CHAPTER XV

AN IRISH ELECTION AND IRISH POLITICS

The political situation in Ireland at the time when I entered politics was characteristically exemplified in the Kerry election of 1872, in which I took part. It was fought entirely on the Home Rule issue, which had been revived by Isaac Butt when, in 1870, he formed his Home Government Association.

In the Kerry election of 1872, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was opposed to Home Rule. The anti-Home Rule candidate, Mr. Deas, was a Roman Catholic, a local landlord and extremely popular. His opponent, Mr. Blennerhasset, was a Protestant and a stranger to the locality. But because he was a Home Ruler, he was elected in spite of the priests and of the personal claims of Mr. Deas, winning by 839 votes. I may add that he won in spite also of my exertions, which were considerable. I started at two o'clock in the morning with Mr. Harry Herbert of Muckross, and led a band of 350 tenants to the poll. (The Ballot Act was not passed until 18th July of the same year, 1872.)

Having polled the tenants, I was strolling in the street, when I was stopped by one of my grand fellow-countrymen, a huge man of about six feet five.

"Are ye for Home Rule?" says he.

"To hell with your Home Rule!" said I. Whereupon he hit me on the point of the nose, knocking me over backwards, and effectually silencing my arguments for the space of an hour and a half.

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The nature of the problem of the land in Ireland may be exemplified from my own experience as a landlord. I came into my property in 1866, and when I returned from the sea two years later, being in need of money, I wrote to my agent, telling him that I intended to inspect the estate. He replied asking me to come as soon as I could, and adding that I should be able to raise the rents all round. I told him to do nothing until my arrival. When I went over, I drove to one of my farms upon which it was proposed to raise the rent. The farm was about 48 acres in extent, situated in the middle of a bog. Here I was entertained by one of the finest old Irishmen I have ever seen, and his three sons. Said I to him:

"I want to talk to you about the rent. I hear that you are paying me only 2s. 6d. an acre, whereas I can get 18s. an acre in the market."

I shall never forget how the poor old man's face fell as he said:

"For the love of God, do not turn me out, Lord Charles, I will give you 12s. an acre sooner than you should turn me out."

And then he told me that he had occupied the farm during 48 years; and in that time he and his sons had raised the original value to 18s. an acre. Of course I told him to stay where he was at the old rent. But by the law of the land I could have turned him out and put in a new tenant who would have paid me 18s. an acre, the increased value being solely due to the exertions of the old man and his sons. Had I been an absentee landlord, it would have been an ordinary matter of business to have instructed my agent to turn the man out and to raise the rent; and that very course was taken in thousands of cases. There was no compensation for tenants' improvements before 1870; and a farmer who did his best for the land, and to whose exertions alone increased value was due, must pay the increased rent or go.

The monstrous land system in Ireland naturally caused {130} the tenants to feel distrust and enmity towards the landlords; for, although not many landlords abused their powers, the knowledge that they _could_ abuse them was alone sufficient to create suspicion and hostility. Again, the great companies which bought land on speculation, exacted rents at the outside market value. A company cannot be expected to make allowances. Nor did the companies know the tenants or care for them. But under the Irish custom they were the tenants who had themselves by their improvements raised the value of the land.

In fairness to the landlords, it should be understood that the tenants objected to the improvement of property by the landlord. "If you, the landlord," the tenant argued, "improve the land, you will be raising the rent on me. I would rather make my own improvements."

The terms of tenure in Ireland were quite different from the terms of tenancy in England, except in the north of Ireland, where was the custom of tenant-right. In the south and west, the majority of tenants had a yearly tenancy, and were liable to six months' notice, known as "the hanging gale." When a landlord desired to get rid of a tenant, he "called in the hanging gale." And a tenant habitually owed six months' rent.

I stood for Waterford at the request of my brother Lord Waterford. That I was elected was due to his great personal popularity as a landlord and as a sportsman and also to the powerful influence of a certain prominent supporter of Home Rule, which he exercised on my behalf because, although I was opposed to Home Rule, I supported denominational education. I believed then, as I believe now, that a man's religion is his own affair, and whatever it may be, it should be respected by those who own another form of faith. I have always held (in a word) that the particular form of a man's religion is necessarily due to his early education and surroundings.

But when in the House of Commons I publicly declared that conviction, I received about four hundred letters of a {131} most violent character, most of which were written by clergymen of my own persuasion. I have never asked a man for his vote in my life. When I stood for Marylebone, in 1885, there was a controversy concerning the Sunday opening of museums and picture galleries. I was in favour of opening them, upon the ground that people who were hard at work all the week might have opportunities for recreation, which I would have extended beyond museums and galleries. But I was waited upon by a solemn deputation of clerical gentlemen of various denominations, who desired to make their support of me conditional upon my acceptance of their views.

"Gentlemen," I said, "has it ever occurred to you that I have never asked you for your vote? Let me tell you that if you disapprove of my opinions, your only honest course is to vote for my opponent."

They were so astonished that they withdrew in shocked silence.

When I was in Parliament, Isaac Butt, who was failing in his endeavour to promote an agitation, begun in 1870, in favour of Home Government, or Home Rule, did his best to persuade me to join the Irish party, and to obtain for it Lord Waterford's influence, because, he said, Lord Waterford was so universally popular and so just. Although I was unable to join the Irish party, I was much impressed with Butt's arguments in so far as the land question was concerned; and I discussed the whole matter with Lord Waterford. I suggested to him that he should form a league of landlords pledged not to rack-rent their tenants; pointing out that if the Irish landlords failed to take the initiative in reform, it was certain that the people would eventually prevail against them, and that the reforms which would be enforced by law would bear hardly upon the good landlords.

Lord Waterford sympathised with my view of the matter; but after long consideration he came to the conclusion that the course I proposed might do more harm than {132} good. The question was inextricably complicated by the fact that many of the landlords who had raised their rents, had been compelled to raise them by force of circumstances; as, for instance, when they had been obliged to pay very high charges upon succeeding to their estates. In his position, Lord Waterford shrank from associating himself with a scheme which must inflict hardship upon landlords poorer than himself. Events took their course, with the result I had foreseen. My proposal was inspired by that sympathy with the demands of the Irish people, and that recognition of their justice, which had been accorded by both great political parties in turn, and which ultimately found expression in the Wyndham Land Purchase Act.

Not long ago I asked one of my tenants, who had bought his holding under the Wyndham Act, and who was a strong Home Ruler:

"Now you own the farm, are you still for Home Rule?"

"Faith, Lord Char-less," said he, "now I have the land behind me, shure if it was a choice I could be given between Home Rule and a bullock, I'd take the bullock."

In recording the beginning of my Parliamentary career, I may say at once that I have always disliked politics, as such. I entered Parliament with the desire to promote the interests of the Service; and in so far as I have been successful, I have not regretted the sacrifices involved.

But in 1874 my approval of denominational education--in other words, my support of the right of every parent to have his child educated in his own religion--outweighed my opposition to Home Rule. One of my principal supporters, himself a Home Ruler, suggested as an ingenious compromise that I should so print my election address that the words Home Rule should appear large and prominent, and the qualification "an inquiry into," very small: a proposal I declined.

My opponents were Mr. J. Esmonde and Mr. Longbottom, who was celebrated for his achievements in finance. He stood for Home Rule. Concerning Mr. Longbottom, a {133} certain parish priest, who was also a Home Ruler, addressed his congregation one Sunday morning as follows:--

"Now, boys," says he, "a few words about th' Election that's pending. First of all, if ye have a vote ye'd give ut to a genuine Home Ruler, if ye had one standing. Ye have not. Secondly, ye'd give it to a good Conservative, if ye had one standing. Well, ye have one in Lord Char-less Beresford, the gr-reat say-captain. And thirdly, ye'd vote for the Divil, but ye'd never vote for a Whig. But as for this Mr. Long-what's-'is-name, I wudn't be dhirtying me mouth by mentioning the latter end of him."

One of my opponent's supporters retorted by urging the boys to "Kape th' bloody Beresford out, for the Beresfords were never known to shmile except when they saw their victims writhin' on th' gibbet": an amiable reference to John Beresford, First Commissioner of Revenue at the period of the passing of the Act of Union, and _de facto_ ruler of Ireland.

Other incidents of that cheery time occur to my recollection. There was the farmer who, ploughing his field, cried to me as I rode by, "Hurroo for Lord Char-less."

I went up to him and asked him whether he really meant anything, and if so, what.

"Will you _do_ anything?" said I.

Said he, "Lord Char-less, if 'tis votes you want me to collect, begob I'll quit th' plough an' travel for a fortnight."

There was the car-boys' race I arranged on Waterford quay. Ten of them started, and I won, because I had taken the precaution to stuff some hay under the pad, which I lit with a match. The horse was stimulated but quite uninjured.

Then there was the affair of the bill-poster. I had been driving round the country all day in a side-car, seeing the boys, and late at night we stopped at a small inn. I was standing in the doorway smoking a pipe, and feeling cold and rather jaded, when I noticed a bill-poster hard at {134} work, pasting placards upon the wall of an adjacent building. I could see that they were the green placards of my opponent, my own colours being blue and white.

I strolled across, and sure enough, there was my bill-poster sticking up "Vote for Longbottom, the Friend of the People."

"And what are ye doing, my fine peacock?" said I.

"Sure I'm posting the bills of Misther Longbottom, the Friend of the People," said he.

"'Tis a grand occupation," said I. "Vote for Longbottom, the Friend of the People, and to hell with Lord Char-less," said I.

"To hell with Lord Char-less," says he.

"Come," says I, "let me show ye the way to paste bills, ye omadhaun."

"And what do ye know about pasting bills?"

"Haven't I been a billposter all me life, then?" says I. "Here, let me get at it, and I'll shew ye the right way to paste the bills of Longbottom, the Friend of the People."

He handed me his long hairy brush, and a pailful of a horrible stinking compound, and I pasted up a bill the way I was born to it.

"Sure," says he, "ye can paste bills with anny man that God ever put two legs under. 'Tis clear ye're a grand bill-poster," says he.

"Didn't I tell ye?" says I.

And with that I caught him a lick with the full brush across the face, so that the hairs flicked all round his head, and with a loud cry he turned and fled away. Armed with the pail and the brush, away I started after him, but my foot caught in the lap of the long coat I had on, and down I came, and knocked my nose on the ground, so that it bled all over me, and I had to go back to the inn. I took the rest of the placards, and the pail and the brush, and drove home, arriving very late. My brother Bill was in bed and sound asleep. Without waking him, I pasted the whole of his room with bills, "Vote for Longbottom, {135} the Friend of the People." I pasted them on the walls, and on the door, and on his bed, and on his towels, and on his trousers, and on the floor. Then I went to bed.

In the morning he awakened me, wearing a pale and solemn countenance.

"Charlie," said he, "there's some bold men among the enemy."

"What do you mean?" said I.

"They are great boys," says he. "Why, one of them got into my room last night."

"Impossible," said I.

"Come and see," said he. "When I woke this morning I thought I had gone mad."

Upon the eve of the election, a man whom I knew to be a Fenian, came up to me and said, "I shall vote for ye, Lord Char-less. I don't agree with your politics, but I shall vote for ye."

"And why would you?" I said. "You that's a Fenian, you should be voting for Mr. Longbottom, the Friend of the People, like an honest man."

"Not at all," says he. "When ye go to the market to buy a horse, or a cow, or a pig, what is it ye look for in 'um? Blood," says he. "An' it's the same in an iliction. Ye are well-bred, annyway," says he, "but as for this Mr. Longwhat's-'is-name, he's cross-bred."

When I was holding a meeting, one of the audience kept interrupting me; so I invited him to come up on the platform and have it out.

"Now what is it, ye old blackguard," I said. "Speak out."

"Lord Char-less," says he, "ye're no man."

"We'll see about that," says I. "Why do you say so?"

"Lord Char-less," he said solemnly, "I remimber the time one of your family stood for th' county of Waterford, I was up to the knees in blood and whisky for a month, and at this iliction, begob, devil a drop of eyther have I seen."

The old man referred to the election of 1826, in which {136} Lord George Beresford was beaten by Lord Stewart de Decies, an event which was partially instrumental in bringing about the emancipation of the Roman Catholics in 1829.

I have always preferred a hostile political meeting to a peaceable assembly; nor have I ever failed to hold a hostile audience except upon one occasion, during the York election. I had sent a speaker to occupy the attention of an audience, largely composed of my own countrymen, till I came, and by the time I arrived he had succeeded in irritating them beyond the power of pacification.

But one can hardly save oneself from one's friends. During the Waterford election I came one evening to Youghal and went to the hotel. I was peacefully smoking outside the inn, when a party of the boys came along, hooting me, and presently they began to throw stones. When I advanced upon them they ran away and were lost in the darkness. As I turned to go back to the hotel, a large missile caught me behind the ear, knocking me over.

Next morning I related the incident to one of my most enthusiastic supporters in the place.

"'Tis a disgrace," said I, "throwing stones in the dark. And as for that boy who made a good shot, if I could get hold of him I would scatter his features."

"Ye would not," said he.

"And why wouldn't I?" said I.

"Because," says he, "it was myself that threw that brick. An' didn't I get ye grand!" says he. "But ye're not hurted. Sure ye're not hurted, or I wudn't have told ye annything about it."

It wasn't disloyalty on his part. It was simply that he couldn't resist what he considered a joke.

The result of the polling was: Beresford, 1767; Esmonde, 1390; Longbottom, 446.

A salient characteristic of the Irish race is that they will not endure condescension towards them. They admire resolution and determination, and will submit to the sternest discipline if it is enforced upon them by a man who understands {137} them and whom they respect. Conversely, they will yield nothing to weakness, and will return any assumption of superiority with hatred and contempt. Hence it is that the English have so often failed in their dealings with the Irish. In spite of the violence the Irish often exhibit in politics, their pride of race and pride in one another remain their notable characteristics.

I recently overheard a remark which illustrates the Irish master sentiment. During the debates upon the Home Rule Bill which took place in the House of Commons in 1912, one of his Majesty's Ministers, having made a long and an eloquent speech in support of that measure, punctuated by enthusiastic cheers by the Nationalist members, had it knocked to smithereens by Sir Edward Carson. Afterwards, I heard one Nationalist member say to another, "Wasn't that grand, now, to see the Irishman knocking spots out of the Saxon!" Yet it was the Saxon who was fighting for the Nationalist cause, which the Irishman, Sir Edward Carson, was strenuously opposing.

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