TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE POSSIBILITY OF REACTION IN IRELAND. HAS the beginning of the end arrived in Ireland ? We shall not answer the question, for long experience has taught us that, in Irish affairs, hope is usually as groundless as despair, and that the one thing to be reckoned on is the perverseness with which results will baffle calculation. It is certain, however, at all events, that the social and moral forces which in every country of Europe have invariably, after every cataclysm, rebuilt society on the bases of strict property-right, freedom of contract, and obedience to public law, are beginning to manifest themselves in Ireland. The deplorable crime reported in the Times of Monday, as occurring on the 13th inst. at Ballingarry, near Thurles, was a most ominous menace for the authority of the League. A Nationalist, in the name of the League, objected to the conduct of some miners in working for a boycotted man ; and some of the miners, instead of giving up their work, are believed to have killed him for disturbing their labour. At all events, he is dead. In Tipperary, again, which ought to be the centre of League influence, part of the popu- lation are in such open revolt that the very priests acknowledge the change, and dare to stand forward in its defence. The Rev. Canon Hega,rty, a Nationalist and a Home-ruler, actually writes to the Cork Examiner declaring that, although he did not, as had been alleged, join in a cheer for Mr. Smith-Barry—the detested landlord whom the whole body of Nationalists have endeavoured to punish for assisting Mr. Ponsonby—still, that frightful charge might have been true. "I might," lie says, had Mr. Smith-Barry been present, "could, would, and ought to have thrown in my voice with any crowd that gave a cheer for so good a man, and I would cheerfully go to heaven with that crowd." The form of the statement is perhaps a little Irish, most men being willing to go to heaven with any crowd, so that they do but get there ; but there is no mistaking the Canon's meaning, or the contemptuous serenity with which he regards the threats addressed to him of blame from his parishioners, or the depth of his conviction that Mr. Smith- Barry is in the right, and that in saying so openly, he will have a large measure of popular support. He knows his people, and knows that they are sick of the action of the Leaguers in their selected test case, upon which they have expended so much rhetoric and treasure, sick to a degree best explained by copying the following most sug- gestive report of an address delivered on Sunday in Tipperary itself, and in its greatest church, by the Rev. Father Cantwell, C.C. :— "First of all he alluded to a certain incident, painful indeed, which occurred a few days previously, and concerning which conflicting reports had gone abroad and which he desired to cor- rect. It was quite true that he had been insulted—grossly and undeservedly insulted—by two gentlemen at present residing in the town. One called him three times a liar,' and the other accused him of being the enemy of the cause in Tipperary, an accusation which was base and false. Referring to the state of things prevailing in Tipperary, the speaker said life just now was one of much anxiety and trouble. There was no use in concealing it, for it was plain that a bad feeling prevailed, and pervaded every class, rich and poor, and their minds were embittered one against another. As was well known, two gentlemen in the town had taken it upon themselves to rule the whole town quite inde- pendent of the feelings or ideas of the people, and the result was a feeling of intense irritation. Respectable men of high character and long standing had been completely set aside, and they had no voice in all that was being done around them, and in which their interests were vitally concerned. The men who possessed the least claim exercised the most power, and arrogated to themselves all the authority in the movement. That was a condition of things that was intolerable, and that could not last and could not succeed. Private mind and private will exercised uncontrolled sway, and one man sat in judgment upon his neighbour, and from that decision there appeared to be no appeal. He had eyes to see and ears to hear all that was being done around him. He knew it all, for many a one had come to him and told him the story of their distress. Boycotting, he said, was being carried on to a reckless extent. A few days ago a sensible man in the town came to him and said, Father, if a man came before me with a loaded revolver to shoot me, is it not lawful for me, in preservation of my life, to shoot him?" It is,' he replied. Well, then,' said the man, where is the difference between the case of the man who takes away my life in a moment, and that of the man who, by the slow process of boycotting, takes away life by a lingering death ? ' and he added, I tell you, Father, if this gvskless borotting continues, wen will not stand it, and you will see shooting in Tipperary." Alluding to New Tipperary, the reverend speaker said those people who had gone to live there had been called upon to sign an under- taking as caretakers, but it was highly objectionable that those undertakings should be made to any one individual in town while. there was a corporate body, such as the Town Commissioners. Any curate in the parish was certainly not the proper person, as he was, entirely dependent on the will of his Bishop. He did not wish to. be misunderstood in what ho had said. Let no one say he was opposed to the combination, or desired to see it broken. He con- demned the idea of tenants going behind the backs of their comrades and paying their rents. As they had entered into one boat, let no one return except in the same boat, and then only when a respectable and honourable arrangement had been effected.. Thedemand of the tenants should not be an unreasonable one; but it should in any sense be an honourable one. He earnestly appealed to his congregation to pray that the day of settlement might be at hand when peace would be restored to Tipperary."
The very timidity apparent in part of that speech, the anxious disclaimer of abstract hostility to the "com- bination," adds greatly to its importance, as does also the breathless silence of the congregation, and their subsequent open congratulation of their priest for his courage in speak- ing out. There must be deep secret discontent with the tyranny of the Leaguers before such a scene as that could be enacted in the very centre of their power, discontent which is sure, sooner or later, to find both expression and a leader. The faults of the Irishman's character and his- virtues, his morbid dread of standing alone as well as his fierce fidelity to his chiefs, alike coerce him into a silence- which Englishmen not unnaturally- take at least for acquiescence. It is not always acquiescence, nevertheless, as we shall see if any event, such as a quarrel among the Leaguers themselves, or a breach between the farmers and the labourers, or an irremovable difference between the priesthood and the revolutionary party, suddenly sets tongues free. In St. Michaels, Tipperary, this has occurred, and at once the moral authority of the League has dis- appeared, and it must enforce its orders, if at all, by direct compulsion from outside, which, again, only deepens the discontent.
The reaction may not come yet, though also it may be- nearer at hand than we suspect; but its ultimate arrival is. inevitable. There is no instance in European history in which, after a period of anarchy, the lower population has not demanded that it should end, for that they, the feeble, suffer most. It was not the gentry but the peasants in France who stopped the Terror, who hunted down the Terrorists, and who, from that day to this, nearly a hundred years, though repeatedly possessed of all legislative power„ have maintained the strictest property law now existing in Europe. The Code Napoleon, if enforced in Ireland, would crush the League and its agents and its methods so utterly, that within three months men would deny that it had ever existed. It is in human nature that it should be so. The most regular and lenient of Governments accumulates hatreds on its head, and an irregular Government does the same much more rapidly,—first, because its weapon must be vague terror, and men hate to be vaguely frightened ; and next, because, like every other despotism, it must con- fide too much in local agents, who are sometimes stupid, often spiteful, and always considered by those whom they, punish to be moved by personal or coterie malignity.. Should we be entirely unjust to the excellent Father Cantwell if we said, on the evidence of his speech, that part of his feeling was hatred of tyranny, and part hatred of the two local tyrants to whom he so acidly alludes ? At all events, if he is incapable of rancour, the majority are not, and the rancour created by the League will be as deep as the rancour it feels. There is no tyranny which excites such bitterness as the tyranny of neighbours who would be contemptible but for their possession of a momentary mandate from an illegal power. This mass of hatred, this company of men who have been injured or frightened, disappointed or superseded by rivals, must now in Ireland be very great, and exceedingly bitter, for this reason. The punishments of the League have usually been directed against property—it is, for instance, of the essence of boycotting that it deprives its victim either of property or of profit or of wages—and attacks on property, when it is their own, exasperate poor Irishmen to frenzy. They are as sensitive on that side as Swiss, who, law-abiding though they may be, will club a thief on the spot for plucking grapes. When they are released from terror, the sufferers will be very bitter ; and they have in Ireland great bodies upon whom, should they declare for reaction, they can rely. The Protestants and. the property-holders are nearly two millions, and there is a considerable section of Catholics who believe their creed, who will not violate Christian law at any man's bidding, and who are profoundly moved by the knowledge that the Pope has declared " Boycotting " and the "Plan of Cam- paign" to be certainly immoral. When these forces are reinforced by the discontented and dissatisfied, by the thousands of peasants who have availed themselves of the small Purchase Acts and who want quiet, and by the tens of thousands who are hoping for the big one which their leaders resist or delay, the total may include a majority, or at least such numbers as, when once revealed, would at once restore the freedom of society. The Revolution in France, so far as it was agrarian, had the whole peasantry behind it, outside Brittany, and a few smaller districts ; but it is calculated that the effective Jacobin force, the men who spoiled the great change by criminal attacks on property or life, never approached a hundred thousand men. They dominated by "energy "—that is, by a readiness to use terror as a weapon—and so, in a less degree, it is in Ireland. If the Unionists had been able to pass a really great Purchase Bill, converting tenancy into freehold under a quit-rent, the army of Reaction might have in- cluded. a majority, and we might even have seen at the next Election another illustration of the irony of Providence in Irish matters, a victory for Home-rule in Britain, while Ireland itself was half of it willing and half unwilling to accept the offered boon. Things will not move so rapidly as that ; but it is quite possible, if the ice is broken up, and men dare raise their heads above water and cry aloud for help, that we may see the " unanimity " of Southern Ireland seriously decreased, and men devoted to agrarian reform through the help of Parliament, taking the place of men devoted to agitation for the destruction of Parliamentary efficiency. The town of Tipperary would certainly not be " unanimous " on the side of the League, and on the town of Tipperary the League has lavished its resources alike in menace and in cash. Tipperary feeling may, from local causes, be exceptionally irritable ; but, as Mr. Gladstone once said, there is no one- legged race, and we may rely on it that among the two- legged, no Revolutionary Government has ever existed which did not, during the period of its ascendency, make enemies by the thousand a month. There will come a time in Ireland, as in France, when the agents of the League will congratulate themselves that they are protected from the "rough justice" of the people by the detested law of the stolid English, who desire, even for them, fair play.
Previous page
