Ireland as It Is Part 35

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 G.o.d, 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.saulted 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.body 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 att.i.tude 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 c.o.c.ked 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.

No. 54.--A SAMPLE OF IRISH "LOYALTY."

The country round here seems especially rich in minerals of all sorts.

Bog-ore, to be spoken of as bog ore, is abundant, and manganese is known to exist in large quant.i.ties. Soapstone of excellent quality is also plentiful, and the peasantry will tell you that on the pa.s.sing of the Home Rule Bill they will at once proceed to dig out the inexhaustible stores of gold, silver, lead, iron, tin, and coal, with which the district abounds. Ireland is a perfect El Dorado, and when the brutal Saxon shall have taken his foot off her throat, when Parlimint and the sojers allow the quarries to be worked, the mines to be sunk, the diamonds under Belfast to be dug up, the country will once more be prosperous, as in the owld ancient times, when the O'Briens and O'Connells cut each other's throats in peace, and harried their respective neighbourhoods without interference. Captain Ricky, of Mount Hall, is exploiting the bog-ore, and sending it to England by thousands of tons. The stuff is an oxide of iron and is used for purifying gas. The queerest feature of the use of bog-ore is the fact that when used up it is worth twenty-five per cent. more than before.

Delivered to the gas companies at thirty shillings a ton, it fetches forty shillings when the gas-men have done with it. It seems to be composed of peat which by a few millions of years of saturation in water containing iron has become like iron-rust. The soapstone of Killygordon is used instead of fire-clay, and is also made into French chalk. Or rather it might be, but that the Captain declines to proceed with its extraction pending the Home Rule scare. There is much alder on the estate, which is watered by the river Finn. This is the right wood for the manufacture of clogs for the people of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Captain Ricky sends tons of these interesting articles to the sister isle. Men are turning out these favourite instruments of feminine correction, in a rough state, by boat loads. When the coster's done a-jumping on his mother, he should thank Ireland for his clogs. When the festive miner rejoices, his dancing would lack the distinguishing clatter which is its richest charm, without alder grown on the banks of the Donegal Finn. The countries were made to run in harness. One is the complement of the other. The brainy dwellers of Hibernia know this, and stick like limpets to England. Only the visionary, the lazy, the ne'er-do weels, the incompetent, the disorderly, the ignorant, the ambitious, want Home Rule. The contemners of law and order want to flourish and grow fat. The Healys and s.e.xtons and all of that ilk know that while under an Irish Parliament their country would be ruined, yet that they themselves would pick up something in the general confusion, while Dillon, like Mrs. Gargery, could be ever on the rampage, carrying out his promises of dire revenge, and flourishing like a young bay tree. n.o.body here rejoiced when the bill was reported amended. They are losing faith in its merits. Their simple faith received a severe shock after the return to power of the Three-acres-and-a-Cow Government. Then the Labourers' Dwellings Act proved a fraud. The peasantry asked the neighbouring landowners for an acre of ground and a new cottage. A neighbouring J.P. to-day told me that he had more than twenty applications from people who are now awaiting the gold mines, the great factories which the new Irish Government are about to open. If you would remain poor, vote for the Unionist candidate. If you would become rich beyond the dreams of avarice, if you would occupy the place of the Protestant landlords, if you would preserve your immortal soul from eternal flames, vote as instructed by Father Gilhooly. A patriot priest yesterday said that the Day of Independence would be the "Day of Ireland." He should have called it the _Dies Irae_.

A Scottish Covenanter, not of the straitest sect, has no faith in the Home Rule Bill. He said:--"The people up in the mountains, those who want Home Rule, or rather those who have voted for it and expect to benefit by it, are all of the cla.s.s no Act of Parliament would ever help. They don't farm their land, and they don't want to farm it. Half of it lies to waste every year, and they cut turf which they get for nothing, and sell it in the small towns about for three or four shillings a load, instead of making the land produce all it will. Go to their houses at ten in the morning, and you will find them smoking over the fire. My people are up and at work by six o'clock every morning in the week. The Scots farmers round Strabane are that keen on getting on that you can't get them away from their work, which is their pleasure. They are so keen on making the most of the ground that they are doing away with the hedges, and subst.i.tuting barbed wire, merely to gain the difference in area of ground to till. Look at yon brae-face. Every yard tilled right up to the top. The Papist peasantry would never do that. You want to know what's the reason? Goodness knows. All the Protestants round here have got on till they have farms. There are no Protestant labourers. If English working men, agricultural fellows, would settle in Ireland, they would soon get their Three acres and a cow. The people who can and will do the best with the land ought to have it, that's my theory. Ireland everywhere ill.u.s.trates the principle of the survival of the fittest. The only way to succeed is by work. The Catholic Irish are so accustomed to leave everything to the priest that they have no self-reliance, and in worldly matters they always ask, who will help us? They are all beggars by nature. The d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough and other kind but mistaken ladies have pauperised some districts of Donegal. The people have a natural indisposition to work, and a natural disposition to beg. As for loyalty and tolerance, they have none of either. You never saw industry without other virtues, you never saw laziness without other vices. These everlasting grumblers are a generation of vipers.

They are a peevish and perverse set of lazy, skulking swindlers. They can pay. Every man could pay his rent and be comfortably off if he liked. The Protestant farmers pay and get along. And we agree that the landlords favour the other sect. They know that we will do the right thing, and they let us do it, but the Papists may do less--for less than the right thing is what the landlord expects from them. He thinks himself lucky if his Papist tenants come anyway near the mark.

Therefore I say, and any Protestant will say, the Papists are favoured by the landlords."

A staunch Conservative, though not a land-owner, said:--"We want amendment of the Parliamentary voting regulations. No clergyman should be allowed to sit in the Revision Court. Scandals without end could be cited to show the necessity of this. I would, of course, exclude all sects, though no Protestant preacher ever takes part directly or indirectly in any of our political meetings. When a man has to make oath as to the validity of his claim to the suffrage he will often look at the priest who sits watching him. He gets a nod, and he goes on with his swearing. The perjury of the Irish Revision Courts is something fearful, and no one pays any attention to it. The Papists swear just anything. They get absolved, but a Protestant has not this great advantage and that holds him back. That is the Papist explanation. In my presence the Home Rule inspector of this district--we call the people who watch and work the registers the inspectors--swore that James Kelly, of Cross Roads, Killygordon, was the present tenant, the holder of the license, and the freeholder of a public-house at the spot mentioned. Besides this he swore that the name James Kelly was on the signboard. He therefore proposed to poll a James Kelly. Now the person in question went to America in 1888, and never returned. His name was not on the signboard, and the license was for another person. The Judge declined to hear any further evidence from Inspector Francis McLaughlin. That was the only penalty enforced.

Such things happen every day in Irish Revision Courts.

"A man named James Burns put in a claim for a vote on behalf of land held at Stroangebbah. He had none there. What he had was at Aughkeely, and this was not sufficient to ent.i.tle him to vote. Yes, his name should be spelt Byrnes, but the Irish often prefer the Protestant form of the name. Well, n.o.body believed that he was the tenant of Stroangebbah; he was said to be a lodger only. The Judge asked him for proof. He presented a paper purporting to be a receipt for rent for Stroangebbah, but in reality the receipt was for the ground at Aughkeely, which did not qualify. He curled up the paper so as to show that his name was on it, and the Judge instantly pa.s.sed his claim, and placed him on the roll. A young fellow named Robert Ewing at once exposed the trick, but the Judge declared that having placed Burns on the roll, he must remain there until next revision. Judge Keogh was his name. Yes, you would think an Irishman and a good Catholic would have seen through such a trumpery trick.

"When an illiterate declares for whom he will vote, we sometimes have from twenty to thirty outsiders in the polling-booth. In England the Court is cleared, and even the policeman has to go outside. But in this favoured country any blackguard who likes to fill up a declaration of secrecy, and go before a magistrate, can be present at the whole of the proceedings. There is no secrecy for the illiterates.

Any corner-boy, any ruffian, any blackguard in the district can come in and hear for whom men vote. These corner boys all get declarations in their fists, and they march in gangs from one booth to another.

It's intimidation, no less. Get some M.P. to mention this as having taken place at Stranorlar. The people of whom I complain were not even voters. Anybody could be present. Ridiculous to talk of the ballot-box in Ireland.

"The Morley magistrates are in many cases a disgrace to the country.

We used to have an idea in these parts that a small publican could not legally sit on the Bench. James McGlinchy, J.P., is a small publican of Brockagh. Barring his trade, he's not so bad, as he can read and write. But if you saw the lists, and if you knew the men recommended----! Englishmen have no idea what low scoundrels have been placed on the Bench in this country. Imperfect education we do not so much mind when conjoined with character. O'Donnell is not a bad sort, but he couldn't write 'adjourned.' Two magistrates were needed, and n.o.body else arrived. Therefore the difficult word was necessary, and O'Donnell felt it was beyond him. He called up a policeman, and ordered him to do it. Whereat the county makes merry. There should be an education test. Can all the English magistrates spell 'adjourned'?

You think so? That's very good. Not right that a man who can't spell 'adjourned' should give another man a spell of imprisonment."

A Roman Catholic gentleman thus summed up the character of his particular neighbourhood:--"The upper cla.s.ses of both sects are in every way equal. Among the lower cla.s.ses I observe that the Protestants do as much work as they can, while the Papists do as little as they can. This accounts for the difference in their appearance and position. Then the Protestants are far better educated, and have arrived at the knowledge that everything that is good must be gained by exertion, and that there is for them at least no subst.i.tute.

The others talk as if after the establishment of an Irish Parliament money would be found growing on the bushes. No one need try to change their opinion. When the time comes to vote they will vote as their priest tells them. Someone has said that the British Government might subsidise the Church, and so buy her off. It could not be done. The bishops want power. I do not agree with them, and I do not support or admit their claim to direct their flocks in political matters."

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

Strange things continue to happen in Ireland. This does not refer to the continuous cutting-off of cows' tails, the slitting of horses'

tongues, and other similar expressions of impatience for the good time coming, but to some strange things that have happened in connection with agricultural affairs. Sir Samuel Hayes decided to abandon a farm which would not pay, although he had no rent to meet. He was his own landlord, but he did not work the farm. That was done by a bailiff, who, curiously enough, was the highest bidder for the land. He of all men should have known that if the farm would not pay expenses when there was no rent, it would not reward the man who had rent to pay.

This reasoning proved fallacious. The farm which without rent proved a loss, in the same hands turned out when rent was charged a perfect gold-mine. In another case, a bailiff on leaving his employ expended on land the acc.u.mulated savings of his thrifty years, and--strange to say--his savings amounted to about three times the sum of his wages during his life's service. A man who, having a pound a week, can save three pounds, would in England be regarded as a prodigy. In Ireland such things happen every day. Particulars as to the cases hereinbefore-mentioned can be obtained from anybody in Killygordon, which is altogether a remarkable place--to say nothing of its name, which for obvious reasons has the misfortune to be unpleasant to the Grand Old Man. _Nomen, Omen?_

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

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

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

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

Ye whose spirits will not bow In peace to parish tyrants longer, Ye who wear the villain brow, And ye who pine in hopeless hunger, Fools, without the brave man's faith, All slaves and starvelings who are willing To sell yourselves to shame and death, Accept the fatal Saxon shilling.

Ere you from your mountains go To feel the scourge of foreign fever, Swear to serve the faithless foe Who lures you from your land for ever, Swear henceforth its tools to be To slaughter trained by ceaseless drilling, Honour, home, and liberty Abandoned for a Saxon shilling.

Go--to find 'mid crime and toil The doom to which such guilt is hurried, Go--to leave on Indian soil Your bones to bleach, accursed, unburied, Go--to crush the just and brave Whose wrongs with wrath the world are filling, Go--to slay each brother slave, Or spurn the blood-stained Saxon Shilling.

Irish hearts! why should you bleed, To swell the tide of English glory?

Aiding despots in their need, Who've changed our green so oft to gory?

None save those who wish to see The n.o.blest killed, the meanest killing, And true hearts severed from the free, Will take again the Saxon Shilling.

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

Killygordon, July 29th.

No. 55.--A TRULY PATRIOTIC PRIEST.