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

Mr. John Morley should accompany me in my peregrinations among the intelligent voters who have placed him and his great chief in power, along with the galaxy of minor stars which rise with the Grand Man's rising and set at his setting. "The British Government won't allow us to work the gold mines in the Wicklow mountains. Whin we get the Bill every man can take a shpade, an' begorra! can dig what he wants." "The Phaynix Park is all cramfull o' coal that the Castle folks won't allow us to dig, bad scran to them. Whin we get the Bill wu'll sink thim mines an' send the Castle to Blazes." But the quaintest, the funniest, the most sweetly ingenuous of the lot was the reason given by a gentleman of patriarchal age and powerful odour, whom I encountered in Hamilton's Lane. He said, "Ye see, Sorr, this is the way iv it. 'Tis the Americans we'll look to, by raison that they're mostly our own folks. They're powerful big invintors, but bedad, they haven't the wather power to work the invintions. Now we have the wather power, an' the invintions 'll be brought over here to be worked. An' that'll give the poor folks imploymint."

The poor man's ignorance was doubtless dense, his credulity amusing, his childlike simplicity interesting. But the darkness of his ignorance was no blacker, the extent of his credulity no more amazing, than the ignorance and credulity of English Gladstonian speakers, who, with a Primitive Methodist accent and a Salvation Army voice, proclaim, with a Bible twang, their conviction that Home Rule means the friendship of Ireland.

Dublin, March 30th.

Ulster will fight, and fight to the death. The people have taken a resolution – deep, stern, and irrevocable. Outwardly they do not seem so troubled as the Dubliners. They are quiet in their movements, moderate in their speech. They show no kind of alarm, for they know their own strength, and are fully prepared for the worst. They speak and act like men whose minds are made up, who will use every Constitutional means of maintaining their freedom, and, these failing, will take the matter in their own strong hands. Meanwhile they preserve external calm, and systematically make their arrangements. If ever they went through a talking stage, that is now over. They have passed the time of discussion, and are preparing for action. If ever they showed heat, that period also is past. They have reached the cold stage, in which men act on ascertained principles and not in the frenzy of passion. There is nothing hysterical about the Belfast men. They are by no means the kind of people who run hither and thither wringing their hands. Neither are they men who will sit down under oppression. And oppression is what they expect from a Dublin Government. Mr. Gladstone and his tribe may pooh-pooh this notion, but the feeling in Ulster is strong and immovable. The tens of thousands of Protestants thickly scattered over other provinces feel more strongly still; as well they may, for they have not the numbers, the organisation, the unity which is strength, that characterise the province of Ulster. They hold that Home Rule is at the bottom a religious movement, that by circuitous methods, and subterranean strategy, the religious re-conquest of the island is sought; that the ignorant peasantry, composing the large majority of the electorate, are entirely in the hands of the priests, and that these black swarms of Papists have a congenital hatred of England, which must bring about separation. These are the opinions of thousands of eminent men whose ability is beyond argument, who have lived all their lives on the spot, who from childhood have had innumerable facilities for knowing the truth, whose interests are bound up with the prosperity of Ireland, and who, on every ground, are admittedly the best judges. Said Mr. Albert Quill, the Dublin barrister: —

"Mr. Gladstone, who in eighty-four years has spent a week in Ireland, puts aside Sir Edward Harland, who has built a fleet of great ships in an Irish port, and sneers at the opinion of the Belfast deputation who have lived all their lives in Ireland." A Roman Catholic Unionist, an eminent physician, said to me: —

"I fear that Catholicism would ultimately lose by the change, although at first it would undoubtedly obtain a strong ascendant. The bulk of the Irish Catholics have a deep animosity to the English people, whom they regard as heretics, and the Protestants of Ireland would in self-defence be compelled to band themselves together, for underneath the specious surface of the Home Rule movement are the teeth and claws of the tiger. Persecution would follow separation, which is inevitable if the present bill be carried. A Dublin Parliament would make a Protestant's life a burden. This would react in time, and Catholicism would suffer in the long run. And for this reason, amongst others, I am against Home Rule."

But what are the Belfast men doing? Imprimis they are working in what may be called the regular English methods. Unionist clubs are springing up in all directions. The Earl of Ranfurly opened three in one evening, and others spring up almost every day. The Ulster Anti-Repeal and Loyalist Association will during the month of April hold over three hundred meetings in England, all manned by competent speakers. The Irish Unionist Association and the Conservative Association are likewise doing excellent work, which is patent to everybody. But other associations which do not need public offices are flourishing like green bay trees, and their work is eminently suggestive. By virtue of an all-powerful introduction, I yesterday visited what may be called the Ulster war department, and there saw regular preparation for an open campaign, the preliminaries for which are under eminently able superintendence. The tables are covered with documents connected with the sale and purchase of rifles and munitions of war. One of them sets forth the particulars of a German offer of 245,000 Mauser rifles, the arm last discarded by the Prussian Government, with 50,000,000 cartridges. As the first 150,000 Mausers were manufactured by the National Arms and Ammunition Company, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, it may be interesting to record that the quoted price was 16s. each, the cartridges being thrown in for nothing. Another offer referred to 149,000 stand of arms, with 30,000,000 cartridges. A third document, the aspect of which to a native of Brum was like rivers of water in a thirsty land, was said to have been summarily set aside by reason of the comparative antiquity of the excellent weapon offered, notwithstanding the tempting lowness of the quoted price.

A novel and unexpected accession of information was the revelation of a deep and sincere sympathy among the working men of England, who, with gentlemen of position and rifle volunteers by hundreds and thousands, are offering their services in the field, should civil war ensue. The letters were shown to me, all carefully filed, and sufficient liberty was permitted to enable me to be satisfied as to the tenour of their contents. Among the more important was a short note from a distinguished personage, offering a contribution of £500, with his guarantee of a force of two hundred men. This also was from England, a fact which the scoffers at Ulster will do well to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. The guarantee fund for the first campaign now amounts to nearly a million and a half, which the best financial authority of Belfast tells me is "as good as the Bank of England." What the Dublin police-sergeant said of John Bull may also be said of the Ulsterman – "He may have faults, but – he Pays!" Funds for current purposes are readily forthcoming, £50,000 being already in hand, while promises of a whole year's income seem thick as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa. No means is left untried, no stone is left unturned to render abortive what the dry and caustic Northerners call the Home Ruin Bill, or the Bill for the Bitter Government of Ireland.