Chapter 49

"When an illiterate declares for whom he will vote, we sometimes have from twenty to thirty outsiders in the polling-booth. In England the Court is cleared, and even the policeman has to go outside. But in this favoured country any blackguard who likes to fill up a declaration of secrecy, and go before a magistrate, can be present at the whole of the proceedings. There is no secrecy for the illiterates. Any corner-boy, any ruffian, any blackguard in the district can come in and hear for whom men vote. These corner boys all get declarations in their fists, and they march in gangs from one booth to another. It's intimidation, no less. Get some M.P. to mention this as having taken place at Stranorlar. The people of whom I complain were not even voters. Anybody could be present. Ridiculous to talk of the ballot-box in Ireland.

"The Morley magistrates are in many cases a disgrace to the country. We used to have an idea in these parts that a small publican could not legally sit on the Bench. James McGlinchy, J.P., is a small publican of Brockagh. Barring his trade, he's not so bad, as he can read and write. But if you saw the lists, and if you knew the men recommended----! Englishmen have no idea what low scoundrels have been placed on the Bench in this country. Imperfect education we do not so much mind when conjoined with character. O'Donnell is not a bad sort, but he couldn't write 'adjourned.' Two magistrates were needed, and nobody else arrived. Therefore the difficult word was necessary, and O'Donnell felt it was beyond him. He called up a policeman, and ordered him to do it. Whereat the county makes merry. There should be an education test. Can all the English magistrates spell 'adjourned'? You think so? That's very good. Not right that a man who can't spell 'adjourned' should give another man a spell of imprisonment."

A Roman Catholic gentleman thus summed up the character of his particular neighbourhood:--"The upper classes of both sects are in every way equal. Among the lower classes I observe that the Protestants do as much work as they can, while the Papists do as little as they can. This accounts for the difference in their appearance and position. Then the Protestants are far better educated, and have arrived at the knowledge that everything that is good must be gained by exertion, and that there is for them at least no substitute. The others talk as if after the establishment of an Irish Parliament money would be found growing on the bushes. No one need try to change their opinion. When the time comes to vote they will vote as their priest tells them. Someone has said that the British Government might subsidise the Church, and so buy her off. It could not be done. The bishops want power. I do not agree with them, and I do not support or admit their claim to direct their flocks in political matters."

The Marquess of Conyngham, whom I met at Strabane, said:--"The people of Donegal are pleasant, kind, and civil. Taking them all round, they are much more energetic than the Southerners, and we were making fair progress until these Home Rule Bills were brought in. The country was being opened up, and things were beginning to improve, when the bill came and blighted everything. Now the people are growing idle and discontented. They are all right when left alone. Everybody likes the Donegal peasants, and they deserve to be liked. Only leave them alone; that's what they want; and not Home Rule nor any other quackery."

Strange things continue to happen in Ireland. This does not refer to the continuous cutting-off of cows' tails, the slitting of horses' tongues, and other similar expressions of impatience for the good time coming, but to some strange things that have happened in connection with agricultural affairs. Sir Samuel Hayes decided to abandon a farm which would not pay, although he had no rent to meet. He was his own landlord, but he did not work the farm. That was done by a bailiff, who, curiously enough, was the highest bidder for the land. He of all men should have known that if the farm would not pay expenses when there was no rent, it would not reward the man who had rent to pay. This reasoning proved fallacious. The farm which without rent proved a loss, in the same hands turned out when rent was charged a perfect gold-mine. In another case, a bailiff on leaving his employ expended on land the accumulated savings of his thrifty years, and--strange to say--his savings amounted to about three times the sum of his wages during his life's service. A man who, having a pound a week, can save three pounds, would in England be regarded as a prodigy. In Ireland such things happen every day. Particulars as to the cases hereinbefore-mentioned can be obtained from anybody in Killygordon, which is altogether a remarkable place--to say nothing of its name, which for obvious reasons has the misfortune to be unpleasant to the Grand Old Man. _Nomen, Omen?_

An octogenarian J.P. said:--"They talk of gold and silver mines, and lead and copper mines, and iron and quicksilver mines, but mining in Ireland cannot, as a rule, be made to pay. Everything exists in Ireland, but in such small quantities. The seams and veins are so small. Mr. Ritchie, of Belfast, spent several fortunes in mining for coal, iron, and other things. There was iron at Ballyshannon, but what was the good? It cost less to bring iron to England from Algiers. We had no railway to Donegal, fifteen miles away, and cartage was too expensive. So far from Home Rule doing us any good, it would be a cruel blow to the country, and especially to the poor. Employment would become very scarce, as everybody who had money invested in Ireland would be in haste to realise and get it away. There would be no new enterprises, although the poor folk say, "We'll get employment in big factories and mines." Where's the money to come from? From the Irish Parliament, they say. And where will they get it from? Oh, a Parliament always has money. All the money comes from Parliament, which, in fact, actually makes money. The English Parliament makes all the goold sovereigns, and when the Irish Parliament commences to manufacture goold sovereigns at Dublin, then Ireland must be rich. Did not Mr. Gladstone say there would be too much money? Did not he say that in Parliament? That's what the poorest and most ignorant people of Donegal say. The English Home Rulers, by their support of the movement are inflicting injury on the Irish poor. We want the country opening up with railways. The tourist district is unequalled in Europe. Good hotels now, but you reach them mostly by cars. Balfour was giving us rails. That one man in five years did more good to Ireland than all other agencies operating for the previous forty years. I have thought the thing out, and I can speak for that period with certainty. Why could not they let him alone? The blackguards of these parts still shout 'Hell to Balfour.'

"Home Rule means to England a weakening, a loss of prestige, a new and a terrible danger. The _Independent_ says, 'When Ireland next fights England she will not fight alone?' Very true. There is a strong anti-English feeling among the lower American classes, who are largely Irish, who have votes, and by their votes can influence American policy. Let me point out the opinion of Lieutenant-Colonel Butler as recorded in 'The Great Lone Land.' Here it is:--

"You will be told that the hostility of the inhabitants of the United States is confined to one class, and that class, though numerically large, is politically insignificant. Do not believe it for one instant; the hostility to England is universal, it is more deep-rooted than any other feeling, it is an instinct and not a reason, and consequently possesses the dogged strength of unreasoning antipathy. I tell you, Mr. Bull, that were you pitted to-morrow against a race that had not one idea in kindred with your own, were you fighting a deadly struggle against a despotism the most galling on earth, were you engaged with an enemy whose grip was around your neck and whose foot was on your chest, that English-speaking cousin of yours over the Atlantic, whose language is your language, whose literature is your literature, whose civil code is begotten from your digests of law, would stir no hand, no foot, to save you, would gloat over your agony, would keep the ring while you were being knocked out of all semblance of motion and power, and would not be very far distant when the moment came to hold a feast of eagles over your vast, disjointed limbs. Make no mistake about it, and be not blinded by ties of kindred or belief." And, further, "You will find them the firm friend of the Russian, because that Russian is likely to become your enemy in Herat, in Cabul, in Kashgar, in Constantinople. Nay, even should any woman-killing Sepoy put you to sore strait by indiscriminate and ruthless slaughter, he will be your cousin's friend for the simple reason that he is your enemy." Without accepting the gallant Colonel's dictum, it is as well to bear it in mind.

A pensive youth in Ballybofey was deeply engaged with a scrap of ballad literature, not by any means without literary merit. For and in consideration of a Saxon sixpence I became the proprietor of the lay, which is being circulated by thousands throughout Ireland. Those who uphold the reputation of their Irish allies for loyalty to the Queen, and friendship to the English nation, will, doubtless, find their convictions deepened and strengthened by the following sample verses addressed to intending recruits:--

Ye whose spirits will not bow In peace to parish tyrants longer, Ye who wear the villain brow, And ye who pine in hopeless hunger, Fools, without the brave man's faith, All slaves and starvelings who are willing To sell yourselves to shame and death, Accept the fatal Saxon shilling. Ere you from your mountains go To feel the scourge of foreign fever, Swear to serve the faithless foe Who lures you from your land for ever, Swear henceforth its tools to be To slaughter trained by ceaseless drilling, Honour, home, and liberty Abandoned for a Saxon shilling. Go--to find 'mid crime and toil The doom to which such guilt is hurried, Go--to leave on Indian soil Your bones to bleach, accursed, unburied, Go--to crush the just and brave Whose wrongs with wrath the world are filling, Go--to slay each brother slave, Or spurn the blood-stained Saxon Shilling. Irish hearts! why should you bleed, To swell the tide of English glory? Aiding despots in their need, Who've changed our green so oft to gory? None save those who wish to see The noblest killed, the meanest killing, And true hearts severed from the free, Will take again the Saxon Shilling.

The British soldier is the meanest killing the noblest. The poet's name is Buggy. All this is very surprising. Painted by Paddy Mr. John Bull, J.P., will hardly recognise himself. Throughout the Nationalist literature he is represented as a liar, a coward, a bully, a hypocrite, a tyrant, and a robber. If he now consented to be made the instrument of persons whose ascertained opinions exactly harmonise with those enunciated above, the epithets of Fool and Idiot will doubtless be added to the list. And in this instance the evil speakers would be quite right. _Quod demonstrandum est._

Killygordon, July 29th.

No. 55.--A TRULY PATRIOTIC PRIEST.

The rhythmical rocking of the little engine of the West Donegal line running across from Killygordon seemed to say ceaselessly--

Here's a health to ye, Father O'Flynn, Slainthe (health), and slainthe, and slainthe agin-- Powerfullest pracher, an' tinderest tacher, An' kindliest crature in ould Donegal!

Father O'Flynn must have been like a priest I met on Sunday, a Loyalist and a Conservative. Priests of the old school are becoming scarcer and scarcer every year, but one or two still exist. They do not "get on." It is understood that their political attitude forbids promotion. A priest who confesses to a respect for the Queen is not likely to be acceptable to the multitude. A priest who believes that the British laws are just and equitable, and that things would be better remaining as they are, is looked upon as a _lusus naturæ_. He said:--"I am a South of Ireland man, and was educated at Douai. I have no sympathy with the great bulk of the Maynooth men, who are mostly peasants and the sons of peasants. I do not think that the Maynooth course is sufficient in one generation to lift the sons to any great intellectual height above the besotted ignorance of the parents. I believe in heredity, and I say that most of my colleagues are only shaved labourers, stall-fed for three years. The low-bred men are now the dominant power. Instead of tranquillising the people, which I hold to be the duty of the clergy, they have done all they could to awaken and keep alive their most dangerous passions. And to rouse the Irish, especially the Southern Irish, is a matter of the greatest facility. I hold that the clergy by degenerating into mere political agents are strangely short-sighted. Their spiritual influence will in time be dangerously undermined, and in the long run they will take nothing by their motion. The Parnellite party will grow stronger and stronger, and the extreme party, the party of Revolution, which now lacks a leader, would on the passing of a Home Rule bill become the dominant power. That is a great and salient factor of which up to the present English politicians have taken no account. The party of Revolution is the party which under an Irish Parliament would be master of the situation. Leaders will not be lacking. But at present the party must from the necessity of the case be amorphous, and therefore, politically and as a power, practically non-existent. Pass the bill, and then you will see something. A new party, the party of Independence, or, as they will call it, of Freedom, will take shape and formidably influence events. The temptation to take the lead will be great. Independence and Separation will be a most popular cry. The present men must either join the swim or be denounced as traitors, and as Healy cannot now visit Dundalk without two hundred policemen to protect him, while William O'Brien was nearly torn to pieces at Cork--would, in fact, have been murdered but for the police--you may conceive what would be the state of things when we have a Revolutionary party and when the police were no longer under the fair and judicial control of the British Government. Pass the bill and look out for the Revolutionary party. They will have an immense backing in point of numbers. And numbers rule in Ireland, not intelligence. The bill will, of course, give nothing that the peasants expect. The fault will assuredly lie with John Bull. The expectations of the ignorant, that is, the great mass of the people, will be woefully disappointed. Who is to blame? they will ask. Numbers of politicians are waiting to tell them. Who but the brutal, greedy, selfish, perfidious Saxon? An agitation will succeed, compared with which the worst times of the Land League were preferable. I shudder to think of the chaos, the seething and weltering confusion of the time to come. The Irish people, the poor ignorants, will suffer most. And yet they are innocent in this matter. They have, indeed, been blamed with the excesses of a few of their number, but they are, if left to themselves, a most kindly and law-abiding people. The Donegal peasants are the best in the country. You will see poverty, but the degradation of filthiness and laziness is not nearly so marked as in the South and West, where the climate is warm, moist, enervating.

"What, then, are my opinions, expressed in a concise form? I will tell you. They are what _you_ would call sound. They are the opinions of Balfour, of Lord Salisbury. I hold Mr. Balfour in profound esteem as a wise and sagacious administrator, a terror to evil-doers, and an encourager of those who do well. I have a real affection for Mr. Balfour, as for a great benefactor of my beloved country. For I love my country so well that I feel the keenest personal interest in her welfare. Perhaps I have a deeper affection for Ireland than even Tim Healy or Sexton or Harcourt or O'Brien. What do I think of Gladstone? I think him a scourge of Ireland, a curse, a destroyer far worse than Oliver Cromwell. A heaven-born statesman? Do his followers call him that? Well, I can only say that I hope and trust that heaven will not be blessed with any further family."

A military officer resident in this region, an Irishman bred and born, said, "It's all a matter of religion. I was the other day reading Maxwell's account of the Irish rebellion of 1798, and I observed that although the Northern rebellion, which was the most dangerous, as being the best organised, was mainly led by Protestants, yet in other parts of Ireland, when a suspected person was captured by the rebels, the first question was, not are you in favour of the Irish Republic, but what is your religion? And the Protestants generally had their throats cut. The same thing would occur again, under similar circumstances. Religion would be the test. If a general state of lawlessness should at any time arise, the Protestants in lonely districts would not be safe from murder. Yes, I _do_ say it, and I stick to it. A very large number of outrages have been committed which would not have taken place but for the religion of the offending party. It is a virtue to lie to a heretic, to cheat him, to damage him, to keep him out of heaven if possible. Anybody who knows Catholic Ireland would agree with this most heartily. They believe that whosoever killeth heretics doeth God service.

"Irish folks are better than the people of other nations, and also much worse. When they are good they are very good, and when they are bad they are very bad. They run to extremes in a way which cool-headed Britons do not understand. They are impulsive, and they jump to conclusions. Their great disadvantage is a crushing clerical influence. What's the use of thinking about anything when Father Pat does it for them? What's the use of listening to argument when you must in the end vote as Father Pat orders?

"Englishmen have no idea what a splendid fellow the Irish peasant really is when his mind is not poisoned and his unfortunate ignorance exploited. I could give you instances of fidelity, affectionate self-sacrifice and devotion which would astonish you. Not isolated or sporadic cases, but arising from the average level of the Irish character. After considerable travel, and a painstaking study of the characteristics of various nations, I have come to the conclusion that, taking one consideration with another, I prefer Paddy, ignorant as he is. For after all his ignorance is not his own fault. He sees no newspapers except an occasional local sheet, which is almost certain to be a wretched, lying, priest-inspired rag. If he were seen looking at any other it would be bad for him. But newspapers are practically unknown in the agricultural districts. And men do not meet in crowds as in England. They have not the attrition which wears away the angularities. They live solitary among the mountains, or away in the fields, and they never hear lectures, have no Institutes, get no chance of improvement. The priest is their Clan Chieftain, their spiritual adviser, their temporal adviser, their newspaper, their only channel of superior information." At this point a tall, red-bearded man who was passing touched his hat to the Colonel, who said, "My gamekeeper. A fine, rough-coated Scotsman. Came over here a mad Gladstonian. Pinned his faith to the G.O.M. Followed him blindly, and owned he was content to do it. Get into conversation with him. Observe the change, the decided change in his opinions."

Soon I had Velveteens in full cry. His opinions were indeed decided. Having admitted that they had boxed the compass during a six months' residence in this down-trodden country, he went on to say, "The only way ye could cure the discontent is to make no attempt at it. Then the agitation would stop. The people are the biggest fules I ever saw. Instead of returning a sound, advanced Radical like Emerson T. Herdman, a man who pays them thirty or forty thousand a year, and who spends all his money in their midst, the fules go and vote for a thing like Arthur O'Connor, who never was here but once, and who never did them the compliment of issuing an address. When Mr. Herdman came to Stranorlar the people stoned him and his friends. And yet nobody ever said, or could say, a word against the Herdmans, who are among the most popular people in Ireland, and who deserve the best that can be said of them. O'Connor costs these poor folks two hundred pounds a year. They raise it in the constituency. Mr. Herdman would have cost them nothing, and might have spent even more than he does at present. He has opened up the greatest industry in the North-west of Ireland, keeps a whole country-side going, and is an out-and-out Liberal. The greatest exertions were made to secure his return, and the Catholics promised to vote for him. He stumped the country, and left no stone unturned. The Nationalist candidate never came here till the last moment, and, as I said, issued no address. The people knew nothing of him, and had never heard of him. But they voted as the priests told them, and they would have voted for a stick. Ought such people to have the franchise?

"What would I do to settle the Irish question? I've heard that somebody proposed sinking the country for twenty-four hours. That might do. Or you could withdraw the police and military, and in every market town open a depôt for the gratuitous distribution of arms and ammunition. In ten days there would only be a very small population, and you could then plant the country with people who would make the best of it, and mind their work, instead of spending their time standing about waiting for Home Rule to make them rich without work. Or you could make a law which required every priest in the country to clear out in twenty-four hours, on penalty of death. That is as impossible as sinking the island, but it would be quite as sure a cure. Those are my opinions, and those must be the opinions of every man who has lived here and looked about him for a reasonable length of time. The Scots Gladstonians are very decent folk. They mean well, and they are friendly to Ireland. Their only fault lies in following their hero, and in thinking that he cannot do wrong. If they knew what I know, they would be of my mind. For I was as great a Gladstonian as any of them."