MR. LEFEVRE'S "INCIDENTS OF COERCION."
E are more and more amazed at the impermeability of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre and his fellows to the obvious conclusions of honest and sober Englishmen even after they carefully read his book. No doubt there is a "generous folly" in the air with which he is infected ; no doubt Ireland stands thick with riddles which seem the less soluble the more they are discussed. We need not enter into them to perceive that this book goes far to disprove its own con- tentions. The author freely contradicts himself, a trick he may have learned in Ireland ; he snorts defiance to law, and "trails his coat" for a free fight, if not at Donnybrook, at Portumna. He bestows much blarney on the clargy and the boys, and is so intoxicated by the joy of faction, that he can see no virtue in the men who administer justice. He appears under the spell of the nerve-disturbing climate. We have marked many sentences in his book which prove that, though he announces "I think the contentions of the tenants can be sustained," some other " I " has a perfect right to think the contrary. Meantime, does he seriously imagine that his bit of swagger in holding a meeting which no one objected to, has given him a title to decide on nice questions which will tax the Parnell Commission even to understand ? His few days on Galway cars, his regrettable interferences between " co- owners " in one or two cases, have had less than no effect in checking the sad and stern advance of social dis- integration in Ireland. Is it possible to persuade philo- Paddyists of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's type that they are not a match for the astute managers of the Irish stage ? Wits sharpened by Maynooth casuistry, politicians practised in the art of wearing a double face, play as they like with the errant Gladstone-baggers who see through Mr. Gladstone's spectacles, and burn to cut down upas-trees in harmless hedgerows. Those who know the disturbed districts which Mr. Shaw-Lefevre has visited, and who have, moreover, that sense of humour in which he is lacking, can but regret his meddling, and be sorry for him personally. He has made two pilgrimages in search of truth; he has been crammed with half-truths and distorted facts that were just suited to satisfy his pre-judgment. His first mission was in 1882, at Mr. Forster's request ; and naturally the "village ruffians" held aloof. He heard, however, from the Archbishop of Tuam, successor of O'Connell's friend McHale, that the "No Rent" circular was "most unjustifiable and immoral, and the cause of untold mischief," words which should have taught him some mistrust of its authors. Of course, he picked up in all quarters abuse of Lord Clanricarde, who is the "Aunt Sally" of Ireland at whom every one shies a stick. Lord Clanricard.e is no doubt an "austere man" in the eyes of many people, including Sir M. Hicks-Beach, and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre added his efforts to inflame still further the generous wish of his allies who long to give away other people's property, and especially Lord Clanricarde's. A summary search for arms and treasonable documents at Loughrea interrupted Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's inquiries.' As a member of the Government which was doing these naughty things, he backed out of any responsibility ; but before leaving Ireland, he held a private conversation with Mr. Burke, shortly after murdered in the Phcenix Park, on the personal shortcomings of the Galway landlords, 'which should not have been recorded. We conclude that the principal fact made clear in this hurried tour is that the "No Rent" edict wad, irreparably widening the split between the new co4iwners in land,—a split that might have been fore- seen; with'all its revolutionary consequences, by the legislators of 1881, and of which that circular was but one of many more serious results. "It had greatly aggravated the condition of • Incidents of Coercion. By the Right Hon. G. J. shaw.Loterro,_ 2If E. London; Kogan Paul, Trench, and Co. 1538. - , the country. It was used as a justification by many landlords for refusing to make abatements, and for pressing for arrears." Glad tidings for the professional agitators ! And yet, with these vistas of a provoked agrarian war, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre was still anxious to "consult with the Irish leaders," and after consultation, to condone the "Plan of Campaign," and to identify himself with its inventors. The next chapter deals with Loughrea in 1886-87. In four years there had been great changes. The concessions and repressions of the Liberal Party had alike fostered the quarrel of the co-owners, of course studiously inflamed by a venomous agitation. The fall in prices of 1885 brought it to a stage when we were deafened by recrimination, and hopeless of the whole business. It was a ripe moment for political quackery, and our author found it opportune again to visit his Clanricarde-ridden friends. He complains that Mr. Hurlbert got information from landlords and agents, which is true, though he consulted also the tenants and the priests. But from whom did Mr. Shaw-Lefevre get the facts which he trims so neatly for the English taste ? A few weeks after his first visit to Loughrea, Mr. Blake, Lord Clanricarde's agent, had been murdered in the manner lately so well related in his widow's evidence before the Parnell Commission. It is fresh in our minds that this poor lady, wounded herself and sup- porting the head of her dying coachman, signed more than once to a priest who was passing, to come and help the man in his agony. That priest hesitated. He is one of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's entertainers and trustworthy guides in the Woodford affairs. It was a great holy-day—the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul— and Mr. and Mrs. Blake were on their way to mass at Loughrea„ and were within a stone's-throw of its street, crowded, because it was both feast and market day, when the murder was com- mitted. Loughrea is the chief town of Dr. Duggan, the Bishop of Clonfert's diocese. At mass, while men's faces were pale in the shadow of the deed done at their threshold, it is said that no word was uttered in condemnation of it from altar or pulpit. Now, Dr. Duggan is Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's guide, philosopher, and friend, the "kindest and best-beloved," and also the "most advanced" of Irish Bishops. Let us hope, indeed, the most advanced, and that no other prelate exceeds him. Possibly no other prelate has such cause for dislike to landlords. In 1871, they of Galway yet held some political influence ; one of their leaders, a Roman Catholic, too rashly said that "priests should not meddle in politics." No doubt Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's eagerness to "tell the story" of Lord Clanricarde's quarrel with his tenants was inspired by Dr. Duggan ; but the letters to the Times which followed made matters worse for all concerned, and went far to procure Mr. Joyce's resignation and the contingent trials. The letters were well-meant, though strangely partisan ; but Mr. Shaw-Lefevre is surely unjustifiable in his attacks on almost every official he came across. He is not uncivil to the "wicked Marquis" of his romance, but he has no words harsh enough for the Magistrates, the Judges, and those mysterious machines, packed juries." An ex-Minister, he is so " sair left to himsel'," that he can relate with pride how he cordially sympathises with the promoters of that midnight meeting when the parish priest of Woodford wiped his shoes with the Viceregal proclamation forbidding it, how Mr. O'Brien, M.P., burned it, and Mr. Blunt remained so far in the background that he did not see these performances. The Crown lawyers continually offended Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's nice sense of freedom, and he is driven to journalistic slang in condemnation of "bogus charges," "travesties of legal pro- ceedings," "burlesques of justice," Sr,c. We can imagine the " foreigners " at Father Coen's "hospitable board" (he is the "Friar Tuck" of the Pall Mall Gazette), listening to the yarns of "highly intelligent farmers" of that class who have lately exhibited their intelligence before Sir James Hannen : Mr. Evelyn, good Surrey squire, mentally appraising the value of the adjacent land at 6d. an acre; Mr. Blunt, a Quixote in action, but not in aims; Mr. Hill, caring chiefly for "copy," all working towards good electioneering advertisement in England. There must have been some effort to forget Finlay's murder and the ghastly mock-funeral led by Father Egan, of which we have lately heard ; but in the good company of Dr. Tully, of the " lead pills," and Mr. Roche, the would-be hero of another Fontenoy, these "incidents of coercion" made way for more agreeable ones. After a merry repast, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre "mounted his car" for Portumna, to find there "every window
in every house lighted up with wax candles." Mr. Henn, County-Court Judge, was to rehear the decision of two nn- poetical Magistrates against " Protens." The Judge main- tained it, and hinted that poor" Proteus " was actuated by a desire for notoriety. This was unkind, and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre declares that "nothing more unjust has been done in the name of law in recent times." The "cruel judgment" having been delivered by this modern Jeffreys, who, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre suggests, is wraped by the hospitalities of neighbouring landlords, a car is again " mounted " by the four English- men, in tumultuous hurry to get to Ballinasloe before Mr. Blunt and his escort. Another "cruel judgment" crushed this hope. The car was upset, perhaps by landlord machina- tion, and Mr. Shaw -Lefevre only reached the railway- station to be foiled. However, under the protection of the Bishop of Clonfert, he spoke at "considerable length," and in "strong condemnation of Mr. Henn's judgment and sentence," and left by the next train for England. But the next month Mr. Shaw-Lefevre again "went a-hunting " at Loughrea. The moment was propitious for as illegal a meeting as could be desired, and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre burned to be a martyr. "Eminent ecclesiastics" assured him that the Clanricarde irritation was acute ; Government was carried on by Star- Chamber process, whatever that may mean in this democratic era. The meeting fell flat. The speakers were all English. The next of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's more striking " incidents " was when he "blushed as an Englishman" to see Mr. Blunt, and to converse at length with him in his prison clothes. Let us hope that the " coat " so necessary to the feelings of the poet was not absent.
We will not go any further with our author ; his methods of observation are everywhere the same, and the results of them are fresh aggravation to the difficulties between the co-owners. The condition of Ireland seems to us beyond party skirmish- ing, beyond indulgence in personalities, alas ! unrelieved by wit. Lord Clanricarde or a dozen other poor targets of land- lords do not affect the main points of recent Irish history. Even from this book we gather that there was no general quarrel between owners and occupiers till co-owners were invented. Nor would socialistic doctrines have been listened to, but for the organised and well-paid agitation set up from without. It is true that the country had learned but too well from O'Connell the uses of agitation. But how different was his ! In one of the volumes of his letters recently men- tioned by Mr. Gladstone, we find under the vaunted shamrock on the cover, these words, in a letter advising Mr. Lucas on the line to be taken by the paper of which he was editor :—" If the means be bad, no amount of good as the result can mitigate in the slightest degree the bad qualities of these means ; nothing could justify or palliate the perpetration of any temporal or political injustice."
O'Connell sought to liberate a people from religious and political inequalities ; the modern agitation is to ruin a class and divide the booty. When failure of a crop struck a blow at the agricultural interest, there is abundant evidence to show that the majority of landowners did their crippled best to meet it. When there came the fall in prices of 1885, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre is bound to admit that, harassed as they were by moonlighters, the landlords met the fall "by not inconsiderable abatements of rent in the case of non-judicial tenants," while in the following year "abatements of rent were far more general, were of larger amounts, and were conceded even in the case of judicial rents." There remained, of course, a residuum of austere proprietors who were slow to understand the new rights of their co-owners. About this residuum, who might have been well left to arrange their contracts as best they could in the rush of other people's generosity, a new disturbance was set up. Generous folly was at work perhaps even more in the Tory than the Liberal camp. "On their part," to quote Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, "the tenants had not been idle ; finding their demands rejected in Parliament, they met the emergency by combination. The Plan of Cam- paign' was a very acute and unquestionably illegal form of combination,—a desperate .remedy to meet a desperate emer- gency." We ask, where was the emergency, save to certain politicians who were responsible to their employers in America ? No doubt they could ill afford, were they lay or clerical, to see Ireland pacified. We expected Mr. Shaw- Lefevre to have seen further than the dust of the arena which he is helping to raise. Some day he may regretfully perceive that he has promoted objects reaching far beyond the poor peasants who have moved his pity. Has he considered the consequences to which he contributes so eagerly, if not power- fully, of a discredited code and a wavering executive ? Does he desire government for the benefit only of Woodford or Por- tumna or the Vandeleur estate, while the main interests of the immense majority of a people who in higher politics know not their right hand from their left, are neglected? We grow sceptical of sound rule by party in Ireland when we read this book. If there is to be an improvement in her social stability, it will be by adherence to the laws which have higher and larger sanctions than Westminster majorities. Of these, little account is taken in this volume.
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