I drove from Bundoran to Sligo, the sea on the right, the Benbulben mountains on the left, singularly shaped but splendid. The round towers and ancient Irish crosses, the lakes and rivers of Sligo, are full of interest and beauty. The Abbey ruins are exceptionally fine. The town is fairly well built, but it is easy to realise that once more it is Connaught. During a turn round Bridge Street, a country cart heaves alongside, steered by a stalwart man in hodden gray. He notes the stranger, and politely says,

"Can I be of any use? I see you are a visitor."

We fell into conversation. Presently I said, "Everything will be well when you get Home Rule."

He stopped the cart and protested against this statement. Unknowingly I had tapped a celebrity. My hodden-gray friend was none other than the famous Detective James Magee, who arrested James Stephens, the Number One, the Head Centre of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood; also John O'Leary, editor of the Fenian Irish People, of which O'Donovan Rossa was business manager. O'Leary was a doctor hailing from Tipperary. He asked Magee if he might have his "night-cap," and his captor allowed him to call for the whiskey at a well-known Dublin resort, on parole of honour. Later, as a crowded street was reached, O'Leary said, "There are three thousand of my friends there. If you go that way I cannot save you. Better try a back street." "That was handsome," said Mr. Magee. "O'Leary was a gentleman. Stephens was only a 'blower.'" My friend was unalterably set against Home Rule, which he regards as an empty, foolish cry. Being a pensioner he wishes to be reticent, but his opinion is pronounced, and the Sligo people know it. He has a high opinion of the law-abiding instincts of his compatriots, and believes that "if they were left to themselves" the district would need no police. "A better-hearted, kinder, more obliging people never lived," said this excellent judge, who after twenty-seven years of police service, returned to end his days among them. And my short experience of the Sligo folks confirms this statement. They were not all so reserved as Detective-sergeant Magee. A thriving shopkeeper said:—"The majority, if you count noses, are for Home Rule, but if you count only brains and intelligence you would find an overwhelming majority against it. Mr. Gladstone and his set of blockheads seem quite impervious to reason, and even the constituencies of England seem to lack information. The reason is plain. While we have been minding our work the Nationalists have been agitating. For thirteen years they have been on the stump, and have stolen a march on us and they take a lot of catching up. We allowed them to empty their wind-bags, forgetting that the English people were not so conversant with the facts or with the character of the orators as we are. We thought that no precautions were required, and that their preposterous statements would be received in England as intelligent, enlightened people would receive them here. Their strength in Ireland is almost entirely among the illiterates, who in the polling booths are coerced by their priests. I have seen a man crying because he had not been allowed to vote for the candidate supported by his employer. Such a ridiculous thing could not happen in England, and Englishmen who do not know Ireland and the Irish will scarcely credit it. This shows how unable most Saxons are to understand Irish character and motive.

"All our civilisation is from England, all our progress, all our enlightenment, and nearly all our money. As a poor, helpless, semi-barbaric country, we ought to cleave to England with all our might and main. A more and more complete and perfect unity is our best hope. To ask for separation is the wildest absurdity. And just as we were beginning to go along smoothly! That was entirely due to the just but firm administration of the Balfour period.

"Among Irishmen justice with firmness is always appreciated in the long run. An Irish Secretary needs the hand of iron in the velvet glove. Paddy spots the philanthropic fumbler in a moment, and uses him, laughing the while at what he rightly calls his 'philandering.' Morley means well, but nobody here respects him. He knows no more of Irish character than a blind bull-pup. His master in my opinion is worse, if possible. He is deaf to all the arguments of Irish sense and Irish culture, and proposes to finally resolve the unresolvable, to settle the Irish difficulty by a Catholic Parliament. As well go out with a net to catch the wind. He listens to the representatives of ruffianism, counting them first. We kept silent too long. We thought the donkeys might bray for ever without shaking down the stars. We were wrong. Now we are almost powerless. For what are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd of blackguards with big sticks?"

While conversing with Detective Magee, that astute gentleman pointed out The O'Connor, lineal King of Connaught, and a staunch Unionist! A devout Catholic and intensely Irish, yet the uncrowned King is a loyalist. But The O'Connor is a man of superior understanding. After this I saw three Home Rulers—yea, I conversed with four, one a positive person whom I mistook for a farm labourer, but who proved to be a National schoolmaster who absorbed whiskey like the desert sands. A decent farmer who thought the Land League the finest thing in the wuruld, complained that while the British Government have contracted for hay at L8 15s., yet he and his friends could only get L3 for "best saved." His idea of Home Rule was—No Rent to pay. A ferocious commercial traveller, whose jaw and cheekbones were as much too large as his eyes and forehead were too small, wanted to know "what right had England to rule Ireland? Ye have no more right to rule Ireland than to rule France." This was his only idea. He was a patriot of the sentimental type, and wished that Ireland might take her place as an independent nation with Belgium, Switzerland, Holland. His hero was Paddy O'Donnell, of Bedlam—clarum et venerabile nomen—who for five days held his house, since called the Fort, against a strong force of police. "If all was like O'Donnell, we'd soon have the counthry to ourselves," said my commercial friend. "An' if ye don't let us go, we'll make ye wish ye did. Wait till ye get into throuble with France. The Siam business may yet turn up thrumps." He was very voluble, very loud, very illiterate, and I declined to discuss the question except in Irish, which he did not speak. Like most of the patriot orators of Ireland, he was as ignorant of his native language as of his native literature, and every other. This is the class from whom the political speakers who infest country places are drawn. At first sight they seem unworthy of notice, but contempt may be pushed too far. Even wasps become dangerous when in swarms. And Hatred is like fire: it makes even light rubbish deadly.

Sligo, August 8th.



No. 59.—IRISH NATIONALISM IS NOT PATRIOTISM.

My tour through Ireland having now come to an end, I propose to sum up the conclusions I have formed in this and the three following articles. In connection with the Home Rule Bill, we have heard much of the "aspirations of a people." Mr. Gladstone has taken up the cry, and his subservient followers at once brought their speeches and facial expressions into harmony with the selected sentiment. These anti-English Englishmen would fain pose as persons in advance of their time, determined to do justice though the heavens should fall. They agree with Mr. Labouchere that John Bull is a tyrant, a robber, and a hypocrite, and that it is high time justice should be done to Ireland. As no substantial injustice exists, it is necessary to fall back on sentiment, and to quote the "aspirations of a people." The desire for a system of Irish autonomy is praised as a manifestation of patriotism which in all ages of the world has been honoured by worthy men. The English supporters of Mr. Gladstone, with their assumption of superior virtue, their Pharasaic We are not as other men, nor even as these Tories, would have us believe that with the granting of self-rule Ireland will be satisfied, that the gratification of a laudable sentiment is all that is now required to bind together the peoples in an infrangible Union of Hearts, and that peace and prosperity will at once follow in the wake of this merely sentimental concession.

The great mass of the Irish electorate know nothing of all this. Tap them wherever you will, north, south, east, or west, and you find one dominant thought—that of pecuniary gain. They know nothing of the proposed bill, and are totally incapable of comprehending its scope and effect. The peasantry of Ireland are actuated by motives entirely different from those affecting the rural constituencies of England. The Briton is proud of his country, believes in its might, justice, supremacy; and despite occasional grumbling is satisfied that the powers that be will do him right in the long run. The Irish peasant is essentially inimical to England. He is always "agin the Government"—that is, the rule of England. He regards the landlord as trebly an enemy—firstly as a heretic, secondly as the representative of British rule, and last, but by no means least, as the person to whom rent is due. He desires to abolish the landlord, not in the interests of religion—I speak now of the peasantry, and not the clergy—and not in the interests of patriotism, for if a Dublin Parliament were to cost him sixpence, the priests themselves could hardly drag him to the poll; but purely and simply to avoid any further payment of what he regards as the accursed impost on the land. Phillip Fahy, the leading light of Carnaun, near Athenry, is exactly typical of rural Irish Patriotism. "Did ye hear of the Home Rule Bill? What does it mane, at all, at all? Not one o' us knows more than that lump o' stone ye sit on. Will it give us the land for nothin', for that's all we hear? We'll be obliged av ye could explain it a thrifle, for sorra one but's bad off, an' Father O'Baithershin says 'Howld yer whist,' says he 'till ye see what'll happen,' says he. Will we get the bit o' ground widout rint, yer honner's glory?" Mr. Tynan, of Monivea, said that his landlord was liberal and good, and admitted that his land was not too highly rented, but, said he, "We have no objection to do better still." The run on the Irish Post Office Savings Banks at once illustrates the patriotism of the people and their confidence in the proposed Dublin Parliament. It was well known and understood, so far as the poorer classes are capable of understanding anything, that the floating balance of the Post Office Banks would constitute the only working capital of the Irish Legislature. Here was an opportunity for self-sacrifice. Here was a chance of manifesting the faith animating the lovers of their country. But at the same time it was made known that the Post Office would pass from the British control to that of the Irish people's chosen representatives. It might have been supposed that the electors would rejoice thereat with exceeding great joy, and that in order to show their trust in an Irish Parliament they would increase their deposits, and at considerable personal inconvenience refrain from withdrawals. Nothing of the kind. The "aspirations of a people" were at once strongly defined, but this time not in the direction of patriotism. It availed not to urge upon them the argument that the four millions of the Post Office Savings Banks were absolutely necessary to the successful administration of an Irish Parliament. In patriotic Dublin the run on the Post Office was tremendous. The master of a small sub-office told me that the withdrawals over his counter had for some time amounted to L200 per week, and that they were increasing to L70 per day. There was not enough gold in Dublin to meet the demands, and cash was being forwarded from London. The patriots who had no money deposited in the Post Office made no secret of their indignation, stigmatising their fellow-countrymen as recreants and traitors, but without perceptible effect. The Dublin Savings Bank became the trusted depositary of the money. This institution is managed by an association of Dublin merchants, not for profit, but for the encouragement of thrift, and the confidence reposed in them was doubtless due to the fact that the directors, on the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, had publicly announced their intention, on the bill becoming law, to pay twenty shillings in the pound and at once to close the bank. The patriot depositors were not deterred by this announcement, nor by the directors' letter to Mr. Gladstone, in which they declared that their determination to wind up the affairs of the bank was due to the fact that in the interest of their depositors they felt themselves unable to accept the security of an Irish Legislature. Patriotism would surely have resented this imputation. But Nationalism in its present phase is nothing more than selfish cupidity and lust of gain. This is made abundantly manifest by the freely-uttered sentiments of all classes of the Nationalist party. The first answer I received to an inquiry as to what advantages would be derived from a patriot Parliament was elicited from an ancient Dubliner, whose extraordinary credulity was equal to anything afterwards met with in the rural districts:—"The millions an' millions that John Bull dhrags out iv us, to kape up his grandeur, an' to pay sojers to grind us down, we'll put into our own pockets, av you plaze." The complaint about the British Government veto on Irish mining, which I fondly believed to be sporadic, proved to be chronic, universal. Here again the notion of easily acquired wealth was the impulse, and not the pure and self-denying influence of patriotism. "The British Government won't allow us to work the gold mines in the Wicklow mountains. Whin we get the bill every man can take a shpade, an', begorra! can dig what he wants. The Phaynix Park is all cram-full o' coal that the Castle folks won't allow us to dig, bad scran to them! Whin we get the bill we'll sink them mines an' send the Castle to blazes." The coal under the Phoenix Park is a matter of pious belief with every back-slum Dubliner. The gold of the Wicklow mountains is proverbial all over Ireland. There is not a nobleman's demesne that does not cover untold wealth in some shape or form. It may be gold, silver, copper, lead, or only coal or iron. But it is there, and the people of the neighbourhood want an Irish Parliament in order that the treasures may be turned into money. The more intelligent Nationalists foster these beliefs, although they know them to be without foundation. They know that the treasures do not exist in paying quantities, and also that if they did exist their fellow-countrymen are too lazy to dig them up. The Nationalist orators never rely on patriotic sentiment. They promise the land for nothing. Mr. William O'Brien has unceasingly offered as a bribe the promise of prairie rents for the farmers, but Tim Healy went one better when at Limerick he said that "The people of this country never ought to be satisfied so long as a single penny of rent is paid for a sod of land in the whole of Ireland." Well might Sir George Trevelyan say that Irish agitators have done much to demoralise the country, and that in many parts of Ireland they gained their livelihood by criminal agitation. The same authority tells us that "an Irish Parliament will be independent of the Parliament of this country, but will be dependent on the votes of the small farmers, who have been taught that rent is robbery." That is a precise statement of the position so far as the agricultural voters are concerned. Their patriotism is nothing more nor less than a sure and certain hope of pecuniary advantage. The green flag of Ireland has no charms for them. The ancient glories of Hibernia are sung to them in vain. They care not for the Onward march to Freedom. They will make no sacrifices on the shrine of their country. The subscriptions furnished by the Irish peasantry for the furtherance of the cause amount to almost nothing, although extorted partly by compulsion and partly by the hope of future profit. The following facts will show how spontaneous is their patriotism. At a Sunday meeting at Gurteen in 1887, the Very Reverend Canon O'Donohoe in the chair, it was resolved, "That a collection for the defence of Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien be made during the ensuing week in this locality, and that not less than sixpence be accepted from any person. Anyone not subscribing will be considered not in sympathy with the Branch." Those only who know Ireland well will be able to appreciate the terrible significance of the last sentence of this resolution, which for the information of the peasantry was made public in the Nationalist Sligo Champion. A similar incentive to patriotism seems to have been required by the Kilshelan Branch, for at another Sunday Meeting, the Reverend Father Dunphy in the chair, it was unanimously resolved, "That all members who do not pay in subscriptions on or before the next meeting, which will be held on the last Sunday of this month, shall have their names published and posted on the chapel gate for two consecutive Sundays." This quotation is from the Munster Express, published in Limerick. At a meeting reported by the Kerry Sentinel "the conduct of several members, who had not renewed their subscriptions, was strongly condemned, the reverend president, Father T. Enright, giving orders to have a list, with their names, sent to him before the next meeting." The chapel doors are used as instruments of boycotting. The priest sits in judgment on all who are not sufficiently patriotic. The people are compelled to subscribe to the cause, whether they like it or not. These cases could be multiplied to infinity. They not only give an excellent illustration of the conduct of the Irish clergy in political affairs, but they also furnish a curious commentary on the enthusiasm which is supposed to mark the Aspirations of a People, who, as Mr. Gladstone might say are "rightly struggling to be free." I have conversed with hundreds of Irish farmers and I never yet met one who was willing to sacrifice a sixpence on "the altar of his country," or to trust an Irish Parliament with his own property, or to invest a penny on purely Irish security. He loves his ease, no man likes it better, and No Rent means less exertion. Mr. O'Doherty, of County Donegal, a Catholic Home Ruler, said the landlords were all right now under compulsion, but what the tenantry demanded was to be released entirely from the landlords' yoke. The farmers, he said, cared nothing for Home Rule, but the Nationalists had preached prairie value, and the people expected to drive out the landowners and Protestants. Mr. John Cook, of Londonderry, a Protestant Home Ruler and a man of culture, did not claim patriotism for the Nationalists, and unconsciously put his finger on the real incentive when he said:—"The landlords will be wronged under the present bill. It is a bad bill, an unjust bill, and will do more harm than good. England should have a voice in fixing the price of the land, for if the matter be left to the Irish Parliament gross injustice will be done. The tenants were buying their land, aided by the English loans, for they found that their two-and-three-quarter per cent. interest came lower than their rent. But they have quite ceased to buy, because they expect the Irish Legislature to give them even better terms—or even to get the land for nothing." Patriotism had meanwhile received another sop. Mr. Healy advised the farmers to think twice before they bought their land, and hinted that their patience was likely to be well rewarded. Father J. Corcoran at Mullahoran, when consulted by a body of tenant farmers whose landlord offered to sell, distinctly advised them not to purchase, and gave a practical instruction on the subject, in which he endeavoured to prove that seventeen or eighteen years' purchase was at present unworthy of consideration, and advising the greatest caution in buying at all under present circumstances. The farmers' conception of Nationalism is plunder and confiscation. They vote for Home Rule because they thereby expect to make money, to become freeholders, landlords themselves, in short. They are taught that they have an inherent right to the land, and that an Irish Parliament will restore them their own. Father B. O'Hagan, addressing a meeting in company with William O'Brien, said:—"We have two classes of landlords, in brief. We have the royal scoundrels who took the land of our forefathers. I ask any of those noble ruffians to show me the title by which they lay claim to the soil of my ancestors. Then we have the landlords who have purchased their estates in the Land Courts. But they bought stolen goods, and they knew that the land was stolen. We must get rid of the landlords." Paddy is perfectly safe. The landlords who claim in descent and those who buy in the open market are equally denounced. Let him support the Nationalist party, and the land becomes his own. He does so, and his motive is by the unthinking called patriotism and by Mr. Gladstone the Aspirations of a People.

There are of course other classes of Nationalists, but in comparison with the immense preponderance of rural voters they do not count for much. Mr. McGregor, of Anglesea Street, Dublin, once an earnest Gladstonian, said:—"The corner-men are Home Rulers because they want to spend what they never earned, and the farmers because they hope to get the land for nothing." The Dublin hotel-keepers are mostly Home Rulers, and the proprietor of Jury's, next door to the proposed House in College Green, is supposed to be consumed with patriotic fire. The hotel has recently been refitted. The Dublin shopkeepers, "those of the largest size," are strangely lacking in patriotism, and mostly support the Union. Patriotism is claimed for the Nationalist members, who, according to Nationalist sheets, were lifted from bog-holes, tripe shops, and small whiskey shops to decide the destinies of empires, to revel in comparative luxury, to enjoy a certain social distinction, to exchange their native bogs for the British metropolis, and to draw a salary beyond their wildest dreams. These questionable gentlemen, with the horse's tongue and cow's tail cutters, the firebrand priests and landlord-shooters, the moonlight marauders who shoot old women and children in the legs, burn the haystacks of their neighbours, refuse coffins and decent burial for the dead, apply the fiendish tortures of boycotting to innocent women and children, refusing them the means of subsistence, and poisoning their water supply with human filth—these are patriots. Only their patriotism must cost them nothing, It must be cultivated at the expense of others. The patriots subscribe only under compulsion, and yet hope to make a profit by the transaction. As of a certain party of old, it may be said of them, "License they mean when they cry Liberty." Plunder they mean when they cry Patriotism. The sober and industrious portion of the Irish people, the pick of every part of Ireland, being opposed to Nationalism, are denied the virtue of patriotism. The merchants and manufacturers of Dublin and Belfast, the leading professional men of Ireland, the most learned scholars of her great University, her great soldiers, White, Wolseley, Roberts, her greatest living authors, the whole of her Protestant clergy of whatever sect, with their congregations, the pith and marrow of everything that is strong, stable, cultured, enlightened, prescient, must be pronounced unpatriotic—if Nationalism is Patriotism. Contrary to all human experience and to the course and constitution of nature, the people of England are asked to believe that love of their native land and desire to do the best for the commonweal, are the sole possession of the ignorant and rowdy classes of Irishmen, and notwithstanding the undeniable fact that Nationalist Irishmen of every colour accuse the Nationalist members of self-seeking, and of absolute indifference to everything: outside their own interests, we are asked to give to them exclusively the honour due to men who sacrifice all for their country and care for nothing but her welfare. Gladstonians themselves, in the deepest depths of their credulity, cannot in their hearts believe in Nationalist patriotism, except, perhaps, such as that of Mr. Kelly, of Athenry, who said, "I'm a Home Ruler out and out. The counthry's within a stone-throw of hell, and we may as well be in it altogether."

Birmingham, August 11th.



No. 60.—LAND HUNGER: ITS CAUSE, EFFECT, AND REMEDY.

That Irish Nationalism is not Patriotism has been demonstrated by an appeal to admitted facts. The farmers hope to be relieved from payment of rent, the labourers hope to be employed in the mining of treasure at remunerative wages, the agitators hope for place and power, and everyone who has nothing hopes in the general confusion to make off with something. There is, in short, a shrewd popular notion that the foundering of the British ship of state would yield good wreckage. The false lights have done excellent service. Dillon, Davitt, O'Brien. Healy, and the rest of the would-be wreckers are shivering with excitement at the prospect of the crash which they fondly believe to be imminent. The helmsman is under their orders—will he be heaved overboard before he has done his work? If so, farewell to hope of plunder, farewell to hope of religions domination, to freehold farms for nothing, to gold mines, to every hope that made life pleasant, to all the fatuous beliefs that are the basis of Irish Nationalism. It has been shown that "patriotic" subscriptions could only be raised by threats, that the names of non-subscribers were posted on chapel gates, that resolutions fixing the minimum were passed, with a rider to the effect that persons not subscribing would be considered "out of sympathy," and that this fund was for the defence of the patriots Dillon and O'Brien, who afterwards ran away. The rush of the "patriot" depositors on the Post Office Savings Banks so soon as it was known that in the event of Home Rule the floating balance would constitute the working capital of the new Parliament, and would therefore be in the hands of brother "patriots," has been adduced as a fair measure of patriotic sincerity, and endless minor examples might have been given. We might have mentioned Delany, the principal clothier and outfitter of intensely patriotic Limerick, who had not a yard of Irish tweed in his stores; or the Dungannon folks, who think foul scorn of their own coal, and persist in buying the English product at double the cost; or Mr. Timony, of "patriotic Donegal," might have been quoted. "Irishmen," said the great draper, "will not wear Donegal tweed. But for England we should have no market at all." The patriots will not "part." "I'm sorry for you," said the kind old lady. "How much are you sorry?" said the tramp. Tried by this test, Irish patriotism comes out very small. If "patriot" members had to live on the voluntary offerings of their constituencies, the trade would expire of inanition. The members would return to their bogs, their tripe shops, their shebeens, and patriotism would become a lost art. Irishmen will applaud with enthusiasm. They like a red-hot patriotic speech. But, like the crowd listening to the harp and fiddle at the street corner, they begin to shuffle off when the bag comes round.

Irish land hunger is easy to understand and simple to define. The bulk of the population are agricultural, and closely wedded to custom. Their fathers lived on the land and by the land, and they expect to do likewise. Saeva paupertas, et avitus apto cum lare fundus. Their ideas of existence are inseparably connected with the land. Whatever knowledge they have relates to the land. Their farming skill is very limited; indeed, it may almost be said that they have none beyond that possessed by savages—but it is their only possession. They have no turn for mechanics. The rural Irishman is uneducated, and knows little beyond what he sees around him. So far as his experience goes, to be without land is to be without the one means of livelihood. The English small farmer is differently situated. If farming will not pay he has other resources. He can migrate to fifty towns having factories or great public works. And besides this, the Saxon is not crippled by an ignorant conservatism and a congenital inability to adapt himself to changed circumstances. Paddy is content with little, if he have his ease. He loves to put in the seed and then to sit down and wait for the crop, varying the proceedings with fairs and festive gatherings. Such is his conception of life. The ding-dong regularity of factory work does not suit him, so he clings to the land, which provides him with a bare subsistence, and that is all he wants. No ambition to be more luxurious than his father troubles him at all. Short spells of work, and long spells of play, are ensured to the fortunate holder of land. This is Paddy's conception of Paradise. Suppose the land held were at first sufficient to maintain his family. The boys grow up, and, according to custom, the paternal farm is divided, in the next generation again subdivided, until at last the amount of land remaining to each family is insufficient for its maintenance. Then the district becomes congested. The poverty of the people is attributed to the landlords, who are denounced as non-resident, notwithstanding the demonstrations of an affectionate tenantry, who now and then shoot one or two, pour encourarger les autres. If the people have food they have little or no money. The agitator comes and promises No Rent, the opening of gold mines and mighty factories, paying liberal wages, under the fostering wing of an Irish Parliament. The people are ignorant and credulous. They are, however, certain as to their own poverty, and they desire a change. The Roman Catholics regard themselves as the chosen people, the true sons of the soil, but they see that most of the great landowners are Protestant, that the Protestant farmers often hold uncommonly good land, and that if these were once dispossessed the righteous might again flourish as green bay trees. For while Papal Ireland is largely rock and bog, the heretical portion is reclaimed and tilled, the bogs drained, the primeval boulders rolled away, broken up, and made into fences. All this is tempting. Irish land hunger is foreshadowed in the story of Naboth and his vineyard.

And Irish land hunger is largely responsible for Irish rents. Friends and neighbours—aye, even relatives near as brothers and sisters, compete against each other, and eagerly force up the price. Every Irish land agent will tell you of underhand intrigue in connection with land. Not only do brothers secretly strive to obtain advantage over each other by means of higher bidding, but bribery is tried. Mr. Robert Hare, of the Dublin Board of Works, said:—"My father was an agent, and on one occasion he was weighing the respective claims of two brothers to a piece of land which was about to become vacant and perhaps considering their respective offers, when one sent him a ten-pound note. He cut it in two and returned one-half, with an intimation that on receiving a receipt he would forward the other." I never met anyone in Ireland who would not readily admit that high rents were mainly due to the action of the tenants themselves, who, being actuated by what is called land-hunger, which is nothing more in the majority of cases than the necessity to live, had in their desperation bid more than the land was worth. Mr. Thomas Manley, of Trim, County Meath, said:—"The tenant farmer has cried himself up, and the Nationalists have cried him up as the finest, most industrious, most self-sacrificing fellow in the world. But he isn't. Not a bit of it. The landlords and their agents have over and over again been shot for rack-renting when the rents had been forced up by secret competition among neighbours and even relations. Ask any living Irish farmer if I am right, and he will say, Yes, ten times yes." As an Irish farmer and the son of an Irish farmer, living for sixty years on Irish farms, and from his occupation as a horse-dealer, claiming to have an intimate acquaintance with the whole of Ireland, and with almost every farmer who can breed and rear a horse, Mr. Manley is worth a hearing. Continuing, in the presence of several intelligent Irishmen, some of them Home Rulers, but all agreeing with the speaker, Mr. Manley said:—"Rents have been forced up by people going behind each other's backs and offering more and more, in their eagerness to acquire the holding outbidding each other. Landlords are human; agents, if possible, still more human. They handed over the land to the highest bidder. What more natural? The farmers offered more than the land could pay. But why curse the landlords for what was their own deliberate act?" Mr. Manley's knowledge of England enabled him to say that "the Irish farmer is much better off than the English, Scotch, or Welsh farmer, not only in the matter of law, but also in the matter of soil." The legal point is demonstrable. Let us see how the Irish tenant stands. The disinclination of the Irish for factory work, as exemplified in the closing of the Galway jute factory, because of irregularity of attendance, and the refusal of the starving peasantry of congested Donegal and Connemara to accept regular employment in the thread factory of Dunbar, MacMaster and Co., notwithstanding the most tempting inducements, as set forth in my letters from Ireland, has strangled enterprise, except in the North. The ceaseless agitation of the revolutionary party has given rise to a feeling of insecurity which deters capitalists from investing money in Ireland. And it is only fair to say that a large majority of the most intelligent men of every political colour concur in attributing much of the poverty of Ireland to unrestricted Free Trade. Thus a variety of causes have created land hunger, with its resulting land clamour, which has brought about extraordinary legislation—extraordinary because going far beyond the principles recognised by Republican America, which in the first article of its Constitution draws the line thus:—"No State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts." Well might Lord Salisbury, in extending the Land Purchase Act, carefully dissociate the Conservative party from the principle of interference with free contract in the open market. In England a thing is worth what it will fetch. It is not so in Ireland.

A tenant can never be evicted unless a whole year's rent is due. The landlord might want the land for himself or for his son, but he cannot have it. The tenant must have six months' notice of eviction, and when actually evicted can recover possession by paying what he owes, and in that case the landlord becomes liable to the tenant for the crops on the land, and for the profits he (the landlord) might have made. In America the length of notice preceding eviction varies from three days to thirty, the latter only in the State of Maine. Yet in Ireland, where we hear so much of brutal evictions, six months' notice is required, a year's rent being due, this boon having been conferred by a "Coercion" Government. An Irish tenant even when voluntarily leaving his farm must be compensated by the landlord for all improvements made by himself or his predecessors, or must be permitted to sell his improvements to the incoming tenant. The tenant-right of a small farm is sometimes a surprising sum. The moonlighting case I investigated at Newcastlewest, Co. Limerick, arose from a tenant-right transaction, William Quirke having bid L590 for the tenant-right of forty-nine acres formerly held by J. Dore who was selling, as against L400 bid by Dore's cousin. Quirke and three of his family were therefore shot in the legs, by way of impressing the advisability of joining in the Onward march to Freedom. But although the tenant is settled on the land for ever, and, so long as he owes less than a year's rent, cannot be molested, it must not be supposed that the rent he agreed to is unchangeable. Suppose the tenant to be paying a judicial rent, which is decided by three persons, one of them a lawyer, the other two acting respectively in the interests of landlord and tenant, having examined and valued the farm. Assume that the tenant gets more than a year behindhand. The landlord desires to evict. Even then the tenant, by applying for another "Fair Rent," can stay eviction. But while the rent may be lowered, the landlord can never raise it under any circumstances. The law is decidely one-sided. Leases may be broken. All leaseholders whose leases would expire within ninety-nine years after the passing of the Land Act of 1887 may go to Court, have their contracts broken, and a judicial rent fixed. No countervailing advantage is given to the landlords. When a tenant's valuation does not exceed L50, the Court before which proceedings are being taken for the recovery of any debt, whether for beef, bread, groceries, clothes, or whiskey, is empowered to stay eviction, can allow the debtor to pay by instalments, and can extend the time for such payment without limit. To the average British mind this will smack of over-legislation, and serious Irishmen make the same complaint. And still, to quote Father Mahony, of Cork, "still the Irish peasant mourns, still groans beneath the cruel English yoke." The fact is, he is almost killed with kindness. He is weighed down by the multitude of benefactions. He reminds you of the tame sparrow you once suffocated by overfeeding. So much has been done for him that he naturally expects more, and instead of being grateful he grumbles more than ever. He regards Mr. Gladstone as having acted under compulsion, and as being an opportunist. The peasantry of Ireland have no respect for the Grand Old Man. "Shure, we bate the bills out iv him. Shure, he never gave us anythin' till we kicked it out iv his skin. Divil thank him for doin' what we ordhered him to do."

But perhaps the Tory Land Purchase Acts are most promising in, the direction of finality. Lord Ashbourne's Act, as it was called (1885), conferred on Irish tenants opportunities of purchasing their holdings of quite an exceptional kind, and its scope and advantages were enormously increased under the Land Purchase Act passed in 1891. If a tenant wishes to buy his holding and arranges with his landlord as to terms, he can change his position from an ordinary rentpayer into that of a payer of an annuity, terminable in forty-nine years, and actually less in amount than the rent! Most Irish landlords are willing to take less than twenty years' purchase, but the tenants are by their leaders advised not to buy. Otherwise the Government is prepared to advance the necessary purchase money, to be repaid at the rate of four per cent. per annum, which covers both principal and interest. Suppose the tenant's rent to be L50, and that he agreed to buy at the seventeen years' purchase so strongly discountenanced by the priest quoted in my last. His rent or rather the annual payment substituted for rent, would amount to L34, being a reduction of thirty-two per cent. If he bought at fifteen years' purchase, rent L50, he would only pay L30 a year, a reduction of forty per cent. If he bought at twenty years, rent L50, he would have L40 a year to pay, being a reduction of twenty per cent. In forty-nine years the holding would belong to him, or to his children. In any case he must largely benefit. His rent is lower, his share in the ownership is always becoming larger, and, if he chooses, he can at any time sell his interest in the concern. Mr. Palmer, of Tuam, said that those who had purchased under this Act were happy and prosperous. Lord Shannon's tenants bought at twelve years' purchase. In other words they exchanged their rent for one-half the amount, payable to Government, the land to be their own in forty-nine years. Lord Lansdowne's tenants agreed to buy at eighteen years' purchase, all arrears to be forgiven on payment of half a year's rent. These buyers are quiet and apparently contented. Their payments are regular, and if they were left alone they would doubtless continue in the path of rectitude. But the agitators, who find nick-names for everything, have already begun to call this repayment of purchase-money a Tribute to England; and the past history of Irish leaders leads honest Irishmen, as well as Englishmen, to the conviction that, once an Irish Parliament were established, with an Irish constabulary under its rule, a No Tribute campaign would ensue, which would lead to deplorable results. The privileges of Irish tenants are far more numerous than I have space to indicate, but perhaps enough has been said to give a clear idea of the chief causes and effects of land hunger in Ireland.

The remedy, in the opinion of many advanced and enlightened Home Rulers, must come from a Tory Government. From the multitude of counsellors I met in the thirty-two counties of Ireland, I will select two who represent the vast majority of able men of every political party. Mr. Thomas Manley said:—"Settle the land question, reform the Poor Laws and the Grand Jury laws, and reclaim the land, which would pay ten per cent." Mr. Mason, of Mullingar, said:—"The whole agitation would be knocked on the head by the introduction of a severe land measure. Previous legislation has been very severe, and I do not say that a further measure would be just and equitable. I merely say that the people do not want Home Rule, but that they want the advantages which they are told will accrue from Home Rule." And so said everyone.

To settle the land question is to settle everything. Religious animosity would be silenced by self-interest. The operation of the Land Purchase Act has undoubtedly done much to turn the people using its provisions into good Conservatives—law-abiding and law-supporting, as having a stake in the country. The people have not the land for nothing but they look forward to its becoming honestly their own, and meanwhile they enjoy the security insured by the Government of England. In any attempt to settle this great problem, a Conservative Government would probably be largely supported by the landlords themselves, while the rank and file of Ireland would look with respect and confidence on any bill bearing the honoured name of Balfour. But how shall we decide the scope and character of such a final Land Bill? I do not hesitate to say that it must contain a very strong infusion of the compulsory element. The great measure of 1891 is generous to a fault, but it is voluntary, and the result is that the tenants who give greatest trouble—the poor, idle, ignorant dupes of a scheming priesthood and a corrupt political conspiracy—never come under its benefits, because they unquestioningly accept the advice given them to wait until an Irish Parliament lets them have the land for nothing.

Compulsion is not required for the landlords half so much as it is for the tenants. The conclusion arrived at may be stated in a few words. Perhaps it may be worthy the consideration of our brilliant and far-seeing Unionist leaders:—

The Land Purchase Act, 1891, should be amended by a Bill providing (1) That the existing Land Commission shall be strengthened in order to form a Court to which either Landlords or Tenants shall have the right to apply for an order of the Court placing them under the provisions of the Act of 1891, or such extension of that Act as may hereafter be made. (2) It should be the duty of the Court to inquire into the relations of landlord and tenant, the condition of the estate and of the tenants, and such other circumstances as may in the wisdom of the Court seem necessary. (3) If the Court decides to issue an order, the parties shall at once be placed in the same position as if they had entered into a mutual agreement under the Land Purchase Act, 1891; but it shall be the duty of the Court to fix the number of years' purchase; and it shall have power either to restrict or to enlarge the number of holdings over which its order shall take effect.

This is offered as the mere germ of a suggestion. I am familiar with the arguments that may be brought against it. For the most part they can be urged with equal effect against the whole system of interference with that freedom of contract which prevails in England and Scotland, but which, as I have pointed out, has already been destroyed in Ireland. What I claim is that there must be a means of defeating such a conspiracy to make the law inoperative as that practised—to the grave detriment of Irish tenants' interests—by the omnipresent agencies of the National League, ever since the Unionist party set itself to solve the agrarian sources of Irish discontent.

Birmingham, August 14th.



No. 61.—CLERICAL DOMINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Those who play at bowls must expect rubbers. The Roman priesthood of Ireland having assumed the manipulation of Irish politics, have laid themselves open to mundane criticism. Said Mr. Gladstone:—"It is the peculiarity of Roman theology that by thrusting itself into the temporal domain, it naturally, and even necessarily, comes to be a frequent theme of political discussion." Priestly pretensions to authority are without limit. The Catholic clergy of Ireland claim the right to coerce the laity in political matters, themselves remaining exempt from public criticism. They also claim to be exempt from civil jurisdiction, and to have the right of overruling the law of the land, with every moral obligation, when clashing with the interests of the Church. They distinctly teach that every political question is a question of morals, and that to vote against the priest's instructions is a deadly sin. Such being a few of the claims advanced by the Irish priesthood, let us see on what rests the hope of these extraordinary demands being recognised. A.M. Sullivan, a Roman Catholic Nationalist M.P., says:—"Of all Catholic nations or countries in the world—the Tyrol alone excepted—Ireland is perhaps the most Papal, the most ultramontane. In Ireland religious conviction—what may be called active Catholicism—marks the population, enters into their daily life and thought and action. The churches are crowded as well by men as by women, and in every sacrament and ceremony of their religion participation is extensive and earnest. Reverence for the sacerdotal character is so deep and strong as to be called superstition by observers who belong to a different faith; and devotion to the Pope, attachment to the Roman See, is probably more intense in Ireland than in any other part of the habitable globe, the Leonine city itself not excluded." In other words, the Irish are more Roman than the Romans themselves. Here we have on the one hand the claims of the Romish priesthood, and on the other the disposition of the Irish people. But as the alleged claims will to the majority of Englishmen appear monstrous and incredible, it becomes necessary to prove that these claims are actually made.

The fall of Parnell brought the clergy into striking prominence. The powerful personality of the Irish leader, his great popularity, and his determination to rule alone, had to some extent forced the Church into the background. Parnell once removed, the Church at once aimed at undivided rule, directing all her energies to this end mercilessly and without scruple. Her instruments were worthy of the work. The modern Irish priest is usually low-bred, vulgar, and ignorant. The priest of Lever's novels, brimming over with animal spirits, full of bonhomie, sparkling with wit and abounding with jovial good-nature, is nowhere to be found. The men of the olden time were educated in France, and by rubbing against the cultured professors of Douai or Saint Omer, had acquired a polish, a breadth of view, a savoir faire, denied to the illiterate hordes of Maynooth. The olden priest was loyal, just as cultured Irishmen who have travelled, whether in America, England, or elsewhere, are loyal and averse to Home Rule. The modern priest, usually the son of an Irishman such as visits England at harvest time, brought up amidst squalor and filth, is in full sympathy with the limited ideas of the peasantry among whom he was reared. The conversation of his parents and associates would relate to the burden of the Saxon yoke, and his surroundings would perpetually re-echo the stories of Ireland's wrongs and woes. Any literature he might absorb would be a priest-written history of Ireland, with the rebel doggerel of 1798 and the more seductive sedition of later years. At Maynooth he meets a crowd of students like himself, crammed to the throat with his own prejudices, viewing everything from the same standpoint. He returns to the people a full blown ecclesiastic, saturated with a sense of his own importance and the absolute supremacy of the Church he represents; knowing nothing of mankind outside his own narrow sphere, profoundly ignorant of the world's political systems, and intensely inimical to England. Average Keltic priests fully bear out the description furnished by a loyal priest of Donegal, who, on alluding to their social status and Maynooth course, said:—"They are merely shaved labourers, stall-fed for three years."

As to their exceptional claims. The attitude of omniscience and omnipotence has often been crudely stated by the Catholic hierarchy. Archbishop Walsh, of Dublin, has declared that there is no dividing line between religion and politics. Dr. Walsh has also laid down the dictum that, "As priests and independent of all human organisations, we have an inalienable and indisputable right to guide our people in every proceeding where the interests of Catholics as well as the interests of Irish nationality are involved." This prelate rescinded the wholesome rule enforced by his predecessors, forbidding the clergy to take part in political demonstrations. He went further. He ordered that at all political conventions an ex-officio vote should be given to the priests. It is in view of this fact that the Unionists of Ireland not unreasonably declare that under a Home Rule Bill the Roman Catholic clergy would become endowed with civil privileges which would make them absolute rulers of Ireland. It may be urged that Bishop Walsh is discredited at Rome, and that therefore his utterances may be somewhat discounted. But what of the new Irish Cardinal, Archbishop Logue, of Armagh? He agrees with Dr. Walsh, and with reference to the Parnellite split, thus delivers himself:—"We are face to face with a grave disobedience to ecclesiastical authority! The doctrines of the present day are calculated to wean the people from the priests' advice, to separate the priests from the people, and to let the people use their own judgment!" Surely nothing could be clearer or more uncompromising than this. Bishop Nulty, alluding to the refusal of Mr. Redmond's political party to accept without question the political commands of the Church, thus hinted at the consequences to recalcitrant Papists:—"It is exclusively through us that the clean and holy oblation of the mass is offered daily for the living and the dead on the thousands of altars throughout our country. It is through our ministry that the poor penitent gets forgiveness of his sins in the Sacrament of Penance. The dying Parnellite will hardly dare to face the justice of his creator till he has been prepared and anointed by us for the last awful struggle and for the terrible judgment that will immediately follow it." This threat of eternal damnation was eagerly taken up and re-echoed by the inferior clergy. Father Patrick O'Connell speaking from the altar at Ballinabrackey said that no Parnellite could receive the sacrament worthily, and warned all parents against allowing their sons or daughters to attend a Parnellite meeting, as it was not a merely political matter, but a matter of their holy religion. In his sermon he referred to a meeting of the political party favoured by the Church, and said that every man, woman, and child must be present. All must assemble at the chapel, and all must be in time to walk in procession to the place of meeting. He would be there with Father McLoughlin, and the pair would go round to see who was absent. All absentees must let him know the reason why, and if the reason did not satisfy him he would meet them in the highways and in the byways, at the Communion rails, and would "set fire to their heels and toes." He would make it hot for them. There would be no compromise. All voters against clerical instruction he denounced as "infidels and heretics." Mr. Edward Weir, who was suspected of having opinions of his own, was denounced in Castlejordan Chapel as a 'Pigotted Guardian.' He was a member of the Poor Law Board. He was threatened to be 'met at the communion rails,' by which he understood that the sacrament would be refused to him. Two nights afterwards the hedge around his house was set on fire, and fire was placed on the gate in front of it. This was a gentle hint that the people were backing the priest, and that unless he complied his house might be next destroyed. When Mr. Michael Saurin, J.P., a member of the Ballinabrackey congregation, went to vote, the door of the booth was crammed to keep him out. The crowd booed and shouted at him, and he was spat upon. The priests were present in force. Nicholas Cooney was also spat upon, and so was his brother, both on their clothes and in their faces. Father Woods was looking on. Matthew Brogan, who was also thought to be against clerical dictation, was refused admission to mass; and not only poor Matthew himself, but his son, daughter-in-law, her children, and two friends who were suspected of sympathy. The woman insisted on entering the chapel, when one of the crowd of true believers "near cut the hand off her." Michael Kenny and Peter Fagan were served with the same sauce by these enthusiastic preachers of the Onward March to Freedom, poor Fagan exhibiting the touching devotion of the Irish peasantry by kneeling outside during the whole of the service. Englishmen do not realise what these refusals mean to Irish Catholics. They constitute the cruellest and most effective coercion possible. To be refused the sacraments, to be turned away from the door of his chapel, is to the Irish peasant a turning away from the gates of Paradise, a denial of the Kingdom of Heaven, a condemnation to everlasting torment, to say nothing of the accompanying odium in which he is held by his neighbours and associates, and the ever present dread of boycotting. Thomas Brogan dare not leave the polling-booth for his life, until Mr. Carew took him on his car. He had been threatened by the priest, who drew a circle round him with a walking stick, to show that he was cut off from his fellows, and that contamination must be feared. Patrick Hogan, whose views were not in accordance with those of the priest, was afraid to vote. He went to the booth, but feared to proceed. Thomas Dunn was more plucky, but his temerity resulted in a cut face and a black eye for his wife at the hands of a patriot named James Mitchell. Father McEntee tore down a party flag belonging to the station-master of Drumree, a Parnellite, and jumped on it, in a towering rage, saying that the owner must follow the instructions of the Bishop. He then threw the flag into a field. Father Crinnion, of Batterstown, standing in his vestments at the altar, called out the names of all persons supposed to be disaffected to the clerical cause, and ordered them to meet him in the vestry after mass. He asked for their votes, and showed a ballot paper. He had previously read in chapel the opinion of Bishop Nulty, quoted above. Father Tynan told Patrick King that unless he voted "straight" he would not receive the sacraments on his deathbed. The same priest told John Cowley, of Kilcavan, that unless he voted for the right candidate he would be expelled from the Church, and would be deprived of Christian burial when he died. Cases of this kind might be multiplied ad infinitum. Father Shaw, of Longwood, accentuated the horrible condition of the party who refused to vote under his orders by asking his congregation to pray for them. Father Cassidy sailed on the same tack, and besides thanked God that the "wrong 'uns" were so few. Father Fay, of Cool, said (between the Gospels) that his political opponents should be "treated like wild beasts," and that he would never forget the men who voted against his orders. Thomas Darby was canvassed by his priest, who, on finding that his parishioner was pledged the other way, curtly said, "Then you'll go to hell," to which Darby replied that he would at any rate have a few companions. James Guerin has no confidence in the secrecy of illiterate voting, for after voting in the presence of a priest he had to jump a wall and hide in a wood to escape the vengeance of the people. When he came out, at ten o'clock at night, he was stoned. Father O'Donnell, presumably in the interests of peace, advised his congregation to take their sticks to a certain meeting, and promised to be there with his own faithful blackthorn. The peasant Fagan, who said his prayers outside the chapel, was burned in effigy, but priestly displeasure was not satisfied until his cowshed, with a cart and harness were also destroyed by fire. To have independent opinions costs something substantial in Ireland. The aspirations of a People and the Onward March to Freedom are not kept up for nothing. The patriots are not afraid of their trouble. They will not spoil the Union of Hearts for want of a little incendiarism. Now and then, but very seldom, the priests meet their match. They presume on their spiritual immunity. The priest who refused to leave a house into which he had intruded was threatened by Colonel Dopping with expulsion. "Dare to touch my consecrated body," said the "shaved labourer." "Your consecrated body be hanged!" said the Colonel, and out went Father McFadden. Father Fay, of Summerhill, said in a sermon delivered at Dangan:—"You must not look upon me as a mere man! The priest is the ambassador of Jesus Christ, and not like other ambassadors either. He carries his Lord and master about with him, and when the priest is with the people, Almighty God is with them!" Father Fagan, of Kildalkey, was so vexed with the refusal of John Murtagh to vote according to clerical instructions that he said:—"May the landlords come and hunt the whole of ye to hell's blazes." Murtagh said, "Ye wish yer neighbour well, Sorr!" The man of God threatened to kick poor Murtagh into the ditch, to which the erring parishioner replied that in that case he would kick the good shepherd like a puppy. "Ah," said Father Fagan, "you ruffian, you'll want me at the Last Day," and refused to hear his wife's confession. The woman was dying, the husband had been for the priest, and on the way to what proved a death-bed, Father Fagan improved the shining hour by trying to nobble a straying vote. The clergy make the most of their opportunities. At Boardmills Father Skelly spread out a ballot paper on the altar at Sunday service. Having described the situation of the names, he pointed out where they were to make the cross. He then went on with the mass. He thought of something else! Some of them, he hinted, were pledged to the other side. They could shout for this candidate, but when they went to vote they must "wink the other eye," as advised by the music-hall song. Colonel Nolan, M.P., when canvasing at Headford, was violently assaulted by a priest, who cut open the Parnellite head with a stout blackthorn. Like a good Catholic, the Colonel would fain have endured this clerical argument; but the police authorities insisted on the matter seeing the light.

Clerical domination and the means by which it is attained are therefore proven by undeniable evidence. The Papal hierarchy and their subordinates are resolved to be supreme. Aut Caesar, aut nullus. And it is a striking fact that by none is this doctrine so strongly deprecated, so bitterly resented, as by the educated and enlightened portion of Roman Catholic Ireland. Their aspirations are all on the side of toleration, harmony and peaceful progress. They are not only law-abiding, but loyal, and unlike the ignorant clergy and their still more ignorant dupes, are ever ready to join in singing "God Save the Queen." From an English, even a Conservative point of view, the educated Catholics of Ireland, like all classes of English Catholics, are everything that can be desired. But what are they among so many?

The consequences of clerical domination, obtained by spiritual and physical intimidation, are obvious enough. I have not space to show how the system has been carried into the confessional, but numerous examples are on record. Neither was it within the scope of this article to prove, as could easily be done, that the clergy of Rome claim to be above and outside the action of the statute law, and that their action is calculated to make the position of Protestants untenable. The moral degradation of the people, as exemplified by their dread of the priest, who escorts them in hundreds to the polling-booth, and by his persistent action and untiring vigilance exploits their electoral power for his own aggrandisement, and for the acquisition of Papal supremacy in Ireland, is to Englishmen of all considerations the most important. Recent events have demonstrated the fact that the politics of Ireland—and therefore the politics of England—can be almost completely controlled for any purpose by the thirty prelates who practically command the votes of an entire people. A Roman Catholic barrister said to me:—"I do not blame the priests for doing the best they can for themselves. They have the power, and they use it for their own purposes. I say they use it unfairly, and the Meath election petition has proved that they use it illegally. They think otherwise, but without arguing this point, I say that clerical domination will ruin the country. Irish election returns are for the most part worthless as an expression of public opinion." Another talented Irishman said:—"The glorious British Empire is now bossed by a party of priests." And that this is unhappily true must be conceded by every observant and impartial Englishman.

Yet some there are, blind followers of the blind, obtuse to every argument, impregnable to incontrovertible facts, who have cast in their lot with the avowed enemies of England. They have their day—every dog has it—but their day is far spent, and their night is at hand. For England will never again submit to Romish rule. Nor will Ireland when her eyes are opened.

Birmingham, August 16th.



No. 62.—CIVIL WAR A CERTAINTY OF HOME RULE.

English supporters of Mr. Gladstone affect to ridicule the fears of armed and organised conflict between the rival races and religions of Ireland. Their attitude in this respect is doubtless due to a slavish following of their master. They keep their eye upon their figure-head. When it frowns they become serious. When it smiles they try to be funny. When it assumes an aspect of virtuous indignation, the tears immediately spring to their eyes, and they go about saying what a shame it is. They remind you of Professor Anderson and his Inexhaustible Bottle. Like Paddy Byrne's barometer, they are "stuck fast at Changeable." They are always on the move. Like Virgil's lady, they are varium et mutabile. Like Shakespeare's gentlemen, they are Deceivers ever, One foot on shore and one foot on sea, To one thing constant never. Every morning they nervously scan the journals to see what change of sentiment is required. Without this precaution they would run the risk of meeting their political friends with the wrong facial expression. The reason for all this is well known. Their motto is ad exemplum regis. To-day Mr. Gladstone believes (or says he believes) that if Ireland were left to herself, and the disturbing, domineering, tyrannising influence of England were removed, the rival races and religions would live together in perfect harmony and brotherly love. His followers eagerly adopt this belief. But yesterday Mr. Gladstone believed (or said he believed) "That the influence of Great Britain in every Irish difficulty is not a domineering and tyrannising, but a softening and mitigating influence, and that were Ireland left to her own unaided agencies, it might be that the strife of parties would then burst forth in a form calculated to strike horror through the land." His followers believed that too, and they would believe it again to-morrow if their leader harked back. The quotation is from Hansard, and commences, "It is my firm belief." What do Mr. Gladstone's infirm beliefs resemble?

Putting aside the changeable Premier, gyrating like a dancing dervish, and his Penny-in-the-slot party, let us call respectable evidence; let us hear the opinion of competent and trustworthy witnesses; let us examine the character of the forces which will be brought into antagonism; let us observe what steps have been taken in view of possibilities more or less remote; and then let us form our own conclusions. And first as to opinions and evidence, let us hear Mr. J.A. Froude, of all English historians the most famous expert on Irish subjects. "The effect of Grattan's Constitution was to stimulate political agitation and the conflict of the two races." That was a Home Rule Parliament. And again Mr. Froude says:—"Ireland is geographically and politically attached to this country, and cannot be allowed to leave us if she wishes. In passing over the executive power to an Irish Parliament we only increase the difficulty of retaining Ireland. We shall alienate the loyal part of the population, who will regard themselves as betrayed. The necessity of reconquest will remain, but the evils of it and the bloodshed to be occasioned by it will be infinitely enhanced. Such respect for law and order as exists in Ireland is entirely due to English authority. Remove it, and the old anarchy will and must return. If the Home Rule Bill is passed there will be a dangerous and desperate war, in which other countries may take part who would gladly see our power broken." In Mr. Froude's opinion, there would be war between England and Ireland, as well as between Ulster and the South. His last sentence is curiously confirmed by the Irish Daily Independent, which says:—"What England forgets is the fact that when next Ireland fights she will not fight alone." This is not a warning, like the prophecy of Mr. Froude, it is a threat, for the Independent is not only a Nationalist, but an intensely anti-English paper. Another great historian, Mr. Lecky, thus expresses himself:—"The Parliament Mr. Gladstone proposes to set up would be in violent hostility to the richest and most industrious portion of the community. It is regarded with horror by nearly every man who is a leader of industry in Ireland. All the great names in Irish finance, manufacture, and trade are against it, and the men who would undoubtedly lead it are men whom Mr. Gladstone not long ago described with great justice as preaching the doctrine of public plunder." The state of feeling here indicated could have but one result; but Mr. Lecky is still more precise. "The assertion that Irish Catholics have never shown any jealousy of Irish Protestants is of a kind which I find it difficult to characterise with proper moderation. Jealousy, unhappily, is far too feeble a word to describe adequately the fierce reciprocal animosity which has dislocated Ireland for centuries. It blazed into a furious flame in the religious wars of Elizabeth, in the great rebellion of 1642, in the Jacobite struggle of 1689, in the religious war into which the rebellion of 1798 speedily degenerated. These facts are about as conspicuous in the history of Ireland as Magna Charta and the Commonwealth in the history of England. No one who knows Ireland will deny that the policy of Mr. Gladstone has contributed more than any other single cause to revive and deepen the divisions which every good Irishman deplores." Mr. Lecky believes that history repeats itself, and that the establishment of an Irish Parliament would lead to a great Irish convulsion, similar to those which he refers. My experience among Irish Churchmen convinces me that their feeling is understated in the petition signed by nearly fifteen thousand select vestrymen, and adopted by the general Synod, "That we regard the measure as fraught with peril to our civil and religious liberties, which are our prized inheritance; that conflicts of interest and collisions of authority would create a condition of frequent irritation and intolerable strain." The Methodists in full Conference gave it as their opinion "That in the judgment of this committee the bill, if it were to become law, so far from being a message of peace to Ireland, would be a most fruitful occasion of distressing discord and strife; that class would be arrayed against class and party against party with a virulence now rare and unknown; and that the inevitable result would be the overturning of all order and good government." What does this mean if not civil war? Be it understood that the existing feeling is now being demonstrated by appeal to the most reliable authorities, all speaking under a due sense of responsibility, and therefore with a studied moderation. The Presbyterians, a numerous and powerful body, speaking in the General Assembly, after declaring that the proposed measure imperils their civil and religious liberties, and expressing their determined opposition to an Irish Legislature and Executive, controlled by men "marching through rapine to the dismemberment of the Empire," whom a Special Commission found to be guilty of a criminal Conspiracy, and who invented, supported, and tried to justify the Land League, the Plan of Campaign, and boycotting—after this preamble, the Presbyterians declare that the bill is "calculated to embitter the hostility of conflicting creeds and parties in Ireland." The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland resolved at a meeting of its Irish Presbytery "that Home Rule would greatly intensify the antagonism now existing between the two peoples inhabiting Ireland." The Quakers come out pretty strong. They first ask to be believed. They hope that Englishmen will give credence to the sincerity of their convictions and the disinterestedness of their motives, and then they say that Home Rule "cannot fail to be disastrous to Ireland, and must tend to perpetuate and intensify the strife and discord which we have so long lamented and which we earnestly desire, so far as in us lies, to mitigate and allay." These protests are not all from Ulster. Every Grand Jury in Ireland has expressed itself in similar terms. The leading mercantile men of the three southern provinces of Ireland have declared in writing that "the Bill of the Government throws amongst us a new apple of discord, and plunges Ireland again into a state of political and party ferment." Pages of quotation might be added. But if those already adduced are not sufficient to satisfy my readers as to the feeling of the Irish Unionist party, they would hardly be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

The feeling of the other party is still stronger, and has been so often and openly expressed as to stand in no need of proof. Mr. Dillon has threatened to "manage Ulster;" and others have over and over again declared that the Protestant settlers are not Irishmen, and therefore have no right in the country. The lower classes of Irish Nationalists regard an Irish Legislature as an instrument to secure ascendency and plunder. The ruling idea is loot. The Unionists are determined at all costs to maintain religious equality and to hold their own. In Ulster masters and men, landlords and tenants, are of one mind. They do not bluster and brag. Those who represent them as rowdies do them grievous wrong. They are sober, thrifty, industrious, pious. In character they resemble Cromwell's Puritans, or the Scottish Covenanters of old, and no wonder, for they are of the same stock. They are by nature kindly and peaceful, but they become dangerous indeed on the points of liberty, religion, and property. We can partly judge their future by their past. In the dark and troublous days of rebellion they held the country for England, established a police, did for Ireland all that Government neglected to do, and then, having restored order, the small but mighty minority threw aside their arms and went back to their work. They are before everything industrial. Wars and rumours of wars they detest, as injurious to trade, as well as to higher interests. But when they take off their coats they always win. They put into their efforts, whether in war or peace, such a strenuous determination, such an unwavering resolution to succeed, that they become invincible. They have the confidence inspired by invariable success. Their opponents have the flabbiness and the lack of self-reliance resulting from seven hundred years of whining and querulous complaint. If Mr. Gladstone were to offer complete separation to-morrow the Irish leaders dare not take it. They know what would happen if Ulster took the field. Spite of their boasting, Dillon & Co. know full well that their vaunted numbers would avail them naught.

The venerable William Arthur, a Nonconformist minister, says:—"We will not be put under a Parliament in Dublin. The Imperial franchise and all which that guarantees is our birthright. No man shall take it from us. We will never sell it. If Englishmen and Scotchmen will not let us live and die in the freedom we were born to, they will have to come and kill us. On that ground stands the strongest party in Ireland. For as sure as the Home Rule party is the larger, so surely is the Unionist party the stronger. Ask any military man who has spent a few years in the country. Settle the Irish question by putting the stronger party under the weaker! You would only change a count of heads into a trial of strength. Instead of the polling-booth, where nothing counts but heads, you would set for the two parties another trysting place. There brains count, education counts, purses count, habits of hard work count, habits of command and habits of obedience count, habits of success count, delight in overcoming difficulties count, northern tenacity counts, and there are other things which I do not mention that would count. Let not the two parties be summoned to that trysting place!"

During my visit to Belfast I had exceptional opportunities of ascertaining the probabilities of armed resistance to the authority of a Dublin Parliament. I visited what might fairly be called the Ulster War Department, and there saw regular preparation for an open campaign, the arrangements being under the most able and expert superintendence. The tables were covered with documents connected with the sale and purchase of rifles and munitions of war. One of them set forth the particulars of a German offer of two hundred and forty-five thousand Mauser rifles, the arm lately discarded by the Prussian Government, with fifty million cartridges. As I had frequent opportunities of observing the manufacture of a hundred and fifty thousand of these weapons by the National Arms and Ammunition Company of Sparkbrook, I noted the present quotation, which was 16s. each, the cartridges to be thrown in for nothing. Another offer referred to a hundred and forty-nine thousand stand of arms with thirty million cartridges. There were numerous offers from Birmingham, and a large consignment of rifles and bayonets were about to be delivered in Ireland, the entire freight of a small steamer, at a place which I was then forbidden to mention, but which I may now say was Portaferry. An enormous correspondence was submitted to me in confidence, and I was surprised to see how deep and sincere was the sympathy of the working men of England, who with gentlemen of position and influence, and rifle volunteers by thousands were offering their aid in the field should the bill become law. I saw a letter from a distinguished English soldier with an offer of five hundred pounds and two hundred men. Money was coming in plentifully, and all the correspondence was unsought. The office had over fifty thousand pounds in hand, and promises for more than half a million. The forces at that moment, organised and drilled, numbered 164,614, all duly enrolled and pledged to act together anywhere and at any time, many of them already well armed, and the remainder about to be furnished with modern weapons. The Government was becoming nervous. An order from headquarters required a complete survey of the three barracks of Belfast, with an exhaustive report as to their defensive capabilities. Plans of existing musketry loopholes were to be made, and commanding officers were to state if it would be advisable to add to them. Suggestions were invited, and Mr. Morley, who at that very moment was telling Parliament that no precautions were being taken, wanted to know if the said barracks could be held against an organised force of civilians, arriving unexpectedly, and when Tommy Atkins was taking his walks abroad. At the same time, military officers were being secretly sworn in as magistrates. Does this look like the fear of civil war? These statements, made in the Gazette five months ago, have not been contradicted. The rank and file of the English Home Rule party know nothing of this—and by what their priestly allies would call "invincible ignorance" they may be excused their inability to believe in stern resistance to anything. The party of surrender are totally incapable of understanding that men exist who would lay down their lives for a principle. Mr. Gladstone and his Items, like the Irish leaders and their dupes, are easily overmastered. You have only to stand up to them, and they curl up like mongrel curs. But for this fact were would be no Home Rule Bill. Of the two parties the Irish were the stoutest, and the weakest went to the wall. The English Home Rulers cannot conceive that their conquerors could be easily beaten, or even that men can be found to meet them on the field. On the contrary, the men of Ulster who know these heroes hold them in deepest contempt, and in the event of an appeal to arms would treat them as so many mice. Spite of their Army of Independence, the Nationalists tacitly admit this, and would defer separation until they have first by legislative enactments driven away "the English garrison," or compelled Ulster in self-defence to declare against English rule. And, strange to say, they propose to use to this end the force of English arms. They calculate on the resistance of Ulster as a measure of assistance to their own ultimate purposes. "All we have to do is to stand by while British soldiers shoot them down like dogs." That is their expectation, as expressed by one of themselves. Their plans are well hid. But "The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft agley," as the priest-governed schemers may find to their cost.

A second and more recent sojourn in Ulster deepened the impression given by my first visit. Throughout the province the feeling is still the same—an immovable determination to resist at all hazards the imposts of a Dublin Parliament. They will have no acts or part in it. They will send no members, they will pay no taxes, they will not accord to it one jot or tittle of authority. They will offer armed resistance to any force of police or Sheriff's officers acting under warrants issued by the College Green legislators. Resistance to the Queen's authority they regard as altogether out of the question. But it remains to be seen whether British troops will "shoot them down like dogs." The Ulstermen think not, and they have good reasons for this opinion. The mere threat of Home Rule in 1886 cost forty lives in the streets of Belfast alone. Who can say what would be the results of the bill becoming law? Surely every reliable test points in one direction. The Gladstonian party, without a shadow of reason, have affected to doubt the courage and resolution of the Northerners, but the breed of the men and their long history are a sufficient answer to these cavillers. True it is that their courage has not been demonstrated by murder, by shooting from behind a wall, or the battering out of a policeman's brains, a hundred against one, or the discharging of snipe-shot into the legs of old women and young children, after the fashion so popular with the party with whom Mr. Gladstone and his heterogeneous crew are now acting. But for all that, the pluck and tenacity of Ulstermen are undeniable. Their cause is good, and left to themselves they would win hands down.

It is therefore demonstrated by a consensus of the weightiest authorities and by the results of personal investigation that not only would civil war between Irish parties be the inevitable result of Home Rule, but that there would also be war between Ireland and England; that Irish Unionists are determined to resist to the last, and that they possess the means of resistance. They are touched on the subjects they hold most sacred—religion, freedom, property; and despite the assurances of Mr. Gladstone, who desires to judge the Nationalist party by their future, the keen Ulstermen prefer to judge them by their past. And bearing these things in mind, it is not unreasonable to say that Englishmen who support the present policy of the Separatist party are at once enemies of Ireland and traitors to their native land.

And now my task as your Special Commissioner in Ireland is at an end. Without fear or favour I have described the country as I found it, and have exposed the character and the motives of the men to whom Mr. Gladstone would entrust its future government. I was no bigoted partisan when my task began, but in a period of six months I have traversed the country from end to end, and at every step my first impressions have been deepened. It would be a folly—yea, it would be a crime—to withdraw from Ireland that mitigating influence of British rule which alone prevents a lovely island becoming the foul and blood-stained arena of remorseless sectarian strife.

Birmingham, August 18th.

FINIS.



GENERAL INDEX

ACHIL ISLANDS, 244.

AGRICULTURE, Mr. Balfour's aids to, 179 and 370.

"ALL YOU WANT," an Irish Programme, 331.

AMERICAN Tourist's Opinion, 7 and 31; Help for Ireland, 329.

ARAN ISLANDS, 156.

ARMAGH, 291.

ASHBOURNE ACT, Happy results of, 133.

ATHENRY, 177.

BALFOUR, Right Hon. A.J., reception in Belfast, 20; reception in Dublin, 40; Galway Fisheries, 135; Ditto, 140; The Man for Ireland, 152; Aids Agriculture, 179; Secret of Success, 210; List of his Light Railways, 387.

BALLYMENA, Description of, 32.

BANKS, Effects of Home Rule Bill on, 8.

BEGGARS, Irish, 237, 360, and 378.

BELFAST, Newcastle Miners in, 22; Belfast and Dublin Corporations compared, 22; Chamber of Commerce, 29; Riots of 1886, 29; Later Opinions, 317.

BLARNEY STONE, The, 65.

BODYKE, Visit to, 103; History of Estate, 105; Evictions at, 106 and 109; Tenants could Pay, 118.

BOYCOTTING (see also Outrage, &c.). The Darcy Family, 118; Mr. Strachan, of Tuam, 130; Children Starving, 151; For expressing Political Opinions, 227; Father Humphreys on, 264; Mrs. Taylor's Case, 346.

BOYNE, Battle of the, 307.

BUNDORAN, Attack on Protestants at, 384.

CABLES, Nationalists and Atlantic, 11.

CHAMBERLAIN, Right Hon. J., and Mr. Dillon, 297.

CAPPAWHITE, Assault, 53.

CAPITAL, Idle Irish, 200.

CATHEDRALS, Tipperary, 48; Monaghan, 299.

CATHOLICS, Roman, Opinion of Unionist, 14; Hatred of Protestants, 14 (see also Intolerance); The Loyalist, 166 and 266.

CATTLE in living rooms, 245.

CHARACTER SKETCHES—A Kerry Shopkeeper, 69; Philip Fahy, 125; An Old Woman, 148; Local Names, 175; Ladies and their Boots, 178; Bailiffs and Gangers, 182; Achil Car Driver, 247.

CHARITY, Effects of Home Rule Bill on, 7; Hopelessness of helping the Irish by, 238.

CHURCHYARD, an Irish, 223.

CLARE, "Unmanageable Devils," 74; the Curse of County, 81; Civil War in, 102.

COERCION, Irish Legislature and, 114.

CONGESTED DISTRICTS, a precise definition of, 178; Description of, 230.

CORK, Sentiment in, 61.

CREDULITY of Irish, 3, 13, and 119; Belief in Fairies, 138; Hill full of Diamonds, 150.

CROKE, Archbishop, 351.

CUSTOMS, Collection of, under Home Rule, 58.

DE BURGHO, Lady, and Evictions, 113.

DEGRADATION, Glimpses of Irish, 244.

DILLON, John, convicted at Tipperary, 53.

DISLOYALTY (see also Union of Hearts); "To hell with Queen Victoria," 4; the Town Crier, 218; Cursing the Queen, 262; Father Ryan's Manifesto, 276; Irish Press admits, 287; Poem against joining the Army, 364; T.D. Sullivan's Verses, 337.

DONEGAL, Do-Nothing, 371.

DUBLIN, Opinions in, 1; compared with Belfast, 22.

DUGORT, 251.

DUNDALK, 278.

DYNAMITE, Use of, justified, 235; Daly, 275.

EDUCATION, Catholic designs on, 301.

ELECTIONS (see also Voting) in Ulster, 342; False Swearing, 360.

ENGLAND, Apathy of Electors in, 6; Effects of Home Rule on English Industries, 43, also 213 and 372; English Ignorance of Ireland, 238; Not Governed by Englishmen, 279.

EVICTIONS (see also Bodyke). Sadleir case, 57; Ruane, 130; What They Mean, 228; In Queen's County, 334.

FACTORIES, Galway Bag, 141; Ditto, 182; Flour Mills, &c., idle, 200.

FAMINE in Achil, 253; "Please God we'll have a Famine," 255.

FARMERS, English and Irish compared, 99; Irish Petted and Spoiled, 281.

FENIANS, Opinion of, 260; O'Leary and Stephens, 388.

FISHERIES, Priests' Falsehoods about, 94; Galway, 135; Price of Fish, 139; Aran Island, 158; Curing Taught, 181.

FLAX-Growing Neglected, 290.

FOREST Planting in Congested Districts, 180.

FOWL Breeding Encouraged, 370.

FRANCHISE, Effects of lowering, 78.

FREEMASONS, Archbishop Walsh and, 19.

FUNERALS in Connaught, 214.

GAG, Irish Catholic on, 343.

GALWAY, Board of Guardians, 140; Harbour Folly, 175.

GEOGRAPHICAL Necessity, 357.

GLADSTONE, Right Hon. W.E., attacks Parnell, 96; "Oi'm goin' across the Say," 134; Mob Rule, 150; As a "Jumper," 248; his "firm belief," 309; "the party of law and order," 325.

GLADSTONIANS converted in Ireland, 137, 154, and 312.

GORT, Description of, 116.

GRUBB, Sir Howard, 1.

GUARDIANS, Boards of, and Rates, 267.

HARRINGTON, "Tim," 9.

HARVEST Hands for England, Irish, 247, 251, 258; see also under England.

HEALY, "Tim," his parentage, 64.

HOLY WATER, 186.

HOME RULE, a Coffin for, 3; Nationalist Opinions of Bill, 8; How Nationalists will work, 10; A Peasant's View of, 54; Not Yet, 70; Home Rule from Mr. Balfour, 70; Mr. Manley on, 98; Praying against, 120; Masses don't want, 137; "Let us have Chaos," 164; "Can we eat it?" 173; An Irish Criticism of, 215; Who oppose it? 249; United Ireland on, 291; German View of, 305; Its Friends and Enemies, 330; Parnellites dread it now, 376.

HOUGHTON, Lord, 272, 286, 316.

HUMOROUS INCIDENTS narrated: The Phoenix Park Orator, 9; An "Iligant" Tenant, 31; "The Devil's Bite," 56; The Timprance Man, 56; A Lending Transaction, 80; The Galway Fisherman, 124; "When I'm sober," 148; "'Tis Home Rule ye want," 160; Mr. Morley and the Car-driver, 177; The Wild Ass, 181; Michael and the Postal Service, 208; The Cattle Boat, 275; A Question of Feet, 357; An Irish Retort, 364; Finn Water v. Purgatory, 354.

IGNORANCE, the Kerry Folks', 68.

IMMIGRATION, Effects of Home Rule on, 210.

IMPROVIDENCE, in Connaught, 124; Irish Farmers', 227.

INTIMIDATION (see also Bodyke), Sadleir's Case, 57; How it is Done, 132.

INTOLERANCE, Irish, 339, 349.

IRELAND, Another Injustice to, 122.

IRISH LANGUAGE, 203.

IRISH NATIONAL FEDERATION, Commissioner attends a "Mass Meeting" of the, 282; Sequel thereto, 371.

IRISH MEMBERS, Popular Opinions of, 8 and 57; Protected by Police, 60; Contempt for, 114; Why Distrusted, 151; Matt Harris, 205; Fenians on, 260.

JURIES, The Cork, 69.

LANDLORDS Must Exist, 117; Tim Healy on, 338.

LAND (see also Rent), Sub-division of, 58; Land Hunger, 99 (see also Summary Article, 396); Tenants Real Owners, 192; a Farmer's View, 225; Must be Worth Something, 228; Land Commission Rewards Idleness, 373.

LAND LEAGUE, Defying the, 65; Reign at Loughrea, 142; Overmatched, 254; Gladstone and Harcourt on, 315.

LAND PURCHASE, Falsehoods about, 144.

LAZINESS, Examples of, 36; Mr. James Dunn on Irish, 123; Mr. McMaster's Offer, 155; In England Work, in Ireland Play, 229; an Excuse for, 245; Death and, 250; "Going to," 378.

LEGISLATION, with a Hard G, 330.

LIES, Nationalist, about Daly, 279; about Westminster, 316; about Mr. Balfour, 344.

LINEN TRADE of Londonderry, 34.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT, A Nationalist on, 277.

LOGAN, M.P., False Statements about Rents, 195.

LOGUE, Cardinal, 293; his Father, 357.

LONDONDERRY, Description of, 34.

MACADAM, Mr., Bodyke Agent, 103.

MCFADDEN, Father, his income, 369.

MAGEE, Detective James, 388.

MANSIONS IN RUINS, 184.

MARRIAGE Customs in Connaught, 213; in Achil Islands, 246; Juvenile, 257.

MAYNOOTH, Enemy of England, 76, 326; Dr. Wylie on, 350.

MINES, Delusions about, 121, 145, 212, 233, 358, 362.

MINORITY, The, 296, 312.

MONAGHAN, 299.

MORLEY, Right Hon. John, soliloquy, 89; on the side of crime, 104; tight-fisted, 153; the cab-driver and, 177; police on, 226; philandering, 389.

MULLINGAR, 191.

NATIONALISM, its real nature, 4; see also summary article, 390.

NEWRY, 285.

NOLAN, Colonel, interview with, 126; a Parnellite, 210; assaulted by a priest, 281.

O'BRIEN, WILLIAM, convicted at Tipperary, 53.

O'CALLAGHAN, Colonel, 100.

O'SHAUGHNESSY, Dr., on Home Rule, 115.

ORANGE LODGES, their toleration, 33; demonstrations, 319; charged with rowdyism, 323; constitution of the, 324.

OUTRAGES: Two girls brutally assaulted, 60; fifteen in County Clare, 83; hushing up, 89; dread of, 91; Loughrea, 142; a terrible list of, 167; a fire, 198; Mr. Moloney shot, 199; Castle explosion, 218; Mr. Blood fired at, 281.

PARLIAMENT, an Irish, what it could do, 188; fancy picture of, 268.

PARNELLITES and Anti-Parnellites defined, 270.

PARNELL, Mr., Priests and, 79; secret of his success, 133; still worshipped in Dublin, 277.

PEACE, Ireland needs, 72.

PLEDGES and Promises, Value of Irish, 97.

POLICE, The Dublin, 5; refuse protection at Bodyke, 107; Mr. Morley and the, 226.

PONSONBY Rents, 50.

POST OFFICE Savings Bank, Run on, 8.

POTATO Seed Wasted, 248.

POVERTY, English and Irish, 255.

PRESS, The Irish, 272; on finality, 337.

PRIESTS AND PEOPLE (see also Voting): A terrible danger, 71; priests' one idea, 73; priests at Home Rule Convention, 164; never denounced outrage, 167; people believe anything priest tells them, 204; present day priests, 211; "I am responsible," 242; "admit bearer," 263; "pay, pay, pay, from the cradle to the grave," 325; spiritual tyranny, 332; refusing the sacrament, 348; a loyal priest, 365.

PROTECTIONISTS, 269.

PROTESTANTS, Attack on, at Cappawhite, 53; persecution of, at Tuam, 131; colony at Dugort, 246; why they are Unionists, 380; Bundoran outrage upon, 384.

RAILWAYS—Mr. Balfour's—Cork and Muskerry, 65; the Connemara, 169; a ride on a new line, 174; an engine ride, 230; building on a bog, 231; a dangerous ride, 241; full list of Balfour Light Railways, 387.

REGISTRATION FRAUDS, 341.

RENTS, the Ponsonby, 50; rack renting, 100; quite low enough, 143; what rack rent means, 190; land must be worth something, 228; to whom is rent due? 335; Dublin Corporation tenants and Clanricarde tenants compared, 335; a Donegal rent book, 354.

REPUBLIC, An Irish, 162; could we reconquer? 185.

RIBBONMEN and Nationalists compared, 276.

ROSSMORE, Lord, and Monaghan Town Council, 301.

RUINS, Irish, 310.

SALTHILL, 149.

ST. PATRICK, 307.

SCOTCH and Irish Compared, 286 and 375.

SECURITIES, Effect of Home Rule Bill on, 7.

SECRET Societies, 148.

SENTIMENT, a Priest on Irish, 188.

SMITH Barry, Mr., 50.

SOAP as a remedy for Ireland's ills, 95.

SOLDIERS, Irish Girls and, 79; complaint when withdrawn, 278.

STRABANE Agricultural Show, 375.

STRANORLAR, 352.

STRIKE Leaders and Nationalists compared, 370.

SULLIVAN, T.D., on India, 337.

SUMMARY ARTICLES:— 1—Irish Nationalism is not Patriotism, 390. 2—Land Hunger: Its Cause, Effect, and Remedy, 396. 3—Clerical Domination and its Consequences. 4—Civil War a certainty of Home Rule.

SUPERSTITION (see also Credulity), the Holy Man, 62.

TENANTS' Losses, 52.

TERRORISM in Dublin, 10; Rev. R. Eager, 12; at Tipperary, 48.

TIPPERARY, New and Old, 48.

TOLERATION, would Catholics show? 300 and 303.

TRADE, Home Rule effects on (see also England), 7 and 65.

TRADITION, Effects of, 76.

TUAM, 128; Indignation Meeting, 220.

ULSTER, Feeling on Home Rule Bill in, 13; Preparation for War, 13; English Sympathy with, 15; Loyalist Programme, 16; Character of Ulstermen, 243; Articles on, 285; "tak a doom'd lot of managin'," 321.

UNION of Hearts, Dublin mob on, 42; "When England's bur-r-sted up," 74; Miss Gonne, 93; Union Jack cut down, 191; "When Britons first at Hell's command" (see also Disloyalty), 197.

VICTORIA Disaster, Irish opinion of, 297.

VOTING, Priests and, 263, 332; Priests endowed with a thousand votes, 353; Regulations wanted against priests, 360.

WALSH, Archbishop, 274.

WAR, Preparations for, in Ulster, 13; Mr. Morley's precautions, 27; Ireland's policy when England is at war, 314; Danger of civil war, 409.

WORTHINGTON, Mr. Robert, on ruin by Home Rule, 43.

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