Part 21 (1/2)
”I don't know it. We don't know it here. n.o.body knows it.”
”And you 're an editor, Jeffrey! Is that the way you keep the run of the news?”
”Such a case has never been tried.”
”It has not _yet_ been tried, you mean. Of course not; it has to take its turn. It will come on in the autumn.”
”Who is O'Shea?”
I stared at Roche in amazement. And then I laughed.
”Jeffrey,” said I, ”you do it very well.”
”Do what? No,” said he, ”it is n't acting. Who is he?”
I told him, and added that the question had been put differently by the Irish members of Parliament a long time ago. They asked at one time--”Why is he?” After a while they asked nothing.
”And your article said that the Irish party would turn against Parnell if the case were tried, and that the English Liberals would throw him over, and the Home Rule cause would go to pieces.”
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”Pardon me, Jeffrey, my article said that those would be some of the results if O'Shea won his case, not if the case were tried.”
”Gladstone would n't turn against Parnell!”
”Jeffrey, if that's all you know about the Irish Question, take my advice and return to Ireland by the next s.h.i.+p and study it on the spot.
Then go to Westminster and study it there. Learn what the Unionists think, what Liberals think, and what Mr. Gladstone, as leader of the Liberal Party, has to think, and--”
”It's another Piggott trick! Parnell's defence will show it all up.”
”Suppose he should n't defend himself?”
”That's unfair!”
”Let me tell you a thing or two. Make a note of 'em, and see what happens within a year!”
In the course of the next two hours Roche heard more of the inside of Irish and English politics than I would have supposed could previously have escaped an editor's mind. It was clear that the comings and goings of Irish parliamentarians bent on propaganda and money-raising had not left behind much information that could guide a distant editor over a course abounding with obstacles. My experience with Roche that evening resembled all the experiences I have ever had in the United States when talking on the Irish question with persons who seemed really anxious for information. And the situation is much the same at this hour, differing only in kind, not in degree.
The events of November and December, 1890, {250} proved to my doubting friend the truth of all I had told in print or out of it during the preceding months. But he was as much surprised at the end of the year as he had been when I talked with him in May. Roche died years ago; perhaps he knew by that time how matters stood. At all events, perhaps he knows now. The Irish in America were not in those days, and have not been since then much or far behind the scenes of a certain political stage. They have paid their money, and, like other audiences, have remained in front to watch, to listen, to applaud, or to hiss. If they have frequently applauded or derided in the wrong places, other audiences beholding other dramas have done no less.
The conditions in Ireland, and concerning Ireland, are not new to me.
I have known them pretty well for forty years. If I were an Irishman I would think, no doubt, on most points political, with other fellow countrymen of my party. But what party would that be? I might answer, if you could tell me where I would have been born and of what religious faith. My sympathy with Ireland is deep; it would be so, if only for the matchless, the invincible stupidity with which she has been and is still governed. But her ”injustices” and ”woes” have long since been wiped out. That is one thing they do not know in America. But it is unnecessary to go beyond certain Nationalist speeches in the House of Commons to learn as much. John Redmond said a good deal on that point.
But now there are no Nationalist speeches, no Nationalist members to speak of. The Nationalist Party is dead. The {251} Irish seats in the House of Commons are empty, voluntarily empty. Had Ireland done her share in the War, she would have had Home Rule before the Armistice.
But she would not do her share, and she does not appear to desire Home Rule, and Great Britain did not try to force her. In America the meaning of this is not quite understood. While Great Britain was sending millions of men to the front, while her manhood was everywhere conscripted, while her fathers and sons were fighting the malignant German, while she was depriving herself of money, food, clothing, economising in the very necessaries of life, not merely in order to provide for her armies, but to aid her allies, Ireland did nothing.
Ireland's food was not rationed; she had plenty and to spare; plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to wear; petrol and motor cars were not forbidden her, they were forbidden to Britain; the luxuries which Britain denied herself were abundant in Ireland; she was, in fact, the most favoured country in Europe. She was never so prosperous as throughout the war.
But not a hand would she lift to defend her soil against the Germans.
Thousands of Irishmen were at the front; they fought splendidly, but it was not in accordance with the will of Ireland that they fought. It was because they willed it themselves. Ireland was exempted from conscription. Englishmen and Scotsmen, Welshmen and Cornishmen, all the men and all the women from Land's End to John O'Groat's have long memories for things like that. And so have many Americans.
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