The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 46

A priest once threatened a bibulous parishioner, that if he did not become more sober in his habits, he would change him into a mouse.

'Biddy, me jewel, I can't believe Father Pat would have that power over me,' said the man that same evening as the shadows fell, 'but all the same you might as well shut up the cat.'

Over elections the priests have paramount influence as I have already shown, but may cite an example at the last County election in Kerry, when three candidates stood, Sir Thomas Esmonde (Anti-Parnellite), Mr.

Harrington (Parnellite), and Mr. Palmer (Conservative). The last-named out of a poll of six thousand obtained seventy votes. One of them was given after the following fashion.

An illiterate voter at Killorglin being asked in the polling booth how he wished to vote, replied:--

'For my parish priest.'

'But he is not a candidate. The three are Esmonde, Palmer, and Harrington.'

'Well, then, I'll vote for Palmer, because it is more like Father Lawler than the others.'

Naturally all concerned were convulsed with laughter, but the vote was duly recorded.

It is no uncommon thing to see priests carefully teaching illiterate voters the appearance of the name of the candidate for whom they are to poll, and also giving them printed cards merely containing his name, so that they can recognise it on the voting-card.

Of course an Irishman would take a bribe one way and calmly vote another. But even this diplomatic tendency is outwitted by the priests, for nowadays, when they have any doubt of the political sincerity of a man, they insist on his declaring himself an illiterate voter. Then the whole question of who is to be voted for is gone through audibly and verbally, so that the honesty of the voter is known to those hanging round. In the parish of Milltown, the education is as complete as in any in Ireland, but at the last election, one third of the voters confessed themselves illiterate, with the result antic.i.p.ated by the priest.

If the priest understands his parishioner--a thing which admits of no possible shadow of doubt--it is equally certain that the Englishman does not, as is shown by the following frivolous tale, always a favourite of mine.

'Paddy,' said a tourist at Killarney, 'I'll give you sixpence if you'll tell me the biggest lie you ever told in your life.'

'Begorra, your honour's a gentleman! Give me the sixpence!'

No one would have thought of making such an offer to an English loafer, and no English loafer would have had the wit to so neatly earn his emolument.

It is the a.s.sumption of simplicity that does the trick, and so well is that put on that it comes close to the real thing.

The other day, when the King and Queen were at Punchestown, a Britisher chartered a car at Naas to drive out to the course, and on the way remonstrated with the carman on the starved condition of his horse, whose ribs would have served for an anatomical study.

'Well, your honour,' the jarvey explained, 'it's an unlucky horse.'

'How unlucky?' asked the Englishman.

'Well, it's this way, your honour. Each morning I toss with that horse whether he shall have his feed of oats or I have my gla.s.s of whisky, and would your honour credit it, the horse has lost these ten days past.'

I am reminded of the reply given by Lord Derby to a gentleman who sent him a dozen of very light claret, which he said would suit his gout.

Lord Derby subsequently thanked him, but said he preferred the gout, and I have no doubt that that horse, had he been able to give tongue, would have been an ardent upholder of teetotalism when it ensured him a feed of oats.

One more story of Lord Derby, as I have just mentioned his name:--

A worthy trader had bothered him to let him stand for a certain borough on the Tory ticket, but the Whig was returned unopposed on the day of the nomination, and the candidate was subsequently attacked by Lord Derby for not coming forward as he had promised.

The man was almost as shaky in his aspirates as in his political propensities, and his reply was:--

'I would have stood, my lord, but there was a 'itch in the way.'

'It was the more necessary for you to come to the scratch,' was the immediate retort.

I always find that story popular at the Carlton, where I spend my afternoons when in London. I was proposed by Mr. James Lowther and seconded by the Duke of Marlborough, and very much obliged have I been to them both, for I have many acquaintances there, and it has all the conveniences of a comfortable hotel, without having to pay extravagantly for the privilege of looking at a waiter.

In the intervals of reading the papers and listening to other people, I have there, as elsewhere, endeavoured to impart what I know to others who know nothing about Ireland. They know much more about China or the aboriginal tribes of Australia, in London, than they do on the topics dearest to me.

An English Radical member, after a long chat with my son Maurice, observed:--

'You actually mean to say that if Home Rule were given to Ireland you would not be allowed to reside there?'

'Certainly not,' replied Maurice, who knew what he was talking about.

The member replied that he could not believe him, but that if he had known that that was the real nature of the Bill he would never have voted for it.

I could not desire a better example of English wisdom on this subject--one which Lord Rosebery has consigned to a distant date in futurity, foreseeing that if the Opposition are to be handicapped with Home Rule they will not stand a forty to one chance at the next election.

That election will, of course, turn on Protection, and I am therefore tempted to quote from an article I contributed to _Murray's Magazine_ in July 1887, ent.i.tled 'After the Crimes Bill, What Next?' for I feel my forecast of over fourteen years ago may serve a useful purpose to-day.

It ran thus:--

'In my next suggestion I feel that I am treading on dangerous ground; still, having undertaken to suggest a remedy for Irish discontent and anarchy, I must not shrink from offending the prejudices of some of the wise men of England.

'Ireland is an agricultural country. There are in Ulster, as in England and Scotland, factories which support the greater portion of the population, and cause the prosperity of the province; but outside of Ulster, cattle and b.u.t.ter are the staple products. And how does Ireland stand in her only market, England, as compared with other nations? She enjoys free trade in b.u.t.ter, no doubt, but so do France and Holland; but these countries, while they find an open market in England, tax all English and Irish productions, and being manufacturing countries themselves they can afford to sell b.u.t.ter at so cheap a rate as to swamp Ireland's market. A slight protective duty on foreign b.u.t.ter would be hailed with grat.i.tude in Ireland, and do more to allay discontent than any further acts of so-called "generosity."

'Again, the great thinly peopled countries of the West find in England a free market for cattle and flour, and America taxes very highly all English goods. Why not place Ireland on a par with America, by levying a slight protective duty on American beef and flour? Every little village in Ireland formerly had its flour mill, which worked up the corn grown in the country as well as imported grain. These mills are now generally idle and the men who worked them ruined. A small duty on manufactured flour would restore this industry, and enable men with some capital to give employment to labour, and to work up in small quant.i.ties for the farmer, at a cheap rate, their home-grown corn, as well as to grind imported grain. Our own colonies may have, no doubt, a right to object to our taxing their goods, but not so foreign countries.

'The Free Trade system of England would, no doubt, have been successful if reciprocated. But the question is worth considering, whether the English people do not now lose more by taxation resulting from the chronic state of rebellion in Ireland than she gains by bringing in American beef and flour, and foreign b.u.t.ter and b.u.t.terine, free, to the impoverishment of Ireland, and of the agricultural portions of England and Scotland? "Remedial measures" for an agricultural country are certainly not those which spoil its market.'

Don't dismiss that as pre-Chamberlainese Protection for it is sheer common-sense on a matter of national importance, and what I wrote in 1887, after many years, has become part of the political convictions of a great and an increasing party.

I wonder what the Protective party will be like when it eventually comes into office. Promises out of office are often the whale which only produces the sprat of legislation when the time of fulfilment arrives.

This is an impartial opinion on most Cabinets of the last fifty years.

One of the few occasions on which a recent British Government has recently shown some signs of appreciating a really keen and capable man was when they made Mr. Ellison Macartney, Master of the Mint.

I wrote and congratulated him, observing that I hoped he would never be short of money, but if that was his plight all he had to do was to coin it for himself.

I have a bad recollection for faces, and one day in Dublin his father came up to me, and seeing I did not remember him, recalled a story with which I had amused him in the lobby of the House of Commons.

It was to this effect, and may prove new to others:--

Coming out of Glasgow one evening two Irishmen waylaid a Scotsman for the sake of plunder. He was nearly enough for them both, but numbers prevailed, and when they had mastered him, after searching his pockets, they only found three halfpence.

Said one Hibernian to the other:--

'Glory be to the Saints, Mick, what a fight he made for three halfpence.'

'Oh,' replied the other, 'it was the mercy of the Lord he had not tuppence, or he'd have killed the pair of us.'

Killing suggests the Kerry militia, the corps in which no one dies except of good fellowship, one which has done a good deal to unite the divergent interests of north and south Kerry, and which provides fine physical development for soldiers of all ranks.