THE REAL IRISH GRTEVANCE.
ANY fresh contribution to the study of the never- ending Irish problem is welcome to thoughtful per- sons in this country. However we may be divided in our ideas as to the possible solution, we are all agreed that one is urgently needed. During the last hundred years, as a Boer leader is reported to have said in protesting against the allegation that his people intended "to make a Dutch Ireland in South Africa," the Irish have done bad business for England,—and not good business for them- selves. If the Irish people would only recognise that truth, we should have made an appreciable step towards the desired solution. For the very first condition for reaching it—now as always—is a frank recognition of the facts in the case. These facts may be distressing, they may refuse to fit in with preconceived theories—facts often do—they may even strike a blow at long-cherished pre- judices and dear sentiments ; but to insist on ignoring them for that reason is fatal. "It is not your fond desire or mine," says Burke, "that can alter the nature of things ; by contending against which, what have we got, or shall ever get, but defeat and shame ? " It is character- istic of the Irish, or perhaps generally of the Celtic temperament, that it is peculiarly apt to ignore the un- comfortable facts. In many manifestations it recalls Stevenson's charming delineation of children who live always in an atmosphere of make-believe. "They walk in a vain show, and among mists and rainbows ; they are passionate after dreams, and unconcerned about realities ; speech is a difficult art not wholly learned ; and there is nothing in their own tastes or purposes to teach them what we mean by abstract truthfulness." This does not seem to be an exaggerated description of the typical Irish temperament. Of course there are many noble exceptions, but they will generally be found in the cases of Irishmen like the Duke of Wellington, descended from an English settler, or Lord Kelvin, an Ulsterman of Scottish origin, or Burke and Swift, who must be classed among those" sports" or freaks of Nature in which the Director of human affairs delights to transcend all rules. But on the whole, the great defect of the Irish character lies in this disability to look straight at things as they are. We find it equally in the typical creations of the novelist—the Captain Costigans and the Con Cregans—and in the politicians who make themselves absurd by raging against English tyranny two hundred and fifty years after Cromwell and seventy years after Roman Catholic emancipation, who delight in assuring us that the decay of the tenant's roof is due to the wickedness of absentee landlords, and who think that the disorder which they import into the House of Commons is the strongest argument which they can offer for their fitness to have a Legislature of their own. This is the real Irish difficulty, and it explains why, as Matthew Arnold happily said, the modern Irish race is so apt to incur the doom which Ossian pronounced on the heroes of whom Mr. Yeats and his colleagues sing so charmingly : "They went forth to the battle, but they always fell." This tendency to see things through a distorting medium, fatal as it is in politics and in the ordinary affairs of life, has, of course, its compensating advantages. The proverbial courtesy and romance of the Irish character probably depend largely upon its possession, and our Teutonic tendency to see things in a dry light and speak bluntly of them as we find them would often be none the worse for a touch of it. But of its existence, and of its practical drawbacks in the battle of life, there can be little doubt. The latest confirmation comes from an Irish source—no one speaks so frankly of his countrymen as an Irishman who has emancipated himself from the national glamour—and is to be found in the very striking pamphlet which has lately been published by the New Ireland Review under the title of "Letters from Ireland." These letters are supposed to be written by an Irish-American who has returned to his native country after a successful career of some forty years in the United States, and who sends an American friend his impressions of his native land "as it appeared to one who, loving the country with an exile's love, would judge it by the canons of that practical common-sense to which we in America are, perhaps, too much inured." The Irish, as he Bari. "hate telling unpalatable truths unless their blood is IV. The man, however, who is to be a good citizen must learn to speak his mind calmly when it is necessary for the public good, and not let fear of displeasing, or even of injuring, another keep him silent." There is a painful accuracy in this statement, which will be manifest to all who have the most superficial acquaintance with the last century of Irish history, and the author of these manly and outspoken letters—who is content to be known as "H. B." —has done his country a great service by breaking through the bonds of so-called patriotism, as expressed in the mis- leading old proverb that only an ill bird fouls its own nest, and telling them in what light they really strike an affec- tionate but clear-sighted stranger. The true Irish grievance, as "H. B." shows, is an economic one, and its cure is to be found in any plan which can make Ireland ready to earn her own living and hold her own place in the world. The great improvement in her prosperity which has been produced within the last decade by the various economic reforms which Mr. Balfour so wisely initiated or encouraged is a cheering sign that this is a perfectly feasible achieve- ment; but, as the writer of these remarkable letters observes, it can only be made permanent and thorough by the co-operation of the Irish people. "From within, not from without, reform must come." Ireland must learn to see her needs and her deficiencies in the light of truth, and then determine to meet the one by amending the other. The success of the closely allied French peasantry— though it must be admitted that other racial elements may have modified the Celtic strain in France—is evidence that the task is no impossible one, in spite of climatic dis- advantages which weigh more heavily on the peasant of Connemara or Tipperary than on the small holder of the Gironde or the Beauce. It is worth the while of every one who is interested in this most vital aspect of the Irish question to study these letters with care, for they seem to us to afford one of the most pertinent and weighty contributions that have been made for many years to its understanding.
The criticism which "H. B." passes on his countrymen may be ranged under many heads of detail, but in principle they all come back to the charge of seeing things in a false light. For instance, that tendency to dwell on the past rather than on the present which is so common a phenomenon in decaying nations—Spain and Turkey furnish familiar examples—is made accountable for much of Ireland's failure to hold her own in the industrial world. The "finest peasantry in thelworld " think and talk so much of the oppression of which England was guilty in the past that they quite forget to note how completely it has been replaced by the easiest Land-laws in the world at the present day. They continue to blame the exactions of the landlord for defects which are obviously due to their own inertia or lack of heart. "It is esteemed a greater shame to have had an ancestor reputed to have sold the pass' in the days of Elizabeth than to be dirty, and idle, and ragged, and drunken in the present." As a result, the "handy man" is conspicuous in Ireland by his absence. In the United States, as "H. B." points out, the man who cannot afford to pay tradesmen for keeping his house in repair is proud to be able to do the necessary things himself. In Ireland he thinks it undignified to do so,—or perhaps one may say with more truth that the thought of doing it for himself has never entered his head. Economy, again, is "a word of evil sound in Irish ears." The Irish peasant half starves on a diet of tea and potatoes where the thrifty Frenchman with the same income manages to keep his family on a nourishing and savoury diet. The Irishman talks of past grandeur, of the tyranny of England, of the great things that other people are to achieve for him when the League has fair play, and pays himself with words whilst the work that would make him happy and healthy is neglected. There is too much talking and too little doing; and how can any country where that is the case fail to be full of distress:? No doubt we have no right to free ourselves from blame for this development of the Irish character. Seven centuries of " helotism " and brutal repression cannot but have acted for ill on the national character, and it is notably in the classes that have held the upper hand throughout that we find the Irishmen already mentioned, who have done so much for the good of the world and the empty glory of their country. But the great thing is to understand the Irish defect, and. then to see what means can be taken to amend it. The writer of these letters has some admirable suggestions to make, which the reader must seek in his pages ; most of them come under the head of education, and enlarge upon the text which Matthew Arnold was never tired of repeat- ing. The excellent industrial societies which have been formed of late years in the poorest parts of Ireland point the way to a wider reform. But for it to be effectual, the people must work out their own salvation. If they will but learn to see things as they are, and to do the task that is nearest, though no fine colours can be put upon it, Ireland may yet become, as her children proudly claim that she was at some unnamed period in her history, "the finest country in the world."
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