IN CASTLE AND CABIN.*
IF the opinion of the civilised world is to be reckoned as an important factor in the Home-rule controversy, then most assuredly the criticisms passed upon Ireland and Irish affairs by impartial American observers are worth attending to. Especially is this so when not only is the critic an American, but, as in the cdse of the present work, a lawyer. We say this not because we suppose that lawyers have any monopoly of political intelligence, but because an American lawyer is more directly in sympathy with many of our modes of thought, and especially with those connected with such problems as arise in Ireland, than most of his fellow-countrymen. American political machinery and American social institutions differ very widely from our own. The spirit, however, which pervades their law is the same as that which pervades ours. Any man, then, who has studied the principles of the Common Law—as much the Common Law of America as of England—the rules of equity, and all the juristic learning embodied in a thousand decisions of the English Courts, approaches one side at least of the Irish Question fortified by a training which will enable him to under- stand the facts. No American lawyer, for instance, could be taken in by the assertion that the Irish tenant is more oppressed than any other cultivator on the face of the earth, or that the present Government have created a series of offences hitherto unknown to the law.
Mr. Pellew, then, as a barrister trained in the methods of American, and so of English jurisprudence, began his investi- gation of the Irish problem with one conspicuous advantage in his favour. Equipped with letters of introduction to many leading Unionists on the one side, and Home-rulers on the other, and armed with a circular-letter from Mr. Timothy Harrington, the Secretary of the National League, which secured him the attention of all Nationalists, Mr. Pellew journeyed throughout Ireland, making inquiries wherever he went, and talking with representative men of every class. These conversations he reported at length, and the most important
• In Castle and Cabin ; or, Talks in Ireland in 1887. By George Pellew, A M. LL.B • of the Suffolk Bar. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, the Knickerbocker Press. 1888.
of them form the present volume. The fact that Mr. Pellew gives us the opinions of the speakers just as they were given to him, and without comment, immensely enhances the value of his book. He seems to have considered that he was in the position of a barrister sent to take evidence on commission, and that his business was merely to see that all testimomy fairly admissible for or against Home-rule was included in his book. The consequence is, that In Cabin and Castle has about an equal number of able speeches on either side. It is only in a concluding chapter of fourteen pages that Mr. Pellew makes any attempt to comment on the evidence
collected by him ; and there, even, his attitude is pretty much that of a Judge trying to sum up the results of the evidence in such a way that the jury shall not be able to tell to wkich
side he himself inclines. After studying the conversations as a whole, the first thing that strikes the reader is that four points stand out in very strong relief :—(l), That to almost every Nationalist in Ireland, Home-rule means Protection ; (2), that the priests follow, and do not lead the agitation ; (3), that for political purposes the League has refused to give the new Land Laws a fair trial, or to let the people enjoy the benefit of them ; (4), that the resistance of the Protestants of the North to Home-rule is by no means confined to the Orange- men, but is shared by those who up till now have despised and disliked the Orange organisation. To learn how strongly the Nationalists impressed upon Mr. Pellew their conviction that Protection was the necessary instrument by which that social, moral, political, and material regeneration is to be obtained which will exist under Home-rule, one has merely to turn the leaves of In Castle and Cabin, for the feeling is expressed on almost every page. "I want Home-rule in the first place because it would mean a policy of Protection," exclaimed a prosperous farmer of moderate Nationalist views. "Home-rule," said Father McKeogh, the parish priest of Athlone, "will benefit Athlone, because an Irish Parliament will establish woollen factories with Government money." "A home Parliament," said Father Murphy of Donoughmore, "would develop our industries by advancing money and by giving bonuses." "The last resource is a duty on American corn and flour," said Mr. Harrington, of the Kerry Sentinel, and added shortly after, —" Free-trade unquestionably is a great evil." "Its [Home- rule's] principal benefit would be to encourage our native industries. We could put a duty on English shoddy," said a lately converted Home-ruler. "When things settle down under Home-rule, capitalists will be willing to invest, and then bounties, duties, and exhibitions will encourage manu- factures," said Mr. Partel, President of the League at Bailin- asloe. If, however, such indications of the direction which Irish legislation would take under Home-rule are not held sufficiently strong, we must call our readers' attention to the fact that Mr.
Pellew found many Unionist landlords and Unionist manu- facturers just as strongly in favbur of Protection as the Nationalists. In fact, Protection is the one point of agreement. What possible reason, then, is there to expect that the first Home-rule Parliament would not shut Irish markets by some system of bounties directed against English goods, and thus still further intensify the poverty and misery of the country P No scheme for really preventing Protection could ever be imposed on a body to which legislative functions were given. In some form or other, the more covert the more costly, native industries would be subsidised. As to the other three points we have mentioned as especially emphasised in Mr. Pellew's book, we cannot find space for detailed comment. Suffice it to say that they are proved not by one but by many of the conversations reported.
Before dealing with Mr. Pellew's conclusions, we should like to point out one striking feature of his work. It is that, owing to his being an American, his Nationalist informants spoke with a candour and openness which is not general. They knew, we suppose, that he would address himself to an American audience if he ever published their remarks ; and this made them less careful than they would have been had they believed that their words would be immediately criticised in England. As a particular instance of such candour, we may quote from a conversation held with Mr. P. A. M‘Hugh, editor of the Sligo Sentinel :—
" Mr. Phibbs is fighting the 'Plan' with success, for the leaders and the clergy have found it impossible to prevent many of the tenants from paying their rent. So many of these cowards were there that no attempt has been made to boycott them. But a few farms on the estate from which tenants have been evicted have been kept vacant for several years, and if Phibbs tried to stock them, injury would probably be inflicted on the cattle and their caretakers. To keep an 'evicted' farm vacant is one of the strongest arguments we can use, and any one who takes such a farm is regarded as a common enemy and cut off from all com- munication with the people. The Times has reprinted with comments some of the boycotting resolutions printed in my paper, and we admit the charge of intimidation and intending to in- timidate. We say this is the only efficient instrument left to the League."
Before leaving Mr. Pellew's very interesting book, we must quote from the general conclusions at which he arrived. They afford nothing that either one side or the other can take up and quote confidently in their favour. Still, if taken as a whole and carefully studied, they bring out with singular force the utter futility and impracticability of the whole Home-rule movement. This is a portion of what Mr. Pellew has to say on the general question :—
"One difficulty, then, in determining the question of Home-rule that cannot be called theoretical, is the fact that it is doubtful whether 'Home-rule' would restore prosperityto Ireland, even if the Dublin Parliament were to do all that the people expect of it ; while it is certain that any practical pecuniary benefit would be long delayed. The faith that the Irish people have had in the power of the imperial government to create poverty or wealth by legislation, to change the laws of nature by Act of Parliament, has been trans- ferred to an imaginary Home-rule government. No change of government can effect a change in the tendencies of natural pro- cesses, whether they are called economic laws, physical laws, or the laws of God. If all the land in Ireland were to-morrow divided equally among all the Irish tenant-farmers, it could raise the standard of living in Ireland only for a few years. In no country, in no county or town in any country, can the standard of living be permanently raised, or the population increase and maintain the same standard, without the development there of some industry, the discovery of some local springs of industry, a new appreciation of previously unrecognised facilities for the application of more efficient processes of labour.' So long as agriculture continues to be the chief industry of Ireland, no legislation can improve the condition of its people and save them from the fate which between 1880 and 1883 drove from Norway, that land of peasant-proprietors, one-twentieth of its inhabitants. The one practical benefit of Home-rule, if wisely administered, will be the restoration of law and order, until such time as recurring poverty shall reproduce the elements of disorder and lawlessness. The more or less theoretical difficulties or dilemmas in the way of Home-rule are many and serious. Of the various nationalities inhabiting the British Islands the population and wealth of England is so much the largest and the greatest that a federal union between them, a union that recognises the equal claim of each nationality, as in the United States Senate, is preposterous. The interests of England must prevail in all questions in which those interests are involved, for the same reason that the interests of New York would prevail in the federal government if the United States consisted only of New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. No system of Home- rule would be practicable, therefore, that gives an Irish govern- ment any control of the excise ; and yet it is for that purpose that the Irish mainly desire Home-rule. The analogy of Canada and Australia does not apply to the case of Ireland. The seces- sion of Canada or its cession to the United States at some future period is contemplated with complacency by many English states- men, as is the independence of Australia by Mr. Labouchere. That the cession of Ireland to France, or its independence, would be ruinous to England until the advent of the age of universal peace, proves conclusively the inaccuracy of such an analogy. The integrity of Ireland is essential to the independent power of England in a sense in which the integrity of no other territory is essential to it. The union between the two islands must there- fore be peculiarly close, and the links must be forged of something less brittle and more material than sentiment. Any local govern- ment, then, accorded to Ireland must possess only strictly defined and delegated powers, and the imperial Parliament or some other central body must retain the authority and the means to enforce any measure judged necessary for the general safety."
The solution which Mr. Pellew himself desires is evidently a system of local government in Ireland analogous to that in Mr. Ritchie's Act, together with a system of Private-Bill legisla- tion, and the employment of Government energy and capital in the development of Irish resources by public works. Though to discuss his solution in detail would be impossible here, we cannot help noticing that, in fact, it is the plan which all Liberal Unionists, and, indeed, all Unionists whatever, favour, provided only that no concession of local government be made till Ireland is in the condition of a civilised country as
regards law and order. That to concede it sooner would be simply suicidal, can be amply proved out of the data furnished with such admirable fairness and discretion by Mr. Pellew.
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