Robert Buckley - Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule

"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 want to be compelled to rush to London before we can build a bridge. But rather a million times submit to expense and inconvenience than hand the country over to a set of thieves who'd sell us to-morrow. We're not such fools as ye take us for. Don't we know these heroes? And when we see them and Gladstone and Morley and Humbug Harcourt with his seventeen chins, all rowling together in Abraham's bosom (as ye may say) – Harcourt licking Harrington's boots, when only yesterday Tim was spittin' in his eye – we say to ourselves 'Wait yet awhile, my Boys, wait yet awhile.' But when ye've finished yer slavering and splathering, and when Tim Healy can find time to take his heel off Morley's neck, then, and not before, we'll have something to say to you.

"But you should call on my friend on the right. He is also a Home Ruler – like myself."

Number three had powerfully-developed opinions. He said – "Home Rule on Conservative lines is my ticket. We'll get it on no other. I console myself with that idea. Otherwise it would be a frightful business, and what would become of us, I cannot tell. But I do not believe that even Gladstone would be so insane as to give it us. I cannot believe that the middle class voters of England would stand by and see the corresponding class in this country exterminated. Home Rule as much as you like, if we had the right men. The very poorest peasants are becoming alive to the fact that under present circumstances the thing would never do for them. They want the right men, that is, men of money and character, to come forward. And I declare most solemnly, that I am convinced that the Irish people would fall into line, and see the bill thrown out with perfect quietude. Now the push has come, they really do not want Home Rule, and, what is more, they absolutely dread it, and I firmly believe that a general election at the present moment would send a majority of Unionists to power. The priests are working for life and death. They see that this is their best chance, perhaps their very last opportunity. I am a Catholic; but then I am a Parnellite, a Tory Parnellite. And I have no intention of bartering away my political freedom to my Church, which, in my opinion, should keep clear of politics. The clergy have now advised payment of rent, so that the Government may not be embarrassed at a very critical juncture. And the tenants are paying their rent, although the present period is one of great agricultural depression. Look at this: The Ulster farmers are terribly hard up, are complaining that they cannot pay. This is the Protestant province, where the priests have little scope. But in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the people are paying the landlord. The word has gone round – pay the landlord, whomever else you don't pay! The oilcake man, the implement man, the shopkeeper, are not getting their dues, but notwithstanding the pinch of the present moment, the landlord (who knows all about it) is paid. And the priests in some cases are actually remitting the clerical dues to enable the small men to pay the rint. Pay the rint, say they, if you pledge your very boots, if you have to go to the gombeen man (money-lender), if you have almost to rob the Church. They want to get possession, they want to get power, they want to get Home Rule; and then they know that, as Scripture says, 'All these things shall be added unto them.' Let them once get the upper hand, and they can very soon recoup themselves.

"The priests are showing England their power, with a view to future good bargains. 'You see what we can do,' say they. Arrange the matter with us. We are the boys. The Reverend Father O'Codling is the man. Have no dealings, except such as are authorised by us, with the red-headed Tim Healy Short. The Clergy have only one idea; that is, of course, the predominance of their Church. Very natural, and, from their point of view, very proper. I find no fault with them, but I say their object hardly commends itself to my undivided admiration, and, being still friendly, we on this subject part company. I wish to let the priests down easy. They are mostly very good men, apart from politics. They are good customers to me, and they pay very promptly. They spend their money in the country, and I'd have no fault to find if they'd lave politics alone. Mind that owld Gladstone doesn't become a Papist all out. 'Twould be better for him, no doubt, and as the whole jing-bang that turned round with him before would no doubt still follow at his heels, we'd get a considerable quantity of converts, if we could say little about the quality. D'ye hear what that owld woman's singing?"

I listened with interest. The minstrelsy of Ireland seems to have drifted into the hands of the most unpoetical people in the green isle. The poor old creature walked very, very slowly along the gutter, ever and anon giving herself a suggestive twitch, which plainly indicated some cutaneous titillation – the South is a grazing country. This was all I heard —