Home Rule Part 3

[18] See Appendix B.

[19] The most trustworthy thermometer of Irish trade is to be found in the volume now yearly issued by the Irish Government--the Report on the Trade in Imports and Exports at Irish Ports. In the absence of Irish Customs there must be some uncertainty in the tests, but the Government figures are collected from the "manifests" of exporters and importers.

(The latest report comes up to the 31st December, 1910. Cd. 5965.)

[20] The growth of Irish trade since 1900 can be seen at a glance in the following table (including exports and imports):--

1904 103,790,799 1905 106,973,043 1906 113,208,940 1907 120,572,755 1908 116,120,618 1909 124,725,895 1910 130,888,732

[21] The export of manufactured goods increased from 20,000,000 in 1906 to 26,000,000 in 1910. Those goods consisted mostly of linen and ships from Belfast. The export of farm stuffs increased from 31,000,000 in 1905 to 35,000,000 in 1910.

[22] Ireland now exports into England three times as much live stock as any other country. She imports more potatoes and poultry than any other. She also stands in b.u.t.ter only second to Denmark, in eggs only second to Russia, and in bacon and hams only third to the United States and Denmark (Cd. 5966).

[23] "Local authorities are more exposed to the temptation of enabling the majority to be unjust to the minority when they obtain jurisdiction over a small area, than is the case when the authority derives its sanction and extends its jurisdiction over a wider area. In a large central authority the wisdom of several parts of the country will correct the folly and mistakes of one. In a local authority that correction is to a much greater extent wanting, and it would be impossible to leave that out of sight in any extension of any such local authority in Ireland."--Lord Salisbury (1885).

[24] Proposing to buy out the Irish landlords at an estimated cost of 100,000,000.

[25] See Appendix D for a summary of the 1893 Home Rule Bill.

[26] It was named by Mr. s.e.xton the "Put 'em in the dock Bill," and that phrase practically killed it.

[27] See the Local Government Board Reports _pa.s.sim_:--

"Before concluding our reference to the Local Government Act we may be permitted to observe that the predictions of those who affirmed that the new local bodies entrusted with the administration of a complex system of County Government would inevitably break down have certainly not been verified. On the contrary, the County and District Councils have, with few exceptions, properly discharged the statutory duties devolving upon them. Instances have, no doubt, occurred in which these bodies have, owing to inexperience and to an inadequate staff, found themselves in difficulties and have had to receive some special a.s.sistance from us in regulating their affairs; but this has been of rare occurrence." (Annual Report of the Irish Local Government Board for year ending March, 1900.)

"In no other matter have the Councils been more successful than in their financial administration. After the heavy preliminary expenses necessarily attending the introduction of a new system of local government had been provided for, and the Councils and their officers had succeeded in obtaining a satisfactory basis on which to make their estimates of future expenditure, they found it possible to effect considerable reductions in their rates, and there seems to be every reason to antic.i.p.ate that, with extended experience, there will be a still further general reduction of county rates." (Annual Report of the Irish Local Government Board for year ending March, 1902.)

Our impression as travellers was that the Irish County Councils do not yet spend enough money on their roads.

THE HOME RULE CASE

THE CASE THAT HAS CHANGED--(CONTINUED)

i.--THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS ii.--THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE iii.--OLD-AGE PENSIONS iv.--THE UNIVERSITIES

"Although while I live I shall oppose separation, yet it is my opinion that continuing the Legislative Union must endanger the connection."

O'CONNELL (1834).

CHAPTER III.

THE HOME RULE CASE

But Land Purchase and County Councils are only part of the great change that has come over Ireland since 1893.

There are other great transformations. There is the redemption of the congested districts. There is the revival of agriculture. There is the Old Age Pensions Act. Finally, there is the reform of the Universities.

THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD

Take, first, the daring policy of social renovation by which the forlorn peasantry of the West are being saved from the grey wilderness into which they had been thrust by the landlordism of 1830 to 1880.

It is the habit of the Unionist Press to claim the whole of this work as their own. That is rather bold of a party that lifted not a finger while these people--said by those who know them to be the best peasantry in Europe--were driven from the rich lands of Ireland to till the barren moorland and scratch the very rocks on the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic. The Tories do not explain why they allowed the House of Lords for a whole half century to seal up the exile of these poor folk by rejecting every measure proposed for their welfare. As a matter of fact, of course, the policy of redeeming the congested districts was not first proposed either by the Tories or by the Liberals, but by the Irish members themselves.

The Tory claim is based, of course, on the fact that the first step towards action by the British Government dates from the famous Western tour of Mr. Arthur Balfour in the early nineties. Perhaps Mr. Balfour was tired of the monotony of five years of coercion. At any rate, he took that journey, and it was the best act of his political life. He travelled along that misty fringe of the Atlantic. He saw--as we saw last summer, and I saw in 1891--the utter poverty of that unhappy land, where human life, sustained only by the charity of American exiles, still pays its doleful toll to far-off, indifferent landlords. Who can tell whether some touch of remorse did not enter into the heart of the man who up to that time had been the greatest of Irish coercionists since Castlereagh, when he saw with his own eyes the sorry plight of the poorest people in Europe--the people who, in the opinion of General Gordon, were, as a result of a century of British civilisation, more dest.i.tute and miserable than the savages of Central Africa?

Mr. Balfour, at any rate, relented from his policy of more oppression.

He even entered upon the first small beginnings of a policy of restoration.

It was a very small beginning--that first Congested Board--and a Commission that reported on its work nearly twenty years after[28]

decided that the Board had neither powers nor cash sufficient for its work. The Liberal Government of 1906-10 frankly accepted the opinion of the Commission, and gave the Board both new powers and new funds in the Irish Land Act of 1909. Under that Act the Congested Board is endowed with 250,000 a year, and has authority over half the area and a third of the population of Ireland.[29] Over these great regions[30] this authority now possesses extensive powers of purchase, rehousing, replanting, creation of fisheries, provision of seed and stocks--powers, in short, extending to the complete restoration, by compulsion if necessary, of a whole community. The Board is appointed by the Chief Secretary,[31] and already in two short years it has accomplished great work. Estates are being bought and replanted; holders are being migrated from bad land to good; villages are being rebuilt; industries encouraged; health safeguarded; fisheries revived.

Those who examine its work as we did last summer will experience the feeling of men looking on at a splendid and gallant effort to salvage a race submerged.

This work, indeed, is still in its infancy. There are many absentee landlords who are still holding out for heavy and extravagant prices as a reward for the poverty and misery which they have often in large part caused by their own neglect. The Board appears to be reaching the limits of voluntary action. Much of the hope for the future of Ireland rests on their courage and skill.

THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE

The pa.s.sing of landlordism has produced a great revival of energy and life in the rural districts. That revival began in the nineties, and the credit for first realising its importance and significance must be given to Sir Horace Plunkett. But private organisation alone could not meet the needs of the situation. In 1899 the Government were persuaded by the Irish party to pa.s.s an Act founding a new Irish Board of Agriculture on broad and generous lines.[32]

This Irish Board of Agriculture is a very remarkable body. It is practically a Home Rule authority for agricultural purposes only. The Irish Minister for Agriculture by no means rules as an autocrat. He has to submit his policy to a large "Advisory Council" of over 100 members elected by all the County Councils of Ireland. Out of this Council a committee is chosen which is practically a Cabinet. This Agricultural Parliament now plays a most important part in the life of Ireland. It speaks for the whole nation more than any other public body. Its discussions are practical and useful. It is a training ground for the rulers of the future, and it is playing a vital part in bringing together the best men of the North and South. The Ulster members are already, in agricultural matters, working in a friendly spirit side by side with the men from the South.

Thus advised and kept in touch with public opinion, the Board of Agriculture is the most popular and effective Department in Dublin Castle. It gives us a foretaste of the new power that will be given to Irish administration by the Home Rule spirit.

For it is just this central guidance that the other great new Irish developments chiefly lack. Take local government. There is not a County Council in Ireland which would not be stronger if it were directed--and sometimes, perhaps, even commanded--from the centre by a sympathetic national authority. There is not a Board in Ireland, whether it be the Congested Districts Board, or the Estates Commissioners, or the Land Commission, that would not be more wisely directed if there were some central arena in which the great principles of administration could be seriously and responsibly debated and settled. For, in spite of the popular notion that Irishmen are too talkative, there is really too little discussion in Ireland on practical affairs. The great unsolved political problem blocks the way. The block cannot be removed except by settlement. One of the strongest reasons for granting Home Rule is in order to free the mind of the nation for attention to the national housekeeping.

OLD-AGE PENSIONS

One of the most remarkable events of the last few years has been the unexpected side-share of Ireland in the great social legislation of Great Britain. Even the Irish members themselves have scarcely foreseen how immensely Ireland, being the poorest partner in the United Kingdom, would benefit by a policy "tender to the poor." The most conspicuous example of that effect has been Old-age Pensions. Old-age Pensions have fallen on Ireland as a shower of gold. Her share is already well over 2,000,000. The great new fact in Irish social welfare is that she now draws that great draught from the Imperial Exchequer.

Travelling along the Atlantic coast last summer, I inquired in many local post-offices as to the amount of pensions given weekly in those little grey villages. I found that often the old-age pensioners would number between 100 and 200 in small villages of less than 2,000 people.

The emigration of the youth has left a disproportionate number of the old, and it is not necessary to bring any railing accusation against the honesty of the Irish race in order to understand why it is that Old-age Pensions have done so much for Ireland. But the fact remains, and it carries with it a great and unexpected relief to the Irish ratepayer.[33]

THE NEW UNIVERSITY ACT

Last, but not least, we have the great stimulus given to higher education by the pa.s.sage of Mr. Birrell's Irish University Act. For a whole generation the progress of higher education in Ireland has been held up by a barren and wearisome religious quarrel. Now that quarrel has vanished, and Ireland is organising a great system of University education for her Catholic as well as her Protestant youth. Not the least stimulating experience of the Eighty Club in Ireland was the day which we spent, under the guidance of the distinguished Princ.i.p.al, at Cork University College, where we saw Catholics and Protestants, men and women, young and old, working together in friendly harmony in the splendid buildings which have sprung up to house the undergraduates of the south-west. The same process is going on at Dublin, Galway, and Belfast. The machinery is being rapidly prepared for training up in the best possible atmosphere of mutual tolerance the new rulers of Home Rule Ireland.