Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule. Robert John Buckley
of being three to one, are only one to three. The Ulstermen are the entrenched army; the Cork Unionists are the advanced picket. More judges got promotion from Cork than elsewhere. We changed the barristers' silk to ermine, too. All this shows what we went through. Everything is quiet now; Balfour terrified the life out of them, and Captain Moonlight at the mention of that name would skip like spring-heeled Jack."
The Kerry folks turned out bright as their reputation. It was hard to believe that these simple, kindly peasants had ever stained their beautiful pastoral country with the bloodiest, cruellest deeds of recent times. They have a polite, deferential manner without servility, and a pious way of interpolating prayer and thanksgiving with their ordinary conversation.
"Good morning, Sir."
"Good mornin', an' God save ye, Sorr."
"Fine weather."
"'Tis indeed foine weather, glory be to God."
"Nice country."
"Troth, it is a splindid country. The Lord keep us in it."
A prosperous-looking shop with a portly personage at the door looked so uncommonly Unionistic that I ventured to make a few inquiries re the antiquities of the district. The inevitable topic soon turned up, and to my surprise my friend avowed himself a Home Ruler and a Protectionist. His opinions and illustrations struck me as remarkable, and with his permission I record them here.
"Yes, I am a Home Ruler—in theory. I think Home Rule would be best for both. Best for you and best for me, as the song says; but mark me well—Not Yet.
"You are surprised that I should say Not Yet so emphatically, but the fact is I love my country, and, besides, all my interests and those of my children are bound up with the prosperity of the country. This ought to sharpen a man's wits, if anything could do it, and I have for many years been engaged in thinking out the matter, and my mind is now made up.
"Home Rule from Gladstone will ruin us altogether. We must have Home Rule from Balfour. We must have Home Rule, but we must have it from a Conservative Government. You smile. Is that new to you? It is? Just because Home Rulers in this country cannot afford to express their views at this moment. But the hope is entertained by all, I will say all, the most advanced Irish Home Rulers. By advanced I mean educated, enlightened. Let me give you an illustration which I heard from a friend in Cork.
"Here is Ireland, a delicate plant requiring untold watching and careful training. Around it on the ground are a number of slugs and snails. Or call them hireling agitators if you like. I sprinkle salt around the roots to kill off the brutes and save my darling plant. That salt is Conservatism. It is furnished by people of property, by men who have interests to guard. Salt is a grand thing, let me tell you! Balfour is the man to sprinkle salt. Home Rule from him would be safe. He is the greatest man that ever governed Ireland, but that must be stale to you. You must have heard that everywhere. He put his foot on rebellion and crushed it out of existence. On the other hand the poor folks of the West coast would lie down and let him walk over them. They hold him in such esteem that they would regard it a favour if he would honour them by wiping his feet on them. He might walk unarmed and unattended through Ireland from end to end with perfect safety. But which of the Nationalist members could do that? Not one. The city scum, the criminal, irreclaimable class, shout 'Hell to Balfour,' but these poor readers of the Freeman's Journal and such-like prints, prepared for their special use and written down to their level, must not be classed with the people of Ireland at all. Every country has its ruffian element, every country has its poisonous press. Ireland is no worse than other countries in these respects."
My Irish Conservative Home Ruler would have gone on indefinitely, furnishing excellent matter, for he improved as he warmed up, but unhappily a priest called on him to make some purchase, and he had to leave me without much notice. "Over the way," he said. "Trip across to the opposite shop, and you'll find another Tory Home Ruler."
As I "tripped" across I thought of the Pills and Ointment man who amassed a colossal fortune by fifty years' advertising of the fact that wonders never will cease. Mr. Overtheway was not quite so Tory as might be supposed, after all. He said:—
"I have no objection to Home Rule, but, although a Catholic, I have the greatest objection to Rome Rule, which is precisely what it means. I object to this great Empire being ruled from Rome. The greatest Empire that the world ever saw to be bossed by a party of priests! Do the English know what they are now submitting to?
"Let me put the thing logically, and controvert me if you can.
"If Mr. Gladstone wished to go to war to-morrow, is he not at the mercy of the Irish Nationalist party? Could he get votes of supply without their aid? In the event of any sudden, or grave emergency, any serious and critical contingency, would they not hold the key of the position, would they not have the power to make or mar the Empire? Surely they would. And are not these men in the hands of the priests? Surely they are. That is a matter of common knowledge, as sure as that water will drown and fire will burn. A pretty position for a sensible man like John Bull to be placed in by a blethering idiot, who can argue with equal volubility on either side, but with more conviction when in the wrong. Bull must have been drunk, and drunk on stupid beer, when he placed his heart strings between the finger and thumb of a quack like that, who, whatever the result, whether we get Home Rule or not, has ruined the country for five-and-twenty years.
"Yes, I am a Home Ruler. But for heaven's sake don't thrust self-government on an unfortunate country that is not ready for it. That country cries for it, you say. The snuffling old air-pump across the Channel says the same thing. Says he: 'Beloved brethren, I greet you. I fall on your neck and kiss your two ears, and give you all you ask. For why, beloved brethren? Why do I this thing. Let us in a spirit of love enquire. Because it is the wish of the country; because it is the aspiration of the people; because I feel a deep-seated, internal affection for your beautiful land, in whose affairs, during my eighty-four years' pilgrimage in this vale of tears, I have, as you know, always shown the strongest, the warmest, the most passionate interest, and on whose lovely shores I have during my seven dozen years spent (altogether) nearly a week. It has been said that I have never been in Ulster, and that, therefore, I am unable to appreciate the situation. An atrocious falsehood. I have spent two hours (nearly) in the northern province, having landed from Sir Somebody's yacht to see the Giant's Causeway. I have studied the Irish question by means of mineral specimens gathered from the four provinces, and I am, therefore, competent to settle the Irish question for ever. Do you know a greater man than myself? I confess I don't. Bless you, my children. You ask for Home Rule. Enough. The fact that you ask proves a Divine right to have what you ask for. You are a people rightly struggling to be free,' says owld Gladstone. 'Hell to my sowl,' says he, 'but that's what ye are,' says he.
"And he starts to murder us by giving what the most ignorant, unthinking, unpatriotic, self-seeking people in the country have asked for, and swears that because they ask they must have.
"As well give a razor to a baby that cried for it.
"Ireland must be treated as an infant.
"An Irish Legislature would lead to untold miseries. We might arrive there some day, but not at a jump. The change is too sudden. We want a little training. We want to grow, and growth is a thing that cannot be forced. It takes time. Give us time for heaven's sake. Give us Home Rule, but also give us time. Give us milk, then fish, then perhaps a chop, and then, as we grow strong, beefsteak and onions. A word in your ear. This is certain truth, you can go Nap on it. Tell the English people that the people are getting sick of agitation, that they want peace and quietness, that they are losing faith in agitators, having before them a considerable stretch of history, which, notwithstanding the scattered population, is filtering down into the minds of the people, with its morals all in big print. The Irish folks are naturally quick-witted. They are simple and confiding, many of them very ignorant, if you will, but they find out their friends in the long run. Look at Balfour. Not a man in the whole world for whom the people have so much affection. Which do you think would get the best welcome to-morrow—Balfour or Morley? Balfour a hundred thousand times. Ah, now; my countrymen know the real article when they see it. Home Rule we want for convenience and for cheapness. We don't