Kitabı oku: «Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule», sayfa 42

These gentlemen must have a wonderful opinion of the gullibility of the great Saxon race. But as they see a certain portion believe in Mr. Gladstone they may expect them to believe in anything. To swallow the G.O.M. plus Harcourt, Healy, Conybeare, Cobb, O'Brien, and the Home Rule Bill is indeed a wonderful feat of deglutition.

Raphoe, (Co. Donegal), July 25th.

No. 53. – WHAT THEY THINK IN COUNTY DONEGAL

The Stranorlar people can be excessively funny. In a well-known public resort yesterday I witnessed a specimen of their sportive style. A young fellow was complaining that the examining doctor of some recruiting station had refused him "by raison of my feet."

"I heerd tell they wouldn't take men wid more than fifteen inches of foot on thim," remarked a bystander. "The Queen couldn't shtand the expinse at all at all in leather."

"Arrah, now, will ye be aisy," said another. "Sure, Micky isn't all out so bad as Tim Gallagher over there beyant, that has to get up an' go downstairs afore he can tur-rn round in bed. An' all on account iv the size iv his feet. 'Tis thrue what I spake, divil a lie I tell ye. The boy has to get up and go down shtairs, an' go into the sthreet, an' come up the other way afore he can tur-rn round, the crathur."

"Hould yer whist, now, till I tell ye," said another. "Ye know Kerrigan's whiskey-shop. Well, one day Kerrigan was standin' chattin' wid his wife, when the shop-windy all at once wint dark, an' Kerrigan roars out, 'What for are ye puttin' up the shutters so airly?' says he. An' faix, 'twas no wondher ye'd think it, for ould Hennessy of Ballybofey had fallen down in the street, an' it was the two good-lookin' feet of him stickin' up that was darkenin' the shop. Ax Kerrigan himself av it wasn't."

A roar of laughter followed this sally, and the rejected recruit was comforted.

Stranorlar is pleasantly situated on the river Finn, in a fertile valley surrounded by an amphitheatre of green hills, beyond which may in some direction be seen the more imposing summits of the Donegal highlands. The walk to Meenglas, Lord Lifford's Irish residence, would be considered of wonderful beauty if its extensive views were visible anywhere near Birmingham; but in Ireland, where lovely scenery is so uncommonly common, you hardly give it a second glance. The tenantry are mostly Nationalist, if they can be said to be anything at all. They one and all speak highly of Lord Lifford, whose kindness and long-suffering are administered con amore by genial Captain Baillie. They have no opinions on Home Rule or, indeed, on any other political subject, and will agree with anything the stranger may wish. Whatever you profess as your own opinion is certain to be theirs, and like Artemus Ward they might conclude their letters with "I don't know what your politics are, but I agree with them." Every man Jack of the Catholic peasantry votes as he is told by his priest, and no amount of argument, no amount of most convincing logic, no earthly power could make him do otherwise. He will agree with you, will swear all you say, will go further than you go yourself, will clinch every argument you offer in the most enthusiastic way. Then he will vote in the opposite direction. He thinks that in voting against the priest he would be voting against God, and his religion compels him to conscientiously vote against his conscience, if any. A burning and shining light among the Home Rulers of Stranorlar having been indicated, I contrived to meet him accidentally as it were, and after some preliminary remarks of a casual nature my friend informed me that he was agin Home Rule, as, in his opinion, it would desthroy the counthry; that the farmers believed they would get the land for nothing, and that they were told this by "priests and lawyers;" that he believed this to be a delusion from which the people would have a dreadful awakening; that Protestants were better off, cleaner, honester than Catholics; that they were much more industrious and far better farmers, and so forth, and so forth. This man is a red hot Nationalist, and was under the impression he was "having his leg pulled," hence his accommodating speech. When taxed with flagrant insincerity he only smiled, and tacitly admitted the soft impeachment. Farmers you meet in rural lanes will profess earnest Unionism, but – find out their religion – you need ask no more. Whatever they may say, whatever their alleged opinions may be, matters not a straw. They must and will vote as the priest tells them. So that the last franchise Act endows every priest with a thousand votes or so. Will anybody attempt to disprove this? Will any living Irishman venture to contradict this statement? The fact being admitted, Englishmen may be trusted to see its effect. Is there any class or trading interest which would be by working men entrusted with such enormous power? And these thousand-vote priests are unfriendly to England, as is proved by their own utterances and by innumerable overt acts. All of which merits consideration.

The Stranorlar folks are warm politicians. At the present moment feeling runs particularly high, on account of the riot on King William's Day, to wit, July twelfth. Two Orangemen were returning from Castlefinn, a few miles away, where a demonstration had taken place, and passing through Stranorlar, accompanied by their sisters, they were set upon by the populace, and brutally maltreated. Several shots were fired, and some of the rioters were slightly wounded or rather grazed by snipe shot, but not so seriously as to stop their daily avocations. The Catholic party allege that the Orangemen assaulted the village in general, firing without provocation. The Protestant party say that this is absurd, and that it is not yet known who fired the shots. A second case, less serious, is also on the carpet. A solitary Orangeman returning from the same celebration is said to have been waylaid, beaten, and robbed by a number of men who went two miles to meet with him. This also is claimed as Orange rowdyism.

A Protestant handicraftsman said: – "If we had a Catholic Parliament in Dublin we should not be able to put our head out of doors. Those who in England say otherwise are very ignorant. I have no patience with them. Only the other day I heard an Englishman who had been in the country six hours, all of which he had spent in a railway train, arguing against an Irish gentleman who has spent all his life in the country. 'Give 'em their civil rights,' says this English fellow. He could say nothing else. Give 'em their civil rights,' says he. 'What civil rights are they deprived of?' says the other. 'Give 'em their civil rights,' says he. That was all he could say. He was for all the world like a poll-parrot. He was one of these well-fed fellows, with about three inches of fat on his ribs and three inches of bone in his skull, and a power of sinse outside his head. He turned round on me and asked me to agree with him. When I didn't he insulted me. 'I see by your hands,' says he, 'that you've been working with them, and not with your brains,' says he. Well, he was a man with a gray beard, but not a sign of gray hair on his head, so says I, 'Your beard,' says I, 'is twenty-five years younger than the rest of your hair, and it looks twenty-five years older.' I see,' says I, 'that you have been working with your jaws and not with your brains.' That made him vexed. He didn't know what to say next, and 'twas well for him. He was too ignorant for this counthry, though he might do very well for them places where they vote for such men as Harcourt or the like of him.

"The people of these parts are skinned alive by their religion. Not a hand's turn can be done without money. Money for christening, for confession, for everything from the cradle to the grave. And when they're dead the poor folks are still ruining the counthry, for their relatives run up and down begging money to get their souls out of purgatory. I have no objection to that; let them do it if they like, but let them not say they are poor because of England. The more money they pay the sooner their father's or mother's soul is out of torment. Of course they spend all they have. I was speaking with a priest lately, and I said, 'Suppose I fell into Finn-water, and a man who saw me drowning said, "I'll pull ye out for half-a-crown or a sovereign," what would ye think of him?' Says the priest, 'I'd think him a brute and a heathen.' 'But suppose, instead of Finn-water it was purgatory I was in, and the priest said, "I'll pull ye out for five pounds," what about him?' 'Good morning to ye,' says the sogarth aroon (dear priest). There was no answer for me."

Another Stranorlar man said: – "When the bill passed the second reading, there was not a hill round about, for many a mile, without a blazing tar-barrel on it, and the houses were lit up till ye'd think the places were on fire. The people were rejoicing for they knew not what. Says one to me, 'Ye can pack up yer clothes,' says he. They think they will now get rid of the English, and have things all their own way. That's their general idea. All their rejoicing passed off without a word of dissent from any Unionist. But if we rejoiced – ! Suppose the bill were thrown out, and we lit a tar-barrel. We'd be stoned, and, if possible, swept off the very face of the earth. On St. Patrick's Day, March 17, they march over the place, flags flying, drums beating, bands playing, and nobody says a word against it. But if we started an Orange procession on July 12 in Stranorlar, we'd be knocked into smithereens. And yet in the town we are about half-and-half. Of course, when you get out into the wild districts the Romanists greatly outnumber us. The plea of reduction of rent being required is very absurd when you come to examine the matter. Many of them pay three or four pounds a year only. What reduction on that sum would do them any real good?"

A land agent of Donegal showed me one page of a rent book, that I might bear witness to indisputable facts. There were twenty-one annual rents on the page, and eleven of them were under two pounds – most of them, in fact, were under thirty shillings. One man held thirty-three acres for thirty-three shillings per annum. He had paid no rent for two years. Another estate in Donegal has two thousand tenants for a total rent of £2,800. The agent has to look after all these "farmers" – to conciliate, threaten, soother, bully, beg, pray, promise, cajole, hunt, treat, fight, curse, and comether the whole two thousand a whole year for, and in consideration of, the princely sum of a hundred and forty pounds. Many of the farmers have the privilege of selling turf enough to clear the rent several times over, and of course every man can shoot at the agent as much as he chooses, his sport in this direction being only limited by his supply of ammunition. Of late their powder has given out. Could not something be done for these deserving men?

A superior Home Ruler, one of those honest visionaries sometimes met in Ireland, said: – "For my own part, I confess that I aspire to complete independence. Then, and not till then, would the two countries be friendly. We in Ulster are ten times more patriotic than Irishmen elsewhere, for it is in Ulster that we have been most deeply wronged. The Hamiltons of Abercorn planted the country round here with Scotch settlers, and various agencies between 1688 and 1715 are said to have brought over more than fifty thousand Scottish families to Ulster, which was already populated to its utmost extent. The Irish were dispossessed, kicked out, and they have been out ever since. The Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel took flight to save their heads, and six counties were declared confiscated – Londonderry, Donegal, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Armagh. These were all 'planted' with English and Scotch colonists. The land was given to certain favourites by the English Government, which at that time was the stronger, and has remained so ever since When we ask for our own again you cry out 'Robbery, robbery!' We are the people to say 'Stop thief!' You say the owners of the land rebelled, and their property was rightly confiscated. We say they had a right to rebel, and that rebellion was an honourable action. You took the country at first by force and fraud. We have, and always had, a right to regain what belongs to us, by any means in our power. We have never expressed affection for the English Crown. We have never affected loyalty. We have been open, honourable enemies, and have always said we were biding our time. We are accused of fraud, of duplicity. Never was any accusation so ill-founded. I can refer to a hundred, aye, to a thousand utterances of my countrymen which clearly set forth the sentiments which animate every single individual Irishman. These settlers are not Irishmen. Their best friends would never claim for them Irish nationality. Most of them came from the South-west of Scotland, where the most rigid and bigoted Presbyterianism flourished. Their creed, as well as ours, forbade any intermarrying. Separate they were, and separate they remain. You might as well try to mix dogs and cats. And the attitude of the two races is mutually antagonistic – exactly like dogs and cats. They have led a dog and cat life from the first, and if the Scots have thriven while the Kelts have made little progress, it is because the Scots have been favoured by the English Government, which is composed of Teutons like themselves. Let the Scots stick to England. It suits them, it does not suit us. The Welsh don't like you either, but they have not the pluck to spit it out. They will tell Irishmen what they think, and it is not flattering to England. They are quite as bitter as Irishmen, and, like them, look on England as the biggest humbug, hypocrite, and robber in the world. I never heard a Welshman speak well of England, and I have spoken with scores of them. Now, we have a religious difference with England, which Taffy has not.

"We claim that our nation is more talented than stupid England, more sparkling, more brilliant. But we also say that as we are more sentimental, and as sentiment is to us a matter of life and death, we cannot develop our industries, we cannot do ourselves justice, while subjugated by England. Freedom is our watchword. We want an army, a navy, a diplomacy of our own. We do not admit that England has any right to control our action, and we defy any man to prove that any country has a right to dictate our laws. Independence must come in the long run. Everything is tending in that direction. We may not get Home Rule at present, but we shall get it. Then we shall be able to report progress. I believe that the material prosperity of this country will increase by leaps and bounds in exact proportion to the loosening of Saxon restraint, and freedom from selfish English interference. Our trade has been deliberately strangled, our manufactures deliberately ruined, by English influence on behalf of English interests. Then you ask us to believe that we have benefited by our union with England! We do not believe it. England has been the greatest modern curse, spreading her octopus arms over every weak country in the world. She goes to make money, and says she only wishes to push forward civilisation. Read Labouchere's opinion of England, and you will see what she is – a greedy, whining hypocrite. She holds India by fear, at the point of the bayonet – all for greed. Then her speakers get up on their philanthropic platforms, and after shooting a few thousand niggers and poisoning off the rest with rum, they say that such and such a country is now under the blessed rule of England, which is established merely for the propagation of the truth as it is in Jesus. You make out that your rum, rifles, and missionaries are only instruments in the hands of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Away with such hypocrisy! England is a big bully, crushing the weak and truckling to the strong – truckling to the weak, even, when fairly taken to. Look at the Transvaal. When I see what a handful of Dutch farmers did with your grand army – when I see how a country with less than a quarter of the population of Ireland freed itself and knocked your bold army into a cocked hat, I am ashamed to be an Irishman submitting to foreign rule. You will at any rate see why we Irishmen in Ulster are even more rebellious than our southern countrymen. It is because these devilish plantations were in the North, and because we are outnumbered in the North by men who are really foreigners. Let them be loyal. No doubt it suits them best. But we will only be loyal to our country, which is Ireland, not England. And if these Scots, wrongly called Ulstermen, don't like the new arrangement, they can leave the country. No obstacle will be placed in the way of their departure. That I can promise you. They will leave the land, I suppose? That being so, we can spare the settlers. And as they got the land for nothing, they must be content to part with it on the same terms. Now you understand the No Rent cry. Now you understand the No Landlord cry. The land was stolen from the people, and the people carefully remember the fact. You hear Nationalists speaking ill of the Irish members. The members have done well for us. They have done grandly. Fourscore Irishmen have conquered the British Empire, and without firing a shot. That after all beats the record of the Boers, but they got complete independence. We are not yet there; but it will come, it will come."

An equally intelligent Unionist, who bore a Scottish name, said: – "Does it suit England to throw us overboard? Because that means the giving up of the country. You can't hold Ireland without a friend in it. Twice the Protestant population have saved it for you. Its geographical position forbids you to give it up. That would ruin you at once. And yet immediate separation would be far better than a wasting agitation. Better plunge over a precipice than be bled to death. Better blow out your brains than be roasted at a slow fire. England is being kicked to death by spiders. And all in the interests of Rome. If the people here had any opinions I would not say a word against anything they might do, but they have none at all. They show their teeth because they are told to do so. All the disturbances which disgrace the country are excited by the priests, who pretend to disapprove of them, but who secretly approve. For the priests have the people thoroughly in hand, and whatever they really disapprove they can stop in one moment.

"There is an organised clerical conspiracy to resist the law and to keep the agitation on foot, with the object of obtaining a complete Catholic ascendency. They bleed the poor people to death with their exactions, and the number of new buildings they have lately erected in Ireland almost exceeds belief. We have a splendid new Romanist Church in this little place. Well may the people say they can't pay rent. When Cardinal Logue's father died there was a collection for the general Church which realised more than eight hundred pounds. When a priest dies or when a priest's relative dies there is always a collection for the cause. Eight hundred pounds out of the starving peasantry of Donegal, for whose relief the English are always collecting money! Cardinal Logue's father was Lord Leitrim's coachman, and was on the spot when my lord was shot. The horse fell lame at the right moment. Curious coincidence – very. This Home Rule farce is growing rather stale. Cannot the English see that it is urged by a set of thieves and traitors? Cannot they see that brains and property are everywhere against it? And Gladstone's speeches show such ignorance of the subject that no Irishman can read or listen with common patience. To judge from his Irish orations I should say that he is not fit to be Prime Minister to a Parliament of idiots. What do you think?"

I was sorry to dissent, but I said that to the best of my knowledge and belief Mr. Gladstone was of all men best fitted for such a post.

Stranorlar (Co. Donegal), July 27th.