Is Ulster Right? Part 5

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 pa.s.sage 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded, 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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.sume that no other view is possible. Thus O'Connell boldly a.s.serted that the Irish Catholics never a.s.sented 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 a.s.sent 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 doc.u.ments, 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 circ.u.mstances and the peculiar const.i.tution 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 cla.s.ses, 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 ma.s.s 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 impa.s.sioned 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 a.s.sertions 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 a.s.sent 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 const.i.tutional means, and that its final accomplishment was accompanied with the hearty a.s.sent 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 pet.i.tioned 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 pet.i.tions. 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pet.i.tions 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 const.i.tuencies 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 const.i.tution, 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 a.s.sent 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pet.i.tions showing that the people of Ireland were against it. Of the fifty-four pet.i.tions 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 pet.i.tions, the Opposition also collected a large sum of money for the purchase of seats; in the circ.u.mstances 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 const.i.tuted 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.d, 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 n.o.bility, 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 pet.i.tion 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 t.i.tles 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sembly of the United Kingdom; and to revive it now would be a physical impossibility. The whole state of circ.u.mstances has changed; no a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sembly 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 cla.s.s.

"Neither representation would be altogether true, but each contains a large measure of truth. The nature of the Irish const.i.tuencies and the presence in the House of Commons of a body of pensioners and placemen forming considerably more than a third of the whole a.s.sembly, and nearly half of its active members, gave the Government a power, which, except under very rare and extraordinary circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s. 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 cla.s.s, and it brought great local knowledge and experience to its task. Much of its work was of that practical and un.o.btrusive 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 a.s.sembly. In 1805, however, there was another slight rebellion, led by Robert Emmett. It never had a chance of success; the ma.s.s 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 emanc.i.p.ation. 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 t.i.thes. All will now admit, and very many politicians and thinkers at the time fully realized, that the old law as to t.i.thes was a cruel injustice; but no change was made until the opposition to the payment of t.i.thes 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 pa.s.sed commuting the t.i.thes 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 a.s.suming 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 t.i.the Commutation Act was pa.s.sed.

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 cla.s.s 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 Inc.u.mbered Estates Act was pa.s.sed, by which the creditors of inc.u.mbered 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sumed 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 n.o.ble-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 a.s.sistance. 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 pa.s.sed--was swept away. The members of the Church showed a liberality which their opponents never antic.i.p.ated. They bought the glebes, continued to pay their clergy by voluntary a.s.sessments, 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 const.i.tutional agitation for Home Rule or Repeal, led by Isaac b.u.t.t. 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.