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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13157 ***
+
+IS ULSTER RIGHT?
+
+
+A STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AT ISSUE BETWEEN ULSTER AND THE
+NATIONALIST PARTY, AND OF THE REASONS--HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND
+FINANCIAL--WHY ULSTER IS JUSTIFIED IN OPPOSING HOME RULE
+
+
+BY AN IRISHMAN
+
+
+LONDON
+
+JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
+
+1913
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Preface
+
+Chapter
+
+I. The Ulster Covenant. The Questions Stated. Ireland under the Celts
+and the Danes
+
+II. Ireland from the time of Henry II to the time of Henry VIII
+
+III. Ireland under the Tudors
+
+IV. The Seventeenth Century, until the end of the reign of James II
+
+V. The period of the Penal Laws
+
+VI. The earlier part of the reign of George III. The acquisition of
+independence by the Irish Parliament
+
+VII. The independent Parliament. The Regency Question. The
+commencement of the Rebellion
+
+VIII. The Rebellion
+
+IX. The Union
+
+X. The period from the Union until the rejection of the first Home
+Rule Bill
+
+XI. The Unionist Government of 1886
+
+XII. The Gladstonian Government of 1892. The Political Societies
+
+XIII. Ireland under the present Government
+
+XIV. Criticism of the Bill now before the Country
+
+XV. The danger to the Empire of any form of Home Rule. The Questions
+answered
+
+Index
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In the following chapters I have endeavoured to lay before ordinary
+readers a simple statement of the present position of the Irish
+question. Following the maxim of Confucius that it is well "to study
+the Past if you would divine the Future," I have first shown that the
+tales which are told about the glories of the ancient Celtic
+Kingdom are foolish dreams, not supported by the accounts given by
+contemporary annalists or the investigations of modern writers, and
+that Ireland never was a nation in the political sense, with the
+possible exception of the few years between 1782 and 1800, during
+which the Irish Parliament was independent; that the charges made
+against the English government with reference to their action between
+the "Conquest" by Henry II and the assumption of the title of King
+by Henry VIII are baseless; and that though there is much which the
+historian must look back upon with regret in the period between the
+reign of Henry VIII and the passing of the Act of Union, it is mere
+waste of time now to dwell on the wrongs of a former age which
+have long since passed away and which in any other country would be
+forgotten. Then I have traced the brief history of the independent
+Parliament, and shown that whatever may have been its virtues or
+its failings, it would be impossible to revive it now; all the
+circumstances of the country have changed. I have striven also to make
+it clear that the Nationalists of to-day are not the representatives
+of the leaders of that Parliament but of the party which fought
+against it and brought on the horrors of the Rebellion; that the
+Union was a political necessity, if the connection between the British
+Islands was to be maintained at all; and that if the people of Ireland
+have not derived all the benefits from the Union which they might have
+done, it is their own fault, as the history of Ulster during the last
+century has shown. Next, I have explained the rise of the present
+Home Rule movement, and its dependence on agrarian agitation. I have
+analyzed some of the provisions of the present Bill, which independent
+writers consider to be hopelessly unworkable; and lastly I have stated
+why in my opinion Home Rule in any form must be fraught with disaster
+not only to Ireland but also to the Empire at large.
+
+I have no desire unnecessarily to wound the feelings of those who take
+a different view; if it can be shown that any of my statements are
+incorrect or my inference illogical, I shall be glad to correct
+them; but to mere abuse, such as the Nationalists are in the habit of
+pouring on Unionist writers, I shall pay no heed. I admit that it may
+be said that there are several matters which I ought to have gone into
+more fully; to that I can only reply that I wished to be as brief as
+possible, and that I have done my best to compress with fairness.
+What I am really anxious to do is to draw the attention of thoughtful
+readers, before it is too late, to the terrible dangers with which we
+are faced. As an Irish historian has said:--
+
+    "No political madness could be greater than to put the
+    legislative machinery of an integral and essential portion
+    of the Empire into the hands of men who are largely or mainly
+    disaffected with that Empire, and who, in times of difficulty,
+    danger and disaster are likely to betray it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following are the principal works of which use has been made
+in preparing this volume. They are cited here in order to avoid the
+necessity of constant footnotes:--
+
+    "Short History of the Irish People." By Professor Richey.
+
+    "Irish Nationalism." By the late Duke of Argyll.
+
+    "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." By W.E.H.
+    Lecky.
+
+    "History of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and
+    Ireland." By Dunbar Ingram.
+
+    "Ireland and Her Fairy Godmother." By J. Warren.
+
+    "The Continuity of the Irish Revolutionary Movement." By Prof.
+    Brougham Leech.
+
+    "A Fool's Paradise." By Professor Dicey.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ULSTER COVENANT. THE QUESTIONS STATED. IRELAND UNDER THE CELTS AND
+THE DANES.
+
+    "Being convinced in our consciences that Home Rule would be
+    disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of
+    the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious
+    freedom, destructive of our citizenship and perilous to the
+    unity of the Empire, We, whose names are underwritten, Men of
+    Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V,
+    humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress
+    and trial confidently trusted, do hereby pledge ourselves
+    in Solemn Covenant throughout this our time of threatened
+    calamity to stand by one another in defending for ourselves
+    and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship
+    in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be
+    found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a
+    Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. And, in the event of such
+    a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly
+    and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its
+    authority. In such confidence that God will defend the right,
+    we hereunto subscribe our names."
+
+Such is the Solemn Covenant which 220,000 resolute, determined
+Ulstermen--of various creeds and of all sections of the community,
+from wealthy merchants to farm labourers--fully realizing the
+responsibility they were undertaking, signed on the 28th September,
+1912. To represent that it was merely the idle bombast of ignorant
+rustics, or a passing ebullition of political passion coming from
+hot-headed youths excited by irresponsible demagogues, is folly.
+It expresses the calm resolution of earnest men who, having thought
+deeply over the matter had decided that it was better even to face
+the horrors of civil war rather than to submit to the rule of a
+Nationalist Government.
+
+The opinions of the Nationalists with regard to the Ulster Covenant
+can be gathered from many speeches and sermons. The following extract
+from one of their papers--the _Frontier Sentinel_--may be taken as a
+specimen:--
+
+    "It may not be out of place here to translate into simple
+    English the terms of the Covenant. It denies the claim of
+    Ireland to self-government and the capacity of Irishmen to
+    govern Ireland. It asserts that the Catholics of Ireland are
+    the spawn of the devil; that they are ruthless savages and
+    dangerous criminals with only one object in life--the wiping
+    out of Protestants. It claims for the Protestant Unionist
+    majority of four Ulster counties a monopoly of Christianity,
+    public and private morality, and clean successful business
+    enterprise. In the name of God it seeks to stimulate the
+    basest passions in human nature, and calls on God to witness
+    a catalogue of falsehoods. Only a few of the local Protestant
+    clergymen, it should be stated, signed this notoriously wicked
+    document."
+
+It is well then to pause and consider calmly two questions: What
+are the real objects of the Nationalists; and, Are the men of Ulster
+justified in resisting them to the uttermost?
+
+It is a mere truism to remark that in every political question the
+main controversy is complicated by a number of side issues. Thus in
+the tangled skein of politics in South Eastern Europe there is not
+merely the great struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, but
+there are also jealousies between Greek and Bulgarian, between Servian
+and Austrian, which have to be considered. So in Ireland, if we
+take the religious question as the dominating one, we find ourselves
+involved in a maze of racial animosities, class prejudices, and
+trade disputes; by ignoring these we can arrive at a simple but
+unfortunately a totally erroneous solution of the question. And to
+weigh them all fairly involves more trouble than the average man cares
+to take.
+
+Irish history is at best a dismal subject. And those who ought to
+be historians are too often politicians; regarding themselves as
+advocates and not as judges they deliberately omit incidents which
+tell against their views, and enlarge on others, frequently without
+even examining the evidence in support of them. Then in arriving
+at the truth about any matter connected with Ireland there is the
+additional difficulty arising from the custom, almost universal
+amongst Irishmen, of talking in superlatives. The exaggerated
+expressions, both of praise and blame, which are constantly employed,
+at first puzzle a stranger coming to Ireland from another country; he
+soon, however, gets to realize that they are mere forms of speech, and
+are no more intended to be taken seriously than similar phrases are
+when used by an Oriental. They are therefore harmless. But it becomes
+a more serious matter when learned men employ inflated language in
+addressing ignorant and excitable audiences. Thus Bishop Gaughran,
+when recently preaching to a crowded congregation in Dublin a sermon
+which was reported in full in the Roman Catholic papers, said:--
+
+    "The persecution of the Catholics in Ireland had no parallel
+    in the history of the Church save perhaps those of the early
+    Christians in the Catacombs of Rome. Edicts were sent
+    forth before which those of Nero might be said to pale into
+    insignificance--the Edicts of Elizabeth and Cromwell, for
+    example."
+
+Yet these words came from a man who was doubtless familiar with the
+histories of Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands; and who is a
+leader of a party which had not long before expressed the opinion that
+Catholics have no reason to be ashamed of the Inquisition, which was
+a coercive and corporally punitive force which had effected its ends
+splendidly!
+
+One of the many popular delusions under which English people labour
+with regard to Ireland is that all the population of the country at
+the present day are Celts, and that this is the key to the whole Irish
+question. Thus a review of Father Tyrrell's autobiography recently
+appeared in an English journal in which the reviewer said: "Probably
+no Englishmen could have written such a book; it needs a Latin like
+Rousseau, or a Celt like Tyrrell to lay bare his soul in this way."
+No doubt these words were written in perfectly good faith; but if
+the writer had cared to make any enquiry he could have found out in a
+moment that the Tyrrell family were thoroughly English and that none
+of them had gone to Ireland before the nineteenth century. The fact
+is that the inhabitants of Ireland, like the inhabitants of all other
+countries in Western Europe, are of mixed origin. The Celts were
+themselves immigrants, who conquered and enslaved a pre-existing race
+called the Firbolgs; then came the Scandinavian invasion; and then
+wave after wave of immigration from England and Scotland, so that
+Sir J. Davies, writing three hundred years ago--that was, before the
+Cromwellian settlement and the arrival of the French refugees who had
+escaped from the persecution of Louis XIV--said that if the people of
+Ireland were numbered those descended of English race would be found
+more in number than the ancient natives.
+
+This, however, is only one of many errors into which English writers
+have fallen. Mistakes of course will always be made; but unfortunately
+it is a charge from which Mr. Gladstone's admirers cannot clear him
+that when he wished to bring the English people round to the idea of
+Home Rule he deliberately falsified Irish history in order to make
+it serve his ends; and his misrepresentations have gained credence
+amongst careless thinkers who are content to shelter themselves under
+a great name without looking at what has been written in answer. The
+general idea of an average Englishman about Irish history seems to be
+that Ireland in Celtic times was a peaceful, orderly, united kingdom,
+famous for its piety and learning, where land was held by "tribal
+tenure"--that is, owned by the whole tribe who were closely related
+in blood--rent being unknown, and the chief being elected by the whole
+tribe in solemn assembly. Into this happy country came the Norman
+invaders, who fought against and conquered the king; drove the native
+owners out of their possessions, and introduced a feudal system and an
+alien code of law unsuited to the people; and the modern landlords
+are the representatives of the conquering Normans and the tenants
+the descendants of the ancient tribesmen who naturally and rightfully
+resist paying rent for the lands which by ancestral right should be
+their own. There could not be a more complete travesty of history.
+
+The Celtic Church no doubt had its golden age. It produced saints and
+men of learning. It sent out its missionaries to the heathen beyond
+the seas. So famous were its schools that students came to them from
+distant lands. But centuries before the Normans appeared in Ireland
+the salt had lost its savour. The Celtic Church had sunk into being
+a mere appendage of the wild tribes it had once tried to tame. The
+chiefs of one tribe would sack the colleges and shrines of another
+tribe as freely as they would sack any of their other possessions.
+For instance, the annals tell us that in the year 1100 the men of the
+south made a raid into Connaught and burned many churches; in 1113
+Munster tribe burned many churches in Meath, one of them being full of
+people; in 1128 the septs of Leitrim and Cavan plundered and slew the
+retinue of the Bishop of Armagh; in the same year the men of Tyrone
+raided Down and a great number of people suffered martyrdom; four
+years later Kildare was invaded by raiders from Wexford, the church
+was burnt and many men slain; and so on with dreary monotony. Bishops
+and abbots fought in the incessant tribal wars as keenly as laymen.
+Worse still, it was not infrequent for one band of clergy to make
+war on another. In the ninth century, Phelim, who claimed to be both
+Bishop and King of Leinster, ravaged Ulster and murdered its monks and
+clergy. In the eleventh century the annals give an account of a fierce
+battle between the Bishop of Armagh and the Bishop of Clonard. Nor did
+time work any improvement; we read of bloody conflicts between abbots
+and bishops as late as the middle of the fifteenth century. What
+influence for good could such a church have had upon the mass of the
+people?
+
+And even in its noblest period the Celtic Church seems to have had but
+little power beyond the walls of its own colleges. The whole history
+of Celtic Ireland, as we learn from the annalists, was one miserable
+succession of tribal wars, murders and plunderings. Of course it may
+be said with perfect truth that the annals of other countries at the
+time tell much the same story. But there is this difference between
+them: wild and barbarous though the wars of other countries were,
+they were at any rate the slow and painful working up towards a higher
+civilization; the country became consolidated under the most powerful
+chief; in time peace was enforced, agriculture improved, and towns
+grew up. The tribal raids of Celtic Ireland, however, were merely
+for plunder and destruction. From such conflicts no higher state of
+society could possibly be evolved. The Irish Celts built no cities,
+promoted no agriculture, and never coalesced so as to form even the
+nucleus of a united kingdom.
+
+It was about the end of the eighth century that the first foreign
+influence was brought to bear on Celtic Ireland. The Danish invasion
+began. Heathen though the Danes were, they brought some ideas of
+settled government and the germs of national progress. They founded
+cities, such as Dublin, Waterford and Limerick. And when they, like
+their fellow-countrymen in England, accepted Christianity, they
+established bishoprics in the new towns, but took care that they
+should be wholly independent of the Celtic tribal episcopate; they
+looked to Canterbury and Rome.
+
+Much has been written and sung about the fame of Brian Boroo. No doubt
+he was in some ways a great man; and it seemed for a time that he
+might do for Ireland something like what Alfred the Great had done for
+England and Kenneth MacAlpine had done for Scotland--might consolidate
+the country into one kingdom. But the story of his life is a striking
+commentary on the wretchedness of the period. Forming an alliance with
+some of the Danes he succeeded in crushing the chiefs of several rival
+Celtic tribes; then in turn he attacked his former allies, and beat
+them at the battle of Clontarf in the year 1014, though they were
+aided by other Celtic tribes who hated Brian and his schemes even more
+than they hated the foreigners. Important though this battle was, its
+effect has been much exaggerated and misunderstood. It certainly
+did not bring the Danish power in Ireland to an end; Dublin was a
+flourishing Danish colony long afterwards--in fact it was thirty years
+after the battle that the Danish king of Dublin founded the Bishopric.
+
+But Brian was slain in the moment of victory. The soldiers of his
+army murdered his only surviving son, and began fighting amongst
+themselves. Brian's dream of a united Ireland came to an end, and the
+country relapsed into chaos. If the immediate result of the battle
+was a victory of Celt over Dane, the lasting effect was a triumph of
+anarchy over order. It was on the Celtic people that the ruin fell;
+and the state of things for the next two centuries was if possible
+worse than it had ever been before.
+
+It will be readily understood that throughout this terrible period of
+history anything like a peaceful cultivation of the soil or a regular
+election to the office of chief was out of the question. It was quite
+an ordinary thing for a chief to obtain his position by murdering his
+predecessor. The annalists give us a long list of Kings of Ireland
+dating from before the Christian era until the arrival of the Normans.
+Of course the word "king" can mean little more than "prominent
+chief," for no one man ever had real authority over the whole of the
+distracted land. Even of these prominent chiefs, however, according
+to the annalists, very few died natural deaths. Some fell in battle,
+others were assassinated; but the most common fate for a monarch was
+to be "slain by his successor." If this was true of the most powerful
+men in the country, to speak of the office of chief as elective is
+really absurd. But more than this: there is no evidence that the
+"tribal system," in the sense of all the tribe being related by blood
+and all owning their lands in common, ever existed in Ireland even
+in theory. At the earliest date of which we possess any distinct
+information on the subject, wealth, representing physical force, had
+become the acknowledged basis of political power and private right;
+and the richer members of the community were rapidly reducing the
+poorer freemen--many of whom were the descendants of an earlier race
+or of conquered tribes--to a state of serfdom. The system (if such
+a word can be applied at all) was in fact a bad form of feudalism
+without its advantages. There was no central overlord (like those
+in other countries who gradually developed into the sovereigns of
+mediæval kingdoms and thus became able to enforce peace and progress),
+each petty chief being independent; and on the other hand the dues
+payable by the retainers were not fixed by law or custom. We must
+probably reject the suggested derivation of the word "feodal" from the
+Celtic "Fiudir"; but if so, it is curious that two words accidentally
+resembling each other conveyed ideas so closely alike; for a Celtic
+"Fiudir" was practically a tenant at the will of the lord; and it must
+be admitted that the word "vassal" is of Celtic origin. Charters which
+date from before the Norman invasion show that the land was regarded
+as the private property of the chiefs; frequently the wretched
+occupiers, instead of paying fixed rents, were liable to unlimited
+exactions, one of them being the right of the lord to "coigne and
+livery"--that is, to quarter himself and his retainers as long as he
+pleased on any occupier who possessed a few cows (which were the only
+form of wealth in those days of universal poverty); in some cases,
+however, land was let for a term of years, on a fixed payment of
+cattle.
+
+On the death of a freeholder his land was divided amongst his sons
+equally, according to what is called "the custom of gavelkind."
+Whether primogeniture is a good or a bad thing in England or the
+British Colonies at the present day is of course a totally different
+question; the circumstances of the times are totally different. But
+it can hardly be doubted by a thoughtful student of history that the
+adoption of primogeniture in the early days of feudalism in other
+European countries was a social necessity if civilization was to rise
+to a higher state; and that its not being introduced in Ireland was if
+not a cause at least an evidence that civilization in that country
+did not progress. For in a condition not far removed from anarchy
+the connection between the ownership of land and political power is
+inevitable; hence if holdings are small their owners become an easy
+prey to stronger neighbours; whereas the possessors of larger areas
+can repel attacks and enable their dependents to live in some sort of
+security. It was the enormous number of petty independent chiefs that
+added to the miseries of Celtic Ireland.
+
+I shall probably be accused of having painted too dark a picture in
+the brief sketch that I have given of Ireland before the coming of the
+Normans. I admit that it is very different from the glowing accounts
+of "Irish Ireland" that may be found in the pages of Nationalist
+journals. But the question to me is not which account is more pleasant
+but which is true. And I defy anyone who has cared to look through the
+works of such writers as Richey, Stokes, and Sullivan, to prove that
+what I have said is incorrect or unfair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+IRELAND FROM THE TIME OF HENRY II TO THE TIME OF HENRY VIII.
+
+
+In the last chapter I dealt with the long period during which the
+Celtic tribes of Ireland were free from foreign influence except for
+the comparatively brief time when a small part of the country was
+under the rule of the Danes; and I endeavoured to show that according
+to the evidence of their own annalists and in the opinion of modern
+writers of various political sentiments, the whole island throughout
+that period remained in a chronic state of anarchy, without any
+advance towards a higher civilization.
+
+As Dr. Richey, when describing the condition of Ireland about the year
+1170, says, "The state of the Celtic people was beyond all hope of
+self-amendment. The want of law, order and justice, the absence of
+self-knowledge and self-control, paralysed their national action and
+reduced the power of their chief king to insignificance."
+
+I come now to what has been absurdly called the conquest of Ireland
+under Henry II.
+
+That the English king was instigated in his efforts by the Pope is
+perfectly clear. The Bull of Pope Adrian, issued in 1155, is still
+extant:--
+
+    "... There is indeed no doubt but that Ireland, and all the
+    islands on which Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, hath shone,
+    and which have received the doctrine of the Christian faith,
+    do belong to the jurisdiction of St. Peter and the Holy Roman
+    Church ... therefore we are the more solicitous to propagate
+    the righteous plantation of faith in this land, and the
+    branch acceptable to God, as we have the secret conviction of
+    conscience that this is more especially our bounden duty. You
+    then, our dear son in Christ, have signified to us your desire
+    to enter into the island of Ireland, in order to reduce the
+    people to obedience under the laws, and to extirpate the
+    plants of vice, and that you are willing to pay from each
+    house a yearly pension of one penny to St. Peter, and that you
+    will preserve the rights of the churches whole and inviolate.
+    We, therefore, do hold it good and acceptable that ... you
+    enter this island and execute therein whatever shall pertain
+    to the honour of God and welfare of the land; and that the
+    people of the land receive you honourably and reverence you as
+    their lord."
+
+And in 1172 Pope Alexander III ratified the action of his predecessor.
+
+    "Forasmuch as these things which have been on good reasons
+    granted by our predecessors, deserve to be confirmed ...
+    and considering the grant of the dominion of the land by the
+    venerable Pope Adrian, we ... do ratify and confirm the same
+    (reserving to St. Peter and to the Holy Roman Church, as well
+    in England as in Ireland the yearly pension of one penny from
+    every house) provided that, the abominations of the land being
+    removed, the barbarous people, Christians only in name, may
+    by your means, be reformed, and their lives and conversations
+    mended, so that their disordered Church being thus reduced
+    to regular discipline, that nation may, with the name of
+    Christians, be so in act and deed."
+
+Whether the description here given was literally correct, or whether
+the Pope's views were coloured by the fact that the Celtic Church did
+not acknowledge the supremacy of Rome and was heretical on certain
+points of doctrine, is a question outside the present subject. The
+Bulls are only quoted here as showing the part taken by Rome. And it
+must be admitted that in the succeeding century the power of the Pope
+became strong enough to enable him to levy taxes in Ireland for the
+purpose of carrying on his wars against the Emperor and the King of
+Aragon.
+
+But Henry did not conquer Ireland. He did not even pretend to do so.
+Previous to his arrival there had been some little fighting done by a
+few adventurous Norman knights who had been invited by a native chief
+to assist him in a domestic war; but Henry II fought no battle in
+Ireland; he displaced no ancient national government; the Irish had
+no national flag, no capital city as the metropolis of the country, no
+common administration of the law. The English, coming in the name of
+the Pope, with the aid of the Irish bishops, with a superior national
+organization which the Irish easily recognised, were accepted by the
+Irish. The king landed at Waterford; his journey to Dublin was rather
+a royal progress than a hostile invasion. He came as feudal sovereign
+to receive the homage of the Irish tribes; the chiefs flocked to his
+court, readily became his vassals, and undertook to hold the lands
+they already occupied as fiefs of the Crown. But Henry did not take
+the title, or assume the position of King of Ireland. He merely sought
+to establish a suzerainty in which he would be the overlord. And in
+fact a conquest of Ireland in the modern sense of the term would have
+been impossible. England possessed no standing army; the feudal levies
+of mediæval times were difficult and expensive. It might of course
+have been possible to have organized a wholesale immigration and an
+enslavement of the natives, something like that which the Normans had
+accomplished in England, and the Saxons had done centuries before; but
+nothing of the kind was attempted. Whether Henry's original intention
+was simply to leave the Irish chiefs in possession or not, it is
+useless now to enquire. But if it was, he appears to have changed his
+views; for not long afterwards he granted large fiefs with palatinate
+jurisdiction to various Normans who had made their way over to Ireland
+independently.
+
+It may be that Henry--knowing that the Conqueror, whilst taking
+care that no powerful seignories should grow up in the heart of his
+kingdom, as rivals to the throne, yet made exceptions in cases
+where the lands verged on hostile territory, such as Durham or
+Chester--thought that he could best follow the spirit of that policy
+by establishing what were practically semi-independent principalities
+in an island already inhabited by another race. But the result was
+disastrous.
+
+That the Normans were savage and brutal, dealing out no justice or
+mercy to their victims, is proved by the account of their conquest of
+England. Yet they possessed certain great qualities, which eminently
+fitted them to become rulers in those wild, unsettled times; as their
+successes, not merely in Britain, but also in Southern Italy and
+Syria, show. They had the idea of a strong, centralized Government;
+and more than that they had a marvellous capacity for receptivity.
+Thus we see that in England, after a period of rough tyranny, they
+blended the existing Anglo-Saxon Government--the strength of which lay
+in its local organization--with their own; and from the union of
+the two has come the British Constitution. So too in the Lowlands
+of Scotland it was the Norman knight Robert Bruce who, accepting the
+already existing Saxon and Roman civilization, raised Scotland into a
+powerful kingdom. But in Ireland all was different. The only state
+of society which the Normans found was Celtic barbarism. Political
+institutions did not exist. As the Normans in England had become
+Anglified, and in Scotland Scottified, so in Ireland they became
+Ersefied. It is true that they built stone castles which at any rate
+were better than the hovels of the Irish Chiefs, and (like the
+Danes before them) founded a few towns, such as Kilkenny, Galway and
+Athenry; but there their efforts ended. Scattered amongst the tribes,
+they learnt their ways. They sank to the position of the Celtic
+Chiefs around them; local wars went on the same as before; the only
+difference being that they were waged sometimes by Normans against
+Normans or against Celts, but more frequently by one body of Celts
+against another, each side being aided by Norman allies.
+
+One class of Nationalist writers has inveighed against the English
+kings for not having forcibly introduced English law and put an end to
+the barbarous Celtic customs. The simple answer is, How could they do
+so? Whilst England was being weakened by long continental wars or
+by struggles between rival Houses, what strength had she left to
+undertake the real conquest of Ireland? The English kings had turned
+to the only people who could have helped them--the Normans settled in
+Ireland; and they failed them. Other Nationalist writers have on
+the other hand declaimed with equal vehemence against the tyranny of
+England in forcing an alien system of law on an unwilling people. To
+this the answer is that nothing of the kind occurred. It is true that
+petitions were sent from Ireland to the King urging him to introduce
+English law; but these petitions came mainly from the poorer classes
+of English settlers who found that instead of attaining greater
+liberty in their new home they were being ground down to the miserable
+position of the native Irish. The King issued proclamations directing
+the English barons to permit the Irish to be governed by the law of
+England; but his orders were totally disregarded; many of the unhappy
+English settlers fled from the country and returned to England;
+the barons supplied their places with native retainers. Thus the
+Ersefication of the degenerate Normans became complete; they
+"donned the saffron"--that is, they adopted the yellow dress of the
+Celts--abandoned their original language, and gave themselves up to a
+life of constant plunder and rapine.
+
+Early in the fourteenth century the Irish septs united so far as to
+form a joint effort to expel the English. The incident is specially
+interesting, in the light of later history. Robert Bruce, a Norman
+knight, had recently consolidated the Scottish tribes into a kingdom
+and succeeded in shaking off the English yoke. The Irish Celts
+resolved to imitate his example. King Robert was shrewd enough to see
+that by aiding them he could attack his enemy at the most vulnerable
+point; consequently, when the chiefs offered the Crown of Ireland to
+his brother Edward if he would come and help them, he gladly accepted
+the invitation. For three years a devastating war raged over a large
+part of Ireland; the Scotch went from the North of Ulster almost to
+Limerick, burning, slaying, plundering, sacking towns, castles and
+churches; and a terrible famine ensued. But the Irish chiefs were no
+more energetic in supporting Edward Bruce than their ancestors had
+been in supporting Brian; he and his chief officers fell in a battle
+against the English near Dundalk, and the rest of his followers
+escaped to Scotland. The coalition fell to pieces; and the only result
+of the Scotch invasion was to increase the misery of the people,
+especially of the unhappy English settlers, who continued to flock
+back to England in greater numbers than before.
+
+As soon as the rebellion was put down, the great legislator Edward
+III made another effort at introducing order into the distracted land.
+Acts were passed by the English Parliament providing that the same
+law should be applicable to both English and Irish, and forbidding
+landowners to keep larger bands of armed men than were necessary for
+self-defence. But the Ersefied barons on whom he relied refused to
+obey the new laws; they renounced their allegiance and joined the
+rebellious Celtic tribes. Then the king, seeing the impossibility
+of carrying out his scheme for pacifying the whole of Ireland, was
+reduced to the expedient of dividing the country into two; leaving the
+larger part of it for the natives and degenerate English to misgovern
+as they pleased according to their own customs, and preserving only
+a mere fraction (the "English Pale") in allegiance to the Crown of
+England. This was the real meaning of the "Statutes of Kilkenny,"
+which have been so often misrepresented by modern writers.
+
+The next king, Richard II, attempted to imitate the policy of his
+ancestor Henry II. He went to Ireland with great pomp. Again the
+Celtic chiefs flocked to Dublin to swear allegiance to their lord;
+and as soon as his back was turned commenced not only fighting amongst
+themselves but even attacking the English Pale. The result of all his
+efforts was that the limits of the Pale were still further contracted;
+the English power was confined to a small area in the neighbourhood of
+Dublin.
+
+But even within that narrow boundary the power of the king was far
+from being secure. When England was torn by the Wars of the Roses, the
+so-called Parliament (which was really an irregular assembly at best
+representing a territory about the size of a modern county) seized
+the opportunity of declaring itself independent. It is interesting, in
+view of present-day questions, to observe that Dr. Richey, writing
+in 1869, seems to consider their action as not only justifiable but
+inevitable. He says:--
+
+    "The Irish Parliament declared the complete independence
+    of the Irish Legislature, and boldly affirmed those
+    constitutional rights which, though involved in the existence
+    of separate parliament, had not hitherto been categorically
+    expressed. They asserted their rights to a distinct coinage,
+    and their absolute freedom from all laws and statutes except
+    such as were by the Lords spiritual and temporal and Commons
+    of Ireland freely admitted and accepted in their Parliament.
+    They declared that no Irish subject was bound to answer
+    any writs except those under the great seal of Ireland, and
+    enacted heavy penalties against any officer who should attempt
+    to put English decrees in force in Ireland. They, in fact,
+    took the same position and laid down the same principles as
+    the celebrated Parliament of 1782."
+
+Whether they imagined that they could form a separate kingdom of
+Dublin, or dreamt of making an alliance with the tribes outside the
+Pale, it is useless now to conjecture; but we can see that though they
+had no chance of benefiting themselves they might have caused serious
+injury to England. Nor was it long before a difficulty arose. The
+inhabitants of the Pale remained attached to the House of York even
+after the Battle of Bosworth, and readily accepted Lambert Simnel as
+King of Ireland. He was crowned in the Cathedral of Dublin, and held
+a Parliament. After the defeat of this Pretender, the able and astute
+Henry VII saw that it was necessary without further delay to make the
+shadowy suzerainty of England over Ireland a reality. He accordingly
+persuaded the Irish Parliament to pass an Act which from the name of
+the Lord Deputy was known as "Poyning's Act." By this Act, all English
+statutes then existing in England were made of force in Ireland; the
+chief fortresses were secured to the Crown of England; and the Irish
+Parliament was relegated to the position of a subordinate legislature;
+for it was enacted that no Parliament should be held in Ireland unless
+the King's Lieutenant and Council should first certify the King, under
+the Great Seal of Ireland, the Acts which they considered should pass;
+then the King and his Council should approve the proposed Acts,
+and issue a licence under the Great Seal of England, summoning the
+Parliament.
+
+Though some writers have spoken of this as the most disgraceful Act
+ever passed by an independent legislature, the people in Ireland at
+the time considered it a boon and a favour; for it shielded them from
+the unauthorized power of a Lord Deputy supported by a Parliament of
+his own creatures.
+
+And so, with the close of the mediæval period, ended the second
+chapter of Irish history. It will be observed that there had been no
+religious persecution, unless indeed the conduct of the Norman--that
+is, the Roman--Church towards the ancient Celtic Church, or the
+burning of some heretics in the fourteenth century, could be so
+described; a view which the Nationalists of to-day will hardly care to
+put forward. Nor can the English Government be fairly blamed for the
+condition of affairs; for responsibility depends on power, and English
+power in Ireland hardly existed. The suzerainty of England, feeble at
+best, had gradually been limited to a mere fraction of the country.
+The Celtic tribes had long since thrown off even a nominal submission
+to the English Crown; the Anglo-Norman lords had become either
+avowedly or practically independent. But the inhabitants of Ireland
+did not constitute a nation or possess any common interest or bond of
+union. There was no trace of an organization by which the Irish tribes
+could be united into one people. The ceaseless civil wars had indeed
+supplanted the original tribesmen by the mercenary followers of
+another set of rival chiefs; but there had been no union; and the mass
+of the people, still under the influence of their native customs, were
+probably in a more wretched condition than they had ever been before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IRELAND UNDER THE TUDORS.
+
+
+We have seen that at the close of the Middle Ages Ireland was in the
+condition that some people in England now consider the panacea for
+all the woes of the country; it possessed a subordinate Parliament and
+England interfered as little as possible in its local affairs. Henry
+VIII attempted "to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas"; having no
+army of his own, he appointed the most powerful of the Norman barons
+his deputy. But this deputy used his authority precisely as an
+Ersefied Norman (who possessed no more patriotism or national feeling
+than a Celtic chief) might have been expected to use it,--that was, to
+aid him in a succession of family quarrels and tribal wars in which,
+allied with some of the native septs he attacked others. Even the
+towns outside the Pale fared little better than the remoter districts;
+there was actually a civil war between Cork and Limerick. The state of
+affairs in Celtic Ireland during the brief period from 1500 to 1534
+as stated in the annals (which, however, only deal with a part of the
+country, hardly referring to what took place in Leinster or Munster)
+has been summed up by Dr. Richey in the following words:--
+
+    "Battles, plunderings, etc., exclusive of those in which the
+    English Government was engaged, 116; Irish gentlemen of
+    family killed in battle, 102; murdered, 168--many of them with
+    circumstances of great atrocity; and during this period, on
+    the other hand, there is no allusion to the enactment of any
+    law, the judicial decision of any controversy, the founding of
+    any town, monastery or church; and all this is recorded by
+    the annalist without the slightest expression of regret or
+    astonishment, as if such were the ordinary course of life in a
+    Christian country."
+
+At length, in 1534, matters came to a head; the Lord Deputy broke out
+into open rebellion. We can learn from the State papers of the period
+what the condition of Ireland then was. The Pale--now but the remnant
+of a fraction--was constantly invaded and ravished by wild tribes,
+and was itself becoming Ersefied; for the poorer English settlers had
+either fled back to England, joined the Celtic tribes in despair, as
+their only way of escaping from the harshness of the English lords, or
+been crushed out of existence; and, as had already happened elsewhere,
+their place had been taken by Irish retainers. Then in the rest of the
+country there were some ninety chiefs, of whom about sixty represented
+ancient septs and the remainder degenerate Normans, all claiming
+independence and preying sometimes on one another and sometimes on
+their unfortunate followers. Not infrequently also a tribe was divided
+against itself, and a civil war was raging between the two factions.
+And one result of the Ersefication of the Norman barons was that,
+in addition to the regular feudal dues, they demanded every kind
+of Celtic tribute from the occupiers of the land. In fact, how the
+wretched tenants managed to support life at all seems a mystery.
+Whatever law there may at one time have been was now long extinct;
+and as King Henry himself pointed out, if the natives were to have any
+sort of law at all, the only possible law was the law of England.
+
+At this time also a new factor came into the already complicated
+problem--the Reformation. Henry VIII never was a Protestant, in
+the sense of adopting the doctrines which are now usually called
+Protestant; but he had renounced the authority of the Pope. In 1535
+Pope Paul III passed sentence upon him, consigning his kingdoms to
+whoever might invade them, and commanding his nobles to take up
+arms against him. Both the Emperor and the King of France saw their
+opportunity, as Robert Bruce had done centuries before. They commenced
+a correspondence with the Irish chiefs with the object of bringing
+about an invasion of Ireland. Thereupon King Henry resolved to take
+the only course that seemed to him possible--to make the conquest
+of Ireland a reality and to enforce law and order in that distracted
+land. His letters, which are still extant, show the care with which he
+thought out the matter, and his earnest desire for the welfare of
+the people of both races; a perusal of them would astonish those who
+regard him merely as a savage sensualist. Strange to say, in their
+Irish policy, the character of Henry VIII shows itself at the best,
+and that of Elizabeth at its worst. When Henry had with difficulty
+succeeded in crushing the Geraldine rebellion and a series of others
+which broke out soon after, he got the Irish Parliament to pass an
+Act conferring on him the title of king; he was solemnly proclaimed as
+such, and his title was confirmed by the almost unanimous consent of
+the Irish princes.
+
+This was important in more ways than one: it was universally
+recognized that the word "king" meant much more than "lord"; and it
+gave him a title independent of the Pope's donation.
+
+It is one of the ironies of history that the renunciation of the Papal
+authority and the submission to the king's supremacy was far more
+rapid and general in Ireland than it was in England. For not only did
+all the lay chiefs readily yield their adhesion, but only two of the
+bishops refused to take the oath of supremacy. Rebellions such as that
+of Fitzgerald had no connection with religion; it was not until years
+afterwards when England had become identified with Protestantism and
+Spain with Catholicism that the Irish became intensely Papal. On the
+other hand, the Reformation, as a religious movement, made no headway
+in Ireland. It was purely negative and destructive, and emanated from
+the Government, not from the mass of the people. The monasteries were
+destroyed; hence there were no vicars to supply the parish churches,
+which fell into ruin; the king endeavoured rather to Anglify than to
+Protestantise the people by sending to them bishops and clergy from
+England--but they were mere state officials, not fathers in God;
+unable even to speak the Irish language; what real preaching there
+was was done by friars sent from Rome and Madrid. Henry's efforts at
+establishing parish schools were also a total failure. Had there not
+been later immigrations from England and Scotland, Irish Protestantism
+would probably have died out. Yet it is but fair to state, and to bear
+in mind, that there was no religious persecution as such in Ireland
+during the Tudor period. Elizabeth's policy was, without making any
+actual promise of freedom of conscience, to leave the question of
+religious opinions alone as far as possible. The real difficulty came
+from the political nature of the Church of Rome; when the Pope deposed
+Elizabeth and gave Ireland to Philip of Spain every Irish Roman
+Catholic had either to be false to his religion or to become a
+traitor--_in esse_ or _in posse_--to the queen.
+
+When Henry had resolved to do his utmost to bring Ireland to a state
+of civilization, there were not wanting advisers who urged upon him
+that his only safe course was absolutely to destroy the whole native
+population by sword and famine and re-people the vacant lands by
+immigrants from England. Such a course would have been quite in
+accordance with the ideas of the time. Not thirty years previously,
+the combined forces of Church and State had pursued the heretic
+population of the Loise into the mountain fastnesses to which they had
+fled, and had piled logs of wood at the mouths of the caves in which
+they had taken refuge, and set them on fire. Then, when all the
+unhappy people--men, women and children, numbering some thousands
+in all--had perished, their lands were distributed amongst strangers
+brought in from a distance to occupy them. And at a later date--in the
+middle of the sixteenth century--the native inhabitants of the Canary
+Islands were exterminated by the Spanish Inquisition, and their lands
+taken by the invading race. But to Henry it appeared that there was
+one milder course that might still be possible. Might not the native
+chiefs and the degenerate Normans who had shown that their only idea
+of independency was anarchy yet be brought together as nobles under
+a strong central government with a Parliament representing not merely
+the Pale, but all Ireland? Might not the mass of the people, whose
+native customs had been well nigh crushed out by civil wars,
+be persuaded to _adopt_ the law of England? This was the policy
+deliberately adopted by Henry and acted on by him during his life.
+It is easy for writers living in modern times to sneer at some of the
+details of his scheme; but it is not so easy for them to point out
+what other course would have been better; or indeed, whether any other
+course short of a policy of extermination, would have been possible.
+
+The remarkable thing, however, is that the change to a more severe
+line took place not under Henry or his Protestant son, but under the
+most Catholic Sovereigns Philip and Mary. It was by their orders that
+the first of the confiscations (which were to play so important a part
+in the later history of Ireland) was carried out. By an Act passed
+in their reign the lands occupied by the O'Moores, O'Connors and
+O'Dempseys were confiscated and formed into the King's and
+Queen's counties, Leix and Offaly being renamed "Philipstown" and
+"Maryborough"; and a "Plantation" of English settlers was established.
+
+And here it is well to pause for a moment and consider these
+confiscations, about which so much has been written. That
+confiscations have taken place in every country is a plain fact of
+history. There is probably no part of Western Europe where land is
+now held by the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants. Forcible
+conquest and adverse occupation is nearly always the primary root
+of title. But it is part of the policy of every civilized country to
+recognize what lawyers call "Statutes of limitations." When centuries
+have elapsed and new rights have grown up, it is impossible to rectify
+the wrongs of times long gone by. Thus we cannot suppose that any
+future Government of Spain would ever recognize the title of the Moors
+in Africa to the properties from which their ancestors were driven
+by Philip IV; or that the Huguenots, now scattered over various
+countries, could ever succeed in recovering possession of the estates
+in France which were confiscated at the time of the Revocation of the
+Edict of Nantes. And the only people who have a cause to complain,
+even on sentimental grounds, of the wrongs of past ages, are the
+lineal descendants of those who suffered ill-treatment. No Englishman
+to-day can feel aggrieved because Saxons drove out Britons, or Normans
+Saxons.
+
+But more than that: the confiscation of the lands of rebels stands on
+a different basis, and has been so regarded in every country in the
+world, even New Zealand. The lands confiscated by Philip and Mary were
+owned by the arch-rebel FitzGerald. Naturally fertile and capable if
+properly cultivated of supporting a large population, they were at
+this time a wild pathless tract of forest and bog. The ceaseless
+tribal wars had prevented their being drained and cleared; the
+miserable remnants of the Celtic tribes gained a precarious living by
+periodical raids on the more peaceful inhabitants of the Pale. During
+the whole of the reign of Edward VI fighting had gone on in Leix and
+Offaly with great loss of life and at enormous expense to the English
+Government. The object of the confiscation was not to drive out the
+few existing tribesmen; for the land, when cleared and drained, might
+well support them as well as the new settlers. Nor was it to confer
+great estates on absentee proprietors, but to establish a fairly
+thickly settled district which might be a source of strength rather
+than a constant cause of trouble to the dwellers in the Pale. Nor
+again was it to introduce feudalism; for as I have shown, the system
+already in existence was feudalism without its advantages; the
+substitution of fixed dues for the barbarous custom of "coigne and
+livery" was an unmixed benefit to the occupiers of land. And it cannot
+be denied that the first "Plantation" was a thorough success--thriving
+settlements and prosperous farms took the place of forest and swamp.
+
+If the position of Henry VIII had been one of difficulty, that of
+Elizabeth was far more critical. The separation of the Church of
+England from Rome was now complete. The great powers of the Continent
+were united in one supreme effort to stamp out the new heresy. The
+massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place in France; Philip II had
+ordered a _Te Deum_ to be sung at Madrid, and the Pope had had a medal
+struck to commemorate the glorious event. The lowest computation of
+those put to death for heresy in the Netherlands by Charles V was
+50,000; and his successor had, at the instigation of the Holy Office,
+issued a proclamation sentencing to death the whole population--men,
+women and children--with the exception of a few persons specially
+named. Alva boasted that he had put 18,000 Dutchmen to death on the
+scaffold, and the Pope presented him with a consecrated hat and
+sword, an honour which had previously been bestowed only on reigning
+sovereigns. In Spain it was regarded not only as a sacred duty but a
+pleasant amusement for the King and his Court to watch the
+torturing of heretics. England alone--then a comparatively weak
+and insignificant country--stood out against this overwhelming
+combination. And in attempting to realize the position of affairs we
+must remember that in the sixteenth century the Papacy was not merely
+a religious system but also a tremendous political power. We may now
+regard the claim of the Pope to depose princes as a harmless dream;
+but at that time it was a stern reality. Thus matters came to a crisis
+when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth and all who remained loyal
+to her, released her subjects from their allegiance, offered plenary
+indulgence and remission of sins to all who would take up arms against
+her, promised a liberal supply of graces and indulgences to Irish
+chieftains who would rebel, and gave Ireland to Philip of Spain.
+
+It can hardly be denied therefore that England was engaged in a
+life and death struggle. And unless Elizabeth would consent to the
+annexation of Ireland by Spain and to the conquest of England by some
+power that would treat the people there much as the heretics of the
+Netherlands were being treated by Philip, it must be admitted that any
+measures, however violent, became a political necessity--a mere act
+of self-defence. But though Elizabeth had already on hand a war with
+France, Spain and Scotland, her difficulties did not end there. The
+North of Ireland was being invaded by Celts from Scotland, and the
+principal chief, Shan O'Neill (who was described by the Spanish
+Ambassador as "so good a Christian that he cuts off the head of any
+man who enters his country if he be not a Catholic") was in open
+rebellion with the avowed object of crushing out the English power,
+exterminating the rival tribes, and making himself King of Ulster. To
+so miserable a state had that part of Ireland been reduced by petty
+local wars between rival chiefs that hundreds of people had died
+of hunger. Can it be wondered that Elizabeth conceived the idea of
+imitating her sister's policy and forming a "plantation" in the North?
+
+Then came another formidable rebellion in Munster, headed by an
+Ersefied Norman, Desmond. These rebellions were fomented by the Pope,
+and in the South the rebels were aided by Spanish troops. In the
+amount of the aid sent from Spain, however, the Irish rebels were
+sadly disappointed. That has been one of the characteristic features
+of all Irish rebellions; the foreign powers on which they have relied
+have been liberal enough with promises of aid, but when the time for
+performance has come they have left the unfortunate Irish to their
+fate. (Thus in 1641 not only did the rebels fully expect that a
+powerful Spanish force would come to their assistance, but they even
+believed that 18,000 Spanish troops had actually landed at Wexford.)
+That these rebellions were crushed by the forces of Queen Elizabeth
+with a savage violence that is more suggestive of the government of
+the Netherlands by Spain than of what should have been the action of
+a Christian nation cannot be denied; but when reading the accounts
+of the terrible condition to which the country was reduced one cannot
+help thinking that the stories of outrages committed by the English
+troops must be exaggerated. In the first place, the writers, even when
+eye-witnesses, seem to have assumed that the country was peaceful and
+prosperous up to that time; whereas not only had the tribal wars which
+had gone on incessantly until a few years before reduced the people
+almost to a condition of famine, but the rebels themselves, such
+as O'Neill and Desmond, had ravaged the country anew. And if it was
+obvious that the object of Elizabeth was to exterminate the whole
+Irish population and the Roman Catholic religion, it seems impossible
+(even allowing for the eccentricity of human nature in general and of
+the Irish character in particular) to believe that a large part of the
+queen's forces should have been composed of Irish Roman Catholics; or
+that the inhabitants of the towns, most of whom were also Irish Roman
+Catholics, should have taken her side; but such was undoubtedly
+the case. Again, if nearly the whole native population had been
+exterminated by slaughter and famine it would have taken at least a
+century to recover. Yet--a few years after the commencement of
+the English settlement we find Spenser complaining that the new
+proprietors were acting as the Norman barons had done centuries
+before; instead of keeping out the Irish they were making them their
+tenants and thrusting out the English; and some of the proprietors
+were themselves becoming "mere Irish." Then, although no doubt
+a certain proportion of the Elizabethan settlers renounced their
+Protestantism and embraced the Roman Catholic religion, that can
+hardly have been the case with the mass of them; and yet before the
+middle of the seventeenth century we find that the great majority
+of the freeholders of Ireland and even of the members of the Irish
+Parliament were Roman Catholics; surely they must have represented
+the earlier population. And lastly, considering the wild exaggerations
+that occur in the accounts of every other event of Irish history, we
+cannot suppose that this period alone has escaped.
+
+Towards the end of the queen's reign occurred the last of the
+native rebellions. It too was crushed; and, by the "flight of the
+earls"--Tyrone and Tyrconnell--was completed the work which had been
+commenced by Henry II. And so the third chapter of Irish history was
+ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, UNTIL THE END OF THE REIGN OF JAMES II.
+
+
+The seventeenth century is a terrible period of European history. It
+has been described as "the age of religious wars"; and those wars were
+waged with a savage ferocity which it is impossible even now to read
+of without a shudder.
+
+It is a plain matter of history that from the very commencement of the
+Reformation the idea of toleration never entered into the heads of
+any of the authorities of the Church of Rome. France, Spain, Portugal,
+Savoy and Germany all tell the same story. Except in countries such as
+England where the sovereigns adopted the new opinions, the only chance
+which the reforming party had of being able to exercise their religion
+was by means of rebellion and all the horrors of civil war. What that
+meant, the history of the rise of the Dutch Republic tells us. As Lord
+Acton has said: "In the seventeenth century the murder of a heretic
+was not only permitted but rewarded. It was a virtuous deed to
+slaughter Protestant men and women until they were all exterminated.
+Pius V held that it was sound Catholic doctrine that any man may
+stab a heretic; and every man was a heretic who attacked the papal
+prerogatives." And it is equally true that in those cases where the
+reforming party succeeded in gaining the upper hand, they did not show
+much more mercy than had been shown to them previously or was being
+shown to their co-religionists in other countries at the time. Yet
+it is only fair to add that when the idea of toleration did arise, it
+arose amongst the reformed churches. Probably the only Roman Catholic
+State in the world where toleration existed during the seventeenth
+century was the little English colony of Maryland, of which Lord
+Baltimore was the proprietor. And when at length the religious wars
+died out it was, as far as Catholic countries were concerned, because
+the lay mind had become thoroughly disgusted with the whole thing, and
+men's minds were turning in other directions--not because the clerical
+rulers showed the slightest desire to relax their efforts or change
+their policy.
+
+It would be well if the whole dreadful period could be buried in
+oblivion. But it is necessary to mention the subject here, for the
+Nationalist party are continually referring to the horrors of the
+Cromwellian massacres and the penal laws; and if such matters are to
+be gone into at all it is only fair, in order to make a just estimate
+of them, to glance at the great European struggle of which they formed
+an incident. In the century which saw Germany deluged with blood
+for thirty years, and which witnessed the revocation of the Edict of
+Nantes and the revival of vehement persecution in France, it was not
+likely that Ireland should remain unaffected.
+
+Soon after James I came to the throne he commenced his famous Scotch
+plantation in the desolated and half-emptied province of Ulster. That
+it was even a greater success than the plantation formed by Philip
+and Mary everyone is of course aware; it is the descendants of those
+immigrants who, though they live in a district not so highly favoured
+by nature as other parts of the country, form the only really
+prosperous and progressive section of the community at the present
+day. The native Irish do not seem to have looked on the Scotchmen with
+much disfavour, perhaps partly because there being plenty of room for
+all in the desolated tract, and lands being assigned to them, they
+realised that they were safer in the immediate neighbourhood of a
+peaceful settlement than they would have been had they remained a prey
+to unscrupulous adventurers like Shan O'Neill. A member of the legal
+profession must feel shame and sorrow in recording the fact that
+the chicanery of the lawyers added much to the harshness of the
+politicians. That, however, is only another way of saying that
+the humane policy of the nineteenth century was unknown in the
+seventeenth. Had courts been established in Ireland like the native
+land courts of New Zealand in which claims under customary law might
+be investigated, and equitable awards made, the later history of
+Ireland might have been very different. Yet one must remember that
+even in the reign of Queen Victoria there was a strong party in
+England and there were not a few people in New Zealand who argued
+that Maori customary claims should be disregarded and the treaty
+of Waitangi ignored. And in the seventeenth century such ideas were
+unheard of. Lawyers searched for every technicality of English law
+by which the titles of holders of land could be upset, in favour of
+English claimants. Then matters became strangely complicated, as they
+seem to be periodically throughout Irish history. The struggle between
+Charles I and the Parliament began, and it soon became evident that
+the Parliamentary party was the stronger of the two. To the Irish the
+Parliamentarians meant the Puritans; and they believed, not wholly
+without reason, that a determined attempt would be made not only to
+seize all their lands but also to stamp out their religion. (It
+must be observed that the Elizabethan anti-Roman Acts had never been
+strictly carried out in Ireland, and during the reign of James I their
+severity had been relaxed still further--a line of conduct which had
+no parallel in any Roman Catholic country in Europe at the time.)
+Thereupon in 1641 the Roman Catholics of Ulster broke into open
+rebellion, and soon afterwards they applied to the kings of France and
+Spain for aid; and the Pope issued a bull granting a full and plenary
+indulgence and absolute remission for all their sins to all who would
+do their utmost to extirpate and totally root out those workers of
+iniquity who in the kingdom of Ireland had infected and were always
+striving to infect the mass of Catholic purity with the pestiferous
+leaven of their heretical contagion.
+
+The stories told of the actual outbreak of the rebellion are
+interesting as an illustration of the universal habit of exaggeration
+about Irish affairs, to which I have already alluded. Clarendon
+affirms that 40,000 English Protestants were murdered before they
+suspected themselves to be in any danger; Temple states that in
+the first two months of the rebellion 150,000 Protestants had been
+massacred. The Jesuit, O'Mahony, writing in 1645, says "Persevere,
+my countrymen, in the path you have entered on, and exterminate your
+heretical opponents, their adherents and helpers. Already within four
+or five years you have killed 150,000 of them, as you do not deny. I
+myself believe that even a greater number of the heretics have been
+cut off; would that I could say all." He had doubtless obtained
+his information from the returns made by the priests engaged in the
+rebellion to the military leaders, the figures of which were much the
+same. Yet Lecky (who, though in certain passages of his history he
+shows himself to be somewhat biassed in favour of the Irish Roman
+Catholic party, is on the whole a remarkably fair and impartial
+historian) argues with much force that there is no evidence of
+anything like a general massacre, and brings down the number murdered
+to about 8,000. Still, that there was a widespread rebellion and all
+the consequent horrors of civil war, there can be no doubt. The rebels
+of Ulster at one time tried to identify their cause with that of
+Charles I by producing a forged commission from the king--which
+annoyed the Royalists and made the Parliamentary party all the more
+bitter. Charles certainly did his utmost to bring about a peace--no
+doubt being anxious to obtain the assistance of his Irish subjects
+in his Scotch and English wars. But his efforts were thwarted by the
+Papal Nuncio, whose instructions from Rome were that the Holy See
+could never by any positive Act approve of the civil allegiance of
+Catholic subjects to an heretical prince; and thus the Royalist cause
+became as completely lost in Ireland as it was in England. Before the
+peace was finally concluded, Charles was a prisoner in the hands of
+his enemies.
+
+Then came the terrible episode of the Cromwellian war, in which
+Romanist and Royalist alike went down before the Puritan force. Still,
+though he would be a bold man who could attempt to excuse--much less
+to justify--the barbarities that took place, it may be doubted whether
+all the Cromwellian outrages put together equalled a single one of
+those which the Imperial troops had committed during the war which
+had been raging for thirty years in Germany--such for instance as the
+sacking of Magdeburg. It is estimated, however, that about 600,000
+people (of whom 500,000 were of the Irish race and 100,000 of the
+English) perished by the sword, pestilence or famine in the fearful
+years between 1641 and 1652--in other words, about a third part of
+the population was wiped out. And the war was followed by a wholesale
+confiscation--having fought for the king being considered as much an
+act of treason as having rebelled against him. The confiscated lands
+were allotted to soldiers, to persons who had supplied money to the
+Parliamentary forces, and to other supporters of the new Government.
+It is but just, however, to add that 700,000 acres of profitable land
+in Connaught were allotted to dispossessed Romanists, and that they
+were allowed to occupy 100,000 acres in other parts of the country; a
+striking contrast to the lot of the unhappy Waldenses who were at that
+time being driven from their homes and slaughtered without mercy for
+no crime but heresy; or to the treatment a few years later by Louis
+XIV of his Huguenot subjects whose lands were confiscated without
+compensation and who were only given the choice of death or the
+galleys.
+
+At the Restoration some effort was made to undo the injustice of the
+Cromwellian confiscations. But the matter was one of great difficulty.
+In many cases land had been allotted by Cromwell in payment for money
+received; in others the grantees had sold their holdings to purchasers
+who had paid in cash, regarding the original grant as indefeasible.
+A reconfiscation of such lands would obviously have worked a great
+injustice; and it is a common maxim of law that between two claimants
+each with a good title the one in possession is to be preferred. Still
+it cannot be said that the decisions of the Royal Commissioners were
+always equitable according to our ideas; for instance, the award of
+80,000 acres to the Duke of York (afterwards James II) of land which
+had been forfeited under Cromwell because the owner had fought for his
+father, would be hard to justify on any possible grounds. Still, an
+Act of Settlement was passed, by which a certain amount of justice
+was done; it is difficult to arrive at the figures accurately, but
+it appears that after the passing of the Act nearly one-third of
+the Island was vested in Roman Catholic proprietors. Archbishop King
+estimated that at the time when he was writing--1689--two-thirds
+of the Protestant landowners held their estates under the Act of
+Settlement. And Lecky says, "Only an infinitesimal portion of the soil
+belongs to the descendants of those who possessed it before Cromwell."
+But Archbishop King was influenced by the fear he had felt as to what
+the effect of a repeal of the Act would be; and there can hardly be
+a doubt that his feelings led him to overestimate the number. With
+regard to Lecky's remark, one can only take it as a strange instance
+of a gross exaggeration having crept into a book which is usually
+careful and accurate. It may be that the statement was not very
+incorrect according to the evidence the author had before him; but if
+so, that only proves that the evidence was wrong; for the proceedings
+in the Land Courts which have been set up in Ireland during the last
+half century have shown that the proportion of titles to estates which
+date from an earlier period was far larger than people had supposed.
+
+During the peaceful and tolerant reign of Charles II the country made
+steady progress.
+
+Under James II, however, everything was reversed. That unhappy
+monarch, having ascended the throne tranquilly, with many
+protestations of toleration and justice to all, succeeded in less than
+two years in making it clear to the people of England that his object
+was to confine liberty to those who professed his own creed and that
+his idea of good government was something like that which was then
+existing in France and Savoy. Driven from Great Britain, on his
+arrival in Ireland he issued a proclamation declaring that his
+Protestant subjects, their religion, privileges and properties were
+his especial care; and he had previously directed the Lord Lieutenant
+to declare in Council that he would preserve the Act of Settlement
+inviolable. But the Protestants soon had reason to fear that his
+promises were illusory and that the liberty which might be allowed to
+them would be at best temporary. In a word, what the one party looked
+forward to with hope and the other with dread was "a confederacy with
+France which would make His Majesty's monarchy absolute."
+
+In order to understand what that meant, to Irish Protestants, it is
+well to glance at the condition of France at the time. Louis XIV had
+begun by directing that the Edict of Nantes was to be interpreted by
+the strictest letter of the law; and soon after that the condition
+of the Huguenots became more unhappy than that of the Irish Roman
+Catholics ever was during the penal laws. The terrible "Dragonnades"
+commenced in 1682; soldiers were billeted on heretics, and unfortunate
+women were insulted past endurance; Huguenots were restricted even
+as to holding family prayers; children at the age of seven were
+encouraged to renounce their faith, and if they did so they were
+taken from their parents who, however, were obliged to pay for their
+maintenance in convent schools. Protestant churches were closed, and
+their endowments handed over to Roman Catholic institutions. Huguenot
+children were forbidden all education except the most elementary. No
+heretic was allowed to sue a Catholic for debt. All this, however, did
+not satisfy the monarch or his ecclesiastical advisers. On the 18th
+of October 1685, he issued his famous Revocation of the Edict of
+Nantes:--
+
+    "We by the present Edict which is perpetual and irrevocable,
+    revoke the Edict given at Nantes in 1583 together with every
+    concession to the Protestants of whatever nature they be.
+    We will that all temples of that religion be instantly
+    demolished. We prohibit our Protestant subjects to assemble
+    for worship in any private house. We prohibit all our lords
+    to exercise that religion within their fiefs under penalty of
+    confiscation of property and imprisonment of person. We enjoin
+    all ministers of the said faith to leave the kingdom within
+    fifteen days of the publication of this Edict, under penalty
+    of the galleys. We enjoin that all children who shall be
+    born henceforth be baptized by the Catholic curates. Persons
+    awaiting the enlightening grace of God may live in our kingdom
+    unhindered on account of their religion on condition that they
+    do not perform any of its exercises or assemble for prayer or
+    worship under penalty of body and wealth."
+
+This Edict met with cordial approval from the Catholic party in
+France. The famous Madame de Sevigné wrote: "I admire the king for the
+means he has devised for ruining the Huguenots. The wars and massacres
+of former days only gave vigour to the sect; but the edict just
+issued, aided by the dragoons, will give them the _coup de grace_."
+
+The Irish Protestants saw with alarm that amongst the soldiers who
+came from France to aid King James were some who had taken an active
+part in the dragonnades organized by Louis XIV in order to carry out
+his edict. Then one Act was passed by the Dublin Parliament repealing
+the Act of Settlement; and by another 2,461 persons were declared
+guilty of high treason unless they appeared before the Dublin
+authorities on a certain day and proved they were not guilty. What
+steps King James was prepared to take in order to subdue the rebels of
+Derry who held out against him can be gathered from the proclamation
+which he directed Conrade de Rosen, his Mareschal General, to issue.
+He warned the rebels that if they did not surrender immediately, all
+the members of their faction, whether protected or not, in the whole
+neighbourhood, would be brought close to the walls of the city and
+there starved to death; that he would ravish the countryside, and see
+that no man, woman or child escaped; and that if the city still held
+out he would give no quarter and spare neither age nor sex, in case it
+was taken by force.
+
+Even if there had been no Derry to relieve and no Protestants in
+other parts of the country, the conquest of Ireland was a political
+necessity to King William. England was at this time in much the same
+position that it had been in the days of Elizabeth, substituting the
+name France for Spain. The continental powers were again united in a
+supreme effort to stamp out Protestantism, and England once more
+stood almost alone. In Spain and Portugal, heresy was of course still
+punishable with death; the Pope had celebrated the Revocation of the
+Edict of Nantes with a triumphal _Te Deum_; a terrible persecution was
+raging not only throughout the Protestant districts of France but also
+on the Rhine, in Hungary, Savoy and the Alpine Valleys; if Ireland
+had remained a separate kingdom ruled by the ally and admirer of Louis
+XIV, the next step would certainly have been an invasion of England
+by the joint forces of France and Ireland. All that we in modern
+times include in the term "religious liberty" hung on the issue of the
+battle that was fought and won on the banks of the Boyne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE PERIOD OF THE PENAL LAWS.
+
+
+The flight of James II brings us to the era of the "penal laws." To
+one who lives in the twentieth century and is embued with the spirit
+of modern thought, the whole subject is more than painful--it is
+detestable. But to pass it over in silence is impossible; and in order
+to get a clear view of the position it is necessary to examine
+what the penal laws were, what they were not, and what were the
+circumstances of the time during which they were in force.
+
+The penal laws were a series of enactments carefully planned so as to
+harass the Roman Catholics at every moment of their lives, in the hope
+of inducing them to abandon their religion. The unhappy people were
+prohibited from becoming or voting for members of Parliament; they
+were excluded from corporations, the army, the navy and the legal
+profession. They were forbidden to bear arms, or even to possess a
+horse worth more than £5. Education was denied to them, as they could
+not send their sons to the university and were forbidden either to
+have schools of their own in Ireland or to send their children abroad.
+They were not allowed to possess freehold estates in land, and even as
+to leaseholds they were seriously restricted. On the death of a Roman
+Catholic his estate was divided amongst his children equally, unless
+the eldest son became a Protestant, in which case he inherited the
+whole. And as no Roman Catholic was allowed to act as a guardian, a
+man never knew that if he should die his children might not be brought
+up in a faith that he detested. The performance of Roman Catholic
+worship was barely tolerated, as no bishops or other dignitaries were
+allowed to remain in Ireland, and the only priests authorized to
+say mass were those who were "registered" and had taken the oath of
+abjuration--that is, an oath declaring that the Pretender had no right
+to the throne.
+
+Such in brief were those terrible statutes. But without attempting
+to excuse them, there are various matters which must be taken into
+account if we are to judge them fairly. In the first place, the
+political aspect of the question should not be forgotten. The
+Protestant minority might justly fear that if the Roman Catholic party
+were as powerful as their numbers would naturally cause them to be,
+they would aid in bringing about a French invasion for the restoration
+of the Stuarts and the re-establishment of the system which had been
+in evidence under James II. An army was actually formed in France, and
+on more than one occasion was in readiness to start. The Stuarts were
+regarded by the Pope as the rightful sovereigns. The Roman Catholic
+prelates whose entry into Ireland was forbidden were appointed by
+the Pretender and were his political agents; it was that fact, and no
+doctrinal reason, that caused their expulsion. It is necessary to make
+this quite clear, as there has been as much exaggeration on this point
+as on most other subjects connected with Irish history. The words of
+the "oath of abjuration" were as follows:
+
+    "I do solemnly and sincerely declare that I do believe in my
+    conscience that the person pretended to be Prince of Wales
+    during the life of the late King James and since his decease
+    taking upon himself the style and title of King of England by
+    the name of James III hath not any right or title whatever to
+    the crown of this realm."
+
+A modern Roman Catholic writer has thus described the oath:--
+
+    "By the Oath of Abjuration the priest was ordered to swear
+    that the sacrifice of the mass and the invocation of the
+    Blessed Virgin and the saints were damnable and idolatrous. In
+    other words, the priest was ordered to apostatize, or fly for
+    his life."
+
+And even if Roman Catholics took the oath of allegiance, the old
+difficulty arose as to the papal right to depose princes and to order
+their subjects to rebel. So late as 1768, when a declaration was drawn
+up which it was hoped the leaders of the Roman Catholic party would
+sign, so that the penal laws might be finally done away with, the
+Papal Nuncio vetoed the proposal because the declaration contained a
+reprobation of the doctrines that faith need not be kept with heretics
+and that if the Pope banned a sovereign his subjects might depose and
+slay him. It is but fair to add, however, that a large number of Roman
+Catholics did sign the declaration; and the penal laws (which had been
+relaxed from time to time when it was seen that the Irish took no
+part in the Stuart rebellions of 1715 and 1745) were soon afterwards
+practically abolished.
+
+Then it must be borne in mind that the Irish penal laws, although
+to some extent modelled on the legislation of Louis XIV against the
+Huguenots, were absolutely insignificant compared with those which
+were in force at the time in every Roman Catholic country in Europe.
+Galling though the Irish laws were, they never went so far as to
+make the mere holding of heretical opinions criminal. Thus no one in
+Ireland was ever put to death for believing in transubstantiation;
+whereas in one diocese of Portugal 20,000 people were sent to the
+stake for denying it. As every one who has visited the Madrid picture
+gallery will recollect, it was still the custom in the eighteenth
+century for the King of Spain to preside in state at the burning of
+heretics; and it was not until that century was drawing to a close
+that it was for the first time enacted in Portugal that sentence of
+death for heresy when passed by the ecclesiastical court should not be
+carried into effect unless the order was countersigned by the king. In
+France, for two or three heretics to meet for worship anywhere (their
+churches had of course all been pulled down) was a crime punishable
+with death; and any Huguenot caught whilst attempting to escape from
+the country was sent to the galleys--a fate worse than mere death,
+for it meant death by slow torture. And every child was forcibly
+taken from its heretic parents at the age of five, and educated in a
+convent.
+
+But more than that: Roman Catholics who fled from the tyranny of the
+penal laws at home had no scruple, when they reached the Continent, in
+taking part in persecutions far more terrible than anything they had
+seen in Ireland. During the dragonnades in Languedoc, Louis XIV's
+Irish brigade joined eagerly in the butchery of old men, women
+and children and the burning of whole villages. The same heroes
+distinguished themselves by destroying everything they could find in
+remote Alpine valleys so that the unfortunate Waldenses might die of
+starvation. And the Irish troops under Lord Mountcashel aided in the
+burning of 1,000 villages in the Palatinate of the Rhine, in which
+all the inhabitants--men, women and children--were slain by the sword,
+burnt to death, or left to perish from hunger. These persecutions were
+practically brought to an end by the French Revolution and the rise
+of modern ideas; but the ecclesiastical authorities, though they
+have lost their power, have shown no sign of having changed their
+principles. Even in the middle of the nineteenth century King Victor
+Emmanuel was excommunicated by Pope Pius IX for allowing his Vaudois
+subjects to build a church for themselves at Turin.
+
+Of course it may be said with perfect truth that two blacks do not
+make one white. Still, the constant complaints about the tyranny of
+the penal laws have less force when they come from the representatives
+of a party who acted in the same way themselves whenever they had the
+opportunity.
+
+It is indeed frequently urged as a matter of aggravation that whereas
+other persecutions were those of a minority by a majority, this was of
+a majority by a minority. To me, so far as this makes any difference
+at all, it tells the other way. As a matter of morality, I fail to
+see any difference; putting all the inhabitants of an Alpine valley
+to death as heretics does not seem to me one whit the less horrible
+because the sovereign also ruled a large Catholic population on
+the plains. On the other hand, the fact that the Roman Catholics
+in Ireland formed the majority of the population prevented the
+persecution from being strictly carried out. It was comparatively
+easy for Louis XIV to surround a heretic district with a cordon of
+soldiers, and then draw them closer together searching every house as
+they went, seizing the clergy and taking them off to the galleys; but
+it was impossible to track unregistered priests through the mountains
+and valleys of Munster. Hence the law as to the registration of
+priests soon became a dead letter.
+
+There was indeed one great difference, between Irish and continental
+persecution. On the continent it was the holiest and best men who were
+the keenest persecutors. (This may seem strange to modern readers;
+but anyone who has studied the lives of Bossuet and San Carlo Borromeo
+will admit that it is true.) Hence the persecution was carried out
+with that vigour which was necessary to make it a success. In Spain,
+if a heretic under torture or the fear of it consented to recant, the
+Holy Office was not satisfied with a mere formal recantation; for the
+rest of his life the convert was watched day and night to see that
+there was no sign of back-sliding; and even the possession of a
+fragment of the New Testament was considered as sufficient evidence
+of a relapse to send the wretched man to the stake. Consequently, in a
+generation or two heresy became as extinct as Christianity did amongst
+the Kabyles of North Africa after the Mohammedan persecution. In
+Ireland, however, persecution was always against the grain with
+religiously-minded Protestants. Seven bishops protested against the
+first enactment of the Penal Laws; and during the period when they
+were in force, the bishops repeatedly spoke and voted in favour of
+each proposed mitigation of them. (With this one may contrast the
+action of the French bishops who on the accession of Louis XVI in
+1774 presented an address to the new king urging him to increase the
+persecution of the Huguenots which had become somewhat slack during
+the later years of his predecessor. By the irony of fate the same men
+were a few years later pleading vainly for the mercy which they had
+never shown in the days of their power.) Nor was this tolerant feeling
+confined to the bishops. By the aid of the Protestant gentry, the laws
+were continually being evaded. Protestants appointed by the Court as
+guardians of Roman Catholic children, used to carry out the wishes of
+the Roman Catholic relations; Roman Catholic proprietors frequently
+handed over their estates to Protestant friends as Trustees, and,
+though such Trusts were of course not enforceable at law, there were
+very few instances in which they were not faithfully performed. Many
+strange stories are told of the evasions of the Acts. On one occasion
+whilst it was still illegal for a popish recusant to own a horse of
+a greater value than £5, a man met a Roman Catholic gentleman who
+was riding a handsome horse; he held out £5 in one hand, and with the
+other caught hold of the bridle. The rider, naturally infuriated at
+this, struck the man with his whip so heavily that he fell down dead.
+When he was tried for murder, the judge decided that as the man had
+laid a hand on the bridle, the rider had reason to suppose that he
+intended to take it as well as the horse, which would have been
+an illegal act; consequently he was justified in defending himself
+against highway robbery; and therefore the charge must be dismissed.
+Again, a Roman Catholic proprietor found out that an effort was likely
+to be made to deprive him of his estate. He rode up to Dublin on a
+Saturday; on Sunday he received the Holy Communion at a Protestant
+Church; on Monday he executed a deed transferring his estate to a
+Protestant friend as Trustee; on Tuesday he was received back into
+the Church of Rome; and on Wednesday he rode home again, to enjoy his
+estate free from further molestation.
+
+The schools which were founded in order to convert the rising
+generation were a strange contrast to the admirably conducted
+institutions established in France and Spain for a similar purpose.
+They were so disgracefully mismanaged that the pupils who had passed
+through them looked back on everything that had been taught them there
+with a lifelong disgust.
+
+It is needless to say that laws thus carried out were a dead failure
+as far as winning converts was concerned. On the other hand, they
+became in one sense the more galling as the enforcement of them fell
+into the hands of a low class of informers who had no object beyond
+making money for themselves. Still, public feeling was so strong that
+by the middle of the century the laws had almost fallen into abeyance.
+Brook, writing in 1762, says: "Though these laws are still in force,
+it is long since they have been in action. They hang like a sword by a
+thread over the heads of these people, and Papists walk under them in
+security and peace; for whoever should adventure to cut this thread
+would become ignominious and detestable." And in 1778 and 1782 (that
+is, when, as an Irish Roman Catholic writer has pointed out, there was
+still neither toleration nor peace for Protestant populations in any
+Catholic state in Europe) the Irish Protestant Parliament formally
+repealed nearly all the penal laws.
+
+Probably their most lasting effect was that relating to the tenure
+of land. If free purchase and sale regardless of religion had been
+allowed throughout the eighteenth century, one may conjecture that
+the effect of the Cromwellian confiscations would long since have died
+away. But these laws perpetuated that peculiar state of things which
+has been the cause of so much unhappiness in Ireland--the landlords
+generally belonged to one religion, and their tenants and dependents
+to another.
+
+It may be asked, As these odious laws all came to an end generations
+ago, what is the good of recalling the sorrows of the past which had
+much better be forgotten? I reply, None whatever; and very glad I
+should be if the whole subject were quietly dropped. But unfortunately
+that is just what the Roman Catholic party in Ireland will not do. One
+of the ways in which religious animosity is being kept alive (and I
+regret to say is being steadily increased) is by the teaching in
+the Roman Catholic schools of exaggerated accounts of the penal laws
+without referring to any of the mitigating circumstances. Even in the
+present year--1913--the Lenten pastoral of one of the bishops goes
+back to the same old subject. If other countries acted in a similar
+manner, how could the grievances of bygone centuries ever be
+forgotten? The Jews, cruelly treated though they were during the time
+of the Norman kings, do not harp on the subject in England to-day. It
+may be doubted whether all the religious persecutions of Europe
+put together were as great a disgrace to Christendom as the slave
+trade--in which, I am ashamed to say, England strove to obtain the
+pre-eminence amongst European nations and which she forced upon her
+colonies against their will. Yet I should regret it deeply if that
+were the one passage of history selected for study in the schools and
+colleges for coloured pupils in the West Indies at the present day.
+When a man who has suffered wrong in former years broods over it
+instead of thinking of his present blessings and his future prospects,
+one may be sure that he is a man who will not succeed in life; and
+what is true of individuals is true also of nations.
+
+The expression "Protestant ascendancy," although it never came into
+use during the period with which we are dealing, has so frequently
+since then been employed with reference to it, that it is necessary
+to explain its meaning. Probably no word in the English language
+has suffered more from being used in different senses than the word
+"Protestant." In Ireland it frequently used to be, and still sometimes
+is, taken as equivalent to "Anglican" or "Episcopalian"; to an
+Irishman of the last century it would have appeared quite natural to
+speak of "Protestants and Presbyterians," meaning thereby two distinct
+bodies. This is a matter of historical importance; for so far from
+the Presbyterian element being favoured during the period of the Penal
+Laws, the English Toleration Act had not been extended to Ireland;
+Presbyterians were by the sacramental test excluded from all municipal
+offices; their worship, though never in practice interfered with,
+remained technically illegal. Their share in "Protestant ascendancy"
+was therefore very limited.
+
+But if the Established Church was the one favoured body, it had to pay
+dearly for its privileges. In truth, the state of the Irish Church
+at this period of its history, was deplorable. All the positions of
+value--bishoprics, deaneries and important parishes--were conferred
+on Englishmen, who never resided in their cures, but left the duties
+either to be performed by half-starved deputies or not at all. Many
+of the churches were in ruins, and the glebes had fallen into decay;
+a union of half-a-dozen parishes would scarcely supply a meagre
+salary for one incumbent. A large proportion of the tithes had been
+appropriated by laymen; how small a sum actually reached the clergy
+is shown by the fact that the first-fruits (that is, the year's income
+paid by incumbents on their appointment) did not amount to more than
+£500 a year in all. It may be that the standard of religious life
+was not lower in Ireland than it was in England when the
+spiritually-minded non-Jurors had been driven out and Hanoverian
+deadness was supreme; but in England there was no other Church to form
+a contrast. In Ireland the apathy and worldliness of the Protestant
+clergy stood out in bold relief against the heroic devotion of the
+priests and friars; and at the time when the unhappy peasants, forced
+to pay tithes to a Church which they detested, were ready to starve
+themselves to support their own clergy and to further the cause of
+their religion, the well-to-do Protestant graziers and farmers were
+straining the law so as to evade the payment of tithes, and never
+thought of doing anything further to support the Church to which they
+were supposed to belong. (It is but fair, however, to state that
+this condition of things has long since passed away; the Evangelical
+revival breathed new life into the dry bones of Irish Protestantism.)
+
+But it was not merely in religious matters that Ireland suffered
+during this melancholy period. Students of modern history whose
+researches usually commence with the early part of the nineteenth
+century, are wont to gather from text-books the idea that the policy
+of the manufacturing party in England has always been liberal,
+progressive and patriotic; whereas that of the landed interest has
+been retrograde and selfish. There cannot be a greater delusion.
+English manufacturers have been just as self-seeking and narrow-minded
+as other people--no more and no less; they have been quite as ready
+to sacrifice the interests of others when they believed them to be
+opposed to their own, as the much-abused landowners. At this time
+every nation in Europe regarded the outlying portions of the Empire
+as existing only for the benefit of the centre; in fact, the English
+development of the "Colonial System" even then was more liberal than
+those of Spain or Holland. The English system, if perfectly carried
+out, was by no means unfair. The ground idea was that the mother
+country voluntarily restricted herself in matters of trade for the
+benefit of the Colonies, and the Colonies had to do the same for the
+benefit of the mother country. Thus, when England refused to admit
+timber from the Baltic in order to benefit the Canadian lumber trade;
+and placed a prohibitive duty on sugar from Cuba so as to secure the
+English market for Jamaica; it was but fair that the trade in other
+articles from Canada and Jamaica should be directed to England. To
+say that the whole thing was a mistake, as such restrictions really
+injured both parties, is no answer, as no one at that time dreamed of
+such a thing as free trade. The real answer is that it was impossible
+to keep the balance true; some slight change of circumstances might
+render that unfair which up to then had been perfectly equal. And
+as the English merchants were on the spot and commanded votes in
+Parliament, any injustice against them would be speedily rectified;
+the colonists living at a distance and having no means of making their
+voice heard, would be left to suffer.
+
+In applying the colonial system to Ireland, it is true that in theory
+England undertook to protect her by means of the British army and
+navy, from foreign foes; but beyond that, the system was to Ireland
+all loss and no gain. Every branch of Irish industry was deliberately
+ruined by the English Government. By the Navigation Act of 1663, trade
+between Ireland and the British Colonies was forbidden; soon after,
+the importation of Irish beef, mutton, pork and butter into
+England was prohibited; then, at the request of the English woollen
+manufacturers, the export of woollen goods from Ireland to any country
+was stopped; and finally, with a refinement of cruelty, the export of
+linen articles--the one industry that had hitherto been left to
+the unfortunate country--was restricted to the coarsest and poorest
+varieties, for fear of offending the Dutch.
+
+The result of all this wretched misgovernment was not merely
+destitution bordering on famine, but a wholesale emigration. Whilst
+the Roman Catholics were leaving the country to avoid the penal laws,
+the most skilful and industrious of the artizan class,--the very
+backbone of the nation--were being driven out by the prohibition of
+their trades. It is said that no less than 30,000 men were thrown out
+of employment by the destruction of the woollen industry alone. These
+were nearly all Protestants; to encourage them would have done more to
+Protestantize the country than all the penal laws and charter schools
+put together; but they were ruthlessly sacrificed to the greed of the
+English manufacturers. Some went to the Continent, many more to New
+England and the other American colonies, where they prospered, and
+they and their sons became some of Washington's best soldiers in the
+War of Independence.
+
+It was only natural that thoughtful men in Ireland should cast envious
+eyes on Scotland, which had recently secured the benefit of union
+with England, and consequently was able to develop her commerce
+and manufactures unhindered. But though the subject of a union was
+discussed, and even referred to in addresses from the Irish Parliament
+to Queen Anne, no active steps were taken.
+
+Still, in considering these commercial restrictions, as in the case of
+the penal laws, we must not lose sight of the fact that the state
+of circumstances we are dealing with has long passed away. It is
+necessary for a historian to refer to it, even if he finds it hard to
+do so in a perfectly dispassionate way; but it is waste of time and
+energy for the present generation to go on brooding over woes which
+had come to an end before their grandfathers were born. Yet that is
+what the Nationalists of to-day are doing. Not long ago, the Old
+Boys' Association of an Irish Roman Catholic College resolved, very
+laudably, to found an annual prize at their alma mater. The subject
+they selected was an essay on the treatment by England of Irish
+industries before the year 1800! Had it been a Scotch or a German
+College, the subject chosen would probably have been, The progress
+in scientific knowledge during the last century, or, Improvements in
+means of travel since 1820; and one must ask, which subject of study
+is likely to be most profitable to young men who have to make their
+way in the modern world?
+
+It may be asked, why did the Irish Parliament do nothing to stay this
+national ruin? The answer is that the Irish Parliament possessed very
+little power. The Bill of Rights of course did not apply to Ireland;
+general elections were very rare, and a large number of members
+were paid officers of the Government; the English Parliament had a
+co-ordinate power of legislating for Ireland; and since Poyning's Act
+(as explained by the declaratory Act of George I) was still in force,
+no Bill could be introduced into the Irish Parliament until it had
+been approved both by the Irish and the English Councils; and the
+Irish Parliament might then pass it or reject it but had no power to
+amend it.
+
+And the use which the English Government made of the Irish Parliament
+was as disgraceful as their treatment of Irish industries. Miserably
+poor though the country was, it was burdened by the payment of
+pensions of a nature so scandalous that the English Parliament even of
+that period would not have tolerated them.
+
+The conditions of land tenure also added to the miseries of the
+country. It is often said that the land belonged to wealthy English
+absentees, and the unfortunate occupiers, who had no security of
+tenure, were ground down by the payment of exorbitant rents. This is
+literally true; but, like most partial statements, misleading. Much
+of the land was owned by wealthy Englishmen--which of itself was a
+serious evil; but they let it in large farms at low rents on long
+leases, in the hope that the occupiers would execute their own
+improvements. Instead of that, however, their tenants sublet their
+holdings in smaller lots to others; and these subtenants did the same
+again; thus there were sometimes three or four middlemen, and the rent
+paid by the actual occupier to his immediate landlord was ten times
+the amount the nominal owner received. As the rate of wages
+was miserably low, and the rent of a cabin and a plot of ground
+scandalously high, how the wretched occupiers managed to keep body and
+soul together is a mystery. Much has been written about the useless,
+dissipated lives of these middlemen or "squireens"; and no doubt it is
+to a great extent true, although, like everything else in Ireland, it
+has been exaggerated. Travellers have told us of some landlords
+who resided on their estates, did their utmost to improve them, and
+forbade subletting (in spite of the unpopularity caused by their doing
+so). And one of the remarkable features of later Irish history is that
+whenever there was a period of acute difficulty and danger there were
+always country gentlemen to be found ready to risk their lives and
+fortunes or to undertake the thankless and dangerous duties of county
+magistrates.
+
+It is curious how close a parallel might be drawn between the way
+in which Norman Ireland was Ersefied and that in which Cromwellian
+Ireland was Catholicized. Many of those who became large landowners
+by the Cromwellian confiscations, having no religious prejudices (some
+might say, no religious or humane feelings), when the leases of
+their tenants fell in, put the farms up to auction regardless of the
+feelings of the occupiers. As the Roman Catholics were content with
+a simpler manner of life than the Protestants, they generally offered
+higher rents; the dispossessed Protestants, driven from their homes,
+joined their brethren in America. Then in the South, the poorer of
+Cromwell's settlers, in some cases, neglected by their own pastors,
+joined the religion of the majority; in others, intermarrying with the
+natives, allowed their children to be brought up in the faith of their
+mothers. Hence we arrive at the curious fact that at the present day
+some of the most ardent Romanists and violent Nationalists, who are
+striving to have the Irish language enforced all over the country,
+and pose as the representatives of ancient Irish septs, are really the
+descendants of Cromwell's soldiers.
+
+So passed the greater part of the eighteenth century; and the unhappy
+country seemed as far off from progress and prosperity as ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EARLIER PART OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE III. THE ACQUISITION OF
+INDEPENDENCE BY THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
+
+
+When we come to the reign of George III we have arrived at a specially
+interesting period of Irish history. For we are no longer dealing with
+a state of society that has wholly passed away; the great events that
+occurred towards the close of the eighteenth century are continually
+referred to as bearing, at least by analogy, on the questions of the
+present day. It is for the honest historian to examine how far that
+analogy is real, and how far it is delusive.
+
+For some time after the accession of George III, the state of Ireland
+was almost as miserable as before. Trade and manufactures being nearly
+crushed out, want of employment brought the people in the towns to the
+brink of starvation. In the country, although the middle classes were
+on the whole becoming more prosperous, the condition of the labourers
+and cottiers was wretched in the extreme. It is not to be wondered at
+therefore that we now hear of the commencement of two movements which
+were destined later on to play so important a part in the history of
+Ireland--the agitation against the payment of tithes and the rise of
+secret societies. Few men at the present day could be found who would
+attempt to justify the tithe system as it prevailed in the eighteenth
+century. It was not merely that the starving peasantry were forced to
+contribute towards the maintenance of a religion in which they did not
+believe, but the whole manner of levying and collecting the tithes
+was bad; and what made them still more annoying was the fact that the
+clergy never thought of performing the duties for which tithes were
+supposed to exist; the large majority of the rectors did not even
+reside in their parishes. The principal secret societies were the
+Oakboys and the Steelboys of the north, and the Whiteboys of
+the south. The northern societies soon came to an end; but the
+organization of the Whiteboys continued to spread, and for a time
+it assumed alarming proportions. Commencing as a war against tithe
+proctors, the enclosure of commons, and the substitution of grazing
+land for tillage, they went on to commit outrages of various sorts,
+and something like a reign of terror spread over a large tract of
+country. But it may safely be said that generally speaking their
+conduct was not nearly so violent as that of other secret societies of
+a later date; and the evidence of any foreign influence being at
+work, or of religious animosity being connected with the movement, is
+slight.
+
+It is interesting to observe that, whenever there was a violent and
+abnormal outbreak of crime, the Irish Parliament did not hesitate to
+pass special laws to meet the case. Such measures as the Whiteboy Act
+of 1787, or the Insurrection Act and the Habeas Corpus Suppression
+Act of 1796, which were readily passed whilst the Irish Parliament was
+completely independent, are frequently referred to by modern agitators
+as amongst the brutal Coercion Acts which the tyranny of England has
+forced on an innocent people.
+
+The harshness of the Penal Laws was steadily being relaxed. All
+restrictions on worship, or the number of clergy allowed, had long
+since fallen into abeyance. Roman Catholic students were admitted
+into Trinity College, Dublin; and the authorities of the University
+expressed their readiness to appoint a Divinity Professor of their own
+faith for them if they wished it. The restrictions on property were
+becoming obsolete; and political restrictions were not felt so keenly
+since most of the Roman Catholics would have been ineligible for the
+franchise on the ground of their poverty even if the stumbling block
+of religion had been removed. And the loyal sentiments expressed by
+the Roman Catholics made the best of the Protestants all the more
+anxious to repeal the laws which they had never regarded with favour.
+Then amongst educated people not only in Ireland but elsewhere,
+religion was ceasing to be the great line of cleavage; other
+matters--political, social, and commercial--were occupying men's
+thoughts and forming new combinations.
+
+The political state of the country was peculiar. The real government
+was carried on by the Lord Lieutenant and his officials; but as the
+hereditary revenue did not supply funds sufficient for that purpose,
+it was necessary to have recourse to Parliament. And the constitution
+of that Parliament was as extraordinary as most things in Ireland.
+A session was usually held every second year, but a Parliament might
+last for a whole reign. The House of Commons consisted of 300 members,
+of whom only 64 represented counties, and most of the rest nominally
+sat for small boroughs, but really were appointed by certain
+individuals. It was at one time computed that 124 members were
+nominated by 53 peers, whilst 91 others were chosen by 52 commoners.
+A large number of the members--a third of the whole house, it is
+said--were in receipt of pensions, or held offices of profit under the
+Crown. Of course there was no such thing as party government--in fact,
+parties did not exist, though individuals might sometimes vote against
+the wish of the government. The Lord Lieutenant, however, managed to
+retain a majority by what would now be called flagrant and wholesale
+bribery. Peerages, sinecures and pensions were bestowed with a lavish
+hand; and every appointment, ecclesiastical or civil, was treated as
+a reward for political services. But history affords many instances of
+how assemblies constituted in what seems to be the most unsatisfactory
+way possible, have been remarkable for the ability and patriotism they
+have shown; and certainly this was the case with that unrepresentative
+collection of Protestant landlords, Dublin barristers, and paid
+officials, who composed the Irish Parliament. A "National" party arose
+(I shall presently explain what was the meaning attached to that word
+at the time) who strove to win for Ireland the laws which in England
+had been enacted long before and which were regarded as the very
+foundations of British liberty. Statutes were passed limiting the
+duration of Parliament to eight years; establishing the _Habeas
+Corpus_; and making judges irremoveable. Afterwards, most of the
+Penal Laws were repealed; and at the same time the disabilities of the
+Protestant Dissenters were abolished.
+
+But meanwhile foreign affairs were tending to bring about changes yet
+more sweeping. When England went to war with both France and Spain,
+the condition of Ireland was well-nigh desperate. The country was
+almost denuded of regular troops; steps had indeed been taken for the
+establishment of a militia, and arms had actually been purchased; but
+in the hopelessly insolvent condition of the Irish Exchequer, it was
+impossible to do anything further. And a French invasion might arrive
+at any moment. At this crisis the country gentlemen came forward. They
+formed their tenants and dependants into regiments of volunteers, of
+which they took command themselves, and strained their resources to
+the utmost in order to bear the expense of the undertaking. And
+the rank and file--farmers and labourers--seemed fired by the same
+enthusiasm. The movement spread rapidly over the country, but it
+possessed more vitality in Ulster than elsewhere. It soon became
+evident that Ulster volunteers may form a body not to be disregarded.
+
+The troubles of England, however, were not limited to the Continent.
+The American War broke out. We, who view the question impartially
+through the long vista of years, can see that there was much to be
+said for the English claim. The mother country had been brought to the
+verge of bankruptcy by a long and exhausting war waged with France for
+the protection of the American colonies; surely it was only fair that
+those colonies, who had taken but a very small part in the war, should
+at least bear a fraction of the cost. But the cry of "No taxation
+without representation" was raised; the Americans rebelled; and
+England was placed in the humiliating position of being defeated by
+her own colonists. During that period Ireland remained thoroughly
+loyal; the efforts of Franklin and his party to enlist Ireland
+on their side were as complete a failure as those of the French
+emissaries had been shortly before. But it was inevitable that the
+success of the American revolution should have a strong effect on
+Irish affairs. Amongst the northern Presbyterians there had always
+been a feeling somewhat akin to Republicanism; and (as we have seen)
+many of their relations were fighting in Washington's army. Then
+in Ireland there was something much worse than taxation without
+representation: the English Parliament, in which Ireland had no part,
+claimed to legislate for Ireland and was actually at that moment
+keeping the country in a state of semi-starvation by imposing severe
+restrictions on commerce. Irish politicians read the offers of
+conciliation made by the English Government to the revolted colonies,
+in which not only was the power of taxation given up and freedom of
+internal legislation established, but all power of the Parliament of
+Great Britain over America was renounced; and began to ask whether
+England could withhold from loyal Irishmen the boons which she offered
+to rebellious Americans. The claims were urged in Parliament and
+at meetings of the volunteers and other public bodies; the English
+Government for some time refused to grant any concession; but at
+length, fearing an Irish Revolution, gave way on every point. They
+granted, in fact, as an Irish statesman expressed it, "everything
+short of separation." First (in spite of the opposition of the English
+manufacturing classes) all restrictions on trade were swept away;
+then, in 1782, the Declaratory Act of George I, by virtue of which the
+English Parliament had claimed the right to legislate for Ireland, was
+repealed, and with it went the right of the English House of Lords to
+act as a court of final appeal for Ireland; the restrictions imposed
+by Poyning's Act on the legislative powers of the Irish Parliament
+were abolished; and the Irish Executive was made practically dependent
+on the Irish Parliament by the Mutiny Act, which had previously been
+perpetual, being limited to two years.
+
+Thus Ireland became a nation in a sense she had never been before. The
+only tie to any power beyond sea was that the King of England was also
+King of Ireland; Ireland could legislate for itself, and enter into
+commercial treaties with foreign powers; but, on the other hand, it
+had to pay its own debts and provide its own army and navy.
+
+As Grattan was not merely the most prominent politician of the period,
+but also the leader of the now triumphant "National" party, we may
+fairly take the views expressed by him as representative of those of
+the party that followed him. A study of his speeches and letters will
+show how utterly different were the ideas and aims of the National
+party of 1782 from those of the Nationalists of to-day. In the first
+place, Grattan was intensely loyal; that is to say, it never occurred
+to him that Ireland could ever wish to be independent in the sense of
+not being subject to the King of England, or could seek to be united
+to any other power. Secondly, he was intensely aristocratic. His idea
+was that Government should and would always be in the hands of the
+propertied and educated classes; that Parliament should consist of
+country gentlemen and professional men from the towns, elected on a
+narrow franchise. (It must be remembered that the country gentlemen
+had recently given evidence of their patriotic zeal by the
+inauguration of the Volunteer movement; and the ability and eloquence
+of the Irish Bar at that period is proverbial). Thirdly, he regarded
+Protestant ascendancy as a fundamental necessity. It is true that
+other politicians at the time saw that they were faced with a serious
+difficulty: the very principles to which they had appealed and by
+virtue of which they had obtained their legislative independence
+made it illogical that three-fourths of the community should be
+unrepresented; whereas if votes were given to the Roman Catholic
+majority it was inevitable that they would soon become eligible for
+seats in the Legislature; and if so, the Protestant minority must be
+swamped, and the country ruled by a very different class and according
+to very different ideas from those which prevailed in the Parliament
+of which Grattan was a member. And would a Roman Catholic Parliament
+and nation care to remain subject to a King of England whose title
+depended on his being a Protestant? Grattan, however, swept all such
+considerations aside with an easy carelessness. He believed that under
+the influences of perfect toleration large numbers of Roman Catholics
+would conform; and the remainder, quite satisfied with their position,
+would never dream of attacking the Church or any other existing
+institution. We may smile at his strange delusions as to the future;
+but he was probably not more incorrect than many people are to-day in
+their conjectures as to what the world will be like a hundred years
+hence; and if we try to place ourselves in Grattan's position,
+there is something to be said for his conjectures. At that time the
+influence of the Church of Rome was at its lowest; Spain had almost
+ceased to exist as a European power; and in France the state of
+religious thought was very different from what it had been in the days
+of Louis XIV. Irish Roman Catholic gentlemen who sent their sons to
+be educated in France found that they came back Voltaireans; even the
+young men who went to study for the priesthood in French seminaries
+became embued with liberalism to an extent that would make a modern
+Ultramontane shudder. Then in Ireland all local power was in the hands
+of the landlords; the Roman Catholic bishops possessed hardly any
+political influence. It would have required more keenness than a mere
+enthusiast like Grattan possessed to foresee that the time would come
+when all this would be absolutely reversed. What was there in the
+eighteenth century to lead him to surmise that in the twentieth the
+landlords would be ruined and gone, and that local government would
+have become vested in District Councils in which Protestants would
+have no power, but over which the authority of the bishops would be
+absolute?
+
+So Grattan and his party entered on the new conditions of political
+life with airy optimism. But there were, both in England and France,
+shrewder and more far-seeing men than he, who realised from the first
+that the new state of affairs could not possibly be a lasting one, but
+must lead either to union or complete separation. Of course so long
+as all parties happened to be of the same mind, no difficulties
+would arise; but it was merely a question of time when some cause
+of friction would occur, and then the inherent weakness of the
+arrangement would be apparent. A moment's thought will show that
+for Ireland to be subject to the English King but independent of the
+English Parliament was a physical impossibility. The king would act
+on the advice of his ministers who were responsible to the English
+Parliament; either the Irish Parliament must obey, or a deadlock would
+ensue. Then, suppose that England were to become engaged in a war of
+which the people of Ireland disapproved, Ireland might not only
+refuse to make any voluntary grant in aid, but even declare her
+ports neutral, withdraw her troops, and pass a vote of censure on the
+English Government. Again, with regard to trade; Ireland might adopt a
+policy of protection against England, and enter into a treaty for free
+trade with some foreign country which might be at the moment England's
+deadliest rival. The confusion that might result would be endless.
+
+Considerations such as these presented themselves at once to the
+master-mind of Pitt. He pointed out that as England had relinquished
+her right to limit Irish trade for the benefit of English, she was in
+fairness relieved from the corresponding duty of protecting Ireland
+against foreign foes; the two countries should therefore both
+contribute to their joint defence in proportion to their means. He
+proposed that regular treaties should be drawn up between the two
+countries, by which Ireland should contribute a certain sum to the
+navy, free trade between Ireland and England should be established,
+and regulations made whereby the duties payable on foreign goods
+should be assimilated. By such measures as these he hoped to make
+things run smoothly for a time at least; but when his projects were
+rejected by the Irish Parliament, he saw more clearly than ever that
+sooner or later the Gordian knot would have to be cut, and that the
+only way of cutting it would be the Union.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE INDEPENDENT PARLIAMENT. THE REGENCY QUESTION. THE COMMENCEMENT OF
+THE REBELLION.
+
+
+That Ireland increased in prosperity rapidly towards the end of the
+eighteenth century, there is no doubt. Politicians will say that this
+prosperity came from the increased powers gained by the Parliament in
+1782; economists will reply that that had little if anything to say
+to it; far more important causes being the abolition of trade
+restrictions and the relaxation of the Penal Laws, which encouraged
+people to employ their money in remunerative works at home instead of
+having to send it abroad. It may sound somewhat Hibernian to mention
+the rise in rents, as another cause of prosperity; yet anyone who
+knows Ireland will admit that it is not impossible; and it was
+certainly put forward gravely by writers of the period who were by no
+means biassed towards the landlord interest. Thus McKenna, writing in
+1793, says:--
+
+    "In several parts of Ireland the rents have been tripled
+    within 40 years. This was not so much the effect as the cause
+    of national prosperity; ... before the above-mentioned period,
+    when rent was very low and other taxes little known, half the
+    year was lavished in carousing. But as soon as labour became
+    compulsory, fortunes have been raised both by the tenantry and
+    landlords, and civilization has advanced materially."
+
+There was also another cause of prosperity, which modern economists
+cannot look on with much favour. It was the policy of the Irish
+Government to grant enormous bounties for the development of various
+industries, especially the growth of corn. This no doubt gave much
+employment, promoted the breaking up of grass lands, the subdivision
+of farms and the erection of mills; and so long as the price of corn
+was maintained, brought much prosperity to the country, and thus was
+indirectly one cause of the enormous increase of population, which
+rose from about 2,370,000 in 1750, to about 4,500,000 in 1797. But
+when, during the nineteenth century, prices fell, the whole structure,
+built on a fictitious foundation, came down with a crash.
+
+Not long after the Irish Parliament had acquired its independence, a
+controversy arose which, although it had no immediate result, yet
+was of vast importance on account of the principle involved. The king
+became insane. It was necessary that there should be a Regent, and it
+was obvious that the Prince of Wales was the man for the post. But
+the British constitution contained no provision for making the
+appointment. After much deliberation, the English Parliament decided
+to pass an Act appointing the Prince Regent and defining his powers,
+the Royal assent being given by Commission. The two houses of the
+Irish Parliament, however, without waiting for the Prince to be
+invested with the Regency in England, voted an address to him asking
+him to undertake the duties of Regent, without naming any limitations.
+As the king recovered almost immediately, the whole matter ended in
+nothing; but thoughtful men realized what was involved in the position
+which the Irish Parliament had taken up. Grattan's resolution was
+to the effect that in addressing the Prince to take upon himself
+the government of the country the Lords and Commons of Ireland were
+exercising an undoubted right and discharging an indispensable duty to
+which in the emergency they alone were competent. By the Act of Henry
+VIII the King of England was _ipso facto_ King of Ireland. An Irish
+Act of William and Mary declared that the Crown of Ireland and all the
+powers and prerogatives belonging to it should be for ever annexed to
+and dependent on the Crown of England. And the Act of 1782 made the
+Great Seal of Great Britain necessary to the summoning of an Irish
+Parliament and the passing of Irish Acts. Now did the words "King"
+and "Crown" merely refer to the individual who had the right to wear
+a certain diadem, or did they include the chief executive magistrate,
+whoever that might be--King, Queen or Regent? It was ably contended by
+Lord Clare that the latter was the only possible view; for the Regent
+of Great Britain must hold the Great Seal; and so he alone could
+summon an Irish Parliament; therefore the Irish Parliament in choosing
+their Regent had endangered the only bond which existed between
+England and Ireland--the necessary and perpetual identity of the
+executive. If the Irish Parliament appointed one person Regent and the
+English Parliament another, separation or war might be the result; and
+even as it was, the appointment of the Prince with limited powers in
+England and unlimited in Ireland, must lead to confusion. But more
+than that; suppose that the House of Brunswick were to die out, and
+another Act of Settlement were to become necessary, might not the
+Irish Parliament choose a different sovereign from the one chosen by
+England? Constitutional lawyers recollected that such a difficulty
+nearly arose between Scotland and England, but was settled by the Act
+of Union; and that it was the recognition of Lambert Simnel by the
+Irish Parliament that was the immediate cause of the passing of
+Poyning's Act; and saw what the revived powers of the Irish Parliament
+might lead to.
+
+Although the Parliament had now become independent, there was still
+nothing like a responsible ministry as we now understand it, and the
+government managed to maintain its control, partly by the peculiar
+composition of the Parliament (to which I have already referred), and
+partly by the disposal of favours. And it cannot be denied that the
+Parliament passed much useful legislation. Two questions, however,
+were now coming forward on which the whole political condition of the
+country depended, and which were closely entwined with one another.
+The first was the reform of the legislature, so as to make the House
+of Commons a really representative body; the second was the final
+abolition of the Penal Laws. As to reform, the Parliament was
+naturally slow (did any political assembly in the world ever divest
+itself of its own privileges without pressure from without?); but as
+to the abolition of the Penal Laws there was a cordiality which is
+remarkable, and which is seldom referred to by the Nationalist writers
+of the present day when they discourse about the Penal Laws. With
+regard to social matters--such as admission to Corporations, taking
+Degrees at the University, and holding medical professorships,--there
+was hardly any hesitation; the political question, however, was more
+difficult. In both England and Ireland at that time a forty-shilling
+freehold gave a vote. That was a matter of slight importance in
+England, as the number of small freeholders was limited, land being
+usually let for a term of years. In Ireland, however, the ordinary
+arrangement was for peasants to hold their scraps of land for life;
+and land having recently increased in value enormously, a large
+proportion of these were of the value of forty shillings. Hence, the
+whole constituency would be altered; thousands of new electors, all of
+them poor and illiterate, would be added in many constituencies;
+and the representation of the country would at once pass into Roman
+Catholic hands. To fix a higher qualification for Roman Catholics than
+for Protestants would be not to abolish but to perpetuate the Penal
+Laws; to deprive the existing voters of the franchise was out of the
+question; hence the franchise was granted but not without considerable
+hesitation on the part of the more thoughtful members. On the other
+hand it was urged with great force that to give these privileges to
+the uneducated mass but to continue the disabilities of the Roman
+Catholic gentry by not allowing them to sit in Parliament was absurd.
+The proposal to abolish the religious test in the case of Members of
+Parliament was, however, defeated.
+
+Looking back, with the light of later history to aid us, it is
+interesting to see how much more correct were Lord Clare's predictions
+of the future than Grattan's. Grattan (as I have already explained),
+taking his ideas from his lay friends among the cultured classes, and
+seeing the decline of the Papal influence on the continent, considered
+that anyone who regarded Popery as a political influence of the future
+totally misunderstood the principles which then governed human action;
+for controverted points of religion (such as belief in the Real
+Presence) had ceased to be a principle of human action. He maintained
+that the cause of the Pope, as a political force, was as dead as that
+of the Stuarts; that priestcraft was a superannuated folly; and
+that in Ireland a new political religion had arisen, superseding
+all influence of priest and parson, and burying for ever theological
+discord in the love of civil and religious liberty. Clare, who was
+not only a shrewder observer but a much more deeply read man, realized
+that in order to find out what would guide the Roman Catholic Church
+in the future one must look not at the passing opinions of laymen but
+at the constitution of the Church; he foresaw that if the artificial
+supports which maintained the Protestant ascendancy were removed, the
+mere force of numbers would bring about a Roman Catholic ascendancy;
+and in enumerating the results of that he even said that the time
+would come when the Church would decide on all questions as to
+marriage.
+
+In order to show how far Lord Clare's expectations have been verified,
+I will quote, not the words of an Orange speaker or writer, but of
+an eminent Roman Catholic, the Rev. J.T. McNicholas, O.P., in his
+recently published book on "The New Marriage Legislation" which, being
+issued with an _Imprimatur_, will be received by all parties as a work
+of authority. He says:--
+
+    "Many Protestants may think the Church presumptuous in
+    decreeing their marriages valid or invalid according as they
+    have or have not complied with certain conditions. As the
+    Church cannot err, neither can she be presumptuous. She alone
+    is judge of the extent of her power. Anyone validly baptised,
+    either in the Church or among heretics, becomes thereby a
+    subject of the Roman Catholic Church."
+
+But whilst politicians were amusing themselves with fervid but useless
+oratory in Parliament, stirring events were taking place elsewhere.
+To trace in these pages even a bare outline of the main incidents of
+those terrible years is impossible; and yet without doing so it is not
+easy to obtain a correct view of the tangled skein of Irish politics
+at the time. In studying any history of the period, we cannot but be
+struck by observing on the one hand how completely in some respects
+circumstances and ideas have changed since then; it is hard to realize
+that Ulster was for a time the scene of wild disorder--assassination,
+arson, burglary and every form of outrage--brought about mainly by a
+society which claimed to be, and to a certain extent was, formed by a
+union of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic parties--whilst the south
+and west remained fairly orderly and loyal. And yet on the other hand
+we find many of the phenomena which have been characteristic of later
+periods of Irish political agitation, already flourishing. Boycotting
+existed in fact, though the name was not yet invented; also nocturnal
+raids for arms, the sacking of lonely farmhouses, the intimidation of
+witnesses and the mutilation of cattle. Again, we see all through the
+history of Irish secret societies that their organization has been so
+splendid that the ordinary law has been powerless against them; for
+witnesses will not give evidence and juries will not convict if they
+know that to do so will mean certain ruin and probable death; and yet
+those same societies have always possessed one element of weakness:
+however terrible their oaths of secrecy have been, the Government
+have never had the slightest difficulty in finding out, through
+their confidential agents, everything that has taken place at their
+meetings, and what their projects are.
+
+As early as 1785 there had been two societies carrying on something
+like civil war on a small scale in the north. How they originated,
+is a matter of dispute; but at any rate before they had long been in
+existence, the religious element became supreme--as it does sooner
+or later in every Irish movement; whatever temporary alliances may be
+formed for other reasons, religion always ultimately becomes the line
+of cleavage. In this case, the "Peep of Day Boys" were Protestants,
+the "Defenders" Roman Catholic. Some of the outrages committed by
+the Defenders were too horrible to put in print; many Roman Catholic
+families fled the country on account of the treatment which they
+received from the Peep of Day Boys, and took refuge among their
+co-religionists in the south.
+
+But now a greater crisis was at hand. The terrible upheaval of the
+French Revolution was shaking European society to its foundation. The
+teaching of Paine and Voltaire had borne fruit; the wildest socialism
+was being preached in every land. Ulster had shown sympathy with
+Republican ideas at the time of the American War of Independence; and
+now a large number of the Presbyterians of Belfast eagerly accepted
+the doctrines of Jacobinism. Nothing can sound more charmingly
+innocent than the objects of the United Irish Society as put forward
+publicly in 1791; the members solemnly and religiously pledged
+themselves to use all their influence to obtain an impartial and
+adequate representation of the Irish nation in Parliament; and as a
+means to this end to endeavour to secure the co-operation of Irishmen
+of all religious persuasions. Some writers have tried to make out that
+if the Relief Act of 1793 had been extended in 1795 by another Act
+enabling Roman Catholics to become Members of Parliament; and if
+a Reform Bill had been passed making the House of Commons really
+representative, the society would never have been anything but a
+perfectly legal and harmless association. Of course it is always
+possible to suggest what might have been; but in this case it is far
+more probable that if Parliament had been so reformed as to be a fair
+reflex of the opinion of the country, it would immediately have passed
+a resolution declaring Ireland a Republic and forming an alliance with
+France; for whatever objects were stated in public, the real guiding
+spirits of the United Irish Society from the beginning (as of other
+societies of a later date with equally innocent names) were ardent
+republicans, who joined the society in order to further those views;
+it is absurd to suggest that men who were actually in correspondence
+with the leaders of the Directory and were trying to bring about an
+invasion from France in order to aid them in establishing a Republic
+on Jacobin lines would have been deterred by the passing of a Bill
+making it lawful for Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament. Nor again
+is it reasonable to contend that earnest-minded Roman Catholics would,
+in consequence of the failure of such a Bill to become law, have
+rebelled against a Government under which they were able to exercise
+their religion in peace and which was at that moment founding and
+endowing a College for the training of candidates for the priesthood,
+in favour of one which had confiscated the seminaries and was sending
+the priests to the guillotine. The fact seems to have been that the
+society was formed by Presbyterians, for political reasons; they tried
+to get the Roman Catholics to join them, but the lower class Roman
+Catholics cared very little about seats in Parliament; so the founders
+of the society cleverly added abolition of tithes and taxes, and
+reduction of rents, to their original programme; this drew in numbers
+of Roman Catholics, whose principles were really the very antithesis
+of Jacobinism.
+
+It is a fair instance of the confusion which has always reigned
+throughout Irish politics, that after the Relief Act of 1793 had been
+passed, the Catholic Committee expressed their jubilation by voting
+£2,000 for a statue to the King, and presenting a gold medal to their
+Secretary, Wolfe Tone, who was at that moment scheming to set up a
+Jacobin Republic.
+
+This celebrated man, Wolfe Tone, was not unlike many others who have
+posed as Irish patriots. Hating the very name of England, he schemed
+to get one appointment after another from the English Government--at
+one time seeking to be put in command of a filibustering expedition to
+raid the towns of South America, at another time trying for a post in
+India; hating the Pope and the priests, he acted as Secretary to the
+Catholic Committee; then hating Grattan and the Irish Parliament and
+everything to say to it, he showed his patriotism by devoting his
+energies to trying to persuade the French Republican Government to
+invade Ireland.
+
+On the 21st of September, 1795, an incident occurred which, though
+apparently trivial at the time, was destined to be of great historical
+importance. Ulster had now for some time been in a state bordering
+on anarchy; not only were the secret societies constantly at war,
+but marauding bands, pretending to belong to one or other of the
+societies, were ravishing the country. Something like a pitched battle
+was fought between the Protestants and the Defenders, in which the
+Defenders, although they were the stronger party and made the attack,
+were utterly routed. In the evening, the victors agreed to form
+themselves into a society which should bear the name of William of
+Orange. There had previously been some societies called by that name;
+but this was the foundation of the Orange Society of the present day.
+The oath which at first was taken by every member of the society was
+to defend the king and his heirs so long as he or they support the
+Protestant ascendancy. (This conditional form of oath of allegiance
+has long since been abolished.) It was industriously circulated by
+the United Irishmen that the actual words of the oath were: "I will be
+true to the King and Government and I will exterminate as far as I am
+able the Catholics of Ireland." There is no evidence, however, that
+any words of the kind ever formed part of an oath prescribed by the
+Orange Society; and those who make the statement now must be aware
+that they are repeating a calumny.
+
+After this time, the quarrel gradually tended more and more to become
+a religious one; the Peep of Day Boys becoming merged in the Orange
+Society, and the Protestants slowly withdrawing from the United Irish
+Society; on the other hand, the Defenders ultimately coalesced
+with the United Irishmen and thus, by an illogical combination of
+inconsistent forces, formed the party which brought about the terrible
+rebellion.
+
+The close of the year 1796 was one of the most critical moments in the
+history of England. On the continent the power of republican France
+under the genius of Napoleon and his generals was sweeping all before
+it. England was in a state of bankruptcy, and almost as completely
+isolated as she had been in the time of Elizabeth. Wolfe Tone and his
+Irish plotters saw their opportunity as clearly as their predecessors
+had in the times of Edward Bruce and Philip II. They laid a statement
+of the condition of Ireland before the French Government which,
+though as full of exaggerations as most things in Irish history, was
+sufficiently based on fact to lead the French Government to believe
+that if a French force were landed in Ireland, the Irishmen in the
+British Army and Navy would mutiny, the Yeomen would join the French,
+and the whole of the North of Ireland would rise in rebellion.
+
+Accordingly a French fleet of forty-three sail, carrying about 15,000
+troops, sailed from Brest for Bantry Bay. No human power could have
+prevented their landing; and had they done so, they could have
+marched to Cork and seized the town without any difficulty; the United
+Irishmen would have risen, and the whole country might have been
+theirs. But the same power which saved England from the Armada of
+Catholic Spain 200 years before now shielded her from the invasion of
+republican France. Storms and fogs wrought havoc throughout the French
+fleet. In less than a month from the time of their starting, Wolfe
+Tone and the shattered remains of the invading force were back at
+Brest, without having succeeded in landing a single man on the Irish
+shore.
+
+Had this projected invasion taken place fifty years before, amongst
+the French troops would have been the Irish brigade, who were always
+yearning for the opportunity of making an attack on their native land.
+But half a century had caused strange changes; the Irish brigade had
+fallen with the collapse of the French monarchy; and some of the few
+survivors were now actually serving under King George III.
+
+It was a remarkable fact that no one in the neighbourhood of Bantry
+showed the slightest sympathy with the Frenchmen. The few resident
+gentry, the moment the danger was evident, called together the
+yeomanry and organized their tenantry to oppose the foe--though the
+utmost they could have done would have been to delay the progress
+of the invaders for a little at the cost of their own lives; and the
+peasantry did all in their power to support their efforts.
+
+If it is possible to analyse the state of political feeling at
+this time, we may say that first there was a very limited number of
+thoughtful men who saw that after the Acts of 1782 and 1793 either
+separation or union was inevitable, and who consequently opposed all
+idea of parliamentary reform, because they thought it would tend to
+separation and make union more difficult. A second party (a leading
+member of which was Charlemont) approved of the existing state of
+things, and believed that it could be continued; a third (of which
+Grattan was one) fondly imagined that all would go smoothly if only a
+Catholic Relief Bill and a Reform Bill were carried, and so directed
+all their efforts towards those objects; and a fourth believed that
+no reform would be granted without pressure, and so were ready even to
+work up a rebellion in order to obtain it; but that was a very small
+party at best, and was soon carried away by the whirlwind of those
+revolutionists who cared nothing about the Parliament then sitting
+in Dublin, or about any other possible Parliament which might own
+allegiance to the King of England, for their real aim was to sever
+Ireland from England altogether and establish a separate republic. As
+Wolfe Tone wrote: "To break the connection with England and to assert
+the independence of my country were my objects."
+
+It is this party that is represented by the Nationalists of to-day,
+except that when they look for foreign aid, their hopes lie in the
+direction of Germany rather than France. I know that this remark may
+call forth a storm of denials from those who judge by the speeches
+which Nationalist leaders have made in England when trying to win the
+Radical vote, or in the Colonies when aiming at getting money from
+people who had not studied the question. But I judge not by speeches
+such as those, but by statements continually put forward by political
+writers and orators when they have cast off the mask and are
+addressing their sympathizers in Ireland and America:--
+
+    "The Nationalists of Ireland stand for the complete
+    independence of Ireland, and they stand for nothing else. In
+    the English Empire they have no part or lot, and they wish to
+    have no part or lot. We stand for the Irish nation, free
+    and independent and outside the English Empire."--(_Irish
+    Freedom_.)
+
+    "Our aim is the establishment of an Irish Republic, for the
+    simple and sole reason that no other ending of our quarrel
+    with England could be either adequate or final. This is the
+    one central and vital point of agreement among all who are
+    worthy of the name of Irish Nationalists--that Ireland is
+    a separate nation--separate in thought, mind, in ideals and
+    outlooks. Come what may, we work for Ireland as separate from
+    England as Germany is separate."--(Ib.)
+
+    "Year by year the pilgrimage to the grave of Theobald Wolfe
+    Tone grows more significant of the rising tide of militant and
+    uncompromising Nationalism, more significant of the fact that
+    Young Ireland has turned away from the false thing that has
+    passed for patriotism, and has begun to reverence only the
+    men and the things and the memories that stand for Ireland an
+    independent nation. Paying tribute to the memory of men
+    like Tone, lifting up the language of Ireland from the mire,
+    linking up the present with the old days of true patriotic
+    endeavour--these are the doings that will eventually bring our
+    land from the mazes of humbug into the clear dawn that heralds
+    Nationhood."--(_The Leinster Leader_.)
+
+    "The object aimed at by the advanced National party is the
+    recovery of Ireland's national independence and the severance
+    of all political connection with England."--(_J. Devoy_.)
+
+    "In the better days that are approaching, the soil of Ireland
+    will be populated by a race of Irishmen free and happy and
+    thriving, owning no master under the Almighty, and owning no
+    flag but the green flag of an independent Irish nation."--(_W.
+    O'Brien, M.P._)
+
+    "In supporting Home Rule for Ireland we abandon no principle
+    of Irish nationhood as laid down by the fathers in the Irish
+    movement for independence, from Wolfe Tone and Emmett to John
+    Mitchell, and from Mitchell to Kickham and Parnell."--(_J.
+    Redmond_.)
+
+    "Our ultimate goal is the national independence of our
+    country."--(Ib.)
+
+    "In its essence the National movement is the same to-day as it
+    was in the days of Hugh O'Niell, Owen Roe, Emmett, or of Wolfe
+    Tone."--(Ib.)
+
+    "We are as much rebels to England's rule as our forefathers
+    were in '98."--(Ib.)
+
+    "I remember when Parnell was asked if he would accept as a
+    final settlement the Home Rule compromise proposed by Mr.
+    Gladstone. I remember his answer. He said 'I believe in the
+    policy of taking from England anything we can wring from her
+    which will strengthen our hands to go for more.'"--(Ib.)
+
+    "When we have undermined English misgovernment we have paved
+    the way for Ireland to take her place among the nations of the
+    earth. And let us not forget that that is the ultimate goal
+    at which all we Irishmen aim. None of us, whether we be
+    in America or in Ireland, or wherever we may be, will be
+    satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps
+    Ireland bound to England."
+
+    (_C.S. Parnell_.)
+
+    "I know there are many people in America who think that the
+    means which we are operating to-day for the good of Ireland
+    are not sufficiently sharp and decisive ... I would suggest
+    to those who have constituted themselves the censors of our
+    movement, would it not be well to give our movement a fair
+    chance--to allow us to have an Irish Parliament that will give
+    our people all authority over the police and the judiciary
+    and all government in the nation, and when equipped with
+    comparative freedom, then would be the time for those who
+    think we should destroy the last link that binds us to England
+    to operate by whatever means they think best to achieve that
+    great and desirable end? I am quite sure that I speak for the
+    United Irish League in the matter."
+
+    (_J. Devlin, M.P._)
+
+    "What was it, after all, that Wolfe Tone, and Fitzgerald, and
+    Mitchell, and Smith O'Brien, and O'Meagher Condon, and Allen,
+    Larkins and O'Brien, and all the other gallant Irishmen strove
+    for, who from generation to generation were inspired with
+    the spirit of revolution? ... In what respect does our policy
+    differ from the purpose of these men?"--(Ib.)
+
+    "In my opinion, and in the opinion of the vast majority of the
+    advanced Nationalists of Ireland, the Repeal of the Union
+    is not the full Nationalist demand; separation is the full
+    Nationalist demand; that is the right on which we stand, the
+    Nationalist right of Ireland."--(_J. Dillon, M.P._)
+
+    "I should never have dedicated my life to this great struggle
+    if I did not see at the end the crowning and the consummation
+    of our work--a free and independent nation."--(Ib.)
+
+    "We aim at nothing else than establishing a new nation upon
+    the map of Europe."--(_Dr. Douglas Hyde_.)
+
+    "If there is any man in this audience who says to us as
+    representing that Parliamentary movement--'I don't believe
+    in your Parliamentary ideas, I don't accept Home Rule, I go
+    beyond it; I believe in an independent Irish nation'--if any
+    man says this, I say that we don't disbelieve in it. These
+    are our tactics--if you are to take a fortress, first take the
+    outer works."--(_T.M. Kettle, M.P._)
+
+    "We want to carry on the work that the Fenians tried to do to
+    a triumphal issue. The Fenians stood for an Irish Republic,
+    and so do we. No policy which left England in control of the
+    Irish Nation could be regarded as final. There is only one
+    way, and that is to get the absolute and complete independence
+    of Ireland, free from English rule and English domination. The
+    Fenians did not go to the Prime Minister for concessions.
+    No: they started into arms, and if people of the present
+    day believed in that they should arm themselves to get
+    the independence of Ireland."--(_B. Hobson_, speaking at a
+    demonstration at Cork, on the anniversary of the "martyrdom"
+    of Allen, Larkins, and O'Brien.)
+
+    "Should the Germans land in Ireland, they will be received
+    with willing hearts and strong hands, and should England be
+    their destination, it is to be hoped that they will find time
+    to disembark 100,000 rifles and a few score of ammunition for
+    the same in this country, and twelve months later this Ireland
+    will be as free as the Lord God meant it should be."--(_Major
+    McBride_, who organized an Irish force to aid the Boers
+    against England, and has consequently been appointed to a
+    municipal inspectorship by the Corporation of Dublin.)
+
+    "I appeal to you most earnestly to do all in your power to
+    prevent your countrymen from entering the degraded British
+    army. If you prevent 500 men from enlisting you do nearly as
+    good work, if not quite so exciting, as if you shot 500 men on
+    the field of battle, and also you are making the path smoother
+    for the approaching conquest of England by Germany."--(Ib.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE REBELLION.
+
+
+Early in 1797 it became evident to all but the most shortsighted of
+politicians that a rebellion, of which none could foretell the result,
+was imminent. As one shrewd observer wrote: "I look upon it that
+Ireland must soon stand in respect to England in one of three
+situations--united with her, the Legislatures being joined; separated
+from her, and forming a republic; or as a half-subdued Province." The
+supporters of law and order were naturally divided in opinion as to
+the course to pursue. Some were in favour of a policy of conciliation.
+Grattan induced his friend Ponsonby to bring forward another Reform
+Bill, abolishing the religious test and the separate representation
+of boroughs, and dividing each county into districts; and when he saw
+that the motion could not be carried, delivered an impassioned speech,
+declaring that he would never again attend the House of Commons, and
+solemnly walked out. It was a piece of acting, too transparent to
+deceive anybody. Grattan was a disappointed man--disappointed not
+so much because his proposals were not adopted, as because his own
+followers were slipping away from him. They had begun to realize that
+he was an orator but not a statesman; his ideas were wild, fanciful
+dreams. Whilst vehemently upholding the English connection he was
+playing into the hands of England's opponents by reminding them that
+England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity; whilst hating the
+very idea of a Union, he was making the existing system impossible
+by preventing the passing of a commercial treaty; whilst passionately
+supporting Protestant ascendancy, he was advocating a measure which
+at that moment would have brought about the establishment either of a
+Roman Catholic ascendancy or more probably of a Jacobin Republic.
+He saw his supporters dwindling slowly from seventy-seven in 1783 to
+thirty in 1797. Men were now alive to the fact that the country was in
+an alarming condition. They saw what had happened in France but a few
+years before, and how little Louis XVI had gained by trying to pose
+as a liberator and a semi-republican; and, knowing that the rebellion
+with which they were faced was an avowed imitation of the French
+Revolution, they were coming to the opinion that stern measures were
+necessary. In almost every county of three Provinces conspirators were
+at work, trying to bring down on their country a foreign invasion, and
+stirring up the people to rebellion and crime by appealing to their
+agrarian grievances and cupidity, their religious passion, and the
+discontent produced by great poverty. For a second time it appeared
+that Wolfe Tone would succeed in obtaining aid from abroad--this time
+from Spain and Holland; and the rebel party in Ireland were now so
+well organized, and Jacobin feeling was so widespread, that had he
+done so, it was almost inevitable that Ireland would have been lost to
+England. But once more the unexpected was destined to occur. Early in
+February Jervis shattered the power of the Spanish Fleet off Cape St.
+Vincent; and in the summer, just when the Dutch ships, with 14,000
+troops on board, were ready to start, and resistance on the part of
+England seemed hopeless, a violent gale arose and for weeks the whole
+fleet remained imprisoned in the river; and when at length they did
+succeed in making a start, the English were ready to meet them within
+a few miles of the coast of Holland; after a tremendous battle the
+broken remnant of the Dutch fleet returned to the harbour defeated.
+The rage and mortification of Wolfe Tone at his second failure knew no
+bounds.
+
+In the North of Ireland, however, the rebellion had practically begun.
+The magistrates were powerless; the classes who had supported the
+gentry during the Volunteer Movement were amongst the disaffected. The
+country was in a state of anarchy; murders and outrages of every
+sort were incessant. That the measures which the Government and
+their supporters took to crush the rising rebellion were illegal
+and barbarous, cannot be denied; that they in fact by their violence
+hurried on the rebellion is not improbable. But it is still more
+probable that they were the means of preventing its success; just as,
+had the Government of Louis XVI shown more vigour at the outset of the
+Revolution, the Reign of Terror would probably never have taken place.
+Through evidence obtained by torture, the Government got possession
+of vast stores of arms which the rebels had prepared; by twice
+seizing the directors of the movement they deprived it of its central
+organization; and if they were the cause of the rebellion breaking out
+sooner than had been intended, the result was that they were able
+to quell it in one district before it had time to come to a head in
+another.
+
+War at best is very terrible; and there were two circumstances which
+made the war in Ireland more terrible than others. It was a religious
+war, and it was a civil war. It often happens that when religion is
+turned to hatred it stirs up the worst and most diabolical passions
+of the human breast; and the evil feelings brought on by a civil war
+necessarily last longer than animosity against a foreign foe. The
+horrors of 1798 make one shudder to think what must happen in Ireland
+if civil war ever breaks out there again.
+
+From Ulster the United Ireland movement spread during 1797 to
+Leinster, as far south as Wexford, and began to assume a more
+decidedly religious character. As a contemporary historian wrote:--
+
+    "So inveterately rooted are the prejudices of religious
+    antipathy in the minds of the lower classes of Irish
+    Romanists, that in any civil war, however originating from
+    causes unconnected with religion, not all the efforts of their
+    gentry, or even priests, to the contrary could (if I am not
+    exceedingly mistaken) restrain them from converting it into a
+    religious quarrel."
+
+(Had he lived a century later, he might have used the same words.)
+But though this was generally the case, there were complications as
+embarrassing as they usually are in Irish affairs. The yeomanry
+were mainly Protestants, but the majority of the militia were Roman
+Catholics, and those commanded by Lord Fingall entirely so. There
+was much disaffection in both branches of the service; besides which,
+officers and men alike lacked the discipline and experience of
+regular troops; but as the supply of soldiers from England was wholly
+inadequate for the situation, the Government were obliged to rely on
+any forces they could obtain. As the rebellion drifted into being a
+Roman Catholic movement, the Orangemen became intensely loyal, and
+were eager to fight on the king's side, but the Government dreaded
+lest by employing them they might offend the militia. By 1798, when
+the rebellion in the south was at its height, the north had become
+comparatively calm. The severities of the previous year had had some
+salutary effect; the staunch Protestants had no desire to aid in what
+had become a Roman Catholic rebellion; and the republican party had
+seen that the universal fraternity of the Jacobin Government of France
+had turned into a military despotism which was engaged in crushing the
+neighbouring republics and was almost at war with the sister Republic
+of America.
+
+But whilst Ulster was growing calmer, the condition of the south
+was becoming daily more appalling. On the 23rd of May the rebellion
+actually broke out in the counties of Dublin, Kildare and Meath; and
+many skirmishes took place in which the losses on the king's side were
+comparatively few but those of the rebels enormous, in consequence of
+their ignorance of the use of firearms. The better-trained forces soon
+got to know that an Irish peasant when armed with a pike was a deadly
+foe; but when armed with a musket was almost harmless. This part of
+the campaign will always be specially memorable for the attack made
+on the little town of Prosperous, in the county of Kildare. It was
+cleverly made in the early morning; the garrison, taken unawares, were
+nearly all killed; the Commander, Captain Swayne, being amongst the
+victims. It was soon afterwards found out that the leader of the
+rebels was Dr. Esmonde, a gentleman of good family, and first
+lieutenant in a regiment of yeomanry stationed a few miles off, who
+had been dining with Captain Swayne the previous evening. He appeared
+in his regiment the next day, but was identified by a yeoman who had
+seen him at Prosperous; arrested, tried, and hanged as a traitor.
+
+A Nationalist has recently referred to him as a martyr to the cause of
+Irish liberty.
+
+By the month of June Wexford had become the centre of the rebellion.
+In that county it had assumed an essentially religious character
+(there being, however, a few exceptions on each side), and in no
+other part of Ireland was the war so terrible either on account of its
+magnitude or barbarity. The passions of the ignorant peasantry were
+inflamed by all Protestants being spoken of as Orangemen and a report
+being diligently circulated that all Orangemen had sworn to destroy
+the Catholic Faith--exactly the same course that was followed a
+hundred years later. Roman Catholic priests, wearing their sacred
+vestments and carrying crucifixes, led the rebel forces; and the
+ignorant peasants, believing them to be endowed with miraculous
+powers, followed them with the blind adherence that only fanaticism
+can inspire. And yet--so strangely contradictory is everything in
+Ireland--there is clear evidence that amongst those priestly agitators
+many were at heart deists, who were making use of religion in the
+hope of furthering Jacobinism. Many Protestants saved their lives by
+apostatizing, or by allowing their children to be rebaptized; it is
+but fair to add, however, that several of the older priests, shocked
+at the conduct of the rebels, concealed heretics in their houses and
+churches; and that all through the war many priests, in spite of the
+difficulty of their position, remained loyal and did what they could
+to aid the king's troops.
+
+The rebels for some weeks held command of the town and county of
+Wexford, their chief camp being at a place called Vinegar Hill. The
+country around was searched and plundered; the Protestants who were
+captured were brought into the rebel camp, and there deliberately
+butchered in cold blood. How many perished it is impossible to say;
+the number must have been at the least 400.
+
+I would willingly pass over this dreadful episode. I have no more
+desire to dwell on it than I have on Cromwell's conduct at Drogheda.
+I regard it merely as one of those terrible incidents which alas have
+taken place in almost every campaign. It was probably equalled in
+character if not in magnitude by several outrages committed by the
+other side; and certainly parallels could be found in the French
+invasion of Algeria fifty years later and in many other wars of the
+nineteenth century. When men have been fired with the diabolical
+passions that war arouses, and have grown accustomed to the ghastly
+sights on battlefields, they cease to be reasoning beings; they become
+fiends. But unfortunately it is necessary to explain what really
+occurred, as it is to Vinegar Hill and its terrible associations that
+the Nationalists of to-day refer with triumph. Songs in praise of the
+massacre are sung at Nationalist gatherings; and W. Redmond, speaking
+at Enniscorthy (close to the scene of the massacre) on the 110th
+anniversary of the outrages said: "The heroic action of the men who
+fought and died around Vinegar Hill was the heritage of all Ireland.
+Whatever measure of comparative freedom we now enjoy was entirely
+attributable to the Insurrection of '98. It was the pikemen of '98 who
+made the world and England understand that Irishmen knew how to fight
+for their rights, and it is to the knowledge of that fact by England
+that we may look for the real driving force of any effort we may make
+for our liberty. The Irish people are in no position to resort to
+arms, but the spirit is there, and by demonstrations like this we show
+our rulers that it is essential for any real and lasting peace that
+the aspirations of the patriots of '98 must be satisfied, and that a
+full measure of National freedom must be granted to Ireland."
+
+(It will be observed that in the opinion of this orator--a prominent
+Nationalist Member of Parliament, who was selected to go round the
+Colonies collecting money for the Home Rule cause--the possession of
+an Independent Parliament, of everything in fact short of separation,
+goes for nothing; it is only those who rebelled against that
+Parliament who are to be regarded as models for modern Nationalists to
+follow. It is interesting also to note the different views which have
+been put forward by Irish politicians with regard to the rebellion.
+In 1843 the leaders of the Repeal Association stated in one of their
+manifestoes, as an argument in favour of repeal, that England had
+resorted to the diabolical expedient of fomenting a rebellion in order
+to distract the country and give excuse for military violence and so
+bring about a Union. But the Nationalists of to-day have so completely
+identified themselves with the rebels of 1798 that within the last few
+years splendid monuments have been erected in all the towns of Wexford
+and the adjoining counties; some of these are bronze figures of
+patriots brandishing pikes, others are representations of the priestly
+leaders of the rebel forces. These monuments have been unveiled with
+great ceremony, impassioned speeches being made on the occasion by
+leading orators, both clerical and lay).
+
+In order to realize the terrible position in which the loyalists
+were placed, we must recollect that whilst the Wexford rebels were
+triumphant in that county, and the movement seemed to be spreading
+into Kilkenny and Carlow, there was a fresh outbreak in the north;
+it appeared probable that Dublin might rise at any moment; the French
+fleet was hourly expected, and the long looked-for aid from England
+was still delayed. But the Irish loyalist minority showed the same
+dogged determination that they had done in the time of James II, and
+that they will show again in the future.
+
+The numbers engaged in the different battles and skirmishes have
+been variously estimated; it seems that at the battle of Arklow the
+loyalists did not exceed 1,600, of whom nearly all were militia and
+yeomanry, with a few artillery; whilst the rebels, commanded by Father
+Michael Murphy, amounted to at least 20,000. Yet after a terrible
+afternoon's fighting the rebels, disheartened by the fall of their
+leader (whom they had believed to be invulnerable) retired, leaving
+more than 1,000 dead on the field.
+
+Soon, however, the reinforcements from England began to arrive; and
+the French invasion, on which the rebels were building their hopes,
+was still delayed. By July, although fighting was still going on in
+the Wicklow mountains and some other parts of the country, the worst
+of the rebellion in Wexford was crushed, and an Act of Amnesty was
+carried through Parliament. It is worthy of note that the trials of
+the rebels which took place in Dublin were conducted with a fairness
+and a respect for the forms of law which are probably unparalleled in
+the history of other countries at moments of such terrible excitement;
+we can contrast them for instance with the steps that were taken in
+putting down the outbreak of the Commune in Paris in 1871. It is easy
+now to argue that, as the force of the rebellion was being broken, it
+would have been more humane to have allowed those who had plotted and
+directed it to go unpunished. But as Lecky has pointed out, "it was
+scarcely possible to exaggerate the evil they had produced, and they
+were immeasurably more guilty than the majority of those who had
+already perished.
+
+"They had thrown back, probably for generations, the civilization of
+their country. They had been year by year engaged in sowing the seed
+which had ripened into the harvest of blood. They had done all in
+their power to bring down upon Ireland the two greatest curses that
+can afflict a nation--the curse of civil war, and the curse of foreign
+invasion; and although at the outset of their movement they had
+hoped to unite Irishmen of all creeds, they had ended by lashing
+the Catholics into frenzy by deliberate and skilful falsehood. The
+assertion that the Orangemen had sworn to exterminate the Catholics
+was nowhere more prominent than in the newspaper which was the
+recognised organ of the United Irish leaders. The men who had spread
+this calumny through an ignorant and excitable Catholic population,
+were assuredly not less truly murderers than those who had fired the
+barn at Scullabogue or piked the Protestants on Wexford Bridge."
+
+A strong party, however, led by Lord Clare were in favour of clemency
+wherever possible; and there seemed good reason for hoping that the
+rebellion would slowly die out. Cooke, the Under Secretary, wrote
+on the 9th of August: "The country is by no means settled nor secure
+should the French land, but I think secure if they do not." Suddenly,
+however, the alarming news came that the French were actually in
+Ireland. Wolfe Tone and his fellow-plotters, undaunted by their
+previous failures, had continued ceaseless in their efforts to induce
+Napoleon to make an indirect attack on England by invading Ireland;
+and if they had succeeded in persuading the French Government to send
+an expedition two months earlier when the rebellion was at its height
+and the English reinforcements had not arrived, Ireland must have been
+lost. Once again, however, fortune favoured the English cause. The
+first instalment of the French fleet, carrying 1,000 soldiers, did
+not start until the 6th of August, and only arrived on the 22nd. They
+landed at Killala, in Mayo, and were not a little surprised at the
+state of things existing there. They had expected to find a universal
+feeling of republicanism; but instead of this, whilst the Protestants
+refused to join them, the Roman Catholic peasantry received them with
+delight, and declared their readiness to take arms for France and the
+Blessed Virgin. "God help these simpletons," said one of the officers,
+"if they knew how little we care about the Pope or his religion, they
+would not be so hot in expecting help from us!"
+
+Arriving at the wrong time and the wrong place, the expedition was
+foredoomed to failure. The French were brave men and trained soldiers;
+but they found their Irish allies perfectly useless. They succeeded
+in capturing Castlebar, and routing a force of militia; but
+their campaign was brief; on the 8th of September the whole force
+surrendered. The Connaught rebellion was speedily and severely put
+down.
+
+The second instalment of the French invasion consisted of one ship.
+They landed on the Island of Arran on the 16th of September; but after
+spending eight hours on shore, re-embarked and sailed away to Norway.
+
+The third instalment was, however, more serious. It consisted of a
+ship of the line, eight frigates and a schooner, having on board
+an army of about 3,000 men. They arrived at Lough Swilly early in
+October, where they were met by a more powerful English fleet, and
+nearly all were destroyed or captured. Amongst the prisoners taken
+was Wolfe Tone; who soon afterwards in order to avoid a felon's death,
+ended his life by suicide.[See note at the end of the Volume]
+
+A fortnight later the fourth and last instalment arrived at Killala
+Bay; but the Admiral, hearing that the rebellion was over, promptly
+weighed anchor and returned to France. Thus ingloriously ended the
+French attempts at the invasion of Ireland. The calling-in of the
+foreigner had been of as little use to the cause of Irish rebellion as
+it had been two centuries before.
+
+
+By the end of the year the worst of the rebellion was over. But the
+evil it had wrought was incalculable. How many had perished during
+that terrible summer will never be known; the numbers have been
+variously computed at from 15,000 to 70,000. At the outset of the
+rebellion--in February 1798--Lord Clare had made a memorable speech in
+the House of Lords, which has been so often misquoted that it is well
+here to cite the passage in full:--
+
+    "If conciliation be a pledge of national tranquillity and
+    contentment; if it be a spell to allay popular ferment; there
+    is not a nation in Europe in which it has had so fair a trial
+    as in the Kingdom of Ireland. For a period of nearly twenty
+    years a liberal and unvaried system of concession and
+    conciliation has been pursued and acted on by the British
+    Government. Concession and conciliation have produced only a
+    fresh stock of grievances; other discontents of Ireland have
+    kept pace with her prosperity; for I am bold to say there
+    is not a nation on the habitable globe which has advanced in
+    cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and in manufactures
+    with the same rapidity in the same period. Her progress is now
+    retarded, and it is a heart-breaking spectacle to every man
+    who loves the country to see it arrested only by the perverse
+    and factious folly of the people, stimulated and encouraged by
+    disappointed statesmen."
+
+Within a few months after that speech was made, Ireland was well-nigh
+ruined. All the progress in material prosperity which had taken place
+in the years immediately following 1782 was swept away. The national
+debt, which in 1791 had stood at £2,442,890, involving an annual
+charge of £142,716, had risen to £26,662,640, with an annual charge of
+£1,395,735; the exports of woollen goods had almost ceased, and those
+of linen gone down by more than a third; other industries showed
+a decay nearly as lamentable; public bankruptcy seemed inevitable.
+Though the violent outbreak of rebellion had been put down, many parts
+of the country were in a state of anarchy. In the west, armed bands
+went about every night houghing the cattle and murdering all who dared
+to oppose them. If any man prosecuted one of the offenders, he did
+it at the moral certainty of being murdered. The same fate hung over
+every magistrate who sent a hougher to gaol, every witness who gave
+evidence against him, every juryman who convicted him. In Limerick one
+man ventured on his own part and on that of eight others to prosecute
+an offender who had destroyed their property. All nine were murdered
+in one night. It was not safe to travel along the high road within
+six miles of Dublin. The militia had, from their misbehaviour in
+the field, and their extreme licentiousness, fallen into universal
+contempt and abhorrence; officers of English regiments declared that
+it would be impossible to maintain discipline amongst their troops
+if they remained in such a country. It was discovered that the rebels
+were forming another Directory, and, still expecting aid from France,
+planning a fresh outbreak. Religious animosities were more violent
+than ever. Government was becoming impossible; for the Roman Catholic
+population, now thoroughly disaffected, would not continue to submit
+to the rule of the Protestant oligarchy; but the only way to put an
+end to it would be by another rebellion which if successful would
+(as the Roman Catholic bishops and educated laymen fully realized)
+probably result in the establishment of a Jacobin republic;
+clear-headed men of all parties were beginning to think that there was
+but one solution of the problem; and that was--the Union.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE UNION.
+
+
+We come now to the great turning point in the modern history of
+Ireland--the Union. It has been so constantly and so vehemently
+asserted that this momentous event was prompted by the wicked desire
+of England to ruin Ireland, and was carried out by fraud, bribery,
+intimidation, and every form of political crime, that not only
+ordinary readers, but even writers who are content to receive
+their information at second hand without investigating evidence for
+themselves, generally assume that no other view is possible. Thus
+O'Connell boldly asserted that the Irish Catholics never assented
+to the Union. Others have blindly repeated his words; and from those
+reiterated statements has been developed an argument that as the
+Catholics did not assent to the Union, they cannot be bound by it.
+
+I believe that there has been as much exaggeration about this as about
+most other episodes of Irish history; and that anyone who, fairly and
+without prejudice, takes the trouble to go through the history of the
+Union as it may be gathered from contemporary documents, will come to
+the conclusion that it was devised by great and earnest statesmen who
+had the good of both countries at heart. As to the means by which it
+was carried, there is much to be said on both sides of the question;
+Lecky has stated the case against the Union ably and temperately;
+other writers, equally honourable, have taken the opposite side. There
+is at any rate very much to be said for the opinion, that, considering
+the circumstances and the peculiar constitution of the Irish
+Parliament, there was nothing which the Government did that was not
+perfectly justifiable. As to whether it was in accordance with the
+wish of the people or not, there are several points which ought to be
+borne in mind but to which sufficient attention is not usually given.
+A very large part of the nation were ignorant peasants, who did not
+and could not properly understand the question; and as a matter
+of fact cared little about it. Then of those who were against the
+measure, many opposed it not because they wished the existing state
+of things to continue, but because they thought that the Union would
+prevent the one object of their ambition--total separation and the
+establishment of a republic; their opinion therefore has but little
+weight. When we come to the more educated and propertied classes, it
+seems that the majority were in favour of the measure; and as to the
+opinion of the Roman Catholic section (which after all was far the
+largest part of the nation) I think there can be no doubt whatever.
+Fortunately it is no longer necessary to wade through the mass of
+original papers; for the evidence has been so carefully investigated
+during recent years by various impartial writers, and has been
+presented to the general reader in so clear and concise a manner
+that no one now has any excuse for being led away by the impassioned
+statements of partisan orators. I refer specially to the "History of
+the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland," by Dr. Dunbar
+Ingram, published in 1887.
+
+That careful writer commences his work by stating that, dissatisfied
+with endless assertions unaccompanied by proof, he had determined to
+investigate the subject for himself, examining closely the original
+and contemporary authorities. He soon found that there was no evidence
+to sustain the accusations made against the manner in which the Union
+was carried; and that all the charges against the Government rested
+finally on Harrington's worthless romances or the declamatory
+statements of the Opposition during the sessions of 1799 and 1800,
+which, when challenged, they declined to substantiate. Then, as he
+proceeded in his work, he discovered that, after its terms were known
+and the public had had time for reflection, the Union was thankfully
+accepted by the two communities which made up Ireland; that the
+Protestants, after the first burst of clamour, were as a body
+converted and became well-wishers to the measure; and that the Roman
+Catholics, after a short hesitation, gave the Union their hearty
+assent and support. And finally, the whole inquiry left a strong
+conviction on his mind that the Union was undertaken from the purest
+motives, that it was carried by fair and constitutional means, and
+that its final accomplishment was accompanied with the hearty assent
+and concurrence of the vast majority of the two peoples that dwelt in
+Ireland.
+
+I feel that I cannot do better than follow some of the lines of his
+argument.
+
+It is true that in the time of the Plantagenets representatives from
+Ireland were on several occasions summoned to attend the English
+Parliament; and that during the Commonwealth Ireland was incorporated
+with the rest of the Empire and sent members to the Parliaments of
+1654 and 1657. These incidents, however, are unimportant; it is more
+to the purpose to point out that from the time of the Restoration
+onwards we find a long list of distinguished thinkers recommending
+such a Union; and in the beginning of the eighteenth century both
+Houses of the Irish Parliament twice petitioned Queen Anne to the
+same effect. It may be asked why the English politicians, who were so
+anxious to bring about the Union with Scotland, turned a deaf ear
+to these petitions. The answer is simple. The Scotch Parliament
+was independent, and the impossibility of having two independent
+Parliaments under one sovereign had become manifest. Trade jealousies
+had arisen; the action of the Scotch had nearly involved England in a
+war with Spain; the Scotch Parliament had passed an Act declaring that
+until provision was made for settling the rights and liberties of the
+Scotch nation independently of England the successor to the Scotch
+Crown should not be the same person that was possessed of the Crown
+of England. The Parliament of England commenced arming the militia and
+fortifying the towns near the Border. England being at war with France
+the Scotch Parliament passed an Act allowing Scotchmen to trade with
+that country; it therefore was a choice between Union and War; and
+the two countries wisely chose Union. In the case of Ireland, however,
+England saw no such danger; the Irish legislature was subordinate;
+Ireland was bound by English statutes; and the Irish Parliament
+represented not the whole people but only that one section of it which
+was necessarily bound to the English connection; the Irish petitions
+for Union therefore remained unheeded. The great Bishop Berkeley,
+writing in 1735, strongly advocated a union; at a later time Adam
+Smith wrote: "By a union with Great Britain Ireland would gain besides
+the freedom of trade other advantages much more important ... Without
+a union with Great Britain the inhabitants of Ireland are not likely
+for many ages to consider themselves as one people." But, as we
+have seen, by the Act of 1782, the Irish Parliament had become
+independent--that is, it was placed in the same position as the
+Scotch Parliament had been; and by the Act of 1893, the bulk of the
+constituencies in the counties had become Roman Catholic. Except
+in the opinion of thoughtless optimists like Grattan, matters were
+approaching a deadlock; for sooner or later the Roman Catholic
+electors would demand representation in Parliament; the borough
+members would most probably refuse it, in which case war might break
+out again; and if they granted it, the Irish Parliament, then almost
+entirely Roman Catholic, would be anxious to break the tie that bound
+Ireland to England.
+
+But apart from the religious question, it was evident that the
+constitution, as fixed by the Act of 1782, was fraught with dangers.
+And it is no answer to say that not many difficulties had arisen
+in the few years between 1782 and 1799; for, even though that is
+partially true, the question for a statesman to consider was whether
+they were likely to arise in the future; and the rebellion, which
+was still seething, had made this all the more probable. First, on a
+declaration of war by England, Ireland might refuse to take part in
+it; and her refusal would paralyse the Empire. As early as 1791, Wolfe
+Tone had pointed out that Ireland need not embark on the side of
+Great Britain in the contest which was then pending; and one of his
+followers had advocated an alliance with France. (This is of all the
+more importance at the present day, when the Nationalists state that
+their principles are the same as those of Wolfe Tone.) Secondly,
+during a war, Ireland might refuse supplies to England. This course
+was actually hinted at by Grattan. Thirdly, she might provoke a
+commercial war of rates with England. This course was proposed in the
+Irish House of Commons in 1784. Fourthly, she might put pressure on
+the Sovereign to declare war against a country with which England was
+at peace. This also was proposed in the Irish House, in the case of
+Portugal. Fifthly, she might differ from England in any international
+question in reference to the connection between them, as she did in
+the Regency question. Sixthly, she might refuse--as she did--to make
+a commercial treaty with Great Britain; and thus keep open the most
+fertile sources of mutual jealousies and discontent. Grattan's best
+friends had urged upon him in vain that refusing to assent to a
+commercial treaty made the permanent government by two independent
+legislatures impossible, and would bring about separation; he refused
+to be guided by their advice, and at that time he still had supreme
+power in the House. It is remarkable that even at a later date, whilst
+vehemently opposing the Union, he took a delight in pointing out
+how many ways there were in which an Irish Parliament might injure
+England; seeming not to realize that he was supplying a forcible
+argument in favour of the measure he was opposing.
+
+The dangers of the situation were summed up by Pitt in a few
+words:--"A party in England may give to the Throne one species of
+advice by its Parliament. A party in Ireland may advise directly
+opposite upon the most essential points that involve the safety of
+both; upon alliance with a foreign power, for instance; upon the army;
+upon the navy; upon any branch of the public service; upon trade; upon
+commerce; or upon any point essential to the Empire at large." And
+long afterwards Sir Robert Peel pointed out that within the short
+period of six years from the establishment of what is called the
+independence of the Irish Parliament--from 1782 to 1788--the foreign
+relations of the two countries, the commercial intercourse of the two
+countries, the sovereign exercise of authority in the two countries,
+were the subjects of litigation and dispute; and it was more owing
+to accident than to any other cause that they did not produce actual
+alienation and rupture.
+
+The idea of a Union was first brought before Parliament by the Lord
+Lieutenant (Lord Cornwallis) in his speech at the opening of the
+Session in January 1799. It appeared at first that a majority of the
+Peers were in favour of the proposal, but a small majority of the
+House of Commons hostile--some to the scheme altogether, others to
+its being brought forward at that time. This small majority, however,
+rapidly diminished; and before many weeks had passed, the Government
+possessed a majority in both Houses. The citizens of Dublin were
+naturally strongly against the measure, thinking that it would injure
+the prestige of the capital; as were also the proprietors of boroughs
+and the legal members of the House; and soon after the scheme had
+been proposed, several counties held meetings and passed resolutions
+against it; but as the year went on, when the details of the measure
+had been more carefully considered, there was a general change of
+feeling throughout the country. Lord Cornwallis went on tours both
+north and south, through both Protestant and Roman Catholic
+districts, everywhere receiving addresses in favour of the Union from
+corporations, grand juries, leading residents, and especially from
+Roman Catholic bodies. And, if we may believe Lord Cornwallis's own
+letters, these addresses were entirely spontaneous, and represented
+the real feelings of the community. Before Parliament met in March
+1800, twenty-two counties had passed resolutions in favour of the
+Union; and Lord Castlereagh was able to say in the House that the
+great body of the landed property of Ireland, and all the great
+commercial towns except Dublin and Drogheda, were friendly to the
+measure. The Opposition attempted to meet this by presenting a number
+of petitions showing that the people of Ireland were against it. Of
+the fifty-four petitions presented, five were not against the Union at
+all, but merely requests for compensation in the event of its coming
+about; three were from individuals or commercial firms; and eight were
+from Dublin alone. The number therefore was much smaller than appears
+at first sight. Besides obtaining these petitions, the Opposition
+also collected a large sum of money for the purchase of seats; in the
+circumstances and according to the ideas of the time, I do not say
+that they were in the least morally wrong in doing so; but the fact
+takes away from the value of the votes given; and it neutralizes
+anything that was done by the Government in the same way--if it can be
+proved that the Government so acted.
+
+But as the Roman Catholics constituted three-fourths of the population
+of Ireland, it is more important to investigate what their feelings
+were than to scrutinize the division lists of the House, if we wish to
+ascertain what was really the wish of the nation. Fortunately we have
+an opportunity of testing whether there is any truth in the statement
+of O'Connell to which I have already referred--that the Irish
+Catholics did not assent to the Union. The evidence shows conclusively
+that the Roman Catholic peerage, episcopate, priesthood and laity all
+gave the movement their hearty concurrence and co-operation. Lords
+Kenmare and Fingall assured Lord Cornwallis that the Catholics were
+in favour of a Union; the entire episcopate--that is, the four
+archbishops and nineteen bishops, three sees being vacant--expressed
+the same view by their letters which are still extant or by
+resolutions signed by them; for instance, the Archbishop of Tuam
+wrote: "I have had an opportunity of acquiring the strongest
+conviction that this measure alone can restore harmony and happiness
+to our unhappy country." The Bishop of Cork wrote: "Nothing in my
+opinion will more effectively tend to lay these disgraceful and
+scandalous party feuds and dissensions, and restore peace and
+harmony amongst us, than the great measure in contemplation, of
+the legislative Union, and incorporation of this Kingdom with Great
+Britain. I am happy to tell you it is working its way, and daily
+gaining ground in the public opinion. Several counties which appeared
+most adverse to it have now declared for it, and I have no doubt but,
+with the blessing of God, it will be effected, notwithstanding the
+violent opposition of Mr. Foster and his party. The Roman Catholics in
+general are avowedly for the measure. In the south, where they are the
+most numerous, they have declared in its favour." The Bishop of Ferns
+presided at a meeting of Catholics of Wexford at which an address
+in favour of incorporation of both legislatures was signed by 3,000
+persons; and throughout the country meetings, presided over by parish
+priests, were held to further the movement; and the laity were quite
+as eager as the clergy in the matter. Plowden, the Roman Catholic
+historian, says: "A very great preponderancy in favour of the Union
+existed in the Catholic body, particularly in their nobility, gentry
+and clergy." Thomas McKenna, the Secretary to the Catholic Committee,
+wrote two pamphlets in the same interest; whilst on the other hand not
+a single petition against it was presented by any Roman Catholic body.
+
+When the Session of 1800 commenced, a leading member of the Opposition
+sadly confessed that the people had deserted them. But the struggle
+in the House of Commons was tremendous. The Anti-Unionists had the
+advantage of the oratory of Grattan, who, though he had not been in
+Parliament since 1797, now purchased a seat for £2,400, and entered
+the House in a theatrical manner in the midst of the discussion. But
+his vehement and abusive style of declamation could not in debate
+be compared with the calm reasoning of Castlereagh. The most able
+speeches against the measure were not those of Grattan, but Foster.
+Many divisions were taken, the Government majority steadily rising
+from forty-two to sixty-five, and comprising an actual majority of
+the members of the House. In the House of Lords it was relatively
+much larger. But it is constantly affirmed that this majority was only
+brought about by bribery and intimidation. The word "bribery" has an
+ugly sound; and in such a case as this, it is only fair to examine
+what is exactly meant by the term. There is no doubt that compensation
+was given to the proprietors of boroughs which were not allowed
+representation in the United Parliament; and it is said that as the
+return of members to Parliament is a public trust and not a species of
+property, this was not a fair matter for pecuniary compensation; hence
+it amounted to bribery. But the ownership of boroughs had grown up
+insensibly; and they had long been looked upon and treated as private
+property, not only in Ireland but in England and Scotland also; and
+there were many honest men in all three countries who contended that
+the system worked well, as it was the means whereby a large number
+of distinguished men obtained their first introduction into public
+life--amongst them being Pitt, Canning, and Fox in England, Grattan,
+Flood and Plunkett in Ireland. Then in other cases when powers which
+had long been regarded as property have been abolished, compensation
+has been given. This was the case when the heritable jurisdictions in
+Scotland were abolished, and when by the disestablishment of the Irish
+Church the right of patrons to nominate to livings was taken away. And
+even granting for the sake of argument that this is wrong, is it fair
+to call it bribery? Eighty-four places were disfranchised, and a sum
+of £1,260,000 (which did not nearly amount to the price which the
+boroughs at that time fetched in the market) was paid. Of this,
+£67,500 was paid to Englishmen who owned seats in the Irish
+Parliament; £60,000 to boroughs who had no owners; £30,000 to the
+executors of a deceased owner; £18,750 to two ladies; and
+£1,100,000 to Irishmen who owned boroughs--of which £400,000 went to
+Anti-Unionists who opposed the Bill. In many cases, of course, the
+actual occupant of the seat was a different person from the owner who
+received the compensation; for instance, there is reason to believe
+that all the fifty barristers in the house had purchased their seats,
+but not one of them was the permanent owner. Now, if compensation
+is bribery, who was bribed? Really it must be admitted that
+on investigation the charge of bribery, so far as it refers to
+compensation to borough-owners, falls to the ground.
+
+Then it is said that the Government made actual payments to members
+for their votes. This charge was brought forward in a general way at
+the time in both Houses; the Government indignantly denied it, and
+called on the Opposition to prove their accusation; but they failed to
+do so. To repeat it now is therefore unjust. It may be admitted that
+amongst Lord Castlereagh's letters there is one which taken by itself
+looks as if a certain sum of money was to be used in bribery; but,
+as Dr. Ingram has pointed out, a careful investigation of the matter
+shows that it refers to proposed changes in the tariff, and not to
+bribery at all.
+
+Again, it is argued that the lavish distribution of titles amounted
+to bribery. If so, it is hard to find any Government in England or
+Ireland that has not been to some extent guilty of bribery--though it
+is true that no British Premier has ever created peerages or salaried
+offices on anything like the scale that Mr. Asquith has done. After
+the Bill had passed, Pitt created twenty new Irish peerages and four
+English ones; and promoted sixteen peers a step in their order; which
+after all is not very much more than Lord North had done in 1779, on
+no special occasion, when he had created eighteen Irish peerages and
+promoted twelve existing peers.
+
+As to the charges of intimidation, they may be dismissed at once; the
+very few that were brought forward were so completely answered at the
+time, that even the Opposition dropped them. The presence of such a
+large number of troops in Ireland was quite accounted for by the fact
+that the rebellion was still to some extent going on, and that there
+was again a danger of a French invasion.
+
+And I must contend further that even admitting that there were
+some acts on the part of the Government which will not bear strict
+investigation according to present ideas, it is only fair to remember
+the tremendous difficulties of the occasion. The English House of
+Commons was almost unanimously in favour of the Union--not more than
+thirty members ever voted against it; and in the opinion of Lord
+Cornwallis, who throughout his long and varied career showed himself
+to be a shrewd observer and an upright, honourable man, "This country
+could not be saved without the Union."
+
+But really the whole discussion is beside the mark. The Nationalists
+continually repeat the charge that the Union was carried by fraud; and
+so it must be answered; but it has no bearing on anything existing at
+the present day. For the old Irish Parliament has disappeared--merged
+in the greater and more honourable Assembly of the United Kingdom; and
+to revive it now would be a physical impossibility. The whole state
+of circumstances has changed; no assembly that could now be formed in
+Ireland would bear the faintest resemblance to that which met in the
+eighteenth century. As Lecky has well expressed it:--
+
+    "To an historian of the eighteenth century, however, few
+    things can be more grotesquely absurd than to suppose that the
+    merits or demerits, the failure or the successes of the
+    Irish Parliament has any real bearing on modern schemes for
+    reconstructing the Government of Ireland on a revolutionary
+    and Jacobin basis; entrusting the protection of property and
+    the maintenance of law to some democratic assembly consisting
+    mainly of Fenians and Land-leaguers, of paid agitators and
+    of penniless adventurers. The Parliamentary system of the
+    eighteenth century might be represented in very different
+    lights by its enemies and by its friends. Its enemies would
+    describe it as essentially a government carried on through the
+    instrumentality of a corrupt oligarchy, of a large, compact
+    body of members holding place and pensions at the pleasure of
+    the Government, removed by the system of rotten boroughs from
+    all effectual popular control. Its friends would describe it
+    as essentially the government of Ireland by the gentlemen of
+    Ireland and especially the landlord class.
+
+    "Neither representation would be altogether true, but each
+    contains a large measure of truth. The nature of the Irish
+    constituencies and the presence in the House of Commons of a
+    body of pensioners and placemen forming considerably more than
+    a third of the whole assembly, and nearly half of its active
+    members, gave the Government a power, which, except under
+    very rare and extraordinary circumstances, must, if fully
+    exercised, have been overwhelming ... On the other hand,
+    the Irish Parliament was a body consisting very largely of
+    independent country gentlemen, who on nearly all questions
+    affecting the economical and industrial development of the
+    country, had a powerful if not a decisive influence ... and
+    it was in reality only in a small class of political questions
+    that the corrupt power of government seems to have been
+    strained. The Irish House of Commons ... comprised the flower
+    of the landlord class. It was essentially pre-eminently the
+    representative of the property of the country. It had all the
+    instincts and the prejudices, but also all the qualities
+    and the capacities, of an educated propertied class, and it
+    brought great local knowledge and experience to its task. Much
+    of its work was of that practical and unobtrusive character
+    which leaves no trace in history."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PERIOD FROM THE UNION UNTIL THE REJECTION OF THE FIRST HOME RULE
+BILL.
+
+
+As soon as the Union had become law, the opposition to it died down
+rapidly. All the members who had voted for it who became candidates
+for the Imperial Parliament were elected, and Irish orators soon began
+to make their mark in the greater Assembly. In 1805, however, there
+was another slight rebellion, led by Robert Emmett. It never had
+a chance of success; the mass of the people, thoroughly tired of
+anarchy, refused to take part in it; and though the rebels succeeded
+in committing a few murders, the movement was speedily quelled, mainly
+by the yeomen of Dublin. At the trial of Emmett, Plunket, who had been
+a vehement opponent of the Union, was counsel for the prosecution, and
+in his speech bitterly denounced the conduct of those men who,
+having done their utmost to oppose the Irish Parliament, now made the
+abolition of that Parliament the pretext for rebellion. "They call for
+revenge," said he, "on account of the removal of the Parliament. These
+men, who, in 1798, endeavoured to destroy the Parliament, now
+call upon the loyal men who opposed its transfer, to join them in
+rebellion; an appeal vain and fruitless."
+
+It will be observed from statements already quoted, that the
+Nationalists of to-day claim that they are the successors of
+Emmett; he is counted amongst the heroes who fell in the cause of
+Ireland--thus making it all the more clear how wide is the gulf
+between the Parliamentary opponents of the Union and the modern
+Nationalists.
+
+During the early part of the century, Ireland had another period of
+prosperity. Travellers through Ireland at the present day cannot fail
+to notice how many of the country seats (now, in consequence of later
+legislation, mostly deserted and already beginning to fall into ruin)
+were built at that time. No doubt much of the prosperity was caused
+by the rebound which often takes place after a period of anarchy and
+desolation; and it would not be fair to attribute it wholly to the
+effect of the Union; but at least it proves that the melancholy
+prognostications of the opponents of the measure were happily
+unfulfilled. The total value of the produce and manufactures exported
+from Ireland between 1790 and 1801 amounted to £51,322,620; between
+1802 and 1813 it amounted to £63,483,718. In 1800 the population
+of Ireland was under 5,000,000; in 1841 it was over 8,000,000. The
+tonnage in Irish ports in 1792 was 69,000; by 1797 it had fallen to
+53,000; before 1852 it had risen to 5,000,000. The export of linen
+in 1796 was 53,000,000 yards; in 1799 it had fallen to 38,000,000;
+in 1853 it had risen to 106,000,000; and every other department of
+industry and commerce showed figures almost as satisfactory.
+
+There were, however, three important measures which the leading
+advocates of the Union had desired to see carried as soon as possible
+after the great change had been effected, but which--as many writers
+of various schools of thought to this day consider unfortunately--were
+postponed. The first was a provision by the State for the payment of
+the Roman Catholic clergy. The bishops had fully expected that this
+would be carried. Some modern Nationalists, wishing to win the
+favour of the English Nonconformists, have represented that the Roman
+Catholic Church refused to accept the money; but that is not the case.
+Whether the policy of "levelling up" would have been a wise one
+or not, it is useless now to conjecture; for once the policy of
+"levelling down" had been decided upon, and the Irish Church had been
+disestablished and disendowed, it became impracticable. The second
+measure was Roman Catholic emancipation. This had been intended by
+Pitt and other statesmen who helped to bring about the Union; but
+unforeseen difficulties arose; and unfortunately nothing was done
+until the agitation led by O'Connell brought matters to a crisis;
+and the emancipation which might have been carried gracefully years
+before, and in that case would have strengthened the Union, was
+grudgingly yielded in 1829.
+
+The third measure was a readjustment of tithes. All will now admit,
+and very many politicians and thinkers at the time fully realized,
+that the old law as to tithes was a cruel injustice; but no change
+was made until the opposition to the payment of tithes amounted to
+something like civil war, involving a series of murders and outrages.
+Then the fatal precedent was set of a successful and violent revolt
+against contracts and debts. In 1838 an Act was passed commuting
+the tithes into a rent-charge payable not by the occupiers but the
+landlords. Some modern writers have argued that the change was merely
+a matter of form, as the landlords increased the rents in proportion;
+and it seems such a natural thing to have happened that earlier
+writers may well be excused for assuming that it actually occurred.
+But there is no excuse for repeating the charge now; for in
+consequence of recent legislation it has been necessary for the Land
+Courts to investigate the history of rents from a period commencing
+before 1838; and the result of their examination has elicited the
+strange fact that in thousands of cases the rent remained exactly the
+same that it had been before the Tithe Commutation Act was passed.
+
+But ere long economic causes were at work which tended to check the
+prosperity of Ireland. It was soon found that the proportion which by
+the Act of Union Ireland was to contribute to the Imperial Government
+was too large for the country to bear. The funded debt of Ireland
+which amounted to £28,000,000 in 1800 rose by 1817 to £130,000,000;
+in that year the whole liability was taken over by the Imperial
+Government. Then the fall in prices which naturally resulted from
+the peace of 1815 pressed heavily on an agricultural community.
+Improvements in machinery and the development of steam power squeezed
+out the handlooms of Ulster and the watermills of other parts of the
+country. Wages were low; and the people who depended mainly on the
+potato were underfed and undernourished. In 1846 and 1847 came the
+two terrible blows to Ireland--first, the potato disease; and then the
+Repeal of the Corn Laws, which made the profitable growing of wheat
+with its accompanying industries, impossible. During the fearful years
+of the potato famine, it is only too probable that some of the efforts
+for relief were unwisely conducted and that some persons sadly failed
+in their duties; no measures or men in the world are ever perfect; and
+the difficulties not only of obtaining food but of getting it to the
+starving people in days when there were few railways and no motors
+were enormous. But when modern writers shower wholesale abuse over
+the landlords of the period, and even hint that they brought about the
+famine, it is well to turn to the writings of an ardent Home Ruler,
+who was himself an eye-witness, having lived as a boy through the
+famine time in one of the districts that suffered most--Mr. A.M.
+Sullivan. He says:--
+
+    "The conduct of the Irish landlords throughout the famine
+    period has been variously described, and has been, I believe,
+    generally condemned. I consider the censure visited on them
+    too sweeping. I hold it to be in some respects cruelly unjust.
+    On many of them no blame too heavy could possibly fall.
+    A large number were permanent absentees; their ranks were
+    swelled by several who early fled the post of duty at
+    home--cowardly and selfish deserters of a brave and faithful
+    people. Of those who remained, some may have grown callous;
+    it is impossible to contest authentic instances of brutal
+    heartlessness here and there. But granting all that has to be
+    entered on the dark debtor side, the overwhelming balance
+    is the other way. The bulk of the resident Irish landlords
+    manfully did their best in that dread hour ... No adequate
+    tribute has ever been paid to the memory of those Irish
+    landlords--they were men of every party and creed--perished
+    martyrs to duty in that awful time; who did not fly the
+    plague-reeking work-houses or fever-tainted court. Their names
+    would make a goodly roll of honour ... If they did too little
+    compared with what the landlord class in England would have
+    done in similar case, it was because little was in their
+    power. The famine found most of the resident gentry of Ireland
+    on the brink of ruin. They were heritors of estates heavily
+    overweighted with the debts of a bygone generation. Broad
+    lands and lordly mansions were held by them on settlements
+    and conditions that allowed small scope for the exercise
+    of individual liberality. To these landlords the failure of
+    year's rental receipts meant mortgage fore-one and hopeless
+    ruin. Yet cases might be named by the score in which such men
+    scorned to avert by pressure on their suffering tenantry the
+    fate they saw impending over them.... They 'went down with the
+    ship.'"
+
+Soon after the famine, the Incumbered Estates Act was passed, by which
+the creditors of incumbered landlords could force a sale. This in
+effect worked a silent revolution; for whatever might have been said
+up to that time about the landed proprietors being the representatives
+of those who acquired their estates through the Cromwellian
+confiscations, after those proprietors had been forced to sell and the
+purchasers had obtained a statutory title by buying in the Court, the
+charge became obsolete. The motive of the Act was a good one; it
+was hoped that land would thus pass out of the hands of impoverished
+owners and be purchased by English capitalists who would be able to
+execute improvements on their estates and thus benefit the country
+as a whole. But the scheme brought with it disadvantages which the
+framers of the Act had not foreseen. The new purchasers had none of
+the local feelings of the dispossessed owners; they regarded their
+purchases as an investment, which they wished to make as profitable as
+possible, and treated the occupants of the land with a harshness which
+the old proprietors would never have exercised. Like most things in
+Ireland, however, this has been much exaggerated. It is constantly
+assumed that the whole soil of Ireland after this belonged to absentee
+proprietors who took no interest in the country. That absenteeism is a
+great evil to any country, and to Ireland especially, no one can deny;
+but a Parliamentary enquiry in 1869 elicited the fact that the number
+of landed proprietors in the rural area of Ireland then (and there
+is no reason to suppose that any great change had taken place in
+the previous eighteen years) was 19,547, of whom only 1,443 could
+be described as "rarely or never resident in Ireland"; and these
+represented 15.7 per cent. of the rural area, and only 15.1 per cent.
+of the total poor-law valuation of that area.
+
+Between 1841 and 1851 the population of the country fell from
+8,200,000 to 6,574,000. The primary causes of this were of course the
+famine and the fever which broke out amongst the half-starved people;
+but it was also to a large extent caused by emigration. A number
+of devoted and noble-hearted men, realizing that it was hopeless to
+expect that the potato disease would disappear, and that consequently
+the holdings had become "uneconomic" (to use the phrase now so
+popular) as no other crop was known which could produce anything
+like the same amount of food, saw that the only course to prevent a
+continuation of the famine would be to remove a large section of the
+people to a happier country. In this good work the Quakers, who had
+been untiring in their efforts to relieve distress during the famine,
+took a prominent part; and the Government gave assistance. At the
+time no one regarded this as anything but a beneficent course; for the
+emigrants found better openings in new and rising countries than
+they ever could have had at home, and the reduced population, earning
+larger wages, were able to live in greater comfort. One evidence of
+this has been that mud cabins, which in 1841 had numbered 491,000
+had in 1901 been reduced to 9,000; whilst the best class of houses
+increased from 304,000 to 596,000. In 1883 the Roman Catholic bishops
+came to the conclusion that matters had gone far enough, and that in
+future migration from the poorer to the more favoured districts was
+better than emigration from the country; but they did not say anything
+against the work that had been done up to that time. Yet a recent
+Nationalist writer, wishing to bring every possible charge against the
+landlords, has hinted that the total loss of population from 1841 to
+1901 was caused by the brutality of the landlords after the famine,
+who drove the people out of the country! To show the fallacy of this,
+it is sufficient to point out that the powers of the landlords for
+good or evil were considerably reduced by the Land Act of 1870, and
+after that they were further diminished by each successive Act until
+the last shred was taken away by the Act of 1887; yet the population
+went down from 5,412,377 in 1871 to 4,453,775 in 1901--the emigration
+being larger in proportion from those counties where the National
+League was omnipotent than from other parts of Ireland.
+
+In the early thirties O'Connell commenced his famous agitation for the
+Repeal of the Union. After he had disappeared from the scene, his work
+was taken up by those of his followers who advocated physical force;
+and in 1848 an actual rebellion broke out, headed by Smith O'Brien. It
+ended in a ridiculous fiasco. The immediate cause of its failure, as
+A.M. Sullivan has pointed out, was that the leaders, in imitation of
+the movement of half a century before, endeavoured to eliminate the
+religious difficulty and to bring about a rising in which Orange
+and Green should be united; but their fight for religious tolerance
+exposed them to the charge of infidelity; the Roman Catholic priests
+(who now possessed immense political influence) denounced them; and
+their antagonism was fatal to the movement.
+
+But one of the most far-seeing of the party--J.F. Lalor--perceived
+that mere repeal would never be strong enough to be a popular cry--it
+must be hitched on to some more powerful motive, which could drag it
+along. As he clearly explained in his manifesto, his objects were the
+abolition of British government and the formation of a National one.
+He considered that neither agitation nor the attempt at military
+insurrection were likely to attain those objects, but that the wisest
+means for that end were the refusal of obedience to usurped authority;
+taking quiet possession of all the rights and powers of government and
+proceeding to exercise them; and defending the exercise of such powers
+if attacked. He saw that the motive power which would carry itself
+forward and drag repeal with it, was in the land. He held that the
+soil of the country belonged as of right to the entire people of that
+country, not to any one class but to the nation--one condition being
+essential, that the tenant should bear true and undivided allegiance
+to the nation whose land he held, and owe no allegiance whatever to
+any other prince, power or people, or any obligation of obedience or
+respect to their will, their orders, or their laws. The reconquest
+of the liberties of Ireland, he argued, would, even if possible by
+itself, be incomplete and worthless, without the reconquest of the
+land; whereas the latter, if effected, would involve the former. He
+therefore recommended (1) That occupying tenants should at once refuse
+to pay all rent except the value of the overplus of harvest produce
+remaining in their hands after deducting a full provision for their
+own subsistence during the ensuing year; (2) that they should forcibly
+resist being made homeless under the English law of ejectment; (3)
+that they ought further on principle to refuse _all_ rent to the
+present usurping proprietors, until they should in National Convention
+decide what rents they were to pay and to whom they should pay them;
+and (4) that the people, on grounds of policy and economy, should
+decide that those rents should be paid to themselves--the people--for
+public purposes for the benefit of the entire general people. In
+that way a mighty social revolution would be accomplished, and the
+foundation of a national revolution surely laid.
+
+But these views, though shared by J. Mitchel and other leaders, were
+not at the time generally adopted; and the next agitations were more
+distinctly political than agrarian. The Fenian movement of 1865--1867,
+the avowed object of which was the establishment of an independent
+republic, arose in America, where it was cleverly devised and ably
+financed. In Ireland it met with little sympathy except in the towns;
+and the attempted outbreaks, both there and in Canada, were dismal
+failures. Two of their efforts in England, however, led to important
+results. Gladstone made the remarkable statement that it was their
+attempt to blow up Clerkenwell prison that enabled him to carry
+the Act for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Many years
+afterwards, when this encouragement to incendiarism had done its work,
+he denied that he had ever said so; but there is no doubt that he did.
+
+Here I must digress for a moment to refer to the position of the Irish
+Church. By the Act of Union it had been provided that the Churches of
+England and Ireland as then by law established should be united, and
+that the continuation and preservation of the United Church should be
+deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental part of the Union;
+and at the time of the agitation for Catholic emancipation the Roman
+Catholic Bishops of Ireland solemnly declared that their Church
+would never attempt to destroy the Protestant Establishment. This is
+interesting as showing how futile are the attempts of one generation
+to bind posterity by legislation; and how foolish it is to expect
+that men will regard themselves as bound by promises made by their
+ancestors. (The same remark may be made with reference to the promises
+now being made by Nationalists as to the Home Rule Bill.) The general
+provisions of the Disestablishment Act were simple. Existing clergy
+were secured in their incomes for life; the disestablished Church
+was allowed to claim all churches then in actual use, and to purchase
+rectory houses and glebes at a valuation; and a sum of £500,000 was
+given to the Church in lieu of all private endowments. Everything
+else--even endowments given by private persons a few years before the
+Act was passed--was swept away. The members of the Church showed a
+liberality which their opponents never anticipated. They bought the
+glebes, continued to pay their clergy by voluntary assessments, and
+collected a large sum of money towards a future endowment. Nationalist
+writers now state that the Act left the Irish Church with an income
+adequate to its needs and merely applied the surplus revenues to other
+purposes; and hint that the capital sum now possessed by the Church
+really came from the State, and that therefore the future Home Rule
+Government can deal with it as they please. The alarm felt by Irish
+Churchmen at the prospect can be understood.
+
+The other Fenian attempt in England which has historical importance
+was of a different kind. Two Fenian prisoners were being conveyed in a
+prison van at Manchester. Their friends tried to rescue them by force;
+and in the attempt killed the officer in charge. For this crime, three
+of them--Allen, Larkin and O'Brien--were tried, convicted and hanged
+in November 1867. These were the "Manchester Martyrs," in honour of
+whose unflinching fidelity to faith and country (to quote the words
+of Archbishop Croke) so many memorial crosses have been erected,
+and solemn demonstrations are held every year to this day. At the
+unveiling of the memorial cross at Limerick the orator said: "Allen,
+Larkin and O'Brien died as truly for the cause of Irish Nationality as
+did any of the heroes of Irish history. The same cause nerved the arms
+of the brave men of '98, of '48, of '65 and '67. For the cause that
+had lived so long they would not take half measures--nothing else
+would satisfy them than the full measure of Nationality for which they
+and their forefathers had fought."
+
+Meanwhile another movement was going on, which seems to have been at
+first wholly distinct from the Fenian conspiracy--the constitutional
+agitation for Home Rule or Repeal, led by Isaac Butt. It commenced its
+Parliamentary action in 1874; but was ere long broken up by the more
+violent spirits within its own ranks. As had so frequently happened in
+similar movements in Ireland, France and elsewhere, the moderate
+men were thrust aside, and the extremists carried all before them.
+Fenianism, though apparently crushed in Ireland, continued to flourish
+in America. Michael Davitt, who had been a prominent member both of
+the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood and of the Fenian Society, had
+been convicted of treason felony, and sentenced to penal servitude. On
+his release in 1877, he was received as a hero, and amongst those who
+took part in the welcome to him were C.S. Parnell, J.G. Biggar, J.
+Carey, D. Curley and J. Brady. He went to America and there matured
+the plan of his operations on the lines laid down by Lalor, which he
+proceeded to carry out in Ireland in 1879 by means of a Society which
+was at first called the "Land League" but which has since been known
+by various other names. Amongst his allies were J. Devoy, O'Donovan
+Rossa, and Patrick Ford. Devoy and Rossa took an active part in
+establishing the Skirmishing Fund, which was subscribed for the
+purpose of levying war on England with dynamite. Rossa afterwards
+publicly boasted that he had placed an infernal machine onboard H.M.S.
+"Dottrell," and had sent it and all its crew to the bottom of the
+ocean. As a reward for his patriotic conduct he was some years later
+granted a pension by the County Council of Cork, payable out of the
+rates. Ford was the ablest and most powerful of the number, for by
+means of his paper--the _Irish World_--he collected vast sums for the
+Parliamentary party. In this paper he strongly advocated the use of
+dynamite as a blessed agent which should be availed of by the Irish
+people in their holy war; and elaborated a scheme for setting fire to
+London in fifty places on a windy night. After D. Curley and J. Brady
+had been hanged for the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr.
+Burke, he collected money for a testimonial to them as heroes, and
+prayed that God would send Ireland more men with hearts like that of
+J. Brady. Mr. Redmond has recently described him as "the grand old
+veteran, who through his newspaper has done more for the last thirty
+or forty years for Ireland than almost any man alive"; Mr. T.P.
+O'Connor has congratulated him on the great work he is doing for
+Ireland; and Mr. Devlin has eulogized him for "the brilliancy in the
+exposition of the principles inculcated in our programme."
+
+By 1880 the union between the Dynamite party in America (which bore
+many names, such as the Fenian Society, the Irish Revolutionary
+Brotherhood, the Invincibles, the Clan-na-gael, and the Physical
+Force party, but was essentially the same movement throughout), the
+constitutional agitators for Home Rule in Parliament, and the Land
+Leaguers in Ireland, was complete. It was but natural that it should
+be so, for their objects were the same, though their methods differed
+according to circumstances. The American party (according to their own
+statements) desired the achievement of a National Parliament so as
+to give them a footing on Irish soil--to give them the agencies and
+instrumentalities for a Government _de facto_ at the very commencement
+of the Irish struggle--to give them the plant of an armed revolution.
+Hence they gladly contributed large sums for the Parliamentary Fund.
+Parnell, the leader of the Parliamentary party, stated that a true
+revolutionary movement should partake of a constitutional and
+an illegal character; it should be both an open and a secret
+organization, using the constitution for its own purpose and also
+taking advantage of the secret combination; and (as the judges at the
+Parnell Commission reported) the Land League was established with the
+intention of bringing about the independence of Ireland as a separate
+nation.
+
+In the preceding autumn the agitation against the payment of rent had
+begun; and persons of ordinary intelligence could see that a fresh
+outbreak of anarchy was imminent. But Gladstone, when coming into
+power in March 1880, assumed that air of easy optimism which his
+successors in more recent times have imitated; and publicly stated
+that there was in Ireland an absence of crime and outrage and a
+general sense of comfort and satisfaction such as had been unknown
+in the previous history of the country. His Chief Secretary, Forster,
+however, had not been long in Ireland before he realized that this
+was the dream of a madman; and that the Government must either act or
+abdicate in favour of anarchy; but the Cabinet refused to support him.
+Before the end of the year the Government had practically abdicated,
+and the rule of the Land League was the only form of Government in
+force in a large part of the country. The name of the unfortunate
+Captain Boycott will be for ever associated with the means the League
+employed to enforce their orders. What those means were, was explained
+by Gladstone himself:--
+
+    "What is meant by boycotting? In the first place it is
+    combined intimidation. In the second place, it is combined
+    intimidation made use of for the purpose of destroying the
+    private liberties of choice by fear of ruin and starvation. In
+    the third place, that which stands in the rear of boycotting
+    and by which alone boycotting can in the long run be made
+    thoroughly effective is the murder which is not to be
+    denounced."
+
+And a few years later--1886--the Official Report of the Cowper
+Commission stated it more fully:--
+
+    "The people are more afraid of boycotting, which depends for
+    its success on the probability of outrage, than they are of
+    the judgments of the Courts of Justice. The unwritten law in
+    some districts is supreme. We deem it right to call attention
+    to the terrible ordeal that a boycotted person has to undergo,
+    which was by several witnesses graphically described during
+    the progress of our enquiry. The existence of a boycotted
+    person becomes a burden to him, as none in town or village are
+    allowed, under a similar penalty to themselves, to supply him
+    or his family with the necessaries of life. He is not allowed
+    to dispose of the produce of his farm. Instances have been
+    brought before us in which his attendance at divine service
+    was prohibited, in which his cattle have been, some killed,
+    some barbarously mutilated; in which all his servants and
+    labourers were ordered and obliged to leave him; in which the
+    most ordinary necessaries of life and even medical comforts,
+    had to be procured from long distances; in which no one
+    would attend the funeral, or dig a grave for, a member of a
+    boycotted person's family; and in which his children have been
+    forced to discontinue attendance at the National School of the
+    district."
+
+This was the ordinary form of Government as conducted by the
+Nationalists; and any attempt to interfere with it and to enforce the
+milder laws of England, is now denounced as "coercion."
+
+In 1881 Gladstone carried another and a more far-reaching Land Act. To
+put it shortly, it may be said that all agricultural land (except that
+held by leaseholders, who were brought in under the Act of 1887)
+was handed over to the occupiers for ever (with free power of sale),
+subject only to the payment of rent--the rent not being that which the
+tenants had agreed to pay, but that which a Land Court decided to Be
+a "fair rent." This was to last for fifteen years, at the end of which
+time the tenant might again claim to have a fair rent fixed, and so
+_ad infinitum_. The Land Court in most cases cut down the rent by
+about 20 or 25 per cent.; and at the end of fifteen years did the
+same again. As tithes (which had been secularized but not abolished),
+mortgages and family charges remained unchanged, the result was that
+a large proportion of landlords were absolutely ruined; in very many
+cases those who appear as owners now have no beneficial interest in
+their estates.
+
+In examining the Act calmly, one must observe in the first place that
+it was a wholesale confiscation of property. Not of course one
+that involved the cruelty of confiscations of previous ages, but a
+confiscation all the same. For if A. bought a farm in the Incumbered
+Estates Court, with a Parliamentary title, and let it to B. for twenty
+years at a rent of £100; and the Act gave B. the right of occupying it
+for ever subject to the payment of £50 a year, and selling it for any
+price he liked, that can only mean the transfer of property from A. to
+B. Secondly, the Act encouraged bad farming; for a tenant knew that
+if his land got into a slovenly state--with drains stopped up, fences
+broken down, and weeds growing everywhere--the result would be that
+the rent would be reduced by the Commissioners at the end of the
+fifteen years; as the Commissioners did not go into the question of
+whose the fault was, but merely took estimates as to what should be
+the rent of the land in its actual condition. That farms were in many
+instances intentionally allowed to go to decay with this object, has
+been proved; and this pressed hard on the labouring class, as less
+employment was given. Thirdly, although the remission of debt may
+bring prosperity for a time, it may be doubted whether it will
+permanently benefit the country; for it will be noticed that the
+attempt to fix prices arbitrarily applied only to the letting and
+hiring and not to other transactions. To give a typical instance of
+what has occurred in many cases: a tenant held land at a rent of £1.
+15s. 0d. per acre; he took the landlord into Court, swore that the
+land could not bear such a rent, and had it reduced to £1. 5s. 0d.;
+thereupon he sold it for £20 an acre; and so the present occupier had
+to pay £1. 5s. 0d. to the nominal landlord, and the interest on the
+purchase-money (about £1 per acre) to a mortgagee; in fact, he has
+to pay a larger sum annually than any previous tenant did; and this
+payment is "rent" in the economic sense though it is paid not to a
+resident landlord but to a distant mortgagee. In other words, rent
+was increased, and absenteeism became general. Fourthly, it sowed
+the seeds for future trouble; for it was the temporary union of two
+antagonistic principles. On the one hand it was said that "the man who
+tills the land should own it," and therefore rent was an unjust
+tax (in fact it was seriously argued that men of English and Scotch
+descent who had hired farms in the nineteenth century had a moral
+right to keep them for ever rent free because tribal tenure had
+prevailed amongst the Celts who occupied the country many hundreds of
+years before); on the other it was said that the land belonged to the
+people of Ireland as a whole and not to any individuals. If that is
+so, what right has one man to a large farm when there are hundreds of
+others in a neighbouring town who have no land at all? The passing of
+the Land Acts of 1881 and 1887 made it inevitable that sooner or later
+a fresh agitation would be commenced by "landless men." And fifthly,
+when an excitable, uneducated people realize that lawlessness and
+outrages will be rewarded by an Act remitting debts and breaking
+contracts, they are not likely in future to limit their operations
+to land, but will apply the same maxims to other contracts. The
+demoralizing of character is a fact to be taken into consideration.
+
+However, the Act was passed; and if Gladstone really imagined that
+it would satisfy the Nationalist party he must have been grievously
+disappointed. During 1881, 4,439 agrarian outrages were recorded. The
+Government declared the Land League to be illegal, and lodged some of
+the leaders in gaol. Thereupon Ford, carrying out the plan laid down
+by Lalor in 1848, issued his famous "No Rent" proclamation. It was not
+generally acted upon; but his party continued active, and in May 1882
+Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke (the Chief and Under Secretary)
+were murdered in the Phoenix Park. This led to the passing of the
+Crimes Prevention Act, by which the detectives were enabled to secure
+evidence against the conspirators, many of whom (as is usual in Irish
+history) turned Queen's evidence. The Act was worked with firmness;
+and outrages, which had numbered 2,507 during the first half of 1882,
+fell to 836 in the latter half, to 834 in 1883, and to 774 in 1884.
+
+In the autumn of 1885, Gladstone, expecting to return to power at
+the ensuing election, besought the electors to give him a majority
+independent of the Irish vote. In this he failed; and thereupon took
+place the "Great Surrender." He suddenly discovered that everything
+he had said and done up to that time had been wrong; that boycotting,
+under the name of "exclusive dealing," was perfectly justifiable;
+that the refusal to pay rent was just the same as a strike of workmen
+(ignoring the obvious facts that when workmen strike they cease both
+to give their labour and to receive pay, whereas the gist of the "No
+Rent" movement was that tenants, whilst ceasing to pay, should retain
+possession of the farms they have hired; and that a strike arises from
+a dispute between employers and employed--usually about rates of pay
+or length of hours; whereas Ford's edict that no rent was to be paid
+was issued not in consequence of anything that individual landlords
+had done, but because Gladstone had put the leaders of the Land League
+in gaol); that the men whom he had previously denounced as "marching
+through rapine to the dismemberment of the Empire" were heroes who
+deserved to be placed in charge of the government of the country; and
+introduced his first Home Rule Bill. Some of his followers went with
+him; others refused. His life-long ally, John Bright, said: "I cannot
+trust the peace and interests of Ireland, north and south, to the
+Irish Parliamentary party, to whom the Government now propose to
+make a general surrender. My six years' experience of them, of their
+language in the House of Commons and their deeds in Ireland, makes it
+impossible for me to consent to hand over to them the property and
+the rights of five millions of the Queen's subjects, our
+fellow-countrymen, in Ireland. At least two millions of them are as
+loyal as the population of your town, and I will be no party to a
+measure which will thrust them from the generosity and justice of the
+United and Imperial Parliament."
+
+The Bill was rejected; at the general election which ensued the people
+of England declared against the measure; Gladstone resigned, and Lord
+Salisbury became Prime Minister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE UNIONIST GOVERNMENT OF 1886.
+
+
+The Unionists, on returning to power in 1886, fully realized the
+difficulty of the problem with which they were faced. The Nationalists
+held a great Convention at Chicago, at which they resolved to make
+use of the Land League not merely for the purpose of exterminating
+landlords but as a means for promoting universal disorder and so
+bringing about a paralysis of the law. As J. Redmond stated at the
+Convention: "I assert that the government of Ireland by England is an
+impossibility, and I believe it to be our duty to make it so." And, as
+he afterwards explained in Ireland, he considered that if the Tories
+were able to carry on the government with the ordinary law, the
+cause of Home Rule might be set back for a generation; but if the
+Nationalists could succeed in making such government impossible, and
+the Tories were obliged to have recourse to coercion, the people
+of Great Britain would turn them out of office, and Gladstone would
+return to power and carry Home Rule. (This avowed determination on the
+part of the Nationalists to reduce the country to anarchy should be
+borne in mind when people now express their horror at the Ulstermen
+being guilty of such conduct as breaking the law.) With this object,
+the Nationalists in 1887 organized the "Plan of Campaign," which
+was in fact an elaboration of the "No Rent" manifesto of 1881, and
+a scheme for carrying out, step by step, the programme laid down by
+Lalor in 1848. One of Lalor's adherents had been a young priest named
+Croke. By 1887 he had become Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. He
+had considered the "No Rent" manifesto inopportune; but now formally
+sanctioned the "Plan of Campaign," and in a violent letter urged that
+it should be extended to a general refusal to pay taxes. The Plan
+was also approved by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and the
+leaders of the Nationalist movement in Ireland and America, such as
+J. Dillon and Ford; but Parnell seemed doubtful, and in England the
+_Daily News_ denounced it.
+
+However, the Unionist Government had decided on their policy, which
+they were determined to carry through. The main items of their
+programme were (1) To enforce the law; (2) To facilitate land
+purchase; (3) To develop the industries of the country; and (4) To
+extend local government. It is well to examine these in detail, so as
+to arrive at a just estimate of the two rival policies.
+
+(i) The Crimes Prevention Act passed by Gladstone in 1882 had lapsed,
+having been limited to a period of three years. Mr. Balfour (who had
+become Chief Secretary) was of opinion that the continual passing of
+temporary measures was a mistake (as some one has said, it was like
+a man burning his umbrella every fine day and then complaining of the
+expense of buying so many new ones), as was shown by the fact that the
+Irish Parliament had passed fifty-four of such Acts in the seventeen
+years of its independent existence. He therefore, in spite of vehement
+opposition from the combined forces of the English Radicals and
+the Irish Nationalists, carried the Crimes Act of 1887, which was
+a permanent measure, to be put in force in disturbed districts by
+proclamation when necessary. This was the famous "Coercion Act"
+which has been the subject of so much violent denunciation. But in
+considering the matter, one must ask, What Government has there ever
+been in the world that did not employ force in the carrying out of the
+law? It is true that in the early days of New Zealand Mr. Busby was
+sent out as a Commissioner with no means of enforcing his orders;
+but the only result was that he was laughed at by the natives as "a
+man-of-war without guns"; and no one can say that the scheme was a
+success. In fact, how can a law be a law unless it is enforced? The
+Act does not make anything a crime that was not a crime before; it
+merely provides a shorter form of procedure when a district is so
+completely terrorized by an illegal association that injured persons
+dare not make complaints, witnesses dare not give evidence, and juries
+dare not convict. This, as we have seen, had been the case in parts
+of Ireland at the beginning of the rebellion of 1798; and the
+Nationalists, who claimed to be the modern representatives of the
+rebels of that time, had succeeded in bringing about the same state of
+things. In some of its most stringent provisions the Act is a copy of
+the Police Act permanently in force in London; yet ordinary residents
+in the Metropolis do not seem to groan much under its tyranny, nor do
+the Radicals propose to repeal it.
+
+And certainly the Act has worked satisfactorily from the point of
+view of those who desire to see the country in a state of peace and
+prosperity, though disastrously in the opinion of those who aim at
+making government impossible. Between July, 1887, when the Act came
+into force, and the end of the year, 628 persons were prosecuted, of
+whom 378 were convicted and 37 held to bail. In 1888 there were 1,475
+prosecutions, 907 convictions, and 175 persons required to find bail.
+By 1891 (the last full year of Unionist Government) crime had sunk so
+rapidly that in that year there were only 243 persons prosecuted,
+of whom 105 were convicted, and 81 held to bail. In 1901 (when the
+Unionists were again in power) there were 29 prosecutions and 22
+convictions. In 1902 there was a revival of crime; the Act was again
+brought into operation, with much the same result as before--there
+were 157 prosecutions, 104 convictions, and 17 persons were held to
+bail. In 1903 there were 3 prosecutions and 3 convictions.
+
+(2) _Land Purchase_. The Unionist Government considered that the dual
+ownership set up by the Act of 1881 would be a constant source of
+trouble, and that its working could not be for the benefit of the
+country. They believed that the best solution of the land question
+would be a system of purchase whereby the occupiers would become
+owners. This of course was entirely opposed to the wishes of the
+Nationalists; for if the land question was settled, the motive power
+which was to carry separation with it, would be gone.
+
+Some efforts in the direction of Land Purchase had been made in 1870
+(at the instance of Mr. Bright) and in 1881; but nothing was done on
+a large scale until 1885, when the "Ashbourne Act" was passed;
+and various further steps were taken by the Unionist Government,
+culminating in the great "Wyndham Act" of 1903. By the earlier Acts,
+73,858 tenants became owners; by the Wyndham Act, 253,625. As the
+total number of agricultural tenants of Ireland amounted to slightly
+under 600,000, it will be seen that more than half of them have now
+purchased their holdings. To explain the general principles of the
+Act, it is sufficient to say that when the landlord and tenants of
+an estate agree to a sale, the Government advance the money, and
+the tenant purchasers undertake to repay it by annual instalments
+extending over a period of 68 years. As these annual payments must be
+less than the existing rent as fixed by the Land Court under the Act
+of 1881, the purchasing tenant has no ground for complaint; and though
+the income of the landlord is reduced by the sale, he is freed from
+further anxiety; and besides, the Government give a bonus to the
+vendor from Imperial funds. It will be seen at once that the scheme
+would have been impossible under Home Rule; for the English Government
+had by the end of March 1911, agreed to advance the enormous sum of
+nearly £118,000,000; an amount which no Irish Government could have
+raised except at such an exorbitant rate of interest that it would
+have been out of the question. On the other hand, England has become
+the creditor of the new Irish landowners for this vast amount; and
+in the event of Separation a serious difficulty may arise as to its
+repayment.
+
+It may interest readers in the Colonies to learn that the Government
+thoughtfully passed a Registration of Titles Act in 1891; so that the
+Irish purchasers under the various Land Acts have the benefits which
+were first introduced in Australia by Sir Robert Torrens.
+
+The Act of 1903 had the cordial support of a small minority of
+Nationalists; but to the majority it was gall and wormwood. Hence Mr.
+Birrell, when he became Chief Secretary, threw every obstacle he could
+into the way of its working; and in 1909 he passed a new measure,
+under which land purchase has practically ceased.
+
+(3)_The development of the Industries of the Country_. That has of
+course taken various forms, of which only a few can be mentioned here.
+By the Light Railways (for which the country has to thank Mr. Balfour
+himself) remote and hitherto inaccessible districts have been brought
+into touch with the rest of the world; and by an expenditure of
+£2,106,000 the railway mileage of Ireland has been increased from
+2,643 miles in 1890 to 3,391 in 1906. Then it is hardly too much to
+say that the Labourers' Cottages Act, and the grants made under it,
+have transformed the face of the country.
+
+By this Act, District Councils are enabled, in localities where
+accommodation for labourers is insufficient, to take land compulsorily
+and erect cottages, the money advanced by the Government for the
+purpose being gradually repaid by the ratepayers. The wretched hovels
+which were the disgrace of Ireland from the dawn of history until a
+period within living memory, have almost disappeared; and comfortable,
+sanitary and pleasing dwellings have taken their place.
+
+Even this excellent Act, however, is now used by the Nationalists to
+further their own objects. One instance may suffice. In 1907 a farmer
+fell under the ban of the League and was ordered to be boycotted. The
+District Council found that one occupant of a "Labourer's Cottage"
+disregarded the order and continued to work for the boycotted farmer.
+They promptly evicted him. What would be said in England if a Tory
+landlord evicted a cottager for working for a Radical farmer?
+
+But even more important than these measures has been the establishment
+of the Department of Agriculture. The success of this has been due to
+the ability, energy and unselfishness of Sir Horace Plunkett. The main
+object of the Department was to instruct the farming classes in the
+most effective methods of agriculture and the industries connected
+with it. This by itself would have been a great work; but Sir Horace
+has also founded the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, to
+encourage co-operative organization amongst farmers, based on
+the principle of mutual help; and the success of this, worked in
+conjunction with the Department, has been marvellous. More than nine
+hundred local societies have been established, for the promotion of
+industries such as dairying and poultry farming; co-operative credit
+banks have been formed, based on what is known in Germany as the
+Raffeisen system. The turnover of these societies in 1908 amounted
+to more than £2,250,000. Agricultural Organization Societies, in
+imitation of the Irish one, have been formed in England and Scotland;
+and so far did its fame reach that the Americans sent over an agent to
+enquire into its working.
+
+Of course it is unfair to attribute the prosperity or the decline of
+a country to any one measure; and more than that, it is only by taking
+into consideration a number of circumstances and a long term of years
+that we can decide whether prosperity is real or merely transitory.
+But that Ireland increased in prosperity under the influence of
+the Unionist Government, cannot be denied; indeed Mr. Redmond, when
+shepherding the Eighty Club (an English Radical Society) through
+Ireland in 1911, did not deny the prosperity of the country, and could
+only suggest that the same reforms would have been introduced and
+better carried out under an Irish Parliament--regardless of the facts
+that no Nationalist Government could have found the money for
+them; and that Nationalists are orators and politicians, not men
+of business. The combined value of exports and imports rose from
+104,000,000 in 1904 to 125,000,000 in 1909; and the gross receipts on
+railways from £4,140,000 to £11,335,000. The deposits in savings banks
+rose from £3,128,000 in 1888 to £10,627,000 in 1908. The tonnage
+of shipping in Irish ports was 11,560,000 in 1900; in 1910 it was
+13,475,000.
+
+Sir Horace had done his utmost to prevent the curse of political
+strife from entering into his agricultural projects. He had been
+careful to appoint Nationalists to some of the most important offices
+in his Department, and to show no more favour to one part of the
+country than another. But all in vain; the National League, when their
+friends returned to power, at once resolved to undo his labours, some
+of them openly saying that the increased attention devoted to
+trade and agriculture was turning men's thoughts away from the more
+important work of political agitation. Mr. T.W. Russell, a man totally
+ignorant of agricultural affairs, whose only claim to the office was
+that he was a convert to Nationalism, was appointed in place of
+Sir Horace. He promptly declined to continue to the Agricultural
+Organization Society the support which it had previously received
+from the Department; and, with the aid of the United Irish League,
+succeeded in preventing the Society from receiving a grant from the
+Board of Agriculture similar to those given to the English and Scotch
+societies; threw discredit on the Co-operative Credit Banks, and
+denounced the Co-operative Farming Societies as injurious to local
+shopkeepers. And thus he made it clear that it is impossible in
+Ireland to conduct even such a business as the development of
+agriculture without stirring up political bitterness.
+
+Another effort of Mr. Balfour's--the establishment of the Congested
+Districts Board--has had a strange and instructive history. It was
+established in 1891. Mr. Balfour decided to entrust to a small body of
+Irishmen, selected irrespective of party considerations, the task of
+making an experiment as to what could be done to relieve the poorest
+parts of Ireland; and with this object, the Board, though endowed with
+only small funds, were given the widest powers over the area within
+which they were to operate. They were empowered to take such steps as
+they thought proper for (1) Aiding migration or emigration from the
+congested districts, and settling the migrant or emigrant in his
+new home; and (2) Aiding and developing agriculture, forestry,
+and breeding of live stock and poultry, weaving, spinning, fishing
+(including the construction of piers and harbours, and supplying
+fishing boats and gear and industries subservient to and connected
+with fishing), and any other suitable industries. Both the powers and
+the revenues of the Board were increased from time to time, until by
+1909 its annual expenditure amounted to nearly £250,000. It became
+clear almost at the beginning of its labours that amongst the many
+difficulties which the Board would have to face there were two
+pre-eminent ones; if it was desired to enlarge uneconomic holdings by
+removing a part of the population to other districts, the people to be
+removed might not wish to go; and the landless men in the district to
+which they were to be removed might say that they had a better right
+to the land than strangers from a distance, and the result might be a
+free fight. As the only chance of success for the labours of the Board
+was the elimination of party politics, Mr. J. Morley, on becoming
+Chief Secretary in the Gladstonian Government of 1892, appointed as
+Commissioners Bishop O'Donnell of Raphoe (the Patron of the Ancient
+Order of Hibernians, and a Trustee of the Parliamentary Fund of the
+United Irish League); and the Rev. D. O'Hara, a leading Clerical
+Nationalist of a violent type. It is needless to say that under their
+influence the action of the Board has been conducted on strictly
+Nationalist lines. One instance may suffice. In 1900, the Board,
+having come into the possession of the Dillon estate, wished to sell
+it to the tenants; and when doing so, considering the sporting rights
+to be a valuable asset, decided to reserve them. A considerable number
+of the tenants expressed their readiness to purchase their holdings
+subject to the reservation. The Board received an offer of £11,000
+for the mansion, demesne and sporting rights over the estate. The
+reservation of sporting rights when, taking the whole estate, they
+were of pecuniary value, had been the common practice of the Board in
+other sales; but an agitation was at once got up (not by the tenants)
+against the reservation in this case, on the ground that it was not
+right for the Board to place any burden on the fee simple of the
+holdings; the offer of £11,000 was refused, and soon afterwards the
+Board sold the mansion and the best part of the demesne to a community
+of Belgian nuns for £2,100. The sporting rights, which became the
+property of the purchasing tenants, ceased to be of any appreciable
+pecuniary value, though in a few cases the tenants succeeded in
+selling their share of them for small sums to local agitators. When a
+witness before the Royal Commission of 1906 ventured to point out that
+the taxpayers thus lost £8,900 by the transaction, he was severely
+rebuked by the Clerical members of the Commission for suggesting
+that the presence of the Belgian nuns was not a great benefit to the
+neighbourhood.
+
+This Royal Commission was appointed ostensibly for the purpose of
+enquiring into and reporting upon the operations of the Board since
+its foundation. After going through a mass of evidence, the Chairman
+(Lord Dudley) said that the Board had tried for twenty years to
+develop new industries and had failed; and another member (Lord
+MacDonnell) said that it had only touched the fringe of the question;
+and, considering that in spite of all its efforts at promoting local
+industries, emigration continued to be greater from the district
+subject to its control than from any other part of Ireland, it is hard
+to see what other view was possible. But the large majority of the
+Commission were ardent Nationalists--in fact, one of them a short time
+before his appointment had publicly advocated an absolute, rigorous,
+complete and exhaustive system of boycotting; and the witness who
+spoke for the United Irish League told the Commission that it was the
+strong view of the League that the Board should be preserved. It was
+only natural therefore that the Commission should report that in their
+opinion the powers and scope of its operations should be extended and
+its income largely increased. This was accordingly done by the Birrell
+Act of 1909. One of the most important functions of the Board was
+the purchase of land, for which they possessed compulsory powers. The
+witness who had appeared before the Commission as representing the
+United Irish League was Mr. FitzGibbon, Chairman of the Roscommon
+County Council, and now a Member of Parliament. He had previously been
+sent to prison for inciting to the Plan of Campaign, and for criminal
+conspiracy. He had also taken a leading part in the cattle-driving
+agitation (to which I shall refer later) and had announced that his
+policy was "to enable the Board to get land at fag-end prices." He
+was therefore appointed by Mr. Birrell to be a member of the Board, as
+being a suitable person to decide what compensation should be paid
+for land taken compulsorily. He publicly stated that his object was to
+carry out the great work of Michael Davitt. And he certainly has been
+active in doing so; and now the agitators, when they want to have an
+estate transferred to the Board, commence by preventing its being
+let or used, and so compelling the owner to leave it derelict
+and unprofitable; then, when by every description of villainy and
+boycotting it has been rendered almost worthless, the Congested
+Districts Board (who have carefully lain by until then) step in with
+a preposterous offer which the unfortunate owner has no choice but
+to accept. This may appear strong language to use with reference to
+a Government Department presided over by Roman Catholic bishops and
+priests; but the words are not mine; they are taken from the judgment
+of Mr. Justice Ross, in the case of the Browne Estate.
+
+At any rate, whatever else the Congested Districts Board may have
+achieved, they have done one good thing; they have shown to Unionists
+in Ireland what the principles of justice are by which the Nationalist
+Government will be conducted.
+
+(4) The fourth division of the Unionist policy was the extension of
+local government. By the Act of 1898 County and District Councils were
+formed, like those which had been existing in England for a few
+years previously; and the powers of the old Grand Juries (who it
+was admitted had done their work well, but were now objected to on
+principle as not being elected bodies) were abolished. The importance
+of the measure can hardly be overestimated; for not only did it
+re-organize local government on what would elsewhere be a democratic
+but is in Ireland a Clerical basis; but also it may be described as
+Home Rule on a small scale. By examining into the practical working of
+the scheme we may form an idea as to what Home Rule is likely to be;
+and both parties refer to it as a ground for their opinion. It is
+curious now to note that it was Gerald Balfour, the Unionist Chief
+Secretary, who, when introducing the measure, appealed to the Irish
+gentry not to stand aloof from the new order of things, but to seek
+from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens that position which no
+others were so well qualified to fill as themselves--in much the same
+way that English Radical orators now accuse the Ulstermen of want
+of patriotism when they declare that they will never take part in a
+Nationalist Government. The Nationalists were of course loud in their
+protestations that in the noble work of local government all narrow
+political and sectarian bitterness would be put aside, and all
+Irishmen irrespective of creed, class or party would be welcome to
+take part--just as they are now when they promise the same about the
+National Parliament. Thus J. Redmond said:
+
+    "No man's politics or religion will be allowed to be a bar
+    to him if he desires to serve his country on one of the
+    new bodies. Men of different creeds, who have had an almost
+    impassable gulf between them all their lives, will be brought
+    together for the first time in the working of this scheme of
+    Local Government.... On every one of the juries in Ireland
+    there have been county gentlemen who have shown the greatest
+    aptitude for business, the greatest industry, and the greatest
+    ability; and I say it would be a monstrous thing if, by
+    working the election of these County Councils on narrow
+    sectarian or political lines, men of that class were excluded
+    from the service of their country."
+
+And another Nationalist Member added: "We are anxious for the
+co-operation of those who have leisure, wealth and knowledge." Irish
+Unionists who refused to believe these assurances were denounced by
+Nationalists as bigots and humbugs. The value of the assurances of
+1912 may be gauged by the manner in which those of 1898 have been
+fulfilled. At the election of 1899 a few Protestants and Unionists
+were returned. But the general feeling of the newly-formed Councils
+may be gathered from the following resolution which was passed by the
+Mayo County Council in that year:
+
+    "That we, the members of the Mayo County Council, congratulate
+    the gallant Boers on their brilliant defeats of the troops
+    of the pirate Saxon. That we hope that a just Providence will
+    strengthen the arms of these farmer fighters in their brave
+    struggle for their independence. And we trust that as Babylon
+    fell, and as Rome fell, so also may fall the race and nation
+    whose creed is the creed of greed, and whose god is the god of
+    Mammon."
+
+And by 1902, when the next triennial elections were coming on,
+the mask was thrown off. The _Freeman's Journal_ (the principal
+Nationalist organ) said:--
+
+    "In every County or District Council where a landlord, however
+    amiable, or personally estimable, offers himself for election,
+    the answer of the majority must be the same: 'No admittance
+    here.'"
+And J. Redmond stated the case still more plainly:
+
+    "We have in our hands a weapon recently won, the full force
+    of which is not yet, I believe, thoroughly understood by
+    the English Government or by ourselves. I mean the weapon
+    of freely-elected County Councils and District Councils who
+    to-day form a network of National organizations all over
+    Ireland, and who to-morrow, I doubt not, if the other
+    organizations were struck, would be willing to come forward
+    and take their place, and, in their Council Chambers, carry on
+    the National work."
+
+Pledges in the following form were presented for signature to all
+candidates by the United Irish League (except of course in north-east
+Ulster):--
+
+    "I ---- hereby pledge myself, if elected to represent the ----
+    Division on the County Council, to promote the interests of
+    the United Irish League, and to resign my position whenever
+    called upon to do so by the ---- Divisional Executive."
+
+So completely has the policy been carried out that by 1911, to
+quote the words of Mr. FitzGibbon, M.P. (to whom I have previously
+referred):--
+
+    "There was not a landlord in the country who could get his
+    agent returned as District Councillor or County Councillor,
+    or even his eldest son or himself. The Organization had
+    emancipated the people; it had given them the power which
+    their enemies had wielded; it had cleared the road for
+    Ireland's freedom."
+
+At present Unionists and Nationalists are pretty evenly divided in the
+County Councils of Ulster; in the other three Provinces amongst 703
+County Councillors there are only fifteen Unionists. In other words,
+the Act has enabled the Nationalist party to carry out the plan laid
+down by Lalor of taking quiet and peaceable possession of all
+the rights and powers of government, as a stepping-stone towards
+Independence.
+
+Of course it may be said with much truth that if the large majority of
+the people are Nationalists they are perfectly justified in choosing
+Nationalists as their representatives. But that is not the point. The
+real point is that in spite of the protestations of the Nationalists
+at the time of the passing of the Act, politics in their bitterest
+form have been brought in, and the Unionist minority have been
+deprived of all share in the local government of the country.
+
+To illustrate this still further, I may add that a General Council
+of County Councils was formed in 1900, for the purpose of promoting a
+fair and equitable administration of the Act. In order that the Ulster
+Councils might unite with the others, it was agreed that politics
+should be excluded. But after the election of 1902, that agreement
+was abandoned; and, rather than take part in what had become a mere
+political gathering, the Ulster representatives withdrew. Left
+to themselves, the Nationalist General Council in 1906 passed the
+following resolution:--
+
+    "That the Irish people are a free people, with a natural right
+    to govern themselves; that no Parliament is competent to make
+    such laws for Ireland except an Irish Parliament, sitting in
+    Dublin; and that the claim by other bodies of men to make laws
+    for us to govern Ireland is illegal, unconstitutional, and at
+    variance with the rights of the people."
+
+If such a body as the General Council of County Councils pass a
+resolution like this, is there much probability that the Nationalist
+Parliament will refrain from doing the same, should the Imperial
+Parliament attempt to exercise the power given to it by the present
+Bill, and to legislate for Ireland?
+
+But again it may be said that though the Councils have thus become
+political bodies, they have conducted their business so admirably
+that their conduct is a powerful argument to show that a Nationalist
+Parliament will be equally practical and liberal. This is the view put
+forward by Nationalist orators and their humble follower Mr. Birrell,
+who in November 1911, informed his friends at Bristol that the Irish
+had shown a great capacity for local government and that from what
+people who had seen a great deal of the south and west of Ireland told
+him there was no fear of persecution or oppression by the Catholic
+majority of their Protestant fellow-subjects. In support of this,
+various facts are adduced, which it is well to examine in detail,
+remembering the poet's words that
+
+    "A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies."
+
+One of the greatest powers possessed by the County Councils is the
+exercise of patronage. It would probably be generally admitted in any
+country but Ireland that there, if anywhere, religion and politics
+should be excluded, and men selected only for their qualifications.
+The Nationalists, wishing to demonstrate the fairness of the Councils
+which hold their views, contrast the bigotry shown by the Unionist
+Corporation of Belfast with the liberality of similar bodies in other
+parts of the country. And certainly the figures they adduce, when
+addressing audiences in England or writing for English readers, are
+very striking. Thus Mr. Birrell said at Skipton in November 1911 that
+he had been told that in the great Unionist City of Belfast there was
+only one Roman Catholic in the employment of the Corporation, and he
+was a scavenger. (It will be observed that here, as in many of his
+speeches, he carefully used the expression "he had been told"--so
+that what he said may be literally true, even though when he heard the
+statement he knew that it was false.) And Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in his
+"Case for Home Rule," says: "In Belfast, Catholics are a third of the
+population; but the Corporation pays £51,405 in a year in salaries,
+of which only £640 goes to Catholics." And about the same time as
+Mr. Birrell's oration, Mr. Redmond, speaking at Swindon, said that in
+Galway, Cork, Westmeath and King's County (where Roman Catholics form
+the large majority of the population) Protestants held 23 per cent. of
+the salaried appointments in the gift of the Councils.
+
+But when we descend from the airy height of Nationalist rhetoric to
+the prosaic region of fact, we find that the rates of the City
+of Belfast amount to about £342,000; of this sum, Roman Catholic
+ratepayers pay less than £18,000. There are nine hundred Roman
+Catholics in the employment of the Corporation, and they receive in
+salaries about £48,000 per annum. And as to the figures quoted by Mr.
+Redmond, we find that he omitted to state that not one of the 23 per
+cent. had been appointed by a County Council; they were all survivals
+of the system in force before 1899, whose positions were secured by
+statute; and in not one of the counties he mentioned has a Unionist
+been appointed to any salaried office since that date. To take the
+County of Cork as a specimen; there are ninety-four salaried
+offices in the gift of the County Council; of these nine are held
+by Protestants--but they were all appointed before 1899. Of the
+thirty-three salaried offices in the gift of the City Corporation, two
+are held by Protestants--but these also were appointed before 1898;
+and yet the Protestants pay nearly half the rates. And in Ireland
+there is not the slightest attempt at concealment in the matter;
+thus in one case a District Council adopted by formal resolution the
+request of the local priests not to support any candidate who did
+not produce a testimonial from the parish priest; as a Councillor
+remarked, it was the simplest way of stating that no Protestant need
+apply.
+
+But it is in the appointment of medical officers ("dispensary doctors"
+as they are technically called in Ireland) that the policy of the
+Nationalists has been most marked. Many years ago, the late Cardinal
+Cullen ruled that it was a mortal sin to vote for a heretic for such
+an office; now, however, the bishops have gone further. There are
+three medical schools in Dublin--Trinity College, the College of
+Surgeons, and the Catholic University School; and three in the
+provinces--at Belfast, Cork and Galway. The Medical School of Trinity
+College has a world-wide reputation. The students are required to
+complete their Arts course before specializing in medicine (thus
+ensuring that they shall be men of general culture and not merely of
+professional training); the professors and lecturers are amongst the
+ablest men of the day; the students have the advantage of the large
+city hospitals for their clinical studies; and the standard required
+for a degree is high. And not only is Trinity College open to all
+students without distinction of creed, but the College authorities
+have frequently offered a site within their grounds for a Roman
+Catholic Chapel and the salary of a Chaplain who would take spiritual
+care of his flock. Nevertheless the Roman Catholic bishops have
+ordered that no candidate who has been trained at any College except
+the Catholic University school shall be eligible for the post of
+Dispensary Doctor; and when an election takes place (as for instance
+that at Kiltimagh in 1905) the question of professional qualification
+is not taken into consideration--having been trained at a "godless
+college" is a fatal bar to any candidate, however able. In the
+Kiltimagh case, the resolution passed shortly after the election by
+the local branch of the United Irish League is instructive reading:--
+
+    "That we, the members of the Kiltimagh Branch of the United
+    Irish League, take advantage of this our first meeting since
+    the important Election of Medical Officer for the Kiltimagh
+    Dispensary District, to express our appreciation of all the
+    Guardians for the several divisions in this parish for the
+    faithful honesty with which they represented us on that
+    occasion. We feel proud to know that not one of our
+    representatives voted for a Queen's College man against a
+    Catholic University man. They voted for a man who is the
+    stamp of man we want--a sound Catholic, a sound Nationalist, a
+    Gaelic Leaguer, and a highly qualified medical man. We believe
+    their action will meet with the approval of the Bishops and
+    Priests of Ireland."
+
+To one who lives in Ireland it is sad enough to see year by year the
+most able and promising of the medical students being driven out
+of the country on account of their religion, and forced to look for
+openings elsewhere; but to a thoughtful observer it is even worse than
+that; it is the beginning of the new Penal Laws.
+
+And when we turn to other matters, where the marvellous efficiency of
+the County Councils exists, is hard for an unprejudiced enquirer
+to find. The old Grand Juries handed over the roads and bridges in
+excellent order; they are certainly not better now, and in many cases
+worse. In fact, one English theoretical Radical who paid a brief visit
+to Ireland, inhaled so much Hibernian logic during his hurried tour
+that he solemnly argued that the badness of the roads proved that the
+Councils had been governing too economically; and therefore what was
+needed was a central body--that is, an Irish Parliament--to stir up
+the local administration! Nationalist writers claim that the rates
+are going down; but that merely means that they are not so high now as
+they were soon after the Act came into force, not that they are lower
+than before 1898. It was expected that the rates would be reduced by
+the operation of the Old Age Pensions Act; but that has not proved to
+be the case. And the increase in local indebtedness is alarming.
+
+To sum up, therefore, I trust that I have, even in this brief sketch,
+made it clear that the policy of the Unionist Government, taken as
+a whole, has been of immense benefit to the social and material
+prosperity of Ireland; and that the points in which it has failed
+have been those where their reforms have fallen under the power of the
+Nationalists, who have either thwarted them, or made use of them
+to further their own ideas. I shall next proceed to examine the
+alternative policy, which is being carried out by the present
+Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GLADSTONIAN GOVERNMENT OF 1892. THE POLITICAL SOCIETIES.
+
+
+During the Gladstone-Rosebery Government--from 1892 to 1895--matters
+in Ireland were quiet. The Nationalists were at first on their best
+behaviour, in consequence of the promised introduction of the Home
+Rule Bill; and after its rejection by the Upper House, the time was
+too short for anything serious to happen. But the period was marked by
+the commencement of one great change in Irish administration. It must
+be admitted by impartial observers that the old landlord party,
+with all their faults, made as a rule excellent magistrates. A large
+proportion of them were retired military officers, who had gained some
+experience in duties of the sort in their regiments; others were men
+of superior education, who studied with care the laws they were to
+administer. Living in the locality, they knew the habits and feelings
+of the people; and yet they were sufficiently separated from them to
+be able to act as impartial judges; and no charges of bribery were
+ever made against them. And, the work being congenial, they gladly
+devoted their spare time to it. Gladstone's Chief Secretary (the
+present Lord Morley) determined to alter all this; he accordingly
+appointed to the Bench a large number of men drawn from a lower social
+stratum, less educated and intelligent than those previously chosen,
+but more likely to administer "Justice according to Irish ideas."
+Then the operation of the Local Government Act, by which Chairmen of
+Councils (all of course Nationalists) became _ex officio_ magistrates,
+completed a social revolution by entirely altering the character of
+the Bench. In some localities the magistrates previously appointed
+realizing that, being now in a minority, they could be of no further
+use on the Bench, withdrew; in others, though the old magistrates
+continued to sit, they found themselves persistently outvoted on every
+point; so what good they have done by remaining, it is hard to see.
+Amongst the men appointed under the new system, there have been
+several instances of justices who have continued to act without the
+slightest shame or scruple although they have been convicted of such
+offences as drunkenness, selling drink on unlicensed premises, or
+corrupt practices at elections. But worse than that: the new order
+of justices do not regard their duties as magisterial, but political;
+they give but little attention to ordinary cases, but attend in
+full strength to prevent the conviction of any person for an outrage
+organized by the United Irish League; and do not hesitate to promise
+beforehand that they will do so. If by any chance a sufficient number
+are not present to carry their purpose, the names of the absentees are
+published in the Black List of the League--and the result of that is
+so well known that they are not likely to offend again. Hence comes
+the contemptible exhibition--now not infrequent--of men being charged
+before the Bench, and no evidence being offered for the defence;
+yet the Stipendiary Magistrate being obliged to say that though he
+considers the case proved, the majority of the Bench have decided to
+refuse informations. Even a Roman Catholic Bishop has confessed that
+now magistrates too often have no respect for their obligations to
+dispense the law justly and without favour; and that the Bench is
+sometimes so "packed" that the culprits, though guilty, are certain to
+be acquitted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before discussing the policy of the present Government since it
+came into power in 1906, it is well to explain what the principal
+societies--secret or other--are which now conduct the Government of
+Ireland. In one sense indeed the names are immaterial; for, as in
+1798, in whatever various ways the societies have commenced, they are
+all working towards the same end, and being controlled by the same
+forces.
+
+The Land League, which was founded in 1879 as a league for ruining
+landlords as a stepping-stone towards independence, having been
+suppressed by Gladstone in 1881, was reformed under the name of the
+Irish National League. This was in its turn suppressed in 1887, and in
+1898 appeared once more under the name of the United Irish League
+with J. Redmond as President and J. Devlin as Secretary. In 1901 Mr.
+Redmond explained the objects of the League as follows:--
+
+    "The United Irish League is not merely an agrarian movement.
+    It is first, last, and all the time a National movement;
+    and those of us who are endeavouring to rouse the farmers of
+    Ireland, as we endeavoured twenty years ago in the days of the
+    Land League, to rouse them, are doing so, not merely to obtain
+    the removal of their particular grievances, but because we
+    believe by rousing them we will be strengthening the National
+    movement and helping us to obtain our end, which is, after
+    all, National independence of Ireland."
+
+And to make the exact meaning of the phrase "National Independence of
+Ireland" quite clear, he soon afterwards stated that their object was
+the same as that aimed at by Emmett and Wolfe Tone--in other words, to
+place Ireland in the scale of nations with a constitution resembling
+that of the United States.
+
+By March 1908 (that is, about two years after the present Government
+came into power), to quote the words of Mr. Justice Wright, "the only
+law feared and obeyed was the law not of the land but of the United
+Irish League"; and before the end of that year Mr. Redmond was able to
+report to his friends in America:--
+
+    "We have in Ireland an organization which is practically
+    a government of the country. There is in O'Connell Street,
+    Dublin, a great office managed by the real Chief Secretary for
+    Ireland, J. Devlin, the Member for Belfast."
+
+The organization of the League is admirable. The country is covered
+with a network of branches, to which people in the district are
+obliged to contribute under penalty of being boycotted; these branches
+are united under provincial executives, whilst the Directory in
+Dublin controls the whole. The union between the League and the Roman
+Catholic Church is as complete as the union between that Church and
+some societies started on a non-sectarian basis became during the
+rebellion of 1798; as we have seen, a bishop is one of the trustees,
+and other bishops are amongst the subscribers; the Sunday meetings of
+the various branches, at which boycotting and other measures of the
+kind are arranged, are usually presided over by the parish priests. On
+the other hand, few laymen, whatever their religion may be, who have
+any stake in the country, can be got to join the League; in the words
+of A.J. Kettle, M.P.:--
+
+    "On its roll of membership there are no landlords or
+    ex-landlords, few merchants, fewer Irish manufacturers. There
+    are few of the men who are managing the business of Ireland
+    in city or town, connected with the League. The bankers who
+    regulate our finances, the railway or transit men who control
+    our trade, internal and external, even the leading cattle men
+    who handle most of our animal produce, are not to be found in
+    its ranks."
+
+In further evidence of this it may be noted that in spite of all the
+efforts of the League at collecting money, the subscriptions to the
+Irish Parliamentary Fund do not amount to a halfpenny per head of the
+population; as J. Dillon has remarked: "The National cause in Ireland
+could not live for six months if it were deprived of the support of
+the Irish across the Atlantic."
+
+Closely allied with the League is the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a
+secret political and exclusively Roman Catholic association, of which
+J. Devlin, M.P. (the Secretary of the League), is President. It is
+also called the Board of Erin, to distinguish it from the American
+branch. The American branch, I may remark, is also known as the Molly
+Maguires, as it was under that name that it conducted the series of
+murders and outrages at the Pennsylvanian mines thirty years ago.
+Hence the Irish branch is sometimes nicknamed the "Molly Maguires."
+The Order is very religious, in the sense that part of its programme
+is to deprive heretics of every means of earning their livelihood; as
+a Nationalist who did not sympathize with the operations of the Order
+expressed it: "If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if
+they are to be deprived of public contracts, and shut out of every
+office and emolument,--what is that but extermination?" The political
+principles of the Order can be gathered from the Address presented by
+them to Captain Condon on the occasion of his visit to Dublin in 1909.
+Captain Condon, I may explain, had been a prominent Fenian and member
+of the Irish Republican brotherhood, and had taken part in the riot at
+Manchester in 1867 which resulted in the murder of Sergeant Brett; he
+now resides in America. In 1909 he visited Ireland on the invitation
+of J. Redmond; and the address presented to him by the Ancient Order
+of Hibernians contained the following words:--
+
+    "In you, O'Meagher Condon, we recognize one of those
+    connecting links with the past which all nations cherish,
+    and you are ready to-day with voice and pen to give your
+    unflagging support to Ireland's leaders with as much
+    enthusiasm as you grasped the sword to lead Ireland in the
+    dark but historic '67. We are sure it will interest you to
+    know that the ranks of the Hibernians to-day are composed
+    of the men and children of those who swore allegiance to the
+    Irish Republic with you."
+
+The Order has lately acquired additional strength by becoming an
+"Approved Society" under the Insurance Act of 1911. In Ireland it is
+no more possible for life insurance than for anything else to exist
+without being dragged into the vortex of religious and political
+quarrels.
+
+The "Clan-na-gael"--that is, the Dynamite Club--still flourishes
+in America; but for obvious reasons it does not make any public
+appearance in Ireland; and the exact part which it takes in the
+movement at the present time, it is impossible to say.
+
+"Sinn Fein" (which means "Ourselves") is another Separatist
+Association, aiming at the establishment of Ireland as a Sovereign
+State, and teaching that the election of Irishmen to serve in the
+British Parliament is treason to the Irish State. As its name implies,
+it desires to make use of the revival of the Irish language as a means
+towards the end for which it is working. It was founded in 1905.
+Why this Society and the United Irish League, whose objects seem
+identical, should be ready to fly at one another's throats, is one of
+the things that those who are outside the Nationalist circle cannot
+understand. But the Clerical leaders, who do their utmost to further
+the operations of the League, look askance at Sinn Fein; its ultimate
+success therefore is very doubtful.
+
+Then, working in conjunction with these societies is the "Gaelic
+League," founded for the "de-Anglicizing" of Ireland, as helping
+towards separation. As J. Sweetman (who, besides being a prominent
+member of the Gaelic League, is also Vice-President of Sinn Fein and
+Vice-Chairman of the Central Council of Irish County Councils and may
+therefore be regarded as speaking with authority) has expressed it:--
+
+    "Out of the Gaelic League's de-Anglicizing propaganda
+    have already grown a series of movements not only strongly
+    political but each and all making for a separate independent
+    Irish nation, freed from every link of the British
+    connection."
+
+Were it not for its political object, the folly of this "revival of
+the Irish language" would be past belief. The language of Shakespeare
+and Milton, of Gibbon and Macaulay, ought surely to be good enough for
+ordinary people; and it must be obvious to every reasoning being that
+at the present moment of the world's history, English is one of the
+most useful languages in existence. It is spoken by 40,000,000 of
+people in Europe and twice that number in America, not to mention
+Australasia and South Africa. It is the language of commerce, of
+science, and of a vast amount of literature. Europeans of various
+nationalities learn it, for the sake of its convenience; although, as
+we all know, one of the difficulties of modern life is that boys and
+girls have too much to study; educationalists everywhere complain
+that the curriculum is overloaded. Its position in Ireland can be
+seen exactly by the census returns; for the papers contain a "language
+column," each person being required to state whether he speaks
+English or Irish or both. According to the returns of 1891, the total
+population was in round numbers 4,725,000; of whom 4,037,000 spoke
+English only, 643,000 both languages, and 44,000 Irish only. And that
+trifling minority existed only in certain localities, and was confined
+to the less educated classes. The only counties in which a majority of
+the population spoke Irish (including those who spoke both languages)
+were Mayo and Galway. Yet now it is solemnly said that Ireland,
+being an independent nation, must have a language of its own; even in
+counties where no language but English has been spoken for centuries,
+and where probably none of the ancestors of the present population
+ever spoke any other language, Irish is being taught in the Roman
+Catholic primary schools, and the unhappy children who might be
+studying arithmetic or elementary geography, are wasting their time
+over a totally useless language. I say "totally useless" deliberately;
+for the arguments usually brought forward in favour of the study,
+apart from the political one--that Irish is of use in the study of
+philology, and that the MSS. of centuries ago contain fine specimens
+of poetry--are too absurd to be worth discussing. The real object of
+the Nationalists in "encouraging the revival of the Irish language"
+is clearly set out in the following words of T. MacSeamus in a recent
+number of the _Irish Review_:--
+
+    "Most important of all, the Irish language is one of the
+    things that distinguish us from England. It is a mark of that
+    separateness which it is the business of every Nationalist to
+    maintain and emphasise on every possible occasion. It is one
+    of the signs--perhaps the chief sign--of nationality.... The
+    Irish language is a weapon in our fight against England, and
+    we cannot afford to throw away even the smallest weapon that
+    may serve us in that struggle."
+
+And the policy of the League as regards the primary schools is made
+quite clear by the resolution passed unanimously at their annual
+meeting in 1912:--
+
+    "That we re-affirm the demand of the last Ard Fheis in regard
+    to the position of Irish in the primary schools, viz., that
+    Irish be the sole medium of instruction in the Irish-speaking
+    districts; that it be the medium as far as possible in all
+    other schools, and that it be a compulsory subject in every
+    school throughout the country where parents are not opposed
+    to it; furthermore, that a knowledge of Irish be required from
+    all teachers entering for training as teachers, and that no
+    certificate be issued to those who fail to qualify in Irish at
+    the final examination, and that none but inspectors having a
+    knowledge of Irish be employed to inspect schools where Irish
+    is taught."
+
+It will be seen therefore that if the League carry their point (as
+no doubt they will under a Home Rule Government) no graduate of the
+Belfast University who wishes to become a teacher in a Belfast school
+will be allowed to do so unless he passes an examination in a language
+which not one of his pupils will ever wish to learn; and this, not for
+the purpose of ensuring general culture, but to further a political
+object with which he has no sympathy.
+
+The League leave no stone unturned in their efforts to substitute the
+Irish for the English language. For instance, it is usually considered
+in other countries that the names of the streets of a town are put
+up in order to help people who want to find their way, and not for
+political reasons. But in Dublin, where not one per cent. of the
+people can read Irish, the names have recently all been painted up in
+that language, in the hope of de-Anglicizing the rising generation. An
+incident occurred recently which will show how the movement is being
+taken up. There is in Dublin an excellent regulation that children
+may not become "street traders" without a licence. A bright little boy
+came to apply for one. The magistrate, being a kindly man, enquired
+of the lad what his circumstances were. The boy explained that part of
+his earnings went towards the support of his widowed mother; and that
+he was trying to keep up his education by attending a night school.
+"And what are you learning there?" said the magistrate. "Irish,"
+replied the boy. Even the magistrate could not resist telling him that
+he thought his time would be better spent at Arithmetic. Yet from the
+boy's point of view, there is something to be said. Irish may be of
+use to him in obtaining a Government appointment, however small; for
+local bodies (such as the Dublin Boards of Guardians) now refuse
+to appoint clerks who cannot send out notices of meetings in Irish,
+though no member of the Board to whom they are sent can read them; and
+the League fully expect that the Home Rule Government will do the same
+with regard to every appointment in their gift. If the railways are
+taken over by the Government (as they probably will be) it can be seen
+what an immense impetus can be given to the movement.
+
+Then Secondary Schools have been established for the same object. The
+_Irish Educational Review_ recently contained the following account of
+one of them:--
+
+    "At Ring, in the County Waterford, there is already in
+    existence an Irish secondary school where classics, modern
+    languages and all the usual secondary school subjects are
+    taught and where Irish and English fill their rightful places,
+    the former being the ordinary language of the school, the
+    latter a foreign language on no higher level than French or
+    German."
+
+The Act of 1909, which founded the "National" University (to which I
+shall refer again), gave power to County Councils to levy a rate for
+scholarships. Immediately the Gaelic League saw their opportunity.
+They endeavoured to persuade the Councils to refuse to do so unless
+Irish were made compulsory at the University. The Councils generally
+(except of course in Ulster) agreed to the plan; but some of them
+(such as the Kildare Council) were faced by a difficulty. Not a single
+child in the county spoke Irish; and so if that language were made
+compulsory, no one could compete for the scholarships. So they
+compromised matters, by deciding that they would levy a rate if Irish
+were made compulsory after 1915, by which time some of the young
+people in the county would have been able to learn it; and the
+University agreed to do so.
+
+This rating power, I may remark, looks extremely liberal as it appears
+in the Act; for the scholarships are to be tenable at any University.
+The Irish Unionist members, knowing quite well how it would be
+worked, opposed the clause; and as usual were denounced as bigots
+and fanatics. It is needless to add that as soon as the Act came into
+force, County Councils and Corporations at once passed resolutions
+that scholarships derived from the rates should not be tenable at
+Trinity College, Dublin, or at Belfast, but only at the National
+University--thus practically saying that no Protestants need compete.
+
+Beyond forcing the children to acquire a smattering of Irish, it
+cannot be said that so far the efforts of the League as to the
+language have been very successful; for the census returns show that
+the proportion of the population who could speak Irish in 1891 was
+14'5; in 1901, 14'4; and in 1911, 13'3; and the numbers who spoke
+Irish only fell from 20,953 in 1901 to 16,870 in 1911.
+
+But the efforts of the League are not confined to the language.
+English games, such as cricket, are forbidden; if football is played,
+it must be the Gaelic variety with rules totally different from
+those observed by the hated Saxon. Even the patients in asylums
+are forbidden to play cricket or lawn tennis. And some of the more
+enthusiastic members of the League have actually "donned the saffron,"
+in imitation of the Ersefied Normans of 400 years ago. However, it
+is so hideously ugly, and so suggestive of the obnoxious Orange, that
+that phase of the movement is not likely to extend.
+
+Even the "Boy Scout" movement has been made use of for the same
+object. As soon as some corps had been established in Ireland, the
+Nationalists started a rival organization with an Irish name, in
+which all the boys solemnly undertake to work for the independence
+of Ireland, and never to join England's armed forces. The boys take a
+prominent part in the annual ceremonies in honour of Wolfe Tone, the
+Manchester martyrs, and other Nationalist heroes.
+
+The whole thing would be laughable if it were not so very sad. Even
+such matters as sports and education, where all creeds and parties
+might be expected to work together amicably, must be used as
+instruments to bring about separation; and the result already is not
+so much to widen the gulf between Ireland and England as the gulf
+between the two parties in Ireland; for the Protestant minority in
+the south, who know that most of their children will have to leave the
+country, are not likely to let them fritter away their youth in the
+study of a language which can be of no possible benefit to them in
+any part of the world to which they may go; and the idea that the
+Ulstermen will ever adopt a Celtic tongue is too ridiculous to be
+considered. But perhaps the most painful thought of all is that the
+Nationalists should be ready even to sacrifice the prospects in life
+of the rising generation of the country in order to satisfy their
+blind hatred of England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+IRELAND UNDER THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT.
+
+
+I come now to the policy which has been pursued by the present
+Government since 1906. It must be remembered that the Radical party
+returned to power pledged to Home Rule as a principle, but with a
+sufficient majority to enable them to retain office without depending
+on the Irish vote. Hence there was no necessity for them to introduce
+a Home Rule Bill; but of course they set aside the policy of the
+Unionist Government, and resolved to govern Ireland according to their
+own ideas. What those ideas were, and what the result has been, I
+shall now proceed to show; but in doing so I shall as far as possible
+confine myself to quotations and statistics which can be verified, so
+that I may not be accused of giving an unfair report.
+
+The Chief Secretary for the first year was Mr. Bryce, who was
+afterwards appointed British Ambassador at Washington. The Government
+at once repealed the Act which forbade the carrying of arms without a
+licence; withdrew all proclamations under the Crimes Act of 1887;
+and resolved not to stop any political meetings. Accordingly the
+Nationalists commenced holding a series of demonstrations all over
+the country. A few specimens taken from the speeches made at them will
+suffice to show their general tenour.
+
+    "Let them all be ready, and when England got into trouble with
+    European Powers, they would pounce upon her with the ferocity
+    of a tiger."--_T. Walsh, District Councillor._
+
+    "They must stand together as one man, and make it impossible
+    for England to govern Ireland."--_P. White, M.P._
+
+    "If there had been 100,000 Fenians in Ireland at the time of
+    the Boer War there might now have been a Republic in
+    Ireland, and British supremacy would have been tumbled in the
+    dust."--_J. Daly, formerly Mayor of Limerick._
+
+And Mr. Bryce, when leaving Ireland at the end of the year, stated
+that he had not found any harm in any of the speeches delivered at the
+meetings.
+
+At this time the agitation began to assume a new form. One of the most
+important of Irish industries is the cattle trade with England,
+the annual value of which exceeds £14,000,000. In several parts of
+Ireland, notably in Meath and the central counties, the soil and
+climate are specially suited for cattle raising, and the land
+is generally held in large grazing farms. It was decided by the
+Nationalists in the autumn of 1906 that this industry must be
+destroyed. Bodies of men assembled night after night to break down the
+fences and gates of the farms and drive the cattle many miles away,
+in order that the farmers might be ruined and forced to leave the
+country; and then the derelict farms would be divided amongst the
+"landless men." L. Ginnell, M.P., explained the programme fully in a
+speech he made in October 1906:--
+
+    "The ranches must be broken up, not only in Westmeath but
+    throughout all Ireland ... He advised them to stamp out the
+    ranch demon themselves, and not leave an alien Parliament to
+    do the duty ... He advised them to leave the ranches unfenced,
+    unused and unusable ... so that no man or demon would dare to
+    stand another hour between the people and the land that should
+    be theirs."
+
+The agitation, commencing in Meath, was gradually extended, county
+by county, over a large part of Ireland where the Nationalists are
+supreme. Other measures were resorted to, in order to carry out their
+object. Arson, the burning of hayricks, firing into dwelling-houses,
+spiking meadows, the mutilation of horses and cows, the destruction
+of turf, the damaging of machinery, and various other forms of lawless
+violence began to increase and multiply. At the Spring Assizes in
+1907, the Chief Justice, when addressing the Grand Jury at Ennis, in
+commenting on the increasing need for placing law-abiding people under
+special police protection, said:--
+
+    "In a shire in England, if it was found necessary, either by
+    special protection or protection by patrol, to protect from
+    risk of outrage thirty persons, what would be thought?"
+
+And Mr. Justice Kenny at Leitrim, after commenting upon the increased
+number of specially reported cases, as shown by the official
+statistics, and alluding to several cases of gross intimidation,
+said:--
+
+    "In these latter cases I regret to say no one has been
+    made amenable; and when there is such a state of things,
+    it justifies the observation made by the learned judge who
+    presided at last Connaught Winter Assizes, that when the chain
+    of terrorism was complete, no witness would give evidence and
+    no jury would convict."
+
+Thereupon Mr. Birrell, who at the beginning of the year had succeeded
+Mr. Bryce as Chief Secretary, having no doubt studied these and
+similar reports, said in a speech at Halifax in the following month:--
+
+    "You may take my word for this, that Ireland is at this moment
+    in a more peaceful condition than for the last six hundred
+    years."
+
+Soon afterwards, Mr. Justice Ross, who, as Judge of the Land Judge's
+Court, Chancery Division, was in charge of many estates in Ireland,
+said:
+
+    "He had known from other Receivers about this widespread and
+    audacious conspiracy at present rampant in the West of Ireland
+    ... This was actually a conspiracy which on ordinary moral
+    grounds amounted to highway robbery, to seize on these grass
+    lands, to drive away the stock of the people who had been
+    in the habit of taking it; and then, when the owner had been
+    starved out, the Estates Commissioners were expected to buy up
+    the property and to distribute it amongst the very people who
+    had been urging on the business, and who had been engaged in
+    these outrages."
+
+When an Ulster member drew attention to this in the House of Commons,
+Mr. Birrell replied:--
+
+    "There is no evidence before the Government that a widespread
+    conspiracy is rampant in the West of Ireland."
+
+And in reply to another question he said that:--
+
+    "The reports he received from the police and other persons
+    revealed the condition of Ireland generally as to peace and
+    order as being very satisfactory."
+
+During the month of October 1907, twenty-nine claims for compensation
+from the rates in respect of malicious injuries had been proved and
+granted in twelve counties, the amount levied from the ratepayers
+being about £900. The malicious injuries comprised destruction of and
+firing into dwelling houses, mutilation of horses and cattle, burning
+cattle to death, spiking meadows and damaging mowing machines, damages
+to fences and walls, burning heather and pasturage, damage to gates in
+connection with cattle driving, and injury to cattle by driving. And
+in November an attempt was made to assassinate Mr. White Blake and his
+mother when driving home from church in the County Galway. A few days
+after this occurred Mr. Redmond said at a meeting in North Wales:--
+
+    "Whilst there is no crime or outrage there is widespread
+    unrest and impatience, and there are, over a certain section
+    of the country, taking place technical breaches of the strict
+    letter of the law in the shape of what is called cattle
+    driving. Now let me say first of all that in no instance has
+    any single beast been injured in the smallest degree in any of
+    these cattle-drives; in no instance has any malicious injury
+    been done to property, life or limb, or beast."
+
+All this time the Government adhered to their determination not to put
+the Crimes Act in force, but merely to place accused persons on trial
+before juries at the Assizes. The results were as follows: At the
+Summer Assizes in 1907, 167 persons were returned for trial; of these,
+57 were actually tried, of whom three were convicted, 31 acquitted,
+and in 23 cases the juries disagreed. The trials of the remaining 110
+were postponed. At the Michaelmas sittings, 94 persons were put on
+trial, of whom 5 were convicted and 2 acquitted; in 72 cases the
+juries disagreed, and in the remaining 15 the Crown abandoned
+proceedings. At the Winter Assizes 86 persons were tried for unlawful
+assembly, riot and conspiracy in connection with cattle-driving. None
+were convicted; 11 were acquitted; in 12 cases the prisoners were
+discharged on legal points; and in 63 the juries disagreed.
+
+I fully admit that there is much to be said for the juries who refused
+to convict. When a Government is doing its utmost to suppress anarchy
+and to enforce law and order, it is no doubt the duty of every loyal
+subject to render assistance even at the risk of his own life
+and property. But when a Government is conniving at anarchy, and
+deliberately refusing to put in force the Act which would put a stop
+to it, I say it is too much to expect of any man that he should face
+the prospect of being ruined and probably murdered, and his family
+reduced to beggary, in order to enable the Government to keep up the
+farce of pretending that they are trying to do their duty.
+
+During the first half of 1908, there were 418 reported cases of
+cattle-driving; and arson, outrages with firearms, meadow-spiking,
+and similar offences increased in proportion. The judges urged in vain
+that the law should be put in force. But the policy of the Government
+remained unchanged; the _Daily News_ (the Government organ) when
+cattle-driving was at its height said that thanks to the excellent
+government of Mr. Birrell cattle-driving now had practically become
+extinct even in those few parts of the country in which it had
+existed; and in July Mr. Birrell, addressing a political meeting at
+Port Sunlight, said that:--
+
+    "They were led to believe that the state of Ireland was of
+    an appalling character, that crime predominated, and that
+    lawlessness almost universally prevailed. All he could say was
+    that a more cheerful land was nowhere to be found."
+
+In 1909 matters became somewhat quieter, chiefly because Mr. Birrell
+promised to introduce a Land Bill by which the cattle-drivers hoped to
+get all they wanted. Hence their leaders advised them to "give Birrell
+a chance," but Mr. Redmond warned the Government that if they did not
+carry out their pledge, they would speedily find Ireland ungovernable.
+In February 1909, Lord Crewe, speaking for the Government in the House
+of Lords, made the remarkable statement:--
+
+    "As regards intimidation, I have always shared the view that
+    well-organized intimidation cannot be checked by law. I know
+    no method of checking it."
+
+If this is not an admission that the Government had failed in their
+duty, it is hard to say what is. The result of their line of action
+will be seen by the following table, which has been taken from various
+returns which the Ulster members, by repeated questions in Parliament
+at last succeeded in forcing Mr. Birrell to make public:--
+
+
+Agrarian outrages                  1906          234
+     "    "                        1907          372
+     "    "                        1908          576
+Cattle-drives                      1905          Nil
+   "    "                          1907-8        513
+   "    "                          1908-9        622
+   "    "                          1908          219
+Cattle maiming, mutilating, etc.   1907          142
+Persons boycotted                  1907          196
+     "    "                        1908          270
+     "    "                        1909          335
+Cost of extra police               1908      £47,000
+
+
+1911.
+
+Agrarian outrages                                581
+Malicious injuries to property, Intimidating
+  by threatening letters, etc.                   285
+Firing into dwelling houses                       58
+Rioting, robbery of arms, etc.                    31
+Killing and maiming cattle                        83
+
+
+It may be asked, why did not the Ulster members call the attention of
+Parliament to this state of things? The answer is, they did so again
+and again; Mr. Birrell gave stereotyped replies, much after this form,
+with hardly a variation:--
+
+    I have seen in the newspapers a report that a few shots were
+    fired into a farmhouse in Galway. No one appears to have been
+    seriously injured. The police are making enquiries. No arrests
+    have been made.
+
+(He might as well have added that he knew perfectly well that no
+arrests ever would be made.) Then he would go to a political meeting
+and say that the peaceful condition of Ireland was shown by the small
+number of criminal cases returned for trial at the Assizes; and would
+bitterly denounce the "Carrion Crows" (as he designated the Ulster
+members) for trying to blacken the reputation of their country.
+
+One instance may be given more in detail, as typical of the condition
+to which Ireland had been brought. Lord Ashtown (a Unionist Peer
+residing in County Galway) began issuing month by month a series of
+pamphlets entitled "Grievances from Ireland." They contained little
+besides extracts from Nationalist papers giving reports of the
+meetings of the United Irish League, the outrages that took place, and
+the comments of Nationalist papers on them. His object was to let
+the people in England see from the accounts given by the Nationalists
+themselves, what was going on in Ireland. This, however, was very
+objectionable to them; and one of their members asked Mr. Birrell in
+the House of Commons whether the pamphlets could not be suppressed.
+Mr. Birrell made the curious reply that he would be very glad if Lord
+Ashtown were stopped, but that he did not see how to do it. What he
+expected would be the results of that remark, I do not know; but no
+one living in Ireland was much surprised when a few weeks afterwards
+a bomb outrage occurred at the residence of Lord Ashtown in the County
+Waterford. It was a clumsy failure. A jar containing gunpowder was
+placed against the wall of the house where he was staying and set on
+fire. The explosion wrecked part of the building, but Lord Ashtown
+escaped unhurt. He gave notice of his intention to apply at the next
+assizes for compensation for malicious injury. The usual custom in
+such cases is for a copy of the police report showing the injury
+complained of, to be sent to the person seeking compensation; but on
+this occasion the police refused to show Lord Ashtown their report,
+stating that they had received orders from the Government not to do
+so. But shortly before the case came on, a report, not made by the
+police authority in charge of the district, but by another brought in
+specially for the purpose, appeared in the Nationalist papers. This
+report contained the remarkable suggestion that Lord Ashtown had done
+it himself! When under cross-examination at the trial, the Inspector
+of the Royal Irish Constabulary who made the report was obliged to
+confess that he did not believe that he had, but had only inserted the
+suggestion in obedience to instruction received from the Government.
+Lord Ashtown proved his case and was awarded compensation. But the
+matter did not end there. He had employed a surveyor, Mr. Scully, to
+draw plans and take photographs showing the amount of the damage. Mr.
+Scully was surveyor to the Waterford Corporation. It was proposed at
+the next meeting of the Corporation that he should be dismissed from
+his office for having given evidence for Lord Ashtown. The motion
+was carried unanimously, eight councillors being present; and at the
+following meeting it was ratified by eight votes to two. A question
+was asked about the matter in the House of Commons; and Mr. Birrell,
+with the figures before him, replied that Mr. Scully had never been
+dismissed.
+
+Two other instances of this period must be briefly referred to. It
+has already been shown how the Irish Parliament endowed Maynooth as a
+College for Roman Catholic students both lay and theological; and how
+Trinity College, Dublin, opened its doors to all students, without
+distinction of creed. But the Roman Catholic Church turned Maynooth
+into a seminary for theological students only; and the bishops forbade
+young laymen to go to Trinity. In 1845 Sir Robert Peel attempted to
+supply the want by founding the Queen's University, with Colleges at
+Belfast, Cork and Galway, where mixed education should be given in
+secular subjects, and separate instruction in those appertaining to
+religion; but that again was denounced as a "satanic scheme for the
+ruin of faith in the rising generation"; and the crusade against
+the university was so successful that in 1879 it was destroyed and
+another--the Royal University--put in its place. This in its turn was
+abolished in 1909; the College at Belfast was raised to the status
+of a University, and a new University ominously called the "National
+University" was founded into which the existing Colleges at Cork and
+Galway were absorbed, with a new and richly endowed College in Dublin
+at the head. It may seem strange that the Radical Government who are
+pledged to destroy all religious education in England should found and
+endow a Denominational University in Ireland. But the matter could be
+arranged by a little judicious management and prevarication; it was
+represented in Parliament that the new University was to be strictly
+unsectarian; during the debate, Sir P. Magnus, the member for the
+London University, said that he had no reason to believe that there
+was any intention on the part of the Chief Secretary to set up
+denominational Universities in Ireland; he accepted his word that they
+were to be entirely undenominational. Then, when the Act was passed,
+the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin was appointed Chancellor of
+the National University, with a number of Jesuits as Professors, and
+Cardinal Logue stated as follows:--
+
+    "No matter what obstacles the Nonconformists may have inserted
+    in the Constitution of the University to keep it from being
+    Catholic, we will make it Catholic in spite of them."
+
+Personally, I do not object to denominational Universities. I regret
+that young men who are going to live in the same country should not be
+able to study law and medicine together; but if that is their feeling
+and the feeling of their parents, I admit that having separate
+Universities may be the best solution of the difficulty. But if so,
+let it be openly avowed that the University is denominational; to
+"make it Catholic" and at the same time to say that it is no injustice
+to Protestants that County Scholarships paid for by the ratepayers
+should be tenable there and nowhere else, seems to me absurd.
+
+The other incident to which reference must be made was the great
+Convention held in Dublin in 1909. The Nationalists, believing that
+a Home Rule Bill would soon be introduced, devised the scheme of
+assembling a monster Convention, which would be evidence to the world
+of how admirably fitted the Irish people were to govern their own
+country. It was attended by 2,000 delegates from all parts of the
+country, who were to form a happy family, as of course no disturbing
+Unionist element would be present to mar the harmony and the clerical
+element would be strong. Mr. Redmond, who presided, said in his
+opening address:--
+
+    "Ireland's capacity for self-government will be judged at home
+    and abroad by the conduct of this Assembly. Ireland's good
+    name is at stake, and therefore every man who takes part
+    in this Assembly should weigh his words and recognise his
+    responsibility."
+
+The meeting ended in a free fight.
+
+
+At the end of 1909 Mr. Asquith did a very clever thing. A general
+election was pending, and he wished to avoid the mistake which
+Gladstone had made in 1885. He therefore, at a great meeting at
+the Albert Hall unfolded an elaborate programme of the long list of
+measures which the Government would introduce and carry, and in the
+course of his remarks said that Home Rule was the only solution of
+the Irish problem, and that in the new House of Commons the hands of
+a Liberal Government and of a Liberal majority would in this matter be
+entirely free. He and his followers carefully abstained from referring
+to the subject in their election addresses; and Mr. Asquith was thus
+free, if he should obtain a majority independent of the Irish vote,
+to say that he had never promised to make Home Rule part of his
+programme; but if he found he could not retain office without that
+vote, he might buy it by promising to introduce the Bill and refer to
+his words at the Albert Hall as justification for doing so. The latter
+happened; hence the "Coalition Ministry." The Irish party consented to
+please the Radicals by voting for the Budget, and the Nonconformists
+by voting for Welsh Disestablishment, on condition that they should
+in return vote for Home Rule. As Mr. Hobhouse (a Cabinet Minister)
+expressed it in 1911:--
+
+    "Next year we must pay our debt to the Nationalist Members,
+    who were good enough to vote for a Budget which they detested
+    and knew would be an injury to their country."
+
+But the people of England still had to be hood-winked. It was hardly
+likely that they would consent to their representatives voting for
+the separation of Ireland from Great Britain; so the Nationalists and
+their Radical allies went about England declaring that they had
+no wish for such a thing; that all they desired was a subordinate
+Parliament leaving the Imperial Parliament supreme. Thus Mr. Redmond
+suggested at one meeting that Ireland should be conceded the right
+of managing her own purely local affairs for herself in a subordinate
+Parliament, subject to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament; and
+at another meeting said:
+
+    "We are not asking for a Repeal of the Union. We are not
+    asking for the restoration of a co-ordinate Parliament such
+    as Ireland had before the Union. We are only asking that
+    there should be given to Ireland a subordinate Parliament. We
+    therefore admit the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. That
+    means that after this subordinate Parliament is created in
+    Ireland, if the Parliament is foolish enough, rash enough, as
+    it never will be, but if it were foolish enough and criminal
+    enough to use the powers given to it for injustice or
+    oppression of any class or creed, the Imperial Parliament
+    would have the power to stretch forth the arm of its authority
+    and to say 'you shall not do that.'"
+
+Of course it may be argued that they had changed their minds; that
+in former times they worked for separation, but now realised that
+a subordinate Parliament was all that Ireland required. But
+unfortunately for this theory, they have themselves repudiated it;
+when Mr. Redmond was accused of speaking with two voices, one in
+America and one in Great Britain, he passionately replied:--
+
+    "I indignantly deny that accusation. I have never in my life
+    said one word on a platform in America one whit stronger than
+    I had said in my place on the floor of the House of Commons.
+    I have never in America or anywhere else, advocated the
+    separation of Ireland from Great Britain."
+
+How far this is true, the quotations from his speeches which have
+already been given, will have shown. But the Government have kept up
+the farce; Mr. Winston Churchill said during the debate on the Bill of
+1912:--
+
+    "The Home Rule movement has never been a separatist movement.
+    In the whole course of its career it has been a moderating,
+    modifying movement, designed to secure the recognition of
+    Irish claims within the circuit of the British Empire."
+
+But not even the immediate prospect of Home Rule can be said to have
+made those parts of Ireland where the League is supreme a happy place
+of residence to any but advanced Nationalists. The following report of
+a case in the Magistrate's Court at Ennis in November 1912 will speak
+for the condition of the County Clare:--
+
+    Patrick Arkins was charged with knocking down walls on the
+    farm of Mrs. Fitzpatrick in order to compel her to give up the
+    farm. Inspector Davis gave evidence that from January 1910 to
+    that date there were 104 serious outrages in his district.
+    In 42 firearms were used, 27 were malicious injuries, 32 were
+    threatening notices, 1 case of bomb explosion outside a house,
+    1 robbery of arms, and 1 attempted robbery. A sum of £268 had
+    been awarded as compensation for malicious injury and there
+    were claims for £75 pending for malicious injuries committed
+    during the week ended 11th inst. There were two persons under
+    constant police protection, and 16 receiving protection by
+    patrol. Head Constable Mulligan said that Mrs. Fitzpatrick was
+    under police protection. Since February 11th, 1912, there had
+    been 12 outrages in the district, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under
+    almost constant police protection. Acting Sergeant Beegan
+    deposed that there had been 12 outrages on the Fitzpatrick
+    family during the last four years; these included driving
+    cattle off the lands, threatening notices, firing shots at the
+    house, knocking down walls, spiking meadows; the new roof of
+    a hay barn was perforated with bullets, and at Kiltonaghty
+    Chapel there were notices threatening death to anyone who
+    would work for Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Timothy Fitzpatrick gave
+    similar evidence as to the outrages, and said that his father
+    had taken the farm twenty-one years ago, and had paid the son
+    of the former tenant £40 for his goodwill.
+
+(I may add that Arkins was committed for trial, convicted at the
+Assizes and sentenced to seven years penal servitude; and was released
+by Mr. Birrell a few weeks afterwards.)
+
+In another Clare case, in February of the present year, the resident
+Magistrate said as follows:--
+
+    "It is a mistake to say that these outrages are arising out
+    of disputes between landlord and tenant; nine out of ten arise
+    out of petty disputes about land. What is the use of having
+    new land laws? A case occurred not long ago in this county of
+    a man who had bought some land twenty years ago, and paid down
+    hard cash to the outgoing tenant. The man died, and left a
+    widow and children on the land for fourteen years. But in 1908
+    a man who had some ulterior object got the man who had sold
+    the farm to send in a claim under the Evicted Tenant's Act,
+    which was rejected. That was what the advisers of the man
+    wanted--they only wanted a pretext for moonlighting and other
+    disgraceful outrages, and the woman was kept in a hell for
+    four years. A man was caught at last and convicted, and one
+    would think that this was a subject for rejoicing for all
+    right-minded men in the county. But what was the result? A
+    perfect tornado of letters was printed, and resolutions
+    and speeches appeared in the public press, condemning this
+    conviction of a moonlighter in Clare as an outrage against
+    justice."
+
+The Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, in a sermon preached in
+December 1912, referring to County Clare said:--
+
+    "That county had had an evil record in the matter of crime,
+    and they were so accustomed to outrages of almost weekly
+    occurrence around them that it was not easy to shock them.
+    There was an inoffensive family sitting round the fireside
+    with a couple of neighbours. They had given no offence, they
+    had wronged no man, they had crossed no man's path. But that
+    inhuman beast went to the door and lifted the latch, and
+    there, at a few yards distance, fired into that innocent group
+    of men, women and children, as if they were a flock of crows,
+    killing the mother outright and almost blowing the forehead
+    off a young girl. There was no denying the fact that that
+    brutal murder was the natural outcome of the disgraceful
+    system of intimidation and outrage that had been rampant for
+    a long time in certain districts of that unhappy county and
+    of the immunity from punishment enjoyed by the wicked and
+    cowardly moonlighter. In addition to their other acts of
+    savagery, they had shot out the eyes of two men within the
+    last couple of years. A decent, honest man was shot on the
+    road to Ennis. The people passed the wounded man by and
+    refused to take him into their car through fear. Not one
+    of these well-known miscreants was brought to justice. The
+    murderers of poor Garvey, the cow-houghers, the hay-burners,
+    were said to be known. In any other country, for instance in
+    the United States, such ruffianism would be hunted down or
+    lynched; but there, in the places he referred to, they had
+    a curtain of security drawn round them by the cowardice or
+    perverted moral sense on the part of the community amongst
+    whom they lived.... It was only last Thursday night, before
+    the county had recovered from the shock of Mrs. O'Mara's
+    murder, that right over the mountain an unfortunate postman
+    was shot on the public road between Crusheen and Baliluran for
+    no other reason apparently than that another fellow wanted his
+    job of one and six-pence a day! It has come to this, that if
+    you differ with one of them for a shilling, or refuse to give
+    him his way in everything the first thing that comes into his
+    head is to moonlight you.... They have not elevation or social
+    instinct to settle their petty disputes by process of law
+    provided for the purpose by a civilized society, nor have they
+    Christianity enough to bear a little wrong or disappointment
+    for Christ's sake. No, nor the manliness even to meet an
+    opponent face to face and see it out with him like a man; but
+    with the cunning of a mean and vicious dog, he steals behind
+    him in the dark and shoots him in the back, or murders the
+    helpless woman of his family, or shoots out the eyes of the
+    poor man's horse, or cuts the throat of his bullock and spikes
+    his beast upon a gate."
+
+Nor has the present year brought much improvement. In May 1913, Mr.
+R. Maunsell was fired at and wounded close to the town of Ennis. His
+crime was that he managed a farm for a Mr. Bannatyne, whose family had
+been in possession of it for about sixty years, but who had recently
+been denounced by the United Irish League and ordered to surrender it.
+As he has refused to do so, he is now compelled to live under police
+protection.
+
+The abolition of landlordism and the acquisition of firearms can
+hardly be said to have brought peace and tranquillity to the County of
+Clare.
+
+And as to Galway, we may gather the state of affairs from the report
+of a case tried at the Winter Assizes of 1912. Three men were charged
+with having done grievous bodily harm to a man named Conolly. Conolly
+swore that he knew a man named Broderick who had become unpopular but
+he (Conolly) kept to him and this brought displeasure on him from the
+accused and others. On the night of the 11th September he went to bed;
+he was subsequently awakened and found 44 grains of shot in his left
+knee and four in his right. He then lay flat on the floor. Other shots
+were fired through the window but did not strike him. The judge said
+the district was a disgrace to Ireland. Day after day, night after
+night, heaps of outrages were committed there, and not one offender
+was made amenable to justice. The jury disagreed, and the accused were
+again put on their trial. The judge in charging the jury on the second
+trial said that then, and for some time, the district was swarming
+with police, and though outrages were frequent, it was impossible for
+them to bring anyone to justice. No one was sure he might not be fired
+at during the night; and people were afraid to give evidence. The jury
+again disagreed.
+
+During the autumn of 1912 an effort was made to hold a series of
+meetings throughout the south and west of Ireland to protest against
+Home Rule. The conduct of the Nationalists with regard to them
+supplies a striking commentary on Mr. Redmond's statement at Banbury
+not long before, that all through his political life he had preached
+conciliation towards those who differed from him on the question
+of Home Rule. The meetings were in some cases stopped by force; at
+Limerick the windows of the Protestant Church and of some houses
+occupied by Protestants were smashed; at Tralee the principal speaker
+was a large farmer named Crosbie; all his hay and sheds were burned
+down, and he was awarded £600 compensation by the County Court Judge.
+
+But an incident had occurred in the north which, though in a sense
+comparatively slight, has, in consequence of the circumstances
+connected with it, done more to inflame the men of Ulster than persons
+not living in Ireland can realise. In June of last year a party of
+Sunday School children from a suburb of Belfast went for a picnic to
+Castledawson (co. Derry) under the charge of a Presbyterian minister
+and a few teachers and ladies. On their way back to the railway
+station, they were met and assailed by a procession of men belonging
+to the Order of Hibernians armed with pikes who attacked the children
+with the pikes and with stones, seized a Union Jack which a small
+boy was carrying, and knocked down and kicked some of the girls and
+teachers. Worse might have happened had not some Protestant young men,
+seeing what was going on, come to the rescue. The minister was struck
+with stones whilst he was endeavouring to get some of the children
+to a place of safety. No Nationalist has ever expressed the slightest
+regret at the occurrence. Several of the aggressors were tried at the
+Winter Assizes and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Before
+the end of the term they were released by order of the Government. Mr.
+Birrell, in justifying his action, said that the judge had remarked
+that there was no evidence before him of actual injury. This, like
+many of his statements, was literally true; but he omitted to mention
+that he had prevented the evidence from being given; the injured women
+and children were quite ready to give their testimony, but were not
+called by the counsel for the crown.
+
+It is unnecessary to say that this foretaste of Home Rule government
+has made the Presbyterians of Ulster more determined than ever to
+resist it to the bitter end.
+
+I shall next proceed to consider the Bill which the Government have
+introduced as a panacea for the woes of Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+CRITICISM OF THE BILL NOW BEFORE THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+That the maintenance of the Union is possible, and that complete
+separation is possible, are two indisputable facts. But the question
+is, was Wolfe Tone right when he said that these were the only two
+possibilities; or is there a third one, and if so, what?
+
+Residents in the Dominions will naturally be inclined to reply "Yes;
+place Ireland in the position of a colony possessing responsible
+government, such as New Zealand." It is a taking idea; but a little
+reflection will show the falseness of the analogy. The relations
+between the Mother Country and the self-governing colonies (now
+often called "Dominions") have grown up of themselves; and, like
+most political conditions which have so come about, are theoretically
+illogical but practically convenient. The practical convenience arises
+partly from the friendly spirit which animates both parties, but still
+more from the nature of the case. The distance which separates the
+Mother Country from the Dominions causes the anomalies to be scarcely
+perceptible. In theory the Sovereign, acting on the advice of
+British Ministers, can disallow any colonial statute, and the British
+Parliament is supreme--it can pass laws that will bind the colonies,
+even laws imposing taxes. But we all know that if the Home Government
+were persistently to veto laws passed by the large majority of the
+people in New Zealand, or the British Parliament were to attempt to
+legislate for the colonies, relations would at once become strained,
+and separation would be inevitable. The only important matters on
+which the Home Government attempts to bind the colonies are those
+relating to foreign countries (which are necessarily of an Imperial
+nature) and those as to which the colonies themselves wish to have
+an Act passed, such as the Act establishing Australian Federation. In
+other words, the "supremacy of Parliament," which is a stern reality
+in England, has very little meaning as regards New Zealand. Even if
+the people of New Zealand were to manage the affairs of their country
+in a manner contrary to English ideas--for instance if they were to
+establish State lotteries and public gambling tables--England would be
+but slightly affected, and certainly would never think of taking steps
+to prevent them. And those matters in which the Home Government is
+obliged to act are just those in which New Zealand has no desire
+to interfere; for instance, New Zealand would never want to appoint
+consuls of her own (which was the immediate cause of the separation
+between Norway and Sweden); in the very few cases in which New Zealand
+desires to make use of political or commercial agents abroad, she is
+content to employ the British representatives, for whom she is
+not called upon to pay. If New Zealand attempted to take part in a
+European war in which England was not concerned--the idea is almost
+too absurd to suggest--the only thing that England could do would be
+to break off the connection and repudiate New Zealand altogether.
+And if New Zealand desired to separate from the Mother Country, many
+people would think it a most grievous mistake, but England certainly
+would not seek to prevent her doing so by force; and though England
+would in some ways be the worse for it, the government of England
+and of the rest of the Empire would go on much the same as before. In
+certain points, it is true, thoughtful men have generally come to the
+conclusion that the present state of affairs cannot go on unchanged;
+the time is coming when the great Dominions must provide for their own
+defence by sea as well as by land; and whether this is to be done by
+separate navies working together or by joint contributions to a
+common navy, it will probably result in the formation of some Imperial
+Council in which all parts will have a voice. That however, is a
+matter for future discussion and arrangement.
+
+But when we turn to Ireland, everything is different. The two islands
+are separated by less than fifty miles. Ireland has for more than a
+century been adequately represented in the Imperial Parliament; the
+journey from Galway to London is shorter than that from Auckland
+or Dunedin to Wellington. So long as Europe remains as it is, Great
+Britain and Ireland must have a common system of defence--which means
+one army, one navy, and one plan of fortifications. Again, Irishmen,
+traders and others, will constantly have to make use of government
+agents in other countries. Now unless Great Britain is to arrange and
+pay for the whole of this, we are met at once by the insoluble problem
+of Irish representation in the British Parliament. If Ireland is not
+represented there, we are faced with the old difficulty of taxation
+without representation; if Ireland is represented there for all
+purposes, Ireland can interfere in the local affairs of England, but
+England cannot in those of Ireland; if we have what has been called
+the "in-and-out" scheme as proposed by Gladstone in 1893--that is, for
+the Irish members to vote on all questions of an Imperial nature,
+but to retire when matters affecting England only are under
+discussion--then, even if the line could be drawn (which is doubtful)
+we might have the absurdity of an English ministry which possessed
+the confidence of the majority of Englishmen and whose management of
+England met their approval, being turned out of office by the Irish
+vote, and England being governed according to a policy which the
+majority of Englishmen detested. Of course it may be said that there
+ought to be a number of small Parliaments in the British Isles, like
+those in the Provinces of Canada or the States of Australia, with one
+great Parliament supreme over them--in other words, Federation.
+That might be a good thing, although it would in its turn start many
+difficulties which it is unnecessary now to discuss, for it is not
+Home Rule nor does Home Rule lead to it. Federal systems arise by the
+union of separate States, each State giving up a part of its power
+to a joint body which can levy taxes and can overrule the local
+authorities. In fact, when Federation comes about, the States cease to
+be nations.
+
+(I must here remark in passing that constant confusion has been caused
+by the various senses in which the word "nation" is used. Thus it is
+often quite correctly employed in a sentimental sense--we speak of
+Scottish National character, or of the National Bible Society of
+Scotland, though Scotland has no separate Parliament or flag and would
+on a map of Europe be painted the same colour as the rest of Great
+Britain. Quite distinct from that is the political sense, in which the
+Irish Nationalists use the word when speaking of being "A Nation once
+again," or of "The National Independence of Ireland.")
+
+It might be possible for the United Kingdom to be broken up into a
+Federation (though it is strange that there is no precedent in history
+for such a course); but that would not be "satisfying the National
+Aspirations of Ireland." In fact, as Mr. Childers, one of the ablest
+of English advocates of Home Rule, has stated: "The term Federal, as
+applied to Irish Home Rule at the present time, is meaningless."
+
+But when we come to examine the existing Bill, which will become law
+in 1914 unless something unforeseen occurs, we find that it is neither
+the Colonial plan nor Federation but an elaborate system which really
+seems as if it had been devised with the object of satisfying nobody
+and producing friction at every point. England (by which of course I
+mean Great Britain; I merely use the shorter term for convenience)
+is not only to pay the total cost of the army, navy and diplomatic
+services, including the defences of Ireland, but is also to grant an
+annual subsidy to Ireland commencing with £500,000 but subsequently
+reduced to £200,000. Whether the English taxpayer will relish this
+when he comes to realise it, may be doubted. Certainly no precedent
+can be cited for a Federal system under which all the common
+expenditure is borne by one of the parties. And further, the present
+Government state freely that they hope to carry out their policy by
+introducing a Bill for Home Rule for Scotland and possibly also for
+Wales. Will the Scotch and Welsh consent to contribute towards the
+government of Ireland; or will they demand that they shall be treated
+like Ireland, and leave the people of England to pay all Imperial
+services and to subsidize Ireland, Scotland and Wales? Then again,
+Ireland is to send forty-two representatives to what is still
+sarcastically to be called the "Parliament of the United Kingdom," but
+will no doubt popularly be known as the English Parliament. They
+are to vote about the taxation of people in Great Britain, and to
+interfere in local affairs of that country, whilst the people of
+Great Britain are not to tax Ireland or interfere in any way with its
+affairs. This is indeed representation without taxation. Of course it
+is inevitable that the Irish members will continue to do what they are
+doing at present--that is, offer their votes to whatever party will
+promise further concessions to Irish Nationalism; and they will
+probably find no more difficulty in getting an English party to
+consent to such an immoral bargain than they do now.
+
+The provisions as to legislation for Ireland are still more
+extraordinary. The Irish Parliament is to have complete power of
+legislating as to Irish affairs, with the exception of certain matters
+enumerated in the Act; thus it may repeal any Acts of the Imperial
+Parliament passed before 1914. On the other hand, the English
+Parliament (in which Ireland will have only forty-two representatives)
+will also be able to pass laws binding Ireland (and in this way to
+re-enact the laws which the Irish Parliament has just repealed), and
+these new laws the Irish Parliament may not repeal or overrule. Now
+this power of the English Parliament will either be a reality or a
+farce; if it is a reality, the Irish Nationalists will be no more
+inclined to submit to laws made by "an alien Parliament" in which they
+have only forty-two representatives than they are at present to submit
+to those made by one in which they have 103; if it is a farce, the
+"supremacy of the Imperial Parliament" is a misleading expression.
+The Lord Lieutenant is to act as to some matters on the advice of the
+Irish Ministry, as to others on the advice of the English. Anyone who
+has studied the history of constitutional government in the colonies
+in the early days, when the governor was still supposed to act as
+to certain affairs independently of ministerial advice, will see the
+confusion to which this must lead. Suppose the Lord Lieutenant acts
+on the advice of the English ministers in a way of which the
+Irish Parliament do not approve, and the Irish Ministry resign in
+consequence, what can result but a deadlock?
+
+But most extraordinary of all are the provisions as to finance. The
+Government appointed a Committee of Experts to consider this question.
+The committee made their report; but the Government rejected their
+advice and substituted another plan which is so elaborate that it is
+only possible to touch on some of its more important features here.
+I have already said that the English Parliament will have no power
+to tax Ireland. That statement, however, must be taken subject to two
+reservations. The Bill provides that if ever the happy day arrives
+when for three consecutive years the revenue of Ireland has exceeded
+the cost of government, the English Parliament (with the addition of
+twenty-three extra members summoned from Ireland for the purpose)
+may make new provisions securing from Ireland a contribution towards
+Imperial expenditure. As this is the only reference to the subject
+in the Bill, the general opinion was that until those improbable
+circumstances should occur, the English Parliament would have no power
+to tax Ireland; but when the debates were drawing to a close, the
+Government astonished the House by stating that according to their
+construction of the Bill, should any new emergency arise at any time
+after the Bill becomes law (for instance, a great naval emergency
+requiring an addition to the Income Tax) it would be not merely the
+right but also the duty of the Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer
+to see that the charge should be borne by the whole United Kingdom--in
+other words, the Parliament in which Ireland possesses only forty-two
+representatives may and ought to tax Ireland for Imperial purposes.
+The friction which will arise should any attempt of the sort be made,
+especially as the power is not stated in the Bill, is evident. In
+plain words, it will be impossible to levy the tax.
+
+But apart from these rights, which one may safely say will never be
+exercised, the financial arrangements will from their very complexity
+be a constant source of trouble. All taxes levied in Ireland are to be
+paid into the English Exchequer (or as it is called in the Bill "The
+Exchequer of the United Kingdom"). Some of the objects for which
+these taxes have been levied are to be managed by the Irish
+Government--these are called "Irish services"; others are to be
+managed by the English Government--these are called "Reserved
+services." The English Exchequer will then hand over to the Irish
+Exchequer:--
+
+    (a) A sum representing the net cost to the Exchequer of the
+    United Kingdom of "Irish Services" at the time of the passing
+    of the Act;
+
+    (b) The sum of £500,000 a year, reducible to £200,000, above
+    referred to; and
+
+    (c) A sum equal to the proceeds of any new taxes levied by the
+    Irish Parliament.
+
+Then the balance which the English Exchequer will retain, after
+handing over these three sums, will go to the "Reserved Services." But
+as, in consequence of the establishment of the Old Age Pensions
+and some other similar liabilities, the aggregate cost of governing
+Ireland at this moment exceeds the revenue derived from Ireland by
+about £1,500,000, the English taxpayer will have to make up this sum,
+as well as to give to Ireland an annual present of £500,000; and
+even if the Irish Government succeeds in managing its affairs more
+economically than the Government at present does, that will give no
+relief to the British taxpayer, for it will be observed that the first
+of the three sums which the Exchequer of the United Kingdom is to hand
+over is not a sum representing the cost of the "Irish Services" at any
+future date but the cost at the time of the passing of the Act.
+
+It is possible of course that the Irish revenue derived from existing
+taxes may increase, and so the burden on the English taxpayer may
+be lightened; but as it is more probable that it will decrease, and
+consequently the burden become heavier, the English taxpayer cannot
+derive much consolation from that.
+
+It will be seen from the foregoing remarks that a number of extremely
+intricate and difficult financial questions must arise; for instance,
+what sum really represents the net cost of "Irish Services" at the
+time of the passing of the Act; what sum equals the net proceeds of
+new taxes imposed by the Irish Parliament; and at what moment it can
+be said that the revenue of Ireland has for three consecutive years
+exceeded the cost of government. All such matters are to be decided
+by a Board of Five, of whom one is to be nominated by the King
+(presumably on the advice of the English Ministers), two by the
+English Government, and two by the Irish. From the decisions of this
+Board on matters of fact there is to be no appeal. It is needless
+to point out that every detail in which the three English members
+overrule the two Irish will be fought out again in the English
+Parliament by the forty Irish members. This again will show how vain
+is the hope that future English Parliaments will be relieved from
+endless discussions as to Irish affairs. Professor Dicey has well
+named the able work in which he has analysed the Bill and shown its
+impossibilities "A Fool's Paradise."
+
+The provisions concerning those matters as to which the Irish
+Parliament is to have no power to legislate are as strange as the
+other clauses of the Bill. For six years the Constabulary are to be a
+"reserved service"; but as they will be under the orders of the Irish
+Government, the object of this is hard to see--unless indeed it is to
+create an impression that the Ulstermen if they refuse to obey them
+are rebelling not against the Irish but the Imperial Government. The
+Post Office Savings Banks are "reserved" for a longer period; as to
+the postal services to places beyond Ireland, the Irish Parliament
+will have no power to legislate; but the Post Office, so far as it
+relates to Ireland alone, will be handed over at once to the Irish
+Parliament--although even in the case of Federal Unions such as
+Australia the Post Office is usually considered to be eminently a
+matter for the Federal authority. And the question whether an Irish
+Act is unconstitutional and therefore void will be decided by the
+Privy Council, which will be regarded as an essentially English body;
+hence if it attempts to veto an Irish Act, its action will be at once
+denounced as a revival of Poyning's Act and the Declaratory Act of
+George I.
+
+The Bill excludes the relations with Foreign States from the powers of
+the Irish Parliament, but says nothing to prevent the Irish Government
+from appointing a political agent to the Vatican. That is probably one
+of the first things that it will do; and as the Lord Lieutenant could
+never form a Government which would consent to any other course, he
+will be obliged to consent. This agent, not being responsible to the
+British Foreign Office, may cause constant friction between England
+and Italy.
+
+But quite apart from the unworkable provisions of the Bill, everything
+connected with its introduction and passing through Parliament has
+tended to increase the hatred which the Opposition feel towards it,
+and the determination of the Ulstermen to resist it if necessary even
+by force. Those who lived in Australia whilst Federation was under
+discussion will recollect how carefully the scheme was brought before
+the people, discussed in various Colonial Parliaments, considered over
+again line by line by the delegates in an Inter-Colonial Conference,
+examined afresh in the Colonial Office in London and in the Imperial
+Parliament and finally laid before each colony for its acceptance. Yet
+here is a matter which vitally affects the government not of Ireland
+only but of the whole United Kingdom, and thus indirectly of the
+Empire at large; it was (as I have shown) not fairly brought before
+the people at a general election; it has been introduced by what
+is admittedly merely a coalition Government as a matter of bargain
+between the various sections, at a time when the British Constitution
+is in a state of dislocation, as the power of the House of Lords has
+been destroyed and the new Upper Chamber not yet set up; and it has
+been passed without adequate discussion. This I say deliberately; it
+is no use to point out how many hours have been spent in Committee,
+for the way in which the discussion has been conducted has deprived
+it of any real value. The custom has been for the Government to state
+beforehand the time at which each batch of clauses is to be passed,
+and what amendments may be discussed (the rest being passed over in
+silence); when the discussion is supposed to begin, their supporters
+ostentatiously walk out, and the Opposition argue to empty benches;
+then when the moment for closing the discussion arrives, the Minister
+in charge gets up and says that the Government cannot accept any of
+the amendments proposed; the bell rings, the Government supporters
+troop back, and pass all the clauses unamended. As an instance of this
+contemptible way of conducting the debate, it is sufficient to point
+to the fact already mentioned, that so vital a matter as the power
+of the English Parliament to tax Ireland was not even hinted at until
+nearly the end of the debates.
+
+And now the Bill is to become law without any further appeal to the
+people.
+
+Are English Unionists to be blamed if they declare that an Act so
+passed will possess no moral obligation, and that they are determined,
+should the terrible necessity arise, to aid the Ulstermen in resisting
+it to the uttermost?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE DANGER TO THE EMPIRE OF ANY FORM OF HOME RULE. THE QUESTIONS
+ANSWERED.
+
+
+In the last chapter I explained how hopelessly unworkable is the
+particular scheme of Home Rule which is contained in the present
+Bill. I now proceed to show why Home Rule in any form must lead to
+disaster--primarily to Ireland, ultimately to the Empire.
+
+Politicians who, like ostriches, possess the happy faculty of shutting
+their eyes to unpleasant facts, may say that there is only one nation
+in Ireland; but everyone who knows the country is quite aware that
+there are two, which may be held together as part of the United
+Kingdom, but which can no more be forced into one nation than
+Belgium and Holland could be forced to combine as the Kingdom of the
+Netherlands. And whatever cross-currents there may be, the great line
+of cleavage is religion. Of course I am aware of the violent efforts
+that have been made ever since the commencement of the Nationalist
+agitation to prove that this is not so. Thus Parnell, addressing an
+English audience, explained that religion had nothing to do with the
+movement, and as evidence stated that he was the leader of it though
+not merely a Protestant but a member of the Protestant Synod and a
+parochial nominator for his own parish. Of course everyone in Ireland
+knew perfectly well that he was only a Protestant in the sense that
+Garibaldi was a Roman Catholic--he had been baptised as such in
+infancy; and that he was not a member of the synod or a parochial
+nominator, and never had been one; but the statement was good enough
+to deceive his Nonconformist hearers. That Protestant Home Rulers
+exist is not denied. But the numbers are so small that it is evident
+that they are the rare exceptions that prove the rule. The very
+anxiety with which, when a Protestant Home Ruler can be discovered
+he is put forward, and the fact of his being a Protestant Home Ruler
+referred to again and again, shows what a rare bird he is. To mention
+one instance amongst many; a Protestant Home Ruler has recently
+been speaking on platforms in England explaining that he came in a
+representative capacity in order to testify to the people of England
+that the Irish Protestants were now in favour of Home Rule. He did
+not mention the fact that in the district where he resided there
+were about 1,000 Protestants and he was the only Home Ruler amongst
+them--in fact, nearly all the rest had signed a Petition against the
+Bill. And when we come to examine who these Protestant Home Rulers
+are, about whom so much has been said, we find first that there is in
+this as in every other movement, a very small number of faddists, who
+like to go against their own party; secondly a few who though they
+still call themselves Protestants have to all intents and purposes
+abandoned their religion, and therefore cannot fairly be reckoned;
+thirdly, a few who hold appointments from which they would be
+dismissed if they did not conform; fourthly, some who say openly that
+Home Rule is coming and that whatever their private opinions may be it
+is the wisest policy to worship the rising sun (bearing in mind that
+Mr. Dillon has promised that when the Nationalists attain their end
+they will remember who were their friends and who their enemies, and
+deal out rewards and punishments accordingly); and fifthly, those who
+have accepted what future historians will describe as bribes. For the
+present Government have showered down Peerages, Knighthoods of
+various orders, Lieutenancies of Counties, Deputy-Lieutenancies and
+Commissions of the Peace--not to speak of salaried offices both
+in Ireland and elsewhere--on Protestants who would consent to turn
+Nationalists, in a manner which makes it absurd to talk any more about
+bribery at the time of the Union. And yet with all this the Protestant
+Home Rulers are such an extremely small body that they may be
+disregarded. And indeed it is hard to see how an earnest, consistent
+and logically-minded Protestant can be a Nationalist; for loyalty to
+the King is a part of his creed; and, in the words of a Nationalist
+organ, the _Midland Tribune_, "If a man be a Nationalist he must _ipso
+facto_ be a Disloyalist, for Irish Nationalism and loyalty to the
+throne of England could not be synonymous."
+
+On the other hand, a large proportion of the educated Roman Catholics,
+the men who have a real stake in the country, are Unionists. Some
+of them, however earnest they may be in their religion, dread the
+domination of a political priesthood; others dread still more the
+union of the Church with anarchism. As has already been shown,
+they refuse to join the United Irish League; some in the north have
+actually subscribed the Ulster Covenant; many others have signed
+petitions against Home Rule throughout the country; and a still larger
+number have stated that they would gladly do so if they did not fear
+the consequences. It is probably therefore correct to say that
+the number of Unionists in Ireland decidedly exceeds the number of
+Protestants; in other words, less than three-fourths of the population
+are Nationalists, and more than one-fourth (perhaps about one-third)
+are Unionists. And more than that; if we are to test the reality of
+a movement, we must look not merely at numbers but at other matters.
+Violent language may be used; but the fact remains as I have
+previously stated that even if the Nationalists are taken as being
+only two-thirds of the population, their annual subscriptions to the
+cause do not amount to anything like a penny per head and that the
+agitation could not last for six months if it were not kept alive
+by contributions from America and the Colonies. But though the
+Nationalist movement has not brought about a Union between the Orange
+and the Green, it has caused two other Unions to be formed which will
+have an important influence on the future history of the country. In
+the first place it has revived, or cemented, the Union which, as we
+have seen, existed at former periods of Irish history, but which has
+existed in no other country in the world--the Union between the
+Black and the Red. That a Union between two forces so essentially
+antagonistic as Ultramontanism and Jacobinism will be permanent, one
+can hardly suppose; whether the clericals, if they succeed in crushing
+the heretics, will afterwards be able to turn and crush the anarchists
+with whom they have been in alliance, and then reign supreme; or
+whether, as happened in France at the end of the eighteenth century
+and in Portugal recently, the anarchists who have grown up within
+the bosom of the Church will prove to be a more deadly foe to the
+clericals than the heretics ever were--it is impossible to say; but
+neither prospect seems very cheerful.
+
+In the second place, the Nationalist movement has drawn all the
+Protestant bodies together as nothing else could. Episcopalians,
+Presbyterians and Methodists have all joined hands in the defence of
+their common liberties. The Nationalists have left no stone unturned
+in their efforts to prove that the northern Protestants are disloyal.
+They have succeeded in finding one speech that was made by an excited
+orator (not a leader) forty-four years ago, to the effect that the
+Disestablishment of the Church might result in the Queen's Crown being
+kicked into the Boyne. As this is the only instance they can rake up,
+it has been quoted in the House of Commons and elsewhere again
+and again; and Mr. Birrell (whose knowledge of Ireland seems to be
+entirely derived from Nationalist speeches) has recently elaborated
+it by saying that when the Church was going to be disestablished
+"they used to declare" that the Queen's Crown would be kicked into the
+Boyne, and yet their threats came to nothing and therefore the
+result of Home Rule will be the same. The fact was that the Church
+establishment was the last relic of Protestant Ascendancy; and as
+I have already shown, that meant Anglican ascendancy in which
+Presbyterianism did not participate; hence, when the agitation for
+Disestablishment arose, though some few Presbyterians greatly disliked
+it, their opposition as a whole was lukewarm. But when in 1886 Home
+Rule became a question of practical politics, they rose up against it
+as one man; in 1893, when the second Home Rule Bill was introduced and
+actually passed the House of Commons, they commenced organising their
+Volunteer army to resist it, if necessary, by force of arms; and
+they are just as keen to-day as they were twenty years ago. They are
+certainly not disloyal; the republican spirit which permeated
+their ancestors in the eighteenth century has long since died out
+completely. Sir Walter Scott said that if he had lived at the time of
+the Union between Scotland and England, he would have fought against
+it; but, living a century later and seeing the benefit that it had
+been to his country, his feelings were all on the other side. That is
+what the Presbyterians of Ulster say to-day. They point to the way in
+which Ulster has, under the Union, been able to develop itself; with
+no richer soil, no better climate, and no greater natural advantages
+than other parts of Ireland, the energy, ability, and true patriotism
+of the people have enabled them to establish and encourage commerce
+and manufactures which have brought wealth and prosperity to Ulster
+whilst the other Provinces have been stationary or retrograde. There
+cannot be a better instance of the different spirit which animates the
+two communities than the history of the linen industry. Michael Davitt
+bitterly described it as "Not an Irish, but an Orange industry." And
+from his point of view, he was quite right; for it is practically
+confined to Ulster. In that Province it has during the nineteenth
+century developed so steadily that the annual export now exceeds
+£15,000,000 in value and more than 70,000 hands are employed in the
+mills. Not long ago, a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire
+whether it was not possible to grow flax in the south and west, and
+if so why it was not done. The Commission made careful enquiries, and
+reported that in both Munster and Connaught efforts had been made to
+establish the industry (notably by the late Lord Bandon, one of the
+much-abused landlord class, who had let land for the purpose at a
+nominal charge, obtained seed and brought experts from the north
+to instruct the people); that it had been proved that both soil and
+climate were quite as well adapted for it as in Ulster; but that after
+a few years the buyers refused any longer to purchase the flax as it
+was so carelessly and badly prepared that it was valueless; and so
+the industry had died out. In both south and west the people expressed
+their readiness to revive it if a large grant were made to them by the
+Government, but not otherwise.
+
+Then again we may take the growth of the cities. It seems hard now to
+realise that one reason why the people of Dublin opposed the Union was
+because they feared lest, when their city ceased to be the capital,
+Cork might grow into a great industrial centre and surpass it. Cork
+has remained stationary ever since; Belfast, then an insignificant
+country town, has become a city of 400,000 inhabitants, and the
+customs from it alone are more than double those from all the rest of
+Ireland put together. And what is true of Belfast is true also on a
+smaller scale of all the other towns north of the Boyne.
+
+This remarkable contrast between the progress of the north-east and
+the stagnation of the rest of the country is no new thing. It has been
+observed ever since the Union. So long ago as 1832 the Report of the
+Commission on the linen manufacture of Ireland contained the following
+words:--
+
+    "Political and religious animosities and dissensions, and
+    increasing agitation first for one object and then for
+    another have so destroyed confidence and shaken the bonds of
+    society--undermined men's principles and estranged
+    neighbour from neighbour, friend from friend, and class
+    from class--that, in lieu of observing any common effort
+    to ameliorate the condition of the people, we find every
+    proposition for this object, emanate from which party it may,
+    received with distrust by the other; maligned, perverted and
+    destroyed, to gratify the political purposes of a faction....
+    The comparative prosperity enjoyed by that portion of Ireland
+    where tranquillity ordinarily prevails, such as the Counties
+    Down, Antrim, and Derry, testify the capabilities of Ireland
+    to work out her own regeneration, when freed of the disturbing
+    causes which have so long impeded her progress in civilization
+    and improvement. We find there a population hardy, healthy and
+    employed; capital fast flowing into the district; new sources
+    of employment daily developing themselves; a people well
+    disposed alike to the government and institutions of their
+    country; and not distrustful and jealous of their superiors.
+    Contrast the social condition of these people with such
+    pictures as we have presented to us from other districts."
+
+This energetic, self-reliant and prosperous community now see before
+their eyes what the practical working of government by the League is.
+They see it generally in the condition of the country, and especially
+in the Dublin Convention of 1909, the narrow-minded administration of
+the Local Government Act wherever the power of the League prevails,
+and the insecurity for life and property in the west; they know also
+that a Home Rule Government must mean increased taxation (as the
+Nationalists themselves confess) which will probably--in fact, one may
+almost say must certainly, as no other source is available--be thrown
+on the Ulster manufactures; is it not therefore a matter of life and
+death to them to resist it to the uttermost?
+
+But as I have said, the great line of cleavage is religion. Here I
+know that I shall be accused of "Orange bigotry." But I am not afraid
+of the charge; first because I do not happen to be an Orangeman; and
+secondly because I regard bigotry as the outcome of ignorance and
+prejudice, and consider therefore that a calm examination of the
+evidence is the very antithesis of bigotry. In order to make this
+examination I desire in the first place to avoid the mistake that
+Grattan made in judging the probabilities of the future from the
+opinions of personal friends whom I like and respect, but who, as I
+know (and regret to think), possess no influence whatever. I consider
+that there are other data--such as works of authority, the action
+of the public bodies, statements by men in prominent positions,
+and articles in leading journals--from which it is safer to form
+an estimate. The Ulstermen are content that the country should be
+governed, as far as religion is concerned, on modern principles--that
+is to say, in much the same way that England, Australia and New
+Zealand are governed to-day. The Nationalists, whatever they may
+say in England or the Colonies, have never in Ireland from the
+commencement of the movement attempted to deny that their object is
+to see Ireland governed on principles which are totally different
+and which the Ulstermen detest. As long ago as 1886, the _Freeman's
+Journal_, the leading Nationalist organ, said:--
+
+    "We contend that the good government of Ireland by England
+    is impossible ... the one people has not only accepted but
+    retained with inviolable constancy the Christian faith;
+    the other has not only rejected it, but has been for three
+    centuries the leader of the great apostasy, and is at this day
+    the principal obstacle to the conversion of the world."
+
+And as recently as December 1912, Professor Nolan of Maynooth,
+addressing the Roman Catholic students at the Belfast University,
+said:--
+
+    "Humanly speaking, we are on the eve of Home Rule. We shall
+    have a free hand in the future. Let us use it well. This is
+    a Catholic country, and if we do not govern it on Catholic
+    lines, according to Catholic ideals, and to safe-guard
+    Catholic interests, it will be all the worse for the country
+    and all the worse for us. We have now a momentous opportunity
+    of changing the whole course of Irish history."
+
+Then another of their papers, the _Rosary_, has said: "We have
+played the game of tolerance until the game is played out"; and has
+prophesied that under Home Rule the Church will become an irresistible
+engine before whom all opposition must go down. And whatever the
+educated laity may desire, no one who knows Ireland can doubt that
+it is the clerical faction that will be all-powerful. The leading
+ecclesiastics are trained at the Gregorian University at Rome; and
+one of the Professors at that institution, in a work published in 1901
+with the special approval of Pope Leo XIII, enunciated the doctrine
+that it is the duty of a Christian State to put to death heretics
+who have been condemned by the Ecclesiastical Court. Of course no one
+supposes that such a thing will ever take place in Ireland; but what
+the Ulstermen object to is putting themselves under the rule of
+men who have been trained in such principles and believe them to be
+approved by an infallible authority.
+
+In 1904 some foreign merchants at Barcelona wished to build a church
+for themselves. Republican feeling is so strong in the municipality
+that permission was obtained without difficulty. But the bishop
+at once protested and appealed to the King. The King wrote back a
+sympathetic letter expressing his deep regret that he was unable to
+prevent this fresh attack on the Catholic faith.
+
+We are constantly being told that the tolerance and liberality shown
+by the majority in Quebec is sufficient of itself to prove how foolish
+are the apprehensions felt by the minority in Ireland. Well, I will
+quote from a journal which cannot be accused of Protestant bias,
+the _Irish Independent_, one of the leading organs of the
+Nationalist-clerical party in Ireland:--
+
+    "(From our own Correspondent.)
+
+    "Montreal, Thursday.
+
+    "In connection with the celebration of the anniversary of
+    Wolfe's victory and death, which takes place in September,
+    prominent members of the Anglican Church have inaugurated a
+    movement for the erection of a Wolfe Memorial Chapel on
+    the Plains of Abraham. The organisers of the movement hope
+    ultimately to secure the transfer of the General's remains to
+    the chapel for interment on the scene of his victory.
+
+    "The population being largely French-Canadian Catholics, the
+    Catholic Church organ of Quebec strongly protests against
+    the erection of an Anglican chapel in the heart of a Catholic
+    district."
+
+Now if this conduct on the part of the Roman Catholic authorities is
+quite right at Barcelona and Quebec, why is it "Orange bigotry"
+to suggest that the same people may act in the same way at Cork or
+Galway?
+
+Again, in 1910, a remarkable volume was published, written by Mrs.
+Hugh Fraser, the sister of the novelist, Marion Crawford, entitled "A
+Diplomat's Wife in Many Lands." The authoress was a very able woman,
+who had travelled much and mixed in cultured society wherever she had
+been; her book was highly reviewed by various English Magazines. She
+tells the story of a child of Jewish parents living at Rome in the
+days of Pope Pius IX, who was secretly baptized in infancy by a nurse,
+and at the age of seven was forcibly taken from his parents and placed
+in a Convent School. She explains that not only was this quite right,
+but that such a course is inevitable in every country in which the
+Church has power; and that the feelings of the heretic mother whose
+child is taken from her are a fair subject of ridicule on the part of
+good Catholics. Can Irish Protestants be accused of bigotry when they
+contend that these writers mean what they say? English Nonconformists
+argue that they ought to wait until the time comes and then either
+fight or leave the country; but the Irish Protestants reply that it
+is more sensible to take steps beforehand to ward off the danger. And
+whether they are right or wrong, the fact remains that those are their
+ideas, and that is their determination; and this is the situation
+which must be faced if Home Rule is forced upon the people of Ulster.
+
+By a striking coincidence, two meetings have recently been held on the
+same day--the 16th of May 1913--which form an apt illustration of
+the position adopted by the two parties. The first was a great
+demonstration of Unionists at Belfast, organised in order to make a
+further protest against the Bill and to perfect the organisation for
+opposing it by force, if the necessity arises; the second was a large
+meeting of the United Irish League at Mullingar. The Chairman, Mr.
+Ginnell, M.P. (who has gained prominence and popularity by his skill
+in arranging cattle-drives), said that the chief cause of the pressure
+last session was to get the Home Rule Bill through its first stage. It
+was still called a Home Rule Bill, though differing widely from
+what most of them always understood by Home Rule. Deeply though he
+regretted the Bill's defects and limitations, still he thought almost
+any Parliament in Ireland was worth accepting--first, because it was
+in some sense a recognition of the right to govern themselves; and
+secondly, because even a crippled Parliament would give them fresh
+leverage for complete freedom. No one could be silly enough to suppose
+that an intelligent Ireland, having any sort of a Parliament of its
+own, would be prevented by any promise given now by place-hunters,
+from using that Parliament for true national purposes.
+
+That no army which the Ulstermen can form will be able to stand
+against British troops supported by cavalry and artillery is evident;
+but it seems almost past belief that England should be ready to
+plunge the country into civil war; or that British troops should march
+out--with bands playing "Bloody England, we hate you still," or some
+other inspiring Nationalist air--to shoot down Ulstermen who will come
+to meet them waving the Union Jack and shouting "God save the King."
+And if they do--what then? Lord Wolseley, when Commander-in-Chief in
+Ireland in 1893, pointed out the probable effect on the British Army
+in a letter to the Duke of Cambridge:--
+
+    "If ever our troops are brought into collision with the
+    loyalists of Ulster, and blood is shed, it will shake the
+    whole foundations upon which our army rests to such an extent
+    that I feel that our Army will never be the same again. Many
+    officers will resign to join Ulster, and there will be such
+    a host of retired officers in the Ulster ranks that men who
+    would stand by the Government no matter what it did, will be
+    worse than half-hearted in all they do. No army could stand
+    such a strain upon it."
+
+And then England, having crushed her natural allies in Ulster, will
+hand over the Government of Ireland to a party whose avowed object
+is to break up the Empire and form a separate Republic. Dangers and
+difficulties arose even when the independent legislature of Ireland
+was in the hands of men who were loyal and patriotic in the noblest
+sense of the term, and when there were in every district a certain
+number of educated gentlemen of position who (as we have seen) were
+always ready to risk their lives and fortunes for the defence of the
+realm; what will happen when the loyal minority have been shot down,
+driven out of the country, or forced into bitter hostility to the
+Government who have betrayed and deserted them? As Lecky wrote years
+ago:--
+
+    "It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the danger
+    that would arise if the vast moral legislative, and even
+    administrative powers which every separate legislature must
+    necessarily possess, were exercised in any near and vital
+    part of the British Empire, by men who were disloyal to its
+    interests. To place the government of a country by a voluntary
+    and deliberate act in the hands of dishonest and disloyal men,
+    is perhaps the greatest crime that a public man can commit:
+    a crime which, in proportion to the strength and soundness of
+    national morality, must consign those who are guilty of it to
+    undying infamy."
+
+If English people are so blind that they cannot perceive this,
+foreigners, whose vision is clearer, have warned them. Bismarck said
+that England, by granting Home Rule to Ireland, would dig its own
+grave; and Admiral Mahan has recently written:--
+
+    "It is impossible for a military man or a statesman to look
+    at the map and not perceive that the ambition of the Irish
+    separatists, if realised, would be even more threatening to
+    the national life of Great Britain than the secession of the
+    South was to the American Union.
+
+    "The legislative supremacy of the British Parliament against
+    the assertion of which the American Colonists revolted
+    and which to-day would be found intolerable in Canada and
+    Australia cannot be yielded in the case of an island, where
+    independent action might very well be attended with fatal
+    consequences to its partner. The instrument for such action,
+    in the shape of an independent Parliament, could not be safely
+    trusted even to avowed friends."
+
+So then, having reviewed the evidence as calmly and dispassionately as
+I can, I answer the two questions which I propounded at the outset of
+the enquiry--That the real objects of the Nationalists are the
+total separation of Ireland from England and the establishment of an
+Independent Republic; and that the men of Ulster in resisting them
+to the uttermost are not merely justified on the ground of
+self-preservation, but are in reality fighting for the cause of the
+Empire.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+The following Report of the Annual Pilgrimage in memory of Wolfe Tone,
+which took place on the 22nd of June last, and the article in the
+_Leinster Leader_ (a prominent Nationalist journal) will show how
+closely the Nationalists of to-day follow in the footsteps of Wolfe
+Tone.
+
+
+THE MEMORY OF WOLFE TONE.
+
+ANNUAL PILGRIMAGE TO BODENSTOWN.
+
+(_From our Reporter_.)
+
+On Sunday last the annual pilgrimage to the grave of Theobald Wolfe
+Tone took place to Bodenstown churchyard. This year the numbers who
+attended exceeded those of last year, about a thousand coming from
+Dublin and another contingent from Tullamore, Clare, and Athlone. The
+procession formed outside Sallins station was a most imposing one,
+being made up of St. James' Brass Band and the Lorcan O'Toole Pipers'
+Band and the Athlone Pipers' Band, the National Boy Scouts, the
+Daughters of Erin, and members of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Clubs.
+
+At the graveside demonstration, Mr. Thos. J. Clarke presided and said
+it was a gratifying thing that numbers of their fellow-countrymen were
+to-day swinging back to the old fighting line and taking pride in the
+old Fenian principles. He introduced Mr. P.H. Pearse, B.A.
+
+Mr. Pearse then came forward and delivered an eloquent and impressive
+oration, first speaking in Irish. Speaking in English, he said they
+had come to the holiest place in Ireland, holier to them than that
+sacred spot where Patrick sleeps in Down. Patrick brought them life,
+but Wolfe Tone died for them. Though many had testified in death
+to the truth of Ireland's claim to Nationhood, Wolfe Tone was the
+greatest of all that had made that testimony; he was the greatest of
+Ireland's dead. They stood in the holiest place in Ireland, for what
+spot of the Nation's soil could be holier than the spot in which the
+greatest of her dead lay buried. He found it difficult to speak in
+that place, and he knew they all partook of his emotion. There were
+no strangers there for they were all in a sense own brothers to Tone
+(hear, hear). They shared his faith, his hope still unrealised and
+his great love. They had come there that day not merely to salute this
+noble dust and to pay their homage to the noble spirit of Tone, but
+to renew their adhesion to the faith of Tone and to express their
+full acceptance of the gospel of which Tone had given such a clear
+definition. That gospel had been taught before him by English-speaking
+men, uttered half-articulately by Shan O'Neill, expressed in some
+passionate metaphor by Geoffrey Keating, and hinted at by Swift in
+some bitter jibe, but it was stated definitely and emphatically by
+Wolfe Tone and it did not need to be ever again stated anew for any
+new generation. Tone was great in mind, but he was still greater in
+spirit. He had the clear vision of the prophet; he saw things as they
+were and saw things as they would be. They owed more to this dead man
+than they should be ever able to repay him by making pilgrimages to
+his grave or building the stateliest monuments in the streets of
+his city. They owed it to him that there was such a thing as Irish
+Nationalism; to his memory and the memory of '98 they owed it that
+there was any manhood left in Ireland (hear, hear). The soul of
+Wolfe Tone was like a burning flame, a flame so pure, so ardent, so
+generous, that to come into communion with it was as a new optimism
+and regeneration. Let them try in some way to get into contact with
+the spirit of Tone and possess themselves of its ardour. If they could
+do that it would be a good thing for them and their country, because
+they would carry away with them a new life from that place of death
+and there would be a new resurrection of patriotic grace in their
+souls (hear, hear). Let them think of Tone; think of his boyhood
+and young manhood in Dublin and in Kildare; think of his adventurous
+spirit and plans, think of his glorious failure at the bar, and his
+healthy contempt for what he called a foolish wig and gown, think how
+the call of Ireland came to him; think how he obeyed that call; think
+how he put virility into the Catholic movement; think how this heretic
+toiled to make freemen of Catholic helots (applause). Think how he
+grew to love the real and historic Irish nation, and then there came
+to him that clear conception that there must be in Ireland not three
+nations but one; that Protestant and Dissenter must close in amity
+with Catholic, and Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter must unite to
+achieve freedom for all (applause). Let them consider the sacrifices
+Tone had made; he had to leave so much. Never was there a man who was
+so richly endowed as he was, he had so much love in his warm heart. He
+(speaker) would rather have known Tone than any other man of whom he
+ever read or heard. He never read of any one man who had more in him
+of the heroic stuff than Tone had; how gaily and gallantly he had set
+about the doing of a mighty thing. He (speaker) had always loved the
+very name of Thomas Russell because Tone so loved him. To be Tone's
+friend! What a privilege! for Tone had for his friends an immense
+love, an immense charity. He had such love for his wife and children!
+But such was the destiny of the heroes of their nation; they had
+to stifle in their hearts all that love and that sweet music and to
+follow only the faint voice that called them to the battlefield or to
+the harder death at the foot of the gibbet. Tone heard that voice and
+obeyed it and from his grave to-day he was calling on them and they
+were there to answer his voice; and they pledged themselves to
+carry out his programme to abolish the connection with England,
+the never-failing source of political evils and to establish
+the independence of their country, to abolish the memory of past
+dissensions, and to replace for the denominations of Protestant,
+Catholic and Dissenter, the common name of Irishman (applause).
+In that programme was to be found the whole philosophy of Irish
+Nationality; that programme included the philosophy of the Gaelic
+League and of later prophets, and it was to that programme they
+pledged their adhesion; they pledged it now at the graveside of Tone;
+they pledged themselves to follow in the steps of Tone, never to rest
+by day or night until this be accomplished, until Ireland be free
+(applause); fighting on, not in despondency, but in great joy as Tone
+fought; prizing it above all privileges, and hoping for the victory in
+their own day. And if it should be granted to them in this generation
+to complete the work that Tone's generation left unaccomplished! But
+if that was not their destiny, they should fight on still, hoping
+still, self-sacrificing still, knowing as they must know that causes
+like this did not lose for ever, and that men like Tone did not die in
+vain (applause).
+
+The address having concluded, wreaths were placed on the grave by the
+National Boy Scouts and the Inghanite Na h-Eireann.
+
+During the afternoon an aeridheacht was held in an adjoining field at
+which music, songs and recitations were contributed, and a thoroughly
+enjoyable Irish-Ireland evening was spent.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE GRAVE OF WOLFE TONE.
+
+
+The lifework of Theobald Wolfe Tone, for the subversion of English
+Government in Ireland, and the supreme sacrifice he made in the mighty
+effort to erect in its stead an independent Ireland free from all
+foreign denomination and control, was fittingly commemorated on Sunday
+last, when the annual pilgrimage took place to Bodenstown Churchyard,
+where all that is mortal of the great patriot lie buried. The
+pilgrimage this year was worthy of the cause and the man, and afforded
+some object lessons in what might be accomplished by a cultivation of
+those principles of discipline and devotion to duty, in the pursuit
+of a glorious ideal, which Tone taught and adhered to throughout his
+adventurous and brilliant career. The well-ordered procession,
+the ready obedience to the commands of the marshals, the intense
+earnestness of the multitude, and the display made by the youths--the
+national boy scouts--their military bearing, and the bands and banners
+which interspersed the procession as it marched from Sallins to
+Bodenstown was a spectacle which pleased the eye and stirred the
+emotions. Everything in connection with the pilgrimage was carried out
+with a close attention to detail, and military-like precision which
+must have been very acceptable to the great patriot in whose honour
+it was organised, were he but permitted to gaze from the great Unknown
+upon this practical demonstration of the perpetuation of the spirit
+which animated him and his time, in the struggle against English
+misrule, and the love and veneration in which he is still held, after
+the lapse of the century and more that has passed since he made the
+final sacrifice of his life in the cause of freedom. Tone done to
+death did not die in vain. The truth of this was evident in the
+character of the pilgrimage on Sunday last, when all that is best and
+purest in patriotism in the land assembled at his graveside, to renew
+fealty to the aims and ideals for which he suffered and died, and to
+hear the gospel of Irish nationality preached and expounded as he knew
+and inculcated it in his day. A fusion of forces, and the cultivation
+of a spirit and bond of brotherhood and friendship amongst Irishmen
+in the common cause, were his methods to attain the great ideal of
+a separate and distinct nationality, for then, as to-day, the chief
+obstacle to freedom and nationhood was not so much English domination
+in itself, as want of cohesion, faction, and the disruption caused
+by alien traditions and teachings. This was the prevailing spirit of
+Sunday's commemoration, and as the great mass of people filed past in
+orderly array and knelt, prayed, and laid wreaths on the lonely grave,
+the solemnity and impressiveness of the occasion was intensified.
+In the suppressed murmurs, and silent gaze on the tomb of the mighty
+dead, one could recognise the eagerness and the hope for another Tone
+to arise to complete the work which he promoted, and vindicate the
+purity of the motives which moved men like the leaders of '98 to do
+and dare for all, and to "substitute the common name of Irishman
+for Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter." The promoters, too, were
+fortunate in their choice of orator for the occasion. Mr. P.H. Pearse
+did full justice to the occasion, and in language, beautiful and
+impressive, pictured the man and his movements and the lessons to be
+drawn by us to-day from the lifework of leaders in thought and action
+like Tone. Close and consistent adhesion to principles of patriotism
+and a readiness of self-sacrifice in the pursuit of those principles,
+were his distinguishing characteristics all through life, and if we in
+our time would emulate the example of Tone and his times, we must also
+be ready when the call came to meet any demand made upon us for the
+promotion of our national welfare. The orator of the day rightly, in
+our opinion, described that hallowed spot in Bodenstown as one of the
+holiest places in Ireland to-day, from the nationalist standpoint,
+holding as it does the ashes of the man who, without friends, money or
+influence to help him, and by sheer force of character, intensity of
+purpose and earnestness, prevailed upon the greatest emperor-general
+the world has ever seen Napoleon Bonaparte, to make a descent on
+Ireland, in order to aid our starved, tortured, and persecuted people
+to shake off the shackles that kept them in slavery, and elevate
+Ireland once more to the dignity of full, free, and untrammelled
+nationhood. We are all familiar with the events following this great
+effort of Tone's, and the dark chapters that closed a glorious career.
+All that is mortal of Tone is in the keeping of Kildare, and it is
+a trust that we feel sure is not alone felt to be a high honour,
+but which cannot fail to keep the cultivation of a high standard of
+nationality before the people in whose midst repose the remains of one
+of Ireland's greatest sons. Ireland, from the centre to the sea,
+was represented in Sunday's great gathering to commemorate the
+achievements of Wolfe Tone, and the occasion was honoured first by
+the large and representative character of the throng, secondly by the
+decorum observed all through the day's proceedings, and thirdly, by
+the regularity and precision which attended the entire arrangements.
+There was just one other feature which must have been very gratifying
+to those identified with the organisation of the pilgrimage,
+namely: the large proportion of ladies and young people, coming long
+distances, who made up the gathering. And they were by no means the
+least enthusiastic of the throng. This enthusiasm amongst our young
+people is one of the most encouraging and promising signs of the
+times, serving as it does to demonstrate the undying spirit of Irish
+nationality, and the perpetuation of those principles to which Tone
+devoted his time, talents, and eventually made the supreme sacrifice
+of his life in having inculcated amongst his people. It is a glorious
+legacy, and one that has ever been cherished with veneration for the
+men who left it. He died a martyr to the cause he espoused, but his
+memory and the cause live. The living blaze he and his co-workers, in
+the cause of Irish freedom, kindled has never been completely stamped
+out, and it still smoulders, and has occasionally burst into flame
+only to be temporarily extinguished in the blood and tears of our
+bravest and best who never forgot the teachings of Tone. And now, when
+the sky is bright once more, and every circumstance portends the dawn
+of a new era, full of hope and promise for the ultimate realisation
+of those ideals for which thousands of our race have sacrificed their
+lives, the spark of nationality which, even since Tone's death, has
+repeatedly leaped into flame, still glows fitfully to remind us that
+come what may it remains undying and unquenchable, a beacon to light
+us on the path to freedom should disappointment and dashed hopes again
+darken the outlook.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abjuration, oath of, 51.
+  Absentees, 65, 138, 139.
+  Acton, Lord, 37.
+  Adrian, Pope, 13.
+  Agrarian outrages, 152, 196-202, 210-215.
+  Agriculture, Department of, 161, 163.
+  Alexander, Pope, 14.
+  Alfred the Great, 9.
+  American War of Independence, 63, 72, 73, 83.
+  Anglican Church in Ireland, 27, 28, 60, 143, 144, 236.
+  Anne, Queen, 63.
+  Arkins, P., 210, 211.
+  Arklow, battle of, 109.
+  Armagh, Bishop of, 7.
+  Ashbourne Act, 159.
+  Ashtown, Lord, 203, 204.
+  Asquith, Rt. Hon. H.H., 129, 207.
+  Athenry founded by Normans, 17.
+
+  Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J., 156, 160, 164.
+  Balfour, Rt. Hon. Gerald, 168.
+  Baltimore, Lord, 38.
+  Bandon, Lord, 238.
+  Bannatyne, Mr., 214.
+  Barcelona, Church at, 243, 244.
+  Belfast, growth of, 239;
+    meeting at, 245;
+    persons employed by Corporation of, 174, 175;
+    University, 176, 193, 205.
+  Berkeley, Bishop, 120.
+  Biggar, J.G., 145.
+  Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine, Chief Secretary, 160, 167, 173,
+    174, 197, 198, 200-205, 211, 216, 236.
+  Bismarck, Prince, 248.
+  Blake, W., 198.
+  "Board of Erin," 184.
+  Boers, Nationalist sympathy with, 170.
+  Borromeo, San Carlo, 54.
+  Bossuet, 54.
+  Bounties granted by Irish Parliament, 80.
+  Boy Scouts, 193.
+  Boycotting, 86, 148, 149, 153.
+  Boyne, battle of the, 48.
+  Brady, J., 145, 146.
+  Brian Boroo, 8, 9, 19.
+  Bright, John, 154, 159.
+  Brook, 57.
+  Browne estate, 168.
+  Bruce, Edward, invasion by, 19, 26, 91.
+  Bruce, King Robert, 17, 19, 26.
+  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James, Chief Secretary, 194, 195, 197.
+  Bulls, Papal, 13-15.
+  Burke, Mr., Under Secretary, murder of, 146, 153.
+  Busby, Mr., 157.
+  Butt, Isaac, advocates Home Rule, 145.
+
+  Carey, James, 145.
+  Carlow, rebellion in, 109.
+  "Carrion Crows," 202.
+  Castlebar, capture of by the French, 112.
+  Castledawson outrage, 216, 217.
+  Castlereagh, Lord, 126, 128.
+  Catholic University Medical School, 176.
+  Cattle driving, 167, 195-202.
+  Cavan, raid by septs of, 7.
+  Cavendish, murder of Lord F., 146, 153.
+  Celts, 5-14, 20, 23, 24, 31.
+  Charlemont, Lord, 93.
+  Charles I, 40-42.
+  Charles II, 44.
+  Chicago Convention, 155.
+  Childers, Erskine, 222.
+  Church, Celtic. See Celts of Ireland.
+    See Anglican Church.
+  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston, 209.
+  Clan-na-gael, 147, 185.
+  Clare, state of, in 1912, 210-214.
+  Clare, Lord, 81, 84, 85, 111.
+  Clerkenwell explosion, 143.
+  Clontarf, battle of, 9.
+  "Coalition Ministry," 208.
+  "Coigne and livery," 11.
+  College of Surgeons, Dublin, 176.
+  Condon, O'Meagher, 96, 184, 185.
+  Confiscations, 30, 42, 43, 57, 150.
+  Congested Districts Board, 164-168.
+  Connaught, Celtic raids into, 7;
+    lands in, given to rebels, 42;
+    rebellion in, 112.
+  Conolly, Mr., 215.
+  Convention in Dublin in 1909, 206, 207, 240.
+  Cooke, Mr., Under Secretary, 111.
+  Co-operative Credit Banks, 162, 163.
+  Co-operative Farming Societies, 161-163.
+  Cork, Medical School at, 176;
+    persons employed by County Council of, 175.
+  Corn Laws, repeal of the, 136.
+  Cornwallis, Lord, 123, 129.
+  County Councils, 168-178, 191, 193.
+  Covenant, Ulster. See Ulster Covenant.
+  Cowper Commission, 149.
+  Crewe, Lord, 201.
+  Crimes Act of 1887, 157, 158, 194.
+  Crimes Prevention Act, 153, 157.
+  Croke, Archbishop, 144, 156.
+  Cromwell and Cromwellians, 38, 42, 44, 57, 66, 67, 106.
+  Crosbie, Mr., 216.
+  Curley, D., 145, 146.
+
+  _Daily News_, 200.
+  Daly, J., 195.
+  Danes, 8, 9, 13.
+  Davies, Sir, J., 5.
+  Davitt, Michael, 145, 167, 238.
+  Declaratory Act of George I, 74, 229.
+  Defenders, 87.
+  Department of Agriculture, 161, 163.
+  Derry, siege of, 47.
+  Desmond rebellion, 34.
+  Devlin, J., 96, 146, 182.
+  Devoy, J., 94, 146.
+  Dicey, Professor A.V., 228.
+  Dillon, John, 97, 156, 184, 234.
+  Dillon estate, 165.
+  Disestablishment of the Irish Church, 143, 144, 236.
+  Dispensary doctors, appointment of, 176, 177.
+  District Councils, 161, 168, 178.
+  Down, Celtic raid into, 7.
+  Dublin, founded by Danes, 8, 9;
+    Bishopric of, 8, 9;
+    Henry II at, 16;
+    Simnel crowned at, 22;
+    rebellion in neighbourhood of, 104, 109;
+    Convention at, in 1909, 206, 207, 240.
+  Dudley, Lord, 166.
+  "Dynamite Party," 147.
+
+  Edward III, 20.
+  Edward VI, 29, 31.
+  Eighty Club, 162.
+  Elizabeth, Queen, 4, 27, 28, 33, 48, 91.
+  Emancipation, Roman Catholic, 134.
+  Emigration, 139, 140.
+  Emmett, R., 95, 132, 182.
+  Endowment of R.C. Church proposed, 134.
+  Ersefied Normans, 18, 20.
+  Esmonde, Dr., 105.
+  Exchequers, amalgamation of, 135.
+
+  "Fair rents," 150.
+  Famine. See Potato famine.
+  Fenianism, 142, 144, 145, 147.
+  Feudal system, 14, 26.
+  Firbolgs, 5.
+  FitzGerald rebellion, 25, 27, 31.
+  FitzGibbon, J., 167, 171.
+  Fitzpatrick, case of Mrs., 210, 211.
+  Fiudir, 11.
+  Flax. See Linen.
+  "Flight of the Earls," 36.
+  Ford, Patrick, 146, 152, 154, 155.
+  Forster, Rt. Hon. W.E., Chief Secretary, 148.
+  Foster, Speaker, 126.
+  France, persecution in, 30, 37, 38, 45-48;
+    war with, 72, 73;
+    religious thought in, 76;
+    revolution in, 87, 101, 236;
+    invasions by, 91, 92, 111, 112.
+  Franklin, Benjamin, 73.
+  Fraser, Mrs. Hugh, 244.
+  _Freeman's Journal_, 170, 241.
+  _Frontier Sentinel_, 2.
+
+  Gaelic League, 186-193.
+  Galway, founded by Normans, 17;
+    Medical School at, 176;
+    persons employed by County Council of, 175;
+    state of, in 1912, 215.
+  Games, English, forbidden, 193.
+  Gaughran, Bishop, 4.
+  Gavelkind, 11, 12.
+  General Council of County Councils, 172, 173, 186.
+  George III, 68.
+  Germany, persecution in, 37, 38;
+    Nationalist hopes of aid from, 93, 98, 99.
+  Ginnell, L., 196, 245.
+  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W.E., 6, 95, 143, 148, 150, 152-155,
+    179.
+  Grand juries, 178.
+  Grattan, 74-77, 93, 100, 120, 126.
+  "Grievances from Ireland," 203.
+  Gwynn, Stephen, 174.
+
+  Habeus Corpus, suppression of, 69.
+  Henry II, 14, 15, 20, 36.
+  Henry VII, 22.
+  Henry VIII, 24, 26, 28, 29.
+  Hibernians, Ancient Order of, 184, 216.
+  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. C.E., 208.
+  Hobson, B., 98.
+  Holland, intended invasion from, 101, 102.
+  Home Rule, 145, 155.
+  Home Rule Bill, of 1886, 154;
+    of 1893, 179, 221;
+    of 1912, 208, 218-231, 245.
+  Huguenots, 30, 45, 47, 55.
+  Hyde, Dr. Douglas, 97.
+
+  Incumbered Estates Act, 138, 150.
+  Independence of Ireland real object of Nationalists, 173,181,
+    182, 185, 186, 241, 242, 246-248.
+    And see Republic.
+  Ingram, Dr. Dunbar on the Union, 118-129.
+  Insurance Act, 1911, 185.
+  "Invincibles," the, 147.
+  Irish Agricultural Organization Society, 161, 162.
+  Irish brigade in France, 92.
+  _Irish Freedom_, 94.
+  _Irish Independent_, 243.
+  Irish language, 186-193.
+  _Irish Review_, 188.
+  Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, 145, 147.
+  "Irish services," 227.
+
+  Jacobinism, 87, 89, 101, 236.
+  James I, 38, 40.
+  James II, 43, 44, 47, 49-51.
+  Jews, persecution of the, 58.
+
+  Kabyles, 55.
+  Kenny, Mr. Justice, 197.
+  Kettle, A.J., 183.
+  Kettle, T.M., 97.
+  Kickham, 95.
+  Kildare, church burnt at, 7;
+    rebellion in, 105.
+  Kilkenny, founded by Normans, 17;
+    statutes of, 20;
+    rebellion in, 109.
+  Killala, French landing at, 111.
+  Killaloe, R.C. Bishop of, 212-214.
+  Kiltimagh case, 177.
+  King, title of, taken by Henry VIII, 27.
+  Kings, Celtic, of Ireland, 10.
+  King's County, plantation of, 29, 30;
+    persons employed by County Council of, 175.
+
+  Labourer's Cottages Act, 160, 161.
+  Lalor, J.F., 141, 142, 153, 172.
+  Land Acts from 1870 to 1887, 140, 150-152, 159.
+  Land Court, 150, 197.
+  Land League, 147, 148, 152, 181, 182.
+  Land Purchase Acts, 158, 159.
+  Land tenure, tribal, 6;
+    primogeniture, 11, 12;
+    gavelkind, 11, 12;
+    in the 18th century, 65, 66.
+  Laws of England, attempted introduction of, 18;
+    made binding in Ireland, 22.
+  Lecky, Dr. W.E.H., 41, 44, 110, 117, 130, 247.
+  _Leinster Leader_, 95, 249.
+  Leitrim, raid by septs of, 7.
+  Leo XIII, Pope, 242.
+  Light Railways Act, 160.
+  Limerick, founded by Danes, 8;
+    Scotch invasion of, 19;
+    church windows broken at, 216.
+  Linen industry, 62, 63, 238, 239.
+  Local Government Act, 1898, 168-178, 180, 240.
+  Loise, persecution in the, 28.
+  Louis XIV, 43, 45-48, 53.
+  Louis XVI, 101, 102.
+
+  MacAlpine, Kennett, 9.
+  McBride, Major, 98, 99.
+  MacDonnell, Lord, 166.
+  McKenna, Thomas, 79, 126.
+  McNicholas, Rev. J.T., 85.
+  MacSeamus, T., 188.
+  Magdeburg, sacking of, 42.
+  Magistrates, appointment of, 179, 180.
+  Magnus, Sir P., 205.
+  Mahan, Admiral, 248.
+  "Manchester Martyrs," 96-98, 144, 145, 192.
+  Maori customary claims, 39.
+  Marriage, law of R.C. Church as to, 85.
+  Maryborough, 30.
+  Maryland, 38.
+  Mayo County Council, 170.
+  Maunsell, R., 214.
+  Maynooth, foundation of, 88, 204.
+  Metropolitan Police Act, 157.
+  "Middlemen," 65.
+  _Midland Tribune_, 234.
+  Mitchell, J., 95, 97, 142.
+  "Molly Maguires," 184.
+  Morley, Rt. Hon. John, Chief Secretary, 165, 179.
+  Mountcashel, Lord, 53.
+  Munster, raid by men of, 7.
+  Murphy, Father Michael, 109.
+  Mutiny Act, 74.
+
+  Nantes, revocation of Edict of, 30, 38, 45-48.
+  Napoleon, 91.
+  "Nation," meaning of word, 222.
+  National University, 191, 192, 205, 206.
+  Nationalists, real objects of, 3, 93-99, 248.
+    And see Independence; Republic.
+  Netherlands, persecution in the, 4, 33, 34.
+  New Zealand, 39, 157, 218-220, 241.
+  Nolan, Professor, 242.
+  "No Rent" proclamation, 153, 156.
+  Normans, character of, 17;
+    adoption of Celtic customs by, 18;
+    rebellions by, 23-25, 33, 34, 36.
+
+  Oakboys, 69.
+  O'Brien, Smith, 96, 140.
+  O'Brien, William, 95.
+  O'Connell, Daniel, misstatements by, as to the Union, 116;
+    leads agitation for emancipation, 134;
+    and for repeal, 140.
+  O'Connor, T.P., 146.
+  O'Donnell, Bishop, 165.
+  O'Hara, Rev. D., 165.
+  O'Mahony, Mr., 41.
+  O'Mara, Mrs., 213.
+  O'Neill, Shan, 33, 34, 39.
+  Orange Society, foundation of, 90, 91.
+  Outrages, Agrarian. See Agrarian outrages.
+
+  Pale, the English, 20-22, 24, 25, 31.
+  Parliament, Irish, 21-24, 35, 63-65, 69-71;
+    becomes independent, 74, 77-79;
+    disqualification of votes for, abolished, 84;
+    religious test for, not abolished, 84, 87;
+    proposed reform of, 87, 88;
+    criticized, 130, 131.
+    See also Regency question.
+  Parnell, C.S., 95, 96, 145, 156, 232.
+  Parnell Commission, 147.
+  Paul III, Pope, 26.
+  Peel, Sir Robert, 122, 205.
+  "Peep of Day Boys," 87, 90.
+  Penal Laws, the, 49-58, 63, 70, 72, 79, 82, 83.
+  Persecution, 4, 23, 32, 37, 38, 40, 43, 45-48,
+    52-54, 242.
+  Philip and Mary, 29, 39.
+  Philip II of Spain, 28, 32, 33, 91.
+  Philipstown, 30.
+  "Physical Force Party," the, 147.
+  Pitt, William, commercial treaty proposed by, 78;
+    views of, on the Union, 122.
+  Pius V, Pope, 37.
+  "Plan of Campaign," the, 155.
+  "Plantations," 30, 31, 33, 38.
+  Plowden, F., 126.
+  Plunket, Lord, 132.
+  Plunkett, Rt. Hon. Sir Horace, 161.
+  Portugal, persecution in, 37, 48, 53.
+  Potato famine, 136, 137, 139.
+  Poyning's Act, 22, 74, 229.
+  Pretender, the, 50, 51.
+  Primogeniture, 11, 12.
+  Prosperous, attack on the, 105.
+  "Protestant ascendancy," 59, 101.
+  Protestant Home Rulers, 233, 234.
+  Puritans, 40, 42.
+
+  Queen's County, plantation of, 29, 30.
+  Queen's University, 205.
+  Quakers, emigration aided by, 139.
+
+  Raffeisen system, 162.
+  Rebellion of 1641, 40-42.
+  Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, 52.
+  Rebellion of 1798, rise of, in Ulster, 86, 102;
+    becomes religious, 103, 105;
+    in Leinster, 104, 105;
+    in Wexford, 105-108, 110;
+    in Kilkenny, Carlow and Wicklow, 109;
+    in Connaught, 112;
+    amnesty after, 109;
+    effects of, 114.
+  Rebellion of 1805, 132.
+  Redmond, John, 95, 146, 162, 169, 171, 174, 175, 199,
+    201, 207-209, 215.
+  Redmond, William, 107, 108.
+  Reformation, 26-28.
+  Regency question, 80-82.
+  Registration of Titles Act, 1891, 160.
+  Rent, agitation against, 148, 153, 154.
+  Repeal Association, statement by, as to Rebellion, 108.
+  "Reserved Services," 227.
+  Republic, rebels of 1798 sought to establish, 93;
+    object of Nationalists, 94-99, 147, 248.
+    And see Independence.
+  Richard II, 20.
+  Richey, Professor, 12, 13, 21, 24.
+  _Rosary, The_, 242.
+  Rosen, Conrade de, 47.
+  Ross, Mr. Justice, 168, 197.
+  Rossa, O'Donovan, 146.
+  Royal University, 205.
+  Russell, Rt. Hon. T.W., 163.
+
+  Saffron dress, 19, 192.
+  St. Vincent, Cape, 102.
+  Savoy, persecution in, 37, 45, 48, 54.
+  Salisbury, Lord, 154.
+  Scholarships, 191, 192.
+  Scotland, Norman kingdom of, 17;
+    invasion of Ireland from, 19, 33;
+    Union of, with England, 63, 119, 120.
+  Scott, Sir Walter, 237.
+  Scullabogue barn, massacre at, 110.
+  Scully, Mr., 204.
+  Settlement, Act of, 43-45.
+  Separation. See Independence;
+    Republic.
+  Sevigné, Madame de, 46, 47.
+  Simnel, Lambert, 22, 82.
+  Sinn Fein, 185, 186.
+  Slave trade, 58.
+  Smith, Adam, 120.
+  Societies, secret, 68, 69, 181.
+  Spain, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 37, 40, 48, 53, 55, 72,
+    76, 101.
+  Spenser, Edmund, 35.
+  "Steelboys," 69.
+  Sullivan, A.M., 136, 137, 140.
+  Swayne, Captain, 105.
+  Sweetman, J., 186.
+
+  Tithes, 68, 69, 134, 135.
+  Tone, Wolfe, 89, 91-97, 101, 102, 111, 112, 121, 182,
+    193, 218, 249-258.
+  Trade, restrictions on Irish, 63, 64;
+    abolition of, 74,
+  Tribal tenure of land, 6.
+  Trinity College, Dublin, 70, 176.
+  Tyrconnell, flight of Earl of, 36.
+  Tyrone, raid by men of, 7.
+  Tyrone, flight of Earl of, 36.
+  Tyrrell, Father, 5.
+
+  Ulster Covenant, 1, 235.
+  Ulster, Scotch invasion of, 19, 33;
+    plantation of, 39;
+    rebellion of 1641 in, 41;
+    volunteer movement in, 72, 102, 237;
+    rebellion of 1798 in, 86, 102.
+  Union, suggested in time of Queen Anne, 63;
+    necessity of, seen by Pitt, 78;
+    became probable in 1797, 100;
+    rebellion made inevitable, 115;
+    mis-statements as to, 116;
+    feelings of people as to, 117, 118;
+    previous efforts towards, 119;
+    really caused by Parliament becoming independent, 120-123;
+    proposed, 123;
+    discussed, 124;
+    approved by R.C. Church, 125;
+    carried, 126;
+    charges of bribery concerning, 127-129;
+    cannot now be reversed, 130;
+    prosperity of Ireland after, 133.
+  United Irish League, 163, 166, 167, 171, 180-183, 203, 235,
+    245.
+  United Irish Society, 87, 88, 91.
+  Universities. See Trinity College, Dublin;
+    Queen's University;
+    Royal University;
+    Belfast University;
+    National University.
+    University College, Cork, 205;
+    Galway, 205.
+
+  Victoria, Queen, 39.
+  Vinegar Hill, massacre at, 105-107.
+  Volunteer movement, 72, 102, 237.
+
+  Waitangi, Treaty of, 39.
+  Waldenses, persecution of, 43, 53.
+  Walsh, T., 195.
+  Waterford, founded by Danes, 8;
+    Henry II lands at, 16.
+  Waterford Corporation and Mr. Scully, 204.
+  Westmeath, persons employed by County Council of, 175.
+  Wexford, raid by men of, 7;
+    landing of Spaniards at, 34;
+    rebellion in, 105-107, 110;
+    monuments of rebels in, 108.
+  White, P., 195.
+  Whiteboys, 69.
+  William III, 47.
+  Wolfe, memorial to General, 243, 244.
+  Wolseley, letter from Lord, 246.
+  Wright, Mr. Justice, 182.
+  Wyndham Act, 159.
+
+
+
+_Sherratt and Hughes, Printers, London and Manchester._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Is Ulster Right?, by Anonymous
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13157 ***