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IRELAND 
 
 YESTERDAY 
 AND TODAY 
 
Photo copyright, lc09, by Hallen. N. Y. 
 
 JOHN E. REDMOND, M. P 
 Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party. 
 
IRELAND 
 
 By HUGH SUTHERLAND 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY 
 JOHN E. REDMOND, M. P. 
 
 THE NORTH AMERICAN 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 1909 
 

 COPYRIGHTED. 1909, BY 
 THE NORTH AMERICAN" CO., 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 ©CLA256 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Irish people owe much to America — more, per- 
 haps, than to any other nation in existence. The friendship 
 between the two countries has been of long standing. The 
 Irish exiles, driven forth by the exactions of landlordism in 
 the early years of the eighteenth century, powerfully con- 
 tributed to the victory of Washington and to the establish- 
 ment of the republic on a basis of strength and security. 
 The idea of the Irish Volunteers, who won.Grattan's Parlia- 
 ment, came from America. In the "dark and evil days" of 
 '98, and during the post-Union struggles, down to the time 
 of the Great Famine, Ireland could always command a large 
 and generous sympathy in America. Whilst the British 
 government refused to recognize the extent of the Famine, 
 which was the direct consequence of British misrule, the 
 American government forwarded shiploads of food and 
 clothing for our starving people. 
 
 When the Great Clearances swept millions of our race 
 from the homes of their fathers and doomed them to emi- 
 gration beyond the seas, America gave them a welcome with 
 open arms. The leaders of the Young Ireland movement 
 and of the Fenian movement found hospitality and help in 
 America. And, when Parnell appeared upon the scene, it 
 was America that hailed him as the deliverer of his country 
 and gave the greatest impetus to his success. Since then the 
 sympathy and support of America for Ireland have been 
 never-failing. 
 
 When I refer to America in this connection, I do not 
 mean merely Irish-America, from which Ireland naturally 
 expects support, both sentimental and material. I mean 
 America as a whole, the thinking men of all parties in the 
 republic, whose sympathy constitutes one of the greatest 
 assets of the Irish movement for national self-government, 
 because it is morally impossible for England to maintain in 
 
vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 Ireland a system which the judgment of America reprobates 
 and condemns. 
 
 This sympathy of America has been made manifest in 
 many ways, but in none more constantly or more effectively 
 than in the public press of the country. Some of the greatest 
 of American newspapers have been steadfast and persistent 
 champions of the Irish cause, and amongst the most widely 
 circulated and most influential of these great molders of 
 public thought and action a high place of honor must be 
 given to The North American, of Philadelphia, the reputa- 
 tion of which, as a leading exponent of American ideals, is 
 not confined to< the United States, but enjoys a recognition 
 which is world-wide. 
 
 Some seven years ago, when the Irish movement was 
 passing through one of its most exciting and critical stages, 
 the proprietors of The North American sent one of the ablest 
 members of their staff, Mr. Hugh Sutherland, over to 
 Ireland to> describe, for the information of the American 
 people, the Irish situation as he found it. The result was a 
 series of brilliant and illuminating articles, which attracted 
 widespread attention, and which served to concentrate Ameri- 
 can interest on the nature and the importance of the struggle 
 which was then taking place in Ireland. 
 
 Meantime, the Irish cause has been marching on, and 
 the effects of the concessions wrung by the Irish Party from 1 
 the British Parliament have begun to make themselves appar- 
 ent in various directions. In order to describe these effects 
 and to strengthen the appeal of the Irish people to America 
 for a continuance of its sympathy and support during the 
 final stages of the national movement, Mr. Sutherland was 
 this summer again deputed by The North American to visit 
 Ireland and to record his impressions of its changed condi- 
 tion as compared with that when he previously visited it, 
 and this he did in a second series of letters no less remark- 
 able than the first. 
 
 The publication of these letters in book form and their 
 wide circulation in America cannot fail to be of enormous 
 service to Ireland. Without, of course, binding myself to 
 an absolute acceptance of every opinion expressed in the 
 letters, I have no hesitation in stating that I recognize in 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 them a powerful, eloquent and convincing plea on behalf of 
 Ireland. They exhibit a thorough and comprehensive grasp 
 of the Irish question in all its details, historical, political, 
 moral and material, and for these reasons I heartily com- 
 mend this volume to the serious consideration of American 
 politicians and thinkers of all parties and of all creeds. 
 
 <£- 
 
 Aughavannagh, Aughrim, 
 
 County Wicklow, Ireland, 
 November 12, 1909. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is made up from letters written by the Associate Editor 
 of The North American, of Philadelphia, and published in that news- 
 paper in 1902 and 1909. During these two years the writer visited 
 Ireland and studied the conditions which have given rise to the com- 
 plex and interesting problem known as "the Irish Question." The 
 volume records his observations at these two periods. 
 
 The first section, "The Problem of the Land," comprises the let- 
 ters of 1902. The second section, "The Land Problem Solved," 
 comprises letters on the economic conditions found in 1909, and sets 
 forth the wonderful progress made in seven years toward accomplish- 
 ing the vast and intricate task of replacing landlordism by a system 
 of tenant proprietorship. The third section, also written in 1909, is 
 a discussion of "The Demand for Home Rule." 
 
 When The North American undertook, seven years ago, the treat- 
 ment of these matters the Irish Question was little understood by 
 Americans. Generations of agitation, marked often by bitter fac- 
 tional strife, had even dulled public interest in a problem affecting 
 the very life of a sister nation. Moreover, the American press had 
 acquired a habit of ignoring or slighting the Irish struggle for 
 justice. This avoidance was due, first, to a fear of arousing secta- 
 rian animosities, and, second, to indifference. The North American 
 had no such fear, having confidence in the good sense and fairness 
 of American public opinion when rightly informed, and felt no such 
 indifference toward the fate of a people bound to this nation by 
 strong ties of blood and sympathy. 
 
 It is creditable to American newspapers that to-day they discuss 
 the economic problems and the national demands of Ireland far more 
 freely and frankly than ever before. It is creditable to Great Britain 
 that she is dealing courageously and broad-mindedly with the urgent 
 needs of land reform, and that public opinion, even in England, now 
 indorses the century-old demand of Ireland for self-government, no 
 less than five hundred of the six hundred and seventy members of the 
 present House of Commons being advocates of Home Pule. 
 
 The purpose of this book is to present an American view of both 
 economic and political conditions in Ireland seven years ago and 
 to-day, partly for the interest such presentation may have for those 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 of Irish blood and sympathy, but chiefly for the information of the 
 American public and American newspapers. The material has been 
 gathered through personal observation of conditions and personal 
 examination of official reports and records. Beyond this, most of 
 the proofs have been read by government officials, and the facts and 
 figures in regard to the government works may be accepted as ac- 
 curate. For the comment thereon, of course, the writer alone is 
 responsible. 
 
 The historical summaries, particularly those referring to the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have been sharply assailed by 
 readers moved by religious feelings ; hut, as the authors quoted are in 
 most instances of British birth and sympathies, the statements can 
 hardly be challenged as prejudiced in favor of the Irish view. It is 
 impossible to treat adequately, in a few pages, the history of seven 
 hundred years ; but the writer is satisfied that what is written is true 
 and necessary to an understanding of the economic and political con- 
 ditions of to-day. 
 
 As to the religious factor, this is discussed somewhat informally, 
 but quite frankly, in the "Postscript" on page 225. It might not be 
 a bad idea to read the postscript before reading the book. 
 
 Authorities consulted by the writer included many government 
 records, such as the reports of the Devon Commission (1845) ; De- 
 partment of Agriculture; Land Commission; Estates Commission- 
 ers; Congested Districts Board; Local Government Board, and Irish 
 Universities Commission, besides the numerous Acts of Parliament 
 dealing with land, laborers, local government and education; the 
 speeches of Gladstone, Bright, Derby, Bedmond and other leaders, 
 and the writings of Bryce, John Richard Green, Goldwin Smith, 
 Lecky, etc. Valuable material was gleaned from the following books : 
 
 "The Kingdom of Ireland" (1887), by Charles George Walpole; 
 a history to the time of the Union. 
 
 "Ireland and the Empire" (1901), by T. W. Russell, Unionist M. P. 
 
 "A Hundred. Years of Irish History" (1902), by R. Barry O'Brien. 
 
 "The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland" (1904), by Michael Davitt. 
 
 "Ireland and the Home Rule Movement" (1907), by Michael F. J. 
 McDonnell. 
 
 "Contemporary Ireland" (1908), by L. Paul-Dubois; an exhaustive 
 study by a French scholar and historian. 
 
 "The Making of Ireland and Its Undoing" (1909), by Alice Stop- 
 ford Green (Mrs. John Richard Green); an impressive histori- 
 cal narrative of the destruction of Irish commerce and indus- 
 tries by legislation. 
 
 "Dublin Castle and the Irish People" (1909), by R. Barry O'Brien; 
 a minute and authoritative account of the present system of 
 government in Ireland. 
 
 The writer is glad to acknowledge especially the courtesy and 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 aid of Mr. Henry Doran, Chief Land Inspector of the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board, whose skill as an administrator and tireless devotion to 
 an arduous office have had much to do with the economic transforma- 
 tion in the most unfortunate parts of Ireland. Acknowledgment is due, 
 also, to John Dillon, M. P., for assistance in gathering facts, and to 
 John E. Redmond, M. P., Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary 
 Party, for his valued and effective Introduction. 
 
 One word more may be permitted in regard to the publication of 
 this book. Its purpose was best explained in a letter from the writer 
 to Michael J. Ryan, Esq., of Philadelphia, President of the United 
 Irish League of America, which was read by him at a mass meeting 
 in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, on November fifth, 1909. 
 The letter was as follows: 
 
 "I regret that I find it impossible to accept your invitation to appear 
 at to-night's meeting. ... I should be very much gratified, how- 
 ever, if you would make an announcement by reading this letter and 
 adding such comments as may occur to you. 
 
 "A very strong and flattering demand has been expressed that the 
 letters upon Irish affairs, published in The North American in 1902 and 
 1909, should be put in book form. Though the interest in the articles 
 was wide and their effectiveness in spreading information upon a little 
 understood subject has been generously commended, The North Ameri- 
 can feels that their preservation in permanent form will have more 
 lasting results. This thought has been most cordially indorsed by 
 Irish leaders both here and in Ireland. Mr. Redmond and Mr. O'Connor, 
 among others, have written me urging the publication, and the Chair- 
 man of the Irish Parliamentary Party has thought it worth while to 
 write an introduction for the book. 
 
 "As The North American has no other purpose than to aid in 
 spreading a general understanding of the Irish problem, it sought 
 these indorsements before attempting the publication. Having re- 
 ceived them, it enters cordially into the project. * * * 
 
 "In this connection I wish to make it perfectly clear that neither 
 The North American nor the writer will take any profit whatsoever 
 from the publication. The North American has supported the Irish 
 cause because this newspaper's policy demands the advocacy of every 
 movement looking to liberty and good government. It has gone much 
 further in this direction than any other newspaper, because it is con- 
 vinced that the project is deserving and that it needs persistent cham- 
 pionship in order to win for it that without which it would fail — the 
 public opinion of America. 
 
 "For these reasons The North American dedicates the forthcom- 
 ing book to the Irish people, and cordially offers the profits to the 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 advancement of the cause. All who purchase t^e book, therefore, and 
 induce their friends to purchase it, may have the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that the proceeds of each copy sold, above the bare cost of publica- 
 tion, will add to the funds of the Irish Nationalist movement. 
 
 "In view of these facts, we invite you and all other officers of the 
 League, and all good Irish men and women, to do what you can toward 
 distributing the volume, and making it, so far as it is worthy, an Ameri- 
 can textbook of Ireland's progress and Ireland's national aspirations." 
 
 In regard to the book, the writer has no other ambition than thai 
 this hope shall be realized. 
 
 HUGH SUTHERLAND. 
 Philadelphia, December first, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE BEGINNINGS 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IX. 
 
 X. 
 
 XL 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE PROBLEM 
 WHAT IRISH LANDLORDISM IS 
 EFFECTS OF LANDLORDISM 
 VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 
 LIFE UNDER LANDLORDISM 
 A MAN WHO KNOWS 
 THE HUMAN SIDE . 
 SOME OF THE RECORD . 
 CONGESTION AND MIGRATION 
 THE WAR ON LIBERTY . 
 WHAT COERCION IS 
 
 PAGTS 
 1 
 11 
 16 
 21 
 29 
 40 
 48 
 54 
 67 
 72 
 81 
 91 
 
 II. THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 XIII. AFTER SEVEN YEARS 103 
 
 XIV. AN EVICTION . . ■ 118 
 
 XV. CONGESTION REMEDIED 126 
 
 XVI. THE BRIGHTENED LAND 144 
 
 XVII. THINGS SEEN .152 
 
 XVIII. A REMNANT OF LANDLORDISM . . .162 
 
 XIX. ONE MAN AND HIS WORK 168 
 
 XX. EDUCATIONAL REFORM 174 
 
 XXI. A SUMMARY . . . ' 181 
 
 III. THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 XXII. THE CONQUESTS OF IRELAND . . . .185 
 
 XXIII. PENAL LAWS 197 
 
 XXIV. SOLD OUT 203 
 
 XXV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY .... 208 
 
 XXVI. MISGOVERNMENT 219 
 
 XXVII. DUBLIN CASTLE 228 
 
 XXVIII. THE SYSTEM A FAILURE 239 
 
 XXIX. HOME RULE TESTED 248 
 
 POSTSCRIPT: THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION . 255 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 John E. Redmond, M. P Frontispiece 
 
 PACING PAGE 
 
 How Battering Ram Was Used in Evictions xvi ^ 
 
 Burned Out : Ruins of Houses After Evictions 8 ' 
 
 Evicted! 16 ■' 
 
 Turf Hut Occupied by an Evicted Family 24 
 
 A Relic of Eviction Days 32^ 
 
 To Be Replaced by a Decent Home 32 
 
 Battering a Breach in the Wall 40 
 
 A Remnant of Landlordism 48 v 
 
 Village of Lough Glynn 48 
 
 Pat Tuohy and His Jaunting Car 56 " 
 
 Better Than the Old Style 56 
 
 Constabulary at an Eviction 64 v 
 
 Bernard King and His Stable Home 64 
 
 A Business Street in Castlebar, County Mayo 72 
 
 Map Showing Congested Districts Page 74 
 
 PACING PAGE 
 
 John Fitzgibbon 80 «/ 
 
 Improvements on Clare Island 80 
 
 A Pretty Irish Cottage 88 
 
 Spinning 83 
 
 Part of a Grazing Estate Divided Into Farms 96' 
 
 Family Moved From This House 104- 
 
 Now Occupied by Family That Moved 112 
 
 Battering Ram at an Eviction in Kerry, 1909 120 
 
 Bringing Home the Turf 128 v 
 
 Henry Doran, Chief Land Inspector, Congested Districts Board.. 136 
 
 Foreman Showing Report to Mr. Doran 136 
 
 Tenant Purchaser Erecting New Home 144 
 
 Not Pretty, But Comfortable 144 
 
 Drainage Work by Congested Districts Board 152 
 
 Father O'Hara, Instructing Workman (Mr. Doran at Right) .... 160 
 
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Making a Field: The First Crop of Stones Dug From the Soil... 168 
 
 Royal University, Now Part of National University of Ireland.. . 176 
 
 A Courtyard in Trinity College, Dublin 184 
 
 College Green, Dublin: Bank of Ireland on Left, Trinity College 
 
 on Right 192 
 
 One of the New Houses 200 ' 
 
 Improvements by Tenant Purchaser 200 
 
 Coming From Market 208 
 
 A "Milkman" 216 
 
 The Captured House After Kerry Eviction 224 
 
 Royal Constabulary at Kerry Eviction 232 
 
 John Dillon, M. P 240 
 
 A Relic of the Past 248 
 
 A Home of Today 248 
 
 Bank of Ireland, Dublin, Where Irish Parliament Met, 1782—1800. 256 
 
THE PROBLEM OF 
 THE LAND 
 
 I 
 
 *THE BEGINNINGS 
 
 The Irish people have been fighting for their lives and 
 their homes for seven centuries, and to-day few but them- 
 selves know the history, causes or present rights of the dis- 
 pute. The Irish question to them is a religion, a sacred 
 struggle, in which each succeeding generation makes sacri- 
 fices. To the world it is a by-word and a jest. The busy 
 folk in Europe and America run to and fro in the earth, 
 spreading liberty and civilization according to their own 
 views. Here is a race which has been prostrate for a hun- 
 dred years, a land from which the people are being driven 
 remorselessly by the effects of oppression and misgovern- 
 ment. Yet the world is indifferent. This heartless acquies- 
 cence is not due to intent, but to ignorance. How many 
 Americans, save those of Irish birth, know the meaning of 
 the ceaseless campaign for "free Ireland"? How many 
 believe that it is anything more than a game of politics? 
 How many look with true sympathy upon the indefatigable 
 Irish obstructionists who more than once have stripped the 
 mighty British Parliament of its dignity? If the writer, 
 before coming here, possessed average knowledge in these 
 matters, then the general ignorance is all but fathomless. 
 
 *Chapters I, II, III and IV were written in Dublin in December, 
 1902. 
 
 I 
 
2 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 It becomes necessary, then, to clear away the mass of 
 misapprehension which obscures the Irish problem. An 
 honest effort is to be made in these letters to enlighten the 
 American people in respect to this cause. The investigation 
 will be thorough, and it is being made impartially and con- 
 scientiously. In general terms, and briefly, an attempt will 
 be made to establish these propositions, of which the writer 
 has convinced himself: 
 
 That the Irish people have suffered as no other people 
 have suffered. 
 
 That they have been the victims of injustice, oppres- 
 sion, indifference and legislative blundering for many gen- 
 erations. 
 
 That during the last thirty years they have been granted 
 an increasing measure of justice by wise statesmanship, and 
 will gain more. 
 
 And, finally, that the world-wide campaign now swing- 
 ing on toward victory is not rebellion against lawful author- 
 ity, but the peaceful evolution of a people toward that liberty 
 which they are the last of the western nations to receive. 
 
 To my mind, only two things are necessary to turn 
 public opinion overwhelmingly in favor of the Irish cause, 
 and public opinion is the reinforcement by which these people 
 will carry the last breastworks of selfishness and prejudice: 
 First, knowledge of Irish history; second, to convince the 
 world that the people are not chronic malcontents, but have 
 a cause based on reason and justice. 
 
 Let the appalling story of Ireland be closely read, and 
 the causes underlying this struggle will become clear. And 
 then, as to the ultimate aim, let it be understood that it is 
 not the disruption, but the union, of the British empire; 
 that the intent is not to* raise up a state which will threaten 
 the imperial government, but a state which will become the 
 strongest buttress of the best of England's power. 
 
 There are those in America, I know, who believe that 
 Ireland is fighting for absolute independence. Black mem- 
 ories and blackened traditions have made them relentless 
 enemies of England and dreamers of Ireland as a separate 
 state, responsible to no authority save her own. But these 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 3 
 
 revolutionists will find no worthy allies in the land of their 
 hopes. 
 
 Hatred of England has smoldered here for centuries, 
 and now and again the hot flames of rebellion have flared 
 up. Hatred of England is well nigh universal to-day. 
 Sullen, bitter enmity is the attitude of men and women to 
 the farthest limits of the island, and even the children are 
 born and bred to* hate. But these things are the inevitable 
 fruit of the weary years of oppression and the long indiffer- 
 ence which followed. Let Ireland win simple justice, and 
 this people will become the stanchest and most faithful 
 partners in the empire. On this point I quote T. W. Russell, 
 M. P., who has fought for forty years in the ranks of Irish- 
 men against the evils of the land system, while steadily 
 opposing Home Rule : 
 
 "For seventy years of the last century Ireland was 
 governed wholly in the interests of a class. The people 
 never had one moment's consideration. The famine of 
 1847, one °'f those mysterious dispensations by which Provi- 
 dence asserts great principles, was ruthlessly used in the same 
 interests. But Nemesis, long on the road, has at last arrived. 
 The people are now supreme. The whole Irish question 
 was settled when the vote was conferred, in the expressive 
 language of the peasantry, on every 'smoke' — that is, upon 
 every cabin from which the smoke of the turf fire ascends. 
 This is the great fact of the age. The two races (Protestant 
 and Catholic) are joining hand in hand even now for com- 
 mon objects. In due time each will learn that much can be 
 conceded with little or no* real sacrifice. And when this les- 
 son has been truly learned Ireland will have real freedom, 
 England will be released from the grip of a nightmare and 
 the empire will be really united." 
 
 True, it will take some time to win back the affection of 
 the people, but not so 1 long as it took to inspire them with 
 hatred. The depth of that hatred has been dangerously 
 illustrated during the last three years. Irishmen in Parlia- 
 ment and at home openly espoused the cause of the Boers 
 against their own government. Technically they were guilty 
 of treason. Actually they were expressing the sentiments 
 
4 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 of a race utterly alien to those who ruled them. Said one of 
 the national leaders to me the other day: 
 
 "You do not realize the deep-rooted enmity of our 
 people toward England. They are rebels, lacking only 
 arms. At those periods when the oppression has been most 
 heavy any foreign power might have found an ally here. 
 If the Emperor of China or the Sultan of Turkey had landed 
 a force in Ireland, the people would have flocked to his 
 standards against England." 
 
 These are terrible words, but from what I have seen 
 and heard, I believe they are true. A nation in unarmed 
 rebellion — that is Ireland to-day. And yet this also is true : 
 When the people shall have come again to their own, when 
 the burden of injustice has been lifted from their shoulders 
 and they rise up to greet the dawn of liberty, it will need 
 only patience and care to win back the lost allegiance. This 
 statement was made by the same man who uttered the words 
 just quoted. 
 
 The Irish question has such infinite ramifications that 
 this brief introduction is necessary before taking up the 
 detail. The problem was propounded centuries ago, and for 
 the last hundred years has engrossed the attention of the 
 British nation, with and without its consent. Libraries have 
 been written upon it. The greatest statesmen of Europe 
 have given years to its study. It has been the cause of end- 
 less discussion, of rebellion, imprisonment, assassination, 
 murder, sacrifice. In the face of such a record it seems hope- 
 less to treat it, in a manner worthy of any attention, after a 
 few weeks of investigation and research. Yet an honest 
 effort can do much, at least, to dispel ignorance upon the 
 most vital points. 
 
 I think I can best make myself clear by stating the most 
 obtrusive conditions which now prevail in Ireland. These 
 are, briefly: 
 
 Political — Widespread hatred and distrust of 
 England. Peace insured by an armed garrison. 
 A police force, paid by the Irish people, but controlled 
 absolutely from London, scattered over the whole 
 island, with judicial as well as administrative 
 powers. "Coercion" enforced in twenty-one of the 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 5 
 
 thirty-two counties, whereby free speech is suppressed, 
 trial by jury suspended and public discussion, if 
 displeasing to officials, results in arbitrary imprison- 
 ment. In the British Parliament, the balance of power 
 held by the Irish miembers, who- are united in a deter- 
 mination to obstruct the government at every turn. In 
 Ireland, the United Irish League, spreading its organ- 
 ization everywhere, its platform embracing the aboli- 
 tion of landlordism through compulsory sale of lands, 
 and ultimately the establishment of national self- 
 government. 
 
 Economic — The nation is dying by inches. Every 
 year the population grows less. In 1 800 it was 4,000,- 
 000, in 1847 nearly 9,000,000. Now it is 4,456,000. 
 Emigration is ceaseless. The young and vigorous of 
 the race are fleeing from the island as though there 
 were a blight. In the last fifty years 3,850,000 have 
 fled from the land of their birth. Nowhere, save in a 
 few restricted manufacturing districts, is there a condi- 
 tion worthy to be called prosperity. Agriculture is the 
 employment of eight-tenths of the population, and 
 agriculture spells destitution. Hundreds of thousands 
 exist only through contributions from! relatives in 
 America and England. In thousands upon thousands 
 of families the men and boys must spend six months of 
 the year in England in order to earn enough money to 
 carry the families through the winter. In a word, the 
 Irish in Ireland are kept alive by the Irish who have 
 been driven to other lands. 
 
 Do not these conditions form a problem that shocks 
 the mind? Here is a country two-thirds the size of Penn- 
 sylvania, one great farm which seemingly needs but the 
 touch of the husbandman to smile back in bounteous harvest. 
 The Green Isle ! Ah, how green it is ! December is almost 
 here, yet the fields look as fresh as ours in springtime, and 
 I saw violets and primroses growing the other day when the 
 sun set at four o'clock in the afternoon and winter darkness 
 followed swiftly. Here lies the land, uncounted acres of it, 
 waiting for the farmer, ready to yield its riches to a nation 
 of millions, yet the people flee from it. From year to year 
 
6 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 the population shrinks. Instead of plenty there is poverty. 
 Instead of rich farms, comfortable homes, a happy populace, 
 the fields lie bare to the roaming of cattle. 
 
 I have traveled from end to end of the country and 
 back again, from sea to sea, visiting the cities, the towns, 
 the villages, the tiny hamlets and farms. And there is one 
 picture which blots out all else. It is desolation. Where 
 the land is cruel and hard there the people are found fight- 
 ing with supreme courage and desperation against hunger. 
 Where the land is rich and radiant with promise of plenty 
 there is utter loneliness. The people are gone. 
 
 What is the meaning of this outrage against nature and 
 humanity? By every law we know of governing human 
 activity and the life of men this country should be populous 
 and prosperous. Of all the countries where white men live, 
 it is the only one where the number of souls grows less and 
 less year by year. Fashioned from the beginning to be the 
 home of many millions, beloved by its sons as no other land 
 under heaven was ever beloved, it is reverting steadily to a 
 place fit only for flocks and herds. Happily, the exodus is 
 being somewhat checked, and there is growing promise that 
 some day the level will begin to rise again. But in that the 
 evil work of centuries has sapped Ireland's best blood, there 
 lies against civilization a heavy debt. 
 
 Wherein is the explanation of the steady depopulation 
 of Ireland — of these conditions of unrest, hatred, poverty 
 and hunger? It is named in two words — THE LAND. 
 
 In all the endless story of oppression and wrong, this 
 is the beginning and the end. By persecution, by war, by 
 straightforward robbery, by famine and by unjust laws the 
 people have been forced from their lands. Hundreds of 
 thousands have perished miserably, millions have been driven 
 into exile, hundreds of thousands are to-day living chiefly on 
 the bounty of those who have been fortunate enough to 
 escape. In all that shall be written, therefore, let the reader 
 keep in mind the land. That is at the bottom of all trouble, 
 and through it comes salvation presently. The wrangle of 
 politics, the clash of creeds, the defiance of desperate people 
 and the strong measures of insulted law and order — all have 
 their rise in the dispute about the land. 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 7 
 
 How can it be made clear that in the dispute the com- 
 plaint of the people is just? I have heard men who have 
 intelligent views on affairs of their own country declare that 
 the trouble in Ireland exists because the people are chron- 
 ically discontented, have an inborn prejudice against paying 
 rent and murder their landlords rather than meet their just 
 debts. As far back as the oldest living man can remember 
 there has been the same dispute between landlord and 
 tenant. It has become wearisome to those not interested. 
 They have forgotten, or have never taken the trouble to 
 learn, the foundations of the trouble. The placid house- 
 holder in an American town, for instance, who religiously 
 sends a check to his landlord on the first of the month, and 
 never has a more serious dispute with him than might con- 
 cern a leaky roof or a patch of soiled wall paper — how can 
 such a man look with sympathy upon a people who form 
 secret societies against landlords and send men to Parlia- 
 ment pledged to the same unholy cause? There must be a 
 readjustment of ideas before we can approach this question 
 intelligently. The slate must be wiped clean for the recep- 
 tion of new facts and new ideas. The Irish land problem 
 has not its parallel anywhere. The conditions are as unique 
 as they are heart-breaking. 
 
 Since the land question, therefore, holds the solution of, 
 all Ireland's troubles, it will be treated at length in these 
 letters. But first we must lay the foundation for our case, 
 and this foundation must be historical. The beginning of 
 the struggle was in 11 69, when Strongbow, Earl of Pem- 
 broke, the first Saxon invader of Ireland, descended on the 
 coast of Wexford and subdued some of the Irish tribes, 
 establishing the feudal system. Since then there has been a 
 never-ending struggle of the people against those who ruled 
 them. It is needless to< recount here the long history of the 
 early period. Indeed, there is not space for it. But the 
 English policy was always the same — to seize the land, 
 reduce the free people to the status of farming serfs and 
 quell their efforts to regain their freedom by the most strin- 
 gent laws and exactions. 
 
 Ingenious means were devised to crush the Irish spirit, 
 and finally to exterminate the race. Under the early Henrys, 
 
8 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 laws were passed forbidding the English invaders to marry 
 Irish persons. By these laws the natural enmity between the 
 races was fostered. There was no desire to permit an 
 amalgamation and peaceful division of the land. Hence end- 
 less wars raged. For nearly four hundred years Ireland was 
 racked with strife, until at last, under Queen Elizabeth, the 
 subjugation of the islanders was completed for the time 
 being. By that time great tracts of land, which had been in 
 possession of the Irish, had passed to the descendants of the 
 invaders. Industry — which was agriculture, of course — had 
 been utterly prostrated. No man cared to till the ground, 
 for, under the laws, the soldiery had the right to seize what- 
 ever crops or property they needed or desired. As a sample 
 of campaign methods, the report of one Malby in 1576 will 
 be of interest. He wrote : 
 
 "I marched into the territory of Shan Burke, with deter- 
 mination to consume them with fire and sword. I burned all 
 their corn and houses and committed to the sword all that 
 could be found. 
 
 "Then I burned Ulick Burke's country. In like man- 
 ner I assaulted a castle, where the garrison surrendered. 
 I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers. They were 
 all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in 
 my way, which cruelty did so amaze their followers that they 
 could not tell where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke made 
 means to me to pardon him and forbear killing of his people. 
 I would not hearken, but went on my way. * * * It 
 was all done in rain and frost and storm, journeys in such 
 weather bringing them the sooner to submission. They are 
 humble enough now, and will yield to any terms we like to 
 offer them." 
 
 Through these expeditions the English learned of the 
 value of the colony, and determined to develop it. Induce- 
 ments were offered to sons of good families to undertake the 
 colonization of large tracts, one condition being imposed, 
 namely, that no Irish were to be permitted to settle on the 
 grants. The land was parceled out to court favorites in 
 tracts of 1000 to 20,000 acres and more. Thus the people 
 were first driven from their homes. How they suffered one 
 paragraph from a contemporary account will show : 
 
THE BEGINNINGS 9 
 
 "No spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of the 
 towns, and especially in wasted countries, than to see multi- 
 tudes of the poor Irish lying dead, with their mouths all 
 colored green from eating nettles, dock and such weeds as 
 they could find on the ground." 
 
 When the son of Catholic Mary Queen of Scots came 
 to the throne the su*$ering people hoped for relief. The 
 ^answer to their hopes was the confiscation of six counties in 
 Ulster, 3,750,000 acres. The Stuarts continued this policy 
 to the limit, granting the richest tracts to favorites of the 
 court, driving the poor people from their holdings and for- 
 bidding the employment upon the grants of any native of 
 Ireland. From these kingly robberies the land titles of most 
 of the great landlords of to-day are derived. Sometimes 
 there was a form of law in the methods of confiscation. 
 Juries were appointed "to inquire into defective titles." It 
 is only necessary to add that a juror who found a verdict 
 against the Crown was imprisoned, pilloried or branded with 
 a hot iron. Under this system 430,000 acres in Wexford, 
 Wicklow and Leitrim were seized by the government and 
 farmed out to those in favor at the court. 
 
 In spite of this oppression and robbery, the Irish, 
 inspired by religion and kingly promises, espoused the cause 
 of Charles I. They had their reward, for when the King 
 had been put to death Cromwell and his Roundheads 
 descended on Ireland like a scourge. 
 
 That chapter in history cannot be read without a shud- 
 der. Massacre followed massacre, and at the end the whole 
 country was declared forfeit to the government. Those Irish 
 who 1 had managed to cling to fruitful lands were driven in 
 the dead of the winter across the Shannon to the westward 
 and forced to> make their homes on the most barren lands. 
 Nearly 16,000,000 acres were thus seized and divided 
 among English noblemen and others who had aided the 
 Parliament. Under James II and William of Orange the 
 depredations went on, and at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century the Irish people, to whom, had belonged the whole 
 of the island, found themselves confined to an area of one- 
 seventh of it, and this the most unproductive land. 
 
 This is just a glance at the record of persecution and 
 
,o PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 confiscation in Ireland, but it will indicate the historical basis 
 of the Irish claims. The people have been defeated more 
 than once, but they have never yielded except to> brute force. 
 Hatreds were engendered in those old days that burn as 
 fiercely to-day. Every Irish child is taught by fireside story 
 the tale of his forefathers' sufferings. Every lad grows up 
 with the teaching that but for tyranny his people would be 
 in possession of fair lands. Necessarily our account has been 
 of the briefest description, and is here given merely to indi- 
 cate how the land originally passed from the people to the 
 great families of England and their descendants. This, 
 however, makes possible an intelligent survey of the last 
 hundred years, during which the Irish question has been the 
 predominant factor in British politics. 
 
 It has outlasted monarchs and their courts. Men have 
 died, but it lives. The map of the world has been changed 
 a hundred times, but it changes not. Through peace and 
 war, famine and plenty, England is always confronted with 
 Ireland and her question: "Will ye let my people go?" 
 
 As the consideration of recent history must be post- 
 poned, this thought should be stated here, lest any misunder- 
 stand. The Irish people do> not ask that the crimes of the 
 Tudors, the Stuarts and their successors be undone. They 
 do not demand that the land stolen from their forefathers be 
 given back to them. They only ask the opportunity to buy 
 it. Still battling with hunger and death on the stony patches 
 to which they were driven, they look with unutterable long- 
 ing upon the fair land that surrounds them, and beg that 
 they may be permitted to redeem it for their children. For 
 a hundred years they have encamped in misery on the other 
 side of Jordan, never faltering in the hope that some day 
 they may cross over. 
 
 On one side a starving people, on the other a land of 
 plenty, desolate for need of people — that is the Irish ques- 
 tion. 
 
II 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 The unhappy condition of the people in some of the 
 agricultural districts of Ireland has been described SO' often 
 during past years that it would seem nothing more could be 
 said. Yet to a stranger, an American, ignorant of the facts, 
 the first view is a shock. I have now traversed the country 
 more than once, visiting not only the towns and villages, but 
 the settlements remote from the railroads, and the scenes I 
 have witnessed are so vivid, so pitiful, that the pen aches to 
 set them down. But this task must wait a little. It is easy 
 to find misery anywhere. In our own cities destitution is 
 unhappily familiar, and even in our generous country dis- 
 tricts there may be discovered unwholesome conditions of 
 life. This investigation is of small value unless it is shown 
 first that the poverty and suffering are due to misgovernment 
 and that the intolerable conditions can be relieved only by 
 sweeping away the system of Irish landlordism. 
 
 Those who properly revere the sacred rights of prop- 
 erty need not take alarm at the proposition. It is the sober 
 judgment of the best leaders of thought on the question, and 
 will soon be embodied in the proposals of the British govern- 
 ment. They must remember also that the United States does 
 not know any such system of land holding as exists here. It 
 is as foreign to their knowledge as the land laws of China. 
 It is necessary, therefore, to withhold description of actual 
 conditions here until these bases of judgment are established. 
 My first letter sketched briefly the early history of Ireland 
 and showed in outline how the seizures and confiscations, in 
 war and peace, through forms of law and open persecution, 
 resulted in transferring the land by wholesale from the native 
 owners to English adventurers and court favorites. Thus, 
 through the remorseless operation of conquest and greed, the 
 Irish people became a nation of tenant farmers. 
 
 11 
 
i2 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 In tracing the history of the land question I have talked 
 with many men, among them those who have devoted their 
 lives to the Irish cause. Most of all I am indebted to Mr. 
 T. W. Russell, of Dublin, a member of Parliament. Mr. 
 Russell is a Scotchman, has been in public life for nearly 
 forty years and to-day is one of the greatest figures in the 
 Irish struggle. He has been and is the friend and adviser 
 of the people and of the statesmen as well. There is not a 
 voice in England or Ireland which dare accuse him of waver- 
 ing a hair's breadth from honesty and sincerity of purpose. 
 He is a student, a thinker and a historian. He has made a 
 lifelong fight for Union as against Home Rule. Further- 
 more — and this is a greater evidence of impartiality than 
 Americans imagine — he is a stanch Protestant. Upon all 
 counts, therefore, he is a faithful and competent witness for 
 the Irish people. In the succeeding review of the story of 
 the land I take much of my evidence from his "Ireland and 
 the Empire," published within a year, the knowledge so 
 gained being fortified by personal interviews with leaders 
 and by study of the highest authorities. 
 
 The political history of the last century will be treated 
 in detail at another time, but these few facts should be borne 
 in mind: Ireland had her own Parliament from 1782 to 
 1 800, and all historians agree that under that rule she 
 enjoyed remarkable prosperity. In 1800, despite the pleas 
 of the people, the Parliament was abolished and a union with 
 England was forced by that country. Of the nature of this 
 act it is only necessary to quote Gladstone, whose judgment 
 few Americans will doubt. He said : 
 
 "I know of no blacker or fouler transaction in the his- 
 tory of man than the making of the Union between England 
 and Ireland." 
 
 For one hundred years, therefore, Ireland has been gov- 
 erned absolutely by England. Mr. Russell's estimate is a 
 terrible indictment : 
 
 "Seventy of these years stand out a reproach and a disgrace 
 to England. Nothing can well be worse than the record of the 
 English in Ireland during this period. These years have wit- 
 nessed several attempts at armed rebellion, suppressed, of course, 
 by the superior power of England. They have seen the people, 
 visited by a great famine, rushing from the country as if it were 
 
ITS MAKING 13 
 
 plague stricken — 3,841,419 having gone across the ocean in fifty 
 years, In other words, forty-seven per cent, of the population have 
 fled from the country to seek bread under another flag. 
 
 "These years have witnessed the reign of secret societies, of 
 agrarian crime and of endless coercion acts. They have been 
 dominated by a land system, which can only be described as sys- 
 tematized and legal robbery of the poor. The governed were, in 
 the main, helots and slaves; the governors were, to a large extent, 
 callous and heartless tyrants. England had, unasked and unbid- 
 den, taken over the government of Ireland. Where the duty was 
 not shamefully neglected, it was exercised in the interests of a 
 class alone. Until Mr. Gladstone arose, no subject people had 
 ever been more basely treated or neglected by a conqueror." 
 
 In view of such a record, when even the elementary 
 liberties of the people were crushed by tyranny, it may be 
 imagined that they suffered grievously in their centuries-old 
 struggle for the land. That this has been and is the 
 supreme issue one statement will show. The population of 
 Ireland is a little over 4,450,000. Of these, nearly 3,500,000 
 depend directly or indirectly upon the land for their sup^ 
 port, for their daily bread. In America a bad season seldom 
 means more than temporary retrenchment to> the agricultural 
 element. Here a single failure of crops means absolute desti- 
 tution to millions. Trade is instantly prostrated, and starva- 
 tion becomes an imminent peril to hundreds of thousands. 
 Hence it is that upon land reform hang the life and death 
 of the Irish people. 
 
 Now to> indicate very briefly the developments which 
 have imposed the present cruel and absurd system of land 
 tenure. 
 
 In the earliest days the tribal system was in force, that 
 is, the tillers of the soil paid certain tribute to their chief- 
 tains. There was, in fact, dual ownership of the land, 
 between the governors and the governed. The struggles 
 which have endured for so many generations have been due 
 primarily to the repudiation of the people's rights as land 
 owners and the gradual seizure of the land by the governing 
 class. Feudal tenure, an anachronism long swept away in 
 other countries, still exists here, and the destruction of it is 
 the only means of restoring peace. The most concise story 
 of how the land was taken from the people is found in the 
 report of the English Devon Commission, headed by the 
 Earl of Devon, which was issued in 1845 after an investiga- 
 
i 4 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 tion covering two years. This report, which is a standard 
 authority, says : 
 
 "In the civil contentions which at various periods, and during 
 many centuries, disturbed the repose of England and Scotland, 
 property gradually passed from the feudal tenure of former times 
 to the more civilized relation of landlord and tenant, as known to 
 our present law. It is for us briefly to show how different has been 
 the case with Ireland. Without entering at any length into the 
 history of the past, we cannot avoid noticing a few prominent 
 matters which exercise a material influence in producing the exist- 
 ing relation of landlord and tenant. 
 
 "We allude to the confiscations and colonizations of Elizabeth 
 and James, the wars of Cromwell and, lastly, the penal code. The 
 first of these led, in many instances, to the possession of large 
 tracts by individuals whose more extensive estates in England 
 made them regardless and neglectful of their properties in Ireland. 
 Again, the confiscation of the lands of O'Neill, in the North, and 
 Desmond, in the South, was followed by the plantations of Ulster 
 and Minister. 
 
 "The extensive settlement of Scotch and English in the coun- 
 ties of Ulster has introduced habits and customs which give a 
 different character to that province from other parts of the island. 
 In Munster the colonization was more imperfectly carried out, and 
 a class of (foreign) undertakers became the landlords of the native 
 peasantry. 
 
 "The adventurers who obtained debentures from Cromwell 
 formed, for the most part, a small proprietary; and being generally 
 resident, exercised an influence on the relations of society different 
 from that produced by the large and absent grantees of former 
 reigns. 
 
 "These confiscations were followed at a later date by the enact- 
 ment of the penal laws (against Roman Catholics), which, affecting 
 as they did the position of Roman Catholics as regarded landed 
 property, had a very general influence on society. 
 
 "These laws, both in their enactment and in their subsequent 
 relaxations, have materially affected the position of occupier and 
 proprietor. They interfered with almost every method of dealing 
 with landed property by those who profess that religion, and by 
 creating a feeling of insecurity, directly checked their industry. 
 The Protestant landlords, in letting their estates, were thus con- 
 fined in the selection of their tenants to those who alone could 
 enjoy any permanent tenure under them, and were exclusively 
 entitled to the elective franchise. 
 
 "Many of the landlords, therefore, parted with the whole or a 
 great portion of their property for long terms, and thus avoided 
 all immediate contact with the inferior occupiers, so that all the 
 duties of a landlord were left for performance to a middleman. 
 
 "This (letting to middlemen) was generally done so as to 
 insure a large profit, and the poor occupiers were frequently 
 exposed to great oppression. The system has entailed upon the 
 country the most injurious consequences." 
 
ITS MAKING 15 
 
 The facts here given are so important to an understand- 
 ing of the question that I shall attempt to restate them in 
 simpler terms: 
 
 1. The land was taken from the people by force and 
 conferred upon adventurers and titled favorites of the sov- 
 ereigns. The means used were confiscation, colonization, 
 seizure in time of war and as reprisal by the victors, and, 
 finally, penal laws, which stripped Roman Catholics of nearly 
 every right enjoyed by citizens under free government. 
 
 2. In Ulster conditions are different from those pre- 
 vailing elsewhere, because the new settlers, being English 
 and Scotch, were favored by the granting of certain rights, 
 and these endure to this day, whereas it was not until 1870 
 that the same rights were conferred on the rest of the 
 country. 
 
 3. The very severity of the laws so hampered the 
 owners living in England that they sublet their Irish estates 
 to middlemen, who ground down the hapless peasantry at 
 will. In this regard there is on record an astounding case. 
 In an appeal made under the modern land laws it was shown 
 that between one tiller of the soil and the owner of it there 
 were no fewer than three middlemen. In other words, the 
 farmer upon whom fell all the work had to produce rent for 
 four different purses from his single holding. The court 
 reduced the rent sixty per cent. 
 
Ill 
 
 WHAT IRISH LANDLORDISM IS 
 
 In considering the broad question of land tenure in Ire- 
 land the vital thing to remember is this : Irish landlordism 
 is totally different from English or American landlordism. 
 In England, for instance, the proprietor of agricultural land 
 owns the land and everything upon it. He builds the houses, 
 the barns, the fences. He pays for the clearing and drain- 
 ing and repairs the roads. The tenant receives from him 
 an equipped farm, and supplies only the labor of tilling, pay- 
 ing a rental based upon the land and improvements. 
 
 """In Ireland, on the contrary, the landlord supplied noth- 
 ing but the land, which he or his ancestors received as a gift 
 from the Crown. The tenant, under this system, pays exor- 
 bitant rent for the bare ground. It is the tenant who must 
 clear the land, drain it, make roads, build house and barn 
 and fences. In fart, his industry alone creates from the bare 
 soil the farml for which he pays rent. 
 
 And here is the almost incredible fact: Until thirty 
 years ago all the labor of the tenant, though he spent a life- 
 time in making his farm, gave him absolutely no interest in 
 the property. The fences he erected, the roads he made, 
 the buildings he put up — all were the property of the land- 
 lord. That was the law. And at any time, with or without 
 cause, rent paid or rent unpaid, that tenant could be evicted 
 from his home at the whim of the landlord, and the work of 
 his lifetime passed automatically into the ownership of the 
 landlord. 
 
 Can the mind conceive of a system more monstrous, 
 more absurd? Does it not more than justify Mr. Russell's 
 estimate, when he calls it "systematized and legal robbery of 
 the poor"? Does it not offer at least some palliation for the 
 weary years of violence and assault, by which the oppressed 
 people expressed their despair and misery? 
 
 The history of Ireland is smeared with crime. In the 
 
 16 
 
IRISH LANDLORDISM 17 
 
 old days there were the cruel methods of the invading troops 
 and authorities; in more recent times the bloody reprisals of 
 the mob. Uncounted brutalities and murders have been 
 charged against the secret organizations of the tenants 
 during the last century. But in reading these horrible stories 
 two facts must be kept constantly in view, if a just opinion 
 is to be rendered: First, the land was taken from the people 
 by violence and by the contemptible processes of religious 
 persecution; second, when they were allowed to reclaim it, 
 on the most exorbitant terms, all their labor was seized for 
 the benefit of the landlords. This cannot be too strongly 
 emphasized, for it is the very foundation of the struggle 
 which has drenched the land in blood and made the Irish 
 people a nation of rebels. Lord Russell, of Killowen, during 
 his life was well known to Americans, who will accept any 
 judgment delivered by him concerning rights under English 
 law. I quote from him : 
 
 "The claim of tenant right (part proprietorship in the 
 land by the occupying farmer) is based upon this essential 
 fact : Whereas in England a farm is let, equipped for use 
 as a farm, and the covenant requires the landlord to keep 
 up the farm buildings, houses, fencing and drainage, all this 
 in Ireland is the work of the tenant." 
 
 And yet, until Gladstone came to the rescue, in 1870, 
 the lifework of the tenant counted nothing against the land- 
 lord-made law. The landlord let the bare soil, perhaps a 
 strip of bog or a patch on a stony hillside; for it must be 
 remembered that land-hunger has been the curse of Ireland, 
 and the people have always been compelled to beg for 
 enough soil to give them a living. The tenant, then, took 
 the bog or the patch of stones and erected his little cabin 
 on it. Before he could raise a peck of potatoes he had to 
 prepare the land. He had to clear out the stones, dig 
 elaborate drains, build fences. It has been truly said that 
 his first three crops were stones. In other words — it will 
 seem incredible to the American farmer — the Irish peasant 
 had to take the raw materials and actually make his farm 
 with his own hands and with the most heart-breaking labor, 
 meanwhile and always paying rent for a farm. 
 
 "But," says the hard-working American, "what pioneer 
 
1 8 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 settler does not have to reclaim his land? Do you suggest 
 that all this work should have been done for the farmer with- 
 out cost to him ?" 
 
 Wait a moment. Let us see what happened. The 
 tenant had given, say, three years to the making of his farm. 
 With infinite labor and by incredible self-sacrifice he drained 
 the bog, dug out the stones with his hands and carted them 
 away, and at last had made ready a patch of ground to grow 
 food for himself and his family. At such time arrived the 
 landlord's agent. With practiced eye he surveyed the 
 improved land, estimated the labor spent upon it and raised 
 the rent correspondingly. If the tenant had agreed to pay 
 $20 a year for his three or four acres of stony soil, he was 
 told that having cleared and drained it he would have to 
 pay $40. 
 
 Does the honest, hard-working American, who believes 
 in paying his rent with his other debts, begin to see why the 
 Irish tenant has been an agitator and a lawbreaker for gen- 
 erations? Remember, there was no law to which he could 
 appeal. He was as much at the mercy of the landlord as 
 the negro of the South was at the mercy of his owner. The 
 titled proprietor in England left everything to the middle- 
 man or to his own personal agent. The tenant was ground 
 between the agent and the soil. There was no escape. 
 
 Suppose he paid the increase ordered, nothing more nor 
 less than a penalty for his industry. The next year his land 
 yielded a crop. Again the agent came, estimated the value 
 of the yield and raised the rent again. So the grinding went 
 on, from year to year, the uttermost farthing being wrung 1 
 from the farmer, until the inevitable time came when he 
 could not pay. Having spent himself on the land, living on 
 the verge of starvation in order to meet the steadily increas- 
 ing demands of the landlord, knowing that the harder he 
 worked the more he must pay, he found himself at last at 
 the end of his resources. He could not pay the increased 
 rent. Again there was no choice. By simple, cheap and 
 effective process of law the tenant and his family were 
 evicted, thrown out on the roadside to die or to start the 
 weary struggle afresh in some new patch of bog or rocky- 
 hillside. 
 
IRISH LANDLORDISM 19 
 
 And what became of the product of his labor? Surely 
 he could dispose of his interest in the land, the drains he had 
 dug, the fences and houses and barns he had built? Not to 
 the extent of one farthing. By the very process of eviction 
 all improvements passed into the possession of the landlord. 
 The starving family on the roadside were even poorer than 
 before they started. They might go where they would. All 
 the landlord's agent had to do was to take a new tenant. 
 This new tenant could afford to pay the high rent demanded, 
 for he found a farm, and buildings ready to support his 
 family. He took possession, and remained until the wrench- 
 ing of the thumbscrews each year brought him, too, to the 
 limit of his ability to pay, and then he, too, was thrown out. 
 
 Such, in brief, was the system of land tenure in Ireland 
 for generations. Nor is this the worst. The tenant was sub- 
 ject to eviction not only for non-payment of rent, but abso- 
 lutely at the whim or caprice of the landlord or agent. The 
 serving of a formal notice toward the end of the year was 
 sufficient. And the farmer was summarily ejected from his 
 home; the labor of years, the property he had actually made 
 with his own hands, was stolen. 
 
 These statements are so astounding to one who meets 
 the facts for the first time that I am constrained to quote 
 English authority for them): 
 
 Lord Kormanby — "In Ireland the landlord has a monopoly of 
 the means of existence, and has a power for enforcing his bargains 
 which does not exist elsewhere — the power of starvation." 
 
 Mr. Nassau Senior — "The treaty between landlord and tenant 
 in Ireland is not a calm bargain in which the tenant, having offered 
 what he tbinlks the land worth, cares little whether his offer be 
 accepted or not; it is a struggle, like the struggle to buy bread in 
 a besieged town, or to buy water in an African caravan." 
 
 John Bright — "Ireland is a land of evictions — a word which, I 
 suspect, is scarcely known in any other civilized country. It is a 
 country from which thousands have been driven by the will of the 
 landlords and the power of the law." 
 
 The Devon Commission — "It seems neither extraordinary nor 
 unreasonable, that a tenant quitting a farm, either at his own 
 desire or from any difference with his landlord, should obtain a 
 sum of money in remuneration for his expenditure." 
 
 Poulet Scrope, M. P. — "Though God gave the land of Ireland 
 to the people of Ireland — to the many — the law has given it uncon- 
 ditionally to the few. Even in the best of times, if the landlord 
 refuses to the peasant the holding of a plot of land, if other starv- 
 ing wretches outbid his offer for the patch of soil whose possession 
 
20 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 is as necessary to his existence as the air he breathes; if sickness 
 or misfortune prevent his punctual payment of the enormous rent 
 he has promised, and he and his family are ejected from the cabin 
 which perhaps sheltered him from his birth — what remains? He 
 must die ! The law allows him no other alternative." 
 
 Preamble of Land Eeform Bill, 1836— "Whereas, It has long 
 been the general practice in Ireland that all buildings have been 
 erected and kept in repair, and all improvements have been made 
 by the tenant and at his cost; and, whereas, the power of the land- 
 lord in recovering rent and in evicting tenants from their holdings, 
 and enforcing claims of every description by means of distress and 
 ejectment, have been strengthened and extended by various acts; 
 and, whereas, it is therefore just and expedient that a reasonable 
 protection should be afforded to tenants making permanent and 
 beneficial improvements on lands and tenements held for limited 
 periods; therefore, be it enacted, etc." 
 
 T. W. Russell, M. P. — "The common law in regard to tenants' 
 improvements, previous to the act of 1881, was that they belonged 
 to the landlord. This law put into the landlords' pockets hundreds 
 of thousands of pounds of the tenants' capital. It enabled the 
 landlords to gather where they had not strewed, to reap where they 
 had not sown; it enabled them to rob the tenants by what is called 
 'due process of law.' " 
 
 This is a brief explanation, supplied by impartial 
 authority, of the villainous conditions under which the Irish 
 farmers existed for generations. In the province of Ulster, 
 as already stated, the large proportion of English and Scotch 
 settlers caused the growth of a more equitable arrangement, 
 known to this day as the Ulster Custom. It was legalized 
 and extended in 1870. Under it the tenant has a proprietary 
 interest in his land, on account of any improvements he has 
 made. The landlords are now fighting bitterly to abrogate 
 the custom. But, taking Ireland as a whole, the mildest 
 term to apply to the land system as it was is "legalized rob- 
 ben- of the poor!" It remains now to show how justice is 
 tardily winning its way. 
 
IV 
 
 EFFECTS OF LANDLORDISM 
 
 Under the grotesque land system which I have 
 attempted to describe the condition of the Irish peasantry — 
 practically the whole population — steadily became worse. 
 The population — 4,000,000 in 1800 — more than doubled 
 in the next fifty years, while poverty continued its remorseless 
 spread. The situation may be imagined from an official 
 description of conditions in certain districts only ten years 
 ago. A report presented by Lord Balfour, of Burleigh, and 
 Lord Blair Balfour said: 
 
 "In these districts there are two classes, namely, the 
 poor and the destitute. There are hardly any resident 
 gentry; there are a few traders and officials, but nearly all 
 the inhabitants are either poor or on the verge of poverty." 
 
 How much worse must it have been seventy-five years 
 ago, fifty years before the most elementary reform was 
 adopted! Says Mr. T. W. Russell: 
 
 "The country was, to a large extent, a rabbit-warren 
 of paupers and beggars. The laws regulating the tenure of 
 land — land being the sole source of livelihood for the great 
 mass of the people — were perhaps the most iniquitous and 
 unjust that ever disgraced any statute book in a civilized 
 country. Trade and commerce were paralyzed. Law had 
 ceased to be a terror to evildoers, because no punishment that 
 it was capable of awarding could be worse than the fate of 
 the dumb millions condemned to what was little better than 
 a living death." 
 
 Yet it was not until 1835 to l8 43 that the heartrending 
 appeals of the Irish people could obtain even a hearing. 
 During that period three bills were introduced, all having 
 substantially the same objects — to protect the tenant against 
 capricious eviction and to secure to him reasonable compen- 
 sation, on being evicted, for the improvements which he had 
 made on the land by his own unaided labor. And the result? 
 
 21 
 
22 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 Every bill, these and others, was defeated, voted down con- 
 temptuously by the Parliament, where the landlords were in 
 absolute control. Even the plea that the systematic robbery 
 of the tenants' labor should cease was denied. In 1845 tne 
 commission headed by the Earl of Devon reported. I have 
 already quoted some of its recommendations. Surely this 
 might have been accepted as a just estimate of the terrible 
 conditions. Yet twenty-five years passed before the English 
 government raised a hand to ameliorate the cruel injustice of 
 the land system. Gladstone's bill of 1870 was the first act 
 of mercy. 
 
 But long before this conditions which had been shocking 
 had become ghastly. As had been shown, even in years when 
 crops were reasonably good, the people were barely able to 
 pay the exorbitant rents of their masters and keep life in 
 their own bodies, while a touch of blight or unseasonable 
 frost, or any reduction in the crop yield, caused universal 
 destitution. And then the yield was a huge crop of evictions. 
 With the people thus constantly on the edge of starvation, 
 there befell the frightful catastrophe of the great famine. 
 Potatoes formed almost the only food of the peasantry. In 
 1845 ^e potato disease appeared, and in 1846-47 the whole 
 crop vanished. The story of those years forms probably the 
 most ghastly record of modern times. There is no need to 
 retell it here. Men, women and children starved to death 
 by thousands. The official report of the Census Commission 
 in 1 85 1, after commenting upon the frightful death rate, 
 said this : 
 
 "But no pen has recorded the numbers of the forlorn 
 and starving who perished by the wayside or in the ditches, 
 or of the mournful groups, sometimes whole families, who 
 lay down and died, one after another, upon the floor of their 
 cabin, and so remained uncoflined and unburied until chance 
 unveiled the appalling scene. No such amount of suffering 
 and misery has been chronicled in Irish history since the days 
 of Edward Bruce; and yet, through all, the forbearance of 
 the Irish peasantry and the calm submission with which they 
 bore the deadliest ills that can fall on man can scarcely be 
 paralleled in the annals of any people." 
 
 "But at least," says the justice-loving American, "the 
 
EFFECTS OF LANDLORDISM 23 
 
 sufferings of the famine days brought some good. It called 
 attention to the poverty of the people and the injustice of the 
 system whereby they were made land slaves to the land- 
 lords." 
 
 Honest Englishmen to-day are ashamed that such a sup- 
 position is not true. Not only did the famine fail to hasten 
 mercy, but it was used by the landlords to inflict further 
 hardship and suffering upon the helpless people. Evictions 
 were enforced by wholesale. Only one question was put to 
 the tenants : "Could they pay the rent?" As they could not 
 even buy food, the question answered itself. And by thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands the starving peasants were 
 turned out on the roadside. This, of course, is ancient his- 
 tory, and the impatient reader demands to know what the 
 famine of 1847 nas to do with conditions in Ireland in 1902. 
 It has everything to* do with it. For it was the famine and 
 the evictions which followed which started the flight of the 
 Irish from their own land, to continue to this day. There 
 are thousands who read this story whose fathers or grand- 
 fathers were victims of the eviction raids of '47, and who 
 went, with countless thousands of their countrymen, to seek 
 life and liberty in the United States. 
 
 The record of Irish emigration during the last fifty 
 years must be appalling to those whose hearts leap with 
 patriotic love for the stricken land. The famine and the 
 cruelty of the laws caused a veritable stampede to America. 
 Thousands who sailed never reached the other side of the 
 ocean, for the rush was so great that "coffin ships" laden 
 with emigrants put out from Irish ports and foundered at 
 sea. But millions did make the sad journey safely. The 
 current then set in motion has never ceased. Year after year 
 it has flowed westward, the young and vigorous of the race 
 giving up the struggle here and seeking justice in a strange 
 land. Between 1851 and 1900, 3,841,419 persons emi- 
 grated from Ireland. Even the reforms of the last thirty 
 years have hardly checked the tide to an appreciable extent. 
 Not until full justice and liberty are granted to Ireland will 
 her sons and daughters find life supportable in the land they 
 love. 
 
 What a frightful record it is ! Of the 9,000,000 who 
 
24 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 inhabited Ireland in 1845, more than half have disappeared 
 by death and emigration. Half a nation has been swept 
 away, and the rest are going. For even to-day no ship leaves 
 these shores without Irish emigrants, and the deaths are 
 greater in number than the births. Ireland is slowly perishing. 
 
 But what of the amelioration already accomplished? 
 The reforms adopted during the last thirty years amount to 
 a revolution, yet they have accomplished only a fraction of 
 what is necessary. A brief review of present laws must be 
 given. 
 
 The turning point was the Fenian Rebellion of 1866. 
 The morality of that uprising need not be discussed here, 
 but the fact remains that the rebellion attracted the attention 
 which no appeals had been able to attract; that within five 
 years the first reform, fought for at the cost of blood and 
 tears, wretchedness and starvation, through seventy long 
 years, was finally won. John Bright was the first Protestant 
 Englishman of note to champion the cause of oppressed Ire- 
 land, and to do so he braved calumny, abuse and even ostra- 
 cism,. Then arose Gladstone, that lion in statesmanship, 
 whose name must ever be honored by the Irish people. 
 
 His Act of 1870, though to-day we regard it as the 
 merest step toward justice, was in those days a priceless boon 
 to the starving nation. It established for the first time and 
 for all time that the tenant who devotes years of labor to 
 clearing land and erecting buildings thereby acquires a pro- 
 prietary interest in the whole, and that the product of his 
 toil cannot be taken from him without payment. The prin- 
 ciple was not stated in its full strength, but later acts which 
 superseded the Act of 1870 made the foundation solid. 
 Further, and quite as imlportant, the act forbade capricious 
 eviction, or rather provided that such summary action should 
 be accompanied by remuneration. 
 
 Needless to say, the right of the landlord to evict a 
 tenant under certain circumstances has never been questioned. 
 The only thing restricted was the custom of arbitrary eviction 
 without cause. An elaborate system of compensation was 
 established, whereby the evicted tenant, or the tenant leaving 
 his farm for whatever cause, had a claim for remuneration 
 for the improvements he had made, and also for ejection, if 
 
EFFECTS OF LANDLORDISM 25 
 
 such were invoked against his will. This, though few persons 
 realized it, was a recognition of the fact that the occupying 
 tenant, by his labor, created not only a property right, but 
 an occupation right. This was the beginning of the doom 
 of landlordism, now moving irresistibly to its end. 
 
 As might have been expected, as soon as the landlords 
 awoke to the significance of the law some of them began a 
 systematic campaign to evade its provisions. 
 
 A word of explanation is due here. There is no neces- 
 sity to say that all landlords are not greedy oppressors. 
 There have been and are to-day among them men of the very 
 highest principle — men who believe in and practice fair deal- 
 ing with their tenants. But it is equally true that most of 
 them have been obdurate and selfish in taking advantage of 
 unjust laws. But it should be remembered that all this 
 oppression cannot be charged to titled Englishmen, for the 
 following reason : 
 
 Appalled by the horrors of the famine, the Parliament, 
 with the usual misconception of the trouble, applied the 
 remedy of changing landlords. It was deemed wise that 
 landlords who, through their own improvidence or the burden 
 of ancestral debts, could not discharge the obligations of 
 landlordism as it existed in England — mark the ignorance — 
 should be compelled to give up their holdings. The cry went 
 up that Ireland needed capital. Therefore, in 1848 the 
 Incumbered Estates Act was passed. Sir Charles Russell, 
 afterward Lord Chief Justice, said of it a few years ago : 
 
 "It is hardly conceivable that a Legislature should have 
 so misconceived the position. What did the act do? It sold 
 the estates of the bankrupt landlords to men with capital, 
 who were mainly jobbers in land, sold them with the accumu- 
 lated improvements and interests of the tenants and without 
 the slightest protection to the tenants against forfeiture and 
 confiscation of these improvements by the new owners. 
 
 "It proved a cause of the gravest evil, for it is literally 
 true to say that among the worst cases of landlord oppression 
 in Ireland have been the cases of men who, with their fresh 
 capital, came in and bought these estates; jobbers in land 
 who were not restrained by any feelings of kindness because 
 of ancient connection with an ancient peasantry and an ancient 
 
26- PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 proprietary house. I have seen property after property sold 
 in that court, in which, as an inducement to the intending 
 buyer, were held forth the alleged low rentals at which the 
 property was then let and the possibility that he might, by 
 another turn of the screw, raise the rent and increase his 
 percentage return on the land." 
 
 When they came to take advantage of the Act of 1870, 
 therefore, many of the tenants found that the landlords, 
 those whose only idea was to squeeze the last penny out of 
 the land, had methods of evasion. The act provided no 
 means for resisting capricious rent-raising. Hence the land- 
 lord, compelled to compensate an evicted tenant for that 
 tenant's buildings and improvements, simply recouped him- 
 self by raising the rent to the incoming tenant. Again, by 
 working on the tenants' fears of being dispossessed without 
 cause, they induced many of them to sign long-term leases, 
 the harassed farmer being willing to sign almost any con- 
 tract so as to be assured of possession of his farm for a 
 stated period. Sir Charles Russell said: 
 
 "Leases were forced upon the tenants wholesale; con- 
 tracts were made by which the tenants contracted themselves 
 out of benefits of the act." 
 
 This law was therefore soon made useless. Then came 
 bad crop seasons, in 1879-80. As was inevitable, the tenants 
 could not stand the strain, living always, as they did, at the 
 limlit of their resources. Again wholesale evictions took 
 place. The Land League was formed, and became a terrible 
 power, supported chiefly by the money of Irishmen in 
 America. The whole land was racked with crime. Boycot- 
 ting, cattle-maiming, assault, burning, assassination shocked 
 the world. And once more the Irish people learned the dan- 
 gerous lesson that an outburst of violence was always 
 followed by concession. The Bessborough Commission 
 reported, and the way was clear for the great charter of the 
 Irish farmer, the Act of 1881. 
 
 Having reached this point, we may properly hasten the 
 review. The bill established three great principles — the 
 three identical principles which had been fought for by one 
 of the Land Leagues in 1851 — namely, fair rent, fixity of 
 tenure, free sale. These were known then, and are known 
 
EFFECTS OF LANDLORDISM 27 
 
 now, as the three F's, and their adoption was the beginning 
 of justice for the Irish farmer. Under these provisions the 
 law discriminated between the land, the property of the land- 
 lord, and the improvements, the property of the tenant. A 
 tribunal was created to hear evidence impartially and period- 
 ically to fix reasonable rents upon the lands; the improve- 
 ments were not to be alienated from the tenant. His tenure 
 was to be fixed — he could not be evicted except for refusal to 
 pay the rents named by the court, or other reasonable cause. 
 And he had a certain right of sale of his interest in the 
 property. 
 
 This bill, as stated, conferred upon the tenants the 
 greatest measure of justice they had ever received. But it 
 had serious defects. It applied only to yearly tenants. 
 Leaseholders — there were 35,000 of them — were excluded 
 from the benefits. Thus one farmer could claim the protec- 
 tion of the court, while his neighbor a hundred yards away 
 was powerless. It was six years before this injustice was 
 remedied in part and nine years before it was remedied com- 
 pletely. Since that time more than 30,000 leaseholders have 
 had their rents reduced by the court. But, as before, the 
 administration of the law was defective. An inquiry in 1894 
 showed that the valuations had been made too high and 
 that under a famous decision — Adams vs. Dunseath — the 
 landlords were still collecting rent upon houses and other 
 improvements made by the tenants. Supplemental bills in 
 1887, 1890 and 1896 improved matters very much. But 
 still there was a weak point, and it still exists. That is, the 
 very Land Commission in whose hands rest the poor for- 
 tunes of the tenants. On this point I quote Mr. T. W. 
 Russell : 
 
 "The commission now consists of two judges of the 
 Supreme Court and four laymen. Out of the six members 
 of this great department, which deals with almost the entire 
 landed property of the country, only two have even the most 
 elementary knowledge of land, and only one is recognized 
 by the tenants as having the slightest regard for their inter- 
 ests. This is the exact position to-day. No person in Ire- 
 land, be he landlord or tenant, professes to have the slightest 
 confidence in this court. It is not that anybody imputes or 
 
28 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 thinks of corruption — nothing of the kind — but it is univer- 
 sally felt that bias and prejudice exist to such an extent as 
 morally to invalidate its whole procedure." 
 
 Furthermore, the court has failed to settle the dispute 
 over improvements made by tenants. The rents, it should 
 be understood, are fixed for periods of fifteen years. A 
 tenant may have proved to the court in 1882 that he erected 
 certain buildings and made certain improvements. But at 
 the end of the period he must prove it all over again in 
 order to get a new, reasonable valuation. Many of the 
 records have disappeared, witnesses are dead or abroad — 
 and the landlord calmly demands proof of every single claim 
 advanced. Facing these difficulties, and knowing that he can 
 get justice only by long litigation and at great proportionate 
 expense, it is no wonder that the hapless tenant still com- 
 plains. 
 
 This, then, is the record of the hundred years, very 
 briefly and imperfectly told. When those who hope for 
 Ireland's future hear sneers about "chronic discontent" and 
 "foolish agitation," let them ask the critics of a struggling 
 people to remember these things : That for seventy years 
 of the last century — the century of enlightenment and prog- 
 ress — the Irish peasantry groaned under a villainous system 
 of oppression and robbery, and that all their appeals went 
 unheard; that the reform of 1870 was rendered invalid by 
 the astute maneuvers of unscrupulous landholders; that even 
 the great Act of 1881 and those which followed have left 
 many thousands in misery; that to>-day, in this year of grace 
 1902, a half million people are living under conditions which 
 are a disgrace to civilization, and that the poverty and desti- 
 tution — I have seen a little and am sick with it — are to-day 
 due wholly and solely to the iniquities of the land system. 
 
 Much, truly, has been gained in the last thirty years. 
 But still the cry of Ireland, the cry of a suffering nation, is 
 heard through the earth. In the name of gratitude and 
 common sense, says the impatient American, what do these 
 Irish want more? We shall see. 
 
*VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 
 
 Though the little town of Westport is almost at the 
 extreme western part of Ireland, a leisurely train made the 
 journey from Dublin in about seven hours. This is to be 
 the starting point for a personal investigation of the land 
 problem, which, it is hoped, will result in presenting a clear 
 picture of the conditions which exist to-day because of cen- 
 turies of misgovernment. 
 
 The primary object in coming here was to see William 
 O'Brien, M. P., whose name is written near the top of that 
 long roll of Irish "rebels." What manner of man was I to 
 find in this terrible agitator? Would I see himi fashioning 
 bombs in a secret laboratory, or issuing manifestoes of vio- 
 lence against the patient English government? Would he 
 denounce the royal family and Dublin Castle and hiss threats 
 of bloody revolution? 
 
 A two-mile drive on a jaunting car through the cold 
 winter twilight brought me to the home of the famous 
 leader. It is on the shore of Westport Bay, with its dotted 
 islets. Six or eight miles away rises the rugged cone of 
 Croagh Patrick, whence the Saint, with bell and voice, is 
 said to have driven the serpents into the sea. A roomy 
 cottage, one story, covered with green vines and set in a 
 pretty garden; inside, big, comfortable rooms; the library 
 table littered with papers, the walls lined with books; dainty 
 ornaments, fine pictures, a blazing fire of peat; a bearded 
 man, whose eyes twinkled through thick glasses, and whose 
 air suggested the student and not the leader — this was the 
 home of the agitator and the man himself. 
 
 *This chapter was written in Westport, County Mayo, in Decem- 
 ber, 1902. Mr. O'Brien withdrew in 1908 from active association with 
 the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party, because of differences 
 upon details of policy, but his sympathy with the Irish cause and his 
 knowledge of Irish affairs have never been questioned. 
 
 29 
 
30 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 We talked for nearly two hours. I shall try to sum- 
 marize Mr. O'Brien's statements, which have a vital bearing 
 upon the central question of the land. 
 
 "As you are already aware," he said, "the only solution 
 of the problem is to restore the land to the people from 
 whose ancestors it was taken by force and fraud, and the 
 restoration is to be made by purchase, which will do ample 
 justice to the present owners. 
 
 "But nature and the operation of the laws have divided 
 the problem into two parts. In the east, where the land is 
 rich, the only thing necessary is to arrange that the tenants 
 may purchase their holdings, which in most cases are suffi- 
 cient to support them. But in the west the problem is 
 entirely different and entirely distinct. Here we have what 
 are known as congested districts. The population is not 
 excessive — indeed, it is only a fraction of what the land can. 
 support — but it is congested in districts where the land is so 
 poor that the life of the people is nothing less than long- 
 drawn-out misery. 
 
 "In a single sentence, the condition is this — where there 
 is plenty of good land, there are no people; where there is no 
 land but bog and rocky mountain side, there the people are 
 huddled in poverty and destitution. These congested dis- 
 tricts comprise a large part of Galway, Mayo and Donegal, 
 with portions of Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Clare, Lim- 
 erick, Kerry and Cork counties. 
 
 "As you travel through the country, as you say you are 
 going to do, you will observe personally the frightful condi- 
 tions that prevail. But it is officially described in eloquent 
 terms. These unhappy districts for the last eleven years 
 have been under the charge of the Congested Districts 
 Board, a body created under the Purchase of Land Act of 
 1891. 
 
 "Under that act a congested district is one where more 
 than twenty per cent, of the population live in electoral divi- 
 sions, of which the total ratable value, divided by the popu- 
 lation, gives a sum of less than thirty shillings for each 
 person; in plainer terms, where the yearly rental of the 
 property upon which the people live is less than $7.50 for 
 each person. 
 
VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 31 
 
 "The districts altogether comprise more than 3,500,000 
 acres, and the basis of taxation amounts to about $5 for each 
 person. Here are half a million people, therefore, who are 
 rated as possessing property worth only $5 a year each. 
 That gives a faint idea of how close they are to destitution, 
 even in the best of seasons. 
 
 "Now, I must emphasize the fact that the trouble is not 
 due to over-population. On the contrary, famine, persecu- 
 tion and emigration have drained the country of millions 
 who ought to be here. There are millions of acres of land 
 fit for rich crops, but from these the people are shut out and 
 are herded on miserable patches which barely keep them 
 from starvation. The task is to redistribute the population, 
 to acquire the rich lands from the present owners and divide 
 them up among the suffering people. In a word, we must 
 recolonize practically the whole of the western part of Ire- 
 land. After centuries of so-called civilized government, we 
 must begin afresh, as though this were a new country. 
 
 "Since you have studied the question somewhat, I do 
 not need to tell you that the pitiable conditions now existing 
 jure not due to lack of thrift or endeavor on the part of the 
 people. You know the history of the wars and confiscations 
 and the outrageous system of land tenure, which combined 
 to make the people the absolute slaves of the landlords. It 
 was during and after the famine years of 1846-47 that the 
 great "clearing out" was accomplished. The land stricken 
 by loss of crops and the people weakened by hunger and dis- 
 ease, they were wholly powerless against the savagery of the 
 land laws and the brutality of some of the landlords. By 
 countless thousands they were driven from their farms. In 
 many cases there was the excuse that the tenanti could not 
 pay rent. In many more, families which did not owe a 
 shilling of arrears were turned out with the rest. 
 
 "At that time, you remember, and until 1881, the land- 
 lord could dispossess the tenant at will and seize the houses 
 and other improvements which the tenant had made by years 
 of labor. Under these cruel laws, then, whole districts were 
 depopulated, and the unfortunate people had to start afresh. 
 
 "Where could they go? Nearly every acre of good 
 land was held by the landlords, and these refused to rent. 
 
32 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 Tired of the constant struggle of the tenants against injus- 
 tice, the owners let their great domains to big grazers. In 
 your tours you will see miles upon miles of the best land in 
 Ireland, once the homes of thousands of people, now given 
 over to cattle and sheep. 
 
 "And where did the people go? You will find them, 
 too. You will find them in the bogs, on the waste land; 
 their miserable hovels clinging to the hillsides, where their 
 poor little crops try to struggle up through rocks and stones. 
 Driven there by remorseless laws, with rich land all about 
 them, they toil in the barrens, fighting desperately against 
 starvation — and still paying rent. 
 
 ''You will see with your own eyes how poor these 
 people are. But let me tell you one thing — and you will find 
 this in official reports : The people actually would starve if 
 they depended upon the miserable patches for which they 
 pay exorbitant rents. 
 
 "They are supported and kept alive by remittances 
 from their relatives in America and England. 
 
 "This will seem incredible to you when I say that it 
 applies, not to a family here and there, or to scattered locali- 
 ties, but to thousands upon thousands of families, to nearly 
 half a million souls. Every year there is a huge migration 
 to England and Scotland. By thousands the strongest go to 
 work on the farms during the summer and harvest in order 
 to earn a few pounds which shall keep them and their 
 families alive during the winter and meet the demands of 
 the landlords for rent. The men go, the youths go, the 
 boys go, the girls as young as fifteen and sixteen go, some for 
 three months, some for six or eight months in each year. 
 
 "Leaving one or two of each family — usually the 
 mother and younger children — to care for the cabin and 
 potato patch and the pig, they travel to England and Scotland, 
 and there tramip from farm to farm, working from dawn to 
 dusk and sleeping in outhouses, so that they may earn the 
 price of food and rent for the winter. Even this terrible 
 sacrifice is not enough, and thousands are kept from dying 
 of hunger only by the money sent from relatives in America. 
 
 "This is the problem of the West, the most pressing 
 problem which confronts us, for it is a problem of life and 
 
A RELIC OF EVICTION DAY 
 
 TO BE REPLACED BY A DECENT HOME. 
 
VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 33 
 
 death. It Is not new. It has been with us for fifty years. 
 But while death and emigration have decimated the people, 
 the English government has been blind and deaf. At last 
 we see hope ahead." 
 
 "What is the plan of relief?" I asked. 
 
 "There is only one solution," answered Mr. O'Brien, 
 ^landlordism must be abolished. The people must be res- 
 cued from the bogs and barrens and placed on good lands. 
 All they need is a chance. Give them a decent patch of good 
 land and they will become self-supporting rapidly." 
 
 "And how can this transfer be effected with justice to 
 the landlords and justice to the tenants?" 
 
 "The only possible method is purchase by the govern- 
 ment for the people, with easy terms of repayment. Both 
 landlords and tenants are heartily sick of the present system. 
 
 "Gladstone's Act of 1881 was a magnificent advance for 
 us, but its workings have not been satisfactory. It estab- 
 lished a land commission, which fixes so-called fair rents for 
 periods of fifteen years. The rents, where applications have 
 been made, have been greatly reduced, which does not please 
 the landlords. But the members of the commission have no 
 practical knowledge of land values, hence most of their judg- 
 ments are unfair to the tenants. 
 
 "Besides, in the congested districts the vital question is 
 not to reduce the rents, but to let the people have lands which 
 are capable of yielding life-sustaining crops. There are 
 thousands of 'farms' which are so wretched that, even if the 
 tenants had them rent free, they could not raise enough on 
 them to feed their families. The good lands must be pur- 
 chased and divided up among the people. They will then 
 work out their own salvation. 
 
 "Roughly speaking, the plan is for the government to 
 buy out the landlords by a certain number of yearly pay- 
 ments and resell to the tenants in instalments which shall 
 amount to a just rental, and which will liquidate the purchase 
 in a certain number of years. 
 
 "The difficulty, of course, is to bridge over the differ- 
 ence between what the landlord is willing to accept and what 
 the tenant is able to pay. This suggestion is made : Under 
 the various purchase acts, the average term of purchase 
 
 s 
 
34 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 would be eighteen years. Suppose that on the basis of pres- 
 ent rents the landlords should get payments for twenty years, 
 while the tenant should be expected to pay for only sixteen 
 years. Then let the government assume the payments for 
 the other four years. 
 
 "But, you say, how can this immense burden be placed 
 upon the innocent English taxpayer? No such thing is con- 
 templated. Ireland will pay the whole bill. Let there be 
 an equitable redistribution of expenses, and she will not need 
 to ask for a penny of English money. 
 
 "For instance, take the police, the Royal Irish Constabu- 
 lary. This great force, numbering 13,000 men, is controlled 
 absolutely from London, is paid for by the Irish people and 
 Is kept up solely to help the landlords in their struggle 
 against the tenants. Once settle the land question, and the 
 need for this great standing army disappears. Let the 
 people have good lands, fit to support life, and all cause for 
 agitation disappears. ^ 
 
 * "There will be no more organizations against land- 
 lords, no more campaigns against paying rent, for then the 
 rent will be purchase money, and no more outbursts of vio- 
 lence. The people will be busy tilling their land and paying 
 for it. Once give them a chance to support themselves and 
 Ireland will have a peace such as she has not known for 
 generations. 
 
 "Land purchase, of course, has been going on for years, 
 but the process is desperately slow. The Congested Districts 
 Board is empowered to negotiate with landlords willing to 
 sell ; but the result, while it proves the solution of the prob- 
 lem, has affected only a few of the immense number of 
 sufferers. 
 
 "Therefore, to solve the problem completely and finally, 
 the purchase must be universal, and the misery of a half 
 million people pleads that it should be immediate. Com- 
 pulsion, I believe, is the only adequate plan. Action must be 
 taken wholesale, and at once, if we are to relieve the suffer- 
 ings of Ireland and stop the frightful drain of emigration. 
 
 "In this province of Connaught there are more than 
 2,000,000 acres of rich land, on which you will find only 
 cattle, sheep and a few herdsmen. Let down the bars of 
 
VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 35 
 
 law and prejudice, let the people buy back the lands from 
 which they were driven, and there will be provided a country 
 capable of supporting in comfort twice the population which 
 now drags out a miserable existence." 
 
 I have given, I believe, a correct statement of Mr. 
 O'Brien's views as he gave them to me, although I do not 
 assert that the words are precisely his own. 
 
 Upon taking leave of him at the door of his hospitable 
 home I could not help wondering that this mild-spoken, 
 studious man, whose every word seemed to ring with com- 
 mon sense and sympathy, has been treated as a dangerous 
 character, a seditionist and an enemy to the state, and that 
 he had spent dreary months in prison, treated as a male- 
 factor, because of the fight he has waged for justice for the 
 Irish people. 
 
 Perhaps, as they study his statement, readers will won- 
 der the same thing. 
 
 Having traced the history of the land laws under which. 
 Ireland has suffered, and having noted the views of one of 
 the political leaders, it will be useful to check the statements 
 made with official records. Before leaving this district, 
 therefore, I have talked at length with members of the West- 
 port District Council (the local government body), and have 
 examined a report made by their special committee which 
 investigated a few weeks ago the condition of the people. 
 To those who would turn wearily from the survey of figures, 
 I would say only this : The figures deal with human beings. 
 They are elements in an equation of life and death. They 
 do not deal with mathematics, but with men and women and 
 children. 
 
 The district of Westport has a population of 37,381 
 and a (yearly) valuation of $219,805, or a little more than 
 $5 for each person. Its area is 347,819 acres, enough to 
 give each individual nearly ten acres, or each family fifty 
 acres. There is, therefore, no scarcity of land. But what 
 is the actual distribution? 
 
 There are 5322 occupiers of land. Of these, 3041 are 
 rated under $20 and 4089 in all under $40. Of the remain- 
 der, at least 500 are barely outside the limit of extreme 
 
36 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 poverty. But the most frightful truth is that 4089 occu- 
 piers, and that means 20,000 persons, are crowded on to 
 holdings which by no stretch of imagination can be consid- 
 ered capable of sustaining life in their bodies. With bound- 
 less, rolling plains of rich lands stretching on every side of 
 them ; possessing health and strength and inspired with a 
 pathetic eagerness to work, these 20,000 men and women 
 and children are herded in the barrens, where they would 
 actually die of hunger were it not for the assistance sent to 
 them by those who have been able to emigrate to America. 
 And this condition is not one peculiar to a season of famine. 
 It exists year after year, from generation to generation; one 
 unending, heartbreaking struggle with hunger. I quote the 
 official report : 
 
 "The inhabitants are only preserved from year to year 
 from perishing of famine by the earnings of the adult male 
 population in their annual migration to England and Scot- 
 land and by the remittances of their relatives in America. 
 Two special trains per week carry emigrants to Queenstown 
 for America, these being almost exclusively young men and 
 women from fifteen to thirty-five years old, in the flower of 
 their age and strength. 
 
 "From Westport alone there left in the season of 1901 
 4178 harvesters for England and Scotland. The total emi- 
 gration from the county since 1851 has been 164,589. 
 From this district alone 30,000 have gone — nearly as many 
 as the present population." 
 
 Nearly 350,000 acres of land, yet even the remnant of 
 population left by famine and emigration is drained from 
 year to year, simply because the unhappy people cannot find 
 places to live. Even though these are but figures, could any- 
 thing picture more vividly the monstrous conditions under 
 which these peasants are condemned to suffer? 
 
 And the annual mligration to England and Scotland, 
 eloquent as it is of insupportable conditions, has a distinct 
 and grievous effect upon the difficulties of existence. The 
 little farms are deprived of the work and care of the men 
 and boys. Proper methods of cultivation are impossible; 
 the land, poor, at best, suffers neglect, and outraged nature 
 takes revenge. There is no rotation of crops. Year after 
 
VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 37 
 
 year the worn-out soil is called upon to yield the staple food, 
 potatoes. As a result, the crops grow steadily less. In Eng- 
 land the carefully tended soil will produce more than six 
 tons of potatoes to the acre. In Westport district the yield 
 has fallen below three tons an acre. Here is a striking pic- 
 ture of human wretchedness, as officially reported: 
 
 "The normal conditions of life of 20,000 of the popu- 
 lation of this district are : Their holdings are too small and 
 too exhausted to support life, the soil yearly becoming more 
 unfit for cultivation; three- fourths of the adult male popula- 
 tion are banished from their families and country for half 
 the year in search of the hardest and most poorly recom- 
 pensed labor, and there is a constant danger that the ordi- 
 nary privations of every winter will be turned into actual and 
 general famine by a few weeks' unfavorable weather, by a 
 falling off in the English labor market or by any serious 
 depression of American trade which may cut off their rela- 
 tives' power of relieving therm." 
 
 Is there a country on the face of the globe where white 
 people make their homes in which conditions of such dismal 
 poverty can be found? True, this is the official story of only 
 one district, but the report says, and I have proved the state- 
 ment by personal observation of hundreds of miles of terri- 
 tory, that the same story may be told of every district in the 
 West. The land decaying, the people dying or expatriating 
 themselves, privation and hunger their constant companions, 
 famine an ever-present specter — this is civilization within a 
 day's journey of the world's greatest capital. 
 
 Now, what is the cause of this unnatural condition? 
 We have shown that it is lack of land. The people have 
 been tortured by land hunger for generations. Yet all 
 around them lie boundless fields which ache for cultivation, 
 which actually are lapsing back to barrens because they do 
 not feel the plow. There are in County Mayo 1,327,000 
 acres. Excluding towns, water area and those parts which 
 are absolutely barren, this is the proportion : 
 
 Growing cereals and green crops, 93,681 acres; pastur- 
 ing cattle and sheep, 644,463 acres. 
 
 The people starve on one-seventh of the land, and that 
 the meanest to be found; the cattle grow fat on the other 
 
38 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 six-sevenths, which is degenerating year by year into wild 
 meadow land. 
 
 Take the Westport district. It comprises 347,819 
 acres. Of this area, only 15,000 acres are available to raise 
 food for the people. Who holds the rest of the land? The 
 occupiers may be divided into two classes — those men or 
 their descendants who drove the people from their farms by 
 eviction, and grazers who pasture their cattle where there 
 were once comfortable homies and fields. To use figures 
 again, 52,000 acres are held by thirteen landlords and 
 98,000 acres by sixty-six grazers. It will be interesting to 
 note where some of these persons live. Among the grazers 
 are A. H. Boswell, London, 24,763 acres; Captain Lapri- 
 mandaye, London, 10,064 acres; Colonel Clive, London, 
 15,968 acres; trustees of Achill Mission, 10,000 acres. 
 And among the landlords we find the Marquis of Sligo, 
 27,402 acres; W. C. Kennedy, London, 3439 acres, and the 
 Rev. W. C. Bellingham, London, 8955 acres. Of the sixty- 
 six grazers, only five reside in the district. 
 
 To clinch the injustice of the land distribution, it is only 
 necessary to add that most of the land now used for pastur- 
 ing the cattle of landlords and capitalists was reclaimed by 
 the arduous toil of the people who were evicted from it. 
 
 The least consideration will show, therefore, that the 
 only remedy for this cruel system of injustice is to place the 
 people back on the land taken from them. Nature herself 
 is proclaiming the necessity for this. When the landlords 
 and the money lenders who acquired incumbered estates 
 drove the people forth from their holdings they were 
 inspired by the same fever for consolidation which we 
 observe now in industrial circles. They were tired of the 
 never-ending pleas and protests of their tenants about exces- 
 sive rents and the seizure of improvements. Some of them* 
 sought to conduct their immense holdings as consolidated 
 farms, but the greater number turned them into pasture 
 land and rented them to grazers. Both schemes during 
 recent years have proved to be commercial failures as well 
 as cruelly unjust. The degeneracy of the land and the com- 
 petition of American cattle have conspired to reduce the 
 profits of grazing almost to the vanishing point. The land 
 
VIEWS OF AN AGITATOR 39 
 
 cries out for cultivation, and the starving people, imprisoned 
 on their barren patches, are living arguments that the cry 
 should be heard. 
 
 It begins to be seen now that the recolonization of the 
 West of Ireland offers the only refuge from the intolerable 
 conditions prevailing. There must be wholesale migration 
 of families' from the congested districts to the fertile lands. 
 The population, instead of being confined to the poorest 
 lands, must be spread over the immense arable territory, 
 which is ready to yield generous crops. 
 
 Purchase from the landlords is, of course, the only 
 means of accomplishing this. Under various acts of Parlia- 
 ment purchase has been authorized, and the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board is empowered to negotiate with landlords willing 
 to sell. But the result so far, while it amply justifies the 
 procedure, has been trifling in extent. There remains only 
 the complete abolition of landlordism by a scheme of pur- 
 chase which shall be compulsory or of a nature so attractive 
 that it will be universally accepted by the landlords. 
 
VI 
 *LIFE UNDER LANDLORDISM 
 
 It is a gray day in Kiltimagh. The clouds lie close 
 down over the green-gray land, and the short winter sun 
 makes little more than twilight at noon. But it is a fair day, 
 toe, and as the jaunting car passes down the main street of 
 the village the pony has to push his way through a jostling 
 mass of cattle and sheep and pigs and tiny donkeys and lusty 
 peasant folk. They are all jumbled together in the muddy 
 street, buyers and sellers and sold, with the old, gray Houses 
 and shops on either side, with the clamor of chaffering and 
 the reek of the byres ascending ceaselessly, and the cold, 
 damp wind of winter whistling through it all. 
 
 My source of information here was not to be the polit- 
 ical leader, or even the official report, but the people them- 
 selves. I was to visit them in their homes, see their little 
 farms, observe with my own eyes how they exist under the 
 system which has burdened them for a hundred years and 
 more. My guide was to be the Rev. Denis O'Hara, parish 
 priest, who is the intellect of the poor little community. I 
 found him in the plain, gray parish house, beside the stately 
 church, which looks so strangely magnificent amid the poverty 
 of the village and the cruel desolation of the surrounding 
 country. He greeted me with kindly courtesy and my mis- 
 sion with heartfelt enthusiasm. 
 
 "It is not often," he said, "that I can welcome a visitor 
 from America. Yet this little town is closely bound to your 
 far-away country. There is not a famrly in the parish which 
 has not a member in America, and more go every year." 
 
 Father O'Hara has the care of 4500 men and women 
 and children, and his days are fully occupied, yet he con- 
 sented cheerfully to guide me through his parish. 
 
 "I have been fighting for my people for twenty-three 
 
 *Chapters VI and VII were written in Kiltimagh, County Mayo, 
 in December, 1902. 
 
 40 
 
LIFE UNDER LANDLORDISM 41 
 
 years," he said, "and it would be strange if I could not spare 
 a few hours to show you their homes, when the object is to 
 tell the people of America how grievously they suffer." 
 
 So we climbed on the jaunting car, wrapped ourselves 
 in rugs against the bitter wind and drove through the 
 crowded fair out into the open country, the white-haired 
 priest explaining as we went. The land itself was poverty 
 made manifest. On the higher parts it was divided into 
 little patches, separated by walls of loose stones. The soil, 
 'though men and women had spent years of toil upon it, was 
 still sown with stones, through which the sparse grass or 
 crops had to fight their way. In the hollows lay hundreds 
 upon hundreds of acres of bog, covered with the coarse, 
 brown heather and scarred here and there with ditches, 
 where the people cut the turf they use for fuel. 
 
 "All these, as you see," said Father O'Hara, "are bad 
 lands, utterly incapable of supporting life decently. The 
 families whose poor cabins you see here and there were 
 evicted years ago from the rich lands which lie round about. 
 Some of them could not pay the excessive rents imposed by 
 the landlords; some of them were turned out simply because 
 the owners preferred to let the lands to grazers. The result 
 was the same in both cases. The people, whose labor had 
 reclaimed the lands and made them fit to grow crops, were 
 driven out. They had to go somewhere. All could not 
 raise the money to emigrate, although thousands did. Those 
 who remained had to beg permission to make new homes 
 here, on these hillside patches of stony ground and down in 
 the bogs yonder." 
 
 "But how do they support themselves from such 
 wretched land as this?" 
 
 "Ah, they do not. That would be quite impossible. 
 Two acres or three acres or four acres, as the holdings run, 
 how could a family raise enough for food and clothing and 
 rent from such miserable holdings? No, they live by migra- 
 tion and emigration. The farms, if you may call them such, 
 average four acres, and the rents $15. Set aside the rent 
 altogether, give them this land absolutely rent free, and it is 
 the solemn truth that they could not raise enough food to 
 keep them from starving. Every year the men and boys and* 
 
42 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 girls, the strongest in each family, go to England and Scot- 
 land and work as farm hands. They are able to send home a 
 few shillings at a time, and return in the early winter with the 
 rest of their savings. Most of them cannot pull through the 
 hard season even by this cruel sacrifice, but have to depend 
 upon money sent to them by the faithful, loving sons and 
 daughters who have gone to America." 
 
 The car was stopped on the brow of a hill, and Father 
 O'Hara swept his hand over the little valley that lay before 
 us. ) 
 
 "There is the land," he said simply. Down below was 
 the silent, desolate bog, useless for any cultivation worthy 
 of the name, but filled with the precious peat, which seems 
 to be the only gift of Providence to the unhappy people. 
 On the slopes of the hills were the farms, tiny patches criss- 
 crossed with the interminable walls of loose stones, and here 
 and there a little whitewashed dwelling, with thatched roof, 
 blackened by smoke and weather, and a rude cowshed against 
 it, the very door of the house half hidden by accumulated 
 piles of stable refuse. 
 
 "What an immense amlount of labor has been wasted 
 on these stone walls !" I suggested. 
 
 "Wasted?" echoed Father O'Hara, with a grim laugh. 
 "Every stone in those walls was picked by hand from the 
 ground. The plots they inclose were once nearly covered 
 with the stones. An English journalist came here not long 
 ago and wrote his impressions for a great London paper, a 
 paper which has little sympathy for the Irish. I showed 
 him these lands. Do you know what he wrote for English- 
 men to read? This: 
 
 " 'When a man begins to cultivate a patch in the Swin- 
 ford district of County Mayo, the first three crops he gets 
 consist of stones.' 
 
 •»"> "It's true; it's bitterly true. Driven from the lands 
 which they and their fathers had occupied, these people have 
 been herded where they had to take the rocky soil and make 
 their farms with their bare hands. The stones range in size 
 from the size of your fist to that half-ton boulder in the 
 corner of the field yonder, which had to be pried loose with 
 a crowbar and hauled out with ropes. Three crops of stones 
 
LIFE UNDER LANDLORDISM 43 
 
 . — that is what the settlers here have to face. And even with 
 their utmost endeavor, after years of the most heartbreaking 
 toil, the result is hardly better. The land cannot feed them." 
 
 So these folk have to make the land with their hands 
 before they can till it. And the walls are built because there 
 is nowhere else to put the stones. One man, I noticed, had 
 erected a four- foot wall around his half-acre patch. That 
 was not enough, so he heaped up other tons and tons into a 
 great mound over in one corner. He had buried his 
 strength, perhaps his life, beneath that monstrous hill of 
 labor. But what a monument it was to the manhood which 
 would not be crushed! ^ 
 
 A mile or two farther on we got down from the car 
 and climbed a lane running up a hillside. That path was 
 like the dry bed of a mountain stream. It was the land as 
 it was uncleared of stones. At the summit a half dozen 
 sickly trees stood bent to the wind amid a cluster of thatched 
 hovels. I had thought it was a collection of cattle sheds. 
 But it was a village. Or rather, it was both. Scattered 
 along the brow of the hill were twenty or thirty of these 
 wretched buildings, whitewashed, thatched, with less than 
 one window apiece — the customary dwellings of the poorest 
 peasants. There were no streets, for the houses — let us call 
 them such — were set down in confusion. Where streets 
 might have been there were rank pools of water where 
 geese nuzzled in the slime, and paths of half-frozen mud 
 and filth that wound around and through and over heaped- 
 up piles of manure. The rough bricks of peat, gathered for 
 the winter's fuel, lay in pyramid piles against the house 
 walls. 
 
 The abject hideousness of the place got on my nerves 
 as I splashed through the mud after the priest. The gray 
 clouds had sunk closer to the desolate land and a searching 
 rain was driven by the biting wind. I thought of the Polish 
 mining settlements I have seen in Pennsylvania. The pic- 
 tures I called up only made this scene more miserable. 
 "Come," said the priest. We had to stoop to enter a door- 
 way and then had to stand aside to admit a little of the gray 
 light. I could see nothing at first, but there was life some- 
 ^where in the darkness. €■ 
 
•44 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 "Good day to you, Father." It was a woman's voice, 
 and she came forward toward the patch of dim light at the 
 door. An old woman, bent and wrinkled. Her feet were 
 bare on the earthen floor and purple with the bitter cold. 
 
 "Well, now. Ellen, and how are you?" 
 
 "Badly, Father." 
 
 "And this is Kate, eh?" Somewhere from the darkness 
 appeared a girl with brown hair and blue eyes. Her thin 
 dress fluttered in the wind that whistled in at the open door. 
 Her feet and legs were naked to the knees, but she did not 
 shiver. Her face turned as red as her rough hands as she 
 whispered a greeting to the priest and hung her head. 
 
 "Eh, what a fine girl we're getting to be! Have you 
 been down to the convent school? What? 'No, Father.' 
 And why not? Speak up, child. What do you say? Well 
 i — of course. But we'll try to get some clothes for you. 
 Sure, you must go to school. You'll learn to read and write 
 ■ — and you should see the lace the other girls are m'aking 
 yonder." 
 
 "Look about you," whispered the priest to me. 
 
 Gradually the vision penetrated the gloom, and I could 
 see through the whole — house. It was one room, perhaps 
 eighteen feet by twelve. At one end was the chimney, with 
 the open hearth on the floor, where a few blocks of turf 
 smoldered. In one corner were a rude bench and table. In 
 another a raised structure which I could not name. It 
 seemed to be heaped with straw and rags — 
 
 "The bed," whispered the priest. 
 
 In the center the smoke-blackened thatch hung seven or 
 eight feet clear of the floor. Where it rested on the walls it 
 was less than five feet clear. I glanced around toward that 
 part of the room to which my back had been turned. I had 
 thought I heard some one moving. The gloom was more 
 dense there. But I could see a heap of straw on the floor, 
 and it moved, with grunts. A pig wallowed beside a 
 trough. This was ten feet from the bed. Just beyond was 
 a partition which did not reach to the roof. I stepped over 
 and glanced within. It was a cow stalled, with a doorway 
 leading outward to a pile of stable refuse. The cow was 
 fifteen feet from the bed. 
 
LIFE UNDER LANDLORDISM 45 
 
 "And where is the man, Ellen, and your sons ?" 
 
 "In England, Father. They're still working there." 
 
 "Ah, well, they'll be home soon, I suppose, for the 
 winter?" 
 
 "They will, Father. Thank God." 
 
 I went outside, leaving the woman thanking God. 
 
 We went to other houses. Some were a little better. 
 Some, believe me, were worse. One other I will speak of, 
 because the inmates were the same, a mother and a young 
 daughter. The priest spoke to them heartily. 
 
 "Come, now," he said, "what have we had for dinner 
 to-day?" The woman pointed to a tin dish containing the 
 remnants of a few little potatoes. "And the half of a 
 ha'p'nny herring," she added," without the slightest emotion. 
 
 "For the two of you?" 
 
 "Ay, Father." 
 
 "And what's for supper, come now?" The woman 
 threw her hand again at the little mess of cold potatoes in 
 the tin dish. I saw a dark fragment of something in it. 
 
 "Yes, that, too. That's the other half of the herring," 
 Said the woman, simply. As we went away I found myself 
 trying to* divide one cent's worth of fish among two persons 
 for two' meals. There's a problem in fractions, with only 
 one answer — hunger. We stumbled down the rocky lane 
 again — it was after three o'clock in the afternoon and nearly 
 dark — and drove on with the car. We visited other settle- 
 ments — Cleragh, Carrick, Culthasney, and seme which I 
 cannot recall — but the tale was only retold. I have 
 described, I confess, such scenes as were nearly the worst. 
 But seldom did I see a place which in America or England 
 would be considered a fit habitation for human beings. If 
 all the lands and villages through which I passed, buildings 
 and all, were offered to a Pennsylvania farmer in exchange 
 for ten acres of his worst land he would laugh the gift to 
 scorn. Yet each little patch of stony ground, with its 
 wretched cabin, built by the hands of the tenants, costs them 
 from $15 to $20 a year. And they have to go away to earn 
 that. Meanwhile, there are families in England whose rent- 
 rolls — than which there can be no better badge of respecta- 
 bility — are swelled by these very payments. 
 
46 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 It will be the easiest thing in the world for the reader 
 to say that the wretchedness I have touched upon is due to 
 laziness or ignorance or lack of ordinary thrift. But that 
 would be both false and foolish. I repeat, at the risk of 
 wearying insistence, that these people live on the stony, 
 barren land because there is nowhere else for them to live. 
 They, or their fathers, reclaimed land at the cost of years of 
 labor and builded them homes upon it. Then, by the simple 
 operation of remorseless statutes, they were turned out, their 
 houses taken from them, the work of their hands seized by 
 their masters, the landlords. Therefore they are where they 
 are. 
 
 But why the wretched homes? Why the housing of 
 human beings and animals together? Such things have fol- 
 lowed inevitably. The land defeating their best efforts to 
 make it produce enough food, ground down by the bitterest 
 poverty, they have found it physically impossible to raise 
 themselves. Any other race would have sunk into unimag- 
 ined depths of degradation. These Irish peasants are still 
 healthy, moral, hopeful human beings. They need but a 
 touch of human help to become sturdily prosperous. I know 
 this, for I have seen it. Father O'Hara, as I have not stated 
 before, is a member of the Congested Districts Board, that 
 powerful agency of amelioration, which is headed by the 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland. As we drove along he showed 
 me some things that have been done. 
 
 "As you know," he said, "in some districts we have 
 been able to acquire good lands and sell it in homesteads to 
 the tenants who have been occupying barren lands. In this 
 immediate vicinity, unfortunately, there is none available. 
 The only remedy is to transfer some of the population 
 into better neighborhoods. But meanwhile we have done 
 much to raise the people up, to encourage them. We help 
 to drain farms that need it, and reward those who help 
 themselves. There is one of our houses yonder." 
 
 He pointed out a neat farmhouse of stone, with small 
 glass windows, a stone chimney and a slate roof. 
 
 "That family," he said, "formerly lived in such a 
 hovel as those you have seen to-day. We were able to add 
 a little land to the patch they had. Then we built the house. 
 
LIFE UNDER LANDLORDISM 47 
 
 The family pay less now than they did for rent to the 
 landlord, yet in time they will own house and ground. The 
 board bought the property, and is selling it on yearly 
 payments. Of course, this work is slow, and it is restricted 
 to the few districts where we have been able to acquire the 
 land. It will never become wholly effective until the pur- 
 chase of all landlords' holdings is accomplished." 
 
 We visited several of the homes where the work of 
 encouragement showed its effects. In one I found a house 
 with four rooms, comfortably furnished. The living-room 
 floor was of stone, well scrubbed. There was a dresser, 
 filled with dishes. The dooryard was clean swept. 
 
 "Until we came to their assistance," said Father 
 O'Hara, as we left the place, "this family lived in what is 
 now the stable. The cow and- pig had part of the same 
 building, and the refuse was simply flung out of the door 
 until it piled up so that one entering had to walk around it. 
 The board adopted a plan of offering money to thrifty men 
 who would agree to improve their holdings. We gave that 
 man $50. He did $200 worth of work — and the result you 
 see." 
 
 The country is in the Swinford district. The popula- 
 tion is 44,162. The annual ratable valuation is $4.54 for 
 each person. Of the 7700 holdings of land, 4768 are worth 
 less than $20 and 7095 in all less than $40. The latter 
 valuation, it is agreed, represents an amount under which 
 subsistence is impossible. There are, therefore, in this little 
 district 35,000 persons who are confined to patches of land 
 which cannot support life in them. At the same time, thirty- 
 nine grazers and fourteen landlords occupy land valued at 
 $19,210 a year — as much, in proportion, as 4200 tenants, at 
 the average valuation. 
 
 Of the 164,589 persons who emigrated from County 
 Mayo in the fifty years following 1851, Swinford district 
 lost more than 40,000. And the drain goes on. In 188 1 
 the population was 53,714. In 1901 it was 44,162, a loss 
 of 1 8 per cent, in twenty years. 
 
 After all, is there any wonder that statesmen have been 
 laboring with this Irish question for thirty years ? 
 
VII 
 
 A MAN WHO KNOWS 
 
 It seems to me that I should not leave the story of Kilti- 
 magh without some word of Father Denis O'Hara, himself 
 and his work. He is a man to study. With the ability of a 
 statesman and the intellect of a scholar, he is content to be 
 a parish priest in a patch of populous desolation. In his 
 devotion to painful good works he may be taken as typical 
 of the rural clergy in this country. For his peculiar gifts 
 and opportunities as a public administrator he commands 
 more than desultory attention. 
 
 It was with a heart aching for the miseries I had seen 
 that I sat down in the homely little study of the priest, while 
 he devoted a necessary hour to those who had been waiting 
 patiently to see him. It was a quaint, quiet little room. 
 Though the hour was less than five o'clock, the winter night 
 had already fallen, and the walls were lighted only by the 
 wavering flames of the turf fire. The furniture was aus- 
 terely plain and worn with long use. There was a small 
 writing desk, covered with a confusion of papers. The 
 roomy old bookcase was filled with much-handled volumes — 
 works of devotion, poetry, history, philosophy, in English, 
 Irish and Latin. A man of the highest scholarship, with 
 talents which might have won him ease, he had spent fifteen 
 years in this wilderness of poverty, ministering to the help- 
 less. I need not say that such devotion and sacrifice are not 
 peculiar to followers of this man's religion, for in every 
 country there are thousands of ministers who count the world 
 well lost if they may serve humbly and with little material 
 reward. I write of Father O'Hara as an example of them 
 all. 
 
 I thought of him as he appeared while we passed through 
 the crowded village fair and along the country lanes and 
 into the houses of the poor. I began to realize then what 
 power lies in the hands of the parish priest. He has grown 
 
 48 
 
A REMNANT OF LANDLORDISM. 
 
 VILLAGE OF LOUGH GLYNN. 
 
A MAN WHO KNOWS 49 
 
 so into the lives of the people that he is a part of their very 
 existence. The)- look to him not only as a spiritual authority, 
 but as a friend, a counselor, a judge, an advocate, a father, 
 indeed. He is more mighty to prevail with them than the 
 imperial government, yet finds time to act as arbiter in neigh- 
 bors' disputes, and from his decision there is no thought of 
 appeal. By tradition and practice the people of his parish 
 have delegated to him the powers of king and court, and he 
 distributes justice in matters large and small with an open 
 hand. I thought of him then as I saw him among the 
 people. In the crowded fair and along the country roads 
 every man and boy touched his hat as the priest passed. 
 The women and girls bent their knees. Not one who met 
 his eye failed of a word of greeting. 
 
 "Good day to you, Martin. How is the wife? That's 
 well. A fine evening, Pat. * * * Dan, my boy, a 
 word with you. Keep clear of the public house to-night. 
 It's no place for you. * * * Ah, Mary, I'm glad to 
 see you out again. Where are the girls? They're well? 
 I'm glad of that, now." 
 
 There were perhaps five hundred men and women and 
 children in the village street, and they had come from miles 
 around to the fair. I think Father O'Hara spoke to fifty of 
 them by name. He could have so called each one. There 
 are 4500 persons in his parish, and he knows them all as a 
 man knows his neighbors. Far out on a lonely road, miles 
 from Kiltimagh, we were jogging along on our jaunting car. 
 Coming toward us up a steep hill I saw an old, old woman. 
 Under her rough, short skirt I could see her feet, bare on 
 the icy ground. She was bent almost double, for on her 
 back was tied a huge basket filled with half-frozen blocks of 
 turf from the bog. It must 'have weighed nearly forty 
 pounds. Slowly, painfully she toiled up the hill. At first 
 she saw only the stranger on the car. but as she passed she 
 nodded gravely. Then the priest cried out a cheery greet- 
 ing, calling her by name. Instantly her face broke into 
 smiles, and as the car stopped a moment she looked up into 
 the kindly face above her with a gaze that was almost wor- 
 ship. A few cheerful words, and we passed on. I looked 
 back at the old woman. She was plodding on up the hill 
 
50 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 But her step was freer, and I think the heavy burden on her 
 back had grown lighter. 
 
 Across his hospitable dinner table Father O'Hara and 
 I talked long of what we had seen that day and what we 
 had not seen. It was all the cruel story of the land. Kilti- 
 magh is in the Swinford union, or district, concerning which 
 I have already given some figures. To get nearer home, 
 there are in Kiltimagh electoral division 309 occupiers of 
 land, whose holdings are valued at less than $40 a year — 
 that is, there are 309 families confined on land which cannot 
 possibly yield enough food to keep them alive, let alone pay 
 the rent of $5 or more per acre. And in the adjoining divi- 
 sion of Ballinamore lands worth $3725 a year are occupied 
 for pasturing cattle by one grazer and one landlord. Father 
 O'Hara, who has been a leader in the fight for justice since 
 the Land League agitation of 1879, knows the story as he 
 knows his breviary. 
 
 "You have seen some O'f the results of the inequitable 
 land system to-day," he said, "and the cause is plain. I'll 
 give you an example. Comprising parts of this and other 
 unions there is a great property called the Dillon estate, 
 owned until a few years ago by Lord Dillon and before 
 him by his ancestors. There are 93,000 acres in this one 
 estate. Now listen. Arthur Young, the famous English 
 traveler and writer, visited this district one hundred years 
 ago. He described the Dillon property, and said the annual- 
 rental derived by the owner was $25,000. Mark you, now. 
 Lord Dillon never visited his estate. He never turned his 
 hand to improve it. He never erected a farm building or 
 built a fence or dug a drain. He simply lived in England, 
 while his agents and bailiffs collected the rents from the 
 tenants here. And in 1879 the rent-roll amounted to $130,- 
 000 a year. In eighty years the income of the landlord had 
 increased to five times the original amount. 
 
 "He had done absolutely nothing. The tenants had 
 done everything. And as fast as they drained and reclaimed 
 the land and built houses and fences, just as fast was the 
 rent raised on them. They made the improvements and 
 paid for them ; and when at any time, whether through crop 
 failure or sickness or sheer inability to pay, the tenants could 
 
A MAN WHO KNOWS 51 
 
 not meet the demands of the agents, they were evicted, other 
 tenants replaced them at increased rents, and the profit of all 
 their labor was seized by the landlord. It was by this sys- 
 tem that the people have gradually been forced to take the 
 miserable patches you saw to-day, while within a short dis- 
 tance there are thousands of acres of good land devoted to 
 cattle grazing. 
 
 "I have mentioned the Dillon estate because it serves 
 as an example of what can be done. The Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board was able to arrange the purchase of this great 
 tract in March, 1899. The price paid was $1,450,000. 
 We have spent more than $100,000 for drainage, fencing, 
 road-making, the improvement of houses and outbuildings, 
 and will spend $40,000 more. What is the result? The 
 land has gone back to the people. The thousands of tenants 
 and their families are gradually being made owners of the 
 farms they work. Hovels are disappearing, and stone 
 houses with slate roofs are taking their place. The annual 
 payments of the tenants amount to only two-thirds af what 
 they paid for rent, yet in a term of years they will own the 
 land absolutely. 
 
 "You understand, of course, that this land was not 
 bought by the government and presented to the people. 
 They must pay for every acre of it. But the payments are 
 so arranged as not to be burdensome, and before each thrifty 
 tenant there is something to work for, the certainty that he 
 or his children will eventually own his own little farm. The 
 difference between that estate and those adjoining, which are 
 still held by landlords, tells the whole story. A member of 
 Parliament went among the Dillon estate tenants recently 
 and asked them how they were doing. 
 
 " 'Why, bless you, sir,' said one farmer, 'we're as happy 
 as a choir of angels.' 
 
 "And on the next adjoining estate you will find scores 
 of holdings from which the unfortunate tenants have been 
 evicted within the last six months; you will find those who 
 remain paying 50 per cent, more for rent than these pay for 
 purchase; and you will find those estates the very hotbed of 
 agitation, with the police exercising the oppressive coercion 
 laws to the extreme limit of severity. 
 
52 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 "This contrast is inevitable. It cannot be expected * 
 tenants who see their neighbors treated with justice and 
 humanity, while they themselves are still ground down and 
 oppressed, will not be discontented. In this immediate 
 vicinity, as 1 have said, there is no good land available. The 
 Congested Districts Board is devoting its energies to enlarg- 
 ing the small holdings where possible, assisting the most 
 deserving tenants and encouraging improvement. But the 
 only remedy for the whole intolerable system is the abolition 
 of dual ownership of the land. Landlordism, as Ireland 
 knows it, is an anachronism. The people who occupy the 
 land, and farm it, and improve it, must be made the owners 
 of it." 
 
 "How about the political agency which is working for 
 this reform?" I asked. "Are you in favor of the United 
 Irish League?" 
 
 "In favor of it?" cried Father O'Hara. "My dear 
 man, I am heart and soul with it, and so is every good priest 
 in Ireland, from the highest to the lowest. I tell my people 
 so, too. I say to them : 'The United Irish League is light- 
 ing for you. You must fight with it. The best way for you 
 to fight is to give money, and you ought to do it because 
 every one of you will benefit by its work. Before you pay 
 your rent, before you buy your clothes, before you pay your 
 priest, give your shilling to the United Irish League.' " 
 
 Besides the devotion of the people, Father O'Hara has 
 erected other monuments here. There is a great church, fit 
 to grace any square in America, and a convent school, built 
 of stone and heated with steam. This in a district where 
 poverty is as inevitable as rent. 
 
 "I have to thank America for these," he said. "The 
 church cost $25,000 and the school half as much more, and 
 most of it came from your country. Hundreds of young 
 men and young women had to emigrate to America from 
 here. I don't believe there are a score of families in the 
 parish that have not relatives on the other side. I started 
 that church with two half sovereigns. When I wrote over 
 to our boys and girls in America the money poured in. Ah, 
 they don't forget the old home, poor as it is." 
 
 We went through the convent school during the day. 
 
A MAN WHO KNOWS 53 
 
 Classes of girls from ten to sixteen years old were busily at 
 work, under the tuition of black-robed Sisters. Here, as in 
 the streets, Father O'Hara called each child by name, and had 
 a word of adv r ice, or, more frequently, a joke, for each one 
 of them. The girls receive an elementary education and are 
 instructed in household work and lace-making. The Sisters 
 also visit the houses in the parish, tend the sick and encour- 
 age the mothers and daughters to keep their houses neat. 
 
 "We teach housework and cooking," said Father 
 O'Hara, "because it helps to raise the poor folks a little and 
 also because many of the girls will emigrate, and we do not 
 want them to arrive in their new homes ignorant." 
 
 So there are housewives in America who have cause for 
 thankfulness to Father O'Hara. I remarked to him that 
 the Sisters seemed very bright and cheerful, that they lacked 
 the solemn austerity associated with some religious orders. 
 
 "They're good women," he said, smiling. "I've talked 
 to them. I've told them that prayers and fasting are excel- 
 lent things, and I hoped they would practice them. But I 
 told them that working for the poor and unfortunate was 
 the best form of prayer I knew." 
 
 This is the Rev. Denis O'Hara, parish priest. It seems 
 to me that the "P. P." which he writes after his name is as 
 noble distinction as any string of letters to be found in the 
 peerage. It is the Distinguished Service Order of humanity. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE HUMAN SIDE 
 
 From the top of a fairy mound, where the elves dance 
 of a summer's night, I have seen the Problem' of the Land 
 as in a picture ten miles wide. And from a seat on Pat 
 Tuohy's jaunting car, from hazy noon to frosted silver even- 
 ing, I have seen the panorama of the tragic earth unroll for 
 thirty Irish miles. That's a day's work. What a picture it 
 was! I thought of the vales of Pennsylvania and the velvet 
 fields of our middle West. Here they were over again, mile 
 <an mile of the fairest land the mind can conceive, rich with 
 promise of fertility, green still to the very verge of winter,,* 
 smiling, beautiful — and empty. That is the tragedy of it. 
 I had spent weary days and nights in places where humanity 
 is wretchedness incarnate and men and women huddle 
 crowded amid grim barrenness. There are ranges here 
 where the wind may sweep for leagues over living fields and 
 never know the taint of the turf smoke. The crows that 
 wheel black against the sky must mount far to spy out a 
 chimney or a hayrick. The hares that run wild know no 
 strangers but the rough-coated cattle that graze in scattered 
 herds. It is fertility and loneliness; the land that mourns 
 for the people as they mourn for the land. 
 
 "Come," said John Fitzgibbon, "come, and I'll show 
 you what we fight for and why." 
 
 It was Sunday in Castlerea, and the shuttered street lay 
 silent and empty, the folk having gone from church to din- 
 ner. The sun at its highest point hung as though setting 
 and the street was in wintry shadow. We climbed on the 
 jaunting car, wrapping the rugs well, for the wind was keen 
 and piercing, and clattered out on the road to the eastward. 
 At the first corner stood a stalwart member of the Royal 
 Irish Constabulary, in his boots and cloak and peaked cap. 
 
 *Chapters VIII, IX, X and XI were written in Castlerea, 
 
 County Roscommon, in December, 1902. 
 
 54 
 
THE HUMAN SIDE 55 
 
 He glanced at us sharply, then disappeared, with ostentatious 
 indifference. 
 
 I shall have a good deal to say of John Fitzgibbon, for 
 he is a man to write about. But for the present we shall 
 just glance at him, as he balances himself on the swaying 
 car. A stout man, with a rugged, burly figure; a round, 
 healthy, keen, kindly, red face; a close-trimmed beard of 
 gray-streaked copper, and blue eyes that twinkle or grow 
 hard as he talks. For the rest, he is a man of the people, 
 chairman of the Roscommon County Council, an enthusiastic 
 official of the United Irish League, a speaker of natural 
 force, a devout Christian, a total abstainer and a zealot for 
 temperance. Add to this that he is a prosperous and 
 respected merchant and has served four terms in prison for 
 his political views, and you have a rough sketch of one o^ 
 the finest Irishmen I have ever met. 
 
 For half a mile or so we skirted the Sandford demesne, 
 tfhere great trees stand thick behind the time-blackened 
 wall, then swung into the country road, with its border of 
 leafless hawthorn hedge. When we were quite clear of the 
 village I turned and looked behind, for I knew what to 
 expect. Two hundred yards back was a man on a bicycle; 
 a trim-built man in a dark uniform, with peaked cap. The 
 present government does not approve of explorations by 
 American newspaper men, particularly under the guidance 
 of such dangerous criminals as John Fitzgibbon. Hence the 
 presence of the R. I. C. man, detailed to follow us though 
 we traveled till another dawn. 
 
 "There he is," I said. John Fitzgibbon glanced back. 
 "Oho!" he said. " 'Tis Reilly, the brave lad. Well, 
 he has a ride before him." 
 
 "Bad luck to him," said Pat Tuohy to his pipe. 
 "I am quite interested in Reilly," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. 
 "He tried his level worst to send me to jail for six months 
 a while back — hard labor, too, on the stone pile. He's one 
 of the most promising members of the force hereabouts, and 
 some day he'll be an inspector, I doubt not. He's devoted 
 to his duty, as you see, and I don't know his equal for giving 
 the testimony that's wanted. It was my privilege to prove 
 him a liar in open court on the occasion I'm speaking of, 
 
$6 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 whereby I'm taking this ride with you instead of swinging 
 a sledge in Castlebar jail." 
 
 All this was said quite pleasantly. There was no 
 visible rancor about it, but I began to appreciate the cold 
 enmity that exists between the people and the government 
 police who harass them. 
 
 A few miles out the car stopped at the foot of a lane 
 and we walked to the top of a hill, then climbed a low stone 
 wall. Before us was a circular mound of green, a hundred 
 feet in diameter at the base, perhaps, and forty or fifty feet 
 high. We climbed up. The top was perfectly round, thirty 
 feet across, with a depression which made the outer edge a 
 ridge. The thing was puzzling. 
 
 "This is a fairy mound," laughed Mr. Fitzgibbon. I 
 suggested an ancient burial place, with unimagined treasures 
 of the bronze age concealed in it. 
 
 "Tut, man," he said, "there isn't a native in the country 
 would drive a pick into the turf of Mullaghaduhy hill, so 
 whatever is inside will stay there. It was built by fairies, 
 you know. Well, personally, I think it was a sort of watch 
 tower in the old days, or perhaps a cannon was mounted 
 here. Look what a range it had." 
 
 Around and below us, on every side, lay the country, 
 flooded with the pale light of the, winter sun. The view 
 embraced eight or ten miles in all directions, a rolling green 
 plain fading away into grassy hills. Here and there were 
 small clumps or rows of trees. Low stone walls followed 
 the contour of the land, making big and little fields of 
 irregular shape. The dark streaks were ditches, the winding 
 thread of silver a little stream. I counted ten houses within 
 vision on that great stretch. Each had two or three acres 
 of tilled ground. The rest was grass. The only living 
 things in sight were tiny scattered flocks of sheep and cattle. 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon translated. 
 
 "We are overlooking several estates," he said; "Balff, 
 Irwin, Sandford, Murphy — corners of all of therm are in 
 sight. Oh, yes, there were farms here once, hundreds of 
 them. But all the people were evicted. They emigrated to 
 America, or moved, or died. The dozen or so farms you see 
 are held by men having long leases. They're all happy and 
 
PAT TUOHY AND HIS JAUNTING CAR. 
 
 BETTER THAN THE OLD STYLE. 
 
THE HUMAN SIDE 57 
 
 prosperous, though the rents are very high. The others — 
 there was no help for them." 
 
 "Why were they evicted? Wouldn't they pay rent?" 
 
 "Most of them couldn't. The great 'clearing out' 
 started at the time of the famine, fifty years ago*. The people 
 couldn't get food to eat, let alone money for the landlords. 
 Then the world demanded cattle, and the landlords decided 
 to turn these fertile lands into grazing ranches. That 
 doomed those who had fought their way through the famine. 
 So they all went. But come; we've just started." t 
 
 Our course lay off to the southward, over low. rolling 
 hills and long meadows. The road was hard with frost and 
 rang to the horse's hoofs. The surrounding scene was still 
 the same — beyond the low stone walls lay endless green fields, 
 with not a sign of farm or crops. Every few miles a little 
 thatched house stood by the roadside, with a tiny patch of 
 vegetable garden and a cluster of hayricks, brown in the sun. 
 These were the huts of the herders. Each man has 250 to 
 300 acres under his care. 
 
 "That's it," said Mr. Fitzgibbon; "the best land in Ros- 
 common, fit to support thousands. And on land where ten 
 families might live in decent comfort the only occupants are 
 a man and a dog. A man and a dog. Not a crop on twenty 
 miles of it, and the people wanting for food over yonder." 
 
 As we rounded the top of a hill a glimpse of historic 
 Ireland broke the monotony of the depopulated land. 
 Between us and the low-hanging sun was a ruin, a great 
 quadrangle of thick stone walls, with the remnants of a 
 high tower at each corner. On the south front, covered with 
 drapery of green ivy, the wall was less eaten by age than the 
 rest. 
 
 "Ballintober Castle," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. "The 
 castle of the O'Connors, Kings of Connaught." 
 
 Grim, silent, deserted, this pile of blackened stones over- 
 looking the fertile, empty land seemed pathetically out of 
 place. It should have crumbled to dust and disappeared with 
 the fighting chieftains who ruled the Ireland of the Irish. 
 The property, by the way, is still in the royal family. It is 
 owned by The O'Conor Don, a famous member of the older 
 generation of to-day. A year or two ago he gave a picnic 
 
58 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 in the ruins to the Irish Historic Society — chicken sandwiches 
 and champagne in the quadrangle where the men at arms 
 once cheered their mailed leaders. 
 
 Still the miles were reeled off, and we saw nothing but 
 green fields on every side, with houses just often enough to 
 emphasize the loneliness. One hovel was such a wretched 
 looking place that we stopped. The walls gaped with fissures 
 and the thatch of the roof was falling in. I thought it must 
 be untenanted, but a woman came to the door. She was a 
 weird-looking creature, with gray hair that hung in ragged 
 strips over her head and face. Her feet were bare. Mr. 
 Fitzgibbon spoke to her. She answered sullenly. 
 "Who lives here?" 
 "I do. Meself." 
 "What rent do you pay?" 
 "I don't know. My brother pays it." 
 ''How much land have you?" 
 "Divil a perch." 
 
 Then she turned and went back into the hut. 
 As we drove along I had noticed a peculiar formation 
 in the ground here and there. Across the fields lay low, 
 green ridges, sometimes two or three hundred yards long. 
 In some places they looked like lines of grass. In others 
 they melted into the level ground. I asked what they were. 
 "The remains of walls and ditches of the old farms," 
 answered Mr. Fitzgibbon. "You'll find them all over these 
 lands. When the tenants were evicted the walls were thrown 
 down, and grass grew over the places. You will see here 
 and there a clump or row of trees. They mark where the 
 farmhouses used to stand. The houses were leveled and the 
 walls that border the road we are on were built of stones 
 that once sheltered the evicted tenants." 
 
 It was ghastly. I began to see the marks of devasta- 
 tion everywhere. The fields on every side were scarred with 
 the green ridges, as though the whip of oppression had left 
 great welts on the surface of the land. In two or three 
 places we came upon the crumbling ruins of houses, which 
 for some reason had not been carried away. There was one 
 of which the four walls still stood, with the chimney, though 
 the roof had disappeared years ago. We could still trace the 
 
THE HUMAN SIDE 59 
 
 outlines of the little garden and the remnants of a stable. A 
 hare scampered away as I peered through a gaping hole 
 where there had been a window. 
 
 "The family that lived there had fifty acres of good 
 land," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. "They were evicted because the 
 landlord wanted the land to add to his grazing ranch. AH 
 of them went to America." 
 
 Twelve miles southeast of Castlerea we crossed the rail- 
 road and entered an avenue of great trees. Half way up the 
 avenue we met a party of men in knickerbockers and women 
 in furs. They were members of a shooting party occupying 
 Donamon Castle, which we saw further on, a fine, old, gray 
 building, with a view of miles of green country. 
 
 "This is a fair example of absentee landlordism," said 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon. "This is the estate of Sir George Caul- 
 field; 11,000 acres, rent-roll about $40,000 a year. The 
 good land is let to* big grazers; the poor land to small 
 tenants. The owners have not lived here for sixty years. 
 The castle and woods are let to shooting parties during the 
 season." 
 
 We passed Kilbegnet, turned north, skirted the tiny 
 hamlet of Crosswell and so reached the place called Glinsk. 
 Here there was another relic of Irish Ireland. On the side 
 of the hill was the gray ruin of a big house, known, of 
 course, as "the castle." It had belonged to the Burkes, I 
 was told, a fine old family of the country. There were about 
 10,000 acres. The Burkes were good landlords, but they 
 became embarrassed financially at the time of the great 
 famine, and the estate was sold to Pollock, "the arch 
 evictor," and 1100 families were turned out of their homes. 
 A few miles more of the empty ranches, then a few miles 
 across bogs that seemed to stretch to the horizon. It was 
 nearly five o'clock, and the sun had set long ago. A new 
 moon made the road white, and showed the bog heather 
 silvering with frost. Befriended by the darkness, Constable 
 Reilly pedaled along close to the rear of the car, whistling 
 softly to himself, for his ride was nearly over. So we passed 
 through the quiet street of Ballymoe and on to Castlerea. 
 At Mr. Fitzgibbon's door we climbed down, stiff and cold. 
 
6o PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 "I have seen where the people used to be," I said, "but 
 where are they now — those who did not emigrate or die?" 
 
 "Come with me to-morrow, sir, and I'll show you," 
 said Pat Tuohy, and I said I would. 
 
 We started on a bright morning and went north and 
 northwest from Castlerea; in the opposite direction, that is, 
 from where lay the rich grazing ranches. We had not gone 
 many miles before the difference in the country became 
 marked. The green fields disappeared, and as the road 
 wound along a slight ridge there lay miles of unkind-looking 
 knd on either side of us, with wide stretches of brown bog. 
 And here, where everything conspired to cheat husbandry 
 and make life hard, I found the people. Their cabins were 
 on every side ; where stones were sown thick in the soil, and 
 down in the lowlands where the morasses lay. The houses 
 were pitifully mean, the tilled patches pitifully small. The 
 poverty was glaring. 
 
 In course of time we came to a place called Feigh. 
 There are some to whom it bears the sacred name of home, 
 therefore I shall not say how altogether wretched it was. 
 It comprised a cluster of hovels on the ridge road, with hill 
 slopes of stony ground and hollows of bog and swamp. The 
 bailiffs had been there before me. In half a dozen of the 
 poor houses I saw the "emergency men" who are placed in 
 charge after evictions. Each place was guarded by four or 
 five policemen. Most of the unhappy people had disap- 
 peared, but I found one of them, a stalwart man, still young, 
 who came swinging along the road with a big creel full of 
 turf strapped to his back. 
 
 "You talk to him, sir," said Pat Tuohy. "He'll tell 
 ye. Ay, sir, he'll tell ye." 
 
 His name was Bernard King, and he was thirty-six years 
 old. The day was cold, so we walked up and down the road 
 together as he told me the story of an evicted tenant. It 
 seemed a fearful tale to me, as he told it, perhaps because 
 I could see all around me the desolate homes. 
 
 "There was thirty-one acres of land, sir," he began. 
 ''It belonged to my father before me, and to his mother 
 before him." 
 
THE HUMAN SIDE 
 
 DI 
 
 "You owned it, then?" 
 
 "Oh, no, sir. 'Twas this way: My grandmother, rest 
 her soul, got the land seventy-odd years ago. 'Twas in the 
 family a long time, you see. She went to London and 
 worked for seven years, until she got a little money put by, 
 enough to get a farm near her old home. Then she came 
 back here and rented the thirty-one acres from Lord de 
 Freyne. She paid a big fine to get possession of the land, 
 and a big rent besides — £8 a year. 
 
 "It was hard work, I've heard tell, makin' that land 
 raise a crop. It needed drains, d'ye see, and only the land- 
 lord could build the drain, because the land lay on the bot- 
 tom of the valley, and the whole place had to be drained at 
 once. But the landlord, of course, would have nothin' to do 
 with it, barrin' collectin' his rents. But grandmother and 
 her husband worked hard, and made shift to raise a kind of 
 livin' out of the farm. They got through the famine, too. 
 After that, they had improved the place so much that the 
 rent was raised to £10 a year. By and by grandmother died 
 and it came to my father. He did his best, but somehow 
 he couldn't make it go. When he gave it to me, five years 
 back, there was four years' rent due on it. But I got mar- 
 ried and took hold of it. My wife had a bit of money, and 
 she paid up every shillin' of the back rent. Still we couldn't 
 raise enough crops to keep us goin'." 
 
 "Not on thirty-one acres? Where is the land?" 
 
 "Come with me, sir, and I'll show you." 
 
 We walked to the edge of the hill and the mar pointed 
 to a spot a quarter of a mile away, in the hollow. I said I 
 could see only a sheet of water. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he said, simply, "that's it. Twenty-five 
 acres of my land is under that water. It's flooded eight or 
 nine months in the year. In the other three months I tried 
 to raise a bit of hay, but the grass soured because of the 
 water, and it wasn't good for the cattle." 
 
 Here was a case to make one think. This tenant paid 
 a yearly rental for a. piece of land. In theory this was for 
 twelve months' use. In practice five-sixths of his land was 
 under water for three-fourths of the year. 
 
 "So I couldn't pay the rent," said Bernard King. 
 
62 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 ''Would you like to come and see my wife, sir? She'd take 
 it very kindly if you'd come." 
 
 I wondered where this evicted family was living. We 
 walked up the road a few hundred yards and stopped in 
 front of — a stable. There was no mistaking the place. 
 The broken thatch had been repaired and new windows and 
 doors put in, but this building had unmistakably been meant 
 for cattle and had housed cattle. I went inside. It was ten 
 feet by eighteen. In one corner was a bed made of rough 
 planks. Against the wall was a dresser, holding rough 
 dishes. Two chairs, a table and a smolder of turf in the 
 chimney — that was all. Mrs. King came forward, smiling 
 bravely, a wee baby in her arms. But when her husband 
 said I was from America she broke down and cried. 
 
 "America !" she said. "God bless you, sir, I lived 
 there. Thirteen years I worked in New York and over in 
 Jersey trying to get a bit of money so I could have a home 
 in the old place. First I sent a lot to my own folks; then I 
 saved up for myself. I brought back $565." 
 
 "And then we got married," said her husband. "Four 
 years ago it was. I had the farm and my wife had her for- 
 tune, and we thought sure we were fixed for life. You 
 remember, sir, I told you there was four years' back rent 
 due. My wife paid it." 
 
 "I did," she said. "Thirteen years I'd worked for that 
 money and I paid it out in three. I paid Lord de Freyne's 
 agent every shilling of the arrears. Sixty golden sovereigns, 
 sir. 
 
 What is the use of saying that the poor woman might 
 better have stayed in America ? The most fanatical patriot 
 who reads this cannot measure the passionate love these 
 people bear to the soil of their race, cruel as they have found 
 it. Not many come back, but this woman did, and to her 
 there was nothing so blessed as the privilege of spending the 
 savings of years to buy a farm near her old home. But her 
 sacrifice and her husband's work alike were of no avail. The 
 land simply could not be made to yield food and clothing for 
 the family and rent for the landlord. Little by little the 
 savings melted away— the "golden sovereigns" disappeared. 
 The beginning of the end came last February, when a writ 
 
THE HUMAN SIDE 63 
 
 of eviction was served on this family, with many others. 
 They owed $125 rent. While they struggled despairingly to 
 raise some money the remorseless machinery of the law 
 ground on slowly, and to the rent due was added $200 in 
 costs. This was quite hopeless. They gave up. 
 
 The eViction was on August 26 last. A scene familiar 
 to the countryside. The bailiff and his men came, guarded 
 by fifty or sixty policemen with rifles, for they knew there 
 would be a crowd of tenants there. Amid this display of 
 armed force the little household was cleared out. The wail- 
 ing of women filled the street, for the horror of eviction 
 smote every one of them. The poor furniture was carried 
 out and flung on the ground and the little treasures of the 
 household piled up for all the crowd to see. Who can meas- 
 ure the grief and shamie that burdened this man and woman? 
 It is the ruthless exposure of the home, the brutal turning 
 out in the open of things sacred to the hearth, that seem so 
 cruel. Yet it is all perfectly legal, and the most civilized 
 nation on earth quite approves of it. 
 
 "And there we were on the roadside, sir," said the 
 woman, "with not a roof to shelter us from the rain. The 
 baby, poor dear, was two months old when he was evicted." 
 
 The little chapi in her arms looked soberly at me, as 
 unconscious as his mother was that her remark sounded so 
 pit' ful. 
 
 "But at least," I suggested, "the house was yours?" 
 
 "No, indeed, sir," said Bernard King; "that went with 
 the rest. Sure 'twas not enough to satisfy the claim, because, 
 you see, the costs were £40, near twice as much as the rent." 
 
 There was nothing more to be said. I summed up the 
 case in my mind thus : Seventy years ago a woman, having 
 worked in London for seven years, saved enough to pay the 
 "fine," as it is called, for the privilege of taking a farm*. She 
 and her husband cleared the land, reclaimed it, built fences, 
 a house and outbuildings. Her son and her grandson con- 
 tinued the work of improvement, and her grandson's wife 
 spent $500 in cash keeping the place up. But, leaving aside 
 this expenditure of money, there was spent on the farm the 
 heart-breaking labor of three generations. & 
 
 And the result? For an unpaid claim of $125 the whole 
 
64 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 farm, buildings,, improvements and all, was seized by the 
 landlord. The third generation was left homeless, poorer 
 than the brave grandmother when she emigrated to London 
 seventy years ago. There may be proper comments upon 
 this story. I shall not attempt any. 
 
 When the Kings were put on the roadside the neighbors 
 took upon themselves their misery as part of the common 
 burden. One man offered a cow stable for which he had no 
 use, his cattle having been sold by the bailiffs to satisfy a rent 
 claim. In this reeking place the father and mother and their 
 two children took shelter. With the help of neighbors the 
 filth was cleared out, the thatch repaired and the doors made 
 tight against the cold weather. There the family are living 
 to-day in a place where no self-respecting man in America 
 would stable a horse he valued. This is the end of seventy 
 years of work. 
 
 The principal object of this trip was to discover a con- 
 trast. In this neighborhood the great Dillon estate and the 
 estates of Lord de Freyne and the Murphy family may be 
 found side by side. The Dillon estate, it will be remem- 
 bered, was purchased three years ago by the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board, and is now in slow process of resale to the 
 tenants. These make small payments, and in time will own 
 their homesteads. Their neighbors, under the Murphy and 
 de Freyne regimes, pay fifty per cent, more for rent merely. 
 On the Dillon estate the board is digging a drainage system, 
 enlarging holdings and building comfortable houses. On the 
 other lands nothing is done for the tenants. The result is 
 not surprising. This district is the very hotbed of agitation. 
 Those who are excluded from the benefits of ownership are 
 fighting madly to raise themselves. There have been refusals 
 to pay rent, consequent evictions, public meetings suppressed, 
 speakers sent to prison. The whole countryside is in a fer- 
 ment, which Dublin Castle, through the police, is trying to 
 quell by attacking the few liberties the people have. 
 
 Lough Glynn was the largest settlement we reached. 
 It consists of a row of houses set on either side of the turn- 
 pike. The best building is the little store and house of Pat- 
 rick Webb, who is the district leader of the United Irish 
 League. He has been in prison, of course. It is worth 
 
CONSTABULARY AT AN EVICTION. 
 
 :'■;".("? Z ~rs. 7 
 
 BERNARD KING AND HIS STABLE HOME. 
 
THE HUMAN SIDE 6s 
 
 while noting, by the way, that the leaders in this movement 
 are always found among what we term the "solid" men of 
 the community. Back of the village is the little lake which 
 gives it its name, and on the north shore, seen from the 
 village through the surrounding trees, stands Lough Glynn 
 House, once the seat of Lord Dillon. I was curious to see 
 the place. 
 
 We took the road around the western end of the lake, 
 entered where the rusted gates still hung to the old stone 
 pillars, and passed up a magnificent avenue of trees, through 
 which we could see the lake, lying blue in the sun. This 
 brought us to the rear of the house, among the long rows of 
 stables and outbuildings. The caretaker was absent, and the 
 place was quite silent. The air of desertion was oppressive. 
 I walked around to the front of the house. The windows 
 stared blankly across the lawn and shrubbery and down to 
 the lake. This old gray house was a type of the passing 
 regime. The owner, who never called it his home, is gone, 
 and all the fair demesne has passed to the people who were 
 his servants. 
 
 It did not take much imagination to people the house 
 with a jolly party. Grooms lounged at the stables. The 
 big front doors, were open, and across the lawn came serv- 
 ants with tea for those who strolled under the trees. 
 Laughter floated up from the lake, where boats glided over 
 the smooth waters. Everything here was peace and plenty 
 and pleasure. And outside the park gates the people toiled 
 without reward and without hope. Now it is the house that 
 is without hope, silent and deserted. Soon the woods where 
 no peasant would have dared to set his foot will be leveled, 
 and tidy farmhouses will bo built where the game was pur- 
 sued by indolent hunters. The people are coming back to 
 their own. 
 
 Pat Tuohy and I traveled many miles that day. On the 
 Dillon estate we saw where the Congested Districts Board 
 had built fences and drains and made roads and erected 
 houses. Often the old and new stood nearly side by side — 
 the thatched hut already falling into decay and the slate- 
 roofed house of stone speaking of decency and comfort. 
 On our way back we struck again through the desolate scenes 
 s 
 
66 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 of the unimproved estates, where the bleak, arid landscape 
 is rendered all the more hideous by the wretched homes of 
 the tenants. We went up nearly as far as Ballaghaderreen, 
 then around by Frenchpark, the seat of Lord de Freyne, and 
 so back to Castlerea by moonlight. I had seen more misery 
 than I can ever describe, and much simple happiness where 
 the people had had a chance to work for themselves. But 
 one scene remained in my mind and one voice rang in my 
 ears. As we left the sorry little home of Bernard King and 
 his wife I put a piece of silver in the baby's hand. The 
 mother tried to give it back, but her eyes filled with tears 
 and she gave up. 
 
 "God bless you, sir," she whispered, brokenly, "and a 
 happy, happy home to you !" 
 
 She had wished for me the supreme blessing which she 
 had never known. 
 
IX 
 SOME OF THE RECORD 
 
 With John Fitzgibbon I had traversed miles upon miles 
 of fertile lands, where there are no inhabitants but a few 
 cattle herders, and later I had visited the poverty-stricken 
 settlements which have grown up in the bogs and on the 
 rocky wastes. He explained the situation at length. 
 
 "In this district," he said, "it is not high rents that keep 
 the people poor. Though the Land Commission were to give 
 them their present farms free, they could not support them- 
 selves. The necessity is to let them have decent land, which 
 by industry may be made to feed and clothe those who 
 occupy it. 
 
 "You saw the thousands of acres of rich soil now used 
 for cattle ranches, but still bearing the marks of destroyed 
 homesteads. Away back in the thirties the landlords began 
 to get rid of their tenants. The famine of '49 gave great 
 impetus to the clearing out, and the enormous demand for 
 cattle during the Crimean War was another thing that turned 
 the landlords toward grazing as more profitable than tenant 
 farming. A landlord, instead of having to collect rents from 
 two hundred or three hundred tenants, found he could let the 
 same land to half a dozen big grazers. This rid him of a 
 lot of trouble and saved him the annoyance of constant agita- 
 tion about excessive rents. 
 
 "So the people were driven out, those who could pay 
 their rents with those who couldn't. But wasn't the landlord 
 within his rights, you say? To be sure he was. But think 
 of what those rights were under the iniquitous laws. By 
 statute he was the owner not only of the land, but of every 
 improvement which generations of tenants had made. His 
 order to them to leave was a forfeiture of their property. 
 The houses and barns they had built, where their fathers had 
 lived and their children had been born, passed to the landlord 
 absolutely, and there was no law under which the tenant 
 
 67 
 
68 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 could recover a penny for the home stolen from him. A 
 man's father and grandfather, perhaps, reclaimed the land 
 fifty or sixty years before; drained it, fenced it, built house 
 and barns. At the command of the landlord all the labor of 
 those years was swept away. 
 
 "Those were terrible days, as my father has told me. 
 The whole countryside was filled with sorrowing, homeless 
 people. The blows of axe and crowbar were heard every- 
 where, and men and women wept to see their homes leveled 
 by the destroyers. Houses, barns and walls were flung down, 
 and the stones that had sheltered happy families were built 
 into fences around the grazing fields. I'll give you an 
 instance or two. There was a nobleman who owned 11,000 
 acres, on part of which were more than one hundred tenants 
 with little farms. The nobleman was a generous man, and 
 his tenants were better treated than others. But he spent all 
 his time in England, and trusted to his agent to manage the 
 estate. This agent determined to gather an estate for him- 
 self. So, during a time of agitation, he wrote to his 
 employer letters warning him to remain away, as he would 
 be assassinated if he came to his Irish property. Then the 
 agent began to evict the tenants from the lands he coveted. 
 Nearly a hundred of them were turned out on the roadside, 
 their houses were torn down and the agent became the lessee 
 of a fine property. His grandsons hold it to this day, and 
 set up to be fine country gentlemen. The descendants of the 
 evicted tenants are living over here in the bogs, or are in 
 America. 
 
 "You heard me speak of Allen Pollock, known as the 
 'arch evictor.' He was a wealthy Scotch grazer, and when 
 the government forced the sale of estates belonging to land- 
 lords who had become insolvent this Pollock bought great 
 tracts. The sales were made through the Incumbered 
 Estates Court, established in 1848, and authority was given 
 to clear out the tenants. Pollock evicted 11 00 families. 
 No reason or excuse was necessary, beyond the fact that he 
 wanted the lands. Men who had been born and raised on 
 the little farms were put on the roadside. Many had 
 struggled through the famine, only to be evicted at last, in 
 spite of their ability to pay the rents. Pollock's idea was to 
 
SOME OF THE RECORD 69 
 
 work his land as a series of great farms, under the care of 
 stewards and laborers. But the scheme failed. In fifteen 
 years a receiver was appointed and the land was divided up 
 among half a dozen grazers. The cattle browse to-day 
 where the homes of 5000 people once stood. 
 
 "In these terrible days the estates of Lord Dillon and 
 Lord de Freyne became a refuge for evicted tenants. They 
 took hundreds of holdings, only the worst land being obtain- 
 able by them, and there they began again the struggle for 
 existence. You have seen to what misery they have 
 descended. It is almost incredible the amount of labor that 
 has been expended in trying to reclaim these worthless lands. 
 In most places the soil is so light that the poor tenants had to 
 spread gravel on it to give it weight. They dug the gravel 
 from the beds and carried it in creels on their backs and 
 spread it on the lands — sometimes as much as a hundred 
 tons to the acre. 
 
 "Each landlord had a man in his employ called a land 
 valuer. This man's duty was to inspect the holdings from 
 time to 1 time, estimate the improvements and raise the rents 
 accordingly. Land which was rented at the beginning for 
 three shillings an acre had to pay more each year as it was 
 improved, until the price rose to twelve or fifteen shillings 
 an acre. The rent of the Dillon estate rose from £5000 to 
 £26,000 in eighty years. Every shilling of the increase was 
 paid by the tenants in improvements they made by their own 
 labor. The result was, of course, to discourage thrift. The 
 man who tried to improve his condition paid dearly for it. 
 The system put a premium on laziness and a penalty on 
 industry. There were occasional outbursts of protest and 
 violence; but for the most part the poor people were driven 
 dumbly to their fate. No leader dared to rise up and cham- 
 pion them, for that meant imprisonment. It was not until 
 the Land League agitation of 1879 swept over the country 
 that effective defense was found. This outburst, with all the 
 lawlessness it caused, resulted in the passage of the Land Act 
 of 1881. 
 
 "Now for the present agitation. The Dillon and de 
 Freyne estates, as you know, lie side by side. On the Dillon 
 estate, which was bought by the Congested Districts Board 
 
70 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 three years ago, the tenants are getting comfortable homes, 
 their holdings are being enlarged and they pay one-third less 
 per year as purchase money than their neighbors on private 
 estates pay for rent. Naturally, the unfortunate ones grew 
 bitterly discontented, and a year ago they determined to try 
 to obtain better terms. A deputation, appointed at a meet- 
 ing, went to call on Lord de Freyne with a request that he 
 reduce their rents to the figure which their neighbors paid as 
 purchase instalments. The gates of Frenchpark were shut 
 against them. The landlord would not even receive their 
 protest. The war was on. A meeting was held in the village 
 of Frenchpark, where it was decided not to pay any more 
 rent and to raise a defense fund. John Dillon was in Bal- 
 laghaderreen at the time, and was asked to sanction the 
 project; but as John Redmond was in America, he declined 
 to encourage the movement at that period. But the tenants 
 were determined, and when, ten days later, writs of eviction 
 were served on the Murphy estate tenants, the struggle 
 began. The same day a big meeting was held at Fairy- 
 mount, which I attended. A proposition was made to create 
 a defense fund by taxing each tenant one shilling in the pound 
 on the valuation of his holding. With the idea of discour- 
 aging the movement, for I did not consider the time ripe for 
 it, I declared the assessment would have to be at least five 
 shillings in the pound. The tenants agreed promptly, and 
 thereupon it became my duty to support the project heart and 
 soul. I have done so." 
 
 > "Wait a minute. As I understand it, the rents of these 
 farms have been fixed by the Land Commission, at figures 
 which are presumably just. The landlords had no part in 
 fixing them. How do you justify the tenants in their refusal 
 to pay?" 
 
 "First, because their neighbors paid one-third less for 
 purchase; second, because the so-called judicial rents are out- 
 rageously excessive. The Commissioners know nothing 
 whatever of land. The labor expended in reclaiming the 
 farms during the last fifty years amounts to more than the 
 true value. Evictions on the de Freyne estate began in July. 
 The usual course is to sue for ejectment in the county courts, 
 where the costs against the tenant are from $10 to $12, 
 
SOME OF THE RECORD 71 
 
 Lord de Freyne choose to go to the Superior Court, though 
 that process could give him possession only two weeks sooner. 
 There the costs to the tenant averaged $200, which, of 
 course, made it quite impossible for the tenants to pay. The 
 committee in charge defended the suits, but lost, and the 
 tenants were turned out. Each family receives $5 a week 
 from the fund." 
 
 This seemed to me a costly war. A refusal to pay rents, 
 consequent eviction by due process of law, and the support of 
 evicted families out of a common fund. 
 
 "What good have you accomplished by this remarkable 
 system?" I asked. John Fitzgibbon smote the table with his 
 fist. 
 
 "It has brought you here," he said. "It has spread an 
 agitation through Ireland which will not subside until the 
 question is settled. It has focused the attention of the whole 
 British people and their government upon the injustice that 
 rules here. It has attracted the notice of the United States, 
 and a great American newspaper sends a special correspond- 
 ent here to describe conditions as they are. The cost is great, 
 but we are satisfied with the results." 
 
X 
 
 CONGESTION AND MIGRATION 
 
 All over Ireland the injustice of the land system is 
 apparent, but it is in the West that the conditions have 
 ground the people down into such misery that only revolu- 
 tionary legislation can lift them up again. The present pur- 
 pose is, therefore, to take a more general survey of the west- 
 ern problem. The government recognized its existence in 
 1 891 by the establishment of the Congested Districts Board. 
 A glance at the map will show how great was the need 
 for measures of amelioration. The congested districts 
 cover 3,500,000 acres, with a population of more than 
 500,000. Nearly seven-eighths of Donegal, three-fourths of 
 Leitrim, a third of Sligo and Roscommon, the greater part 
 of Mayo, half of Galway and Kerry and a fourth part of 
 Cork — in these lands a half million souls are sunk in dire 
 poverty. Those districts investigated personally by the 
 writer lie in Roscommon, Mayo and Galway. The investi- 
 gation might have been prolonged indefinitely. "You may 
 go to five hundred places," I was told, "but you will find only 
 the same story five hundred times repeated." 
 
 Under the act creating the Board, a "congested district" 
 is one in which the average annual ratable valuation is less 
 than $7.50 for each person. The unit of congestion is the 
 electoral division, of which there are 3652. In all, 429 
 divisions were scheduled as congested, and the population of 
 these districts, estimated at more than half a million, came 
 under the care of the Board. 
 
 How poor are these people? Some figures may illus- 
 trate the answer. The "poor law valuation" of the districts 
 — that is, the yearly taxable value of all the property — is 
 about $5 for each individual. But this is a very vague state- 
 ment, after all. I am able to present figures showing the 
 actual condition of typical families, as discovered through 
 investigation by the Department of Agriculture. The follow- 
 
 72 
 
CONGESTION AND MIGRATION 7o 
 
 ing table shows the receipts and expenditures for a year of a 
 family of five persons "in ordinary circumstances" : 
 
 EECEIPTS. EXPENDITURES. 
 
 Sale of bullock $22.50 Rent $10.00 
 
 " " 5 sheep 18.75 Taxes 1.41 
 
 « " pig 17.50 Tea 29.25 
 
 " "eggs 11.08 Sugar 9.75 
 
 " " homespun 17.50 Meal 3S.50 
 
 " " corn 3.75 Flour 9.37 
 
 " "fish 40.00 Clothing 32.12 
 
 " " knitting, etc 5.00 Tobacco..... 11.91 
 
 One young pig 3.75 
 
 $136.08 Implements, etc 6.18 
 
 $152.24 
 
 Food raised and consumed on the farm, about 35.00 
 
 This family lives on the seacoast of Galway, so that 
 fishing supplies part of the revenue. The following shows 
 the condition of a family of four persons, "in the poorest 
 circumstances," as officially reported: 
 
 RECEIPTS. EXPENDITURES. 
 
 Sale of eggs $5.75 Rent $5.00 
 
 Sixty days' labor, at 25c. . 15.00 Taxes 50 
 
 Herding cattle 20.00 Meal 29.25 
 
 Clothing 2.50 
 
 $40.75 Groceries 20.00 
 
 $57.25 
 Potatoes grown on the farm and eaten 30.00 
 
 It will be observed that this family of four persons con- 
 sumes $79.25 worth of food during the year, or at the rate 
 of less than five and one-half cents per day each. Coarse 
 meal and potatoes form the staple diet. These are only 
 figures, but they are government figures, and may aid Ameri- 
 cans to understand what the poverty in "congested districts" 
 is. The family just cited is typical of thousands of families 
 in the West. There are many more, however, whose condi- 
 tion is somewhat better. I mean those whose able-bodied 
 members migrate to England and Scotland every year and 
 toil in the fields, returning with a few pounds in money to 
 carry them through the winter. The reports give the receipts 
 of such a family, from all sources, at $205 for the year; 
 expenditures, $213.75; home produce consumed, $75. And 
 this family, consisting of six persons, is cited as being in 
 
74 
 
 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 "comparatively good circumstances" ! As to the general 
 conditions of life before the establishment of the Congested 
 Districts Board, I quote the report of the Department of 
 Agriculture : 
 
 "The great majority of the inhabitants were in possession of 
 small plots — they could hardly be called farms — generally about 
 two to four acres in extent. The rents for these holdings varied 
 
 SHADED PORTIONS SHOW CONGESTED DISTRICTS 
 
 from a few shillings to several pounds a year. The plots were 
 usually planted with potatoes and oats, and the methods of culti- 
 vation were extremely primitive. There was no rotation of crops, 
 no adequate supply of manure and no proper system of drainage, 
 whilst the breeds of live stock were worn out and of little value. 
 The result was that the inhabitants were forced to depend very 
 
CONGESTION AND MIGRATION 75 
 
 largely upon certain secondary sources of income of an uncertain 
 and varying nature. Many of them received occasional gifts from 
 relatives in America, whilst weaving, knitting and sewing formed 
 other small subsidiary sources of income. The results of sea fish- 
 ing helped the families dwelling along the coast to eke out a scanty 
 living, whilst those living inland depended largely upon the wages 
 earned during some months of the year as migratory agricultural 
 laborers in England or Scotland. 
 
 "Thus in most cases the people did not really live on the produce 
 of their holdings, but rather on some secondary source of income, 
 such as field labor in England or Scotland. They paid a rent for 
 their holding, generally not because of its agricultural value, but 
 rather because it was necessary to have some home for their family. 
 In a 'good year' many of the inhabitants were little more than free 
 from the dread of hunger, whilst a bad year, arising from the 
 complete or partial failure of their crops, produced a condition of 
 semi-starvation." 
 
 A brief and comprehensive statement of conditions in 
 the congested districts was given by a witness before a royal 
 commission on local taxation. He said: "In the congested 
 districts there are two classes, namely, the poor and the desti- 
 tute." But while the report of the Department of Agri- 
 culture is of great interest, it fails to set forth certain vital 
 facts. These are : 
 
 First — With the exception of a few restricted localities, 
 conditions are precisely the same as before the creation of the 
 Congested Districts Board. The extracts quoted above 
 might be read in the present tense. 
 
 Second — The congestion of people is on barren lands, 
 where, within easy reach of them, often at the very borders 
 of their wretched holdings, there are thousands of acres of 
 prime lands, rented by the landlords to cattle grazers. 
 
 Third — Until the people are enabled by the government 
 to purchase adequate farms they will remain in the same con- 
 dition of hopeless misery. 
 
 I would not be understood in this as criticising the work 
 of the Congested Districts Board. That would be an absurd 
 attitude for one who is hardly more than a casual visitor. 
 But while even the most fervent land reformers praise the 
 zeal of the board and welcome its uplifting influence, they 
 point out that progress is desperately slow and that all the 
 good accomplished has but touched the edges of the problem. 
 What has been done during the eleven years? They have 
 
7 6 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 purchased estates aggregating 153,000 acres, at a total cost 
 of $2,154,000. But the purchase is only a single step in the 
 process. Usually several years are spent in negotiations, and 
 when the matter is arranged other years pass in perfecting 
 the complex details of transfer. Meanwhile the people suffer 
 
 and die. ,. A , 
 
 Yet whatever criticism there may be regarding delays, 
 there can be none regarding the ultimate results. Clare 
 Island is a splendid example of what the board is doing and 
 how the work is benefiting the people. The property con- 
 tains nearly 4000 acres. Under the tenant system the most 
 desperate confusion grew up. There were no fences. No 
 tenant knew positively where his land began or ended. 1 he 
 whole island was practically held in common, and cattle 
 strayed at will through the meager crops. The ninety-nve 
 tenants who existed there paid nearly $2500 rent for their 
 miserable little holdings. The first thing the board did was 
 to build a wall across the island, separating the common 
 grazing ground from the tilled lands. Drains were con- 
 structed and fifty miles of fences were built. The most com- 
 plicated task was rearranging the scattered holdings so that 
 each tenant should have a compact farm. The land was 
 "striped" into regular areas, stone walls dividing one trorn 
 another. Thus, for the first time in their lives the people 
 found themselves with lands which they could call their own. 
 v When the board took hold of the property the occu- 
 pants owed two years' rent to the landlord Employment 
 upon the draining and fencing work enabled them to pay up 
 these arrears. For four years more they were tenants or the 
 board, and the report shows they paid every penny due. 
 They are now actual owners of their farms, paying an aggre- 
 gate of $1725 a year as purchase money instead of $2500 a 
 
 year as rent. , , 
 
 In all of these districts, it will be remembered, the 
 term "congestion" does not mean that the population is exces- 
 sive for the whole area, but that through the operation of the 
 land system the people have been crowded into barren 
 patches, while the best soil grows only grass for pasturing 
 cattle The great object of the board is to provide for each 
 family and sell to that family a farm which is big enough— 
 
CONGESTION AND MIGRATION 77 
 
 say twenty-five to thirty acres — and rich enough to furnish a 
 comfortable living when industriously worked. Since the 
 people are crowded together in spots, and since often there 
 is not enough good land in the neighborhood to distribute, 
 the board is compelled to arrange migration. Thus some 
 tenants in a crowded locality will be persuaded to give up 
 their holdings, which are then divided among those who 
 remain, until each has a compact and adequate farm. The 
 migrants then move to another district, where similar provi- 
 sion has been made for them. 
 
 It will be seen that the whole problem is infinitely com- 
 plicated. It is necessary to recolonize the west of Ireland, 
 and as the* greater part of the land is still owned by landlords, 
 the operation is difficult. Rather may we say that under 
 present conditions it is hopeless. Every man in Great Britain 
 whose opinion is recognized as sound is convinced now that 
 the solution of the Irish land question, and particularly of the 
 terrible problem of the West, can be found only in abolishing 
 the archaic system of Irish landlordism and establishing the 
 peasants as proprietors of the land they till. 
 
 On my first trip to the West I was rather astonished to 
 find that the train consisted of more than a dozen carriages, 
 and that the third-class compartments were crowded with 
 sturdy-looking men. Having heard of the poverty of the 
 districts into which I was going, I was not prepared to see 
 such heavy passenger traffic. Surely these men had not been 
 away for a holiday? At a junction station a broad- 
 shouldered, bearded man, with a heavy bundle hanging on 
 his shoulder, cheerfully enlightened me. 
 
 "Sure, sir, we've all been over in England workin'," he 
 said. "Some have been gone three months, some six. I've 
 been away since April myself, and there's twenty good 
 pounds in me pocket this blessed minute to pay the rent an' 
 buy a bit of bacon an' that for the winter." 
 
 "But what do you go to England for? Why not stay 
 on your own farm and work that?" 
 
 "Ay, why not? You're a nice spoken gentleman, but 
 beggin' yer pardon, it's little you know of our country. I 
 can see that. Why don't we stay here? God save you, sir, 
 an' do you think we go to England because we like it? Is 
 
78 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 it likely we'd leave our own farms if so be we'd get food an' 
 clothes an' rent by stayin' ? Bad luck to it, we go because 
 we have to. My boy's away in America, so there's only the 
 old woman an' me, an' I have to leave half the year an' 
 work in a furrin' land — England, mind ye — to get the money 
 we need." 
 
 "Then why not go to England altogether?" 
 
 The big man turned and looked over the desolate coun- 
 try. The winter dusk was falling swiftly and the outlines 
 of the hills were indistinct, but we could, still see the empty 
 land and feel its rugged unkindness. Yet the man's voice 
 was very tender as he spoke. 
 
 "Twenty miles on," he said, "there's a bit of a cabin 
 and a bit of land. In that cabin I was born and on that land 
 my father worked. Is it like, now, that I'd leave it to live 
 in England or anywhere else? Man, have ye got a home? 
 It's a rough place at the best, and not all the muscles I've 
 got can dig a livin' out of it. But, God be good to me, I love 
 it, sir." 
 
 I learned much more at other times from men and writ- 
 ings concerning this yearly migration of the workers, but the 
 great truth of it lay in the simple words of this rugged toiler. 
 They love their land, these Irish ! 
 
 Consider what they do. They occupy little barren 
 patches, where even with prosperous seasons life is a struggle. 
 They know they cannot, howsoever great their industry, feed 
 and clothe themselves from the products of the soil. They 
 know that every spring the strongest of the family must go 
 away and work among strangers. Yet when the hard task is 
 over, when they have painfully saved the pennies earned, 
 they come back to the old places and fight through the cruel 
 winter with the earnings of their sacrifice. 
 
 According to the returns compiled by the Board of 
 Trade, 24,438 persons migrated from Connaught alone in 
 1902. It is estimated that they brought back average earn- 
 ings of $37.50, or a total of $916,425. That amounts to 
 twenty-seven and one-half per cent, of the entire rent of the 
 province, and has to be earned outside of the country. There 
 are 31,873 families in Connaught whose holdings are worth 
 less than $20 a year. Therefore, nearly every one of these 
 
CONGESTION AND MIGRATION 79 
 
 families had to send a member to England to earn the neces- 
 saries of life for the winter. A few facts regarding definite 
 localities will illustrate how grievous is the condition which 
 entails this unnatural system of migratory labor. One priest 
 in Donegal reported a few years ago that out of 7000 persons 
 in his parish 1000 had to spend several months of each year 
 away from home. Some went to the more prosperous coun- 
 ties in the east of Ireland, the greater number to England. 
 From the district of Rathmore, Kerry, the priest reported, 
 200 to 300 girls left in the middle of March and did not 
 return until December 1. Perhaps the worst feature of the 
 system is that it does not spare the women, nor even the 
 children. A special correspondent of the London Times 
 reported that the migrants included "practically every man, 
 boy and girl able to work." 
 
 "It cannot be regarded as satisfactory or desirable," he 
 said, "to perpetuate a social condition in which it is needful 
 for children of ages varying from nine to fifteen years to leave 
 their homes and be employed chiefly in agricultural work in 
 distant places without care or oversight." 
 
 If the reader will remember that we are talking of 
 human beings, of women and children, he will find nothing 
 "dry" in the formal reports and figures dealing with this 
 question. The Bessborough Commission stated : 
 
 "The condition of the poorer tenants in numerous parts 
 of Ireland, where it is said they are not able, if they had the 
 land gratis, to live by cultivating it, is by some thought to 
 be an almost insoluble problem." 
 
 The O'Connor Don, a member of that commission, 
 added this: 
 
 "There are portions of Ireland in which the land is so 
 bad and is so thickly populated that the questions of tenure 
 and rent are mere trifles. If the present occupiers had the 
 land forever and for nothing, they could not, in the best of 
 years, live decently, and in bad years they must be in a state 
 of starvation." 
 
 Mr. P. W. Coyne, superintendent of statistics in the 
 Department of Agriculture, wrote two years ago: 
 
 "They (the migratory laborers) are not, properly 
 speaking, agricultural laborers at all. They are as a class 
 
80 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 small landholders, or the wives, sons and daughters of small 
 landholders. Were it not for the annual migration to Eng- 
 land and Scotland, these poor people, low as their standard 
 of comfort is, certainly could not make ends meet." 
 The Congested Districts Board report says : 
 "In a good year they are little more than free from the 
 dread of hunger, while a complete or partial failure of their 
 crop involves, as a consequence, proportionately greater or 
 less suffering from insufficient food." 
 
 Now for some eloquent figures concerning the migra- 
 tion in this year 1902. From Mayo county, 18,838 men 
 went to England and Scotland. They represented thirty- 
 six per cent, of the adult male population and forty-five 
 per cent, of the adult population engaged in agriculture. 
 The figures from some of the districts are even more startling. 
 The following table shows the total migration from the dis- 
 tricts named and the percentage of the total adult male popu- 
 lation represented : 
 
 Migrants. Per cent. 
 
 Swinford 5919 59 
 
 Castlerea 4560 50 
 
 Westport 3056 49 
 
 Claremorris 3411 50 
 
 Castlebar 2173 41 
 
 Year after year they leave their homes, their families 
 and their friends, and go far away, among strangers, to 
 gather with bitter toil the money for the winter's food. And 
 the returning season always finds them back, clinging dog- 
 gedly to the barren soil. The man on the station platform 
 was right. 
 
 "God be good to them, they love the land." 
 
JOHN FITZGIBBON. 
 
 IMPROVEMENTS ON CLARE ISLAND (See Page 133). 
 
XI 
 
 THE WAR ON LIBERTY 
 
 We sat, John Fitzgibbon and I, on either side of his 
 big fireplace, where the turf embers glowed redly. My mind 
 pictured again the country I had ridden through, the fair 
 lands where there are only the scars of leveled homesteads, 
 and the cruel barrens where men and women strive in helpless 
 misery. It was good to think that this man with the sturdy 
 frame and rugged, honest face and straight-thinking brain 
 had devoted himself to the people. Yet it seemed a pity, too, 
 that the state which rules this country should have made him 
 and his kind implacable enemies of the system of govern- 
 ment. The authorities had tried to brand him a criminal, 
 and even now, as I saw with my own eyes, he is tracked by 
 police as though he were plotting violence. Here was 
 a man of solid sense, honest in every fiber, his training 
 and his social position influencing him toward conservatism. 
 By his own efforts he had built up a prosperous business, the 
 success of which he endangered every hour he remained 
 actively in politics. Why should such a man be subjected to 
 harassment, to persecution, to the indignity of convict stripes? 
 Was he really a menace to' the peace of the empire or the 
 lives and property of the King's subjects? I asked him those 
 questions, and his answer came at once, without a show of 
 resentment. 
 
 > "You see these two hands?" he said, holding them 
 forth. "I would give them both, if the need came, to save 
 the life of the worst landlord in Ireland. Yet with these 
 hands I have broken stone and picked oakum as a common 
 criminal. It is charged that I am a dangerous person. Oh, 
 I tell you, the officials of the English government are fools 
 that they pursue such methods! They sneer at Ireland 
 because she is disloyal, and all the while they use the utmost 
 endeavor and ingenuity to make her disloyal." 
 
 6 81 
 
82 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 "Tell me why you have been in prison." 
 
 "Would that interest Americans? Well, perhaps it 
 would. From all I know of your country, I don't think they 
 understand this part of our system. In spite of my interests 
 as a merchant, which ought to make me cautious, I have been 
 unable to keep out of this land fight. You'll understand that 
 because I know the people, I live among them and see their 
 sufferings day by day. Well, my first offense was in 1887, 
 in a speech at a public meeting. There had been some evic- 
 tions that were not justified, and there was a good deal of 
 feeling over the matter. Some of the people were bitter 
 because certain men had been selling food to the police in 
 charge of the empty houses. When I spoke of the evictions 
 a man in the audience cried out: 'How about those who are 
 supplying milk to the police?' There was a laugh, and I 
 thought best to pass over the question as a joke. So I said: 
 T don't know anything about the milk, but I am inclined to 
 think they won't get much cream.' There was another laugh, 
 and the subject was dropped. I got a month at hard labor 
 for that." 
 
 "In the name of Gilbert and Sullivan, why and how?" 
 
 "You know how the police watch public meetings? 
 One of them, supposed to be an expert shorthand writer, is 
 sent to the meeting. He is surrounded by a guard of police- 
 men armed with rifles, who force a way for him, if necessary, 
 until he is close to the speakers. He takes every word as 
 spoken — or swears he does. His report goes to the police 
 authorities, who prosecute whenever they desire to harass a 
 man or check his influence or frighten the people. I was 
 arrested. 
 
 <* "Now for the system. The district had been pro- 
 claimed, under the Crimes Act, and the ordinary privileges 
 of defense were suspended. I was tried by two magistrates, 
 sent down by Dublin Castle, paid by Dublin Castle, remov- 
 able by Dublin Castle. The witnesses were the police, paid by 
 Dublin Castle. Jury trial was denied me. The two castle 
 magistrates had summary jurisdiction. I was charged with 
 intimidating public officers in discharge of their duty and 
 inciting a boycott against them. I was sentenced to one 
 month at hard labor. There was no appeal from the decision 
 
THE WAR ON LIBERTY 83 
 
 on points of fact. I was taken from my wife and family and 
 business and sent to Castlebar jail, where I was put in stripes 
 and placed among thieves and drunkards and criminals of the 
 most degraded type. I was put to breaking stone, picking 
 oakum and other burdensome work. For the first three days 
 my breakfast and supper were bread and water, my dinner a 
 mixture of oatmeal and Indian meal. After that I had the 
 regular fare, including coarse soup three times a week, pota- 
 toes twice a week, a little milk daily and a fixed amount of 
 bread, but no meat. During the whole month I slept on a 
 bare plank bench." 
 
 "And your sole offense was the remark you quoted?" 
 "As I'm a living man, it was. I hadn't been out of 
 prison long when they were after me again. At a sale of 
 cattle, which had been seized from a poor man for non- 
 payment of rent, I made a speech denouncing the system of 
 landlordism. I didn't utter a word more radical than you 
 can hear any day at meetings in England or Scotland, or in 
 the House of Commons itself. There was no thought or 
 effect of inciting to crime, as was charged. It was a purely 
 political speech, dealing with conditions, not persons. But 
 I was sentenced to four months, without hard labor. Again 
 I was put in stripes and picked oakum under guard. I con- 
 formed to all the rules, until one morning a warder roughly 
 ordered myself and three other political prisoners to perform 
 a certain menial and degrading task, though there were 
 plenty of criminals there who might properly have been sent 
 to do it. We refused, were summoned before the governor 
 and he condemned us to twenty-four hours on bread and 
 water. A man can stand a day on starvation fare, but that 
 was not the worst of the punishment. My cell was stripped 
 bare, even the printed rules being taken from the wall, with 
 the bench and plank bed. I was not allowed out for exer- 
 cise, but was locked all the time in that bare, cramped space 
 alone. No light was permitted, and as this was in January, 
 I was in darkness from four o'clock in the afternoon until 
 eight the next morning. At eight in the evening they put in 
 the plank bed and then I could lie down. During this term 
 I slept on the plank for a month. 
 
 "I had been out of prison just a fortnight when a new 
 
84 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 charge was brought up. During a busy day some one called 
 my attention to a policeman in the crowd in my shop. I 
 asked him what he wanted, and he said he was there on duty. 
 I told him he had no right there without a warrant, and led 
 him to the door. He returned and took away with him a 
 woman who had been standing at a counter. She was the 
 wife of a man who had grabbed an evicted farm. I was 
 accused of refusing to sell her goods. As a matter of fact, 
 I had not seen her at all. The sentence was six months, but 
 I appealed to Judge O'Connor Morris, of the County Court, 
 on questions of law, and he reduced it two months. There 
 was no further appeal, so I went to jail again. During the 
 year I was seven months in the stripes of a criminal. I had 
 done nothing but denounce a system which is cruel and unjust, 
 and which the English government now confesses must be 
 swept away." 
 
 But the police are not yet satisfied, and a few weeks ago 
 they tried to send this man to prison for six months. By his 
 sheer, dogged will and unflinching honesty he whipped the 
 agents of persecution in their own court. 
 
 "That was the time our friend Reilly, who followed us 
 this afternoon," he said, "made his bid for promotion." 
 
 I have the record of this case, and will give it as briefly 
 as may be. On August 13 Mr. Fitzgibbon attended an evic- 
 tion on the estate of Lord de Freyne, so as to assist any 
 tenants who needed his help. Afterward, as he could not 
 learn where the next eviction would take place and as he 
 wanted to be present, he followed the agent and bailiffs in 
 his cart. While they drove along the country roads the agent 
 was preceded and followed by a dozen policemen on bicycles, 
 the district inspector and a subordinate riding in a cart. At 
 a certain point in the road Mr. Fitzgibbon. finding that the 
 police were blocking his path purposely, drove past the 
 inspector, taking the wrong side of the road because he was 
 forced to, and so got among the bicycles. There was almost 
 a collision. The zealous Reilly leaped from his wheel and 
 seized the horse's bridle. Mr. Fitzgibbon struck the animal 
 with his whip and urged it forward, but when the inspector 
 called out to him to stop he did so. The official charged him 
 with trying to run down the policemen. Mr. Fitzgibbon 
 
THE WAR ON LIBERTY 85 
 
 declared he had no such intention, and the explanation was 
 apparently accepted. Later he was arrested, charged with 
 obstructing and assaulting the police in the discharge of their 
 duties. 
 
 Conducting his own defense, Mr. Fitzgibbon had all 
 the witnesses excluded from the court room except the one 
 under examination. It was well he did so. Reilly swore the 
 defendant struck at him with the whip, and all the policemen 
 agreed that the assault and obstruction took place. Bat in 
 important details the stories varied grotesquely. The crown- 
 ing point was reached when the policeman riding with the 
 inspector admitted that his superior had ordered him to turn 
 their horse and block the road against the civilian. There 
 the witness flatly contradicted the inspector and proved that 
 the obstruction was a police offense. I wish there were space 
 here for Mr. Fitzgibbon's summing up in his own behalf. It 
 was worthy of a King's counsel. I must give one paragraph, 
 if only to show how a country storekeeper in Ireland can 
 defend his liberties in a hostile court: 
 
 "Now, your Worships, what have these proceedings 
 unfolded? To any impartial mind it is evident that a delib- 
 erate and unlawful conspiracy has been formed to deprive 
 me of my liberty. I am one of the King's subjects, and you 
 have no evidence to show why an attack should be made upon 
 me more than upon any other man, even yourselves upon the 
 bench, to deprive me of what I value as highly as any other 
 man. I do not intend to delay you at any length in prefacing 
 my summary of the evidence, but I do say it is a sad state of 
 things in this unfortunate country of ours when the men who 
 should be the examples of law and order, of honor and 
 uprightness can come into this court and tell the tales you 
 have listened to, not one of which corroborated the others. 
 
 "Respect for the law! In any well-governed country 
 the aim of every citizen, and more particularly those in 
 charge of the peace, should be to administer the law justly, j 
 And if you want to gain respect for the law, you must admin- | 
 ister it in such fashion that the poorest peasant in his cottage I 
 will feel that he has its protection just as much as the lord 
 in his castle. What has this case shown? It has been \ 
 actually nothing more than an inquiry into the conduct of 
 
' 86 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 the police and their methods of dealing with political oppo- 
 nents. I am certainly recognized as a political opponent of 
 the present government, but that is no reason why unfair 
 means should be resorted to in order to remove me." 
 
 "The charges were dismissed," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. 
 "But I suppose they will get me again some time. You saw 
 this afternoon how I am dogged by the police. There is one 
 on guard in front of my place of business all the time. I 
 cannot go on the street or drive into the country without 
 having a uniform at my heels. They even watch members 
 of my family. They have followed us to> mass on Sunday 
 morning." 
 
 "But," I said, "how can you talk calmly of a system 
 which may drive you into prison at any time?" 
 
 The face of John Fitzgibbon was gravely thoughtful 
 for a moment. Then he said: 
 
 "I value my liberty as much as any man. Perhaps more 
 i than others, because I have suffered, and my wife and chil- 
 dren have suffered. But I will not abate one lawful act or 
 word to save myself from persecution, if that act or word 
 can serve the people I fight for. Some of us must endure 
 that all may some day be free." 
 
 It was said so quietly and simply that I could not reply 
 for a moment. But I was curious to know how far these 
 experiences had embittered this man. 
 
 "Supposing that the land question were settled and gov- 
 ernment abuses abolished," I asked, "would it be possible for 
 England to win back the loyalty of Ireland?" 
 
 A look of whimsical despair showed in his face. 
 
 "God bless you," he said, "it's more to England's 
 service than ours to give us justice. I and men like me are 
 the best friends England has, did the fools but realize it. 
 We risk our fortunes and our liberties to bring about a settle- 
 ment of this question. They know that the settlement will 
 benefit them, and they imprison us. YetT believe that when 
 justice is done to Ireland the empire will have no more loyal 
 supporters than those the government is persecuting to-day. 
 There is not on the face of the earth a more peaceable race 
 than the Irish, no- race more forgiving, none more capable 
 of affection where it is deserved." 
 
THE WAR ON LIBERTY 87 
 
 One thing is clear, England is better served by men like 
 John Fitzgibbon than Ireland is by England's Lord Lieu- 
 tenants. 
 
 For a further understanding of what coercion in Ireland 
 means, I commend study of another case against John Fitz- 
 gibbon. He has served four terms of imprisonment, and 
 may, therefore, be taken as a type of the "hardened crimi- 
 nal." It will be interesting to examine one of the recent 
 crimes which his Majesty's government thought so heinous 
 as to merit severe penalty. 
 
 ( For utterances made at a public meeting at Gortaganny 
 on January 12, 1902, Mr. Fitzgibbon was condemned by 
 Dublin Castle magistrates. He appealed, on the ground of 
 new evidence, and on March 17 his case was reviewed by 
 Judge Morris. With the utmost indifference to his own fate 
 he simply addressed the court on behalf of the oppressed 
 tenants. For simple, touching eloquence and unselfish devo^ 
 tion his speech was a little masterpiece. A few paragraphs 
 will illustrate the stamp of the man whom the government 
 would make a felon : 
 
 "The case to be presented to you," he said, "is not so 
 much in my own behalf as in behalf of the tenants. I have 
 no desire to> go to prison again, as, if I am convicted, this 
 will be my fourth term in jail. There is no man more 
 attached to his home and family than I am. Yet I do not 
 present this case with a view to lessening the sentence imposed 
 upon me by the lower court. My object will be to place 
 before your Honor the true facts leading up to the action 
 condemned." 
 
 I have described the campaign instituted by the tenants 
 of the de Freyne and Murphy estates. Living in abject 
 misery within sight of the prosperous tenants on the Dillon 
 estate, which was purchased by the Congested Districts 
 Board, these men determined to agitate for a reduction in 
 their own rents. Mr. Fitzgibbon tried to prevent a general 
 refusal to pay rent. He failed, and then was in duty bound 
 to 1 assist in the campaign. The Crown Prosecutor charged 
 that "other means" should have been resorted to, "but," said 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon, "I will show your Honor that I practically 
 
88 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 exhausted all other means before I took part in these radical 
 measures." 
 
 Beginning with 1894, when he made a personal appeal 
 to Chief Secretary John Morley, Mr. Fitzgibbon described 
 the efforts he had made during the succeeding years to aid 
 the unfortunate tenants. He made strong recommendations 
 as a witness before a committee of the House of Commons 
 in 1896. Even as late as the summer of 1901 he tried again. 
 Learning that Chief Secretary Wyndham was on a secret 
 visit to Castlerea, the merchant called on him. 
 
 "I wanted to see," he said, "what could be done for 
 these poor tenants or whether there was any hope for their 
 cause. I went to Mr. Wyndham to give him information 
 which I thought he would be glad to receive. His secretary 
 asked my name and business, which I gave promptly. x-\fter 
 a few minutes I was told Mr. Wyndham was in a great hurry 
 and could not see me, SO' I could do nothing more than send 
 him a copy of the evidence I gave in the House of Commons. 
 I never heard from Mr. Wyndham, except through the pres- 
 ent proceedings to put me in prison. I just mention this to 
 show that it is a foolish idea to think Irishmen need not go 
 beyond the ordinary means of drawing attention to Irish 
 grievances. Some agitation similar to the one we are 
 engaged in at present on these estates is absolutely necessary 
 before you can fasten on the people who undertake to know 
 our business better than we do ourselves." 
 
 After picturing in vivid terms the wretched condition of 
 the tenants for whom he was fighting, the defendant finished 
 thus: 
 
 "If you see your way to confine me in Sligo jail for 
 trying to improve the condition of these poor people, I shall 
 go cheerfully, because I believe that proceedings of this kind 
 and the imprisonment of men who, if properly treated, would 
 be as law-abiding as any Englishmen, will mean another step 
 in solving the Irish land question." 
 
 Now, the most remarkable feature of the case was this : 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon was condemned not for the speech of Jan- 
 uary 12, which was the only one mentioned in the summons, 
 but for the reason that violent speeches were made at pre- 
 vious meetings by other persons. Judge Morris explained 
 
A PRETTY IRISH COTTAGE. 
 
 SPINNING. 
 
THE WAR ON LIBERTY 89 
 
 this remarkable provision of the coercion laws with great 
 unction. He said: 
 
 "I am not at all surprised that Mr. Fitzgibbon and 
 Mr. Webb (another defendant) think it a hardship and 
 injustice that previous assemblies of the same kind as that of 
 January 1 2 are taken in evidence in reference to the meeting 
 named. But that is the law and common sense — the acts and 
 speeches at the previous meetings are admissible as showing 
 the character and application of the meeting named in the 
 charge." 
 
 The judge then went over in detail the records of meet- 
 ings held on November 10, November 17 and December 29, 
 1 90 1. At the first u a very violent speech" was made by 
 Conor O'Kelly, M. P. But mark the judicial reference to the 
 defendant: 
 
 "On that occasion Mr. Fitzgibbon made a speech — and that is 
 the only evidence I will admit against him — to which no great 
 exception could be taken. Really there was not very much in that 
 speech. On November 17 he said the people were to keep a tight 
 hold of the money in their pockets. There is also an observation 
 about grabbers and talk about striking blows, fighting and so on. 
 That is not a very bad speech. On December 29 Mr. Webb said they 
 would light a fire which the de Freynes and Murphys would not 
 quench. [No speech by Mr. Fitzgibbon.] 
 
 "Now, if the meeting of January 12 stood alone, I think there 
 would be very little to complain against these gentlemen; but, of 
 course, the law officers of the Crown know perfectly well that all 
 these antecedent meetings are evidence respecting the meeting of 
 January 12. On January 12 Mr. Fitzgibbon made some strong 
 remarks about appeals taken from me to the Judge of Assize. 
 There was no very strong observation, but they talked about a fight 
 and not minding the plank bed in prison, and they said Lord de 
 Freyne and others would have to bundle and go. All these assem- 
 blies, and what took place after them, and the speeches made at 
 them must be taken, one and all, as part of what took place on Jan- 
 uary 12, as showing the quality and character of the meeting." \ 
 
 From these judicial remarks it is plain that Mr. Fitz- 
 gibbon was condemned, not for what he said himself — that 
 was trifling, the judge admitted — but for the speeches of 
 Conor O'Kelly and others, and the acts of meetings held 
 months before that named in the summons. Judge Morris 
 continued with a remarkable denunciation of the land pur- 
 chase schemes carried out under the law. Indeed, he trans- 
 gressed himself the laws which he invoked against the prison- 
 ers. Furthermore, he said: 
 
9 o PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 "I admired Mr. Fitzgibbon's speech in court very much, 
 and with a great deal of it I thoroughly agree. In this coun- 
 try abuses grow up, and concessions, as a rule, are extorted 
 only by agitation. That has been the history of this country 
 since 1782." 
 
 Nevertheless, the defendants had to suffer for adopting 
 means which the judge confessed were necessary. He con- 
 firmed the sentence of the castle magistrates — two months 
 in prison and bail for two months more. 
 
 "Will these gentlemen consent to find bail?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, no, your Honor," replied Mr. Fitzgibbon. "It 
 just means imprisonment for four months." 
 
 The answer illustrates the spirit of the men who are 
 fighting the battles of the tenants. By obtaining bail Mr. 
 Fitzgibbon might have saved himself two months' imprison- 
 ment. He preferred to suffer rather than admit, by giving 
 bail, that he had transgressed the law. Surely this honest 
 country merchant is a type of the "village Hampden," whom 
 it is folly to attempt to crush. He served his four months in 
 prison, but every day he spent in a cell struck off many days 
 from the time which stands between Ireland oppressed and 
 Ireland free. 
 
XII 
 *WHAT COERCION IS 
 
 As this letter is written, nearly fifty prominent Irishmen 
 are in prison or awaiting trial for political offenses, and the 
 Lord Lieutenant only knows how many more are bound 
 thither. Let the reader who is tired of the dry details of the 
 land question ponder on this interesting fact for a little. 
 According to American law, these men have committed no 
 crimes. The statutes under which Englishmen enjoy liberty 
 do not accuse them. They are stamped criminals because 
 they dared to denounce legalized robbery and agitate for 
 legal remedy. They are subjected to confinement, hardship 
 and degradation because they have talked politics, advised 
 co-operation against injustice and assailed a rotten system of 
 spoliation. 
 
 This is the fruit of one hundred years of "union." It 
 is not enough that Ireland should be governed by foreigners 
 — for such in truth the English are by their own proud 
 admission; it is not enough that her people should have 
 suffered grievously by class laws, until the very soil cries out 
 in agony; but to this must be added a campaign against 
 liberty, and into the wounds of conquest and injustice must 
 be rubbed the salt of insolence and tyranny. 
 
 Representative public men of Ireland recently visited 
 America, and at their meetings appeals were made for a 
 defense fund. It was declared that the British government 
 was seeking, through a system of "coercion," to- crush the 
 agitation for justice. What did this mean? The word is 
 simple enough. Our laws apply coercion every day. The 
 thief, the murderer, the criminal of whatever sort, feels the 
 heavy hand of society upon his shoulder and hears the grim 
 order, "Stop !" But in Ireland who are coerced, and why 
 I append a list of some of the victims at this date. Some 
 are in prison, others are awaiting trial or sentence, some have 
 
 *This chapter was written in Dublin, in January, 1903. 
 
 91 
 
9 2 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 been released after serving their terms, but all the cases are 
 actually of last year, 1902 : 
 
 WILLIAM H. K. KEDMOND, M. P., six months. 
 
 MICHAEL BEDDY. M. P., seven months. 
 
 WILLIAM DUFFY, M. P., three months. 
 
 JOHISr ROCHE* M. P., four months' hard labor; two months 
 added in default of bail; and again summoned. 
 
 J. P. FABEELL, M. P., proprietor of the Longford Leader, nve 
 months' hard labor. . 
 
 P. A. McHUGH, M. P., editor oi the Shgo Champion, two 
 months ; had already served three months. 
 
 JOHN O'DONNELL. M. P., six months; fifth term m prison. 
 
 E HAVILAND-BUBKE, M. P.. one month hard l^or 
 
 WILLIAM LOWBY, chairman of Bier Poor Law Board, nve 
 
 months. 
 
 MICHAEL HOGAN, three months. 
 
 M GLENXOX. United Irish League organizer, three months. 
 
 DANIEL POWELL, editor of the Midland Tribune, tour 
 
 m0I1 DENIS KILBBIDE, ex-M. P., now serving four months; just 
 tried and sentenced to four months more. 
 
 CAEEOLL NAGLE, six weeks. 
 
 JAMES LYNAM, six months. 
 
 EODOLPHUS MAKER, two months. 
 
 JOSEPH GAXTLEY. two months. 
 
 THOMAS SEABSON. six weeks. 
 
 JAMES MURNANE, rive weeks. . 
 
 J. A. O'SULLIYAX, United Irish League organizer, three 
 
 months. 
 
 AXDEEW HOLOHAX. six weeks. 
 
 T McCAKTIIY. editor of the Irish People, two months. 
 
 T O'DWYEE, publisher of the Irish People, two months. 
 
 STEPHEN HOLLAND, foreman printer of the Irish Feople, 
 
 0116 T FLANAGAN. J. P.. Corofin. tour months" hard labor; driven 
 insane by imprisonment ; now in Limerick Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 MAETIN FINNEETY, six months' hard labor. 
 
 JOHN LOIIAN. three months' hard labor; two months added 
 
 in default of bail. 
 
 JAMES KILMAETIN. three months. 
 
 S. P. HAEEIS. six months. 
 
 DAVID SHEEHAN. four months. 
 
 B. McTEENAN. two months' hard labor. 
 
 M. O'DWYEE, five months. 
 
 H LYNAM, editor of the Waterford Star, two months. 
 
 P.' J. EAHILLY, United Irish League organizer, summoned tor 
 
 ria J. BUCKLEY, proprietor of the Limerick Leader, ten months' 
 
 hard DENIS JOHNSTON, served five months; recently summoned 
 on a new charge. 
 
 J. F. O'KEEFE, summoned. 
 
WHAT COERCION IS 93 
 
 P. J. MOXAGHAX, summoned. 
 MICHAEL GAERICIC summoned. 
 J. G. GUILTY, awaiting sentence. 
 PATRICK FITZPATEICK, two months' hard labor. 
 THOMAS LARKIX, two months. 
 JOHX MITCHELL, two months' hard labor. 
 MPS. AXXE O'MAHOXY, a widow, proprietor of the Water- 
 ford Star, two months. 
 
 Now, what crimes had these men — and this widow — 
 committed? I am not able, unfortunately, to give the 
 charges in each case, but I am assured by men in whom I 
 have the highest confidence that not one of these persons by 
 act or word transgressed the ordinary laws recognized by the 
 courts and society. They are, in fact, victims of a special 
 statute passed with the distinct purpose of crushing free 
 speech and the free press, the provisions of the statute being 
 enforced by a system of summary trial and conviction. 
 I have called it martial law, and such it is in effect, though 
 not in name. The official title is "Criminal Law and 
 Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887," better known as the 
 Crimes Act. In the hands of the English administrators it 
 is an ingenious instrument of oppression. Technically, it is 
 directed against those who conspire to compel or induce any 
 person "not to let, hire, use or occupy any land, or not to 
 deal with, work for or hire any person or persons in the 
 ordinary course of trade"; against those "who shall wrong- 
 fully and without legal authority use violence or intimida- 
 tion" toward any person; against those who take part in any 
 riot or unlawful assembly, or who "incite any other person 
 to commit any of the offenses hereinbefore mentioned." 
 
 In plain terms, as will be seen, the act is intended to 
 discourage boycotting, intimidation and violence against those 
 who take advantage of the unjust land laws and assist in 
 depriving the people of their lands. So far so good. These 
 crimes are abhorrent to every lover of fair play, and should 
 be punished by due process of law. But in the last para- 
 graph quoted the authorities have a weapon placed in their 
 hands by which they can thrust into prison any person 
 obnoxious to themselves or their friends, provided he is brave 
 enough to make a speech or write an article denouncing the 
 land system. In the act the term "intimidation" is defined 
 
94 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 as including "any words or acts intended and calculated to 
 put any person in fear of any injury or danger to himself, or 
 to any member of his family, or to any person in his employ- 
 ment, or in fear of any injury to or loss of property, business, 
 employment or means of living." This is elastic enough, 
 surely. But add the paragraph about "inciting" to these acts, 
 and the law becomes a sweeping prohibition of ordinary 
 political discussion. For, it should be explained, it is not 
 necessary to prove that any person has actually been placed 
 in fear of loss or injury. In scores of cases the accused is 
 charged with uttering words "calculated to intimidate persons 
 unknown," and scores of convictions have been obtained 
 where it was not shown that any person presumably con- 
 cerned ever heard of or read the expressions referred to. 
 Hence men have been sent to prison for expressing by voice 
 or pen sentiments which "intimidated" persons who were 
 quite ignorant of the utterances. 
 
 Yet the amazing substance of the law is less obnoxious 
 to free institutions, if that is possible, than the manner of its 
 administration. The Crimes Act, while always available, is 
 put in force by proclamation. When, therefore, political 
 opposition to the government becomes so active in any district 
 that the authorities deem it expedient to check public discus- 
 sion, that district is "proclaimed" by the Lord Lieutenant 
 and his Privy Council. By simply writing his noble name at 
 the end of a proclamation he imposes upon the obnoxious 
 district these conditions: 
 
 Trial by jury suspended. 
 
 Armed police attend every public meeting, taking notes 
 of the speeches. 
 
 Every utterance in an opposition newspaper is subjected 
 to scrutiny, and every sentence which can be construed as 
 unlawful, under the astounding terms of the Crimes Act, is 
 made an excuse for prosecution. 
 
 The police furnish the witnesses. 
 
 The persons accused are tried by two magistrates, who 
 are appointed, paid and removable by Dublin Castle. 
 
 The prosecutor is an official sent to the scene of trial by 
 Dublin Castle. 
 
 The castle magistrates have summary jurisdiction, and 
 
WHAT COERCION IS 95 
 
 almost invariably condemn the prisoners, the maximum sen- 
 tence being six months' hard labor. 
 
 I have said that this in effect is martial law, and I give 
 these facts in support of the statement. If further proof is 
 needed, let me add something else. The castle magistrates, 
 through a grotesque revival of a long obsolete statute, can 
 summarily bring before them any person they choose and 
 put him under bonds. An act passed in the reign of Edward 
 III, at a "Parliament held at Westminster on the Sunday 
 next before the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, A. D. 
 1360-61," is the instrument. By it magistrates are empow- 
 ered to "take and arrest all those that they may find by indict- 
 ment or by suspicion and to put them in prison, and to take 
 all of them that be of good fame, where they shall be found, 
 sufficient surety and mainprise for their good behavior toward 
 the King and his people, and others duly to punish." It is 
 worthy of casual notice that the act originally read, as here 
 translated from the archaic French, "Touz ceux qui sont de 
 bone fame." Of course, it meant "all those who are not of 
 good fame," and the missing word was easily supplied. 
 
 When a too free-spoken man is arraigned under this act 
 he cannot defend himself. Judge Gibson, in the case of Rice 
 vs. Halpin, February 26, 1901, said: "The authorities com- 
 pel us to decide that in the case of sureties for good behavior 
 evidence on behalf of the defendant cannot be heard. The 
 result is most unfortunate." 
 
 If there were space, I could quote a dozen judges who, 
 in. addressing grand juries recently, commented upon the 
 extraordinary absence of crime. Yet the Lord Lieutenant 
 has proclaimed twenty-one of the thirty-two counties of Ire- 
 land, including the city of Dublin, and in these twenty-one 
 counties the Crimes Act form of martial law is in force. A 
 word must be added concerning the amazing powers of the 
 police. The Royal Irish Constabulary is virtually a body of 
 soldiers. This huge force, which is paid for by the Irish 
 people, is controlled absolutely from London, through Dublin 
 Castle. Detachments are quartered in towns and villages as 
 -ordered from headquarters. 
 
 These military police have powers which in free coun- 
 tries, such as America and England, are vested only in the 
 
96 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 courts and are hedged about with many legal restrictions. 
 They can summarily enter any newspaper office or news-stand 
 and confiscate such papers as they desire. They can, without 
 proclamation, prohibit any meeting. They can force their 
 way into any public gathering, drag the speakers from the 
 platform and disperse the citizens present, using force if they 
 so desire. In a word, the English police in Ireland can sup- 
 press free speech at will. The people have only two means 
 of meeting this power : They can submit or they can suffer 
 imprisonment. It is a proof of the courage and devotion of 
 the leaders that many of them persist in denouncing injustice 
 and accept cheerfully the penalties. 
 
 I have tried to show that coercion in Ireland is a system 
 which would cause Englishmen to rise up and sweep the 
 government out of existence. They would not submit for a 
 single day to the tyranny which their officials inflict upon the 
 Irish people. In support of this statement I quote Mr. T. W. 
 Russell, M. P., who, as I have stated, is a Scotchman, a 
 Protestant and an opponent of Home Rule. In a speech at 
 Leith, Scotland, he described the conditions in the west of 
 Ireland, due to the atrocious land system, declaring that it 
 "is a sin against God's law — a crime against humanity." 
 He continued : 
 
 "But if I said this in County Mayo I should be haled 
 before two Crimes Act magistrates. I should get three 
 months with hard labor for saying it, and I should get three 
 additional months if I failed to give bail that I would not 
 say it again. This is an absolutely correct description of the 
 facts and of the law. Gentlemen, it is a state of affairs such 
 as this which drives Irish-born men to frenzy, which makes 
 a mere 'unspeakable Scot' like myself hang his head in shame 
 when he thinks of what is called the government of Ireland." 
 
 This is the opinion of a member of the British Parlia- 
 ment, a man who for years has fought for the maintenance 
 of the Union as against Home Rule. I shall now give some 
 specific instances showing how coercion is applied. First let 
 me illustrate the attitude of some of the judges toward liti- 
 gants, as set forth in official reports. At Castlerea, a few 
 weeks ago, Judge O'Connor Morris commented on some 
 eviction cases before him. Certain tenants on the de Freyne 
 
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 72 
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WHAT COERCION IS 97 
 
 and Murphy estates had refused to pay rents demanded. 
 Their excuse was that the rents were higher than the yearly 
 purchase instalments paid by tenants on the Dillon estate, 
 which had been bought by the Congested Districts Board and 
 was being resold to the farmers. Their purpose was, as 
 explained in previous letters, to bring the land question to a 
 focus and compel the attention, of the government. This is 
 how Judge Morris denounced "land purchase," admittedly 
 the only solution of the problem, and declared from the bench 
 it would be worthless : 
 
 "In my opinion, these tenants have a great and legiti- 
 mate grievance. It is due directly to the act of the executive 
 government, which chose what is called the selling of the 
 Dillon estate under a system absolutely falsely called land 
 purchase. But this is not the way to remedy the grievance — 
 stopping their rents and robbing the landlords. * * * 
 My opinion is there will be no land conference, and if there 
 were, it would end in a battle of smoke. It would be abso- 
 lutely worthless. Now, put that idea out of your head. 
 * * * This has reference to all the tenants in Ireland, 
 but particularly the tenants of this estate. My strong advice 
 to them, poor fools, is not to listen to ridiculous talk, but 
 simply to go about their business and till their farms and pay 
 their rents like honest men." 
 
 A grand jury at Mullingar, County Westmeath, two 
 months ago presented to Judge Curran a resolution respect- 
 fully protesting against the proclamation of the county under 
 the Crimes Act. The following dialogue ensued, as officially 
 reported : 
 
 Judge Curran — "This resolution is altogether outside your 
 business. Talking about a proclamation ! There are twenty-three 
 of you there, and let any man stand forward and say he has been 
 coerced in any way. Don't be talking about coercion. It is all 
 hum/bug! There is your precious resolution for you!" [The judge 
 then tore up the resolution and threw the pieces of paper toward 
 the grand jury.] 
 
 A Juror — "Might I say one word, your Honor?" 
 
 Judge Curran — "No; you are all discharged." 
 
 The Juror — "You said in your charge to us that there is boy- 
 cotting in the county. Let us know one single instance." 
 
 Judge Curran — "You are discharged now as a grand jury, and 
 if you talk in court I'll send you to jail." 
 
 Here are two charming examples of the judicial tem- 
 
 7 : , 
 
9* PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 perament as observed in the courts which try Irishmen. 
 And, of course, these judges are exempt from the provisions 
 of the Crimes Act. It would never do to hint that Judge 
 Morris to the tenants and Judge Curran to the grand jury 
 were guilty of intimidation. For English comment on the 
 latter case I quote from the London Speaker : 
 
 "It may be absurd to expect impartial conduct and 
 judicial pronouncements from the Irish county court judges ; 
 but as members of a learned profession they might, at least, 
 behave like gentlemen." 
 
 They might, indeed. But it is unfortunately true that 
 some officials of the English government in Ireland do not 
 consider that in their relations with the people they are bound 
 by the ordinary obligations of courtesy and justice. 
 
 There are many well-meaning folk who have only one 
 reply to all appeals made in behalf of Ireland, whether for 
 equitable land laws, self-government or any other measure 
 of justice long denied. 
 
 "Why is not Ireland submissive to the laws of the 
 empire?" they say. "How can a people who are notoriously 
 disloyal properly demand favor from a government toward 
 which they evince only insolence and hatred?" 
 
 It is true enough that Ireland is disloyal. No other 
 nation in the world exhibits such a terrible picture — virtually 
 a whole people openly sympathizing with the armed enemies 
 of the established government, rejoicing in the defeat of the 
 imperial arms and sorrowing for the downfall of the forces 
 which threatened the imperial supremacy. But upon whom 
 does this unhappy condition reflect dishonor? No blood tie 
 binds the Irish and the Boers, while there are many reasons 
 for peaceful union between the Irish and the British. Is it 
 reasonable to suppose that some inborn fanaticism has led 
 them to turn their backs upon their natural allies and applaud 
 the victories of aliens? This disloyalty is abnormal. The 
 only just course is to inquire into the causes which underlie it. 
 It is possible to conceive conditions wherein disloyalty is the 
 only attitude left for a self-respecting people. In such case, 
 should not criticism be directed at the system which forces 
 men into political rebellion rather than at the rebels them- 
 selves ? 
 
WHAT COERCION IS 99 
 
 While many features of English government in Ireland 
 are incitements to opposition, we are dealing here particularly 
 with coercion, that ingenious system of exasperation which is 
 daily widening the breach between the races. Coercion, as 
 shown, is the suspension of ordinary forms of law and the 
 substitution, under the cover of special statutes, of what is 
 practically martial law. This system is inflicted on a country 
 which is at peace, and where the records of the courts show 
 that crime is proportionately less than in England itself. 
 Does this appeal to the fair-minded man as an incentive to 
 loyalty ? 
 
 The Irish people to-day are subject to courts whose 
 prejudice is apparent, and they have been stripped of every 
 valuable protection guaranteed by the English law to the 
 subject. The great engine of coercion under the courts is 
 the Royal Irish Constabulary, an organized military garrison 
 responsible solely to London, and enforcing their will upon 
 the people by armed force. The police are censors of the 
 newspapers. The police have control over public meetings. 
 The police decide whether any gathering is lawful or unlaw- 
 ful. The police note every public utterance and declare it 
 permissible or not, as pleases them. The police make the 
 arrests, conduct the prosecutions and furnish the witnesses. 
 The testimony is passed upon and the sentences are inflicted, 
 without authority of juries, by police judges. 
 
 But we have not quite finished the tale of the police 
 functions, for sometimes they furnish the crimes, too. There 
 are cases on record where innocent men have been sent to 
 penal servitude for crimes committed by policemen who 
 sought promotion by making records for "efficiency." The 
 most notorious cases of this kind were those involving Ser- 
 geant Sheridan, who was naturally regarded as one of the 
 most useful officers in the constabulary. He was a member 
 of the force for twenty years, and won promotion by his 
 activity in making arrests and obtaining convictions. But 
 justice overtook him at last, and even Englishmen were hor- 
 rified to learn that in many cases he and his associates had 
 sworn away the liberties of innocent men, charging them 
 with crimes committed by the police. 
 
 An aged tramp — a man who could hardly walk and was 
 
ioo PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 nearly blind — was the unconscious means of Sheridan's undo- 
 ing. The policeman accused him of nailing a threatening 
 notice on the gate of a certain man, and swore that he had 
 seen the crime. Under cross-examination it was proved that 
 it was physically impossible for the witness to have seen the 
 act from the place he said he occupied. The prisoner was 
 discharged. The incident started an inquiry, and it was 
 proved that in at least three previous cases innocent men had 
 suffered. Daniel McGoohan was convicted in Sligo in 1897 
 of the cowardly crime of maiming cattle. This trial, by the 
 way, illustrates the tactics of the government when the Coer- 
 cion Act is not operative. A regular panel of jurors was sum- 
 moned, but no fewer than sixty of them were ordered to "stand 
 aside" by the Crown Prosecutor. No reason was given. 
 The government simply took this means of getting a jury that 
 would convict. It did convict, and McGoohan was sent into 
 penal servitude for two years. 
 
 Cornelius Bray was sentenced to three years' penal servi- 
 tude on a charge of burning a hayrick. 
 
 Patrick Murphy got six months at hard labor on the 
 charge of maliciously killing a donkey. 
 
 Every one of these crimes was committed by policemen, 
 who deliberately swore away the liberties of innocent men. 
 The government was forced to act. McGoohan was released, 
 and received $500 as compensation for his sufferings. Bray 
 was freed, but soon died, and his mother receives a pension of 
 $2.50 a week. Murphy was restored to his family and 
 accepted $125 damages. 
 
 The same police force is as active to-day in suppressing 
 free speech, gagging the press and swearing men into prison 
 on charges of "intimidation" in political speeches. Does the 
 record contain much to make loyalty an obligation on the 
 Irish people? These are the tactics which T. W. Russell has 
 said "drive Irishmen to frenzy" and make loyalists like him 
 hide their heads in shame. 
 
 But the injustice is not always so serious. The stupidity 
 of some of the governing class leads them into acts which 
 cannot accomplish any good to any one, and seem designed 
 only to exasperate needlessly the citizens of the country. I 
 came across such a case when visiting the County Mayo court 
 
WHAT COERCION IS 101 
 
 house at Castlebar recently. The County Council announced 
 a meeting of the body to transact regular business. Inci- 
 dentally, it was proposed to present to William O'Brien 
 addresses of commendation. Now, the court house was built, 
 of course, and is maintained by the public funds, and the 
 members of the County Council are elected by the people who 
 pay the taxes. Under the circumstances, it would seem that 
 the Council might transact any lawful business in their cham- 
 ber. But under an old statute, which was incorporated in the 
 Local Government Act, the actual custody of the court house 
 is vested in the High Sheriff of the county. This official in 
 Mayo is Sheriff Bingham, a son of Lord Lucan, one of the 
 great landlords. From him the secretary received the fol- 
 lowing remarkable letter: 
 
 "July 30, 1902. 
 "Sir: I see by the papers that a meeting of the Mayo County 
 Council is to be held in the court house at Castlebar on Saturday, 
 August 2, for the purpose of presenting an address to Mr. William 
 O'Brien, M. P. As from information I have received, I have come 
 to the conclusion that this meeting will partake of the nature of a 
 political demonstration, I feel it my duty to write and inform you 
 that such would be an improper and illegal use of the court house. 
 "Being, as High Sheriff, responsible for the custody and con- 
 trol of the building, I write, therefore, to give you notice that I am 
 unable to permit its use for any such purpose. I remain, 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 "BINGHAM, High Sheriff." 
 
 On the day announced for the meeting, sixty policemen, 
 carrying rifles, took possession of the chamber of the duly 
 elected County Council. This armed force prevented the 
 meeting of the people's representatives in the building sup- 
 ported by their taxes. 
 
 Yet the police cannot always be accused of activity. 
 When I first called upon T. W. Russell, M. P., in Dublin, 
 he was under the care of a doctor, having been assaulted by 
 an Anti-Home Rule mob in Dromore, County Down, 
 although he is an Anti-Home Ruler himself. The story of 
 his adventure will illustrate how the police, so vigilant in 
 suppressing the liberties of the people, deal with real crime. 
 
 Mr. Russell addressed a meeting of Ulster farmers on 
 November 19 regarding the land problem. Information 
 reached him in advance that men had been hired to break up 
 the gathering, and he requested the aid of the police in pre- 
 
102 PROBLEM OF THE LAND 
 
 serving order. No attention was paid to this. The meeting 
 began early in the evening. As soon as Mr. Russell rose to 
 speak gangs of rowdies surrounded the building, making 
 deafening noises with drums. Nevertheless, the meeting was 
 continued to the end. When Mr. Russell and his friends left 
 the hall they found the street filled with a rioting mob. 
 They took refuge in a store, but rather than expose the shop- 
 keeper to violence they left a few moments later. Mr. Rus- 
 sell was lifted into a wagon, and the driver tried to* force his 
 way through the mob. Stones and bricks showered upon 
 them, and Mr. Russell was knocked senseless. There were a 
 score of policemen within sight of the disturbance, but only 
 one of them made any attempt to protect the assaulted men. 
 It is indeed a pity that the Irish people are not loyal and 
 do not subscribe with enthusiasm to English rule. But some 
 explanation of their attitude may be found in the fact that 
 about the only visible representatives of government in the 
 country are courts which throttle liberty and a police force 
 which is used as an instrument of the most vindictive oppres- 
 sion. 
 
+■ 
 
 THE LAND PROBLEM 
 SOLVED 
 
 XIII 
 *AFTER SEVEN YEARS 
 
 Seven years ago the Philadelphia North American sent 
 a correspondent to Ireland to report upon the social, indus- 
 trial and political conditions which at that time made the 
 century-old "Irish question" an acute problem. To investi- 
 gate the matter at close range — first for the benefit of the 
 people of Ireland and their kin in America, but more particu- 
 larly for the enlightenment of the American public as a whole 
 ■ — the newspaper sent a reporter to the scene. For more than 
 a month the writer traveled in Ireland. He visited cities, 
 towns, villages and hamlets, and penetrated into the sparsely 
 settled country districts. He interviewed priests and peas- 
 ants, business men, politicians, artisans. He talked with mer- 
 chants behind the counter, farmers in the furrow, women at 
 the spinning wheel, laborers on the roadside. He was in 
 stores and churches, in homes of plenty and abodes of want. 
 He saw that amazing problem of the land, the Nemesis of 
 statesmen, the scourge of a people, unroll before him as he 
 traversed the green but desolated island. He found patriot- 
 ism a crime, free speech a prison offense. He saw members of 
 Parliament in jail, and talked to respected merchants whose 
 
 *This chapter was written in Dublin in July, 1909. 
 
 103 
 
104 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 hands were scarred with the degrading labor of the prison 
 yard. He traveled over scores of miles of fertile land which 
 knew no life except scattered herds of rough Irish cattle and 
 their silent keepers, and within an hour of such scenes found 
 crowded humanity living on stony hillsides, slaving, suffering, 
 slowly dying. 
 
 It was a ghastly picture — not, of course, typical of Ire- 
 land as a whole, but typical of a great part of the land. 
 There were huge tracts of the country where peace and plenty 
 have shed their blessings for many years, and where, as a 
 result, despairing revolt and savage reprisal were hardly 
 known. But the extent of the injustice was vast. Not thou- 
 sands, but hundreds of thousands of persons existed amid 
 surroundings of unexampled misery, always struggling, 
 always under the edge of the shadow of starvation. And all 
 through no fault of their own. As the letters and photo- 
 graphs published seven years ago made plain, these people 
 were victims of a system of oppression and economic slavery. 
 The articles cited the testimony not alone of Irishmen, but of 
 English statesmen, who declared that the misrule of Ireland, 
 particularly in regard to its atrocious land system, was alone 
 responsible for the misery of a people naturally thrifty, intel- 
 ligent and peace-loving. After completing a tour of the dis- 
 tricts where injustice and its evil results were most apparent, 
 and after having studied conditions and their causes at first 
 hand, the writer summed up as follows the state of affairs in 
 Ireland in 1902 : 
 
 Political — Widespread hatred and distrust of England. 
 Peace insured by an armed garrison. A police force, paid by 
 the people of Ireland, but controlled absolutely from London, 
 scattered over the whole island, with judicial as well as ad- 
 ministrative powers. "Coercion" enforced in twenty-one of 
 the thirty-two counties, whereby free speech is suppressed, 
 trial by jury suspended and public discussion, if displeasing 
 to officials, results in arbitrary imprisonment. In the British 
 Parliament the balance of power held by the Irish mem- 
 bers, who are united in a determination to obstruct the 
 government at every turn. In Ireland the United Irish 
 League spreading its organization everywhere, its plat- 
 form embracing the abolition of landlordism through the 
 compulsory sale of lands and, ultimately, the establishment 
 of national self-government. 
 
 Economic — The nation is dying by inches. Every year 
 the population grows less. In 1800 it was 4,000,000, in 1847 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS 105 
 
 nearly 9,000,000; now it is 4,456,000. Emigration is cease- 
 less. The young' and vigorous of the race are fleeing from 
 the island as if there were a blight. In the last fifty years 
 3,850,000 have fled from the land of their birth. Nowhere, 
 save in a few restricted farming and manufacturing dis- 
 tricts, is there a condition worthy to be called prosperity. 
 Agriculture is the employment of eight-tenths of the popu- 
 lation, and for hundreds of thousands of these agriculture 
 spells destitution. Most of these exist only through con- 
 tributions from relatives in America and England. In 
 thousands upon thousands of families the men and boys 
 must spend six months of the year in England in order to 
 earn enough money to carry the families through the win- 
 ter. In a word, the Irish in Ireland— the countless victims 
 of the system at least — are kept alive by the Irish who have 
 been driven to other lands. 
 
 This recital of conditions was based upon personal 
 investigation and observation, and it was proved by official 
 reports and statistics. The causes were treated as exhaust- 
 ively as the limitations of newspaper articles would permit. 
 It was shown that conquest and confiscation had been merci- 
 lessly invoked against the Irish people until they, the natural 
 and just owners of the land, had been reduced to economic 
 serfdom, dependent virtually upon the charity of their mas- 
 ters, and usually certain to find it wanting. From historical 
 documents it was made clear that the land was taken by force 
 from the people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 and conferred upon adventurers and titled favorites of the 
 sovereigns. The means used were confiscation, colonization, 
 seizure in time of war and as reprisal by the victors and, 
 finally, penal laws, which upon religious grounds stripped 
 most of the inhabitants of nearly every right enjoyed by citi- 
 zens under free government. Out of these unnatural methods 
 of acquiring land grew the monstrous evil of absentee land- 
 lordism, and this in turn bred new injustices. The very 
 severity of the laws that were brought into operation against 
 the Irish so hampered the owners living in England that they 
 sublet their Irish estates to middlemen, who ground down the 
 hapless peasantry at will. 
 
 An important explanation then made — one that is vital 
 to an understanding of the problem — was the radical differ- 
 ence between landlordism in Ireland and landlordism in Eng- 
 land. (See Chapter 111.) In these conditions were to be 
 found the cause of the wretched land wars, of the long. 
 
106 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 bitter campaign against landlordism, with its record of blood 
 and misery. In 1870 came the first ray of light in the dark 
 record, when Gladstone established the main principle of 
 dual ownership — that the tenant's industry created for him a 
 certain proprietary interest in the land he tilled. The first 
 legislation — like all that has followed it — was imperfect. 
 The savage land war of 1879-80 showed how much of 
 mediaeval injustice still persisted. But the barriers were 
 crumbling. Land purchase acts followed, the most notable 
 being in 1 88 1 and 1903, and with these the death-knell of 
 Irish landlordism was sounded. The British government is 
 now engaged, upon a huge scale, in buying the great estates 
 and establishing the tenants upon small farms. The new 
 terms, though in some cases too high, are infinitely more 
 advantageous than the old. Tenants who paid $50 a year 
 rent, with no hope in the future and the certainty of an 
 increased demand, now occupy the same ground as owners, 
 paying the purchase price and interest at the rate of $30 to 
 
 $35 a y £ar - 
 
 Seven years ago it was predicted that a change was in 
 sight. The change came, and progress has been steady ever 
 since. Again the writer has visited Ireland to see for himself 
 how the people are living and what measure of justice they 
 have won. Let it be said at once that the change is nothing 
 short of marvelous. It was a dark picture seven years ago, 
 but that picture is fading. Seven years is a brief span in the 
 life of a nation, and this generation will not see the last of 
 injustice. But the reformation has begun. Thousands upon 
 thousands of families which were suffering want are now con- 
 tented and near to prosperity. Many evils have been wiped 
 out and others are marked to go. In the succeeding articles 
 we are to see a new Ireland — a nation once more on the 
 upgrade. 
 
 The prediction made in 1902 that the government 
 would be compelled to take drastic action was soon verified. 
 Within a year the Wyndham Land Purchase Act was passed, 
 increasing the powers of bodies engaged in undoing the 
 wrongs of centuries, and for seven years these wise reforms 
 have been in operation. What they have accomplished it is 
 the purpose of the present investigation to set forth. 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS 107 
 
 To the student of history — and, indeed, to anyone who 
 has the faintest interest in human progress — the story of Ire- 
 land must be fascinating. Americans particularly should find 
 it attractive, not only because so large a proportion of them 
 have Irish blood, but because Ireland still suffers many 
 of the disabilities against which the American colonies 
 revolted in 1775. Ireland's afflictions under misrule and 
 the still surviving system of bad government will be discussed 
 later. These earlier letters are to deal chiefly with the 
 reforms in the grotesque land system and the amazing changes 
 for the better which have been wrought in the short period 
 of seven years. The testimony, in the main, will be the 
 writer's personal observation, for he will visit the same 
 places he inspected before. But already there is evidence 
 from a competent witness — a man whose inflexible opposi- 
 tion to English government of Ireland during his whole life 
 gives weight to his declaration — that the country has been 
 lifted from despair to hope. This is John Dillon, member 
 of Parliament, scholar, historian and agitator, one of the 
 ablest of the leaders during a stormy generation. 
 
 Mr. Dillon lives in one of those tall, grim, smoke- 
 blackened houses which give to Dublin's old streets an 
 appearance of ancient grandeur. More than a hundred 
 years ago the house was occupied by a member of the Irish 
 Parliament, the short-lived legislative assemblage which 
 proved the justice of Home Rule but was extinguished by the 
 infamously passed Act of Union in 1800. Many other 
 houses in this street sheltered members of that body, and 
 during the sessions the neighborhood was brilliant. Now 
 the glory has departed and the mansions have settled into a 
 decorous quietude. 
 
 There was nothing to suggest the agitator, the bitter 
 and ruthless foe of British misgovernment, in the figure 
 which greeted me in the dim-lit library of the old house. 
 Nothing more unlike a militant campaigner could be imag- 
 ined than the tall, thin, studious-looking man who rose up 
 among his books and extended the courteous welcome of the 
 well-bred Irishman. The whole appearance of the man is 
 one of scholarly refinement. He seems to be infinitely more 
 at home in his deep armchair than he would be in the heat of 
 
io8 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 political strife; yet he is one of the most effective, as he has 
 been one of the most fiery and uncompromising, of the Irish 
 orators and leaders. The book-lined walls and the tables, 
 littered with odd volumes and papers, make appropriate sur- 
 roundings for his studious, somewhat weary-looking figure. 
 His words are those of the scholar and suggest nothing of 
 his stormy career. When I told him I had come to Ireland 
 to learn what progress had been made since my former visit 
 he expressed satisfaction. 
 
 "I am very glad, indeed," he said. "America has heard 
 much of Irish suffering and has given us such splendid sup- 
 port that it is gratifying that you can take back a report of 
 much good accomplished and much more to be achieved 
 presently. You could not have come at a more significant 
 time. The improvement since you were here last has been 
 simply enormous. I can say, in all seriousness, that Ireland 
 has made more progress in the last ten years than during the 
 previous two hundred years." 
 
 "That is a strong statement," was suggested. 
 
 "But quite true," answered Mr. Dillon, calmly. "I 
 need hardly remind you that the wretched land system was 
 responsible for most of the misery which the poor suffered. 
 Successive land purchase acts are gradually restoring the 
 worse than homeless tenants to the land, and each family so 
 restored becomes decently prosperous, because, for the first 
 time, there is offered a chance to make a living. But I do 
 not refer to this broad reform alone — to the mere fact that 
 the helpless, hopeless tenants and the evicted families are 
 being made independent. I refer to the spirit of the people. 
 The whole face of the land is changing, and the spirit of the 
 people with it. The thousands who> have been put in the 
 way of making decent farms and homes have become hope- 
 ful and self-reliant instead of despairing. The wretched 
 habitations you described seven years ago are disappearing, 
 and in their places you will find trim, comfortable cottages. 
 Those families who were struggling against starvation on the 
 rocky hillsides are now cultivating fertile fields. This has 
 had its moral as well as its material benefits. With increased 
 opportunity and independence have sprung up, naturally, 
 aspirations for better living. The farm animals, which, 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS 109 
 
 among the very poor, used to be kept in one end of the house, 
 are now properly housed some distance away from the home. 
 Dooryards are cleaned up and the heaps of refuse that used 
 to disfigure them are swept away. Stagnant pools are 
 drained, roads and fences mended, and everywhere are seen 
 the marks of industry and a desire for comfort and cleanli- 
 ness. All these good results have followed from the simple 
 change from tenant slavery to free ownership. 
 
 "There has been an aesthetic stimulus, too, which is 
 hardly less important, I think, than the material regeneration 
 from which it results. You who have seen prosperous farms 
 do not need to be told how passionate is the Irish love of 
 flowers. The little patch of garden in the dooryard and the 
 climbing roses that often hide the porches are perfectly 
 natural to the Irish country folk. Now you will see these 
 evidences of contentment and of love for the beautiful on 
 every hand. Families which a few years ago were so steeped 
 in despair that they lived amid the most sordid surroundings 
 now are not content to make a living — they must have a 
 garden of flowers as well. Even commonplace incidents 
 show the uplift which has come from opportunity. In many 
 districts the outhouses are roofed with corrugated iron — a 
 serviceable but not very picturesque material. One day a 
 friend of mine suggested to a farmer that a coat of red paint 
 would improve the appearance of the barn. The hint was 
 taken, and the change added so much to the picturesqueness 
 of the place that the idea spread. Now hundreds of the 
 unsightly roofs have been painted a warm red, adding a 
 touch of homelikeness to many a neighborhood." 
 
 I suggested that another improvement would be a varia- 
 tion here and there in the architecture of the houses which 
 the government is building. The structures are warm and 
 comfortable, but they are of the most austere plainness of 
 design and of a deadly monotony in plan. 
 
 "I advocated the use of dark-red tiling for the roofs," 
 said Mr. Dillon, "but that would cost $20 or $25 more for 
 each house; so slate is used. The main thing, of course, is 
 to house the people at all; but it is a pity that in paying its 
 long-overdue debt civilization should crush out the artistic 
 spirit in those whom it benefits." 
 
no THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 "And what has been the effect of all this economic 
 improvement," I asked, "upon the Home Rule question? It 
 was my prediction seven years ago that the restoration of the 
 people to the land would make self-government inevitable — 
 would, in fact, hasten it. Is this the fact, or has the redress- 
 ing of the land wrongs obscured the political issue?" 
 
 "The Home Rule sentiment is stronger than ever," 
 answered Mr. Dillon. "It is increasing steadily. I do not 
 mean to convey that it is a burning issue at this moment. 
 During the land wars it was constantly at the front. It was 
 the theme of every meeting and the inspiration of every little 
 revolt. But the country then was really in a state of civil 
 war. The Irish people were unarmed, but they were in con- 
 stant rebellion, and the clashes between them and the military 
 and police were in behalf of their right of self-government, 
 just as much as the battles in the American war for inde- 
 pendence. The country is now at peace, awaiting the out- 
 come of promised reforms. The physical conflicts are few. 
 But none the less the Home Rule sentiment is growing every 
 day, and it will not be denied. 
 
 "A very subtle campaign against it was carried on some 
 years ago by Sir Horace Plunkett when head of the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture. He went to* the people with the plea 
 that they drop politics — that everybody should 'get together' 
 and build up the country agriculturally and industrially. It 
 was a very plausible program on the surface, but unfortu- 
 nately to have 'no politics' in Ireland is to be anti-Nationalist. 
 It was perfectly absurd to talk about men leaving politics 
 aside, for to do so is to drop the Nationalist idea. There is 
 no question that this propaganda influenced a good many 
 persons. Plunkett established creameries and gave other 
 assistance in developing farm resources, and he had, for a 
 time, the very effective argument of large patronage in the 
 department he ruled. But when he openly attacked one of 
 our parliamentary seats and captured it for a Unionist his 
 pretense of non-partisanship was exploded. His propaganda 
 has collapsed, and Home Rule is still the living issue. He 
 used to boast that he would kill Home Rule with kindness. 
 It was rather a clever phrase, and he did make some head- 
 way with the thoughtless. But, of course, the idea is pre- 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS m 
 
 posterous. The present system of government, cumbersome, 
 costly and reeking with intolerable injustice, must be swept 
 away. Ameliorating reforms are good only to a certain 
 extent; it is worse than futile to try to cure an ulcer by paint- 
 ing it. We cannot build up a stable and just government 
 upon a morass of misrule. No matter how fair the structure 
 may be, it will collapse. Home Rule alone will make this 
 people prosperous and contented, and anyone with an atom 
 of sense knows it." 
 
 Before attempting to show the great advancement made 
 in solving the Irish land problem during the last seven years 
 it is necessary to describe briefly what the problem is and 
 review the efforts made to settle it. Bound up as it is indis- 
 solubly with the fortunes — and misfortunes — of the Irish 
 people, it has been kept insistently before the British govern- 
 ment for many years, and the mass of legislation upon it 
 demonstrates not only the vigorous activity of the Irish 
 leaders, but a realization on the part of England that a great 
 evil cries for remedy. That the successive statutes and their 
 clustering amendments still have not removed all of the 
 hoary injustices is in itself evidence that nothing short of 
 self-government will meet Ireland's manifold demands. 
 
 I have reviewed very briefly the bases of this unique 
 land problem, showing how the seeds of interminable wrong 
 were sown when the land was grabbed in successive invasions, 
 and how the crop was matured under the grotesque laws 
 which made the landlords virtual owners of the tenants as 
 well as of the lands they tilled. This was through the custom 
 which empowered the landlord to raise rents as fast as the 
 tenant improved his farm. With the threat of eviction 
 always before him, the hapless tenant had to pay. When 
 he could no longer meet the demands he was thrown out and 
 all his labor of years legally confiscated by the absentee 
 owner. This general rule, responsible for untold misery, 
 was brought into infinitely wider operation through the ter- 
 rific famine of 1847. That catastrophe spread a blight of 
 poverty over the nation, and in addition drove countless land- 
 lords into bankruptcy. Thereupon, in an effort to do some- 
 thing to lift the burden of misery, Parliament established a 
 
ii2 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 court empowered to sell hopelessly incumbered estates. The 
 hope was that with a fresh start all around the problem 
 might solve itself; but, of course, while the tenant remained 
 without title to any part of the improvements he had made, 
 and with no protection against capricious eviction, he was 
 only exchanging masters, and in most cases exchanging them 
 for the worse. There was a rush of creditors to the new 
 court, the bankrupt estates were bought wholesale by specu- 
 lators and rents were raised higher than before. Evictions 
 by wholesale ensued. All Ireland was a place of misery and 
 mourning. Finding rent collections impossible, the new land- 
 lords were seized with a mania for making large grazing 
 farms, and the helpless tenants were swept of: the land as 
 ruthlessly as if they had been noxious animals. In 1849 an d 
 succeeding years, when an eviction was virtually a sentence 
 of starvation, populous districts as large as small counties 
 were turned into empty plains. Houses were razed, fences 
 leveled and the little farms consolidated in huge ranches. It 
 was at this period that the London Times, never noted for 
 sympathy with Ireland's woes, confessed that "the name of 
 an Irish landlord stinks in the nostrils of Christendom." In 
 the ten years following the famine 300,000 families were 
 thrust out of their homes and 1,500,000 victims of tyranny 
 and spoiling fled from Ireland to America. This was the 
 high tide in the wave of emigration, but to this day the flow 
 has never ceased. 
 
 As early as 1845 the Devon Commission had recom- 
 mended the correcting of the glaring injustice which denied 
 to the tenant any interest in the farm he created from the 
 bare land. But it was not until 1870 that the principle was 
 established. Even then the remedy was ineffective. The 
 law simply made the landlord pay for improvements when 
 he evicted a tenant, and he could recoup himself by raising 
 the rent to the next incumbent. Out of this grew the famous 
 demand for "the three F's" — fair rent, free sale and fixity 
 of tenure — which were finally won after the savage land war 
 of 1879, in the Act of 188 1. It not only established finally 
 and irrevocably the principle of tenant partnership right, 
 but created a court which fixed the rents to be paid during 
 periods of fifteen years. How much of downright robbery 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS 113 
 
 there was under the old system may be deduced from the 
 fact that in the first readjustment the court reduced rents 
 twenty per cent., taking an annual burden of $7,500,000 
 from the shoulders of the people. But for more than a 
 generation prior to this great victory the only permanent 
 solution of the desperate problem had been under desultory 
 discussion from time to time. In 1847 Lord John Russell 
 advocated the proposal of John Stuart Mill for making the 
 peasants proprietors of the lands they tilled. More than 
 twenty years later, in 1870, a timid move was made in the 
 direction of assisting the tenants to purchase their farms. 
 Parnell in 1878 made a light for the idea, and the Act of 
 1 88 1 marked a certain small advance. 
 
 But the Ashbourne Act of 1885 was the first real recog- 
 nition and adoption of what is known as Land Purchase. 
 This act provided for the advancing by the state of the entire 
 sum necessary to purchase lands, the tenants repaying it in 
 forty-nine annual instalments of four per cent. Of this, 
 three and one-eighth per cent, was interest and seven-eighths 
 per cent, went to the sinking fund for liquidation of the loan. 
 More than 25,000 tenants were able to take advantage of 
 the plan under that act and an amending act of 1888. The 
 principle had been established, and since 1885 has been 
 broadened and its application made more practical. In 1886 
 Gladstone offered to the Irish landlords terms of purchase 
 somewhat similar to those of the Ashbourne Act; but the 
 plan fell with his Home Rule bill, to which it was attached. 
 
 The next important move was in 1891, when Premier 
 Balfour authorized the appropriation of $150,000,000 to 
 extend the operation of the Ashbourne Act, under which 
 expenditure had been limited to $50,000,000. All of the 
 purchase money was to be advanced to the tenants by the 
 state, through the issue of guaranteed land stock bearing 
 dividends of two and three-fourths per cent., repayment 
 being made by an annuity at the rate of four per cent., pay- 
 able in half-yearly instalments for a period of forty-nine 
 years. Under this act no fewer than 30,000 tenants became 
 owners of their farms — 5000 more than had been able to 
 take advantage of all the preceding acts. In 1896 another 
 great step forward was made. The Land Act of that year 
 
ii 4 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 asserted the principle of compulsory sale of bankrupt estates 
 and lengthened the term of repayment to sixty-eight years, 
 the payments being reduced at the end of each period of 
 ten years. This was the act in operation in 1902, when the 
 writer visited Ireland. About 47,000 farm holdings had 
 been transferred under it and the Act of 1891, but there 
 were still many defects. The hardships of the great mass 
 of tenants led to the passage of the Wyndham Act of 1903. 
 Under this the British treasury advances up to $800,000,- 
 000 at two and three-quarters per cent, interest, with one- 
 half per cent, added for the sinking fund. The advances 
 are made in cash by the Estates Commissioners, and the 
 tenants pay three and one-quarter per cent, of the sum 
 annually. At this rate they acquire ownership in sixty-eight 
 and one-half years. Instead of paying, say $50 a year rent 
 forever, the tenant pays $30 or $35 annually, with the cer- 
 tainty that his heirs will own the property. 
 
 And what was the security — aside from the land — for 
 this huge loan? It may interest those who decry the Irish 
 peasantry as improvident to know. The security is the credit 
 of the Irish tenant farmers, and what that credit is may be 
 measured from the fact that out of more than 70,000 pur- 
 chasers under previous acts, only two failed to meet their 
 payments. The amounts received by the landlords as pur- 
 chase money do not, of course, yield incomes in interest equal 
 to the sums extorted in rents. But, on the other hand, they 
 have security from agitation and further reductions of rent, 
 and, in addition, a bonus of $60,000,000 was provided to 
 "bridge the gap" between former rents and the incomes 
 from purchase moneys. Under this act, between November 
 1, 1903, and March 31, 1906, nearly 87,000 holdings passed 
 from the ownership of landlords to the ownership of tenants. 
 Here is the Land Purchase record for the period ending 
 March 31, 1908: 
 
 Number of tenants who have purchased their holdings under 
 Acts of 
 
 1870 877 1891 and 1896. . 47,000 
 
 1881 731 1903 141,940 
 
 1885 and 1888.. . 25,000 
 
 Thus we see that under all the Land Purchase Acts more 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS 115 
 
 than 215,000 tenants have been made owners of their farms 
 or are now in process of acquiring ownership. There are 
 still, nevertheless, many defects in the law, but most of these 
 will be remedied by the amending act now being pressed by 
 the Irish Parliamentary Party upon the friendly Liberal 
 government.* The chief reform will be the making of sales 
 by landlords compulsory. When tenants on an unsold estate 
 find themselves paying rent, while their neighbors on an 
 adjoining estate are paying less sums annually in purchase 
 money, discontent is inevitable. This anomaly must, of 
 course, be extinguished. All England virtually realizes now 
 that Ireland will never be satisfied, and cannot in justice be 
 satisfied, until the last vestige of her archaic and intolerable 
 system of landlordism has been swept away. 
 
 Before leaving this question it may not be amiss to quote 
 an undeniable authority for the statements made concerning 
 the land system which is now disappearing. Pages could be 
 filled with citations from statesmen such as Gladstone, 
 Bright, Chamberlain and Balfour, besides economists like 
 John Stuart Mill, and various commissions whose reports 
 cumber the parliamentary files of the last century. It will 
 be sufficient to quote a few passages from the final report of 
 the Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland, dated May 
 5, 1908. 
 
 This commission, appointed July 20, 1906, worked 
 zealously for nearly two years, visited every part of Ire- 
 land, inspected conditions at close range and examined hun- 
 dreds of witnesses, whose testimony fills ten big volumes. 
 The members included the Earl of Dudley, once Lord Lieu- 
 tenant; Sir Anthony MacDonnell, former Undersecretary; 
 the Most Reverend Patrick O'Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe, 
 and other distinguished men. The report says: 
 
 "Two questions naturally arise: First, how did districts 
 so little capable of supporting any population at all come to 
 be populated very thickly, as regards the productive capacity 
 of the land; and, second, how is it that in large districts, 
 
 *The bill passed the House of Commons in October, 1909, but 
 was emasculated by the House of Lords by elimination of the clause 
 making sales compulsory. This, with the lords' opposition to the 
 budget, created a political crisis, which may lead to a general election 
 early in 1910. 
 
u6 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 where the land is mostly good, there are very few people on 
 the good land, but great numbers on the bad land adjoining? 
 The main answer to both queries is to be found in the course 
 of Irish history during the last three hundred years, though, 
 of course, economic causes have contributed, especially during 
 the nineteenth century. The various 'plantations' of Ireland, 
 the acts of settlement and corporation and the substitution 
 of English land tenure for the traditional Irish methods of 
 landholding have profoundly affected the agrarian develops 
 ment of Ireland. The chief incident, however, was the 
 Cromwellian Act of Settlement, under which most of the 
 land-owning population implicated on the Royalist side were 
 banished west of the Shannon. * * * 
 
 "The commercial restrictions from which Ireland 
 suffered during the eighteenth century forced the people to 
 look for subsistence to the land, and the agrarian unrest was 
 intensified by the penal laws (against Catholics) which pre- 
 vented the greater part of the population from acquiring any 
 beneficial interest in the land. * * * Congestion and 
 sub-division of the holdings went on until the great crash of 
 the famine. In many cases the landlords were forced to 
 effect clearances, either by their creditors or because of the 
 difficulty of obtaining rents from pauper tenants. In certain 
 districts the greater portion of the population died, and 
 whatever may be the most potent causes of the consolidation 
 of holdings about the time of the famine, there can be no 
 doubt of its extent. * * * 
 
 "While part of the land formerly occupied by small 
 holdings was utilized for the creation of large grazing farms, 
 some of it was employed for the enlargement of other small 
 holdings. Many of the small farms swept away were uneco- 
 nomic, but the sudden nature of the changes undoubtedly 
 caused great suffering and left bitter memories. This tendency 
 to consolidate farms was given an impetus by the Incumbered 
 Estates Act of 1848, which replaced many of the old land- 
 lords by new men, a large number of whom, looking upon 
 the owning of land as a purely commercial transaction, and 
 disregarding traditional rights of the tenants, raised rents or 
 evicted tenants and consolidated the holdings thus vacated. 
 The rise in the price of beef led to more land being cleared 
 
AFTER SEVEN YEARS 117 
 
 by eviction and thrown into grazing farms. On the poorer 
 land many of the inhabitants were left undisturbed, because 
 it was not worth while to resume possession. Many of those 
 evicted settled on unreclaimed pieces of land in the neigh- 
 borhood and added to the congestion, and some carved out 
 new holdings for themselves on the waste land along the 
 western littoral, and started the almost impossible task of 
 winning a living from land incapable of itself of supporting 
 life according to any decent standard." 
 
 Here is the whole story — confiscation, unjust land laws, 
 congestion, starvation. To the credit of civilization, the 
 elaborate injustice of three hundred years is now in progress 
 of extinction. Landlordism is disappearing, and Ireland, 
 fitted by nature to support millions in prosperity, is passing 
 back into the ownership of her own people. 
 
XIV 
 *AN EVICTION 
 
 I am going to describe an Irish eviction. It took 
 place the day after I landed in the country to report upon 
 the wonderful progress made during the last seven years in 
 reforming the land laws. The scene I shall describe is quite 
 out of harmony with the purposes of this tour, which is to 
 show how great a change for the better has been wrought. 
 But this eviction, a rather shocking greeting to an optimistic 
 inquirer, demands a place in the story for the very reason 
 that it is shocking. The scene of brutality and violence, of 
 conflict between a stern law and a defiant people, was in itself 
 evidence that a brighter day has dawned, because it was so 
 unusual. I do not think there have been half a dozen forci- 
 ble evictions in Ireland since 1902. When one recalls the 
 wholesale evictions of sixty years ago and of the days of the 
 savage land war, when families literally by thousands were 
 dragged out of their cottage homes and flung into the ditches 
 to starve, one realizes that this exceptional affair is a sign 
 of hope, for its general condemnation is testimony that the 
 barbarous custom is extinguished forever. In the present 
 instance I shall not enter into the merits of the case which 
 furnishes the unusual example. Indeed, from inquiries made 
 I judge that it would be a nice decision which should say 
 whether justice was with the landlord or the tenant. I shall, 
 therefore, simply describe what occurred as I learned it from 
 eye-witnesses and an inspection of the field of battle. 
 
 The scene was the farmhouse of Richard J. Walsh, near 
 Kilmurry, a short distance from Castleisland, in the county 
 of Kerry. As it lies only a couple of hours' drive from Kil- 
 larney, quite a number of the spectators were from the shores 
 of the beautiful lakes. Walsh and his landlord, a Dublin 
 man, had been at odds for many months. Settlement being 
 found impossible, there was an attempt at eviction in June, 
 
 *This chapter was written in Killarney in July, 1909. 
 
 118 
 
AN EVICTION 119 
 
 1909. But when the sheriff and his bailiffs arrived to 
 serve their writ they found the place fortified, and their 
 summons was greeted with scorn. This having been 
 reported and renewed negotiations having proved useless, 
 the might of the British government was invoked. The 
 American, with his quick resentment of anything approach- 
 ing militarism, may be interested to know that the subjection 
 of this farmhouse, inhabited by one farmer and his bedridden 
 mother, eighty-three years old, called for not only the local 
 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, but drafts from 
 Kerry, Limerick and Dublin. A whole company of these 
 armed military police, with their officers, was brought from 
 the capital, two hundred miles away. It may be remarked 
 that the defenders were determined to make the trip worth 
 while. Fourteen neighbors of Walsh volunteered to garrison 
 the house, and the defense they put up was regarded by con- 
 noisseurs in evictions as one of the ablest and most stubborn 
 on record. Barring the facts that firearms were not used on 
 either side and that no one was killed, the contest was as 
 serious and as brutal as any incident of war. 
 
 The constabulary, drafted into Castleisland, were under 
 command of Assistant Inspector General Ball, of Dublin, 
 one of the ablest and most fearless of the officers. He 
 moved his forces like an alert military commander. At three 
 o'clock in the morning, in a driving rain, the sheriff, the 
 bailiffs and their armed escort of two hundred and fifty con- 
 stables marched out of Castleisland and along the winding 
 road to Fort Walsh. Civilians interested in the row pre- 
 ceded and followed the military, some on foot and some in 
 jaunting cars. On one of the vehicles that sped along the 
 wet lanes was Joseph Murphy, M. P., who had hastened 
 over from London in the night to witness the difficulties of 
 one of his constituents. 
 
 It was hardly daylight, owing to the low-hanging clouds, 
 when the attacking force approached the condemned farm- 
 house. But early as it was, the defenders were astir, and 
 knots of sullen country people stood about as the big force 
 of constables marched up. Between six and seven o'clock 
 the church bells in surrounding villages began to ring and 
 horns were blown. This roused the whole countryside, and 
 
120 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 from every direction men and women came tramping through 
 the mud to the scene of strife. The constables, drawn up in 
 uniformed ranks, looked grim enough in the gray morning 
 light, but the people looked grimmer still. The rain fell 
 steadily. 
 
 It was a little after seven o'clock when the attack com- 
 menced. The deadly looking eviction paraphernalia — peace- 
 ful weapons in their proper use — had been brought along in 
 carts. The house could be reached only by a lane overhung 
 by huge elms. Two of these trees, a hundred yards apart, 
 had been cut near the ground and blocked the thoroughfare 
 with a tangle of big branches. While squads of police were 
 detailed to surround the farm, bailiffs took big cross-cut saws 
 and axes and began the task of cutting away the first barrier. 
 It should be observed that only the civil authorities were 
 employed in the attack at first. The military arm was used 
 when the sheriff's men had confessed themselves beaten. It 
 took a full half hour for the sweating bailiffs to cut a passage 
 through the felled trees, admitting the vehicles. Meanwhile, 
 Mr. Murphy, more as a matter of form than with any hope 
 of stopping the attack, talked to Inspector Ball about 
 Walsh's aged mother lying ill in the beleaguered house. 
 Ball readily promised that every effort would be made to' 
 avoid harming her. Mr. Murphy tried to get a pledge that 
 the police would merely protect the civil officers and not 
 assist in the attack. He urged the desirability of bringing 
 about peace, if possible. 
 
 "Please don't address me on these points," said the 
 inspector. "I have nothing to do with negotiations. My 
 duty is to protect the sheriff and his men. If they are resisted 
 with violence, it becomes our duty to smash in and make 
 arrests." 
 
 Mr. Murphy persisted, but the inspector was inflexible, 
 and finally asked sharply that the discussion be ended. 
 While it was in progress the bailiffs had cleared a gap which 
 had been filled with small trees, brambles and stones, and 
 through this the horses and carts were led into a field adjoin- 
 ing the house. The police, the rain dripping from their caps 
 and the mud splashing under their feet, followed and were 
 drawn up in squads, completely surrounding the dwelling. 
 
AN EVICTION 121 
 
 It was a curious sight — an amazing sight in a time of peacs 
 in this twentieth century. In the center of the armed circle 
 was the farmhouse, built of stone, in the ordinary cottage 
 design. On every side it was heavily fortified with big 
 trunks of trees, stones and brambles. Holes had been cut in 
 the roof, and from these peered the masked faces of the 
 defenders. There was a pause of a few minutes, besiegers 
 and besieged regarding each other silently. Then the sheriff 
 started work. 
 
 A horse was unhitched, a rope fastened to him and a 
 half dozen bailiffs carried one end of the rope to the house, 
 where they took a hitch around one of the tree trunks. A 
 crack of the whip, a crash and a stumble, and one of the big 
 timbers had been dragged from the fortifications. But not 
 without casualties. As the bailiffs ran close to the house 
 showers of boiling water and hot tar came from the openings 
 in the roof. The luckless officers winced as the stinging 
 shower fell on them, but did their work and got away with- 
 out being disabled. In a few minutes they went at it again, 
 working manfully under the painful bombardment from the 
 house. One by one the trees were hauled away. As the men 
 clambered up the barricade, compelled to stop now and then 
 and use axes on the entangled branches, buckets appeared at 
 the holes in the roofs and emptied their burning contents on 
 the assailants. From time to time a real shower spurted out. 
 The beleaguered garrison was well supplied with ammuni- 
 tion and with a rude sort of artillery, too. Besides hot water 
 and tar, the defenders used dry and wet lime and drew on 
 stores of stable refuse which they had carried into the house 
 before the siege. They did very effective work with boiling 
 water ejected from machines used in spraying trees. 
 
 During all this time the rain fell steadily, driven by a 
 searching wind. The disciplined constabulary watched the 
 amazing operations in stolid silence, but the country folk, 
 outside the military lines, cheered whenever the attacking 
 party was driven back temporarily. It was an exciting scene, 
 yet a sordid one, too. The defense was stubborn, but hardly 
 of a character to arouse enthusiasm, because the assailants had 
 to work in the open and were forbidden by law to make any 
 reprisal. It was an unequal contest, though, because it couki 
 
122 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 end in but one way, and there was something admirable in 
 the savage obstinacy of the fifteen men in the house, because 
 they knew they were condemning themselves to prison terms 
 by their actions. Mr. Murphy again tried to persuade the 
 authorities to withdraw, this time appealing to the sheriff. 
 But that officer grimly said he must proceed with his duty. 
 For more than one hour his men toiled at the barricade at the 
 eastern end of the house before they got the gable half 
 cleared. Then the sheriff, drawing his men beyond range 
 of the buckets and spraying machines, read aloud the eject- 
 ment decree and formally demanded surrender of the occu- 
 pants of the house. Of course, no one inside heard him, 
 and if they had the answer would have been a shout of 
 defiance. So the attack continued. Drenched with rain and 
 smeared with tar and lime, the bailiffs resumed the attack on 
 the barricade, to be met by still more determined defense 
 from within the house. Flesh and blood could hardly with- 
 stand such punishment long, and after half an hour of gruel- 
 ing work the men retreated, beaten back. The sheriff 
 reported to Inspector Ball that the violence offered to his 
 men was of such a character that he was constrained to ask 
 for police aid. 
 
 There was a quick change. The inspector, who had 
 been watching the battle critically, but with apparent indiffer- 
 ence, stiffened into a combatant. Sharp orders rang out, the 
 ranks of the constabulary broke, men darted hither and 
 thither, each intent on his duty, and within five minutes the 
 serious business of reducing the stronghold began. This 
 time something had to give way, and obviously it would not 
 be the constabulary. Some of them ran forward with a long 
 ladder, which was flung with a crash against the eaves. Men 
 ran up the rungs, shielding their faces as best they could 
 from the deadly shower of water and tar and lime, and, 
 clinging to the ladder desperately, brandished iron rods 
 wound with barbed wire over the apertures in the roof and 
 wall. This, of course, was to keep the besieged men back 
 from the openings. But the ruse was not effective against 
 the well-handled buckets and spraying machines. From the 
 ooenings still came streams of material, and the dark green 
 ■uniforms were soon bedaubed with the mess. While the 
 
AN EVICTION 123 
 
 men on the ladder tried to keep back the defenders their 
 followers attacked in earnest the stone wall of the house 
 beneath them, where the barricade of trees had been cleared 
 away. Despite the pitiless bombardment, they hacked 
 steadily at the wall with picks and crowbars, and slowly, very 
 slowly, began to make an impression on the stones. The 
 assaults from within became more savage. Relentlessly the 
 besieged men poured out their bombardment of boiling water 
 and tar, with streams of powdered lime and liquid plaster, 
 until the attacking party were literally unrecognizable. 
 
 "It was a disgusting scene," declared the eye-witness who 
 described it to me — a man whose sympathies, by the way, 
 were with the defenders. "I have seen many an eviction in 
 bygone days, but never one so brutal. The men inside made 
 a gallant stand in a hopeless fight, but the men outside stood 
 the worst punishment I ever witnessed." 
 
 The remarkable part of it was the grim good nature of 
 the constabulary. The men went forward in relays, smiling, 
 and came back drenched and disfigured, still smiling, even 
 while they winced with pain and weariness. Inspector Ball 
 took his share of the work with his men. His face was black 
 and grimed and his uniform was a mass of tar and lime; but 
 he stood steadily at his post, directing the attack with relent- 
 less precision. Mr. Murphy, who had declared again and 
 again that the scene was disgraceful in an age of enlighten- 
 ment, finally begged the commander to withdraw his men, if 
 only for five minutes, that an appeal might be made to the 
 defenders for a compromise. Inspector Ball wiped the sweat 
 from his eyes and pointed to a paneless window. 
 
 "I cannot withdraw my men," he said, "but you may 
 go up there and talk to the persons inside, if you wish." 
 
 This was out of the question, and the savage work went 
 on. The constabulary persisted in the face of almost incred- 
 ible punishment. One man, a sergeant, stood on a ladder for 
 more than an hour trying to< protect his comrades below. 
 During the whole of that time he was a target for the attacks 
 of those within, and when he was finally relieved he hardly 
 resembled a human being. Meanwhile, a detachment of the 
 police carried on a "flank" attack at the front of the house, 
 if the expression will be permitted. First they dragged away 
 
i2 4 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 the barricade of trees, then smashed a window, all the time 
 showered with missiles from the roof. Others formed 
 a'"sharpshooting" squad, throwing stones at the roof open- 
 ings to discourage those inside at work at the apertures. 
 This astounding scene continued until after eleven o'clock. 
 For more than four hours the authorities had been battering 
 at the house, and still had not captured it. The pick and 
 crowbar men had been relieved again and again. No matter 
 how badly mauled were the men who were called off to rest, 
 there were always others ready to take their places. 
 
 At last the ceaseless battering at the wall began to tell. 
 A big stone was pried loose, then another and another, and 
 a black gap showed in the structure. The constables, under 
 a withering attack from above, tore at the stones furiously. 
 The gap widened and was carried downward toward the 
 ground. Inspector Ball summoned four men. They lined 
 up, armed with rifles, and fixed their bayonets. The 
 inspector drew his sword and marched toward the house. 
 The attackers fell back, and through the breach marched 
 the commander and his squad. There was no resistance. 
 With the opening of the breach the defenders quit. They 
 had done their best and their worst. The rest was jail. 
 Richard Walsh and his fourteen companions — neighbors 
 from the Castleisland district and men from Tralee — were 
 placed under arrest and sent, handcuffed, to Castleisland, 
 where that afternoon they were remanded for trial. 
 
 The house, battered within and without, looked as 
 though it had been the center of a furious battle, as indeed 
 it had. In the center of the dwelling, placed as far as pos- 
 sible from the scenes of strife, lay Mrs. Walsh, not danger- 
 ously ill, but too* weak to be moved. Inspector Ball gave 
 orders that she should not be disturbed. Women neighbors 
 came to tend her, while a bailiff remained in charge of the 
 premises in the name of the vindicated law. All along the 
 road to the jail the fifteen prisoners were cheered by the 
 country folk. Whatever may have been the strict merits of 
 the case, they were regarded as fighters for a principle. 
 Most of them were released under $250 personal bail, with 
 two sureties of $125 each. That evening a public meeting 
 was held, Walsh and some of his fellow-defenders being 
 
AN EVICTION 125 
 
 present. Mr. Murphy in a speech declared the people pro- 
 tested against the use of the police as members of the crowbar 
 brigade. 
 
 "I believe Dick Walsh and his brave companions," he 
 said, "are fighting the battle of all the tenants in Kerry in 
 the effort he is making to obtain justice. Public opinion is 
 stronger than the government, and public opinion is with 
 him. He has suffered, and may suffer more, but the fight 
 made to-day by him and his friends has sounded the death 
 knell of forcible evictions in this county." 
 
 The ruined homestead on the day after the eviction was 
 a sadly instructive scene. The roof was torn and battered, 
 every window broken and a great gaping hole in the end 
 wall. The dooryard was a sea of trampled mud, and all 
 about lay the scarred trunks of trees, those still piled around 
 the house being smeared with tar and lime. Inside lay the 
 old mother of the evicted tenant, feeble in health, but obdu- 
 rate as her son. Whose was the fault? Upon whom lies the 
 blame for the awful waste and misery and the harvest of hate 
 that must be garnered from such a sowing? Upon the merits 
 of the individual case the courts will decide. But surely one 
 may condemn a system in which such barbarities survive, and 
 surely one may rejoice that in all likelihood there will never 
 be such another scene, once so familiar, in this island. 
 
XV 
 CONGESTION REMEDIED 
 
 As has been written, I talked with John Dillon, noted 
 among the Irish leaders, of the great work which has been 
 done for the people since I visited Ireland seven years 
 ago. He is no mere enthusiast, this calm, studious man of 
 affairs. His devotion to his country is as deep and his spirit 
 as resolute as in the days when he was literally a rebel against 
 the government and tasted the bitterness of prison for the 
 cause. But a calmer time has come as the result of what he 
 and his associates suffered. He sees the things for which he 
 fought coming to pass in government policies. Instead of 
 defying the laws he helps to make them. Instead of being 
 a political outlaw he is a respected member of the governing 
 system — still unreconciled to its gross defects, still waging 
 war for the reforms which alone can revive Ireland's pros- 
 perity, a leader in the peaceful reformation which follows 
 the turbulence of revolt. So that when I asked him how 
 much progress had been made in the brief period he spoke 
 with dispassionate conviction and not in exuberance. 
 
 "The whole face of the land has been changed," he 
 said, and for an hour he described the marvelous betterments 
 which had been wrought by the simple application of just 
 and rational laws to the intolerable abuses of the land sys- 
 tem. 
 
 "The whole face of the country has been changed." 
 
 It was a striking phrase — a little too striking, it might 
 seem, to be strictly accurate. I know now that the state- 
 ment was literally true. I know, because I have seen. I 
 know, because I have traveled for days and days over the 
 countryside which I traversed seven years ago, and have seen 
 peace and plenty where then I saw misery and despair. The 
 face of the land has, indeed, been changed, for there are 
 happy homes and gardens where cattle grazed, and industry 
 
 *This chapter was written in Castlerea, County Roscommon, in 
 July, 1909. 
 
 126 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 127 
 
 and contentment where hopeless poverty held its ghastly 
 sway. Needless to say the work is not yet done, for the 
 vast problem covers an area of millions of acres and the lives 
 of half a million human beings. But the start has been 
 made, and the work of a few short years has lifted thousands 
 from despair. The justice of the long fight has been recog- 
 nized, and the Empire has been pledged to the remedy. It 
 needs only time and money to complete the great task. 
 
 That the remedy is the substitution of peasant proprie- 
 torship for landlordism has been fully explained. For thirty 
 years this change has been going on. Thousands of tenants 
 — tens of thousands — have become owners of their lands by 
 contracting to pay annuities for government loans instead of 
 rent to landlords; and in every case the transfer has justified 
 itself. This scheme of general land purchase is, however, 
 so vast in extent that I shall not do more than give a sum- 
 mary of the results. I shall describe in detail only one part 
 of the economic revolution — the most important part, 
 because the suffering of the people has been the greatest; and 
 the most picturesque and creditable, because the improvement 
 has been of such marvelous extent. 
 
 To deal with the huge and intricate problem of land 
 purchase there have been in existence for many years two 
 bodies of wide powers — the Land Commission, formed in 
 1 88 1, and the Estates Commissioners; formed in 1903. A 
 third body, created to deal with the most acute conditions 
 of distress, is the Congested Districts Board; it is the work 
 of this body which will be more fully described. It may be 
 taken as a fact that land purchase as a policy is going steadily 
 forward, justified more emphatically with each passing year. 
 The congested districts constitute a problem within a prob- 
 lem — a condition which demanded special and drastic treat- 
 ment, aside from the application of the basic principles of 
 land purchase. Practical recognition of the great task and 
 practical efforts to cope with it are due to A. J. Balfour, once 
 (Conservative) Chief Secretary for Ireland, later Prime 
 Minister and now leader of the Opposition in the House of 
 Commons. It was when Chief Secretary that he conceived 
 the idea of placing the poorest districts of Ireland under the 
 management and control of a special body of nominated, 
 
128 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 unpaid, conscientious men. They were to be endowed with 
 large powers and made administrators of a fund to be 
 devoted to the betterment of the condition of the people and 
 the development of the agricultural, fishing and industrial 
 resources of the districts most needing such aid. 
 
 The Congested Districts Board was created in 1891, 
 and its powers have been enlarged by six supplementary acts. 
 Further and radical expansion of these powers is proposed 
 in the land act now under consideration in the Parlia- 
 ment. Wide latitude has been given to the board by 
 the successive statutes. It can purchase untenanted lands 
 with government funds, acting through the Land Commis- 
 sion. It can enlarge and rearrange holdings to the satisfac- 
 tion of tenants and make them owners by agreements of pur- 
 chase on the annuity plan. It can move families, where that 
 is possible and desirable. It can build roads and fences, con- 
 struct drains, open and develop uninhabited tracts, level woods, 
 deepen and divert rivers, advance funds for individual 
 improvements. And it can erect comfortable, sanitary dwell- 
 ings for the helpless occupants of hovels, and start families 
 steeped in poverty upon the road to self-respecting, self- 
 sustaining industry and comfort. All this the board can do, 
 and all this it has done and is doing to the extent of the funds 
 at its disposal. Already it has to its credit amazing accom- 
 plishments, and inquiry makes it clear that the passage of the 
 present land act will enable the board to solve completely the 
 vast, intricate and distressing problem of the most unfortu- 
 nate part of Ireland. 
 
 To understand clearly the nature of the work and the 
 almost incredibly sunken condition of the people whom it is 
 sought to rescue, the reader must learn the character and 
 extent of the congested districts. The framers of the Act 
 of 1 89 1 had first to define the area with which the proposed 
 board should be empowered to deal. After exhaustive 
 inquiry and various tests, it was decided that the electoral 
 divisions — of which there are 3652 in Ireland — should be 
 considered the unit of congestion, and that that division 
 should be scheduled as congested where the average (annual) 
 ratable valuation was under $7.50; that is, where the aver- 
 age assessment of annual value was less than $7.50 for each 
 
BRINGING HOME THE TURF. 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 129 
 
 person. [It should be noted that the taxes are levied upon 
 annual ratable value, and not upon market value, as in 
 America.] It was obvious, however, that there would be 
 found a few electoral divisions in every county that would 
 meet this test. Hence there was made a restricting provision 
 that no division in any county should be scheduled as con- 
 gested unless at least one-fifth of the total population of the 
 county lived in congested divisions as defined. 
 
 Under these provisions, four hundred and twenty-nine 
 electoral divisions in the counties of Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, 
 Mayo, Roscommon, Galway, Kerry and Cork were recorded 
 as congested within the meaning of the act. There was a 
 deliberate purpose here, of course, to concentrate the efforts 
 of the board, but the restrictions obviously worked injustice. 
 Many electoral divisions quite as poor as those scheduled 
 were ignored because they lay in the midst of rich counties 
 other than those named, or in the midst of prosperous dis- 
 tricts in the eight counties referred to. Through no fault of 
 their own, the inhabitants of such divisions have been 
 excluded from the benefits of the board's operation. There 
 was even the anomaly of the board's buying land outside a 
 congested district and moving on to it families from such 
 districts, while it was unable to give any help to families 
 equally as poor who lived next door to the land purchased. 
 These defects are to be remedied in the bill now pending. If 
 it shall pass, the board will be able to operate in any part of 
 a county in which congested districts are scheduled. 
 
 *■ A few figures will show the enormous extent of the task 
 which confronted the board. The four hundred and twenty- 
 nine congested districts have a total area of 3,626,381 acres, 
 more than one-sixth of the total area of Ireland, with a popu- 
 lation (in 1901) of 505,723, more than one-ninth the total 
 population, and an annual ratable valuation of about 
 $2,885,000, which is only one-twenty-seventh of the total 
 valuation of Ireland. It will be observed that the popula- 
 tion in these districts is not dense and that the word "con- 
 gested" is in reality a misnomer. The term was accidentally 
 applied, but has become official. It simply means excep- 
 tionally poor. The average annual valuation of lands in 
 these districts is eighty four cents per acre, while the average 
 
130 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 for all Ireland is $2.90. Hence the trouble, as the Royal 
 Commission on Congestion found, is not a scarcity of land, 
 but a scarcity in these districts of any but the poorest land. 
 Taking the total area, there is an average of about seven 
 acres per head; but since the greater portion must be 
 excluded as rocky hillside or untillable bog, it will be seen 
 that there is actually a sort of congestion and that the poorer 
 parts of these districts are, in fact, agricultural "slums." 
 Now, Ireland is predominantly an agricultural country, but 
 this condition is most marked in the congested districts. 
 There nine-tenths of the population subsist, or attempt to, 
 upon agricultural holdings, as against four-sevenths in the 
 whole country. The impossible conditions of life may be 
 understood when it is stated that the minimum annual valua- 
 tion of a holding capable of supporting a family is $50, 
 ■while the average in the congested districts is $30, as against 
 $110 for the whole of Ireland. No fewer than 74,413, or 
 seven-eighths, of the holdings are under the danger point of 
 $50, while 45,138, or more than one-half of the 84,954 
 holdings, have an annual value of under $20. This explains 
 the startling fact that thousands of families in these districts 
 have been kept alive from year to year only through remit- 
 tances from relatives in America and through the annual 
 migration of the stronger members to England and Scotland 
 as agricultural laborers. 
 
 The causes of these fearful conditions I have already 
 cited from official reports. They run back to the time of 
 Elizabeth and forward to within the present generation. 
 First were the successive "plantations" of court favorites and 
 adventurers; then the Cromwellian campaigns and statutes, 
 which banished the people from the fertile plains of eastern 
 and central Ireland to the inhospitable west; then the extinc- 
 tion of every industry save agriculture by impossible duties 
 and actual prohibition; then the penal laws against Roman 
 Catholics; then the fall in the price of field crops and the 
 rise in the price of cattle, which started a craze for grazing 
 ranches and led to the eviction of countless thousands from 
 the farms they had made by their own industry; then the 
 frightful catastrophe of the famine of 1847, which doomed 
 thousands more; then the bankruptcy of many of the old 
 
CONGESTION REiMEDIED 131 
 
 landlords and the transfer of their estates to cold-blooded 
 speculators. Thus the remorseless evolution went on, every 
 turn of the screws of fate driving the helpless peasantry 
 lower and lower and staining the pages of Irish history with 
 tales of suffering and slaughter by starvation. And the final 
 result was the problem of the congested districts, with its 
 half million of human units staring with dreadful accusation 
 in the face of civilization. 
 
 Dark as was the score against British misrule for three 
 hundred years, it must be said that Great Britain made 
 honest, if misguided, efforts during the last quarter of the 
 nineteenth century to pay some part of the gigantic debt. In 
 that period $20,000,000 was spent for the relief of chronic 
 poverty in Ireland and $15,000,000 more in plans to 
 improve means of transportation. But these measures were 
 futile to reach the deep-seated trouble. The ghastly evolu- 
 tion of centuries could not be remedied by such means; it 
 required an economic revolution to undo the gigantic wrongs. 
 That revolution began with the establishment of the principle 
 of land purchase — making the tenants the owners of their 
 lands — and the movement goes resistlessly onward. 
 
 In reviewing the work of the Congested Districts 
 Board, which is gradually transforming the poorer parts of 
 Ireland, we must bear in mind the magnitude of the task 
 which it has undertaken — the reclamation of half a million 
 people, scattered over 3,600,000 acres, or more than one- 
 sixth of the area of Ireland. Countless attempts were made 
 to solve the immense problem, but it was found at last that 
 there was only one remedy — the creation of a peasant pro- 
 prietary from the helpless tenants. Specially empowered to 
 deal with the acute conditions in the west, the Congested 
 Districts Board has been laboring since 1891 to effect the 
 transformation. While the funds at first appropriated were 
 wholly inadequate, the powers of the board as then con- 
 ferred and as enlarged by subsequent acts are very wide. It 
 was authorized to take steps toward: 
 
 First — Aiding migration or emigration from the con- 
 gested districts and settling the migrants or emigrants in 
 their new homes. 
 
132 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 Second — Aiding and developing agriculture, forestry, 
 the breeding of live stock and poultry, weaving, spinning, 
 fishing (including the constcuctionn of piers and harbors and 
 supplying fishing boats and gear, and industries connected 
 with fishing) and any other suitable industries. 
 
 Considering the area and the population affected, this 
 was assuredly a large order. The powers, too, are remark- 
 able. Their operation constitutes paternalism of the most 
 advanced character, but it is perfectly clear that nothing 
 short of paternalism could deal with the abnormal conditions 
 that had grown up throughout the centuries. There lay 
 huge tracts of fertile land, utilized only for grazing pur- 
 poses, while the people were crowded upon stony tracts of 
 hillside and desolate bog. The problem was really one of 
 redistribution. In some way enough land of decent fertility 
 must be placed within reach of each family to insure a living 
 by ordinary labor. But this was not all. The impossible 
 system under which the people have struggled so long and 
 so hopelessly had lowered the standard of living to a shock- 
 ing extent. Many thousands of families in the congested 
 districts lived amid surroundings of the direst poverty and 
 distress. The homes had degenerated into hovels absolutely 
 unfit for habitation, except that they gave a sort of shelter, 
 and, furthermore, the helplessness and hopelessness of the 
 people had bred acquiescence in customs which made com- 
 fort impossible and outbreaks of disease almost epidemic. 
 The keeping of farm animals in the dwellings was quite 
 common. It was easy to sneer at such habits, but when it is 
 understood that thousands of families were kept under a 
 roof only through remittances from America and the migra- 
 tory labor of the stronger members, the wonder is that they 
 continued to exist at all. The greater wonder is, though, 
 the resilience these very people have exhibited with the lift- 
 ing of the burden of injustice. For a week I have been 
 traveling through the country districts I visited seven years 
 ago, and everywhere I have seen progress, improvement, a 
 brighter and better civilization. Just a chance — that was all 
 that was needed. The hovels are being swept away; trim 
 and comfortable homes dot the landscape where there were 
 emptiness and desolation; dooryards that used to reek with 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 133 
 
 refuse are gay with flowers, and the people who were once 
 silent with despair are cheerful, industrious and happy. 
 
 The first financial provision for the Congested Districts 
 Board was a grant of the income of $7,500,000, transferred 
 from the Irish Church Surplus Fund — the surplus remaining 
 after the government bought out the lands and tithes which 
 the people once had to pay for the support of the Anglican 
 Church in Ireland. This disestablishment was one of the 
 belated acts of justice which mark the progress of Ireland 
 in the nineteenth century. The first income, about $205,000, 
 was increased later, and capital grants were also made. The 
 present annual income is about $431,000. 
 
 One of the earliest and most successful experiments by 
 the board was the purchase of Clare Island, off the west 
 coast of Mayo. Here the experts learned to deal with the 
 problems that had arisen under landlordism. Most of the 
 land was held by the tenants under the system known as 
 rundale, an almost infinitely complicated division and sub- 
 division. For example, a man fifty years ago rented a few 
 acres 01 ground and by arduous labor converted it into a 
 farm. As his sons grew up and his daughters married he 
 sublet to sons and sons-in-law small portions of his holding. 
 As the soil varied in value, he did not rent each one a single 
 portion, but a small part of each of half a dozen or a dozen 
 fields. In time these divisions were sub-divided, deaths 
 caused new adjustments and allotments, until when the 
 board bought the island only the tenacious memories of the 
 inhabitants could decide the boundaries of each man's hold- 
 ings. And, of course, these holdings were scattered. A man 
 who paid rent for ten acres might have it in twenty or thirty 
 scattered patches. Many a field of a single acre was tilled 
 in tiny plots by six or eight different tenants. This archaic 
 system of rundale, indeed, has confronted the board in all 
 its operations. Only by infinite patience and infinite tact 
 have the members been able to redivide the lands in such a 
 way as to give each tenant purchaser a compact farm. It 
 was here that they ran counter to complex agreements and 
 prejudices. The man who, by the labor of his hands, had 
 cieated from stony ground or swamp twenty plots of fertile 
 land could not forget the years of heart-breaking labor. 
 
134 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 The farm offered to him in one compact area might be as 
 large and as good as his twenty plots, but into each of those 
 tiny patches he had poured his very life blood, and it was a 
 bitter wrench to give them up. To allay these suspicions 
 and prejudices and to satisfy the passionate longing of the 
 people for their own lands have been the most delicate and 
 difficult of the board's duties. 
 
 Clare Island, then, was bought from the landlord for 
 $25,000. There was not a fence on the island, and the 
 cattle and sheep, pastured in common, had to be kept out of 
 the tilled lands by watchers. Moreover, the tilled ground, 
 as I have explained, was divided into tiny, scattered patches, 
 held under agreements and sub-agreements in bewildering 
 confusion. The board's first act was to build a seven-mile 
 wall clear across the island, separating the grazing land from 
 the tillage land. This wall cost $8000. Then the tillage 
 land was thrown into a pool, as it were, and divided afresh 
 among the tenants, each man receiving in one section an 
 equivalent for the scattered patches he had held before. 
 More than fifty miles of fences, running from the main 
 dividing wall to the sea, were constructed, marking plainly 
 the boundaries of each man's farm. In all, the board spent 
 more on these improvements than it had paid for the land. 
 Yet it lost only a comparatively trifling amount. It resold 
 the land for $50,000 to the tenants, wKo contracted to pay 
 annuities of three and one-fourth per cent., this covering the 
 interest on the loan and creating a sinking fund that wipes 
 out the debt in about sixty-eight years. 
 
 Now mark what was accomplished here. All the inter- 
 minable tangle of landholding was straightened out, and 
 each farmer received a compact piece of ground instead of 
 a score or more of detached and scattered patches, with a 
 consequent enormous saving in time and labor. The grazing 
 lands were divided from the farms by a wall and the farms 
 from each other by fences. And the occupiers paid less 
 money annually toward purchase of their holdings than they 
 had paid formerly in rent. Was it worth while? Clare 
 Island is not an abode of luxury, or even of prosperity, as 
 the American farmer understands it. But it has been trans- 
 formed from an abode of bleak misery to a self-supporting 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 135 
 
 and self-respecting community. In the old days the people 
 were so desperately poor that they were forced literally to 
 defy the laws. A writ for debt was utterly useless, because 
 no one but the inhabitants knew who owned the cattle pas- 
 tured on the common, and the bailiff dared not seize the ani- 
 mals indiscriminately. Since the readjustment and the 
 change from tenancy to ownership the people pay their just 
 debts promptly; they are as peaceable as those in any other 
 part of Ireland and as comfortable as the inhabitants of such 
 an Inhospitable land can be. They must still struggle to live 
 decently, but at least the rewards of their labor go to them- 
 selves and not to a rapacious absentee landlord. 
 
 The French estate had been purchased and dealt with 
 before, and the Leonard estate was taken over later. These 
 three properties totaled 6690 acres. Several others were 
 added in 1897 and 1898, but it was the purchase of the 
 huge Dillon estate in 1899 which marked the end of small 
 experiments and the inauguration of the huge scheme of 
 resettlement which has been in operation since my former 
 visit to Ireland. The Dillon estate consisted of no fewer than 
 93,000 acres, with 4300 tenants, who paid rentals aggre- 
 gating $100,000 a year. Most of the land was poor and 
 most of the farms were "uneconomic" — that is, they did not 
 yield a sufficient return to maintain the occupiers at a decent 
 standard of living. Yet even this great task was performed 
 without loss to the board and to the infinite benefit of the 
 people. The total purchase price was $1,625,000, and 
 $350,000 was expended on improvements. Nevertheless, 
 the 4300 tenants were provided with greatly improved hold- 
 ings, and the annuities they pay are about forty per cent. 
 less than their former rents, while the board recovered 
 not only the amount paid to the landlord, but the cost of 
 improvements as well. 
 
 Unfortunately, there was little untenanted land in the 
 neighborhood of the estate, and only a few of the tenants 
 could be moved. But by the building of roads and fences 
 and the construction of extensive drainage works the direct 
 value and fertility of the land were so greatly enhanced that 
 the condition of all the tenants was vastly improved. Prob- 
 ably one-half the farms are still uneconomic, but one-half 
 
136 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 of these will gradually be made economic within a few years 
 by better agricultural treatment. Meanwhile, the Dillon 
 estate tenants are virtually owners of their lands, and are 
 "as happy," as one of them said to me seven years ago, "as 
 a choir of angels." One of the most important improve- 
 ments, of course, has been the erection of some hundreds of 
 neat, comfortable homes in place of the wretched houses 
 formerly used. Prior to the passage of the Land Act of 
 1903 the board purchased forty-six estates, with a total area 
 of about 175,000 acres and tenants numbering more than 
 6500. The total purchase price was about $2,850,000, and 
 $850,000 was expended in improvements. [The board paid 
 for purchased lands out of advances made by the Land Com- 
 mission. As each holding was resold to a tenant the com- 
 mission wrote off a corresponding part of the debt.] On 
 all these huge undertakings the board's loss was $195,000. 
 
 The Act of 1903 marked a new stage in the work. It 
 not only increased the financial provision, but gave the board 
 a freer hand in buying untenanted lands and migrating fam- 
 ilies from congested districts. But it had numerous defects, 
 and these the Irish Parliamentary Party seeks to remedy in 
 the bill now pending. 
 
 Meanwhile, we may consider briefly what the Con- 
 gested Districts Board has accomplished in other directions 
 than the purchase and improvement and resale of estates. 
 An enormous work has been done in stimulating better 
 methods of agriculture, in improving the fishing industry on 
 the west coast and in fostering manufacturing of various 
 kinds. In fact, during the earlier years of the board's opera- 
 tions agricultural development was regarded as the most, 
 important branch of the work, and until the task was trans- 
 ferred to the recently formed Department of Agriculture, 
 in 1904, most of the board's income was spent in various 
 schemes for the betterment of agricultural and stock-raising 
 methods. Object lessons were given to inform the people 
 wherein they might improve their tilling. Experimental 
 farms were established and instructors appointed to spread 
 the knowledge of scientific farming and the principles of 
 breeding. Stallions and bulls of high class were placed at 
 the disposal of farmers, and special encouragement was- 
 
HENRY 
 
 DORAN, CHIEF LAND INSPECTOR, CONGESTED DISTRICTS 
 BOARD. xoxxtx^xo 
 
 FOREMAN SHOWING REPORT TO MR. DORAN (at right). 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 137 
 
 given for improvements in the breeding of sheep, swine and 
 poultry. The expenditures were quite heavy — $110,000 on 
 instruction, $300,000 on horse breeding, $110,000 on cattle 
 breeding, $25,000 on sheep and swine, $35,000 on poultry, 
 etc. Not all of the schemes were successful. Indeed, it 
 became apparent in time that such work was of doubtful 
 value, while the intolerable land system remained to rob the 
 farmer of hope and ambition. With the increase in the 
 number of tenants who have become owners, the develops 
 ment schemes have been of more practical use and perma- 
 nent benefits have accrued. In all, the board spent more 
 than $700,000 in agricultural work between 1891 and 1904. 
 Another highly important and more generally success- 
 ful work has been the development of the fisheries of the 
 west coast. Through various causes this great industry, 
 especially on the west and northwest coasts, had greatly 
 declined, and heroic methods have been employed to revive 
 it, since in those districts it constitutes an element in the sup- 
 port of the inhabitants of the congested districts. The 
 board has constructed new or improved piers, slips and other 
 harbor facilities in one hundred and forty-eight different 
 places, most of the works being for the benefit of the fish- 
 eries and some for facilitating oth_r trades, such as the 
 export of turf or the landing of seaweed for manure. Other 
 methods of encouragement adopted were the making of 
 loans for the purchase of boats, nets and fishing gear; the 
 supplying of boats on the share system; instruction in fishing 
 and the care of nets; the promotion of boat building and 
 barrel building and the development of marketing facilities. 
 Thus it will be seen that the task confronting the authorities 
 was virtually the re-creation of an almost vanished industry; 
 but huge as the task was, it was attacked with vigor. The 
 policy is, frankly, paternalism, but it is of an intelligent and 
 business-like character. The board bought vast quanti- 
 ties of fish all along the coasts of Donegal, Mayo and Gal- 
 way and shipped some of it cured and some fresh. When 
 the industry was no longer an "infant" the board withdrew 
 from the work, but there are now sixty private firms engaged 
 in fish-curing on the Donegal coast alone. In 1893 the 
 autumn and winter herring catch off Donegal was valued at 
 
1 38 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 $5000; twelve years later it was $200,000. Most of the 
 fish are cured, as the transportation facilities for fresh fish 
 are inadequate. Donegal herrings usually bring top prices 
 in Germany, Russia and America. In all, the board has 
 expended upon the fisheries development plans more than 
 half a million dollars, in addition to $320,000 for harbor 
 improvements. The results have justified the expenditure. 
 
 A still more discouraging problem faced the board in 
 its efforts to stimulate other industries, chiefly in the manu- 
 facturing line. The main difficulty was that manufacturing 
 — and, indeed, any industry except agriculture, fishing and a 
 small amount of quarrying — was non-existent in the con- 
 gested districts. There were no plants, no skilled factory 
 workers. It was necessary to begin at the beginning. What 
 "manufacturing" there was was in the way of home indus- 
 tries — embroidery, shirt-making, knitting, spinning, lace- 
 making and the weaving of homespuns. One of the most 
 picturesque and successful works assisted by the board was 
 the Foxford Woolen Mills, started by the Sisters of Charity. 
 A loan of $35,000 was made, to be repaid in eighteen years 
 — and the whole debt has been liquidated. A $6000 mill- 
 race was constructed for the factory, and in the earlier years 
 $40,000 was paid in subsidies for the training of workers. 
 The factory employs one hundred and fifty hands, with 
 annual wages of more than $25,000. A technical school is 
 maintained for instruction in manufacture of woolen goods, 
 hosiery and ready-made clothing and in domestic training. 
 Grants were also made to a hosiery mill in Ballaghadereen 
 and to four carpet factories in Donegal. 
 
 The encouragement of homespun weaving has been an 
 interesting and important feature of the work. Irish home- 
 spun is noted the world over, and the board's assistance in 
 the teaching of experts, in the grading of webs and in grants 
 for the improvement of looms, spinning wheels and dyeing 
 has greatly enhanced the value and reputation of the prod- 
 uct. Lace-making is a "cottage industry" in Ireland, with 
 which many Americans are indirectly familiar. The beau- 
 tiful products in applique and crochet which are found in the- 
 big American stores are made chiefly in the peasants' homes 
 and in convents, where classes are conducted for teaching 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 139 
 
 girls the art. The Congested Districts Board has spent 
 large sums in developing this industry, but the returns have 
 been highly satisfactory. In poor districts the board has 
 built or rented suitable class rooms, pays the women 
 instructors and assists in marketing the lace in Dublin, Bel- 
 fast, London and elsewhere. More than seventy such 
 classes are now maintained, and the annual product averages 
 $100,000, about one-fifth of the value of all the lace pro- 
 duced in Ireland. As much as $10,000 has been earned in 
 a year by the girls of a single class. I visited one of the 
 classes in the fine school Father Denis O'Hara, a member 
 of the board, established in his parish of Kiltimagh, County 
 Mayo. Twenty or thirty girls, from thirteen to twenty 
 years old, sat in a cheerful room, working busily under the 
 eye of a young woman. Some were beginners, and had first 
 to train their unaccustomed fingers to the delicate work by 
 experimental stitches. Others, after long training, were pro- 
 ducing the dainty, filmy articles such as the teacher proudly 
 showed us in the finished state. Each of these girls will in 
 time be an efficient worker, able to make a welcome addition 
 to the family income through her skill with the needle. 
 Cooking, laundering and domestic economy constitute 
 another branch of education which is fostered, particularly 
 in Donegal. The board employs six teachers, and by a four 
 months' course fits those young women who seek domestic 
 service to earn higher wages than they could earn if inexperi- 
 enced in the mysteries of household work. 
 
 But the scheme of improvement which perhaps has the 
 greatest effect, and which certainly produces the most notice- 
 able change for the better, is the system of encouraging the 
 inhabitants of the poorer congested districts to make perma- 
 nent improvement in their farms, buildings and surroundings, 
 by means of small grants of money administered through 
 local committees. These bodies are known as parish com- 
 mittees; they are made up of clergymen of all denomina- 
 tions, the poor law guardians and the landlords or their 
 agents, all of these being members ex-officio, and six addi- 
 tional members elected by the ratepayers of each parish. 
 To each committee the board grants a sum varying from 
 $250 to $500, and tken invites the occupiers of the poorer 
 
i 4 o THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 farms to state what improvements they will make if help is 
 given to them. Enormous benefits have been produced 
 through comparatively small outlay in this direction. The 
 principal works are the erection of decent habitations in 
 place of unsanitary dwellings and of adequate stables and 
 other outbuildings; the making of roads, fences, drains, etc. 
 It must be understood that the money aid given is small, 
 covering only such materials as the occupier could not afford 
 to buy. All the necessary labor must be supplied by the man 
 himself. The good comes from the encouragement and 
 supervision more than from the financial help. The people 
 want to improve their surroundings, and need only a helping 
 hand. That the plan is productive of immense good is 
 shown by the fact that while the board has expended about 
 $300,000 upon it, the permanent improvements made have 
 a value of at least $1,500,000. In a single year three hun- 
 dred new houses have been erected and 2200 unfit dwellings 
 made sanitary and comfortable. 
 
 An important feature of this work is the raising of the 
 standard of living. Financial aid is strictly contingent upon 
 the improvement of the surroundings of the house by the 
 occupier. He must remove the stable refuse a specified dis- 
 tance from the dwelling and must turn the cattle out of it if 
 they have been, sheltered there. Thus the trilling help 
 changes for the better not only the farm equipment, but the 
 whole manner of living. Hundreds of homes which helpless 
 poverty made unsightly and unsanitary have in this way been 
 transformed into homes as pretty and comfortable as will be 
 found in the most prosperous rural communities of America. 
 
 But back of all these ameliorative works there remain 
 results of the main problem — tenants paying rents they can- 
 not afford because certain landlords refuse to be bound by 
 the land purchase plan. Therefore the British government 
 — or the Liberal Party, which is now in power — has decided 
 to apply the final remedy — the only remedy — for the deadly 
 land disease which so long kept the people of Ireland in 
 economic slavery. The first successful step in the treatment, 
 taken after several generations of agitation, was the estab- 
 lishment of the tenant's right to a certain ownership in the 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 141 
 
 improvements made by his own labor. The second was the 
 establishment of the principle of land purchase, by which 
 the tenants are being made actual owners of their lands. 
 Now comes the last move — compulsion. 
 
 To effect a complete and permanent cure a vigorous 
 dose is needed, and the country is going to get it. It may 
 be called an allopathic dose of a homoeopathic remedy. 
 Compulsion — by fire and sword and the dreadful enactments 
 of greed and prejudice and race hatred — drove the people 
 from the lands they had occupied. Compulsion — by care- 
 fully and justly framed statutes — is to restore them to their 
 own. 
 
 Lack of the power to compel final and complete settle- 
 ment of the land problem has been the chief weakness of 
 legislation heretofore. The principle of land purchase and 
 the urgent necessity for it were advanced more than sixty 
 years ago, and through successive statutes, won by arduous 
 agitation in and out of Parliament, the principle has been 
 made widely effective. The hundreds of prosperous farms 
 I have seen during this tour, where seven years ago I saw 
 empty plains, testify eloquently to the success of the plan. 
 But most of these improvements have been made through 
 consent of the landlords. It has been possible for the 
 Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board 
 to purchase many lands and resell them to the tenants 
 because the landlords — whether through good nature or 
 want of funds or sheer weariness with the endless struggle 
 against public opinion — have agreed to dispose of their huge 
 holdings to the authorities. There have been, however, and 
 are still many landlords who remain obdurate. They are 
 rich, and money does not tempt them; they are prejudiced, 
 and argument does not move them ; or they are rapacious, 
 and fair offers do not satisfy them. Hence they cling to 
 their broad acres of fertile land, while all around them, or, 
 at least, within a few miles of their domains, land-hungry 
 peasants wear out their lives in a hopeless fight with poverty. 
 
 The land bill now in Parliament — presented by the 
 Liberal government after consultation with the Irish Parlia- 
 mentary Party — proposes to apply the obvious remedy, com- 
 pulsory sale. This measure, dealing with a problem so vast 
 
1 42 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 and complex as the Irish land question, is necessarily com- 
 plex itself; but its main intent is to enlarge the powers and 
 increase the effectiveness of the authorities engaged in trans- 
 ferring the land from the landlords to the tenant proprie- 
 tors. We shall discuss only its bearings upon the work of 
 the Congested Districts Board, 
 
 Besides the inability to enforce sales of big estates, the 
 boaid has been hampered by the fact that its powers were 
 restricted to the congested districts in each county and that 
 it could not operate to the fullest extent outside of such dis- 
 tricts. Thus, while it could purchase an estate offered to it 
 outside a scheduled district, it could do so only to move to 
 that land inhabitants of a scheduled district. It could do 
 nothing to assist occupiers living near the purchased tract, 
 though they might be poorer in fact than the migrated fam- 
 ilies. The unit of congestion, it will be remembered, was the 
 electoral division and the measure of congestion the average 
 ratable valuation. The very poor families outside a district 
 which met the test of congestion were excluded from the 
 benefits of land purchase because the high value of the lands 
 around them kept up the total valuation. Hence such fam- 
 ilies might see others, no poorer than themselves, brought 
 from a distance and planted on good lands at their very 
 doors, while they, residents of the locality, could not be 
 helped at all. This defect the new land bill proposes to 
 remedy by making the county, instead of the electoral divi- 
 sion, the unit. Thus the Congested Districts Board Avill 
 have power to operate in any and all parts of the nine coun- 
 ties in which there are congested districts. Cork is an excep- 
 tion, it being provided that the four rural districts of Bantry, 
 Castletown, Schull and Skibbereen shall together be 
 regarded as a congested districts county. 
 
 The advantage of this change will be enormous. It 
 will bring within the complete operation of the board large 
 areas of grazing land in the various counties; will wipe out 
 the artificial boundaries between congested and technically 
 uncongested areas, and enable the board to deal with bad 
 conditions wherever it finds them. And, of course, the 
 granting of compulsory powers is vital to a successful work- 
 ing of the plan. Under the bill the Congested Districts 
 
CONGESTION REMEDIED 143 
 
 Board will have the right to purchase any large estate, 
 tenanted or untenanted, in any of the counties named, the 
 price, when voluntary agreement fails, being fixed by the 
 Land Commission after due inquiry. Moreover, the board 
 is to be supreme in its own counties, for the bill provides that 
 no estate in one of these counties shall be sold under the Land 
 Purchase Acts to< any person — whether the tenants or the 
 Land Commission itself — without the consent of the board. 
 The need for this is plain. Many tenants, in their eagerness 
 to own land, purchased their holdings direct from the land- 
 lords, and paid too much. Also, they lost the benefit of the 
 board's expert knowledge in rearranging farm boundaries 
 and its improvement works in the way of roads, fences, 
 drains, etc. 
 
 Finally, the bill increases the annual income of the 
 board from $431,000 to $1,250,000, which will mean 
 bigger projects of improvement, more well-built, comfort- 
 able homes, more happiness and prosperity for the people 
 whom the board has in charge. 
 
XVI 
 *THE BRIGHTENED LAND 
 
 From Castlerea, County Roscommon, to CasUcbar, the 
 county seat of Mayo, is less than fifty miles as the crow flies. 
 By the route which I traveled the distance is almost three 
 times as great. Between breakfast in Castlerea and dinner 
 in Castlebar I traveled one hundred and forty miles of 
 country, all of it in the congested districts, where lies the 
 most acute problem of the land. I covered, in fact, precisely 
 the same ground as I covered seven years ago, and a great 
 deal more. For the purposes of the comparison which I 
 came here to make between conditions then and now, I have 
 the record of those former observations and the evidence of 
 my own eyes during this tour through the same territory. 
 What has been accomplished has already been discussed in 
 statistics and extracts from official reports. It remains now 
 to tell the story in description of what has actually been seen. 
 
 There is no guesswork or vague theory about the 
 results. They are written indelibly across the face of the 
 land — peace and plenty where I had seen wretchedness and 
 want; homes where there was desolation; men and women 
 who had been starving in swamps or on stony hillsides now 
 living in comfort and contentment on fertile farms that once 
 were grazing ranches. Not all the scars of injustice have 
 been healed. This could not be accomplished in so short a 
 space of time. I have seen some haunts of misery as 
 wretched as any of those which were described in 1902. 
 But they are to disappear. All around them the work has 
 been done. The scenes of poverty are isolated amid wide 
 stretches of prosperity. I heard the promises given to the 
 patient victims of adversity that their turn is soon to come; 
 that in time they, too, will know the blessings of real homes 
 and the inspiration of self-respecting independence. 
 
 ♦Chapters XVI, XVII and XVIII were written in Castlebar, 
 County Mayo, in July, 1989. 
 
 144 
 
TENANT PURCHASER ERECTING NEW PIOME. 
 
 aSSm 
 
 r~ 
 
 NOT PRETTY, BUT COMFORTABLE. 
 
THE BRIGHTENED LAND 145 
 
 The tour which seven years ago was made by jaunting 
 car was made to-day by automobile; the thirty miles were 
 expanded to a hundred and forty. The fact has no real 
 significance, yet in a way it is suggestive of change. On the 
 former occasion it seemed as though a wide territory had 
 been covered, but on this the inspection was carried a hun- 
 dred miles further, not only along the main highways, but 
 through countless side roads and little-traveled lanes. As 
 the automobile which was used was the property of the Con- 
 gested Districts Board and carried the chief officer of that 
 body on an official tour, it had a vivid suggestion in itself 
 of how modern aggressiveness is undoing rapidly and thor- 
 oughly the wrongs of centuries past. 
 
 That ride I took from Castlerea with sturdy John Fitz- 
 gibbon seven years ago left so sharp an impression that the 
 scene as we started on this second trip was quite familiar. 
 The gray, unlovely street — the dwellers in small Irish towns 
 have had too harsh a struggle to achieve civic beauty — 
 looked just the same, except that the brightness of a July 
 morning gave warmer tints than the pale sunlight of 
 November. But the air was chill, despite the season, and 
 as the car sped out on the eastward road, skirting the gray, 
 ivy-covered wall of a private park, a keen wind sent masses 
 of cloud flying across the blue and whipped the roadside 
 ponds that gleamed after the night's rain. 
 
 My guide knew in a general way the route of the 
 former trip I had taken, and agreed that so far as prac- 
 ticable we should follow it. But there was an apt coinci- 
 dence in the fact that our first stop was precisely the same. 
 There was a simple reason for this — it provided an eminence 
 from which we could get a panoramic view of many miles 
 of country. Curiously enough, too, at no point in the trip 
 was there presented a more vivid picture of the changes 
 wrought in Ireland during those few years. From that very 
 hill one may see the story that justice has written on the sur- 
 face of the land. This may suffice as an apology for quot- 
 ing what was written of this scene seven years ago : 
 
 "From the top of a fairy mound, where the elves dance of a 
 summer's night, I have seen the Problem of the Land as in a pic- 
 ture ten miles wide, * * * mile on mile of the fairest land the 
 
 10 
 
146 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 mind can conceive, rich with promise of fertility, green still to the 
 very verge of winter, smiling, beautiful — and empty. * * * 
 Around and below us, on every side, lay the country, flooded with 
 the pale yellow light of the winter sun. The view embraced eight 
 or ten miles in all directions, a rolling green plain fading away into 
 grassy hills. * * * I counted ten houses within vision on that 
 great stretch. Each had two or three acres of tilled ground. The 
 rest was grass. The only living things in sight were tiny scattered 
 flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. Mr. Fitzgibbon translated. ** 
 
 "'We are overlooking several estates,' he said; 'Balff, Irwin, 
 Sandford, Murphy — corners of all of them are in sight. Oh, yes, 
 there were farms here once, hundreds of them. But all the people 
 are evicted. They emigrated to America, or moved, or died. The 
 dozen or so farms you see are held by men with long leases. They 
 are prosperous, though the rents are very high. The others — there 
 was no help for them. The great clearing out started at the time 
 of the famine fifty years ago. The people could not get enough to 
 eat, let alone money for the landlords. Then the world demanded 
 cattle, and the landlords decided to turn these fertile lands into 
 grazing ranches. That doomed those who had fought their way 
 through the famine. So they all went.' * * * 
 
 "Leaving Mullaghaduhy hill, our course lay off to the south- 
 ward, over low, rolling hills and long meadows. The surrounding 
 scene was still the same. Beyond the low stone walls skirting the 
 road lay miles of green fields, with not a sign of farm or crops. 
 Every few miles a thatched house stood by the roadside, with a 
 tiny patch of vegetable garden and a cluster of hayricks, brown in 
 the sun. These were the huts of the herders. Each man had two 
 hundred and fifty to three hundred acres under his care. 
 
 " 'That's it,' said Mr. Eitzgibbon, 'the best land in Roscommon, 
 fit to support thousands. And on land where ten families might 
 live in decent comfort the only occupants are cattle, a man and a 
 dog. A man and a dog ! Not a crop on twenty miles of it — and 
 the people wanting for food over yonder.' 
 
 "As we had driven along I had noticed peculiar formations in 
 the ground here and there. Across the fields lay low ridges, some- 
 times two or three hundred yards long. In some places they looked 
 like lines of grass, in others they melted into the level ground. 
 They were grass grown. I asked what they were. 
 
 " 'The remains of walls and ditches of the old farms,' answered 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon. 'You'll find them all over these lands. When the 
 tenants were evicted the walls were thrown down and grass grew 
 over the places. You will see here and there a clump or row of 
 trees. They mark where the farmhouses used to stand. The houses 
 were leveled, and the walls that inclose the road we are now on 
 were built of stones that once sheltered evicted tenants.' 
 
 "It was ghastly. I began to see these marks of devastation 
 everywhere. The fields on all sides were scarred with the green 
 ridges, as though the whip of oppression had left great welts on the 
 surface of. the land. In two or three places we came upon the 
 crumbling ruins of houses which for some reason had not been 
 carried away. There was one of which the four walls still stood, 
 with the chimney, though the roof had disappeared years ago. We 
 
THE BRIGHTENED LAND 147 
 
 could still trace the outlines of a little garden and the remnants of 
 a stable. A hare scampered away as I peered through a gaping 
 hole where there had been a window." 
 
 So the story ran, as simple and accurate a description 
 as I could write of the desolation I had seen from the 
 top of this very mound and in a short drive from it. The 
 scene came back vividly as I climbed the little eminence. 
 And I looked upon it again — the same land, but so mar- 
 velously different! Leaning against the wind that came 
 booming over leagues of rolling plain, we looked off east, 
 north and south. It was one great farm ; not one actually, 
 but one in the rich beauty of fertility and busy cultivation. 
 Where I had seen thousands of acres of empty grass lands, 
 tenanted only by roaming cattle, I saw now a wide plain 
 carpeted with fields of growing crops. Where I had counted 
 ten houses — the meager, thatched huts of poor herders — I 
 counted thirty, forty, fifty — one for every quarter mile as 
 far as the eye could reach. 
 
 Good houses they were, too, standing square and trim 
 in the sun — sturdily built of stone, gleaming with white- 
 wash, topped with strong slate roofs. Around each house 
 lay neatly walled fields, patches of living green in every 
 shade — the pale shimmer of oats, the rich color of potato 
 plants, the slaty green of cabbages. Near each dwelling was 
 a little group of outhouses for the cattle, with a pile of 
 brown turf against one wall. The dooryards gleamed with 
 bright flowers. 
 
 "And all this has been done in seven years !" I said. 
 
 "Less than that," said the officer of the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board. "This district has been 'settled' for nearly 
 two years. Within sight are more than 2000 acres of land, 
 made up of parts of several estates. This tract was virtually 
 empty. It was used, as you know, for big grazing ranches. 
 Now you can see the homes of one hundred families. 
 Roughly, five hundred persons have been lifted from hope- 
 less poverty and made independent in this single section 
 under your eye." 
 
 I looked again across the wide plain, which had been 
 so vacant and now glowed with life. From chimneys here 
 and there smoke was whipping in the wind. In a field a 
 
148 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 quarter of a mile away two men were cultivating potatoes, 
 moving down the rows with steady, rhythmic movements. 
 Along a road jolted three carts, piled high with turf from 
 a distant bog. At the door of a cottage near the foot of the 
 hill stood a woman, shading her eyes with her hand as she 
 looked after a group of children on their way to school, and 
 down the wind came the sound of the fresh young voices, 
 laughing and singing. 
 
 Having studied attentively some hundreds of pages of 
 official reports bristling with statistical information, I was 
 fairly impressed with the magnitude of the improvement 
 made during the last seven years by the Congested Districts 
 Board. But, after all, figures are not the most effective evi- 
 dence. The sight of one trim, comfortable home where 
 there had been a wretched hovel, or of a dozen prosperous 
 farms where there had been empty pastures, carries more 
 conviction than a ream of dry statistics. I accepted the 
 official reports as a matter of course. I learned from them 
 that so many thousand acres had been purchased from the 
 landlords and resold to the tenants; that so many thousand 
 families had been lifted from poverty to independence; 
 that so many millions of dollars had been expended for 
 estates, for road building, for drainage, for new houses 
 and other improvements. These facts were striking, and 
 bore sufficient testimony that the poorer districts of Ireland 
 are benefiting by a remarkable economic revolution — the 
 making of the helpless tenants into independent landholders. 
 But until I stood on this hill and looked over that wide, fer- 
 tile plain, dotted with the homes of nearly a hundred fami- 
 lies, I had but faintly realized what the imposing array of 
 figures meant. Until then I had not understood the accuracy 
 of John Dillon's statement: "The whole, face of the land 
 has been changed." 
 
 Vivid as was the story told by this bird's-eye view, how- 
 ever, I wanted to learn some details. It seemed to me that 
 in one of the houses I might find evidence more convincing 
 than any description of conditions now as contrasted with 
 conditions seven years ago. I made this suggestion to the 
 officer of the Congested Districts Board who was my guide. 
 
THE BRIGHTENED LAND 149 
 
 "Select any house in sight," he said, "and go and talk 
 to the family." 
 
 We came down from the hill, climbed the wall and 
 descended by a rocky lane to the plain. I chose the first 
 house we reached. It was two stories high, built strongly 
 of stone, with a slate roof. Plain beyond the point of 
 severity, it had not a single hint of beauty or art to recom- 
 mend it. The government has undertaken a work so vast 
 that it has deemed it wise not to expend energy or money in 
 producing artistic dwellings. This seems a pity, for surely 
 there is an economic value in beauty, and the housing of the 
 people in buildings of such forbidding plainness tends to 
 discourage aspirations toward higher things. But this 
 seemed a very subordinate issue when I remembered the 
 squalor and misery in which these people were living a few 
 short years ago. The house stood about fifty feet from the 
 road, the "front yard" filled with growing cabbages of enor- 
 mous size. We passed around one end, and at the back 
 door were greeted cheerily by a little woman of middle age 
 but youthful spirits. She came out, wiping her hands on her 
 apron, beaming with welcome and smiling proudly when we 
 asked permission to look around her place. 
 
 "Indeed, sir," she said, "I'll be glad to have you see. 
 Sure we're not as tidy as we might be to-day, but we're com- 
 fortable, and that's much." 
 
 She walked with us to the end of the yard — it was 
 paved with cobblestones — and showed us the stable and 
 other outhouses. These, too, were of stone and slate 
 roofed. At one end of the stable was a huge pile of turf, 
 three months' supply of fuel. At the other end was a con- 
 crete pig sty. 
 
 "Where you formerly lived," I suggested, "you had 
 no such arrangement as this? You kept the cattle in the 
 house?" , 
 
 A shadow passed over her face. 
 
 "We did, sir. We did that. But God knows it was no 
 fault of ours. We lived as we could, and it was bad living. 
 It was four miles from here, ten acres of hillside, that my 
 man and I and the children had to pick the stones out of 
 with our hands. We never had a crop that would keep food 
 
150 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 in our stomachs for a year. Every summer my man and the 
 big boys had to go to England and do farm work to get 
 enough money for the rent and to carry us through the 
 winter. Now, you see " 
 
 She pointed at the house and then at the fields which 
 climbed the slope. A quarter of a mile away the husband 
 and son could be seen, up to their waists among the dark 
 green of the potato plants, working steadily — and working, 
 not for another, but for themselves. 
 
 "It is all different," she said, simply. "And, please 
 God, it will stay different." 
 
 "What rent did you pay?" I asked. 
 
 "Three pounds a year. This was for ten acres of 
 worthless land and the bit of a house — a wretched house, 
 sir — I'm sick now to think of it." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "Now, sir, we have twenty-six acres of land, all of it 
 raising good crops. We have two cows and a calf, a pig 
 with a growing litter and forty chickens. For the house 
 and stable and land we pay £20 a year. This is not rent, 
 you see, sir. We're buying the whole place. We'll be land 
 owners ourselves," and she smiled happily. 
 
 Here was a difference. This family, living in unspeak- 
 able poverty, were able to pay $15 a year and feed them- 
 selves only by sending the stronger members to England 
 every year. Now they were living well, in a comfortable 
 house instead of a hovel, with plenty of good, nourishing 
 food, and were paying $100 a year, not for rent, but in 
 purchase instalments. 
 
 "Are you satisfied you can pay six or seven times as 
 much as before?" I asked. "Isn't that a big burden to 
 assume?" 
 
 "Sure, sir, we'll do it, please God. We came well 
 through the first year, though we lost a calf that broke its 
 leg in a gate. 'Tis a hard struggle, but we don't look for 
 ease. We are working for ourselves, do you see, and that 
 makes it better." 
 
 We went into the house, passing the concrete chicken 
 house built against the outside of the chimney, so that the 
 fowls have the benefit of the warmth in winter. At one side 
 
THE BRIGHTENED LAND 151 
 
 of the back entrance was a small room used as a dairy. We 
 entered the main living room, kitchen and dining room in 
 one. It was lighted by a large window. The concrete floor 
 was spotlessly clean and the room held substantial furniture. 
 On a dresser against the wall were dishes and a gleaming 
 array of pots and pans. There was no range, but in the big 
 fireplace a pile of turf glowed, ample for giving warmth and 
 for cooking. In a wooden cradle of the old-fashioned "ark" 
 shape a baby slept peacefully, a cat curled up at its feet. A 
 tall, shy girl, barefooted, was drying dishes. Three other 
 children played on the floor. 
 
 "Twelve children," said the mother, cheerfully. "Ah, 
 they're a great comfort to us. The two oldest boys are on 
 the works (employed by the Congested Districts Board on 
 road building or drainage), the third is out in the potatoes 
 with his father, one is away to market and three are at 
 school." 
 
 From this living room opened another, in which the 
 woman had made some effort to create the atmosphere of a 
 parlor. A stairway led to the second floor, where there were 
 three bedrooms. 
 
 As we walked out to the gate the Congested Districts 
 officer talked encouragingly to the woman of improvements 
 that might be made in the homestead. She assented eagerly. 
 
 "Ah, your Honor, we'll try so hard, indeed we will. 
 But it's a struggle, with twelve children." 
 
 "But you must fight it out," was the advice. "You've 
 got a start now, and you're doing ever so much better than 
 before. You must try to live up to your new opportunities. 
 The government has made this chance for you; it can do 
 nothing more. The future is in your own hands. You must 
 keep yourself afloat. It's sink or swim now." 
 
 "And it'll be 'swim,' your Honor," cried the little 
 woman, heartily. "Please God, we'll make a home here 
 that the children '11 be proud of. Sure, I don't complain of 
 the work. When I think of that place we left, and the fine 
 little farm we have now, it gives me heart to go on. We'll 
 do better, and never worse, please God." 
 
 So we left her, as she turned back to her work with a 
 prayer on her lips. 
 
XVII 
 THINGS SEEN 
 
 In the one-hundred-and-forty-mile trip through typical 
 sections of the congested districts the writer had every 
 opportunity for examining at close range the remarkable 
 work that has been done toward ameliorating the condition 
 of the inhabitants of a large territory. Now, as seven years 
 ago, he used not second-hand information, but the evidence 
 of his own eyes. Then he told of poverty and helplessness 
 and injustice which he actually witnessed; now he describes 
 upon the same basis of ocular demonstration conditions of 
 prosperity and comfort and hope in identically the same sec- 
 tions of the country. To show the extent and thoroughness 
 of this investigation, I shall set down a brief, consecutive 
 record of the tour I made, with the chief land inspector of 
 the Congested Districts Board at my side to explain the 
 meaning of every piece of work accomplished, under way or 
 projected. 
 
 Leaving Castlerea, County Roscommon, our motor car 
 traveled about four miles in a southeasterly direction. 
 Reaching Mullaghaduhy hill, we had a view, as already 
 described, of several miles of land, formerly grazing 
 ranches, upon which nearly one hundred families have been 
 placed. These families were brought — "migrated" is the 
 official term — distances varying from four to twenty miles. 
 They had occupied miserable bog and hillside holdings, 
 where even the most heart-breaking labor could not produce 
 enough to support them. Placed on these fertile lands, in 
 neat, comfortable houses built for them, they are paying 
 their own way, and for the first time in their lives know the 
 life-giving joy of independence. For it must be understood 
 that there is no mushy philanthropy about this great eco- 
 
 152 
 

THINGS SEEN 153 
 
 nomic work. The wise men — Irishmen all — who compose 
 the Congested Districts Board have neither the power nor 
 the desire to pauperize these victims of the villainous old land 
 system. A chance — that is all the tenants get when they are 
 created land owners. It is true that certain works, which 
 are not directly reproductive, are paid for out of the income 
 of the board; but very nearly all of such expenditures, 
 such as for drainage and buildings, are charged to the 
 land as it is sold to the tenants. The cost is added to the 
 sale price and repaid in the yearly instalments of purchase 
 money. Besides the opportunity to make a decent living, 
 the new land owners have the consciousness that they are 
 receiving no gift of government charity, but by their labor 
 under just conditions are paying for their farms, the build- 
 ings and all improvements. 
 
 Swinging to the north through the little village of 
 Castleplunket, the car passed through good farming land to 
 the town of Bellanagare, and a mile or so to the southeast 
 of that point brought us to Rathnallog. Here the opera- 
 tions of the board were seen in a different phase. A big 
 estate had been cut up into small farms, and upon each hold- 
 ing was being erected a slate-roofed house of stone, with 
 trim outbuildings. In this one section twenty-two houses 
 are in course of erection, some of them being almost ready 
 for occupancy. Returning through Bellanagare, the course 
 lay northwest to Frenchpark, through sections of the great 
 Dillon, Murphy and de Freyne estates. These large prop- 
 erties were purchased several years ago by the board, and 
 the work has created decent living conditions for several 
 thousand families who had existed in helpless poverty. 
 
 Not in every case, it must be understood, can the board 
 confer an adequate amount of land. Congestion of popula- 
 tion in some districts is a stern fact which cannot be over- 
 come. But in these cases the rearrangement of scattered 
 holdings into compact farms; the draining of wet land; the 
 building of roads into districts lacking easy access to mar- 
 kets, and the assistance of holders toward improving the 
 condition of the houses and outbuildings have worked a 
 marvelous improvement. In passing, we may get an idea 
 cf the magnitude of the work by examining the records in 
 
i54 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 the case of the three estates just mentioned — Dillon, Mur- 
 phy and de Freyne. Here are the figures: 
 
 Acreage, tenanted, at time of purchase 123,440 
 
 Acreage, untenanted, including bog 11,878 
 
 Acreage, total 135,318 
 
 Rent that was paid annually by tenants $157,370 
 
 Number of tenants 5,961 
 
 Purchase price paid by board, unimproved.... $2,712,455 
 Expended, by board for improvements $703,090 
 
 A little northwest of Frenchpark we left the main road 
 and ran a short distance to Callow. Here we saw a large 
 area of grass land which in June, 1909, was divided into 
 holdings. Within sight twenty or thirty houses were in 
 course of erection, and scores of men and teams were busy 
 cutting roads into the heart of the tract for the use of the 
 farmers. Within four months every one of the houses was 
 to be occupied. Coming back to the main road and travel- 
 ing westward, we inspected a remarkable bit of engineering 
 work on the Lung river. To drain some wet land, the board 
 has diverted the river into a new channel. After passing 
 Ballaghaderreen the course lay southwest and then west 
 nearly to Kilkelly. Here, in the townlands of Tavraun and 
 Glentavraun, I saw seventy-five new houses, erected during 
 the last two years. This group constitutes another phase of 
 the board's work, upon which I have not yet touched. The 
 houses were not built by the board, but by the landholders 
 themselves, under the board's direction. Only small loans 
 were made, but the trifling assistance given had stirred the 
 landholders to help themselves to this extent. The seventy- 
 five houses offered eloquent testimony to the ambition and 
 industry of the farmers when an opportunity for betterment 
 by their own labor is offered to them. 
 
 Thence the car ran due north to Charlestown, from 
 which place we made a circuit of ten or fifteen miles in the 
 open country. Two interesting features presented them- 
 selves on this detour. One was the deepening of the Curry 
 river for drainage purposes, the other a hamlet of poor 
 houses, where the wretched conditions I saw seven years 
 ago still exist, the board having been unable as yet to acquire 
 decent lands for the tenants. A straight run westward 
 
THINGS SEEN 155 
 
 through the Swinford district brought us to Foxford, 
 where a notable feature is the woolen factory conducted as 
 a successful commercial enterprise by Sisters of Charity. 
 Climbing through the rugged mountains that surround 
 Lough Cullen, we crossed the narrow strip of land which 
 separates it from Lough Conn, amid scenery as wildly beau- 
 tiful as can be found in all Ireland, and thence ran easily 
 down to Castlebar. 
 
 Next morning, before starting eastward again, we 
 made a ten-mile detour to the southwest of Castlebar to 
 visit a colony of "migrants" who have been settled in their 
 new places for eight or nine years. Here I saw the mar- 
 velous work of the board in full fruition. The land is poor 
 — it was impossible to find better land in the neighborhood 
 for those who needed it — but the people have made a brave 
 fight for themselves, and they have won. The little farms 
 were bright with growing crops, the houses gleaming with 
 paint and whitewash. Few that I saw lacked beds of 
 flowers in the dooryards, and many had climbing roses that 
 reached the eaves. The cattle looked sleek and well fed. 
 School houses that we passed were filled with rosy-cheeked, 
 bare-footed children. The problem has been settled and 
 settled right. The people got their chance, and they are 
 living up to it. Not one has failed to make his purchase 
 payments. Where there were poverty and wretchedness 
 under the system of landlordism there are peace and content- 
 ment under the system of ownership. 
 
 One photograph I took in this neighborhood will illus- 
 trate the story of what the land reformation means when it 
 is completed. The board built for a man for whom it pro- 
 vided a farm one of the serviceable but hopelessly plain 
 houses. He moved into it, with his family, and cheerfully 
 undertook to pay, in purchase instalments, six times as much 
 annually as he had paid in rent for a stony strip of hillside. 
 Once he was settled there, under contract to the govern- 
 ment, supervision and advice were withdrawn. That is the 
 invariable rule. The board is paternalism personified in its 
 operations, but the paternalism is of a Spartan character. 
 There is no coddling, no fussy interference or officious offers 
 of aid. The board has a deliberate policy to let each family, 
 
1 56 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 once placed on the road to self-support, work out its own 
 economic salvation, and it is gratifying to know that in 
 every single case I investigated the men and women con- 
 cerned were perfectly satisfied with the arrangement. 
 
 This man, then, with his family, found himself pos- 
 sessed of twenty-tw r o acres of fairly decent land, with a 
 section of bog from which he could cut turf for fuel; a 
 comfortable but rather ugly house and the necessary out- 
 buildings for a small farm. These were to be his own, upon 
 certain yearly payments, less than the rent he had paid for 
 T a wretched hovel on the hill. He might have been content 
 with the place as it was. It sheltered his family, and that 
 is what a house is primarily for. During all the years they 
 lived in the thatched hut they had never had the money or 
 the heart to make an improvement. There was no incen- 
 tive. In the new environment, however, it was different. 
 Within two years the man had built a porch, with a window, 
 at the front door. This alone added fifty per cent, to the 
 attractiveness of the place. Lace curtains appeared at the 
 windows. The frowsy front yard was plowed up and beds 
 of flowers planted. A neat hedge was set out along the 
 road, and climbing roses made patches of color against the 
 walls. When I saw this place it was as trim and attractive 
 as many a prosperous American farmhouse. Said the Con- 
 gested Districts Board man : ^ 
 
 "I am prouder of things like that, with which we have 
 had nothing directly to do, than of any of the projects which 
 we undertake for the people themselves. It is a great thing to 
 build roads and fences and drains and houses; it is a greater 
 thing to stir the ambition of helpless people and to see how 
 their spirit expands under the sunshine of opportunity. We 
 gave that man a chance, that's all. The house was a mere 
 shelter when he got it — weatherproof and comfortable, but 
 wholly lacking in beauty. You see what he has made of 
 it — a pretty home. He has done all that himself, without 
 even a suggestion from us. The effect upon his own family, 
 upon his children, must be obvious. But it has its effect 
 upon the whole neighborhood. In time every house within 
 sight will be improved. The example is irresistible. After 
 all, what we do, valuable as the work is, is merely prepara- 
 
THINGS SEEN ■ 157 
 
 tory. We help a little, but the big thing is that we teach 
 the people to help themselves. And it is encouraging to see 
 how quickly and vigorously they grasp the lesson and put it 
 into practice." 
 
 Next day a run to Kiltimagh and around the neighbor- 
 hood, and thence to Claremorris, completed the tour. 
 
 In this tour of the congested districts I traversed many 
 miles of country, almost every acre of which bears marks of 
 the huge schemes of improvement which the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board is carrying out. The transfer of families from 
 worthless land to fertile farms; the rearrangement of hold- 
 ings in compact form, instead of the scattered patches 
 resulting from many years of complicated customs of 
 tenure; the driving of roads into inaccessible tracts; the 
 building of drainage works, which permit the reclamation 
 of wet lands; the erection of sanitary dwellings and out- 
 buildings — all these enterprises combined have worked a 
 marvelous change. 
 
 Nowhere in the world, perhaps, has there been the 
 application of a more elaborate system of paternalism ; for 
 no> other method could cope with the conditions fostered by 
 centuries of injustice. But the paternalism has been of a 
 highly intelligent character, and strict regulations, rigidly 
 enforced, have made it a stimulus instead of a deterrent to 
 individual effort and self-support. Reference has been 
 made to the large number of new houses erected for tenants 
 who have been made owners of new lands. This constitutes 
 a very important part of the board's work, but it is only a 
 part. It is gratifying to know that the transformation of 
 this unfortunate district of Ireland is due in great measure 
 to the ambition and energy of the people themselves, stimu- 
 lated by the assistance and supervision of the board. We 
 passed, for instance, a trim little farmhouse which was obvi- 
 ously a home of comfort and prosperity, and I congratu- 
 lated the officer of the board upon this evidence of effective 
 work. With far more pride than he had pointed out opera- 
 tions of the board itself he explained that this neat little 
 home had been built by a man who formerly had occupied 
 a wretched hovel. 
 
158 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 "There was little that we could do for him," he said. 
 "There was no land available to which he could be migrated. 
 But we rearranged the holdings in the district and provided 
 him with a compact farm equal in area and value to the 
 thirty-five scattered patches that he had rented in the neigh- 
 borhood. Also, we made a main drain, which gave this 
 man and others in the district an outfall into which he could 
 carry his own short drains, and so improve the quality of his 
 land. As to the house, it should be understood that the 
 board does not erect new dwellings except for migrants 
 moved into new districts or in cases where the rearrange- 
 ment of holdings makes it necessary to remove houses; then 
 others are built for the purchasers. 
 
 "But in this case, the house being conveniently situated 
 upon the rearranged farm, improvement or replacing of it 
 was the duty of the holder. The board prepared the plans, 
 made a small advance and supervised the work, and the 
 money advanced was added to the sale price of the holding. 
 In other words, the man will pay a small additional sum 
 in the purchase annuity, and so in time liquidate not only 
 the cost of the land, but of the new house and the outbuild- 
 ings as well. 
 
 "The work was all done by himself and men whom he 
 could get to work for him. Usually the board's advance 
 covers the manufactured material necessary, such as dressed 
 lumber, slate and hardware. The rough material, such as 
 stone, sand, etc., as well as the labor, is supplied by the 
 new owner." 
 
 There are, in fact, four general plans in operation, which 
 are responsible for the astonishing improvements which have 
 brightened the land and the lives of the people in the con- 
 gested districts during the last few years. These are : 
 
 First — Erection by the board of new houses and out- 
 buildings for migrants moved to new land, or where such 
 work is made necessary by rearrangement of holdings. 
 Part of the cost of improvements is added to farm's pur- 
 chase price, and repaid by the tenant purchaser in small 
 annual payments. 
 
 Second — Free grants of money by the board to parish 
 committees, which in turn distribute the money to poor land- 
 
THINGS SEEN 159 
 
 holders for prizes for improvement works. These grants 
 are not repayable. 
 
 Third — Loans and free grants by board to tenant pur- 
 chasers who desire to make improvements on their holdings 
 while the estate is in the board's hands. Loans are repay- 
 able. 
 
 Fourth — Loans to tenant purchasers owning lands 
 which form part of estates which have passed out of the 
 board's hands to the new owners. These are repayable. 
 
 "No means adopted by the board," said the chief 
 Onicial, "is likely to have such an elevating effect upon the 
 home life of the people as the operation of these house 
 improvement schemes. Poor landholders over a consider- 
 able area of the congested districts have eagerly availed 
 themselves of the advantages offered. Thousands of homes 
 which were unfit for human habitation because of their 
 damp, cold, dirt floors and fixed windows, and because of the 
 practice of keeping cattle in the dwellings, have been made 
 comfortable and sanitary. Removal of the cattle from the 
 houses and of the manure pit from close proximity to the 
 dwelling is imperatively demanded before any assistance 
 will be given. Slate roofs are substituted for thatch, con- 
 crete kitchen floors and board bedroom floors for the deadly 
 dirt and movable, double-sash windows for the old immov- 
 able kind. In short, where the erection of an entirely new 
 dwelling was not called for, or was impracticable, the old 
 house has been quite transformed and made not only 
 decently habitable, but really comfortable." 
 
 I have learned that under the four plans referred to 
 above the following is the record to March 31 of this year: 
 
 Improvements Expended 
 executed. by board. 
 
 Plan No. 1 1,348 $498,750 
 
 Plan No. 2 26,983 245,320 
 
 Plan No. 3 7,800 366,100 
 
 Plan No. 4 196 13,470 
 
 Totals 36,327 $1,123,640 
 
 The first plan — the erection of new buildings by the 
 board — has already been discussed at some length in preced- 
 ing chapters. The second is worth some special mention. 
 
160 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 This is the distribution of money prizes and free grants 
 through parish committees. After twelve years of opera- 
 tion this scheme has been found to yield excellent results, 
 not merely in the actual improvements wrought in the con- 
 ditions of living, but in the spirit of progress and emulation 
 which it fosters among the people. It was aimed to 
 give opportunities for self-help to the able-bodied men and 
 boys of the congested districts, most of whom spend from 
 three to eight months a year as migratory laborers in Eng- 
 land. There is no employment for them at their homes in 
 the winter, and it was thought that their energies might be 
 turned during this idle period to the improvement of their 
 homes. 
 
 Under the rules, committees for the distribution of the 
 money grants are made up in each parish as follows: 
 Ex-officio members are clergymen of all denominations, the 
 dispensary medical officer, the county councilor of the dis- 
 trict, the district councilors for the electoral division and the 
 resident landlords, or, in their absence, their resident 
 agents; elected members are six residents of the parish, duly 
 elected by the taxpayers. 
 
 Having organized and obtained a grant from the 
 board, the parish committee announces its plans and receives 
 applications for aid in carrying out improvements. It is 
 stipulated that the committee shall "select such projects as 
 will, in their opinion, be productive of most good, and shall 
 give a preference to applicants who' undertake to do rela- 
 tively the greatest amount of work with the least assistance." 
 The board says : 
 
 "It is the board's opinion that these grants or prizes 
 ought to represent but a small proportion of the value of 
 the work done if paid for at the current rate of wages. 
 The board aims at making these grants barely sufficient to 
 afford a stimulus to self-help. The most urgent and impor- 
 tant reform is the removal of cattle from the dwelling 
 houses. The first grant that can be sanctioned in the case 
 of any applicant who has cattle in his dwelling must be in 
 connection with the removal of them from his house. Until 
 this has been done no grant can be made for any other pur- 
 pose." 
 
THINGS SEEN 161 
 
 The 26,983 projects forwarded under this plan were 
 divided about equally between improvements to dwellings 
 and erection or improvement of outbuildings. 
 
 Under plan No. 3 a tenant purchaser may obtain a 
 loan, and, in some cases, a free grant, provided he carries 
 out the improvement work while the estate is in the hands 
 of the board. There is a free grant of $7.50 to any ten- 
 ant who will remove the cattle from his house, partition 
 off a bedroom and put in three windows with movable 
 sashes. For the holders of the poorer lands, free grants of 
 from $15 to $25 are given toward the erection of outbuild- 
 ings and $25 to $50 toward the erection of a dwelling. In 
 addition, $125 will be advanced while the work is in prog- 
 ress, provided the purchasing tenant agrees to add the sum 
 to the purchase price, to be repaid in the annuity payments. 
 
 Plan No. 4 offers similar advantages to small land- 
 holders who will make improvements after the board has 
 turned over the property. There are, however, no free 
 grants. The board offers the following advances: For 
 house with slate roof, $125'; house with corrugated iron 
 roof, $75; house with thatched roof, $50; stable with iron 
 roof, $40. Loans under $50 must be repaid in half-yearly 
 instalments, covering principal and interest at three and one- 
 half per cent., within ten years; larger sums may run for a 
 period not exceeding twenty-five years. 
 
 On one section of the Dillon estate, near Kilkelly, I 
 counted no fewer than seventy-five houses, which have been 
 erected by small landholders, under plan No. 3, during the 
 last two years. The permanent good accomplished by this 
 work cannot be measured. Not only have the occupants — 
 men, women and children — the inestimable advantage of 
 living in healthful, comfortable surroundings, instead of 
 amid the shocking conditions inseparable from the old 
 system, but they have had the inspiration of lifting them- 
 selves to a higher level, and they have furnished an example 
 of good sense, thrift and energy which will stir the emula- 
 tion of the people for miles around the new homes. 
 
 11 
 
XVIII 
 A REMNANT OF LANDLORDISM 
 
 This little story is in parentheses. It is a glance at the 
 other side. Like the account of the Kerry eviction in 
 another chapter, it is out of harmony with the series of 
 articles, but may be valuable in giving the reader a true 
 perspective of economic affairs in Ireland. We have been 
 surveying the remarkable works of improvement which 
 have been carried on during the last seven years — the trans- 
 fer of tenants from worthless bog lands and stony hillsides 
 to fertile farms; the building of roads and draining of 
 swamp tracts; the erection of comfortable, sanitary dwell- 
 ings for families migrated to decent holdings; in short, the 
 transferring of many thousands of hapless victims of the 
 system of landlordism into independent, self-sustaining citi- 
 zens. Now we shall turn aside for a moment and look at 
 conditions as they were and as they still exist in isolated dis- 
 tricts, where for one reason or another the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board has been unable to operate. The picture is not 
 attractive, but it is presented because it is typical of the 
 results of the old system and because it serves to illustrate 
 how vast is the progress that has been made. No Irishman 
 need shrink at the recital, for the conditions are not due to 
 any fault of the people concerned. Rather he should rejoice 
 that these instances of helpless poverty and stifled ambition 
 are now exceptional, and are soon to disappear under the 
 operation of the land purchase system and the intelligent, 
 helpful work of the Congested Districts Board. 
 
 There is no need to give the name of the hamlet. We 
 reached it while making a detour northward of Charles- 
 town, near the dividing line between Counties Mayo and 
 Sligo. The country, for the most part, was agriculturally 
 poor. Sometimes for miles the road wound across a deso- 
 late-looking bog, built up like a causeway above the flat 
 plain of brown, soggy turf. Yet the population was, for a 
 
 162 
 
A REMNANT OF LANDLORDISM 163 
 
 rural district, noticeably dense. Here and there on the wide 
 expanse could be seen clusters of thatched huts, with patches 
 of green that showed where scraps of land, reclaimed from 
 the bog after the cutting out of the peat, were forced to 
 yield crops of potatoes and oats. There is a certain pic- 
 turesqueness even about the commonplace operation of turf- 
 cutting. The whole surface of the bog was scarred with 
 ditches and holes. The turf, usually five or six feet in 
 depth, is cut straight down from the surface with sharp 
 spades, leaving smooth, perpendicular walls, at the bottom 
 of which pools of water form. The peat, cut roughly in 
 the form of bricks, is tossed out on the surface and then 
 piled in regular heaps from six to eight feet high, the out- 
 side lumps being cunningly arranged so as to shed the rain 
 and keep the interior of the piles dry. After a few weeks' 
 exposure to the air the turf dries sufficiently to be used as 
 fuel. It is carried to the homes in carts or in huge baskets. 
 These creels are borne by donkeys, or often by men and 
 women. 
 
 At the edge of one of these great bogs we came upon 
 a small section of firm land, parts of it forbiddingly sown 
 with rocks and other parts as forbiddingly wet. There 
 was, however, a pasture here and there and some fairly 
 decent cultivated land. A cluster of dreary-looking 
 thatched houses bordered the road on either side, a dozen 
 in all. With the officer of the Congested Districts Board, 
 I entered eight of the houses, and talked with the persons 
 inhabiting them. What I saw and heard pictures the life of 
 the poorest of the people here under the old system of land- 
 lordism. 
 
 From the roadway we stepped down six inches into the 
 first house. I never heard a satisfactory explanation of this 
 habit of building houses below the general level, with the 
 floor lower than the outside surface. Naturally, the system 
 insures a flooding of the house with each heavy rain. This 
 dwelling had a single room, lighted only by the doorway 
 and a window with immovable sashes. There was no ceil- 
 ing. The pointed roof showed on the interior the under 
 side of the thatch, black with smoke and soot. The floor 
 was of large flat stones, irregularly laid in the dirt. On the 
 
164 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 hearth smoldered a pile of turf. At one side of the fire- 
 place, in the corner, was a rough framework, immovable, 
 which served as a bed. A dresser held a few dishes. There 
 were two chairs. Just inside the door a calf, tethered to the 
 wall, was drinking from a pail of milk. At the end of the 
 room opposite the fireplace the floor was a little rougher 
 than elsewhere, and straight across it, dividing one-third of 
 the room from the remainder, ran a shallow open drain. 
 This inclosed the space which in winter is occupied by two 
 cows. A woman about sixty years old greeted us pleasantly. 
 The conversation ran like this: 
 
 "Good evening! Will you tell me what family lives 
 here?" 
 
 "My husband and myself. He is away in the fields 
 now." 
 
 "How much land have you?" 
 
 "Six acres four perches. It is very poor land, sir." 
 
 "And the rent?" 
 
 "Three pounds six shillings a year." 
 
 "What else have you?" 
 
 "Two cows, this calf, a pig and some chickens." 
 
 "Do you make a comfortable living?" 
 
 "Indeed no, sir! It is a very hard struggle. Very 
 hard ! My husband goes to England three months a year 
 or we could never get along." 
 
 "Have you any relatives in America?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; a daughter." 
 
 "Does she help you?" 
 
 "She did for some years after she went out. But she 
 is married now and has her own family to look after." 
 
 I found this condition very frequently. The young 
 men and women who emigrate almost invariably send remit- 
 tances home from year to year — until they marry. Then 
 they find their own burdens heavy enough. 
 
 "Well, now," said the official visitor, "don't you think 
 it is time that you changed your mode of life? Don't you 
 think that if the board gave you a little help you would like 
 to have a comfortable house, with buildings outside for the 
 cattle?" 
 
A REMNANT OF LANDLORDISM 165 
 
 "Indeed I do, sir," cried the woman, eagerly. "We 
 live like this because we could not help it. We have tried 
 so hard to get along, but in all the years we have never been 
 able to lay by enough to put us ahead." 
 
 "Well, the board will soon take hold of this district, 
 and it is likely that we shall be able to do something for 
 you. But remember this : All we can do is give you a 
 chance; your husband must help himself." 
 
 "I'm sure he will, your Honor." 
 
 "There must be no cattle in the new house. You must 
 try to keep the place clean and neat." 
 
 "Indeed, I'll do that." 
 
 Within a year this woman and her husband will have 
 a comfortable home, with eighteen or twenty acres of fer- 
 tile land and adequate quarters for the cattle. They will 
 never live again as they have in the past. In no single case, 
 I am officially informed, has a family once placed on the 
 road to a decent living reverted to the primitive methods 
 which I saw in this little village of the old regime. We 
 entered another house, across the road. The interior 
 arrangement, of exactly the same character, need not be 
 described. A white-haired old woman, barefooted, sat on 
 a stool, throwing refuse on the dirt floor for a flock of 
 chickens to peck at. Nearby sprawled a huge pig. The 
 woman's story was much the same. The pig and the 
 chickens had the run of the house because that had always 
 been the custom. 
 
 "But do you mean to say," said the officer, with 
 assumed incredulity, "that the pig stays in here at night?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir," answered the woman, simply, "but he 
 doesn't make much noise. He's a quiet pig, sir." 
 
 Nevertheless, this woman listened eagerly to the prom- 
 ise of the board that presently changes would be made which 
 would exclude the well-mannered pig from the dwelling. 
 
 Another house. Noticeably neat, this one. The stone 
 floor swept, the table scrubbed, the dishes and pans gleam- 
 ing. True, two calves lay in a corner, undergoing the 
 process of weaning, and a setting hen with an unfriendly 
 eye brooded over her eggs in another. Yet the place was 
 clean and had an atmosphere of decent comfort. On the 
 
1 66 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 dresser stood two mugs filled with bright wild flowers from 
 the hedgerows. 
 
 Out of the gloom by the fireplace stepped a young girl, 
 eighteen years old, perhaps, with a trim, lithe figure. Her 
 bright print dress did not reach her bare ankles. Her hair, 
 unbraided, fell in black, waves over her shoulders. Her 
 pretty face was brightened by dancing blue eyes and daz- 
 zling teeth. Her manner was as calm and courteous as if 
 she had been conscious of a well-fitting directoire gown and 
 was receiving her visitors in a Louis Quinze drawing room. 
 It was so gracious that it put me at my ease. I was grateful 
 for the feeling. It robbed our visit of a sense of intrusion 
 which could not be absent from such an inspection of the 
 homes of strangers. The fact that a government official 
 was present excused the call; but this girl's frank and easy 
 welcome made it a pleasure. 
 
 "My mother is at market," she explained, "and I am 
 looking after the house and the children. I am very glad 
 to see you." 
 
 "And how are you getting along?" was the official 
 question. 
 
 "As well as may be, sir," answered the girl. "We are 
 doing the best we can until the board helps us to do some- 
 thing better." 
 
 "Well, when the board does get you some land and 
 helps your father to build a better house, with a stable and 
 a house for the chickens, do you think you'll be able to get 
 along better?" 
 
 "Ah, sir," with a flash of the white teeth, "you 
 needn't be asking that. Sure I've seen some of the new 
 houses, with their big windows and their fine concrete 
 floors and all, and I know we'll have a home to be proud of. 
 Father is away in England at the harvesting, and the big- 
 gest boy is working for the board in the river. They'll both 
 be ready for the work when you can get us the new place. 
 When will it be, sir?" she added, wistfully. 
 
 "Soon now," was the cheery answer of the government, 
 "and you must be planning how to make your new home 
 comfortable and pretty. You'll be able to have flowers in 
 
A REMNANT OF LANDLORDISM 167 
 
 your own yard then, and these calves will have a fine stable 
 to live in instead of taking up room in the house. 
 
 "But I am sure you will make the best of your oppor- 
 tunities, for I see that you are keeping this house as clean 
 and comfortable as you can." 
 
 As we turned to the door the official remarked again: 
 "I am glad to see so pleasant a place." 
 
 The girl swept him a curtsey. 
 
 "Thank you, sir," she said. "I am entirely pleased 
 with your company." 
 
 It was a quaint expression, and carried a very pleasant 
 savor of graciousncss and sincerity. 
 
 We went through the other houses. They differed 
 from one another only in degree; none was wholly fit for 
 human habitation. A year from now all will be changed. 
 Those poor homes will be swept away, the inhabitants 
 established in comfortable, sanitary dwellings and another 
 colony of self-respecting, self-supporting men and women 
 started on its way. 
 
XIX 
 
 *ONE MAN AND HIS WORK 
 
 This Irish question, which has been bothering the 
 British empire for some hundreds of years, and is going to 
 bother it a great deal more, is a very simple problem to 
 some persons. I have heard it dismissed with a couple of 
 airy sentences. 
 
 "The trouble with the Irish," I have been told more 
 than once, "is that they would rather agitate than work. If 
 there was more industry and less oratory over there we 
 wouldn't hear so much of 'wrongs.' If they weren't afraid 
 of work and would devote their energies to making a living 
 instead of making a noise the thing would solve itself." 
 
 I have heard that easy opinion and variations of it 
 many times. The theory that the Irish are lazy is one of 
 those curious fables that have survived from the days when 
 the extinction of the people was decreed on the ground that 
 they were pagan. To those who accept the judgment it is 
 of no consequence that the Irish race has lived through 
 generations of ruthless persecution and a grossly unjust land 
 system and that only by the exercise of the most desperate 
 industry has fought off starvation. If it were feasible, I 
 should like to take these offhand philosophers to Kiltimagh. I 
 should like to set them down in the country round about, 
 give them each a house, farm tools and ten acres of average 
 land and invite them to go ahead and make a living. It is 
 a mathematical certainty that they would starve to death, 
 if they did not expire of despair, after a short experience 
 of the labor that these "shiftless" Irish perform contin- 
 uously and cheerfully. 
 
 The Irish peasant lazy! Let us take a drive with 
 Father Denis O'Hara and have a look at the people who 
 suffer because they are afraid of work. But first let us note 
 
 *This chapter was written in Kiltimagh, County Mayo, in July, 
 1909. 
 
 168 
 
ONE MAN AND HIS WORK 169 
 
 the changes of seven years in the pastor himself. His hair 
 rs a bit whiter and there are more wrinkles around the keen, 
 kindly eyes, but his natural vigor is not abated nor his eager, 
 constant service decreased. The priest is still a father, 
 indeed, to the 4500 men, women and children of his stony 
 parish. And with the forward movement in economics and 
 industry, visible all over the land, he, too, has advanced. 
 Seven years ago he was the parish priest, with all the func- 
 tions of counselor, educator and dispenser of justice which 
 that office implies in the rural districts of Ireland, besides 
 being an active patriot, an adviser of an unfriendly govern- 
 ment and one of the administrators of the enormous work 
 of the Congested Districts Board. He is all of these things 
 to-day — just as devoted in religion, as enthusiastic for self- 
 government, as untiring in his unpaid public office, as cheer- 
 ful in his separation from ease. But he is a little more. He 
 had become a promoter and engineer since I saw him last, 
 and conducts a big river work as conscientiously and ably as 
 any of his religious celebrations. But there was no change 
 in the hospitality of the plain but home-like parish house. 
 
 "Welcome again," said Father O'Hara. "We have 
 not forgotten what was written seven years ago. It brought 
 us even closer to America — and you know that in all this 
 parish there is hardly a single family that has not relatives 
 across the water. If it were not for those exiles and their 
 kind remembrance of the loved ones left behind I don't 
 know what a good many of our people would do." 
 
 "But there has been an improvement, has there not?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "There has, indeed," answered Father O'Hara. "I'll 
 not show you to-day those wretched hovels on the hill where 
 you saw the people and the cattle housed together. There 
 are still some — the work is vast, and it is slow — but we are 
 turning the corner, and we hope the day is coming when 
 every family will have a decent home. You see, we were 
 hampered in this district by the lack of really good land. 
 Fifty years ago, and before, when the people were driven 
 off the good lands into the bogs and up on the rocky hills, a 
 great many died and more emigrated. But those who did 
 not starve and could not go to America had to take what 
 
i 7 o THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 land was left. There is no fertile land in the neighborhood 
 which we can acquire for them, so they must do the best 
 they can where they are. 
 
 "Nevertheless, as you have seen on the roads leading 
 here, a great deal has been done. We have constructed 
 many main drains through swampy land, and the holders, 
 by their own industry, have connected short drains to these, 
 vastly improving the quality of the land. Then the board 
 has made free grants and small advances, assisting the land- 
 holders to erect decent dwellings and outbuildings. And a 
 great service to the people has been the rearrangement of 
 the scattered holdings. So far as possible, each man is pro- 
 vided with a compact farm, equal in area and value to the 
 various fields and parts of fields which he cultivated under 
 the rental system." 
 
 "I suppose," I said, "that there was a good deal of 
 'lost motion,' or wasted energy, in cultivating ten or a dozen 
 scattered fields, as compared with a group of fields all 
 adjoining?" 
 
 "Quite so," assented Father O'Hara, smiling. "But 
 perhaps you haven't realized what I meant by 'scattered 
 patches.' " 
 
 He turned to his desk, and then started to unroll before 
 me a tracing of a section of his parish. 
 
 "I am going to show you," he said, "the handicap 
 under which one man was working. I have used this map 
 to astonish members of Parliament before this. Look, 
 now!" 
 
 He unrolled the tracing. It was marked with the roads, 
 hills, clumps of trees, water courses, etc., of the rural neigh- 
 borhood, all accurately drawn to scale. Scattered over the 
 paper were patches colored blue, of irregular shape and 
 varying sizes. There seemed a great many of them, but I 
 did not realize how many. 
 
 "This man," said Father O'Hara, "had eighteen acres 
 and some odd perches of land, for which he paid rent. If 
 the land had been all in one piece he could hardly have sup- 
 ported his family from it, for it was of poor quality. But 
 do you know how that land was distributed? In eighty-five 
 patches. 
 
ONE MAN AND HIS WORK 1 7 1 
 
 "Think of that ! Eighteen acres in eighty-five patches. 
 He had an acre here and an acre and a half there, you see. 
 Then, two hundred yards down this road, a quarter acre. 
 On this hill a little section of a field, here another and there 
 another, and so on. It is a fact that often a patch of ground 
 no bigger than a quarter acre was cultivated by six different 
 men, each having a tiny scrap where he raised vegetables. 
 This condition had its roots in the system of landlordism, 
 which cared for nothing so long as the rent could be wrung 
 from the tenants. Sub-letting was carried to an amazing 
 degree. A man originally may have rented a compact farm, 
 but in the process of time, through arrangement with his 
 children and grandchildren and other relatives, the land was 
 divided and sub-divided and transferred until the victim we 
 see here found himself the tenant of eighty-five little patches. 
 What this means in extra labor you can readily understand. 
 No systematic cultivation was possible, and modern methods 
 of agriculture were out of the question. The man and his 
 sons wasted more time going to and from their little scraps 
 of land, toiling up and down the hills with heavy burdens, 
 than they were able to devote to productive labor on the 
 soil. 
 
 "The rearrangement of these scattered holdings, so as to 
 provide each man with a farm in one piece, as it were, has 
 been a labor requiring infinite tact and patience. No one, I 
 believe, would have been equal to it except Henry Doran, 
 chief land inspector of the Congested Districts Board. He 
 has won the absolute confidence of the people by his justice 
 and patience. You can understand how difficult it must be 
 to persuade each man that he will receive an equivalent in 
 area and value of the little scraps of land he has cultivated. 
 The proposition may look all right, but the man remembers 
 the weary months of toil he put in reclaiming this patch and 
 that from the bog or digging out the stones that lie thickly 
 under the surface. When you remember the inhuman labor 
 these people have expended to create arable land you need 
 not wonder that they cling so passionately to the actual 
 pieces of it which they have made with their own hands, and 
 that they are doubtful about exchanging any one piece for 
 any other." 
 
172 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 We discussed further the work of the Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board, and then Father O'Hara took me to inspect 
 his engineering work. It was only a short ride in the auto- 
 mobile — out along the country roads, between the stone 
 walls that speak so eloquently of the peasants' labor, up 
 rocky lanes, over the hills and down into a shallow valley, 
 where the little river glides. A deep cut was being made 
 through the rocky soil to provide a millrace. The erection 
 of a grist mill is the latest project to engage the attention of 
 the priest between services. 
 
 "I have borrowed some of the money from the Board 
 of Works," he said, "and raised some more in shilling and 
 half-crown and five-shilling subscriptions among my people. 
 Of course, it is easy to supply the labor. I have the people 
 interested now. We'll put the mill here, and from all the 
 district round about the farmers will bring the oats to be 
 ground. My idea is not only to increase the wealth of the 
 neighborhood by having the milling done at home, but to 
 teach the people to provide themselves with wholesome food 
 produced on their own holdings. They will get more money 
 for oatmeal than for the oats as harvested, and they will 
 have the benefit of the strengthening diet of oatmeal at 
 trifling cost, instead of buying it and paying a profit to the 
 manufacturer and dealer." 
 
 From the site of Father O'Hara's engineering opera- 
 tion I went in search of evidence that the Irish peasant is 
 lazy. I thought I knew something of the district where, as 
 the saying is, "the first three crops are stones," but I hadn % t 
 thoroughly mastered the facts. We covered a mile or so 
 of rocky road, then descended from the car, crossed a quak- 
 ing bog and climbed a rough hill. There was grass on it, 
 but the surface was lumpy, the turf rising in irregular hum- 
 mocks. Half way up the slope we came upon the patch of 
 stones shown in the photograph accompanying this chapter. 
 
 "Now, there," said Father O'Hara, "is a field in process 
 of manufacture." 
 
 "I see," I said. "All these stones were dug out of the 
 ground and thrown here." 
 
 "Yes, they were dug out of the ground," said the priest, 
 
ONE MAN AND HIS WORK 173 
 
 "but they were not 'thrown' where you see them. They lie 
 just as they were dug up." 
 
 Then I began to understand. These stones were not 
 the result of work on other fields, but actually were the field. 
 I clambered over them and made an examination. The stones, 
 mostly round and smooth, varied in size. Some were as 
 large as medium potatoes, others as large as footballs; some 
 were boulders of respectable dimensions. They lay in irreg- 
 ular layers. I moved a patch of the stones and found more 
 stones underneath, and still more under those. I went down 
 more than a foot before I found earth. As I live to tell it, 
 the soil was hidden under eighteen to twenty-four inches of 
 stones, every 7 one of which had been dug from that same 
 soil. As a matter of fact, the green appearance of that hill- 
 side was a sham and delusion. A skin of turf there was, but 
 under it two or three feet of stones, with a sprinkling of 
 earth. And the owner of the patch had to remove this layer 
 by the labor of his hands before he could plant a seed. 
 
 "There you are," said Father O'Hara. "I suppose in 
 any other part of the world a man who would attempt to 
 make an arable field out of this would be called insane. 
 This fellow has been two years at work here, using the few 
 months in the year when he is not working in England. 
 Another year will see the stones removed, perhaps built into 
 a boundary wall. As you see, up to this point he has only 
 succeeded in prying them loose from the soil. I make it a 
 point to urge the people to do this work, mad as the expendi- 
 ture of energy may seem. I said to this man: 'If there was 
 work for you at sixpence a day, I wouldn't tell you to do 
 this. But if you can't earn sixpence a day, man, you can 
 earn threepence a day for yourself by digging out these 
 stones.' And so they do it." 
 
 And so I have some photographs to show the next per- 
 son who says the Irish peasant is "lazy." 
 
XX 
 
 ♦EDUCATIONAL REFORM 
 
 Because of its devastating effects upon the country and 
 the people, the passing system of Irish landlordism has 
 always been the most prominent of the evils of misrule. 
 There is another long-standing grievance, however, and this 
 is the denial of decent educational facilities. That the doors 
 so long barred by injustice and prejudice have finally been 
 swung open constitutes one of the most important achieve- 
 ments of progress in the last seven years. The century-old 
 fight of Irish patriotism, culminating during recent years in 
 the masterly campaigns of the Irish Parliamentary Party, 
 has won triumph at last in the establishment of the National 
 University of Ireland — a free, untrammeled, comprehen- 
 sive institution of learning, to be owned and governed abso- 
 lutely by the people of Ireland themselves. 
 
 How great an advance this is can be understood only 
 upon realization of the anomalous and intolerable conditions 
 which have ruled in Ireland in the past. The country, it 
 should be observed, was literally confiscated by England 
 through successive conquests and land-grabbing invasions. 
 And the subjugation was made permanent by the deliberate 
 withholding of education from the people. In passing, it 
 may be noted that even in the matter of education the 
 national demands are inextricably associated with the great 
 foundation demand for self-government. During all the 
 years there has been virtually but one institution of higher 
 learning in all Ireland; that is, an institution having the 
 prestige and power of public endowment and support. This 
 is Trinity College, Dublin, justly famous for its scholarship 
 and the high attainments of its graduates, but with a record 
 marred by the injustice of which it has been the beneficiary. 
 
 Ordinarily, religion has no proper place in dealing with 
 national problems of education, but in this case it cannot be 
 
 ♦Chapters XX and XXI were written in Dublin in August, 1909. 
 
 174 
 
EDUCATIONAL REFORM 175 
 
 excluded from the discussion. Indeed, it is at the very foun- 
 dation of the claims which have just been recognized by the 
 British Parliament. Two statements of fact will set forth 
 the issue clearly: First, four-fifths of the people of Ireland 
 are Roman Catholics; second, Trinity College, the only 
 institution of its kind in tne country, endowed with Irish 
 funds and grown fat upon lands taken from the people, is 
 uncompromisingly and aggressively Protestant in its aims, 
 its atmosphere and its regulations for the government of its 
 members. The circumstances of its founding are vividly 
 significant of the course it was to pursue through the cen- 
 turies and upon which it continues to-day. Trinity College 
 was established by Queen Elizabeth with the proceeds of 
 lands confiscated from Irish monasteries and Irish Catholic 
 citizens, and its avowed purpose was to propagate the prin- 
 ciples of the Protestant religion. For more than one hun- 
 dred years it was open only to members of the Established 
 (Protestant Episcopal) Church. During the brief regime 
 of the Irish Parliament, forcibly brought to an end by the 
 Act of Union of 1 800, it opened its doors to students of all 
 denominations, but not until 1874 were removed the religious 
 tests which barred not only Catholics, but Presbyterians, from 
 its offices and scholarships, and it became, in theory, undenom- 
 inational. Nevertheless, it is still almost wholly Episcopalian 
 in government and wholly so in spirit. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel sought to remove the obvious evil by 
 establishing strictly undenominational colleges in Cork, Gal- 
 way and Belfast. But here the pendulum swung too far the 
 other way. Cork and Galway colleges have been failures 
 because they were hopelessly at variance with Catholic prin- 
 ciples of education, which insist upon some connection 
 between secular and religious teaching. The Belfast insti- 
 tution has flourished because its non-religious atmosphere 
 has been no offense to the Presbyterian conscience of the 
 North. The refusal of the Irish people to send their sons 
 to Trinity has been a remarkable form of protest, since it 
 involved the rejection of the only means of higher education 
 in the country. But when we recall that four-fifths of the 
 population is Catholic and that Trinity maintains still the 
 inspiration of its founding — to propagate anti-Catholicism 
 
i7^ THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 — the determination can be readily understood. The Prot- 
 estantism of Trinity is militant. Only a few years ago a 
 member of the governing board made this declaration : 
 
 "Trinity was founded by Protestants for Protestants 
 and in the Protestant interest. At the present moment, with 
 all its toleration, its liberality, its scrupulous honor, the 
 guardian spirit is Protestant. And I say, Protestant may it 
 evermore remain." 
 
 The sentiment may have done the distinguished speaker 
 honor and may voice a worthy ambition, so far as the col- 
 lege is concerned, but such a spirit surely justifies the charge 
 that Trinity is not and cannot be a national Irish institution. 
 How cordial is Trinity's invitation to eighty per cent, of the 
 people of Ireland may be gathered from a sonnet which 
 appeared less than two years ago in the college magazine, in 
 which the Catholic churches of the country were described 
 as "grim monuments of cold observance, the incestuous mate 
 of superstition." 
 
 As a remedy for this long denial of education to by far 
 the greater part of the population, the demand of Ireland 
 during the last century has been for a truly national univer- 
 sity. Obviously, in a preponderatingly Catholic country 
 this means that the institution would be Catholic in its 
 atmosphere, else it would not be national. There has been 
 no demand or desire for a sectarian institution. In 1897 
 the Catholic bishops formally declared they would accept a 
 university which would lay no religious tests upon students, 
 teachers, officers or governors; with a majority of the gov- 
 erning body laymen, and with a provision that no state 
 funds should be employed for the promotion of religious 
 education. As long ago as 1871 the Catholic hierarchy pro- 
 posed, as a solution of the question, that the constitution of 
 the University of Dublin should be modified "so as to admit 
 of the establishment of a second college within it, in every 
 respect equal to Trinity College, and conducted on purely 
 Catholic principles." Trinity, however, was not ready to 
 yield its supremacy, for in 1901, when a royal commission, 
 inquired into the whole educational problem, the cry of 
 "Hands off Trinity!" was raised, and that institution — the 
 main center of university education — was excluded from an 
 
EDUCATIONAL REFORM 177 
 
 investigation which was to devise means for obtaining such 
 education in the country. The commission recommended 
 the establishment of a federal teaching university with four 
 constituent colleges — the three existing Queen's Colleges in 
 Cork, Galway and Belfast, and a new Catholic college in 
 Dublin. 
 
 The main idea was carried out in the Irish Universities 
 Act of August 1, 1908, establishing the National University 
 of Ireland and the colleges at Cork, Galway and Dublin in 
 association with it, and a second university in Belfast. While 
 the National University will, as stated, inevitably be Catholic 
 in spirit and atmosphere, it will be also, and chiefly, national. 
 University and colleges will be open to members of all 
 creeds. The act distinctly provides : 
 
 "No test whatever of religious belief shall be imposed 
 on any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing 
 to be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar, exhibitioner, 
 graduate or student of, or of his holding any office or emolu- 
 ment, or exercising any privilege, in either of the universi- 
 ties or any constituent college; nor shall any preference be 
 given to or advantage be withheld from any person on the 
 ground of religious belief." 
 
 Financial provision is also made in the act. The fol- 
 lowing sums are appropriated for the purchase of site and 
 erection of buildings : 
 
 National University of Ireland and new Univer- 
 sity College, Dublin $750,000 
 
 Queen's College, Cork 70,000 
 
 Queen's College, Galway 30,000 
 
 The parent institution is to take over the land and 
 
 buildings of the Royal University in Dublin, which has been 
 
 a mere examining institution, but an entire new plant must 
 
 be erected. There are already good buildings in Cork and 
 
 Galway, which accounts for the relatively small sums for 
 
 those cities. The annual endowments are as follows: 
 
 University College, Dublin $160,000 
 
 Queen's College, Cork 100,000 
 
 Queen's College, Galway 60,000 
 
 The breadth of the curriculum is shown in the estab- 
 lishment of faculties in arts, philosophy and sociology, 
 Celtic studies, science, law, medicine, engineering and archi- 
 
 12 
 
178 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 tecture and commerce. Naturally, in view of the ardent 
 desire for a fostering of the national spirit, emphasis is laid 
 upon the Celtic studies. These will include archaeology, art, 
 history, Irish language, music and philology, and Welsh 
 and other Brythonic languages. I talked upon this univer- 
 sity matter at some length with John Dillon, M. P., who 
 has been one of the strongest and ablest advocates of the 
 national university project. 
 
 "I attach enormous importance to the enterprise," he 
 said. "After confiscation, the most powerful weapon Eng- 
 land has wielded against us has been the denial to the 
 Irish people of opportunities for higher education. It is to 
 be truly a national institution, governed by and responsive 
 to the people of Ireland — a free, self-governing university. 
 For the first five years the senate is to be nominated by the 
 Crown, but so nominated as to make the overwhelming 
 majority Nationalists. After the first five years all the 
 members of the governing bodies are to be elected. Four 
 will be nominated by the Crown, and the others will be the 
 chancellor, the presidents of the three constituent colleges, 
 persons elected by the governing bodies of the colleges, 
 elected by the student convocation, and so on — thirty-five 
 members in all. In other words, the authorities will be 
 wholly Irish, and that means Nationalist. 
 
 "The only complaint we have is that the endowment is 
 insufficient, but that can be remedied. The statutory foun- 
 dation of the university and its colleges is sound and satis- 
 factory. The system will for the first time provide for the 
 youth of Ireland adequate educational facilities. More than 
 that, the university will be a center of Nationalist spirit. 
 The atmosphere will be Nationalist, every student will uncon- 
 sciously absorb patriotism with learning and the university 
 will go far to make Ireland once more a nation among 
 nations." 
 
 I shall hardly have space to discuss the national schools, 
 as the common schools in Ireland are called. They provide 
 an instructive example in themselves of the evils and absurd- 
 ities of the governmental system. The national school system 
 was established in 1833, upon a basis of equity illustrated 
 
EDUCATIONAL REFORM 179 
 
 by the fact that the controlling board having charge of the 
 education of children, of whom four-fifths were Catholics, 
 was Protestant by five to two. The effect of this was seen 
 in the persistent efforts to Anglicize the children. The use 
 of the English language was enforced, although many thou- 
 sands of children spoke Gaelic. This might be justified on 
 the ground that English was more useful in everyday life; 
 but as much could hardly be said for the use as text books of 
 histories which extolled the conquest of the country by Eng- 
 lish sovereigns and lauded the defection of England from 
 the Church to which Ireland clings. Americans, more jealous 
 of their public schools than of any other institution, will need 
 no emphasis upon a policy so violently opposed to fairness 
 and peace. 
 
 Even the "readers" were carefully edited with a view 
 to bend the youthful mind toward contentment under the 
 ruthless injustices which Englishmen of a fairer generation 
 have been glad to remove. Said one book: "On the east 
 of Ireland is England, where the Queen lives. Many people 
 who live in Ireland were born in England [two or three per 
 cent., possibly], and we speak the same language and are 
 called one nation." 
 
 The English educational censor, too, had a fatherly 
 interest in the tender minds under his care. He condemned 
 and suppressed a "reader" which contained Scott's verses, 
 beginning: 
 
 "Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
 
 Who never to himself hath said : 
 
 'This is my own, my native land'?" 
 
 Mild as is this appeal to patriotism, the English 
 authorities expunged the verses on account of "their ten- 
 dency to promote seditious feelings." Perhaps the national 
 deficiency in humor has been at the bottom of England's 
 refusal to grant Home Rule. This example would seem to 
 indicate as much. But delicious as it is, it has not the 
 exquisite flavor of Podsnappery to be found in the verses 
 inserted in the "reader" in place of Sir Walter's incendiary 
 lines. These were by one of the Episcopalian members of 
 the board, and ended with the touching couplet : 
 
 "1 thank the goodness and the grace which on my birth have smiled, 
 And made me in these Christian days a happy English child." 
 
180 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 It is not an unpleasant picture — the good Archbishop 
 penning the lines which he conscientiously hoped would aid 
 in bringing the unregenerate Irish children into the blessed 
 state of being English; but imagine the confusion in the 
 i minds of the young Joyces and Considines and Dwyers who 
 were called upon to recite theml 
 
XXI 
 A SUMMARY 
 
 To those familiar with the long, dark record of Ire- 
 land's history the rapid changes of the last few years must 
 be impressive. During the tour I have described through 
 districts which bore the deepest scars of injustice and pov- 
 erty I saw on every hand evidences of the economic regen- 
 eration. And while the alteration in this corner of the 
 island is perhaps the most noticeable, it is simply one feature 
 of the great national advance. As no other nation, in 
 modern times, has suffered under so elaborate and crushing 
 a system of spoliation, so no other has been the subject of 
 such vast experiments in remedial legislation. From the 
 savage plundering of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 grew up a government grotesque in its injustice and a land 
 system utterly ruthless in its oppression. Under the opera- 
 tion of these reciprocating evils every principle of right 
 seemed to be extinguished and every natural economic ten- 
 dency perverted. The privileges of property, though 
 founded upon robbery, wholesale confiscation and merciless 
 penal laws, were held superior to all else, even to human 
 life. In the matter of land — a matter of life and death to 
 two-thirds of the population — the law of supply and demand 
 was strangled and the law of force substituted. 
 
 This unnatural treatment inevitably bred unnatural 
 conditions. Thus the last century saw the population fleeing 
 from Ireland as if it were stricken with plague; untold acres 
 of fertile land given over to grazing cattle, while the people 
 fought off starvation upon rocky hillsides and desolate 
 swamps; despairing revolts against the system crushed by a 
 form of martial law, by coercion, intimidation, jury packing, 
 eviction. 
 
 But the latter part of the last century saw also the first 
 application of the remedy, and that remedy was as excep- 
 
 181 
 
1 82 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 tional as the disease. A more gigantic scheme of state 
 socialism, or paternalism, has never been attempted. The 
 British government recognized at last that the monstrous 
 evils of former generations could never be eradicated except 
 by reversing the whole process of those years. It is the 
 operation of this policy which has wrought such marvelous 
 changes in Ireland. A brief survey will illustrate the mag- 
 nitude of the problem and of what has been accomplished.. 
 
 The great scheme of land purchase — the transfer of 
 the land from the landlords to the tenants, the govern- 
 ment advancing the money and the new owners repay- 
 ing it in annual instalments, with interest — first became 
 effective in 1 88 1 . Other acts, broadening the scope of the 
 plan, were passed in 1885, 1888, 1896 and 1903, and there 
 is now pending still another bill, which will extinguish the 
 last vestige of landlordism by making the sale of their 
 estates compulsory. Progress was very slow at first, and 
 has never kept pace with the demands of the problem, but 
 in all, under the various acts, nearly a quarter of a million 
 tenants have become owners of the lands they tilled. 
 
 The exceptionally acute conditions of poverty in the 
 west of Ireland have been treated, as set forth, by the Con- 
 gested Districts Board. Empowered to purchase estates, 
 enlarge and rearrange holdings, migrate tenants from con- 
 gested to more open areas, encourage agriculture, industries 
 and fishing and assist landholders to improve their farms 
 and better their conditions of living, the board has worked 
 a transformation over a large district. It has expended 
 nearly $17,000,000 in the eighteen years of its existence, 
 and the result is seen in colonies of comfortable, prosperous 
 farms where formerly there was the most dire and helpless 
 poverty. 
 
 A special work of the government has been the restora- 
 tion of evicted tenants. Thousands of these families sacri- 
 ficed themselves for principle in the land wars, particularly 
 in the bitter struggle of 1879-80. Then they were rebels, 
 and suffered all the rigors of the war which they invited by 
 their resistance. But the time came when it was recognized 
 that they were "wounded soldiers" and that they have 
 peculiar claims upon the government which inherited the 
 
A SUMMARY 183 
 
 system of injustice. These evicted tenants are being restored 
 to the lands which were torn from them by force, or to lands 
 of equivalent value. Houses are erected for them, the farms 
 are stocked, and after years of suffering they once more are 
 on the road to self-supporting independence. 
 
 Paternalism of a still more radical character is being 
 applied in the case of the agricultural laborers of the coun- 
 try. Their condition was naturally worse than that of the 
 tenants. Depending upon their unskilled labor and the 
 product of the tiny patches of land surrounding their homes, 
 they occupied wretched hovels, not only in discomfort, but 
 in constant peril from disease. Several acts for the benefit 
 of these laborers have been passed, under which county 
 authorities are able to borrow government funds for the 
 erection of decent, sanitary dwellings, which rent for the 
 trifling sum of a shilling a week. Nearly 50,000 of these 
 neat cottages have been erected and as many of the wretched 
 huts swept away. Similar work has b^sn undertaken for the 
 poor dwellers in the towns, where tenement life has been 
 upon the lowest possible scale. Here, also, the local authori- 
 ties are empowered to borrow funds and erect sanitary 
 houses, which are rented at a very low rate to the artisans. 
 
 And in the swinging back of the pendulum from the 
 evils of unchecked landlord rule a point has been reached in 
 regard to town tenants which will startle even Americans. 
 An act which became effective on January 1, 1907, applying 
 to "houses, shops and other buildings in urban districts, 
 towns or villages, and occupied either for residential or busi- 
 ness purposes, or partially for residential and pardy for 
 business purposes," provides as follows: 
 
 "Subject to the provisions of this act, a tenant of a holding to 
 which this act applies may, on quitting his holding, claim, in the 
 prescribed manner, compensation, to be paid by the landlord, in 
 respect of all improvements on his holding made by him or his pred- 
 ecessors in title which at the date of such claim add to the letting 
 value of the holding, and are suitable to the character of the hold- 
 ing, and have not diminished the letting value of any other property 
 of the same landlord. 
 
 "Where the landlord, without good and sufficient cause, termi- 
 nates or refuses to grant a renewal of the tenancy, or it is proved 
 that an increase of the rent is demanded from the tenant as the 
 result of improvements which have been effected at the cost of such 
 tenant, and for which he has not, either directly or indirectly, 
 
1 84 THE LAND PROBLEM SOLVED 
 
 received an equivalent from the landlord, and such demand results 
 in the tenant quitting his holding, the tenant shall, in addition to 
 the compensation (if any) to which he may be entitled in respect 
 of improvements, and notwithstanding any agreement to the con- 
 trary, be entitled to compensation for the loss of good-will and the 
 expense which, by reason of his quitting the holding, he sustains or 
 incurs." 
 
 This is certainly drastic, but it should be remembered 
 that the conditions in Irish towns are quite unlike the condi- 
 tions in American towns. In Ireland the town tenant, like 
 the agricultural tenant, has been quite at the mercy of the 
 landlord, because the landlord usually owns every foot of 
 land in the town. He never sells land; he rents it. Hence 
 the tenant has not been able to look elsewhere for land in 
 case of disagreement with the landlord or an excessive 
 demand in rent. He has had to meet the demand or leave 
 the town. This act simply protects the town tenant against 
 capricious eviction. If the landlord wants to get rid of him 
 he must pay him not only for the improvements he has made 
 on the property, but for the good-will of his business. 
 
 That land purchase and the other great reforms have 
 brought a steadily increasing measure of prosperity to Ire- 
 land there is abundant evidence, none of h more impressive 
 than the records of the people's savings. Here are the 
 figures for the savings banks conducted by the post office and 
 by private enterprise for the years 1 88 1 , 1896 and 1907: 
 
 1881. 1896. 1907. 
 
 Number of accounts 150,097 350.887 5S0.223 
 
 Total deposits $19,010,505 $41.-674,965 $65,445,790 
 
 Education in Ireland, which suffered grievously 
 through prejudice and neglect, is at last receiving a respect- 
 able measure of attention. The government now makes an 
 annual appropriation of $200,000 for improving the school 
 houses and $570,000 for increases in teachers' salaries. 
 But the most notable advance has been the establishment, 
 on August 1, 1908, of the National University of Ireland. 
 
 Assuredly, Ireland is on the up grade. The wrongs of 
 centuries are being righted, the curse of landlordism is being 
 lifted, economic independence is replacing the system of 
 serfdom, a national university is established. What more, 
 then, does Ireland want? 
 
 A trifling thing — self-government. 
 
•4 
 » 
 
 ft 
 
 O 
 o 
 
 >* 
 
THE DEMAND FOR 
 HOME RULE 
 
 XXII 
 *THE CONQUESTS OF IRELAND 
 
 In a public address on July 4, 1909, before a crowd 
 in Arkiow, County Wicklow, which cheered American inde- 
 pendence as heartily as it cheered Ireland's demands, John E. 
 Redmond made this statement : 
 
 "The present budget is unjust to Ireland. With the 
 exception of that of last year, every budget since the Union 
 has been unjust to Ireland. And I tell you that that will 
 continue, no matter what party is in power, until we get 
 Home Rule. The only way to stop the robbery of Ireland by 
 English budgets is to make the Irish Nationalists a united 
 force to obtain self-government for our country." 
 
 Here are other recent utterances by the same man: 
 
 "The demand for national self-government is founded 
 by us, first of all, upon right, and we declare that no amelio- 
 rative reforms, no number of land acts or laborers' acts or 
 education acts, no redress of fimancial grievances, no mate- 
 rial improvement or industrial development can ever satisfy 
 Ireland until Irish laws are made and administered upon 
 Irish soil by Irishmen. 
 
 *Most of these chapters on Home Rule were written in Dublin 
 in July and August, 1909. 
 
 185 
 
1 86 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 "You have heard how much has been done, especially 
 in the last twenty-five years, to mitigate the sufferings of 
 Ireland on the question of the land and the laborers and 
 education. But the doctrine tnat we hold is that none of 
 these things, no amelioration of our condition by palliatives, 
 can settle the Irish question or can turn this, into a pros- 
 perous and contented nation. We say that can be done 
 only by Home Rule. 
 
 "I have, as have my parliamentary colleagues, the 
 utmost sympathy with every effort at industrial revival ; but 
 I say here, without the slightest hesitation, I believe that 
 until you have first freedom in the land you will never be a 
 prosperous country. I say that the one remedy is Home 
 Rule." 
 
 These are fairly strong words. But they accurately 
 represent the views of the great mass of the people of this 
 country. Mr. Redmond is chairman of the Irish Parliamen- 
 tary Party and recognized leader of the Irish race through- 
 out the world. In this he speaks for the nation, or for a 
 very large majority of it. 
 
 "What does Ireland want now?" asked Pitt, wearily, a 
 century ago, and "What does Ireland want now?" many 
 Englishmen echo to-day. Indeed, I have heard the same 
 flippancy from Americans. At the bottom of it, of course, 
 is ignorance. Few Englishmen understand, or have any 
 desire to understand, the Irish question in its complex 
 phases; and too many Americans, through intellectual indo- 
 lence, have accepted the view industriously propagated by 
 Toryism, that the Irish demands are totally unreasonable 
 and the race incapacitated for the affairs of government. 
 
 I purpose to examine, from the viewpoint of an Ameri- 
 can who has taken the trouble to study the problem histor- 
 ically and by actual observation, what these demands are 
 and what measure of justice there is behind them. The 
 term Home Rule, of course, carries its own definition. Ire- 
 land demands that her laws, now made and administered by 
 a people foreign in blood, in religion and in sympathy, shall 
 be made and administered by Irishmen. She demands self- 
 government, instead of government by an alien class; a gov- 
 e . ::ment which shall be created by the votes of the Irish 
 
THE CONQUESTS 187 
 
 people and shall be responsive and responsible to them — in 
 other words, a free Irish Parliament and an Irish executive 
 responsible to the elected body. There is, in truth, a section 
 which goes far beyond this, which demands complete sepa- 
 ration from Great Britain and the erection of an independ- 
 ent nation. But this policy, however inspiring it may be to 
 men whose very souls have been embittered by brooding 
 upon past wrongs, does not come within the scope of prac- 
 tical politics at this time. Whatever the future may hold, it 
 is fairly obvious that Home Rule, as it is usually defined, is 
 the vital and living ambition of the people. 
 
 Are all the great reforms, then, which have been dis- 
 cussed in previous chapters to be dismissed as useless? 
 Hardly that, yet they alone can never satisfy the Irish 
 people, can never establish peace and prosperity on a sound 
 and permanent basis. The inmates of an almshouse are 
 free from care; all economic problems have been solved for 
 them; yet they often are so ungrateful as to yearn for some- 
 thing else — independence. The metaphor is extremely 
 faulty, yet it has a hazy sort of application to the Irish 
 demand for Home Rule. The impossible system of land 
 tenure, with all its attendant evils, is being wiped out; the 
 people are being made owners of their Ian' 1 3 — paying full 
 price for them ; control of local affairs L«s been put into 
 their hands ; an earnest and successful effort is being made 
 to lift the more helpless victims of poverty; equality has 
 been granted in facilities for higher education. And still 
 there remains the great unsatisfied demand for self-govern- 
 ment. Still Ireland remains sullen, resenting and resisting 
 the system which affronts the national spirit, and which it 
 declares is cumbersome, costly and wholly inefficient. 
 
 These charges will be taken up in detail. The govern- 
 ment of Ireland will be examined from the viewpoints of 
 utility, expediency and political justice, and the national 
 demand explained more fully. Meanwhile, it may be 
 remarked that no one can understand the Irish question 
 without some knowledge of the history of the country. 
 The evils of misgovernment and of land oppression that 
 are visible to-day are not of recent growth; they have their 
 roots in centuries long past. The half-starved peasant in 
 
1 88 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 Connemara is the descendant of the victims of Tudor 
 aggression; the grotesque extravagance and futility of Dub- 
 lin Castle were founded in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries. Before attempting to deal, therefore, with the 
 present system of government in Ireland we shall take a 
 rapid survey of the country's history. Assuredly this is 
 accessary for American understanding of the problems, for 
 even in matters historical the English and Irish viewpoints 
 are hopelessly at variance. To most Englishmen — though 
 to less now than at any other period — the story of Ireland 
 is the story of a backward, "impossible" people, who for 
 centuries have retarded their growth and the spread of 
 civilization by resisting the blessings of English rule. Few 
 of them nowadays will go so far as to defend the atrocities 
 of the "conquests," plantations and confiscations, but at 
 heart they do believe that most of the woes of the country 
 are due to inherent defects in the Irish character, especially 
 that defect which prevents recognition of English institu- 
 tions as the best for all races under the sun. 
 
 The evils of the past, they say, have been atoned for; 
 justice is being done; why rake up wrongs of history that 
 should be forgotten? Why persist in dwelling upon the 
 past? Irish history is not taught to English children, and 
 only in recent years has its teaching to Irish children been 
 permitted. To Irishmen, on the contrary, the history of 
 their country is a constant inspiration. The land is sown 
 with ruins, every one of which is the center of heroic legend 
 or story. The record is inspiring because it is filled with 
 the names of brave men and the tales of brave deeds — 
 because, in fact, the very suppression of Irish nationality 
 and Irish progress has left the people little else to venerate. 
 In the face of England's stolid assumption of superiority, 
 it is comforting for them to recall that while England was 
 still in the mists of paganism Ireland was bright with a 
 rude sort of culture and a Christian civilization, and that 
 until brute force and persecution had done their wo/k Ire- 
 land was the custodian of knowledge and the teacher of 
 Europe. The history of these early days, much of which is 
 legendary, may be treated very briefly. Geographically 
 isolated, Ireland escaped Roman invasion and bears no 
 
THE CONQUESTS 189 
 
 marks of Roman institutions. Her development was inde- 
 pendent, from within. During the first centuries of the 
 Christian era, students declare, there existed in the land a 
 civilization of an advanced type, considering the time. 
 Tribal organizations ruled society, each having an elected 
 chieftain. The tribes were united in groups, or clans, and 
 these were grouped again into the five kingdoms of Ulster, 
 Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Meath, all owning a 
 sentimental allegiance to the King of all Ireland, whose seat 
 was at the famed hill of Tara and whose sovereignty 
 eventually settled in the powerful family of the O'Neills. 
 The art and the system of laws of this period show a high 
 state of development, but it is the literature which stPl 
 remains the wonder and admiration of scholars. Of she 
 manuscripts that have survived, L. Paul-Dubois, a French 
 authority, says: ' - 
 
 "They comprise prose and verse, stories and poems, 
 history and fiction. In them are found mingled primitive 
 rudeness and exquisite delicacy, an oriental imaginativeness 
 and a strong common sense. Exhibiting, as they do, a com- 
 bination of freshness of feeling, delicacy of sentiment and 
 at the same time perfect naturalness, these remains have 
 proved a literary inspiration to the greatest modern poets, 
 to Tennyson and Swinburne, for instance, in our own time. 
 It was from Ireland that Europe received her first love 
 song. It was the Irish who invented rhyme, in all its 
 varied forms, single or double, final, initial or medial, 
 including the most elaborate assonances and alliterations. 
 And it is remarkable that we never find in the bardic litera- 
 ture that exuberance of diction and exaggeration of form 
 that often grates upon us in the later epics. They show, on 
 the contrary, as we are told by Dr. Sigerson, 'classic reserve 
 in thought, form and expression.' It is no exaggeration to 
 say, with this learned Irishman, that the literary scepter 
 once wielded by Rome fell in later times to Celtic Ireland." 
 
 But more important than the glory of ancient Irish 
 literature was the fading of paganism before the light of 
 Christianity. This transformation was brought about in the 
 fifth century, chiefly through the ministrations of St. Pat- 
 rick, "the Apostle of Ireland," and the religion took such a 
 
i 9 o THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 hold upon the minds and hearts of the people that Ireland 
 became the center from which Christianity radiated 
 throughout Europe. Not only did Irish missionaries travel 
 far and wide throughout the continent, spreading the doc- 
 trines of the Church, but the island became a Mecca for the 
 students of many nations. Latin and Greek, science and 
 theology, philosophy and literature were taught at scores of 
 schools. To the institutions at Clonfert, Armagh, Lismore 
 and elsewhere came thousands of young men from Gaul, 
 from Italy and from the northern countries. Of the famed 
 University of Clonmacnoise the ruins still stand. 
 
 "From the fifth to the eighth century," says L. Paul- 
 Dubois, "Ireland was the refuge and the home of modern 
 culture, and may truly be said to have saved European civil- 
 ization in the days of the barbarian incursions." 
 
 Such was the glory of ancient Ireland, to be extin- 
 guished by successive waves of plundering invasion. Those 
 who are inclined to wonder at the desperate situation of 
 Ireland before the late nineteenth century era of reform 
 should remember that that condition was the result of seven 
 hundred years of spoliation. Much in the way of destruc- 
 tion can be accomplished in seven centuries, and the marvel 
 is that the race survived at all. 
 
 The "Golden Age," as it has been called, when Ireland 
 was the guardian of western learning and the Christian 
 religion, lasted from the fifth to early in the ninth century. 
 Then the first blow fell. By rapid and ruthless invasions 
 the Northmen overran the island, founding towns on the 
 seaboard, from which they penetrated to the interior. They 
 destroyed every institution of learning they found. Schools 
 and libraries, with their priceless manuscripts, were burned 
 and Irish civilization all but extinguished. After less than 
 two hundred years, however, the resilience of the race 
 asserted itself. The Danes, defeated more than once, were 
 decisively routed in 1014 by Brian Boru, and the restoration 
 of Irish power was marked by a remarkable renaissance 
 of Irish literature and art and religion. Manuscripts multi- 
 plied, schools and churches were rebuilt and Irish mission- 
 aries once more penetrated barbarian Europe. Everything 
 promised a permanent revival of civilization in the island, 
 
THE CONQUESTS 191 
 
 and had the country been permitted to work out its own 
 destinies a strong nation would have been established. But 
 fate gave her no time. The English invasions began, and 
 Ireland was doomed to seven hundred years of unrest, 
 oppression and persecution. 
 
 The first "civilizing" expedition from across the Irish 
 Sea was that of Richard, Earl of Pembroke, better known as 
 "Strongbow," who was invited over in 11 69 by Dermot 
 MacMurrough, King of Leinster, as an ally against Rod- 
 erick O'Connor, "High King" of Ireland. It is said that 
 the invasion was sanctioned by Adrian IV, Nicholas Break- 
 speare, the only Englishman who ever became Pope. At any 
 rate, Henry II soon followed Strongbow, established him- 
 self for a short time in Dublin and had himself recognized as 
 Overlord of Ireland, asserting his claim under the papal bull. 
 
 This was the entering wedge, to be driven home by 
 three hundred and fifty years of invasion. Almost without 
 interruption, during this long period, a stream of English 
 colonists and adventurers poured into the country. Grad- 
 ually they established a rude authority over a strip' of land 
 on the east coast called the "English pale," which extended, 
 at its greatest development, to not more than one-third of 
 the area of the island. Outside of that territory the Eng- 
 lish could do no more than foster dissensions among the 
 Ir'^h clans, and so prevent a united attack. 
 
 It should be observed that in no sense did the English 
 conquer Ireland during these three hundred and fifty years. 
 Indeed, the "pale" was in constant danger from Irish incur- 
 sions, and outside of it English authority was unknown. 
 Moreover, there was no permanency of settlement even 
 within the "pale." Most of the colonists and adventurers 
 to whom grants of Irish land had been made exploited the 
 country as far as they were able and then returned to Eng- 
 land, to be replaced by others. And those who remained 
 became, in two or three generations, quite assimilated with 
 the natives. They adopted Irish customs and Irish dress, 
 took Irish wives and spoke the Irish language. So danger- 
 ous was this fusion of the races to English ascendency that 
 in 1367 a statute was issued punishing the acts specified by 
 death or imprisonment. To widen the chasm between the 
 
192 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 two peoples the Irish were actually outlawed; except as a 
 special favor, they could not claim the benefits of feudalism, 
 while they felt all of its rigors. Yet even this savage legis- 
 lation did not completely check the assimilation of the races. 
 Moreover, there grew up an intermediate people, called the 
 "Anglo-Irish," who, the loyalists complained, were more 
 Irish than the Irish themselves. These attached themselves 
 to powerful Anglo-Norman families, such as the Fitzger- 
 alds, the Butlers, the Desmonds and the Burkes (de 
 Burgh), which, in time, usurped the power of the Crown 
 within the "pale" and made alliances at will with the great 
 Gaelic chieftains. Thus by the end of the fifteenth century 
 the "pale" had shrunk to a narrow strip of country around 
 Dublin, threatened constantly by the proud and turbulent 
 lords of the Anglo-Irish, while all the rest of Ireland had 
 reverted to the old Gaelic clan system. After more than 
 three hundred years the conquest had failed. 
 
 But the next wave of invasion, to extend over a period 
 of two hundred years, was to be more successful, as it was 
 more ruthless, than the last. The Tudor sovereigns were 
 merciless, but they were fairly thorough. Under Henry 
 VII English armies penetrated even into Connaught. 
 Henry VIII set himself resolutely to break the power of 
 the Anglo-Irish nobles as he had broken the power of the 
 English barons. Having accomplished this, he sought to 
 establish peace in the distracted country by conciliating the 
 Celtic aristocracy. He won over some of the great chief- 
 tains, gave them lands taken from the monasteries and con- 
 ferred upon them English titles — Earl of Tyrone, Earl of 
 Tyrconnel, Earl of Dunraven and so on. Thus when in 
 1542 he assumed the title of King of Ireland the country 
 was relatively at peace, and remained so until his death. 
 But this was not to last. Under Mary and Elizabeth and 
 the Stuarts the policy of conciliation was abandoned and a 
 policy of plunder and oppression substituted. It was 
 decreed that by force of arms Celtic civilization should be 
 wiped out, to be replaced by English civilization. Where 
 Henry VIII had respected and protected native customs 
 and laws it was ordered that English laws and English 
 institutions should be made supreme. But the real core of 
 
THE CONQUESTS 193 
 
 the policy was that the soil of Ireland should be confiscated 
 and then "planted" with Englishmen. 
 
 Under Queen Mary, King's and Queen's counties were 
 established from confiscated territory and English settlers 
 placed on the lands. Under Elizabeth, the Desmonds were 
 maltreated into rebellion, then their lands, comprising about 
 the whole province of Munster, were seized and distributed 
 among English adventurers and speculators. When the 
 Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell arose under James I a 
 similar operation confiscated all of Ulster, and nearly 
 30,000 of the King's Scotch subjects were "planted" where 
 the Irish had been. A more characteristic act of James was 
 his abolition of the Gaelic system of land tenure and the 
 substitution of the English system ; this destroyed the efficacy 
 of countless titles, and nearly half a million acres more were 
 confiscated. Naturally, these vast depredations were not 
 carried out without bloodshed. There were three great 
 insurrections under Elizabeth alone, and each was put down 
 with merciless severity. The policy was ingeniously devised 
 to expedite the seizure of the coveted territories. The rebel- 
 lions were deliberately provoked by treachery and oppression, 
 then put down by wholesale massacre. 
 
 "The suppression of the native race," says Lecky, "was 
 carried out with a ferocity which surpassed that of Alva in 
 the Netherlands, and has seldom been exceeded in the pages 
 of history." 
 
 The wars were wars of extermination, not conquest. 
 The expeditions waged campaigns of systematic butchery, 
 sparing neither men nor women nor children, while those 
 who survived crept forth from their hiding places to find the 
 country devastated and to starve amid the desolation. The 
 annals of the time — English as well as Irish — sicken the 
 reader with their records of savagery. An English official 
 in 1582 wrote that within six months 30,000 persons had 
 died of starvation in Munster, besides those who had been 
 butchered by the soldiery. Even during periods of peace 
 the English governors sedulously continued the work of 
 extermination by laying waste all the country they could 
 cover. In the last years of the sixteenth century one-half 
 the population perished. Elizabeth's rule over Ireland was 
 13 
 
194 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 complete. But, says a historian, "she reigned over corpses 
 and ashes." 
 
 Yet, incredible as it may seem, the ruthless work of 
 "conquest" was revived and continued during almost the 
 whole of the seventeenth century. New elements, however, 
 entered into the English policy. To the lust for land were 
 added political revenge and religious persecution. In both 
 the Stuart revolutions — that which cost Charles I his head 
 and that which cost James II his throne — the Irish took the 
 losing side, and suffered the vengeance of the victorious party 
 for their mistaken loyalty to the condemned house. Like- 
 wise, for rejecting the reformation and clinging to Roman 
 Catholicism, the Irish called down upon themselves the 
 rigors of persecution. Built upon the successive "planta- 
 tions" and enriched with the confiscated property of monas- 
 teries, the Anglican Church conducted a campaign against 
 the obdurate natives. To this were added the forcible settle*- 
 ment of Ulster with Scotchmen and the spoliation of native 
 landholders under the cloak of legal enactments. In effect, 
 to be Irish was to be exposed to every form of oppression. 
 The hatred and despair engendered by these things burst at 
 last into the Catholic rebellion of 1641. 
 
 The Protestant settlers of Ulster suffered first, some 
 thousands of them being slain. Soon the insurgents were 
 supreme throughout Catholic Ireland, established their own 
 Parliament and entered into a compact with the doomed 
 King, Charles I. This was fatal, though doubtless they 
 would have felt the iron hand of Cromwell in any event. 
 When he had crushed the royalists in England the Protector 
 turned deliberately upon Ireland. There is no redder page 
 in history than that which records this invasion of Ireland. 
 Cromwell landed in the country in 1649 and marched upon 
 the rebels, and at every stamp of his foot the land gushed 
 blood. The garrison of Drogheda was massacred, 30,000 
 men. Wexford was taken and the defenders put to the 
 sword. Wherever a rebel was captured he was shot or 
 hanged. Merciless measures followed the "pacification" 
 of the country. Shiploads of Irish, including women and 
 children, were sent as slaves to the West Indies. Thousands 
 of men were driven as exiles to France and Spain. Crom- 
 
THE CONQUESTS 195 
 
 well's policy of exterminating the Irish and substituting an 
 English population was as nearly successful as such an enter- 
 prise could be. The provinces of Ulster, Munster and 
 Leinster were confiscated and the land divided among the 
 Roundhead soldiers and the speculators who had advanced 
 to Parliament the funds for the "conquest." Connaught 
 alone, as the least fertile of the provinces, was reserved for 
 the Irish owners of the country. There they might settle, 
 and nowhere else. Death was decreed against any Irishman 
 found east of the Shannon river. — • 
 
 "The Irish shall go to hell or Connaught !" was Crom- 
 well's phrase. 
 
 It was Cromwell, then, who made modern Ireland, 
 with all its afflicting evils. Yet he did not quite carry out 
 his pitiless program. The Irish continued to exist in Con- 
 naught, and also in the other provinces, because the English 
 colonists wanted to use them as laborers. The "extermina- 
 tion" was so incomplete, to use a contradictory phrase, that 
 in less than fifty years the Irish were able to rebel again. 
 Lured by the promises of the hunted James II that the 
 rights of Catholics would be restored by him, they rose 
 against the English. They assembled their own Parliament, 
 and, remembering past wrongs, sought revenge by dealing 
 to Protestants discriminatory laws such as they themselves 
 had suffered under. The Battle of the Boyne ended their 
 hopes, and a million acres more were confiscated by William 
 III and "planted" with men of the dominant minority. 
 This was the last of the great "plantations," one reason 
 being that the work was virtually completed, and the Irish 
 landowner was eradicated in favor of the English adven- 
 turer and speculator. The reader will begin to understand 
 now the origin of that interminable "land problem" which 
 the laborious legislation of the last forty years has 
 attempted to solve. 
 
 But what was the final situation left by these centuries 
 of attempted conquest, during which wars, "plantations," 
 rebellions and massacres followed one another in ghastly 
 monotony? What was the result of the successive "con- 
 quests" by Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart, Round- 
 head and Orange invasion? 
 
196 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 It is true that the Irish people were crushed into sub- 
 mission, but the "conquest," instead of welding a strong, 
 united nation, simply intensified the division between the 
 races and piled up the gigantic debt which the British 
 Empire is now paying. The cleavage between the two 
 peoples, which had been merely racial, was widened by 
 social, religious and political prejudices. On the one side 
 were the English and Scotch Protestants, directly or by 
 inheritance the beneficiaries of the invasions and "planta- 
 tions." These held the land, the wealth and the political 
 power of the country. The government was theirs, the laws 
 were theirs, the courts were theirs, all offices and preferment 
 were theirs. Even the church of the majority of them (the 
 Anglican) was a state church, endowed with confiscated 
 Irish lands and supported by public taxes. 
 
 On the other side were all the rest of the people, a vast 
 majority, professing the condemned Catholic faith. Irish, 
 Anglo-Irish and English, they had neither land, nor wealth, 
 nor political power, nor fair standing before the law; they 
 were united by a common misery and a common hatred of 
 England. In studying the present Home Rule demand, 
 then, we turn from 1909 back to 1689. The two succeed- 
 ing centuries must also be examined. 
 
XXIII 
 PENAL LAWS 
 
 The invasions, "plantations" and massacres of the pre- 
 ceding three hundred years had been so effective that the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century found Ireland quite 
 crushed. The land, wealth and political power of the coun- 
 try were in the hands of the English and Protestant minor- 
 ity; the Irish majority were sullen, but helpless and hope- 
 less, submissive to the government inflicted upon them 
 because resistance meant more massacres and wider starva- 
 tion. But while the "conquest" was in this sense complete, 
 the English "garrison" was not satisfied. It deemed it 
 necessary to protect the future, to make impossible the 
 restoration of the stolen land and stolen rights to the Irish. 
 Though landless and powerless, they were still a menace by 
 their very numbers and by the spirit of unity resulting from 
 their common misery and religion. They must be outlawed 
 for all time. Having been robbed by every kind of violence, 
 it remained only to give the robbery a form of legal sanction. 
 
 The obvious resort was religious persecution, not by 
 the coarse methods of the rack and the stake, for these had 
 simply stimulated faith, whether used against Catholics or 
 Protestants, but by the more deadly methods of legislation*. 
 To the era of land confiscation, then, succeeded the era of 
 penal laws. This form of oppression is the distinguishing 
 infamy of the misgovernment of Ireland during the eight- 
 eenth century. Some historians believe that it would have 
 been possible to weld the two peoples at the beginning of 
 that century into a strong, united nation. As we have seen, 
 they were widely apart in social, political and religious sym- 
 pathies, but under a decent and equitable system of govern- 
 ment the Irish would gradually have assimilated the minor- 
 ity, as they had assimilated many of the early "planters" 
 and many of the invading soldiery. England and the "gar- 
 
 197 
 
198 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 risen," however, set themselves deliberately to widen the 
 breach instead of closing it, and thus perpetuated the enmi- 
 ties and the wrongs which have existed to this day. The 
 Irish suffered also from the inherent weakness of the system 
 above them. They were ruled by the English "garrison," 
 but the "garrison" was in turn subject to the schemes and 
 whims of the government in London. Thus all sense of 
 responsibility was submerged in selfish interests. England 
 worked to wring all she could from both the peoples in Ire- 
 land, indifferent to the rights of either, while the "garrison" 
 exploited to the utmost the helpless majority. The Irish 
 had to bear the double burden. 
 
 As to the penal laws, the chosen weapons of spoliation 
 during the eighteenth century, it is hard for Americans to 
 realize that only two hundred years ago such monstrous 
 perversions were cloaked with the dignity and force of legal 
 enactment. They were deliberately designed to exclude the 
 majority of the Irish people not only from political power, 
 but from free ownership of property, from the benefits of 
 education and the consolations of their religion. 
 
 "It would not be difficult," writes Goldwin Smith, the 
 venerable Canadian philosopher and historian, "to point to 
 persecuting laws more sanguinary than these. But it would 
 be difficult to point to any more insulting to the best feelings 
 of man or more degrading to religion." 
 
 A brief but effective summary of the penal laws is given 
 by L. Paul-Dubois. 
 
 "Violence," he says, "was united to hypocrisy, perfidy 
 to corruption, and the highest honors and rewards were 
 reserved for the apostate and informer." The scope of the 
 statutes — which were passed between 1695 and 1709 — he 
 defines thus : 
 
 "Catholic worship was tolerated, but only on sufferance. All 
 public ceremonies and all pilgrimages were prohibited; even bells 
 and crosses were interdicted. The ordination of any new clergy- 
 men was forbidden by law; decree of banishment was passed against 
 all bishops and members of religious orders, and death was to be 
 their punishment in case they returned to Ireland. Secular priests 
 could not exercise their office, under pain of deportation, until they 
 had registered themselves and taken not merely an oath of alle- 
 giance, but an oath of abjuration, which their Church forbade them 
 to take. Every Papist was ordered, under pain of fine, to inform 
 
PENAL LAWS 199 
 
 against his clergyman. On the other hand, a public pension was 
 assigned by the state to every priest who should turn Protestant. 
 As for the Catholic laity, they were deprived of all political rights 
 whatever. They were forbidden to act as teachers, under pain of 
 banishment. They were forbidden to have their children educated, 
 except by Protestants, or to have them educated abroad. They were 
 debarred from obtaining any public employment or practicing any 
 liberal profession except that of medicine. 
 
 ''They could not hold property in land or take land on lease 
 for a longer term than thirty years, and then only on the harshest 
 conditions. If they engaged in trade or industry, they had to pay 
 a special tax, and could not employ more than two apprentices. 
 They were forbidden to carry arms or to own a horse of greater 
 value than £5. They could not act as guardians of their own chil- 
 dren, nor marry a Protestant wife, nor inherit an estate from a 
 Protestant relative. Moreover, the property of a Catholic was 
 equally divided among his children on his death, the law of primo- 
 geniture being confined to Protestants. The object of this last 
 provision was, of course, to secure that if a Catholic chanced to 
 make a fortune it should soon be dissipated. While Catholics were 
 forbidden to engage in educational pursuits, the country was 
 studded over with Protestant schools, where the children of Papists 
 could receive free tuition. It was not merely the persecution of a 
 religion, it was an attempt to degrade and demoralize a whole 
 nation. It was sought at any cost to keep Papists in misery, igno- 
 rance an*d slavery, and this with no other purpose save to assure 
 the Protestant ascendency. The 'planters' who had come to Ireland 
 in the time of Cromwell or William III knew how precarious was 
 their title to the land, and they thus sought to adopt means that 
 could not fail to assure their position." 
 
 If these persecutions, which even Englishmen must 
 abhor, had been due to an outburst of religious fanaticism 
 merely, they would have no extended place in these letters, 
 which aim to treat only of the economic and political status 
 of Ireland. But it is quite clear that the infamous penal 
 laws were inspired not by zealotry, but by greed. 
 
 "Pure religious fanaticism," wrote Lecky, "does not 
 indeed appear ever to have played a dominant part in this 
 legislation. The object of the penal laws, even in the worst 
 period, was much less to produce a change of religion than 
 to secure property and power by reducing to complete impo- 
 tence those who had formerly possessed them." 
 
 Thus we find that the penal laws had a deadly effect in 
 stripping the Irish people of their political rights and their 
 land, and the results are manifest to-day in the evils of mis- 
 government and of the land system which is now disappear- 
 ing. After fifty years of enforcement the severity of the 
 
2oo THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 statutes was allowed to relax, as they had accomplished the 
 designed purpose. Very few of the Irish had been driven 
 or tempted to profess religions "conversion," and their chil- 
 dren continued to be educated in "hedge schools," the main- 
 tenance of which Lecky regards as "one of the most honor- 
 able features in their history." But the persecution started 
 a stream of emigration of the best elements among the 
 people, a drain which was never to cease, and, on the other 
 hand, it transformed those who remained into a race of 
 slaves. Those who tied to the Continent filled the pages of 
 war history with the records of Irish valor, and took revenge 
 upon England at Fontenoy and Dettingen; those left 
 behind, robbed of every right of freemen and worn out 
 from massacre and oppression, sank into sullen serfdom. 
 Nationality was extinguished. The people were inert, hope- 
 less, exhausted. Poverty spread among them like a plague, 
 and there was no strength to resist it. At intervals of a few 
 years came famines, that of 1741 being so desperate that 
 one-third of the poor of Munster died of hunger and fever. 
 As the black years rolled on the very despair of the people 
 bred lawlessness and violence ; there were bloody risings 
 against the extortion oi the landlords and the extortion of 
 the state church in the form of tithes. Of course, these 
 agrarian rebellions met punishment swift and terrible — 
 imprisonment, hanging and transportation by wholesale. 
 So the weary tale went on. 
 
 It could not last. The very barbarity of the system 
 reacted upon those who inflicted it. The minority which 
 held the power became infected with the weaknesses of 
 despotism. Luxury bred extravagance and extravagance 
 bred corruption. Moreover, the tyranny which this class 
 practiced against the Irish majority invited tyranny upon 
 itself. England treated the ruling minority in Ireland with 
 the harshness and contempt it had earned, though she did 
 so for selfish reasons and with no thought of revenging the 
 victims of the system. The Irish Parliament — a wholly 
 Protestant body, Catholics being ineligible for membership, 
 and even to vote at the elections — was stripped of all real 
 authority, all its acts being subject to approval in London. 
 Furthermore, England deliberately strangled Irish industry 
 
ONE OF THE NEW HOUSES. 
 
 IMPROVEMENTS BY TENANT PURCHASER. 
 
PENAL LAWS 201 
 
 and trade, those who suffered directly being chiefly Prot- 
 estants, since the penal laws had made it virtually impos- 
 sible for Catholics to engage profitably in commerce. The 
 effect was felt most severely in Ulster, whence 200,000 
 Presbyterians emigrated in fifty years, most of them settling 
 in America, where they added vigor to the revolutionary 
 spirit that freed the colonies. 
 
 England had gone too far. She was destined to see 
 Protestants and Catholics united against her, and Irish inde- 
 pendence proclaimed throughout the land, and this before 
 the end of the century in which the most sweeping persecu- 
 tion had all but stamped out Irish nationality. Not all of 
 the Protestant minority accepted tamely the oppression from 
 London. In the course of years there arose in the colony a 
 third party, whose main principle was that the welfare of 
 Ireland as a whole should be held superior to any other con- 
 sideration, especially to the interests of England. The 
 greatest of these "Irish Whigs" were Edmund Burke and 
 Henry Grattan, and one saying of the latter, a Protestant, 
 illustrates an important phase of the new party's policy. 
 
 "The Irish Protestant never can be free," said this 
 Protestant leader, "while the Irish Catholic is a slave." 
 
 Deep-rooted as was the minority's hatred and fear of 
 the majority, these men and their followers were big enough 
 to despise and oppose it. For the theory that the great mass 
 of the citizens must be ground down and oppressed for the 
 benefit of the few, they substituted the idea of Irish nation- 
 ality. It took root and grew, and religious differences no 
 longer operated to prevent Ireland's presenting a united 
 front to England. There were heard demands for justice, 
 for liberation from the intolerable burden of misrule by a 
 selfish minority in Ireland and an indifferent government in 
 England. Perhaps the movement would have succeeded in 
 any event, but that which turned the scale was the American 
 Revolution. The militia of 40,000 raised by Ireland for 
 defense in 1776 gave a hint of the country's power. Its 
 demands became more imperative, and England, sobered by 
 the loss of her greatest colony, was forced to yield. With 
 great strides Ireland advanced toward the goal of a national 
 existence. 
 
202 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 In 1778 Catholics regained some of their lost rights. 
 They could once more own land and inherit under the com- 
 mon law. Within a year the shackles which England had 
 fastened upon Irish industry and commerce were struck, off. 
 In 1782, under the leadership of Grattan, the Irish Parlia- 
 ment asserted and compelled recognition of its independ- 
 ence. Ireland was now an independent nation, bound to 
 England only by the tie of the Crown. In 1782, also, the 
 religion and education of Catholics were freed from some 
 of the burdens of the penal laws. Ten years later Catholics 
 were made eligible for admission to the bar and for jury 
 service, and in 1793 they won the right to vote at parlia- 
 mentary elections. 
 
 The pioneers in the fight for Irish rights were justified 
 in their declaration that self-government would bring pros- 
 perity. The country fairly glowed with new life. Agri- 
 culture revived, industries were established, the stagnant chan- 
 nels of trade and commerce became once more animated. 
 Religious and political animosities began to fade before the 
 growing light of economic prosperity. It seemed as if the 
 tale of Ireland's misery had ended. But it was simply the 
 closing of a chapter. 
 
XXIV 
 SOLD OUT 
 
 With a Parliament of her own, a lifting of the cloud 
 of religious persecution and a revival of industry, Ireland 
 faced toward the end of the eighteenth century an era of 
 peace and prosperity. But a fatal weakness remained in the 
 system. It was destined to undermine the whole structure 
 and bring with the close of the century such a reverse to 
 Irish progress as would darken the succeeding hundred 
 years with records of injustice and suffering. While the 
 Parliament in Dublin was freed from English dictation, it 
 was not a truly Irish Parliament. Its independence was won 
 by Grattan in 1782, but it was not until 1793 that Catho- 
 lics gained the right to vote. Meanwhile the Parliament 
 ^jemained wholly Protestant — Presbyterians as well as Cath- 
 olics were excluded — and almost wholly devoted to the 
 interests of the landlords and their oligarchy. 
 
 The Opposition, led by Grattan, fought gallantly, but 
 could not overcome the arbitrary power of the government 
 forces, founded upon representation from "rotten bor- 
 oughs" and the most flagrant corruption. Electoral reform 
 became a burning issue, supported strongly by the Volun- 
 teers, Protestants for the most part, but the demand was 
 treated with contempt. Gradually the tyranny and venality 
 of the parliamentary majority drew patriots of both races 
 together in a campaign to break the vicious system. 
 
 Out of the turmoil arose the inevitable leader, Theo- 
 bald Wolfe Tone. He was a Protestant, but a man of just 
 and liberal ideas, which under the inspiration of the French 
 revolution became radical. Under him the Volunteers 
 became the United Irishmen; Presbyterians, Catholics and 
 all men of liberal ideas joining with them. The jobbery 
 and corruption of the government were hotly denounced; 
 
 203 
 
204 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 Belfast, the center of militant Protestantism, began a move- 
 ment to found an Irish republic. But as the maddened 
 people of France plunged into excesses, and the Irish radi- 
 cals applauded them, there was a reaction among the middle- 
 class Protestant Liberals and some of the Catholic clergy, 
 and as a result the movement shrank until it included only- 
 advanced revolutionaries. The government in 1793 was able 
 to disband the Volunteers. Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward 
 Fitzgerald went to France and raised an expedition 
 under Hoche, who failed in an attempt to land in Bantry 
 Bay. Under a policy of conciliation the unrest subsided 
 further, and in 1796 the government felt strong enough to 
 assume the offensive. Once more the disreputable weapons 
 of religious persecution were seized upon. The govern- 
 ment deliberately fomented a religious war, and the new- 
 born spirit of nationality expired amid the rancorous strife 
 of sectarianism. Irishmen forgot that they were Irishmen, 
 and remembered only that they were divided in religion. 
 Having relighted the torch of intolerance, it was not diffi- 
 cult for the government to start a conflagration. By a 
 policy of provocation it stung the protesting peasantry into 
 open revolt. This is not a charge of partisanship, but the 
 established conviction of unbiased historians. Of the 
 famous rising in 1798 Goldwin Smith says: 
 
 "Upon the homes of the peasantry were let loose the 
 license and barbarity of an irregular soldiery more cruel than 
 a regular invader. Flogging, half-hanging, pitch-capping, 
 picketing went on over a large district, and the most barbar- 
 ous scourgings without trial were inflicted in Dublin, in the 
 very seat of government and justice. It appears not unlikely 
 that the peasantry might have been kept quiet by measures of 
 lenity and firmness and that they were gratuitously scourged 
 and tortured into open rebellion." 
 
 The putting down of the insurrection was little more 
 than a matter of slaughter, though the rebels fought with 
 desperation and won some victories. Wolfe Tone and Lord 
 Fitzgerald died in prison. Then followed a literal "reign of 
 terror," when the hapless insurrectionists were subjected to 
 the most merciless punishment. Lord Cornwallis, appointed 
 viceroy against his will, was the most loyal of Englishmen, 
 
SOLD OUT 205 
 
 but his heart revolted against the systematic barbarity which 
 was everywhere inflicted upon the Irish people. He wrote: 
 
 "The principal persons of this country and the members 
 of both houses of Parliament are averse to all acts of clem- 
 ency, and would pursue measures that could only terminate in 
 the extermination of the greater number of the inhabitants 
 and in the utter destruction of the country. * * * Our 
 war is reduced to a predatory system in the mountains of 
 Wicklow and the bogs of Kildare. * * * I am very 
 much afraid that any man with a brown coat who is found 
 within several miles of a field of action is butchered without 
 discrimination. * * * There is no law, either in town 
 or country, but martial law. * * * Numberless mur- 
 ders are hourly committed by our people without any process 
 of examination whatever." 
 
 Thus the despairing revolt of '98 was crushed. Brute 
 force had once more put down the effort of the people to win 
 justice from the government. But this was not all. Eng- 
 land had still to revenge herself for the humiliation of grant- 
 ing legislative independence in 1782. The manufactured 
 rebellion and the excesses which followed furnished the 
 excuse, and it was decreed that the Irish Parliament should be 
 wiped out, merged with the Parliament at Westminster. 
 True, the Irish Parliament was virtually the property of the 
 landlord minority; with some honorable exceptions, the mem- 
 bers were leaders or beneficiaries of the intolerable system of 
 minority rule, yet at least it had the form of an honestly rep- 
 resentative legislature, and in time might have been regener- 
 ated by public opinion. But it was doomed to extinction. 
 
 This chapter in the history of English rule in Ireland 
 lacks the bloody stains of those which preceded it, but, if it is 
 possible, is more disgraceful. Pitt might have accomplished 
 the Union by force, but he chose instead to encompass it by 
 corruption, and make Ireland pay the cost of her own betrayal. 
 In its first attempt, in the session of January, 1799, the gov- 
 ernment met defeat, the opposition being made up of patriots 
 and of the selfish owners of "rotten boroughs," who, under 
 the plan of the Union, would lose many of the parliamentary 
 seats which they "owned." This gave the government an 
 opportunity to split the opponents of the measure. It set out 
 
206 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 deliberately to buy the "owners" of the eighty-five boroughs 
 which the change would extinguish. All through the year 
 1799 emissaries of the government were busy upon their 
 unholy mission. No less than $6,300,000 was expended in 
 buying the borough seats. Nor was this all ; patents of nobil- 
 ity ( \) were scattered lavishly as bribes. Among the betray- 
 ers of Ireland the government distributed twenty-two Irish 
 peerages, six English peerages and twenty-two promotions in 
 the Irish peerage, as rewards for the sale of Ireland's rights. 
 The Irish Parliament met for the last time on January 
 15, 1800. The opponents of the Union — Protestants and 
 Catholics — presented petitions against the plan from twenty- 
 six of the thirty-two counties. A fiery debate began. In the 
 midst of it came a dramatic interruption. Grattan, weak 
 and ill, walked slowly into the House, supported by two 
 friends. Retiring, sick at heart, from the useless struggle 
 against corruption in 1797, the leader had come back at the 
 call of his country. His presence and his eloquence inspired 
 the Opposition, but nothing could overcome the effect of the 
 debauchery of the members. On an amendment to the 
 address, indorsing the independence settled in 1782, the vote 
 was 96 to 138, a government majority of 42. A month later, 
 Corry. Chancellor of the Exchequer, moved the resolutions 
 adopted in the British Parliament, embodying the articles of 
 Union. He took occasion to make a base attack on Grattan. 
 Ill as he was, the leader retorted in a fiery speech, branding 
 Corry as a coward and villain. They met at dawn in the 
 Phoenix Park, and Grattan had the satisfaction of putting a 
 bullet in the slanderer's arm. But the beginning of the end 
 had come. The various resolutions leading to the Union 
 were jammed through, and the final bill was passed on May 
 26, by a vote of 153 to> 88. This is the comment of Charles 
 George Walpole, historian : 
 
 "Thus ended the Parliament of the English colony in Ire- 
 land. It was never in any sense representative of the nation. 
 It was the corrupt embodiment of a dominant race. It sold 
 the birthright cf the nation for its own selfish ends. There 
 had not even been a dissolution to test the opinion of the con- 
 stituencies, the proposal to consult the people upon a question 
 so vita* to their interests having been sternly condemned by 
 
SOLD OUT 207 
 
 Pitt. The most remarkable and creditable thing about the 
 whole transaction was that so many members of the lower 
 house were found whose integrity the government was unable 
 to corrupt and whose honor it was powerless to purchase." 
 
 By a supreme stroke of irony, the cost of the country's 
 betrayal, more than $7,500,000, was charged to the national 
 debt of Ireland, and made a permanent burden upon the Irish 
 people. The record of infamy was complete. The world 
 has accepted the deliberate judgment of Gladstone. 
 
 "There is no blacker or fouler transaction in the history 
 of man," he declared, "than the making of the Union be- 
 tween Great Britain and Ireland." 
 
 Thus, after seven hundred years of spoliation by violence 
 and penal enactments, England had completed the subjection 
 of Ireland by robbing her of her shadow of a Parliament 
 under a cloak of "constitutional" methods. For better or 
 worse, the kingdoms were united. It was to be no longer 
 possible to blame Irish wrongs upon the "garrison." Eng- 
 land assumed the responsibility herself. During the nine- 
 teenth century she was to open a new account with Ireland. 
 The world, better informed and more watchful than in those 
 other days, has been able to examine the account. It is, truly, 
 a record far more honorable than that of the preceding cen- 
 turies. Many evils have been swept away, many wrongs 
 righted. But the fact remains that England is still vastly in 
 Ireland's debt. 
 
XXV 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 In this rapid review of the history of Ireland, with its 
 bearing upon the present-day demand for Home Rule, we 
 come now to a survey of the nineteenth century. The record 
 is totally different from that of the preceding centuries. The 
 old order changes, and changes, in a great degree, for the bet- 
 ter. Hoary abuses are done away with, mighty reforms are 
 inaugurated; the new system of government, under the Act of 
 Union, has a trial of ioo years, and in the closing of the cen- 
 tury an economic regeneration of the country is under way. 
 Yet, if confiscation, massacre and persecution have been aban- 
 doned, condemned by the spirit of the age; if intolerance has 
 disappeared before the spread of enlightenment, and if "a 
 government of landlordism, tempered by assassination," has 
 been swept away, there still remain intolerable evils, and the 
 people of Ireland still persist in demanding a revolution in 
 their public affairs. 
 
 The making of the Union in 1800, which Gladstone 
 termed the blackest and foulest transaction in the history of 
 man, simply perpetuated the systematic misrule under which 
 Ireland had labored. The Irish Parliament of 1 782-1 800 
 was, in truth, not a representative body, but it might have 
 been the basis of a really free legislature. With the Union, 
 control of Irish affairs was transferred to Westminster, Ire- 
 land to' have one hundred members of the House of Com- 
 mons and about thirty members of the House of Lords, elected 
 by the Irish peers. The worst feature was that Ireland was 
 to be ruled henceforth by Englishmen, who had no knowl- 
 edge of the country's needs and no sympathy with the people 
 or their institutions. 
 
 Throughout the century, moreover, English policy 
 toward Ireland was marked by the most fatal vacillation. 
 Egotism and indifference combined to .reject all representa- 
 
 208 
 
&4 
 
 3 
 
 K 
 «! 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 a 
 
 o 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 209 
 
 tions of the people and to exasperate their spirit. When con- 
 cessions were made, they were made in a manner to wound 
 rather than to heal. Events moved always in the same 
 course. The demands were met at first by contempt and 
 mockery; when this became unbearable the Irish retorted with 
 outbursts of lawlessness; the government's invariable remedy 
 was coercion, the infliction of a sort of martial law, which 
 superseded the orderly processes of justice and placed the peo- 
 ple at the mercy of political magistrates ; then violence as in- 
 variably increased, until finally, through sheer terror of a gen- 
 eral uprising, the government yielded and hastened to grant 
 what had been demanded. Again and again during the nine- 
 teenth century was this discreditable procedure followed. 
 Englishmen of brains recognized the folly of the govern- 
 ment's course, which led it to grant concessions, not in a spirit 
 of justice, but because of dread of revolution, thus stirring 
 the hatred of the people and putting a premium upon dis- 
 order. 
 
 "Your oppressions," said Lord John Russell to< his coun- 
 trymen, "have taught the Irish to hate, your concessions to 
 brave you. You have exhibited to them how scanty was the 
 stream of your bounty, how full the tribute of your fear." 
 
 The Land League campaign of 1879 was a defiant revolt 
 against law and order, yet it won a signal reform. 
 
 "A more lawless, a more violent organization has 
 scarcely ever existed in any country," declares R. Barry 
 O'Brien, an Irish writer. "If it had not been violent and 
 lawless it would not have succeeded. * * * In 188 1 
 the government surrendered at discretion, and another Land 
 Act was carried amid scenes of lawlessness, violence, anarchy, 
 outrage, panic and alarm scarcely paralleled even in the 
 troubled history of Ireland." 
 
 If English testimony on this point is wanted, it is at 
 hand. 
 
 "Fixity of land tenure," said Lord Derby, "has been the 
 direct result of two causes — Irish outrage and parliamentary 
 obstruction. The Irish know it as well as we. Not all the 
 influence and eloquence of Mr. Gladstone would have pre- 
 vailed on the English House of Commons to do what has 
 been done in the matter of Irish tenant right if the answer to 
 14 
 
210 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 all objections had not been ready: 'How else are we to govern 
 Ireland?'" 
 
 "I must make one admission," said Mr. Gladstone him- 
 self, "and that is that without the Land League the Act of 
 1 88 1 would not at this moment be on the statute book." 
 
 Furthermore, the reforms granted by the British Parlia- 
 ment were never whole-hearted measures. As they were 
 granted under compulsion, so they were restricted as far as 
 the government dared. If ever a country needed drastic 
 remedies, it was Ireland. Yet the authorities temporized, 
 vacillated and made blundering half-concessions that never 
 fully remedied the evils at which they were aimed. 
 
 The century opened ominously. The people watched in 
 sullen anger the extinction of their liberties by the Act of 
 Union. In 1 803 Robert Emmet, the bravest and most pic- 
 turesque of Ireland's heroes, led a despairing revolt which 
 failed, and died on the scaffold with such supreme courage 
 that his name has ever been dearest to his race. But the 
 story of this rising belongs really to the eighteenth century; 
 "it was the last flicker of the fire of 1798," says O'Brien. 
 Let us examine briefly the condition of the country after the 
 Union. The population was about 5,000,000; four-fifths of 
 these were Catholics, 600,000 Episcopalians, 400,000 of 
 other churches, chiefly Presbyterians. All of the political 
 power was in the hands of the 600,000 Episcopalians ; they 
 gave no consideration to the Presbyterians, and Catholics, in 
 spite of the abolition of many penal enactments against them, 
 held no positions of trust in public affairs. Four-fifths of the 
 people of Ireland "had no more to do with the government 
 of the country," it has been said, "than a community of 
 mice might have to do with a government of cats." The 
 government's attitude upon religion was the same. The 
 Anglican Church was established and endowed — a state 
 church, supported by public tithes. The Presbyterian and 
 Catholic Churches were tolerated, but were supported by the 
 voluntary contributions of members, who had also to pay 
 tithes to the Episcopalian Church. Education was similarly 
 burdened with injustice, as has been related in another 
 chapter. 
 
 In all these evils may be traced the effects of the funda- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 211 
 
 mental weakness of the Union. It did not unite the races — 
 it was not designed to do so — it simply united the govern- 
 ment of Great Britain with a political party in Ireland. The 
 minority remained in supreme control; but, having been 
 relieved of responsibility, lost whatever sense of patriotism it 
 might have had. Nor did the home government keep the 
 pledges upon which it had forced the union. Complete 
 emancipation of the Catholics was solemnly promised, but 
 twenty-nine years elapsed before the pledge was redeemed, 
 and then only under the pressure of a national agitation. Back 
 of this was the great figure of Daniel O'Connell, whose name 
 is indelibly written on the history of emancipation. In 1823 
 he reorganized the old Catholic Association, which had lost 
 power because of division among its members. It spread 
 throughout the whole country, enlisting the support of peas- 
 ants, gentry and priests, and for five years maintained a cease- 
 less agitation for equal rights. Finally, in 1828, O'Connell 
 had himself elected member of Parliament from Clare, 
 although as a Catholic he was ineligible to take his seat. In 
 the following year, finding public opinion dangerous, the gov- 
 ernment yielded, but on terms which seriously restricted the 
 franchise, cutting the Irish electorate from 260,000 votes to 
 26,000. 
 
 Encouraged by this success, O'Connell began his famous 
 agitation for the repeal of the Union. In his fight for Catho- 
 lic emancipation he had had the support of Protestant Lib- 
 erals, but they deserted him on the repeal issue, and hence- 
 forth Protestant Ireland was to be Unionist. For five years, 
 from 1835 to J 840, O'Connell suspended agitation and tried 
 to gain his end by alliance with the British ministry; failing 
 to achieve any substantial reforms, he broke the compact and 
 resumed the struggle for repeal. By 1 843 the country was 
 aflame upon the issue. The movement culminated in a mon- 
 ster meeting at the Hill of Tara, when 250,000 persons 
 assembled. The gathering was proscribed by the authorities, 
 and troops were hurried to the scene. It seemed as if the 
 agitation were about to flare into rebellion. But O'Connell, 
 ever an advocate of "constitutional methods," gave the order 
 to disperse. From that day he lost much of his power over 
 the people, and was openly repudiated by the followers of the 
 
212 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 "Young Ireland" movement. He died in Genoa in 1847, 
 under a cloud of disapprobation from radical members of his 
 race, but secure in his fame as the "Great Liberator." 
 
 The "Young Ireland" movement was destined also to 
 end in failure. It started well, under the leadership of such 
 brilliant men as Thomas Davis, John Blake Dillon, Charles 
 Gavan Duffy, John Mitchel and Smith O'Brien. Some of 
 them were Protestants, and their agitation, unlike that ot 
 O'Connell, was for Ireland as a whole, not merely for 
 Catholic Ireland. But differences of opinion as to methods, 
 intensified by the horrors of the famine years, led to a rup- 
 ture. Davis, who was dead, and O'Brien, who was living, 
 were for "moral force"; Mitchel — a Protestant, like Davis 
 — and his associates were for "physical force." Mitchel's 
 policy of violence roused the country, enlisting finally even 
 Smith O'Brien and his friends. But the dissensions gave 
 the government its opportunity, especially as many of the 
 clergy strongly opposed the threatened rising. Mitchel was 
 suddenly arrested and transported, and in a single conflict the 
 rebellion of 1848 was crushed. The reaction from the 
 policy of O'Connell had carried the country far, but it was 
 impossible to transmute the aroused patriotism into success- 
 ful military strategy. 
 
 Meanwhile a disaster infinitely greater smote the people 
 — the appalling famine of 1 847-1 849, with its ghastly record 
 of starvation, eviction and emigration. The comparative tran- 
 quillity of the country under the Irish Parliament and the rise 
 in the price of farm products during the Napoleonic wars 
 gave an impetus to Ireland which not only brought agricul- 
 tural prosperity, but caused a rapid increase in the popula- 
 tion. The population, which in 1788 was 4,040,000, had 
 grown by 1805 to 5,395,456 and by 1821 to 6,801,827. In 
 1 841 there were 8,175,124 inhabitants. Taking advantage 
 of the demand for land, the landlords encouraged the sub- 
 division of holdings, so as to increase the rents and the num- 
 ber of votes they could control. Then came peace and a 
 sudden fall in the price of agricultural products, and the land- 
 lords decided that they could make more from grazing than 
 from the rentals of tilled ground. A campaign of "clear- 
 ances" began, and continued for years. Tenants were driven 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 213 
 
 from their farms and the houses leveled, Parliament indus- 
 triously passing laws to make evictions easy and cheap. As 
 there were no industries to which the people could turn, they 
 simply had to have land; hence competition drove rents to 
 exorbitant prices. Only by the most supreme effort could the 
 people keep themselves from starvation. The time was coming 
 when they could not do even that. A single bad harvest 
 meant hunger for hundreds of thousands. Three harvests in 
 succession failed — in 1845, 1846 and 1847. In the last two 
 years the potato crop perished entirely. Until 1849 famine 
 reigned throughout the land. By tens and by hundreds of 
 thousands the people perished of hunger and fever. The 
 roadsides were dotted with corpses. The strong fled from 
 the country in a never-ending stream; the weak dropped in 
 their tracks and died. The number killed by hunger was 
 estimated at 729,033. Between 1846 and 1851 1,240,737 
 emigrants left the country. Between 1849 and 1852 
 263,000 families were evicted. There is no need to prolong 
 the ghastly tale, which is too familiar to every person 
 acquainted with Irish history. At fearful cost it brought 
 home to the world a realization that a nation was perishing. 
 The famine was unnatural, needless. It was not due to want 
 of food, for during the years 1846 and 1847 Ireland exported 
 far more than enough to feed her people. The trouble was 
 that the produce of the land was used up in paying rent to 
 the landlords. 
 
 The famine was another turning point in the history of 
 Ireland. It started at full tide that wave of emigration 
 which has never ceased, which has robbed the country of its 
 most vigorous inhabitants and has made America a factor in 
 the demand for Home Rule. 
 
 The history of Ireland during the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century shows a constant brightening. There were 
 periods when the darkness of oppression and violent reprisal 
 settled over the land, but not for long. By the force of 
 awakened public opinion, by outbursts of opposition that were 
 simply unarmed rebellions and by campaigns of obstruction 
 and agitation in the British Parliament the interest of English 
 statesmen of ability was at last awakened and the govern- 
 
2i 4 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 ment compelled to inaugurate sweeping changes. These fifty 
 years were, on the whole, a period of great reforms. The 
 greatest, wisest and most important of all was the gradual 
 extinction of landlordism, now under way. In addition, 
 there were the disestablishment of the state church of the 
 minority ; several acts for the betterment of the condition of 
 farmers, agricultural laborers and artisans; the granting of 
 self-government in purely local affairs, and the founding of a 
 national university. 
 
 The great famine of 1 847-1 849 left the country almost 
 desolate and the people utterly worn out. The horrors of 
 starvation and wholesale eviction had swelled the tide of 
 emigration, draining the nation of its very lifeblood. For 
 fifteen years Ireland remained steeped in misery. Gavan 
 Duffy in 1 85 1 sought to revive the national spirit through 
 his Irish Tenant League, but the movement was betrayed by 
 two of its members. Again, in 1858, a dangerous conspir- 
 acy was fomented in County Cork by James Stephens, one of 
 the leaders of the rising of 1 848. It was quickly suppressed, 
 yet it served to uncover the perilous condition of the public 
 mind. A far more serious attack was being prepared. 
 While Stephens, with O'Donovan Rossa and others, formed 
 the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Irishmen who had taken 
 refuge in the United States organized Fenianism for an 
 armed attack upon Great Britain. The movement was 
 denounced by powerful members of the Catholic clergy and 
 by the advocates of "constitutional methods," yet it made 
 headway. An incident in 1861 showed the temper of the 
 people. Cardinal Cullen refused to permit the body of one 
 of the revolutionaries to be carried into a church, and it was 
 followed to the grave by 50,000 men. Seizure of some of 
 the Fenian leaders in 1865 did not quell the trouble. Stephens 
 escaped. Scattered risings were suppressed, and a ship from 
 America, with arms and men who had fought in the Civil 
 War, was captured, but for three years the government was 
 terrorized. There was a raid into Canada, Clerkenwell 
 prison in London was dynamited, Chester Castle was 
 attacked and an attempt made to rescue some prisoners in 
 Manchester, resulting in the death of a policeman and the 
 hanging of three Fenians. Futile as these outbreaks were in 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 215 
 
 themselves, they had the effects noted in connection with simi- 
 lar risings in preceding years ; they aroused the attention of 
 England, and were followed by immediate reforms. They 
 led to the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland 
 and the passage of the first great Land Act of 1870. That 
 violence hastened these concessions we have the testimony of 
 English statesmen. 
 
 "It has only been since the termination of the American 
 war and the appearance of Fenianism," said Gladstone, "that 
 the mind of this country has been greatly turned to the con- 
 sideration of Irish affairs." Again, in 1868, when the great 
 leader was asked why he had not dealt with disestablishment 
 in 1866, he answered: 
 
 "For a perfectly plain and simple reason. In the first 
 place, circumstances were not ripe then as they are now. 
 Circumstances, I repeat, were not ripe, in so far as we did 
 not know then so much as we know now with respect to the 
 intensity of Fenianism." 
 
 "The attention of this country and the conscience of 
 England," said Lord Dufferin, "were much stimulated, if not 
 altogether awakened, by the fact of Fenianism." 
 
 "Few persons," wrote Lord Derby in 1881, "will now 
 regret the disendowment of the Irish Church or the passing of 
 the Land Act of 1870; but it is regrettable that, for the third 
 time in less than a century, agitation, accompanied with vio- 
 lence, should have been shown to be the most effective instru- 
 ment for redressing whatever Irishmen may be pleased to 
 consider their wrongs." 
 
 It is worth while to note in passing what this church 
 question was. The Anglican Church, with about 600,000 
 adherents out of the total population of nearly 8,000,000 in 
 1 840, was the state Church. It was endowed with lands and 
 with money, and supported, besides, by tithes levied against all 
 the people. Of course, the greatest part of the tithes were 
 paid by Catholics, and the few hundred thousand Presbyter- 
 ians also had to contribute. In many parishes the rector of 
 the endowed church actually had to borrow two or three wor- 
 shipers from a neighboring parish in order to hold an occa- 
 sional service, and so comply with the law which gave him a 
 large salary. The people in 1830, and for several years fol- 
 
216 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 lowing, made war upon the grotesque system. There were 
 many scenes of riot and violence, and finally, in 1838, the 
 government yielded and passed a tithe commutation act. 
 This placed the burden of paying the tithes upon the land- 
 lords. Of course, the remedy was useless, for the landlords 
 simply added the tax to the rents, and the people paid as 
 before. It was not until 1869 that the state Church was dis- 
 established and disendowed. It was "bought out" by the 
 government, and while it was left with great wealth, it was 
 stripped of political power and its support by the adherents of 
 other churches stopped. 
 
 The Land Act of 1870, which first established the tenant's 
 proprietary interest in improvements made by his own labor, 
 has already been discussed at length. For generations 
 the land question had been the subject of almost ceaseless 
 agitation; as early as 1845 tne English Devon commission 
 had condemned the evil system and pointed out the remedy; 
 but, as always, Ireland had to wait for many weary years for 
 her rights. Though the statute marked a great advance, it 
 was, on the whole, a failure, for it did not give the tenants 
 fixity of tenure. For nine years a ceaseless agitation by con- 
 stitutional methods was maintained, looking to further legis- 
 lation for the solving of the land problem. All was in vain. 
 England felt quite satisfied that she had done all that was 
 necessary. Bill after bill was introduced, only to meet igno- 
 minious defeat. Meanwhile parallel movements — one for 
 land reform, the other for Home Rule — were under way. 
 In 1874 the Nationalists, under Isaac Butt, for the first time 
 won a general election in Ireland, and four years later lined 
 up under the powerful leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. 
 In 1879 Michael Davitt, perhaps the best beloved of the 
 Irish leaders, induced Parnell to yoke the movements for land 
 reform and Home Rule and to accept tacitly the aid of the 
 revolutionary faction. The House of Lords in the following 
 year rejected a bill favorable to the tenants. The country, 
 already threatened with famine, was in the throes of an evic- 
 tion campaign, and the desperate people, under guidance of 
 the famous Land League, replied with boycotting, resistance 
 to eviction and many forms of violence. It was in the midst of 
 this anarchy that the government passed the Land Act of 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 217 
 
 1 881, and with it a severe coercion act. Neither was immedi- 
 ately effective; both the evictions and the agrarian outrages 
 continued. The jails were filled with leaders of the move- 
 ment and their followers. Parnell himself was incarcerated. 
 Finally, in 1882, after two years of strife, Gladstone entered 
 into negotiations with Parnell, still in prison, and coercion 
 was abandoned. Unhappily, this great victory was all but an- 
 nulled by the cowardly murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish 
 and Under Secretary Burke, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. 
 Lord Cavendish, just appointed Chief Secretary, was regard- 
 ed as the bearer of a message of conciliation to- Ireland. His 
 assassination dealt a blow to "agitation by constitutional 
 methods 1 ' from which it was slow to revive. 
 
 Gladstone, nevertheless, continued his magnificent efforts 
 to achieve justice for Ireland. In 1886 he introduced a bill 
 for land purchase — which to-day is under way — and for 
 Home Rule. It was summarily rejected by the House of 
 Commons. Living always close to the danger line, the peo» 
 ple were at the time suffering want, owing to a fall in the 
 prices of agricultural commodities. Payment of the rents 
 demanded became an utter impossibility. Parliament having 
 thrown out a relief bill offered by Parnell, the leaders inaugu- 
 rated the famous "plan of campaign." Under this scheme 
 tenants formally requested an abatement in the rents com- 
 mensurate with the prevailing depression; upon the land- 
 lord's refusal, the tenants agreed to pay into a campaign fund 
 the reduced rent offered, the money to be held for acceptance 
 by the landlord, or, failing that, to be used as a war fund to 
 resist eviction. The government made its inevitable reply — 
 coercion — and for three years a fierce agrarian and political 
 struggle raged in the land. Parnell meanwhile was made 
 the victim of a villainous attack in England, the London 
 Times accusing him of complicity in outrages, supporting the 
 charges with documentary "evidence." Inquiry forced a con- 
 fession from Richard Pigott, forger of the letters, and Par- 
 nell became a popular hero. Entering into a closer alliance 
 with Gladstone, the leader was engaged in helping to formu- 
 late a Home Rule program, when the O'Shea divorce case 
 suddenly involved him in political ruin, split the Irish people 
 into warring camps and started dissensions which raged for 
 
218 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 nearly ten years. Gladstone in 1893 carried a Home Rule 
 bill through the House of Commons, but it was killed in the 
 House of Lords. Meanwhile additional land acts, each 
 advancing the emancipation of the tenants, had been passed. 
 The terms of them all have been reviewed elsewhere, with 
 the Act of 1903. 
 
 This, then, is the story of the nineteenth century in 
 Ireland. Lacking the sanguinary horrors of the centuries 
 preceding, it is still a story of gloom and failure. Those 
 who forced through the Union of 1 800 by the most despic- 
 able corruption affected to believe that it would solve the 
 problem. As has been shown, it simply intensified the evils 
 of the system, for it robbed the dominant minority of re- 
 sponsibility and saddled upon the country the burden of gov- 
 ernment by alien statesmen, who were ignorant of the coun- 
 try's needs and indifferent to its demands. 
 
 During the entire period England's policy was marked 
 by vacillation and political cowardice. No intelligent Eng- 
 lishman now denies the justice of emancipation, of church dis- 
 establishment or of the land reforms that have been accom- 
 plished, yet each and every one of these was denounced and 
 obstructed as a scheme of anarchy. Concessions were 
 granted ungraciously and always hedged about with restric- 
 tions that made amending legislation necessary. Further- 
 more, in nearly every case there was the discreditable specta- 
 cle of a government obstinately refusing demands presented 
 by orderly procedure and then hastening to grant them under 
 the pressure of violent outbreaks. Thus it is that the twen- 
 tieth century finds Ireland still unreconciled, still at enmity 
 with England, still maintaining her demand for a complete 
 overturning of the system of government which she condemns 
 and repudiates. 
 
XXVI 
 MISGOVERNMENT 
 
 Even the very brief and imperfect review which has been 
 given of Ireland's history will serve to explain in large meas- 
 ure the present problems of the country and the persistent 
 demand of the people for a radical change in the form of 
 government. It remains now to describe that government 
 as it is and to examine the claims put forth by the advocates 
 of reform. 
 
 From every standpoint, the development of Ireland 
 during the seven hundred years since the first invasion has 
 been abnormal. Geographically shut off from contact with 
 Europe, the country has ever been at the mercy of England. 
 It was within the power of Great Britain to mold Ireland's 
 destiny, to make her an integral part of the empire. But this 
 she has failed to do. She never, until the present genera- 
 tion, sought to deal with the Irish as equals; she always re- 
 garded and treated them as an inferior race, and her whole 
 purpose was to extinguish absolutely the institutions and even 
 the race of the owners of the country and substitute the insti- 
 tutions and the race of the so-called Anglo-Saxon. It has 
 been suggested that Ireland should have submitted grace- 
 fully; that, having failed to drive out the invaders, she should 
 have accepted the inevitable and shared in the prosperity of 
 the "conqueror." The fact is that Ireland never had a 
 chance for honorable terms. From century to century rebel- 
 lion and civil war were forced upon her. The conquest was 
 never complete, yet England arrogated to herself the rights 
 of a conqueror, and whenever those rights were challenged 
 she provoked revolt by plantations, persecutions and mas- 
 sacres. 
 
 During every period of tranquillity the vigor of the 
 Irish race was proved by the rapidity with which she assimi- 
 lated the invaders. The Norman, Elizabethan and Crom- 
 
 219 
 
220 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 wellian planters, many of them, became ll more Irish than the 
 Irish." This is a historical fact. But the country was never 
 permitted to work out its own destiny. Fresh invasions, new 
 plantations, new forms of oppression by landlords and the 
 "garrison" invariably operated to split the races and provoke 
 risings which could be put down by massacre and whole- 
 sale deportation and confiscation. The policy was not to 
 organize and develop the country for the benefit of all its 
 inhabitants, but to exploit it for the benefit of a few. Even 
 when the violent methods of invasion and penal enactments 
 had been abandoned, England continued the same policy by 
 different means. It would seem as if she had been animated 
 by the hope that eventually, through the effects of emigration 
 and sheer national weariness, the Irish people would be so 
 weakened that the problem would disappear. The record of 
 the seven hundred years has been summed up in a few terse 
 and terrible words by a member of Parliament, J. M. Rob- 
 ertson. As he is a Scotch Liberal, he will not be suspected 
 of undue leanings toward Catholic Nationalism. Reviewing 
 the history, he says : 
 
 "Seven centuries of rapine and violence. Carelessness 
 alternating with ferocity. Not a gleam of humanity nor of 
 political wisdom. Not even the wisdom of the peasant who 
 takes care of his beast lest it perish." 
 
 As we have seen, the nineteenth century witnessed a 
 change in methods, the sweeping away of many ancient 
 abuses, the inauguration of great reforms. But still the 
 basic evil remains. The government of Ireland in these 
 opening days of the twentieth century is an anachronism, a 
 perversion of liberty, a government of taxation without real 
 representation, a cumbersome, costly and inefficient system of 
 minority rule. Such statements as this are denounced by 
 English Unionists as the falsest and most dangerous political 
 heresy. Ireland, they say, is as free as England. She has 
 103 out of the 670 members of the imperial Parliament, 
 which governs both countries equitably; she has trial by jury, 
 the habeas corpus, and now even a system of popular and 
 elective government in local affairs (since 1898J. What 
 more can she demand? 
 
 To answer this question, and to determine which of the 
 
MISGOVERNMENT 221 
 
 two views of the Irish government is correct, we must exam- 
 ine the system as it was established and as it is. The Act of 
 Union of 1800, as has already been made clear, did not effect 
 a real union between the two governments. It effected, 
 rather, a union between the government of England and the 
 minority in Ireland. The Irish Parliament — which with all 
 its faults had been at least a free agent — was destroyed, and 
 the imperial Parliament, with the Irish representation noted 
 above, made supreme. But this did not alter the fact that 
 Ireland remained under the domination of the "garrison" as 
 much as in the days of Cromwell. The minority was all but 
 absolute. Their wishes were paramount with Parliament. 
 It took twenty-nine years to< win religious equality, solemnly 
 promised in 1800. It was not until 1869 that the burden of 
 the Established Church was lifted. It was not until 1870 
 that the first attempt was made to reform the intolerably 
 vicious land system. To illustrate what the trend of gov- 
 ernment was during the nineteenth century, a record has been 
 made of the principal acts of Parliament affecting Ireland 
 between 1829 and 1879. The following table shows the 
 number of bills for the relief of tenants unsuccessfully intro- 
 duced in the years named : 
 
 1829 1 I 1853 2 
 
 1830 1 
 
 1831 1 
 
 1835 1 
 
 1836 2 
 
 1855 1 
 
 1856 1 
 
 1858 1 
 
 1871 1 
 
 1845 2 i 1872 1 
 
 1846 2 ! 1873 2 
 
 1847 1 1874 4 
 
 1848 2i 1875 2 
 
 1849 1 
 
 1850 2 
 
 1851 1 
 
 1852 1 
 
 1876 3 
 
 1877 2 
 
 1878 5 
 
 1879 5 
 
 In a period of fifty years, then, we find forty-eight bills 
 for the benefit of the suffering tenants introduced in the 
 imperial Parliament. Not a single one of them was passed. 
 During the same period there were forty-eight coercion acts, 
 each establishing for the time being a form of martial law 
 which placed the people at the mercy of magistrates appointed 
 by Dublin Castle. During the nineteenth century there were 
 
222 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 eighty-seven of these acts. Three words fairly describe the 
 course of the government of Ireland during that century. 
 Corruption branded the so-called Union ; coercion was the 
 remedy applied for fifty years to economic evils ; conciliation 
 was the method of the last thirty years. Corruption and 
 coercion have been done away with to a large extent, dis- 
 credited by their failure and condemned by public opinion. 
 Conciliation has accomplished much in the way of reform, 
 but it leaves the basic problem of misgovernment unsolved. 
 
 "Who (or what,) rules Ireland?" asks R. Barry O'Brien, 
 in an exhaustive work recently issued. "It may be the English 
 cabinet ; it may be Dublin Castle ; it may be the 'Irish' boards ; 
 it may be all three combined; but it is not the Irish people." 
 
 This is from an Irish writer, but the statement is strictly 
 and impartially true. Whatever the government of Ireland 
 may be, it is not self-government. The people are ruled by 
 forces over which they exercise no control, which are really 
 irresponsible. We can take the testimony of Joseph Cham- 
 berlain. In 1885 he said: 
 
 "An Irishman cannot move a step, he cannot lift a finger 
 in any parochial, municipal or educational work, without 
 being confronted with, interfered with, controlled by an Eng- 
 lish official, appointed by a foreign government and without 
 a shade or shadow of representative authority." 
 
 We can take the testimony of James Bryce, once Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, now British Minister to the United 
 States, author of "The American Commonwealth." 
 
 "The English government in Ireland," he wrote in 1883, 
 "is still practically a foreign government. It seems to them 
 (the Irish ) an external power, set in motion by forces they 
 do not control, conducted on principles which may or may 
 not be good, but which are not their principles." 
 
 These utterances are as true to-day as when they were 
 written, except that since 1898 there has been a form of 
 Home Rule in strictly local affairs. The root of the whole 
 matter is that Ireland is governed by men who are foreign in 
 race, religion and political sympathies. In an ordinary discus- 
 sion of this kind a reference to religion would have no place, 
 but it must be remembered that the very system inflicted upon 
 Ireland makes such reference necessary. During the last 
 
MISGOVERNMENT 223 
 
 hundred years from three-fourths to four-fifths of the popu- 
 lation has been Catholic. During that period there have 
 been thirty-two Lords Lieutenant — several having held office 
 more than once — not one of whom was a Catholic; fifty Chief 
 Secretaries, not one a Catholic; twenty Under Secretaries, 
 three being Catholics. Four of the Lords Lieutenant, seven of 
 the Chief Secretaries and four of the Under Secretaries have 
 been at least partially sympathetic toward the great mass of 
 the Irish people; the others have been openly contemptuous of 
 and antagonistic to the race they were appointed to govern. 
 
 In the face of such a record as this, such a deliberate 
 and long-continued policy of governing a people without 
 regard to their wishes, it is idle to protest that the religious 
 element should be excluded from the discussion. The reli- 
 gious element was interjected by England, and for centuries 
 has. been the very foundation of English rule; it will be elimi- 
 nated when the religious test for governmental positions is 
 abandoned in practice as well as in theory and when the 
 majority of the people of Ireland have fair representation. 
 This does not mean that the appointment of Catholics to 
 government offices would solve the problem; in fact, the 
 patriotism of such appointees is often under suspicion. 
 What the Irish want is Irish appointments (Catholic and 
 Protestant,) by an Irish national government. 
 
 An inevitable result of the system — the invasions and 
 plantations from the twelfth to the eighteenth century and 
 the Dublin Castle government of to-day — has been to divide 
 the people into two hostile camps. It should be observed 
 that the separation is not one of race, for the chemistry of 
 time has fused English, Norman, Danish and Celtic strains 
 inextricably; nor is it to be defined strictly by religious test, 
 since there are powerful Catholics with the minority, and 
 many of the most famous leaders of the majority have been 
 Protestants. The division is rather material than racial or 
 religious. It is largely a matter of possession. Those who 
 have for centuries held the land, the wealth and the political 
 power of the country are determined to keep all they can of 
 what they consider their rights; those who have been sup- 
 pressed, excluded, discriminated against, are fighting to estab- 
 lish a fairer, more democratic system, which will give them 
 
224 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 the share in the government to which their numbers entitle 
 them. 
 
 Geographically, the division is the northeastern part of 
 the province of Ulster against almost all the rest of Ireland. 
 Numerically, it is one-fourth of the people against three- 
 fourths. Politically, it is Unionism against Nationalism — ■ 
 the policy of perpetuating the present system against the 
 policy of establishing a free Irish Parliament. 
 
 Those who uphold the existing form of government, 
 including Dublin Castle, with all its hoary evils, are the mod- 
 ern representatives of the "garrison" of old. Among them 
 will be found most of the landlords, the exceptions being such 
 broad-minded men as the Earl of Dunraven. With these 
 reactionary descendants of the "planters" upon whom various 
 sovereigns conferred lands confiscated from the Irish stand a 
 horde of followers — lawyers, agents, bailiffs and other em- 
 ployes ; also a large number of the prosperous middle class, 
 manufacturers, business men, attorneys, and so on, who, like 
 their forefathers, have found profit and security in clinging 
 to the skirts of the ruling oligarchy. A second and important 
 section of the Unionist group is made up of the Ulster Scotch, 
 descendants of the settlers planted there by James I and Will- 
 iam III on lands seized from the original owners. Alto- 
 gether, there are about 1,250,000 of these Unionists. They 
 are prone to insist that they are not Irishmen, but British 
 loyalists; they are, in fact, more loyalist than the King, more 
 English than the folk across the channel. By "loyalty" they 
 do not mean devotion to the country where most of them 
 were born, where they reside and make their living, but loy- 
 alty to the Union, to the system under which they impose their 
 will upon three-fourths of the inhabitants of the country.—-"" - 
 
 Incidentally, it may be said that Ulster presents a prob- 
 lem distinct from all the rest of Ireland. It is infinitely more 
 prosperous. As a center of manufacturing it rivals the fac- 
 tory districts of England. The people — we are speaking of 
 the northeastern part — are better fed, better housed and in 
 every way more thriving than those of most of the rest of the 
 country. These facts constitute one of the most popular 
 arguments of Unionism. All this prosperity, it is declared, 
 is due to the religious training of the people. The great 
 
MISGOVERNMENT 225 
 
 manufacturing interests are said to be the products of Protes- 
 tant intelligence, while the poverty and the lack of manufac- 
 turing elsewhere are the inevitable results of Catholic ignor- 
 ance and shiftlessness. 
 
 There may be something in the argument; at least it 
 may be conceded that there is more thrift, more mechanical 
 genius, more artisanship, in the Scotch character than in the 
 Irish. But it should be remembered that for hundreds of 
 years the former were sedulously favored by legislation, while 
 the latter were deliberately excluded by statutes from the free 
 exercise of trade and industry. Ulster, as part of the 
 Ascendency, benefited by every form of legislative encourage- 
 ment which the "garrison" could devise; for a hundred years 
 virtually every means of business and professional livelihood 
 was closed to men not of the Ulster religion. Ulster thus 
 obtained a lead which the rest of the country has never been 
 able to overcome. Industries cannot be established offhand; 
 they require a long time for development of natural resources 
 and the training of skilled labor. During the period of dis- 
 criminating protection to one class of the people they built up 
 manufacturing interests which cannot be dislodged. They 
 may well be proud of their success, but not to the extent of 
 condemning as impotent their fellow-countrymen who suf- 
 fered so long under the handicap of exclusion. The same dis- 
 crimination ruled in agricultural affairs. From the begin- 
 ning Ulster has enjoyed the inestimable advantage of tenant 
 right under the "Ulster Custom." By this enactment the ten- 
 ant in that section has always held a proprietary interest in 
 improvements made upon his rented land by his own labor; 
 it was not until 1870 that the same right was conferred on 
 tenants throughout the rest of Ireland. 
 
 Yet Ulster, now so passionately "Loyalist," or anti-Irish, 
 has twice been in arms. In 1782 Ulster was the backbone of 
 the demand which won from England a free Parliament, and 
 in 1798 Wolf Tone enlisted many Ulstermen as rebels. The 
 Union of 1800, perpetuating, as it did, the ascendency of Ul- 
 ster in Irish affairs, made the province "loyal," and so it has 
 stayed ever since. It is necessary to remark, however, that 
 the term "Ulster," used politically, does not mean the whole 
 province. In the first place, of the nine counties, Donegal, 
 15 
 
226 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 Cavan and Monaghan are almost exclusively Catholic, while 
 in Tyrone, Armagh and Fermanagh Protestants and Catho- 
 lics are about equally divided; it is only in Down, Antrim and 
 Derry, and especially in the cities of Londonderry and Bel- 
 fast, that the Protestants are in a great majority. The Na- 
 tionalists now hold nearly half of Ulster's thirty-four seats in 
 Parliament, whereas thirty years ago they had not a single 
 one. They even have a member from Belfast, the strong- 
 hold of Orange opposition. 
 
 It is worth while, too, to note that among the Ulster 
 Presbyterians two forces have always been at work, a racial 
 tendency toward independence and democracy, and a strong 
 religious feeling. The former made Ulster a foe of the 
 landlord-ruled Irish Parliament and of the exactions of the 
 state (Anglican) church in the form of tithes collected from 
 Presbyterians; the latter grew into hatred of Catholicism. 
 The landlords always made use of the conflict in principle; 
 they overcame the tendency toward democracy by fomenting 
 religious strife. Whenever it seemed likely that men of the 
 two faiths might unite, even for so innocuous a purpose as 
 obtaining land reform, the fires of religious passion were re- 
 lighted and the two elements driven apart. Outbursts of 
 fanaticism continue to this day, but they are growing less 
 frequent and less bitter. There is hope that some day the 
 spirit of democracy in Ulster will outgrow the spirit of in- 
 tolerance and that the province will realize that it is better 
 to be a part of a united Ireland than a tool of Toryism and 
 reaction. 
 
 Meanwhile the "garrison" — the landlords, the social 
 aristocracy and their supporters in northeastern Ulster — re- 
 mains supreme. But it is doomed. The processes of evolu- 
 tion cannot be stayed, and evolution is making the "garrison" 
 the vermiform appendix of the Irish political body. The 
 "mercenaries of England and parasites of Ireland" have lost 
 ground rapidly during the last forty years. The first blow 
 was the disestablishment of the state church in 1869. In the 
 very next year came the establishment of tenant right, the ex- 
 tension of the "Ulster custom" to all of Ireland. In 188 1 
 the first move toward Land Purchase was made, and now the 
 peasants are rapidly becoming landowners, and hence power- 
 
MISGOVERNMENT 227 
 
 ful factors in the country's development. In 1884 the fran- 
 chise was extended; the voters now number fourteen per cent, 
 of the population, whereas in 1832 they numbered only 1.19 
 per cent. And in 1898 the right of self-government (that 
 is, Home Rule) in local affairs was won, establishing Na- 
 tionalist authority in twenty-seven of the thirty-two counties. 
 Yet while the "garrison" is gradually losing its grip, it still re- 
 tains immense authority. It no longer dictates the laws, but 
 it administers them. It is supreme in Dublin Castle, it dom- 
 inates the judiciary, it controls the police and the local courts. 
 It has only nineteen of the one hundred and three members 
 of the House of Commons, but it has full sway in the ad- 
 ministration in Ireland. 
 
 Slowly, but surely, it is passing away, and passing un- 
 honored. Its exit from the stage is not graceful, not even 
 dignified. Throughout its long ascendency the landlord 
 "garrison" fought every reform idea advanced for the better 
 government of the country: religious emancipation, church 
 disestablishment, tenant right, land purchase, educational 
 equality, extension of the franchise, local government. In 
 fighting the inevitable transfer of the land to the people it 
 haggles to wring the last possible shilling of purchase money. 
 In opposing Home Rule it clings desperately to the "right" 
 of minority rule. It offers nothing constructive, for Union- 
 ism is but the negation of Nationalism. 
 
 Against this reactionary element are arrayed the great 
 mass of the Irish people. They are now completely united. 
 Sinn Fein, an organization of some strength, opposes parlia- 
 mentary action, despite the remarkable accomplishments of 
 the last generation, and the advocates (in theory) of "physi- 
 cal force" are also contemptuous. Nevertheless, it is appar- 
 ent that the national spirit of Ireland is represented in the 
 work of the Irish Parliamentary Party and its supporting 
 organization, the United Irish League, under the able leader- 
 ship of John E. Redmond. For twenty-five years the party 
 has been in Parliament, but not of it ; sometimes obstructing, 
 sometimes compromising, sometimes failing, but almost al- 
 ways going forward. Since 1900 it has been united, and is 
 the most compact, most ably directed force in the House of 
 Commons to-day. 
 
XXVII 
 DUBLIN CASTLE 
 
 In pursuing a study of the government of Ireland, 
 against which the people maintain an unceasing protest, we 
 find it characterized in rather strong terms of disapproba- 
 tion. Denunciation from Nationalist critics may be taken 
 for granted; more weight, perhaps, may be given to the 
 utterances of men less directly interested. 
 
 "I say the time has come," declared Joseph Chamber- 
 lain several years ago, "to reform altogether the absurd 
 and irritating anachronism which is known as Dublin Cas- 
 tle, to sweep away altogether the alien boards of foreign 
 officials and to substitute for them a genuine Irish adminis- 
 tration for purely Irish business." 
 
 "The government of Ireland," declared Lord Rose- 
 bery, "is the most inefficient government in the whole world." 
 
 "Dublin Castle is not merely a foreign power," writes 
 L. Paul-Dubois, a noted French historian, "it is at once hos- 
 tile, anti-democratic, mercenary and irresponsible." 
 
 "Irish administration," said Lord Dunraven, "is the 
 most costly and Jeast efficient in the world. We are gov- 
 erned as no other people in the world are governed. Castle 
 government is not democratic, it is not despotic, it is not an 
 oligarchy. No one has any control over these Irish boards. 
 No one can say that such a form of government is suitable to 
 the needs of the country or the age in which we live." 
 
 "A chaotic anachronism," was the terse description of 
 Dublin Castle by Sir West Ridgeway, who was Under Sec- 
 retary — that is, virtual head of the Castle government — 
 from 1887 to 1892. Finally, I shall quote just one Irish 
 Nationalist, to show that Nationalism is not a matter of re- 
 ligion. Alfred Webb, who died in July, 1908, was bred a 
 Quaker and throughout all his long life maintained the sim- 
 plicity, dignity and moral courage of the society to which 
 
 228 
 
DUBLIN CASTLE 229 
 
 he belonged. He was treasurer of the United Irish League, 
 and for several years was the unopposed representative in, 
 Parliament of an overwhelmingly Catholic constituency. 
 Here are some of his utterances: 
 
 "Where else but in Ireland do men plume themselves 
 on esteeming their fellow-countrymen unfit for the manage- 
 ment of their own affairs?" 
 
 "Time has belied every evil prognostication regarding 
 the character and capacity of the Irish people." 
 
 "The difference between Ireland and other countries in- 
 vaded by the Anglo-Saxon is that in Ireland the natives have 
 withstood the efforts to annihilate or assimilate them, or 
 make them in thought part of the conquering state; their 
 own traditions, and not those of the conquerors, still animate 
 and inspire them." 
 
 "Until Great Britain restores to us that of which she 
 has robbed us — self-government — her desire that we should 
 forget the past is an insult to our intelligence." 
 
 Now, what is this system of government which calls 
 forth such unsparing denunciation? How does it differ from 
 the government of England and Scotland, which causes no 
 such wholesale opposition? The basis of it is the Act of 
 Union of 1800. That Act, forced upon Ireland against its 
 will, effected a union only of the Parliaments of Great 
 Britain and Ireland — or, rather, it submerged the legislature 
 of the latter in the Imperial legislature. It did not effect 
 a union as regards the civil law, the judiciary or the admin- 
 istration. The administration in Ireland to-day remains 
 just about as English and as anti-Irish as it was in 1800 
 and before. It centers in Dublin Castle, and the name of 
 that institution is the popular and accurate designation of 
 the power that controls the destinies of Ireland. 
 
 Dublin Castle, physically speaking, is a collection of 
 buildings in the heart of Dublin. It is the palace of the Vice- 
 roy, or Lord Lieutenant; it is also the seat of administration, 
 a military depot and headquarters of the constabulary and 
 secret police. Administratively speaking, Dublin Castle in- 
 cludes many other buildings throughout Dublin, housing va- 
 rious departments, as well as some hundreds of barracks, de- 
 pots and other appurtenances throughout the country, with 
 
230 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 all the officials and machinery of the government. At the 
 head of Dublin Castle is the Viceroy, invariably a Protestant 
 peer, either English or Scotch or Irish. He is appointed by 
 the Crown, and in turn appoints a Privy Council of about 
 sixty members, consisting of royal personages, retired chief 
 secretaries, high judges and other persons of distinction. 
 This is an advisory body, but also exercises certain judicial 
 functions. The Lord Lieutenant, however, is largely a 
 figurehead, his chief office being to preside over official society, 
 sign proclamations and generally act as representative of the 
 sovereign. 
 
 The real head of the government is the Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland, a member of the imperial Parliament and 
 responsible to it, and holding a seat in the cabinet. A new 
 Chief Secretary is appointed — nominally by the Crown, but 
 really by the party in power — with each party change in 
 England, or oftener than that. This means that the respon- 
 sible head of the Irish government is changed about once in 
 every two years, so that no incumbent ever has time, if he has 
 the inclination, to formulate and put in operation a definite, 
 helpful policy. 
 
 In these two offices may be observed the most important 
 differences between the government of Ireland and that of 
 Great Britain. In the larger country the real ruler is the 
 Premier, who is invariably the most popular and influential 
 man in the party which has carried the preceding election. 
 The Premier is the choice of the people, the representative of 
 their will; not even the sovereign can prevent his taking and 
 exercising the vast authority of the office. In the same way 
 every member of the cabinet, each of whom is head of an 
 important department, is virtually appointed by the people 
 and is actually responsible to them. In direct contrast with 
 this condition, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is named by the 
 Crown without the slightest reference to the wishes of the 
 Irish people. The Chief Secretary, too, is thrust upon them, 
 and while sometimes he is sympathetic, he can never be any- 
 thing but a foreigner. He distinctly is not the choice of the 
 people, and the machinery of Dublin Castle is such that he 
 never is free to carry out policies which he may advocate. 
 The Under Secretary is in some respects more powerful than 
 
DUBLIN CASTLE 231 
 
 the Chief who appoints him. He resides in Dublin and is the 
 actual director of the Castle machine, since for the greater 
 part of the year the Chief Secretary is attending Parliament 
 in London. The Under Secretary likewise is appointed with- 
 out any regard to the desires of the inhabitants of Ireland. 
 
 Under these three officials — one a figurehead, one a 
 member of the English cabinet, one a resident secretary, all 
 appointed by the British government — the affairs of Ireland 
 are administered by a great nest of bureaus, departments and 
 boards. There are sixty-seven of them — sixty-seven costly, 
 complicated, irresponsible bodies conducting the govern- 
 mental business of the poorest nation in Europe, and not a 
 single one of them within the remotest reach of public 
 opinion ! As an illustration of what the Irish government is, 
 I give a list of the "sixty-seven varieties" : 
 
 Lord Lieutenant's Household, Chief Secretary's Office, State 
 Paper Department, Office of Arms, Treasury Remembrancer, Na- 
 tional School Teachers' Superannuation Office, Conservators of 
 Fisheries, Registrar of Petty Sessions Clerks, General Prisons 
 Board, Office of Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Inspectors of 
 Lunatic Asylums, Public Loan Fund Board, Royal Irish Con- 
 stabulary Office, Dublin Metropolitan Police Board Office. 
 
 Local Government Board, Board of Trade, Customs, Inland 
 Revenue (Stamp and Tax, Excise and Estate Duty Offices), Sta- 
 tionery Office, Intermediate Education Board, General Valuation 
 and Boundary Survey Office, Board of Public Works, Civil Service 
 Commission, Land Commission, Land Estates Commissioners, Land 
 Office of the Public Trustee, National Gallery, Department of 
 Agriculture and Technical Instruction, Fisheries Office, Veterinary 
 Department, College of Science, School of Art, Science and Art 
 Museum, National Library. 
 
 Board of National Education, General Register Office, Con- 
 gested Districts Board, Registry of Deeds, Postoffice Department, 
 Geological Survey, Commissioners of Charitable Donations and 
 Bequests, Commissioners of Education in Ireland (not the same 
 as the Board of National Education), Ordnance Survey. In- 
 spectors of Factories, Auditor's Office of War Department, Royal 
 Naval Reserve Office, Woods and Forests Office, Public Record 
 Office, Joint Stock Companies' Registry Office, Registrar of 
 Friendly Societies, Office of the Royal University, Commissioners 
 of Lighthouses, Lunacy Department, Crown and Hanaper Office, 
 Local Registration of Title Office, Record and Writ Office, Con- 
 solidated Taxing Office, Consolidated Accounting Office, Chancery 
 Registrar's Office, Principal Registry Office of Probate, King's 
 Bench Division Office, Lord Chancellor's Court, Master of the 
 Rolls Court, Chancery Division Court, Land Judges' Court, Bank- 
 ruptcy Court and Admiralty Court. 
 
232 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 One fact is so vital to an understanding of the case that 
 reiteration cannot be avoided. Not one of these bureaus, 
 offices and departments is responsible to the people of Ire- 
 land. Some of them are responsible directly to the British 
 government; some are merely local branches of English 
 departments ; some are responsible in theory to the Chief Sec- 
 retary; but none of them has anything to fear from or any 
 respect for. the public opinion of the country whose affairs 
 they direct. There have been in recent years some able and 
 conscientious. Chief Secretaries, such as John Morley, Gerald 
 Balfour, James Bryce and the present incumbent, Augustine 
 Birrell ; but it is quite obvious that they have been helpless in 
 the grasp of the Dublin Castle machine. With its intricate 
 tangle of red tape, its horde of more than 100,000 perma- 
 nent officials and employes, its independent and irresponsible 
 Chief Secretaries, Dublin Castle rules Ireland according to 
 its own sweet will, and Dublin Castle represents the minority 
 and despises the majority as did the cliques of land-grabbing 
 adventurers in the days of the "plantations." 
 
 In Great Britain each department is represented in the 
 House of Commons by a Minister, placed there by the people 
 of England or Scotland, as the case may be, and instantly 
 within reach — through "parliamentary questions" — of the 
 public opinion of the two countries. All the departments of 
 Ireland are represented by one man, the Chief Secretary, and 
 he is directly responsible, as president, for no fewer than 
 twenty of them. Were each of his days a week long he could 
 never master the details of these departments; he must accept 
 the reports of the permanent officials, who are quite out of 
 reach of the people. Hence it is that Ireland is still ruled 
 actually by the creatures of the "garrison," men who, when 
 they are not absolutely hostile to public opinion, are perfectly 
 indifferent to it. 
 
 Next to the irresponsible despotism of Dublin Castle, 
 the greatest evil of the system is its extravagance. Ireland, 
 the poorest country in western Europe, pays more per capita 
 to be misgoverned than any other country pays for good 
 administration. Since the Union of 1800 the taxation con- 
 tributed by Ireland has steadily increased, while the popula- 
 tion and prosperity during the last fifty years have as steadily 
 
DUBLIN CASTLE 233 
 
 decreased. In 1800 the taxation was $15,000,000; in 1815, 
 $32,500,000; now Ireland contributes about $55,000,000 to 
 the Imperial treasury. Of this latter sum, nearly $40,000,- 
 ooo is spent upon the government of Ireland. For nearly 
 fifty years the inequalities of the system of taxation have 
 been agitated. In 1864 the chairman of a committee of 
 inquiry declared that "Ireland is the most heavily taxed coun- 
 try in Europe and England the most lightly taxed." A com- 
 mission in 1895, composed of Ulster Unionists^ as well as 
 Nationalists, made a similar report. It found that Ireland 
 was overtaxed $.12,500,000 a year; since then taxes have 
 increased heavily. It is a matter of official record that Ire- 
 Ian contributes one-eleventh as much as Great Britain, while 
 her taxable capacity is much less than one-twentieth. More- 
 over, while in Great Britain one-half the taxes collected are 
 direct, in Ireland more than seventy per cent, are indirect — 
 that is, nearly three-fourths of the tax burden falls upon food 
 and other necessaries of the poor. The per capita taxation 
 was $5 in 1850; $12.50 in 1900. 
 
 Now as to the cost of the government which is so unsat- 
 isfactory to Ireland. The country must support the Viceroy, 
 or Lord Lieutenant, whose salary is twice that of the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, and his expensive household. It 
 must support the sixty-seven irresponsible departments we 
 have named, with their 100,000 or more officials and em- 
 ployes, including 11,000 police. Perhaps comparisons will 
 best illustrate the extravagance of the Irish administration. 
 Scotland should afford a fair comparison, as her population is 
 about the same — 4,472,000 in Scotland, against 4,458,000 in 
 Ireland. Comparison will also be made with England and 
 Wales. 
 
 Scotland's government costs less than $30,000,000 a 
 year; Ireland's, nearly $40,000,000, though the population is 
 less. 
 
 Scotland supports 963 officials, whose incomes exceed 
 $800 a year; Ireland supports 4539 officials of the same 
 class — and none of them chosen by the people. 
 
 Scotland pays $2,500,000 annually for police; Ireland 
 pays $7,500,000. 
 
 Scotland's prison board, caring for 2900 convicts, costs 
 
234 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 $435,000 annually; Ireland's prison board, with 2500 con- 
 victs, costs $535,000 annually. 
 
 Scotland's courts in 1907 cost $1,000,000; Ireland's in 
 the same year cost $1,840,000. 
 
 England pays for government $5.75 per capita; Scot- 
 land, $5.80; Ireland, $8.50. 
 
 Of England's national income, one-fortieth is expended 
 on her home government; of Ireland's, more than one-tenth. 
 
 It is perfectly clear, then, that Ireland's government, 
 unsatisfactory as it is to the people, and lacking almost 
 wholly the virtue of representing public opinion, is more than 
 fifty per cent, costlier than the government of England or 
 Scotland. And the pressure of the burden is infinitely 
 greater because Ireland is the poorest of the three countries. 
 During the last century, while the cost of government has so 
 rapidly increased, the population of England has been multi- 
 plied by four and that of Scotland by three, while Ireland's 
 has decreased one-fourth. During the last sixty years the 
 population of England has doubled, while that of Ireland 
 has fallen fifty per cent. In England the average weekly 
 wage of agricultural laborers is $4.65 ; in Scotland, $4.80; in 
 Ireland, $2.72. Comparing Ireland and England, the popu- 
 lation of Ireland is one-seventh, yet her railway passenger* 
 number only one-thirty-seventh and her freight traffic only 
 one-seventeenth. Poorest of the three countries, Ireland 
 bears relatively the heaviest burden. 
 
 But in examining the cost of government, which is one 
 of the most serious counts in the indictment against the pres- 
 ent system, the most glaring inequalities are undoubtedly to 
 be found in the police records. In the policing of Ireland we 
 find the policy of Dublin Castle in full flower. It should be 
 understood, first, that the Royal Irish Constabulary is quite 
 different from the police force as it is known in England, 
 Wales, Scotland and America. It is infinitely more than an 
 organization for the preservation of the peace and the pre- 
 vention and detection of crime; it is, in fact, a military force, 
 an army of occupation, a reinforcement of the regular army. 
 It consists of more than 11,000 men, armed with carbines 
 and bayonets, swords and revolvers, and occupies some hun- 
 
DUBLIN CASTLE 235 
 
 dreds of strongly fortified barracks throughout the country. 
 In addition, there are supplementary forces in Dublin, Bel- 
 fast and Derry. But the chief thing to observe is that this 
 army of occupation, miscalled a police force, is controlled by 
 Dublin Castle; that is to say, by the "foreign" government. 
 The people of Ireland have absolutely nothing to do with 
 the Royal Irish Constabulary, except to pay them. While 
 the expenditure is paid out of the imperial treasury, it is 
 charged, of course, to Ireland, and becomes a burden upon 
 the Irish taxpayer. The Dublin Castle commanders of the 
 force are English army officers. They direct it and control 
 it without the slightest reference to. the popular will and 
 without any responsibility to the public. Now let us com- 
 pare the size and the cost of this irresponsible organization 
 with the size and cost of the police in other parts of the 
 empire. Here are the figures for 1906: 
 
 Population. Police. 
 
 England and Wales 34,547,000 46,027 
 
 Ireland 4,387,000 11,126 
 
 Another way to look at it is this: In. Scotland there is 
 one policeman to. every 857 of population; in England, one 
 to 750; in Ireland, one to 394. Now as to the cost. It has 
 already been shown that Scotland pays for her police 
 $2,500,000 a year; Ireland, $7,500,000. Leaving out Lon- 
 don and Dublin, the two capitals, England's police cost fifty- 
 six cents per capita of population; Ireland's, $1.64. There 
 must be some very good reason for these extraordinary dis- 
 crepancies — for maintaining in Ireland much more than 
 twice as many police, in proportion to population, as are 
 maintained in England, Wales or Scotland. The obvious 
 inference would be that crime is rampant in Ireland and that 
 only an exceptional force of armed men could keep the vio- 
 lent tendencies of the people within bounds. 
 
 I have no personal experiences to bear out such a charge. 
 I have traveled rather extensively in Ireland, have studied 
 the daily life of the country at fairly close range and have 
 kept in touch with the newspapers, friendly and unfriendly 
 to the majority of the people. Yet I have observed no 
 extraordinary inclination to crime, nor do I recall any publi- 
 cations which indicate such a tendency. But my testimony, 
 after all, as that of a mere visitor, is not of much value. 
 
236 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 The uncolored and incontrovertible facts will be found in 
 government reports. And these show that in Ireland crime 
 is relatively a great deal less frequent and less serious than 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 "Nothing could be falser," writes L. Paul-Dubois, 
 "than the prejudice which paints Ireland as a pandemonium 
 of brigands and assassins. There is no professional criminal 
 class in Ireland. There may have been a considerable volume 
 of crime during the agrarian war, but I do not know a coun- 
 try in Europe in which the figures are lower in normal times. 
 In 1 90 1, for instance, an average year, there were in Eng- 
 land thirty-three convictions for every 100,000 inhabitants, 
 in Scotland forty-one and in Ireland only twenty-seven. 
 Every year sees the closing of some unused prison, and at the 
 Assizes, as often as not, the judge receives from the sheriff 
 the traditional pair of white gloves, which indicate that his 
 white hands will not have to be raised in passing sentence on 
 any one." 
 
 But this is not official. Let us consult the government's 
 "Judicial Statistics (Criminal)" for England and Wales and 
 for Ireland. "As to whether crime is increasing or decreas- 
 ing," says the report for 1905, "the most trustworthy answer 
 is to be found in the return as to indictable offenses. They 
 include all the most serious forms of crime. * * * 
 Non-indictable offenses include very many which partake of 
 a civil character." Taking the year 1906, when the popula- 
 tion of England and Wales was 34,547,000 and of Ireland 
 4,387,000, we find indictable offenses returned as follows: 
 
 Number. Per 100,000. 
 
 England and Wales 91,665 265 
 
 Ireland 9,465 215 
 
 In the official report for the year 1907 we find this 
 record : 
 
 Crimes. Per 100,000. 
 
 England and Wales 98,822 283 
 
 Ireland 9,418 220 
 
 These figures show not only that crime in Ireland is 
 from twenty to twenty-five per cent, less than across the chan- 
 nel, but that increase from year to year is less rapid. On this 
 point the 1907 official reports say: 
 
DUBLIN CASTLE 237 
 
 (England and Wales.) "Crimes proper (indictable 
 offenses) have shown a marked increase, the number of 
 indictable offenses reported to the police being greater than 
 in any year since 1882." 
 
 (Ireland.) "In the year 1907 the indictable offenses 
 for the whole of Ireland, which had fallen from 9728 in 
 1905 to 9465 in 1906, declined to 9418 in the period under 
 notice." 
 
 Part of the reduction, it should be observed, may be 
 traced to the decreasing population; none the less, the com- 
 parison is wholly favorable to Ireland. There is interest also 
 in examining the character of the crimes in the two countries. 
 Following are the official figures for 1907 : 
 
 England-Wales. Ireland. 
 
 Murder 132 23 
 
 Manslaughter 141 41 
 
 Felonious and malicious wounding 1,372 167 
 
 Burglary, robbery and housebreaking.... 10,616 732 
 
 Larceny of cattle 457 93 
 
 Crimes against morals 1,724 118 
 
 This table shows that relatively Ireland records a large 
 number of murders and manslaughter cases; most of them 
 were due to drink. Her record in robberies and crimes 
 against morals is less than half of the proportionate record 
 in England and Wales. Perhaps enough has been said to 
 show that Ireland is not a crime-ridden country; that, on the 
 contrary, it is more law-abiding than England itself. If 
 further evidence is needed, we may note that the only jails in 
 Wexford and Donegal counties were closed several years 
 ago; that of two jails in Tipperary, one is now used as a con- 
 vent, in which Sisters of Charity give technical instruction to 
 poor girls; and that an unused jail in Mullingar, County 
 Westmeath, is now the scene of meetings of the United Irish 
 League. Members of the organization rather enjoy the 
 humor of assembling in the building where a good many of 
 them were imprisoned for making speeches against the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 If the huge force of police is not needed, then, to cope 
 with an exceptionally large criminal class, why is Ireland 
 compelled to support such a body? The reason is that the 
 Constabulary was founded in 1836 to support the landlords 
 
238 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 and enforce their demands, and has been used chiefly for 
 that purpose ever since. The police have been turned over 
 bodily to the landlords in the various wars against the 
 tenants. They have been used as prosecutors, as well as pre- 
 servers of order. I have seen uniformed men at public meet- 
 ings taking shorthand notes of speeches; in countless cases, 
 when the tenor of the speeches did not please the officers in 
 command, the armed force dispersed the crowd, using batons 
 on the heads of the audience. When touring the country on 
 investigations I have been honored by having a policeman 
 dog my footsteps. Members of the force are also detailed 
 to protect landlords, their agents and the occupiers of 
 "evicted" farms against the tenants; I heard of no case 
 of their protecting a tenant against a landlord. They have 
 been used also for the intimidation of peasants and to assist 
 the civil forces in evicting tenants and destroying their 
 homes. More than that, the official records are stained with 
 proof that police' officers literally incited, and in some cases 
 themselves committed, the most despicable crimes, then 
 charged them to innocent men and caused convictions upon 
 perjured testimony. 
 
 Physically, the Royal Irish Constabulary is a splendid 
 body of men, and there is no doubt that the vast majority of 
 the rank and file are honest, courageous fellows, carrying out 
 the orders of their superiors faithfully and with no mere vio^ 
 lence than is necessary. None the less, this armed force is an 
 intolerable burden to Ireland, and its absolute control by the 
 irresponsible clique in Dublin Castle is one of the strongest 
 indictments of the system of misgovernment which is crum- 
 bling before the assaults of public opinion. 
 
XXVIII 
 THE SYSTEM A FAILURE 
 
 These letters have traced, at considerable length, the 
 historical development of the Irish question; have described 
 the remarkable economic changes for the better wrought by 
 the remedial legislation of the last forty years, and have set 
 forth some of the more obvious evils and defects of the 
 present system of government. This system the Irish people 
 have been fighting for more than one hundred years to over- 
 turn. The Union of 1800, as has been shown, was forced 
 upon the country against the popular will, through the 
 debauchery of the landlord-owned Irish Parliament. Its 
 terms have never been accepted by Ireland. The statute of 
 limitations has never been permitted to run against the 
 demand that real Home Rule shall be restored to the nation. 
 Settlement of the land problem, that condition which more 
 than anything else has retarded the development of Ireland, 
 is proceeding slowly but surely to a successful culmination. 
 The operation of the Land Purchase Acts and the mag- 
 nificent work of the Congested Districts Board, both of 
 which agencies will be made more effective by the land bill 
 now pending, are transforming the agricultural population 
 from tenants to proprietors. This change does more than 
 open to the farming class — by far the largest class in Ire- 
 land — opportunities for prosperity and better living ; it roots 
 the people in the soil, tends to check the deadly drain of 
 emigration and brings nearer the day when self-government 
 can no longer be denied. It is proposed now to discuss the 
 grounds upon which rests the Irish demand for Home Rule. 
 Setting aside the theoretical right of a people to manage 
 their own affairs, we shall examine it strictly from a practical 
 standpoint. 
 
 First and foremost, English government of Ireland has 
 
 239 
 
240 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 proved a failure. For more than seven hundred years Eng- 
 land has dominated her sister country; she has "conquered" 
 her not once, but three or four times ; she has imposed upon 
 her English rulers, English laws, English institutions; she 
 even cleared a large part of the country of its original owners 
 and planted English and Scotch settlers in their room. 
 Finally she destroyed the Irish Parliament, removed the seat 
 of government from Dublin to Westminster, and for the last 
 century has tried the experiment of ruling Ireland by a 
 bureaucracy made up of representatives of the minority, men 
 foreign in race and sympathy to the great mass of the people. 
 And the end is failure. In increasing numbers have English 
 statesmen of brains come to realize that the virtually unani- 
 mous testimony of students and historians is correct; the sys- 
 tem is an irremediable failure, and there will be neither peace 
 nor prosperity in the island until self-government is substi- 
 tuted for the complicated and costly machinery of alien rule. 
 It should not be difficult to determine the ill success of 
 the present system, which, in truth, has comparatively few 
 defenders outside the ranks of the most rabid landlords and 
 their followers and those who uphold it on purely religious 
 grounds. Governments, like individuals, must be judged by 
 results. What conditions have been produced in Ireland by 
 subjecting it to the rule fashioned in the Act of Union? A 
 good government, a successful government, is one which pre- 
 serves order and promotes the welfare and contentment of 
 the whole people. Does the government of Ireland meet 
 these tests? Let us see what has been the course of events 
 during the last hundred years. In that period the population 
 of England, of Scotland and probably of every other country 
 in the world has steadily increased; the population of Ire- 
 land, which grew rapidly up to 1840, has as steadily declined. 
 England's population has been multiplied by four, Scotland's 
 by three, while Ireland's has declined one-fourth — one-half 
 in the last sixty years. Here are the figures for Ireland, by 
 decennial periods : 
 
 1801 5,500,000 1871 5,412,377 
 
 1841 8,175,124 1881 5,174,836 
 
 1851 6,552,385 1891 4,704,750 
 
 1861 5,798,967 1901 4,458,775 
 
Photo copyright by Purdy, Boston. 
 
 JOHN DILLON, M. P. 
 
THE SYSTEM A FAILURE 241 
 
 Remembering that the drain of emigration is due to the 
 evils of the old land system, inflicted by England as part of 
 her system, the loss may be fairly charged to misgovernment. 
 This is justified further by the fact that the partial lifting of 
 the curse of landlordism has appreciably checked emigration. 
 In September, 1909, an official report noted the first increase 
 in the population since 1840. Four' million emigrants in 
 sixty years — is that evidence of good government? Simi- 
 larly, the economic condition of Ireland is inextricably bound 
 up with the system of government forced upon the country, 
 since for hundreds of years, as has been shown, the chief pur- 
 pose of the system was to exploit Ireland for the benefit of 
 England. The average wage of an agricultural laborer in 
 England is $4.56, in Scotland $4.80 and in Ireland $2.72. 
 The average wages of all classes are just half what they are 
 in England. Ireland is the fourth meat-producing country in 
 the world and the sixteenth meat-eating. Every year 20,000 
 men and boys emigrate to England for the harvest season, to 
 earn enough mefney to tide them over the winter. Through- 
 out nearly the whole of Ireland there is an amazing lack of 
 manufacturing. This is directly chargeable to misgovern- 
 ment; indeed, the destruction of Irish industries was one of 
 the most deliberate of the policies of England for two hun- 
 dred years, and was carried out by means of carefully framed 
 legislation. 
 
 "There was a time," says Arthur Balfour, the English 
 statesman, "when the British Parliament thought they were 
 well employed in crushing out Irish manufactures in the 
 interests of the British producer." 
 
 Whenever Ireland established an industry and began to 
 compete with English producers in the same line laws were 
 made to strangle it. Agricultural products were the first to 
 feel the blow. As early as 1663 a law was passed prohibit- 
 ing all exports from Ireland to the colonics except victuals, 
 servants, horses and salt, and prohibiting the sending of Irish 
 cattle to England, this latter enterprise being denounced as 
 "a public and common nuisance." Beef, pork, butter and 
 cheese were subsequently excluded, and additional statutes 
 stopped the exportation from Ireland to the English planta- 
 tions of sugar, cotton, wool, tobacco, indigo, ginger and fus- 
 16 
 
242 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 tian. Under William III the export of wool and woolen 
 manufactures from Ireland was prohibited, the penalty being 
 forfeiture of goods and ship and heavy fines for each offense. 
 By such legislation as this Irish manufacture of cotton, glass, 
 iron and hats was also suppressed. 
 
 "One by one," wrote Lord Dufferin, "each of our 
 nascent industries was either strangled in its birth or handed 
 over, gagged and bound, to the jealous custody of the rival 
 interests of England, until at last every fountain of wealth 
 was hermetically sealed, and even the traditions of com- 
 mercial enterprise have perished through desuetude." 
 
 That the stagnation of industry in Ireland is due to 
 misgovernment, in fact, no attempt is made to deny. Cor- 
 roborative evidence is found in the revival which followed 
 the establishment of a free Irish Parliament in 1782. 
 Almost immediately ruined factories were rebuilt, new ones 
 sprang up, the urban population rose rapidly and everywhere 
 skilled labor was put in training. But after the Union of 
 1800 there was as distinct and as rapid a decline. Stagna- 
 tion and decay spread throughout industrial Ireland, and the 
 conditions to-day have resulted. 
 
 Here it is necessary to go back a little. Opponents of 
 Home Rule will admit that Ireland as a whole has suffered 
 a decline in population, a heavy drain in emigration and an 
 industrial relapse. But, they say, vehemently, all, or very 
 nearly all, of. the loss has been in the south and west; it is 
 Nationalist. Ireland that has suffered, because of the notori- 
 ous ignorance and incapacity of the people; Ulster, on the 
 contrary, has prospered continuously, because of the intelli- 
 gence and thrift of its inhabitants. This view is highly inter- 
 esting and quite worthy of examination. Here are the emi- 
 gration figures for the four provinces for 1906: 
 
 Leinster 5,079 Munster 10,054 
 
 Connaught 7,880 Ulster 12,331 
 
 There is more rapid emigration at this time from Ulster, 
 then, than from any other province. Taking a broader view, 
 Ulster lost thirty-four per cent, of her population between 
 1 841 and 1 90 1, while all Ireland lost forty-five per cent. It 
 appears, therefore, that Ulster has suffered with the rest of 
 
THE SYSTEM A FAILURE 243 
 
 the country from the governmental conditions which reduce 
 population. Ulster, of course, remains the chief industrial 
 center, and is likely to retain its supremacy, for the reason 
 that the skilled labor is available there and in no> other part 
 of the island. But gradual stagnation is visible there, too. 
 Following are^the number of persons employed in the textile 
 industries in the years named : 
 
 1871 193,864 1891 129,884 
 
 1881 129,787 1901 109,588 
 
 Linen manufacture, by far the largest of the textile 
 industries, employed 85,000 persons in 189 1 ; it employs now 
 about 70,000. The woolen industry shows a like decline. 
 
 Another test of good government is its effect upon the 
 temper of the people. Good government produces peace and 
 contentment. Since the Act of Union there have been three 
 insurrections — in 1803, in 1848 and in 1867. And in order 
 to forestall the retort that these outbursts were due to reli- 
 gious hatred of England, let us note that Emmet, in 1803, 
 and Thomas Davis, John Mitchel and Smith O'Brien, in 
 1848, were Protestants. In addition to these armed risings, 
 there has been a succession of unarmed rebellions against 
 English authority, which English statesmen of to-day are 
 compelled to acknowledge were forced upon the people by 
 intolerable oppression. 
 
 Good government establishes civil and religious liberty. 
 As evidence upon the former we find a Coercion Act for 
 every year of the nineteenth century; that is, the suspension 
 of trial by jury, free speech, a free press and virtually every 
 other form of political freedom. Upon the matter of 
 religious liberty we find that equality before the law was 
 not granted until 1829, and that to-day discrimination on 
 religious grounds permeates the government, the profes- 
 sional classes and every field of activity which the upholders 
 of the present system control. 
 
 Good government means just taxation. Yet we have 
 the testimony of an English commission that Ireland was 
 overtaxed $12,500,000 a year, in proportion to England, in 
 1895, and $10,000,000 has been added to the taxation since 
 then. 
 
 The very foundation stone of good government is fair 
 
244 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 representation. Where Ireland stands in this regard has 
 already been demonstrated. True, she has fair representa- 
 tion in the British Parliament, but in the executive, adminis- 
 trative and judicial departments in Ireland the power is in 
 the hands of a reactionary minority, the great mass of the 
 people having no voice whatever in these affairs. 
 
 Good government implies a judicial system responsive 
 in some measure to public opinion and untainted by favorit- 
 ism or class prejudice. The high courts of Ireland are domi- 
 nated absolutely by the "garrison," while the minor judiciary 
 is made up almost exclusively of landlords or their agents or 
 sympathizers, men who, for the most part, are antagonistic 
 to the people and in any event are quite out of reach of 
 popular opinion. 
 
 By every test that can be applied the present system of 
 governing Ireland is a failure. It is complicated, costly, irre- 
 sponsible, incrusted with prejudices and injustices, a detri- 
 ment to the advancement of the country and its people, 
 because it is wholly removed from and antagonistic to the 
 public opinion of the nation. No less is it a disadvantage to 
 Great Britain. The Irish Parliamentary Party, as has been 
 pointed out, is in Parliament, but not of it. The members 
 frankly appear in that body as foreigners. Their sole pur- 
 pose is to serve Ireland, to win for her every advantage they 
 can, and frequently they accomplish their ends by hampering 
 and obstructing the business of the Empire. They will con- 
 tinue to do this as long as they are there to represent Ire- 
 land's protest. Gladstone's Home Rule bills of 1886 and 
 1893 were defeated because they aroused the fears of Eng- 
 lish imperialists for the unity and security of the Empire. 
 Statesmen of to-day are realizing that continuance of the sys- 
 tem which breeds Irish hostility must be a far greater peril 
 than the granting of autonomy would be. It is difficult to 
 understand the theory that governing a people against their 
 will makes them a source of strength, while giving them the 
 form of government they desire would arouse enmity. 
 
 "After all," says L. Paul-Dubois, a sane and impartial 
 observer, "is not Home Rule (call it by what name we will) 
 the best of unionisms? Is it not the most solid basis and the 
 
THE SYSTEM A FAILURE 245 
 
 surest guarantee of Anglo-Irish union ? England, moreover, 
 cannot always deny to Ireland her rights, nor reserve all her 
 severities for the sister isle and all her favors for the colonies. 
 She cannot always allow the Irish question to remain an open 
 sore, a factor of trouble between herself and that 'Greater 
 Ireland,' the United States, whose friendship she has so long 
 desired to win." 
 
 "But," say the Unionists, "Ireland is disloyal. She 
 attacks the Imperial policies of England. She presents to 
 the world a constant spectacle of turmoil and dissension. If 
 she were loyal her demands might receive more kindly atten- 
 tion." 
 
 Surely this is a strange attitude, when the history of the 
 British empire shows, as might be expected, that loyalty is 
 the result, and not the forerunner, of self-government. Aus- 
 tralia, South Africa, Canada — all went through the same 
 experience as Ireland, except that, being farther from the 
 seat of the Imperial government, they were able to enforce 
 their demands more rapidly. They had their "treasons," 
 plots and rebellions; they suffered coercion, imprisonments, 
 executions. They had, too, their local "Ulsters," groups of 
 ultra-loyalists who called heaven to witness that they alone 
 represented public opinion, and bitterly opposed concessions 
 to the majority on the ground that such a course meant the 
 disintegration of the Empire. Yet in each case autonomy 
 was granted, and with what result? That rebellion and 
 opposition died down, loyalty became universal and the great 
 British federation of to-day was built upon a foundation of 
 self-government, justice and mutual esteem. 
 
 Let those who condemn Ireland for demanding Home 
 Rule while opposing Imperial policies consider the case of 
 Canada, as remarkable a parallel as may be found in history. 
 There, as in Ireland, were two races and two religions, and 
 they were separated by animosities far more bitter than 
 to-day separate Nationalists and Unionists. England con- 
 ferred upon the country, in response to agitation, a half-way 
 compromise constitution. Upper Canada (now Ontario) 
 and Lower Canada (now Quebec) had each an elected 
 House of Assembly and a nominated "Senate." All execu- 
 
246 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 tive power, however, remained with the appointed governor 
 and his council, who were responsible to London and in no 
 degree whatsoever to the people of Canada. Against this 
 system there arose a fierce agitation, which for years kept the 
 country in turmoil. Monster meetings were held, when 
 Nationalist banners were flaunted and Nationalist sentiments 
 flung in the face of the government. Coercion just as savage 
 as in Ireland was applied. Meetings were proscribed, speak- 
 ers arrested and imprisoned, newspapers suppressed. 
 
 . During all this time the Canadian "Ulster" was, of 
 course, active, loudly proclaiming its loyalty — to England, 
 not to Canada — and calling upon the government to exter- 
 minate this propaganda of the majority and restore the rule 
 of the minority. The whole trouble, they said — and how 
 familiar it sounds! — was due to the fulminations of irre- 
 sponsible agitators and the efforts of "a majority in numbers 
 only" to dominate the "wealth, education and enterprise" of 
 the country. In a final effort to quell the agitation England 
 suspended the Canadian governmental system altogether. 
 The effect was to consolidate the opposition and fan the 
 embers of rebellion. In 1837, when the British empire was 
 rejoicing over the ascent of Queen Victoria to the throne, 
 Canada was in arms. The revolt was short-lived, but it was 
 successful. England hastened to grant Home Rule, and for 
 seventy years Canada, peaceful, loyal and prosperous, has 
 been marching forward in the ranks of the free nations of 
 the world. 
 
 The story of Canada presents every feature of that of 
 Ireland — disaffection, a diminishing population, industrial 
 stagnation, racial and religious strife, open rebellion — except 
 that she won her rights, while Ireland has not. Canada 
 to-day is unaffectedly loyal to Great Britain, while her 
 government is wholly free. There is no hostility between the 
 races, and sectarian animosity is negligible. A French Cath- 
 olic, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, is Prime Minister, honored by all 
 citizens. Canada is growing in wealth, power and national 
 stature; Ireland, which stands to-day exactly where Canada 
 stood before Home Rule was granted, is disaffected, 
 harassed by differences, afflicted with poverty and misgovern- 
 ment. What is the inevitable deduction? 
 
THE SYSTEM A FAILURE 247 
 
 It is found on the records of the Canadian Parliament, 
 which again and again has urged the British government to 
 grant to Ireland the Home Rule which Canada enjoys. It 
 is found in the parliamentary records of every self-governing 
 colony of the British empire to the same effect. It is found 
 in the records of the British Parliament itself, not only in the 
 speeches of such leaders as Gladstone and Bright, but in the 
 passage of a Home Rule resolution through the House of 
 Commons at this very session, supported by nearly five- 
 sixths of the membership. 
 
XXIX 
 HOME RULE TESTED 
 
 Against the Home Rule demand of Ireland, backed by 
 the unanimous indorsement of the colonies, by public opinion 
 throughout the world and by the great Liberal Party in Eng- 
 land, what have the Unionists to offer ? How do they 
 attempt to justify their campaign to perpetuate a system of 
 government which is so universally condemned and whose 
 sole function is to make paramount the will of the minority? 
 They present no argument except that it would be unfair to 
 the minority to give the majority fair representation; that 
 the "loyalists" would be oppressed by the majority, and an 
 era of religious discrimination and persecution opened. 
 
 One cannot but marvel at the frankness of this attitude. 
 Having forcibly held minority rule for some three hundred 
 years, and having clung as long as they could to legal dis- 
 crimination on religious grounds, and maintaining to-day a 
 strict religious test, not only in affairs of government, but in 
 professional and commercial activities, they complain bitterly 
 that government upon a fairly representative basis will inflict 
 upon them their own policies. If what they say were true, 
 who will say that selfish rule by a majority is worse than 
 selfish rule by a minority? But is it true? How much have 
 the timorous supporters of the oligarchy to fear? They 
 fought emancipation as an opening of the door to persecu- 
 tion; they fought extension of the franchise as an invitation 
 to anarchy and spoliation; they have fought land reform and 
 land purchase as desperate assaults upon property and stable 
 government. Yet each of these, as every sane man knows, 
 marked a step toward justice, equality and national pros- 
 perity. Now they make their last stand against Home Rule 
 upon reasoning just as logical as that they advanced against 
 the other changes. 
 
 248 
 
A RELIC OF THE PAST. 
 
 A HOME OF TODAY. 
 
HOME RULE TESTED 249 
 
 What have they to fear?' How much force is there in 
 the plea that Hjome Rule would mean a reversal of the 
 process of political and religious oppression? There is evi- 
 dence upon which to base judgment. 
 
 In 1898 was passed an act conferring on the Irish 
 people self-government in local affairs — with the exception 
 of the judiciary and the police. Previous to that time public 
 business in each county was in the hands of a grand jury 
 appointed by the sheriff, that is, by Dublin Castle. This 
 body, made up of men wholly unsympathetic to most of the 
 people, and quite removed from popular influence, fixed 
 the tax rate and conducted all local affairs, having sweeping 
 administrative as well as judicial functions. Under the Act 
 of 1898 the grand juries were restricted to such powers as 
 they have in this country. Local administration passed into 
 the control of elected county councils. There are thirty-three 
 of these, and three hundred and two urban and rural district 
 councils, besides city councils in Dublin, Belfast, London- 
 derry, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. All of these bodies 
 are elected on a broad franchise, including women. Their 
 operations are supervised by the Local Government Board, 
 one of the departments of Dublin Castle. 
 
 The change from the old system, obviously, was revolu- 
 tionary. It was the establishment of democracy — Home 
 Rule — in local affairs. By the elections Nationalist authority 
 has been placed in charge of the public business of twenty- 
 seven of the thirty-two' counties. The people of Nationalist 
 Ireland and the people of the irreconcilable part of Ulster 
 elect and control men of their own choice. Needless to say, the 
 proposal to grant such a measure of self-government was 
 bitterly denounced by the reactionary element. The great 
 mass of the people, it was said, were quite unfit for the 
 responsibilities of managing public affairs. Once the major- 
 ity obtained the rights of free citizens they would start the 
 country on the road to ruin by their tendencies toward ex- 
 travagance and corruption and their mad desire to extermi- 
 nate the minority. 
 
 Never were prophecies of gloom more picturesquely 
 made ridiculous by events. For eleven years Ireland has had 
 Home Rule in local affairs, and the testimony, not of the 
 
250 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 people, but of the sternly critical Local Government Board 
 and of Unionist leaders, is that the new order of things is a 
 triumphant success. Conduct of the local bodies is not, to 
 be sure, the pink of perfection; here and there time is wasted 
 in acrimonious discussions and in anti-English demonstra- 
 tions. But there has been no extravagance, there has been 
 no oppression or persecution and there has been real capacity 
 for economical and efficient government. 
 
 Now, this is important. Granting to Ireland self-gov- 
 ernment in local affairs was to be a test of the ability of the 
 people to manage the larger activities of national govern- 
 ment. Lord Salisbury, in 1885, predicted that the result of 
 conferring local authority upon the people would be misman- 
 agement, corruption and intolerance. Gerald Balfour, the 
 English member, who had charge of the Local Government 
 Act of 1898, on the other hand, declared that "if the coun- 
 cilors did their work with business capacity, and in a spirit 
 of toleration, it would mitigate one of the arguments which 
 has always been felt to tell heavily in England against Home 
 Rule." 
 
 What has been the outcome ? The strongest testimony, 
 naturally, must be that of the Local Government Board, 
 which has supervisory powers over the county councils and 
 other local bodies, and which is thoroughly Unionist in its 
 sympathies, being one of the departments of Dublin Castle. 
 At the end of the first year's trial of local self-government, 
 in its report for 1900, this body said: 
 
 "The predictions of those who affirmed that the new local bodies 
 intrusted with the administration of a complex system of county 
 government would inevitably break down have certainly not been 
 verified. On the contrary, the county and district councils have, 
 with few exceptions, properly discharged the statutory duties 
 devolving upon them. Instances have no doubt occurred in which 
 these bodies have, owing to inexperience and to an inadequate staff, 
 found themselves in difficulties, and have had to receive some 
 special assistance from us in regulating their affairs ; but this has 
 been of rare occurrence, and we are confident that before the term 
 of office of the first councils elected under the act expires the new 
 machinery will be working very smoothly throughout Ireland." 
 
 After another year's trial the board reported, in 1901 : 
 
 "Our further experience enables us to confirm the statement in 
 our last report as to the satisfactory manner in which the duties 
 of the county councils and rural district councils have been dis- 
 
HOME RULE TESTED 251 
 
 charged. No doubt in some instances there has been action, or 
 sometimes inaction, which did not seem to accord with the inten- 
 tions of the Legislature ; but, apart from such exceptional 
 instances, their duties have been satisfactorily and creditably dis- 
 charged by the councils and their officials throughout Ireland, and 
 the councils, we are glad to observe, appear to recognize the zeal 
 and ability with which they are served by their official staff." 
 
 In 1902 the board had this to say: 
 
 "The term of office of the first county councils and rural dis- 
 tricts councils, on whom, with their officers, rests the credit of 
 having successfully assisted in carrying the Local Government Act 
 into operation, expired in June, and the new councils, with the 
 experience of the past three years, will no doubt endeavor to bring 
 the system into a state of even greater efficiency. 
 
 "Attention has been directed to certain political differences, 
 which have been introduced by some of the smaller bodies into their 
 ordinary business transactions, with reference to the appointment 
 of officers and the giving of contracts, but it is only fair to state 
 that these cases have been quite the exception and not the rule; 
 they have been promptly dealt with, and we feel confident that the 
 conduct of their affairs by the various local authorities and their 
 officials will continue to justify the delegation to them of the large 
 powers transferred to their control by the Local Government 
 Acts." 
 
 In 1903 the report was virtually the same; since that 
 date I find no general comment upon the work of the local 
 bodies, the justice and efficiency of the system being taken for 
 granted, after several years' trial; but in specific details the 
 supervising board commends the industry and intelligence 
 displayed. 
 
 Economy and efficiency, therefore, mark the adminis- 
 tration of these elected bodies. But how about the predicted 
 oppression of the minority in the large number of districts 
 where Nationalists far outnumber Unionists? How has the 
 minority fared under Home Rule as applied to local affairs? 
 To what extent have religious differences operated against 
 the opponents of Nationalism, who said that those differences 
 would cause discrimination and persecution? 
 
 Figures are at hand showing the status of the elected 
 bodies in 1907, since which there has been little change. 
 At that time the county councils had the political complex- 
 ion of the inhabitants of the various districts. It is difficult 
 to see how it could be otherwise. Where nine-tenths of the 
 people are Nationalists, it is not surprising to find the same 
 proportion of Nationalists on the county council. Where 
 
252 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 there is a heavy preponderance of Unionists, most of the 
 councilors naturally are of that party. Each council, more- 
 over, appoints several score of public officers. Here there is 
 abundant opportunity for "playing politics" and for the exer- 
 cise of discrimination upon political and religious grounds. 
 
 Yet the record completely refutes the assertion that 
 Home Rule in local affairs means the exclusion of the minor- 
 ity from public life. On the contrary, strongly Unionist 
 councils make some Nationalist appointments and strongly 
 Nationalist councils select many Unionists for paid offices. 
 The records are conclusive, moreover, in showing that in 
 districts where the sentiment is overwhelmingly Nationalist 
 the minority gets far larger representation than does the 
 Nationalist minority in districts overwhelmingly Unionist. 
 It will be understood that political divisions virtually parallel 
 religious divisions. Hence the terms Nationalist and Union- 
 ist are about synonymous with Catholic and Protestant, 
 although there are many Protestant Nationalists and Catho- 
 lic Unionists. This explanation is made in order that the 
 reader may observe that under Home Rule, in local affairs, 
 both political and religious differences are being submerged 
 in '-he desire for good and equitable administration. 
 
 Taking a few counties at random, we find that Armagh, 
 where fifty-six per cent, of the people are Unionists, the 
 county council consists of eight Nationalists and twenty- 
 two Unionists, but only three of the fifty salaried officers- 
 employed are Nationalists. With a little more than half of 
 the population, the Unionists take ninety-four per cent, of 
 the appointments. Antrim, having a population of eighty 
 per cent. Unionist, elects twenty-six Unionists among the 
 twenty-nine councilors, and the council appoints sixty Union- 
 ists and five Nationalists to salaried offices. With eighty 
 per cent, of the popular vote the Unionists claim ninety-two 
 per cent, of the jobs. Tyrone's population is 55 per cent. 
 Nationalist, yet the council consists of sixteen Unionists to 
 thirteen Nationalists. In the matter of appointments the 
 Unionist majority makes full use of its power, naming no 
 fewer than forty-seven out of the fifty-two officers. 
 
 On the other hand, Cork, which is ninety per cent. 
 Nationalist, elects a council composed exclusively of Na- 
 
HOME RULE TESTED 253 
 
 tionalists, yet forty of the one hundred and ninety-one ap- 
 pointments — more than twenty per cent. — are given to 
 Unionists. Cavan likewise elects a wholly Nationalist coun- 
 cil, yet twenty-six of fifty-six appointments — forty-six per 
 cent. — of the salaried offices go to Unionists. 
 
 As the opposition to local Home Rule has come wholly 
 from Unionists, and wholly on the ground that it invites 
 oppression of Unionist citizens, these figures are illuminat- 
 ing. They show unmistakably that Nationalist districts 
 treat the minority much more fairly and generously than 
 Unionist districts. Those who have thought that the demo- 
 cratic system would lead to discrimination against Unionists 
 are invited to study the accompanying table. The first col- 
 umn gives the percentage of the dominant party in the popu- 
 lation, the second column gives the political division of the 
 county council and the third column the salaried officers 
 appointed, with their politics: ""* 
 
 County. Population. Council. Appointments. 
 
 Per cent. Nat. Un. Nat. Un.. 
 
 Armagh 56 Un. 8 22 3 47 
 
 Galway 94 Nat. 32 1 50 11 
 
 Tyrone 55 Nat. 13 16 5 47 
 
 Cork 90 Nat. All Nat. 151 40 
 
 Fermanagh 55 Nat. 10 17 17 58 
 
 Cavan 81 Nat. All Nat. 30 26 
 
 West Meath 92 Nat. 26 5 37 17 
 
 Kings 89 Nat. 27 1 21 19 
 
 Limerick 95 Nat. 26 2 39 6 
 
 Antrim 80 Un. 26 3 5 60 
 
 Monaghan 73 Nat. 25 2 34 23 
 
 Louth 90 Nat. 31 2 36 17 
 
 Kildare 86 Nat. 23 3 31 9 
 
 Clare 98 Nat. All Nat. 62 6 
 
 Roscommon 98 Nat. 29 1 48 8 
 
 Sligo 90 Nat. All Nat. 58 14 
 
 Mayo 97 Nat. All Nat. 69 8 
 
 Queens 88 Nat. All Nat. 25 11 
 
 Tipperary, North 93 Nat. All Nat. 19 8 
 
 Tipperary, South 94 Nat. 31 1 24 9 
 
 Leitrim 90 Nat. 26 22 10 
 
 Carlow 88 Nat. 23 2 27 18 
 
 Kerry 97 Nat. All Nat. 93 19 
 
 Meath 92 Nat. 29 2 38 14 
 
 Summarized, these figures show that in the two Unionist 
 counties the Unionists average sixty-eight per cent, of the 
 population and hold ninety-three per cent, of the appoint- 
 
254 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 ments; while in the Nationalist counties the Nationalists aver- 
 age eighty-seven and one-half per cent, of the population and 
 hold seventy per cent, of the appointments. If Home Rule 
 means discrimination, where does it appear? 
 
 As I close these letters two curious pictures come to me. 
 On a bright June day in 1900 I stood on the railroad plat- 
 form at Pretoria, chatting with a stout, bearded man who 
 leaned over the rear platform of a train. He was in mili- 
 tary uniform, and the train was loaded with armed troops 
 which he commanded, infantry and artillery. Over the 
 stony hills to the southward came the irregular thud of field 
 guns, for the attacking army was closing in on the Boer cap- 
 ital. Presently the train pulled out, the man on the rear 
 platform waving a courteous good-bye. 
 
 It was General Louis Botha, commander of the Boer 
 troops fighting the British forces, on his way to the front, to 
 maintain for two years an unequal struggle against the 
 Imperial armies. 
 
 The other picture is seven years later — May, 1907. 
 Outside the Guildhall, in London, the streets are packed with 
 dense crowds, the buildings gay with many flags. Through 
 the lanes of people rolls a carriage, preceded by a clattering 
 squadron of mounted guards and followed by a mighty wave 
 of cheers. From the carriage steps a stoutly built man in 
 frock suit and silk hat. Bowing gravely to the plaudits of 
 the crowd, he passes into the Guildhall, to be honored by the 
 greatest men of England and her colonies. 
 
 It is the Right Honorable General Louis Botha, Prime 
 Minister of the Transvaal, political ruler of a self-governing 
 unit of the Empire. 
 
 Home Rule in the Transvaal, a free Parliament in Pre- 
 toria, the enemy's commander as Prime Minister, within five 
 years of the ending of the war. England can be just and 
 generous to the Boer. Does Ireland deserve less? Will the 
 interests of the Empire be conserved with less? 
 
^POSTSCRIPT 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 
 
 Here's for a friendly shirt-sleeve talk with those active 
 correspondents who have been so frankly critical of my writ- 
 ings on the Irish question. In the lull before the last two 
 letters on the subject — only two more! — come clattering 
 down on their unwilling heads, let us see where we stand. A 
 personal discussion of this character has no sort of place in 
 the general treatment of the subject, but it will serve to clear 
 up some obscurities that are unavoidable in the haste of news- 
 paper writing. First let me repeat the happy announcement 
 that two more letters will complete the series. I am aware 
 of several correspondents, most of them anonymous, who will 
 be glad it's no worse. I can assure them they're not any 
 more gratified than I am. For one whose time is pretty well 
 occupied, the study and discussion of a matter as big as the 
 Irish question is no idle amusement. 
 
 More than one person, in a desire to express dissent, 
 wrote that the letters made them "tired." I haven't the 
 slightest doubt of it. They made me tired, too, and I never 
 wrote anything with more genuine relief than I wrote the last 
 word of the last sentence of the last letter. If I felt some- 
 what exhausted, in spite of firm conviction that everything I 
 wrote was true and fair, it is not astonishing that readers who 
 differ should feel exhausted, too. Incidentally, let me urge 
 them to read those two letters, even at the risk of further 
 prostration. I've read their communications — the most 
 severe ones with the greatest entertainment — and it's only 
 fair that they should read mine. They're not bad letters, 
 really. 
 
 To begin at the beginning, the most frequent criticism 
 
 _ *This statement was published just before the closing of the 
 series of letters, in response to criticisms, the nature of which is 
 indicated. 
 
 255 
 
256 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 of my articles is upon religious grounds. As a matter of 
 fact, that is not only the beginning, but the end and the mid- 
 dle as well. With one or two exceptions, from persons who 
 wrote intelligently as well as with conviction, the letters con- 
 demned what I had written as being part of a religious con- 
 troversy or propaganda. In a single breath, or rather with 
 a single dip in the inkstand, these correspondents denounced 
 me for dragging religion into the discussion and then proved 
 I was a literary outcast because I did not make their religious 
 views the paramount factor. One indignant person — I 
 recall that his letter made a radiant break in a rather dull 
 day — dismissed my labors with the charge that I was a "nar- 
 row-minded bigot," hopelessly enslaved by the Church to 
 which he assigned me. Perhaps this will be sufficient apology 
 for the very personal disclosure that back of my Americanism 
 is an ancestry of double-dyed Ulster Scotch-Irish and that 
 the nearest approach to a saint in my church is John Wesley. 
 [Upon my word, I don't see that this fact is of surpassing 
 interest, now that I have written it. But if my views on 
 Home Rule are to be repudiated on account of my theo- 
 logical convictions, let's get the record straight.] 
 
 So we come now to the important objection of my crit- 
 ical friends. Why was religion introduced in the discussion 
 at all? Setting aside the fact that nine out of ten of the 
 opponents of Home Rule — those who have written about my 
 articles, at least — oppose it on religious grounds, how can it 
 be said that I introduced it? They might as well accuse me 
 of inventing landlordism or of discovering Dublin Castle. 
 One may deprecate the prominence of religion in the strife 
 that has afflicted Ireland, but one cannot in fairness ignore it. 
 It is a fact, and the discussion of Irish affairs which evades it 
 is futile and dishonest. Religious differences made much of 
 Irish history and were the direct and openly avowed inspira- 
 tion of some of the most important legislation affecting the 
 country. Religious discrimination is one of the evils charged 
 against the present system of government; religion constitutes 
 one of the great divisions of the people, and a conflict of 
 religious convictions is at the bottom of the opposition to 
 Home Rule. If religion was "dragged into" the Irish ques- 
 tion, the dragging was done by Elizabeth, James I, William 
 

 
 ■ '-''<'■■•••' : il1 
 
 
 
 
 
 . * . ' 
 
 .•' ' • ,1 Q 
 
 — 
 
 
 .*.« ' s&i&^SBSl 
 
POSTSCRIPT 257 
 
 III, James II and their Parliaments, but there's no use writ- 
 ing peevish letters to them, because they're dead. And if it 
 is kept in, the keeping is done by those who denounce the idea 
 of self-government upon the ground that it would confer 
 equal rights upon citizens of a different faith. It enters into 
 the question in no other way. If the demand for Home 
 Rule stood upon nothing more than religious grounds, it 
 would never have had the devotion of a Gladstone or a 
 Bright, or the indorsement of the British House of Com- 
 mons, which it has at this very moment. Incidentally, it 
 would not have interested The North American, and that 
 would have saved me a lot of work and several readers 
 irritation. 
 
 But here comes a more friendly critic — about fifteen per 
 cent. Home Ruler, this chap. You're right (he says,) to a 
 certain extent. As an economic proposition, Ireland should 
 have self-government. But why go back into history that 
 ought to be forgotten (says he) and rake up old feuds and 
 old animosities? If Ireland wins, it will be because the pres- 
 ent system is wasteful, unjust and generally impossible and 
 not because of alleged atrocities by James I or Cromwell. 
 
 There's something in that, too. But not very much. 
 Frankly, I took no particular pleasure in wandering around 
 in the Middle Ages; but as luck would have it, that was when 
 the "Irish Question" was made. A man who started to trace 
 the development of the protective tariff and ignored every- 
 thing back of, say, 1885, might produce a pleasing tract, but 
 it would not be excessively valuable. So, if we want to know 
 why all these problems have arisen in Ireland and why Eng- 
 land must needs spend so much time in remedial legislation, 
 we've got to go back to the days when the problems were 
 fashioned. I "raked up" the Plantagenets and the Tudors 
 and the Roundheads and all the rest of them because they 
 were the persons who laid the foundations of the Irish Ques- 
 tion of this year of grace 1909. And with all due respect 
 to my critical friends, it is perfectly obvious that no one can 
 judge that question fairly unless he does a little "raking" to 
 begin with. 
 
 As to old "animosities" — bless your hearts, it was ani- 
 mosities that folks lived on (and died fromj in those iron 
 17 
 
2 5 8 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 days. Once you take up the historical prologue — and you've 
 got to do it to be fair with yourself in studying the matter — - 
 you can no more dodge the prevailing animosities than you 
 can dodge raindrops. Personally, I never tried to dodge 
 them. They interest me, just as do any other facts which 
 have a bearing upon the subject I am endeavoring to treat. 
 
 For it must not be supposed that these "animosities" 
 were the mere temporary results of racial and religious strife; 
 if they were, God forbid that any one should rake them up. 
 But the present problem, says our friend, is purely an eco- 
 nomic proposition. That's a good, safe word, isn't it — 
 economic? Very well, I am for it; with the added remark 
 that the very "animosities" of old, which all of us regret and 
 deplore, constitute one of the strongest factors in the eco- 
 nomic situation of today. Landlordism, the "congested dis- 
 tricts," the folly and injustice of Dublin Castle government 
 — whence came these flowers of misrule? The seeds were 
 planted in the stirring up of those very "animosities" which 
 we are on on account to mention, but which, it seems, are 
 to be accepted as the products of some sort of miraculous 
 growth, without beginning and with very little chance of 
 ending. 
 
 There are those, I know, who cannot read the records of 
 three or four hundred years ago without wanting to go out 
 and lick the opposition. I envy them their activity of mind 
 and passionate adherence to conviction, and if I have offended 
 any such, let this be my assurance that I had no such inten- 
 tion. For there were two reasons for the brief record which 
 I made of past events. One was, as explained, to elucidate 
 in some measure the questions of to-day to which they gave 
 rise; the other was to contrast the present with the past — to 
 bring into relief the bright prospect of a nation united, peace- 
 ful and prosperous against that dark background of greed 
 and intolerance. 
 
 But even granting that I was animated by no ulterior 
 — or shall we say Ulsterior? — motives, there are those who 
 complain that the historical references were unfair, tending 
 to accuse one side and excuse the other. Glancing over them, 
 I am not moved to confess any such coloring of the record, 
 despite obvious defects due to haste and the limitations of 
 
POSTSCRIPT 259 
 
 space, for I observe that virtually every quotation I used was 
 from an authority associated with the side which protests. 
 Froude, Gladstone, Green, Lecky, Goldwin Smith — none of 
 these, surely, can be accused of narrow-minded hostility to 
 the English element in Ireland. Nor would any sane man 
 attempt to maintain that one side monopolized the crime and 
 violence, while the other side monopolized all the virtues. 
 The story of those dark days, in truth, is a story of blood 
 and oppression, of ruthless attack and savage reprisal, and 
 the scars were deep on both sides; but the fact remains that 
 the general, permanent effect, which alone justifies the his- 
 torical discussion, was to lay upon the great mass of the Irish 
 people a burden of poverty and misrule from which they are 
 to-day entitled to relief. 
 
 And here's another type of critic. He is familiar with 
 tne course of events, and inclined, apparently, to be friendly 
 to the Home Rule cause, but he asks rather warmly why 
 England's treatment of Ireland to-day should be condemned 
 as mercilessly as that of past centuries. "Why," he says, 
 "do you ignore all the costly reforms of the last generation? 
 What other country has ever undertaken such revolutionary 
 works of progress as England has undertaken in Ireland? 
 Your purpose seems to be not to remark and aid that prog- 
 ress, but to stir up fresh hatred of England." 
 
 This rather saddens me. It really does. Because it is 
 a condemnation of the one quality which I aimed to achieve 
 in my articles — clearness. I went to Ireland this summer, 
 after a lapse of seven years, expressly to record the remark- 
 able improvements wrought through legislation, and I was 
 under the pleasing impression that I had described and dis- 
 cussed those improvements, and applauded that legislation, 
 to< the extent of an almost scandalous number of columns. 
 While the fact is of no public interest, since my fairness in 
 this regard is questioned, I may say that I have a rather 
 strong predilection for England ; that I have more friends in 
 England than in Ireland, and that I consider England, 
 through her abler statesmen, has worked manfully during 
 recent years to undo the wrongs of centuries. Yet continued 
 condemnation of the system of government is perfectly justi- 
 fied. If for no other reason, let it be because no reform 
 
260 THE DEMAND FOR HOME RULE 
 
 worth while was ever won without agitation. This involves 
 criticism from which a tinge of bitterness is inseparable, but 
 when it descends to unreasoning hatred, it may well be 
 ignored, because it is ineffective. We don't forget, by the 
 way — and we urge the excited opponents of Home Rule not 
 to forget — that public opinion in England, as reflected in the 
 House of Commons, is strongly for rendering political jus- 
 tice to Ireland. 
 
 To keep these remarks from extending to* the length of 
 the original articles, let us mention only one more critic. He 
 objects to our referring to the "Irish" demand for Home 
 Rule, because, he says, it is merely a factional demand. 
 "Why don't you give Ulster's side of the dispute?" he asks. 
 "Isn't Ulster entitled to a show?" Ulster's side, Unionism, 
 is easily given. It is opposition to Home Rule. It is the 
 negation of all that is represented in the movement for self- 
 government. As for giving Ulster a "show," no fair- 
 minded man would urge less. It is justly entitled to twenty- 
 five per cent, of representation in the government ; it has con- 
 trolled one hundred per cent, too long. 
 
 I take leave of the subject now with the hope that all 
 of us have learned something by the discussion. I have, 
 anyway, and the hardest jolts from my critics have been 
 accepted cheerfully. Upon the main question we do not 
 agree, but I am as certain as I can be of anything that the 
 future will bring us nearer together. For Home Rule is 
 coming; the public opinion of Ireland, of England, of the 
 British colonies, of the United States, is for it, and will pre- 
 vail. And when Home Rule does come, and has spread 
 peace and brotherhood and justice where strife has too long 
 ruled, its opponents will no more condemn the new order 
 than they condemn the other reforms which they fought and 
 then embraced. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Act of 1870, 17, 112; of 1881, 112; Ash- 
 bourne, 113; of 18S6, 113; of 1891, 113; 
 of 1896, 113; of 1909, 115, 140, 141; of 
 Edward III, used in coercion, 95. 
 
 Agricultural laborers, aid to, 183; 
 wages of, 234. 
 
 Agriculture, in 1902, 5; chief industry, 
 13; difficulties of, 17; schemes to 
 improve, 136. 
 
 American aid to Irish, 32, 42, 169; 
 sympathy with Home Rule, 213, 260; 
 revolution inspired Irish, 201. 
 
 Australia, Home Rule in, 245. 
 
 Balfour, A. J., causes creation of 
 Congested Districts Board, 127; on 
 destruction of Irish industries, 241. 
 
 Bessborough Commission, 26, 79. 
 
 Birrell, Augustine, Chief Secretary, 
 Land Purchase Act introduced by, 
 115, 141, 142. 
 
 Boers, Irish sympathy with, 3, 98. 
 
 Bright, John, 24. 
 
 Bryce, James, on Irish government, 
 222. ' 
 
 Butt, Isaac, 216. 
 
 Canada, Home Rule won by, 245-247; 
 was disloyal, 246. 
 
 Castlebar, congestion near, 80; an 
 incident of coercion in, 101. 
 
 Castlerea, 54, 80, 144. 
 
 Catholics, laws against, 197,202; re- 
 gained some rights, 202; vote, 203; 
 emancipation of, 211, 212; course of, 
 in local self-government, 251-254. 
 
 Cavendish, Lord, murder of, 217. 
 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, on government 
 of Ireland, 222, 228. 
 
 Charles I 9. 
 
 Chief Secretaries, all Protestant, 223; 
 powers of, 230-232; some good, 232. 
 
 Christianity, early Irish. 189-190. 
 
 Church, established Anglican, 210; 
 disestablishment, 215. 216. 
 
 Clare Island, congestion on, 30; 
 Transformed, 76, 133-135. 
 
 Crime, agrarian, 13, 17, 26, 217; statis- 
 tics of, in England, Scotland and 
 Ireland, 235-238. 
 
 Crimes Act, coercion enforced by. 93, 
 94, 96. (See Coercion.) 
 
 Coercion, 4; described, 81-90, 91-102; 
 a list of prisoners under, 92-93; en- 
 forced, 95, 217, 221, 243. 
 
 Colleges, in National University, 177. 
 (See Education.) 
 
 Compulsory sale, necessary, 115, 140. 
 
 141; under Birrell Act, 115, 140. (See 
 Land Purchase, Landlordism.) 
 
 Confiscations of land, 8, 9, 14, 115. 117; 
 under Mary, 193; under Elizabeth, 
 193; under James I, 193; under 
 Cromwell, 9, 14, 115, 194, 195; under 
 William III, 195. (See Landlordism.) 
 
 Congested Districts, described by 
 William O'Brien, 30-35; described, 
 72-80; extent of, 72; map of, 74; offi- 
 cial reports on, 74, 79, 80, 115; im- 
 proved conditions in, 126-173; de- 
 fined, 128, 129; causes of poverty in, 
 130; trip through, 144-173. 
 
 Congested Districts Board, Dillon 
 estate bought by, 51; improved by, 
 64, 65; Clare Island improved by, 
 76, 133-135; work of, 126-173; creation 
 of, 127; powers of, 12S, 131, 122; aids 
 to industries by, 136-140; some es- 
 tates improved by, 154; improve- 
 ments encouraged by, 156-161. (See 
 Congested Districts, Land Pur- 
 chase.) 
 
 Connaught, migration of laborers 
 from, 78; Irish driven to. 193. (See 
 Congested Districts.) 
 
 Conquests of Ireland, 190-196. 
 
 Constabulary, 34; arrests by, 82, 84, 
 85; powers of, under coercion, 94-96, 
 99; crimes committed by members 
 of, 99, 100; at an eviction, 11S-125; 
 number and cost of, 234-238. 
 
 Cork, 30, 129, 142. 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, misrule denounced 
 by, 204, 205. 
 
 Cost of government, 232-238. 
 
 Cottage industries, 138. 
 
 County Councils, 248-254. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 9, 14, 115, 194, 195. 
 
 Davis, Thomas, 212, 243. 
 
 Davitt, Michael, 216. 
 
 De Freyne estate, 62-66, 69-71, 84, 87, 
 154. 
 
 Devon Commission, 13, 14, 112. 
 
 Dillon estate, 50, 51, 64-66, 69-71, 135, 
 154. 
 
 Dillon, John, M. P., on land prob- 
 lem, 107-111, 126; on National Uni- 
 versity, 178. 
 
 Dillon, John Blake, 212. 
 
 Disestablishment, 215, 216. 
 
 Disloyalty in Ireland, 3, 4; causes 
 of, 81; could be overcome, 86; due 
 to misgovernment, 98; paralleled in 
 Canada, 215-247. 
 
262 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Donegal, congestion in, 30, 129; mi- 
 gration of laborers from, 79; fish- 
 ing industries in, 137. 
 Doran, Henry, 171. (See Preface.) 
 Drainage improvements, 154. (See 
 Congested Districts Board, work 
 
 Dublin Castle, coercion by, 82-102; 
 government by, 228-247; differs from 
 English and Scotch system, 229, 
 230; public has no control over, 
 230-282- departments under, 231, 232; 
 extravagance of, 232-238; overtaxa- 
 tion 233; compared with England 
 and' Scotland, 233, 234; Constabu- 
 lary, 234-238; system a failure, 239- 
 247 ' (See Home Rule.) 
 
 Dufferin, Lord, on Fenianism, 215; 
 on destruction of Irish industries, 
 
 242. 
 
 Duffy, Charles Gavan, 212, 214. 
 
 Dunraven, Earl of, on misgovern- 
 ment, 228. M (MI1M 
 
 Economic conditions, 5, 21, 103-106. 
 (See Poverty, Population, Land- 
 lordism, Congested Districts, Emi- 
 gration.) 
 
 Educational reform, 174-1SO, 184. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, plantations and 
 confiscations by, 8, 14, 193; insur- 
 rections under, 193. 
 
 Emigration, 5, 13, 23, 24, 36, 47, 241. 
 
 Emmet. Robert, 210, 243. 
 
 Eviction, 16. IS, 23, 26, 56-60; a vic- 
 tim's story of, 60-64; practice of, 
 68 69- De Freyne estate, 84; after 
 the Famine, 112, 212, 213; descrip- 
 tion of an, 118-125; victims of, re- 
 stored to lands, 182, 183. 
 
 Extravagance of government, 2Si- 
 238 (See Dublin Castle.) 
 
 Famine, 12, 22, 112. 212, 213. 
 
 Fenianism, 24, 214, 215. 
 
 Fishing industry, aided by Congest- 
 ed Districts Board, 132, 137. 
 
 Fitzgerald. Lord Edward, 204. 
 
 Fitzgibbon, John, 54-71, 81-90, 145,146. 
 
 Foxford woolen mills, 138. 
 
 Free speech, suppression of, 5, 94; 
 imprisonment for, 81-90. (See Co- 
 ercion.) 
 
 Galway, 129, 137. 
 
 Garrison, English, sway of, 219-247. 
 
 Gladstone, 12, 17, 24, 210; on Fenian- 
 ism 215' negotiations with Parnell, 
 217' Home Rule bill of 1886, 217: 
 Home Rule bill of 1893, 217. (See 
 Acts.) 
 
 Grattan, Henry, 201-203, 206. 
 
 Grazers, lands held by, 40-53, 67-69, 
 116, 117. (See Landlordism.) 
 
 History, of land problem, 6-10. 116; 
 of Ireland, 188-216. (See Land Prob- 
 lem, Congested Districts, Evic- 
 tions.) 
 
 Home Rule, sentiment for, increased 
 by land purchase, 110; demand for, 
 
 185-260; Redmond on, 1S5; economic 
 reforms no substitute for, 185, 186; 
 defined, 186, 187; historic basis of 
 demand for, 1S8-218; Parnell, Davitt 
 and, 216; Gladstone's bills for, 217; 
 need for, 219-247; real "Unionism in, 
 244; in the colonies, 245-247; Can- 
 ada's fight for, 246; tested in local 
 affairs, 248-254; approved by Local 
 Government Board, 250, 251. (See 
 Dublin Castle.) 
 
 House of Commons, rejects Home 
 Rule in 1S86, 217; passes Home Rule 
 bill in 1S93, 218; Irish Party in, 227;. 
 for Home Rule, 247. 
 
 Houses, improved, 154-173; for labor- 
 ers, 183. 
 
 Imprisonment under coercion, 81-102. 
 
 Improvement in conditions, 46, 47. 51, 
 103-173; described by John Dillon, 
 108-111; by Congested Districts 
 Board, 132-173; plans of, 159-161. 
 (See Congested Districts Board, 
 Land Purchase.) 
 
 Incumbered estates, 25, 112, 116. 
 
 Industries, aids to, 136-140; destruc- 
 tion of, 241, 242. 
 
 Insurrections, under Elizabeth, 193; 
 of 1641, 194; in nineteenth century, 
 243. 
 
 Invasions, 7-10; by Norsemen, 190; 
 by Strongbow, 191; by Henry II, 
 191; by the Tudors, 192, 193; by 
 Cromwell, 194, 195; by William III, 
 195. 
 
 Irish Parliamentary Party, 174, 227. 
 
 James I. confiscations under, 9, 14. 
 
 Jury, silenced by a magistrate, 97; 
 trial by, denied, 5, 82, 94. 
 
 Kerrv, 129; an eviction in, 11S-125. 
 
 Kiltimagh, 40-53, 139, 168-173. 
 
 Land Acts, 17, 21, 24, 26, 33, 112, 113, 
 115, 140, 141. 
 
 Land Commission, 27, 2S, 70. 
 
 Landlordism system of, described, 
 11, 13, 16-20; effects of, 21-28; Will- 
 iam O'Brien on, 29-35; absentee, 38; 
 effects of. 40-65; a victim's story of. 
 60-64; a village under, 162-167. (See 
 Congested Districts, Eviction, Ten- 
 ants, Landlords, Land Problem, 
 Land Purchase.) 
 
 Landlords, who won't sell, 141; 
 against Home Rule, 224. (See 
 Landlordism.) 
 
 Land League, 26, 69, 216. 
 
 Land Problem, history of, 6-10, 21-28; 
 making of, 11-15; history of, by 
 Devon Commission, 14; summary 
 of, 15; described by John Fitzgib- 
 bon, 67-71; solution of, 103-173; John 
 Dillon. 107-111; history of, 111-117. 
 (See Landlordism.) 
 
 Land Purchase, advocated by Will- 
 iam O'Brien. 33; of Dillon estate, 
 51; denounced by coercion magis- 
 trate, 97; Wyndham Act, 106; Ash- 
 
INDEX 
 
 263 
 
 bourne Act, 113; other acts, 113-115; 
 illustrated on Clare Island, 133-135; 
 success of, 132-173; Dillon estate, 
 135, 136, 154; woman tells of, 149-151; 
 acts, 182, 217. (See Land Acts, 
 Landlordism.) 
 
 Leases, forced on tenants, 26. (See 
 Landlordism.) 
 
 Leitrim, 9, 30, 129. 
 
 Literature, early Irish, 189, 190. 
 
 Local government, Home Rule in, 
 248-254; act providing, 249. 
 
 Lords Lieutenant, coercion enforced 
 by, 94, 95; have all been Protes- 
 tants, 223; functions of, 230; salary 
 of, 233. 
 
 Magistrates, powers of, under co- 
 ercion, 81-102. 
 
 Manufacturing, encouragement of, 
 138, 139. 
 
 Massacres, 8, 9, 194. 
 
 Mayo, 30, 40-53, 80, 129, 137, 144-173. 
 
 Middlemen, 14. (See Landlordism.) 
 
 Migration of laborers, 5, 32, 36, 42, 
 77-80. (See Congested Districts.) 
 
 Misgovernment, 3; denounced by T. 
 W. Russell, M. P., 96, 208-247. (S^e 
 Coercion, Dublin Castle, Landlord- 
 ism.) 
 
 Mitchel, John, 212, 243. 
 
 Morley, Lord, Chief Secretary, 88. 
 
 Morris, Judge, coercion decisions by, 
 84, 87-90, 97. 
 
 Murphy, Joseph, M. P., 119, 120, 123, 
 125. 
 
 Nationalists, in local government 
 bodies, 251-254. (See Irish Parlia- 
 mentary Party.) 
 
 National University, 178-180. 
 
 Newspapers, prosecuted under co- 
 ercion, 94. 
 
 Nineteenth century, history of, 208- 
 217. 
 
 North American, first visit to Ire- 
 land by correspondent of, 1-102; 
 second visit, 103-260. (See Preface 
 and Postscript.) 
 
 O'Brien, Smith. 212, 243. 
 
 O'Brien, William, M. P., 29-35. 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 211, 212. 
 
 O'Hara, Rev. Denis, 40-53, 139, 168-173. 
 
 O'Kelly, Conor, M. P., 89. 
 
 Pale, English, 191. (See Garrison, 
 History of Ireland.) 
 
 Parish committees, 139, 140, 160, 161. 
 
 Parliament, Irish, 12; freed, 202, 203; 
 destroyed, 205-207; industries fos- 
 tered by, 242. 
 
 Parnell, Charles Stuart, 216, 217. 
 
 Penal laws, 14, 197-202. 
 
 Phoenix Park murders, 217. 
 
 Pigott, Richard, forgeries by, 217. 
 
 Plantations, 8, 9. 14, 115. (See Con- 
 fiscations, Invasions, History.) 
 
 Political conditions, 4. 5, 103-106; divi- 
 sions, 223, 224. 
 
 Pollock, Allan, 68. 69. 
 
 Population, 5, 24, 212, 234, 240. (See 
 Congested Districts.) 
 
 Poverty, 43-47, 73, 129, 131. (See Con- 
 gested Districts). 
 
 Presbyterians, 210, 215, 216. 
 
 Prisons, cost of, 233; unused, 237. 
 
 Prosperity, under land purchase, 184. 
 
 Protestants, slain in rebellion of 1641, 
 194; joined revolt, 203; Nationalist 
 leaders among, 212, 243; in local 
 government, 251-254. 
 
 Quaker Nationalist, a, 228, 229. 
 
 Rebellion, of 1798, 205; of 1848, 212. 
 (See Fenianism.) 
 
 Redmond, John E., M. P., on Home 
 Rule, 185; party leader, 227. (See 
 Introduction.) 
 
 Religious prejudice passing, 3; no 
 discrimination under local self-gov- 
 ernment, 251-254; religious question, 
 223, 225, 226, 255-260. 
 
 Rents, arbitrary raising of, 18, 26; 
 reduced by courts, 27, 28, 113. (See 
 Landlordism, Eviction, Congested 
 Districts.) 
 
 Repeal of the Union, agitation for, 
 211. 
 
 Roscommon, 30, 56-60, 60-66, 129, 146, 
 144-161. 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, on misgovernment, 
 228. 
 
 Russell, T. W., M. P., on landlord- 
 ism, 3, 20; on misgovernment, 12; 
 on poverty, 21; on Land Commis- 
 sion, 27; on coercion, 96; assault on, 
 while speaking, 101, 102. 
 
 Scotch settlers. (See Plantations, 
 Ulster.) 
 
 Scotland, government of, compared 
 with Ireland, 233, 234. 
 
 Sligo, 30, 129. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 198, 204. 
 
 South Africa, Home Rule in, 245, 254. 
 
 Stephens, James, 214. 
 
 Strongbow, 7, 191. 
 
 Stuarts, confiscations under the, 9, 
 10, 193, 194. 
 
 Swinford, 80. 
 
 Taxation, 233, 243. 
 
 Tenant League, 214. 
 
 Tenant right, 17, 24. (See Act of 1870, 
 Ulster Custom.) 
 
 Tenants, improvements of, seized by 
 landlords, 67; become land owners, 
 113-115, 133-135, 149-151; help them- 
 selves, 155-161. (See Landlordism, 
 Eviction, Land Acts, Land League, 
 Congested Districts.) 
 
 Three F's established, 26, 112. (See 
 Land Acts.) 
 
 Tone, Wolfe, 203, 204. 225. 
 
 Trinity College. Dublin, 174-178. 
 
 Tudor invasions, 9, 10, 192, 193. 
 
 Ulster, plantations, 9, 193; Custom, 
 15, 20; prosperity of, 224, 225; in re- 
 bellion, 225; conflict of tendencies 
 
264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 in, 226; industries of, 242, 243; emi- University of Ireland, National, 174- 
 
 gration from, 242; parallel of, in 178. 
 
 the colonies, 245. West, problem of the, 30-39, 77. (See 
 
 Under Secretaries, few Catholic, 223; Congested Districts.) 
 
 powers of, 230. Westport, 35-39, 80. 
 
 Union, Act of, denounced by Glad- Wexford, 7, 9, 194. 
 
 stone, 12, 206-208; evils of, 211; a William III, 9, 195. 
 
 failure, 218. (See Dublin Castle.) Wyndham, George, Chief Secretary, 
 
 Unionists, 224; fairly treated in local 88; Land Act by, 106, 114. 
 
 self-government, 252-254. Young, Arthur, on Landlordism, 5#. 
 
 United Irish League, 5, 52, 227. Young Ireland movement, 212. 
 
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