Part 6 (2/2)
It may interest readers in the Colonies to learn that the Government thoughtfully pa.s.sed a Registration of t.i.tles Act in 1891; so that the Irish purchasers under the various Land Acts have the benefits which were first introduced in Australia by Sir Robert Torrens.
The Act of 1903 had the cordial support of a small minority of Nationalists; but to the majority it was gall and wormwood. Hence Mr.
Birrell, when he became Chief Secretary, threw every obstacle he could into the way of its working; and in 1909 he pa.s.sed a new measure, under which land purchase has practically ceased.
(3)_The development of the Industries of the Country_. That has of course taken various forms, of which only a few can be mentioned here.
By the Light Railways (for which the country has to thank Mr. Balfour himself) remote and hitherto inaccessible districts have been brought into touch with the rest of the world; and by an expenditure of 2,106,000 the railway mileage of Ireland has been increased from 2,643 miles in 1890 to 3,391 in 1906. Then it is hardly too much to say that the Labourers' Cottages Act, and the grants made under it, have transformed the face of the country.
By this Act, District Councils are enabled, in localities where accommodation for labourers is insufficient, to take land compulsorily and erect cottages, the money advanced by the Government for the purpose being gradually repaid by the ratepayers. The wretched hovels which were the disgrace of Ireland from the dawn of history until a period within living memory, have almost disappeared; and comfortable, sanitary and pleasing dwellings have taken their place.
Even this excellent Act, however, is now used by the Nationalists to further their own objects. One instance may suffice. In 1907 a farmer fell under the ban of the League and was ordered to be boycotted. The District Council found that one occupant of a ”Labourer's Cottage”
disregarded the order and continued to work for the boycotted farmer.
They promptly evicted him. What would be said in England if a Tory landlord evicted a cottager for working for a Radical farmer?
But even more important than these measures has been the establishment of the Department of Agriculture. The success of this has been due to the ability, energy and unselfishness of Sir Horace Plunkett. The main object of the Department was to instruct the farming cla.s.ses in the most effective methods of agriculture and the industries connected with it. This by itself would have been a great work; but Sir Horace has also founded the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, to encourage co-operative organization amongst farmers, based on the principle of mutual help; and the success of this, worked in conjunction with the Department, has been marvellous. More than nine hundred local societies have been established, for the promotion of industries such as dairying and poultry farming; co-operative credit banks have been formed, based on what is known in Germany as the Raffeisen system. The turnover of these societies in 1908 amounted to more than 2,250,000. Agricultural Organization Societies, in imitation of the Irish one, have been formed in England and Scotland; and so far did its fame reach that the Americans sent over an agent to enquire into its working.
Of course it is unfair to attribute the prosperity or the decline of a country to any one measure; and more than that, it is only by taking into consideration a number of circ.u.mstances and a long term of years that we can decide whether prosperity is real or merely transitory.
But that Ireland increased in prosperity under the influence of the Unionist Government, cannot be denied; indeed Mr. Redmond, when shepherding the Eighty Club (an English Radical Society) through Ireland in 1911, did not deny the prosperity of the country, and could only suggest that the same reforms would have been introduced and better carried out under an Irish Parliament--regardless of the facts that no Nationalist Government could have found the money for them; and that Nationalists are orators and politicians, not men of business. The combined value of exports and imports rose from 104,000,000 in 1904 to 125,000,000 in 1909; and the gross receipts on railways from 4,140,000 to 11,335,000. The deposits in savings banks rose from 3,128,000 in 1888 to 10,627,000 in 1908. The tonnage of s.h.i.+pping in Irish ports was 11,560,000 in 1900; in 1910 it was 13,475,000.
Sir Horace had done his utmost to prevent the curse of political strife from entering into his agricultural projects. He had been careful to appoint Nationalists to some of the most important offices in his Department, and to show no more favour to one part of the country than another. But all in vain; the National League, when their friends returned to power, at once resolved to undo his labours, some of them openly saying that the increased attention devoted to trade and agriculture was turning men's thoughts away from the more important work of political agitation. Mr. T.W. Russell, a man totally ignorant of agricultural affairs, whose only claim to the office was that he was a convert to Nationalism, was appointed in place of Sir Horace. He promptly declined to continue to the Agricultural Organization Society the support which it had previously received from the Department; and, with the aid of the United Irish League, succeeded in preventing the Society from receiving a grant from the Board of Agriculture similar to those given to the English and Scotch societies; threw discredit on the Co-operative Credit Banks, and denounced the Co-operative Farming Societies as injurious to local shopkeepers. And thus he made it clear that it is impossible in Ireland to conduct even such a business as the development of agriculture without stirring up political bitterness.
Another effort of Mr. Balfour's--the establishment of the Congested Districts Board--has had a strange and instructive history. It was established in 1891. Mr. Balfour decided to entrust to a small body of Irishmen, selected irrespective of party considerations, the task of making an experiment as to what could be done to relieve the poorest parts of Ireland; and with this object, the Board, though endowed with only small funds, were given the widest powers over the area within which they were to operate. They were empowered to take such steps as they thought proper for (1) Aiding migration or emigration from the congested districts, and settling the migrant or emigrant in his new home; and (2) Aiding and developing agriculture, forestry, and breeding of live stock and poultry, weaving, spinning, fis.h.i.+ng (including the construction of piers and harbours, and supplying fis.h.i.+ng boats and gear and industries subservient to and connected with fis.h.i.+ng), and any other suitable industries. Both the powers and the revenues of the Board were increased from time to time, until by 1909 its annual expenditure amounted to nearly 250,000. It became clear almost at the beginning of its labours that amongst the many difficulties which the Board would have to face there were two pre-eminent ones; if it was desired to enlarge uneconomic holdings by removing a part of the population to other districts, the people to be removed might not wish to go; and the landless men in the district to which they were to be removed might say that they had a better right to the land than strangers from a distance, and the result might be a free fight. As the only chance of success for the labours of the Board was the elimination of party politics, Mr. J. Morley, on becoming Chief Secretary in the Gladstonian Government of 1892, appointed as Commissioners Bishop O'Donnell of Raphoe (the Patron of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and a Trustee of the Parliamentary Fund of the United Irish League); and the Rev. D. O'Hara, a leading Clerical Nationalist of a violent type. It is needless to say that under their influence the action of the Board has been conducted on strictly Nationalist lines. One instance may suffice. In 1900, the Board, having come into the possession of the Dillon estate, wished to sell it to the tenants; and when doing so, considering the sporting rights to be a valuable a.s.set, decided to reserve them. A considerable number of the tenants expressed their readiness to purchase their holdings subject to the reservation. The Board received an offer of 11,000 for the mansion, demesne and sporting rights over the estate. The reservation of sporting rights when, taking the whole estate, they were of pecuniary value, had been the common practice of the Board in other sales; but an agitation was at once got up (not by the tenants) against the reservation in this case, on the ground that it was not right for the Board to place any burden on the fee simple of the holdings; the offer of 11,000 was refused, and soon afterwards the Board sold the mansion and the best part of the demesne to a community of Belgian nuns for 2,100. The sporting rights, which became the property of the purchasing tenants, ceased to be of any appreciable pecuniary value, though in a few cases the tenants succeeded in selling their share of them for small sums to local agitators. When a witness before the Royal Commission of 1906 ventured to point out that the taxpayers thus lost 8,900 by the transaction, he was severely rebuked by the Clerical members of the Commission for suggesting that the presence of the Belgian nuns was not a great benefit to the neighbourhood.
This Royal Commission was appointed ostensibly for the purpose of enquiring into and reporting upon the operations of the Board since its foundation. After going through a ma.s.s of evidence, the Chairman (Lord Dudley) said that the Board had tried for twenty years to develop new industries and had failed; and another member (Lord MacDonnell) said that it had only touched the fringe of the question; and, considering that in spite of all its efforts at promoting local industries, emigration continued to be greater from the district subject to its control than from any other part of Ireland, it is hard to see what other view was possible. But the large majority of the Commission were ardent Nationalists--in fact, one of them a short time before his appointment had publicly advocated an absolute, rigorous, complete and exhaustive system of boycotting; and the witness who spoke for the United Irish League told the Commission that it was the strong view of the League that the Board should be preserved. It was only natural therefore that the Commission should report that in their opinion the powers and scope of its operations should be extended and its income largely increased. This was accordingly done by the Birrell Act of 1909. One of the most important functions of the Board was the purchase of land, for which they possessed compulsory powers. The witness who had appeared before the Commission as representing the United Irish League was Mr. FitzGibbon, Chairman of the Roscommon County Council, and now a Member of Parliament. He had previously been sent to prison for inciting to the Plan of Campaign, and for criminal conspiracy. He had also taken a leading part in the cattle-driving agitation (to which I shall refer later) and had announced that his policy was ”to enable the Board to get land at f.a.g-end prices.” He was therefore appointed by Mr. Birrell to be a member of the Board, as being a suitable person to decide what compensation should be paid for land taken compulsorily. He publicly stated that his object was to carry out the great work of Michael Davitt. And he certainly has been active in doing so; and now the agitators, when they want to have an estate transferred to the Board, commence by preventing its being let or used, and so compelling the owner to leave it derelict and unprofitable; then, when by every description of villainy and boycotting it has been rendered almost worthless, the Congested Districts Board (who have carefully lain by until then) step in with a preposterous offer which the unfortunate owner has no choice but to accept. This may appear strong language to use with reference to a Government Department presided over by Roman Catholic bishops and priests; but the words are not mine; they are taken from the judgment of Mr. Justice Ross, in the case of the Browne Estate.
At any rate, whatever else the Congested Districts Board may have achieved, they have done one good thing; they have shown to Unionists in Ireland what the principles of justice are by which the Nationalist Government will be conducted.
(4) The fourth division of the Unionist policy was the extension of local government. By the Act of 1898 County and District Councils were formed, like those which had been existing in England for a few years previously; and the powers of the old Grand Juries (who it was admitted had done their work well, but were now objected to on principle as not being elected bodies) were abolished. The importance of the measure can hardly be overestimated; for not only did it re-organize local government on what would elsewhere be a democratic but is in Ireland a Clerical basis; but also it may be described as Home Rule on a small scale. By examining into the practical working of the scheme we may form an idea as to what Home Rule is likely to be; and both parties refer to it as a ground for their opinion. It is curious now to note that it was Gerald Balfour, the Unionist Chief Secretary, who, when introducing the measure, appealed to the Irish gentry not to stand aloof from the new order of things, but to seek from the suffrages of their fellow-citizens that position which no others were so well qualified to fill as themselves--in much the same way that English Radical orators now accuse the Ulstermen of want of patriotism when they declare that they will never take part in a Nationalist Government. The Nationalists were of course loud in their protestations that in the n.o.ble work of local government all narrow political and sectarian bitterness would be put aside, and all Irishmen irrespective of creed, cla.s.s or party would be welcome to take part--just as they are now when they promise the same about the National Parliament. Thus J. Redmond said:
”No man's politics or religion will be allowed to be a bar to him if he desires to serve his country on one of the new bodies. Men of different creeds, who have had an almost impa.s.sable gulf between them all their lives, will be brought together for the first time in the working of this scheme of Local Government.... On every one of the juries in Ireland there have been county gentlemen who have shown the greatest apt.i.tude for business, the greatest industry, and the greatest ability; and I say it would be a monstrous thing if, by working the election of these County Councils on narrow sectarian or political lines, men of that cla.s.s were excluded from the service of their country.”
And another Nationalist Member added: ”We are anxious for the co-operation of those who have leisure, wealth and knowledge.” Irish Unionists who refused to believe these a.s.surances were denounced by Nationalists as bigots and humbugs. The value of the a.s.surances of 1912 may be gauged by the manner in which those of 1898 have been fulfilled. At the election of 1899 a few Protestants and Unionists were returned. But the general feeling of the newly-formed Councils may be gathered from the following resolution which was pa.s.sed by the Mayo County Council in that year:
”That we, the members of the Mayo County Council, congratulate the gallant Boers on their brilliant defeats of the troops of the pirate Saxon. That we hope that a just Providence will strengthen the arms of these farmer fighters in their brave struggle for their independence. And we trust that as Babylon fell, and as Rome fell, so also may fall the race and nation whose creed is the creed of greed, and whose G.o.d is the G.o.d of Mammon.”
And by 1902, when the next triennial elections were coming on, the mask was thrown off. The _Freeman's Journal_ (the princ.i.p.al Nationalist organ) said:--
”In every County or District Council where a landlord, however amiable, or personally estimable, offers himself for election, the answer of the majority must be the same: 'No admittance here.'”
And J. Redmond stated the case still more plainly:
”We have in our hands a weapon recently won, the full force of which is not yet, I believe, thoroughly understood by the English Government or by ourselves. I mean the weapon of freely-elected County Councils and District Councils who to-day form a network of National organizations all over Ireland, and who to-morrow, I doubt not, if the other organizations were struck, would be willing to come forward and take their place, and, in their Council Chambers, carry on the National work.”
Pledges in the following form were presented for signature to all candidates by the United Irish League (except of course in north-east Ulster):--
”I ---- hereby pledge myself, if elected to represent the ---- Division on the County Council, to promote the interests of the United Irish League, and to resign my position whenever called upon to do so by the ---- Divisional Executive.”
So completely has the policy been carried out that by 1911, to quote the words of Mr. FitzGibbon, M.P. (to whom I have previously referred):--
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