Part 2 (1/2)

Lord Naas tried to comfort his mother in her painful suspense about her son by a mixture of religious consolation and the doctrine of chances. 'Keep up, and hope in G.o.d he may be safe. Two thousand men are about one in seven killed or wounded of those engaged; so even human chances are in our favour. But it is in the G.o.d of battles we must trust.' Then a few days later, 'My dearest {42} Mother,--The list of killed and wounded has just arrived. Thank G.o.d, our dear Johnny is safe. It is the greatest mercy our family has ever received, and I trust we may be thankful for it to the end of our lives. What an awful list!'

How the ever present anxiety of those winters penetrated the smallest details of life! 'I went to Ballinasloe last Monday,' he writes, 'and bought thirty-one heifers. The cost was enormous, 15 pounds 15_s._, and they never can pay unless prices keep up. But they were as cheap as any in the fair. I went over to Lord Cloncurry's for the night.

John Burke, of Johnny's regiment, was there. He told me a great deal about him. He said he did his work well. He says he saw him telling off his company, after the battle of Inkermann, as coolly as if he had been on parade.'

Meanwhile Lord Naas was doing good work for his party during their six years in opposition. He had won the liking and confidence of the Irish Conservatives in the House; and Lord Derby, when he came into power in 1858, again offered Lord Naas the Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p for Ireland. A long list of measures in that and the following year bears witness to his activity.

One who was officially connected with him in two of his princ.i.p.al Bills thus writes: 'What struck me in my communications with him on these matters was this. After the Bills had been settled by those conversant with the legal part of the subject, he would detect errors which had escaped us all. He {43} swooped down upon a flaw like a scholar on a false quant.i.ty, and would sometimes break up a whole set of clauses with his own hand, and re-write them himself, saying, ”There, now; you may put it into legal language, but that is the sense of the thing I want.” Again, when a draftsman would produce something very symmetrical and beautiful in theory, he would say: ”That's all very fine, but the House of Commons won't look at it.” At this time he began to feel almost a despair of accomplis.h.i.+ng any real work for Ireland, owing to the factions within herself and in Parliament. I do not think he had more respect for the ultra-Orange party than he had for the Fenians. He believed they were alike hurtful to the country, and that the opposition to be expected from one, or it might chance from both, made it hopeless to attempt anything sound or moderate.

'This feeling especially oppressed him with regard to his Tenant-Right Bills and his educational measures. He had at the same time so warm a regard for many friends of various shades of opinion, that it hurt him sorely when he felt it his duty to propose a policy which he knew they would not approve of. He would say to them: ”Well, if you don't like my Bill, you'll have to swallow something much worse from the Radicals next year.” His love for Ireland was inexhaustible, and alone carried him through the vexations of trying to work for her. He loved the people, he liked the climate (he hated an east wind or a frosty day), he liked the sport, and he loved his {44} friends and neighbours. I recollect his saying to me when a political opponent, Lord Dunkellin, died: ”Dunkellin is a great loss; he loved Ireland so truly, and understood her so well, that he would have done real good for us all some day.”'

A colleague, who afterwards came into the closest relations with Lord Naas in his Parliamentary work, writes to me thus: 'Lord Mayo lived too far ahead of his party for his own comfort. Though he was a member of a Tory Cabinet, I think that his opinions were shared to the full by only one member of that Cabinet, Mr. Disraeli. He was not entirely a Conservative of his own day; neither was he a Liberal, according to the tenets of the Liberal party of his time. He was a large-minded politician, who felt the necessity of belonging to one party or another if he were to effect anything practical. While revering the Established Church, he admitted the right of every man to choose his own creed, and denied to no faith a power to save.

While he desired to maintain all rights essential to the security of landed property, he was anxious to do away with the legal or technical difficulties that stand between the tillers of the soil and the full enjoyment of the results of their labour. If he could only see a real reform in the state of the land and of the cultivator, he cared not whence or how it came. He believed that any permanent improvement of the land ought to be for the benefit alike of the owner and of the tiller of the soil. His idea was, ”If you really improve my land, you shall {45} not lose by so doing, and any rule or law that says otherwise shall be done away with.” He used to argue that, if you prevent such reforms you injure yourself as landlord, and you act unjustly to your fellow-men. Liberty of thought, of faith, and of action he loved more than life itself. The exercise of either spiritual or temporal power for purposes of intimidation or wrongful coercion was to him hateful. He had an unresting sympathy for all in want or in misery. For the lunatic poor, for prisoners, and for the fallen, his heart was always urging him to work; and for them he _did_ work, and did good work.'

Another of his colleagues, the Earl of Derby, has touched off his character as an official: 'I have known other men, though not very many, who were perhaps his equals in industry, in clearsightedness, and in the a.s.semblage of qualities which, united, form what we call a good man of business; and I have known men, though but few, who possessed perhaps to an equal extent that generosity of disposition, that unfeigned good-humour and good temper, which were among the most marked characteristics of our lamented friend: but I do not know if I ever met any one in whom those two sets of qualities were so equally and so happily united. No discussion could be so dry, but Lord Mayo would enliven it with the unforced humour which was one of his greatest social charms. No question could be so complicated, but that his simple, straightforward way of looking at it was {46} quite sure of suggesting something of which you had not thought before.'

'He understood thoroughly,' continues Lord Derby, 'how important an element of administrative success is the conciliation of those with whom you have to deal; but the exercise of that power was with him not a matter of calculation, but the result of nature. He did and said generous things, not because it was politic, not because it was to his political interest, but because it was his nature, and he could not help it. I do not think he had in the world a personal enemy; and so far as it is possible to speak of that which is pa.s.sing in another man's mind, I should say he had never known what it was to harbour against any person a feeling of resentment. We who acted with him in Irish matters can bear witness to his firmness when firmness was necessary, to the soundness of his judgment in difficulties--and difficulties just then were not unfrequent--and, above all, to that coolness which was never more marked than in critical moments.'

'As the chief of a great office,' writes one well competent to speak, 'he had the finest qualities. Early in his habits, regular in his work, and unceasing in industry, he set a great example; and he knew, somehow or other, the secret of getting out of every one under him the maximum of work which each might be capable of. He had a faculty which I have never observed so fully developed in any one else, of detecting a single blunder in the papers before {47} him. I have seen him open a large file of doc.u.ments, and almost immediately hit upon an inaccuracy, either in the text or in the subject-matter. I once handed him a long Bill, revised with great care by the Crown lawyers, and saw him discover in almost an instant of time what proved to be the only clerical error in it. He was my idea of a great head of a department, knowing every branch of the work, familiar with almost everything that had been done by his predecessors, and always ready to meet and to overcome difficulties.'

This facility of work was no doubt largely due to the fact that Lord Naas held only one office, and that he held it each time when his party came into power during twenty years. He made Ireland his speciality from the first, and the Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p, with its rules, precedents, and every detail of its duties, sat as familiarly on him as the clothes he wore.

In 1859 his party went out, and during the next seven years Lord Naas was again the Parliamentary leader of the Irish Conservatives in opposition. He had no enemies except among the more extreme parties of his countrymen on either side. His political opponents frequently consulted him, and have been ready to acknowledge the practical hints which they obtained from him. The truth is, as the colleague already quoted says, that he was more anxious to obtain good measures for Ireland than careful as to the party whence they might come. Indeed, his maiden speech in 1849 had been in support of the {48} Ministry to whom he was politically opposed; and although his official connection with his own party afterwards placed a fitting reticence on his words when he disagreed with it, he was ever willing to help any one whom he thought was doing real work for Ireland.

During these years of opposition, he spoke vigorously upon the Irish prison system, poor relief, national and mixed education, police, agricultural statistics, registration Acts, and many other questions connected with his own country. He was not a brilliant orator, but he put forward his views with sense and firmness, and always spoke with a perfect knowledge of the facts. When the Conservatives again came into power in 1866, Lord Derby for the third time offered him the Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p, with a seat in the Cabinet, and in that office he remained until he left for India in 1868. This marks the period of his greatest political activity. A bare list of the measures which he introduced into Parliament, or carried out in his executive capacity, would fill many pages. The subjects were the same as before, and they dealt with almost every side of the condition and wants of Ireland.

These years are chiefly remembered in England by the Fenian agitations, which, both before and after that time have, under one name or another, perplexed Irish Ministers. But in Ireland they are known as years of well-planned improvement in the practical administration.

'In 1867,' writes one of his colleagues during this {49} trying period, 'he had no fewer than thirty-five Bills in preparation. I often wondered how one man could carry so much in his head about matters so different in their nature and so difficult in themselves.

Yet I always found him perfectly conversant with each, prepared on the moment to discuss any change I might suggest, and ready with a reason why he had not framed his instructions on the plan I might propose. He never lost his presence of mind. I well remember one morning in March, 1867, I received a message at an early hour from Lord Naas, saying that he would like to see me. When I entered his room at the Irish Office, he was sitting at a table writing a letter, looking uncommonly well and fresh, and quite composed and quiet. He handed me a telegram, and went on with his writing. I read that during the night there had been a rising of Fenians near Dublin. I confess I was considerably agitated, and did not conceal it. I shall never forget the demeanour of Lord Naas. He had lost not a moment in sending a copy of the telegram to Her Majesty, and preparing the case for the Cabinet. What puzzled him more than anything was the sudden stoppage of any further news. We telegraphed again and again, but it was not till late in the afternoon that any clear answers were received. He issued all the orders with the same quiet and precision as if dealing with ordinary work. He had at once determined to go that night to Ireland, and to remain there till order was restored.

{50} 'He had perfect confidence in his arrangements, and he declared that the insurrection could never a.s.sume any serious importance. But he was uneasy for the safety of persons living in isolated parts, and about the small bands of villains who would use a political disturbance as a shelter for local crimes. He said: ”I dread more than anything else that a panic will be fed by newspaper reports, and that an outcry may get up that Ireland ought to be declared in a state of siege, and military law proclaimed. To this I will never yield, although I know my refusal will be misrepresented, and may for the moment intensify the alarm.”'

It is unnecessary in a personal narrative to repeat what followed in the Fenian camp. 'The insurrection,' continues his colleague, 'if it may be dignified by that name, was immediately stamped out. Lord Naas put it down in his own way, yielding neither to threats nor entreaties; acting wisely and firmly, and allowing himself to be influenced neither by newspaper panics, nor by patriots in the House of Commons, nor by rebels outside it. When he returned to London, he went on with his Government Bills precisely as if nothing had happened, and no fewer than eighteen of his measures prepared in that year received the Royal a.s.sent.'

In January, 1867, his mother died. His father survived her only six months, and on 12th August, 1867, Lord Naas succeeded as sixth Earl of Mayo.

Meanwhile, the Conservative Ministry were in a {51} minority in the House of Commons. It became clear in 1868 that a general attack might be expected, and that the Opposition would select Irish ground.

Accordingly, in that session Mr. Maguire, then member for Cork, moved for a committee of the whole House to consider the state of Ireland.

On this occasion Lord Mayo was made the mouthpiece of the Government.

His speech, although not successful as a Parliamentary utterance at the moment, forms a most valuable contribution to the political history of Ireland.

'This speech,' writes one who was then a.s.sociated with him, 'required very careful preparation. Lord Mayo proposed to show how, notwithstanding Fenianism and local disaffection, the general prosperity of Ireland was steadily increasing. This he unquestionably proved by facts, statistics, and arguments. The collecting and arranging of the facts would have tried a man in full health. And unhappily, Lord Mayo was at that time very far from well. The day before, he could not leave his house, and the day of his speech he was only a trifle better. He spent the whole twelve hours in checking his materials and figures, and, according to his custom while thus engaged, ate nothing. When he rose to speak, he was both ill and weak, and at one time could hardly proceed. It may be easily understood that he failed to give life or pleasantness to the dry details with which he had to trouble the House. As a matter of fact, the speech, although sound and complete in {52} itself, proved a long and heavy one to the listeners. But when read afterwards, it struck us all as forming, in point of knowledge, truth, care, and logic, a complete answer to the charges brought by the Opposition.'

Lord Mayo himself felt very unhappy about it for some days. The fact seems to have been, that it was one of those speeches which, from the number and complexity of the details involved, are better read than heard. It is now an accepted authority regarding the state of Ireland, and a permanent storehouse of facts to which both parties resort.[9] At the time it led to a rumour that Lord Mayo was leading on to the policy known as 'levelling up.' 'It was his wish,' writes one who knew his mind, 'that grants of public money might be made to inst.i.tutions without respect to creed, whether Catholic or Protestant, established for the education, relief, or succour of his fellow-countrymen; and that no school, hospital, or asylum should languish because of the religious teaching it afforded, or because of the religion of those who conducted it. He would even, I think, have gladly seen such of the revenues of the Irish Church as might not be absolutely wanted for its maintenance applied to these purposes. So far, but so far only, he was for levelling up.'

[Footnote 9: See, for example, Earl Russell's _Recollections and Suggestions_, p. 344.]

The feeling which, ten years before, forced itself on him during his second tenure of office, as to the difficulty of doing any real good for Ireland, had {53} deepened since. The interval in opposition, and his experience as Chief Secretary for the third time, impressed him more strongly than ever with the necessity of Irish reform, and at the same time more keenly with the unlikelihood of his being permitted to effect it. So far as I am competent to hazard an opinion, it seems to me that his views went too far for his own friends, and not far enough to take the matter out of the hands of the other great party, to whom the task of more radical legislation for Ireland soon afterwards fell.

The sense of the English nation, moreover, appears to have been that the work would be best done by those whose general policy identified them with liberal measures. Lord Mayo believed intensely in the need of such measures for Ireland; but he did not belong to the reforming party in England, nor was it possible for him to frame a plan which would satisfy that party and at the same time retain the support of his own. It only remained for him to go on with his work faithfully, with however heavy a heart. Estimated by the number of Acts which he prepared and pa.s.sed through Parliament, or by the executive improvements made in the Irish Administration, these three years (1866-68) were the most useful ones in his English career. But, judged by what he had hoped to effect, and what he now felt it impossible to accomplish, they were years of frustration and painful self-questioning. Shortly afterwards, with the bitterness of this period fresh in his memory, he {54} wrote to a brother who had just entered Parliament for an English const.i.tuency: 'I advise you to leave Ireland alone. There is no credit to be got by interfering with her politics, and your position does not make it your duty to do so.'