professor Tyndall 
 and the Poet Laureate, allowed the sand to run out of 
 Mr. Gladstone's hour-glass, will cling to the uncrowned 
 king, and console themselves with the reflection that he is 
 the owner of acres in Wicklow, and has granite quarries 
 to develope. Plistory has yet to furnish an example of 
 any community failing to organise adequate protection for 
 life and property, when foreign complications are not 
 present. 
 
 And now observe. When once we have realised that 
 union with Ireland is not so valuable to us as to be worth 
 any considerable sacrifice, from that moment it becomes 
 possible to establish it on a solid and permanent basis. For 
 the truth is that Ireland has vastly more to gain by union 
 than we have. Oddly enough this important truth is being 
 constantly asserted by English politicians who yet have not 
 the good sense and coui'age to act upon it. It is a truth 
 which hitherto has been somewhat obscured from the per- 
 ception of the Irish, because they have never yet had 
 occasion to give it a thought. But it must certainly have 
 afforded matter for serious reflection within the last few 
 weeks to those able and distinguished Irishmen who are 
 likely soon to be responsible for the government of their 
 country. 
 
 What it comes to is this. The Irish are at present 
 masters of the situation, because we are afraid of separa- 
 tion and they are not, or rather think they are not. But the 
 moment we make up our minds that it will be better for us to 
 separate than to be governed by Ireland — which is virtually 
 our fate now — we are in a position to offer them inde- 
 pendence on either the colonial or federal model, subject 
 to all such conditions as we can reasonably desire to 
 impose. At present, Mr. Gladstone is challenged to prove 
 that the guarantees he has devised will be of any avail 
 against the bad faith or ill will of the Irish people. It must 
 be confessed that there are only two possible guarantees 
 
12 
 
 wliicli can be worth anything : either a readiness on onr 
 part to reconquer Ireland, or a readiness to cast her off ; 
 and of these, the latter has the advantage in respect of 
 justice, cheapness, ease, rapidity, and, in my opinion, 
 efficacity. 
 
 How humiliating is the position now of an English 
 minister in negotiation with Mr. Parnell. The latter, as in 
 duty bound, resents every guarantee as an indignity, haggles 
 over every penny of money, treats every restriction as a 
 rag of the old tyranny, and after all — reasonably enough — 
 points out his inability to pledge his successors to be satis- 
 fied with the concessions made now. The minister cannot 
 threaten coercion, for the weapon has broken in his hand, 
 and no coercion is of any use unless it is carried to a point 
 which public opinion here is not prepared to tolerate. 
 What a novel and inspiriting sensation of strength would 
 he experience if he could meet every unreasonable demand 
 or unfulfilled obligation with the threat, not of doing some- 
 thing, but of ceasing to do something. Get us into no 
 scrapes with foreign powers or we dissolve partnership ; 
 pay up your Federal contribution, or we cut you adrift; 
 vote additional supplies for this war and call out your 
 militia, as we are doing, or we shall leave you to make the 
 best terms you can with the enemy ; boycott our goods, 
 and we shall boycott yours. What refreshing language 
 this would be ! 
 
 As long as our demands were reasonable and fair in 
 themselves, enlightened self-interest would ensure their 
 acceptance. Just consider what disruption of the Union 
 would then mean for Ireland. Where could she raise a 
 loan except in England? Where could she send her 
 produce except to England? Where could an Irish joint 
 stock company be floated except in London? Irishmen 
 in our army or navy or civil service, Irish clergymen, 
 doctors and lawyers residing in England, would they like 
 to be called on to opt between Englisli and Irish nation- 
 ality? How would Irishmen get on abroad without the 
 protection of English ambassadors and consuls? Would 
 they, the poorest nation in Europe, like to go to the 
 expense of setting up a separate army, navy, and diplo- 
 
13 
 
 matic service? If Ireland undervalues these advantages 
 now, it is because she has to set against them the denial 
 of Home Rule. Concede Home Rule, and they become 
 clear boons, not to be lightly thrown away or trifled with. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone has told us plainly that he has introduced 
 the so-called guarantees into his Bill only as a concession 
 to jealousies which he did not share, and regarded as a 
 weakness. I have no doubt he sees clearly what I have 
 endeavoured to point out, that in the well-]:)roved absence 
 of a determination on the part of the English people to 
 trample out Irish patriotism by brute force, there is only 
 one guarantee for the maintenance of the Union which is 
 of any efficacy ; and that is a readiness to throw up the 
 Union, " He that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that 
 hateth it shall keep it unto life eternal." Let Mr. Glad- 
 stone plant a firm foot on reality. Let him drop these 
 idle and irritating precautions. He will not only conciliate 
 the Irish, but he will pull the linchpin out of the whole 
 argument of such a critic as Mr. Justice Stephen. As 
 long as he admits that the Union is something never to be 
 surrendered he puts the long arm of the lever into the 
 hand of Mr. Parnell, and furnishes the Imperialists with 
 an opportunity of scoring a petty triumph in the conflict 
 of words. 
 
 I have not pretended to deal in these few pages with all 
 the subordinate issues that have arisen in the Home Rule 
 controversy. It was the less necessary to do so because I 
 have gone straio-ht to the root of the matter. If I have 
 seemed to argue the question chiefly from the point of 
 view of English interests, I trust no one will suspect me 
 of placing these above English duties. I am addressing 
 myself principally to our working men, and I know that 
 after all nothing moves them so much as an appeal to 
 their sense of justice and moral right. They do not need 
 to be reminded of the cruel wrongs our country has in- 
 flicted on Ireland, wrongs which we only began to redress 
 seventeen years ago. I believe they will think that it is 
 not enough to redress these wrongs, but that some repara^ 
 tion for them is due. While I would not pay a penny to 
 Ireland by way of blackmail, or as a bribe to induce her 
 
14 
 
 to accept a settlement which does not and ouglit not to 
 satisfy her, I would cheerfully make lier a parting gift of 
 the fifty millions which the landlords have spurned, to be 
 expended on puldic works, as some compensation for the 
 poverty in which English rule has sunk her. I believe 
 our workmen would give it for such a purpose with an 
 open heart, though they naturally grudge it to the land- 
 lords. 
 
 I cannot conclude these remarks without testifying my 
 admiration for^ the sagacity and pluck which Mr. Glad- 
 stone has displayed in this crowning achievement of his 
 career. I may call it so, though the immediate issue is 
 still uncertain. For nothing can now undo the work of 
 the last month, even should its author not live to witness 
 its final success. 
 
 It has been a magnificent stand that the old general 
 has made, let it end for the moment how it will. I must 
 confess I did not think he had it in him. Superhuman 
 efforts Avere made to impress the public with the idea that 
 the ])roposal was a huge joke, tliat it was scouted l)y tlie 
 whole nation, tliat Mr. Gladstone stood absolutely alone, 
 that he was a lunatic or Avorse. Such a torrent of un- 
 scrupidous malignity has never burst on the head of any 
 statesman in our time. Tlie calculation Avas that the 
 unparalleled violence of this concerted onslaught Avould 
 i)reA^ent the Home Kule Bill from passing its first reading, 
 that is to say, AA'ould inflict on Mr. Gladstone, not merely 
 a defeat, but an insult ; his influence Avould be shattered, 
 and tlie prestige which long success had given him would 
 be at an end. 
 
 Well, this desperate attempt to su])press the Bill before 
 it had even been seen, and to drive its author from public 
 life just as you Avould bundle a di'unkcn man out of an 
 orderly assembly, has failed. It was the only chance of 
 neutralising the prodigious impulse given to Home Kule 
 by his conA'ersion, and it has failed. The Bill is before 
 the country, and every day shoAvs more clearly that the 
 mass of the Liberal party is prepared to support it. But 
 Avhether it passes in the present form or not is of quite 
 
15 
 
 secondary importance. The essential point gained is that 
 Home Rule is irrevocably inscribed on the ])rogramme of 
 the Liberal party, and we know that what is once set 
 down there is bound to come sooner or later. 
 
 In the face of this remarkable and rapid adhesion of 
 Liberals throughout the country, where is the reasonable- 
 ness of Mr. Bright's complaint that more time should 
 have been allowed for ventilating the question ? Trans- 
 lated into plain English, this means that ^Members of 
 Parliament, especially some of the more prominent of 
 them, having regard to many foolish and often insincere 
 utterances when they were on the stump last autumn, 
 would have preferred to make their conversion appear 
 more gradual and spontaneous. It is not consistent with 
 their dignity, forsooth, to face about so rapidly. It lends 
 countenance to the monstrous calumny that a Member of 
 Parliament sometimes changes his opinions in obedience 
 to pressure from his constituents. But time pressed, and 
 Mr. Gladstone felt that he had more important things 
 to consider than how he should help honourable gentlemen 
 to lift the other leg over the fence in a dignified and 
 graceful way. He judged that the adhesion of his party 
 would be secured more speedily and effectually by going 
 straight to the people, and his judgment has proved 
 correct. 
 
 It is idle to raise the cry of despotism and dictation. 
 Mr. Gladstone reigns indeed ; but it is in the hearts of 
 the people. They are learning that if they want their 
 business done, they must find a man they can trust, and 
 depute him to do it. Parliaments — yes, and cabinets — 
 are honeycombed with personal intrigues and ignoble 
 jealousies. What a sorry spectacle it has been I But the 
 self-seekers have received a rude lesson. They never 
 imagined that Mr. Gladstone, who had always shown a 
 genuine veneration for rank, and a deplorable backward- 
 ness to make full use of his unparalleled influence, would at 
 last put forth his strength. AVhen Whig peers pouted, a 
 stonemason was called in — a memorable warning to Whig 
 peers. To help him in shaping the bill, Mr. Gladstone 
 wisely summoned to his side, not the proprietors of rival 
 
16 
 
 schemes, but the man who of all others had clone most 
 to prepare the public mmd and to educate it out of its pre- 
 judices. The courage and staunchness of Mr. Morley will 
 never be forgotten. He has already won for himself a 
 large measure of the trust and attachment that have been 
 the streno^th of the veteran leader. 
 
 I remember when the liberation of Italy and the abo- 
 lition of slavery in the United States seemed distant and 
 even improbable. That I should have l^een privileged to 
 see two such glorious triumphs of justice and humanity in 
 my time was more than my share of good fortune. And 
 now 1 have lived to s^e the dawn of another glad day, rich 
 in its promise of a future, happier for Ireland, nobler for 
 EnMand. Nay, it is no mere promise for the future. We 
 are to-clav better men and happier men, those of us who 
 are putting our hands to this sacred work, because the 
 uneasy load of national wrong-doing is already lifted from 
 our consciences. Not ours any more the guilt if we are 
 doing our best, each of us according to his means and 
 opportunities, to wipe it" away. Nodiing can give peace 
 of mind in political action but a firm resolve never to 
 recognise as politically right what is morally wrong. Those 
 who'know that peace must from their hearts wish it to all 
 their countrymen. 
 
 Maij 8, 1886. 
 
 Kenny «fc Co., Printers, '2'j^ Camdeu Koacl, Camden Town, N.W 
 
Ho. 1. 
 
 e Irislj ^mstion. 
 
 FACTS FOE MR. PAMELL'S BILL. 
 
 31 ^^jccctj 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons^ on ^\st SejjtemlGr^ 1886, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DILLON, M.P, 
 
 LONDON: 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 1886 
 Price One Penny. 
 
R, D. Webb and Sou, Printers, 
 74 Abbey.strcet, DuWiiu 
 
FACTS FOE MR. PARNELL'S BILL. 
 
 I THINK it is hardly fair or generous of the right hon. gentleman, 
 the Cliief Secretary for Ireland, to charge the Irish party with 
 taking no interest in this bill, because they have not addressed 
 the House to-night. I myself, representing the party, was 
 anxious to take part in the debate during the course of the even- 
 ing; but, availing myself of the ordinary channels of information, 
 I understood the right hon. gentleman intended to speak at 9,30 
 o'clock, and was accordingly prevented from rising to address the 
 House at that hour, as I intended to do. The Government might 
 easily know, if they had any true information from Ireland, we 
 do take an interest in this bill, and we could not fail to take an 
 interest in it, dealing as it does with the great cause of the Irish 
 tenantry, whom we represent in this House (Irish cheers). I 
 have listened to the tone of menace and defiance which character- 
 izes the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland with a great 
 deal of regret, but without the least alarm (cheers) — with a great 
 deal of regret, because in introducing this bill, as the Govern- 
 ment might at least do us the justice to believe, our hope was to 
 procure an interval of peace in Ireland during which we might 
 lay before the people of England the cause, in the justice of which 
 we believe — it is not because I fear the landlord party of Ireland 
 if this bill is defeated, but I look forward with the greatest 
 sorrow to the struggle which must inevitably ensue (cheers). 
 That is the reason I listened to the speech of the Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland with the deepest possible regret. No one believes 
 that the Irish landlords will profit by this new act of folly on 
 their part. Knowing how they suffered for the rejection of the 
 
4 Facts for Mr. ParneUs Bill. 
 
 Disturbance Bill, I have the most perfect confidence that they 
 will suffer in like manner for the rejection of this bill (cheers). 
 In the speeches of the many hon. members who dealt with this 
 subject there was, as it seemed to me, a sad want of appreciation 
 of the gravity of the situation in Ireland (cheers). "We were met 
 with quibbling arguments, with figures which I can hardly think 
 that the men who quoted them believed to be correct; but all 
 through this debate — and I call the attention of hon. members to 
 this fact — of the members representing constituencies in the nortli 
 of Ireland — members representing the landlord and Conservative 
 party in Ireland— not a single one has spoken (cheers). 
 
 It is a strange thing — an anomalous thing — that when this 
 motion was brought forward for the rejection of a bill affecting 
 the tenant-farmers of Ireland, and affecting directly no other 
 chiss, that that motion was made by a member who represents 
 the borough of Cambridge, and seconded by a member who re- 
 presents the city of Londonderry (cheers), and that the hon. 
 members — and there is a fair number of them in this House — 
 who are landlords themselves, and who represent Irish consti- 
 tuencies, have not opened their mouths against this bill (cheers). 
 That is, I say, an anomalous and important fact, and I believe 
 that the true reason that underlies this is that, while they would 
 go into the lobby against this bill, they know, because they live 
 in Ireland and have estates there, that the results in Ireland 
 which will follow from the rejection of this bill, will be results of 
 enormous interest and enormous danger to all who have landed 
 estates in Ireland (cheers), and they know whatever mock heroics 
 may be indulged in by English Catholic snobs (loud cheers), or by 
 London solicitors, who have no real connection with Ireland, 
 that the circumstances in which we are i^laced are circumstances 
 of the utmost gravity ; and they prefer to give a silent vote (cheers). 
 I listened to the speech of the hon. member for South Tyrone 
 (laughter), a gentleman who seems on this occasion to have added 
 one more to the many wreaths of laurel which he has already 
 won in the House, for performing the feat of stajiding on 
 
Facts for Mr. FarncWs Bill. 5 
 
 two stools (cheers). That hon. member represents the Tory 
 
 landlords of South Tyrone, who sent him into this House, and 
 
 he serves his masters well ; bat I beg leave to state that the tune 
 
 which we hear him sing here is a very different one from 
 
 that which he sings on platforms before the tenant-farmers of 
 
 South Tyrone (cheers) ; for I have it from a gentleman in whose 
 
 veracity I have the most perfect confidence, that he listened to 
 
 the hon. member addressing meetings of his constituents at the 
 
 last election, and that speaking to the tenant-farmers whom he 
 
 was then trying to wheedle into voting for him, he used these 
 
 words : — 
 
 '* The judicial rents cannot be paid ; and what is more they ought not 
 to be paid." 
 
 (Home E,ule cheers). That is the language which does for the 
 County Tyrone farmer. And the language we have heard 
 to-night is the language which suits the House of Commons 
 (Home Eule cheers). 
 
 I wish to say a word or two in answer to criticisms as 
 to the way in which this bill would work. It has been stated 
 that it would probably take months and years to work this 
 act ; and when I hear that it makes me strongly suspect that 
 hon. members have not studied this bill, or the working 
 of similar acts. One argument was this— while it was ad- 
 mitted that 135,000 cases were settled within eight or nine 
 months under the Arrears Act, it was said that these were cases 
 in which the landlord and the tenant had made joint applications, 
 and, therefore, there was no need to investigate whether the 
 tenant could or could not pay. If that were so, then the land- 
 lord, and the tenant, and the Court, entered into a combination to 
 defraud the Britisli Treasury ; for the Act said that the court 
 ''shall inquire" whether the tenant is able to pay, and if it is 
 assumed that the court made no inquiry, then it is suggested that 
 there was a tripartite confederacy to defraud the public revenue. 
 If that be so, all I can say is that the Solicitor-General for Ire- 
 and has a very low opinion of the morality of Irish lawyers. 
 
6 Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill. 
 
 Mr. Gibson. — I made no such imputation. 
 
 Mr. Dillon.— I never said he did (hear, hear, and cheers). I 
 said the imputation was implied in his argument, and if he 
 denies the imputation then he asserts that the courts did honest- 
 ly investigate the cases — that this very court to which we pro- 
 pose to refer the working of the bill, did in six months deal with 
 135,000 cases, and finished them all (hear and cheers). Is there 
 I would ask, any likelihood of anything like so many cases com- 
 ing under the operation of this bill ? (hear, hear). I will lat^r 
 on draw attention to the figures which have beeu used by hon. 
 members opposite ; but I now express my belief that the vast 
 majority of the Irish landlords, seeing what is before them if this 
 bill were passed, would make settlements with their tenants 
 without going into coui't at all, and that out of the 200,000 or 
 300,000 tenants who would come under the operation of the bill, 
 three-fourths or four-fifchs would come to a settlement of that 
 sort. My estimate is that if this bill were passed, not 20,000 
 cases would come before the Irish Land Court, and with the ex- 
 perience of the present staff of the court, I have perfect confidence 
 that it would dispose of every single case in six months. 
 
 I want to say a word about the number of tenants to whom 
 this biU would apply, and the number who would be left out. 
 We tried to make the biU as moderate as we thought was con- 
 sistent w-ith the interests of the public peace ; and now it is made 
 a charge against us that we have not included the tenants whose 
 rents were fixed in 1885. I don't think it was fair to stop at 
 December 31st, 18S4. But why did we do it ? Because we 
 wanted to bring forward a bill as slightly subject to hostile 
 Briticism in the House of Commons as possible. It would have 
 been argued, if we had gone to December 31st, 1885, that we 
 were including in our bill the very tenants whose rents had been 
 settled after the fall in prices. The Solicitor-General stated that 
 the bill would exclude 70,000 tenants, whose rents were fixed in 
 1885. Now the tenants whose rents were fixed up to December 
 Blst, 1884, number 153,465. The tenants whose rents were fixed 
 
Facts for Mr. ParnelVs Bill. 7 
 
 duriDg the year 1855 number 21,900 ; and the tenants whose rents 
 have been fixed during the present year are 19,500. These we 
 don't claim. But hon. members are quite -vrelcome to put the 
 1885 tenants in the bill if they like (cheers). I believe that of 
 these 153,000 to which the bill would bring relief, not 20,000 would 
 come before the court. I believe that as soon as the Irish land- 
 lords saw how things were going in the court a general settle- 
 ment would then take place all over Ireland. There is no earthly 
 reason why the Land Courts should not dispose of these cases 
 with the utmost celerity. The operation of going over the land 
 and valuing it has been done. There is no occasion to repeat it; 
 and the records are in the possession of the coui t and can easily 
 be got at. 
 
 The two main arguments on which we have rested our case 
 for the necessity of this bill are these: — First of all the totally 
 nnlooked for and unexpected fall in agricultural prices which 
 has taken place this year — coming on the top of another de- 
 pression, through which every one in Ireland supposed that we 
 had nearly passed — and the calamitous character of the season 
 for the last month in Ireland over the south and west which is 
 more serious than has been supposed. The second strong point 
 in our argument is what we consider to be the probable action of 
 the landlords during the coming winter. 
 
 The question of the fall in prices has been so fully dealt with, 
 that I do not propose to take up the time of the House any further 
 with this subject. But there are two or three points connected 
 with it— and even at this late hour I must ask the indulgence of 
 the House while I direct attention to them, for they are exceed- 
 ingly important. First, I wish to refer to the stale old argument, 
 which has done so much service against us, and injured us so much 
 in England— that Griffith's Valuation of Ii-eland was made at 
 a time of great depression and of low prices, and that in ordtir 
 to appreciate on what basis that valuation was made, we must 
 go back to the schedule of prices contained in the Valuation Act, 
 and to the conditions which prevailed in Irish agriculture ia 
 
 B 
 
8 Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill 
 
 1&52. NoWj once for all, I utterly deny this proposition. And 
 to make good my denial I must read to the House a few extracts 
 from the evidence taken by an important Committee of this 
 House, which was appointed in 1869 to enquire into the question 
 of the valuation of Ireland. Before that Committee were ex- 
 amined Sir Richard Griffith, and most of the officers who had 
 worked under him on the valuation of Ireland, besides other 
 important witnesses. And these extracts I shall read, with a 
 view of proving three propositions, each of them of the utmost 
 importance. 
 
 First — That in the opinion of Sir Eichard Griffith himself, his 
 valuation of Ulster was up to the full letting value in that pro- 
 vince in 1869, the time when this evidence was given. I think 
 every hon. member will admit the importance of that statement, 
 when I say that it takes into account all the tenant's improve- 
 ments, which in Ulster in 1869, I believe, were more than 
 one-half of the entire value of the jiroperty. 
 
 Secondly — That from 15 to 20 per cent, added to the valua- 
 tion of three southern provinces would bring them up to the 
 same standard as Ulster : and 
 
 Thirdly — That in this valuation all the tenant's improvements 
 — building, and draining, and fencing — were fully included. The 
 valuers on the farms valued as they found them, and made no 
 allowance whatever for the improvements made by the tenants. 
 
 In Question 1574, Sir E. Griffith was asked : — 
 
 " Do you think that if the three southern provinces are valued on the 
 scale of agricultural prices during the five years preceding 1866, it would 
 be a uniform valuation with the valuation of Ulster — that is made on a 
 different scale ? " 
 
 Sir E. Griffith answers : — 
 
 " The fact is, the improvement in agriculture was so great that the 
 valuators took a very high view of it. It has been shown by a member 
 of the Committee that our valuation was perhaps on a scale too high, for 
 it is equal to the rents. I know that in an estate of my own in the 
 County of Londonderry my valuation was higher than the rents." 
 
lads for Mr. ParnelUs Bill. 9 
 
 And again :— 
 
 Question 1576 : — "It [The valuation of Ulster] must have been either 
 upon the scale or not ?" Answer : — *' We did attend to the scale ; it 
 was a certain guide ; but I think the full value of the improvements 
 was taken into consideration, and in consequence of that we came 
 up to the letting rents of the principal landlords." 
 
 And hon. members must recollect that this valuation of Ulster 
 was made after the enormous rise in prices caused by the 
 Crimean war. 
 
 Now I come to the evidence of Mr. John E. Vernon, who 
 ought to be an authority with Conservative gentlemen in this 
 House, as be has been one of the largest land agents in Ireland — 
 a Conservative himself — and was appointed as the Conservative 
 member of the Irish Land Commission. Mr. Yernon was 
 asked : — 
 
 Question 3032 : — "Is it the fact that the higher valuation of Ulster 
 arises from the new valuation having just been completed in that prov- 
 ince ? " Answer : — " I believe that to be the fact." 
 
 Question 3033 : — " And that will account for the difference of the 
 valuation in Ulster and in other provinces in Ireland ? " Answer : — 
 " Quite so." 
 
 Thus showing unmistakeably, that in the opinion of Mr. Yernon 
 the valuation was not carried out on the basis of prices in schedule 
 to the Act, but in accordance with the conditions of agriculture at 
 time of valuation, which time was subsequent to the Crimean war. 
 Now with reference to the southern provinces. Mr. John 
 Ball Greene was asked : — 
 
 Question 2415 : — " You say there is a difference between the North 
 and South, of 15 per cent. ? " Answer : — "I am sure there is." 
 
 Question 2416 : — "Is not the difference stilllarger ? " Answer: — " In 
 some cases it may be as high as 20 per cent." 
 
 Now, Sir, with regard to the question of the improvements of 
 the tenants, I must ask permission to read a few more extracts. 
 Mr. Green, who was second in command at the Valuation 
 Office under Sir R. Griffith, was asked : — 
 
10 Facts for Mr. FarneWs Bill. 
 
 Question 425 : — "In making these deduetions (in respect of taxes) from 
 the valuation, did you ever take into account the existence of tenant- 
 right in the north of Ireland ? " Answer : — " No." 
 
 Question 426 : — " That is not an element in your calculation at all?" 
 Answer : — "None." 
 
 Now Mr. Vernon on the same subject : — 
 
 Question 3029 : — "As far as you know, they value on what may be 
 called the intrinsic value of the land, without reference to the various 
 interests which may have grown up by the use or letting of the land ? " 
 Answer : — "I believe that to be the case." 
 
 Question 3030: — "Therefore, they have no occasion to consider the 
 question of what is called tenant-right ? " Answer : — " I do not believe 
 that they consider it. I believe that they value the land as they see it 
 and find it." 
 
 I assert, and every Irish tenant in Ulster will bear me out, 
 and I defy even the hon. member for North Tyrone to deny it, 
 that in Ulster in 1869, and when the valuation was completed, 
 the value of the province was more than half made up of the 
 unrewarded labour of the tenantry (cheers). The improvements, 
 the drains, the fences, and the buildings, were all' made by them ; 
 and thousands, aye, hundreds of thousands, of acres of worthless 
 bog and waste mountain were brought into cultivation by their 
 untiring industry. And all this was done almost universally, 
 without the slightest assistance from the landlord. 
 
 And when this valuation of Ulster was made, what a state of 
 things did it bring to light 1 That the whole of this vast pro- 
 perty — the creation of the tenant farmers of Ulster, had by 
 a gradual process of rent raising, been confiscated by their 
 landlords. For we are told that the valuers valued the lands as 
 they found them ; and the result came out about equal to the 
 rents. And this, too — although, as I have proved, the valuation 
 was made at a time of great agricultural prosperity. We of 
 the National party have often been denounced as robbers by 
 Irish landlords. But here is a case of wholesale confiscation by 
 Irish landlords, which for injustice and cruelty it would be 
 
Facts for Mr. ParncWs Bill, 11 
 
 hard to paFallel in history. So much for Griffith's valuation. 
 But the whole subject is one which would repay careful study. 
 
 Now, Sir, I think it has been clearly proved in the course of 
 this debate, that the fall in prices during the last year is on an 
 average, nearly, if not quite, 20 per cent. But are we to believe 
 that the Land Commissioners in fixing rents, looked only to the 
 value of the bad years, 1881, 1882, and 1883 ? I have it on the 
 authority of more than one of the Commissionei's themselves, that 
 they were guided by an average — going back to the year 1877 — 
 believing, as they did, that the depression existing at the time 
 was only temporary, and that in order to do Justice they should 
 consider the high prices of 1877 to 1879, as well as the low 
 prices of succeeding years. Suppose, then, for the sake of 
 illustration, that we admit that present prices show a fall of 25 
 per cent., as compared with those which the Commissioners had 
 in view when fixing rents .previous to last Auturpn. What re- 
 duction in his rent would a tenant be entitled to, in view of a 
 25 per cent, fall in prices ? This is a question which has not 
 been sufficiently brought before the House. 
 
 Sir Richard Griffith, who was no friend to the Irish tenants, 
 in his instructions to his valuators, said — " One hundred acres of 
 tillage produces ,£592, and the cost of production is £359." 
 Therefore, the amount to be divided between landlord and ten- 
 ant is £235, and that is considerably less than 50 per cent, of the 
 total produce. But will anybody deny that in Ireland there has 
 been absolutely no fall in the cost of production— not one shilling 
 to the unfortunate tenant — therefore, the whole loss falls on the 
 net profit. Now, according to the calculation of Sir Richard 
 Griffith, the net profit is considerably under 50 per cent, of the 
 gross produce on a tillage farm. Therefore, in view of a fall in 
 prices of 25 per cent. — if we accept the principle of dividing 
 the loss equally between landlord and tenant — the tenant would 
 be entitled to a reduction of considerably over 25 per cent,. And 
 when the system of rack-renting prevails, as it largely does in 
 Ireland— it would be manifestly unjust to divide this loss 
 equally between landlord and tenant. 
 
12 Facts for Mr. PameUs Bill. 
 
 Now, in support of our contention, that a strong case exists 
 for at least a temporary reduction of rents fixed in 1881-'82-'83 — 
 let me quote a most remarkable case reported at page 13, Return 
 of Judicial Rents for May and June last. 
 
 In 1881 the tenant got his rent reduced, presumably by private 
 agreement with his landlord, from i)180 to £150, and having 
 applied to the Land Court in this year his rent was further reduced 
 to £112 — that is, a reduction of 24 per cent, on the rent fixed in 
 1881. 
 
 I wish to direct attention to a few evidences of depression, 
 which have not been noticed in this debate. In the month of 
 November last, the Central Antrim Tenants' Defence Association 
 — a purely Protestant association, which worked against us at 
 the general election— passed a resolution to the efiect that 50 per 
 cent, won't meet the depression of prices ; that the depression is 
 so great that if it continues it will be quite impossible for the 
 tenants in Ulster to pay rent and live (hear, hear). Further, 
 this association says that the tenant-right of Ulster farms is un- 
 saleable, except in choice and exceptional farms (hear, hear). 
 We have heard a volley of assertions from the hon. member for 
 Derry (Mr. Lewis) as to the enormous prices given for Ulster 
 tenant rights. All I can say is, that I am perfectly content to 
 place against the authority of that gentleman, the authority of 
 the Central Antrim Tenants' Defence Association (cheers). That 
 is not all. I turn to still more remarkable testimony of the 
 present depression, and of the deplorable state in which 
 farmers are. At a recent meeting of the Kildare Board of 
 Guardians, the clerk brought forward a letter from another 
 Board of Guardians, calling attention to the sufiferings of the 
 farmers ; and a resolution was proposed, setting forth that the 
 interests of the landlords, as well as the tenants, would be best 
 promoted by the making of substantial abatements, and that 
 50 per cent, off the Government valuation is the least that 
 can do any good. The Baron de Robeck, both a landlord and a 
 tenant-farnxer, said : — 
 
Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill. 13 
 
 " I agree with everything Mr. Fenton has said, except regarding the 
 per-centage of reduction. I would agree to that too in a certain way ; 
 but I agree with Mr. Fenton as to the depreciation in prices. I am 
 sorry to say that the bad weather for this season has altogether spoiled 
 the crop. I would agree to everything he said, except to draw a hard 
 and fast line at fifty per cent., as what one man might want might be too 
 much for another. It may be necessary in some cases, but it is not 
 necessary in all." 
 
 Here is a well known Conservative landlord, who stood in the 
 Conservative interest for the County of Kildare at the last 
 election, and his declaration at the Kildare Board of Guardians 
 is, that this reduction may be necessary in some cases, but not in 
 all. He agreed finally in the resolution, the proposer having 
 agreed to omit the figure, 50 per cent. Other landlords followed. 
 Major Burrowes, deputy-lieutenant of the county, and a large 
 laud owner, supported the resolution. Mr. Mansfield, an ex-ajjicio • 
 guardian, a large land owner in the county, supported the reso- 
 lution. And what was the resolution? It was a resolution 
 calling on the Government to put a stop to capricious evic- 
 tions (cheers) ; and this resolution was passed at a meeting 
 of the Board of Guardians, with a tenant farmer in the chair, 
 and it was supported by the late Conservative candidate, and 
 other Conservative land owners supported him. Not a single 
 voice, except the voices of two individuals in the whole meeting, 
 was raised against it ; and these gentlemen did not object to the 
 resolution, but they said it was not proper business of the board. 
 I want to know, Mr. Speaker, if this is not evidence to impress 
 on the House the necessity of something being done. Where are 
 we to go for evidence? If you won't believe Irish Nationalists, 
 if you won't believe Presbyterian farmers, will you believe 
 Conservative landlords in the County of Kildare? (cheers). 
 It is utterly impossible to answer or contradict any of these 
 facts. 
 
 There was only one point in the speech of the hon. member for 
 the borough of Derry which I deemed to be the least worthy of 
 consideration. It is perfectly true, as pointed out by the late 
 
14 Facts for Mi\ ParneWs Bill. 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. gentleman the mem- 
 ber for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt), that all the speeches from the 
 Ministerial side were addressed to showing that there was no 
 urgent case for the reduction of rent in Ireland. The only strong 
 point in the speech of the hon. member for Derry, had relation to 
 what he made out to be the increasing wealth of the Irish farmers 
 in live stock and cattle. I have noticed in this debate a most ex- 
 traordinary perversion of figures. I do not say it was a deliberate 
 perversion, but I believe the figures were supplied by agenciesj 
 and hon. members who made use of them did not look into them 
 for themselves. What did the hon member for Derry say? He 
 said there was an increase of all kinds of stock in Ireland, with 
 the solitary exception of pigs. Will hon. members listen to the 
 true facts of the case ? From 1885 to 1886 these are the figures. 
 In horses there is an increase of 2,013 ; and this entirely took place 
 in two-year-olds ; and we attribute this to the fact, that farmers 
 having found the rearing of cattle entirely unprofitable, turned 
 to try their hand at horses. There was a decrease of 912 in one- 
 year-olds, which showed that'the experiment did not answer their 
 expectations. Another item which created some laughter was 
 that of asses. The small farmers do their carting with asses, and 
 there is a decrease of 912. The hon. member quoted the figures 
 in cattle, and he led the House to believe that there was an 
 increase of wealth in Ireland in cattle. This year the net decrease 
 in cattle is 44,824; and that only very slightly brings before the 
 House the real facts, which are alarming and appalling in the 
 extremest degree. There was an increase of milch cows of 1,300, 
 a slight increase of three-year-olds — 3,502 — and why ? Because 
 the Irish farmers could not sell them, and they took them home 
 because they could get no price for them (cheers). This is a 
 thing to which I would beg the attention of the hon. members. 
 In two-year-olds there was a decrease of 48,930, and why ? Be- 
 cause the Irish farmers killed their calves because they found 
 they could not pay for;their rearing. The reason of that appalling 
 decrease is the reason I tell you — the farmers were so dispirited 
 
Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill. 15 
 
 and broken-hearted by the prices they were offered for store 
 cattle that they killed the calves (cheers). 
 
 Now, these figures utterly contradict the statements of the 
 hon. member for Derry, and reveal a condition of things, which 
 to those who are acquainted with the real life of the Irish far- 
 mers, about which the member for Derry knows nothing, is 
 simply appalling. The hon, member for Derry pointed out that 
 the people of Ireland had increased the amount of land in cultiva- 
 tion. He pointed to the fact that there was an increase in the 
 land under tillage of 76,000 acres : of this, 59,000, I find, is 
 meadow and clover. The increase in real tillage is only 17,000 
 acres ; and of that 15,000 is in flax in Ulster, and 2,000 in 
 potatoes. In oats, which we are told by the hon. members 
 opposite is the really paying crop, there has been a decrease of 
 5,664 acres. That looks, does it not, as if the wealth of the 
 Irish farmers was increasing? I allude to the figures of the hon. 
 member for Derry, because they certainly surprised myself. I 
 did not know how to account for them, and I had these figures 
 made out to-day and carefully checked. 
 
 It has been said that the Land Commissioners who settled 
 the rents were friends of the tenants. That was a most audacious 
 assertion (cheers). Why, Sir, hundreds and thousands of tenants 
 ] know in Ireland have refused to go into the Land Courts, 
 because the Land Commissioners were mainly and largely in the 
 landlords' interest. I have a return which answers this asser- 
 tion completely. Out of thirty-three lay Commissioners appointed 
 under the liand Act,, seventeen were landlords or agents — 50 per 
 cent, of the members of the Land Court were landlords or agents. 
 I do not know that anyone will venture after that to say that 
 they were in the tenants' interest ? (cheers). 
 
 What is it we ask that you should do by this bill in this 
 House? Simply make Irish landlords do what English land- 
 lords do — nay, to make Irish landlords do a great deal less than 
 what English landlords always have done, or generally have 
 done. If Irish landlords had acted reasonably in the past, there 
 
16 Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill 
 
 would have been no necessity for any of the acts dealing with the 
 Irish land question, that have been passed in this House. It is 
 useless for anyone to come forward and talk of Irish landlords 
 having been tried and found not guilty. If they were found not 
 guilty, then why did this House spend weeks and months passing 
 the Compensation for Disturbance Bill and the various Irish Land 
 Bills 1 The second branch of our argument relates to the con- 
 duct of the Irish landlords. I admit that if it could be shown 
 that they could be expected to act as reasonable men in the face 
 of this crisis, there would be no necessity for this bill. But what 
 is the fact 1 Past experience has shown that they cannot be 
 trusted (Irish cheers). It is impossible for me to go into the 
 whole of our cases ; but I must ask the House- to have patience 
 while I refer to the recent actions of some leading landlords, in 
 showing that they cannot be expected to act reasonably, and that 
 if you refuse us this bill you will drive the Executive Govern- 
 ment in Ireland into courses which the moral sense of England 
 will condemn (hear, hear). We have heard a good deal of Lord 
 Clanricarde. He never goes near his estate, and his tenants 
 never see him. His tenants came into court in the month of 
 May this year. If you ask me why they did not come there 
 before, I will answer that they were afraid to do so ; because, as 
 in the case of so many other estates, the tenant has hanging 
 gales, and the threat of costs of appeals held over his head, and 
 is warned that every penny will be taken out of him by writs 
 from the Superior Courts in Dublin, if he dares to go into the 
 Land Court. Well ; his tenants at last came into court, and 
 numbers got their rents fixed last May and June, and here are 
 
 some of the reductions : — 
 
 Old Rent. Judicial Rent. 
 
 £30 ... £15 
 
 10 ... 7 
 
 11 ... 7 15 
 18 16 ... 11 10 
 30 ... 14 15 
 
 6 10 ... 3 15 
 
 15 ... 9 10 
 
Fads for Mr. ParneWs Bill. 17 
 
 These, I admit, are picked cases. But the reductions averaged 
 over 25 per cent. And now, Sir, let us consider for a moment 
 what Clauricarde's action has been in the past, and what he is 
 doing at this moment. And remember, this is a man who has, 
 I suppose, two or three thousand tenants in the County Galway. 
 After the election at which my hon. and gallant friend, the 
 member for North Galway, was elected in 1872, Lord Clanricarde 
 raised his rents, to punish his tenants for voting against his 
 nominee. So far as I can learn. Lord Clanricarde has never 
 spent anything on his estate, nor in any way shown an interest 
 in the welfare of his tenants. And his estate in Galway is now 
 a centre of disturbance. 
 
 Let me quote a few cases from a statement I have received, of 
 what has recently taken place at Woodford, on this property. 
 The tenants having asked a reduction of 25 per cent., Lord 
 Clanricarde refused any concession. A number of tenants were 
 picked out and proceeded against by writs from the Superior 
 Court in Dublin, instead of the ordinary county court civil bill. 
 This was done, of course, with a view to increase the cost enor- 
 mously, and to terrify the rest of the tenantry. I now proceed 
 to quote some cases from the statement : — 
 
 " 1. Pat Conroy, aged 76, wife aged 75, four children, owed one and 
 a-half year's rent, £36 ; but on 7th June last paid a half year's rent, for 
 which he has acknowledgment written on the back of his last receipt, 
 and was then assured no further proceedings would be taken. Costs, 
 £17 10s. 
 
 " 2. Pat Fahy, wife and child, three brothers and sister, owed two 
 years' rent, £25. Costs, £18. 
 
 " 3. James Eruder, aged 70, wife and three children, owed one and 
 a-half years' rent, £18. Costs, £17 10s. 
 
 " 4. Thomas Saunders, wife, old mother, and seven children, owed two 
 years' rent, £18. Costs, £17 10s. 
 
 In amounts stated to be due in these cases is included the 
 hanging gale ; and the injustice of adding this is especially great 
 on the Clanricarde property, as on that estate it has always 
 been the custom to pay annually in October the rent which fell 
 
18 Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill 
 
 due the November previous. Conroy, Faliy, and Bruder, and 
 their ancestors for generations (and this applies generally on the 
 estate), worked on their holdings, built houses, made drains, 
 walls, fences, etc., in fact brought theii holdings to their present 
 state, without the slightest assistance in money or materials from 
 the landlord. And though the rents are lower than on Mr. 
 Lewis' property in this parish, were the tenants' rights to their 
 improvements respected, the rents should be enormously cut 
 down. Even as the Land Act is worked, at the late Portumna 
 Tjand Sessions, the reductions on the Clanricarde estate ranged 
 from 30 to 50 per cent. Saunders — the fourth case mentioned 
 above — came into possession on payment of illOO fine about 
 seventeen years ago. lie had just come from Australia, where 
 by farming he had made over £i)()() ; he built a house and olhcea 
 at an expense of about X200 ; and although strictly sober, hard- 
 working, and industrious, he is now not worth a shilling. T6 
 evict these four men, the bailiff came with 700 police and a gang 
 of Orange emergency men from Ulster. All the tenants on this 
 property were and are willing (so far as they are able, for some 
 of them are too poor) to pay itheir rents on a reduction of Ss. in 
 the pound. And whilst Lord Clanricarde is said to have granted 
 7s. Gd. in the pound to his English tenants, lie refuses a farthing 
 to his tenants here ! And this is one of the men on whose for- 
 bearance the government wish us to rely. And to HUf)i)ort this 
 mean, cruel, and stupid tyranny, the Irish government will be com- 
 pelled, during the coining winter, to use the forc(;s of the crown. 
 It is plainly impossible for me to go into the details of many 
 other cases. I must content myself with giving some samples 
 of reductions whi(;h liav(; been made on the estates of some of 
 these gentlemen in whoso moderation and forbearance we are 
 asked to trust. Take the estate of Martin McDoniKill of County 
 (ialway : — 
 
 Old nonfc. Jurllcial Rent 
 
 £2 3 9 ... £'0 17 
 
 2 6 5 ... ] 2 G 
 
 2 ... 17 
 
 And so on. The reductions averaged over fJO per cent. 
 
Fads for Mr. ParnclVs Bill. 10 
 
 These are all cases in which in my opinion there ought to bo 
 HO rent at all, for the tenants are men who were evicted from 
 their former holdings and left naked and bare on the mountain 
 side, and rent is put upon the land which they reclaimed, and 
 ttie mud huts which they built (Parnellite cheers). 
 
 Let us come to Mr. Loftus Tottenham (hear hear). His 
 tenants entered the Land Court, having at last mustered up 
 courage, in the month of April last, and the general reductions 
 average very close upon 50 per cent. This is one of the gentle- 
 men who would get up in this House and defend the Irisli 
 landlords. Rents of £b 15s. have been reduced to £2 ; of £2, to 
 £\ 5s. ; of Xll, to £Q ; of £1, to £4 5s. ; of £7 6s. 4d., to £3 12s. ; 
 of £5, to £2 10s. ; and of £5 10s., to £3! This gentleman would, 
 no doubt, in this House support the idea that we might rely on 
 the reasonableness of the landlords (hear, hear, and Irish cheers). 
 I come ta another noble lord, whose estate has been referred to, 
 Lord Annaly, whose agent boasts that he can bully any tenant 
 in Ireland into submission, and that he trampled on the Land 
 League. So he did, I am sorry to say, and he used to go strutting 
 about Dublin stating that he had broken down the Land League, 
 and had tolerated no dictation from them. At last Lord 
 Annaly's tenants summoned up courage to go into the Land 
 Court, and here are some of the reductions : — £20 14s., to £11 7s. ; 
 £8 14s., to £4 15s. ; £13, to £6 Gs. ; £20, to £12 ; £4, to £1 15s. ; 
 £24, to £13 10s. (loud Home Rule cheers). I was denounced 
 because I recommended the tenants to combine and ask for 
 25 per cent, reduction. 
 
 I will leave the House now to judge of the conduct of the 
 agent, who boasted and bragged in Dublin that he had beaten 
 down the tenants and compelled them to pay the last penny. 
 
 Now we come to Lord Kenmare (loud cheers). We have been 
 told that we have been unjust to Lord Kenmare ; and this is a 
 case to which I invite the attention of the Chief Secretary, 
 because I warn him that in the case of Lord Kenmare's estate he 
 will have great trouble this winter. It was stated in a letter tlie 
 
20 Facts for Mr. ParneWs Bill. 
 
 other day that there have been very few evictions on this estate. 
 I tell the House that I do not believe the statement in that let- 
 ter was true, and even if it were true the sting was in the tail of 
 it, for the af^ent said that if the rents were not paid he would 
 proceed to evict every tenant who would not pay. What is the 
 case with regard to the Kenniare estates ? Here are some of the 
 reductions made by the Court : — £27, to .£17; £27, to £17 ; £6, 
 to £3 10s. ; £6, to £4 ; £35, to £22 ; £25, to £18 ; £50, to £30 
 (loud Home Bule cheers). I admit all the time that I am 
 picking out the worst cases ; but, I say, is this House prepared 
 to support by the force and authority of the law in Ireland, men 
 who are capable of dishonesty, such as this man, who can be 
 declared in the face of England to be guilty of this gross 
 injustice to our countrymen — men who have been proved to have 
 extracted 100 per cent, more than what is a just rent, and who I 
 venture to say, instead of returning some of this money to their 
 tenants, will endeavour to compel them to pay all they owe at the 
 rate of the old rent. This noble lord, who, uo doubt, is shocked 
 at the dishonesty of the Land League, was applied to the other 
 day for the poor-rate and county cess, in respect of farms from 
 which his tenants had been evicted ; he refused to pay, and the 
 magistrates refused to decree him for it. There is the honesty of 
 the Irish landlords. 
 
 I come now to another, Lord Middleton, whose son is a 
 member of the present government. Lord Middleton's tenants 
 applied for a reduction the other day, and a deputation was sent 
 representing some judicial tenants and some who were not judi- 
 cial tenants. Lord Middleton refused to see the deputation, or 
 to discuss with them the propriety of a reduction. And in a few 
 days word was sent round from the agent's office, that no reduc- 
 tion would be granted on any judicial rents, and that the other 
 cases would be considered separately. When the rents were not 
 immediately paid, Lord Middleton proceeded against eight of the 
 judicial tenants, by the most expensive process the law afforded, 
 had their farms sold in Cork Courthouse ; and the tenants being 
 
Facts for Mr. ParndVs Bill. 21 
 
 terrified at the prospect of eviction and the loss of all their pro- 
 perty in the improvements and buildings on their farms, bought 
 in their farms ; and the law costs which these tenants had to pay 
 amounted to ,£85. In order to buy in their farms and pay the 
 costs, these men had to borrow from their friends, to raise money 
 in the bank, and a public subscription was also raised to help 
 them. And in the case of seven out of the eight, there was only 
 a half year's rent due. 
 
 Now what was the crime for which these men were so ruth- 
 lessly punished. They had not refused to pay rent. On the 
 contrary, is ia notorious that they had always paid their rent 
 regularly and punctually. But they had asked for a reduction, 
 and hesitated to pay when any reduction was rudely and brutally 
 refused. There are in Ireland at this moment, landlords who 
 boast and brag that they would not take a penny under the 
 judicial rent, and who look upon the judicial rents as sacred. 
 
 I don't want to weary the House, but I am entitled to make as 
 strong a case as I can in respect to the question, which is a'U- 
 important at the present moment. What right have the Govern- 
 ment to anticipate that the Irish landlords will act justly by 
 their tenants. I think I have made a pretty strong case (loud 
 opposition cheers), and I will wind up with a reference to the 
 lion, member who moved the rejection of this bill. That gentle- 
 man and his brother are not popular landholders in the south of 
 Ireland ; I will go farther, and say they were harsh and cruel 
 landlords (cheers). I have got some facts here, which I think 
 will make hon. members believe that I speak nothing more than 
 the absolute truth. There is a circular dated March 15th, 1873, 
 signed Penrose Fitzgerald, and issued to his tenants. This, I 
 may say, was at the very acme of prosperity and high prices. 
 The circular says : — 
 
 " He was informed that some of his tenants held at a fair rent, and 
 others much under the real value, and that his desire was to act fairly 
 and justly to every tenant already in occupation — to leave him such a 
 margin of profit as will enable him to live in comfort and respectability." 
 
22 Fads for Mr. ParneWs Bill. 
 
 Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald. — Will the hon. member read the 
 ■whole of the circular ? 
 
 Mr. Dillon — It is too long to read wholly (oh ! oh !). I have 
 said that I don't object to the terms of the circular for itself. 
 I merely wished to quote the circular to show the estate was 
 valued in 1873. Then I have a statement in reference to some 
 recent occurrences on his estate. First, there is the case of 
 William Wall, rent fixed in 1873 at £61, reduced about three 
 years ago to £56, which is the present rate (hear, hear). The 
 poor-law valuation is £43. No abatement off the March gale of 
 1885 was offered; an abatement of 20 per cent, off the Sep- 
 tember gale was offered. The tenant hesitated to accept it, and 
 was served with a writ, and had to pay full rent and costs. 
 
 "Luke Shea; rent £26, valuation £20 5s. Rent was fixed by tenant's 
 acceptance of landlord's offer about three years ago. Tenant accepted 
 because he had no cenfidence in Land Court. 
 
 " Edmund Shea; rent £28 2s, 6d., valuation £22 10s. No abatement 
 since this rent was fixed three years ago. During three years previous 
 to fixing of present rent, was allowed 15 per cent, off the old rent. 
 When present rent was fixed by landlord, tenant objected to sign agree- 
 ment, until agent's clerk said to him : — 'Unless you consent to sign this 
 agreement, you will be compelled to refund the allowance you have been 
 receiving during the last three years.' 
 
 "John Shea; rent £14, valuation £12 10s. Judicial lease. No 
 abatement. 
 
 "Mrs. McCarthy; rent £62, valuation £48 5s. No abatement at any 
 time previous to this year ; but 20 per cent, was offered last July if 
 March rent of 1886, were paid ; tenant was unable to pay." 
 
 Now I come to a case which seems to be one of peculiar 
 hardship : — 
 
 " Cornelius McDonnell ; judicial tenant, rent £32, valuation £26. 
 Last September, tenant owed a year's rent, and in common with other 
 tenants asked for abatement, and offered to pay a year's rent, less 25 
 per cent. ; asked for an interview with the agent, which was refused ; 
 agent's clerk told him that no abatement would be given ; was served 
 with writ on 1st January, 1886, and the interest in his farm sold by 
 sheriff on 17th March." 
 
Facts for Mr. Parneli's Bill. 23 
 
 That is to say, he was proceeded against by the most expen- 
 sive and deadly process the law admits of, and one which robbed 
 him of his rights of redemption, and all rights sought to be 
 conferred on Irish tenants by various acts passed in this House. 
 Shortly after this, by the advice of friends wlio offered to lend 
 him money, McDonnell went to the landlord's solicitor and 
 offered the full rent and costs. Solicitor consulted agent, and 
 then wrote to the tenant, as follows : — " Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald 
 cannot accept your offer as matters have proceeded so far." 
 McDonnell was evicted on 23rd August, and although he made 
 an effort to settle on the day of eviction, the landlord's bailiff 
 would not listen to him. 
 
 This is an example of the forbearance of the landlords. I 
 appeal to the Englishmen opposite, to the English landlords who 
 sit upon those benches, and ask them would they not be ashamed 
 to sit silent when such charges as these were made against them 
 (loud cheers). Is there one single English landlord who when 
 his tenant had offered to jiay 75 per cent, of the rent, and after 
 the wretched tenant had been put to enormous cost, his interest 
 sold out, and robbed of his rights by this cruel process of law 
 (cheers), is there an English landlord I ask, who, if this tenant 
 should then offer the full amount of the pound of flesh, the gift 
 of his relatives and friends (cheers), the full rent with the double 
 costs, those of the judgment of decree, and of the eviction on 
 title, would refuse that offer and turn the wretched man and his 
 family adrift on the world ? (loud cheers). I do not believe that 
 there is a landlord in England or Scotland who, if he had done 
 such a deed, would not be ashamed to sit amongst his fellows in 
 this House, and the hon. member who stood forward in this 
 House, speaking as the representative of the landlords of Ire- 
 land, does not deny it (loud cheers). Is it to men whose forbear- 
 ance is like this that you are going to trust for the peace of 
 Ireland ? (loud cheers). I appeal to you ; do you look forward 
 with satisfaction to have your forces placed at the command of 
 the Lord Kenmares and the Lord Annalys, and to having the 
 
24 Facts for Mr. ParneU's Bill. 
 
 livery of England's soldiers disgraced in carrying out their work, 
 and the Irish constabulary moving in enormous masses to inflict 
 on a wretched people as cruel an injustice as ever was done in 
 the name of law ? (loud cheers). There is not a man in this 
 House who does not know if the landlords of Ireland try to 
 extract to the uttermost the full measure of their legal rights 
 in the coming winter, wrong — cruel, intolerable wrong — will be 
 done, and the Irish tenants in the hour of their misery and of 
 their despair will remember that this House turned a deaf ear 
 to their appeal for justice, and treated the story of their suffer- 
 ings with jeers and with contempt (enthusiastic cheers). 
 
 The hon. member the Solicitor-General for Ireland, in one of 
 his flights of stormy eloquence (laughter), declared that only 
 1,300 families had been put out of their homes during the quar- 
 ter ending 30th June last, and on this he consoled himself by the 
 reflection that it was the normal number. The figures of the 
 Chief Secretary have shown that at least 2,000 families will be 
 turned out in the coming winter. I ask whether this House is 
 content to accept this as the normal condition of Ireland ? 
 
 I wish to draw the attention of the House to this question of 
 Irish evictions, and more particularly with reference to one 
 county, and that is the county where troubles have arisen. 
 Where you have evictions there will you have trouble (cheers). 
 I only point to this particular county, because I want to bring 
 to the minds of English members two or three facts which must 
 be realised before it is possible to understand the cause of agra- 
 rian disturbance in Ireland. I allude to the County of Kerry, 
 Every Irishman knows that up to a few years ago Kerry was 
 one of the most peaceable counties in Ireland. Any landlord 
 (and I might even refer to the notorious Mr. Hussey himself), 
 might wander through the most lonely parts of that county, and 
 would be welcome in the humblest cabin (cheers). Seven or 
 eight years ago there was not a landlord in Keriy who would 
 not be as safe and as welcome in the house of his poorest tenant 
 as he would be in his own. Now many a landlord in Kerry 
 
Facts for Mr. Parneirs Bill. 25 
 
 cannot venture from his home without a guard (Ministerial 
 cheers and counter cheers). One would suppose that they were 
 in one of the most disturbed spots of a far Eastern land. How 
 was the change brought about ? (cheers). I ask the attention 
 of the House to these figures. In 1877 the total number of 
 evictions in the County of Kerry was 18 families ; in 1878 it was 26, 
 in 1879 it was 70, in 1880 it was 191, in 1881 it was 192, in 1882 
 it was 293, in 1883 it was 403, in 1884 it was 410, in 1885 it 
 was 358 — making a total for these six disturbed and fatal 
 years, of 11,304 human beings driven from their homes in that 
 county alone (sensation). Is not that explanation enough for any 
 reasonable man ? (cheers). And when we look at the last 
 returns, we find that that state of things, so far from improving, 
 is going on steadily from bad to worse. During the three 
 months ending on the 30th of June last, we find that in the 
 County of Kerry there were 187 families driven from their 
 homes. Of these, 73 were restored — giving a total of 114 families 
 driven absolutely in three months from their houses out on the 
 roadside (cheers). In the face of this, are we to be told that this 
 House is to rely upon the toleration and forbearance of the Irish 
 landlords ? I appeal to hon. members, is it reasonable to expect 
 that we should be content with assurances like these ? We do 
 not rely upon the forbearance of the Irish landlords, because we 
 who have read the history of Ireland know it is a rotten reed to 
 lean upon (cheers). I have never denied that there have been 
 landlords in Ireland who have acted the part of just and reason- 
 able men. You never hear of them, because they do not dispute 
 with their tenants, but there is always a large residuum sufii- 
 cient to keep the country almost in a state of civil war — men who 
 have had no bowels of compassion, who boast and brag, and 
 their tenantry fear them (cheei-s). It is against this class of men 
 we demand protection from this House. If this House refuses 
 the protection — if this House comes to the conclusion that the 
 tenantry of Ireland must be left as they were left six years ago, 
 without any relief except what they can win by their own exer- 
 
26 Facts for Mr. FarneWs Bill. 
 
 tions, all I can say is that in my opinion this House, and more 
 especially the Unionists in this House, will have made a deep and 
 weighty mistake (cheers). 
 
 There is one argument which has been urged upon me privately 
 by hon. members on that side of the House, and by Unionists on 
 this side, against our demand for the National Self-government 
 of Ireland, and it is this : — =that this House is never deaf to an 
 appeal from the Irish members ; and they have often told me that 
 if we brought forward our grievances they would be remedied 
 (Ministerial cheers). Now this bill is declared to be urgent by 
 the whole of the National party, and even the leaders of 
 the Irish Conservatives have not said one w^ord against it. 
 And yet it would seem that the Government have made 
 up their minds not to give us this bill. That is a mistake 
 for the Unionists of England. It is a deeper mistake for the 
 landlords of Ireland. It has been said that we introduced this 
 bill in bad faith. I deny it. We introduced it as the most 
 moderate measure that we could lay before this House, and at 
 the same time say that it would secure peace through this winter 
 in Ireland. I know there are tenants whom this bill would not 
 save ; but what I do say is that it would do away with all danger 
 of widespread disturbance, and that the trouble which would 
 come if the bill were passed would be local and trifling. If this 
 bill passed, we should be in a position honestly and loyally to ex- 
 ercise our influence to keep the country quiet, and to induce the 
 people to endure patiently whatever sufferings they might have 
 ^o bear. 
 
 I remember the same class of arguments were used against 
 the Compensation for Disturbance Bill in 1880 (hear, hear). I 
 remember as well as yesterday leaving the House of Lords after 
 that bill had been rejected — greatly rejoiced, because I believed 
 that act was the knell of Irish landlordism. But I am six years 
 an older man than I was then ; many things have happened in 
 that interval— and I know better now what a struggle between 
 landlord and tenant in Ireland means; and while I am prepared 
 
Facts for Mr. PameWs Bill. 27 
 
 to go iuto that struggle, and while I am coiitident of the result 
 (loud cheers), I was anxious sincerely and honestly that the truce 
 of God, to use the words of the member for West Birmingham, 
 should be prolonged in Ireland ; until we could lay before the 
 l^eople of England our arguments for the cause for which we have 
 so long striven, in the justice of which we firmly believe, and 
 which we are confident of commending to their reason and their 
 conscience (hear, hear). 
 
 I look forward with dislike and dread to the tumult of passion 
 which will be let loose in Ireland by the rejection of this bill; 
 and while I say I fear not the ultimate consequences, I am sorry 
 that the Government has sent us back to our country with a 
 message of hatred and defiance (cheers) — to tell the people that 
 this House will do them no justice ; to tell them that they have 
 got nothing to trust to but the combination which saved them in 
 1880, and which has won for them every single right they have 
 gained (cheers). Our course is perfectly clear. We have to- 
 night brought forward this bill with a sincere desire to have 
 peace this winter in Ireland. This House has denied the tenant 
 justice. I go back to Ireland to tell the tenant that if he wishes 
 to live he must trust to his own exertions (prolonged Irish 
 cheers) ; and so' long as I have life and liberty, so long shall I 
 tell the people of Ireland to continue in that course of jDcrsistent 
 and determined agitation, by which in the past they have won 
 every single liberty which they possess, and every concession 
 which has been granted them, and by which in the future, if 
 they will only show perseverance and bravery, they will win — in 
 spite of Irish landlords and in spite of this House — the right to 
 live as freemen in their native land (cheers). 
 
 The Division. 
 
 The House then divided — 
 
 For the second reading, ... 202 
 
 Against, ... ... ... 297 
 
 Majority against, ... 9^ 
 
Wht §xnh (^xmiim. 
 
 The Following Publications aiie supplied by the 
 Ieish Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The *' Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (7) Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (8) The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 (9) An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 
 
 With Introduction by J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (10) Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
 A Word for Ireland. By T. M. IIealy, B.L. Price Is. 
 Report on the Present State of the Irish Land duestion. 
 
 By A Land Valuer. Price 6d. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms, 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 Othei' Tracts in prejyavaUoit. 
 
No. 2. 
 
 Cljt Irisl^ #mstion. 
 
 THE OEANGE BOGEY: 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN J. CLANCY, MA. 
 
 M.P. for North Dublin. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 1886 
 PWce One Ppnny. 
 
R. D. Webb and Son, Printers, Abbey-street, Dublin. 
 
THE ORANGE BOGEY. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 Orange Threats. 
 
 The threats of civil war now so frequently uttered on Orange 
 platforms and in Orange newspapers are a source of unfailing 
 and infinite amusement to every one in Ireland outside the 
 Orange lodges, for every Irishman knows that they are mere 
 sound and fury, signifying nothing. When the advertisement 
 for " 20,000 Snider rifles " appeared a short time since in the 
 chief Orange newspaper in Ulster, the Tipperary man who 
 advertised in return for "20,000 rotten eggs," expressed accu- 
 rately enough the Irish view of the nature of the situation, 
 created by that famous " call to arms." 
 
 The extreme complacency with which the overwhelming 
 majority of Irishmen regard the Orange threats, arises not alone 
 from the public knowledge of the absolute powerlessness of the 
 Orange party to keep up a civil war in any part of Ireland, even 
 for one day, but also from the fact that similar threats have been 
 uttered in behalf of the same party times without number in the 
 past, and that not one of them has ever been fulfilled. 
 
 On the occasion of everi) great reform proposed for Ireland this 
 century, the Orangemen have threatened to resist it, even at the 
 expense of their lives ; but, the decision of Parliament once given, 
 they have invariably refrained from even attempting to carry 
 out their bellicose programme. From the time of Catholic 
 Emancipation down to the present, their course is strewn with 
 their blood-curdling but entirely unfulfilled resolutions. 
 
 A 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 When Catholic Emancipation came within " the region of 
 practical politics," the Orangemen raised the most tremendous 
 clamour that has been heard in the three Kingdoms since the 
 days of James II. To allow Catholics into Parliament was 
 pronounced to be a fatal attack on the " Constitution of 1688," 
 and on the birthright of every Protestant, and meetings were 
 held in town and country to give expression to the determination 
 of the Orange party " never to submit " to such a measure, under 
 any circumstances. The meetings of the " Brunswick Clubs," 
 which were established in Dublin and elsewhere, were availed of 
 for the delivery of the most bloodthirsty threats in case 
 Emancipation was carried. Thus, in the Dublin Morning Post 
 of 11th December, 1828, there is a report of a meeting of the 
 Dublin Brunswick Club, at which one Judkin Butler closed a 
 fiery speech against any concession to the Catholics with the 
 following choice quatrain : — 
 
 " Surrender ! — no, we never will 
 While Brunswickers have blood to spill ; 
 Our cause is glorious, and for that we'll fight 
 For George's title and for William's right." 
 
 The Dublin newspapers of 1828 and 1829 are full of speeches 
 of which the essence may be said to be condensed in the fore- 
 going four lines. 
 
 It need not be added that the furious Brunswickers never rose 
 in arms against the Act of Emancipation. They contented them- 
 selves with making the best of the new situation, and at the 
 same time, as if they had kept their word, they proclaimed, year 
 after year, on the 12th July, that they would " rise as one man" 
 and " spill the last drop of their blood " before surrendering any 
 of " the blood-bought rights " of 1688 ! 
 
 The Disestablishment Period. 
 
 It is pretty generally known that the Orangemen renewed 
 their " civil war " threats on the introduction of the Church 
 Temporalities Bill of 1833, and again on the occasion of the 
 
The Orange Bogey. 5 
 
 Municipal Reform Act — with the result that they refrained, as 
 usual, from any sanguinary sacrifice of themselves when the time 
 for redeeming their promises had arrived. But when we come to 
 the period of the Disestablishment of the Irish Protestant 
 Church we find the Orangemen putting on their choicest war- 
 paint, and, in company with various sympathisers amongst the 
 rest of the "loyal minority," filling the air with their loudest and 
 most fearful threats of physical resistance to the decrees of 
 Parliament. 
 
 In 1868 and 1869 Orange meetings were being continually 
 held, at which the threatened measure of disestablishment and 
 disendowment was treated as a fearful national crime, the con- 
 summation of which was, if necessary, to be followed instantly 
 by an Orange rising. The orators at those meetings included 
 lords as well as commoners, clerics as well as laymen, military 
 men as well as civilians ; and all vied with one another in the 
 efibrt to make it plain that in a certain contingency — that is, if 
 Mr. Gladstone's Bill passed — war was to result. Letters and 
 leading articles in the Orange newspapers to the same efi'ect as 
 the speeches and resolutions appeared from day to day during 
 the time mentioned. 
 
 We give a few extracts — quoting mostly from the chief Dublin 
 organ of the Orange party — the Daily Express. 
 
 "Kicking the Queen's Crown into the Boyne." 
 The Eev. John Flanagan was one of the favorite and most 
 conspicuous and magnificent figures on the Orange platforms 
 during the anti-disestablishment agitation, and also one of the 
 most outspoken and warlike. At a meeting at Newbliss, Co. 
 Monaghan, on the 20th March, 1868, he made a celebrated speech, 
 in which a phrase occurs that has since become, as it were, classi- 
 cal. We quote from the Northern Whig of the 21st March of 
 the year mentioned : — 
 
 " If they ever dare to lay unholy hands upon the church, 200,000 
 Orangemen will tell them it shall never be. Protestant loyalty must 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 make itself understood. People wiU say, ' Oh, your loyalty is condi- 
 tional. T say it is conditional, and it must be explained as such. Will 
 you, Orangemen of Ireland, endorse the doctrine of unconditional loyalty ? 
 (Repeated cries of 'No, never.') It appears wonderful that there is one 
 thing upon which we can confidently throw ourselves, and which has been 
 overlooked by nearly all speakers — I mean the Queen's Coronation oath. 
 She should be reminded that one of her ancestors, who swore to maintain 
 the Protestant religion, forgot his oath, and his crown was kicked into 
 the Boyne. (He then read the oath, and the questions put to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury at the time of the coronation.) Will any minister 
 dare to ask the Queen to perjure herself ? Will any minister come and 
 ask us to surrender our rights ? We must tell our gracious Queen that if 
 she break her oath, she has no longer any claim to the crown. Let us not 
 put any trust in man, but trust to God and ourselves — 
 
 Put your trust in God, my boys. 
 
 And keep your powder dry." 
 
 The Eev. Mr. Flanagan was quite as warlike a year later. On 
 the 12th July, 1869, at a meeting in the same place — Newbliss, 
 Co. Monaghan — he proposed, according to the report in the 
 Daily Express, the following resolution : — 
 
 " That, looking on the Irish Church Bill of Mr. Gladstone as a distinct 
 violation of the Act of Union, as coercing her Majesty the Queen to 
 violate her coronation oath, as trampling on the Bill of Eights, and as 
 having a most certain tendency to introduce disaffection, distrust, and 
 strife amongst the several classes and denominations in this country, we 
 pledge ourselves to resist its adoption at every stage, and are determined 
 never to submit to the consequences of its becoming law." 
 
 The Derry Standard— Ti Whig Presbyterian journal— recently 
 stated that Mr. Flanagan was up to the time of his death quite 
 proud of his warlike threats in 1868 and 1869 ; but he never 
 carried any of them into effect, although the Queen did, in his 
 view, forget and break her oath. 
 
 Other Clerical Pronouncements. 
 
 Many other clerical pronouncements, similar in effect, but not 
 so picturesque as Mr. Flanagan's great speech at Newbliss, were 
 made at the time in question. 
 
The Orange Bogey. 7 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin, supplied more than one warlike 
 agitator seventeen years ago. The Rev, W. H. Ferrar, F.T.C.D. 
 made one of the most spirited of the " civil war " speeches of the 
 period at a Rathmines meeting on the 6th March, 1868, Sir 
 Edward Grogan and other influential men of the Orange party 
 being present. We quote from the FreemaTils Journal: — 
 
 " If the Church Establishment be destroyed in Ireland, there cannot, 
 there shall not, there must not be peace in Ireland. ... If they 
 think the Protestants of Ireland wiU succumb without a struggle, they 
 know not the men with whom they have to deal. That I say solemnly 
 before God. If they want us to die as martyrs, we will die as soldiers. 
 
 . . . Protestants of all denominations would stand shoulder to 
 shoulder, as they did behind the walls of Derry. They will stand 
 shoulder to shoulder as they did at the passage of the Boyne." 
 
 Mr. Ferrar has since died, but he did not die, we are happy to 
 say, either as a soldier or as a martyr. 
 
 One of the meetings which were to have had the most terrify- 
 ing effect on Mr. Gladstone and his " co-conspirators " was that 
 held early in May, 1868, in Portadown, under the presidency of 
 the Duke of Manchester, and the most warlike deliverance at 
 that meeting was the speech of the Rev. Thomas Ellis. From 
 this speech, as reported in the Belfast News-letter^ we quote the 
 following magnificent passage, the meaning of which it is im- 
 possible to mistake : — 
 
 " We will fight as men alone can fight who have the Bible in one 
 hand and the sword in the other. We will fight — nay, if needs be, we 
 will die — die as our fathers died before us, as our sons will die who suc- 
 ceed us. Yes, we wiU die, if needs be ; and this will be our dying cry — 
 echoed and re-echoed from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth, 
 echoed and re-echoed from one end of Ulster to the other — * No Popery ! 
 No surrender ! ' " 
 
 This rousing passage must have made a deep impression on 
 the leaders of the Orange party, for we find several of them sub- 
 sequently using, without acknowledgment, the phrase, " the 
 
 Bible in one hand and the sword in the other." To this day 
 
 B 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 those stirring words are in frequent use in Orange speeches. 
 But Mr. Ellis, who, we believe, is still alive, has not yet 
 " fought." 
 
 The speech of the Rev. John Nash Griffin, D.D., in the Dublin 
 Exhibition Palace, on 14th June, 1869 (see Express), was in the 
 best style of those days. Take the following passage : — 
 
 " The spirit of Protestantism might have slumbered ; but it was not 
 dead. The spirit that snapped the boom in the Poyle, the spirit that 
 closed the gates of Derry, that chased the craven followers of James 
 from the walls, and drove them like a flock of frightened sheep into the 
 Boyne, still lived." 
 
 Take, again, the speech of the Pev. Henry Henderson at a 
 great Orange open air meeting on Tamnamore Hill, Co. Tyrone, 
 on 8th June, 1869. We take the following passage from the 
 Express report : — 
 
 " A newspaper had been abusing the High Sheriff and himself, saying 
 that they were blustering about rebellion. He now said : Yes, they 
 would sacrifice their lives before they would allow their religious rights 
 to be taken from them. Yes, with the blessing of God, they would do 
 what their fathers did at Derry, Aughrim, and at the Boyne. So far as 
 he was concerned, let there be no mistake. He spoke now not rashly, 
 but calmly and deliberately. Mr. Gladstone and his co-conspirators 
 were driving the country into civil war. 
 
 It was at the same meeting that the House of Commons got a 
 warning that ought to have made it mend its manners, but which 
 had not, it appears, that effect. The Pev. Leslie Canter said, 
 according to the report in the Express : — 
 
 " The Orangemen would not allow Gladstone and his crew to trample 
 on the throne and the Protestant constitution. They would compel the 
 House of Commons to listen to the voice of the men of Ulster, although 
 they had refused to listen to their noble representative, Mr. Vernon. 
 Only the Channel rolled between them ; they, the Protestants of the 
 North, would march to the House of Commons, and compel their 
 enemies to be silent while their representatives were speaking. If 
 Barrett was executed for blowing up a prison, the time might not be far 
 
The Orange Bogey. 9 
 
 distant when, for attempting to blow up our venerable Protestant con- 
 stitution, Gladstone and his co-conspiritors might be hanging as high as 
 Haman." 
 
 The Times, notwithstanding all those threats of civil war, 
 somehow was induced to sneer at the Orange party, and hint 
 that they were not, after all, in earnest. Accordingly, the 
 Venerable the Archdeacon of Ossory answered the Times as 
 follows at a Conference of the Diocese of Ossory, Ferns, and 
 Leighlin, on 1st April, 1869 (see Express) : — 
 
 " The Times sneered, and said they would soon submit. The Times 
 knew nothing of Irish Protestants, and might be excused, so far, for 
 judging them from the experience of a craven few who would accept 
 any terms." 
 
 How wonderfully like the answers given to similar sneers at 
 the Orange threats of to-day ! " They don't know the men with 
 whom they have to deal ! " 
 
 We give as a closing specimen of clerical oratory the lines 
 with which the Rev. C. Maginniss wound up a speech at Omagh 
 (see Express of 14th June, 1869) : — 
 
 " Our bosoms we'll bare to the glaring strife, 
 Our vows are recorded on high ; 
 To prevail in the cause is dearer than life, 
 Or crushed in its ruins to die." 
 
 Legal Warriors. 
 
 Some of the " loyal " lawyers talked so valiantly in the Dises- 
 tablishment era that one is forced to the conclusion that the 
 Irish bar contains a large reserve of military prowess. 
 
 Mr. Plunkett, Q.C., now M.P. for Dublin Universit}^, spoke 
 the following passage at a great Diocesan Conference held in the 
 chapter-room of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, on 31st March, 
 1869, and reported in the Daily Express of the following day : — 
 
 " We appeal to our brother Protestants in England, Scotland, and 
 
 Wales to stand hj ns in this last aivful hour of our fortunes 
 
 We call upon them not to allow those provisions to be made law which 
 
10 7 he Irish Question : 
 
 are calculated to hamper and injure our organization in the future, and 
 we call upon them not to drive us again to that old kind of material, 
 physical resistance, which accompanied the first protesting of our fore- 
 fathers three centuries ago — which accompanied the second protest in this 
 kingdom by our forefathers two hundred years ago, which accompanied 
 the glorious struggle for liberty and Protestantism of our predecessors, and 
 was a protest in act and word which they were willing to seal with their 
 blood in martyrdom and battle, if need be, to protest against the op- 
 pression and the slavery of a system which they cou-ld not, and should 
 not, and which their descendants never will submit to." 
 
 The Protestants of England did nothing to hold Mr. Plunkett 
 back from " that old kind of material, physical resistance " to 
 which he so ominously referred. Yet, instead of taking the field, 
 he took office in the first Tory Government formed after his 
 election, and he has since conducted himself as a peaceable 
 citizen. 
 
 Mr. D. M'Causland, Q.C., was quite as warlike as Mr. Plun- 
 kett. At a great meeting held in the Exhibition Palace, Dublin, 
 on 14th June, 1868, and reported in the faithful Express, this 
 gentleman delivered a speech, in the course of whieh the follow- 
 ing passage occurs : — 
 
 " The promoters of the Bill reminded him of the beast referred to in 
 Kevelations as rising from the earth, with two horns like a lamb, and 
 that spake like a dragon. Truly, the Messrs. Gladstone, Bright, and 
 Co. had, previous to and at the last election contests, appeared like 
 sheep, but now they were veritable dragons. They were now known, 
 however ; and a million and a-half of Protestants of all denominations 
 were ready in that country to oppose them ; not like a rebel horde, acting 
 according to the command of a priest or a demagogue, but as men who 
 thought for themselves, having the feeling strongly within them that 
 what had been purchased by the blood of their ancestors should be re- 
 tained, even at the expense of their own, if necessary." 
 
 At the same meeting, Mr. J. H. Nunn, a solicitor, made the 
 usual reference to the "accident" which befell the Crown of 
 James II. Said Mr. Nunn : — 
 
 " The House of Commons, with Mr. Gladstone its leader, is now 
 taking a course similar to that by which James II. lost his throne. If 
 
The Orange Bogey. 11 
 
 the revolution of 1688, under which our present beloved monarch holds 
 the sceptre of this kingdom, was justified, the same means by which that 
 revolution was achieved would be lawful to be used in maintaining it." 
 
 Mr. Falkiner, Q.C., was not the least spirited of his order. 
 At a meeting of the Central Protestant Defence Association, in 
 the Metropolitan Hall, Dublin, on 15th April, 1869, reported in 
 the Daily Express^ we find him speaking as follows : — 
 
 '• They must tell Mr. Gladstone that they would give him no assistance ; 
 they must tell him that if they could not valiantly succeed, they could 
 nohly die.''' 
 
 Mr. Falkiner has not yet, we are glad to say, died nobly or 
 otherwise ; he has only gone on the bench as Recorder of Dublin, 
 and since his elevation thereto has displayed a very laudable 
 interest in the social condition of the masses of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 Declarations of "Grand Masters." 
 
 The Grand Masters, and the Deputy Grand Masters, of the 
 Orange Lodges, spoke out magnificently. "We quote the follow- 
 ing extracts from the Daily Express. A. H. Foster, G.M., wrote 
 as follows on the 5th February, 1869 : — 
 
 " I confidently believe that the distinct, direct, and clearly indicated 
 issues of this unmitigated Jacobite policy are revolution, dismember- 
 ment, and humiliation of the Empire, subversion of our institutions, 
 civil and religious, and ultimately civil war ; for experience teaches that 
 England, Ireland, or Scotland will not tamely submit to these issues; 
 and experience further teaches that the right will receive the aid of the 
 God of battles, and be successful. But it behoves all who love their 
 country and countrymen of every denomination — all who love their God 
 (who, though King of battles, is also God of peace), to take warning and 
 exert themselves earnestly, while it is yet time, to avert these calamities 
 and the fearful scenes of bloodshed and carnage in a civil war.'' 
 
 Eichard Lloyd, D.G.M., Co. Tyrone, thundered forth as fol- 
 lows on 7th June, 1869, on Tamnamore Hill (see Express of 
 following day) : — 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 "They had met to protect the Bible, they had met not to allow 
 Gladstone to seal that book, not to allow Paul Cullen to substitute an- 
 other for it. Their fathers had marched to the Boyne, and bled for 
 their country. Their blood still ran in the veins of those whom he 
 addressed. They were as many and as ready, at the beat of drum, to go 
 out and take their minid rifles, and march to that river, as their fathers 
 did before them." 
 
 No such abundant use, assuredly, was ever made before of 
 one's " fathers " and " forefathers." Almost every Orange orator 
 invoked his "fathers" and grandfathers" as the crowning threat 
 of his speech. 
 
 Awake at Last. 
 
 Mr. Eobert Staples, of the Queen's County, put the whole 
 Orange case in a nutshell, as one might say, in the following 
 passage in a letter to the Express, on the 25th March, 1869 : — 
 
 " I am happy to say the Protestants of Ireland are now beginning in 
 earnest to see the danger, and the old spirit is awake again. In plain, 
 clear, and unmistakable language has England been told that we are not 
 to be trampled on with impunity, and that we do not mean to submit to 
 it. Let not proud England think we ask for mercy, or seek for terms. 
 We would scorn to do so." 
 
 And lest England might miss the significance of all those decla- 
 rations, the Daily Express pointed the moral as follows, in a 
 leader, on the 13th July, 1869 : — 
 
 " No statesman can any longer aflfect to ignore or disguise the state of 
 feeling of the Protestants of Ulster. The proceedings yesterday were 
 stamped with the features characteristic of that remarkable race. The 
 steady determination, the indomitable will, and the orderly organization 
 which characterize the men of Ulster were everywhere apparent." 
 
 We hear now once more precisely the same sort of reference to 
 the Orangemen's opposition to Home Eule, and it is still sup- 
 posed that it will be taken seriously by England ! 
 
The Orange Bogey. 13 
 
 PAKT II. 
 
 The Orange Party and the Union. 
 
 The Orange party now denounce all attempts even to modify 
 the Act of Union, and, as usual, say they will have civil war 
 rather than have that Act changed in the slightest degree. But 
 in 1869 their attitude in regard to it was altogether different. 
 They announced that the Union would be " virtually repealed" 
 if the Church Bill passed, they threatened to "bury" it, and 
 they threatened England with their vengeance if she dared to 
 touch the Fifth — or, " Church " — Article. 
 
 In proof we again give a series of quotations from the Orange 
 organ, the Daily Express, of Dublin. 
 
 " Virtually Dissolved." 
 
 The following resolution was adopted at the " great Orange 
 meeting" on Tamnamore Hill, Co. Tyrone, on the 7th June, 
 1869, on the motion of the Rev. Henry Henderson, one of the 
 foremost lights of the Orange order : — 
 
 "That, as Mr. Gladstone's Bill violates the solemn compact upon which 
 the Legislative Union between England and Ireland depends, we feel 
 bound to announce that, in case it should pass the House of Lords and 
 become law, we shall consider the Act of Union virtually repealed." 
 
 An Orange meeting at Monaghan, on 6th April, 1869, adopted 
 the following resolution on the motion of Messrs. Nunn and 
 Flanagan : — 
 
 " That we shall continue to uphold the Legislative Union between 
 Great Britain and Ireland so long as the international compact is res- 
 pected and held inviolable by the British ParHament ; but, should the 
 Fifth Article of the Treaty of Union — which is expressed to be essential, 
 fundamental, and perpetual — be repealed, we shall be forced to regard 
 the Union as virtually dissolved." 
 
 On 8th April, 1869, at an Orange meeting at Clones, in the 
 same county, Capt. W. Wolseley Madden, D.G.M., proposed, 
 and got passed, a similar declaration, as follows : — 
 
14 TJte Irish Question : 
 
 " That, while we are, and always have been, distinguished by our un- 
 wavering loyalty to the Crown and government of England, in the face 
 of long-continued and studied neglect and coldness on their part to- 
 wards the Protestants of Ireland, and while we are, and always have 
 been, since its formation, the chief support of the union between Great 
 Britain and Ireland, and desire to remain so as long as the international 
 compact is respected and held inviolable by the British Parliament, we 
 declare that we shaU regard the Union as vh-tuaUy dissolved in the 
 event of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church Bill becoming law." 
 
 At a meeting of the Ulster Protestant Defence Association, 
 held on Wednesday, 31st March, 1869, in the Ulster Hall, Bel- 
 fast, attended by the Marquis of Down shire, the Earl of Ennis- 
 killen, Lord O'Neill, Viscount Cole, Sir Thomas Bateson, and 
 many other Orange notabilities, the following resolution was 
 proposed by John Thompson, Esq., High Sheriflf of the County 
 of Antrim : — 
 
 " That we shall continue to uphold the Legislative Union between 
 Great Britain and Ireland as long as the international compact is res- 
 pected and held inviolable by the British Parliament ; but should the 
 Fifth Article of the Treaty of the Union — which is expressed to be 
 essential, fundamental, and perpetual — be repealed, we shall he forced to 
 regard the Union as virtually dissolved." 
 
 This resolution was seconded by William Johnston, M.P. 
 (Ballykilbeg), and adopted by the meeting. And this is the 
 gentleman who now talks of " lining the ditches of Ulster with 
 rifles " in case a Home Rule measure should be passed. 
 
 A Grand Chaplain Goes for Separation ! 
 
 At an Orange meeting in Dublin (see Express 13th July, 186*9), 
 at which Thomas F. Caldbeck, J.P. G.M., occupied the chair, the 
 Rev. Thomas Wallace, Deputy Grand Chaplain, declared not 
 merely for a dissolution of the Union in a certain contingency, 
 hut for absolute separation. 
 
 " When the Protestant chain that unites Protestant England and Pro- 
 testant Ireland is severed, the two conntries are separated for ever.'''' 
 
The Orange Bogey. 15 
 
 The same rev. gentleman made the following significant decla- 
 ration at a meeting in the Dublin Metropolitan Hall, on 4th 
 June, 1S69 : — 
 
 " He wished them to mark well what he said. He was not speaking 
 hastily or rashly ; but if they were to be charged with disloyalty, thej' 
 would tell England, as he believed that meeting did, that if such a time 
 should ever come as 1848, and if England looked to the Protestants for 
 hearty sympathy with the Union, they would fold their arms : they would 
 sa}'. ' The Union was dissolved when that Bill was signed by the Sove- 
 reign.' " 
 
 " The Iron Hoof of England." 
 
 The Rev. John Flanagan, of course, who wanted to kick the 
 Queen's crown into the Boyne, was not behind the times on this 
 topic. In a speech at Ballybay, on the 2nd June, 1869, in which 
 he referred to the Prime Minister as " Judas Iscariot Glad- 
 stone," he thus dealt with the question of the Union : — 
 
 *' They must have the Act [of Union] in its entirety or not at all ; and 
 he would contend that the minute the obnoxious Bill received the sign 
 manual of the Queen, the solemn compact was repealed, it was broken, 
 and therefore, in all equity void. They would reject the iron hoof of 
 England, and get rid of the Papacy at the same time — driving two ser- 
 pents out of the island at once." 
 
 A. H. Foster, D.G.M., pronounced the doom of the Union as 
 follows : — 
 
 " If Mr. Gladstone destroyed the Act of Union by passing this Bill, 
 they would give the Union an Irish wake and a Protestant burial." 
 
 " Positive and Substantive " Proposals. 
 
 Some of the Orange leaders did not confine themselves to 
 mere contingent threats ; they made proposals for a determined 
 agitation against the Union, when they found that the threats 
 of "civil war" and of "nobly dying" (Falkiuer-fai^hiou) were 
 producing no efi'ect on the incredulous mind of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 A Proposed Change in the Orange Eules. 
 
 A very pronounced and indeed " advanced " declaration was 
 that made at Newbliss, Co. Monaglian, on the 30th June, 1870 
 (see the Irish daily papers of the time), " one thousand bona fide 
 members " of the Orange Institution being amongst others 
 present : — 
 
 " That we, the Orangemen of the district of Dartrey, Co. Monaghan, 
 denounce the despotic Processions Act of Mr. Chichester Fortescue as 
 intolerable, inconsistent with the rights of freemen, and one to which we 
 shall never submit, and that this, added to other innumerable acts of 
 injustice and wrong towards Ireland, forces upon us the conviction that 
 England can no longer be permitted to legislate for this country. And 
 we hereby proclaim our resolve that Irishmen shall not be slaves in their 
 own land, and we call upon all classes of our countrymen to assist us by 
 every legal means to assert our freedom. We also respectfully press 
 upon the authorities of the Orange institution in the Grand Lodge of 
 Ireland, the necessity of restoring our book of rules and regulations to 
 what it was before 1849, and keeping its original and fundamental 
 objects in view." 
 
 It should be here explained that in 1849 the Orange Society 
 pledged itself to maintain the English connection j and it will be 
 seen further on that the Grand Lodge had before it, a year later, 
 a proposal carrying out the suggestion in the last sentence of the 
 foregoing resolution, and that this proposal met with a favourable 
 reception. 
 
 An Orange " United Irishman." 
 Grand Master A. H. Foster of Donegal, wrote as follows to 
 the Daily Express of 7th April, 1869 : — 
 
 "Let there be a committee at once formed to prepare for this 
 crisis, and in the first place to obtain signatures to a petition to our 
 gracious sovereign Victoria, Queen of Ireland (united or disunited) — 
 a petition as of right, that our Queen will, without delay, summon a 
 parliament for Ireland. This petition should be ready, but, of course, 
 not presented till the Act of Disunion is consummated. 
 We shaU now see who are sincere and who are they who have been for 
 
The Orange Bogey, 17 
 
 years deluding their countrymen for private purposes ; and history may 
 yet record that the Council of the United Irishmen of 1869 inaugurated 
 a new era of prosperity for Ireland." 
 
 " What Have we to Fear ? " 
 
 Some of the " loyal minority " began, too, to argue the matter 
 as if they were really in earnest, and to ask themselves what 
 after all did they gain by the Union, and what would they lose 
 by its dissolution. Take the following letter in the Daily Express 
 of 14th May, 1869, from C. Downing, J.P., Co. Mayo :— 
 
 " The people really do desire a repeal of the Union, whatever they 
 may care for the Church. Protestant landlords hold seven-eighths of 
 the Irish soil ; let them individually and simultaneously call together 
 their tenantry, address them on the subject of a Repeal of the Union, 
 and put the question to the vote. The nature of the reply it is easy to 
 anticipate. This will set the agitation agoing. Say, what do we gain 
 by the Union ? Why, a more than proportionate share of the burden of 
 taxation, without the slightest advantage of expenditure in return. The 
 Church question gone, what have we to fear in a Repeal of the Union ? 
 In legislating for ourselves the common weal will become the common 
 aim. Let the timid face the subject boldly, examine it on all sides, and 
 then fears will vanish. Let us clamour for Repeal. Let but some 
 prominent man take the initiative, and, my word for it, there will be a 
 merry gathering of foresters to lay the axe to the true upas tree, English 
 ascendancy, beneath whose baneful shade this country is, as she ever has 
 been, blighted." 
 
 Catholics not the only Nationalists. 
 
 The Daily Express began to point out, even before Mr. 
 Downing wrote, that Irish Catholics had not been the only Irish 
 Nationalists in the past, and might not be the only Nationalists 
 in the future. In its issue of 20th February, 1869, it wrote: — 
 
 "The assumption is perfectly unfounded that the Protestants of Ire- 
 land maj'' be treated by the Imperial Legislature in any way they please, 
 without danger of alienating their affection from the English connection. 
 The Irish NationaHst party has not always been Roman Catholic. To 
 say nothing of Swift and Molyneux, who have some claim to the title of 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 Nationalists, what of the'Volunteers of 1782 1 The leaders in 1798 were 
 many of them Protestants. The Protestants of Ireland are attached to 
 England, not as their fatherland, but as the great champion of the 
 Reformed faith, by whom they are protected in the exercise of their 
 religion, the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and the possession 
 of their just rights and ancient property. But if England breaks faith 
 with the Protestants of Ireland, if she deprives the descendants of the 
 colonises of Ulster of the provision for their religious wants, on the 
 assurance of which their ancestors were induced to settle in the country, 
 she will sever the tie by which the most loyal and devoted subjects of 
 the Crown are united in sympathy with Protestant England." 
 
 As it actually happened, many Orangemen were amongst the 
 original members of the Home Rule Association founded in 1870 
 by Mr. Isaac Butt, and in the Dublin Evening Mail (Orange 
 newspaper) of the 10th February, 1871, we find a statement to 
 the effect that at a meeting of the Grand Orange Lodge in 
 Dublin, Brother Edward Waller, D.G.M. of Ireland, in the 
 chair, the following resolution was put to the vote, and had 22 
 supporters against 18 opponents : — 
 
 "Resolved — That all statements and provisions in the objects, rules, 
 and formularies of the Orange institution, which impose any obligation 
 upon its members to maintain the Legislative Union between Great 
 Britain and Ireland, be expunged therefrom." 
 
 It should be added that this resolution was preceded by a 
 rider proposed by the Rev. Mr. Potter, reciting that by the 
 passing of the Church Act the Union had been "o?e facto 
 repealed." 
 
 The foregoing are only a few of a multitude of similar declara- 
 tions, resolutions, and letters, published in 1869. 
 
 It is unnecessary here to mention that before the Union was 
 accomplished, the Orange party took a leading part in opposing 
 the project; almost every Orange Lodge in Ireland declared it 
 to be utterly destructive of the rights, liberties, and prosperity 
 of Ireland. Even after 1800, but before Catholic Emancipation 
 was enacted, declarations that the Union had been a disastrous 
 measure came from the Orange camp. 
 
The Orange Bogey. 19 
 
 A Dilemma. 
 
 Those Orange anti-Union proceedings put the Orange party 
 into a i^rettj dilemma. 
 
 Either the Orangemen in 1869 were sincere in their anti- 
 Union crusade, or they were not. 
 
 If they were sincere, it is clear that they do not in their hearts 
 believe Home Kule to be the terribly treasonable and destructive 
 thing the}^ now picture it to be, and that their present denuncia- 
 tions of all who support it are unfounded and ridiculous. 
 
 If they were not sincere, their anti-Union pronouncements 
 simply afford another illustration of their boundless capacity 
 for " bounce," and of the folly of regarding any of their threats 
 as in any degree serious. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Orang^e Principles. 
 
 The Orange party'are never tired boasting of their loyalty ; 
 but they have always said at the same time, and they say now, 
 that their loyalty is conditional ; and from the foregoing narra- 
 tive it will be seen that they think themselves quite free to rise 
 in insurrection whenever Parliament passes a law for Ireland 
 which they do not like. They have even threatened England, 
 in such contingencies, with their mortal hatred. 
 
 They say they desire to inflict no injustice on their Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen ; but they have at the same time said repeat- 
 edly that what they want is " Protestant ascendancy," and it is 
 a hateful ascendancy— hateful to liberty-loving Protestants as 
 well as to Catholics — which they wish to preserve when they 
 oppose Home Rule, 
 
 Their princiijles may be beautiful in theory ; but they have 
 not prevented them from opposing every reform of the present 
 century. 
 
20 The Irish Question : 
 
 Orange Loyalty. 
 
 To illustrate the depth of the affection which the Orange 
 party say they always have for England and its laws, we give 
 the following extract from a letter signed " An Irishman/' who 
 was also evidently an Orangeman, in the congenial Daily 
 Express of 19 th March, 1869 :— 
 
 " My counsel then is that the Protestants of Ireland should at once, 
 and with no uncertain sound, declare that, in the event of their being 
 treated with such base ingratitude and gross injustice for the purpose of 
 gratifying a band of ultramontane ecclesiastics, who have conspired 
 against the civil and religious liberty of Irishmen, they will henceforth 
 regard Great Britain with feelings very different from those which they 
 have hitherto entertained. I myself know Pi'otestants who, in the event 
 of Mr. Gladstone' s policy becoming law, will not only cherish in their own 
 breasts, but will also instil into the hea?'ts of their children, the deepest 
 hatred towards those who will have tj'eated them with such perfidy. In- 
 deed, it requires no prophet to foresee the terrible retribution that is in 
 store for Great Britain, if she be insane enough to sanction the abomin- 
 able policy of Mr. Gladstone." 
 
 Other Orange writers at the same time, like the Eev. W. 
 Eichards Vowell, D.D., of Clondulty, Cashel (see Daily Express 
 of 10th March, 1869), declared that the party had been " too 
 loyal," and that " as a virtue became a vice by its excess, so 
 loyalty might degenerate into an apathetic and cringing ser- 
 vility." 
 
 It is now a matter of history that the Orangemen entered into 
 a conspiracy to set the Duke of Cumberland on the throne instead 
 of Queen Victoria. 
 
 What the Orangemen Want. 
 
 An address of the Orange Corporation of Dublin, of the 11th 
 September, 1792, contains the most explicit declaration of 
 Orange principles the present writer has met with, and it is 
 there specified that the "Protestant Ascendancy" which the 
 party had " resolved with their lives and fortunes to maintain," 
 
The Orange Bogey. 21 
 
 consisted in "a Protestant King of Ireland, a Protestant Par- 
 liament, a Protestant hierarchy, Protestant electors and Govern- 
 ment, the benches of justice, the army and the revenue, through 
 all their branches and details, Protestant." But as this may be 
 thought " ancient history," let us come down to what was de- 
 manded by some of the most trusted of the Orange leaders in 
 1869. 
 
 At a meeting at Saintfield, County Down, on 12th July, 1869, 
 William Beers, Grand Master of Down, in the chair, the Kev. 
 Henry Henderson, of Holy wood, made the following declaration, 
 according to the Express report, amid tremendous applause and 
 innumerable rounds of " Kentish fire " : — 
 
 '' It was not the Fenians they were afi-aid of, but that policy to which 
 he had just referred, and which was driving the people of Ulster into 
 civil war. It was right they should tell their English brethren the 
 truth. It was right that they should tell them that as long as there was 
 Protestantism in the land and a Protestant Sovereign occupying the 
 throne, so long must there be Protestant ascendancy ; and they were 
 determined never to surrender that Protestantism or be false to it." 
 
 The Eev. Henry Burdett, chairman of an Orange meeting at 
 Newbliss, County Monaghan, held on the 21st March, 1869, was 
 even more explicit. We take the following extract from the 
 Northern Whig report of his speech on that occasion : — 
 
 " We see people telling us that we should not be aspiring to ascend- 
 ancy. Now I, as long as ever the Lord shall leave me breath, will 
 never be content with anything but Protestant ascendancy. I think it 
 is 'time to stand upon the watch tower and cry ' No surrender.' I be- 
 lieve in my heart and soul that the Poman Catholics of this country are 
 in'a most deplorable state of idolatry. I believe a Roman Catholic 
 dying as such, is lost, and lost for ever. People in these days are afraid 
 to speak the truth, and try to stop the mouths of those that would, and 
 particularly of such brethren as Mr. Johnston, of Ballykilbeg." 
 
 And what the Orange party really fear at the present day is not 
 that they will be injured by Home Eule, but that they will lose 
 the ascendancy they still possess (on the magisterial bench, for 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 instance), and of which it is erroneously supposed that Catholic 
 Emancipation deprived them. 
 
 This ascendancy they take every opportunity of preserving. 
 During the six months the late Tory Government held office, the 
 already glaring disproportion between the number of Catholic 
 and Protestant magistrates in Ireland was aggravated beyond 
 all example. According to a parliamentary return obtained by 
 Mr. J. F. X. O'Brien, M.P., a few months ago, in Dublin 
 County — to take one instance out of thirty-two — thirty magis- 
 trates were appointed in the period mentioned, and about 
 twenty of them are Protestants, and, we believe, Tories. Before 
 this addition to the County Dublin bench, there were, roughly 
 speaking, about two hundred Protestant magistrates to one 
 hundred Catholics ; yet not only is the overwhelming majority 
 of the population of the metropolitan county Catholic, but there 
 is in that part of Ireland an unusually large number of well-to-do 
 Catholics who are thoroughly fitted to be magistrates. 
 
 Opposed to Every Reform. 
 
 We have seen how the Orange party opposed Catholic Eman- 
 cipation, the reduction of the Protestant Church Establishment, 
 municipal reform, and the Disestablishment of the Church, pre- 
 dicting, as they did, from each one of those reforms "red ruin 
 and the breaking up of laws." Some of them also opposed the 
 Ballot Bill as "a Popish Bill." We find in Saunderi News 
 Letter of 5th June, 1871, the following resolution passed at a 
 meeting of the Orange Lodges in Lurgan : — 
 
 " That it is now well known that efforts are being made to introduce 
 as the law of this land a system of secret voting (called the ballot), and 
 feeling convinced that such would only tend to advance the interests of 
 Eomanism, and at the same time to injure the cause of our common 
 Protestantism, we, the members in lodge assembled, deem it our duty to 
 enter our solemn protest against the measure, and our determination not 
 to support by any means in our power the parliamentary candidate who 
 may declare himself on the side of this Popish Bill, as we are sorry to 
 say that Brother Johnston of Ballykilbeg has already done." 
 
The Orange Bogey. 23 
 
 But the most surprising fact, jDerbapa, in the history of 
 Orangeism is that the Orangemen opposed even Father Mathew's 
 temperance movement in 1841, with language as violent as they 
 are now employing against Mr. Gladstone's Bill. We quote from 
 O'Keeffe's Life of O'Connell :— 
 
 '• The Protestant Magazine for June, 1841, complacently quotes from 
 the congenial Times the following awful passage : — ' We cannot but 
 suspect that this temperance movement is substantially a sort of Trojan 
 horse, within whose ribs there lurks an overwhelming phalanx, which 
 some of these nights will sally on the sleeping sentinels of Ireland and 
 make it an easy prey." 
 
 The same writer states that the following manifesto was 
 published extensively by the Cootehill Orangemen, exhorting 
 the Protestants to oppose the entrance of Father Mathew into 
 their district : — 
 
 " Insulted Protestants, will ye — can ye bear it any longer ? Has the 
 spirit of your fathers and immortal William died within you ? Arouse, 
 be steady and courageous. Let not the religion of your fathers be 
 trampled on by idolaters. Let the spirit of William that whispers to 
 you at this moment animate your hearts and souls, and let not the anti- 
 Christian apostle depart from Cootehill in boasted triumph : — 
 
 ' Arise, I say ; arise, my boys, and raise your standard high ; 
 The man that will not join you now, treat as an enemy. 
 Fear not O'Connell, Mathew — devil — but let your motto be, 
 ' To put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry. ' 
 
 Remember Gideon's chosen few ; 
 
 The arm that guarded them, guards you.' " 
 
 At Loughgall the Orange farmers entered into a resolution not 
 to employ any labourer who would take the temperance pledge — 
 in modern phrase, to " boycott " any man who would become a 
 teetotaller ! 
 
 The Opposition to the New Franchise. 
 
 It is unnecessary to say that the Orangemen opposed, in the 
 most violent manner, the recent extension of the suffrage in 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 Ireland ; but it may not be useless to point out that most, if not 
 all of the districts in which, in the course of their agitation, they 
 held " counter-demonstrations to repel the JVationalist invasion of 
 Loyal Ulster^'' fell at the elections in Novemher, 1885, into the 
 hands of the National Party hy enormous majorities. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 The Orange Pretences. 
 
 (1) The Orange minority pretend that they are determined to 
 have " civil war " rather than quietly submit to an Irish Parlia- 
 ment in which they would be amply represented. 
 
 The foregoing narrative shows that they have so often made a 
 similar pretence in the past, without even so much as firing a 
 shot afterwards, except in a riot or on the occasion of some 
 Orange celebration, that, apart from the physical impossibility of 
 their maintaining a war for even a single day, the Irish people 
 and the peoples of England and Scotland cannot but regard the 
 " civil war " threatened by them now as a manifest bogey. 
 
 As a matter of fact, no sane man in Ireland believes the 
 Orangemen to be in earnest in their threat of civil war. On 
 the contrary, that threat is the subject of general laughter. 
 
 Even some of the Orange leaders are themselves beginning to 
 see the absurdity of the threat. The following is an extract 
 from a letter by Colonel Waring, M.P. for one of the divisions 
 of Down, in the Belfast News-Letter of 20th May of this year : — 
 
 ' '■ The great difficulty we experience is to persuade Englishmen that 
 we are in bitter earnest, and all sensational announcements militate 
 against our success in this respect. This matter is much too serious to 
 be passed over in silence by those whose whole energies are being de- 
 voted to our great cause. I have, as you know, always held that we 
 might be driven to preserve our birthright by force of arms, and have 
 frequently declared my readiness to do my best in such case ; but our 
 
The Orange Bogey. 25 
 
 motto is 'Defence, not Defiance,' and when I see that the plan of cam- 
 paign indicated for the Ulster forces is one which it would tax severely 
 the whole strength of the British Empire to carry out, I can feel no 
 surprise that its announcement calls up a smile of derision on the lips of 
 our enemies, and a blush of confusion to the cheek of sober and sensible 
 friends." 
 
 (2) The Orangemen pretend that they are the very incarnation 
 of loyalty, and they are always talking of their loyalty as con- 
 stantly as of their "forefathers." 
 
 The foregoing narrative supplies a clear proof that they are 
 loyal only while the British Parliament and Government act as 
 they wish in every particular, and that as often as Parliament 
 has passed Acts — such as the Emancipation Act, the Municipal 
 Reform Act, and the Disestablishment Act — which are now uni- 
 versally admitted to have been measures of the simplest justice 
 to Ireland, but to which they strongly objected — they have 
 threatened to " kick the Crown into the Boyne," and to " shed 
 their blood to the last drop " in defence of what they called their 
 rights ; and for similar reasons and in similar terms they have 
 attempted to intimidate the House of Commons and threatened 
 England with their vengeance. A curious way of manifesting 
 loyalty ! 
 
 (3) They pretend that they have all the Protestants of Ireland 
 on their side. As a matter of fact, no persons are more ashamed 
 of or more disgusted with the empty bragging of the Orange- 
 men and their continual efforts to identify Protestantism with 
 their peculiar political creed, than a large number of the Pro- 
 testants of Ireland, including many who oppose the establish- 
 ment of an Irish Parliament. These latter will, like all good 
 citizens, submit to an Irish Parliament when it is established, 
 though they oppose Home Eule at present by constitutional 
 means ; while there is still another section of Irish Protestants 
 who are now, and always have been, in favour of a Parliament 
 for Ireland. This last-mentioned fact is evidenced, amono^st other 
 things, by the formation of a " Protestant Home Ride Association " 
 in Belfast itself, since the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Bill. 
 
26 The Irish Question : 
 
 In this connection it may be mentioned also, that on the occa- 
 sion of the visit just paid by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to 
 Kenmare, County of Kerry, he was presented by the Protestant 
 Rector of the parish and thirty or forty of his leading parishion- 
 ers with an address, in which strong approval was expressed 
 of the Home Eule measure of Mr. Gladstone's Government. 
 
 (4) The " Orange minority" pretend they have held Ireland 
 for England. 
 
 The fact is just the other way. England has held Ireland for 
 them. England has had to support and maintain them at heavy 
 cost. They have kept her in continual trouble by keeping the 
 Irish people on the verge of insurrection. They took care to ren- 
 der peace and contentment in Ireland impossible. They have 
 prevented the growth of loyalty among the Irish people, and 
 done all in their power to make the emblems, the anthems, and 
 the very name of England hateful to the Irish people. 
 
 (5) The Orange party pretend that they are able by reason of 
 their "superior intelligence," "wealth," "education," "courage," 
 " bravery," etc., to dominate, and, if need be, to conquer all 
 Ireland. 
 
 There is no foundation whatever for this pretence, as may be 
 seen by reference to Tract " Ulster" of this series. A very liberal 
 calculation would show that they number no more than sixty 
 thousand, all told, out of five millions, and there are only too 
 many proofs that they have neither sujDerior intelligence, nor 
 superior wealth, nor superior courage, nor superior bravery. 
 
 The comparative smallness of their numbers was strikingly 
 shown in the agitation against the new Franchise Act in Ulster, 
 when their " counter-demonstrations," or demonstrations in 
 opposition to the Nationalist meetings, were made by persons 
 mainly brought together by the railways from a few Ulster 
 towns, " all expenses paid." Thus Giffin, the Orangeman, 
 who was stabbed by the police in the riotous proceedings at 
 Dromore, in the County Tyrone, was imported for the day from 
 Portadown, in the County of Armagh. The Orange meetings 
 
The Orange Bogey. 27 
 
 in fact, in many j)laces in Ulster, consisted of " the same stock 
 company '' carried about from " counter-demonstration " to 
 " counter-demonstration," as occasion required. 
 
 A similar difficulty was experienced in 1869, in organising the 
 Anti-Disestablishment meetings ; and one of the expedients 
 resorted to then for the purpose of drawing crowds together, may 
 be gathered from the following intimation in a placard con- 
 vening a great Protestant meeting in Enniskillen, in July, 1868 : 
 " The expenses of those who attend the meeting loill he allowed to 
 them on their next payment of rent ^ 
 
 Moreover, they contradict themselves ; for when they are 
 whining for protection, instead of bragging of their power, they 
 represent themselves as a poor, helpless, shivering, miserable lot, 
 who will inevitably be hunted, persecuted, plundered, and 
 slaughtered, if an Irish Parliament be set up in Dublin. But 
 this description of themselves is also exaggerated. 
 
 (6) The Orange party pretend that Irish Protestants would be 
 persecuted under an Irish Parliament. 
 
 Such predictions are easily made, and there is no stopping 
 them, for, as Grattan said : " You cannot argue with a prophet; 
 you can only disbelieve him," 
 
 In scarcely any part of the world is there any such religious 
 strife and persecution going on as the " loyal minority " pretend 
 to believe would take place Ireland under Home Rule. That 
 sort of thing in this age of the world is impossible, and in Ireland 
 of all places it could not be attempted, for the Irish Catholics, 
 who constitute the overwhelming majority of the people, are the 
 most tolerant and freest from bigotry in the whole world — in 
 spite of the fact that the Orange minority practice, wherever 
 they have power, illiberality of the grossest description. 
 
®ftt ^xU\\ (^\mim\. 
 
 The Following Publications are supplied by the 
 Irish Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, 1\LP 
 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 The Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 
 Price One Penny eacli. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms, 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 ^^ Other Tracts in preimration. 
 
Ho. 3. 
 
 c Irislj #mstbiT. 
 
 THE CHICAGO CONVENTION: 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. EEDMOND, M.P. 
 
 londo:n" : 
 
 THE IRISH TRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 Price One Penny. 
 
E. D. "Webb and Son, Printers, 
 74 Abbej-strejt, Dublin. 
 
THE CHICAGO CONVENTION. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 "What the Convention Did. 
 
 The Convention of the Irish race in America, which assembled 
 in Chicago on the 18th August, 1886, has attracted so much 
 attention in England, and has been the subject of so much mis- 
 representation by the enemies of Ireland, that it is desirable 
 tliat its character, spirit, and work, should be clearly made 
 known to the public. 
 
 We will first state what the Convention really did, and then 
 what it did not do. 
 
 Number of Delegates. 
 
 The total number of delegates who assembled was 972 — 
 almost every State and Territory in the American Union being 
 represented; and an evidence of the growth of the movement 
 was supplied by the presence, in addition, of a delegation from 
 each of the provinces of Canada. 
 
 The following is the official list of delegates : — 
 
 Alabama, 
 
 3 
 
 Tennessee, 
 
 .. 23 
 
 Calif urnia, 
 
 ... 11 
 
 Hhode Island, 
 
 8 
 
 Colorado, 
 
 2 
 
 Wisconsin, 
 
 .. 58 
 
 Connecticut, 
 
 ... 11 
 
 Kansas, 
 
 2 
 
 Delaware, 
 
 4 
 
 Illinois, 
 
 .. 78 
 
 Georgia, 
 
 ... 10 
 
 Nebraska, 
 
 .. 11 
 
 Indiana, 
 
 22 
 
 New Jersey, 
 
 .. 25 
 
 Kentucky, 
 
 ... 14 
 
 Pennsylvania, 
 
 .. 114 
 
 Ohio, 
 
 ... 18 
 
 Iowa, 
 
 .. 66 
 
 Maryland, 
 
 ... 17 
 
 Ontario, 
 
 .. 17 
 
 District of Columbia, 
 
 ... 13 
 
 Quebec, 
 
 7 
 
 New Hampshire, 
 
 1 
 
 Louisiana, 
 
 75 
 
 Montana Territory',... 
 
 6 
 
 Texas, 
 
 9 
 
 Vermont, 
 
 1 
 
 Virginia, 
 
 1 
 
 Florida, 
 
 1 
 
 Massachusetts, 
 
 .. 48 
 
 New York, 
 
 ... 160 
 
 Missouri, 
 
 .. 27 
 
 ^lichigan. 
 
 ... 69 
 
 
 
 Minnesota, 
 
 ... 12 
 
 Total, 
 
 972 
 
4 The Trisli Question : 
 
 ISTo man who knows anything of the facts will venture to deny 
 that this was a representation of the overwhelming majority of 
 the Irish people in North America. Many of the branches 
 represented numbered thousands of enrolled members. 
 
 The Committees and Eesolutions. 
 
 Committees, consisting of one representative chosen by each 
 state delegation, were appointed to deal with : — (1) Resolutions ; 
 (2) Permanent Organization ; (3) Finance ; and (4) Constitution. 
 
 The Irish delegates, namely, Mr. Michael Davitt, Mr. Wm. 
 O'Brien, Mr. J. E. Eedmond, M.P., and Mr. John Deasy, M.P., 
 were elected as honorary members of " the Committee on Eeso- 
 lutions ; " but they took no part ^Yhatever in framing the 
 resolutions adopted. 
 
 The resolutions recommended to the Convention by this 
 Committee were adopted unanimously, and are as follows : — 
 
 "We, the delegates of the Irish National League of America, in 
 convention assembled, firmly believing in the principles of human 
 freedom, and in the right of a people to frame their own laws — a right 
 which lies at the foundation of the prosperity and greatness of this 
 Ivepublic, and which has been adcantageousJy extended to the colonial 
 possessions of Great Britain — do hereby resolve : — 
 
 *' 1. That we express our heartiest and most unqualified approval of 
 national self-government for Ireland. 
 
 " 2. That we heartily approve of the course pursued by Charles 
 Stewart Parnell and his Parliamentary associates in the English House 
 of Commons ; and we renew the expression of entire confidence in 
 their wisdom, and in their abiUty to achieve Home Rule in Ireland. 
 
 " 3. That we extend our heartfelt thanks to Mr. Gladstone for his 
 great efforts in behalf of Irish self-government, and we express our 
 gratitude to the English, Scotch, and Welsh democracy, for the support 
 given to the great Liberal Leader and his Irish policy, during the recent 
 general elections. 
 
 " 4. That this Convention hereby returns its thanks to the American 
 people and press, for the generous support which they have given to the 
 cause of self-government in Ireland. 
 
 " 5. That we record our sense of the remarkable forbearance and self- 
 restraint exercised by our people in Ireland, in the face of the cruel and 
 
The Chicago Convention. 5 
 
 dishonest system of extortion to which they are being subjected by rack- 
 renting landlords ; and in view of the licence scandalously extended to 
 organized lawlessness in the North of Ireland by partisan officials ; and 
 we commend the laudable desire of tha people of Ireland to manage 
 their own afiiiirs in their own way. 
 
 "6. That we hereby thank the President, Treasurer, and Secretary 
 of the Irish National League, for the faithful and efficient manner in 
 which they have discharged the arduous duties of their respective 
 situations. 
 
 " 7. That the following cablegram be forwarded, in the name of the 
 Chairman of the Convention, to tho Hon. Charles Stewart Parnell : — 
 
 " ' Delegates to the Irish National League Convention of America 
 send greeting from our body, which embraces representative citizens 
 from every State and Territory in the Union, and also from Canada, 
 and assure you of a cordial endorsement of your policy by a united and 
 harmonious Convention. ' " 
 
 The significance of tliose declarations, which, indeed, is self- 
 evident, we shall point out further on. 
 
 The Balance Sheet. 
 
 The Eev. Dr. O'Reilly, of Detroit, Michigan, the Honorary 
 Treasurer of the Irish National League of America, then sub- 
 mitted his balance sheet, which was passed and adopted, and 
 which w-as as follows : — 
 
 Parliamentary Fund. 
 
 Cash on hand reported to Boston Convention, ... ... $4,739 
 
 Cash received at Boston Convention, ... ... ... 1,111 
 
 Interest on deposit, ... ... ... ... 175 
 
 Receipts from all other sources, ... ... ... 314,257 
 
 Total, ' $320,282 
 
 Transmitted to C. S. Parnell and Trustees of the Parliamen- 
 tary Fund, ... ... ... ... ... 314,452 
 
 Balance on hand, ... ... .o. ... ... §5,830 
 
 B 
 
The Irish Question : 
 
 League Fund. 
 
 Cash on hand reported at Boston Convention, ... ,,. S^>731 
 
 Cash received at Boston Convention, ... ... ... 3,562 
 
 Cash guaranteed at Boston Convention, ... ... 200 
 
 "Received from Branches, ... ... ... ... 21,741 
 
 R,3ceived from donations, ... ... ... ... 904 
 
 Rjceived from Patrick Egan (salary returned}, ... ... 3,000 
 
 Total, ... ... ... ... ... §34,138 
 
 Transmitted to Mr. William O'Brien, Ireland, ... ... 4,847 
 
 Guarantee unpaid, ... ... ... ... ... 200 
 
 Expense Treasurer's office (two years), ... ... ... 1,527 
 
 Expense Secretary's office (two years), ... ... ... 2,897 
 
 General expenses, ... ... .. ... ... 3,752 
 
 Expense of two organizers, ... .. ... ,.. 1,859 
 
 Piitrick Egan, one j-ear's salary ... ... ... 3,000 
 
 Total, ... ... ... ... ... ^18,082 
 
 Balance on hand, ... ... ,.. ... ... §16,056 
 
 Those figures ako tell their own tale. They show that the 
 sympathy of the Irish in America with the political and social 
 movement of the Irish people in Ireland, is no mere lip-sympa- 
 thy, but is a deep and abiding sentiment, which finds expression 
 in a form which even the most sceptical cannot ridicule. 
 
 Election of Officers. 
 
 The election of officers for the coming year was next proceeded 
 with ; and Mr. John Fitzgerald, of Liucoln, Nebraska, was chosen 
 President ; the Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, Detroit, Michigan, Treasurer ; 
 and Mr. John P. Sutton, Secretary. 
 
 The Chicago Tribune, one of the leading American (not Irish- 
 American) journals of the United States, thus describes the new 
 President of the League in America : — 
 
 ■" Mr. John Fitzgerald, the new President, was born near Glin, a 
 romantic little town, famous in the days of the Desmonds, in the western 
 part of Limerick County, Ireland, about fifty-five years ago, and came to 
 
The Chicago Contention. 7 
 
 America fifteen or sixteen years later. He sought in Wisconsin and 
 Minnesota for the land where manly toil surely reaps the crop it sows, 
 and, without unnecessary delay, set himself to the hard work which usu- 
 ally falls to the hands of the unfriended immigrant. He was a lad of 
 energy and push. Railroad building was the principal occupation of the 
 newly arrived Irishman. He laid ties and rails at the current daily 
 wages for a few months, advanced to the position of foreman before he 
 was out of his teens, and was a contractor for building railroads when 
 he had attained his majority. His success was remarkable. He built a 
 large portion of the North -Western Koad and its branches, and later laid 
 many miles of track and ties of the Union Pacific. At this time he 
 resided in Wisconsin. As the Pacific Road advanced westward, he 
 moved to Nebraska, where he began to experiment as a farmer and cattle 
 raiser with profit and advantage. He continued in his business as con- 
 tractor, however, and growing rich of course, became a banker. He is 
 now president of the First National Bank of Lincoln, also president of 
 a bank at Plattsmouth. He owns several extensive farms at Minnesota, 
 Nebraska, and Colorado, and three or four herds of fancy cattle, and has 
 a couple of well-stocked ranches besides. He is reputed to be worth 
 r>, 000,000 dollars — the rev^'ard of close attention to business, and careful 
 industry. In politics he is a Democrat of the old school, and was a 
 delegate-at-large from his State to the Democratic National Convention 
 two years ago. He has been connected wdth all the Irish patriotic 
 movements in this country since he attained to manhood. He is an 
 ardent disciple of Father Mathew." 
 
 In a word, Mr. Fitzgerald is a specimen of the highest type of 
 American citizen — a man who is a credit equally to the land of 
 his birth and to that of his adoption. His latest act as Presi- 
 dent, has been to subscribe out of his own private purse the sum 
 of three thousand dollars to the Evicted Tenants' Eelief Fund. 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 What the Convention Did Not Do. 
 
 As soon as the enemies of the Irish cause found that the Con- 
 vention had signally disappointed their sinister predictions of 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 internal dissensions, they sedulously set to work to misrepresent 
 what it actually did, and to distort and garble what the Irish 
 delegates and others said in their speeches. The accusations 
 against the Convention which have appeared — some of them in 
 the London newspapers, some of them in the speeches of Mr. 
 Chamberlain and Lord Hartington in the last session of parlia- 
 ment — may fairly be stated as follows : — 
 
 1. That the Convention did not thoroughly endorse Mr. Par- 
 
 nell's action and accept Mr. Gladstone's Bill. 
 
 2. That " a strike against rent " was proclaimed at the Con- 
 
 vention ; and 
 
 3. That it urged the adoption of a more advanced policy 
 
 generally on the Irish party. 
 These statements we shall deal with separately. 
 
 Did the Convention Decline to Accept Mr. Gladstone's 
 
 Bill? 
 
 The answer to this question is supplied by the resolutions 
 already quoted. The Convention, in the preamble to the resolu- 
 tion, defined beyond all possibility of doubt the kind of settlement 
 of the Irish question which they would accept. They say : — "We, 
 the delegates of the Irish National League of America, in Conven- 
 tion assembled, firmly believing in the principles of human free- 
 dom, and in the right of a peojple to frame their own laws, a right 
 which lies at the foundation of the prosperity and greatness of 
 this Republic, and which has heeii advantageously extended to the 
 colofiial possessions of Great Britain, do hereby resolve," etc. 
 
 So that, so far from making a claim for separation, the Con- 
 vention distinctly asked for Ireland only such a right of "framing 
 her own laws" as has been "advantageously extended to the 
 Colonial possessions of Great Britain." 
 
 The Convention then proceeded to " heartily approve of the 
 course pursued by Charles Stewart Parnell and his parliamentary 
 associates in the English House of Commons." That course, as 
 all the world knows, included the acceptance by the Irish Par- 
 
The Chicago Convention. 9 
 
 liamentaiy Party and its chief, in the name of the Irish race 
 throughout the world, of Mr. Gladstone's Bill, as a final settle- 
 ment of the Irish question. 
 
 As if to make its position still more clear, the Convention 
 next proceeded to express its "heartfelt thanks to Mr. Gladstone, 
 for his great efforts on behalf of Irish self-government," and to 
 express their " gratitude to the English, Scotch, and Welsh 
 democracies, for the support given to the great Liberal leader 
 and his Irish policy during the recent general elections." 
 
 So far as the resolutions go, it is therefore clear that the 
 Convention endorsed the attitude towards Mr. Gladstone's hill, 
 which the Irish Parliamentary Party from the first maintained. 
 When we consider the feeling of bitter hatred to English rule 
 which the Irish in America have ever entertained, this fact con- 
 stitutes the most remarkable proof that has yet been given of the 
 wonderful change in the fet^lings of Irishmen in general wrought 
 by Mr. Gladstone's generous and noble policy. 
 
 Judge Fitzgerald, of Cincinnati, ex-Speaker of the Ohio Par- 
 liament, who was Chairman of the Convention, spoke as 
 follows : — 
 
 " We hate England, because she has hated, and robbed, and plundered 
 our nation and our people (applause). And when the day of hate ceases, 
 there are no people on earth whose hearts are more ready to forgive than 
 Irish hearts (applause). When they give us even a stinted measure of 
 rights for our people, then and not till then shall we cease hating the 
 tyrants (cheers). Look at the generous hearts of our people throughout 
 the land, in their expressions of gratitude to the greatest, noblest living 
 English statesman (applause). The people of our land — the American 
 citizens — thank him and those behind him (cheers). To the people of 
 Scotland and Wales, who came up nobly in that last election, and said 
 that the Irish people were entitled to the God-given right of fixing their 
 own domestic affairs and legislating on matters purely personal to them — 
 to them everywhere millions of hearts should go out in thankful remem- 
 brance (applause). And to the democracy of England, who are willing, 
 even at this late day, to give our people a stinted measure of justice, we 
 all extend our heartfelt thanks " (applause). 
 
 This, assuredly, was the language of a frank and honest man. 
 
10 The Irish Question : 
 
 Mr. "William O'Brien, in one of liis speeches, put the point 
 plainly to the assembly. He said : — 
 
 *' You in America hold the fate of our cause in the hollow of your 
 hands. That tremendous power of yours involves a tremendous respon- 
 sibility. It is of supreme importance that our position should be made 
 clear beyond the possibility of misrepresentation. It would be cowardly 
 and false on our part to forget that we have now friends as well as ene- 
 mies in England. There are 1,500,000 of English woi-kingmen, who have 
 registered their votes in favour of an Irish Parliament in College Green. 
 There is one great Englishman who is worth another 1,500,000. We 
 told Mr. Gladstone — we told all Englishmen, that if they reached out an 
 honest hand of friendship to Ireland they would not reach it out in vain. 
 We were perfectly frank with them. We told them candidly, that to 
 English rule in Ireland we are and will for ever remain irreconcileable ; 
 and until they can exterminate the last man of our race, they will never 
 have rest nor peace, until the hopes that have lived through seven centuries, 
 shall have blossomed at last over our land. But we told them also that 
 our quarrel with England was bounded by her rule within the four shores 
 of Ireland. We told them that upon the day when the working millions 
 of England, by their votes and of their own free will, hauled down the 
 flag of English domination in Ireland, the hatreds and passions which 
 have raged for ages between the two countries would subside. We 
 ventured to promise that, for you as well as for our people at home, and 
 standing hftre in the presence of this great representative gathering of 
 Irish- Americans, who would be only too proud to shed their heart's blood 
 in the cause of Ireland on the battlefield, I am not afraid to repeat that 
 promise in your name. If we are wrong in that, we are wrong in every- 
 thing ; for it is the root and the essence of our movement, that it is 
 possible to conciliate Ireland without injuring England. We have 
 promised for you, and you have promised for yourselves. The resolu- 
 tions of the Convention are a message to all the world, that peace and 
 friendship were within the grasp of England, if she had been as wise and 
 bold as Mr. Gladstone ; aye, and that peace and friendship are within 
 her grasp even yet, upon the day when she once more enthrones Mr. 
 Gladstone in power, and commissions him to conclude his treaty of peace 
 with the Irish nation." 
 
 Mr. O'Brien, when he spoke in the House of Commons in 
 support of Mr. Gladstone's bill, and uttered practically the same 
 opinions as he expressed at Chicago, was challenged by the then 
 
The Chicago Convention. 11 
 
 Tory leader of the House of Commons, now the Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland, to repeat his speech outside Parliament. It is to be 
 hoped that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach will take an early opportu- 
 nity of admitting that his challenge has been accepted, and of 
 stating the result. 
 
 Mr. J. E. Redmond, M.P., spoke in the same strain. He 
 said : — 
 
 " The one great principle of any settlement of the Irish question, 
 must be the recognition of the divine right of Irishmen, and Irishmen 
 alone, to rule Ireland. This is the principle in support of which you 
 are assembled here to-day ; this is the principle which guides our 
 movement in Ireland. But consistently with that principle we believe 
 it is possible to bring about a settlement honorable to England and 
 Ireland alike — whereby the wrongs and miseries of the past may be for- 
 gotten ; whereby the chapter of English wrongs and Irish resistance 
 may be closed ; and whereby a future of freedom and of imily between 
 the two nations may be inaugurated. Such a settlement, we believe, ivas 
 offered to us hy Mr. Gladstone ; and, quite apart from the increased 
 strength which Mr. Gladstone's proposals, even though temporarily 
 defeated, have given to our cause, we have, I think, reason to rejoice at 
 the opportunity which they have afforded to our suffering and exasper- 
 ated people, to show the magnanimity of their natures, and the 
 vmalloyed purity of their love of liberty. What a spectacle Ireland 
 afforded to the world, when at last one great Englishman arose bold 
 and wise enough to do justice to her character. Ages of heartless 
 oppression and bitter Avrong — hundreds of thousands of martyrs to Irish 
 freedom — ages of stupid religious persecution — ages of depopulation and 
 State-created famine — never-ending insult and ruthless calumny — all in 
 that one moment were forgotten, and the feelings uppermost in the 
 hearts of the Irish race, at home and abroad, were — gratitude to the aged 
 statesman who simply proposed to do justice, and anxiety for a ' blessed 
 oblivion of the past.' Who, in the face of the reception given to the 
 bill of Mr. Gladstone, cramped and deformed as it was by humiliating 
 safeguards and unnecessary limitations, will dare to say that the 
 principle of our movement is merely race hatred to England ? No. 
 Last April, Ireland was ready to forget and forgive. She was ready 
 to sacrifice many things for peace, so long as the one essential principle 
 for which she struggled was conceded (applause). She was willing, 
 on the day when the portals of her ancient Senate House were 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 re-opened, to shake hands with her hereditary foe, and to proclaim 
 peace between the democracies of the two nations, whom the Ahnighty 
 had placed side by side to be friends, but who had been kept apart 
 by the avarice, the passions, and the injustice of a few (applause). 
 What centuries of oppression had failed to do, seemed about to be 
 accomplished by one word of conciliation, by one act of justice." 
 
 Mr. Michael Davict, Mr. John Deasy, M.P., and, in fact, all 
 the speakers at the Convention, spoke in the same spirit, amid 
 universal applause. Both by formal resolution, and by the 
 voices of all who spoke, therefore, the Convention, composed of 
 the bitterest enemies of English rule in Ireland, enthusiastically 
 accepted Mr. Gladstone's bill as a treaty, on the basis of which 
 an honorable and permanent peace might be established between 
 England and Ireland. This great fact cannot be denied, though 
 unscrupulous efforts have been made to obscure it. 
 
 "Was " A Strike against Eent " Proclaimed at the 
 Convention 1 
 
 The statement that "a strike against rent " was proclaimed at 
 the Convention, has been made by Lord Hartington in the 
 House of Commons, and by The Times newspaj^er. It is utterly 
 devoid of truth. The agrarian question was, in fact, but little 
 alluded to at Chicago. 
 
 The resolutions, so far from advocating a " no-rent policy," 
 recorded the approval by the Convention of " the remarkable 
 forbearance and self-restraint exercised by our people in Ireland, 
 in the face of the cruel and dishonest system of extortion to 
 which they are subjected by rack-renting landlords." The 
 sj)eeches made at the Convention no more proclaimed " a strike 
 against rent," than did those in the recent debate in the House 
 of Commons, in which it was pointed out, that owing to the fall 
 in prices, the full judicial rent in many cases had become exces- 
 sive and impossible. 
 
 Lord Hartington specifically accused Mr. J. E. Redmond, M.P., 
 with having advocated a "no-rent" i^olicy at the Convention. 
 
The Chicago Convention. 13 
 
 The accusation is grounded upon the following passages from his 
 speech : — 
 
 " In the coming Winter, the laws of nature itself will forbid the 
 possibility of peace. For the last six months, the tenant-farmers of 
 Ireland have played a part too little known and appreciated here. 
 They submitted to untold privations, and sufferings, and exactions, in 
 patience and in silence, lest by one word or act of theirs they should 
 embarrass their leaders in Parliament, or retard by one moment the 
 concession of Home Kule. The landlords of Ireland noted, but totally 
 misunderstood the meaning of the change of attitude. They mistook 
 forbearance and patriotism for cowardice, and the crowbar brigade once 
 more set to work. 
 
 " Still the tenants suffered in silence. Mr. Gladstone proposed a land 
 bill which would have bought out the landlords at an extravagantly 
 high figure, yet the Irish tenants were ready, because it was coupled 
 with the concession of Home Rule, to pay this exorbitant sum as the 
 price to be paid for National freedom. Once more Irish landlords have 
 behaved with unaccountable folly and stupidity. They have once more 
 stood between Ireland and her freedom; and have refused even an 
 extravagant price for their land, because the offer was coupled with the 
 concession of an Irish Parliament. So be it. I believe the last offer 
 has been made to Irish landlordism. The ultimate settlement of this 
 question must now be reserved for the Parliament of Ireland, and 
 meantime the people must take care to protect themselves and their 
 children. In many parts of Ireland, I assert, rent is to-day an iinpos- 
 sibility, and in every part of Ireland the rents demanded are exorbi- 
 tant, and cannot he paid." 
 
 The words printed in italics are those relied on to substantiate 
 the charge of having preached a '^ no rent policy." It would, 
 however, be interesting to compare the statement, that "in many 
 parts of Ireland rent is to-day an impossibility," with the state- 
 ment made last March by The Times, on the authority of Sir 
 James Caird, that "on 538,000 holdings in Ireland, rented at 
 £3,572,000 per annum, the rent is practically irrecoverable by any- 
 body, whether landlord, English Government, or Irish Govern- 
 ment." It wouldbe equally interesting to inquire how the statement, 
 that in many parts of Ireland " the rents demanded are exor- 
 bitant and cannot be paid," is untrue, in view of the recent 
 
14 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 statement by Mr. GifFeu — that the prices of all kinds of farm 
 produce in Ireland, have within the last eighteen months, 2*.e., 
 since these rents were fixed, fallen on an average about 20 per 
 cent. No strike against rent was proclaimed at Chicago ; but 
 the plain undisputed fact was pointed out, that the payment in 
 full of the old rent had in many cases become impossible. In how 
 many cases it has become impossible is the question. Neither 
 Mr. Kedmond, nor any other member of the Irish Party, or 
 representative of the Irish tenantry, has ventured to go so far 
 as Sir James Caird or The Times newspaper. But the question 
 would have been determined by Mr. Parnell's Tenants' Bill. 
 
 Did the Convention urge any New Policy upon Mr. Parnell ? 
 
 The attitude of Irish-Americans upon this point was repeatedly 
 emphasized. Judge Fitzgerald opened the proceedings with the 
 following remarkable statement : — 
 
 "It has been mooted along in some dark corners, that a resolu- 
 tion will be presented here to-day, dictating a policy to those directly 
 interested in the objects of this Convention. There may be a mad-house 
 not far from here — [cheers and laughter] — and there may be an escaped 
 lunatic from that house. But, lunatic or not, no matter who he may 
 be, if such a man should dare to show his brazen head in this Convention, 
 and should for one moment dictate or suggest a policy to Parnell and the 
 Irish Parliamentary Party, I anticipate that your serjeant-at-ai'ms could 
 not prevent this multitude of good and true men from rising in their 
 might and ejecting the crazy fellow (cheers). I promise you. Sirs [mean- 
 ing the delegates from Ireland], that from this Convention there shall 
 emanate but one sentiment, but one action, and that is for Ireland — to 
 follow in your wake, not to direct, not to dictate, not to suggest." 
 
 Mr. J. E. Redmond, M.P., on behalf of the leaders at home, 
 made it perfectly clear that no attempt at dictation from America 
 would be successful, even were it made. He said : — 
 
 " Well, but for the future, what is the policy, and who are to be the 
 framers of that policy ? Here I come to the second point I mentioned 
 at the beginning — namely, the condition upon which alone we can value 
 your confidence or accept your support. So long as we are true to the 
 great principle of Irish nationality, resolutely refusing either to be bought 
 
The Chicago Convention. 15 
 
 or coerced from a rigid adherence to the full measure of national right, 
 and so long as we are able to point to our past policy as honest and 
 successful, we say we and no others are entitled to decide for ourselves 
 upon Irish soil, and upon our own responsibility, what our policy for the 
 future is to be (applause). This is the condition upon which you have 
 given your su{)port to us in the past, and it is the condition upon which 
 alone we can accept your support for the future." 
 
 In the face of a declaration like this, to pretend for a moment 
 that the Convention urged on Mr. Parnell and the Irish Parlia- 
 mentary Party, a more "advanced" or "extreme" policy than 
 they had publicly pledged themselves to in the House of Com- 
 mons, is an impudent and a malicious, as well as a weak invention 
 of the enemy. 
 
 Summing up. 
 To sum up this part, it is indisputable that : — ■ 
 
 (1) The Convention recognized in Mr. Gladstone's bill an 
 honest attempt to settle upon an honourable and satisfactory 
 basis the relations between England and Ireland. 
 
 (2) It tendered to Mr. Gladstone, and the English, Scotch 
 and Welsh democracy, its heartfelt thanks, and recognized the 
 fact, that henceforth, not the people of Great Britain, but only a 
 small portion of the people of England, are to be regarded as the 
 enemies of Ireland. 
 
 (3) It assured Mr. Parnell of its approval of his past action in 
 Parliament in accepting Mr. Gladstone's bill, and generally. 
 
 (4) So far from proclaiming a new no-rent policy for Ireland, 
 it specifically disclaimed all right or desire to dictate, or even 
 suggest, any line of action whatever to the leaders of the move- 
 ment at home. 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 PAET III. 
 
 The FiNERTr Incident. 
 
 There was one man in the Convention who refused to acquiesce 
 in the resolutions adopted ; and the utterances of this one indivi- 
 dual have received more attention from a section of the British 
 press, than the declarations of the remaining 971 delegates all jDut 
 together. The reason is not far to seek. The Convention em- 
 phatically and boldly endorsed the attitude towards Mr. Glad- 
 stone's bill which Mr. Parnell had adopted. Mr. John Finerty, 
 on the contrary, openly declared that he would never accept that 
 bill as a final settlement ; and the enemies of Home Eule and 
 Mr. Gladstone instantly seized upon his declaration, as the only 
 crumb of comfort to be obtained from proceedings, to which they 
 had looked forward with so much hope and confidence. The 
 truth is, Mr. 't'inerty's declaration was regarded with very little 
 concern by the Convention. Everyone who knew anything of 
 his past utterances was perfectly aware of his opinions, and it 
 ought in fairness to him to be stated, that he made no attempt 
 whatever, in his speech, to commit the other delegates to any 
 approval of his statements. He had been chosen as a member of 
 the committee on resolutions ; but so convinced was he that he 
 would be out of sympathy with all the other members, that he 
 refused to act upon it. He kept his peculiar views to himself 
 until the entire proceedings of the Convention icere over, and when 
 he did speak he repeatedly stated that he spoke only for himself. 
 
 The gist of Mr. Finerty's speech is contained in the following 
 extract from it : — 
 
 "I am not opposed to Parnell ; but he cannot get me to subscribe to 
 the policy — that Gladstone's Home Rule bill is to be accepted as a final 
 settlement of all Ireland's troubles. I did not vote for your platform. 
 The moment you bow your heads or lower your flag, the English will 
 despise you." 
 
 The moment he resumed his seat, Mr. Davitt rose, and amid 
 universal applause, spoke as follows : — 
 
The Chicago Convention. 17 
 
 " He regretted that he had to intrude again upon their attention, but 
 he could not, representing the men at home as he did, with his colleagues, 
 allow Mr. Finerty's speech to go without a few words of reply. He 
 had come from the people of Ireland with his colleagues, to represent the 
 movement which was endeavouring, by peaceful and constitutional means, 
 to work out the principle of Irish national self-government (cheers). 
 
 He would be false to his mission, and the principles of that movement 
 
 he would be betraying the trust reposed in him by Mr. Parnell and the 
 people of Ireland — if he did not make this protest against the speech 
 which had been delivered by Mr. Finerty. The movement had been 
 sneered at by their enemies on the other side of the water, and Mr. 
 Finerty found fault with its methods. The movement was peaceable. 
 Eesting upon moral force as it did, would not Mr. Finerty admit that 
 Ireland had been elevated into a position which she had never occupied 
 before? (cheers). 
 
 " Mr. Finerty. — I never denied it. 
 
 " Mr. Davitt said, by their policy they had won the sympathy of the 
 American people (cheers). They had succeeded in converting even 
 those who were heretofore their enemies, and convinced 2,000,000 of the 
 British people that their struggle was right, and their sympathy had 
 been extended to them in their effort to make the struggle successful 
 {ap()lause). Surely if the movement had accomplished so much in a 
 short time, it was capable, when represented by true men, of doing in a 
 short time what they all wished to do for their native land — (cheers) — 
 to win for Ireland the right, and dignity, and position of a nation 
 (applause). The Convention had approved of their platform and their 
 principles — had sent resolutions across the Atlantic, pledging support on 
 present lines, and promising material assistance in the near future. He 
 only wanted this decision guarded, so that no other decision contrary to 
 it should follow that message, to discourage the people of Ireland and 
 give satisfaction to the enemies of the Irish cause (cheers). He had as 
 much respect for John Finerty as ever, and believed him to be as 
 honest an Irishman as lived in America. His poHcy and his methods 
 he would not pass sentence upon. They had had their trial. They had 
 not succeeded in winning Irish freedom. 
 
 " Mr. Finerty.— Neither has yours. 
 
 " Mr. Davitt claimed that the present policy had advanced the cause 
 more in seven years than it had progressed in the last fifty years (cheers 
 and cries of ' You are right '). He asked that they be not embarrassed 
 in their work — that they forbear with them on peaceful and constitu- 
 tional lines. This was not an unreasonable request, when they thought 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 that 4,000,000 in Ireland, and 19 out of every 20 of the race in 
 America, endorsed the movement, approved the policy, and supported the 
 leader " (chec-rs). 
 
 Mr. Eedmond also replied to Mr. Finerty. He said :^ 
 
 **As Mr. Finerty 's speech was certain to be quoted by the enemy 
 through the English press, it was only right he should say something, 
 especially as his speech was referred to by Mr. Finerty. I feel it my 
 duty [continued Mr. Redmond] to say one word in this matter, and it 
 will be a word of perfect good humour. Mr. Finerty did not do justice 
 to my remarks, if he said they were in advance of the resolutions of the 
 Convention. It is those resolutions, and nothing else, which will go forth 
 to the world as the expression of this Convention. The opinions of this 
 Convention are expressed in the records, and Mr. Finerty spoke here 
 after the deliberative work of the Convention was over, and did not 
 express anything but his own opinions, and they could not therefore go 
 forth as identified with the Convention. I have only risen — in fairness 
 to my colleagues on this platform and abroad — in fairness to myself, and 
 to state, that my remarks to-day were in close keeping with the resolu- 
 tions, and to state that Mr. Finerty was not speaking for the Convention." 
 
 In the face of these facts and these declarations, it will be seer 
 how dishonest and absurd is the attempt to prove, that, because? 
 Mr. Finerty dissented from the resolutions, therefore the Con- 
 vention which, with the single exception of himself, unanimously 
 adopted these resolutions, did not believe in them. 
 
 On this point, Mr. William O'Brien, speaking at a meeting of 
 the National League in Dublin, a few days after his return from 
 America, said : — 
 
 •' Those resolutions were, practically speaking, unanimously adopted 
 by that great Convention, with the single exception of Mr. Finerty, 
 who stated his own opinions on the matter. They were, practicallj; 
 speaking, unanimously adopted by what they call a 'rising vote,' every 
 man upon his feet cheering. Of course it is always possible, even after 
 all that, for Mr. Chamberlain and for The Times to say that the Con- 
 vention said one thing and that they meant another. Of course it is 
 always possible to treat us as if we were a nation of liars and hypocrites. 
 All I can say is, that I wish Mr. Chamberlain or any other man alive, 
 had attempted to induce that Convention, for policy's sake or prudence 
 sake, or expedience, or any other consideration under the sun — had at- 
 
The Chicago Convention. 19 
 
 tempted to force or cajole them into swallowing a single resolution or a 
 syllable that they believed in the slightest degree derogatory to Irish 
 nationality, or to anything like lowering the flag. The man who tried 
 it would be a bolder man than the man that swam down the Niagara 
 rapids the day we were in that neighbourhood," 
 
 Colonel Atkinson of Detroit, at the great mass meeting 
 held in Chicago, the night after the Convention, sjDoke as 
 follows : — 
 
 " Tliis meeting he considered a sort of ratification of the action of the 
 Convention. As a member of the Committee on Resolutions, he could 
 say that there was no division of opinion, and no reading between the 
 lines in the resolutions, but a plain statement of facts. The gentlemen 
 from Ireland, who were made members of the committee, had refused to 
 draft a single resolution, but had left all to the judgment of their 
 brethren on this side of the water." 
 
 The -Fiuerty incident then simply amounted to this : that 
 iu an assembly consisting of 972 delegates, one individual alone 
 dissented from the resolutions adopted ; and in order th»t his 
 opinions should be clearly understood, claimed and obtained the 
 right to explain, that he did not believe in Mr. Gladstone's bill 
 as a final settlement, and would not pin his faith, under all 
 circumstances, to peaceable methods. Lest these sentiments 
 should he held to compromise the Convention^ they were at once, 
 and amid universal applavse, repudiated hy Mr. Davitt, Mr. 
 Redmond, and others. This incident, indeed, so far from 
 detracting from the value of the support tendered to Mr. Parnell 
 and Mr. Gladstone, ought, on the contrary, to enhance it, by 
 emphasizing what was an unexpectedly cordial and unanimous 
 acceptance of a policy of peace and friendship by a body of men 
 who, before the introduction of the Home Eule bill, were 
 bitter and apparently implacable enemies of England. 
 
20 The Irish Question: 
 
 PAKT IV. 
 
 American- Sympathy. 
 
 The Convention was the means of eliciting a most remarkable 
 expression of sympathy with Ireland from Americans of all 
 American political parties. 
 
 The night after the Convention closed its proceedings, a mass 
 meeting of the citizens of Chicago was held, to discuss the Irish 
 question. The Republican Governor of the State of Illinois, 
 Governor Oglesby, was among the speakers ; and so was the 
 Hon. Samuel J. Randall, a member of Congress, one of the 
 leaders of the Democratic party, and for some time Speaker of 
 the House of Representatives at Washington. In the course of 
 an eloquent speech, Mr. Randall said : — 
 
 " No cause like this can go down. We must succeed. We will win. 
 You need have to fear. The end, I trust, is nearly reached when 
 freedoip, liberty, and self-government will control in Ireland. And 
 now in conclusion, I want to say — give these men good cheer — give 
 them to understand that we have not abated in any degree in the cause 
 that they are engaged in, and let them go back to the Grand Old Man, 
 that hero and statesman, Mr. Gladstone, and tell him that American 
 enlightenment of the nineteenth century presents a united voice in appro- 
 val of the course that he has pursued. He is a Grand Old Man, the 
 greatest, in my judgment, that has existed during my period. He was 
 equal to the occasion. He has suffered, as the American colonies 
 suffered, temporary defeat. But the defeat will bring him, as it brought 
 finally the American colonies, a united people even in England, in the 
 direction that he has pointed out. Never was a more truthful word 
 said, than when he declared that the issue of the present time in Great 
 Britain was between the masses and classes. And let me say that there 
 has come, and there is in this country to-day, a better feeling towards 
 the English people, than ever before since our Revolutionary Wai-, 
 because the English masses to-day, so far as they can, have determined 
 to give free government to Ireland." 
 
 The entire American Press, in its comments on the Convention, 
 showed itself to be on the side of Ireland, and heartily supported 
 Mr. Gladstone's policy. We give a few illustrative extracts from 
 
The Chicago Convention. 21 
 
 a few of the leading organs of public opinion, not one of tliem 
 being Irish : — 
 
 From The Detroit Evening News, 
 
 ** The Convention, as a whole, was an honour to the race which it 
 represented, an honour to the cause which it seeks to elevate, and an 
 honour to the adoj^ted country of its delegates. " 
 
 From The New York Herald. 
 
 " It had been predicted that the Convention would disagree. But the 
 dictum of a body that comes as near to being an Irish parliament as any 
 body at this time can be, goes out to the world with the force of unquali- 
 fied unanimity." 
 
 From The New York Morning Journal. 
 
 " The Chicago Convention of the National League has produced a 
 glorious moral effect. It has inspired with courage the despondent hearts 
 of Ii'ishmen at home who behold in Tory rule a coming repetition of the 
 old, weary, grinding oppression. It has nerved the Parnellites, cheered 
 the iron heart of the Grand Old Man, and proved to the enemies of Ireland 
 that a solid phalanx guards the rere." 
 
 From The Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " The people of Ireland, and their leaders both in Ireland and America, 
 are to be congratulated on the happy outcome of this most representative 
 and harmonious convention. The delegates proved themselves worthy of 
 the trust confided in them. They have been self -res trained, prudent, and 
 loyal to Piirnell, and his great ally, Mr. Gladstone. The proceedings are 
 ample evidence of the Irish capacity for self-government." 
 
 From The Philadelphia Press. 
 
 '•'The League Convention at Chicago has confounded the enemies and 
 encouraged the friends of Home Rule in Ireland. It has proved to be 
 an imposing, temperate, harmonious, and successful assembly. It has 
 spoken the voice, and fixed the attitude of the great body of Irish- Amer- 
 icans, with a moderation, clearness and firmness, that will strengthen the 
 cause of Irish self-government, and uphold the hands of their compatriots 
 who are leading the struggle in Parhament. Eanking among the largest 
 and most important gatherings, the Irish-Americans have ever held its 
 discreet counsels, its reasonable tone, and its prudent action, will exert a 
 potent and wholesome influence on both sides of the sea. 
 
22 Hie Irish Question. 
 
 •* The enemies of Home Rule counted upon dissensions and conflicts. 
 They had hoped for divisions and for declarations, which would embarrass 
 Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone, in their legitimate and constitutional 
 struggle for the establishment of Irish rights. In all these expectations 
 they were completely disappointed. The resolutions are distinguished 
 for their calm, dignified, and moderate tone. They express the strongest 
 devotion to national self-government for Ireland, unqualified confidence 
 in Mr. Parnell and his associates, gratitude to ]\Ir. Gladstone and the 
 Liberal masses of England, Scotland, and Wales, and just sense of the 
 forbearance, self-restraint, and patient purpose of the people of Ireland." 
 
 From The Pldladelphia Record. 
 
 " If there be any people who still lay the flattering unction to their 
 souls, that Irishmen are unfitted to exercise the right of self-government, 
 they should certainly have their minds disabused of that idea, after read- 
 ing the account of yesterday's proceedings of the Irish National League 
 Convention at Chicago. It is questionable if, with the temptations held 
 out, with the smouldering feeling of resentment in so many hearts, and 
 the favourable character of the environment for the expression of the 
 most radical ideas, any deliberative body in Christendom could have 
 shown more wisdom, or better fulfilled the expectations of those who were 
 watching its course so earnestly. The resolutions which were adopted, 
 while breathing a spirit of independence, carry with them neither threat 
 nor defiance. Starting with the principle of national self-government as 
 their foundation, they recognize the legitimate efforts which have been 
 made to bring this about for Ireland, and pledge the support of the 
 League to Mr. Parnell, in the policy which he has carried on so success- 
 fully, and which he has determined to continue. There is no denuncia- 
 tion of men or methods, no dragging in of joersonal grievances or 
 animosities, but an eloquent presentation of the aims and ends of all 
 true Irishmen — eloquent if for nothing else, but its manly straightfor- 
 wardness and simplicity. It is difficult to see how even the most rabid 
 of the English press can speak of such a deliverance except in the spirit 
 of commendation, especially as it simply echoes the voice of one million 
 of the English democracy, as expressed at the polls." 
 
 Assuredly, Mr. Gladstone was well within the truth, when lie 
 claimed that his Home Rule policy had the support of the 
 civilized world. 
 
Z\u ^xHU (^\it$imi 
 
 The Following Publications aiie supplied by the 
 Ipjsh Phess Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. Ey John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The "Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (7) Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (8) The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 (9) An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 
 
 With Introduction by J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (10) Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
 A Word for Ireland. By T. M. Healy, B.L. Price Is. 
 Report on the Present State of the Irish Land Question. 
 
 By A Land Valuer. Price 6d. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms, 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 Other Tracts in preparation. 
 
Ho. 4. 
 
 Clje |ris]^ ^MBimn. 
 
 THE LAND CEISIS: 
 
 BY 
 
 PIEECE MAHONY, 
 
 if. P. for North Meath, 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN J. CLANCY, M.A 
 
 M. P. for North Dublin. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 Price One Penny. 
 
R. D. Webb and Son, Printers, 
 74 Abbey-street, Dublin. 
 
THE IRISH LAND CRISIS. 
 
 The Fall in Prices. 
 
 The case for a reduction of the judicial rents fixed before 1885, 
 when the recent great fall in prices commenced, rests mainly on 
 the fact of that fall. 
 
 It has been said that the Land Commissioners, in fixing the 
 rents, took into consideration the possibility of such a fall in prices 
 and allowed for it. We have express evidence — from one of 
 themselves — that they did nothing of the sort. 
 
 Mr. Pierce Mahony, M.P., who acted as a Sub-Commissioner 
 for three years previous to 1885, stated in the House of Commons, 
 on 24th August, in the present year, that the judicial rents were 
 based mainly on prices existing from 1879 to 1884 ; that the 
 Commissioners had no other basis to go upon ; and that if, as had 
 been suggested, they had been influenced by the prices existing 
 for the six years before 1879, the only effect must have been 
 to make them adopt a higher standard of rent, since those prices 
 were much higher than those subsequently prevailing. Mr. 
 Mahony added that the Commissioners believed the period of 
 depression was at an end, and judging by past history, was not 
 likely to return for a considerable time, and that before it re- 
 turned, there would be a period of prosperity, which would enable 
 farmers to put by sufficient savings to tide them over a bad year 
 or two. The question, then, that remains is, whether the Com- 
 missioners have proved to be wrong in their forecast. The answer 
 can only be, that they erred egregiously. 
 
 Instead of a return to prosperity, we have had a depression 
 more acute than ever. Prices in '85, as compared with prices in 
 
 .(3' " 
 
 ^m :■::.#. 
 
 .•»^ *i' 
 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 the six previous years, fell very low, and this depression haa 
 continued and become aggravated in '86. This is perfectly 
 notorious, and cannot be denied. The following are the figures : — 
 
 
 Prices for six ■or.-^^^f^.. 
 
 years ending ^"n^'f,*^' 
 
 1884. ^^^^- 
 
 
 Percentage, 
 fall or rise. 
 
 Wheat per cwt. 
 
 ««« 
 
 s. d. 
 9 5 ... 
 
 s. 
 8 
 
 d. 
 6 . 
 
 .. 9-7 
 
 per cent. 
 
 fall. 
 
 Oats, 
 
 ... 
 
 7 7 ... 
 
 8 
 
 . 
 
 .. 5-2 
 
 >j 
 
 rise. 
 
 Barley, 
 
 ... 
 
 7 9 ... 
 
 7 
 
 5 . 
 
 .. 4-3 
 
 »> 
 
 fall. 
 
 Flax, 
 
 ... 
 
 69 10 ... 
 
 55 
 
 . 
 
 .. 8-0 
 
 j> 
 
 >> 
 
 Butter, 
 
 ... 
 
 103 6 ... 
 
 75 
 
 6 . 
 
 .. 27-0 
 
 >) 
 
 »> 
 
 Beef, 
 
 ... 
 
 67 ... 
 
 56 
 
 6 . 
 
 .. 15-6 
 
 }> 
 
 » 
 
 Pork, 
 
 ... 
 
 54 7 ... 
 
 43 
 
 6 . 
 
 . 20-3 
 
 5» 
 
 >> 
 
 Mutton, 
 
 
 79 ... 
 
 65 
 
 5 . 
 
 . 18-4 
 
 J> 
 
 j» 
 
 Wool per lb. 
 
 ... 
 
 11 ... 
 
 
 
 8 . 
 
 . 27-0 
 
 >» 
 
 »i 
 
 Milch Cows, 
 
 £ 
 ... 19 
 
 s, d. £ 
 ... 15 
 
 10 
 
 d. 
 .. 
 
 . 18-0 
 
 >> 
 
 )> 
 
 Two-year old stock, 
 
 ... 12 
 
 10 ... 10 
 
 
 
 .. 
 
 . 20-0 
 
 >J 
 
 ;> 
 
 One-year old stock, 
 
 ... 8 
 
 ... 6 
 
 5 
 
 .. 
 
 . 22-0 
 
 >» 
 
 >> 
 
 The price of butter for '85 (here given) differs from that given 
 by Mr. Villiers Stuart ; but it is carefully averaged from the prices 
 for each month of '85, as given in The Irish Farmers' Gazette^ which 
 is not a Nationalist newspaper ; and it coincides with the price 
 given by the landlords' organization. 
 
 It is true that the price of oats has risen 5d. per cwt. in '85, 
 compared with the prices of the past six years. But in practice 
 it is not found to be a very profitable crop, because the acreage 
 devoted to it has been steadily decreasing year by year since 1882 ; 
 and there are now 74,102 acres less under this crop than in 1882. 
 In addition to this, it is not a crop which influences largely the 
 rent-paying capabilities of Irish tenants, because out of a total 
 acreage of 15,211,175 of cultivable land, only 1,323,205 acres are 
 given up to the oat crop, or very little more than one-fifteenth 
 part of the whole. 
 
 Those figures, it is submitted, settle the question. In face of 
 them it is simply impossible to contend that rents confessedly 
 fixed on the basis of prices for the six years ending '84, can be 
 fair, now that prices have fallen so greatly. 
 
The Land Crisis. 
 
 English Testimony. 
 
 English and foreign observers who go to Ireland to see things 
 for themselves, and w^ho view things there with unprejudiced 
 minds, confirm the conclusion at which we have arrived. Take, 
 for instance, the letter of a Mr. W. H. Hall, in The Spectator of 
 the 4th September, 1886. 
 
 Mr. Hall, who is a " Unionist," says that he attended the Sligo 
 butter market in the course of a recent trip to Ireland, and 
 found the following state of facts :— 
 
 "First quality butter fetched 9d. ; second, 8d. ; and third, 6d. per lb. 
 Much seemed to get either first or second mark. Almost all the butter 
 was hand-made, and would, I am confident, have satisfied even Lord 
 Randolph Churchill's somewhat severe requirements of excellence. The 
 tester informed me that the firkin or one hundred-weight, of first quality 
 butter, worth 84s. yesterday, would have fetched 136s. in 1883, when he 
 was appointed inspector and taster." 
 
 In this sentence, assuredly, the entire case for the reduction of 
 the judicial rents is proved. In '82 the Land Act came into 
 active operation, and in '82, '83, and '84 rents were fixed in the 
 vast majority of cases ; and since then, according to the testimony 
 of this English gentleman, one of the principal articles of Irish 
 agriculture has fallen 40 per cent, in price. But how does the case 
 stand in regard to other articles. Let Mr. Hall speak again : — 
 
 " Having visited Ireland myself in 1883, I know that store cattle a 
 year old were worth £7 then, and will hardly fetch £4 now. Hay, too, 
 is unprecedently low — upland being worth 45s. per ton, and inferior, 
 hardly 30s. So that there can be no doubt that the Irish tenant is hit 
 very hard." 
 
 Here, again, we have a fall even greater than that which has 
 taken place in the price of butter; and to the fall of more than 
 40 per cent, in the price of stock, Mr. Hall testifies of his own 
 personal knowledge. In circumstances such as these, how can 
 the Irish tenants be expected to pay the rents fixed in '82 and '83, 
 even if we allow that, at that time, the rents were fair ? 
 
6 The Irish Question: 
 
 The Latest Evidence. 
 
 The latest, and not the least remarkable, evidence on the subject 
 of prices, is that aflforded by the transactions at the greatest of 
 Irish fairs — that of Ballinasloe. Let us see to what that evidence 
 amounts. 
 
 According to the reports from Ballinasloe, sheep have risen 
 in value from 5s. to 9s. a head, or, on an average, 5s. a head. 
 When this fact was announced, it was made the subject of 
 comment in all the landlord journals, and of course the predic- 
 tions of " the Parnellites " on the subject of the Irish land crisis 
 were sneered at, ridiculed, and pronounced to have been confuted 
 by the logic of events. 
 
 Yet w^hat does the rise in the price of sheep really mean 1 
 
 The plain fact is, that the rise is one of only 14 per cent., and 
 against this rise we have to set (1) the decrease in 1886, as 
 compared with 1885, in the number of sheep in Ireland, which 
 amounts to 3'1 per cent., and (2) the fall in the price of sheep in 
 1885, as compared with the six previous years, which amounted 
 to no less than 20 per cent.* 
 
 In other words, the sheep wealth of the country in the six 
 years previous to 1885, represented by, say, o£lOO, is now, despite 
 the rise referred to, represented by only £88 3s. — that is, it is 
 still 11'7 per cent, under what it was in the six years ending 1884, 
 and should be 11*7 per cent higher than it is, to justify the 
 imposition at the present time of rents based on the average price 
 of sheep in the years between 1878 and 1884. 
 
 So much for the rise in the price of sheep of which so much 
 has been made. But what about the price of cattle at Ballinasloe? 
 On this point a silence, a little short of that of the tomb, has 
 
 * Mutton in 1885 fell 18*4 per cent, compared with the six previous 
 years, while the wool fell 27 per cent. ; and, as the value of sheep depends 
 on the value of mutton and wool, we may assume that sheep fell 20 per 
 cent, in 1885, as compared with the six previous years. 
 
The Land Crisis. 7 
 
 been preserved by the landlord journals. No wonder, for the 
 facts on this head only too clearly justify the action of the much 
 abused "Parnellites." 
 
 In the debate on Mr. Parnell's Land Bill, Mr. Penrose 
 Fitzgerald laid great stress on the fact, that owing to the good 
 turnip crop in England prices for stock were certain to rise. 
 What has happened is that, at the most important fair in Ire- 
 land, cattle have fallen from 15s. to £\ a head. There is no getting 
 over the fact. In addition, the number of horned stock has 
 fallen in Ireland, in 1886, compared with 1885, to the extent of 
 44,824 head. 
 
 This fall in price, it is said, has not been general at other fairs. 
 But the evidence is that it has been general. 
 
 The Irish Farmers' Gazette {not a Nationalist paper) writes in 
 a recent issue : — 
 
 " The downward tendency in beef, and in store cattle in particular, still 
 continues, as we learn from the reports of numerous fairs. These remarks 
 may be applied to the following fairs held :— Athy, Belfast, Castleblaney, 
 Clonmel, Kilkee, Eathfriland, Armagh, Dunleer, Belturbet, Fermoy, 
 Killarney, Strabane, and others." 
 
 It need not be added, that from the point of view of the general 
 wealth of the country, a fall in the price of cattle is very much 
 more serious than a fall in the price of sheep. 
 
 A prominent landlord and landlords' champion. Colonel Ealeigh 
 Chichester of Roscommon, has, in a letter to the Dublin daily 
 papers pointed unwittingly a moral in regard to the prices at 
 Ballinasloe, which tells heavily against the landlords' case. " The 
 diminution in the number of our sheep," he says, " represents, I 
 fear, a loss of capital to the extent of .£150,000, or 20,000 acres 
 unstocked." The Colonel proceeds to point out, that there has 
 also been a diminution in the number of cattle, which points to 
 an additional unstocking, with no corresponding rise in prices, of, 
 say, 5,601 acres ; and he concludes thus : " Perhaps the most 
 painful element in the general view is the decrease— nearly 
 49,000 — in calves. This seems to point to loss of purchasing powers 
 
8 
 
 The Irish Question : 
 
 in the rural labouring class." His general conclusion is that all 
 this is of no consequence ; but most intelligent persons will draw 
 a very difierent inference. 
 
 The Old Eack Eents and the Judicial Eents. 
 
 It was absolutely easier for tenants formerly to pay the old 
 rack rents — that is, say, those exacted before the year 1879 — 
 than it is for them to pay now the judicial rents fixed before the 
 recent fall in prices. 
 
 This fact will be clear from the following figures : — 
 
 
 
 Prices for six 
 years ending 
 
 1878. 
 s. d. 
 
 Prices for 
 1885. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 
 Fall. 
 
 Wheat pel 
 
 •cwt. 
 
 ... 10 
 
 . 
 
 .. 8 
 
 6 ... 
 
 15] 
 
 per cent. 
 
 Oats, 
 
 ... 
 
 8 
 
 . 
 
 .. 8 
 
 ... 
 
 
 — 
 
 Barley, 
 Flax, 
 
 ... 
 
 8 
 ... 67 
 
 2 . 
 . 
 
 .. 75 
 .. 55 
 
 ... 
 .. 
 
 9l 
 18 
 
 )er cent. 
 
 Butter, 
 
 • •• 
 
 ... 122 
 
 4 . 
 
 .. 75 
 
 6 .. 
 
 39 
 
 
 Beef, 
 
 • •• 
 
 ... 77 
 
 1 
 
 .. 56 
 
 6 .. 
 
 27 
 
 
 Mutton, 
 
 • *• 
 
 ... 83 
 
 2 . 
 
 .. 65 
 
 5 .. 
 
 23 
 
 
 Pork, 
 
 • •• 
 
 ... 55 
 
 3 . 
 
 .. 43 
 
 6 .. 
 
 20 
 
 
 Wool per 
 
 lb. 
 
 1 
 
 5 . 
 
 .. 
 
 8 .. 
 
 . 52 
 
 
 In other words, there was an average fall of 22-5 per cent, in 
 the prices of those nine articles of produce in 1885, compared 
 with the prices of the same articles in the six years ending 1878, 
 while the judicial rents fixed up to August, 1885, are only 19*4 
 lower than the old rack rents. 
 
 To put the case otherwise. It is notorious that the competi- 
 tion for land in Ireland was so great, that persons were found 
 willing in the past to consent to pay rents which could not 
 possibly leave them a fair proportion of the profits. As a 
 necessary consequence of this land hunger, the general standard 
 of rent throughout the country became unfairly high. The evil 
 at last became so great, that Parliament passed the Act of 1870 
 to mitigate it, and when that measure failed. Parliament made a 
 further effort in the same direction by passing the Act of 1881. 
 
The Land Crisis. 9 
 
 Under that act rents have been reduced on an average 19 "4 per 
 cent, up to 21st August, 1884 ; but prices have fallen 22*5 percent. 
 So that the evil complained of has actually been aggravated, while 
 judicial rents have a sort of parliamentary sanction, which the 
 old rack rents never had. But even if the reduction in rents had 
 kept pace with the fall in prices, the rents would still be unfair. 
 To secure fair rents, the rent reductions must be greater than the 
 fall in prices. 
 
 Eent is only the landlord's share of the gross produce of the 
 land. The produce is divided into three portions, not equal, 
 however : First, Cost of production ; Second, Tenant's share ; 
 and Third, Landlord's share. Now, the cost of production varies 
 comparatively little, or, rather, it is very difficult to reduce it ; 
 therefore, when a fall in price comes only a very small portion of 
 it can be borne by the share of the gross produce which is devoted 
 to paying this cost. It is, as a rule, far the largest of the three 
 portions. 
 
 Again, in Ireland the standard of living amongst the rural 
 population has been extremely low — a circumstance due chiefly 
 to the fact that they have not, owing to the competition for land, 
 received a fair share of the gross produce. The standard of 
 living being low, cannot bear a further reduction, and therefore 
 the second portion also, or tenant's share, can bear but little of 
 the fall in the price of produce. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the fall must be mainly borne by the third, 
 or landlord's share ; and therefore a fall of 22*5 per cent, in the 
 price of produce, will in many cases necessitate, in justice, a 
 reduction, not of 22 per cent, or 19 per cent., but of 50 or 60 per 
 cent, in the rent. 
 
 1886 WORSE THAN 1880. 
 
 The crisis is greater now than when the Compensation for 
 Disturbance Bill passed the House of Commons in 1880, for, as 
 the following tables show, the fall of prices then was less than it 
 is now : — 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 The Irish Question : 
 
 Prices for 
 six years 
 previous to 1879. 
 s. d. 
 
 Prices for 
 
 years 
 
 1879-1880. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Per centag 
 or rise 
 
 efall 
 
 .. 10 
 
 ... 
 
 10 
 
 2 . 
 
 .. 1-6 
 
 per cent. rise. 
 
 8 
 
 ... 
 
 8 
 
 . 
 
 .. No 
 
 change. 
 
 
 8 
 
 o 
 
 JJ ... 
 
 8 
 
 . 
 
 2 per cent. 
 
 fall. 
 
 .. 67 
 
 7 ... 
 
 66 
 
 6 . 
 
 .. 1-6 
 
 
 a 
 
 .. 122 
 
 4 ... 
 
 103 
 
 . 
 
 .. 15-8 
 
 
 •> 
 
 .. 77 
 
 1 ... 
 
 65 
 
 . 
 
 .. 16-7 
 
 
 >» 
 
 .. 83 
 
 2 ... 
 
 74 
 
 8 . 
 
 .. 10-2-: 
 
 > 
 
 5J 
 
 .. 55 
 
 3 ... 
 
 59 
 
 3 . 
 
 .. 6-8 
 
 
 rise. 
 
 1 
 
 5 ... 
 
 1 
 
 1 . 
 
 .. 23 
 
 
 fall. 
 
 Prices for 
 
 six years 
 
 ending 1884. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Prices in 
 1885. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Per centage fall 
 or rise. 
 
 9 
 
 5 ... 
 
 8 
 
 6 .. 
 
 . 9-7 
 
 per cent, fall 
 
 7 
 
 7 ... 
 
 8 
 
 .. 
 
 . 5-2 
 
 » 
 
 rise. 
 
 7 
 
 9 ... 
 
 7 
 
 5 .. 
 
 . 4-3 
 
 >> 
 
 fall. 
 
 . 59 
 
 10 ... 
 
 55 
 
 .. 
 
 . 8-0 
 
 }> 
 
 >» 
 
 . 103 
 
 6 ... 
 
 75 
 
 6 .. 
 
 . 27-0 
 
 >> 
 
 >» 
 
 . 67 
 
 ... 
 
 56 
 
 6 . 
 
 . 15-6 
 
 5> 
 
 >» 
 
 . 79 
 
 ... 
 
 65 
 
 5 .. 
 
 . 18-4 
 
 » 
 
 j> 
 
 . 54 
 
 7 ... 
 
 43 
 
 6 .. 
 
 . 20-3 
 
 »> 
 
 j> 
 
 
 
 U ... 
 
 
 
 8 .. 
 
 . 27-0 
 
 » 
 
 jj 
 
 Wheat per cwt. 
 
 Oats, 
 
 Barley, 
 
 Flax, 
 
 Butter, 
 
 Beef, 
 
 Mutton, 
 
 Pork, 
 
 Wool per lb. 
 
 Wheat per cwt. 
 
 Oats, 
 
 IBarley, 
 
 Flax, 
 
 Butter, 
 
 Beef, 
 
 Mutton, 
 
 Pork, 
 
 Wool per lb. 
 
 Yet the smaller fall — that in 1879 and 1880 — was one of the 
 potent causes of the introduction into and passage through the 
 House of Commons of a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, and 
 the results that followed from its rejection by the House of 
 Lords are only too well known. 
 
 Evidence of the Land Commissioners. 
 
 The Land Commissioners themselves practically admit that 
 the rents fixed by them before the recent great fall in prices are 
 now too high. This admission will be plain to anyone who will 
 observe the difierence in the judicial rents fixed up to August, 
 1885, and those fixed in the months of January, February, March, 
 and April, 1886 — that is, after the fall in prices which took place 
 in 1885. Here are the figures : — 
 
The Land Crisis, 11 
 
 Judicial rents fixed up to August, 1885, are : — 
 
 in Ulster, ... ... 4'2 per cent, below the valuation. 
 
 ,, Leinster, ... ... 15"3 „ above ,, 
 
 „ Connaught, 13-2 „ ,, „ 
 
 J, Munster, ... ... 25*8 ,, „ ,, 
 
 Judicial rents fixed in January, February, March, and April, 
 1886, are :— 
 
 In Ulster, ... ... 9*7 per cent, below the valuation. 
 
 ,, Leinster, ... ... 16'0 ,, „ 
 
 „ Connaught, ... ... 18"0 „ „ 
 
 „ Munster, ... ... I'll „ above „ 
 
 No one can fail to see the striking contrast between the earlier 
 reductions and the later ones — these later being evidently 
 brought about by the fall in prices since 1884. 
 
 In addition, the Commissioners are giving larger reductions off 
 the old rents. 
 
 Up to 21st August, 1885, the reductions averaged 19*4 per cent. 
 
 In January, "February, March, and April, 1886, they averaged 
 28 per cent. 
 
 These two facts show clearly that the judicial rents fixed in 
 1886 are considerably lower than those previously fixed, and 
 prove absolutely that the great bulk of the tenants holding under 
 judicial rents are rented according to an unfairly high standard. 
 
 Landlord Admissions. 
 
 Some of the landlords themselves have indirectly, but in the 
 most practical manner, admitted that the judicial rents are rack 
 rents ; for the landlords in question have actually granted more 
 or less considerable abatements in or reductions of the judicial 
 rents, which the present Tory Government and the majority of 
 the present House of Commons have virtually pronounced to be 
 too sacred to be altered. The following reductions on judicial 
 rents have been granted within the last few weeks : — 
 
12 
 
 The Irish Question 
 
 20 
 
 per cent. 
 
 20 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 Judge Flanagan (late of the Landed Estates 
 
 Court) on Clare property, 
 Captain O'Callaghan (same county),. 
 T. MacMahon (same county), 
 Earl of Shannon (Co. Cork), 
 Lord Inchiquin (Co. Clare), 
 Kev. J. Blennerhassett (Co. Cork), 
 Captain Woodley (same county). 
 Earl of Ban try (same county), 
 A. H. Smith Barry, M.P. (same county). 
 Earl of Listowel (Co. Kerry), 
 Countess of Morley (Co. Cavan), 
 Colonel Stevenson (same county). 
 Lord Lismore (Co. Limerick), 
 Earl of Donoughmore (Co. Waterford), 
 Frederick J. Graham (Co. Galway), 
 The Marquis of Lansdowne (Co. Kerry), 
 
 Tliis list might be considerably extended, and it demonstrates 
 beyond all" doubt the unfairness of the judicial rents fixed before 
 the recent great fall in prices, and consequently shows the justice 
 of Mr. Parnell's Land Bill, which would merely have rendered 
 compulsory on all Irish, landlords what some like those men- 
 tioned in the foregoing list have done of their own accord. 
 
 Express Admissions, 
 
 But this is not all. Some of the best known landlords in 
 Ireland have expressly admitted the justice of Mr. Parnell's 
 proposals. Take the following resolution passed on the 8th 
 September by the Naas Board of Guardians, and approved of, 
 amongst others, by Baron de Eobeck, J.P. D.L., the ("Loyalist" 
 and Tory Candidate for North. Kildare at the election in No- 
 vember, 1885), by Mr. G. P. L. Mansfield, J.P. D.L., and 
 Major Borrowes, J.P. D.L., all extensive landlords : — 
 
 ** This Board is of opinion, that unless the Government take immediate 
 steps to put a stay on capricious eviction, pending legislation on the 
 Land Question, the country will be plunged into a state of misery, and 
 ruin, and starvation, from which it will take the exertions of a generation 
 
The Land Crisis. 13 
 
 to recover ; and we call the particular attention of the landlords to this 
 important fact — believing that their interests, as well as those of the 
 tenants, and of the country in general, will be judiciously served and 
 promoted by their making substantial abatements in rents at this 
 alarming juncture." 
 
 The resolution as it originally stood expressed a belief, " that 
 50 per cent, under the Government valuation would be the very 
 least reduction commensurate with this unprecedented and 
 unforeseen depression," and this gave rise to the following 
 observations : — 
 
 "Baron de Robeck. — I would not agree to a hard and fast line of 50 
 per cent, reduction on the valuation. Where one man might want that, 
 another would not. It may be necessary in some cases, but not in aU. 
 I would agree to everything but the fixing of a hard and fast line at 50 
 per cent, below the valuation." 
 
 "Mr. Mansfield. — I take precisely the same view of it as the Baron." 
 
 " Baron de Robeck. — T quite agree with Mr. Fenelon in everything 
 
 barring the per-centage in the resolution. I think the common sense 
 
 poKcy of the landlords would be to meet their tenants in a fair and 
 
 straightforward manner." 
 
 Among the statements of Mr. Fenelon, adopted by Baron de 
 Robeck and Mr. Mansfield, we find the following : — 
 
 "With bad prices and a bad crop, the question arises — where are the 
 rents to come from ? Unless extraordinary concessions are made hy the 
 landlords, the great majority of the tenants will he able to pay no rents at 
 alt." 
 
 And in face of all this, Mr. Parnell and the Irish Parlia- 
 mentary Party, because of their recent action on the land question, 
 have been accused of "manufacturing a crisis" for "base personal 
 ends," and of desiring without any cause to create and foster a 
 " no rent" movement, in order to throw the country into turmoil 
 and disorder ! 
 
 Pent Eeductions in England. 
 
 The justice of the claim for a reduction of rents in accordance 
 with the fall in prices has been indirectly admitted by many 
 Englishmen opposed to the Irish demands. One testimony, out 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 of many that might be given to the same effect, may be here 
 quoted. 
 
 Mr. Beadel, M.P. for Mid-Essex — a member of the Tory party, 
 and an estate agent and land surveyor by profession — replying, 
 in the House of Commons on the 13th September, 1886, to some 
 criticisms of Mr. Clancy, M.P., on the action of the Receiver of 
 Crown Eents, said : — 
 
 " If the hon. member (Mr. Clancy) had the experience of Mr. Glutton 
 or himself, he would know that it was impossible to let some farms, even 
 if no 7-ent were to be paid at ally 
 
 Mr. Beadel, of course, was referring to England ; andy if what 
 he said be true of that country, in which farmers have by means 
 of large capital, agricultural appliances of the best sort, and 
 scientific methods of cultivation, a very much better chance of 
 making money by farming, how much more true must it be of 
 Ireland, where those advantages exist in a very diminished degree? 
 
 The Irish case, again, is indirectly proved by the action of the 
 English landlords, in voluntarily reducing the rents of their own 
 tenants to an extent, generally speaking, undreamt of in Ireland. 
 It is notorious that many farms in various parts of England are 
 at present let to tenants, on condition merely that they pay the 
 rates and taxes, and keep the fences and drains in order. 
 
 Here are some recent rent reductions in England and Scotland 
 taken from the Land Agents^ Record : — 
 
 Lord Lonsdale, estates in Westmorland and Cumberland, 
 Lord Zetland, a return on 23 per cent, on half year, 
 
 Luftus in Cumberland, 
 Duke of Sutherland (Scotland) to sheep farmers, 
 Lord Fitzhardinge, Gloucestershire, permanent reduction, 
 Mr. Wise, Leamington, 
 Walter Morrison, Malham Farm, Yorkshire, reduces rents 
 
 based on current rates of 1884, 
 Duke of Wellington, Strathfieldsaye, on Michaelmas rents, 
 Mr. Richard Benyon, near Reading, Berks, and Hants 
 
 estates, on year's rents, 
 Mr. Lewis Pugh, ex-M.P., on estate in Cardiganshire, ... 
 
 20 
 
 per cent. 
 
 20 
 
 >i 
 
 40 
 
 >» 
 
 20 
 
 >i 
 
 25 
 
 » 
 
 50 
 
 »> 
 
 50 
 
 i) 
 
 50 
 
 » 
 
 50 
 
 ** 
 
The Land Crisis. 15 
 
 In considering rent reductions in England, moreover, it must 
 be borne in mind that English landlords let their farms with all 
 buildings, fences, etc., in good order, whereas in Ireland these 
 necessary adjuncts to the farm are not only kept in repair, but 
 are, as a rule, made entirely by the tenants. English landlords 
 have, therefore, a larger property in their farms, and have a 
 right to receive a larger proportion of the gross produce as rent. 
 It follows from this that a reduction given of the rent in England 
 represents a greater concession to the tenant than a similar re- 
 duction in Ireland. 
 
 The "Increased Yield" Argument. 
 
 But it is said that, if prices have fallen, the increased yield of 
 the crojos makes up, and more than makes up, for the loss. The 
 Economist, in an article which appeared on 18th September, 
 made itself responsible for this dishonest argument. 
 
 The Economist, in order to prove its thesis, compares the year 
 1882 with the year 1885. 
 
 In the first place, returns regarding the yield of crops are 
 collected by the Constabulary, and must necessarily be of a very 
 uncertain and unsatisfactory character, as at best they can be 
 based only on conjecture. If we take them, however, as ap- 
 proximately correct, it is manifestly unfair to select the worst 
 year as regards produce out of the past six years, and compare 
 it with an average year like 1885 ; yet this is exactly what 
 The Economist has done ! 
 
 Instead of taking a year of exceptionally low produce, let us 
 take two average years like 1880 and 1881 — years, the state of 
 things in which certainly had as much influence on the fixing of 
 the judicial rents, as that in any other year or years — and com- 
 pare them with 1885. 
 
 In 1885, out of the total extent of land under crops, the greater 
 part by far was under oats, potatoes, and meadow. In consider- 
 ing this matter of crops, therefore, for all practical purposes it 
 will be sufficient only to consider those three crops. 
 
 The average yield of oats in 1880 and 1881 was 14-1 cwt. per 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 acre ; in 1885 it was 13*6, or less by 5 cwt. per acre, or 3*5 per 
 cent. — a fall that more than counterbalanced the rise of 3*2 in 
 price in 1885, compared with 1880 and 1881. 
 
 The average yield of potatoes in 1880 and 1881 was 3*8 tons 
 per acre ; in 1885 it was 4 tons. Here we have an increase in 
 1885 of 2 tons per acre, or 5 '2 per cent. ; but this increase sinks 
 into insignificance in comparison with the fall in price in 1885, 
 compared with 1880 and 1881, of 26 per cent. 
 
 The average yield of hay remained the same in the two periods ; 
 but according to the returns in The Irish Farmers^ Gazette, they 
 fell 10-4 per cent, in price in 1885, compared with 1880 and 1881. 
 
 The fall in some parts of the country, indeed, was far greater. 
 Good hay could be bought in North Kerry last winter for £l a 
 ton, and, at times, for fifteen shillings a ton. 
 
 "What, then, becomes of the great discovery of The Econo7nist ? 
 
 The Government Valuation and Eents. 
 
 It has been alleged that judicial rents are fair, because they 
 are not much in excess of the Government (Griffith's) valuation, 
 which, it is further alleged, was made on a basis of very low 
 prices laid down in the act. The first answer is that, though a 
 low scale of prices was laid down in the act, that scale was not 
 adhered to by the valuers, who were, on the contrary, guided by 
 the high prices which existed during the period of their operations 
 —from 1853 to 1865. 
 
 This is clear from the evidence given before the Select Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons in 1869 — a period when prices 
 were very high and had been for many years. 
 
 Wheat, per cwt., 
 
 Price laid down in 
 Valuation Act. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 7 6 
 
 Prices for five years 
 ending 1869. 
 s. d. 
 13 5 
 
 Oats, „ 
 
 4 10 
 
 8 11 
 
 Barley, „ 
 
 5 6 
 
 9 11 
 
 Flax, „ 
 
 ... 49 
 
 89 
 
 Butter, „ 
 
 ... 65 4 
 
 ... 112 
 
 Beef, 
 
 ... 35 6 
 
 68 7 
 
 Mutton, „ 
 
 ... 41 
 
 67 10 
 
The Land Crisis. 17 
 
 We quote from the examination of Sir John Ball Greene, then 
 Assistant Commissioner, now Commissioner of Valuation in 
 Ireland : — 
 
 "1053. Do you consider the valuation of Ulster low ? — No." 
 
 " 1054. Do you consider it up to the full present value of the land? 
 Not quite. — I do not consider it up to the full lettincr value." 
 
 "412. In Ulster what amount below the letting value is the Govern- 
 ment valuation ? — I think if you added 2s. in the pound you would have 
 a fair letting value." 
 
 " 415. You say there is a difference between the North and South of 
 15 per cent. — I am sure there is." 
 
 "416. Is not the difference still larger ? — In some cases it may be as 
 high as 20 per cent." 
 
 Sir Eichard Griffith, Chief Commissioner of Valuation, said in 
 answer to questions : — 
 
 " 1716. Our opinion, as I said before, is that it [Ulster] was valued 
 very high, and that it does not require a re- valuation." 
 
 "5263. You say the valuation in the South ought to be raised 5s. in 
 the pound ? — I think it ought," 
 
 " 5264. And in the North ? — Nothing from what it is now." 
 
 In other words, although prices had risen enormously, Sir 
 Richard Griffith, speaking in '69, stated that the valuation in 
 Ulster would bear no increase whatever, and that of the South 
 only 55. in the pound. It may be added, that in a carefully 
 prepared return, handed in by him, the proposed addition in the 
 South only averaged 45. in the pound. Is it not clear, therefore, 
 that Ulster was valued on existing prices, and not on the scale 
 laid down in the Act ? Because if the valuation were equal to a 
 fair letting value in '69, or within 10 per cent, of the full letting 
 value, it cannot have been made on a scale of prices which was 
 some 50 per cent, lower than those then existing. 
 
 But more : the actual rents paid affected the valuation. Sir 
 John Ball Greene distinctly states that the rent paid was an 
 element for the valuers to consider, while the valuers themselves 
 were men accustomed to value for the purpose of fixing and — it 
 might almost be said — of raising rents.* 
 
 * See the evidence of Sir Richard Griffith, question 1335. 
 
18 ., The Irish Question : 
 
 Amounts of rents were actually ascertained by surveyors, 
 who preceded the valuers, and were stated in the books, handed 
 to the valuers,* and the valuations made by the valuers in the 
 field were afterwards altered to agree more closely with the rents 
 paid.f 
 
 Secondly, the Government valuation, compared with the judi- 
 cial rents, shows the judicial rents to have been fixed too high. As 
 we have just seen, Sir Richard Griffith and Sir John Ball Greene, 
 according to a carefully prepared return (given on page 228, 
 Evidence before Select Committee, 1869), propose to add on the 
 average 45. in the pound to the valuation of the three Southern 
 Provinces, in order to bring it up to a level with the fair letting 
 value of the lands as they were in 1869 — making no reduction 
 whatever for tenants' improvements. But the judicial rents 
 fixed up to 21st August, 1885, and professing at least not to 
 include the tenants' improvements, instead of being on a level 
 with or lower than the valuation— as would seem proper from 
 the fact that the valuation represented nearly the fair letting 
 value in 1869, and that prices were lower for the six years 
 ending 1884, than for the six years ending 1869 — were actually 
 
 19 per cent, above the valuation in Leinster, Munster, and 
 Connaught. 
 
 The following are the figures for the four provinces and for the 
 County of Kerry : — 
 
 In Ulster the judicial rents are 4.2 per cent, below the valuation. 
 In Leinster „ ,, 15.3 „ above „ 
 
 In Connaught „ „ 13.2 „ ,, „ 
 
 In Munster „ ,, 25.8 „ „ „ 
 
 In Kerry „ „ 45.0 „ „ „ 
 
 Sales of Tenants' Interests. 
 One of the arguments most frequently urged in the defence of 
 the existing rack rents is, that, although the rents of holdings in 
 Ireland are alleged to be unfair, persons are found to give large 
 
 * See evidence of Duffy, question 2012, and of Hitchcock, 3804. 
 + See evidence of Lynam, question 2272, and of Hitchcock, 3788. 
 
The Land Crisis. 19 
 
 prices for the tenants' interests ; and occasionally tables are given 
 showing that those prices vary from 10 to as many as 50 years' 
 purchase of the annual rent. The argument is a plausible one, 
 but utterly delusive. 
 
 1. Generally speaking — and especially in the case of the most 
 recently published tables of the kind referred to — no particulars, 
 such as names of places or persons, are ever given, and thus it is 
 impossible to investigate the truth or accuracy of the figures. 
 This fact of itself throws great doubt — to say the least, on the 
 genuineness of the tables. They may be absolute inventions, so 
 far as anyone outside the persons who publish them can tell. 
 Even if we admit them to be genuine, it is still all-important to 
 be able to investigate the circumstances of each particular case of 
 sale for it makes a very great difference whether the sale is merely 
 that of the goodwill of an average farm, or that of one which is 
 very highly cultivated, on which the tenant has made exception- 
 able improvements, and in which he has a large legal estate. A 
 high price paid for a holding of the latter sort would be in no 
 way remarkable, and would be no test whatever of the real value 
 of the tenant's interest in an average holding. The probability 
 is, that it is solely or chiefly holdings of the exceptionally valuable 
 class that now fetch high prices. 
 
 2. The fact — if it be a fact — that the interest of a tenant in a 
 holding brings a high price, is not at all, by necessity, a proof of 
 the conclusion drawn by the landlords and their champions. On 
 the contrary, the fact that the holding is sold at all is, in nine 
 cases out of ten, proof that it is unprofitable at the existing rent, 
 for, in nine cases out of ten, no tenant disposes of his holding 
 until he is a penniless and ruined man. The real explanation of 
 many, if not of most sales, is that the incoming tenant, despite 
 the failure of his predecessor, hopes that by the application of 
 capital he may succeed where the other failed. 
 
 3. The question is, does the incoming tenant, as a rule, succeed 
 where his predecessor failed ? Is anyone able to produce instances 
 of such success ? The most notorious fact is, that amongst those 
 
20 The Irish Question : 
 
 who are crying out most loudly against the judicial rents, are the 
 few tenants who have bought at high prices the interests of their 
 predecessors in title. 
 
 4. But, even if we suppose for a moment that the tenant's 
 interest is worth at the time of sale what it is said to fetch, that 
 fact will not prevent that interest from being destroyed or ceas- 
 ing to exist under the present system of fixing rents ; for if it is 
 clear that if prices fall, as they have fallen since 1884, and if the 
 rent remains unchanged, the value of the holding to the tenant, 
 which might be represented by, say, <£I00 at the time of purchase, 
 may dwindle to nothing at all in the course of a year or two, and 
 that the sum the tenant may then receive from a more hopeful 
 but a less experienced speculator may actually represent only the 
 amount of money he has lost in the interval. 
 
 5. It is a matter of notorious fact that the persons who give 
 high or any prices Tor tenants' interests are scarcely ever agri- 
 culturists of the ordinary or average type, but little capitalists who 
 have made money at some other business abroad or at home, and 
 want land for other purposes than those aimed at by the ordinary 
 farmer. They are shopkeepers who want land to aid them in 
 their proper business of shopkeeping, or returned emigrants who 
 desire a spot on " the old sod " on which to settle down in the 
 evening of their days, or speculators, who know not what they 
 are about, and only discover their mistake when they are ruined 
 in their turn ; or police pensioners who want a home, and whose 
 pensions save them from the necessity of living by agriculture ; 
 or tenants who desire additions to their farms, in the vain expecta- 
 tion that the additional lands will afford them larger means of 
 living. 
 
 6. The following extract from a speech by Mr. Chaplin, M.P., 
 in the House of Commons, on the 24th August of the present year, 
 supplies in large part the explanation of cases in which sales 
 of tenants' interests have been made to ordinary agriculturists : — 
 " Over a large part of the country," says Mr. Chaplin, " there 
 was scarcely any means of subsistence for the population apart 
 
Tlie Land Crisis. 21 
 
 from the land, and in consequence there had always been an 
 excessive and unnatural demand for its possession." This is 
 perfectly true. There being no other industry in Ireland but 
 agriculture, the people naturally looked to the land, and strove 
 to get hold of it at almost any price, and the landlords' interests, 
 being then impossible of attainment, it only remained for them 
 to purchase the interests of the occupiers which thus required a 
 fictitious value. 
 
 7. Lastly, the cases of tenant right sale, which are not covered 
 by the undue competiticr. referred to, are accounted for by the 
 natural passion for a piece of land, for which the Irish tenantry 
 have ever been remarkable, and which has led them to pay fancy 
 prices for the coveted prize — eventually to their bitter cost."^ 
 
 When all this is taken into account, the high prices alleged to 
 
 be paid for the interests of the tenants, will be seen to furnish 
 
 no argument whatever in favour of the fairness of the existinor 
 
 rents. 
 
 The "Savings Bank" Argument. 
 
 It is said that, though the Irish tenants are alleged to be im- 
 poverished, they must have large reserves of money laid by, 
 
 * A striking proof of this assertion is afforded by the following 
 telegram from Limerick in the London Standard oi. 25th October, 1SS6 : — 
 "At the sitting of the Land Sub-Commissioners, at Six-mile-bridge, 
 during the past week, rent reductions, ranging from 10 to 33 per cent., 
 were made. In one case, where the tenant's rent was reduced from £16 
 odd to ten guineas, the chairman, Mr. Crean, said he was personally 
 opposed to the reduction, as the tenant in 1883 had paid £270 for the 
 interest, or twenty-six years' purchase of the judicial rent. Mr. 
 O'Shaughnessy said it was the value of the land the Sub-Commissioners 
 had to decide, and not what was paid for the interest. The land was 
 excessively bad, and if the tenant was the fool to give so large an 
 amount for the interest, he knew he had this Land Court to go into for 
 a reduction. The Sub-Commissioners had met many farmers who would 
 grab the land and w^ould pay anything for it. Mr. Crean said Mr. 
 O'Shaughnessy's observations were true ; but the case illustrated the 
 individual folly of the tenant in paying so large a sum for his tenant- 
 right. " 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 seeing that there are over four millions of money on deposit in 
 the Savings' Banks. This threadbare argument has been again 
 and again refuted, and cannot stand a moment's examination. 
 
 It is notorious that, except in rare cases, the depositors in those 
 " popular" banks are not farmers at all, but artizans in towns, 
 and persons having fixed wages — such as servants, policemen, and 
 other public employes. This fact is clearly indicated by an 
 analysis of the localities in which the money in the Post Office 
 Savings' Banks is deposited. By far the greater part of it is 
 placed to credit in the large towns, and only a very small propor- 
 tion in the rural districts. Thus, from the latest return* of the 
 deposits in the Post Office Savings' Banks in Ireland, we extract 
 the following facts : — 
 
 Of the entire amount credited to Dublin County — namely, 
 £464,896— as much as £4.36,731 has been deposited in the city 
 and suburbs where the depositors are well known not to be 
 farmers. Of the entire amount— £291,056— credited to the 
 County of Antrim, the large town of Belfast contributes 
 £178,106. Of the entire amount credited to Cork County— 
 £185,924— the City of Cork gives £82,50.3. Of the entire amount 
 credited to Limerick— £55,640— the City of Limerick yields 
 £38,744. Of the entire amount credited to Waterford County — 
 £33,648— the City of Waterford gives £20,977. And of the 
 gross amount deposited in the Post Office Savings' Banks through- 
 out Ireland— namely, £2,224,346— no less than £757,061, or 34 
 per cent., is actually contributed by the five principal cities in 
 Ireland. The same is true of the deposits in the Trustee 
 Savings' Banks. But even if we admit, for argument sake, that 
 the deposits in the Savings' Banks and in similar institutions, are 
 those of agricultural tenants in Ireland, then the argument 
 proves too much for the landlords and their advocates ; for the 
 
 * Since this tract was written, a later return of deposits in the Post 
 Office Savings Banks has been issued ; but the main facts remain the 
 same. 
 
The Land Crisis. 23 
 
 interest allowed ou them is only 6d. in the pound, or 2| per 
 cent., and consequently, if farmers consider them better invest- 
 ments than their farms, farming must be a most unprofitable 
 speculation. 
 
 Englishmen will understand the absurdity of " the Savings' 
 Bank argument," if they reflect that the deposits in their 
 Savings' Banks have also increased steadily in amount, year by 
 year, since the institution of those establishments, although in 
 the interval there have been severe periods of agricultural and 
 commercial depression. Thus, deposits in the English Post 
 Office Savings', which in 1871 amounted to £15,939,008, reached 
 in 1885 the total of £44,289,875 ; and every year between 1871 
 and 1885 witnessed an increase in those deposits. Yet, as the 
 world knows, very many of the fourteen years between those two 
 dates have been years of severe strain in English agricultural 
 and commercial circles. The truth as regards England, no less 
 than as regards Ireland, is that the Post Office Savings' Banks, 
 having afforded a new form of investment, have attracted 
 to themselves year by year a greater portion of the savings of 
 the community that had either not been deposited anywhere 
 before, or had been deposited at greater risk in other places, and 
 that the depositors are chiefly those who, like servants, have 
 fixed wages, and not those who, like agriculturists, earn fluctuat- 
 ing incomes. 
 
 The Argument from " Drink," 
 
 It is pointed out again that, although the Irish tenantry are 
 said to be getting poorer, they are spending more money on drink 
 year by year, and hence it is inferred that they are not so poor 
 as they are represented. 
 
 This is another specious argument ; but utterly untenable. 
 
 In calculating the amount of money spent on drink, no distinc- 
 tion is taken between the amount spent by the inhabitants of the 
 cities, and that spent by the residents in the rural districts or 
 between the amount spent by the richer classes and that spent by 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 the working population of artizans, farmers, and labourers. Yet 
 it is clear that, of the amount spent by the working population, by 
 far the greater part must be expended by the dwellers in the 
 towns, for the inhabitants of the rural localities mostly go into 
 the towns (where nearly all the drink is sold) only once a week — 
 on market days — or not so often ; and it is also clear enough that, 
 of the entire amount of money spent on drink, the greater part 
 must be expended by the richer classes, including the landlords, 
 whose drink is very much more costly. A bottle of champagne, 
 for example, would cost as much as thirty bottles of porter. 
 
 The statistics of arrests for drunkenness and the working of the 
 Sunday Closing Act strongly suggest— or rather prove — that if 
 the drink bill has gone up, the fact is due to increased expendi- 
 ture, not on the part of the poorer classes, but on the part of the 
 richer. The cases of week-day arrests for drunkenness numbered 
 108,000 in 1877, and only 90,000 in 1885 ; in cases of Sunday 
 arrests for drunkenness, there is a reduction of 60 or 70 per cent. 
 It is well-known, and it will not be denied, that the persons 
 arrested for drunkenness everywhere chiefly belong to the 
 humbler classes. A reduction, therefore, in the number of arrests 
 for drunkenness, presumes less drinking on the part of the 
 humbler classes. 
 
 But, finally, it appears that the drink bill has not gone up at 
 all ! Sir William Harcourt, in the debate in the House of 
 Commons on Mr. Parnell's Bill, on 21st September, disposed as 
 follows of the falsehood that it had increased : — 
 
 "The nature of it [the drink argument] is that the Irish people must 
 be more prosperous because they drink more than they used to do. But 
 is it true that they are drinking more ? I took up yesterday the latest 
 returns of the Board of Trade — the return for August. Taking out the 
 quantity of spirits kept for consumption in Ireland, it appears that in 
 the first six months of 1884 the consumption was 2,423,000 gallons ; 
 in 1885 it was 2,343,000 gallons ; and in 1886 it was 2,209,000 gallons 
 — a regular but most rapid decrease in the first six months of 1886. "Well, 
 the drink argument is a very silly argument at the best ; but when you 
 are using silly arguments you might as well have your facts correct." 
 
The Land Crisis. 25 
 
 Mr. Parnell's Bill and the "Loyalist" Farmers. 
 
 The pretence that the present movement for a reduction of the 
 judicial rents is but ''the latest dodge" of the Irish National 
 League for keeping the country in hot water, receives its coup de 
 grace when it is mentioned that the " loyalist " farmers of Ulster 
 are in thorough sympathy with it. We append one or two 
 striking proofs of this fact. 
 
 The Belfast Morning News of the 7th October, gives a report of 
 " a meeting of representatives from several polling districts in 
 North Antrim," on the Wednesday previous, in the Town Hall, 
 Ball vmonty. The meeting in question was presided over by Mr. 
 William Stewart, J.P. ; it was chiefly composed of men who have 
 hitherto been followers of Lord Hartington and the English 
 Whig party, and its object was declared to be to establish an 
 association on " broad liberal principles." The result was the 
 establishment of the " Eoute Eeform Club," and the unanimous 
 adoption of the following resolution : — 
 
 "That the Tenants' Relief Bill, being founded upon urgent necessities, 
 we thank Mr. Parnell for its introduction, and acknowledge with pleasure 
 the practical and creditable manner in which Mr. John Pinkerton, M.P., 
 vindicated the claims of the farmers to relief from rents which natural 
 and other causes rendered impossible ; and we hereby respectfully urge 
 the landlords to take into favourable consideration the present deplorable 
 condition of their tenantry, and make substantial and adequate reduc- 
 tions in rent. " 
 
 Mr. John Pinkerton is of course the Presbyterian Nationalist 
 Member for Gal way, the reference to him in the resolution of the 
 Route Club being evidently caused by his being an Antrim man. 
 
 Again, in the Be\i-a.%t Northern Whig, of I5th September we find 
 a report of a meeting of another body, the members of which 
 would all doubtless energetically repudiate the notion that they 
 were Parnellites or National Leaguers— the Lisburn Tenant 
 Right Association ; but which, nevertheless, adopted unanimously 
 the following resolutions : — 
 
 " Considering the present deplorable agricultural crisis, caused by the 
 
26 The Irish Question : 
 
 ruinous fall in the prices of grain, potatoes, cattle, and butter — a fall which 
 could not possibly have been foreseen in fixing judicial and other rents — 
 we declare our conviction that widespread ruin will fall on the agricul- 
 tural community if the present rents are exacted this year ; and that 
 the inability of farmers to meet their present engagements is so real and 
 severe, that the state of the country calls for the immediate attention of 
 the Government. 
 
 " We believe that the justice of the farmers' case demands that rents 
 should be at once adjusted to a sliding scale, taking into account the fall 
 of prices since they were originally fixed, and that such an immediate 
 reduction should be effected through the agency of the Land Courts, as 
 would prevent the almost universal insolvency with which farmers are 
 at present threatened. 
 
 ** We urge on the Government the necessity of taking steps to stay 
 evictions, mainly caused by the imposition of rents fixed in better times, 
 and not reduced in proportion to the fall in the markets. Measures 
 should also be taken to enable tenants holding leases to enter the Land 
 Courts, in order to have equitable rents fixed. As the agricultural crisis 
 is more severe than is generally acknowledged, we trust no delay will 
 be permitted to deprive agriculturists of immediate relief." 
 
 More important even than the foregoing resolutions was the 
 speech of the chairman of the meeting — Mr. William Gray — 
 which is reported as follows by The Northern Whig: — 
 
 '* The chairman said that meeting was composed, not of revolutionists, 
 nor of alarmists, nor of senseless agitators, but of men whose aim and 
 object was and is to deal fairly by all classes of the community — (hear, 
 hear) — men who did not give utterance to their grievances without good 
 cause (hear, hear). The acute crisis in agriculture, which has been 
 increasing in volume and intensity since 1879, has now assumed a stage 
 that no one anticipated a few years ago. The depressed state of farming 
 not only in Ireland, but all over Great Britain, it was hoped and believed 
 a few years ago, would shortly pass away. Instead of passing away, it 
 has become more intense from year to j'ear." 
 
 The significance of those remarks, lies in the fact that Mr. 
 Gray, like Mr. Mahony, M.P., was a Land Commissioner. Thus, 
 the Member for Meath, in stating in the House of Commons, 
 said that the Land Courts, in fixing rents before 1885, did not 
 contemplate the possibility of such a fall in prices as has since 
 occurred, is directly corroborated by one to whom even the sus- 
 picion of Nationalism does not attach. 
 
The Land Crisis. 27 
 
 Sundry Landlord Arguments. 
 
 In the course of the debate on Mr. Parnell's Bill in the House 
 of Commons, an attempt was made to rebut the case put forward 
 by the Irish leader and the Irish party. The strength of the 
 counter-case may be judged from the more important of the state- 
 ments with which it was sought to bolster it up. 
 
 (1) It was stated that 100,000 judicial rents had been fixed up 
 to 31st December, 1884, and 70,000 subsequently ; and that con- 
 sequently out of 170,000 persons holding under judicial rents, 
 Mr. Parnell's Bill, which would not have affected those settled 
 after 1884, would only give relief to 100,000. 
 
 Such are the figures with which a member of the Irish Govern- 
 ment attempted to mislead the English public ! As a matter of 
 fact, 153,465 judicial rents had been fixed up to 31st December, 
 1884, and only 21,902 have been fixed since that date ! 
 
 (2) It was stated that the price of stock in no way affected the 
 owners of the small holdings in Ireland, such as exist along the 
 coasts of Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, and Galway. 
 
 To any one who really knows that part of the country, such a 
 statement is seen at once to be absurd, because in all these 
 districts there are large tracts of mountain grazing, on which 
 cattle can run during the summer ; and the small tenants there, 
 almost without exception, possess a few head of cattle, which 
 they bring into their own wretched homes during the winter. 
 So far from the price of stock not affecting these small tenants, it 
 has hit them with particular severity, because mountain stock 
 has fallen far more in value than any other class of stock — in 
 fact it has become in many places quite unsaleable. 
 
 (3) It was stated by the Solicitor-General for Ireland that 
 wool had risen 60 per cent, in value. 
 
 In the first place, this was a very serious misstatement. The 
 average price of wool for the year 1885 was 8d. per lb. ; for the 
 two first weeks of October, 1885, it averaged 8|d. per lb. ; and for 
 the two first weeks of October, 1886, it averaged 9|d. per lb. ; the 
 increase was thus only 16 per cent. 
 
28 The Irish Question : 
 
 Bui, secondly, the price of wool is so very unimportant a factor 
 in Irish farming, that it is almost ridiculous to refer to it at all as 
 an element that ought to regulate rents. 
 
 A Eeturn for 1885, carefully prepared for the Government, 
 shows the following values for that year :— 
 
 Crops, £29,873,000 
 
 Milk, and its products, 14,000,000 
 
 Live Stock, 16,800,000 
 
 Wool, 320,000 
 
 (4) It has been stated that butter has lately risen greatly in 
 price. 
 
 Butter always rises in price during the autumn, because the 
 supply becomes limited. Taking, however, the average price 
 of butter for the first nine months of 1885, and comparing it 
 with the first nine months of 1886, it will be found that there 
 has been a fall of 4s. 3d. per cwt. — the price for nine months of 
 1885 being 76s. 5d., and for a similar period of 1886, 72s. 2d. It 
 is true that butter is slightly higher at present than at the same 
 period last year ; but during the months of May, June, July, 
 and August, when the bulk of the butter is made, it averaged 
 68s. lOd. per cwt. in 1885, and only 64s. 2d. per cwt. in 1886. 
 
 Other Landlord Pleas. 
 It may be well to notice, in conclusion, some other landlord 
 pleas against a further measure of protection for the Irish 
 tenantry, pending a final settlement of the Land Question. 
 "The Tenant can go." 
 (1) The Times, in its issue of the 16th October, says : — 
 "If we look into the matter, we see that the Irish tenant has exactly 
 the same legitimate means of compelling the landlord to reduce the rent 
 if owing to bad seasons or low prices it is too high, that the English or 
 Scotch tenant possesses and uses. If the latter finds the rent too high, 
 he tells the landlord he will give up the farm unless it is reduced, and, as 
 the landlord has no desire in these times to have farms thrown on his 
 hand, he is generally wilhng to come to terms. In Ireland the tenant, 
 whether he has had his rent judicially fixed or not, can resort to the 
 same remedy." 
 
The Land Crisis. 29 
 
 This is a statement which must be met with a flat denial. One 
 can only wonder at the audacity it discloses. If anything at all 
 be certain, it is that the position of an average tenant-farmer in 
 England is totally different from that of a tenant-farmer in 
 Ireland. The tenant in England, if he gives up his farm, can 
 easily acquire another ; the teuant in Ireland, if he gives up his 
 farm, or is evicted from it, cannot, in ninety-nine cases out of a 
 hundred, get another, and his only alternative is to emigrate, or 
 become a labourer in the nearest town — the poverty and misery 
 in which he thus increases, or to go with his entire family to the 
 workhouse, and thus add to the rates. Again : in England the 
 tenant very often has no great interest in his holding, for the 
 improvements have been made or allowed for by the landlord, 
 and it thus costs him no great pang to move from one place to 
 another ; in Ireland, on the other hand, the tenant is tied to his 
 holding, wretched and unprofitable though it be, not only by the 
 fact that he has no other means of livelihood, but also by the 
 fact that all the improvements have been the work of himself or 
 his ancestors ; that the labour of his life and of theirs is sunk in 
 it, and can never be properly estimated or paid for ; that it is the 
 home of his childhood ; and that it is wound up in his mind with 
 all else that he holds dear in life. In short, only the most 
 perverse, or the most ignorant, can fail to see the almost 
 immeasurable difference between the position of the farmer in 
 Ireland and the farmer in England. 
 
 Eent-Eaising in England and Ireland. 
 
 (2) "Moreover," says The Times, in the same issue, "it must be 
 remembered that, whereas the rental of England, and still more of 
 Scotland, showed an enormous increase in the quarter of a century 
 preceding 1880, the rental of Ireland during the same period — that is, 
 before the reductions consequent on the Land Act, the bad seasons, and 
 the fall of prices — showed an actual diminution." 
 
 The inference, of course, is that Irish landlords ought not 
 to be asked to make as large abatements now as English landlords. 
 
30 The Irish Question : 
 
 This is simply another falsehood, so far as the statement 
 applies to Ireland. The TimeSj we may observe, has borrowed it 
 from a publication issued by a landlord organization, which 
 itself had to go so far afield for this bogus " fact " as the British 
 Agricultural Gazette. 
 
 Eent-raising was a common practice in Ireland after 1850. It 
 was carried on by various devices. There was, for instance, the 
 silent system, according to which, on every change of tenancy — 
 whether by assignment, by succession, or on marriage — the screw, 
 as it used to be popularly said, was put on, and the rent raised. 
 There was, again, the periodical system, claimed as an 
 incident of the Ulster custom, of raising the rental all round at 
 stated periods. There was, again, the felonious system, to borrow 
 a phrase of the late Lord Clarendon, of raising rents without any 
 such excuses, the moment the tenants had improved their 
 holdings, and of thus confiscating at a blow what it had taken 
 years of unremitting toil to create. 
 
 -Both the Devon Commission and the Bessborough Commission, 
 we may add here, officially reported, in corroboration of a great 
 mass of testimony to the same effect, that the Irish landlords, as 
 a rule, neither improved nor repaired — the fact that English 
 landlords had done both being the justification for increasing 
 rents in England. 
 
 The chief field for rent raising was the region of barren, un- 
 profitable land which had been, often at incredibly great expense, 
 reclaimed and brought under cultivation. Such was until recently 
 the condition of mind of the Irish tenant that he scarcely resented 
 an increase of rent being levied on him on account of reclamation 
 eff'ected without any aid whatever from his landlord. It was only 
 when the whole value was taken away by a rise of rent— when 
 the screw was turned unbearably tight — that he rebelled. And 
 for teaching him to rise against such infamous exactions, the 
 Land League and the National League have been denounced as 
 preachers of immoral doctrine ! 
 
 A.S to the period before 1850, rents were so high in some places 
 
The Land Crisis. 31 
 
 that there was no possibility of raising them. The reason is 
 plain. The period of the Napoleonic wars was a veritable golden 
 age for landowners. Prices of farm produce rose immensely, 
 and up in proportion went the rents. After the close of the 
 Napoleonic era, and the resumption of cash payments, of course 
 the enormous rents could not only not be increased, but 
 necessarily fell with the disappearance of the inflated prices. 
 But they were lowered as little as possible ; and now, because 
 they were lowered at all the landlords actually boast of their 
 justice and moderation. Some kept on exacting the Napoleonic 
 rents ; and their successors of the present day are often found at- 
 tempting to prove how just they have been in their dealings with 
 their tenantry, by proudly pointing to the fact that their rents 
 have not been changed for seventy years or more ; oblivious or 
 ignorant of the fact, that thereby they are affording the best 
 possible evidence that they are now exacting monstrous rack- 
 rents. 
 
 The Powers of the County Court Judges. 
 
 (3) It has been said that the County Court Judges in Ireland 
 have power to do all that is necessary or desirable, in the way of 
 mitigating any hardship that can be inflicted in the case of ten- 
 ants against whom ejectments are pending for non-payment of 
 rent; and one of those functionaries, since the rejection of Mr. 
 Parnell's Bill, actually announced that, if tenants served with 
 ejectments came into his court, he would give them "fair and 
 reasonable terms." 
 
 As a matter of fact, no County Court Judge, or any other Judge 
 in Ireland, has power to do anything of the kind. All they have 
 power to do is to put a stay on the execution of the eviction decree 
 for a few months. In other words, they can postpone the day of 
 eviction; but they cannot prevent it coming some time, and they 
 cannot wipe off or reduce by a farthing the rent-debt on account 
 of which the ejectment is brought, and which will become only 
 the more diflicult to pay with the lapse of time. 
 
 ^ ♦ ♦ ♦ < 
 
^ht fiJ^It (^xmimt 
 
 The Following Publications abe supplied by the 
 Ipjsh Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Kedmond, B.L. M.P 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The "Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Kedmond, B.L. M.P. 
 
 (7) Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (8) The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 (9) An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 
 
 With Introduction by J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (10) Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 
 (11) Irish Protestants and Home Rule. 
 
 By J. E. Redmond, B.L. M.P. 
 
 "Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
 A Word for Ireland. By T. M. Healy, B.L. Price Is. 
 
 Report on the Present State of the Irish Land Question. 
 
 By A Land Valuer. Price 6d. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms, 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 Other Tracts in prejmration. 
 
No. 5. 
 
 Cl^e Irislj ^m$imi. 
 
 THE "CASTLE" SYSTEM: 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN J. CLANCY, M.A. 
 
 M.F. for North Dublin. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 1886 
 Price One Penny. 
 
THE ^^ CASTLE" SYSTEM. 
 
 PART I. 
 A Sketch in Outline. 
 The system under which Ireland is actually governed at the 
 present moment was very well described in outline by Mr. 
 Chamberlain, M.P. for West Birmingham, in a speech delivered 
 by him, at West Islington, London, on the I7th June, 1885. 
 Mr. Chamberlain on that occasion said : — 
 
 " I do not believe that the great majority of Englishmen have the 
 slightest conception of the system under which this free nation attempts 
 to rule a sister country. It is a system which is founded on the bayonets 
 of 30,000 soldiers encamped permanently as in a hostile country (cries 
 of ' shame '). It is a system as completely centralized and bureaucratic 
 as that with which Russia governs Poland, or as that which was com- 
 mon in Venice under Austrian rule (' shame '). An Irishman at this 
 moment cannot move a step, he cannot lift a finger, in any parochial, 
 municipal, or educational work, without being confronted, interfered with, 
 controlled by, an English ofi&cial appointed by a foreign government, 
 and without a shadow or shade of representative authority. I say the 
 time has come to reform altogether the absurd and irritating anachronism 
 which is known as Dublin Castle — to sweep away altogether these alien 
 boards of foreign officials, and to substitute for them a genuine Irish 
 administration for purely Irish business " (cheers). 
 
 It may possibly be thought that there is some exaggeration in 
 this description of the " Castle " system, but the words of Mr. 
 Chamberlain were and are strictly true. The Government of 
 Ireland is a pure despotism, under the guise of constitutional 
 forms, and this despotism differs from most other forms of 
 despotism, in that the despots are, in Mr. Chamberlain's phrase, 
 " foreign officials," deriving their authority not from the Irish 
 people, but from another nation. To prove this assertion is the 
 object of the following pages. 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 The Eeal Governors of Ireland. 
 
 The real governors of Great Britain are the people of Great 
 Britain itself. The British people, by means of the representa- 
 tive system, select their own rulers ; and when they become tired 
 of or dissatisfied with any given set of rulers, they can get rid of 
 them at a general election, and put another set in their places. 
 
 The Irish people, though nominally living under the same 
 constitution, have no such power. They never can select their 
 own rulers, even though they should, as they did at the last two 
 general elections, declare their desire to do so by the voice of five- 
 sixths of their parliamentary representatives. On the contrary, 
 they are supplied with administrators nominally appointed by 
 the Sovereign, but really appointed by the party which may for 
 the time happen to be in a majority in Great Britain. The 
 representatives of Ireland may pass any censure they please on 
 those who administer their afiairs ; but such a vote has, 
 necessarily, no practical efiect. The parliamentary or represen- 
 tative system is in their case a mere mockery. 
 
 Take the present state of things by way of illustration. 
 
 Five-sixths of the parliamentary representatives of Ireland are 
 Nationalists. According to the theory of the British Constitu- 
 tion they ought practically to appoint the men responsible for 
 the management of Irish afiairs. But the men who actually 
 administer those afikirs are the delegates, not of the large majority, 
 but of the small minority of the Irish representatives and of the 
 political party in Great Britain with which that minority is in 
 agreement on political questions. 
 
 The two chief officials of the government in Ireland are the 
 Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. The former is sup- 
 posed to represent only the Sovereign, but in reality he, as much 
 as the Chief Secretary, is always a party man. Both at present 
 are Tories. One — Lord Londonderry [commonly called by the 
 mass of the Irish people, Lord Castlereagh, after the chief author 
 
The " Castle " System. 5 
 
 of the Union of 1800, with a view to mark their detestation of the 
 political principles he represents] — was once one of the Orange 
 representatives of the County of Down, and has always been 
 closely connected with the Orange faction in Ulster. Since his 
 appointment to his present office he has, in his replies to 
 " addresses " presented to him, thrown off completely the mask 
 of neutrality becoming a representative of the Queen, and openly 
 declared himself again and again a partizan of the " Unionist " 
 or loyalist, that is. Orange complexion. The other and the more 
 important of the two chief members of the " Irish " government 
 — Sir Michael Hicks-Beach — is an English Tory, who could not 
 possibly secure election to Parliament in any one of the eighty- 
 five National constituencies of Ireland, and who would probably 
 find considerable difficulty in obtaining a seat for any one of the 
 remaining eighteen. No two men have ever more clearly held 
 office in despite of the people whom they govern. 
 
 Despots and something more. 
 
 The worst of it is that the Lord Lieutenant and ^ the Chief 
 Secretary are not merely ordinary despots — that is, officials 
 responsible in no degree to Irish public opinion, or to the criti- 
 cism or votes of the Irish representatives ; but that their power 
 and authority extend to, and are habitually exercised in, every 
 department of Irish administration, down even, in many cases, to 
 the minutest details; so that, as Mr. Chamberlain says, "an Irish- 
 man cannot move a step, cannot lift a finger, in any parochial, 
 municipal, or educational work without being confronted, inter- 
 fered with, controlled by," them or their agents and appointees. It 
 may be added that those two chief officials are generally utter 
 strangers to the country, and know nothing about its wants. 
 
 We shall now proceed to set forth the details of the bureau- 
 cratic system — ^a system like that of " Eussia in Poland," or that 
 of " Austria in Venice " — at the head of which are the Lord 
 Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 PAET III. 
 The Big "Boards." 
 A great part of the domestic affairs of Ireland is managed by 
 the following bodies : — 
 
 (1) The Local Government Board ; 
 
 (2) The Board of Works ; 
 
 (3) The Board of National Education. 
 
 Every member of every one of those bodies is nominated by the 
 Lord Lieutenant, and is responsible, like the Lord Lieutenant him- 
 self not to Irish public opinion, nor to the representatives of 
 Ireland^ but to the British Cabinet and the British majority in 
 Parliament. The boards may do what they please, even though 
 all Ireland denounced their proceedings ; and the knowledge 
 that their masters are the ministers in Downing-street, has only 
 too often rendered most of them utterly indifferent to Irish 
 wishes. When their proceedings are criticized at any consider- 
 able length by Irish representatives in Parliament, not only are 
 the boards generally backed up by the Chief Secretary, or some 
 other member of the government, but the Irish members are ac- 
 cused of obstruction, and are threatened with various parlia- 
 mentary pains and penalties for presuming to " waste the time 
 of the House," by making such criticisms.* This fact has the 
 effect of making the boards not only indifferent to Irish opinion, 
 but too often insolent in their treatment of the individual Irish- 
 men with whom they come in contact. 
 
 The Local Government Board. 
 
 The Local Government Board consists of five persons, viz. : — 
 the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who, as we have already pointed 
 out, is not responsible to Irish oiDiniou, and who, indeed, always 
 
 *Last session — that which commenced in August of the present year 
 — Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the new Chief Secretary for Ireland, made 
 a bitter complaint, that amounted to a charge of obstruction, because the 
 debate on the vote for the Local Government for Ireland occupied three 
 hours of the time of the House of Commons ! 
 
The " Castle " System. 7 
 
 holds his place iu defiance of Irish opinion ; and the permanent 
 Under-Secretary for Ireland and three other members who, as 
 we have also pointed out, are nominated by the irresponsible 
 Lord Lieutenant, 
 
 The functions of those officials are multifarious and important. 
 Amongst other things, they control the administration of the laws 
 regarding the relief of the poor, the public health, the pollution 
 of rivers, the diseases of cattle, the providing of houses for agri- 
 cultural labourers, and other matters ; and through their auditors 
 exercise a large control over the proceedings of every town council 
 in the country. Even in the very constitution of new town 
 boards the Local Government Board has a potent voice. For 
 instance, whereas before 1854 it rested with those most concerned 
 — namely, the ratepayers — to say what should be the number of 
 members of each such board, the irresponsible Dublin officials 
 have had that power since. The Boards of Poor Law Guardians, 
 even if they were free from the dominion of the Castle, would 
 be bad enough specimens of representative local government ; for 
 a full half of every one of those boards is, as we shall point out 
 later on, composed of men virtually nominated by the Lord 
 Lieutenant, while the " representative " half is elected on a 
 franchise under which a landlord may have as many as thirty-six 
 votes and the average tenant only one. But they must be accounted 
 mere mockeries of representative institutions when it is added, 
 that in almost everything they do, they may be " confronted, 
 interfered with, controlled by, an English official appointed by a 
 foreign government, and without a shadow or shade of represen- 
 tative authority." A fewirresponsible men, sitting in the Custom 
 House, Dublin, may refuse to approve the " minutes " of their 
 meetings, they may set aside their resolutions, they may dismiss 
 their officers by "sealed orders," they may even dismiss and 
 dissolve the local boards themselves — every one of them — and 
 appoint paid guardians of their own nomination to their posts ; 
 and, moreover, all those povrers are actually exercised from time 
 to time. 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 A notable, but by no means, a singular exemplification of the 
 powers of the Local Government Board, and of the manner in 
 which it exercises them on occasions, is furnished by the case of 
 Dr. J. E. Kenny, M.P. for South Cork. Dr. Kenny was medical 
 officer to the North Dublin Union Workhouse, and in that 
 capacity, had won through many years the approbation of all 
 classes of the Dublin public. But he was an ardent Nationalist 
 and Land Leaguer too, and after the suppression of the League 
 in 1881, he was one of those who were arrested as "suspects" on 
 the late Mr. W. E. Forster's warrant, put into Kilmainham 
 Prison, and kept there for several months, not only without trial 
 or conviction, but without any specific charge having ever been 
 brought against them. The Poor Law Guardians of the North 
 Dublin Union esteemed him so highly, that they resolved to keep 
 his place vacant for him and to appoint a locum tenens till he 
 should be released from jail. But the very man who had him 
 arrested on suspicion, made his arrest the pretext for calling on 
 the members of the Local Government Board to dismiss him, 
 and dismissed Dr. Kenny accordingly was by " a sealed order," 
 in spite of the guardians ! This attempt to ruin a political 
 opponent was so outrageously unjust and arbitrary, that a storm 
 of indignation was aroused, before which the Government 
 eventually gave way, and agreed to the restoration of Dr. Kenny 
 to his liberty and to the professional post of which he had been 
 deprived ; but even in the very reversal — a lordly reversal — 
 of its act, the Local Government Board gave a striking instance 
 of its supremacy over the local representatives of the people. 
 
 What is true of the Boards of Guardians is true also of the 
 case of the Local Sanitary Boards, which work the Public Health 
 Acts and the Labourers' Acts. The Local Government Board 
 may, if it pleases, obstruct or even render altogether nugatory 
 the operation of those acts, and yet it never can be called to ac- 
 count by the Irish people if their British masters stand by them 
 and defend them, as they usually do. 
 
 The powers of the Local Government Board auditors are 
 
TJie ''Castle" System. 9 
 
 extensive and far-reaching ; and they, too, of course, are 
 practically irresponsible to Irish public opinion. 
 
 The Board of Works. 
 
 The Board of Works consists of three persons, all of whom are 
 nominated hy the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 It has great powers, and its range of operations is most exten- 
 sive. Amongst other things, it controls the construction of all 
 public works, the lending of money to landlords and tenants for 
 making improvements on lands, and the management of several 
 harbours and public parks. 
 
 Even in cases where its powers seem to be restricted by the 
 existence of local, representative authorities, under or in conjunc- 
 tion with which it is supposed to work, the irresponsible officials, 
 appointed by the irresponsible Viceroy, and not the represen- 
 tatives of the people, have the real authority. Thus, under an 
 Act of 1842 (5 & 6 Vic. c. 89), 121 areas were constituted 
 districts for the purposes of arterial drainage, and local elected 
 boards were called into existence for the management of certain 
 details. This looked at first sight like conceding to Ireland a 
 certain, though small, amount of genuine local self-government ; 
 but the old local drainage boards possessed but the shadow of 
 power ; for the one thing of which they were given no control, and 
 over which the Board of Works had supreme control, was the 
 expenditure of money ! The Board of Works has less power 
 over the new Drainage Boards, but it can still interfere effectively 
 at every stage of their proceedings and defy their protests. 
 
 Not a year passes in which serious complaints are not made of 
 the manner in which the Board of Works discharges its multifa- 
 rious duties; but whether those complaints are ill-founded or 
 well-founded, the result is almost always the same. The board is 
 not responsible to the Irish people, and its real masters almost in- 
 variably take its side in any dispute it may have with any section 
 of the Irish people. Again and again its proceedings have been 
 censured in the House of Commons, by the votes of a large 
 
10 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 majority of the Irish representatives; but on those occasions 
 the minister of the day has always stood by it, in opposition to 
 the Irish majority; and at his bidding the votes of the Irish 
 members have been regularly overdone by the intervention of 
 an adequate host of English and Scotch members, who, it may 
 be said without offence, know nothing, as a rule, about the 
 question in dispute. 
 
 The Board of National Education. 
 
 The Board of National Education or, as it is popularly called, 
 the National Board, controls all the primary schools in Ireland 
 maintained by public funds. It prescribes the school regulations 
 under certain limits set by statute ; it prepares, or has had pre- 
 pared undeV its direction, all the school books ; it divides with 
 the local managers of the several schools the control of the 
 teachers ; and it is the master of the insj)ectors. 
 
 This important body, dealing with matters that are of the highest 
 interest and deepest possible concern to the people^ is wholly in- 
 dependent of the people. It consists of twenty members, all of 
 whom are nominated by the irresponsible Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 Of the twenty members of the Board, ten are Catholics, and 
 ten are members of various Protestant churches. This arrange- 
 ment is an illustration of the sort of " religious equality " which 
 even still prevails in many departments of the public service in 
 Ireland. Obviously, if the Catholics of Ireland were to have 
 Commissioners in proportion to their numbers in the country, 
 they should have more than ten, seeing that they are not merely 
 half of the population, but nearly four to one. Yet, they have 
 never asked for any increase in the number of Catholic 
 Commissioners. 
 
 Of the twenty, scarcely one is in agreement with the political 
 aspirations of five-sixths of the Irish people. The only two who 
 are not notoriously opposed to the national demand for a domestic 
 legislature, are Mr. Edmond Dease and Mr. C. T. Eedington ; 
 and, while the Queen's County had to get rid of Mr. Dease as a 
 parliamentary representative, because of his lukewarmness in 
 
The "CastW System. 11 
 
 the cause of Home Rule, Mr. Redington gave his adhesion to 
 the project of a statutory parliament for Ireland only after the 
 introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Bill, and because, as he said, he 
 saw that such a settlement of the Irish question was inevitable. 
 One of the anti-national members of the Board is no other than 
 the Rev. Hugh Hanna, about whom so much has been heard in 
 connection with riots in Belfast. It will therefore not surprise 
 the reader to learn that the education imparted in the national 
 schools of Ireland has about it nothing of a patriotic caste. In 
 every free country the children in the public schools are com- 
 pelled to learn much about their country, and are thus brought up 
 with a love for it, and a desire to serve it ; in Ireland the object, 
 so far as the government public schools are concerned, is to teach 
 as little as possible on the subject of Ireland. Two or three years 
 ago, the National School Teachers held their annual congress 
 in Dublin for the discussion of their grievances, and invited to 
 their meetings, amongst other members of parliament, two or 
 three of the leaders of the Irish Party. One or two of these 
 latter accepted the invitation, and delivered speeches in which 
 the pay of the teachers was contrasted with that of the police. 
 Because of this fact, the Board showed its political leanings, by 
 actually attempting to break up the teacher's organization which 
 was itself strictly non-political ! 
 
 The National Board, of course, like the Local Government 
 Board and the Board of Works, cares nothing and need not 
 care anything for Irish criticism. 
 
 Other Boards. 
 
 The other principal Boards in Ireland are : — 
 
 (1) The Fisheries' Board ; 
 
 (2) The Intermediate Education Board ; 
 
 (3) The Board of Asylums for Lunatic Poor ; 
 
 (4) The Prisons Board ; 
 
 (5) The Board of Charitable Donations and Bequests ; 
 
 (6) The Loan Fund Board. 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 Every member of every one of those Boards also is nominated hy 
 the irresponsible Lord Lieutenant; and not one meynber of any of 
 them is, as such, responsible to, or under the control of, the Irish 
 people or their representatives. It is this latter fact whicli con- 
 stitutes the grievance in the case of this group of Boards. Many 
 of them, if not all of them, would, under Home Rule, consist of 
 nominated members ; but then the members of them would be 
 nominated by a minister responsible to the Irish people, and 
 would be thus indirectly, but most completely, within the control 
 of the Irish people. Nominated, as they are, by a minister not 
 responsible to or depending on the majority of the Irish repre- 
 sentatives for his official existence, they are outside Irish control, 
 and need not, as most of them do not as a matter of fact, care 
 for Irish opinion. 
 
 The Fisheries' Board deserves to have it said of it that, if it 
 were responsible to an Irish Parliament, it could not evince a 
 greater desire than it does to discharge its duties to the satisfac- 
 tion of the Irish people, and with a due regard to the public 
 interests. 
 
 PART lY. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant in the Counties. 
 
 The irresponsible Lord Lieutenant is the chief power in the 
 Irish counties. Through the Lord Chancellor — a political officer 
 like himself, and a dependant, not on Irish, but on British votes 
 for his place — he appoints all the magistrates ; he, by that fact 
 also, controls to a great extent the composition of the Boards of 
 Poor Law Guardians ; he virtually nominates the Grand Juries ; 
 he virtually manages the district lunatic asylums ; and, in fact, 
 there is scarcely one'department of public business in the counties 
 in which he is not the virtual head and front of everything. 
 
 The Magistrates. 
 The appointment of magistrates in Ireland — this is the Govern- 
 
The ''Castle" System. 13 
 
 ment account of the matter — rests formally with the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, but really with the Lord Lieutenants of the counties. But 
 these latter are themselves appointed by the Viceroy in Dublin ; 
 so that, whether the Government theory is correct or not, the 
 truth remains, that the chief authorities in Dublin Castle are the 
 persons virtually and really responsible for the composition of 
 the Irish magistracy. 
 
 The result is a striking one. The magistracy of Ireland con- 
 sists almost entirely of men opposed to the mass of the people in 
 religion, in politics, in everything on which men can differ. In 
 a county where four-fifths of the people are Catholic it has been 
 shown, by a recent parliamentary return, to be a frequent case, 
 that three-fourths of the magistrates are Protestants. Up to a 
 very recent date, out of 77 magistrates in Fermanagh, there was 
 only 07ie Catholic ; and yet, in that county, though it is in Ulster, 
 the Catholics out-number all the other religious bodies together. 
 The small landlord class alone are, practically speaking, repre- 
 sented on the bench ; and thus the scandal is witnessed every 
 year, at the annual licensing sessions, of landlord judges sitting in 
 judgment on liquor dealers who have declined to sell their wares 
 to the agents of evicting members of the landlord fraternity. We 
 do not enter here on the question, whether it is right or wrong 
 to refuse the renewal of their licences to such shopkeepers for 
 such a cause ; but justice should be above suspicion, and in the 
 case under consideration, the administration of the law is fatally 
 tainted with the suspicion of glaring partizanship. 
 
 But the magistrates not only sit on the bench to " adminster 
 justice"; a certain number of them also sit e.r o^cio on every 
 board of Poor Law Guardians. Half of every such board must 
 consist of magistrates who need not be and are not elected, but 
 are selected by a rule of law designed to bring to the boards the 
 "biggest" landlords in their respective localities. That is to say, 
 the Lord Lieutena?it, or the " CastlCj^ virtually nominates half the 
 members of every such board. 
 
 Again, at " baronial sessions," at which all expenditure in the 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 baronies out of the Grand Jury cess is authorized, and at the 
 sessions for "tlie county at large," at wliich all expenditure out 
 of the same fund is authorized for " the counties at large," the 
 persons entitled to sit and vote are the magistrates for the county, 
 assisted, in the case of the baronial sessions, by a shadowy repre- 
 sentation of the cesspayers, who can never number more than 
 twelve, and who in practice — being in a minority — rarely take 
 any part in the business at all. The framers of the statute regu- 
 lating the matter seem actually to have contemplated this result, 
 for there is a provision that the absence of the cesspayers shall 
 not debar one or more justices from transacting the business of 
 the sessions. TliQ Lord Lieutenant thus practically nominates 
 all the persons with whom rests the initiation of the expenditure 
 upon all the local works to which the Grand Jury tax is applied, 
 and the cost of which ordinarily amounts to two-thirds of the en- 
 tire expenditure out of that tax. 
 
 The scandal involved in the composition of the Irish magis- 
 terial bench, has long been notorious ; but so far from any real 
 attempt having been made to remove it by appointing more 
 Catholic magistrates and fewer Protestants, the very reverse has 
 been done in recent years. In the six months during which the 
 Tories held office in 1885, about thirty new magistrates were 
 appointed for the County of Dublin. About twenty of those 
 were Protestants, and only about ten Catholics. Yet Dublin 
 is a county in which there is a larger proportion than in any 
 other county, of Catholics of the class usually appointed to the 
 magistracy. The appointments in most of the other counties 
 were of a similar character. 
 
 "Worse even and more injurious in its effects than the official 
 boycotting of Catholics, is the practice of packing the magisterial 
 bench with members of one class — the class, too, with which the 
 majority of the Irish people have been most in conflict, and which 
 is practically the only one opposed to the national demand for 
 self-government. While in every county there are many mer- 
 chants, shopkeepers, farmers, and professional men, who are 
 
The "Castle" System. 15 
 
 thorouglily qualified to hold the commission of the peace, these 
 but rarely have a chance of being appointed justices, while not 
 only is every considerable landlord made a magistrate, whether 
 he asks or is fitted for the appointment or not, but his sons are 
 also made magistrates, as a matter of course, as soon as they are 
 of age, and, in many cases, the land agent is appointed in addi- 
 tion. The necessary result is to give a partizan complexion to 
 the bench, and utterly to destroy popular confidence in its im- 
 partiality. 
 
 The Grand Juries. 
 
 The principal local authorities in the counties are the Grand 
 Juries. They are purely landlord institutions and they are non- 
 representative, being mrtually the creation of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant appoints the sheriffs (except in the few 
 corporate towns which have such functionaries) ; and the sheriffs 
 who are always leading landlords and magistrates, but who need 
 not be and often are not resident in their counties, select the 
 Grand Juries, the only restriction put upon them being one that 
 compels them to favor those landlords who have large property 
 qualifications without any necessary corresponding liability to 
 Grand Jury taxation * Generally speaking, the sheriff selects 
 from the aristocrats in his county those whom he likes, and if he 
 desires to have the Grand Jury consist entirely of his own personal 
 friends, he has only to place twenty-three of his personal friends 
 at the head of the panel, and have them ready to be sworn when 
 their names are called. 
 
 To the bodies selected after this indefensible fashion is entrusted 
 a vast amount of important business, including the appointment 
 of all the county ofiicials, and the repair and maintenance of the 
 public works of the county — its roads, bridges, courthouses, and 
 bridewells. The Grand Juries have the final word in the matter 
 
 * It is the tenant and not the landlord who pays the Grand Jury tax. 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 of sanctioning all county expenditure ; the only remedy which 
 the taxpayers possess against their unjust rulings being a costly 
 appeal to a judge who has no special knowledge of the subjects 
 about which a dispute usually arises. 
 
 This is not the worst. The Grand Juries exercise a discretion- 
 ary power in levying " the blood-money " authorized by various 
 Coercion Acts, and in distributing the cost of the extra police 
 imported into their respective districts at their own request, on 
 the pretext of agrarian disturbances, and supported out of the 
 county to which the landlords, as such, do not contribute. It is a 
 gross scandal that a body of bitter partizans of one party to the 
 agrarian struggle in Ireland should alone have such power ; and 
 it is no wonder that such men often grossly abuse it. 
 
 The anomalies of the Irish. Grand Jury system are well nigh 
 incredible, and so are the stories of jobbery and corruption which 
 are sometimes told about them ; but even if this system worked 
 as well as it works badly, it is still a monstrous and irritating 
 absurdity that such purely local business should be transacted by 
 bodies of men, appointed indirectly hy an irresponsible ojfficial in 
 Dublin Castle, and themselves responsible not even to the Lord 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 But even this is not all. The Grand Juries, which are created 
 by the sheriffs who are appointed by the Lord Lieutenant, not 
 only exercise directly the important powers just referred to, but 
 they themselves in their turn appoint other bodies equally irre- 
 sponsible. Under the 5 & 6 Vic. cap. 89, for instance, four 
 Inland Navigation Districts were created and placed under 
 "local " control. The local authorities in this case are boards of 
 trustees originally named in the act, but afterwards, on the 
 occurrence of vacancies, appointed by the irresponsible Grand 
 Juries of the counties contributing to the cost. 
 
 To sum up the facts on this head. The British cabinet appoints 
 the Lord Lieutenant ; the Lord Lieutenant appoints the sheriffs ; 
 the sheriffs appoint the grand juries ; and the grand juries 
 practically constitute the county-at-large and baronial sessions 
 
The " Castle " System. 17 
 
 courts and the inland navigation boards. The taxpayers, as 
 such, have no power in the matter at all ! 
 
 More of it. 
 
 The wide-spreading power of the irresponsible Viceroy in 
 Dublin Castle, in the affairs of the Irish counties, has not even 
 yet been fully described. 
 
 Ireland is divided into twenty-two Lunatic Asylum districts. 
 In each of those districts is a lunatic asylum. In this case, again, 
 " local " authorities are provided ; but the local authorities in 
 question consists of boards of governors who are alt appointed by 
 the inevitable and irresponsible Lord Lieutenant. What such 
 sham "authorities" are kept up for at all it is difficult to dis- 
 cover; for, not they, but the Lord Lieutenant, appoints the medi- 
 cal officers of the asylums ; two inspectors, also appointed by the 
 Lord Lieutenant, enforce the regulations ivhich are drawn up by 
 the Lord Lieutenant for the administration of the asylums ; the 
 Board of Works which, as we have pointed out, is also the 
 creation of the Lord Lieutenant, supervises all expenditure in 
 building and structural improvements ; and then, the super- 
 fluity is enacted, of making the Lord Lieutenant the ultimate 
 authority! The whole arrangement would assuredly be taken to 
 be an elaborate joke, if it were not so certainly a reality. 
 
 Take another instance : In Dublin the harbour authority is 
 entitled the Port and Docks Board. This board at least, one 
 would suppose, is one which would be free from the octopus-like 
 claws of the irresponsible Viceroy. But the fact is that it con- 
 sists of twenty-five members, of whom only three are appointed 
 by the only representative body in the city — namely, the 
 Corporation, while seven are nominated by the Commissioners of 
 Irish Lights, who are themselves nominated by the Lord 
 Lieutenant. This Port and Docks Board, it may be added, is 
 authorized to appoint a few quay constables, with limited powers ; 
 but each one of these men must be approved by the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant, and the Board cannot grant a pension of even half-a-crown 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 a week to one of its employes without the consent of the Lord 
 Lieutenant ! 
 The Lord Lieutenant everywhere ! 
 
 PART V. 
 
 "Larcom and the Police." 
 
 Some years ago, when Sir Thomas Larcom was Under-Secretary 
 to the Lord Lieutenant, the government of Ireland was, com- 
 prehensively, but with a rough accuracy, described as " Larcom 
 and the Police." Sir Thomas Larcom gave the orders, and the 
 police executed them. It is pretty much the same now, except, 
 of course, that Sir Thomas Larcom is no longer Under-Secretary. 
 All the departments, being the creations of the chief authority in 
 the Castle, are at the beck of the Under-Secretary, who is at the 
 beck, and acts under the orders, of the Lord Lieutenant— except 
 when, as is the case at present, the Viceroy is a mere figure- 
 head, and the real ruler of Ireland is the Chief Secretary. The 
 Irish people have no real share lohatever in the government of their 
 0W71 country. 
 
 The Police. 
 
 The chief agents and support of the British Government in 
 Ireland are, as we have said, the police. 
 
 In every part of England, outside London, the police are 
 under local control. In every part of Ireland the police are as 
 much an imperial force as the army, being under the command 
 of an inspector-general in Dublin Castle, who is himself, like 
 every other head of a department, under the control of the Lord 
 Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary. Moreover, outside Dublin, 
 the Irish police are quite as much a military as a civil force, 
 being armed with rifles and swords and regularly drilled and 
 practised in ball- firing like soldiers. 
 
 Being free from local, or any Irish control whatsoever, the 
 police have, in the past, habitually conducted themselves — no 
 
The ''GastW System. 19 
 
 doubt in accordance with the orders of their superiors — not as 
 the servants, but as the masters of the public. A village -sergeant 
 of constabulary is a little king or emperor. Is it any wonder if, 
 under these circumstances, the police have not been popular in 
 the past ? Yet, under the magic influence of Mr. Gladstone's 
 Home Eule policy, the feeling of dislike towards the police was 
 gradually wearing away (except in Belfast, where it began, on 
 the contrary, to grow amongst the Orangemen), and, no doubt, in 
 a short time, under similar influences, it would have disappeared 
 altogether. 
 
 The extent to which the police make themselves felt in Ireland 
 would, no doubt, astonish most Englishmen and Scotchmen. 
 They attend, fully armed, at every public gathering of the 
 people — at public meetings, markets, fairs, athletic sports, and 
 races— and at every private meeting for a public object from 
 which they are not expressly excluded by the persons organizing 
 it. Policemen, acting as government reporters — professional 
 gentlemen connected with newspapers, whether nationalist or 
 '• loyalist," not being now available for such unprofessional 
 work — attend every public meeting in the nationalist interest, 
 and demand and are very often accorded seats on the platform. 
 The present writer had occasion to attend some twenty meetings 
 in Dublin county in the years 1883, '4, '5, for the sole purpose of 
 securing the registration of nationalist parliamentary voters, and 
 at almost every one of them a police reporter was in attendance 
 and ostentatiously took a report of the proceedings. The effect 
 was to intimidate a few persons, and make all the rest indignant 
 and more bitterly hostile than ever to English rule. " Loyalist" 
 or Orange meetings, on the other hand, are never attecded by 
 government reporters. 
 
 The Privy Council. 
 
 The Privy Council is one of the only other two departments of 
 the autocratic bureau, named Dublin Castle, of which notice 
 need be taken. It is supposed to advise the Lord Lieutenant in 
 
20 The Irish Question : 
 
 certain cases, and certain executive acts must be done by the 
 Lord Lieutenant " in Council." 
 
 No one would expect this body to be representative ; but its 
 composition, nevertheless, is of a character that must astonish 
 at least some Englishmen. It consists of judges and ex- judges, 
 of about a dozen bitterly anti-Irish peers, of about eight English- 
 men (ex-Chief Secretaries), of one or two government officials, 
 and of five of the most unpopular men in all Ireland, every one 
 of whom has been expelled in recent years — all but one, before 
 the recent extension of the franchise — from the Irish Parliamen- 
 tary representation, and who could not now be elected to the 
 House of Commons in any part of Ireland. Two of these per- 
 sons were appointed to the Privy Council after they had been 
 defeated at a Parliamentary election, as if to insult the Irish 
 people by honouring men in whom, as public persons, important 
 sections of the Irish people had refused in the most striking 
 fashion to place confidence. 
 
 The Stipendiary Magistrates. 
 
 It remains to say a word about the Stipendiary, or, as they 
 are generally called, the Resident Magistrates in Ireland. 
 
 After all that has been said, it need hardly be mentioned 
 that those officials are appointed hy the Lord Lieutenant. In 
 "Journals" of the late William Nassau Senior, the late Lord 
 Rosse, and other Irish authorities of same stamp, are represented 
 as giving a most disparaging account of the appointments to this 
 office in former days. The character of the appoiutments is said 
 to have improved of late years ; but, even still, a common 
 practice is to appoint to this magisterial office military men, as 
 if the Irish people were some semi-savage tribe in a newly- 
 conquered country and required to be dealt with in the stern 
 spirit of martial law. During the coercion regime, a brace of those 
 resident magistrates used to be the ordinary tribunal in cases of 
 summary jurisdiction, and numberless, and, in many cases, well- 
 founded allegations, were made of the outrages on justice per- 
 
TJie ''Castle" Sustem. 21 
 
 petrated by those tribunals. Ou the other hand, it must be 
 admitted that, if there "were no resident magistrates in some 
 parts of Ireland, such as the Orange districts of Ulster, justice 
 could never be secured for the Catholic and Nationalist section 
 of the population, seeing that " the Stipendiaries " in those 
 places are almost the only magistrates not members of Orange 
 Lodges or steeped to the lips in Orange prejudices. But, passing 
 by the manner in which the resident magistrates have discharged, 
 or are discharging, their duties, we come to the point to which 
 we chiefly wish to direct attention, namely — that " the Castle " 
 has all the appointments to the office in its hands ; that it can, if it 
 pleaseSy turn this jooioer to the most infamous uses ; and that in 
 doing so, it need not care for Irish public opinion, seeing that it is 
 backed by British ministers and British votes. 
 
 It should be added that the resident magistrates, besides 
 dispensing "justice," are amongst the chief advisers of the 
 government in determining their executive policy. 
 
 Jury-Packing. 
 
 An essential feature of the " Dublin Castle " system, which 
 appears prominently in times of disturbance, is the jury-packing 
 which is practised in prosecutions for agrarian and political 
 offences. This subject can only be very briefly touched here, 
 as the administration of justice in Ireland is a subject deserving 
 of special treatment. But one or two words about it cannot be 
 omitted in any publication dealing with " the Castle." 
 
 The state of things existing before Lord O'Hagan's Jury Act, 
 which was passed about 1872, may be illustrated by an incident 
 related in the report of the evidence taken by the "Westmeath 
 Committee of the House of Commons, in April, 1871. Mr. 
 Stephen Seed, Crown Solicitor for the Counties of Meath and 
 Kildare, was under examination, and was telling how he had 
 manipulated a Meath jury panel in the June of the previous 
 year. " I had a consultation," he said, " at the Castle with the 
 Attorney-General, and the Attorney-General was quite shocked, 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 as well he might be, when I handed him the panel for the special 
 commission of Meath. He said to me — ' What do you say to 
 this?' I said, ^ Leave the matter to me, I loill select a junj P" 
 The matter was left to Mr. Seed, and he, in conjunction with 
 some local officials, did " select " a jury, which worked to his 
 satisfaction ! The impropriety of the prosecutor selecting his 
 tribunal does not seem to have struck Mr. Seed at all. 
 
 Since Lord O'Hagan's Jury Act, the government method of 
 "selecting" a jury is less direct. The sheriffs can no longer 
 constitute a panel as they please ; but when a jury is being con- 
 stituted the prosecutors have an unlimited right of ordering any 
 person to whom they object to "stand aside," and of thus leaving 
 to be sworn only those to whom they do not object ; and that 
 right has been habitually exercised in recent years in all cases of 
 importance with some striking results. 
 
 In 1882, several trials took place in Dublin at which jury-pack- 
 ing of the most flagrant description was practised by means of the 
 power of the Crown prosecutors to order jurors to " stand aside." 
 The "panels" from which the jurors were to be selected consisted 
 of men usually summoned on special juries — that is, they were 
 possessed of high property qualifications, or were highly rated to 
 the relief of the poor. Taken together, they included the names 
 of 112 Protestants, 80 Catholics, and one Jew. In one trial 18 
 Catholics were set aside, and 2 Protestants ; the result being ayi 
 exclusively Protestant jury. In another trial, 22 Catholics — all 
 whose names were called — were set aside, and 4 Protestants ; the 
 result being a jury composed of W Protestants and one Jew. In 
 a third, 11 Catholics were ordered aside and 9 Protestants ; the 
 result being a jury of \^ Protestants. In a fourth, two Protest- 
 ants were set aside and 15 Catholics ; the result again being a 
 jwy of 12 Protestants. For details of these cases the reader is 
 referred to a parliamentary return ordered by the House of 
 Commons, on the 21st November, 1882. Because attention was 
 called to these and other matters in the Freeman^s Journal at the 
 time, Mr. E. Dwyer Gray, M.P., the proprietor of the paper, 
 
Tlic " Castle'' System. 23 
 
 and then Higli Sheriff for the City of Dublin, was brought up 
 before the presiding j udge on a charge of contempt of court, and 
 was sentenced to pay a fine of £500, to undergo a term of three 
 months' imprisonment, and at the end of that term to give 
 security for his good behaviour, or to go to jail for a further 
 period of three months. 
 
 PAET VI. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 It will now, we think, be seen that Mr. Chamberlain's descrip- 
 tion of the Dublin Castle system of government is not one whit 
 exaggerated. Under this system, not an atom of real power in 
 any important matter of purely domestic concern is left in the 
 hands of the Irish people. All such power is vested in '• foreign 
 officials," as Mr. Chamberlain would describe them — in men who, 
 though many of them are Irishmen, are most of them anti-Irish in 
 heart and mind ; who are mostly Tories, no matter whether the 
 government be Whig or Tory ; and who have and know they have 
 their real masters in Downing-street, London. In general prac- 
 tice, this Tory gang are the masters, and the government the 
 tools ; for it is on their advice that the government act, and their 
 advice is worth more in the eyes of the government than that of 
 the whole body of Irish representatives put together. No nation 
 with any self-respect would willingly endure a system of govern- 
 ment of this kind, and the Irish are no exception to the rule. 
 It is hoped and believed that the English people will not, when 
 they know the nature of this system, continue to force it on 
 Ireland, by the aid— to borrow again the words of Mr. Chamber- 
 lain—" of the bayonets of 30,000 soldiers." 
 
 R. D. Webb and Son, Printers, Abbey-street, Dublin. 
 
Wht fvt^h (!|uc.sti0n. 
 
 The Following Publications are supplied by the 
 Irish Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Pamell's Bill. By Johx Dillon', I^I.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The "Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P^ 
 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 The Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 Frice One Fenmj each. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms, 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, "Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 ^^ Other Tracts in preparation. 
 
No. 6. 
 
 t |rislj #msti0iT. 
 
 THE TEUTH ABOUT '98: 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. EEDMOND, M.P. 
 
 iSarrtstcrsatsILabj. 
 
 ♦'♦'♦ 
 
 loxdo:ni : 
 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 1886 
 Price One Penny. 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT '98. 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The necessity of going back upon some of the darkest and most 
 disgraceful pages of the history of English rule in Ireland, 
 has been forced upon the advocates of Home Rule by the 
 deliberate policy of suppression and misrepresentation adopted 
 by their opponents. Anything like an honest appeal to history 
 has been avoided by our enemies, and every allusion to the 
 wrongs inflicted upon Ireland by her English rulers has been 
 denounced as a profitless and malicious attempt to rake up a 
 hateful and forgotten past. At the same time that they have 
 demanded the charity of silence and oblivion for the wrong- 
 doings of the English ruling class, they have at considerable pains 
 unearthed from history every instance of cruelty, or bigotry, or 
 injustice on the part of the Irish people, which might be calcu- 
 lated to injure their present demand for autonomy. Such 
 attempts to create anti-Irish prejudice in England must be met, 
 and they can only be met, by that process of going back on the 
 past, which the opponents of Home Rule deprecate so much, but 
 which nevertheless they so constantly resort to themselves, as 
 we have said, when it suits their ends. 
 
 Besides, it is impossible to understand the Irish question of 
 to-day without a knowledge of the history of the past, and it is 
 the duty of the people of England resolutely to face the dis- 
 agreeable task of learning how largely English misrule and 
 English oppression, in bygone days, are responsible for existing 
 Irish misery, poverty, and disaffection. At any rate, before 
 deciding finally on the question of the Legislative Union between 
 the two countries, it is the duty of Englishmen to study closely 
 
4 The Irish Questio7i : 
 
 the history of the transactions which marked the closing days of 
 the last century, and to try to understand the primary causes of 
 Irish discontent prior to the Union, as well as the means whereby 
 that Union was brought about. Without the knowledge which 
 would be derived from such a study of the past, the meaning of 
 Irish disloyalty and the very nature of the present Irish question 
 must remain to the ordinary Englishman an insoluble problem. 
 
 In the carrying of the Legislative Union of 1800, the Insurrec- 
 tion of 1798 played an important part, and as an explanation of the 
 hatred of generations of the Irish race for England and English 
 rule, its history is of the utmost value at the present moment. 
 
 There is another reason why this particular chapter of Irish 
 history should form the subject of study and inquiry. At the 
 last election our enemies scattered broadcast throughout Great 
 Britain exaggerated and sensational accounts of certain deeds of 
 atrocity perpetrated by some of the peasantry during the insur- 
 rection, together with woodcuts from Cruikshank's pictures, and 
 represented the rising as having been a purely Catholic one, 
 unprovoked in any way by those in authority, and marked all 
 through by deeds of shocking brutality perpetrated upon the 
 Protestant population of the country. 
 
 It is the object of these pages shortly to lay the true story of the 
 Insurrection of 1798 before the public, and to show that in no 
 sense could it be said to be a Catholic rising ; that it was deliber- 
 ately provoked as part and parcel of a settled plan to enable the 
 Union to be carried ; that the people were goaded into open resist- 
 ance by unutterable cruelties of every kind, practised upon them 
 by a barbarous soldiery and a bloodthirsty Irish faction ; and 
 that the outrages perpetrated by the people, though not in any 
 way to be palliated, were not unnatural acts of retaliation, and 
 in number were few indeed compared with the outrages perpe- 
 trated by those in authority. Finally, it is intended to prove 
 these grave accusations as far as possible from the writings of 
 English statesmen and historians whose authority cannot be 
 called in question by anyone. 
 
The Truth about '98. 5 
 
 PAKT I. 
 
 " Mr. Pitt did it." 
 
 Whejt, during the discussion of the Home Rule Bill in the House 
 of Commons, one of the leaders of the Ulster Orange party 
 stated that the Rebellion of 1798 was produced by the action of 
 the Irish Parliament, he was interrupted by Mr. Gladstone who 
 vehemently asserted that "Mr. Pitt did it." The accusation 
 was an indictment of the whole Irish policy of Mr. Pitt of the 
 gravest character, and it furnished in four words the key to the 
 otherwise inexplicable puzzle, which the policy of the English 
 Cabinet from 1794 down to the Union presents to the student 
 of history, " Mr. Pitt did it." The English minister deliberately 
 shaped his policy so as to render the spread of disloyalty in 
 Ireland inevitable, and he knowingly permitted the people to be 
 forced into open insurrection, by the intimidation and cruelty 
 of the ascendancy faction and by the oppression of a lawless and 
 abandoned soldiery. Mr. Pitt's policy was clearly defined in his 
 own mind before 1794. He had arrived at the conclusion, which 
 to-day seems plain enough to everybody who is acquainted with 
 the facts, that the government of Ireland by the methods which 
 then were in force could not continue. The one great danger 
 against which he desired to guard was separation from England, 
 and separation he regarded, and rightly so, as absolutely inevi- 
 table unless one of two courses were adopted. Either Catholic 
 Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform should be granted and 
 disaffection thereby disarmed, or the very existence of Ireland as 
 a nation should be destroyed and a legislative union established. 
 It seemed for one brief moment as if the first and more generous 
 policy had received his sanction ; but it soon became evident that 
 on the contrary he had decided in favour of a union, and that his 
 apparent adoption of the policy of conciliation was in reality part 
 of the plan formed for the accomplishment of the base and evil 
 designs to which he had in his own mind committed himself. 
 
6 Tlie Irish Question: 
 
 He well knew that in quiet times the proposal of a Legis- 
 lative Union would be met with a storm of popular indig- 
 nation ; but, after the suppression of an unsuccessful rebellion, 
 things, he believed, would be different. He saw sectarian hatred 
 gradually softening ; he knew that the union of Irishmen of 
 different creeds would be fatal to his scheme ; and a rebellion in 
 which, if possible. Catholic should be pitted against Protestant, 
 became in his eyes more than ever necessary to success. After 
 such a rebellion, he anticipated that the bulk of the Protestants, 
 fresh from a bitter and exhausting struggle, would be glad to rush 
 into the arms of England for protection, and would accept the 
 Union. The Catholics, on the other side, regarding the obtaining 
 of Emancipation from the hands of an exasperated and terrified 
 Protestant faction as no longer possible, would also, he expected, 
 consent to a Union, in the hope that the English Parliament 
 would give them their rights. 
 
 To have deliberately planned an insurrection, in order to sup- 
 press it in the blood of the people ; to have allowed the people to 
 be goaded into rebellion and then to have used that 'rebellion as 
 a means of intensifying hatred between men of different religions 
 in the same land ; to have widened and deepened the chasm 
 between the mass of the people and the dominant class, in order 
 to degrade and inj ure both ; and to have done all this in order to 
 smooth the way for the carrying of a great measure like the 
 Legislative Union, which professed to be a treaty voluntarily 
 entered into by both nations — all this was an infamy too great to 
 be attributed to any man lightly or without convincing evidence. 
 
 Yet this is the accusation gravely brought against William 
 Pitt, in relation to the Rebellion of 1798, and the Union of 1800, 
 by Mr. Lecky, the chief reputable historian of the present day 
 who sides with the " Paper-Unionists." 
 
 Mr. Lecky's Testimony. 
 
 In speaking of the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, in 1795, Mr. 
 Lecky says, in his Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland : — 
 
The Truth about '98. 7 
 
 " It is probable that he [Pitt] was already looking forward to the 
 Union. The steady object of his later Irish policy was to corrupt and 
 degrade, in order that he ultimately might destroy the legislature 
 of the country. Had Parliament been a mirror of the national will, 
 had the Catholics been brought within the pale of the constitution, his 
 policy would have been defeated. By raising the hopes of the CathoUcs 
 almost to certainty, and then dashing them to the ground ; by taking 
 this step, at the very moment when the inflammatory spirit engendered 
 by the Revolution had begun to spread among the people, Pitt sowed in 
 Ireland the seeds of discord and bloodshed, of religious animosities, and 
 social disorganization, which paralyzed the energies of the country, and 
 rendered possible the success of his machinations. 
 
 *' The Rebellion of 1798, with all the accumulated misery it entailed, 
 was the direct and predicted consequence of his policy. Having suffered 
 Lord Fitzwiiliam to amuse the Irish people by the prospect of Emanci- 
 pation, he blighted their hopes by recalling him, and thus produced the 
 Rebellion.''' 
 
 Sir Jonah Barrington's Testimony. 
 
 The same charge is preferred against Pitt by Sir Jonah 
 Barrington — a member of the ascendancy faction — in his Rise 
 and Fall of the Irish Nation. He says, in speaking of the 
 Rebellion : — 
 
 "]\rr. Pitt's end was answered. He raised the Catholics to the height 
 of expectation, and by suddenly recalling their favourite Viceroy, he 
 inflamed them' to the degree of generating the commotions he meditated, 
 which would throw the Protestants into the arms of England for pro- 
 tection, whilst the horrors would be aggravated by the mingled conflict 
 of parties. Having sent Lord Fitzwiiliam to Ireland with unlimited 
 powers to satisfy the nation, Mr. Pitt permitted him to proceed until he 
 had unavoidably committed himself, both to the Catholics and the 
 country, when he suddenly recalled him. The day Lord FitzwilUam 
 arrived peace was proclaimed throughout all Ireland. The day he 
 quitted it she prepared for insurrection. Within three months Lord 
 Clare had got the nation into full training for military execution. Mr. 
 Pitt decided upon forcing a premature insurrection for a particular 
 object, and did not calculate the toi-rents of blood that xcould be shed, 
 and the invetei^ate hatred that might be perpetuated against the British 
 government." 
 
 That this really was the design of Pitt we have the most 
 convincing proof. 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam's Testimony. 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam has left it upon record, that he solemnly 
 warned the government what the result of their policy would 
 be. " To disappoint the hopes of the Catholics," said he, "would 
 be to raise a flame in the country that nothing but force of arms 
 could keep down." 
 
 But Pitt was not content even with sowinsr the seeds of dis- 
 loyalty by his sudden withdrawal of Fitzwilliam ; he ^' took 
 measures" to make the immediate outbreak of rebellion certain. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh's Testimony. 
 Upon this point we have the words of Castlereagh himself, 
 that " measures vjere taken to secure the 'premature outbreak of the 
 Rehelliony 
 
 Lord Camden's Testimony. 
 
 Lord Camden, who had supreme charge of the business of goad- 
 ing the people into rebellion, afterwards admitted in the House 
 of Lords, that " the measures of the Government caused the Rebel- 
 lion to break out sooner than it otherwise loould^'' and the secret 
 committee of the English House of Lords, which subsequently 
 inquired into all the circumstances of the rising, stated in their 
 report : — 
 
 " It appears from a variety of evidence laid before your committee, 
 that the Rehellion would not have broken out as soon as it did, had it not 
 been for the well-timed measures adopted by the Government." 
 
 What these " measures " were we shall, later on, have occasion 
 to show. 
 
 Having thus briefly established the preliminary proposition 
 that " Pitt did it," we shall proceed to trace the causes of the 
 Rebellion step by step, to show its true character, and to con- 
 sider what share of shame for the misery and outrage'^ which 
 followed in its wake rightfully rests ui3on the fame of the people 
 of Ireland. 
 
Tlie Truth about '98. 9 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 How THE EeBELLION WAS MADE CERTAIN. 
 
 In order to have a just appreciation of the causes which led to 
 the Rebellion, it is necessary to trace, step by step, the principal 
 events which marked the history of Ireland from the Declaration 
 of Independence in 1782, down to the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam 
 in 1795. 
 
 After a long and patient struggle, inspired by the genius and 
 guided by the wisdom of Henry Grattan, Free Trade had been 
 obtained, and the Repeal of Poyning's Act left the Irish Parlia- 
 ment free to legislate for Ireland. The English Parliament 
 passed an Act of Renunciation (23 Geo. III. c. 78), which 
 declared that " the right claimed by the people of Ireland — to 
 be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty and the Parliament 
 of that kingdom — shall be, and it is hereby declared to be, 
 established and ascertained for ever, and shall at no time here- 
 after be questioned or questionable." Thus the foundation was 
 laid of a free and prosperous nation. 
 
 But this was, after all, only the beginning. The Parliament, 
 whose independence had thus been secured, was itself corrupt 
 and venal, and in no sense could be said to represent the people. 
 Grattan, whose own nature was entirely free from guile, gave to 
 the English statesmen of the time credit for a good faith which 
 never animated them. At the very moment when the English 
 Parliament was declaring that the right of Ireland to self- 
 government was at no time henceforward " to be questioned or 
 questionable," English statesmen were deliberately plotting to 
 carry an Act of Legislative Union. 
 
 The Union Planned in 1782. 
 
 Conclusive evidence of this fact is forthcoming in a letter 
 written by the Duke of Portland to Lord Shelburne, on the 6th 
 of June, 1782, in which he said : — 
 
10 The Irish Question: 
 
 " I have the best reason to hope that I shall soon be enabled to trans- 
 mit to you the sketch or outline of an Act of Parliament to be adopted 
 by the legislatures of the respective kingdoms, by which the superin- 
 tending power and supremacy of Great Britain in all matters will be 
 effectually acknowledged. " 
 
 And on the 9tli of June Lord Shelburne wrote in reply : — 
 " No matter who has the merit, let the two kingdoms be one, which 
 
 can only be by Ireland acknowledging the supremacy to be where nature 
 
 has placed it." 
 
 A Packed Parliament. 
 
 English statesmen well knew that the settlement of 1782 could 
 not last without domestic reform. The Parliament was corrupt; 
 the people were enslaved ; and the executive was still responsible, 
 not to the people whom they ruled, but to the Parliament of 
 Great Britain. Not only were four-fifths of the Irish people 
 expressly excluded, as Catholics, from representation in Parlia- 
 ment, but of the 300 members of the House of Commons, only 
 seventy- two were really returned by the people, while 123 sat for 
 nomination boroughs, and represented only their patrons. Fifty- 
 three peers directly appointed these legislators, and could also 
 insure by their influence the election of ten others. Fifty com- 
 moners also nominated ninety-one members, and controlled the 
 election of four others. 
 
 The Pension List Scandal. 
 
 In addition to this ready means for corruption, the Pension 
 List was a standing scandal and disgrace. Mr. Lecky, speaking 
 of it, says : — 
 
 " The enormity of this grievance is sufficiently shown by the fact, that 
 the money spent in pensions in Ireland was not merely relatively, but 
 absolutely, greater than was expended for that purpose in England ; 
 that the Pension List trebled in the first thirty years of George III. ; 
 and that in 1793 it amounted to no less than £124,000." 
 
 The Penal Code. 
 When, besides all this, it is remembered that a Penal Code was 
 in existence against the Catholics, of such a character that Burke 
 
The Truth about '98. 11 
 
 described it as " a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as 
 well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation 
 of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, 
 as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man," it will 
 be easy to understand that the Legislative Independence of 1782, 
 if not to be followed up by Catholic Emancipation and parlia- 
 mentary reform, was for the bulk of the Irish people not of that 
 advantage which it otherwise would have been. 
 
 Opposition to Reform. 
 To the work of completing the creation of a really free nation 
 Grattan, and a resolute minority of the Parliament, devoted 
 their energies ; but at every turn they were opposed and thwarted 
 by the English ministers, who, steadily keeping their project of 
 Union in view, persistently defeated every attempt at reform. 
 
 The United Irishmen. 
 
 The spirit of religious toleration and liberality was, however, 
 rapidly spreading amongst the Protestants, especially in the 
 north of Ireland. In June, 1791, the Society of the United 
 Irishmen was established at Belfast, by a number of Protestant 
 gentlemen, amongst the more prominent of whom were Theobald 
 Wolfe Tone and Dr. Neilson. Its object was to secure Parlia- 
 mentary Reform and complete Catholic Emancipation. Its 
 principles were clearly set forth in the following resolutions 
 adopted at its first meeting : — 
 
 " First : Resolved, that the weight of English influence in the govern- 
 ment of this country is so great as to require a cordial union among all 
 the people of Ireland, to maintain that balance which is essential to the 
 preservation of our liberties and the extension of our commerce. 
 
 "Second: That the sole constitutional mode by which this influence 
 can be opposed is by a complete and radical reform of the representation 
 of the people in Parliament. 
 
 "Third: That no reform is practicable, efl&cacious, or just, which shaU 
 not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion.''^ 
 
 The Society was consequently an open, legal, and constitutional 
 one. It consisted chiefly of Protestants who were under no 
 
 c 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 obligation of secrecy, and who were merely pledged to promote a 
 union of friendship between Irishmen of every religious persua- 
 sion, and to secure a full, fair, and adequate representation of 
 ail the people in Parliament. The Society did not aim at and did 
 not desire separation. Satisfactory proof of this is forthcoming 
 in what Mr. Lecky, now a leading " Unionist," calls " the clear 
 and evidently truthful memoir of O'Connor, Emmet, and 
 MacNevin when state prisoners." The Society they say, was 
 simply and frankly loyal, aiming solely at Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion and Parliamentary Reform, and it was not until the with- 
 drawal of Lord Fitzwilliam, in 1795, that, all hope of their success 
 having disappeared, they became for the first time disloyal. 
 They then began to be convinced " that it would be as easy to 
 obtain a revolution as a reform ; but still the whole body would 
 have rejoiced to stop short at reform." 
 
 At first the Society was very successful. Its power rapidly 
 spread. Men of the highest rank and position joined it. Its 
 iafluence became powerful, both within and without the walls of 
 Parliament. It was leading the Irish people along the only safe 
 path to permanent prosperity, by preaching a union of creeds 
 for a common country. Soon it achieved a remarkable triumph 
 in the passage through Parliament of the Catholic Eelief Bill of 
 1793, which admitted the Catholics to the elective franchise, and 
 which was on all sides welcomed as a prelude to an act of com- 
 plete emancipation. By degrees the confidence of the people in 
 the future of their country increased, and on all sides the fell 
 spirit of religious animosity seemed rapidly dying out. 
 
 Then there occurred an event of the happiest omen for Ireland, 
 as it seemed to those who were unacquainted with the deep 
 designs of Pitt, and who believed in the good faith of English 
 statesmanship. Lord Westmoreland was recalled from the Lord 
 Lieutenancy, and Lord Fitzwilliam was appointed. 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam's Appointment and Recall. 
 This appointment was generally accepted in Ireland as. a 
 
The Truth about '98. 13 
 
 conclusive evidence of the triumph of the cause of the people. 
 Mr. Lecky says : — 
 
 " Lord Fitzwilliam was one of the most important personages in the 
 Whig party, an intimate friend of Grattan, and a warm and avowed 
 supporter of CathoHc Emancipation. Such an appointment at such a 
 moment could only be construed in Ireland in one way. Catholic Eman- 
 cipation was the pressing question of the hour. Pitt himself asked an 
 interview with Grattan, and stated to him the intended pohcy of the 
 Government in a remarkable sentence. Their intention was ' not to 
 bring forward Emancipation as a government measure; but if govern- 
 ment were pressed, to yield to it.' " 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam arrived iu Ireland in December, 1794. He 
 found, as he afterwards stated, that the project of Emancipation 
 was received with "universal approbation on the part of the 
 Protestants ; " and in truth it did seem for one brief moment as if 
 the Irish question were about to be settled once and for all, on the 
 basis of connection with England, coupled with perfect freedom 
 for all classes and creeds in Ireland. But ministers, whose hearts 
 were bent upon quite another kind of " settlement," speedily 
 dashed the cup of comfort from the lips of Ireland. 
 
 Fitz William's first act was one which aroused against him the 
 fury of the ascendancy faction which for so long a time had preyed 
 upon the very vitals of the country. He dismissed from office 
 Cooke, the Secretary for War, and John Beresford, a Commis- 
 sioner of Revenue. The people recognized in this act the final 
 proof of the overthrow of their enemies and the triumph of their 
 cause, and popular exultation and excitement were at the highest 
 pitch, when suddenly, without a word of warning or explana- 
 tion, Pitt abruptly recalled Fitzwilliam, censured him for his 
 encouragement of the Catholic claims, and appointed in his place 
 Lord Camden, whose first act was to restore Cooke and Beresford, 
 and to place the government of the country once more in the 
 hands of the faction whose avowed policy was to suppress all 
 popular liberties and to dragoon the nation. 
 
 From that moment the Rebellion became inevitable. The entire 
 character of the Society of the United Irishmen changed. From 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 being an open it became a secret, from a peaceful it became a 
 revolutionary organization. Its leaders, despairing of securing 
 the liberties of their country by constitutional means, had re- 
 course to the desperate expedients of conspiracy and revolution. 
 The government were well aware of all their plans, and yet they 
 allowed them to proceed. The Eebellion having been rendered 
 inevitable, the next step in their policy was, " to take measures 
 to secure its premature outbreak." The people were to be 
 goaded into open resistance. There then commenced in Ireland 
 a system of outrages upon an unarmed and defenceless people, so 
 horrible that it is difficult at this time in the world's history to 
 believe that such things were possible less than one hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 How " A Premature Outbreak " of the Rebellion 
 WAS Forced. 
 
 The first effect of Lord Camden's regime was to rekindle 
 throughout the land the smouldering fires of sectarian hatred. 
 Rumours of coming rebellion, of plots to assassinate Protestants, 
 and of wholesale outrages upon the persons and properties of the 
 " loyalist " population, were sedulously circulated. Both Catholics 
 and Protestants were roused to the highest pitch of alarm and 
 consternation. The Orange Society was established to take the 
 place of the " Peep-o'-Day Boys," who for so long had waged a 
 desultory warfare upon the Catholic population of Ulster. At 
 once there commenced a system of atrocious outrages. Walpole, 
 an English Protestant writer of the present day, in his history 
 entitled The Kingdom of Ireland, says : — 
 
 "The Roman Catholics were attacked indiscriminately. Masters 
 were compelled to dismiss Roman Catholic servants, landlords to dis- 
 miss Roman Catholic tenants. Decent farmers, quiet peasants, hard- 
 working weavers, quite unconnected with the Defenders, received notices 
 
TJi& Truth about '98. 15 ' 
 
 ' to go to Hell — Connaught would not receive them.' Their houses were 
 burned, their furniture broken up, and they and their families driven 
 from their holdings." 
 
 In the County of Armagh particularly this persecution was 
 carried to a pitch that almost exceeds belief. The historian 
 Plowden states that in that one county alone, in the year 1795, 
 7,000 men, women, and children %oere driven from their homes or 
 put to the sword. 
 
 Lord Gosford's Testimony. 
 
 Lord Gosford, the Governor of Armagh County, stated in 
 December of that year : — 
 
 "Neither age nor sex, nor even acknowledged innocence as to any • 
 guUt, is sufl&cient to excite mercy, much less to afford protection. The 
 only crime which the objects of this ruthless persecution are charged 
 with is simply a profession of the Roman Catholic religion. A lawless 
 banditti have constituted themselves judges of this new species of delin- 
 quency, and the sentence they have pronounced is nothing less than a 
 confiscation of all property and an immediate banishment." 
 
 No protection was afforded by the magistrates, " whose sym- 
 pathies " says Walpole, " were all with the Orangemen, and of 
 whom many were themselves members of the Orange Lodges." 
 
 Coercion Enacted. 
 
 What happened in Armagh was repeated in almost every 
 portion of the country. Parliament reassembled in January, 
 1796, and in spite of the opposition of Grattan and the patriot 
 party, the government succeeded in carrying into law two 
 Coercion Bills. One (36 Geo. III. c. 6.), entitled an Indemnity 
 Bill, afforded protection to magistrates who had " apprehended 
 suspected persons without due authority, and had sent sus- 
 pected persons out of the kingdom for his Majesty's service 
 [i.e. in press gangs], and had also seized arms and entered houses, 
 and done divers other acts not justifiable by law." The other 
 (36 Geo. III. c. 20), entitled an Insurrection Bill, gave unlimited 
 powers to magistrates to arrest and imprison without trial 
 
16 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 suspected persons, enacted a Curfew Law, and generally placed 
 the country in a state of siege. A Habeas Corpus Suspension 
 Act was then passed. Martial Law was proclaimed, and Ireland 
 was handed over " bound hand and foot," as Mr. Chamberlain 
 would say, to the tender mercies of the ascendancy faction. 
 
 Martial Law, 
 
 Walpole describes the condition of the country in this state of 
 things, as follows : — 
 
 " All the safeguards of the constitution having been suspended, 
 numbers of persons were taken up on suspicion, flung into gaol, and 
 refused bail. Spies and informers were the only witnesses, and of these 
 the government had a whole army in their pay. The prisons overflowed, 
 guard-houses and barracks were fiUed with political suspects, and, worst 
 cf all, no discipline was maintained among the soldiery, who were 
 allowed to commit all kinds of excesses, and to abuse and maltreat the 
 people. The yeomanry, which had been called out, was composed 
 almost entirely of Orangemen, and these with militia regiments sent over 
 from England, were encouraged to play havoc with the miserable 
 inhabitants. A Welsh mounted yeomanry corps, named the Ancient 
 Britons, under the command of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne, were 
 especially notorious for their brutal violence. Houses were plundered 
 and burned, women outraged, and children brutally ill-treated and 
 murdered. Men were seized and sent on board tenders untried. They 
 were flogged, 'picketed,' and half hung* to extort confessions. They 
 
 * "Half -hanging," "pitch-capping," and "picketing" are constantly " 
 referred to in accounts of the Insurrection as being inflicted upon the 
 unfortunate peasantry by soldiers, militia, and yeomanry. It may be 
 necessary to specify these forms of torture. " Half -hanging " brought 
 all the horrors of death without death and immunity from further 
 earthly trials. When the unhappy victim had hung for a short time he 
 was "cut down," and allowed to come to life again. "Pitch-capping" 
 consisted in pouring hot pitch upon the head, allowing it to cool ; and 
 then rudely tearing ofiF the " cap " thus formed, bringing with it the 
 hair and portions of the scalp. " Picketing " was an awfully painful 
 torture. Pegs, or "pickets," with their pointed ends uppermost, were 
 driven into the ground. Upon these the victim was held — supporting 
 his whole weight upon the bare soles of his feet — exquisitely sensitive 
 parts of the hmnan frame. 
 
Tlie Truth about '98. 17 
 
 were hunted down and sabred. Villages and whole districts were 
 devastated, and the inhabitants turned out of their homes into the 
 ditch." 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby's Testimony. 
 
 In December, 1796, much to the chagrin of the Beresfords, 
 Fitzgibbons, Tolers, and Cookes, Lord Carhampton was deprived 
 of the command of the army, which was given to Sir Ralph 
 Abercromby. This general found the condition of the troops 
 desperate. They were billeted in " free quarters " upon private 
 houses all over the country. They were utterly without dis- 
 cipline, and were rapidly driving even the most peaceably inclined 
 of the peasantry into open rebellion by atrocities of every kind. 
 In one of his letters, Sir R. Abercromby says, speaking of the 
 conduct of the soldiery whom he had been sent to command : — 
 
 " Houses have been burnt by them, men murdered, others half hanged. 
 Within these twelve months every crime, every cruelty that could be 
 committed by Cossacks or Calmucks, has been committed here." 
 
 He made a humane effort to mitigate the horrors of the situa- 
 tion ; but he misunderstood the nature of the work he was 
 expected to accomplish in Ireland, as he soon found to his cost. 
 In February, 1797, he issued a general order to the army, in 
 which, after alluding to the " irregularities in the conduct of the 
 troops " and to " the state of licentiousness which must render 
 them formidable to every one but the enemy," he called upon the 
 officers to maintain order. This order gave great offence to the 
 Ascendancy party, and they immediately clamoured for his dis- 
 missal. The Viceroy tried to induce him to withdraw the order, 
 but he remained firm, and eventually was forced to resign his 
 command, which passed into the hands of General Lake, who 
 better understood the work he was expected to do, and was 
 not troubled with inconvenient scruples. 
 
 Speaking of the recall of Sir Ralph Abercromby, Lord Holland, 
 in his Memoirs of the Whig Party, says : — 
 
 " His recall was hailed as a triumph by the- Orange faction ; and they 
 contrived at the same time to get rid of Mr. Secretary Pelham, who. 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 though somewhat time-serving, was a good natured and prudent man. 
 Indeed, surrounded as they were with burning cottages, tortured backs, 
 and frequent executions, they were yet full of sneers at what they 
 whimsically termed the 'clemency' of the government." 
 
 " Lord Camden," wrote Sir Ralph Abercromby himself, after 
 his resignation, " has betrayed the situation of Commander-in- 
 chief ; he has thrown the army into the hands of a faction, and 
 made it a tool under their direction^ 
 
 How terribly they used their power, and how remorselessly 
 the unfortunate people were driven into rebellion in defence of 
 their lives and their homes, is, we fear, but imperfectly known 
 in Great Britain ; and yet the evidence is to be found in the 
 speeches and correspondence of almost every Englishman of 
 prominence in public life at that time. 
 
 Lord Moira's Testimony. 
 
 In November, 1797, Lord Moira made an ineffectual attempt 
 to induce the English Parliament to step in between Ireland and 
 her torturers. In the English House of Lords he made a speech 
 in which he drew a dreadful picture of the sufferings of the 
 country. He said : — 
 
 " My lords, I have seen in Ireland the most absurd, as well as the 
 most disgusting tyranny that any nation ever groaned under. I have 
 been myself a witness of it in many instances ; I have seen it practised 
 and unchecked ; and the effects that have resulted from it have been 
 such as I have stated to your lordships. I have said that, if such a 
 tyranny be persevered in, the consequence must inevitably be the deepest 
 and most universal discontent, and even hatred to the English name. I 
 have seen in that country a marked distinction made between the English 
 and Irish. I have seen troops that have been sent full of this prejudice 
 — that every inhabitant in that kingdom is a rebel to the British 
 government. I have seen the most wanton insults practised upon men 
 of all ranks and conditions. I have seen the most grievous oppressions 
 exercised, in consequence of a presumption that the person who was the 
 unfortunate object of such oppression was in hostility to the government ; 
 and yet that has been done in a part of the country as quiet and as free 
 from disturbance as the city of London. Who states these things, my 
 
TJie Truth about '98. 19 
 
 lords, should, I know, be prepared with proofs. I am prepared with 
 them. Many of the circumstances I know of my own knowledge ; others 
 I have received from such channels as will not permit me to hesitate one 
 moment in giving credit to them." 
 
 " His lordship then observed that, from education and early habits, 
 the curfew was ever considered by Britons as a badge of slavery and 
 oppression. It then was practised in Ireland with brutal rigour. He 
 had known an instance where a mother of a house had in vain pleaded 
 to be allowed the use of a candle to enable the mother to administer 
 relief to her daughter struggling in convulsive fits. In former times, it 
 had been the custom for Englishmen to hold the infamous proceedings 
 of the Inquisition in detestation. One of the greatest horrors with which 
 it was attended was that the person, ignorant of the crime laid to his 
 charge, or of his accuser, was torn from his family, immured in a prison, 
 and in the most cruel uncertainty as to the period of his confinement, or 
 the fate which awaited him. To this injustice, abhorred by Protestants 
 in the practice of the Inquisition, were the people of Ireland exposed. 
 All confidence, all security were taken away. In alluding to the inquisi- 
 tion he had omitted to mention one of its characteristic features. If the 
 supposed culprit refused to acknowledge the crime with which he was 
 charged, he was put to the rack, to extort confession of whatever crime 
 was alleged against him by the pressure of torture. The same proceed- 
 ings had been introduced in Ireland. When a man was taken up on 
 suspicion he was put to the torture ; nay, if he were merely accused of 
 concealing the guilt of another. The rack, indeed, was not at hand ; but 
 the punishment of picketing was in practice which had been for some 
 years abolished as too inhuman, even in the dragoon service. He had 
 known a man, in order to extort confession of a supposed crime, or 
 of that of some of his neighbours, picketed till he actually fainted, 
 picketed a second time till he fainted again, and, as soon as he came to 
 himself, picketed a third time till he once more fainted ; and all upon 
 mere suspicion ! Nor was this the only species of torture. Men had 
 been taken and hung up till they were half dead, and then threatened 
 with a repetition of the cruel treatment unless they made confession of 
 the imputed guilt. These were not particular acts of cruelty, exercised 
 by men abusing the power committed to them, but they formed a part of 
 our system. They were notorious, and no person could say who would 
 be the next victim of this oppression and cruelty, which he saw others 
 endure. If any one was suspected to have concealed weapons of defence, 
 his house, his furniture, and all his property was burnt. But this was not 
 all : if it were supposed that any district had not surrendered all the arms 
 
20 The Irish Question : 
 
 which it contained, a party was sent out to collect the number at which 
 it was rated ; and, in the execution of this order, thirty houses were 
 sometimes burnt down in a single night." 
 
 Mr. Fox and Lord Bedford. 
 In the English House of Commons, Mr. Fox, and in the House 
 of Lords, Lord Bedford, made similar attempts to save Ireland. 
 Lord Bedford moved a motion for " the immediate stoppage 
 of a system of coercion in Ireland, shocking to humanity, and dis- 
 graceful to the British name," and he asserted that he had " docu- 
 mentary evidence to prove that the cruelties had not been resorted 
 to on the spur of the moment, hut had been deliberately resolved 
 upon long before for a certain purpose!''' But it was all of no 
 use. Pitt was too strong for them, and the merry work of 
 " smoothing the way for the Union" proceeded. 
 
 Lord Holland's Testimony. 
 
 Lord Holland, in his Memoirs of the Whig Party y adds the 
 weight of his testimony to the foregoing. He says : — 
 
 " It is a fact incontrovertible, that the people were driven to resistance 
 by free quarters and the excesses of the soldiery, which were such as are 
 not permitted in civilized warfare, even in an enemy's country. Trials, 
 if they may be so called, were frequent under courts-martial, such 
 courts-martial being composed of three oflScers, two being generally under 
 twenty-one years old, and the third, an Orangeman, who had sworn to 
 exterminate the people over whom he was placed as judge — floggings, 
 picketings, death, the pitch-cap, were the usual sentences."; 
 
 And, again, in another part of the same work, Lord Holland 
 wrote : — 
 
 "The measures which led to the Rebellion, suggested by Lord Clare, 
 and by the remorseless faction of Orangemen, who called themselves the 
 Protestant ascendancy, roused the indignation of every man who had a 
 sense of justice or the feelings of humanity. The outrages perpetrated 
 with the sanction of the government excited horror. The Irish Catholics 
 
 were goaded into premature hostility The insurrection 
 
 was the chief cause of the Union, by furnishing the English government 
 with both the means and the pretext for accomplishing a measure which 
 in no other circumstances could have been attempted." 
 
The Truth about '98. 21 
 
 Lord Cornwallis's Testimony. 
 
 More remarkable perhaps than any other, and certainly more 
 incontrovertible, is the testimony of Lord Cornwallis, who went 
 to Ireland as Viceroy in June, 1798, and whose correspondence 
 discloses with hideous clearness the brutalities practised by the 
 soldiery and the blood-thirstiness of the ascendancy faction, 
 both in provoking and suppressing the Rebellion. 
 
 Writing to the Duke of Portland, on the 28th June, Lord 
 Cornwallis said, with regard to the conduct of the troops : — 
 
 " The account you see of the numbers of enemy killed in battle are 
 greatly exaggerated. I am sure that a very small proportion of them 
 could be killed in battle ; and I am very much afraid, that any man in a 
 brown coat, who is found within several miles of the field of action, is 
 butchered without discrimination.'''' 
 
 Writing to Major-General Ross, on 9th July, he said : — 
 
 " There is no enemy in the field to oppose our troops. We are engaged 
 in a war of plunder and ?nassacrb." 
 
 And again, on 31st July : — 
 
 " Our war is reduced to a predatory system in the mountains of 
 Wicklow." 
 
 In a letter to Major-General Ross, under date 24th July, he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " The whole country is in such a state, that I feel frightened and 
 ashamed whenever I consider that I am looked upon as being at the head 
 of it. Except in the instances of the six state trials that are going on 
 here, there is no law either in town or country, but martial-law ; and you 
 know enough of that to see aU. the horrors of it, even in the best adminis- 
 tration of it — judge then how it must be conducted by Irishmen {i.e., 
 Orangemen), heated with passion and revenge. But all this is trifling 
 compared to the numberless murders that are hourly committed by our 
 people without any process or examination whatever. The yeomanry are 
 in the style of loyalists in America, only much more numerous and 
 powerful, and a thousand times more ferocious. They take the lead in 
 rapine and murder. The Irish militia, with few officers, and those chiefly 
 of the worst kind, follow closel}'' in the heels of the yeomanry in murder 
 and every kind of atrocity ; and the fencibles take a share, although 
 much behind." 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 On the I5tli of April, 1799, after the Rebellion had been 
 practically suppressed, he wrote as follows to Major-General 
 Ross, with reference to an accusation of undue leniency made 
 against him by the ascendancy faction : — 
 
 "You write as if you really believed that there was any foundation 
 for all the lies and nonsensical clamour about my leniency. On my 
 arrival, I put a stop to the burning of houses and murder of inhabitants 
 by the yeomen, or any other persons who delighted in that amusement, 
 to flogging, for the purpose of extorting confession, and free quarters, 
 which comprehended universal rape and robbery throughout the whole 
 country." 
 
 The Tactics of the Ascendancy Party. 
 
 The evidence which Lord Cornwallis's correspondence supplies 
 of the true character of the ascendancy faction is still more 
 striking. In a letter addressed to the Duke of Portland, on 8th 
 July, 1798, he said : — 
 
 " The principal persons {i.e. the Orangemen), are in general adverse 
 to all acts of clemency, and although they do not express it, and perhaps 
 are too much heated to see the ultimate effects which their violence must 
 produce, would pursue measures that could only terminate in the extirpa- 
 tion of the greater number of inhabitants, and in the utter destruction 
 of the country. The words Papists and priests are forever in their 
 mouths ; and by thw unaccountable folly they loould drive four-fifths of 
 the community into irreconcilable rebellion" 
 
 On the 27th July in the same year, he wrote to Major-General 
 Ross as follows : — 
 
 " The conversation of the principal persons [i.e. ascendancy caste) of 
 the country, all tend to encourage this system of blood, and the conversa- 
 tion even at my table, where you will suppose I do all I can to prevent 
 it, always turns on hanging, shooting, burning, etc. etc. ; and if a priest 
 has been put to death the greater joy is expressed by the whole company." 
 
 On the same date, writing to the Duke of Portland, he said : — 
 
 '' The minds of people are now in such a state, that nothing but blood 
 will satisfy them, and although they will not admit the term, their con- 
 versation and conduct point to no other mode of concluding this 
 unhappy business than that of extirpation." 
 
Tlw Truth about '98. 23 
 
 In September, 1798, he wrote : — 
 
 "The principal personages {i.e. Beresford, etc.), who have long been 
 in the habit of directing the councils of the Lord Lieutenants, are blinded 
 by their passions and prejudices, talk of nothing but strong measures, 
 and arrogate to themselves the exclusive knowledge of a country, of 
 which, from their mode of governing it, they have, in my opinion, 
 proved themselves totally ignorant. . . . Rehgious animosities 
 increase, and, I am sorry to say, are encouraged by the foolish violence 
 of aU the principal persons who have been in the habit of governing this 
 island." 
 
 In the following year, 1799, when the rising had been to a 
 great extent suppressed, and when his main object was to pro- 
 duce comparative quiet during the discussion of the UnioD, he 
 still complains of the same ferocity and bloodthirstiness on the 
 part of the Orangemen. 
 
 In June, 1799, he wrote to Major-General Eoss : — 
 
 " The country is becoming every day more quiet ; but the ferocity of 
 the loyalists will not, for a long time, permit the restoration of perfect 
 tranquillity." 
 
 And on the 16th November he made the following remarkable 
 statement : — 
 
 " The greatest diflSculty which I experience is to control the violence 
 of our loyal friends, who would, if I did not keep the strictest hand on 
 them, convert the system of martial-law (which, God knows, is bad 
 enough of itself) into a more violent and intolerable tyranny than that 
 of Robespierre. The vilest informers are hunted out from the prisons, 
 to attack, by the most barefaced perjury, the lives of all who are sus- 
 pected of being, or of having been, disaffected, and indeed every Roman 
 Catholic is in great danger. / attempt to moderate that violence and 
 cruelty, which has once driven, and which, if tolerated^ must again drive 
 this wretched country into rebellion. " 
 
 We might multiply, ad infinitum, quotations of this character 
 from the letters of Lord Cornwallis. The fact, however, is 
 suflficiently proved by the foregoing, that according to the testi- 
 mony of the English Viceroy himself, the unfortunate people of 
 Ireland were driven into rebellion by the excesses of the soldiery 
 and by the ferocity of the so-called loyalists of that day. 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 Mr. Goldwin Smith's Testimony. 
 On this point, the statements of Mr. Goldwin Smith, now a 
 leading " Unionist," are particularly interesting. In his Irish 
 History and Irish Character, he says : — 
 
 "The Protestant gentry and yeomanry, as one man, became Crom- 
 wellians again. Then commenced a reign of terror, scarcely less savage 
 than that of the Jacobins. The suspected conspirators were intimidated, 
 and confessions, or pretended confessions, were extorted, by loosing 
 upon the homes of the peasantry the licence and barbarity of an irregular 
 soldiery, more cruel thu,^ a regular invader. Flogging, half -hanging, 
 pitch-capping, picketing, went on over a large district, and the most 
 barbarous scourgings, without trial, were inflicted in the Riding-house, 
 Dublin, in the very seat of government and justice. This was styled 
 ' exerting a vigour beyond the law,* and to become the object of such 
 vigour it was enough, as under Robespierre, to be suspected of being a 
 suspect. . . . 
 
 " The peasantry, though undoubtedly in a disturbed state, might 
 have been kept quiet by lenity ; hut they icere gratuitously scourged and 
 tortured into open rebellion. . . . These were the crimes, not of 
 individual ruffians, but of a faction — a faction which must take its 
 place in history beside that of Robespierre, Couthon, and Carriere. The 
 murders by the Jacobins may have excited more indignation and pity 
 because the victims were of high rank ; but in the use of torture the 
 Orangemen seem to have reached a pitch of fiendish cruelty which was 
 scarcely attained by the Jacobins. . . . The dreadful civil war of 
 1798 was the crime, as a candid study of its history will prove — not of 
 the Irish people, but of the Orange terrorists, icho literally goaded the 
 people into insurrection." 
 
 A striking confirmation of the statement that the people were 
 driven into insurrection against their will by the organized 
 brutalities of the military, is afforded by the history of the rising 
 in the County of Wexford. It was in this county that the Rebel- 
 lion became most formidable. For three or four weeks the in- 
 surgent troops held undisputed possession of the greater part of 
 the county ; they numbered close upon 50,000 men, and they were 
 not defeated until General Lake had collected in front of Vinegar 
 Hill an army of 20,000 trained English soldiers, commanded by 
 no less than 17 general officers. Yet we have it on the best 
 
The Truth about '98. 25 
 
 authority that the conspiracy of the United Irishmen never got a 
 firm footing in Wexford at all ; and in the list of "places to be 
 relied upon," prepared by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, in February, 
 1798, the name of Wexford does not appear. The people of this 
 county had long been distinguished for their thrift, industry, and 
 peaceable habits. Notwithstanding the risings elsewhere in Ire- 
 land, Wexford was, up to the middle of April, 1798, in a state of 
 profound peace. At that time, however, Lord Kingsborough, at 
 the head of the North Cork militia, arrived in the county. The 
 soldiers were billeted on the people, martial-law was proclaimed, 
 and in a month this county, where "the conspiracy" had never 
 taken root, was the scene of a fierce war. The people were forced 
 into the field in defence of their lives, their homes, the honour 
 of their wives and daughters, and their religion. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Outrages by the People. 
 
 That the Eebellion of 1798 witnessed some deeds of cruelty and 
 of outrage on the part of the people, has never been denied by Irish 
 Nationalists, nor has any attempt ever been made by them to 
 palliate those crimes. It is, however, manifestly unfair to parade 
 before the world the deeds of violence committed by the people, 
 and to omit all mention of those which drove them to desperation 
 and madness. That a system of torture and of murder, such as 
 that described in the foregoing pages, could be practised upon a 
 people without leading to acts of savage retaliation, of cruelty, 
 and of horror, can only be believed by those who have but 
 lightly studied human nature. We abhor the crimes which 
 marked the history of 1798, whether committed by the yeomen 
 or the people, and we do not propose in any way to palliate any 
 of them. But we desire the truth to be known, and the truth is 
 that every deed of atrocity committed by the people was an act 
 
26 The Irish Question : 
 
 of retaliation for atrocities practised upon them by, or at the 
 instigation of, those in authority. No serious eflfort was made 
 by those in command of the troops to save the people from 
 outrage until the end of the year 1798, when the Eebellion was 
 practically over. On the contrary, as we have seen. Sir R. 
 Abercromby was actually recalled from the chief command, 
 because he ventured to censure the licence and barbarity of the 
 soldiers. 
 
 General Orders of English Commanders. 
 
 As an instance of the recognized military despotism of the day, 
 the following extract from a proclamation of General Derham in 
 Belfast will be instructive : — 
 
 " And shall it be found hereafter that said traitor has been con- 
 cealed by any person or persons, or by the knowledge or connivance 
 of any person or persons of this town and its neighbourhood, or that 
 they, or any of them, have known the place of his concealment, and 
 shall not have given notice thereof to the commandant of this town, 
 such person's house will be burnt, and the owner thereof hanged. 
 
 " This is to give notice, that if any person is taken up by the patrols 
 
 after ten o'clock, he will be fined five shillings, for the benefit of the 
 
 poor. If the delinquent is not able to pay five shillings, he will be 
 
 brought to a drum-head court-martial, and wiU receive one hundred 
 
 lashes ! 
 
 "James Derham, Colonel- Commandant.'" 
 
 The following is copy of a general order issued by the officer 
 in command in Cork, from the "Adjutant-General's office," on 
 the 7th May, 1798 :— 
 
 " Whereas, it has been reported to Lieut-General Sir James Stewart, 
 that in some parts of the country where it has been necessary to station 
 troops, at free quarters, for the restoration of public tranquillity, that 
 general subscriptions of money have been entered into by the inabitants, 
 to purchase provisions for the troops ; by which means the end proposed, 
 of making the burthen fall as much as possible on the guilty, is entirely 
 defeated by making it fall in a light proportion on the whole, and thereby 
 easing and protecting the guilty — it has been thought proper to direct, 
 that wherever that practice has been adopted, or shall be attempted, the 
 general ofl&cers commanding divisions of the southern district shall 
 
Tlu Triitli ahoitt '98. 27 
 
 immediately double, treble, and quadruple the number of soldiers so 
 stationed ; and shall send out regular foraging parties to provide 
 provisions for the troops, in the quantities mentioned in the former notice, 
 bearing date the 27th day of April, 1798 ; and that they shall move them 
 from station, through the district or barony, until all arms are surrendered, 
 and tranquillity to be perfectly restored — and until it is reported to the 
 general officers, by the gentlemen holding landed property, and those 
 who are employed in collecting the public revenues and tithes, that all 
 rents, taxes, and tithes are completely paid up." 
 
 General orders of this character were frequent enough ; but not 
 one single order was issued to the soldiery by their commanders, 
 threatening any pains or penalties whatever for deeds of outrage 
 perpetrated upon the people, from the date of the withdrawal of 
 Sir R. Abercromby down to the 31st August, 1798. On the 
 latter date, Lord Cornwallis issued an order, which showed clearly 
 enough what the character of the provocation given to the people 
 during all those months must have been. It ran as follows : — 
 
 " It is with great concern that Lord Cornwallis finds himself obliged 
 to call on the general officers, and the commanding officers of regiments 
 in particular, to assist him in putting a stop to the licentious conduct of 
 the troops, and in saving the wretched inhabitants from being robbed, and 
 in the most shocking manner ill-treated by those to whom they had 
 a right to look for safety and protection." 
 
 The previous silence of the commanding officers throughout 
 Ireland, in the face of the notorious conduct of their troops, 
 convicts them of complicity in every deed of horror committed 
 upon the peasantry. 
 
 General Orders of Rebel Commanders. 
 
 In marked contrast was the action of those who commanded 
 the rebel forces. Whatever atrocities were committed by the 
 people were in direct defiance of the orders of those in authority 
 amongst them, and no attempt has ever been successfully made 
 to hold the rebel leaders responsible. The first general procla- 
 mation to the rebel forces was couched in the following terms : — 
 
 " Soldiers of Erin, remember your homes ; let the domestic hearth 
 never be violated, nor the arms of the nation sullied by cruelty or revenge. 
 
28 The Iruh Question : 
 
 Bear in mind that the weak and the defenceless claim your protection, 
 and that retaliation is only the weapon of the coward and the slave. 
 Let this be engraven on your hearts, and let it be proclaimed to the 
 extremity of our land, that insult to female honour, contempt of orders, 
 pillage and desertion, shall he punished icith death.'''' 
 
 The leaders of the rebel army in Wexford issued the following 
 general orders : — 
 
 '''Any person or persons ivho shall take upon them to hill or murder any 
 person or prisoner, hum any house, or commit any plunder, ivithout sjjecial 
 icritten orders from the Commander-in-chief, shall suffer death. 
 
 By order of 
 
 " B. B. Harvey, Commander-in-chief. 
 " F. Breen, Adj.- Gen. 
 
 ^' Head- Quarters, CarricJc-Byrne Camp, 
 June 6, 1798." 
 
 " At this eventful period, all Europe must admire, and posterity will 
 read with astonishment, the heroic acts achieved by a people strangers 
 to military tactics, and having few professional commanders. But what 
 power can resist vaen fighting for liherty ! 
 
 " In the moment of triumph, my countrymen, let not your victories be 
 tarnished with any wanton act of cruelty. Many of those unfortunate 
 men, now in prison, were not our enemies from principle ; most of them, 
 compelled by necessity, were obliged to oppose you. . . . 
 
 " To promote a union of brotherhood and affection among our 
 countrymen of all religious persuasions, has been our principal object. 
 We have sicorn in the most solemn manner — ive have associated for this 
 laudable jnn-pose, and no poicer on earth shall shale our resolution. 
 
 "Edward Roche. 
 *' Wexford, June 7, 1798." 
 
 SCULLABOGUE. 
 
 In spite, however, of these proclamations, certain deeds of 
 atrocity were committed, and the massacre on the bridge at 
 Wexford and the scene of Scullabogue will never cease to call 
 the blush of shame to the cheeks of Irishmen. The truth, however, 
 of these horrible events robs them of much of their blackness, 
 and shows the utter unfairness of casting upon the Irish people 
 
The Truth about '98. 29 
 
 generally the shame for the deeds of a handful of murderous 
 cowards. The massacre at Scullabogue of loyalist prisoners to 
 the number of about one hundred was the deed of a number of 
 runaways from the battle of Ross, where the rebel troops were 
 defeated. They brought tidings, which loere ^perfectly true, that 
 the victorious troops were putting all the rebel prisoners to death, 
 and in a spirit of savage retaliation, the loyalist prisoners in 
 Scullabogue were similarly killed. The rebel leaders were in no 
 way responsible for this deed, and the Commander-in-chief, 
 Bagenal Harvey, immediately afterwards resigned his command, 
 in a great degree owing to the horror and disgust which the news 
 of this deed inspired in his breast. Persistent attempts have 
 been made to attribute this deed of horror to Catholic ferocity 
 against Protestants. Nothing could be more absurd, and, as a 
 matter of fact, fifteen or sixteen Catholics shared the same fate 
 as the Protestants in Scullabogue. 
 
 We repeat that we do not desire to palliate occurrences of this 
 character ; but truth compels the assertion that they were no 
 worse than many which resulted from the systematic course of 
 oppression and cruelty pursued by the soldiery, and probably 
 were not nearly as bad as certain massacres perpetrated upon the 
 people in cold blood and apparently with the full approval of 
 the officers in command. 
 
 For example, the massacre on the gibbet-rath at Kildare 
 exceeds in atrocity that of Scullabogue. According to Sir 
 Bichard Musgrave, whose testimony will not be regarded as that 
 of a man partial to the rebel cause, 3,000 rebels surrendered 
 themselves and their arms to General Dundas on the 26th of 
 May, and on the 3rd June this multitude of unresisting men were 
 suddenly attacked by the troops, and 350 of them slaughtered. 
 Equally horrible was the burning of the hospital at Enniscorthy, 
 where between eighty and one hundred wounded rebels were 
 burned to death by the soldiery. 
 
 There is no more reason why the massacre of Scullabogue, 
 taking it at its worst, should be regarded as inflicting a perma- 
 
30 The Irish Question : 
 
 nent and general stigma of cruelty upon Irishmen, than that the 
 awful atrocities committed in India during the Mutiny (such as 
 the roasting of prisoners alive by native troops under command of 
 British officers), or the flogging of negroes with piano wires 
 during the suppression of a rebellion some years ago in Jamaica, 
 should be regarded as putting a similar stigma upon Englishmen 
 generally and proving their incapacity for self-government. 
 
 We have no desire, however, to pursue this matter further. 
 Outrages were perpetrated upon both sides in '98 that were 
 very horrible ; but before apportioning the blame between the 
 government and the Orange faction, who between them de- 
 liberately goaded the people into insurrection, on the one side, 
 and the tortured and maddened peasantry on the other, the 
 impartial student of history should carefully consider both sides 
 of the story. 
 
 Was the Eebellion a Catholic one ? 
 
 It remains to be considered whether the statement of our 
 enemies is true that the Rebellion of 1798 was a Catholic rising. 
 It is clear that, alike in origin and organization, the so-called 
 conspiracy of the United Irishmen was, on the contrary, essen- 
 tially a Protestant one. Of the 162 leaders of the movement 
 whose names have been handed down to us, no fewer than 106 
 were Protestants, and only bQ were Catholics. The founders of 
 the Society and the prominent leaders of the Rebellion were 
 almost to a man Protestants. It is true that the rebel forces 
 were chiefly made up of the Catholic peasantry, and that the 
 yeomanry regiments were mostly Orangemen and Protestants ; 
 but the question of religion had little or nothing to do with the 
 business. Even in the County of Wexford, which according to 
 Mr. Lecky, " was the only county where the rebellion was distinctly 
 Catholic,^'' its chief leaders were Protestant landlords, like 
 Bagenal Harvey, of Bargy Castle, and Beauchamp Colclough, of 
 Tintern Abbey. 
 
 Lord Cornwallis, in a letter to the Duke of Portland, dated 
 
The Truth about '98. 31 
 
 28th June, 1798, speaks of " the folly which has been prevalent of 
 regarding Catholicism as the foundation of the present rebellion ;^^ 
 and we do not believe that any reliable evidence whatever is 
 forthcoming to prove that the question of religion had anything 
 to do with the Rebellion whatever. 
 
 Experiences of the Society of Friends during the 
 Rebellion. 
 
 There can be no greater proof that the Rebellion (in so far as 
 it was spontaneous on the part of the people) was a rising against 
 tyranny and not against Protestantism, than the fact that the mem- 
 bers of the Society of Friends (Quakers) scattered over Ireland 
 passed scatheless through that time. Numbers of that body were 
 settled in the most disturbed districts — more especially between 
 New Ross and Wexford, which was in the occupation of the insur- 
 gents for many weeks. They were for the most part settled on 
 lands which had been taken from the people in the previous cen- 
 tury under the Cromwellian "settlement." In doctrine and dis- 
 cipline they were the most opposed to Catholics of all Protestant 
 denominations. Yet they lived through the Rebellion unharmed 
 — often in isolated districts — often women and young children 
 alone. Not a single Quaker perished in the strife, except, we be- 
 lieve, one who joined and fought on the yeoman side. The only 
 reasonable explanation for this historical fact is that the Quakers 
 as a body had acted humanely towards their Catholic neighbours, 
 and that they had taken no part in either the religious or territo- 
 rial system of ascendancy under which Ireland then groaned. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 In conclusion we hope the light thrown upon the dark history 
 of 1798, by the foregoing pages, will do something to counteract 
 the calumnies against the Irish people which have been scattered 
 by their enemies broadcast throughout Great Britain. We have 
 made no single assertion without citing our authorities, and we 
 have relied entirely upon the writings of English statesmen and 
 
32 The Irish Question: 
 
 historians whose bias is certainly not in favour of the Nationalist 
 cause. We claim to have proved : — 
 
 (1) That the rising was planned by Pitt in order to facilitate 
 the passing of the Union ; 
 
 (2) That it was rendered absolutely inevitable by the with- 
 drawal of Lord Fitzwilliam ; 
 
 (3) That "measures were then taken to secure the premature 
 outbreak of the Eebellion " ; 
 
 (4) That such measures included the wholesale murder and 
 torture of the people, and the devastation of the country at the 
 instance of the ascendancy faction ; 
 
 (5) That the deeds of outrage by the people, though they can- 
 not be palliated, were yet acts of retaliation, and were much ex- 
 ceeded in atrocity by the systematic barbarity of the soldiery ; 
 
 (6) That the commanders of the rebel army did their best to 
 restrain their troops ; while the only English commander who de- 
 nounced outrage before September, 1798, was at once deprived 
 of his command at the instance of the Orangemen ; and 
 
 (7) That the rising was in no sense of the word a Catholic 
 one. 
 
 We conclude with the expression of the hope that the day is 
 not far distant when we may obtain that " blessed oblivion of the 
 past," in which, as Mr. Gladstone has said, " England has, if any- 
 thing, a greater interest than Ireland." 
 
 Postscript. 
 A proof of the foregoing having been submitted to an eminent 
 Protestant clergyman, that Pev. gentleman sent the publishers 
 the following notes, which rest on such unimj)eachab]e 
 authority, and are so much to the purpose, that they are here 
 added by way of a postscript. 
 
 A list is preserved of thirty-three Roman Catholic chapels 
 burned in the diocese of Ferns, County Wexford, in the years 
 
The Truth about '98. 33 
 
 1798, 1799, and 1800. The sight of the chapel of Boola vogue in 
 flames, on Whitsunday, 27th May, 1798, finally decided Father 
 John Murphy to join the insuri-ection, in which he became a 
 leader of ability. Only one Protestant church, that of Old Eoss, 
 was burned during the insurrection, 2nd June, 1798, three days 
 before the battle of New Eoss. — Hay's History of the Insurrection 
 of the County Wexford, Appendix, page 294. 
 
 The insurrection broke out on Saturday, 26th May. On the 
 day before " twenty-eight prisoners were taken out of their place 
 of confinement and deliberately shot without trial, in the ball- 
 alley of Carnew, by the yeomen and a party of the Antrim 
 militia." — Hay's History, pages 76 and 87. The Eev. James 
 Gordon, the Protestant Eector of Killegny, in the diocese of 
 Ferns, and who with his family, resided at the time in the 
 County of Wexford, states : — 
 
 "I have reason to think that more men than fell in battle were slain 
 in cold blood. No quarter was given to persons taken prisoners as 
 rebels, with or without arms. For one instance — fifty-four were shot in 
 the little town of Carnew in the space of three days. — Gordon's History 
 of the Rebellion, page 222. 
 
 " In one point I think we must allow some praise to the rebels : amid 
 all their atrocities the chastity of women was respected ; I have not been 
 able to ascertain one instance to the contrary. The opposite behaviour 
 towards the female peasantry prevailed among the royal troops on their 
 entering into possession of the country at the retreat of the rebels. 
 — Gordons History, page 213. 
 
 " Women and children were not put to death by the insurgents, except 
 in the tumultuous and hasty massacre of ScuUabogue." — Gordon's 
 History, page 217. 
 
 After the suppression of the insurrection in Wexford, another 
 broke out in the west of Ireland, in consequence of the landing 
 of about a thousand French soldiers, under the command of 
 General Humbert ; the inadequacy of the force of this expedition, 
 and the feeble support it was able to obtain, soon led, in about a 
 fortnight's time, to its complete failure. The landing took place 
 at Killala, on the coast of Mayo, 22nd August, 1798 ; on the 8th 
 
34 The Irish Question. 
 
 September General Humbert surrendered to Lord Coruwallis. 
 A most interesting narrative of the whole affair was written by 
 the Eight Eev. Dr. Stock, the Protestant Bishop of Killala, who 
 was, as he states himself, an eye-witness. From this narrative I 
 take the following extract as to the conduct of the Connaught 
 rebels : — 
 
 " When the united weight of so many temptations is duly estimated, 
 operating besides on a body of peasantry already estranged from their 
 Protestant neighbours by differences of religion, language, and education, 
 it will be a matter of surprise that so little mischief was the result of the 
 insurrection in Connaught, and that we had not the same horrid scenes 
 of cruelty and religious intolerance to mourn over, as had lately stamped 
 indelible disgrace on the eastern province. It is a circumstance worthy 
 of notice, that during the whole time of this civil commotion, not a drop 
 of Wood teas shed hy the Connaught rehels, except in the field of ivar. 
 It is true the example and influence of the French went a great way to 
 prevent sanguinary excesses. But it will not be deemed fair to ascribe 
 to this cause alone the forbearance of which we were witnesses, when it 
 is considered what a range of country lay at the mercy of the rebels for 
 several days after the French power was known to be at an end." — 
 Bishop of KUIala's Narrative, pages 26-30. 
 
 The comment made on this statement of the Protestant Bishop 
 by the Rev. James Gordon, the Protestant Pector, wdio was an 
 eye-witness of the Wexford rebellion, is extremely weighty : — 
 
 "To account in some degree for the small portion of rancour in the 
 western comparatively with the south-eastern insurgents, we are to 
 observe, that in the territories of the former those rigorous measures had 
 not been practised, which government had been forced elsewhere to 
 authorize for the disorganization of the united conspiracy ; for surely the 
 free quarterings of soldiers, the burnings of houses, and the infliction of 
 torture to extort confession, together with the unauthorized insults 
 committed b}^ mistaken or pretended zealots for loyalty, as croppings, 
 pitch-cappings and half hangings, must, whether necessary or not, 
 whether deserved or not, be expected to kindle a spirit of revenge in the 
 sufferers and their party." 
 
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lEISH INDUSTEIES & ENGLISH LEGISLATION. 
 
 PART I. 
 Introductory. 
 The question why Ireland has no manufactures ? is often asked 
 in England and Scotland. Many Englishmen and Scotchmen 
 desire, in other words, to know why the people of Ireland are 
 mainly thrown on the land for sustenance. 
 
 The following pages are designed to answer this question. 
 They will also explain to a great extent, why English rule has 
 been hated in Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Lecky, now a " Unionist," in his Histor?/ of England in the 
 Eighteenth Century, points out that the progress of Scotland, in 
 so far as it is due to legislation, may be chiefly ascribed to four 
 causes— namely, the establishment of the Church of the great 
 majority of the nation, the introduction of an admirable system 
 of parochial education in which all classes could participate, the 
 destruction of the feudal privileges of the Highland chiefs, and, 
 lastly, the removal of all restrictions on commercial and indus- 
 trial enterprize. Whether all this is true or not may or may not 
 be questionable ; but, as Mr. Lecky adds, in Ireland the course 
 of legislation on all those points was directly the opposite. 
 We are not now concerned with the forcing of the Protestant 
 Church on the Catholics of Ireland, the denial of education to 
 them except on terms which they could not conscientiously ac- 
 cept, or the creation of a hostile aristocracy which was ten times 
 more oppressive to its victims than were the Highland chiefs to 
 their retainers — though it is true that each of these things had 
 a vast deal to do with hindering the material prosperity of the 
 country. Enough for the present to deal with the last-mentioned 
 topic of the series enumerated by Mr. Lecky ; and in reference 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 to this point we find this fact written in broad and striking 
 characters across the pages of Anglo-Irish chronicles — viz., 
 that the creation of anything like a great Irish industrial class 
 has been absolutely prevented by English legislation. We shall see 
 hereafter how, in modern times, this result has been attained by 
 indirect means ; but our attention is first challenged by the earlier 
 method of downright and undisguised strangulation, suppression, 
 and extirpation. 
 
 Ireland had great natural capacities for becoming a wealthy 
 country. The greater part of its soil was very fertile; it was 
 admirably provided with natural harbours ; it possessed some navi- 
 gable rivers and abundant water-power ; its people were naturally 
 ingenious and industrious. In consequence, it gave birth, from 
 time to time, to various commercial and industrial enterprizes, 
 which, if they had been allowed to grow, would in time have 
 made the country one of the richest and most prosperous on the 
 face of the globe. But the oligarchical government of England 
 — which, it must be admitted, never really represented the people 
 of England — looked with a jealous eye on those enterprizes, and 
 stamped them out one after another by express and positive 
 legislation. 
 
 The most forcible statement of the manner in which the various 
 industries in Ireland were extinguished in the times to which 
 we are now referring, will be a detailed record of the successive 
 Acts of Parliament and other means by which that result was ac- 
 complished. But before we enter upon that record, it may be well 
 to set down some corroboration in general terms of what we have 
 asserted so far. Such corroboration is to be found in abundance 
 in the works of English writers, from Temple to Froude. 
 
 English Corroboration. 
 
 Very significant, for example, is the language of Sir William 
 Temple as to how Ireland should be governed. He wrote in 
 1673 :— 
 
 " Regard must be had to those points wherein the trade of Ireland 
 comes to interfere with that of England, in which case the Irish trade 
 ought to be declined, so as to give way to that of England." 
 
hnsJi hulustries and English Legislation. 5 
 
 This candid and outspoken declaration of policy strikes the 
 key-note of all English philosophizing on the same subject in Sir 
 William Temple's time ; and so unquestionable and proper did his 
 ideas seem to some of his countrymen a century later, that when 
 Anderson, in his History of Commerce, written in 1763, has oc- 
 casion to speak of the " fair play" allowed to the Irish people, 
 or rather to the English and Danish colonists of the Eastern parts 
 of Ireland, in the thirteenth cencury, he actually thinks himself 
 bound to make an apology for the concession ! He writes : — 
 
 " In those early days commerce was not so perfectly understood as to 
 be made subservient to the political interests of princes and states. . . 
 The trade liberties allowed to Ireland then (viz., 1229) would in our days 
 be deemed unsafe and dangerous." 
 
 From this it appears that more enlightened principles of 
 government and legislation prevailed in England in the thir- 
 teenth century than in the seventeenth or eighteenth. 
 
 Another Englishman, writing a hundred years after Ander- 
 son, and as strongly prejudiced against Ireland as Anderson was, 
 tells us in a broad way what was done in execution of the plan of 
 not allowing Ireland to become a prosperous commercial nation. 
 Mr. Froude, in his account of The English in Ireland, indulges 
 in many misrepresentations to the injury of the Irish people, but 
 there is at least one Irish subject on which he speaks the truth. 
 When he has to discuss the treatment Irish industry received at 
 the hands of English governments, his indignation is thoroughly 
 aroused, because amongst those most severely affected by that 
 treatment the Protestant and British colony in Ireland occupied 
 a conspicuous place. His statement of the facts and his condem- 
 nation of the wrong-doers are as satisfactory as any Irishman 
 could desire. Thus he writes of the era following the Crom- 
 wellian despotism : — 
 
 " Before the days of coal and steam, the unlimited water-power of Ire- 
 land gave her natural advantages in the race of manufactures, which, if 
 she had received fair play, would have attracted thither thousands of 
 skilled immigrants. The Presbyterians held their ground in Ulster with 
 the help of the now rising linen trade. Had other trades been permitted 
 to grow, and an industrial middle class established itself in the southern 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 provinces, they would have speedily wrung adequate toleration from the 
 dominant church. This one true and real justice to Ireland, unhappUy, 
 was precisely what the reconstituted government of Ireland refused to 
 allow her. By the parties now and for another century in the ascendant 
 there, Ireland was regarded as a colony to be administered, not for her own 
 benefit, but for the convenience of the mother country." 
 
 Again, writing of the Williamite times, lie says : — 
 
 *' This Ireland, with her harbours and rivers, her unnumbered sheep 
 flocks, fattened on her limestone pastures, producing the finest fleeces in 
 the world — this nest of Popery and sedition — this bottomless morass of 
 expense and confusion — was to lift up its head and prosper, tempt away 
 EngUsh capital and workmen, rob England of the secret of her monopoly 
 in the world's markets of the broad cloth, frieze, and flannel trade. . 
 No language could sufficiently express the emotions of the exasperated 
 English capitalist. The Parliament was called upon to ' make the Irish 
 remember that they were conquered.' They should not be allowed to 
 build or keep at sea a single ship. They should not manufacture a thing 
 except their linen ; and their commerce should be so tied and bound that 
 they should interfere with England nowhere. To block them from the 
 water altogether, even their fishery * must be with men and boats from 
 England.' Their legislature, of which they made so ill a use, must be 
 ended, and they must be governed by the Parliament of England." 
 
 Mr. Froude proceeds to sustain this indictment of his own 
 countrymen, by a rapid and characteristic summary of the succes- 
 sive assaults made by them on every Irish industry without 
 exception, not excluding even the linen manufacture. 
 
 PAET II. 
 The First Attack. 
 The first direct attack made on Irish industry took place in 
 the reign of Charles II., and the first branch of Irish industry 
 struck at was the cattle and provision trade. The land of 
 Ireland was at that time chiefly in pasture, and Irish wealth was 
 chiefly derived from the exportation of cattle to England. Irish 
 meat, butter, and cheese were also landed in considerable quan- 
 tities at two or three of the western English ports. Very soon 
 the English landowners took alarm at the circumstance. They 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 7 
 
 complained that the Irish cattle trade tended to lower the price 
 of English cattle, and consequently to lower their rents ; and 
 accordingly they loudly demanded that their Irish rivals, even 
 though many of these latter were of their own race and faith, 
 should be driven out of the market. Their demands were granted. 
 By laws passed in 1665 and 1680 — in legal phraseology by 18 
 Car. IT. cap. 2, and 32 Car. II. cap. 2 — the importation from 
 Ireland into England of all cattle, sheep, and swine, of beef, 
 pork, bacon, mutton, butter, and cheese, was absolutely pro- 
 hibited. " In this manner," says Mr. Lecky, " the chief source 
 of Irish prosperity was annihilated at a single blow ; " while Mr. 
 Froude writes on the point as follows : — 
 
 " Ireland had established a large and lucrative cattle trade with 
 Bristol, MUford, and Liverpool. It was supposed to lower the value of 
 English farm produce, and was utterly prohibited. Neither cow nor 
 bullock, sheep or pig, fat or lean, might be transported from Ireland to 
 England. Salt beef and bacon, even butter and cheese, lay under the 
 same interdict." 
 
 Irish Ships Swept from the Seas. 
 But it was only the Irish cattle trade with England that was 
 thus destroyed ; Ireland still could and did send her products to 
 the colonies ; and, accordingly, her colonial trade was next made 
 the object of hostile legislation by the English Parliament. That 
 body went to work by sweeping Irish ships from the seas. By 
 the Navigation Act of 1660, Irish vessels possessed all the pri- 
 vileges granted to English ones, but by the Amended Navigation 
 Act, passed in 1663 — 15 Car. II. cap. 7 — those privileges were 
 taken away from Ireland, by simply ordaining — first, that, with 
 a very few specified exceptions, no European articles could be 
 imported into the English colonies except from England, in 
 ships built in England and manned by English sailors ; and, 
 secondly, that no articles could be brought from the colonies to 
 Europe without being first unladen in English ports. Let Froude 
 again bear corroborative testimony. " All produce of the colonies 
 sent to Ireland," says this writer, " and all Irish produce sent to 
 the colonies, had first to be landed in England, and thence re- 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 shipped in English bottoms." In other words, the Irish, having 
 been first forbidden to trade with England, were then forbidden 
 to trade with the colonies, except through England. Of course 
 those measures were successful for the purpose for which they 
 were designed. "The conveniency of ports and harbours," 
 wrote Swift, truthfully and forcibly, " which nature bestowed so 
 liberally on this kingdom (Ireland), is of no more use to us 
 than a beautiful prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon." 
 
 Destruction of the Woollen Manufacture. 
 
 Between the Eestoration and the Revolution, the Protestant 
 colonists in Ireland made more or less successful efforts to 
 establish more than one sort of manufacturing industry. For 
 instance, the Irish landowners, prevented from exporting their 
 cattle to England, raised vast flocks of sheep, and began to manu- 
 facture the wool thereby obtained. But from the first their 
 efforts were watched with jealous eyes, and the Irish woollen 
 industry especially attracted at an early period the hostile atten- 
 tion of the so-called statesmen of England. In 1636 Strafford 
 saw the germs of a clothing trade here, and he promised to 
 discourage it. Again, in 1660 an Act was passed imposing 
 duties equal to a prohibition on the importation of Irish woollen 
 goods into England. But it was not until 1698 that the crown- 
 ing iniquity was accomplished, of practically suppressing the 
 entire woollen industry of Ireland at a blow. It was done at the 
 instance of certain English manufacturers, whose views are well 
 set forth in the addresses presented by the two Houses of the 
 English Parliament to William III. The address from the 
 Lords said : — 
 
 "That the growing manufacture of cloth in Ireland, both by the 
 cheapness of all sorts of necessaries of life and goodness of materials for 
 making all manner of cloth, doth invite your subjects of England, with 
 their famihes and servants, to leave their habitations to settle there, to 
 the increase of their woollen manufactures in Ireland, which make 
 your loyal subjects in England very apprehensive, that the further 
 growth of it may greatly prejudice the said manufacture here. Where- 
 fore, we humbly beseech your most sacred majesty, that your majesty 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 9 
 
 would be pleased, in the most public and effectual way that may be, to 
 declare to all your subjects of Ireland that the growth and increase of 
 the woollen manufacture there bath long been, and will be ever looked 
 upon, with great jealousy, by all your subjects of this kingdom, and if 
 not timely remedied, may occasion very strict laws totally to prohibit 
 and suppress the same." 
 
 Similar language was held by the Commons ; to all which the 
 King 'replied that he would do all that in him lay to discourage 
 the woollen manufacture in Ireland. 
 
 What was done to this end is easily told. The Irish Parliament 
 was summoned in September, 1698, and asked to impose heavy 
 additional duties on the export of Irish woollen goods. It was 
 the creature of the English government, and indeed was unable, 
 even if it were willing, to resist the behests of England ; there- 
 fore, it complied with the English demands. But this was not 
 all. Irish woollens having been excluded by the Navigation Act 
 from the whole colonial market, and from the English market 
 by prohibitory duties, were, by an English Act passed in 1699, 
 excluded from every other part of the world also ! Mr. Froude's 
 summary of this piece of legislation is as follows : — 
 
 "The export of Irish fleeces to any country but England had been 
 already prohibited ; but the restrictions on the sale of the raw material 
 was a temptation to the Irish to work it up at home, and as long as 
 they might export their blankets and their friezes, England's trade was 
 in danger from their competition. The English manufacturers con- 
 sidered it politic and fair to say to them, ' You shall not weave your 
 wool at home at all ; you shall not sell your woollen cloths either here 
 or abroad ; we will put you under such disadvantages that it shall not 
 be worth your while to supply your own necessities ; you shall buy our 
 cloths and frieze to clothe your own backs ; you shall sell your fleeces 
 only to us, and, as it is our interest to have it on easy terms, you shall 
 take the prices we are pleased to offer.' " 
 
 On Ireland the effect of this legislation was crushing. The 
 woollen manufacture was her chief industry. It proroised to 
 grow till it should enrich the country from end to end. It was 
 shattered and uprooted, and in consequence, tens of thousands of 
 hands were thrown out of employment; twenty thousand of " the 
 bravest defenders of English interests," as Froude sorrowfullj- 
 
10 The Irish Question : 
 
 says, left Ulster alone for America, other Irish Protestants had 
 to fly to England and the Continent ; and for fifty years after- 
 wards the Irish who remained at home were in such a state of 
 poverty, in consequence of having been thrown for sustena^ice 
 entirely upon the land, that, as Mr. Lecky says, every bad season 
 produced amongst them an absolute famine. 
 
 "Fostering'' the Linen Trade. 
 
 It is supposed by many Irishman that the suppression of the 
 woollen manufacture of Ireland was accompanied by the foster- 
 ing of the Irish linen manufacture. It is certainly true that 
 when it was proposed to destroy the one industry, it was promised 
 in compensation to encourage the other. This promise was made 
 by King William in response to the request of the English Par- 
 liament. But was it kept ? Even if it had been, no real reciprocity 
 would have been established between the two countries, for the 
 linen manufacture was a trifling business compared with the 
 woollen trade. In 1700 the value of the Irish linen exported was 
 only about .£14,000. Moreover, that a nation should be restricted 
 to certain forms of industry is an abominable principle. But 
 the promise was broken. Although the Irish linen trade never 
 materially interfered with the linen trade of England, and 
 although it did, in fact, rather benefit England under the then 
 existing circumstances, by giving business to the merchants 
 engaged in the ^York of re-exportation, yet it too, as well as the 
 woollen trade, was repeatedly made the object of hostile legisla- 
 tion. Hely Hutchinson writes, on 1st July, 1779, in a letter to 
 the Earl of Buckinghamshire : — 
 
 "It is true you promised, in return for the restraints, to encourage our 
 linen manufacture. But how have you done it? By giving large 
 bounties for the making of coarse linen in the Highlands of Scotland — 
 bounties on the exportation of EngUsh linen— opening the linen manu 
 facture to all persons without serving apprenticeships, and imposing a 
 tax of 30 per cent, on all foreign linens, which has been construed to 
 extend to Irish printed, stained, dyed, striped, or chequered." 
 
 Mr. Lecky writes : — 
 
 " The Irish woollen trade was ruined in 1699, but no legislative encou- 
 ragement was given to the Irish linen manufacture till 1705, when, at the 
 
Irish Industries and Eiiglish Legislation. 11 
 
 urgent petition of the Irish Parliament, the Irish were allowed to export 
 their white and brown linens, but these only to the British colonies, and 
 they were not permitted to bring any colonial goods in return. The 
 Irish linen manufacture was undoubtedly encouraged by bounties, but 
 not until 1743, when the country had sunk into a condition of appalling 
 wretchedness. In spite of the compact of 1698, the hempen manufac- 
 ture was so discouraged that it positively ceased. Disabling duties 
 were imposed on Irish sail-cloth imported into England. Irish checked, 
 striped, and dyed linens were absolutely excluded from the colonies. 
 They were virtually excluded from England by the imposition of a duty 
 of 30 per cent., and Ireland was not allowed to participate in the boun- 
 ties granted for the exportation of these descriptions of linen from Great 
 Britain to foreign countries. " 
 
 To all this we may add that, though, as Mr. Lecky says, 
 bounties were granted in 1743 as well on the export of some 
 Irish linens to foreign countries, as on that of English and Scotch 
 linens, the benefit was very much less to Ireland than to England 
 or Scotland, because the Irish could get those bounties only by 
 exporting from an English port, and paying the expenses inci- 
 dental thereto ; that, by the 29 Geo. II. cap. 15, no Irish linen 
 exported from England should be entitled to a bounty if it were 
 the property of a resident in Ireland ; and that while England 
 restricted the entry of Irish linens into her own markets, she 
 kept the Irish market open for British linen, by imijosing low 
 duties on linen imports into Ireland. In short, it is a complete 
 delusion to suppose that the English government fostered the 
 Irish linen trade when or because she had destroyed the Irish 
 woollen manufactures, though, of course, she did not absolutely 
 ruin it. 
 
 The Fundamental Maxhi. 
 
 Unless we bear constantly in mind the fundamental maxim 
 which governed the English commercial legislation of the 
 eighteenth century, we shall find it difficult to believe, even 
 in face of the evidence furnished by the statutes of the realm, 
 that the blows reported to have been aimed by England at 
 Irish industries were ever really inflicted. It was assumed 
 without question or hesitation that the commercial interests 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 of a dependency of the British Crown should be entirely 
 subordinated to those of what was facetiously called the 
 mother country; and "to an English mind," says Mr. Lecky, 
 "there was no reason why this principle should not be rigidly 
 applied to Ireland," Davenant, who in the first half of the 
 eighteenth century was the most influential writer on commercial 
 questions in England, strenuously maintained that Ireland, 
 possessing the advantage of greater cheapness of living and 
 labour, was sure to become a dangerous rival in commerce to his 
 own country; and he therefore held, that every branch of business 
 in Ireland which was likely to compete with the corresponding- 
 branch in England, should be destroyed or suppressed. He was 
 willing that the English planted in Ireland should receive every 
 encouragement that could "consist with the welfare of England," 
 and he recommended the admission of Irish cattle into England 
 as " the best means of diverting the Irish from manufactures ; " 
 but he supported the absolute prohibition of the Irish woollen 
 manufacture, and the steady discouragement of the Irish linen 
 trade. To offer effective resistance to the carrying out of this 
 policy, the Irish Parliament was, as we have already said, utterly 
 unable, even if it had been willing ; and outside the Parliament 
 there was no class who possessed any greater powers of self- 
 defence. Mr. Lecky, contrasting the state of Scotland and the 
 American colonies with that of Ireland in this respect, says : — 
 
 "Scotland possessed an independent Parliament, supported by the entire 
 nation, and she was, therefore, able to make herself so troublesome, that 
 England purchased the Union by ample commercial privileges. The 
 American colonies contained within themselves unlimited resources. No 
 legislation could counteract their great natural advantages. They were 
 inhabited by a people who, from the circumstances of the case, possessed 
 much more than average energy, and they were so large and so distant 
 from the mother country, that it was practically impossible very seriously 
 to injure their trade. The position of Ireland was totally different. 
 Her Parliament was totally dependent on that of England. Her ruling 
 caste was planted in the midst of a hostile and subjugated population. 
 She lay within a few hours of the English coast. The bulk of her people 
 were crushed to the very dust by penal laws, and most of the men of 
 energy and ambition were driven from her shore. She was thus com- 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. . 13 
 
 pletely in the grasp of England, and that grasp was tightened till almost 
 every element of her prosperity was destroyed." 
 
 We have seen how the Irish cattle trade and the Irish woollen 
 manufactures were extinguished, and how the Irish linen manufac- 
 ture, in violation of a solemn engagement, was all but destroyed ; 
 now we proceed to show how almost every other form of industry 
 which Ireland possessed was also made the object of more or less 
 successful attacks by the Parliament of England. 
 
 Killing the Irish Cotton Manufacture. 
 
 It is not generally known that cotton, as well as wool and flax, 
 was once extensively manufactui'ed in Ireland. That, however, 
 is the case ; and it is also the case, that the Irish cotton industry, 
 like the woollen and linen industries, was assailed by hostile 
 legislation. In three successive reigns, Acts of Parliament were 
 passed putting virtually prohibitory duties on Irish cotton 
 manufactures imported into England. These Acts were 15 Car. 
 I [. c. 5 ; 3 & 4 Anne, c. 4 ; and 4 & 5 WiUiam and Mary, 
 c. 5. As much as 25 per cent, duty was at last imposed on 
 the Irish cotton fabrics ; and lest this enormous charge might 
 not prove sufficient for its purpose, an Act was passed in the 
 seventh year of the reign of George I. which enacted, penalties 
 on the wearing in Great Britain of any cotton manufactures 
 made outside that country. Nor was this all ; for the Act 
 entitled 11 Geo. II. c. 1, added such further restrictions 
 on the Irish trade, that it was all but impossible for the Irish 
 manufacturers to send their goods into England at all. But even 
 this was not all; for while Irish cottons were thus kept out of 
 the English markets — and consequently, as Ireland was forbidden 
 to trade with the colonies except through England, out of the 
 other chief markets of the world also — British cottons went into 
 Ireland in immense quantities at only 10 per cent. ! Of course 
 the Irish cotton manufacture could not survive such legislation, 
 and after a short time it perished. 
 
 Attacks on Irish Beer and Malt. 
 We next come to the legislation dealing with the production of 
 
14 * The Irish Question : 
 
 Irish beer and malt. Here was another field of Irish industry 
 which was being cultivated with considerable success, and the 
 profits from which promised to be very large. Unfortunately, 
 the promise was delusive, for this industry was also prematurely 
 crushed. In the first place, while English beer and malt were 
 sent into Ireland at almost a nominal duty, similar Irish articles 
 were absolutely excluded from England ! Depriving the Irish 
 brewers of a market might well be thought a sufficiently strong 
 measure ; but the English Parliament went farther, and next 
 sought virtually to prevent the Irish from making any beer at 
 all, even for their own use ! The 9 Anne, c. 12, actually 
 prohibited them from importing hops, which are necessary to 
 the manufacture of beer, from any other place but Great Britain. 
 Importation of hops from other quarters was styled in this Act 
 "a public and common nuisance." It is needless to explain the 
 effect of such a prohibition. It was equivalent to laying an 
 additional heavy duty on the Irish product, and thus rendering 
 the profitable brewing of it absolutely impossible. It is true that 
 by the 4 George II. c. 16, the prohibition against the direct im- 
 portation of colonial goods into Ireland was somewhat relaxed — 
 because, as it was expressly stated, of the " great prejudice to the 
 trade and navigation of Great Britain " which the prohibitory 
 policy had produced. But when it was discovered that amongst 
 " colonial goods," the importation of which was permitted by the 
 Act just quoted, were included hops, another Act was promptly 
 passed to rectify what was regarded as a blunder ! We refer to 
 the 5 George II. c. 2, which declared that the trifling relaxation 
 authorized by the enactment of the previous year, should not be 
 construed to allow hops into Ireland from the colonies ! Again, 
 the 7 George II. c. 19, added to the restrictions which had 
 up to that time been imposed on the importation of hops. If 
 the beer and malt business survived, the wonder surely is how 
 it did. 
 
 The " Protestant " Industries. 
 
 The destruction of the woollen manufacture particularly 
 affected, as we have seen, the Protestants of Ireland. That 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 15 
 
 iudustiy gave employment to 12,000 Protestant families in 
 Dublin, and to 30,000 dispersed over the rest of the kingdom — 
 all of whom were ruined by the legislation of the time of the 
 Protestant king, par excelle7ice, William III. But the woollen 
 manufacture was not the only branch of Irish trade in the 
 prosperity of which Irish Protestants were more deeply con" 
 cerned than any of the other inhabitants of Ireland in the 
 eighteenth century. At the very time that William and his 
 Parliament were engaged in driving out one class of manu- 
 facturers, they gave every encouragement to the immigration of 
 another class — namely, the Huguenots, who fled from France on 
 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and other foreign 
 Protestants. These people brought with them an industry which 
 they had almost made their own — the manufacture of fabrics, 
 such as silk, suited to the needs of a luxurious civilization. On 
 two grounds they ought, one would imagine, to have recom- 
 mended themselves to the favour of the English government. 
 First, they professed the creed which England chose to regard as 
 orthodox ; secondly, they pursued towards the people amongst 
 whom they were introduced, the very policy of exclusion which 
 the English Parliament had all along acted upon towards the 
 same unfortunate race. They exerted themselves to prevent the 
 Irish from learning their arts or profiting by their industry. 
 Ou this point, Assistant-Commissioner Otway, in a document 
 known as the Handloom Weavers' Keport, and dated February, 
 1840, writes :— 
 
 " The fabrics introduced by the English and French settlers were of a 
 superior quality, for which the native Irish could only gradually acquire 
 a want, as they were raised in the scale of civiHzation. But instead of 
 thus raising them, the foreign manufacturers, aided by the legislature, 
 employed every possible means to depress them, and thus blindly drove 
 from their market a whole nation of customers, and confined them to the 
 use of the rude and cheap fabrics which were woven amongst themselves." 
 
 Nevertheless, England rewarded the Huguenots hy assailing 
 the specially Protestant industries vnth as little compunction as if 
 they loere Celtic and Catholic. The Irish silk trade was attacked 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 by the 2 George II. c. 2 ; the manufacture of gold and silver lace 
 by the 21 George II. c. 1 ; the velvet trade by the 23 George II. 
 c. 2 ; the paper manufacture by the 33 George II. c. 1. The raid, 
 in short, was of the most sweeping character ; but it would seem 
 to have been directed with particular thoroughness against tlie 
 silk weavers. A writer in The Repeal Dictionary says : — 
 
 " In addition to the discouragement affecting our silk manufacture, in 
 common with our other manufactures, it had the further discouragement 
 that, coming to us, as the raw material did, through England, the sum of 
 three pence in the pound was retained there of the original import duty 
 in that country, and the price thereby so much enhanced to us, in 
 addition to the benefit, at our expense to the English revenue." 
 
 In the same reign — that of George II. — restrictions were 
 laid on the hat, glass, gunpowder, coals, bar-iron, and iron- 
 ware trades. The glass business was, perhaps, the most im- 
 portant of the group, and by an Act passed in the 19th year of 
 George II. Ireland was prevented from importing that article 
 from any country but Great Britain, and could not export 
 it at all. It is true that certain British Acts in the reign of 
 George II. purported to modify some of the restrictions on Irish 
 trade ; but Hely Hutchinson in his Commercial Restraints^ 
 shows conclusively that those very Acts contained conditions 
 that eflectually neutralized the professed benefit. 
 
 When England became involved in war with America, the Eng- 
 lish government conceded in embarrassment what it had refused 
 when it was not in trouble. By virtue of the 18 George III. 
 c. 55, there was a considerable extension of the Irish exports 
 to the British plantations. But here again the concession was 
 greater in appearance than in reality. The Irish exports favoured 
 by the Act just mentioned did not include any of the important 
 ones, such as woollens, cottons, or linens, hats, glass, hops, gun- 
 powder, or coals. 
 
 Embargoes. 
 
 Moreover, in the time of George III. adverse legislation was 
 supplemented by a system of embargoes. Hutchinson, at the 
 close of his enumeration of the restraints on Ireland, says : — 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 17 
 
 " A course of occasional and ruinous restrictions ought not to be passed 
 over. Since 1740 there have been twenty-four embargoes in Ireland, one 
 of which lasted three years." 
 
 This was iu 1779. In the previous year Mr. Edmoud. Perry, 
 Speaker of the Irish. House of Commons, transmitted to the 
 government a memorial from several merchants, showing how 
 their interests had been destroyed by embargoes. The merchants 
 in question were then still suffering from an embargo dated the 
 25th of October, ] 776 ; and the paper transmitted by the Speaker 
 affirms that, " on the strictest inquiry, it was found that numbers 
 of them are ruined in their circumstances by this severe embargo 
 of so long a continuance." It may, perhaps, be as well to explain 
 that an embargo meant a stoppage of trade for a definite period, 
 by order of the constituted authorities. 
 
 Summing Up. 
 
 Hutchinson, summing up the Irish commercial restraints in 
 
 general, before 1782, says : — 
 
 " Ireland was by those laws excluded from almost all the trade of three 
 quarters of the globe, and from all direct beneficial intercourse with her 
 fellow-subjects in those countries (the colonies), which were partly 
 stocked from her own loins." 
 
 PART III. 
 The Irish Agricultural Industry. 
 
 Every branch of Irish trade and manufacture having been 
 destroyed or crippled, the next step was to injure, if not destroy, 
 the sole remaining industry of Ireland — that of agriculture. 
 
 We do not intend here to enter into an examination of the 
 entire Irish land question as it existed in the eighteenth century ; 
 the accomplishment of such a task would itself require a small 
 volume. We mean to deal only with a part of that question 
 which became particularly urgent when the people who stayed 
 in Ireland after the destruction of its manufactures were thrown 
 for subsistence entirely upon the land. It is, perhaps, scarcely 
 necessary to say that we refer to the action of the English legis- 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 lature, whereby the evil of an excessive amount of pasturage was 
 maintained, till a series of desolating famines resulted, and 
 vagrancy became for a time a feature of the national life. 
 
 The tendency to turn great tracts of land into pasture at the 
 time to which we are now referring, is accounted for by Mr. 
 Lecky in this fashion : — 
 
 " At the time of the wool trade much of the land had taken the form 
 of pasture. Besides this, pasture required little skill, and was therefore 
 natural to a country where the people possessed scarcely the rudiments 
 of agricultural knowledge. It required little capital, and was therefore 
 well suited to a country which was extremely poor, in which a great 
 portion of the people were forbidden by law to invest their money in 
 land, and in which, owing to recent confiscations, property was still 
 insecure. It simplified the conditions of property, and therefore had a 
 peculiar attraction to a proprietor who imagined, with reason, that his 
 tenants were his enemies, and who inherited all the multifarious disad- 
 vantages and dangers attached to the position of an Irish landlord." 
 
 Add to all this the fact that the Irish House of Commons — 
 which, be it remembered, was but the slave of England — passed 
 in 1735 a resolution relieving pasture land from the burden of 
 tithes, and that the agricultural industry of the greater part of 
 the people was paralyzed by the penal laws, and it will be easily 
 understood how landowners and leaseholders were alike tempted 
 to stock meadow and mountain with sheep and black cattle. 
 " In 1727," says Mr. Froude, ''the average size of the farms in 
 the three southern provinces ranged from 800 to 1,000 acres." 
 Those farms were almost all in pasture. The tenants, indeed, 
 were forbidden in their leases to break or plough the soil. Swift, 
 in his pamphlet on The Use of Irish Mayiufactures, says " that 
 the landlords everywhere, by penal clauses, prohibited their 
 tenants from ploughing ;" and this testimony is borne out by 
 several contemporary writers, and by manuscripts of the time in 
 Dublin Castle. The effect on the country would, doubtless, not 
 have been very injurious had the woollen trade and the cattle 
 trade been allowed to exist ; but as it was, ruin and misery of 
 the most appalling character resulted. Viscount TaafFe, a Catholic 
 nobleman, writing on this subject in 1766, says : — 
 
Irish Industries and English legislation. 19 
 
 " This sort of self-defence, in keeping the lands uncultivated, had the 
 further consequences of expelling that most useful body of the people, 
 called yeomanry in England, and sculoags in Ireland— communities of 
 industrious housekeepers, who in my own time herded together in large 
 villages, and cultivated the lands everywhere, till, as leases expired, some 
 rich grazier, negotiating privately with a sum of ready money, took 
 their lands over their heads. . . . The sculoag race — that great" 
 nursery of labourers and manufacturers — has been dispersed in nearly 
 every quarter; and we have nothing in lieu but those most miserable 
 wretches on earth, the cottagers — naked slaves, who labour without 
 food, and live, while they can, without houses or covering, under the 
 lash of merciless and relentless taskmasters." 
 
 Froude is more explicit and emphatic. He says : — 
 
 "The people, no longer employed, were driven away into holes and 
 corners, and eked out a miserable subsistence by potato' gardens, or by 
 keeping starving cattle of their own on the neglected bogs. Their 
 numbers increased, for they married early, and they were no longer 
 liable, as in the old times, to be killed off like dogs in forays. They 
 grew np in compulsory idleness, encouraged once more in their inherited 
 dislike of labour,* and inured to wretchedness and hunger ; and on every 
 failure of the potato crop hundreds of thousands were starving." 
 
 Tn fact the cottier population was driven to the mountains and 
 the bogs, where in winter they cultivated patches of land too 
 small for their support, and whence in summer and autumn they 
 s' rayed over the country in search of work. When the potatoes 
 did not fail, the fare of those unfortunates barely sufficed to 
 maintain life ; when a bad season came, deaths by starvation 
 occurred by the thousand. Swift at this period wrote, apropos 
 of this matter : " Ajax was mad when he mistook a flock of 
 sheep for his enemies, but we shall never be sober till we have 
 the same way of thinking." 
 
 Eemarkable Action of the Irish Parliament. 
 But — and here is the point at which we have been aiming — the 
 
 * The slander involved in these words is characteristic of Froude, but 
 it has been so often refuted that we need not pay any attention to it here. 
 Probably no people on the face of the earth have been so industrious as 
 the Irish in the face of so many circumstances tending to take away all 
 incentives to labour. 
 
20 The Irish Question : 
 
 Irish Parliament, defective though it was as an organ of the 
 national will, would have prevented or mitigated the dreadful 
 effects of the policy of the Irish landlords, were it not for the 
 government and Parliament of England. It is surely a remark- 
 able and suggestive fact, that a body of men who were aliens in 
 blood, language, and religion to the suffering Irish, who repre- 
 sented the conquerors and confiscators of the Revolution, who 
 were in most cases the nominees of English constituency-owners, 
 and who would themselves have benefited as much as any set of 
 persons by the maintenance of the land in pasture, were never- 
 theless led, by the circumstances of their residence in Ireland, 
 and by seeing with their own eyes the nature and extent of the 
 prevailing distress, to put a stop to its cause. The Irish House 
 of Commons in 1716, unanimously resolved to make an effort to 
 change the entire economical system of Ireland, and to reclaim 
 both people and country by bringing back and stimulating agi^i- 
 culture. It passed a resolution, declaring that covenants which 
 prohibited the breaking up of the soil were impolitic and should 
 have no binding force ; and not satisfied with taking that 
 important step, it passed the heads of a bill, which it recom- 
 mended with the utmost earnestness to the English Council,* 
 providing, first, that for every hundred acres held by any tenant, 
 five should be broken up and cultivated, and secondly, that 
 bounties should be granted by the government on corn grown 
 for exportation. 
 
 How THE Irish Parliament was met. 
 
 The proposal was modest and reasonable. How did the 
 English government receive it ? Let Mr. Froude — on this 
 matter an unimpeachable witness — answer. The words of that 
 writer are :— 
 
 " The bounty system might or might not have been well calculated to 
 produce the effect which Ireland desired. It was the system, however, 
 which England herself practised with every industiy which she wished 
 to encourage ; and it was not on economic grounds that the Privy 
 
 * No bill could be passed at this time by the Irish Parliament with- 
 out having been first approved by the English Privy Council. 
 
Irish Industries and English legislation. 2 1 
 
 Council rejected a bill which they ought rather to have thrust of their 
 own accord on Irish acceptance. The real motive was probably the same 
 which had led to the suppression of the manufactures — the detestable 
 opinion that, to govern Ireland conveniently, Ireland must be kept 
 weak. Although the corn consumed in Ireland had been for many years 
 imported, the English farmers were haunted with a terror of being 
 undersold in their own and foreign markets by a country where labour 
 was cheap. A motive so iniquitous could not be confessed, but the 
 objections which the Council was not ashamed to confess were scarcely 
 less disgraceful to them. The English manufacturers having secured, as 
 they supposed, the monopoly of Irish wool on their own terms, conceived 
 that the whole soil of Ireland ought to be devoted to growing it. The 
 merchants of Tiverton and Bideford had recently memorialized- the 
 Crown on the diminution in the number of fleeces which reached them 
 from the Irish ports. They attributed the falling off to the contraband 
 trade between Ireland and France, which shortened their supplies, 
 enhanced the price, and gave the French weavers an advantage over 
 them. Their conjecture was perfectly just. The contraband trade, as 
 had always been foreseen, had become enormous. But the Commissioners 
 of the Irish Revenue were unwilling to confess to carelessness. They 
 pretended that the Irish farmers, forgetting their obligations to England. 
 and thinking wickedly only of their own interests, were diminishing their 
 stock of sheep, breaking up the soil, and growing wheat and barley. 
 The allegation, unhappily, was utterly untrue. But the mere rumour of 
 a rise of industry in Ireland created a panic in the commercial circles of 
 England. Stanhope, Walpole, Sunderland, and the other advisers of the 
 English Crown, met the overtures of the Irish Parliament in a spirit of 
 settled hostility, and with an infatuation which now appears like insanity, 
 determined to keep closed the one remaining avenue b}' which Ireland 
 could have recovered a gleam of prosperity." 
 
 No Concessions. 
 
 Now, however, let us see what exactly was done in answer to 
 the demand of the Irish Parliament for a measure for the en- 
 couragement of tillage. 
 
 In a letter of Lord Stanhope to the Lords Justices, dated 2nd 
 March, 1716, that demand was refused, on the ground that 
 any encouragement to the corn trade of Ireland might pre- 
 judice the corn trade of England ! The Lords Justices, 
 however, having returned the conclusive rejoinder, that Irish 
 corn could not possibly be cheaper than English, as Ireland 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 had actually been importing large quantities of the latter for 
 several years, the bill of the Irish Parliament was at last re- 
 turned with the approval of the English Council. But not, be it 
 observed, the bill in its original shape ; for a clause was slipped 
 in, empowering the Council to suspend its provisions at its plea- 
 sure — that is, rendering the whole measure a mockery I It is 
 not surprising to learn that the Irish House refused to accept 
 the mutilated proposal. It did not, however, thereupon lose 
 heart. Three years afterwards it reintroduced its tillage bill. 
 This time the English Council gave no answer at all ! Eight 
 years afterwards, it is true, the English Council consented that 
 the prohibitory clauses in the leases of the Irish landlords should 
 be cancelled, but that was only after a great potato failure— 
 when, in the words of Froude, the roads were covered with 
 starving beggars, and in every cabin there was one or more 
 persons dead or dying. Moreover, even the slight concession 
 that was then made, was owing solely to the intercession of 
 Archbishop Boulter, who persuaded the Duke of Newcastle that 
 it was neither safe nor wise to condemn the Irish to recurring 
 famine, and frightened him by drawing his attention to the 
 stream of recruits who passed from Ireland into the armies of 
 the Continent. Xay, more ; though the concession was gi'anted 
 in name, it was withheld in practice. "It was one thing," as Mr. 
 Lecky observes, " to pass a law ; it was quite another to carry 
 it into execution, in a country where it was almost hopeless for a 
 Catholic tenant to obtain legal redress against a Protestant land- 
 lord. No measures appear to have been taken to enforce the 
 new Act, and the famine of 1741 and 1742 repeated in a very 
 aoroi-avated form the horrors of 1728." 
 
 Law- MADE Horrors. 
 
 Those law-made horrors were simply awful. 
 
 Men, women, and children. Swift assures us, were " every day 
 dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin." 
 If labourers accidentally got work, they oftentimes had not the 
 strength to perform it. 
 
Irish IiuluMries and English Legislation. 
 
 ^o 
 
 "The poor," wrote Sheridau in 1728, "are sunk to the lowest 
 degree of poverty and misery — their houses dunghills, their 
 victuals the blood of their cattle or the herbs of the field." 
 
 Nicholson, the Protestant Bishop of Derry, writing in 1700, 
 tells how one of his carriage horses having been accidentally 
 killed, it was at once surrounded by fifty or sixty famished 
 cottagers, struggling desperately to obtain a morsel of flesh for 
 themselves and their children ! 
 
 One writer describes with terrible energy, as follows, the scenes 
 which he witnessed around his own dwelling in Tipperary in 
 1741 :— 
 
 " ^lultitudes have perished and are daily perishing under hedges and 
 ditches — some by fevers, some by fluxes, and some through downright 
 cruel want — in the utmost agonies of despair. I have seen the labourer 
 endeavouring to work at his spade, but fainting for want of food, and 
 forced to quit it. I have seen the aged father eating grass hke a beast, 
 and in the anguish of his soul wishing for his dissolution ; I have seen 
 the helpless orphan exposed on the duno;Ldll, and none to take him in for 
 fear of infection ; and I have seen the hungry infant sucking at the 
 breast of the already expired parent.*' 
 
 We might adduce many more pieces of testimony like the fore- 
 going, but it is needless to do so. It will be sufiicient to add 
 that a large proportion of the population of Ireland must have 
 perished during those periodical famines. It is noted that in 
 Kerry the collectors of hearth-money in 1733 returned the num- 
 ber of families paying the tax at 14,346, and that in 1744 it had 
 sunk to 9,372 — a third part having disappeared. In short, the 
 operation of English law in Ireland in the eighteenth century 
 was as destructive as the open barbarities of the Elizabethan 
 age, and more destructive than that of Cromwell. Here, how- 
 ever, let not the mistake be made that it was only in the famine 
 years that the vast mass of the people of Ireland were plunged 
 into the direst misery. The truth is, their condition in those 
 years was but a slight aggravation of their normal state. De- 
 prived of every conceivable means of earning their bread, they 
 were constantly in a state bordering on absolute starvation, and 
 to keep body and soul together they were obliged to become 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 smugglers and vagrants, while many of them, under the same 
 dire necessity, naturally turned thieves and robbers. And then 
 the power which sought to starve them all to death, and did kill 
 many of them by starvation ; which, by compelling almost all of 
 them to live in idleness, converted many of them into thieves and 
 vagrants ; which, in short, sought to educate into contempt and 
 defiance of its own laws all the Irish whom it could not slay — 
 this very power then began to pass Acts of Parliament to put 
 down vagrancy and turbulence in Ireland ! And apologists and 
 defenders of that power are found at this very day to denounce 
 Irish lawlessness in the eighteenth century, and to sneer, like 
 Froude, at the Irishman's " inherited dislike of labour." 
 
 PAET IV. 
 
 More OF It. 
 
 Mr. Lecky remarks, in the admirable work from which we have 
 so often quoted, that while not one of the various depressing in- 
 fluences under which Irish industry laboured in the eighteenth 
 century but could be paralleled in the annals of other countries, 
 it would be difficult to find, in the whole compass of history, 
 aiiother instance in which such various and such powerful agencies 
 concurred to degrade the character and blast the prosperity of a 
 nation. We have seen how direct blows were aimed at every 
 branch of Irish industry except the fisheries, which somehow 
 escaped attack— although in 1698 two petitions were presented to 
 the King from Folkestone and Aldborough, complaining of the in- 
 jury done to the fishermen of those English towns, " by the Irish 
 catching herrings at Waterford and Wexford, and sending them 
 to the Straits, and thereby forestalling and ruining petitioners' 
 markets,"' and although there was even a party in England who 
 desired to prohibit all fisheries on the Irish coast, except by boats 
 built and manned by Englishmen. But even if none of the blows 
 to which we have referred had ever been delivered, there was still 
 enough in the condition of things, arising out of the system of 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 25 
 
 government established in Ireland by England, to prevent Ire- 
 land, while that system was maintained in its integrity, from ever 
 reaching that position of material prosperity, to which under other 
 circumstances she might reasonably have aspired. When, indeed, 
 we reflect on the confiscation of Irish land which disorganized the 
 whole social condition of the country, the scandalous misapplica- 
 tion of the public revenues which at once demoralized and 
 impoverished the nation, and the atrocious penal laws which con- 
 demned the immense majority of the people to both ignorance and 
 poverty, the wonder is that any Irish industries ever grew to 
 proportions sufficient to attract the envious regards of any other 
 community whatever. 
 
 How Irish Capital was Drained Away. 
 
 One of the prime conditions of success in industrial pursuits — 
 so we are often reminded now-a-days by English politicians — is 
 the possession of capital. "We shall now proceed to show how, in 
 the age with which we have been dealing, a persistent effort was 
 made in various ways to drain Ireland of every farthing of capital 
 which she possessed. 
 
 The complete subservience of the Irish to the English Parlia- 
 ment before the era of 1782, is shown by nothing more than by 
 the taxation imposed on Ireland at the beginning of the last cen- 
 tury and by the manner in which the money obtained was spent. 
 In 1715 the Irish debt was only about .£16,000 ; in the succeeding 
 fifteen years it grew to more than £330,000, to meet which, of 
 course, a series of new duties came into existence. When it is re- 
 collected that the population was then only about two millions, 
 and when the difference in the value of money is taken into ac- 
 count, it will be easily understood how severely such an impost 
 must have pressed on Irish business. But the taxes were not 
 only heavy in themselves, but they became more burdensome 
 than they would ordinarily have been, by not being spent at home 
 on useful objects. They were largely wasted on scandalous pen- 
 sions. Mr. Froude is very explicit in treating of this matter. "In 
 the latter half of the century," he writes, " Irish pensions were 
 
26 The Irish Question: 
 
 used for parliamentary corruption. The unhappy country was 
 then made to supply, out of its taxes, the material for its own 
 demoralization" ; and he goes on to mention, that whereas in 1723 
 the charge for pensions on the Irish establishment was no more 
 than ,£30,000, "in 1733 it had risen in a total annual expenditure 
 of half a million to ,£69,000." Practically the whole of this sum 
 was sent to England ; it was distributed amongst English persons 
 of both sexes who could not be safely or largely provided for in 
 that country. On this point Mr. Lecky gives the following 
 details :— 
 
 ' ' The Duke of St. Albans, the bastard sod of Charles the Second, en- 
 joyed an Irish pension of £800 a year ; Catherine Sedley, the mistress of 
 James the Second, had another of £5,000 a year. William bestowed 
 confiscated lands exceeding an English county in extent on his Dutch 
 favourites, Portland and Albemarle, and a considerable estate on his 
 former mistress, Elizabeth Villiers. The Duchess of Kendal, and the 
 Countess of Darlington, the two mistresses of George the First, had pen- 
 sions of the united annual value of £5,000. Lady Walsingham, the 
 daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, had an Irish pension of £1,500. 
 Lady Howe, the daughter of Lady Darlington, had a pension of £500. 
 Madame de Walmoden, one of the mistresses of George the Second, had 
 an Irish pension of £3,000. The Queen Dowager of Prussia, sister of 
 George the Second, Count BernsdorfF, who was a prominent German poli- 
 tician under George the First, and a number of other less noted German 
 names, may be found on the Irish pension list." 
 
 In addition to the profligates mentioned in the foregoing list as 
 having been quartered on the Irish pension establishment, 
 Froude mentions Sophia Kilmansecke, another mistress of George 
 the Second, who was created Countess of Leinster and endowed 
 with ,£2,000 a year. Besides the pensions there were the salaries 
 for English sinecurists, which were almost as scandalous. Mr. 
 Lecky says on this subject: — 
 
 *' Until Lord Townshend's administration, the Viceroys were always 
 absent from the country from which they derived their official incomes, 
 for more than half, usually for about four-fifths, of their term of office. 
 Swift in one of his Drapier's Letters, written in 1724, has given a curious 
 catalogue of the great Irish offices, some of them perfect sinecures, 
 which were then distributed among English politicians. Lord Berkeley 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 27 
 
 held the great office of Master of the Rolls ; Lord Palmerston, that of 
 First Remembrancer, at a salary of nearly £2,000 a year ; Dodington 
 was Clerk of the Rolls, with a salary of £2,500 a year ; Southwell wa? 
 Secretary of State ; Lord Burlington was hereditary High Treasurer ; 
 Mr. Arden was Under-Treasurer, with an income of £9,000 a year ; 
 Addison had a sinecure as Keeper of the Records in Birmingham Tower ; 
 and four of the Commissioners of Revenue lived generally in England." 
 
 All the chief employes, in fact, in Church and State, were 
 Englishmen, and lived in England most of their time, while they 
 drew their means of subsistence from Ireland. Here, surely, was 
 a serious drain upon the revenues of a country already miserablj^ 
 poor. 
 
 But there was another drain still more exhausting. We refer 
 to that produced by the absenteeism of the Irish landlords. 
 Hutchinson, in his book on the Commercial Restramts. which was 
 published in 1779, stated that "the sums remitted from Ireland 
 to Great Britain for rents, interest of money, pensions, salaries, 
 and profit of ofiices, amounted, on the lowest computation, from 
 1668 to 1773, to ^1,110,000 annually;" and Arthur Young, who 
 also wrote in 1779, estimated the rents alone of the absen- 
 tees at about .£723,000. The causes of this evil are, of course, to 
 be found partly in the fact, that a very large part of the confis- 
 cated land was given to Englishmen who always considered their 
 own country as their real home, partly in the fact that English 
 speculators who were of the same way of thinking bought up a 
 great part of the rest of the land, and partly in the feeling that 
 Ireland was "no place for an Irish gentleman." But whatever the 
 remoter causes of the absentee drain may be, the efi'ects of that 
 drain, and of the profligate expenditure of the Irish taxes, were 
 unmistakable. The country was impoverished to the last degree. 
 A notable proof of this fact is given by Mr. Lecky in the follow- 
 ing passage : — 
 
 " A patent was granted to some French refugees in 1700, and Crome- 
 lin, a native of St. Quintin, laboured for many years with great skill and 
 energy to spread the industry. He maintained that the soil and climate 
 of Ireland were eminently adapted for the cultivation of flax, and that as 
 good hemp could be grown over the country south of Dundalk as in any 
 
28 The Irish Question : 
 
 part of the world. It was represented that it would be extremely desir- 
 able if Cromelin could be induced to settle in the centre of the island, and 
 spread his industry among the half -starving population. He agreed to 
 establish himself in Kilkenny. He obtained an extension of his patent, 
 and an immediate payment of £2,500. But this small sum was beyond 
 the 7'esources of the counti^y ; and a letter is extant in ivhich the Lords 
 Justices complain that Ireland ivas at this time too poor to raise it, and 
 recommended that, instead of money, the patent should be extended for 
 a somewhat longer period." 
 
 Ireland in fact was sucked dry of capital, and of course, under 
 such circumstances, it was impossible for the Irish people to 
 maintain any native industry whatever on any considerable 
 scale. 
 
 The Penal Laws and Irish Industry. 
 
 We come now to speak of the effect of the penal laws on Irish 
 industry ; but on this point the world is much better informed 
 than in reference to the other matters with which we have been 
 so far dealing, and we shall therefore touch it but lightly. 
 
 It is obvious, as Mr. Lecky says, that all real enterprize and 
 industry among the Irish Catholic tenants — that is, the great 
 majority of the Irish people — were destroyed by the laws which 
 consigned them to utter ignorance, and still more by the law 
 which placed strict bounds to their progress, by providing that if 
 their profits ever exceeded a third of their rent, the first Protest- 
 ant who could prove the fact might take their farms. That the 
 penal laws were practically a mere dead letter is, indeed, said by 
 some unscrupulous writers ; but it is a statement which is easily 
 disposed of by glancing at the place which property cases under 
 the penal code occupy in the proceedings of the Irish law courts. 
 No less than one hundred such cases of a typical character were 
 collected by a Protestant lawyer named Howard in 1769. 
 
 As to the galling injustice to which Catholic tradesmen, as dis- 
 tinct from Catholic agriculturists, were subject, a remarkable 
 passage is quoted by Mr. Lecky, from a pamphlet entitled The 
 Case of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and written by a Dr. 
 Nary in 1 724. That passage is as follows : — 
 
Irish Industries and English Legislation. 29 
 
 "At present there is not one freeman or master of any corporation, 
 nor of any other of the least charge (bating that of a petty constable), of 
 the Roman Catholic religion in all the kingdom ; neither are any of the 
 tradesmen or shopkeepers of this religion suffered to work at their respec- 
 tive trades, or sell their goods in any of the cities in Ireland, except they 
 pay exorbitant taxes, which they call quarterage, to the respective 
 masters of their corporations ; and upon refusal of paying same (because 
 there is no law for it) they are sure to be summoned to take the oath of 
 abjuration, in order to frighten them into compliance." 
 
 "In the most Catholic parts of Ireland," writes Mr. Lecky him- 
 self, "many of the most lucrative trades were long a strict mono- 
 poly of the Protestants, who refused to admit any Catholic as an 
 apprentice.'''' How, under such circumstances, there were Irish 
 Catholic operatives, in any large number, possessing the requisite 
 skill to work at any handicraft, is a mystery. In one of his 
 speeches against Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule bill, Mr. Chamber- 
 lain expressed his sympathy with the small Protestant communi- 
 ties in various parts of Ireland, which he said had been centres 
 of industry and civilization ; insinuating thereby, of course, that 
 the Catholic populations by which they were surrounded were 
 centres of something very different, and that it all came, of course, 
 from a difference in the physical and moral nature of the two 
 classes. Let us hope that, if he had known the truth, instead of 
 takiug such a line as this, he would have offered some apology for 
 legislation that enriched most of his centres of industry and 
 civilization, by plundering for their benefit the rest of the people, 
 and then condemning the plundered majority, as far as it could, 
 to perpetual poverty and misery.* 
 
 * It should be mentioned that many members of the Protestant com- 
 munities, patronized by Mr. Chamberlain, repudiate his sympathy with 
 scorn. Those men, like their ancestors for many generations, have in- 
 deed reached respectable and influential positions by steady industry and 
 good business habits, and it is precisely such men as they who are least 
 frightened by the Chamberlain bogey of religious persecution as a result 
 of tiome Rule. Thus, at a meeting of the Irish Protestant Home Rule 
 Association, in Dublin, on the 15th November of this year, Mr. William 
 Smith, of Athlone, a manufacturer, said " they would not think their 
 Protestantism deserving the name, if it wanted the defence of Mr. 
 Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill," (See Freeman'' s Journal, 
 16th November, 1886.) 
 
30 The Irish Question : 
 
 PAET V. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 In many branches of industry the blow struck by the hostile 
 legislation of the reigns of William III., Anne, George II., 
 and George III., left behind it permanent results, for in 
 matters requiring the exercise of skill, and the long and con- 
 tinuous training which the possession of technical skill im- 
 plies, a violent break is necessarily more or less disastrous. The 
 reasons why the industries of England have flourished are 
 numerous ; but one reason assuredly is that the continuity of 
 English industrial development has never been broken. As Mr. 
 Lecky remarks, most forms of manufacturing industry in Eng- 
 land date from the Plantagenets and the Tudors. During many 
 centuries, the increase of capital and the formation of habits 
 suited to manufacturing purposes have been uninterrupted in 
 that country ; and a similar statement might truthfully be made 
 concerning every other country which has reached a great 
 height of material prosperity through the exercise of handicrafts. 
 In this respect, of course, Ireland is no exception to the general 
 rule. 
 
 The Irish Parliament indeed, under the constitution of 1782, 
 did something — nay, did much — to repair the ravages of the 
 preceding century. It would have done still more in that 
 direction if it had been allowed to continue in existence, and if 
 the country had not been deliberately goaded by the English 
 government, as it was in the few years preceding the Union, into 
 disturbance and rebellion. But no Parliament could, in the short 
 space of eighteen years, have completely undone the work of 
 eighty. Many of the industries destroyed before 1782 have 
 never been revived, and, as Lord Dufferin, the present Governor- 
 General of India, has said ; " even the traditions of commercial 
 enterprize have perished in Ireland through desuetude." Lord 
 Dufferin's further remark, however — namely, that the absence of 
 competing industries has caused the land troubles, by throwing 
 
Irish Industries and English legislation. 31 
 
 the people entirely on the land for support — is without founda- 
 tion ; for, since the Union of 1800, the only places in Ireland 
 where industries have flourished have been precisely those in 
 which the cultivators of the soil have had some security for their 
 property, and have been safe in their holdings ; and one of the 
 indirect, but most powerful means by which, since that disastrous 
 measure, the development of Irish commercial industry has been 
 absolutely prevented, is to be found in the laws which enabled 
 the landlords to exterminate three millions of the people of 
 Ireland, and to pauperize a large portion of the remainder. 
 
 How the Union has ruined Irish industries almost as effectually 
 as the hostile legislation which we have summarized is, however, 
 a subject deserving of a separate exposition. Meanwhile, we 
 submit that the foregoing statement regarding the disastrous 
 operations of English rule in Ireland in the eighteenth century, 
 must not only cause many sad reflections in the mind of every 
 fair-minded Englishman of the present day, but will also account 
 to a large extent for the existing state of Irish industry, and for 
 the feelings with which the thought of it fills the average Irish 
 mind on the subject of the English management of Irish affairs. 
 
Wht f n^fe (^u«Mi0tt* 
 
 The Following Publications are supplied by the 
 Irish Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The '' Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (7) Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 The Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms, 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 ^^ OtJier Tracts in ijveimration. 
 
No. 8. 
 
 t |rislj ^mBixan. 
 
 THE TUEATMEiNT OP MINORITIES 
 IN IRELAND. 
 
 A LECTUEE DELIVEEED BY CHAELES DAWSON, ESQ. 
 
 Ex-Lord Mayor of Dublin, and Ex-M.P. for Carlow. 
 
 ♦ '••♦ 
 
 londo:n^ : 
 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 18 8 6 
 Price One Penny. 
 
HOW THE lEISH PEOPLE TREAT 
 MINORITIES. 
 
 The following Lecture was delivered at the Eotunda, Dublin, 
 in aid of the funds of the South Dock Ward National Regis- 
 tration Association, on the evening of Wednesday, 12th May, 
 1886, Mr. Alfred Webb in the Chair. 
 
 Mr. Charles Dawson, who on rising was loudly cheered, 
 said : — 
 
 When invited by the National Registration Club of the South 
 Dock Ward, to say some words in connection with their society, 
 I was somewhat at a loss for a subject. These are times when 
 all should follow the wise example of our leaders, and be cir- 
 cumspect in their words and deeds. They are times when 
 those who love their country in both kingdoms should bear in 
 mind the words of Mr. Gladstone on the very threshold of 
 this great controversy, that no man should make more difficult 
 a settlement between the two countries by any unnecessary 
 bitterness imported into the discussion. Now, I have always 
 held it as an axiom in my political career, that under the cir- 
 cumstances of Ireland's struggle an absolute and unqualified 
 conformity to the policy of the party was imperative. To that 
 I still adhere — I am also fully impressed with the prudence of 
 the Prime Minister's advice. However, I think that, without 
 compromising the party with which I act, or disregarding Mr. 
 Gladstone's admonition, I may address myself to the subject I 
 have selected. It is one that involves defence and not attack. 
 The calumnies uttered against the majority of the Irish people 
 at the present moment are many ; most of them wound their 
 
4 Tlu Irish Question : 
 
 feeliDgs, but all do not touch their honour. Their poverty 
 and their comparatively low position in trade and manufactures 
 have been urged against them. 
 
 Absence of Wealth and Enterprise. 
 
 As regards these attacks I shall only say, in the first place, 
 they are grossly exaggerated, and in the next, that it is a 
 matter of surprise that in the ranks of wealth and trade the 
 Catholic people hold such a respectable position as they do. 
 For centuries all the avenues through which wealth could flow 
 to individuals were closed to the Irish Catholic people. The 
 possession of the land ; the vast revenues of the endowed 
 Church of the minority ; the emoluments of the Bar and the 
 Bench, but lately thrown open ; the immense incomes of the 
 high Government appointments ; concentrated millions of money 
 in the hands of the favoured few, and diverted the resources 
 and wealth of the nation from the mass of the people. Shut 
 out from all these advantages, their efforts to create wealth by 
 trade and enterprise were crushed by hostile legislation in 
 three provinces out of the four. With such facts before him. 
 how could Mr. Chamberlain accuse the Irish people of poverty ? 
 He was not always of this frame of mind. When the Tories 
 declared that men who lived in mud cabins should not have 
 votes, it was Mr. Chamberlain who said " If they had votes 
 they would not be now in mud cabins." It is strange to hear 
 one who argued so clearly then, now reproaching the Irish 
 people with poverty and want of enterprise, which, if they had 
 national life, would have long since disappeared. 
 
 These topics, were they mine to-night, I might enlarge upon ; 
 but I shall merely say in connection with them that under a 
 new state of things two grievances affecting trade and manu- 
 facture would be much lessened. At present, when the Irish 
 party asks in the House of Commons for more war ships to be 
 built or repaired at Belfast or Cork, they are told we have not 
 much claim ; England is a loser by our connection ; and though 
 
Treatment of Minorities. 5 
 
 we are no gainers, I believe it is true. But did both countries 
 decide upon a fair contribution from Ireland to Imperial ex- 
 penses — be it one-tenth, one-twelfth, or one-fifteenth — then we 
 clearly would have our claim to a proportionate share of the 
 outlay upon all the Imperial matters carried on in the two 
 countries ; this would be an enormous gain to many a languish- 
 ing trade and industry in this country. In the next place, the 
 following grievance could scarcely disturb the equanimity of 
 our respected fellow-citizen, Mr. J. R. Wigham, of Edmundson 
 and Co. When I was Lord Mayor, and a member of the Irish 
 Lights Board, I had the pleasure of frequent visits from Mr. 
 Wigham. The object of these visits was to claim "protection" 
 for his most valuable inventions of lighthouse illuminants^ to 
 claim " protection " for the Irish minority at the Irish Lights 
 Board, and the Irish inventor from the injustice of the 
 majority at Trinity House, London. Mr. Wigham found it 
 very hard, with the assistance of such violent politicians as 
 Lord Meath — who fiercely but vainly resented this London 
 interference in Irish affairs — Mr. Gray, myself, and others to 
 get justice done to Irish manufacture ; and I don't know 
 whether he has yet secured it for his house or for the employ- 
 ment of the Irish artisan. If Mr. Wigham had to apply to 
 a Dublin Department of Irish Lights, the fate of his ingenious 
 invention would not be so doubtful as it is. To the most casual 
 observer in England and in Ireland, the reasons for the pros- 
 trate condition of Irish trade, especially of that portion in 
 Catholic hands, many and conclusive reasons can be given, 
 and we can afford to let their consideration pass for the 
 present. 
 
 The a ccusation of Intolerance 
 
 is one, however, which touches the Irish people's honour ; it 
 is a question of meanness, of brute force. Is it true ? It is so 
 notoriously false, and so extremely miserable an issue to im- 
 port into a great controversy, that one would be almost inclined 
 
d Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 to pass it by with scorn ; but when we find such men as Mr. 
 Chamberlain in express terms raising up this bugbear of 
 Catholic intolerance, the allegation must be met. In his letter 
 to a Welsh gentleman, Mr. Chamberlain has used these words : 
 — " I cannot understand how the Nonconformists of the Princi- 
 pality, who know what persecution is, can consent to hand 
 over the Protestants of Ireland, bound hand and foot, to the 
 Roman Catholic majority." The only answer we can give to 
 this statement as regards the future is to point to the past and 
 to the present. At each period of Parliamentary and Muni- 
 cipal Reform, in 1832, 1841, 1850, and 1884, how did the Irish 
 Catholic majority treat the Protestants handed over, " bound 
 hand and foot," to their mercy ? I shall arrange my answer 
 in the following order : — The selection of members of Parlia- 
 ment from 1832 to the present time ; the distribution of muni- 
 cipal honours ; and lastly, the nomination to offices of emolu- 
 ment in the gift of Catholic majorities from 1842 to the 
 present day. In the general election of 1832, thirty-three 
 overwhelmingly Catholic constituencies used their new-born 
 power to return at the polls 
 
 Forty-three Protestant Members of Parliament. 
 
 Some of these elections are most instructive at the present 
 moment, when revenge and retaliation is predicted of the Irish 
 people. In Dublin city Mr. Ruthven, a Protestant gentleman, 
 was chosen as the colleague of O'Connell, and the son of 
 Mr. Ruthven was elected, a Protestant gentleman, as the col- 
 league of Mr. Richard More O'Ferrall, to represent Kildare. 
 In Kerry county Mr. Mullins, a cousin to Lord Ventry, was 
 returned with the son-in-law of O'Connell. In Kilkenny, a 
 Protestant aristocrat, brother of the Earl of Kilkenny, ihe 
 Hon. Pierce Butler, was chosen ; whilst in King's County the 
 Hon. William Parsons, eldest son of the Earl of Eosse, was 
 elected. For the county of Limerick, two Protestant aristo- 
 crats were elected — the brother of Lord Clare, and the son 
 
Treatment of Minorities. 7 
 
 and heir of Lord Guillamore. From Catholic Limerick city- 
 went Mr. David (afterwards Sir David) Roche, a Protestant, 
 to accompany the Catholic representative, Mr. William Roche. 
 From Mayo went two Protestants, one an aristocrat, and 
 cousin to the Marquis of Sligo. Meath sent Mr. Henry 
 Grattan, whose Protestant brother represented the county 
 of Wicklow. In the Queen's County the patriotic father of 
 its present patriotic member was accompanied in the represen- 
 tation of that Catholic county by the Protestant Conservative 
 gentleman. Sir Chas. Henry Coote. From Athlone went Mr. 
 Talbot, the grandson of Lady Talbot de Malahide, Dungar- 
 van sent the Hon. George Lamb, brother of Lord Melbourne, 
 and connected with that Lender Secretary Drummond, who 
 has written his name in the remedial legislatioh of Ireland. 
 Such were the numbers, such were the classes, creeds, and 
 politics of the members which Catholic Ireland selected from 
 the "minority, handed over, bound hand and foot," to her 
 mercy. 
 
 In pursuing this question of Parliamentary representation I 
 must be clear on one point. I don't think 
 
 " Toleration " 
 
 requires that to represent a pure political opinion political 
 opponents should be sent. As well ask the supporters of Lord 
 Salisbury to vote for Radicals, or those of Mr. Gladstone to 
 vote for Tories, as to ask the Irish people to send to represent 
 their political views men who would vote directly against them. 
 Many of the instances I have quoted show that at the election 
 of 1832, in their excessive generosity, the Irish people of the 
 three Catholic provinces forgot this sound political axiom. 
 With a man's religion, as a candidate for Parliament, we have 
 nothing to do, but with his politics a great deal — the one affects 
 himself, the other affects us, our liberties, and our lives. This 
 overweening fairness of the Irish people made them slow to 
 learn this lesson and discrimination, and to its very recent 
 
8 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 appreciation is due the fact, that we have not at this moment, 
 as we heartily desire to have, more non-Catholic representative 
 men. In the election of 1848, after the cruel pangs of famine, 
 Catholic constituencies again sent over 40 non-Catholic repre- 
 sentatives to Parliament. Amongst them we find, as in the 
 list of 1832, Protestants like Sir Lucius O'Brien and Major 
 M'Namara, for Clare ; aristocrats like the Marquis of Kildare, 
 for Kildare county ; and Conservatives like Edward Grogan, 
 for Dublin city. 
 
 At the bye-elections from 1848 to 1868, there were many 
 instances of toleration in the matter of religion and politics, 
 one of the most remarkable occurring in Limerick. Mr. Ball, 
 a Catholic, was rejected, and Mr. James Spaight, an eminent 
 Protestant merchant, was elected by the Catholic people. The 
 moment he coincided with the people on public questions his 
 difference of religion was forgotten. He has often been de- 
 feated since, not because of his religion, but because of his 
 strong Conservative views, and his pronounced and unqualified 
 opposition to the political aspirations of the people. At the 
 general election of 1868, 33 Protestant members were elected by 
 Catholic majorities, amongst them being again representatives 
 of the upper classes — such as Lord Bourke, for Mayo ; Lord St. 
 Lawrence, for Galway ; and Lord Otho Fitzgerald, for Kildare ; 
 and, persevering still in a mistaken liberality, even such pro- 
 nounced Conservatives as Colonel Vandeleur, for the pre- 
 eminently Catholic county of Clare. Who then asked the 
 religion of Chichester Fortescue in Louth 1 or of Charles White 
 in Tipperary? or of Mr. Whitworth in Drogheda? or of 
 Jonathan Pim in Dublin? once their political opinions were 
 in harmony with the people's, then as before, and now as 
 then, the Irish Catholic people asked their representatives no 
 questions as to their religion or their class and even in this 
 very election there are instances where for a representative 
 position they did not even ask their politics. 
 
 Coming down to 1874, when the political question of Home 
 
Treatment of Minorities. 9 
 
 Rule began to develop, the number of non-Catholics decreased ; 
 but every Protestant who adopted the national demand was 
 received with open arms, and 28 non-Catholic members repre- 
 sented Catholic constituencies in the Parliament of 1874. That 
 non-Catholic representation unfolds most interesting inci- 
 dents ; almost all the work and all the glory for Ireland was 
 achieved by the Protestant representatives, to whom the 
 Catholic people had confidently trusted their political liber- 
 ties. Who were these men? First, there stands out as the 
 great beginning of this now closing contest, the representative 
 of my native city — the Protestant father of Home Rule — Isaac 
 Butt. William Shaw, the Presbyterian, was elected by the 
 county of Cork, and succeeded to the confidence and leadership 
 of the Irish Catholic people. Joseph G, Biggar, then a Pro- 
 testant, is chosen to be one of that party, of which he has been 
 one of the most useful and the most beloved members. John 
 Martin, the Protestant Presbyterian of the North, was re- 
 elected for the county of Meath; and, crowning glory and 
 crowning reward of Catholic confidence in Protestant faith, 
 was the election by the Catholic people of Meath as his 
 successor, of our Protestant leader, 
 
 Charles Stewart Parnell. 
 
 Even under Mr. Parnell's defined and unmistakable political 
 banner of 1880 and 1884, have not non-Catholics been returned 
 everywhere they presented themselves ? And the only reason 
 we have not many more Protestant representatives is to be 
 found in the fact, that Protestants adopting the political views 
 of the people did not come forward. Whenever they did, the 
 statistics I have quoted prove that being a minority in religion 
 has been a password, instead of an obstruction, to the favour 
 and confidence of their Catholic fellow-countrymen. Let us 
 now turn to the distribution of 
 
 Municipal Honours. 
 
 In 1841, the Catholic Corporations became possessed of politi- 
 
10 The Irish Qioestion : 
 
 cal power. Let me give a few instances of how they have used 
 it in the way of offices of honour. In the city of Galway, at 
 this moment, the chairman of the Town Commissioners, the 
 chairman of the Harbour Board, and the Poor-law Guardians 
 of the district are all Protestants ; in the city of 
 
 Waterford, 
 
 soon after the Municipal Eeform Act of 1845, Sir Benjamin 
 Morris, a Protestant, was elected Mayor, and again in 1846, 
 1850, 1852, 1854, 1859, 1862, 1867, 1873, 1879, and in 1884 and 
 1885, Protestant Mayors were elected in this Catholic city. In 
 
 Limerick, 
 
 at the first election after the Eeform Act of 1841, thirteen 
 Protestant members, some of them from the old Corporation, 
 were elected to the new Council. Since that period thirteen 
 non-Catholic Mayors have been elected, including a previous 
 Mayor of the old Corporation, Mr. Jas. Spaight, the Protestant 
 Conservative before alluded to, who was twice elected, and 
 Sir Peter Tait, a Scotch non-Catholic, three times elected, and 
 brother-in-law of the present Protestant representative of the 
 county of Limerick. Since the Corporation has had the power 
 to elect sheriffs, for four years the office has been filled by 
 Protestant gentlemen. But it is in 
 
 Catholic Cork, 
 
 and, as it has been called " rebel Cork," that toleration and 
 generosity seem to have been unbounded. At the first Re- 
 form election, nine Protestant gentlemen were named members 
 of Council. The second Mayor of the new Corporation was a 
 Protestant, Mr. Beamish ; and then in quick succession 
 followed the Protestant Mayors, Mr. Dowden, Sir John 
 Gordon, Sir John Arnott (now proprietor of the Irish Times), 
 chosen three times Mayor of Catholic Cork. In 1878 Mr. 
 Gregg, a Conservative, was made Mayor, and through this 
 
Treatment of Minorities. 11 
 
 office walked to the lucrative post of Crown Solicitor for the 
 
 county. How soon the source of these titles and wealth, the 
 
 Catholic confidence and toleration, is forgotten ! As with the 
 
 office of Mayor, so with that of Sheriffi In the very second 
 
 year the Council named Alderman Hall, a Protestant and 
 
 Conservative ; and when through inferior health he could not 
 
 serve, they named his son, Mr. Eobert Hall : and ever since 
 
 the Sheriflfs' list has borne the names of non-Catholic and even 
 
 Conservative gentlemen. The corporate representation on the 
 
 Harbour Board up to last year contained eight Protestant 
 
 gentlemen. From the Catholic capital of the South we 
 
 come to 
 
 Dublin, 
 
 the Catholic capital of the nation. On its assumption of power, 
 what did the Catholic Corporation do with the Protestant 
 minority ? Did it bind them " hand and foot," as Mr. Cham- 
 berlain says, in the bonds of persecution? It persecuted 
 them after this fashion. At the first election many non- 
 Catholics were elected as members of Council. The imme- 
 diate successor of O'Connell as Lord Mayor was the Protes- 
 tant, George Eoe ; then there followed Mr. Arabin in the same 
 office, and another was named Mr. Busby, but he could not 
 act. After the Eeform of 1849 the Council showed its 
 liberality by electing Mr. B. Lee Guinness, afterwards made 
 a baronet ; and following in almost uninterrupted alternation 
 came the following Protestant Chief Magistrates of Dublin, 
 elected almost unanimously by the Catholic majority : — Mr. 
 Kinahan, Mr. Boyse, Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Lambert, Mr. 
 Atkinson again, Hon. Mr. Vereker, Sir John Barrington, Mr. 
 Wm. Lane Joynt (now Crown and Treasury Solicitor, and 
 formerly Protestant Mayor of the Catholic city of Limerick), 
 Mr. Purdon, Mr. Durdin, Mr. Brooks, Sir George Owens, Sir 
 J. Barrington, down to my own immediate predecessor in 1881, 
 Alderman Moyers, a Protestant and Conservative gentleman. 
 During the brief time we have had the nomination of sheriffs. 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 many Protestant gentlemen have been placed upon the list ; 
 and the Hon. Mr. Vereker, ex-Lord Mayor, filled the office in 
 1878, and Sir George Owens, a Protestant and Conservative, 
 in 18^1, at the very same time that Alderman Moyers, a Pro- 
 testant and Conservative, was Lord Mayor. What a record 
 of intolerance ! I present it to Mr. Chamberlain for the 
 further instruction of the Welsh people. But I fancy I hear 
 someone saying, " That is all very well ; honours are cheap. 
 But what did you do with the 
 
 ' Offices of Emolument V " 
 
 Well, here is what we did do with them in the towns I have 
 named. In Galway, the present Borough Engineer is a Pro- 
 testant ; in Waterford, the City Grand Jury Tax Collector, 
 the Poor-rate Collector, the Solicitors to the Poor-law Boards, 
 are all non-Catholic ; in Limerick, the Clerk of the Union is a 
 Protestant Conservative gentleman of the highest position ; in 
 Cork, up to a recent period, the present Town Clerk was the 
 only Catholic who held, under the Catholic Corporation, a first- 
 class office ; all the rest were Protestants. When, in 1854, the 
 powers of the Grand Jury and Wide Street Commissioners were 
 transferred to the Corporation, how did the Corporation of 
 Cork treat the old officers ? And to this point I not only crave 
 the attention of Mr. Chamberlain, but also that of the Civil 
 Servants of this country, who are threatened with injustice, 
 not by the advocates of, but by the opponents of Home Rule. 
 The Corporation of Cork not only retained the officers whom 
 they could have dismissed on small pensions, but they retained 
 the Secretary of the Grand Jury, who had £111 a year, and 
 they gave him £220, and the Secretary to the Wide Street Com- 
 mission, who had a salary of £40, was promoted to a position 
 of £100 a year. Even officers who had no legal claim were 
 retained. In addition, a new office was created — that of City 
 Engineer. Two persons competed, the Catholic and National- 
 ist, Joseph P. Ronayne, afterwards member for the city, and 
 
Treatment of Minorities. 13 
 
 Mr. Benson, Surveyor under the Grand Jury, a Protestant and 
 Conservative. In consideration of his previous claim, the 
 Catholic Corporation selected this Protestant and Conserva- 
 tive instead of the Catliolic and Nationalist. Mr. Benson, 
 afterwards knighted, got £600, instead of £150, his previous 
 salary. The City Treasurership being vacant, a Protestant 
 was elected, and, until recently, all the municipal chief offices 
 in Cork, except that of Town Clerk, were held by non-Catho- 
 lics, and they received £1,840 out of the £2,440 voted by the 
 Catholic Council. ]j^In the matter of liberality as to paid offices, 
 
 Dublin almost surpassed Cork, 
 
 and stands at this moment unrivalled in its wondrous tolera- 
 tion. The principal paid officers in the old Corporation were 
 in connection with the "Water Department. Of these the 
 Corporation^took over and retained till his death the Secretary, 
 Sir Drury Jones Dickenson. Mr. Crofton was also retained, 
 a Protestant gentleman. His son was in the corporate service, 
 and his grandson, Mr. Mervyn P. Crofton, a Protestant gen- 
 tleman, is in their service at this hour. Mr. Curtin, a 
 Protestant gentleman, was Treasurer, and his successor, who 
 now holds this high office, is Mr. Fry, a Protestant gentleman. 
 The Chief Engineer, Mr. Neville, is a Protestant ; his assistant, 
 Mr. Harty, is a Protestant ; Mr. Andrews, the Engineer of 
 the Waterworks, is a Protestant ; Sir Charles Cameron, the 
 Chief Officer of Health, is a Protestant ; and his predecessor, 
 Mr. Boyle, was a Protestant ; and Mr. Young, late Chief of 
 the Sanitary Department, is the son of a Presbyterian clergy- 
 man, and was supported by Mr. Gray, Alderman Meagher, 
 Alderman Mulligan, and myself for that very office. In fact, 
 out of the total sum of £8,400 per annum paid to chief officers 
 
 in Dublin, 
 
 Four Thousand Pounds 
 
 are paid at the present moment by the Catholic Corporation 
 to non-Catholic gentlemen, and their religion or their politics 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 have never been inquired into. As to tlie religion of the 
 lower-class clerks, I myself, though many years a member of 
 the Council, and twice Lord Mayor, knew nothing whatever, 
 nor did the heads of departments ; but I have since ascer- 
 tained that of all the officials of all classes, twenty-two, or more 
 than one-third, are non-Catholic. Now, can Mr. Chamberlain, 
 in the annals of any English, Scotch, or Welsh town show me 
 fact for fact with this splendid record of Irish Catholic tole- 
 ration ? Can he produce a parallel from the annals of the 
 caucus for this boundless, prodigal generosity to religious and 
 political opponents ? But perhaps he can point it out to me 
 
 in his 
 
 "So-called Protestant Ulster." 
 
 I fear not. The toleration is as absent a feature in a great part 
 of Ulster as the Protestantism. What are the facts on these 
 two points ? The extremely Protestant division comprises 
 one-fourth of the area, about two-fifths of the population, and 
 three out of the nine counties ; the overwhelmingly Catholic 
 division comprises three-fifths of the population, three-fourths 
 of the area, and six of the counties ; and yet in his letter to 
 Mr. Bolton, stirring up the North to armed resistance, Mr. 
 Chamberlain uses the phrase " Protestant Ulster." But how 
 are the minority of Catholics treated in that portion where 
 non-Catholics predominate in power and population ? There 
 are more Catholics in proportion in 
 
 Belfast 
 
 than there are Protestants in Dublin. Have they had, or have 
 they now, in Belfast a Catholic member of their Council ? Have 
 they now, or have they ever had, a Catholic Mayor, or a Catholic 
 Sheriff, or a Catholic Treasurer, Engineer, or Officer of Health? 
 Have they now, or have they ever had, any Catholic officer what- 
 ever, paid or honorary, first-class or lower ? And if not, how 
 can Mr. Chamberlain waste his solicitude upon them, except, 
 indeed, it be a solicitude to protect their intolerance to the 
 
TreMment of Mmorities. 15 
 
 Catholic minority, " bound hand and foot," handed over to 
 their mercy ? Coming from the overwhelmingly Protestant 
 Belfast, in point of numbers and power, how does 
 
 Derry 
 
 act, where, though the Catholics are in the majority, the power 
 is in non-Catholic hands ? Though there are 17,000 Catholics 
 to 12,000 non-Catholics, there is only one Catholic in the 
 Corporation of Derry. This Corporation does not employ one 
 solitary Catholic in any department. In the workhouse, 
 although 80 per cent, of the inmates are Catholic, not a doctor, 
 not an officer, not a nurse is a Catholic. In the whole of 
 Armagh and Down no place of honour or emolument is given 
 to a Catholic. This is true of railways, banks, factories, poor- 
 law boards, etc. Coming to the Catholic districts of Donegal, 
 Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Monaghan, there is not now, nor to 
 my knowledge has there ever been, one single Catholic ap- 
 pointed to an elective position by the non-Catholic minority 
 who still have power over the Catholic people. Surely some- 
 body must have been deceiving Mr. Chamberlain ; and because 
 there is still a persecuted party "bound hand and foot" by 
 intolerant power, they have convinced him, a stranger to Ire- 
 land, her topography, her history, and her present statistics, 
 that this intolerant party is the Catholic party of five-sixths 
 of Ireland, and not that small but powerful party whose 
 stronghold is in the far north-east of Ulster, but whose out- 
 works, kept up by foreign legislation, are to be found in every 
 part of Ireland. The toleration of the Catholics in the south, 
 and west, and east of Ireland has not induced this party, even 
 in their midst, to follow their example. How many Catholics 
 are to be found even out of Ulster in the offices of emolument 
 in the gift of 
 
 " Grand Juries, Public Boards, and Companies " 
 
 ruled by non-Catholic majorities ? I could make this inquiry, 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 I could show figures illustrating my point in every part of Ire- 
 land, aye, and in Dublin too, but I forbear in the spirit of 
 avoiding unnecessary bitterness ; yet it is a matter of inquiry 
 which unnecessary bitterness on the other side may yet make 
 it imperative to disclose. Neither am I inclined to say a word 
 to disturb the friendly feeling which is growing up between 
 the two peoples, under the magic influence of Mr. Gladstone's 
 noble policy. 
 
 But if Mr. Chamberlain will throw the stone of "persecution" 
 and exclusion of the " minority" at the Irish people, what has 
 he to say of his own country 1 It has had all the opportunities, 
 and more, than Catholic Ireland has had, of being tolerant to 
 minorities. How did his country exercise it ? How many 
 Catholic members of Parliament did the English constitu- 
 encies elect ? How many Catholic mayors or sheriffs did 
 English Corporations appoint ? How many well paid officers ? 
 When I was in Parliament, during five years, out of over five 
 hundred members from England and Scotland, there was but 
 one Catholic. 
 
 Therefore, I think we are warranted in the conclusion that, 
 as compared with our non-Catholic fellow-countrymen — as 
 compared with the English and Scotch people — as compared 
 with any people or country in the world — Ireland, 
 
 Catholic Ireland, 
 
 stands unsurpassed and unequalled in her boundless tolera- 
 tion and fair treatment of minorities. If Mr. Chamber- 
 lain makes predictions of a gloomy future from his incorrect 
 data, may we not sketch a more happy time from the accurate 
 annals of the past ? May we not hope with great confidence 
 that a people who, after long persecution, used every accession 
 of power — slowly and grudgingly given — to heap honours and 
 wealth on their non-Catholic fellow-countrymen — may we not 
 hope, I say, that in the plenitude of restored national power, 
 they will exhibit in an increased degree the beneficent tolera- 
 
Treatment of Minorities. 17 
 
 tion they have hitherto shown ; thereby allaying all the fears 
 of their timid fellow-countrymen ; thereby belying all the 
 gloomy prophecies of their enemies, and thereby realising all 
 the hopes of that great man who is now about to trust them ; 
 that man who by degrees, in the face of immense difficulties, 
 has built up the Irish liberties to the present climax, and whom 
 we all hope may live to lay the foundation of a lasting peace 
 between two friendly — because legislatively independent — 
 nations, on the banners of which shall be indelibly inscribed 
 the name of William Ewart Gladstone. 
 
 Since the above lecture was delivered the following addi- 
 tional instances of the toleration of Catholic majorities have 
 reached me : — 
 
 In Dungarvan, where the "minority" consists of 120 non- 
 Catholics amongst 7,400 Catholics, three out of four of the 
 dispensary districts were presided over by Protestant chairmen 
 elected by the Catholic majority. At the last election for 
 Chairman of the Board of Dungarvan Union the one Protestant 
 member out of twenty was elected for that post. 
 
 The Mallow Board, where the majority is Catholic, recently 
 elected a Protestant physician for the workhouse, and a Pro- 
 testant nurse for the hospital. Contrast this with Derry. 
 The following instance shows that political claims being equal, 
 the Catholic majority go out of their way to "protect" and 
 favour the religious "minority." At the recent election for 
 one of the divisions of the Longford Union there were two 
 candidates — both Nationalists, one a Protestant and the other 
 a Catholic. The Protestant (Mr. James Campbell) was elected. 
 
 Two members of the Board of Town Commissioners of Kil- 
 mainham, near Dublin, having recently died, both being 
 Catholics and Nationalists, and whose constituents are mainly 
 
18 TJie Irish Question. 
 
 Catholic and National, the Inchicore Catholic Club met to 
 select candidates to succeed them. At the suggestion of the 
 Very Rev. Father Nicholl, O.M.I., the Club agreed to nomi- 
 nate only one candidate, in order to allow the " Protestant 
 minority " to have one of the seats without a contest. It is a 
 curious fact that in 1842, after the Municipal Eeform Act, 
 O'Connell proposed a similar policy. He offered one-third of 
 the Municipal seats in Dublin to the " Protestant minority " 
 without a contest. The offer was refused, and at the elections 
 the party did not fare so well as if they had accepted the offer 
 of O'Connell. 
 
 B. D, Webb & Son, Printers, Abbey-street, Dublin. 
 
W\\t M^h ^\mim. 
 
 The Following Publications are supplied by the 
 Ieish Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The '♦ Castle " System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (7) Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (8) The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alp^red Webb. 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 ()fher Ty^acU in preparation. 
 
No. 9. 
 
 %)^t ^xk\i #mstion. 
 
 AN IRISH JUDGE ON THE IRISH 
 QUESTION : 
 
 Meprint of Mr. Baron Fletclier^s Charge to the Co. Wexford 
 Grand Jury in 1814, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN J. CLANCY, U . A. . 
 
 31. P. for North Duhlin. 
 
 ♦'•'♦ 
 
 LONDON: 
 THE IRISH PEESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 1886 
 Price One Penny. 
 
R. D. Webb and Son, Printers. Abbey-street, Dublin. 
 
AN lEISH JUDGE ON THE lEISH QUESTION. 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The charge of Mr. Baron Fletcher, which will be found in the 
 following pages, was delivered to the Grand Jury of the County 
 of Wexford in the year 1814. Coming from such a man, who, 
 it is needless to say, was neither a Catholic nor a National- 
 ist, the deliverance will be found to be one of the most remark- 
 able exposures on record of the infamous oppression to which 
 the mass of the people of Ireland have been subjected, under the 
 Union, by " the propertied class " and the partizans of " law and 
 order." 
 
 It is not often that members of the Irish judicial bench have 
 ventured on such disquisitions ; and, on the whole, it is somewhat 
 wonderful that even Judge Fletcher, considering the time in which 
 he lived, allowed his better feelings so to master his discretion. 
 He ran real risk in the act, despite the so-called independence of 
 the bench. A few years before, two other Irish Judges had had a 
 sad experience of the results of administering the law of the land 
 with some degree of impartiality. Within the first ten years of 
 the Union, Mr. Justice Fox went the north-west circuit in the 
 ordinary discharge of his duties as judge of assize. It was not 
 long after the Emmett insurrection, and he had the temerity to 
 insult the Orange Grand Juries who had been sworn before him, 
 by telling them that all parties ought to forget and abandon 
 their religious animosities by which the country had been dis- 
 tracted. He went further. He found some Catholic peasants in 
 prison without any charge specified against them — one of them 
 beiDg kept in solitary confinement by order of the Earl of Ennis- 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 killen ; and at the same time he found that an Orangeman who 
 was charged with a capital offence had been released without 
 bail by two other Orangemen in the Commission of the Peace. 
 In consequence, he dared to summon Lord Enniskillen before 
 him, and when that personage did not deign to answer his sum- 
 mons, he fined him in the sum of ^200, and fined three or four 
 other magistrates smaller sums for similar offences. About the 
 same time, Mr. Justice Johnson, in Donegal, was called on to fiat 
 a presentment for a very considerable sum, to be levied, of course, 
 entirely on the occupiers of land — as all Grand Jury charges are, 
 and have been levied — in repayment, so it was pretended, of 
 money advanced by the government for three hundred and fifty 
 men, whom it was the duty of Lord Abercorn, in consideration 
 of such money, to have recruited. The judge found that not a 
 single man had been enlisted — in other words, that a gross fraud 
 had been committed, and he accordingly refused to issue his 
 fiat, and passed a strong censure upon Lord Abercorn. What 
 was the result ? In the next ensuing session of Parliament, the 
 Orange peer Abercorn got a special Act passed for the trial of 
 Mr. Justice Fox by the House of Lords, for various high crimes 
 and misdemeanours, including the infliction of unjust and ex- 
 cessive fines, and an attempt to bring Lords Abercorn and Ennis- 
 killen into contempt ! After an investigation, which lasted, with 
 intervals, for three years, and in the course of which neither 
 cross-examination nor defence was permitted, the proceedings 
 were, indeed, quashed without any decision having been arrived 
 at ; but the unfortunate judge was broken in health and fortune, 
 and never recovered. TJie ruin of Johnson was not less com- 
 plete, but it was accomplished in a more roundabout fashion. 
 It was deemed too great a stretch of infamy to try him for his 
 action as a judge ; but some anonymous letters published in 
 Cobbett's Register, in reference to certain public acts of Lords 
 Redesdale and Hardwicke, were esteemed libellous by those 
 worthies, and Judge Johnson having been suspected of being the 
 author of them, an ex post facto law was passed, under which he 
 
Introduction. 5 
 
 was brought over to London, tried there for libel, and convicted. 
 Judgment was not applied for ; but he was disgraced as a judge, 
 although he afterwards got a pension. With events such as 
 those fresh in his memory, it is, we repeat, somewhat wonderful 
 that Baron Fletcher, in 1814, had the courage to go farther than 
 Fox and Johnson, and scourge the landlords and the magistrates 
 of the country, after the fashion of the famous Wexford charge. 
 Partizanship, corruption, and even crime were enthroned in the 
 high places of the land ; and no man, whether on the bench or 
 off it, attacked them, except at the peril of his liberty and his 
 fortune. 
 
 The charge of Baron Fletcher gives us a vivid glimpse into a 
 past which is not very remote ; and what a state of things that 
 glimpse discloses ! On the one side, the mass of the Irish people, 
 peaceable and law-abiding, till goaded into crime by oppression 
 and outrage ; labouring more industriously than slaves, but 
 stripped to the skin by relentless rack-renters, the tax-gatherers 
 of a hostile gentry, and the tithe-collectors of a church which was 
 not theirs ; the victims not only of the most infamous robbery and 
 oppression, but also of venomous falsehood and misrepresenta- 
 tion which sought to blast their reputation after they had been 
 robbed of almost everything else. On the other side, a horde of 
 plundering and heartless landlords, many of them permanent 
 absentees ; Grand Jurors who habitually used their positions 
 as such for purposes of the grossest jobbery and self-aggrandize- 
 ment ; magistrates who habitually foreswore themselves ; Orange 
 societies organising open murder and " poisoning the very foun- 
 tains of justice"; and the government in league with the 
 landlords, the grand jurors, the magistrates, and the Orangemen, 
 and executing their wishes. 
 
 Judge Fletcher shows how the landlords squeezed from the 
 very vitals of the tenantry " more than the actual value of the 
 produce of the land ; " how, to keep a foothold in the land, the 
 peasantry were forced to offer rents which the land did not yield ; 
 how many of them were housed worse than "English sows ; " how 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 the landlords contrived to get the occupiers of the land not only 
 to pay monstrous rackrents, but to furnish, in the shape of Grand 
 Jury cess, the means of building roads to their mansions and 
 walls round their demesnes, presentments for such infamous jobs 
 as these, to the amount of over ^9,000, having been discovered by 
 himself at one assizes in Tipperary and quashed \ how, after all 
 this, as if owing a return for some benefit conferred upon them, 
 such of the wretched people as possessed votes were, at parlia- 
 mentary elections, driven to the poll and kept " huddled like 
 sheep in a pen" till they had voted as the landlords dictated. He 
 shows how law was prostituted to the vilest ends — how innocent 
 men were committed to prison by fraud, and were only restored 
 to their " ruined and beggared families " when they were " lost 
 in health and morals ; " how on his political creed depended the 
 fate of a prisoner in the dock, and how the credibility of a witness 
 was measured by his party badge, when the jury box was filled 
 with Orangemen ; how beneficial leases were broken (and increases 
 of rent thus secured) by means of the coercion act, which enabled 
 a few magistrates to banish peasants "in a summary way;" how, 
 in short, the mass of the Irish people were systematically taught 
 to believe that the law was their mortal enemy, and should be 
 defeated one way or another, if they were to have even the bare 
 right of breathing the air of heaven. He notices also, how, 
 nevertheless, the country was maligned by a hostile press, as if 
 it were mainly inhabited by a race of irreclaimable savages ; and 
 how English visitors who had come to investigate the state of 
 Ireland, were deliberately taken in hands by the very authors of 
 all the villainy, and had their minds so filled with the most 
 malicious and poisonous misrepresentations that they went back 
 to England more convinced than ever that Ireland was a hopeless 
 den of barbarism. Nor does this judge fail to expose and castigate 
 the spurious " loyalty " under the mask of which the dominant 
 faction invoked, and invoked successfully, the aid of the govern- 
 ment in carrying on their war of plunder and oppression. Finally, 
 the extremely remarkable passages in which, while energetically 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 condemning crime, he points out that Ribbonism was the product 
 of oppression ; that it was not surprising under all the circum- 
 stances of the case, however reprehensible it was, that the 
 wretched peasant "rushed upon the perpetration of crimes 
 followed by the rope and the gibbet ; " and that there ought to be 
 some other remedy for the evils of the country than coercion — 
 those passages would appear strong, and would no doubt be 
 accounted an incitement to crime, if spoken on a platform of 
 the National League, but must appear still stronger and more 
 suggestive wlien uttered by one who was himself an administrator 
 of the law and " steeped to the lips " in loyalty. 
 
 But Mr. Baron Fletcher's charge is not only a vivid and 
 truthful picture of a not remote past, but also to a large extent 
 a guide to the actual and living present. Many of the very evils 
 and infamies he courageously exposed and denounced still exist. 
 Rackrents are still "wrung from the vitals of the Irish peasantry," 
 Crime is still created by the operation of unjust laws. A small 
 faction, growing smaller every day, still rules in the towns and 
 counties of Ireland, and, except where and when it is kept in 
 check by force of public opinion and the fear of public exposure 
 in the press and in Parliament, and often even in face of those 
 restraining agencies, perpetrates its jobs as of old, and prostitutes 
 the power conferred on it by English law to party ends. Orange- 
 ism still poisons in many places the very fountains of justice. 
 Professors of a spurious loyalty — a loyalty which, avowedly, is 
 quite conditional and qualified, and which is simply loyalty to 
 certain exclusive, unjust, and immoral powers and privileges — 
 still swagger and strut about, and carry their wares to market, 
 and demand that for their sake a whole nation shall be left in 
 bondage as rebels, and robbers, and murderers. Still, a section 
 of the press helps to further their base designs ; a government is 
 still found in league with them ; and still the questions which 
 Judge Fletcher asked remain unanswered, seventy-two years 
 after he spoke : " Is there no method of allaying those discontents 
 of the people and preventing them from flying in the face of the 
 
8 Tlie Irish Question. 
 
 laws ? Is there no remedy but Act of Parliament after Act of 
 Parliament in quick succession, framed for coercing and punish- 
 ing ? Is there no corrective but the rope and the gibbet ? " 
 
 It is in the hope that it may help to induce the English, Scotch, 
 and Welsh people to answer those questions, as the overwhelming 
 majority of the Irish people have long since answered them for 
 themselves, that this remarkable charge is now reprinted. 
 
 To bring the charge within reasonable limits, some passages 
 have been omitted which do not bear against the general tenor 
 of Judge Fletcher's remarks. The punctuation, " capitaling," 
 and orthography of the original have for the most part been 
 retained. Passages have, for clearness and emphasis, been 
 italicized. 
 
 J. J. CLANCY. 
 
 Dublin, December, 1886. 
 
ME. BAEON FLETCHEE'S CHAEGE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 GEAND JURY OF THE COUNTY OF WEXFOED IN 1814. 
 
 Wexford Goaded into Rebellion. 
 
 * * ■» * ^ M- 
 
 Gentlemen, it is matter of great congratulation, that after a 
 period of 30 years (at the commencement of which I first knew 
 the county Wexford), I have reason to say, it is precisely in the 
 situation in which it was then, except as to an increase of wealth 
 and population, and an improvement in agriculture, which has 
 ameliorated its condition and multiplied its resources. The 
 county of Wexford was then a moral curiosity. When other 
 parts of the country were lawless and disturbed, this County had 
 a Peasantry — industrious in their habits — social in their dis- 
 position — satisfied with their state, and amenable to the Laws — 
 cultivating their farms, with an assiduity, which insured a com- 
 petency. Their conduct was peaceful — their apparel whole — 
 their morals improved — their lives spent in the frequent inter- 
 change of mutual good ofl&ces. It was a state of things which I 
 reflect upon with pleasure. Each succeeding Circuit showed me 
 wild heaths and uncultivated tracts, brought under the dominion 
 of the plough, and producing corn for the sustenance of man. 
 As it was then, so it continued for many years ; until those 
 unhappy disturbances, which burst out in this Country, with such 
 a sudden and unexpected explosion. I knew what the state of 
 things was then, and how that explosion was produced. Pro- 
 fessionally I knew it : because I enjoyed peculiar advantages of 
 knowledge, which other men did not enjoy. For several years I 
 conducted the prosecutions of the Crown at Wexford ; and hence 
 I derived an intimate knowledge of those transactions. Besides 
 I was connected with no party — I was indifferent about party. 
 
 B 
 
10 The Irish Question : 
 
 But here I stop — I willingly draw a veil over the events of those 
 days, and their causes. God forbid ! that I should tear asunder 
 wounds, which, I hope, are completely and for ever closed. 
 
 The Old Game of Misrepresentation. 
 
 I have now been absent from this County twelve years (with 
 the exception of one Assizes, when I came here in the King's 
 commission, but upon that occasion I did not sit, as I now do, in 
 the Crown Court). I can say, however, with the greatest truth, 
 that at no period from my earliest acquaintance with your County, 
 .down to the present time, do I remember to have seen it in 
 more profound tranquillity — more perfect peace— more complete 
 security than at present — a state of things indicating a due ad- 
 ministration of the laws by Magistrates, neither over zealous and 
 too active on the one hand, nor too negligent and supine on the 
 other. Such, I do hope, is the true and actual state of your County ; 
 for. Gentlemen, I have, I repeat it, no means of knowing the fact, 
 except from the quantity of alleged crimes, the number of persons 
 charged, and the nature of those charges, as are set out in the 
 Calendar. But why, gentlemen, have I entered into this detail ? 
 I answer, for these weighty and cogent reasons — because much 
 exaggeration and misrepresentation have gone abroad ; and the 
 extent and causes of disturbances have been much misstated. In 
 what I now say, or shall say, I do not impute anything to any 
 individual in this County — I will not meddle with its internal 
 politics ; but this I know, that its situation has been variously 
 represented. Several advertisements in newspapers, now be- 
 fore me — [the Wexford Journals of last March and April] — 
 describe this County as being in a most alarming state of 
 disturbance. Other advertisements affirm, on the other hand, 
 that the County has never enjoyed more profound tranquillity. 
 These advertisements have been, I understand, re-published in the 
 Prints of Dublin and London; and have naturally excited strong 
 sensations. It is not for me to inquire into the motive of those 
 opposite statements, I know them not. It is not my intention — 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 11 
 
 it is not my duty, to impute any particular motives to any 
 individuals ; but it is within the sphere of my public duty to 
 state, for your instruction, what I have observed as the origin 
 and grounds of similar reports and misrepresentations in other 
 Counties, whither the discharge of my public duty has called me ; 
 and where I have had judicial knowledge of what has passed. 
 It may be not uninstructive to state, what appeared to me to be 
 the causes of those disturbances, which have occasioned those 
 misrepresentations and exaggerations — together with the reasons 
 which have impelled the Legislature to swell the Criminal Code, 
 session after session, with new Statutes for vindicating the peace 
 of this country. 
 
 A Rebuke to the Outrage Manufacturers. 
 In my circuits through other parts of the Kingdom, I have seen 
 the lower orders of the People disturbed by many causes, not 
 peculiar to any particular Counties — operating with more effect 
 in some : but to a greater or less extent in all — I have seen them 
 operating with extended effect in the North- West Circuit, in the 
 Counties of Mayo, Donegal, Derry, Roscommon, etc. These 
 effects have made a deep impression on my mind. My observa- 
 tions, certainly, have been those of an individual — but of an 
 individual, seeing the same facts coming before him, judicially, 
 time after time — and I do now publicly state, that never, 
 during the entire period of my judicial experience (comprising 
 sixteen Circuits) have I discovered or observed any serious 
 purpose, or settled scheme of assailing his Majesty's Government, 
 or any conspiracy connected with internal rebels, or foreign foes. 
 But various, deep-rooted, and neglected causes, producing 
 similar effects throughout this Country, have conspired to create 
 the evils which really and truly do exist. 
 
 The Real Causes of Outrage and Misery. 
 First, the extraordinary rise of land occasioned by the great 
 and encreasing demand for the necessaries of life ; and by 
 producing large profits to the possessors of farms, excited a 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 proportionate avidity for acquiring or renting lands. Hence 
 extravagant rents have been bid for lands, without any great 
 consideration ; and I have seen these two circumstances operat- 
 ing upon each other, like cause and effect — the cause producing 
 the effect ; and the effect, by re-action producing the cause. 
 
 Next, we all know, that the Country has been deluged by an 
 enormous Paper Currency, which has generated a new crime, 
 now prominent upon the list in every calendar — the crime of 
 making and uttering forged Bank Notes. In every Province we 
 have private Banks failing, and ruining multitudes ; and thus 
 have fresh mischiefs flowed from this Paper Circulation. In the 
 next place, the Country has seen a Magistracy, over active in 
 some instances, and quite supine in others. This circumstance 
 has materially affected the administration of the laws in Ireland. 
 
 Orangeism " Poisons the Fountains of Justice." 
 
 In this respect, I have found that those Societies, called the 
 Orange Societies, have produced most mischievous effects ; and 
 particularly in the North of Ireland. They poison the very 
 Fountains of Justice ; and even some Magistrates, U7ider their 
 influence, have, in too many instances, violated their duty and 
 their oaths. I do not hesitate to say, that all Associations, of 
 every description in this country, — whether of Orangemen or 
 KiBBONMEN — whether distinguished by the colour of Orange or of 
 Green — all combinations of persons, bound to each other (by the 
 obligations of an oath) in league for a common purpose, endanger- 
 ing the peace of the Country, I pronounce them to be contrary 
 to law. And should it ever come before me to decide upon the 
 question, I shall not hesitate to send up Bills of Indictment to a 
 Grand Jury against the individual Members of such an Associa- 
 tion^ loherever I can find the charge properly sustained. 
 
 The Orange Yeomen and Orange Juries. 
 Of this I am certain, that, so long as those associations are 
 permitted to act in the lawless manner they do, there will be no 
 tranquillity in this country, and particularly in the North of 
 
An Irish Judge 07i the Irish Question. 13 
 
 Ireland. There, those disturbers of the public peace, who assume 
 the name of Orange Yeomen, frequent the fairs and markets, 
 with arms in their hands, under the pretence of self-defence, or 
 of protecting the public peace, but with the lurking view of 
 inviting the attacks of the Ribbonmen — confident, that, armed 
 -as they are, they must overcome defenceless opponents and put 
 them down. Murders have been repeatedly perpetrated upon 
 such occasions ; and though legal prosecutions have ensued, yet 
 such have been the baneful consequences of those factious 
 associations, that under their influence, Petty Juries have de- 
 clined {upon some occasions) to do their duty. These facts have 
 fallen under my own view. It was sufficient to say — such a man 
 displayed such a colour, to produce an utter disbelief of his testi- 
 mony ; or, when another has stood with his hand at the bar, the 
 display of his party badge has mitigated the murder into man- 
 slaughter. 
 
 Peace Impossible with Orangeism Rampant. 
 
 Gentlemen, I do repeat, that these are my sentiments, not 
 merely as an individual, but as a man discharging his judicial 
 duty, I hope with firmness and integrity. With these Orange 
 Associations I connect all Commemorations and Processions — 
 producing embittering recollections, and inflicting wounds upon 
 the feelings of others ; and I do emphatically state it as my 
 settled opinion, that until those Associations are effectually put 
 down, and the arms taken from their ha^ids, in vain will the North 
 of Ireland expect tranquillity or peace. 
 
 The Eack-renters and the Grand Jury Jobbers. 
 
 Gentlemen, that modern pittance, which the high rents leave 
 to the poor Peasantry, the large County Assessments nearly take 
 from them ; roads are frequently planned and made, not for the 
 general advantage of the Country ; but to suit the particular 
 views of a neighbouring Landholder, at the public expense — such 
 abuses shake the very foundation of the Law — they ought to be 
 checked. Superadded to these mischiefs, are the permanent and 
 
14 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 occasional absentee Landlords, residing in another Country, not 
 known to their Tenantry but by their Agents, who extract the 
 uttermost penny of the value of the lands. If a lease happen 
 to fall, they set the farm by public auction to the highest bidder. 
 No gratitude for past services — no preference of the fair offer — 
 no predilection for the ancient tenantry (be they ever so deserv- 
 ing), but if the highest price be not acceded to, the depopulation 
 of an entire tract of country ensues. What then is the wretched 
 peasant to do ? Chased from, the spot where he had first drawn 
 his breath — where he had first seen the light of heaven — incapable of 
 procuring any other means of existence — vexed with those exactions 
 I have enumerated — and harassed by the payment of Tithes — can 
 we be surprised, that a peasant, of unenlightened mind, of unedu- 
 cated habits, should riish upon the perpetration of crimes, followed 
 by the punishment of the rope and the gibbet ? Nothing (as the 
 peasantry imagine) remains for them, thus harassed and thus 
 destitute, but with strong hand to deter the stranger from 
 intruding upon their farms ; and to extort from the weakness 
 and terrors of their Landlords (from whose gratitude or good 
 feelings they have failed to win it), a kind of preference for 
 their ancient tenantry. 
 
 BiBBONisM A Product of Oppression. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, have been the causes which I have thus 
 seen operating in the North of Ireland, and in part of the South 
 and West. I have observed, too, as the consequences of those 
 Orange Combinations and Confederacies, men, ferocious in their 
 habits — uneducated — not knowing what remedy to resort to — in 
 their despair, flying in the face of the Law — entering into 
 dangerous and criminal counter associations, and endeavouring 
 to procure arms, in order to meet upon equal terms, their Orange 
 assailants. 
 
 A Vindication of the Priests. 
 To these several causes of disturbance, we may add certain 
 moral causes. There has existed an ancient connection, salutary 
 
An Irish Judge on the Ii^ish Question. 15 
 
 in its nature, between the Catholic Pastor and his flock. 
 This connection has been often, with very little reflection, 
 inveighed against by those who call themselves friends to the 
 Constitution, in Church and State. I have had judicial oppor- 
 tunities of knowing, that this connection between the Catholic 
 Pastor and his Flock, has been, in some instances, weakened, and 
 nearly destroyed ; the Flock, goaded by their wants, and flying 
 in the face of their Pastor, with a lamentable abandonment of 
 all religious feeling, and a dereliction of all regard to that 
 pastoral superintendence, which is so essential to the tranquillity 
 of the country. For if men have no prospect here, but of a 
 continued series of want and labour, and privation ; and if the 
 hopes and fears of a future state are withdrawn from them, by 
 an utter separation from their own Pastor, what must be the 
 state of society? The ties of religion and morality being thus 
 loosened, a frightful state of things ensued. Perjury has 
 abounded — the sanctity of oaths has ceased to be binding, save 
 where they administer to the passions of parties. The oaths of 
 the Orange Associations, or of the Ribbonmen, have, indeed, 
 continued to be obligatory. As for Oaths administered in a 
 Court of Justice, they have been set at nought. 
 
 Grand Jury Frauds and Magisterial Perjury. 
 
 Gentlemen, another deep-rooted cause of immorality has been 
 the operation of the County Presentment Code of Ireland — 
 abused, as it has been, for the purpose of fraud and peculation. 
 Will you not be astonished, when I assure you, that I have had 
 information judicially, from an upright Country Gentleman and 
 Grand Juror of unquestionable veracity in a Western County, 
 that in the general practice, not one in ten of the Accounting 
 Affidavits was actually sworn at all ? Magistrates have signed, 
 and given away printed forms of such Affidavits in blank, to be 
 filled up by the pleasure of the party. This abuse produced a 
 strong representation from me to the Grand Jury, and had I 
 known the fact in time, I would have made an example of those 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 Magistrates who were guilty of so scandalous a dereliction of 
 duty. Another source of immorality may be traced in the 
 Registry of Freeholds. Oaths of Registration are taken, which, 
 if not perjury, are something very near it. The tenantry are 
 driven to the Hustings, and there collected like sheep in a pen, 
 they must 'poll for the great undertaker, who has purchased them 
 hy his jobs; and this is frequently done, with little regard to 
 conscience or duty, or real value for the alleged freehold. 
 
 Another source of immorality lay in the hasty mode of 
 pronouncing Decrees upon Civil Bills, which was common before 
 Assistant Barristers were nominated for the several counties. 
 All these concurring causes, however, created such a contempt 
 for oaths, that I have often lamented it to be my painful lot to 
 preside in a court of justice, and be obliged to listen to such 
 abominable profanation. 
 
 Drawing Rents from Illicit Whiskey. 
 
 I now come to anothor source of vice and mischief, with which 
 you are, perhaps, unacquainted, — "Illicit Distillation." From 
 this source, a dreadful torrent of evils and crimes has flowed 
 upon our land. The excessive encrease of rents has induced 
 many persons to bid rents for their farms, which they k7iew they 
 could not fairly or properly discharge — but they flattered them- 
 selves, that, in the course of years the value of those farms 
 would rise still higher, and that thus they might ultimately 
 acquire beneficial interests. In the meantime they have had 
 recourse to Illicit Distillation, as the means of making good 
 their rents. Hence the Public Revenue has been defrauded to 
 the amount of millions. Nay, it is a fact, that at one period, not 
 far back, there was not a single licensed Distillery in an entire 
 Province — namely, the North- West Circuit, where the consump- 
 tion of spirituous liquors is, perhaps, called for by the coldness 
 and humidity of the climate. The old powers of the law having 
 proved unavailing, the Legislature was compelled to enact new 
 laws, which, though clashing with the very first principles of 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 17 
 
 evidence under our happy Constitution, were yet called for by 
 the exigency of the times — laws which qualify a prosecutor to be 
 a witness in his oivn cause. If he feared not the consequences 
 of perjury, he gained the suit, and put the money into his pocket. 
 Hence a kind of bounty was necessarily tendered to false swear- 
 ing ; and we all know the Revenue folk are not very remarkable 
 for a scrupulous feeling in such cases. These oaths were 
 answered again by the oaths of the parties charged, who, in 
 order to avoid the fine, denied the existence of any still upon 
 their lands. Thus have I witnessed trials, where in my judg- 
 ment, the Revenue Oificer who came to impose the fine, was per- 
 jured — the witnesses who came to avert it, perjured — and the 
 petty Jury who tried the cause, perjured, for they declined to do 
 their duty, because they were, or might be interested in the event ; 
 or because the easy procurement of those illicit spirits produced 
 an encreased consumption of grain for their benefit. The resident 
 gentry of the country, generally, winked with both their eyes at 
 this practice, and why ? — because it brought home to the doors of 
 their tenantry a market for their corn ; atid consequently en- 
 creased the rents of their lands — besides they were themselves 
 consumers of those liquors, and in every town and village there 
 was an unlicensed house for retailing them. This consumption 
 of spirits produced such pernicious efi'ects that the Executive 
 powers deemed it high time to put an end to the system. The 
 consequence was, that the people, rendered ferocious by the use 
 of those liquors, and accustomed to lawless habits, resorted to 
 force, resisted the laws, opposed the military, and hence have 
 resulted riots, assaults and murders. 
 
 The Absentees. 
 
 Can you wonder, that, in such a immoral state of things, all 
 tranquillity and obedience to the law were banished from those 
 counties? Absentees, too, have increased; disgusted with the 
 state of things, they desert their posts in the time of peril : but 
 yet, should the farm happen to fall out of lease, keeping strict 
 
18 TJie Irish Question : 
 
 eye that it be set up to the highest bidder. These things have 
 produced disturbances everywhere ; but, gentlemen, whether 
 they apply to your county, to any extent, or at all, is for your 
 consideration. 
 
 Gentlemen, I hope the system of setting Lands by auction — of 
 squeezing from the vitals of the tenantry more than the actual 
 value of the produce of the land, does not exist in this County. 
 I hope and believe no such system prevails here — because like 
 causes produce like effects ; and in that case the Calendar now 
 before me would have exhibited a very different picture. 
 * * * * 
 
 Is THERE NO REMEDY BUT COERCION? 
 
 But, Gentlemen, is there no method of allaying those discon- 
 tents of the people, and preventing them from flying in the face 
 of the Laws ? Is there no remedy but Act of Parliament after 
 Act of Parliament, in quick succession, framed for coercing and 
 punishing? Is there no corrective but the Pope and the Gibbet? 
 Yes, Gentlemen, the removal of those causes of disturbance, which 
 I have mentioned to you, will operate as the remedy. I should 
 imagine, that the permanent Absentees ought to see the 'policy (if 
 no better motive can influence them) of appropriating, liberally, 
 some part of those splendid revenues, which they draw from this 
 Country — which pay no Land Tax or Poor's Rate — and of which 
 not a shilling is expended in this Country ! Is it not high time 
 for those permanent absentees, to offer some assistance originat- 
 ing from themselves out of their own private purses, towards 
 improving and ameliorating the condition of the lower orders of 
 the peasantry upon their great domains, and rendering their lives 
 more comfortable. Indeed, I believe, that some of them do not 
 set up their lands to auction. I know that the Earl Fitzwilliam 
 in one county, (Wicklow) and the Marquis of Hertford in another, 
 (Antrim) act upon enlightened and liberal principles ; for, al- 
 though their leases, generally, are only leases for one life and 
 twenty-one years, the tenant in possession well knows, that, upon 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 19 
 
 a reasonable advance (merely proportionate to the general rise of 
 the times), he will get his farm without rack-rent or extortion. 
 But, I say, that the permanent absentees ought to know, that it is 
 their interest to contribute everything in their power, and within 
 the sphere of their extensive influence, towards the improvement 
 of a country, from whence they derive such ample revenues and 
 solid benefits. Instead of doing so, how do many of them act ? 
 They often depute their Managers upon the Grand Jury of the 
 County. This Manager gets his jobs done without question or 
 interruption ; his roads, and his bridges, and his park walls are 
 all conceded. 
 
 How English Visitors are Deluded. 
 
 For my part, I am wholly at a loss to conceive how those per- 
 manent Absentees can reconcile it to their feelings or their 
 interests to remain silent spectators of such a state of things — or 
 how they can forbear to raise their voices in behalf of their un- 
 happy Country, and attempt to open the eyes of our English 
 Neighbours ; who, generally speaking, know about as much of the 
 Irish, as they do of the Hindoos. Does a visitor come to Ireland, 
 to compile a book of Travels, what is his course ? He is handed 
 about from one country gentleman to another, all interested in 
 concealing from him the true state of the Country ; he passes from 
 'Squire to 'Squire, each rivalling the other in entertaining their 
 guest — all busy in pouring falsehoods into his ears, touching the 
 disturbed state of the country, and the vicious habits of the 
 people. Such is the crusade of information, upon which the Eng- 
 lish traveller sets forward ; and he returns to his own country 
 with all his unfortunate prejudices doubled and confirmed — in a 
 kind of moral despair of the welfare of such a wicked race, having 
 made up his mind that nothing ought to be done for this lawless 
 and degraded country. And, indeed, to such an extravagant ex- 
 cess have those intolerant opinions of the state of Ireland attained, 
 that I shall not be surprised to hear of some political projector 
 coming forward, and renovating the obsolete ignorance and the 
 prejudices of a Harrington, who, in his Oceana, calls the people 
 
20 The, Irish Question : 
 
 of Ireland an untameable race ; declaring, that they ought to be 
 exterminated, and the country colonized by Jews ; that thus the 
 state of this island would be bettered, and the commerce of 
 England extended and improved. 
 
 A Contrast. 
 
 Gentlemen, I will tell you what those absentees ought parti- 
 cularly to do — they ought to promote the establishment of 
 Houses of Kefuge, Houses of Industry and School Houses, and 
 set the example, upon their own estates, of building decent 
 cottages, so that the Irish peasant may have, at least, the com- 
 forts of an " English Sow ;" for an English farmer would refuse 
 to eat the flesh of a hog, so lodged and fed as an Irish peasant 
 is. Are the farms of an English landholder out of lease, or his 
 cottages in a state of dilapidation ? — he rebuilds every one of them 
 for his tenants, or he covenants to supply them with materials for 
 the purpose. But, how are matters conducted in this Country? 
 Why, if there is a house likely to fall into ruins, upon an expiring 
 lease, the new rack-rent tenant must rebuild it himself ; and can 
 you wonder, if your plantations are visited by them, or if your 
 young trees are turned into plough-handles, spade handles, or 
 roofs for their cabins ? They are more than Egyptian task- 
 masters, who call for bricks without furnishing a supply of 
 straw. Again I say, that those permanent absentees ought to 
 come home, and not remain abroad, resting upon the local 
 manager, a species of " locum tenens''^ upon the Grand Jury. 
 They should reside upon their estates, and come forward with 
 every possible improvement for the benefit of the country. 
 
 Good Advice. 
 
 So much, Gentlemen, for Landlords, permanent and occasional 
 Absentees. You should begin the necessary reformation. You 
 now enjoy comforts and tranquillity after seasons of storm, and 
 fever, and disturbance. The comparative blessings should make 
 you anxious to keep your county tranquil. If your farms fall out 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Qicestio7i. 21 
 
 of lease, set them not up to be let by public auction — encourage 
 your tenantry to build comfortable dwellings for themselves — 
 give them a property in their farms, and an interest in the peace 
 of the county. These are the remedies for the discontents of the 
 people — they will be found much better than the cord and the 
 
 gibbet. 
 
 Magisterial Iniquities. 
 
 Here let me solicit your particular attention to some of the 
 most grievous mischief, flowing from the misconduct of certain 
 Magistrates. One is occasioned by an excessive eagerness to 
 crowd the gaols with prisoners, and to swell the calendars with 
 crimes. Hence the amazing disproportion between the number of 
 committals and convictions — between accusation and evidence — 
 between hasty suspicion and actual guilt. Committals have been 
 too frequently made out (in other counties) upon light and trivial 
 grounds, without reflecting upon the evil consequences of wresting 
 a peasant (probably innocent) from the bosom of his family — im- 
 muring him for weeks or months in a noisome gaol, amongst 
 vicious companions. He is afterwards acquitted, or not prose- 
 cuted ; and returns a lost man, both in health and morals, to his 
 ruined and beggared family. This is a hideous, but common 
 picture. 
 
 Again, fines and forfeited recognizances are multiplied, through 
 the misconduct of a magistrate. He binds over a prosecutor under 
 a heavy recognizance, to attend at a distant assizes, where, it is 
 probable that, the man's poverty or private necessities must pre- 
 vent his attending. The man makes default — his recognizance is 
 forfeited — he is committed to the County Gaol upon a Green 
 "Wax Process — and, after long confinement, he is finally dis- 
 charged at the assizes, pursuant to the statute ; and, from an 
 industrious cottier, he is degraded, from thenceforth, into a 
 beggar and a vagrant. 
 
 Other magistrates presume to make out vague committals, 
 without specifying the day of the offence charged, the place, or 
 any other particular, from which the unfortunate prisoner could 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 have notice to prepare his defence. This suppression is highly 
 indecorous, unfeeling, and unjust, and deserves upon every occa- 
 sion a severe reprobation of the magistrate, who thus deprives 
 his fellow-subject of his rightful opportunity of defence. 
 
 There are parts of Ireland, where, from the absence of the 
 gentlemen of the county, a race of magistrates has sprung up, 
 who ought never to have borne the King's Commission. The vast 
 powers entrusted to those officers, call for an upright, zealous, 
 and conscientious discharge of their duty. 
 
 The Tithes. 
 
 Gentlemen, as to Tithes, they are generally complained of as 
 a great grievance. In the times in which we live, they are a tax 
 upon industry, upon enterprize, and upon agricultural skill. Is 
 a man intelligent and industrious — does he, by agriculture reclaim 
 a tract of land, and make it productive of corn, he is visited and 
 harassed by the Tithe Proctor ; does his neighbour, through want 
 of inclination or of skill, keep his farm in pasture and unim- 
 proved, he is exonorafced from the burden of Tithes, and from the 
 visitations of any clergy not belonging to his own Church. Far 
 be it from me to say, that Tithes are not due the Clergy. By the 
 law of the land, they have as good a title to their Tithes as any of 
 you have to your estates ; and I am convinced, that the clergy- 
 man does not, in any instance, exact what he is not strictly 
 entitled to. But this mode of assessment has been much com- 
 plained of, and it is particularly so in this country, because the 
 Catholic receives no spiritual comfort from his Protestant 
 Eector ; he knows him only through the Tithe Proctor, and he 
 has, moreover, his own pastor to pay. This is the reason why he 
 thinks it a grievance ; and, I must admit, that, although the 
 clergyman does not receive all that he is entitled to, and although 
 it may not be a grievance in another country, yet the Tithe 
 system is a painful system for Ireland. 
 
 Grand Jury Jobbery. 
 Gentlemen, you have in your power another remedy for 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 23 
 
 public commotions — I allude to the assessment of the Presentment- 
 money upon your county. It seems that the sum of 9,000^ is now 
 demanded to be levied ; whether this sum is, or is not an exor- 
 bitant one for this county, I know not. It is a tax, of which you 
 will impose the greater part, or, perhaps, the whole upon your 
 county — and it falls wholly upon the occupying tenants or 
 farmers ; pray keep this circumstance constantly in your minds 
 — the benefit of this tax is your own. By its operation, you have 
 your farms well divided and improved — ^good roads made round 
 your estates — useful bridges and walls erected. Indeed, I have 
 known counties, which have been parcelled out to undertakers 
 by baronies, and where no man could get a job without the con- 
 sent of the baronial undertaker — they met and commuted — and 
 it was thus agreed — "I give you your job here, and you give me 
 my job there." I may be asked, why do I mention these things ? 
 the Grand Jury know them very well — but then they ought to be 
 concealed. Miserable, infatuated notion ! These things are not 
 concealed ; there is not a Grand Jury job in the county which is 
 not known and commented upon by the peasantry. Every mis- 
 chief, and every enormity I have this day stated, is as thoroughly 
 well known to the peasantry, as to the gentry, throughout Ire- 
 land. The affected apprehension of exciting and exasperating 
 them, by a reprobation of those enormities, is puerile and con- 
 temptible. It cannot do mischief — it cannot add to the poignancy 
 of their feelings — it may allay or soothe them — already those 
 exactions are the subject of discussion, and of minute scrutiny, in 
 every cabin ; what are the consequences ? — dreadful heart burn- 
 ings, and deep murmers — the visit of the constable who collects 
 the Cess, is a day of general mourning, and distress, and tribula- 
 tion. I spoke freely of these things to the Grand Jury of the 
 County of Tipperary ; what was the beneficial result ? The 
 Foreman, (Mr. Bagwell) came forward soon afterwards from the 
 Grand Jury-room, and stated publicly in court, that, in conse- 
 quence of my charge, he and his fellow jurors, had thrown out 
 applications for presentments to the amount of 9,600^. These may 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 be presumed to be jobs, under pretence of building walls and 
 bridges, filling hollows, lowering hills, etc . Here, indeed, was some 
 good done by this sudden impulse of economy — here were the 
 fruits of a free and candid exhortation before the public eye. 
 
 Gentlemen, the judge, whose duty it is to pass the Present- 
 ments, can be of little service towards detecting a " Job " — he 
 has no local knowledge — he knows not the distances — the rates — 
 the state of repairs — or the views of the parties. — He may indeed, 
 suspect the job, and tear the suspected presentment ; but he may 
 tear, inadvertently, that which is useful, and let the job pass. 
 Therefore, for the sake of the County, do as Mr. Bagwell did at 
 Clonmel. — Begin the reformation, and discountenance firmly all 
 parcelling of "Jobs." 
 
 Gentlemen, when I visited the House of Industry at Clonmel, 
 (which is liberally and conscientiously conducted by an associa- 
 tion, consisting of persons of every Religious persuasion, with 
 the Protestant Parson and the Catholic Priest at their head) — 
 never did my eyes witness a more blessed sight. I immediately 
 asked " What do you j^ay to the Matron, and to the Manager ? " 
 The sum was mentioned — it was small. " I suppose," said I, " it 
 is no object of a County job." Mr. Grubb — the benevolent Mr. 
 Grubb smiled, and said, "your have hit it, my Lord— that is the 
 fact." 
 
 "A Tainted Magistracy." 
 
 But there is one remedy, that would, in my estimation, more 
 than any other, especially contribute to soothe the minds of 
 the discontented peasantry, and, thereby, enable them patiently to 
 sufier the pressure of those burthens, which cannot, under exist- 
 ing circumstances, be effectually removed — I mean the " equal 
 and impartial administration of justice "—of that justice which 
 the rich can pursue, until it be attained ; but which, that it may 
 benefit the cottager, should be brought home to his door. Such 
 an administration of justice would greatly reconcile the lower 
 orders of the people, with the Government under which they 
 live ; and, at no very distant period, I hope, attach them to the 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 25 
 
 law, by imparting its benefits, and extending its protection to 
 tbem, in actual and uniform experience. Gentlemen, if you ask 
 me, how this may be accomplished, I answer, by a vigilant 
 superintendence of the administration of justice at Quarter 
 Sessions, and an anxious observance of the conduct of all Justices 
 of Peace. Perhaps, the Commission of the Peace in every county 
 in the Kingdom, should be examined. During a long war, in 
 seasons of popular commotion, under chief governors (all 
 acting, unquestionably, with good intentions, but upon various 
 principles and different views), it is not improbable, that many 
 men have crept into the commission, who, however useful they 
 might occasionally have been, ought not to remain. The needy 
 adventurer — the hunter for preferment— the intemperate zealot 
 — the trader in false loyalty— the jobbers of absentees — if any of 
 these various descriptions of individuals are now to be found, 
 their names should be expunged from the commission ; and if 
 such a mode of proceeding should thin the commission, vacancies 
 might be supplied, by soliciting every Gentlema,n of property and 
 consideration to discharge some part of that debt of duty, which 
 he owes to himself and the country, by accepting the office of 
 Justice of the Peace. Should their number be inadequate to 
 supply the deficiency. Clergymen, long resident on their benefices 
 — inclined to follow the precepts of their Divine Master by 
 feeding the hungry and clothing the naked Catholic (although 
 adhering to the communion of his fathers, he should conscien- 
 tiously decline to receive from him spiritual consolation) — not 
 harassing and vexing by a new mode of tithing, and an encrease 
 of tithes ; but seeking to compensate the Dissentients from his 
 communion for the income he derives from their labour, by 
 shewing a regard for their temporal welfare— attached to their 
 Protestant flocks by a mutual interchange of good offices, by 
 affection, and by habit. Such a man, anxiously endeavouring, 
 not to distract and divide, but to conciliate and reconcile all sects 
 and parties, would from his education, his leisure, his local 
 knowledge, be a splendid acquisition to the magistracy, and a 
 
26 The Irish Question : 
 
 public blessing to the district committed to his care. Men of 
 this description are retired and unobtrusive ; but, I trust, if 
 sought after, many such may be found. Persons there have 
 been of a sort, differing widely from those I have described. 
 These men identify their preferment with the welfare of the 
 Church ; and if you had believed them, whatever advanced the 
 one, necessarily promoted the other. Some clergymen there 
 may have been, who in a period of distraction, perusing the Old 
 Testament with more attention than the New ; and admiring 
 the glories of Joshua, (the son of Nun,) fancied they perceived in 
 the Catholics, the Canaanites of old ; and, at the head of Militia 
 and armed Yeomanry, wished to conquer from them the promised 
 glebe. Such men, I hope, are not now to be found in that most 
 respectable order ; and, if they are, I need scarcely add, they 
 should no longer remain in the commission. 
 
 Spurious Loyalty. 
 
 Gentlemen, I must further admonish you, if you are infested 
 with any of the Orange or Green* Associations in this county, to 
 discharge them — discourage all Processions and Commemorations 
 connected with them, and you will promote the peace and 
 concord of the county. But suffer them to prevail, and how 
 can justice be administered? "I am a loyal man," says a 
 witness — that is, '' Gentlemen of the Petty Jury, believe me, let 
 me swear what I will." When he swears he is a loyal man, he 
 means, " Gentlemen of the Jury, forget your oaths and acquit 
 the Orangeman." A truly loyal man is one who is attached to 
 the Constitution under which we live, and who respects and is 
 governed by the laws, which impart more personal freedom, when 
 properly administered, than any other code of laws in existence. 
 If there are disturbances in the country, the truly loyal man 
 endeavours to appease them. The truly loyal man is peaceful 
 and quiet. He does his utmost to prevent commotion ; and, 
 if he cannot prevent it, he is at his post, ready to perform 
 
 * He refers to the Ribbon Societies. 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 27 
 
 his duty in the day of peril. But what says a loyal man of 
 another description — the mere pretender to loyalty ? — " I am a 
 loyal man, in times of tranquillity. I am attached to the present 
 order of things, as far as I can get any good by it. I malign every 
 man of a different opinion from those whom I serve. / bring 
 Tny loyalty to market.^'' Such loyalty has borne lower or higher 
 prices, according to the different periods of modern times. He 
 exposes it to sale in open market, at all times — seeking con- 
 tinually for a purchaser. 
 
 Such are the pretenders to loyalty, many of whom I have seen ; 
 and incalculable mischiefs they perpetrate. — It is not their 
 interest that their country should be peaceful ; their loyalty is 
 
 a sea of troubled waters. 
 
 * -jf- * * 
 
 Coercion. 
 
 Gentlemen, two Bills, of importance to the public peace of 
 Ireland, have recently ptissed both Houses of Parliament, almost, 
 as I believe, without observation ; and, certainly, without public 
 enquiry into the state of the country. Having formed an opinion 
 upon the causes of popular discontents, and public commotions in 
 those counties, which I have, within these five years visited, I 
 thought it expedient, openly from this place, to state this 
 opinion ; hoping, that my judgment being founded, not upon 
 secret whisperings or private communications, but upon the 
 solemnity of public trials and the authenticity of public records, 
 may have some weight towards suggesting the expediency of 
 resorting to other means of tranquillizing Ireland, than those 
 hitherto resorted to — Banishment, the Rope, and the Gibbet. 
 These expedients have been repeatedly tried ; and have, by the 
 acknowledgment of those who have used them, hitherto proved 
 ineffectual. And here I must entreat, that I may not be wilfully 
 mistaken and purposely misunderstood by any man, or class of 
 men. I mean not to question, in the slightest degree, the pru- 
 dence of the Irish Government in introducing, or the wisdom of 
 
28 The Irish Question : 
 
 the Legislature in enacting, those laws : they may be suitable for 
 anything I know to the contrary to the existing state of things 
 in some of those counties, where the discharge of my public duty 
 has not yet called me. In others, although it may not be im- 
 mediately necessary to put them into active operation, the 
 notoriety of their existence in the Statute Book may be a whole- 
 some warning to the turbulent and audacious. But having, in 
 addressing you, taken occasion to give you my opinions upon 
 diiferent subjects (the statement of which, however erroneous 
 those opinions should appear to be, may produce some good by 
 soliciting the attention of the enlightened men in both countries, 
 to the same subjects), I feel myself more especially called upon, 
 by a sense of public duty, to say a few words to you, upon the 
 scope and object of those Bills— I say, more especially called upon, 
 by reason of those important, though contradictory publications, 
 in the Wexford Journals, now laid before me ; and to which I 
 have already adverted. Whence that contradiction of sentiment 
 could originate, between persons resideift in the same county, 
 and having (one would imagine) equal opportunities of informa- 
 tion, it is not for me to conjecture ; but its indisputable existence 
 in the months of March and April last (subsequently to your 
 last Assizes), calls upon me, briefly to explain to you the purport 
 of those acts, which some of you may deem it expedient to call 
 into active operation. • 
 
 The Insurrection Act. 
 
 With one of those acts you have had a former acquaintance. It 
 is the old Insurrection Act, which after having perished, is now 
 revived and re-enacted for Ireland. The other is called the Peace 
 Preservation Bill. The Insurrection Act consists, as you all know, 
 of a complete suspension of the English Constitution — of English 
 Law — of the Trial by Jury. Under these new Laws, taken to- 
 gether, any seven Magistrates may meet and recommend the 
 County, or District, to be proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant, as 
 being in a state of disturbance. When the Proclamation has once 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 29 
 
 issued, every person must stay at home after a certain hour. You 
 are to have the assistance of a learned Serjeant from town, who 
 may send abroad offenders, in a summary way. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have seen times, when persons, who thinking the 
 lives named in their tenants' leases were lasting somewhat too long, 
 have, hy the aid of such a Law, found means to recommend a trip 
 across the Atlantic, to the persons thus unreasonably attached to 
 life ; and thus achieved the downfall of a beneficial lease, and a 
 comfortable rise of their income in consequence. Such things have 
 occurred — I have known the fad. 
 
 A " Peace Preservation Act." 
 
 Gentlemen, the other Act of Parliament is the Peace 
 Preservation Bill. It is a wholesome mode of administering the 
 old powers, already vested by law in the magistrates. Any 
 seven magistrates may recommend the application of this remedy ; 
 and either for the county at large, or any particular barony or 
 district in the county. If their recommendation should be ac- 
 ceded to by the Lord Lieutenant, this Bill comes into immediate 
 operation. Now, you are to meet — a head magistrate is to be ap- 
 pointed at a salary of 700^. a year ; he is also to have a house and 
 offices —his clerk is to get a salary of 150^. a year — the constables 
 are to get 100^. a year each — any seven of your magistrates may 
 get all this done. But listen to one thing more ; the disturbed 
 district is to pay the expense of the whole. 
 
 " BoGDS " Outrages. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have trespassed long upon your attention ; but 
 I hope, from the tranquil state of your County, that I have not 
 unaptly chosen the present season for making those observations. 
 See the necessity of some public discussion of these subjects, in 
 order to extinguish all exaggeration and misrepresentation. I 
 need not travel far back for a curious instance. I have seen, to 
 my surprise, in the Courier Newspaper, a story of myself, which 
 has been copied into the Pilot. It is so very short that I shall 
 
30 The Irish Question : 
 
 read it : " Such is tlie disturbed state of Ireland, that one of the 
 Judges of Assize, upon the Leinster Circuit, Mr Justice Fletcher, 
 in coming from Kilkenny to Clonmel, was pelted by stones in the 
 Town of Callan, and owed his safety to the dragoons that escorted 
 him." 
 
 When I reached Waterford, I was still more surprised to see 
 one newspaper lamenting that I had been " shot at," but another 
 protested it was all a gross falsehood ; now, what was the truth 1 
 As I passed through Callan, an escort of a few dragoons attended 
 me. This escort, by the bye, is one of the mischiefs of those 
 alarms ; a mischief which never occurs in England. There the 
 gentlemen of consideration in the county come out to meet the 
 Judge, with led horses and equipages, and with every suitable 
 mark of respect and attention ; not, indeed, paid to the judge in- 
 dividually, nor desired by him, but an attention and respect due 
 to the Law, which the Judge comes to administer. But what was 
 the case in Kilkenny ? The High Sheriff not appearing at all ; 
 perhaps, as a duty beneath him, or for some other reason ; the 
 Sub-Sheriff unwilling enough to be burdened with the trouble, and 
 anxious to get rid of us ; two or three miserable bailiffs mounted 
 upon wretched little horses, brandishing an enormous length of 
 halbert, resembling so many Cossacks in everything but utility ; 
 and attended by an escort of four or five dragoons (for 
 the Sheriff is not at the expense of paying the dragoons). Indeed, 
 where needy or penurious High Sheriffs are nominated, and where 
 the ofl&ce of Sub-Sheriff becomes an affair of indirect management, 
 an improper and inefficient attendance upon the Circuit Judges 
 is generally to be expected ; however, thus attended, or rather 
 unattended, we drove through Callan ; when a boy, about seve7i 
 years old, flung a stone idly, either at the Sub-Sheriff or at the 
 dragoons, or both. This ivas the entire outrage. I did not hear 
 of it, until long afterwards, when the Newspaper paragraphs led 
 me to the inquiry ; but my servants are ready to vouch the fact 
 upon oath. 
 
 This story, with prodigious exaggeration, has been since 
 
An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 31 
 
 officiously circulated throughout the Empire, in order to show, 
 that this country is in such a state of disturbance, that the going 
 Judge of an assize was pelted with stones, or shot at, and in 
 imminent danger of his life. Can any instance more strongly 
 illustrate the propriety, nay even the necessity, of a fall and un- 
 reserved statement of the true and actual condition of Ireland, 
 than the extraordinary currency which this paltry fabrication 
 has received, and the avidity with which it has been magnified 
 into a momentous and alarming event. 
 
 The Other Line. 
 
 Gentlemen, if you should feel that any of these observations 
 are founded in truth and reason, you will give me, at least, the 
 credit of upright motives for those from which you may differ. 
 I can have no other motive, indeed, than a hope of doing some 
 public good by inciting other persons to useful and meritorious 
 actions. Other Judges have very frequently, and with great 
 propriety, charged various Grand Juries upon the state of this 
 country, its disturbances and the causes of its commotion ; and 
 some of them have ascribed those disturbances and commotions to 
 a general spirit of disaffection and sedition. If I have a very 
 different and far more consolatory view of the same subject, it 
 cannot be improper or unbecoming my functions, to take the like 
 opportunity of stating my judicial opinions— of enumerating the 
 several causes, which, in my fixed judgment, have generated 
 these disturbances, and have retarded peace and prosperity in 
 this country ; and distinctly pointing out the remedies and 
 correctives proper for terminating all those mischiefs, and 
 allaying all discontents. These considerations, will, I trust, 
 viudicate as well the motives as the propriety of my conduct in 
 this respect, through every scrutiny, and against every cavil. 
 
WUt ^m\\ (^\mi\0ih 
 
 The Following Publications are supplied by the 
 Ikish Peess Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (5) The '' Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Redmond, M.P. B.L. 
 (7} Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (8) The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 (9) An Irish Judge on the Irish Question. 
 
 With Introduction by J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P 
 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 The Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
 A Word for Ireland. By T. M. Healy, B.L. Price Is. 
 Report on the Present State of the Irish Land Question. 
 
 By A Land Valuer. Price 6d. 
 
 The foregoing will be sent in quantity, on favourable terms 
 to Clubs and Associations in England, Wales, and Scotland, 
 on application to the Irish Press Agency, 25 Parliament- 
 street, Westminster, London. 
 
 Othei' Tracts in preparation. 
 
ITo. 10. 
 
 t Irisl^ ^mBtwn, 
 
 THE OPINIONS OF SOME PEOTESTANTS 
 
 REGARDING THEIR 
 
 lEISH CATHOLIC FELLOW-COUNTEYMEN : 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 ALFEED WEBB 
 
 Mith the i^44t|e$$ of the Ii|i$h |^t|ote$tant i^ome Bule 
 
 ^$$ociation. 
 
 ♦'•'♦ 
 
 LONDOI^ : 
 THE IRISH PEESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 188 7 
 Price One Penny. 
 
OPINIONS OF SOME PEOTESTANTS, ETC. 
 
 [These pages were written in reply to the following query, and are 
 published with the permission of their authors. 
 
 ** Have you during your experience of life in Ireland observed 
 any instances of intolerance amongst your Catholic friends and 
 neighbours, such as would lead you to fear for your liberty and 
 safety, and for the free exercise of your religion, under an Irish 
 Constitution such as that sketched out in Mr. Gladstone's Bill ? "] 
 
 Cheek Point, Waterford, 12th May, 1886. 
 In reply to your inquiry, I am an Ulster Protestant, who 
 has lived forty-one years in the most Catholic districts of the 
 south of Ireland. The official position which. I occupied 
 during most of that time brought me in contact with Catholics 
 and Protestants indiscriminately, and I never heard or saw, in 
 one single instance, anything on the part of the Catholics not 
 consistent with the most anxious desire to extend to their 
 Protestant fellow-countrymen the most complete equality in 
 regard to civil and religious matters. Many of my most inti- 
 mate friends are Catholics, and occasionally discussing matters 
 with them, both clerical and laymen, I never heard the faintest 
 approach to anything not breathing perfect charity towards all 
 sides. I may mention that on two occasions I was elected 
 Mayor by an exclusive Catholic vote. In my opinion the most 
 perfect freedom of religion will be allowed to every one under 
 our new constitution now being formed under the auspices of 
 Mr. Gladstone, and I believe the cry of religious intolerance 
 now attempted to be raised is entirely a political one, brought 
 forward for the purpose of defeating the attainment of the 
 restoration of our National Legislature. 
 
 John Allingham. 
 
 [Town Councillor of the Waterford Corporation ; past Mayor ; and 
 late Manager of the Provincial Bank, Waterford.] 
 
Protestant Opinion. 3 
 
 Dunmanway, Co. Cork, 11th May, 1886. 
 During my life, wholly spent in Ireland, and especially 
 during sixteen years of it passed in districts of the south, in 
 which the vast majority of the people are Eoman Catholics, I 
 have never met a single instance of religious intolerance on 
 the part of my Eoman Catholic neighbours. My experience 
 of life amongst them records nothing but very constant kind- 
 ness and courtesy. 
 
 E. 0. N, Anderson, B.A., Eector of Drinagh. 
 
 91 South Mall, Cork, 11th May, 1886. 
 In reply to your favour of the 6th instant, after twenty-five 
 years' experience in general business, and having travelled 
 over the entire south of Ireland, frequently every year for the 
 past ten years, and having thereby acquired a thorough and 
 intimate knowledge of the people, mostly Catholics, my expe- 
 rience has been that I never found the fact of my being a 
 Protestant to militate against me. I have never experienced 
 the least intolerance from my Catholic friends, but, on the 
 contrary, the greatest toleration and kindness, and I have not 
 the least fear to trust my civil and religious liberty into the 
 hands of my Catholic fellow-countrymen under such a consti- 
 tution as sketched out in Mr. Gladstone's Bill. 
 
 EicHARD A. Atkins, 
 [Merchant ; Eail way Agent ; Town Councillor in the Cork Corporation.] 
 
 6 De Vesci- terrace, Kingstown, 13th May, 1886. 
 Having lived in Ireland upwards of twelve years, and 
 during that time come into contact with all sorts and condi- 
 tions of my Eoman Catholic fellow-countrymen, I can truly 
 say that I have seen nothing whatever in their conduct that 
 would lead me to fear for my liberty or safety, or for the free 
 exercise of my religious convictions under an Irish constitu- 
 tion such as that sketched out in Mr, Gladstone's Bill. On 
 the contrary, the opinion I have formed from a rather ex- 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 tensive acquaintance and from frequent intercourse with my 
 Roman Catholic fellow-citizens in different grades of society, 
 on numerous committees, and in scientific and philanthropic 
 societies, is that whilst as a rule they are a deeply religious 
 people they respect the religious convictions of others. Only 
 against proselytism and "perverts" are they bitter and intoler- 
 ant, and this naturally in proportion to the intensity of their 
 own religious zeal and narrowness of view ; but even here I do 
 not think they are more intolerant than zealous Irish Pro- 
 testants would be under similar provocation. 
 
 W. F. Barrett. 
 ([Professor in the Royal College of Science, Dublin.] 
 
 Fassaroe, Bray, 15th May, 1886. 
 I have the greatest confidence in the good sense of my 
 Catholic fellow-countrymen, and know of no instances of in- 
 tolerance amongst my Catholic friends and neighbours. I 
 withhold my opinion on Mr. Gladstone's Bill. 
 
 Richard M. Barrington, LL.B. 
 
 1 Great George's-street, Cork, 11th May, 1886. 
 I have never experienced personally, or observed amongst 
 my neighbours, any intolerance on the part of Catholics to- 
 wards their Protestant fellow-countrymen. Any intolerance 
 I have felt or observed has been of a political nature, and in 
 my experience chiefly directed against Protestants by their 
 extreme Conservative and Orange co-religionists. I have no 
 fear for my liberty and safety, and for the free exercise of my 
 religion under Home Rule as proposed by Mr. Gladstone. I 
 have resided in Cork since my birth, and for ten or twelve 
 years have mixed largely with Catholics, both in college and in 
 my profession, and count some of them amongst my personal 
 
 friends. 
 
 W. E. Burchill, B.E. 
 
 [School and Private Teacher.] 
 
Protestant Opinion. 5 
 
 Philipstown, King's County, 13th May, 1886. 
 
 In reply to your question, I beg to say that I have resided in 
 Ireland all my life. I have never observed an instance of in- 
 tolerance amongst my Catholic neighbours, but, on the con- 
 trary, kindness and toleration, which my Catholic friends not 
 only express but act up to. I believe (and my belief is shared 
 by most Protestants here) that we have nothing to fear from 
 our Catholic fellow-countrymen. We ought to be able to form 
 a correct opinion, as we are in these parts the few amongst the 
 many. I believe that under an Irish constitution such as that 
 sketched out in Mr. Gladstone's Bill the country would settle 
 down, and calmly and dispassionately exercise that political 
 power to which it would become entitled, and that every man 
 would be in the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom and 
 the privileges of citizenship. 
 
 Henry Minchin Clarke, J.P., Medical Officer. 
 
 54 Drumcondra-road, 19th May, 1886. 
 
 As an Irish Protestant, I have no fear for the safety or in- 
 terests of individual Protestants or Protestantism in Ireland, 
 in the event of Mr. Gladstone's projected constitution for Ire- 
 land becoming an accomplished fact ; on the contrary, I, as a 
 sincere member of our Church, believe that much good would 
 result from the removal of influences that at present hamper 
 its work. I have for many years, in business and private re- 
 lationships, come in contact with my Roman Catholic fellow- 
 countrymen of all classes and standing, and have failed to 
 discern in the whole range of national politics the existence of 
 an ultramontane party who would read Home Eule " Rome 
 Rule." " Catholic intolerance" is only used as a " bogey" by 
 bigots or knaves to frighten fools. Personally I never expe- 
 rienced anything but courtesy and consideration from my 
 Roman Catholic neighbours and friends. As an instance, I 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 may mention that the important branch of the National Re- 
 gistration Association in the district, unanimously elected me, 
 the only Protestant member of the committee, president for 
 the ensuing year (passing over many Roman Catholic members, 
 who from ability, political standing, and position, were far 
 more entitled to the honour) — thus proving their practical 
 adherence to the doctrine of toleration. 
 
 Arthur H. Cranwill. 
 
 16 Cook-street, Cork, 11th May, 1886. 
 Yours to hand, and in reply I beg to say I have been at 
 business since 1871, and this portion of my life may be divided 
 into three parts — 1, A period of two years, during which I 
 was an officer in the late Munster Bank (more than half that 
 time under a Catholic manager) ; 2, A period extending over 
 eleven years, when I was manager and apprentice to three 
 different solicitors in this city (one Catholic and two Protest- 
 ants) ; and 3, A period of two and a-quarter years to present, 
 when practising on my own account. During the entire of 
 these periods I have had frequent opportunities of studying 
 the matter to which you refer, and forming opinions thereon, 
 as I have been very often in contact with Roman Catholics of 
 every grade of society, and I have never found anything even 
 approaching to intolerance ; on the contrary, I have found all 
 those it has been my fortune to be acquainted with, most 
 ready to hold out the hand of fellowship, and I have formed 
 with several friendships which I hope will endure for many 
 years to come. My most intimate friends during my student 
 d&ys were Catholics, and ever since I have been at work on 
 my own account large numbers of Catholics have retained me 
 to act for them. I have for many years held very decided 
 views on the subject of Home Rule, and I have no fear for my 
 liberty, safety, or the free exercise of my religion under an 
 Irish constitution. On the contrary, I feel convinced that 
 
Protestant Opinion. 7 
 
 were the irritations now existing removed, all members of the 
 community would work harmoniously together, and that a 
 glorious future would open up for our country. 
 
 John E. L. Dowman, Solicitor. 
 
 80, Abbey-street, Dublin, 11th May, 1886. 
 I have now lived in Ireland, as you know, for a long period, 
 for more than thirty years, and have had control of a large and 
 very increasing business, with branches all over Ireland. I have 
 never known an instance of Catholic intolerance towards me 
 personally, nor towards the business I have governed, nor does 
 memory recall any case of intolerance from Catholics coming 
 under my own knowledge at any time. I shall not have the 
 slightest fear to entrust my own liberties and those of my 
 family to the control of an Irish Home Rule Parliament in 
 connection with the Bill of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Charles Eason. 
 
 [Of the firm of Charles Eason & Son, successors in Ireland to 
 W. H. Smith & Son, Pviblishers and Booksellers.] 
 
 Great Cressingham, Norfolk, 12th May, 1886. 
 I have never met with any instance of the kind. My 
 knowledge of Ireland is based on lengthened visits to par- 
 ticular places, and on travels extending over a large part of 
 the island. Moreover, though born and bred in England, I 
 have always mixed much with Irish people of all ranks, and 
 have watched the bearing of one class and creed towards ano- 
 ther. In "Western Kerry and in Islington (near London) I 
 have seen ill-feeling, but in both cases it was caused by very 
 injudicious attempts at proselytism, and was not at all of the 
 kind which " threatens liberty or safety." It was only due to 
 the wish to be let alone. Of course Irish Catholics feel 
 strongly about denominational education, but not a whit more 
 strongly than the Anglican clergy and many of the dissenting 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 sects in England. Some of my dearest friends are Irish Catho- 
 lics, and assured as I am of their wide tolerance, and believ- 
 ing them to represent the mind of their co-religionists, I 
 cannot imagine that the free exercise of Protestantism would 
 be atfall endangered under such Home Rule as Mr. Gladstone 
 has sketched out. 
 
 Henry Stuart Fagan, M.A. 
 
 [Late Rector Pembr. Coll. Oxford ; Rector 
 Great Cressingham, Norfolk.] 
 
 Bedford House, Listowel, 20th May, 1886. 
 
 As far as my experience goes, I have never met with any 
 intolerance from my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen on 
 account of my religion. I don't think that a well-devised 
 scheme for giving Irishmen the management of their own 
 affairs would be attended with any evil consequences through 
 bigotry on the Roman Catholic side. 
 
 George Fitzmaurice, Clk., B.A. T.C.D. 
 
 Trieneragh, Listowel, 14th April, 1886. 
 In reply to your letter of the 13th instant, I beg to state that 
 I have lived in the parish of Duagh close on thirty years, and 
 during that time the most agreeable relations have existed 
 between my family and my Roman Catholic neighbours. I 
 am the only Protestant in the parish, and I have been 
 selected by the ratepayers of the Kilshinane and Trieneragh 
 divisions of the Listowel Union to represent them as P.L.G. 
 for the past eighteen years. I never sought this oiSce ; it was 
 actually forced on me by my Catholic neighbours. I may re- 
 mark that my landlord, who is a Protestant, gave a reduction 
 of thirty per cent, to the other tenants on his estate, but 
 refused it to me for no other reason but because I went into 
 the Land Court to have a fair rent fixed. I would be unable 
 to pay the rent but for remittances sent me from time to time 
 
Protestant Opinion, 9 
 
 by my children, who are in America and Australia. I may 
 
 add that I was served with a writ on the 6tli of January, 1886, 
 
 for the September rent of 1885, and would not be able to 
 
 meet it only for being assisted by one of my Roman Catholic 
 
 neighbours. 
 
 Adam Fitzell. 
 
 [^The following letter from my old political friend Dr. Richard 
 Orattan, icas dictated a few days before his death, in the 
 98th year of his age.] 
 
 [Drummin House, Carbury, 24th May, 1886.] 
 
 During my long life, I have neither observed nor experienced 
 any intolerance from my Roman Catholic fellow-countrj^men, 
 some of whom I am proud to say were intimate friends, and I 
 never had the slightest apprehension that should Repeal be 
 granted, my co-religionists would be treated with injustice or 
 intolerance. I would rather be governed by a parliament of 
 Roman Catholics than a parliament of Orangemen. 
 
 Richard Grattan, M.D. 
 
 [Senior Fellow of the College of Physicians, Dublin.] 
 
 Bally waiter, Co. Down, 12th May, 1886. 
 
 During all my life I never experienced a single instance of 
 intolerance on the part of my Catholic friends and neigh- 
 bours. From my own personal knowledge, based on a life 
 extending over nearly half a century, I can safely say that as 
 a class the Catholics are as trustworthy, peaceable, and law- 
 abiding as any other section of the community, and when I 
 take into account the way they have been treated and spoken 
 of by those who assumed to be better and of a higher type of 
 humanity, this is no little to be able to state. For my per- 
 sonal safety and liberty and my religion (as a Presbyterian) 
 I fear nothing from the Catholics. The very suggestion of 
 
 B 
 
10 The Irish Question : 
 
 sucli a thing is nothing short of insult to a long-suffering, 
 persecuted, and misgoverned people. The Bill now before 
 Parliament, or some such measure as that sketched out by the 
 great and noble W. E. Gladstone for the future government of 
 Ireland is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary as a means (a 
 ladder) whereby to lead up to the remedy of the evils wdiich 
 exist in this unhappy and misunderstood country of ours. 
 
 William Gibson, J. P. 
 
 Grange, Waterford, 11th May, 1886. 
 During my residence of over forty years in Ireland, I can 
 say, emphatically, that I have not observed any instances 
 amongst my Catholic friends and neighbours, of religious or 
 other intolerance, such as would lead me to fear for my 
 liberty and safety, or for the free exercise of religion, under 
 an Irish constitution, such as that sketched out in Mr. Glad- 
 stone's Bill, or even under a much more democratic form of 
 Home Rule. On any occasion when I have had to do com- 
 mittee or other work with Catholics, I have been treated 
 with marked courtesy and consideration, to a greater degree 
 than I should expect it likely would have been shown to any- 
 one in my position, who was not a Protestant, 
 
 Edmund Harvey. 
 
 [Insurance Agent ; Author of Irish Grievances in 1886, and other 
 
 pamphlets.] 
 
 Waterford, 12th May, 1886. 
 In reply to your inquiry : within an experience of over 
 thirty years of active life I have met with some scattered 
 instances of intolerance among Catholics as I have also among 
 Protestants ; but taking my Catholic fellow-countrymen in the 
 aggregate, I have no hesitation in saying that I do not feel 
 the smallest anxiety as to an interference with person, 
 property, or the free exercise of religion, under the govern- 
 ment of an Irish Parliament. 
 
 Newenham Harvey. 
 [Stockbroker.] 
 
Protestant Opinion. 11 
 
 Sydenham Park, Strandtown, Belfast, 31st May, 1886. 
 I entirely trust my countrymen — the Catholic and Protes- 
 tant Irish Nationalists, and consider expressions of distrust at 
 this moment a gross blunder, as it gives evidence of incapacity 
 and weakness, very injurious to the commercial credit of indi- 
 viduals perpetrating it. 
 
 M. Hamilton. 
 
 Ferns, Co. Wexford, 10th of Fifth-month, 1886. 
 I have resided in this County (Wexford) for fifty-five years, 
 and I have at all times experienced kindness and good-will 
 from my Roman Catholic neighbours, and do not think, even 
 if they had the power, they would do me any injury, or 
 interfere with my religious liberty. I may say that my father 
 and grandfather lived in Ferns ; and I can say that they also 
 had the good-will of their Catholic neighbours. I have 
 travelled over a great part of Ireland on official duty, and my 
 religion was never any hindrance to my business, though 
 mixing with a Catholic population in the south and west of 
 Ireland, so that I do not think there is any desire to persecute 
 Protestants, or that they would be ill-treated by an Irish 
 
 Parliament. 
 
 Jonathan Haughton, Farmer. 
 
 [Late Government Court Valuer.] 
 
 9 Warren's-place, Cork, 11th May, 1886. 
 I am in receipt of your letter of the 6th inst. In reply, I am 
 happy to be able to state that having resided all my life in 
 Ireland, and having a business experience of about twenty 
 years in the country, I have not a scintilla of a fear as regards 
 my personal liberty or religious toleration from my Roman 
 Catholic fellow-countrymen, should Mr. Gladstone's Bill 
 become law ; nor do I think any of my co-religionists need 
 have fear either ; on the contrary, I believe there will be 
 in the altered condition of things a more kindly feeling and 
 sympathetic union between all parties and creeds, and I 
 
12 Tlic Irish Question : 
 
 should hope that very soon religious rancour and bigotry shall 
 become extinct in the country. In business matters I have 
 always found my Eoman Catholic customers as reliable in 
 every sense as those of the Protestant faith, and in matters 
 apart from business I have found the former more tole- 
 rant than the latter. Indeed, to my own knowledge, 
 Protestant landlords have treated their Protestant tenants 
 more unkindly than their Catholic ones. As instance, some 
 days ago a large respectable Protestant farmer near Clonakilty, 
 was requested to sign a petition against Mr. Gladstone's Bill. 
 He asked on what grounds he should sign it. He was told 
 because the Protestants would not receive fair treatment if 
 Home Rule was carried. ""Well," said he, " I have a Protestant 
 landlord, and I am the only Protestant tenant on the estate, 
 and I have always paid my rent as punctually as the rest, and 
 I was the only tenant served with a writ. I don't like this 
 Protestant treatment," said he, " I prefer trusting the Catholics, 
 
 and I will not sign the paper." 
 
 J. H. Hunter, Merchant. 
 
 Mountmellick, 13th May, 1SS6. 
 
 During the twenty-six years I have resided in Queen's Co. 
 I have never seen nor experienced any intolerance from my 
 Poman Catholic neighbours, nor would I have any fear for 
 my liberty and safety, or that I would be interfered with in 
 the exercise of my religion, in case Mr. Gladstone's Home 
 Rule Bill is passed. I was born and reared in Co. Down. 
 
 Robert H. Harshaw, Presbyterian Minister. 
 
 Plumpton, 13th May, 1S86. 
 No. Yet before I was a year ordained my church was 
 wrecked, the books mutilated, and with the vestments thrown 
 into the sea. There was a cause. I invited all the children 
 of the school of which T was a manager to a treat ; for being a 
 southerner I knew nothing of northern j^arty spirit. The 
 
Protestant Opinion. 13 
 
 Catholics thought I meant to proselytize, but when they dis- 
 covered their error, a deputation headed by the Parish Priest 
 came and expressed regret, and the act was also denounced 
 from the altar. My experience of Catholics is that they dis- 
 like controversy, but are firm in their own belief. If let 
 alone, they will leave alone. Let but the drum cease and the 
 Boyne be allowed to run as a river should, or in other words, 
 let the Protestant minority conduct themselves properly, and 
 my conviction is that the Irish Catholics will not give them 
 the least annoyance. The first thirty years of my life were 
 spent in the four provinces of my native land, the last five of 
 these as a clergyman in Donegal. Since then, here and 
 beyond the seas, I have been in much contact with the Catholic 
 Celt. It is on the knowledge acquired by such experience 
 that I speak, and the judgment of my maturer years is in 
 direct opposition to the training of my earlier days. Italy, 
 France, and Belgium must already have taught even fanatics 
 the unwisdom of religious bigotry. In conclusion, permit me to 
 say, that I am a thorough believer in Home Eule, but without 
 any irritating checks, and that the Land Question especially 
 should be left to the Irish themselves to settle. 
 
 H. M. Kennedy, M.A. 
 [Vicar of Plumpton, Diocese of Carlisle.] 
 
 Cork, 11th May, 1886. 
 I shall best reply to your question by quoting from a letter 
 that I sent last week on the same subject to the Northern 
 Whig : — " All my ministerial life has been spent outside Ulster, 
 in the west and in the south. I can fairly say that I have, per- 
 haps, come into closer contact with the Eoman Catholic people 
 of Ireland than any minister of my own church. And, with this 
 experience, spreading over a period of thirty-eight years, I 
 declare with all my heart, that I am ready to entrust my civil 
 and religious liberty to the Irish people, with the fullest con- 
 viction that the trust will be safe in their keeping. The 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 agitation that has raged so vehemently of late is the old 
 agitation that began seven centuries ago, when England first 
 conquered Ireland. It is in no sense, with the Irish people, 
 a religious agitation. The feeling was as strong when England 
 and Ireland were both Catholic, as it has been since England 
 became Protestant, only that the religious difference has added 
 a special acrimony to the feeling. The men who are most 
 hated in Ireland to-day, are Roman Catholics who have separ- 
 ated themselves from the national life, and have joined the 
 English garrison. Lord Spencer truly stated at Leeds, that 
 the trusted leaders of the Irish people since the Union have all 
 been Protestants, with the exception of O'Connell. Those 
 who tell us that Home Rule means Rome Rule do not know 
 Ireland, or they have only studied on the surface the present 
 national movement. It is a national movement pure and 
 simple, except in Ulster, where Protestant prejudice has 
 brought in the religious element." 
 
 Matthew Kerr, Presbyterian Minister. 
 
 30, Patrick-street, Cork, 8th May, 1886. 
 I think the question in your's of 6th inst, is put most op- 
 portunely, and however much one may shrink from publicity, 
 no Irishman would be true if he hesitated to express his opinion 
 on the point, and his experience at such a crisis ; therefore I 
 reply with pleasure. My experience extends over a period of 
 fifteen years active life in Cork, and during that time I have 
 had most intimate personal, business, and social relations with 
 Roman Catholics of all classes, and as a Protestant I have 
 pride and pleasure in bearing testimony to their tolerance and 
 large-mindedness — in fact a question of creed never has arisen 
 within my knowledge, and I would have the greatest pleasure 
 in doing all in my power to have Mr. Gladstone's measure 
 passed, and have no fear whatever of my Catholic countrymen. 
 
 Crawford Ledlie, Draper. 
 
 [Of the firm of Robertson, Ledlie, Ferguson & Co., Cork ; 
 High Sheriff of Cork for 1887.1 
 
Protestant Opinion. 15 
 
 Spa Hill House, Borris, Co. Carlo w, 19tli May, 1886. 
 Catholic intolerance ! I have often heard of it, but I have 
 never seen a case of it. J have been living for the past fifteen 
 years amidst my Catholic fellow-countrymen, and never during 
 that time have I observed any one instance of illiberality 
 amongst them. I am of opinion that my liberty, together 
 with the free exercise of my religion, would stand intact under 
 a native Government. 
 
 [Surgeon] John George Little, L.E.C.S.I. 
 
 The Grove Manse, Castleblaney, 11th May, 1886. 
 Gladly do I reply to your query thus : — I have lived for 
 thirty-nine years among the Eoman Catholics of County 
 Monaghan, and can testify at any time or place that they 
 have always treated me with the greatest respect and civility. 
 The Roman Catholic priests, too, have been more gentlemanly 
 and genial with me than the clergy of the now Disestablished 
 Church. I have no dread of persecution, or any other form 
 of injustice from the Roman Catholics, should Mr. Gladstone's 
 noble and pacific Home Rule measure become law. And on 
 the other hand I have often been rudely treated, once shot at, 
 and occasionally boycotted by Orangemen. Publish these 
 things I have said before England and the civilized world. 
 
 Matthew Macaulay, Presbyterian Minister. 
 
 89 Merrion-square, Dublin, 8th May, 1886. 
 In answer to your question, I beg to say, I have not observed 
 in Ireland intolerance among my Catholic friends and neigh- 
 bours. I do not fear for my liberty or safety, neither do I 
 think that in any part of the world I would be more free in 
 the exercise of the religion to which I am attached, than I 
 should be in Ireland under an Irish constitution such as is 
 sketched out in the Bill to which you refer. I wish to say 
 plainly that there are provisions in that Bill from which I 
 strongly dissent ; but as regards intolerance or persecution on 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 the part of my Catholic fellow-countrymen, I have no fear 
 whatever. It is, in my humble opinion, a groundless terror ; 
 it is a hobgoblin fear conjured up by those Protestants only 
 " whose conscience doth make cowards of themselves." 
 Egbert McDonnell, M.D. 
 [Late President of the Poyal College of Surgeons, Ireland.] 
 
 Great Clonard, Wexford, 8th of Fifth-month, 1886. 
 During nearly thirty years residence in the midst of a 
 Catholic population, I never saw the slightest sign of anything 
 that would cause me any fear for the free exercise of my 
 religion, or my liberty and safety. The disturbance that took 
 place in Wexford about two and a half years since, during 
 Major Whittel's visit, was to my mind owing to a grudge the 
 roughs had against the police, from whom they received some 
 rough handling during a recent election. I don't think the 
 religious element had anything to do with it. 
 
 Joseph Macquillan, Farmer. 
 
 Kilmorna, Co. Kerry, 15th May, 1886. 
 I have never known an instance in which religious intoler- 
 ance has been shown by my Roman Catholic friends or neigh- 
 bours ; on the contrary I can call to mind one or two very 
 remarkable instances of liberality of feeling towards Protes- 
 tants. I have not the slightest fear for my liberty or safety 
 under an Irish constitution, nor do I think there would be the 
 smallest danger that the free exercise of our religion would be 
 interfered with in any way under an Irish Parliament. I 
 have been frequently in Ireland since 1863, and have resided 
 in the country since 1876, and since 1878 in North Kerry. I 
 am a magistrate for the counties Limerick and Kerry. 
 
 Pierce Mahony. 
 [Late Sub-Commissioner under Land Act ; now M.P. for N. Meath.] 
 
 71 Patrick-street, Cork, 12th May, 1886. 
 I have no uneasiness whatever concerning Catholic intoler- 
 ance ; having had frequent intercourse with Catholics in Dublin 
 
Protestant Opinion. 17 
 
 between the years 1857 aucl 1863, and in Cork between the 
 years 1869 and the present ; during the latter period my ex- 
 perience has been more valuable, and I have had business and 
 social relations with Catholics during that time, which lead me 
 to think that they are less exclusive than Protestants generally, 
 and that Protestants ought to cultivate relations with them 
 more than they do. In business our relations have been ex- 
 ceptionally satisfactory. I believe Catholics want no more 
 than equality, and are growing fast in constitutional ideas 
 which I fear Irish Protestants are not. 
 
 Russell Martin. 
 [Town Councillor of Cork ; Town Commissioner for Queenstown.] 
 
 Tunduff, Abbeyleix, 17th May, 1886. 
 
 Replying to your query, I have never known or observed an 
 
 instance of intolerance amongst my Roman Catholic friends 
 
 and neighbours, nor do I possess any fear for my religious 
 
 liberty and safety under the measure of Home Government 
 
 proposed by Mr. Gladstone. I have been actively engaged as 
 
 an agriculturist (and not altogether unknown tenant farmer) 
 
 for forty years, and have Jiad large experience in dealing with 
 
 the rural class of my countrymen ; am myself a Presbyterian, 
 
 and would, I dare say, be classed in the neighbourhood where 
 
 I am best known as a strict Protestant. 
 
 Jonathan Millie. 
 
 Ardanoir, Foynes, 10th May, 1886. 
 I have never known any authenticated instance of religious 
 intolerance. On the other hand, I remember a Scripture 
 reader in the parish of Ardagh, County Limerick, who used to 
 show me the names of many Catholics as subscribers to his 
 Protestant orphan card. Servants, Roman Catholic and Pro- 
 testant, have agreed well to my knowledge. Catholics have 
 said to me they like Protestant fellow-servants best. Per- 
 sonally having had a great deal to say to the Catholic clergy 
 in connection with the emigration, I must say that with the 
 
18 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 exception of yourself, Lord Monteagle, Mr. Parnell, and the 
 
 late W. E. Forster, almost all tlie assistance, countenance, 
 
 and support I received, apart from members of my own family, 
 
 came from Catholics. I believe the Disestablishment of the 
 
 Church did much, and that Home Rule will do more to lessen 
 
 religious intolerance. 
 
 Charlotte G. O'Brien. 
 
 Killiney, 14th May, 1886. 
 In reply to your inquiry, I willingly give you my experience. 
 I have resided in different parts of Ireland during the last 
 twenty years; my occujDation has taken me into all parts of the 
 country and has made me acquainted with all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men. I have never experienced, observed, or heard of 
 any intolerance on the part of Catholics towards Protestants. 
 I know many instances of Protestants living isolated from 
 those of their own creed in different parts of the country. Of 
 late years I have made it a subject of inquiry whether such 
 persons experienced any annoyance or ill-will on account of 
 their religion. I have not met with any instance of such per- 
 sons being molested or annoyed in anyway on account of their 
 religion. I know Protestants who have been elected as Poor 
 Law Guardians by exclusively Catholic constituencies, in op- 
 position to Catholic candidates, and of Protestants seeking 
 appointments who have succeeded in obtaining them owing to 
 the support and influence of Catholics. No tendency towards 
 intolerance of Protestants is observable, and there is not in my 
 opinion the slightest reason to anticipate anything of the kind 
 
 under a Home Rule Government. 
 
 MuRRouGH O'Brien. 
 
 Lyons Mills, Straffan, Co. Kildare, 22nd May, 1886. 
 I was born and brought up in Yorkshire, and have lived in 
 Ireland for between ten and eleven years. During that time 
 I have been employed in commercial pursuits, and have tra- 
 velled either on business or for pleasure in twenty-eight out of 
 
Protestant Opinion. 19 
 
 the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Since I came to tliis 
 country I have come into contact, mostly in business, with far 
 more Catholics than Protestants, and I cannot recollect having 
 met with any instance of intolerance towards Protestants, be- 
 cause they were Protestants, on the part of Catholics. I see 
 no reason for supposing that Protestants will be in any way 
 interfered with in the exercise of their religion, or under any 
 disadvantage because of it, when an Irish Parliament again 
 comes into existence. It appears to me the theory that such 
 will be the case, has only been put forward by those opponents 
 of Mr. Gladstone's Bill, who have not better or more substan- 
 tial arguments against it. 
 
 Joseph E. Palmer. 
 
 Passage West, Cork, 11th May, 18S6. 
 I am in my seventy-first year, twenty-nine of which have 
 been a good deal occupied in public life, principally as Poor 
 Law Guardian of the Cork Union, the largest rural union in 
 Ireland. I invariably found the Eoman Catholic Guardians 
 as interested in transacting the business of the Board as the 
 Protestants. I live almost exclusively by the industry of 
 my tenants, who are nearly all Catholics, with whom I have 
 always been on the most friendly terms, and I see no reason 
 whatsoever why giving us the power to make laws for our own 
 better government should interfere in any way to disturb the 
 good feeling which exists now, to prevent me and my fellow 
 Protestants using the same freedom and exercise of our reli- 
 gious services as we have at present. 
 
 Wm. D'Esterre Parker. 
 
 Narraghmore, Athy, 13th May, 1886. 
 In reply to your inquiry, I beg to explain that I am Scotch- 
 man and a Presbyterian, that I have lived as a farmer in 
 Ireland for some forty years; that during that long period 
 my residence has been among Koman Catholics in the counties 
 
20 Tlie Irish Question : 
 
 Kildare and Louth ; that I have invariably found my Eoman 
 Catholic neighbours kindly, friendly, hospitable, and most 
 tolerant of my religious principles, and that judging from this 
 experience the fear or the notion, as I think, foolishly enter- 
 tained in some prejudiced and, let me say, benighted quarters, 
 that if Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill became law, liberty 
 and safety in the exercise of any form of the Protestant or 
 Presbyterian religion would be interfered with by the Roman 
 Catholic majority, is groundless and in my opinion ridiculous. 
 
 Thomas Robertson, Farmer. 
 
 Delgany, 20th May, 1886. 
 I am glad to be able to answer your communication to the 
 following effect. I have never seen the slightest evidence that 
 Protestants, as such, would have anything to fear from an 
 independent Irish Legislature. I will add my belief, that as it 
 was not by being kept under a glass-case that Protestantism 
 became a power in the past, so assuredly it is not by cowar- 
 dice and selfishness that it will remain so. 
 
 T. W. ROLLESTON. 
 [Editor Dublin University Review^ 
 
 South Mall, Cork, 8th May, 1886. 
 In reply to your query, I bear testimony with pleasure that 
 during my lifetime of about fifty years, I have not known of 
 any instances that would make me fear to live amongst my 
 Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, under the fullest measure 
 of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. 
 
 John Russell, Merchant. 
 
 90 South Mall, Cork, 10th May, 1886. 
 I am connected with Cork County for over forty years, and 
 at business in Cork City and County nearly thirty years, and 
 have not observed acts of intolerance from my Catholic neigh- 
 bours, and I ;do not think my being a Protestant has in any 
 
Protestant Ojnnion. 21 
 
 way interfered with my business relations with them, and they 
 never in any way caused me fear for my religious liberty. I 
 have no gloomy fears for the future, and under an Irish Par- 
 liament as marked out by Mr. Gladstone, fully believe there 
 is no need of them. 
 
 John H. Eutter, Merchant and Manufacturer. 
 
 35 James's-street, Dublin, IGth May, 1886. 
 I have resided in Ireland all my life, now fifty-eight years. 
 I resided for forty years in the County Kildare, engaged in 
 mercantile and agricultural pursuits. I have since resided in 
 or near Dublin, and have been actively engaged in business as 
 well as in public life, as a Poor-law Guardian, Town Councillor, 
 and Justice of the Peace — having thus had large intercourse 
 with my Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, both lay and clerisal. 
 I have no fears or anticipations that under the proposed Irish 
 constitution my civil and religious liberties will be interfered 
 with. Every one meets with intolerance at times. My expe- 
 riences of it have more often been evinced by Protestants than 
 
 by Catholics. 
 
 Abraham Shackleton, J.P. 
 
 [Poor-law Guardian ; Senior partner, George Shackleton & Sons, 
 
 Millers, etc.] 
 
 Glassdrummond, Saintfield, 24th May, 1886. 
 As an Ulster Presbyterian farmei', residing here all my life, 
 I have never either heard of, observed, or experienced a single 
 instance of intolerance amongst my Catholic fellow-countrymen 
 towards Presbyterians or Protestants, such as would lead me 
 to fear for my liberty or safety, or the exercise of my religion, 
 under an Irish constitution such as Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule 
 Bill. The propagation of idle and unworthy fears in respect 
 of the above measure becoming law, is the work of the enemy, 
 who know very well that if Catholics and Presbyterians join in 
 social and political unity, landlord o]3pression and tyranny 
 is at an end. People here are expressing no fears whatever. 
 
 Francis Shepherd, Farmer. 
 
22 The Irish Question: 
 
 Eavamett, near Lisburn, 21st of Fifth-month, 1886. 
 
 I have never experienced personally any intolerance on the 
 part of any of my fellow-countrymen, except on one occasion, 
 and that my Roman Catholic countrymen had no part in. I 
 have never observed any intolerance on the part of Catholics 
 towards Protestants in consequence of their being Protestants. 
 I have lived in Ireland all my time — now just half a century — 
 six years in two large commercial concerns in the city of 
 Dublin, eight as working manager of the weaving department 
 of one of the largest linen-manufactaring concerns in the 
 world (near Newry), eight as managing partner in a linen 
 manufacturing concern near Tandragee (Co. Armagh), my 
 native place, ten as linen manufacturer and farmer in Co. 
 Down. For the past twenty to thirty years (I might say all 
 myj^life) I have taken a deep interest in everything that con- 
 cerns the w^elfare of my native land and its people. After 
 much careful and prayerful thought, some reading, and 
 some experience, I have come to the conclusion that my 
 religious opinions as a member of the Society of Friends, and 
 one who believes in its peace principles and all its principles, 
 would have no cause to fear for its safety and liberty under 
 an Irish Constitution, similar in most respects to that sketched 
 out by the Premier. I believe it would tend to drawus into closer 
 friendship with England, her people, and her interests, and 
 that Ireland would be more loyal to the Queen than she has 
 been in the past ; and if all parties would sink religious and 
 political differences, and turn their attention, as reasonable 
 men, to what would be for the real good of our common 
 country, that at no very distant date we would have compara- 
 tively a loyal, peaceable, prosperous, and contented Ireland, 
 As a business man and linen manufactm^er, I could not agree 
 to our not having a fair representation in the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment. We have, in common with other parts of Great Britain, 
 commercial treaties and other Imperial matters in which I 
 think Ireland is fairly entitled to have her say. Ireland and 
 
Protestant Opinion. 23 
 
 Irishnienhave in the past acted a very important part in assist- 
 ing to build up England's greatness, and with a blessing will in 
 the future continue to assist in maintaining it. 
 
 John Sixton, Manufacturer. 
 
 Court Devenish, Athlone, 10th May, 1886, 
 I have lived for eight years in the most Catholic part of 
 Munster, and some thirty-five in Leinster, and have travelled 
 extensively through all Ireland. I have met with no instance 
 of intolerance exercised a.gainst Protestants because of their 
 religion. For my own part I have no fears of anything of this 
 sort, and I have met wdth very few in the South and West 
 who have. Those who express such fears generally I find shoAv 
 themselves of an intolerant spirit. I would strenuously urge 
 my Northern fellow-countrjmien to cast away such unworthy 
 fears, and, taking example from their Southern fellow- Pro- 
 testants, whom they profess to regard as lambs in the midst of 
 wolves, show their faith in God, and try the effect of the golden 
 rule by doing unto Catholics as they would they should do 
 unto them. My conviction is that if those who should be 
 foremost in spreading the message of peace and good- will among 
 men, will only stand aside and let the people fraternize, there 
 will not be the slightest danger of religious persecution. 
 
 Wm. Smith, AVoollen Manufacturer. 
 
 North Main-street, Bandon, 12th May, 1886. 
 Since I went to my first curacy, more than thirty-three 
 years ago, I have been residing in the County Cork. Neither 
 my own observation nor anything communicated by parishion- 
 ers has given me reason to believe in the existence of hostile 
 feelings towards us on the part of Pom an Catholics. On the 
 contrary, I can testify that friendly relations very largely 
 exist, and that it is a matter of daily occurrence to find the 
 poorer classes of Roman Catholics and Protestants rendering 
 such neighbourly oflices to one another as may be in their 
 power. Unfortunately I know many Protestants who take a 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 very diflferent view from mine ; bnt they seem to me to build 
 more upon theory and preconceived opinion than upon facts 
 of which they have cognizance, and they are often inconsistent 
 enough to be on excellent terms with their Eoman Catholic 
 neighbours notwithstanding. 
 
 J. Stevenson", late Rector of Brinny. 
 
 49 Mountjoy-square, South, Dublin, 19th May, 1886. 
 In answer to your inquiry on the subject, I beg to state that 
 I have never met with intolerance of any sort from my Catho- 
 lic fellow-counUymen, and when I tell you, as is the fact, 
 many of my intimate friends, and the majority of my clients, 
 are Catholic, T think I have said enough on the subject. Al- 
 though hitherto opposed to Home Rule, I am now in favour 
 of the scheme as proposed by Mr. Gladstone. I think he is 
 honestly doing his best to settle the question. In my opinion 
 there is an increase of favourable opinion as regards Home 
 Rule amongst persons of my persuasion in Dublin. I know of 
 several churches in the city at the Easter Vestries, at which 
 the resolution against Home Rule was not put. If Home 
 Rule is to be the law, I for one will submit myself into the 
 hands of my fellow-countrymen, with every confidence that 
 things will go right, and perhaps like the old woman who 
 went over the equator in fear and trembling, we won't feel the 
 
 jolt at all. 
 
 John T. Tatlow, Solicitor. 
 
 4 Addison Gardens, Kensington, 
 
 London, W., 8th May, 1886. 
 
 In answer to your queries, I have much pleasure in telling 
 you that I have not the least fear that when our Parliament is 
 restored the liberty or safety of any peaceable Protestant in 
 Ireland will be in danger. I have resided in different parts of 
 Ireland, sometimes for many months at a time, sometimes 
 only for a few weeks, during most years since 1862, I be- 
 
Protestant Opinion. 25 
 
 long to the Protestant Church, and my Catholic fellow- 
 countrymen and women have never given me reason to believe 
 that the free exercise of my religion would be interfered with 
 by them " under," to quote your words, " an Irish consti- 
 tution such as that sketched out in Mr. Gladstone's Bill." 
 I am joint owner of some landed property in Ireland. 
 Amongst our tenants (numbering over fifty) there is one 
 Protestant family, and they are on the best of terms with 
 their Catholic neighbours. They have often told me so. 
 I may also mention that wishing some time ago to establish 
 a free lending library in our valley, I was a little doubtful if 
 the Catholic Priest would approve of a Protestant buying books 
 for his flock. Hearing this, the rev. gentleman most kindly 
 wrote to say that he had perfect confidence in the choice I 
 might make, and would only venture to suggest that some 
 of Sir Walter Scott's best works, and some of Charles Dickens' 
 might be amongst those selected. I need hardly add that I 
 followed this advice. If you think that my experience in this 
 matter may be useful in the cause of peace, you are at perfect 
 liberty to publish my name, though it is not a well known one, 
 for I generally write under a nam de plume. 
 
 Emily Skeffington Thompson. 
 
 Maryborough, 12th May, 1886. 
 
 In reply to yours of the 6th May, I believe the best answer 
 would be to enclose copy of letter sent Freeman^ and published 
 last January, in reference to the high-handed proceeding taken 
 by Committee of Privileges. I would reiterate the statement 
 made then, and feel satisfied that with the Government in the 
 hands of the Irish people. Protestantism will have nothing to 
 fear. Just as the Disestablishment of the Church gave an 
 impulse to its members to rise above their serfdom and from 
 under the upper ten, so would Protestants be free to throw 
 aside their narrow bigotry and jealousies, and work for the 
 
26 The Irish Question : 
 
 common good and weal of old Ireland ; then even the most 
 timid would have nothing to fear. Since 1860 I have been 
 amongst my Catholic friends, and never have I observed any 
 instances of intolerance on their pai't, unless where it was 
 brought on by over-zealous Protestants in their zeal for the 
 
 conversion of their Catholic friends. 
 
 George Yanston, 
 Poor Pate Collector and Town Clerk. 
 {^Extracts from letter above referred to.'] 
 I have lived for the past forty years amongst a Catholic 
 community, and so far from having received any slight on 
 account of my religious convictions, I have been always treated 
 with friendship and esteem ; so much so that on two occasions 
 on which I allowed my name to be put in nomination for two 
 important positions, which were entirely in the gift of my 
 Catholic friends, I was elected by large majorities over my 
 Catholic competitors. It is simply absurd on the part of edu- 
 cated Protestants to fear any injustice or harm would result 
 to them on account of their religious opinions when we have 
 our Parliament in College-green. Such a cry would or could 
 only be raised from the landlord class that are anxious to re- 
 tain the feudal privileges which our nineteenth century civili- 
 zation has condemned. 
 
 Leamington, 10th May, 1886. 
 Y'ou have invited me to state whether my experience of 
 Irish Catholics would lead me to apprehend danger to the 
 religious freedom of Irish Protestants from Home Rule in 
 Ireland ? I have never resided in Ireland, but I have made a 
 special study of Ireland's unhappy history, and I have had a 
 very considerable acquaintance with Irish Catholics and 
 Protestants for fifty years. In reply to your inquiry, I give 
 it as my conviction that Protestantism has no reasonable 
 ground of apprehension from an Irish Government elected by 
 the Irish people. No church establishment, and no religious 
 persecution, will be allowed in Ireland by the British people. 
 
Protestant Opinion. 27 
 
 Ulster is frighteued by a bad conscience. She remembers 
 how she always supported the abominable Penal Laws against 
 Catholics, and gave support (though she hated episcopacy) 
 to that upas tree of Ireland — the Elizabethan Church. The 
 Irish Catholics would now gladly forget these past wrongs, 
 and receive Ulster into the sisterhood of the nation. Let 
 Ulster be wise in time, and she has nothing to fear. Her best 
 friends will advise Ulster, and the Protestants of Ireland else- 
 where, to become national in their feelings and desires ; they 
 will then assuredly have full freedom, and all the influence 
 they can fairly expect. 
 
 John Thomas Walters, M.A. 
 [Rector of Norton; Author of IrelancVs W7'ongs and How to 2Iend Them.'] 
 
 Glenageary, Co. Dublin, 14th May, 1886. 
 Having always lived in Dublin, and having been engaged in 
 commercial pursuits, and to some small extent in public move- 
 ments, I have come a good deal into contact with my Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen. I belong to the most Protestant of the 
 Protestant religious bodies — the Society of Friends — and have 
 no hesitation in saying that I believe, under a constitution 
 such as Mr. Gladstone's Bill would give to Ireland, the civil 
 and religious liberty of every individual would be as secure as 
 in any other country. I believe a love of domination over 
 others is not a characteristic of Irishmen, and that the natural 
 good sense and good feeling of our own people would tend to 
 obtain freedom for all. Also, that free representative insti- 
 tutions, such as the Bill seeks to establish, would prove as 
 inimical to the growth of religious intolerance or ascendancy 
 in Ireland, as they always have done elsewhere. 
 
 Thomas Henry Webb. 
 [Director of J. H. Webb & Co., Limited, The Advertising Co., etc.] 
 
 The Deanery, Berkeley HaU, Cork, 13th May, 1886. 
 I don't suppose that any wise man believes that persecution 
 will ever disappear from Christendom, until all Christians feel 
 
28 The Irish Qtiestion : 
 
 what Our Lord meant by the words " My Kingdom is not of 
 this world." As far as I am concerned, I have been twenty- 
 nine years in Cork, and I have met my Roman Catholic fellow- 
 subjects here in all the public and in many of the private 
 relations of life. I have never experienced anything from 
 them other than the treatment of tolerant Christian gentlemen; 
 and I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that Mr. 
 Gladstone's Bill will tend to sweeten the relations of all classes 
 in Ireland. Of course if men will be fanatics, whether they 
 be Protestants or Roman Catholics, we cannot help them, so 
 we must bear their intolerance as well as we can. 
 
 George Webster, D.B,, Chancellor of Cork, etc. 
 
 Killiney, Co. Dublin, 13th of Fifth-month, 1886. 
 In reply to your inquiry I have to say, that during a resi- 
 dence of nearly thirty years in Ireland, I have come a good 
 deal in contact in various ways with my Catholic fellow-subjects, 
 and there is nothing in this experience to " lead me to fear 
 for my liberty and safety, and for the free exercise of my 
 religion under an Irish constitution, such as that sketched 
 out in Mr. Gladstone's Bill." 
 
 Henry Wigham, Merchant. 
 
 Dublin, 17th May, 1886. 
 As an Englishman and Protestant residing in Ireland near 
 thirty years, I must say that I have not observed any indica- 
 tion that would lead me to believe that my Catholic friends 
 and neighbours would interfere either with my liberty or 
 religion. I have always received the greatest kindness and 
 support from the Catholics of Ireland, amongst whom are some 
 of my best friends : as an instance I may say, that I have been 
 twice unanimously elected as Town Councillor for my ward, 
 perhaps the most pronouncedly Catholic of the city. Certainly 
 
Protestant Opinion. 29 
 
 under an Irish constitution such as proposed by Mr. Gladstone, 
 I would have no hesitation in having the fullest confidence in 
 the citizens of my adopted country. 
 
 James Winstanley. 
 [Manufacturer ; Alderman in the Dublin Corporation.] 
 
 Montenotte, Cork, 7th May, 1886. 
 I have lived in Ireland nearly all my life, and for the last 
 few years have had many opportunities at public meetings, etc., 
 of observing the feeling in the south of Ireland, as between 
 Protestant and Catholic. On the Catholic side I have not 
 seen a trace of intolerance such as would bespeak a spirit of 
 retaliation. But, on the contrary, I have repeatedly observed 
 the enthusiasm with which any overture on the part of a 
 Protestant to join heartily with Catholics for the common 
 good of their country, has been received. I believe the idea 
 that under Home Rule we, the Protestants, would receive less 
 than justice, is the idlest phantom of a guilty conscience. 
 
 Edward A. Wright. 
 [Barrington Lecturer on Political Economy ; Member of the firm of 
 Wright and Sons, Grocers and Jam Manufacturers, Cork,] 
 
 Avonmore, Derryvolgie, Belfast, 21st May, 1886. 
 I was born and spent my early years in the midst of a 
 Catholic people, in a thickly populated townlandin the County 
 of Down, and since have associated with the best Catholic 
 families in Belfast for over forty years, and as an employer of 
 labour have had large experience of Catholic employes in 
 places of power and trust, and can truly testify that for 
 honesty, fidelity, forbearance under yro'vocation — in a word, 
 for high moral worth, the Catholic people of all ranks com- 
 pare favourably with the numerous members of other denomi- 
 nations among whom in Belfast they live. It would be a 
 positive insult to say that on account of creed the highest 
 legislative responsibilities should be withheld from the 
 Catholic people. g^^^^^ Young. 
 
|rts^ "^xohBimxt P0m^ §luk %BBatmixan. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PROTESTANTS OF IRELA:N'D 
 
 Protestant Fellow-Countrtmen, 
 
 At the present crisis, when the political* energies and thought of 
 the people of these countries are concentrated upon the practical solu- 
 tion of the great problem of the Better Government of Ireland, this 
 Association has been formed in order to unite all classes and denomi- 
 nations of Protestants in promoting a safe, equitable, and permanent 
 settlement of the question. 
 
 It is not our desire to separate ourselves from our Roman Catholic 
 countrymen. But we ask for your co-operation and support in order 
 to counteract the gross misrepresentations which allege that the Pro- 
 testants of Ireland are unanimously opposed to the Irish policy of Mr. 
 Gladstone, 
 
 Attempts have been made to create in the minds of our fellow-citizens 
 in England and Scotland, groundless apprehensions of dangers to us of 
 religious persecution, or of the impositions of civil disabilities, and by 
 appeals to religious bigotry and party rancour to excite in our minds 
 a bitter hatred and distrust of our own countrymen. But as Protes- 
 tants who have hitherto preserved our civil and religious liberties as a 
 sacred treasure, and who are to-day equally resolved and prepared to 
 defend their rights, we reject with scorn the calumny that the lives and 
 liberties of Protestant Irishmen would be imperilled by the restoration 
 of an Irish Parliament. 
 
 The foremost statesman of the century, aided by his loyal associates 
 in the Cabinet, and supported by the great English and Scotch Liberal 
 Party, the true Representatives of the People, has undertaken the task 
 of creating a responsible Irish Government, He seeks to remove Irish 
 local affairs from the arena of English party strife. He proposes to 
 commit them to the control of our freely elected representatives in an 
 Irish Legislature, so as to enable us to re-establish social order in Ire- 
 land, and, by the enactment and equitable administration of just laws 
 adapted to our local wants, to provide free scope for the advancement 
 
of the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial industries of our 
 country. 
 
 Against this great statesman are marshalled the combined forces of 
 those territorial and class interests, whose influence in maintaining 
 social conditions, which have tended to raise rents and reduce wages, 
 has perpetuated pauperism and crime, driven away capital, discouraged 
 manufactures, and disorganized commerce. 
 
 Fellow Protestants, our interests are bound up with those of our 
 native land. 
 
 Let us unite with our fellow-countrymen in a spirit of tolerance and 
 trust. Let us work together for the common good of this fair land, 
 and bring to bear upon the great work with which we are to be entrus- 
 ted, the united intelligence, knowledge, and skill of our whole people. 
 
 We are aware, by communications from many quarters, that efforts 
 have been made by means of threats of social ostracism, business losses, 
 and of other penalties, to deter Irish Protestants who are favourable to 
 Irish Self-Government from publicly declaring their opinions at this 
 crisis. Nevertheless, we earnestly appeal to them to boldly take that 
 position in the popular movement, of which we are confident the ver- 
 dict of posterity will approve. 
 
 The vital importance of an immediate settlement of this great ques- 
 tion, the necessity for the removal of that political strain which at once 
 paralyzes the Imperial Legislature, and constitutes a constant menace 
 to social order in Ireland, urges us to call upon all Irish Protestants 
 for a united effort to close the dreary chapter of our country's mis- 
 government, and render possible a new era of peace, contentment, and 
 prosperity. 
 
 Thomas Shillington, Jun., Portadown, President. 
 W.J. Smyth, General, Royal Artillery, F.R.S.,"" 
 
 M.R.I.A., Carmoney, Co. Antrim, 
 Alexander W. Shaw, J.P., Limerick, 
 Alfred Webb, Dublin, 
 W. D'EsTERRE Parker, P.L.G., Cork, 
 Edmund Harvey, Grange, Co. Waterford, 
 Thomas IM'Clelland, J.P. Belfast, 
 Davii> Briggs, 1 
 
 James J. Johnston, V Hon. Secretaries, Central Executive. 
 William Hammond, J 
 
 CharliiS Hubert Oldham, Hon. Local Secretary, Dublin. 
 Russell Martin, Hon. Local Secretary, Cork. 
 
 Belfast, 2SrdJune, 1886. 
 
 Offices for Dublin and South and West of Ireland : 116 Graf ton-street, 
 
 Dublin. 
 
 Vice- 
 Presidents. 
 
W\u §m\\ (^xmim. 
 
 The Following Publications are supplied by the 
 Irish Press Agency. 
 
 (1) Facts for Mr. Parnell's Bill. By John Dillon, M.P. 
 
 (2) The Orange Bogey. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (3) The Chicago Convention. By J. E. Redmond, B.L. M.P. 
 
 (4) The Irish Land Crisis. 
 
 By Pierce Mahony, M.P. and J. J. Clancy, M.P 
 
 (5) The '' Castle" System. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (6) The Truth about '98. By J. E. Redmond, B.L. M.P. 
 
 (7) Irish Industries and English Legislation. 
 
 By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (8) The Treatment of Minorities in Ireland. 
 
 By Charles Dawson, Ex-M.P. 
 
 (9) An Irish Judge on the Irish duestion. 
 
 With Introduction by J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 (10) Opinions of Some Protestants regarding Home Rule. 
 
 By Alfred Webb. 
 Ulster. By J. J. Clancy, M.P 
 
 The Elections of 1885. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Coercion. By J. J. Clancy, M.P. 
 
 Price One Penny each. 
 
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 ^^ Other Tracts in ;preparation. 
 
Ko. 11. 
 
 C^{ |ris^ ^mBtmx, 
 
 lEISH PEOTESTANTS 
 
 AND 
 
 HOME EULE: 
 
 A LECTURE DELIVERED IN THE ROTUNDA, DUBLIN, 
 
 29th November, 1886, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. EEDMOND, M.P. 
 
 iSarrister^atslLabj, 
 
 -♦-♦*^- 
 
 L0]^D0:N' : 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT STREET. 
 
 1887 
 Price One Penny. 
 
IRISH PROTESTANTS AND HOME RULE. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 In choosing a subject for my lecture to-night, I have been guided 
 by a consideration which ought, I think, to be present to the mind 
 of everyone who properly appreciates the position in which the 
 National cause is placed at this moment. That cause which in 
 the time of our own fathers appeared to be a losing one, associated 
 as it was with memories of almost unbroken disaster and defeat, 
 has suddenly experienced that turn of fortune which is ever in 
 store for a cause founded upon truth. "We have seen the cause of 
 Irish liberty advanced in our day to the very threshold of victory. 
 We have seen our friends multiplying and our enemies disappear- 
 ing ; we have seen the heart of the civilized world touched by 
 the spectacle of Ireland's constancy and devotion, and minds and 
 ears that were long closed by prejudice and ignorance against the 
 demands of Ireland are now open to the voice of reason. Up to 
 the present it has been a bliud struggle of might against right. 
 Force and not reason has been the guiding principle in the govern- 
 ment of our country ; but to-day England, if she has not conceded 
 our demand, has at any rate laid aside the sword, and consented 
 to listen to argument. When once, to a cause founded upon right, 
 the test of argument is thus applied, the triumph of justice is as- 
 sured. The last elections in Great Britain disclosed Wales and 
 Scotland in agreement with Ireland, and disclosed England not 
 so much hostile as perplexed, hesitating, and doubtful. She was 
 willing to listen and to learn, but she knew not whom to trust or 
 whose story to believe. Her doubts and perplexities alone stand 
 between us and the final triumph of our cause to-day. These 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 doubts and perplexities are, in my opinion, for the most part, 
 sincere and honest ; and the one great duty of the moment for 
 Irish Nationalists is to explain them away or to satisfy them. 
 
 In fulfilment of this duty I have selected my subject for to- 
 night, and instead of speaking simply as a Nationalist to an 
 audience of Nationalists, I prefer to address myself to the task of 
 grappling with one of those difficulties which many Englishmen 
 do honestly see in the way of a concession of Home Eule to 
 Ireland. 
 
 The Charge of Eeligious Intolerance. 
 
 The charge made against the mass of the Irish people of 
 religious intolerance, is perhaps the most insulting accusation 
 which could be levelled against a nation struggling to be free, and 
 if proved would go far, indeed, to justify the refusal of free insti- 
 tutions to a people who themselves had not conceived the funda- 
 mental ideas of freedom. Such a charge against any nation at 
 this time of the nineteenth century to ordinary persons would 
 seem a little exaggerated ; but coming from the people of England 
 against the people of Ireland, such a charge must seem to anyone 
 who knows the facts, and has read the pages of history, little 
 short of absurd and ridiculous. Still this accusation was freely 
 made against our people during the last elections. The English 
 people were told by statesmen, who well know the contrary to be 
 the truth, that it would not be safe to give Home Rule to Ireland, 
 because Ireland was made up not of one nation but of two, and 
 that the Protestant Irish nation being in the minority would 
 suffer persecution and injustice at the hands of a National 
 Parliament in Dublin containing a majority of Catholics. Absurd 
 as this accusation is, there is reason to believe that it had con- 
 siderable weight with many Englishmen, and it undoubtedly 
 constitutes one of the difficulties which still stand in the way of 
 the concession of self-government to Ireland. It consequently be- 
 comes our duty to expose its fallacy, to show its inherent 
 impossibility, and to appeal to the pages of history in support of 
 our argument. 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Rule. 5 
 
 » 
 
 The " Two Nations " Argument. 
 
 I propose shortly to prove — first, that there are no two nations 
 in Ireland to-day, and secondly, that all the history of the past 
 disproves the assertion that Catholic Irishmen ever were guilty 
 of religious persecution, and all the experience of the present 
 shows them to be incapable either of intolerance or bigotry. I 
 assert that there are no two nations in Ireland to-day — that all 
 the people of this land — Catholic, and Protestant, and Presby- 
 terian — of Celtic, or Norman, or Saxon extraction — are all chil- 
 dren of one nation, bound together not only by common interests, 
 but by common traditions, memories, and history. In order to 
 prove my assertion, it is necessary briefly to glance at the 
 history of Protestant patriotism in Ireland, and to show how the 
 English Protestant colony became in fact and in substance incor- 
 porated with the native Irish, as the Normans had been 
 incorporated with them before, and how what was established as 
 an English garrison, in the end became coverted^into the garrison 
 of the national riofhts and liberties of Ireland. In tracing this 
 story I will at one and the same time show how much Ireland 
 owes to her Protestant patriots, and how strong are the bonds 
 which unite into one nation Irishmen of every religious persua- 
 sion. At one time it could truly be said that there were two 
 nations in Ireland, if indeed the native Catholic masses could be 
 said to exist at all after the violation of the Treaty of Limerick, 
 and the departure of Sarsfield and the Irish soldiery to France ; 
 and if the narrow, self-seeking, and intolerant Protestant faction 
 which monopolized all power and privilege, deserved to be digni- 
 fied by the name of a nation. From 1691, for nearly one hun- 
 dred years, the native Catholic masses as a nation may be said 
 almost to have disappeared. They were penalized and outlawed. 
 They were banished from Parliament and deprived of the 
 franchise ; they could not possess property, or practise their 
 religion, or educate their children. Their leaders were in exile, 
 fighting under the standards of foreign monarchs, and those at 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 home in Ireland beaten to the ground were hopeless and helpless. 
 What went by the name of " the Irish nation" was the colony of 
 English Protestants who had undertaken the government of the 
 country, who had become possessed of the lands of the Catholics, 
 and who were so divided from the masses of the people by religion 
 and sentiment that they seemed to think their only safety lay in 
 forging penal chains for the native Irish. At that time indeed 
 there were two nations in Ireland ; but I think no history in the 
 world affords a parallel to the extraordinary result which speedily 
 followed. 
 
 These two nations coalesced, not by the weak persecuted native 
 nation bowing to the stronger English colony, but by the awaken- 
 ing in the hearts of the English colony of a spirit of Irish nation- 
 ality and patriotism, which speedily fused into one nation 
 struggling for its rights, Catholic and Protestant, English 
 colonist and native Irish. The manner in which this happy 
 consummation was brought about was characteristic of the treat- 
 ment which Ireland had ever received from the government of 
 England. 
 
 Oppression of the Protestant Colony by England. 
 
 The Protestant colony was expected by England to enslave 
 the Irish nation; but having done so, it was expected also 
 to submit to slavery itself. " Your ancestors," said John 
 Philpot Curran to the Irish Parliament a hundred years after- 
 wards — "your ancestors thought themselves the oppressors of 
 their fellow-countrymen, but they were only their jailors ; and 
 the justice of Providence would have been frustrated if their own 
 slavery had not been the punishment of their vice and folly." 
 The Protestant colony had succeeded in completely suppressing 
 the native Irish. It had absolutely excluded the Catholics from 
 power. It had made the executive of the country exclusively 
 Protestant ; but when it aspired to freedom for itself, it was 
 speedily taught that it was nothing more than the agent of 
 England, and that the only freedom it could claim was the free- 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Ride. 7 
 
 dom to oppress and trample on the ancient Irish nation. In 
 point of fact, as soon as the colony had succeeded in enslaving 
 the Irish, England set to work to enslave the colony. The colony 
 had deprived the Catholics of a share in Parliament. England 
 thereupon robbed the Parliament of its independence. The 
 colony had condemned the Catholics to poverty, England there- 
 upon restricted the trade and destroyed the prosperity of the 
 colony. 
 
 The claim of the English Parliament to control, direct, and 
 bind the Irish legislature was of old origin. Poyning's Law, 
 which enacted that no bill could be originated in the Irish 
 Parliament until the heads of it had been sanctioned by the 
 English Privy Council, was, it is true, passed so early as 1495. 
 But repeatedly the Irish Parliament had endeavoured with more 
 or less success to free itself from the fetter. In 1640 it asserted 
 its right to legislative independence. Later on, the Confedera- 
 tion of Kilkenny asserted the same right in a still more un- 
 equivocal manner. In 1689 the so-called Catholic Parliament 
 of James II. repealed Poyning's Act, and again asserted the 
 legislative independence of Ireland. But after the triumph 
 of William III. the Irish legislature definitely sank to the level 
 of a committee of the English Parliament, and the more the 
 colonists suppressed the liberties of the Catholics, the more 
 England suppressed their own privileges and degraded their 
 own Parliament. In 1699 a fatal blow was struck by Eng- 
 land at the commercial prosperity of the colony. The wool- 
 len trade was practically suppressed. All exports of woollen 
 cloths were prohibited except to England and Wales, and even 
 this exception was delusive, for heavy duties, amounting to a 
 prohibition, prevented Irish cloth being imported into England 
 or Wales. All trade between Ireland and the colonies was 
 prohibited by the Navigation Laws. Mr. Lecky says in his 
 History of the Eighteenth Century : — 
 
 " Protestants then began to find that they were as little thought of as 
 the CathoUcs. The suppression of the woollen trade brought ruin upon 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 12,000 Protestant families in Dublin, and 30,000 in the rest of the 
 country. By her commercial laws England deliberately crushed the 
 prosperity of the Protestant colony of Ireland, drove thousands of them 
 into exile, arrested the influx of Protestant population from Great Britain, 
 and inspired the Presbyterians of the north with a bitter hatred of her 
 rule." 
 
 The Birth of Protestant Patriotism. 
 In point of fact a deliberate system was established to put 
 down alike the political pretensions and the commercial prosperity 
 of the Protestants of Ireland, who then found themselves in this 
 extraordinary situation. They had practically conquered Ireland 
 and enslaved the Irish people, and in return they were expected 
 to calmly accept the position of slaves for themselves. Then 
 there was born in the breasts of those men the first spark of that 
 sentiment of nationality which was destined to win for them and 
 their country commercial freedom and legislative independence, 
 and eventually to weld into one nation Irishmen of all creeds and 
 of all bloods. This spirit at first was very timid, very narrow- 
 minded, and selfish. It never seemed to occur to these men that 
 to constitute a nation, and to assert its independence, the con- 
 cession of liberty to all Irishmen was essential. 
 
 MOLTNEUX. 
 
 At first their ideas of nationality included only the Protestants 
 of Ireland. We shall see by and by how this idea, fructified and 
 developed, until, in the minds of Grattan and his colleagues, the 
 Irish nation for which they had struggled included their country- 
 men of every creed. The first evidence of this growing spirit of 
 revolt against English oppression was furnished by the publica- 
 tion of the celebrated Case of Ireland Stated, which was a 
 book written by Mr. William Molyneux, member for Dublin 
 University, in which he conclusively proved that England had no 
 legal or equitable right to interfere in the legislation of the Irish 
 Parliament. It was, in truth, as a voice crying in the wilderness. 
 Men were amazed at its audacity, and English statesmen were 
 horrified at what they called its revolutionary doctrines. The 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Rule. 9 
 
 • 
 book was burned by order of the English Parliament by the 
 
 hands of the common hangman, but the spirit of which it was 
 
 an evidence survived, and from that day forward the patriot 
 
 party amongst the Protestants of Ireland may be said to have 
 
 existed. 
 
 Swift. 
 
 It was at this period of Ireland's history, when the idea of 
 nationality was slowly developing in the minds of the Protestant 
 colony, that there appeared upon the political stage the striking 
 and eccentric figure of Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's. 
 Swift was one of the strangest characters in Irish history — 
 an odd mixture of patriotism and narrow bigotry, of genius 
 and eccentricity. He never made the slightest effort to mitigate 
 the persecution of the Catholics ; he never for an instant 
 included them in his idea of Irish Nationality; yet he did as 
 much, probably, as any man in history to lift Ireland into the 
 position of a nation ; and he not only paved the way for, but he 
 rendered absolutely inevitable, that fusion between the Protestant 
 colony and the native Catholics, which, in the end, won inde- 
 pendence for the country. He urged the people to meet the 
 restrictions placed upon their trade by boycotting foreign goods, 
 and advised them to " burn everything English except their coals." 
 He seized upon the question of supplying Ireland with a new 
 copper coinage, as an opportunity for vindicating the independ- 
 ence of the country, and in the Drapier Letters he boldly asserted 
 the ideas which were rapidly maturing in the minds of the 
 Protestants. He asserted the legislative independence of Ireland, 
 and the nullity of those measures which had not received the 
 sanction of the Irish Legislature. He avowed his entire ad- 
 herence to the doctrine of Molyneux ; he asserted that Ireland 
 was rightfully a free nation, which implied a right of self- 
 government, " for government without the consent of the 
 governed was the very definition of slavery." In vain England 
 sought to insist upon Wood's halfpence. Swift, in fighting 
 this issue, was fighting the battle of Irish independence. He 
 
10 The Irish Question : 
 
 persevered ; he united the people of all creeds at his back, and 
 in the end he carried his point. Speaking of this contest, 
 Mr. Lecky says : — 
 
 " This contest deserves to be placed in the foremost ranks in the 
 annals of the Irish race. There is no more momentous epoch in the 
 history of a nation, than that in which the voice of a people has first 
 spoken, and spoken with success. It marks the transition from an age 
 of semi-barbarism to an age of civilization, from the government of force 
 to the government of opinion. Before this time rebellion was the natural 
 issue of every patriotic effort in Ireland ; since then rebelUon has been an 
 anachronism and a mistake. The age of Desmond and O'Neill had passed ; 
 the age of Grattan and O'Connell had begun." 
 
 Swift now became the idol and leader of the Irish people. He 
 taught them their first lessons in self-reliance. He led them to 
 victory when oppression had well nigh broken their spirit, and 
 when the exile of all their own leaders had robbed them of hope ; 
 he held up before their eyes the possibility — soon afterwards to 
 be in part realized— of a fusion of the two sections into one 
 nation ; and consequently, in spite of his well-known intolerance 
 and bigotry, he became the most universally popular man in 
 Ireland. His ending was singularly tragic. The great contro- 
 versialist, the energetic patriot, the brilliant wit, sank into his 
 grave in a hopeless state of idiotcy. 
 
 " Last scene of all, 
 That ends this strange, eventful history 
 Is second childishness and mere obHvion." 
 
 Swift passed away, but the cause of Irish Nationality which he 
 had championed never afterwards passed away from the minds 
 either of the Protestants or the Catholics of Ireland. 
 
 Teje Volunteers. 
 
 Flood then stejDped into the position of leader of the Patriot 
 Party, and at one step we may pass on to the history of the 
 Volunteers. In 1778 the Irish Parliament sanctioned the enrol- 
 ment of a volunteer force for the defence of the country. Mr. 
 Lecky thus describes what then occurred. He says : — 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Bule. 11 
 
 "Then arose one of those movements of enthusiasm that occur two or 
 three times in the history of a nation. The cry to arms passed through 
 the land, and was speedily responded to by all parties and by all creeds. 
 Beginning with the Protestants of the North, the movement soon spread 
 to other parts of the island, and the war of religions and of creeds, that 
 had so long divided the people, vanished as a dream. The inertness pro- 
 duced by centuries of oppression was speedily forgotten, and replaced by 
 the consciousness of recovered strength. From Howth to Connemara, 
 from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear, the enthusiasm had passed and 
 the creation of an army had begun." 
 
 The Irish Volunteers were at first an exclusively 'Protestant 
 organization, but so anxious were the Catholics from the first to 
 participate in the movement, that in the City of Limerick, when 
 forbidden to bear arms themselves they subscribed <£800 to pur- 
 chase arms for their Protestant fellow-countrymen. It was a 
 happy omen of the fusion of the two nations which was about to 
 take place. It was now that public spirit in Ireland began at 
 last to be truly National. Henry Grattan saw in the Volunteers 
 a means of uniting Irishmen, and owing largely to his exertions, 
 Catholics were at last admitted into the ranks of the national 
 army. From that day forward the two nations had ceased to exist. 
 Shoulder to shoulder. Catholic and Protestant Irishmen united 
 to demand free trade and a free parliament. In the words of 
 Flood: — "A voice from America shouted 'liberty,' and every 
 hill and valley of this rejoicing land answered ' liberty !' " In 
 1780 the Volunteers obtained for this country a first instalment 
 of liberty in the concession of complete free trade — that is, the 
 freedom of their trade from all restrictions placed upon it by 
 any authority other than the legislature of Ireland. The next 
 step was the assertion of the independence of the Irish Parliament 
 from interference by England. Day by day the fusion of the 
 two nations was becoming more perfect ; day by day the fell 
 spirit of sectarian hate was dying out. The Volunteers declared 
 at Dungannon, in Convention assembled, that : — 
 
 "We hold the right of private judgment in matters of religion to be 
 equally sacred in others as in ourselves, and we conceive the measure of 
 
12 The Irish Question : 
 
 relaxation of the Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics to be fraught 
 with the happiest consequences of the Union and prosperity of the in- 
 habitants of Ireland. " 
 
 And Grattan repeatedly voiced the determination of the leaders 
 of the patriot party to base Irish liberty upon the recognition of 
 the entire people. In one of his speeches he made this remark- 
 able declaration : — 
 
 *' So long as the Penal Code remains we can never be a great 
 nation. . , I would not keep two millions of my fellow-countrymen 
 in a state of slavery. I desire not a Protestant settlement, but an Irish 
 nation." 
 
 Emancipating the Catholics. 
 
 How Legislative Independence was won in 1782 every one 
 knows, and how the Protestant Parliament, having broken its 
 own fetters, set itself instantly to the task of admitting Catholics 
 to their full rights will never be forgotten. The work of emanci- 
 pation was slow, but sure. In 1793 Catholics were admitted to 
 the franchise, the juries, the professions, and the universities ; 
 and when two years later Lord Fitzwilliam arrived in Ireland, 
 we have that nobleman's own authority for the statement, " that 
 the Protestants of Ireland had generally accepted and approved 
 of a policy of complete and immediate emancipation." 
 
 The Union. 
 
 Unfortunately, English statesmen had at this time determined 
 to force a scheme of legislative union upon the country, and they 
 knew that such a policy would be impossible if once the Catholics 
 were admitted within the constitution. Primate Boulter, more 
 than half a century before, had said, " When Papist and Protest- 
 ant unite, good-bye to the English interest in Ireland." English 
 ministers determined this union should not take place. Accord- 
 ingly, the policy of emancipation was wrecked, and an intolerant 
 Irish faction was utilized for the purpose of stirring up religious 
 animosities and driving the people into insurrection. The 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Bute. 13 
 
 diabolical plan succeeded only too well, and Ireland was robbed 
 of her Parliament. 
 
 But neither then nor since has England ever been able to 
 divide Ireland again into two nations. Protestants won the 
 Parliament of '82 ; Protestants organized the society of United 
 Irishmen, and filled its ranks both before and after it became a 
 revolutionary body ; Protestants gave the franchise to Catholics 
 in 1793 ; Protestants led the rebel armies in 1798 ; Protestants 
 gallantly, but vainly, defended Irish constitutional liberty in 
 1800 ; and from that day to the present no movement has ever 
 been started, either on behalf of national independence or 
 religious freedom, which Protestant Irishmen have not shared in 
 or led. 
 
 The Anti-Irish Paction. 
 
 It is true that all this time there had been an intolerant anti- 
 Irish and anti-Catholic faction in Ireland. The men who in 
 1793 opposed the claims of the Catholics, who brought about 
 the recall of Fitzwilliam in 1795, whose bigotry and fanatical 
 oppression drove the people into arms in '98, who posed as the 
 English garrison in 1800, and sold their country's liberty, and 
 who from that day to this hour have ever been the despised 
 tools of English misgovernment in Ireland — these men no one 
 can seriously say constitute a nation. They have never risen 
 above the tactics or the aspirations of a faction. The only nation 
 in Ireland to-day is the one nation of Irishmen, bound together by 
 devotion to the land that bore them, by hatred of oppression and 
 love of liberty, and by the memory of the scenes when their fore- 
 fathers. Catholics and Protestants alike, shed their blood in 
 defence of religious toleration, and national freedom. 
 
 This, then, is our answer to the statement that there are two 
 nations in Ireland to-day. The history of the past and the 
 realities of the present alike protest against it as an absurdity 
 and an affront. 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 The Fear of Persecution under Home Rule. 
 
 More difficult is it adequately to reply to the second part 
 of the accusation, which is in the nature of a prophecy, 
 that under a Home Rule Parliament the Catholic majority 
 would persecute and oppress their Protestant fellow-country- 
 men. Grattan once said : — " You cannot argue with a 
 prophet, you can only disbelieve him." In the case of this evil 
 prophecy we can in addition apply it to the test of experience 
 and history. 
 
 When and where and how have Catholic Irishmen evinced a 
 spirit of religious persecution and intolerance ? If it be possible 
 to show, as I contend that it is, that Irish Catholics are almost 
 the only people in the world's history who have never persecuted 
 for conscience sake, that when they had the supremacy in the 
 past they never oppressed their Protestant fellow-countrymen, 
 and that in matters in which they hold power to-day they make 
 no distinction between men of different creeds — if it is possible to 
 prove all this, what becomes of the evil prophecy of our enemies ? 
 There are four distinct times in the history of Ireland when the 
 Catholics possessed supremacy and had the power to persecute and 
 oppress their Protestant fellow-countrymen. These periods were 
 (1) in the reign of Queen Mary ; (2) in 1641 ; (.3) at the time of the 
 Catholic Parliament of 1689 ; and (4) at the present time, when 
 Catholics have sufficient power in the commercial, social, and 
 municipal life of Ireland to make a man's creed a disability to him 
 if the spirit of religious intolerance were abroad. Let me briefly 
 deal with these four periods. 
 
 First Period of Catholic Power — In the Reign of Mary. 
 
 In the reign of Mary the Catholics were suddenly restored from 
 persecution to power. They were fresh from oppression, for 
 conscience sake, of the most horrible character. In England the 
 change from persecution to power was marked by oppression of 
 the Protestants by the Catholics. Mary burned to death her 
 
Irish Protestants and Home B.ule. 15 
 
 Protestant subjects; but the Irish Catholics did not persecute a 
 single individual, and, on the contrary, it was admitted that the 
 Corporation of Dublin of that day rented seventy four houses and 
 invited over English Protestant merchants from Bristol, and 
 when Mary's persecution ceased, sent them and their families 
 back safely to their homes. Leland, a Protestant historian, writ- 
 ing on this subject, says : — 
 
 " Such was the spirit of toleration that many English families, friends 
 to the Reformation, took refuge in Ireland, and there enjoyed their 
 opinions without molestation." 
 
 And a Protestant writer, Taylor, in his History of the Civil Wars 
 of Ireland J testifies as follows : — 
 
 " The restoration of the old religion was effected without violence ; no 
 persecution of the Protestants was attempted, and several of the English 
 who fled from the furious zeal of Mary's inquisitors, found a safe refuge 
 among the Catholics of Ireland. It is but justice to this maligned body 
 to add, that on three occasions of their obtaining the upper hand, they 
 never injured a single person in life or limb for professing a religion diffe- 
 rent to their own. They had suffered persecution and learned mercy, as 
 they showed in the reign of Mary, in the wars from 1641 to 16i8, and 
 during the brief triumph of James II." 
 
 Second Period of Catholic Power— 1641. 
 
 I pass now to the second period of the Catholic power — namely, 
 1641. As a sample of what the British electorate were induced 
 to believe last July, it will be interesting to you to hear a few 
 words on this subject from a leaflet issued from Mr. Sidebottom, 
 the successful Tory candidate for Hyde : — 
 
 " Q. Have the Irish ever had Home Rule, and how did they behave ? 
 
 " A. They murdered every Englishman and Protestant they could lay 
 their hands on in 1641. They were set on by the priests, who said that 
 Protestants were devils and served the devil, and that the killing of them 
 was a meritorious act. Altogether they killed in that year 150,000 
 Protestants — men and women and children. " 
 
 This puts in a somewhat exaggerated form a very common accu- 
 sation in the mouths of your enemies. The story of a wholesale 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 massacre of Protestants in the rising of 1641 has been repeatedly 
 proved to be utterly groundless. Mr. Lecky, whose bias cannot 
 be said to be in favour of either the Catholics or Nationalists 
 of Ireland, speaks of it as follows : — 
 
 ' ' The rebellion only assumed its general character in consequence of 
 the resolution of the English House of Commons, that no toleration 
 should be henceforth granted to the Catholic religion in Ireland. It was 
 this policy that drove the Catholic gentry of Ireland very reluctantly into 
 rebellion. The rebellion was a defensive war, entered into in order to 
 secure a toleration of the religion of the Irish people. . . . It may 
 holclly he asserted that the statement of a general and organized 
 massacre is utterly and absolutely untrue. As is almost always the case 
 with popular risings, there were in the first outbreak of the rebellion some 
 miirders, but there were very few, and there was nothing whatever in the 
 nature of a massacre. . . . The rebellion was not one due to any 
 single cause, but it represented the accumulated wrongs and animosities 
 of two generations. All the long train of agrarian wrongs from 
 Mullaghmast to the latest inquisitions of Wentworth, all the long 
 succession of religious wrongs from the Act of Uniformity of Elizabeth 
 to the Confiscation of the Irish College under Charles, contributed to the 
 result." 
 
 The Protestant historian Leland, says : — 
 
 " The Catholic priests laboured zealously to moderate the excesses of 
 war, and frequently protected Protestants when danger threatened them, 
 by concealing them in their places of worship, and even under their 
 altars." 
 
 And the history of Dr. Bedell, the Protestant Bishop of Dromore, 
 who during a considerable portion of the rising enjoyed the 
 respect of the insurgents, and on his death was followed to his 
 grave by one of O'Neill's regiments, is proof enough of the ab- 
 surdity and untruthfulness of the story of a general massacre of 
 Protestants. 
 
 The rebellion culminated in the assembling of the Confedera- 
 tion of Kilkenny, which was really a Catholic Parliament, and 
 our enemies will search its records in vain for any single measure 
 evincing a spirit of persecution. 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Rule. 17 
 
 Third Period of Catholic Power — 1689. 
 
 I pass now to the third period, that of James's Parliament of 
 1689. In this Parliament there were only six Protestants members 
 of the House of Commons, and some ten or twelve in the House of 
 Lords. Yet, so far were the Catholics from excluding Protestants 
 as Protestants from Parliament, that six Protestant Bishops sat in 
 the House of Peers, and no Catholic Prelate was admitted at all. 
 This Parliament consisted then for the most part of Catholics ani- 
 mated by the memory of the most bitter wrongs. They were the 
 sons of men who without trial and without compensation had 
 been robbed of their estates. The confiscations of Ulster, the 
 fraud of Charles, the atrocities of Strafford, were to them recent 
 and vivid events. At last power had changed hands and rested 
 with them. How did they use it 1 To persecute and oppress ? 
 To retaliate for old wrongs ? No ; the first act of that Parliament 
 was to establish perfect religious equality, and to guarantee to 
 Protestants full liberty of professing, practising, and teaching 
 their religion. On the evidences of religious toleration in the 
 past history of Ireland, Mr. Lecky says : — 
 
 " Irish history contains its full share of violence and massacre, but who- 
 ever will examine these episodes with impartiality, may easily convince 
 himself that their connection with religion has been most superficial. 
 Religious cries have been sometimes raised, religious enthusiasm has been 
 often appealed to in the agony of a struggle ; but the real causes have 
 usually been the conflicts of races and classes, the struggle of nationality 
 against annihilation. Amongst the Catholics at least, rehgious intoler- 
 ance has never been a prevailing vice, and those who have studied closely 
 the history and character of the Irish people, can hardly fail to be struck 
 with the deep respect for sincere religion in every form which they have 
 commonly evinced. Their original conversion to Christianity was pro- 
 bably accompanied by less violence and bloodshed than that of any 
 equally considerable nation in Europe ; and in spite of the fearful calami- 
 ties which followed the Reformation, it is a memorable fact that not a 
 single Protestant suffered for his religion in Ireland during all the period 
 of the Marian persecution in England. The treatment of Bedell, a Pro- 
 testant prelate, during the outbreak of 1641, and the act estabHshing 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 liberty of conscience, passed by the Irish Parliament of 1689, in the full 
 flush of the brief Catholic Ascendancy under James II. exhibit very re- 
 markably this aspect of the Irish character," 
 
 The same spirit was displayed by Irish Catholics to the first 
 Quaker mission ; and it is recorded than in 1712 James Hoskins, 
 accompanied by several Dublin Quakers, went preaching his 
 doctrines through Connemara, which was exclusively Catholic, 
 without meeting with the slightest molestation. The experience 
 of Wesley, half a century later, was similar. He has recorded in 
 his journal that he found more respectful hearers amongst the 
 Catholics of Ireland than in most parts of England ; and he speaks 
 in warm appreciation of '^ the tolerant spirit of the Catholics of 
 Ireland." 
 
 Fourth Period of Catholic Power — To-day. 
 
 One word now as to the present, and I have done. At the 
 present day Catholics have not the power of persecution by fire or 
 sword ; but they possess a supremacy in many directions which, 
 if guided by a spirit of intolerance, could effectually harass and 
 oppress the Protestant population. All the world knows how 
 that power is used. When in 1873 the representatives of the 
 Irish people met in conference in this room to assert their demand 
 for Home Rule, a resolution was unanimously adopted, and I am 
 glad to remember it was proposed by my own father, in these 
 words : — 
 
 " While we believe that in an Irish Parliament the rights and liberties 
 of all classes of our countrymen would find their best and surest protect- 
 tion, we are willing that there should be incorporated in the Federal 
 Constitution articles supplying the amplest guarantees, that no legislation 
 shall be adopted to establish any rehgious ascendancy in Ireland, or to 
 subject any person to disabilities on account of his religious opinions." 
 
 From that day to this the Catholic majority has acted upon that 
 principle. The most Catholic constituencies in Ireland return 
 to-day Protestant members to Parliament. Catholic cities elect 
 Protestants to the highest civic honours. Catholic Corporations 
 employ Protestant officials ; and last, but not least, the leader of 
 
Irish Protestants and Home Bide. 19 
 
 the Irish race, to whom his Catholic fellow-couutrymeu are bound 
 by the strongest liuks of personal affection and political devotion, 
 is a Protestant Irishman. No ! we Catholic Irishmen repudiate 
 this accusation of intolerance with scorn and indignation. We 
 do not even understand the meaning of the words religious 
 bigotry. By the Irish nation we do not mean any class, or sect, 
 or creed. By Irish independence we mean liberty for every Irish- 
 man, whether in his veins runs the blood of the Kelt or the 
 Norman, the Cromwellian or the Williamite, whether he professes 
 the ancient faith of Ireland, or that newer creed which has given 
 to our country some of the bravest and purest of her patriots. 
 We are banded together in a struggle for our national rights, and, 
 as a Catholic Irishman, I assert my belief, that never again would 
 the Catholics of Ireland lift hand or voice to obtain an Irish 
 Parliament did they not know that the edifice of national freedom 
 which it would raise would be based upon the most perfect civil 
 and religious liberty of every Irishman, of every class and creed. 
 In conclusion it only remains for me to say, that I trust I have 
 established my propositions to your satisfaction, and to thank 
 you for the indulgent patience with which you have heard me. 
 
 ♦'•'♦ 
 
 B. D. Webb and Son, Printers. Abbey-street, Dublin. 
 
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No. 12. 
 
 t Irislj #msli0n. 
 
 THE 
 
 ALLEGED MASSACEE OF 1641: 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFEED WEBB, 
 
 ©nc of llje ^ite-frmbtnts of Ibe |ns(j |proffst«nt ilomc |'ule ^ssodation. 
 
 " 'Tis slander ; 
 Whose edge is sharper than the sword ; whose tongue 
 Oatvenoms all the worms of Nile ; whose breath 
 Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie 
 All corners of the world : kings, queens, and states. 
 Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave 
 This viperous slander enters." — Cymbeline. 
 
 LONDON: 
 THE IRISH PRESS AGENCY, 25 PARLIAMENT-STREET. 
 
 188 7 
 Price One Penny. 
 
Such merit as there is in this tract is largely due to the suggestions 
 and assistance of John J. Clancy, M.P., Count Plunkett, Edmund 
 Harvey, and a near relative of my own. 
 
 A. W. 
 
 Dublin, December, 188C. 
 
THE ALLEGED MASSACEE OF 164L 
 
 Nothing can be more unfair than the attempt now made to 
 prove from history that the Irish people are unfit for self-govern- 
 ment. If the Newgate Calendar be a true record of a people's life 
 — if occasional tumults, and wreckings, and riots, and burnings, 
 be an index of the average condition of a people, and of their possi- 
 bilities — if the doings of a people under unhappy circumstances 
 are to be nicely compared with the doings of a people amidst 
 happy surroundings — if the religious rancours of the middle ages 
 be held as present in one nation, while extinct in surrounding 
 nations — if the political corruption universally prevalent in the 
 last century be regarded as incapacitating the descendants of one 
 nation, and of one alone, from free institutions in the present 
 — we may indeed abandon ourselves to despair. 
 
 It has suited one party in Ireland, and a great many parties out 
 of it, to lend themselves for generations to the task of traducing 
 the Irish. The highest intellects, the most brilliant talents, 
 have been prostituted to the work, and too many Irishmen have 
 been almost brought to believe in the degenerac}^ of their own 
 people. Well is it for us, that there have always been enough 
 clear sighted, thoughtful, and fiery spirits, to pierce through the 
 clouds of calumny in which the national life has been shrouded, 
 to sustain our self-respect, and keep alive the seeds of hope aud 
 manhood, for fruition in better times, such as the present. 
 
 To prove our innate wickedness, to show that religious tolera- 
 tion and respect for other peoples' opinions are foreign to Irish 
 thought and impossible of development in an Irish atmosphere, no 
 one event is oftener referred to than the " Massacre of 1641." 
 
4 The Irish Question : 
 
 Crude and garbled accounts of what is said to have then occurred 
 are freely circulated.* 
 
 Upon thoughtful men, who have looked below the surface of 
 history, and learned to what a large extent the lower tendencies 
 of human nature have been ineradicably mixed up with the noblest 
 movements of mankind towards truth, and liberty and right, 
 such representations have no effect. Were even the worst true, 
 we should decline to be moved in our estimate of what is best for 
 a people now, by crimes which a section of that people committed 
 more than two hundred and forty years ago. 
 
 The question of Home Government for Ireland is to be 
 settled by an appeal to common sense and reason, by what 
 we see going on around us in the world, by the consideration 
 of how we are likely to act under free institutions in the light 
 of the nineteenth century, by the fact that we are not a nation 
 of fools and knaves. Situated as we are between two of the freest 
 nations in the world — Great Britain and the United States — and 
 in closest intercourse with them, it is reasonable to suppose, that 
 whilst it would be impossible permanently to govern us, except 
 through the medium of free institutions, it would be impossible 
 for us, even if we were so minded, to revert to the alleged methods 
 of the past, and wrest those free institutions to the ruin of any 
 class of our fellow countrymen, without jeopardizing what we 
 have so long striven for — our own freedom. 
 
 None the less is it our duty, wherever possible, to clear the 
 fair fame of our country from aspersion. I therefore devote 
 myself, having already given some attention to the subject, to 
 the task of considering what really occurred in Ireland in 1641. 
 
 * Here is an extract from a leaflet which was issued in the interest 
 of one of the candidates in the late contest for the Hyde division of 
 Cheshire : — 
 
 " Q. Have the Irish ever had Home Rule, and how did they behave?" 
 *' A. They murdered every Englishman and Protestant they could lay 
 hands on in 1641. They were set on by the priests, who said that Pro- 
 testants were devils and served the devil, and that the killing of them was 
 a meritorious act. Altogether they killed in that year 150,000 Protest- 
 ants, men, and women, and children." 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 5 
 
 In doing so, I shall base my statements altogether upon standard 
 writers, several of whom are English, and all of whom are, so 
 far as I know, Protestants.* 
 
 What led up to the Events of 1641. 
 
 Upon the accession of James I. in 1603, says Mr. Smiles,t 
 "the penal laws enacted in the reign of Elizabeth, were 
 revived in all their original harshness. Sir Arthur Chichester, 
 the new Lord Lieutenant, a man cruel and avaricious in 
 his character, and eager to amass wealth and possessions, 
 no matter in what manner, willingly seconded all the designs 
 of the persecuting monarch. The Catholic chapels were 
 shut up, and the most wanton oppressions and extortions 
 were resorted to, such as fine, imprisonment, and deprivation of 
 office, for enforcing attendance at the Protestant service. To put 
 an end to all doubts, also, as to James's being favourable to 
 religious toleration, he issued a proclamation, giving due notice to 
 all concerned, of his thoroughly intolerant disposition and 
 character. This singular proclamation commences thus : — 
 ' Whereas, his Majesty is informed, that his subjects of Ireland 
 have been deceived by a false report, that his Majesty was dis- 
 posed to allow them liberty of conscience, and the free choice of 
 a religion ; he hereby declares to his beloved subjects of Ireland, 
 that he will not admit of any such liberty of conscience as they 
 were made to expect by such report,' etc. And then the procla- 
 mation goes on to order the expulsion of the Catholic bishops, 
 Jesuits, and all other ministers of the Catholic worship, and to 
 
 * This has prevented me from drawing on Prendergast, Gilbert, and 
 other standard Irish writers. In thus, for effect, restricting myself in the 
 main to British standard and Protestant writers, I must entirely repudi- 
 ate the supposition that Irish and Catholic writers are not of as much 
 credit as others regarding the history of their own country. 
 
 Three of the notes do not refer to Protestant authorities. 
 
 ■j" History of Ireland and the Irish People wider the Government of 
 England, by Samuel Smiles, M.D. [author of SelJ Help, etc.], London, 
 1884 ; p. 67. 
 
6 The Irish Question : 
 
 prohibit altogether, the exercise of the Catholic religion both in 
 England and Ireland." 
 
 " The Flight of the Earls." 
 
 The great northern chieftains, the Earls of Tirone and Tir- 
 connell had shortly before this period submitted to the English 
 crown. Though they were shorn of much of their influence, the 
 government was suspicious, and watched narrowly for any oppor- 
 tunity to destroy them. A galling system of espionage was 
 instituted over Ulster, so that Tirone complained that " he could 
 not even drink a full carouse of sack, but that the state was within 
 a few hours advertized thereof." Insulted by the King's officers, 
 harassed by litigation, worried by spies, watched by a crowd of 
 carpet baggers thirsting for his estates, the Earl of Tirone 
 appears to have dropped some incautious words. " There is no 
 reason to suppose that this vague talk was in any way serious ; 
 but whatever it was, Lord Howth, who was admitted by the 
 government to be unworthy of credit, managed to obtain an 
 inkling of it, developed it into a cut-and-dried plot to seize the 
 castle and murder the deputy, and embodied it in a letter, which 
 he purposely dropped at the door of the council chamber." * 
 
 The Earl of Tirone received information that it was the inten- 
 tion of the government to arrest him. He and the Earl of Tir- 
 connell determined in a panic to fly to the continent. " Conscious 
 that their properties were marked for confiscation by a govern- 
 ment which was ready to adopt every expedient to increase its 
 power, and at the same time break the spirit of the Irish people, 
 they took to flight." f They hastened with their families on 
 board a vessel lying in Lough Swilly, and eventually reached 
 Eome. There the Earl of Tirconnell died the following year, 
 
 * A Short History of the Kingdom of Ireland, from the Earliest Times 
 to the Union with Great Britain, with five maps and appendices, by 
 Charles G. Walpole, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, Second Edition, London, 
 1885 ; p. 178. + Smiles, 68. 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 7 
 
 1608. The Earl of Tirone, the great O'Neill, broken and blind, 
 lingered eight years longer.* 
 
 By the flight of these Earls, the door was at once thrown open 
 for the wide and wholesale confiscation and plantation of Ulster. 
 
 The Confiscation and Plantation of Ulster. 
 
 Edmund Burke writes as follows : — 
 
 " Unheard of confiscations were made in the northern parts, upon 
 grounds of plots and conspiracies, never proved upon their supposed 
 authors. The war of chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile 
 statutes : and a regular series of operations were carried on, 
 particularly from Chichester's time, in the ordinary courts of justice, 
 and by special commissions and inquisitions ; first, under pretence of 
 tenures and then of titles in the crown, for the purpose of the total 
 extirpation of the interest of the natives in their own soil."t 
 
 Six counties were held to be escheated to the crown. The old 
 order of things was to be wiped out, and the north was to be 
 treated " as if his Majesty were to begin a new plantation in 
 some part of America." According to law all that would have 
 fallen to the crown was the freehold lands of the persons 
 attainted. "Though it suited the government in 1604 [when 
 the Irish lords submitted] to cut down the rights of the chieftains 
 to their demesnes, to exalt the lesser chiefs into freeholders, and 
 to hold out fixity of tenure as the great benefit to be obtained by 
 the introduction of English law and the creation of shireground ; 
 n 1610 the theory was that the fee of the chieftains extended to 
 the whole soil of Ulster, and that the newly created freeholders 
 were no better than tenants at will." J 
 
 These proceedings were an outrage upon common honesty : they 
 violated all the conditions of government and law, assuming 
 that law and government are constituted for the protection and 
 happiness of the inhabitants of a country. They would have 
 
 * They are buried in front of the altar of S. Pietro di Montorio, on 
 the Janiculum. 
 
 t Burke's Works, vi. 336. % Walpole, 180. 
 
8 The Irish Question : 
 
 violated the sense of right of the English people who had lived 
 under the feudal law for five centuries and a half. But they were 
 even more unjustifiable in the eyes of the Irish people, who had 
 only just been brought under the feudal law — who had from 
 time immemorial lived under the Brehon code — under their own 
 laws and customs, which, whilst conceding great powers and 
 privileges to their chieftains and lords, in no degree acknow- 
 ledged their absolute proprietorship in the land of the territories 
 which they governed. The confiscation of the rights of the Irish 
 people in the lands which they occupied, because their chieftains 
 had or had not engaged in conspiracies against the government, 
 was entirely opposed to the ideas of right and wrong of the 
 Irish people. 
 
 The six counties which were confiscated contained about 
 3,785,000 statute acres. They were surveyed and divided into 
 " lean " and " fat " land. Protestant settlers were drawn from 
 England and Scotlaad. Extensive districts were divided amongst 
 London guilds : 286 natives of "good merit" were granted one half 
 of the fat land : others were transplanted to " convenient places " 
 in Kerry, Tipperary, and Roscommon. Some of them were 
 allocated portions of the lean lands. " Slowly and sullenly," says 
 Mr. Walpole, " the Irish gentry removed themselves and their 
 belongings into the contracted localities to which they had been 
 appointed, away from the * fat lands ' to the ' lean lands,' from 
 the rich pastures to the barren moor. Slowly and sullenly the 
 mass of the people followed them, thrust out of their homes, to 
 find new refuges wherein to lay their heads ; some amongst the 
 servitors, some in the ' lean lands,' some transplanted in gangs 
 at the command of the government into waste land which no one 
 wanted in Munster and Connaught. Exiled to make room for the 
 planters, evicted, though promised security, they wandered forth, 
 bearing in their hearts a store of bitter hatred for the invaders 
 who had broken faith with them." (Fixity of tenure for the mass 
 of the Irish people, had in 1604, upon the cutting down of the 
 rights of the chieftains, been held out as the great benefit to be 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 9 
 
 obtained by the introduction of English law and the creation of 
 shireground.) 
 
 Goldwin Smith writes as follows of these doings : — " The dis- 
 inheritance of the ancient race was carried on not only by high- 
 handed violence, but by a system, which became a trade of the 
 meanest and most infamous chicane."* 
 
 I may appear to linger too long over this history ; but a 
 correct knowledge of it is necessary for a clear comprehension of 
 what followed. 
 
 And so the plantation of the north was accomplished. Settlers 
 poured in : fair castles, mansions, and substantial farm buildings 
 sprang up on all sides. There were gardens and orchards, and 
 fields in "good tillage after the English manner." Market towns 
 and villages were rising with paved streets and well-built houses. 
 Schools and bridges were in course of construction.f 
 
 * The Natives and the Settlers. 
 
 But the mass of the native inhabitants could not be dispensed 
 with as hewers of wood and drawers of water. Their removal 
 was from time to time suspended ; and, only too ready to get 
 back on the soil at any price and at any risk, they took up from 
 the settlers upon ruinous terms, small plots, once their own 
 property. 
 
 The two peoples were face to face and commingled. It may be 
 said that the settlers represented a " higher civilization." They 
 came from a long settled country, England. The manners and 
 customs of the Irish were different. They had for the most 
 part led a pastoral life. The clan system had engaged them in 
 war and in forays, and the war constantly made on them by 
 England prevented them from cultivating the arts of peace. All 
 possibility of the proper development of the Irish people had been 
 cut off by the manner in which their religion and their education 
 were banned. They were, in the main, poor and uncultured. 
 
 * Goldvsdn Smith's Irish History and Irish Character, p. 101. 
 t Walpole, 185. 
 
10 The Irish Question : 
 
 But their lives and happiness were of as great importance to 
 themselves as were the lives and happiness of better off and more 
 civilized people. The ties of husband and wife, of friend and 
 friend, were as powerful. The happiness of their children had 
 as great claims upon them. The charms of youth and the graces 
 of maidenhood were amongst them. Upon an occasion later in 
 the history of Ireland, a Protestant bishop was asked by insur- 
 gents in possession of a district, to come up with them on a hill, 
 to be eye-witness of the havoc the King's army was making as 
 it advanced. A train of fire too clearly distinguished their line 
 of march— flaming up from the houses of the unfortunate 
 peasants : " They are only a few cabins," remarked the bishop, 
 as reported in his own account of the transaction ; " and he had 
 scarcely uttered the words when he felt the imprudence of them. 
 * A poor man's cabin,' answered one of the rebels, ' is to him as 
 valuable as a palace.' "* ^ 
 
 And this general policy of spoliation, repression, and religious 
 intolerence was maintained up to the breaking out of the 
 insurrection in 1641. 
 
 What really occurred in 1641. 
 
 Ruthlessly deprived of their lands, debarred the exercise of 
 their religion, what was the duty of the Irish people, if a spark of 
 manhood existed in them ? (I speak not now of the doctrines pro- 
 mulgated in the Sermon on the Mount — but of the ethics upon 
 which the mass of humanity have always acted, and do act at pre- 
 sent.) What was the duty of the Irish people ? To rise at the 
 first possible opportunity, drive out the invaders, and repossess 
 themselves of their homesteads. It is what all history, all poetry, 
 all high feeling command a people to do under similar circum- 
 stances. It is what any nation or section of a nation would do 
 at the present day. It is what the English especially would 
 
 * Bishop Stock's Narrative of icliat passed at Killalla in the Summer 
 0/1798; p. 135. The Bishop writes in the third person. 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 11 
 
 do. It is what the Irish people did. A long interval such as has 
 elapsed since 1641 alters feelings and right in such matters ; but 
 thirty years — never ! Charles I. was at war with his Parliament, 
 the British power in Ireland was weakened, and on the 23rd 
 October, 1641, the Irish people rose, A dreadful war, with 
 frightful atrocities on both sides, commenced; but there is 
 absolutely no evidence of a general massacre, preconcerted or 
 other, by the Irish, 
 
 It might almost be enough to quote the opinion of William 
 E. H. Lecky,* one of the most careful historians of the day — 
 who has investigated the subject with all the side lights which 
 Mr. Froude has been able to throw upon it : — 
 
 " I shall be content, if I have conveyed to the reader, my own 
 firm conviction that the common assertion, that the rebellion of 
 1641 began with a general massacre of Protestants, is entirely 
 untrue, although in the course of the long and savage struggle 
 that ensued, great numbers of Englishmen were undoubtedly 
 murdered. The number of the victims, however, though very 
 great, has been enormously and often deliberately exaggerated. 
 The horrors of the struggle were much less exceptional than has 
 been supposed. The worst crimes were the unpremeditated and 
 isolated acts of a half-savage population, and it is very far from 
 clear, upon which side the balance of cruelty rests. * The truth 
 is,' as Warner [a Protestant historian of pronounced anti- 
 Catholic views] truly says, 'the soldiers and common people were 
 very savage on both sides ; ' nothing can be more scandalously 
 disingenuous, than the method of those writers who have em- 
 ployed themselves in elaborating ghastly pictures of the crimes 
 that were committed on one side, while they have at the same 
 time systematically concealed those which were committed on the 
 other. From the very beginning the English Parliament did the 
 
 * Mr, Lecky, I deeply regret to say, is one of the most distinguished 
 literary authorities of the present " Paper- Unionist " party; but all his 
 historical writings, so far as they relate to Ireland, are, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, one long and most powerful argument for Home Rule. 
 
12 TJie Irish Question : 
 
 utmost in its power to give the contest the character of a war of 
 extermination." * 
 
 Dr. John McDonnell, an Irish Protestant writer of studied 
 moderation, says : — " In short, in this war the Roman Catholics 
 fought to recover their liberties and property, and to secure 
 their religion ; the Puritans, to confirm and extend the tyranny 
 inflicted on Ireland by centuries of misgovernmenff 
 
 The wishes and objects of the insurgents are fully stated under 
 nineteen heads, by Sir John Temple.j There is nothing what- 
 ever in them showing a desire to sever the connection between 
 England and Ireland, or to persecute or extirpate the Protes- 
 tants. 
 
 Great atrocities must undoubtedly have been committed by the 
 Irish. But, as human nature is, it is no wonder. For centuries 
 they themselves had been treated almost as wild beasts. 
 
 The Irish Treated as Wild Beasts. 
 
 In 1575, in the war with O'Neill, Sir John Norris made 
 a descent on the island of Rathlin, and after a fierce assault the 
 garrison yielded at discretion. I will tell what followed in Mr. 
 Froude's words : — 
 
 "Every living creature in the place except the chief and his famUy, 
 who were probably reserved for ransom, were immediately put to the 
 sword. Two hundred were killed in the castle. It was then discovered, 
 that several hundred more, chiefly mothers and their little ones, were 
 hidden in the caves about the shore. There was no remorse, not even 
 the faintest shadow of perception that the occasion called for it. They 
 were hunted out as if they had been seals or otters, and all destroyed. 
 Surleyboy and the other chiefs, Essex coolly wrote, had sent their wives 
 and children into the island, ' which be all taken and executed to the 
 number of six hundred.' "* 
 
 *A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, by W. E. H. Lecky, 
 London, 1878 ; v. ii. p. 155. 
 
 + The Ulster Civil War of 1641 and its Consequences, by John 
 McDonnell, M.D., Dublin, 1879 ; p. 149. 
 
 + Temple, Irish Rebellion, 73. 
 
 § Froude's History of England, xi. 185. 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 13 
 
 The Horrors of the Desmond War. 
 
 Mr. Froude narrates what was enacted by the Queen's troops 
 in the Desmond war, fifty-eight years before 1641 : — 
 
 ** The entire province of Munster was utterly depopulated. Hecatombs 
 of helpless creatures, the aged, and the sick, and the blind, the young 
 mother and the babe at the breast, had fallen under the English sword."* 
 
 Extermination in Tirone. 
 
 The same horrors had been enacted in other parts of Ireland a 
 few years previously : — 
 
 " At Christmas," writes Sir Nicholas Malby to Walsingham, as cited 
 by Mr. Froude, " I marched into their country, and finding courteous 
 dealing with them had Uke to have cut my throat. I thought good to 
 take another course ; and so with determination to consume them with 
 fire and sword, sparing neither old nor young, I entered their mountains. 
 I burnt all their corn and houses, and committed to the sword all that 
 could be found, where were slain at that time above sixty of their 
 best men, and among them the best leaders they had. This was Shan 
 Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick Burke's country in Uke manner. 
 I assaulted a castle where the garrison surrendered. I put them to the 
 misericordia of my soldiers. They were all slain. Thence I went on, 
 sparing none which came in my way, which cruelty did so amaze their 
 followers that they could not tell where to bestow themselves. Shan 
 Burke made means to me to pardon him and forbear killing of his 
 people. I would not hearken, but held on my way. The gentlemen of 
 Clanrickard came to me : I found it was but dallying to win time ; so I 
 left Ulick as little corn and as few houses standing as I had left his 
 brother, and what people was found had as little favour as the other had. 
 It was all done in rain and frost and storm, journeys in such weather bring- 
 ing them the sooner to submission. They are humble enough now, and 
 will yield to any terms we like to ofier them. " Mr. Froude continues : — 
 " Where the people were quiet there was the rope for malefactors, and 
 death by 'natural law' for those whom the law written would not touch. 
 Where they broke out there was the blazing homestead, and death by the 
 sword for all, not for the armed kerne only, but for the aged and infirm, 
 the nursing mother, and the baby at the breast, "+ 
 
 *Froude's England, xi. 259. f lb. xi. 197. 
 
14 The Irish Question : 
 
 British Atrocities in 1641. 
 And during this very war of 1641, in which the Irish are sup- 
 posed and said by many, even to this day, to have been the authors 
 of the chief or all the abominations that occurred, they were the 
 victims of atrocities that could scarcely be paralleled in any other 
 country. On this point. Dr. John McDonnell writes : — 
 
 " The murders and massacres by the Irish were almost always, as I 
 have said, perpetrated by mobs, and the Eoman Catholic gentry and 
 the Kilkenny provisional government uniformly exerted themselves to 
 prevent them ; whereas the English murders and massacres were usually 
 perpetrated by the organized forces of the government, or even by direct 
 order of the government itself or its officers ; as when Ormond was com- 
 missioned by Parsons and Borlase to drive the rebels from a station a 
 few miles from Dublin, his orders were ' to burn and destroy their 
 haunts, and to kill all the inhabitants capable of bearing arms ; ' and 
 when (as we are informed by Dr. Borlase, whose history of these trans- 
 actions was written in defence of his near relative the Lord Justice) Sir 
 W. Cole's regiment killed 2,400 rebels in battle, but besides * a starved 
 and famished of the vulgar sort, whose goods were seized on by this 
 regiment, 7,000.' "* 
 
 Carte, as quoted by Dr. McDonnell, writes of a raid made by 
 the British garrison of Carrickfergus, on Island Magee, in 1642, 
 '*in which it is affirmed that over 3,000 harmless Irishmen, 
 women, and children, were cruelly massacred." 
 
 In the winter of 1641, the English garrison of Antrim fell on 
 the Irish and Catholic tenants of a neighbouring proprietor near 
 Templepatrick, and "murdered about eighty persons, men, 
 women, and children." This was in revenge for the supposed 
 murder of their own wives and children who turned up safe and 
 well shortly afterwards, f 
 
 In the course of the war, certain Irish troops were drafted to 
 Scotland and served bravely and faithfully under Montrose. 
 They were eventually defeated, and delivered up their arms. 
 
 * McDonnell, 139 ; and Borlase's History of the Execrable Irish 
 Rebellion, 87. f McDonnell, 55. 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 15 
 
 Chiefly at the instance of the Scottish clergy, who quoted : " Now 
 go smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and 
 spare them not, but slay man and woman, infant and suckling, 
 ox and sheep, camel and ass," these prisoners were marched into 
 a court-yard, and in cold blood shot down to a man. One hundred 
 and fifty Irish soldiers who accompanied Sir Alaster M'Donnell, 
 met the same fate in May, 1646 ; 300 women were slain in the 
 camp ; 80 other women and children, fugitives, were overtaken 
 at Linlithgow by the Covenanters, who flung them over a high 
 bridge into the Avon, fifty feet below. " There they were all 
 drowned ; for a few who reached the banks were thrust back by 
 pikes and destroyed. Thus, man and woman, infant and suckling, 
 perished ; for again and again were the conquerors told, that the 
 curses which befel those who spared the enemies of God, would 
 fall upon him who suffered one Amalekite to escape." * 
 
 I quote again from Mr. Lecky : — 
 
 "I shall not attempt to go through the long catalogue of horrors that 
 have been too often paraded ; it is sufficient to say, that [in the war 
 which ensued] the soldiers of Sir Charles Coote, of St. Leger, of )Sir F. 
 Hamilton, and of others, rivalled the worst crimes that were perpetrated 
 in the days of Carew and Mountjoy. 'The soldiers,' says Carte, *in 
 executing the orders of the justices, murdered all persons promiscuously. 
 not sparing the women, and sometimes not children.' . . The saying 
 — 'Nits will make hce,' which was constantly employed to justify the 
 murder of Irish children, then came into use. ' Sir W. Parsons,' writes 
 Sir Maurice Eustace to Ormonde, at a later stage of the rebellion, 
 * has by late letters advised the governor to the burning of corn, and to 
 put man, woman, and child to the sword.' " * 
 
 Such evidence might be indefinitely extended. Enough will be 
 found in the second volume of Mr. Lecky's History of England. 
 
 I dwell upon these horrors to show the spirit of the times ; to 
 prove that it is impossible but that outrages must have been com- 
 mitted by my countrymen in the strife, they being only human. 
 And now for the supposed massacre, regarding which Mr. Lecky 
 
 * McDonneU, 121. f Lecky, ii. 157. 
 
16 The Irish Question : 
 
 says : — " I shall be content if I have conveyed to the reader, 
 my own firm conviction, that the common assertion that the re- 
 bellion of 1641 began with a general massacre of Protestants, is 
 entirely untrue." 
 
 The Supposed Massacre. 
 
 The character of Borlase and Parsons, who were the chief 
 governors of Ireland upon the breaking out of the insurrection' 
 powerfully influenced the course of affairs. " There is good reason 
 to believe that they adopted measures deliberately with the in- 
 tention of promoting and extending the rebellion, with a view to 
 cause great confiscations. They were both staunch Puritans ; 
 but Borlase was a mere soldier, and was led by Parsons. Parsons 
 was an extremely wicked man." * 
 
 " It admits of no doubt, that a policy of nursing the rebellion 
 was pursued by them at first, for the purpose of improving the 
 harvest of confiscations, which they hoped by and bye to reap for 
 themselves and their friends." t 
 
 Parsons got immense grants of lands in Meath, Cavan, Cork, 
 Tipperary, Limerick, and Fermanagh, was afterwards appointed 
 Surveyor-General, and in this capacity became " enormously 
 wealthy."! 
 
 " The most savage national and religious hatred, predisposed 
 the English to exaggerate to the utmost the crimes of their 
 enemies. . . . It is tolerably certain, that the constant fear 
 lest the Catholics, by coming to terms with the government, 
 should save their estates from confiscation, lay at the root of an 
 immense part of the exaggerated and fantastic accounts of Irish 
 crimes that were invented and diffused."§ This last sentence 
 gives the key to the whole story of the alleged massacre. A 
 massacre by the Irish of the sort alleged would have been so good 
 an excuse for fresh extermination of the natives, and fresh 
 confiscation of their lands. 
 
 * McDonnell, 43. + lb. 128. % lb. 43. § Lecky, ii. 147. 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 17 
 
 The Manuscript Depositions in Trinity College. 
 
 The chief basis of the whole massacre stoiy consists of certain 
 depositions ; and in reference to them Mr. Lecky writes : — 
 
 " Under circumstances that have never been very clearly ascertained, 
 an immense mass of depositions were collected, which form thirty-two 
 folio volumes of manuscript, in Trinity College, at Dublin ; and which 
 have formed the materials from which Rushworth, Temple, and Borlase 
 derived those long and sickening catalogues of horrors which made a last- 
 ing impression on the English mind. No one, I think, can compare the 
 pages of these writers with the pictures of the rebellion furnished in the 
 narrative of Clogy, in the correspondence of Ormond, Clanricarde, and 
 the Lords Justices, and in the report and depositions of the earlier com- 
 mission I have cited, without perceiving the enormous, palpable exaggera- 
 tions they display, and the absolute incredibiUty of many of their 
 narratives. Hearsay evidence of the loosest kind was freely admitted. 
 Twenty or thirty depositions often relate to a single crime. Super- 
 natural incidents are related without a question ; the depositions are 
 almost always undated ; and the immense number of the murders they 
 speak of staggers belief, especially when it is remembered that all the 
 writers who speak of a general massacre place it in the first weeks of the 
 rebellion, concerning which we have so much detailed evidence. Ormond, 
 who had, probably, beyond all other men, the best means of knowing the 
 truth on this matter, appears to have thought very lightly of them. At 
 the time of the Act of Settlement, when the claims of the ' innocents ' 
 were canvassed, the House of Commons, which consisted mainly of 
 Puritan adventurers, who desired to restrict as much as possible the 
 estates that were restored, proposed that none of those whose names were 
 found in this collection of depositions might be accepted ; and it is a very 
 significant fact that Ormond, who was then Lord Lieutenant, positively 
 refused the proposal. 'His Grace,' adds the best historian of the rebel- 
 lion, who had himself carefully examined these documents, ' it is prob- 
 able, knew too much of these examinations, and the methods used in 
 procuring them, to give them such a stamp of authority ; or otherwise it 
 would have been the clearest and shortest proof of the guilt of such as 
 were named in them.' Carte, who examined this period with the assist- 
 ance of private papers of the most valuable description, emphatically 
 recorded his distrust of these documents. The authority of Lord 
 Castlehaven is of less value, for he was a Catholic, and a commander of 
 the rebels ; but there is no reason to doubt that he was a man of truth, 
 
18 The Irish Question : 
 
 humanity, and honour ; and his testimony is that of a contemporary. 
 While admitting fully that great atrocities were committed by his co- 
 religionists during the rebellion, he denounces in indignant language the 
 monstrous exaggerations that where current, and positively asserts that 
 Sir John Temple, in a catalogue of horrors he extracted from the deposi- 
 tions I am referring to, speaks of many hundreds as then murdered, who 
 at the time the book was published were alive and well."* 
 
 Relative to these documents, we have the opinion of Edmund 
 Burke. In a letter to his son in Ireland, dated the 20th March, 
 1792, he advises him, in the interest of the Catholics, to copy 
 portions of what he terms, " the rascally collection in the College 
 relative to the pretended massacre in 1641. ... I am sure, 
 wicked as they are, and mostly hearsay, they refute fully the false 
 stories produced on their credit by Temj)le. Leland went over 
 them with me and poor Bowden, long since dead. We agreed 
 about them."t 
 
 In the middle of the last century. Dr. Warner examined these 
 depositions with great care, and discussed them candidly and 
 fully. He was a clergyman, a Fellow of Trinity College, and 
 so decided a Protestant that he strongly censured the liberty 
 allowed to Catholics by Charles I., and clearly intimated his 
 disapproval of the relaxations of the Penal Code which took 
 place in his own day. Much he describes as "incredible," 
 " ridiculous," and " contradictory." " The reason why so many 
 idle, silly tales were registered of what this body heard another 
 body say, as to swell the collection to two-and-thirty thick 
 
 * Lecky, ii. 147. 
 
 t I sought in vain through Burke's Works for this opinion, to which I 
 was aware he had given utterance. Count Plunkett, to whom I applied 
 in my difficulty, at once pointed it out to me in Fitzwilliam's Correspon- 
 dence of Edmund Burke, iii. 441. He also drew my attention in notes 
 of conversation between Hume and Burke, reported in Bisset's Life of 
 Edmund Burke, ii. 426, in which " Mr. Burke endeavoured to prove 
 that the received accounts [of 1641] were in a great degree unfounded, or 
 at least very much exaggerated, and quoted affidavits in Trinity College, 
 Dublin. He described various absurd stories that have been propagated 
 and believed by many concerning the Irish." 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 19 
 
 volumes in folio closely written, it is easier to conjecture than to 
 commend."* 
 
 Yet it is these documents to the sustaining of which a con- 
 siderable work has, apparently at the instance of Mr. Froude, 
 been lately devoted.f 
 
 My own examination of the documents confirms all that Burke, 
 Lecky, and Warner, and others have said about them. 
 
 Sir John Temple's Book. 
 
 There was a certain Sir John Temple, than whom no one 
 profited more by the War of 1641, and by the spread of 
 sensational accounts of the conduct of the Irish Catholics, He 
 was in 1648 appointed a Commissioner of the Great Seal ; in 
 1653, a Commissioner of Forfeited Estates. He received large 
 land grants in the counties of Carlow and Dublin. He was 
 afterwards made Master of the Rolls and Yice-Chancellor of 
 Ireland. He was one of the vultures that, in Groldwin Smith's 
 words, " descended upon Ireland." 
 
 In 1646 he published the thin brown leather quarto which has 
 perhaps brought more misery on our country than any other 
 book ever published has on any other country.} No library 
 of Irish books is complete without it. A copy lies before me. 
 Treasured and studied in Puritan households throughout the 
 length and breadth of Great Britain and Ireland, carried across 
 the seas wherever English speaking peoples have emigrated, it 
 
 *Dr. Warner's History of the ReheUion and Civil War in Ireland, 
 Second Edition, p. 146. 
 
 •(■ For an admirable little work exposing some of Miss Hickson's con- 
 tradictions and inconsistencies, see Dr. John McDonnell's Light of 
 History respecting the Massacres in Ireland, Dublin, 1886. 
 
 X The Irish ReheUion : or, a History of the Beginnings and First 
 Progress of the General Rebellion, Raised xoithin the Kingdom of Ireland, 
 upon the Three and Twentieth day of October, 1641, together with the 
 Barbarous Cruelties and Bloody Massacres which ensued thereupon, 
 Published in the year 1646, by Sir .John Temple, Kt., Master of the 
 Rolls, and one of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council within 
 the Kingdom of Ireland. [The edition to which I make reference is the 
 sixth, pubhshed in Dublin in 1724.] 
 
20 The Irish Question : 
 
 was regarded as an almost infallible witness against Catholicism. 
 "Well do I remember tbe horror with which in my childhood I 
 hung over its pages, and feasted on the unimaginable cruelties 
 depicted on the frontispiece. This is the " undefiled well " from 
 which succeeding generations and historians have drawn their 
 ideas of the " Massacre of 1641." 
 
 Temple's conclusion is : " There being since the rebellion first 
 broke out, unto the time of the cessation made Sept. 15, 1643, 
 which was not full two years after, above 300,000 British and 
 Protestants were cruelly murthured in cold blood, destroyed 
 some other way, or expelled out of their habitations,' according 
 to the strictest conjecture and computation, of those who seemed 
 best to understand the numbers of English planted in Ireland, 
 besides those few which perished in the heat of the fight during 
 the war."* 
 
 I have carefully examined the depositions in Sir John Temple's 
 book. It is to be presumed they are the most striking of those in 
 Trinity College. The same deponent often figures twice and even 
 thrice on different pages. It does not appear that more than 
 fifteen accounts are given by eye-witnesses ; and a comparison of 
 these with the originals, still further tends to shake my confidence 
 in them as truthful narrations. The rest are hearsay — " that by 
 credible report," " she heard," " as is commonly reported," and 
 so-forth — or simple statements of belief in certain occurrences. 
 A considerable number relate only to threats or boasts on the 
 part of the Irish. 
 
 All the " horrid inhuman cruelties," such as boiling children 
 alive, burying alive, and the unearthly atrocities depicted on the 
 frontispiece of some editions of Temple's work, are not mentioned 
 in the depositions of a single one of those who testify to what 
 they themselves saw. They are stated purely on hearsay. What 
 occurred, even if we believe all those " direct" depositions, con- 
 sisted of very little more than the ordinary incidents of a war, in 
 
 * Temple, 6. 
 
The Alleged Massacre 0/ 1641. 21 
 
 which, as we have already said, great barbarities were committed 
 on both sides. 
 
 It is remarkable that, with the exception of one case, these 
 acts of cruelty are not mentioned in the first series of depositions 
 taken in January, February, and March 1641-2, and to be found 
 in a letter from the Lords- Justices, 7th March, 1641-2, published 
 in the second volume of the Thorpe Papers. 
 
 It is also worthy of note that in none of the printed deposi- 
 tions, whether hearsay or otherwise, is there any hint of criminal 
 assaults on women. 
 
 Specimen Fictions. 
 
 The following are specimens of the evidence upon which 
 Temple relies : — 
 
 " Elenor Fullerton, the relict of William FuUerton, late parson of 
 Lougall, deposeth, that in Lent, 1641, a young roguing cowboy, gave out 
 and afl&rmed in this deponent's hearing, that his hands were so weary in 
 killing and knocking down Protestants into a bog-pit, that he could hardly 
 lift his arms to his head. Jurat. Sep. 16th, 1642."* 
 
 Rev. Robert Maxwell, Archdeacon of Down : . . . " And further 
 saith, that he knew one boy, that dwelt near unto himself, and not ex- 
 ceeding fourteen years of age, who killed at Kinnard, in one night, fifteen 
 able strong men with his skein, they being disarmed and most of their 
 feet in the stocks. Another not above twelve years of age killed two women 
 at the siege of Augher. Another that was a woman and tenant to this 
 deponent, kiUed several men and women, of her fellow English tenants, 
 in one morning. And it was very usual in all parts for the rebel's children 
 to murder the Protestant's children ; and sometimes with lathe-swords, 
 heavy, and well sharpened, they would venture upon people of riper years, 
 cruelties not to be believed, if there were not so many eye-witnesses of 
 them. Deposeth 22 of August, 1642." f 
 
 "Elizabeth, the wife of Captain Rice Price, of Armagh, deposeth 
 and saith, that she and other women, whose husbands were murdered, 
 hearing of divers apparitions and visions which were seen near Porta- 
 down bridge, since the drowning of her children, and the rest of the 
 Protestants there, went on to the bridge aforesaid about twilight in the 
 
 * Temple, 96. + lb. 115. 
 
22 The Irish Question : 
 
 evening ; then and there upon a sudden appeared unto them a vision 
 or spirit, assuming the shape of a woman, waist-high upright in the 
 water, naked, with elevated and closed hands, her hair hanging down 
 very white, her eyes seemed to twinkle, and her skin as white as snow ; 
 which spirit seemed to stand straight up in the water, often repeating 
 the word, Revenge ! Revenge ! Revenge ! whereat this deponent and the 
 rest being put into a strange amazement and affright, walked from the 
 place. Jurat. Jan. 29, 1642."* 
 
 " Mr. George Creighton, Minister, of Virginia, in the County of Cavan, 
 deposeth, among other particulars in his examination, that divers 
 women brought into his house a young woman almost naked, to whom 
 a rogue came upon the way, these women being present, and required 
 her to give him her money or else he would kill her, and so drew his 
 sword ; her answer was, you cannot kill me unless God give you leave, 
 and his will be done : whereupon the rogue thrust three times at her 
 naked body with his drawn sword, and yet never pierced her skin ; 
 whereat he being, as it seems, much confounded, went away and left her; 
 and that he saw this woman, and heard this particular related by divers 
 women, who were by and saw what they reported. "f 
 
 It is unnecessary to comment on the ridiculous character of 
 stories like those. A man who would accept them as genuine 
 history would believe anything he desired to believe. 
 
 As we accept Mr. Lecky's and Dr. McDonnell's general esti- 
 mate of Temple's book and the " massacre," the present writer 
 feels bound to agree with them that there is evidence to prove 
 much murder and outrage, and that at least one party of fugi- 
 tives or prisoners were murdered at Portadown bridge. 
 
 Sir John Temple's book is disingenuous. The aggregate con- 
 clusions are unreliable and grossly exaggerated. Much of the 
 evidence is of such a character as to throw serious doubts upon 
 the whole. But we ought not to make light of all that is therein 
 stated — or refuse sympathy to the unhappy fugitives, many of 
 whose relatives were murdered or fell in fight, and who them- 
 selves endured the most terrible privations. 
 
 Before many years had passed, Sir John Temple himself ap- 
 
 * Temple, 122. f lb. 123. 
 
The A lleged Massacre c/ 1 641 . 23 
 
 pears to have been ashamed of the general scope and tendency of 
 his work.* 
 
 Discrepancies in Estimates of Numbers "Massacred." 
 
 The discrepancies in the estimates of the numbers massacred 
 should cause even the most credulous to pause before they believe 
 them. Temple, makes the number of slain 150,000 in the first two 
 months, or 300,000 in two years. Rapin gives 150,000 in about 
 four months. The Long Parliament, 154,000. Clarendon 
 says 40,000 or 50,000 were murdered before the Protestants 
 suspected any danger. Hume adopts this estimate. Carte adopts 
 Petty's computation, that 37,000 perished the first year. Lord 
 Woodhouselee and Mr. Green accept 40,000 to 50,000. Cooke 
 Taylor, a Protestant of Cromwellian family, " after a very careful 
 examination of all the statements," believes that the number of 
 persons killed by the insurgents was less than 5,000, and that 
 about an equal number were slain by their opponents, t Dr. 
 
 * Sir John Temple " published his history of the Irish rebellion in the 
 year 1646, by the direction of the Parliament party, which then prevailed, 
 and to which, though long before in actual rebellion, he was always at- 
 tached. The falsehoods it contains are so glaring, and numerous, that 
 even the government, in the year 1674, seems to have been offended, and 
 himself ashamed of the republication of it. This we gather from a letter 
 of Capel, Earl of Essex, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to Mr. 
 Secretary Covantry, of that date, wherein we find these words : — ' I am 
 to acknowledge yours of the 22nd of December, in which you mention a 
 book that was newly published, concerning the cruelties committed in 
 Ireland, at the begining of the late war. Upon further enquiry I find 
 8ir J. Temple, Master of the Rolls here (Ireland), author of that book, 
 was this last year sent to by several stationers of London, to have his 
 consent to the printing thereof ; but he assures me, that he utterly denied 
 it, and whoever printed it did it without his knowledge. This much I 
 thought fit to add to what I formally said upon this occasion, that I 
 might do this gentleman right, in case it were suspected, he had any share 
 in pubHshing this new edition.' Stat. Let. Dub. ed. p. 2. His Lordship 
 was, at this time, soliciting a grant of three (he would have it five) 
 hundred pounds a year on the forfeited estates, for Sir John Temple, 
 which he at last obtained (see these letters), and the Ministry' seems to 
 have made this republishing of his history an objection, which his Lord- 
 ship thus endeavoTu-s to remove." — Dr. Curry's i^erz'ew; of the Civil Wars 
 in Ireland, Dubhn, 1775 ; 107. f McDonnell, 185. 
 
24 The Irish Question : 
 
 Warner, to whom I have already referred, says that adding all 
 together there might be 8,000 or 12,000.* Mr. Walpole follows 
 Warner. 
 
 Arguments against a General Massacre having taken 
 
 PLACE. 
 
 Apart from the "rascally depositions," as Edmund Burke, 
 himself a Protestant, described them, and Temple's book, there 
 is no evidence of anything like a general massacre. The theory 
 (I quote Hume) is that "without provocation, without opposi- 
 tion, the astonished English, living in profound security, were 
 massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long 
 upheld a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices." 
 
 Sir John Temple's book in itself contains sufficient evidence 
 against such a premeditated and general massacre having taken 
 place. The first information of the rising to Charles I., then at 
 Edinburgh, and the Lord Lieutenant, in London, was contained 
 in a letter from the Lords Justices and Council, from Dublin, 
 dated 25th October.f We next have a proclamation from the 
 same authorities, " issued for the satisfaction of the lords and 
 gentlemen of the English Pale," dated 29th October,^ and "upon 
 the fifth of November, the Lords made their second dispatch to 
 His Majesty, still at Edinburgh, in Scotland ; at the same time 
 they sent several letters into England, to the Lord Keeper, 
 Speaker of the House of Peers, to the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, to the Lords of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy 
 Council, to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland." Sir John Temple 
 gives a resiome of these letters of 5th November. § We have also 
 the proceedings in Parliament upon the receipt of [these letters. || 
 There is nothing contained in any of the above communications 
 to favour the supposition that a massacre had taken place, or 
 that there had been anything more than an armed rebellion or 
 insurrection. 
 
 * Lecky, ii. 153. t Temple, 27. % lb. 34. § lb. 42. II lb. 43. 
 
The Alleged Massac7'e of 1641. 25 
 
 Two months after the 23rd October, when according to Sir 
 John Temple and Mr. Fi'oude, 150,000 Protestants' throats had 
 been cut in Ulster, the following commission of enquiry was 
 issued. Surely there would be some reference in it to murder and 
 massacre, if the ordinary horrors of warfare had been exceeded ! 
 
 <<pHARLES, by the Grace of God, King of England, France, and 
 ^ Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. To our well-beloved Henry 
 Jones, Dean of Kilmore ; Roger Puttock ; William Huthock ; Randal 
 Adams ; John Sterne ; William Aldrich ; Henry Brereton ; and John 
 Watson, Clerks —greeting ; Whereas, divers wicked and disloyal People 
 have lately risen in Arms in several parts of this Kingdom, and have 
 robbed and spoiled many of our good Subjects, British and Protestants, 
 who have been separated from their several habitations, and scattered 
 in most lamentable manner : And for as much as it is needful take 
 due examination concerning the same; Know ye that we, reposing special 
 trust and confidence in your care, diligence, and provident circumspection, 
 have nominated and appointed you to be our Commissioners, and do 
 hereby give unto you, or any two or more of you, full power and authority, 
 from time to time, to call before you and examine upon Oath on the Holy 
 Evangelists (which hereby we authorize you or any two or more of you 
 to administer), as well all such Persons as have been robbed and despoiled, 
 as all the witnesses that can give testimony therein, what robberies and 
 spoils have been committed on them since the 22nd of October last, or 
 shall hereafter be committed on them, or any of them ; What the par- 
 ticulars were or are, whereof they were or shall be so robbed or spoiled, to 
 what value, by whom, and what their names are, and where they now or 
 last dwelt that committed those robberies ; or what day or night the 
 said robberies or spoils committed, or to be committed, were done ; 
 What traitorous or disloyal Words, Speeches, or Actions were then or 
 at an}' other time uttered or committed [by] those robbers or any of them, 
 and how often, and all other circumstances concerning the said particu- 
 lars and every of them : And you, our said Commissioners, are to reduce 
 to writing all the examinations which you, or any two or more of you, 
 shall take as aforesaid ; and the same to return to our Justices and 
 Council of this our realm of Ireland, under the hands and seals of any two 
 or more of you as aforesaid. Witness our right trusty and well-beloved 
 counsellours, Sir William Parsons, Knight and Baronet ; and Sir John 
 Borlase, Knight, our Justices of our said realms of Ireland : Dublin, 23rd 
 of December, in the seventeenth year of our reign." [1641]* 
 
 * Temple, 133. 
 
26 The Irish Question : 
 
 A general massacre was against the genius of the Irish people. 
 The burnings at the stake, and the persecutions of the Jews,* 
 which disgraced other nations in Europe throughout the middle 
 and dark later ages, were unknown in Ireland. There were few 
 cases of witch-burning. 
 
 Mr. Lecky bears remarkable testimony on this phase of the 
 Irish character : — 
 
 *' Irish history contains its full share of violence and massacre, but 
 whoever wiU examine these episodes with impartiality may easily con- 
 vince himself that their connection with rehgionhas been most superficial. 
 Religious cries have been sometimes raised, religious enthusiasm has been 
 often appealed to, in the agony of a struggle ; but the real causes have 
 usually been the conflicts of races and classes, the struggle of a nation- 
 ality against annihilation, the invasion of property in land, or the 
 pressure of extreme poverty. Amongst the Catholics at least religious 
 intolerance has never been a prevailing vice, and those who have studied 
 closely the history and character of the Irish people can hardly fail to be 
 struck with the deep respect for sincere religion in every form which they 
 have commonly evinced. Their original conversion to Christianity was 
 probably accompanied by less violence and bloodshed than that of any 
 equally considerable nation in Europe ; and in spite of the fearful 
 calamities which followed the Reformation, it is a memorable fact that 
 not a single Protestant suffered for his religion in Ireland during aU the 
 period of the Marian persecution in England. The treatment of Bedell, 
 during the savage outbreak of 1641, and the Act establishing liberty of 
 conscience, passed by the Irish Parhament of 1689, in the full flush of 
 the brief Catholic Ascendancy under James II., exhibit very remarkably 
 this aspect of the Irish character ; and it was displayed in another form 
 scarcely less boldly during the Quaker missions, which began towards the 
 close of the commonwealth, and continued with little intermission for 
 two generations."t 
 
 The 300,000 Protestants " murdered in cold blood, or destroyed 
 ia some other way, or expelled from their houses," according to 
 
 * In the course of a speech which the Chief Rabbi of the Jews delivered 
 in Dublin in 1871, he said that "he had long been anxious for many 
 reasons to visit this beautiful country ; and amongst others — because it 
 was the only country in which our ancestors had not been persecuted." — 
 Jewish Chronicle, 21st July, 1871. t Lecky, ii. 389. 
 
TJic Alleged Massacre of 1641. 27 
 
 Temple, "exceeds by nearly a third the estimated number of 
 Protestants in the whole island, and it was computed that it was 
 more than ten times the number of Protestants who were living 
 outside walled towns where no massacre took place."* 
 
 In 1641 and through the ensuing wars, the Protestants held 
 Drogheda, Enniskillen, Omagh, Newtownstewart, Augher Castle, 
 Ballyshannon, Lifford, Letterkenny, Derry, Coleraine, Larne, 
 Antrim, Carrickfergus, Belfast, Lisburn, Newtownards, Down- 
 patrick. Protestants were never more than thirty miles from a 
 place of refuge. t Dundalk, Carlingford, Newry, and Armagh 
 were retaken by the Protestants within six months.;}; The 
 war was vigorously prosecuted for some months in Ulster 
 resulting in nearly uniform defeat for the insurgents, and with 
 great loss of life on their part. Ulster was not replanted with 
 Protestants, and yet it has been and is still the most Protestant 
 portion of Ireland.§ These facts are wholly inconsistent with 
 the idea that the Protestants of the north had been materially 
 weakened in numbers by a general massacre. 
 
 While Cromwell's courts-martial condemned to death 200 per- 
 sons in the other provinces, in which it has never been alleged 
 that a general massacre of Protestants took place, in Ulster, 
 where a massacre throwing into the shade the Sicilian Vespers 
 and the massacre of St. Bartholomew was said to have been per- 
 petrated, only one man, Sir Phelim O'Neill, was found guilty and 
 executed. II 
 
 The following narrative by the Eev. Alexander Clogy, a 
 Protestant clergyman (according to Dr. McDonnell "prejudiced 
 even savagely against Irish Roman Catholics"), also tells strongly 
 against any desire of the Irish to murder all who were in 
 their power. A party had come to terms with the insurgents, 
 stipulating that they should march out with some arms, and all 
 their movable goods that they could carry away with them, by 
 horse or cart towards Dublin : — 
 
 * Lecky, ii. 149. t McDonnell, 52. Jib. 127. §Ib. 178. ||Ib. 178. 
 
28 The Irish Qtcestio7i : 
 
 "So, on the 15th day of June, 1642, in the eighth month after the 
 rebellion, we marched away, above 1,200 men, women, and children, after 
 they had eaten the cow's hides which had covered their cabins and huts 
 from Christmas till June. A sad company of poor people we were, as 
 ever were seen together; some loaden with children, some great with child, 
 some with two children on their backs, many with two little ones in their 
 arms, yet all rejoicing in the Lord for our enlargement at last. About 
 2,000 rebels accompanied us for our lifeguard, according to the articles 
 of our agreement, which were written by Archdeacon Price (before 
 mentioned), but now Archbishop of Cashel. The Scots had about 300 
 horse, some of them well appointed, for our guard also, under the conduct 
 of Sir Francis Hamilton and Sir Arthur Forbes. . . . The rebels 
 that conducted us, took solemn leave of us, being sore afraid at the sight 
 of our English forces ; they hasted away, having kept us seven nights in 
 the open fields, without anything under or over us, but what each of us 
 cai-ried about us ; yet they offered us no violence, save in the night when 
 our men were weary with continual watchings they would steal away a 
 good horse and run off, but were very civil to us all the way, and many of 
 them wept at our parting from them that had lived so long and peaceably 
 amongst them, as if we had been one people with them."* 
 
 Nor was the war without incidents such as the following : — 
 
 "During these operations," says Mr. Hill, " the adjoining church was 
 crowded with a trembling multitude of women and children, who were 
 every hour threatened with destruction, either bj'' fire or famine. In their 
 dire extremity, a good Roman Catholic priest, at great personal risk, 
 interfered for their preservation. With difficulty he obtained permission 
 to bring them water, and, in doing so, filled the water vessels with oatmeal, 
 covering it with a few inches depth of water at the top. In this way he 
 daily carried to the captives as much food as kept them alive till relief 
 came. Tradition states that this truly good Samaritan was called 
 Mac Glaine ; but nothing is known of him save this one noble Christian 
 act."+ 
 
 Dr. McDonnell adds : — " Gladly would I quote any similar 
 deeds of mercy on the part of Parsons, or other of the Puritan 
 
 * Rev. Alexander Clogy's Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of Dr. 
 William Bedell, Lord Bishof of Kihnore, Reprint of 1862 ; p. 241. 
 
 f McDonnell, 68. For a number of similar examples of the humanity 
 of the insurgents, see Dr. Curry's Historical Revieiv of the Civil Wars in 
 Ireland, pp. 124 to 128. 
 
The Alleged Massacre of 1641. 29 
 
 leaders in Ireland of this time ; but as far as I know there are 
 none such to record." 
 
 The following, from the pen of Mr. Lecky, is testimony to same 
 effect : — " Carte asserts that not more than two or three priests ap- 
 pear to have known of the conspiracy from the first ; and the respect 
 and admiration which the saintly character of Bedell extorted 
 from the rebels in the heart of Ulster, and in the fiercest period 
 of the rebellion, is quite incompatible with the theory of a religious 
 war. Though Bedell had been the warm friend of Sarpi and of De 
 Dominus, who were of all men obnoxious to the Pope, though he 
 was the first Irish bishop who engaged actively in proselytism, 
 one of the most conspicuous and uncompromising opponents then 
 living of the Catholic faith, he was treated by the rebels, into 
 whose hands he fell, with uniform deference. He was allowed 
 for nearly two months after the rebellion had broken out to remain 
 unmolested in his own house, to celebrate his religious worship, 
 and to protect his neighbours ; and though he was afterwards 
 subjected for about three weeks to an easy confinement in a castle 
 on Lough Erne, he ended his days in almost absolute liberty. 
 During the short period of his captivity, as his biographer informs 
 us, he and his companions had perfect liberty ' to use divine 
 exercises of God's worship, as to pray, read, preach, and sing the 
 songs of Zion in a strange land, as the Three Children ; though 
 in the next room the priest was acting his Babylonish mass.' He 
 died in February, 1642-3, while his diocese was still in the full 
 possession of the rebels, and his dying wish to be buried beside 
 his wife, in the churchyard of the cathedral, was conceded by the 
 Catholic bishop. A guard of honour attended his body to the 
 
 grave." * 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 I must now bring to a conclusion this careful, though, within 
 the limits assigned to me, necessarily imperfect consideration of 
 the "Massacre of 1641." I claim to have shown that whilst 
 
 * Lecky, 167. 
 
30 The Irish Question. 
 
 instances of murder and barbarity must have occurred, there is 
 uo proof of anything like a massacre, premeditated or otherwise. 
 "Were the worst true — had our Irish Catholic fellow-country- 
 men two hundred and forty years ago, committed the full num- 
 ber of murders assigned to them — it would not alter my views 
 regarding present Irish politics. If ever there were a justifiable 
 rising for all that men hold dear, against tyranny and oppression, 
 it was the War of 1641. The only matter for regret is that the 
 oppressed Irish people then made such a poor fight of it, and 
 were beaten, and temporarily re-enslaved. 
 
 ♦ »•'♦• 
 
 R. D. Webb & Son, Printers, Abbey -street, Dublin. 
 
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 TWENTY REASONS 
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 Because the people of Ireland almost unanimously demand 
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 ment with this express mandate. 
 
 Because seven centuries of British rule have failed to con- 
 ciliate the Irish people, or to consolidate Ireland with 
 England. 
 
 Because the English and the Irish people are two, and not 
 one. They differ in race, in temperament, in genius, and 
 (for the most part) in faith. 
 
 Because England and Ireland are more likely to be friends by 
 recognising this fact than by ignoring it. 
 
 Because no Government could ignore the verdict of England 
 at the elections on any question of vital importance; and, 
 therefore, a like verdict ought not to be ignored in the 
 case of Ireland. 
 
 Because the " golden rule " requires us to do to others as we 
 would they should do to us. If the position of the two 
 nations were reversed, there is no doubt what England 
 would do. 
 
 Because Ireland has the same right as England to be mistress 
 of her own destiny. 
 
 Because the over-ruling of the National verdict is an exercise 
 of arbitrary power inconsistent mth constitutional Govern- 
 ment, and in the end fatal to it. 
 
 Because the Act of Union itself, which is only 85 years old, 
 cannot be an essential part of an imperial system which 
 is 700 years old. 
 
 Because the Act of Union deprived the Irish people, without 
 their consent, and by notorious corruption, of such Self- 
 Government as they formerly possessed. 
 
 B. H. R A. Leaklf.ts. — Xo. i. 
 
Tivcrity Kcusons Jor Jlome. Rule^ 
 
 Because national Self-Government means national progress. 
 AVitness the development, in our own days, of even such 
 races as those of Eastern Europe. 
 
 Because, in any case, Ireland prefers to be governed, well or 
 ill, by herself, to being governed, well or ill, by England. 
 
 Because the refusal of justice to Ireland is more hkely to 
 l)roduce " separation " than to avert it. 
 
 Because it is physically impossible for one assembly, sitting 
 half the year in London, to conduct efficiently the 
 necessary legislation of Ireland, in addition to the rest of 
 a great empire. 
 
 Because English legislation itself is paralysed by " Irish ob- 
 struction. " The choice is whether Ireland shall rule 
 herself, or Ireland shall rule England. 
 
 Because the " Irish Vote," in and out of Parliament, at 
 home and abroad, would be a constant source of English 
 weakness, faction, and intrigue. 
 
 Because England can ill spare a large force for the permanent 
 military occupation of Ireland. 
 
 Because any hope of healing the wounds of seven centuries 
 of misrule and mistake is worth some effort, or rather, 
 some sacrifice. 
 
 Because no other thorough and final solution is proposed by 
 any English political party. 
 
 Because no other solution is possible. A nation which 
 demands Self-Government must be either satisfied or 
 suppressed. Ireland may be satisfied. Ireland cannot be 
 suppressed. 
 
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 JUSTICE AND LIBERTY 
 FOR IRELAND. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE SPEECHES OF 
 
 JVILFRID S. BLUNT 
 
 TO THE ELECTORS OF KIDDERMINSTER. 
 
 Jtdy, 1886. 
 
 MR. WILFRID S. BLUNT, who was very warmly 
 received on his arrival at Kidderminster, devoted the 
 first part of his speech to an exposition of the Irish Land 
 question. Turning, then, to the question of Home Rule he 
 proceeded as follows : 
 
 IRISH APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN. 
 
 The Irish Members say: "For God's sake. Gentlemen, 
 you have governed and misgoverned us long enough " : and 
 they ask us a question to which we have not been able to find 
 an answer. They say : " How can you know at Westminster 
 what are the wants and the requirements of the people in the 
 West of Ireland ? Who is there of all the members in West- 
 minster who has gone over to Ireland and exhaustively inquired 
 into what the people really want ? How can you know what 
 are the real necessities of the case ? " The last proof is that 
 Mr. Gladstone, with all his great good-will for Ireland, has 
 never yet been able to find a true solution for this land 
 problem. He has not been able to carry a sufficient number 
 of followers with him to grant Ireland her full demands of 
 justice in this matter. That is the great argument for Home 
 Rule. If there are any of you who have connection with the 
 land, who hold small tenancies — whether you are Tory or 
 Liberal, I care not — let me ask you to sympathise with the 
 class of unfortunate tenants in Ireland. A more unfortunate 
 race can hardly ever have been. When I say unfortunate, I 
 should say that they are happy so long as they are left alone, 
 following out their own ideas. I have no pity for the tenantry 
 
 B. H. R. A. TRACtATES No. 4. 
 
Justice and Liberty for Ireland. 
 
 of Ireland as long as they remain unmolested j but I do pity 
 them, from my soul, when I see them turned out of their 
 houses and homes by the iniquitous land laws. Then it is I 
 feel that the hour has come when the Irish people can rise up 
 and say : " You have been the guardians of our country all these 
 years. We have been in the position of minors under your 
 tutelage, but you have failed to improve our condition, and 
 now we insist upon managing our own local affairs. We love 
 our country, and we desire to manage our affairs in accordance 
 with our own ideas." That is an argument which Englishmen 
 have to answer. All of you pride yourselves on managing 
 your own affairs. Who is there here who would like the affairs 
 of his own household relegated to another ? 
 
 Ireland's love of English liberty. 
 
 Irishmen are now no longer children. They may have been 
 children, owing to ignorance. We have allowed them to 
 educate fliemselves. They have become politically educated, 
 and now rank themselves among the educated of the land. 
 They have learnt our system of liberty, and now they know 
 how to use it. There are two points which have struck me in 
 connection with this Irish question — two points which seem to 
 indicate a poetical justice, a justice from on high. We, to 
 make the Irish, if possible, forget their nation, forget their 
 ideas of liberty, insisted upon their learning the English tongue. 
 We thought that, if they lost their own separate language, they 
 would forget their rights as free men. We thought that we 
 could make them forget they were Irishmen, and could make 
 them Englishmen like ourselves. Mark what has happened. 
 This very education which we have given them, which we 
 have forced upon them, has awakened in them a knowledge of 
 their rights as a nation. They have learnt in our literature 
 what it is to be a nation, they have learnt what are the rights 
 of man. They have learnt that every people has a right to 
 govern itself, according to its own desires, its own necessities. 
 This gift of education which we have forced upon them, forces 
 us now to give them freedom in their own country. The 
 second instance of poetical justice, of justice from on high, 
 I see in the return of the Irish from America. Forty years 
 ago, after the famine, the landlords, thinking they might be 
 able to improve their estates, cleared off the peasantry from 
 the land. They turned whole districts into sheepwalks. They 
 sent thousands of families away from Ireland. They thought 
 
Justice and Liberty for Ireland. 
 
 to make a wilderness, and they called it peace. They got rid 
 of the tenants, they got higher rent from the farmers, who took 
 the farms as pasture-land. And what was the consequence ? 
 These Irishmen, whom the landlords drove out and sent across 
 the seas, made wealth for themselves in America, Australia, 
 and other places, but especially in America ; and now these 
 very men, or the sons of these men, who were turned out forty 
 years ago, come back and raise the flag of Liberty in Ireland. 
 Gentlemen, the Unionists, the Conservatives, taunt the Irish 
 as men who are living upon American pay. But, who are 
 those men who send over their money to help on the Irish 
 cause ? They are men of their o^vn blood. They are Irish- 
 men, the sons of men who were driven away in years gone by. 
 I myself rejoice to see it. I would not throw it in the face of 
 the Irish people, that they are receiving subsidies from America. 
 I think the Irish in America are doing a great work in this 
 respect. 
 
 PLEADING FOR JUSTICE. 
 
 I plead in the name of justice in this matter. It is a name 
 of which we can never grow tired in England. It is a name 
 reverenced and revered in this land, and which I believe has 
 always been held sacred in this old town of Kidderminster. I 
 appeal to the ^wrking-men, to Tories as well as to Liberals, 
 and ask them in the name of all they revere in English history, 
 in the name of all that is morally good and right, to help Mr. 
 Gladstone to carry out his glorious plan of emancipation. If 
 you return me to Parliament, you may depend upon me 
 spending the whole of my strength in this glorious fight. I 
 shall go to it as a soldier, a soldier of the line ; one of the 
 rank and file in Parliament. But I am determined if I take 
 my place, not to be a mere silent member. I shall not be 
 contented merely to vote. I hope to be able, and I trust the 
 goodness of my cause and the depth of my convictions will 
 enable me to make my voice heard in Parliament. I can tell 
 you this : That, if you return me, you will be fulfilling the hopes 
 and wishes of a large number of persons in that unfortunate 
 sister island of ours. They know me well. They have urged 
 me to come forward on purpose to assist in fighting their cause. 
 I am glad to say this because I do not ask you to return me 
 for any personal advantage. But this is what I seek — the 
 opportunity on the high platform which I should hold, as your 
 representative, to be able to plead the cause of the poor and of 
 justice, and of the outraged children of Ireland. 
 
Justice and Liberty for Ireland, 
 
 GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT OR BY FORCE. 
 
 There are only two ways in which nations can be governed : 
 either by consent or force. To govern by force necessitates 
 the keeping of the people in ignorance. From the moment 
 you give education to the people, you cannot withhold from 
 them their liberty. From the moment you place political 
 power in the hands of the people, you cannot prevent them 
 obtaining that which they wish for. The people of Ireland in 
 old days were kept absolutely ignorant. It was a regime of 
 force. But we have a more humane idea now. For the last 
 three generations we have allowed — we have insisted upon 
 Irishmen educating themselves. We have not merely allowed 
 it, but we have insisted that they shall be educated, and now 
 we are bound to abide by the consequences of our insistance. 
 Again, Gentlemen, we have insisted upon the Irish having 
 political power. We have given them the vote, the franchise. 
 We have taught them the meaning of that vote, and how to 
 use their power. Is it possible that, in a large body of English 
 electors, there should be the least doubt that we should follow 
 out the consequences of our political education ? The first 
 use which the Irish have made of the franchise which we 
 gave them some twelve months ago has been to demand a 
 separate Parliament, and a separate Parliament Mr. Gladstone 
 has resolved they shall have. Gentlemen, when I say a 
 separate Parliament, I do not say separation from England. 
 The two things are absolutely distinct. I hear people talk 
 about the desire of the Irish to be separated from England. 
 Beheve me, there is no such desire, or wish, among the Irish 
 people. I know the Irish people well I have been traveUing 
 among them. I have mixed with those who hold the 
 extremest views, and I know well what they think. Although 
 they are determined, and will insist as far as it is possible, to 
 legislate on their own affairs, there is no wish whatsoever in 
 Ireland to have anything in the form of separation from 
 England. 
 
 COERCION OR CONCILIATION. 
 
 Those who appeal to you on that ground, and say that 
 this measure means separation, appeal on false issues. It is 
 not true. The true issue lies between the beneficent rule 
 of Mr. Gladstone and the iron rule of Lord Salisbury. 
 It is to Mr. Gladstone's glory and his merit to have understood 
 the truth : that to preserve the Empire, in a democratic age, 
 and on democratic principles, it is absolutely necessary to 
 have the consent of the people of that Empire. I cannot 
 
Justice and Liberty for Ireland. 
 
 believe that any of you here can doubt that hberty should be 
 given to the Irish people — liberty to conduct their own 
 internal affairs. I do not believe — I do not share those fears 
 which we have heard expressed from time to time — that the 
 Irish people will abuse that gift of liberty. The Irish people 
 are not what they were a hundred years ago. They have now 
 intellectual education and political education. They have 
 united themselves to a great modern movement. And they 
 now appeal to us to assist them in securing that power which 
 we forced from our rulers generations ago. The Irish have 
 never had that liberty yet ; but they are going to have that 
 liberty now : and it is Mr. Gladstone, and he alone, who will 
 give it them. I appeal to you, therefore, to do your utmost 
 to return him whom you have chosen as your representative 
 of the Liberal cause in this matter. Although it is my humble 
 self, I beg of you to support Mr. Gladstone in the great and 
 grand struggle he is now making. I ask this not for my own 
 individual merit. I have no claims upon you except that of 
 an honest man pleading a cause of which he is profoundly 
 convinced. I call upon you to return me as a soldier in that 
 Parliament which is about to be assembled, and which will, 
 I am convinced, confer this great boon of liberty upon the 
 Irish people. 
 
 SEPARATE PARLIAMENTS — NOT SEPARATION. 
 
 The other day I saw that Mr. Bright, for whom I have the 
 profoundest respect, as one of the greatest champions humanity 
 has had, had fallen into the snare in this matter. I think we 
 can account for it by reflecting that, perhaps, Mr. Bright has 
 allowed the years to slip by, that he has not quite kept pace 
 with the thoughts of the nation in the same way that Mr. 
 Gladstone has. I was surprised to find Mr. Bright bringing 
 forward an argument against the Home Rule Bill to the effect, 
 that the creation of two Parliaments in two countries that were 
 contiguous would destroy the unity of the Empire; that it 
 would be a danger to the economy of both. Well, Gentle- 
 men, can anything be so foolish ? All knowledge of the facts 
 refute such arguments. If Mr. Bright had ever travelled in 
 the United States, in Australia, or in the Colonies of the 
 English Empire, he would not have been frightened by the 
 idea that two Parliaments were a great danger to the Empire. 
 I should like to know whether any of you who have been in 
 Australia know what exists there. There are there no less than 
 five separate Parliaments. These Parliaments are absolutely 
 independent of each other, and the common bond is that of 
 
Justice and Liberty for Ireland. 
 
 the British Empire. There exists no enmity among them. 
 They do not quarrel with each other. There is no danger 
 whatsoever. And yet there is a separate ParUament in each 
 province, and all are living together in harmony, and the 
 Empire is not in the least disturbed by it. I tell you this 
 argument because I hope you will repeat it to your friends, and 
 to those weak-kneed Liberals, if any now exist, who are afraid 
 to support Mr. Gladstone in his Home Rule Bill. Now, 
 Gentlemen, let me assure you that the idea of separation is a 
 thing which does not exist among the Irish themselves. It is 
 a mere figment — a statement put forward by those who oppose 
 Mr. Gladstone, with the view of damaging his cause. It is 
 not a true argument. The Irish themselves do not talk of 
 separation. I have travelled all through Ireland, and have 
 never heard a single world of that sort ; and for that reason, I 
 hope you will refute this foolish argument. 
 
 THE " LOYAL " MINORITY. 
 
 Then, there is the talk about the danger to the loyal 
 minority. I do not know. Gentlemen, whether you, who have 
 professed Liberal views all your lives, are frightened with the 
 idea of the minority not being able to take care of themselves. 
 That a minority should be able to protect itself lies at the root 
 and foundation of all our .^English system and constitutional 
 procedure. This loyal minority boast that they are the most 
 intellectual, the most wealthy, the most energetic people in 
 Ireland. They also say, which is not I believe a fact, that 
 they number two millions out of the four and half millions ; 
 and yet they say they cannot protect themselves against the 
 majority who are Home Rulers. I ask any of you, who know 
 how Parliamentary Government is managed, whether there is 
 anyjground for such fears? The minority will be fully able to 
 take care of themselves. If they possess the spirit they talk 
 about, and that intelligence and wealth, that intellectual force 
 and energy of character we hear of, you can rest assured that 
 they will be able to protect themselves, and that no harm will 
 come to them from having a Home Parliament in Dublin. 
 My own opinion is, that unless these Ulster people have 
 entirely exaggerated their own importance, they are precisely 
 the people who will take the lead in the Home Rule move- 
 ment when it is decided that there shall be a ParHament in 
 Dublin. Of course, they will not take that lead at present ; 
 and as long as they are encouraged by statesmen in England, 
 they will continue to raise the flag of loyal-treachery, if I may 
 so term it. The truth about these Ulster people is, that it is 
 
Justice and Liberty for Ireland. 7 
 
 entirely a question of class privilege. What they are fighting 
 for is not equality, nor liberty, nor any fear they have of the 
 majority ; but that they may defend their class privileges. I 
 wonder what you would say if it were here as it is in Ulster — 
 because the majority in Ulster are Home Rulers — if the 
 Home Rulers could only get a proportion of one magistrate 
 appointed to twelve of the other class ? The truth is, that all 
 positions are held by the dominant class, and they are fighting 
 for that old ascendancy which has been destroyed time out of 
 mind in England. 
 
 JUSTICE AND LIBERTY FOR THE MAJORITY. 
 
 Here in England, again and again, the battle has been 
 fought by the people, and they have always proved victorious. 
 The Irish people have never, until now, had an opportunity of 
 advocating their rights. It is the people — not the upper 
 classes, as they are called, — who are rising up now and asking 
 for Home Rule, and if you have any sympathy in your hearts 
 — and I know the working men of Kidderminster have such 
 sympathy — you will join with the peasantry of Ireland, who 
 have been so long under the rule of the dominant and upper 
 classes, and do what you can to secure for them justice and 
 liberty. There is nothing to fear about the unity of the 
 Empire being destroyed, or that the minority will suffer any 
 v/rong. If you abandon the majority, you are abandoning 
 those who are working people like yourselves. Do you think 
 there never was a minority in England against which the 
 majority rebelled? The majority in England have rebelled 
 over and over again, and have always proved in the end 
 victorious. This is a question where the democracy of Ireland 
 appeals to the democracy of England to help them against the 
 upper classes. That is the true question, and that is why, 
 from Lord Salisbury downwards, they take the side of the 
 Ulster minority. I put it, therefore, on the basis of justice and 
 liberty. These are two words to which one may appeal in any 
 company, before any audience in this country. For liberty 
 and for justice I appeal, and as Mr. Gladstone has put himself 
 at the head of this grand movement, I appeal to you, heartily 
 to support Mr. Gladstone. If you do me the honour of 
 returning me to Parliament, it is Mr. Gladstone I should 
 support. I believe in Mr. Gladstone, because he has taken 
 up the cause of Hberty and justice. It is a cause that will 
 always succeed in this country ; and, please God, it shall also 
 succeed in Ireland. 
 
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 IRELAND AND HOME 
 
 RULE 
 
 Speech delivered at Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 25 November 1885 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH COWEN M.P. 
 
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3Briti'gl^ ?)ome Hult Slsso nation. 
 SOME RECENT PDBLICATIOHS IfPOH THE ffilSH QUESTION. 
 
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 Plea for the Home Government of Ireland. By John 
 
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 Irish Parliament: what it Was, and what it Did. By J. G. 
 
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 Cotnniittee. 
 
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 THE BRITISH HOME RULE ASSOCIATION 
 Has been founded for the purpose of enabling Englishmen, Scotchmen, and 
 Welshmen, who are in favour of Home Rule for Ireland, to express and propagate 
 their opinions. The founders of the Association are convinced that the time has 
 come when the Irish question must be settled ; and they hold that no settlement 
 of it can be just, politic, or permanent unless it be in accordance with the will of 
 the Irish people. They are bound by constitutional usage to accept, as the 
 authorised exponents of the national will, the majority of the lawfully-elected 
 representatives of Ireland. They note, that 85 out of 103 of those representa- 
 tives have declared in favour of a Parliament in Ireland. They, therefore — being 
 moreover of opinion that the establishment of such a Parliament would in no 
 way imperil the supremacy of the Crown, the integrity of the Empire, or the 
 security of private property — are prepared to advocate and to support by all 
 constitutional means the solution of the question. 
 
 Subscriptions will be received by the joint Honorary Treasurers, Sir James 
 Marshall and Thomas C. Thompson, Esq. ; or by the joint Honorary Secretaries, 
 W. Martin-Edmunds, Esq., E. W. Hope, Esq., and John G. Kenyon, Esq. 
 
 The following is the First List of Subscriptions promised at a private meeting 
 of the founders of the Association, February loth, 1886. 
 
 I. s. d. 
 Edward, Bishop of Nottingham ... i i o 
 
 Lord Clifton 500 
 
 The Earl of Ashburnham 50 o o 
 
 James Britten, Esq, i i o 
 
 T. Bateman Napier, Esq,, LL.D. i i o 
 
 Sir James Marshall 500 
 
 L. G. Greenbergh, Esq i i o 
 
 Rev. J. S. Jones i i o 
 
 E, W, Hope, Esq i i o 
 
 
 /. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Wilfrid S. Blunt, Esq. ... 
 
 ... 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 Joseph Cowen, Esq., M,P, 
 
 ... 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 Edward Lucas, Esq. 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 W. Martin-Edmunds, Esq. 
 
 ... 20 
 
 
 
 
 
 John G. Kenyon, Esq. ... 
 
 ... 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 Orby Shipley, Esq. 
 
 - 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 W. H. R. Ashford, Esq. ... 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 Caithness Brodie, Esq. ... 
 
 ••• S 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thomas C, Thompson, Esq. 
 
 ... 10 
 
 
 
 
 
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