Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule. Buckley Robert John
we will try to let some of the Darkness out."
Dublin, March 28th.
No. 2. – PANIC AND DISASTER
The situation is becoming hourly more serious. The over-excited condition of men's minds is rapidly ripening into a panic. The impending Second Reading is driving the respectable population of Ireland into absolute despair. The capital is inundated by men from all parts of the kingdom anxious to know the worst, running hither and thither, asking whether, even at the eleventh hour, anything may be done to avert the dreaded calamity. An eminent solicitor assures me that during the last four-and-twenty hours a striking change of opinion has taken place. Red-hot Home Rulers when confronted with the looming actuality are on all sides abandoning their loudly proclaimed political opinions. My friend's business – he is, or has been, an ardent Home Ruler – is chiefly connected with land conveyancing, and he declares that his office is besieged by people anxious to "withdraw their charges" on land and house property, that is, to recall their money advanced on mortgage, however profitable the investment, however apparently solid the security. He instanced the case of an estate in Cavan, bearing three mortgages of respectively £1,000, £3,000, and £4,000, and leaving to the borrower a clear income of £1,700 a year after all claims were paid. The three lenders are strenuously endeavouring to realise, the thousand-pounder being prostrate with affright, but although the investments under normal conditions would fetch a good premium, not a penny can be raised in any direction. The lenders are Home Rulers, and eighty per cent. of the population of Cavan are Roman Catholic.
The same story is heard everywhere, with "damnable iteration." The cause of charity is suffering severely. The building of additions to the Rotunda Hospital and the Hospital for Consumptives, at a cost of twenty thousand pounds, has been definitely abandoned, although three-quarters of the money has been raised. The building trade is at a complete standstill. On every hand contracts are thrown up, great works are put aside. Mr. Kane, High Sheriff of Kildare, declines to proceed with the building of his new mansion, which was to cost many thousand pounds. Mr. John Jameson, the eminent distiller, who also contemplated the construction of a palatial residence, which would take years to build, has dropped the idea. The project for the formation of a great Donegal Oyster-bed Company, which long bade fair to prosper, and to confer a boon on the starving peasantry of the coast, has been cast to the winds. Among the shoals of similar occurrences which confront you at every turn, some contain an element almost of humour. A Dublin architect tells a quaint story of this kind. It may not be generally known in England that the Roman Catholics of Ireland can borrow money from John Bull for the erection of "glebe-houses," at 4 per cent., repayable in 49 years. In a certain recent case the priest thought the builder's estimate too high, and, without absolutely declining the contract, intimated that he would "wait a while." Said the architect, "Better make up your mind before June, or you may have the Irish Legislature to deal with." This argument acted like magic. The good Father instantly saw its cogency, and, like every other patriotic Nationalist whose personal interest is involved, preferred to place himself in English hands rather than in those of his own countrymen, and incontinently accepted the contract, begging the architect to proceed with all haste.
A run on the Post Office Savings Bank threatens to clear out every penny of Irish money, and why? Because it has dawned on the small hoarders, the thrifty and industrious members of the lower classes, that the Post Office is to be transferred to the Irish Legislature. A friend tells me that yesterday his Catholic cook begged for an interview. She had money in the Post Office Savings Bank, and thereanent required advice, asking if it would be safe till to-morrow! Following up this hint, pregnant with meaning, though delivered in jest, I found that the feeling of insecurity is spreading like wild fire, to the intense indignation of those patriots who have no savings, and who are alive to the fact that under the provisions of the proposed Act the four millions supposed to be lying in the Post Office Savings Bank would constitute the entire working capital, as distinguished from current income, of the College Green Legislature. The master of a small sub-office told me that the withdrawals at his little place amounted to £200 per week, rising latterly to £70 per day, and that it was necessary to get money from London to meet the demands. Concurrently with this I learn that the Dublin Savings Bank, an institution managed by merchants of the city, for the encouragement of thrift, is receiving the money so withdrawn, and this confidence is explained by the well-known fact that the directors have publicly declared that on the passing of the Home Rule Bill they will pay 20s. in the pound and close the bank, in addition to which significant ultimatum they have, in writing, declared to Mr. Gladstone, that this course of action is due to the fact that they repudiate the security of the proposed Irish Legislature. To put the thing in a nutshell it may be said that not a single Irishman in or out of the country is willing to trust the Irish Legislature with a single penny of his own money.
A curious feature of the Nationalist character is the profound contempt expressed for Nationalist M.P.'s. Englishmen are accustomed to speak of their own members, representing their own opinions, with respect. Not so in Dublin. A rabid Nationalist said to me, "I am an Irishman to the backbone. I am a Home Ruler out-and-out. But do you think I'd trust my property with either of the two Tims? Do you think such men as Tim Harrington and Tim Healy are fit to be trusted with the spending of 2½ millions of money per annum? They have their job, and they work well at their job, and the Irish people have backed them up out of pure divilment. 'Tis mighty fine to take a rise out of John Bull, to harass him, to worry him, to badger him out of his seven sinses. The half of the voters never were serious, or voted as they were told by men who expatiated on the wrongs which have been dinned into them from infancy. But to trust these orators with their money! Bedad, we're not all out such omadhauns (idiots) as that! Paddy is not altogether such a fool as he looks."
Although public feeling has suddenly deepened in intensity, the change has been for some time in progress. I am enabled to state on irrefragable authority, that Lord Houghton's sudden departure from Dublin on Sunday week was entirely due to his alarm at the shifting aspect of affairs, which rendered instant conference with Mr. Gladstone a matter of urgent necessity. And it should be especially noted that this change is most apparent not in the Protestant North, not among the irreconcilable black and heretic Ulsterites, but in Nationalist Dublin, in the Roman Catholic south – not simply among the moneyed classes and well-to-do shopkeepers of Dublin, but among the industrious poor, and the small farmers of the region round about. The opinions and feelings of the better classes have ever been dead against the Bill, and the best portion of the poorer people are assuredly moving in the same direction. That such is the simple fact is undeniable. It is thrust upon you whether you will or no. You are compelled to believe it, whatever your political creed. It manifests itself in a variety of ways. Mr. Love, of Kildare, a landed proprietor, now in Dublin, says that on Sunday last Dr. Gowing, parish priest of Kill, denounced Home Rule from the altar, and advised the people to have none of it.
The Dubliners are beginning to publicly ridicule their Nationalist members. A bog-oak carving represents a typical Irishman driving a "conthrairy pig," which is supposed to stand for Tim Harrington. The interesting animal is deviating from the right way, gazing fixedly at a milestone which bears the legend, "IX. miles to College Green." His master gives him a cut of the whip and a jerk of the rope, and thus addresses the wayward Tim, "Arrah, don't be wastin' yer larnin', radin' milestones. Ye're not goin' to Dublin – ye're goin' to BRAY!" A Phœnix Park orator who sang amusing songs finished his appeal for coppers thus, "Sure, Home Rule is a splindid thing – an iligant thing intirely, an' a blind man could see the goodness iv it wid his two eyes. Didn't ye all know Tim Harrington whin he hadn't the price iv his breakfast? Didn't ye know him whin he would dhrop on his two marrowbones and thank God for the price of a shmell of calamity-wather" (whiskey). "An' now look at him! D'ye mind the iligant property he has outside Dublin? An ye'll all get the like o' that, every bosthoon among yez, av ye get Home Rule. But yez must sind me to Parlimint. Sure I have ivery quollification. Wasn't I born among yez? Wasn't I rared among yez? Don't I know what yez wants? An' didn't I go many a day widout a male? Aye, that I did, an' could do it again! Sind me to Parlimint, till I get within whisperin' distance of Misther Gladstone – within whisperin' distance, d'ye mind me? Ye'll all get lashins of dhrink, an' free quarthers at the Castle. An' all ye have to do is to pay me, an' pay me well." Here the speaker laid his finger along his nose and broke into a comic song having reference to "the broad Atlantic," which he chanted in a brogue