Part 8 (1/2)
Then Secondary Schools have been established for the same object. The _Irish Educational Review_ recently contained the following account of one of them:--
”At Ring, in the County Waterford, there is already in existence an Irish secondary school where cla.s.sics, modern languages and all the usual secondary school subjects are taught and where Irish and English fill their rightful places, the former being the ordinary language of the school, the latter a foreign language on no higher level than French or German.”
The Act of 1909, which founded the ”National” University (to which I shall refer again), gave power to County Councils to levy a rate for scholars.h.i.+ps. Immediately the Gaelic League saw their opportunity.
They endeavoured to persuade the Councils to refuse to do so unless Irish were made compulsory at the University. The Councils generally (except of course in Ulster) agreed to the plan; but some of them (such as the Kildare Council) were faced by a difficulty. Not a single child in the county spoke Irish; and so if that language were made compulsory, no one could compete for the scholars.h.i.+ps. So they compromised matters, by deciding that they would levy a rate if Irish were made compulsory after 1915, by which time some of the young people in the county would have been able to learn it; and the University agreed to do so.
This rating power, I may remark, looks extremely liberal as it appears in the Act; for the scholars.h.i.+ps are to be tenable at any University.
The Irish Unionist members, knowing quite well how it would be worked, opposed the clause; and as usual were denounced as bigots and fanatics. It is needless to add that as soon as the Act came into force, County Councils and Corporations at once pa.s.sed resolutions that scholars.h.i.+ps derived from the rates should not be tenable at Trinity College, Dublin, or at Belfast, but only at the National University--thus practically saying that no Protestants need compete.
Beyond forcing the children to acquire a smattering of Irish, it cannot be said that so far the efforts of the League as to the language have been very successful; for the census returns show that the proportion of the population who could speak Irish in 1891 was 14'5; in 1901, 14'4; and in 1911, 13'3; and the numbers who spoke Irish only fell from 20,953 in 1901 to 16,870 in 1911.
But the efforts of the League are not confined to the language.
English games, such as cricket, are forbidden; if football is played, it must be the Gaelic variety with rules totally different from those observed by the hated Saxon. Even the patients in asylums are forbidden to play cricket or lawn tennis. And some of the more enthusiastic members of the League have actually ”donned the saffron,”
in imitation of the Ersefied Normans of 400 years ago. However, it is so hideously ugly, and so suggestive of the obnoxious Orange, that that phase of the movement is not likely to extend.
Even the ”Boy Scout” movement has been made use of for the same object. As soon as some corps had been established in Ireland, the Nationalists started a rival organization with an Irish name, in which all the boys solemnly undertake to work for the independence of Ireland, and never to join England's armed forces. The boys take a prominent part in the annual ceremonies in honour of Wolfe Tone, the Manchester martyrs, and other Nationalist heroes.
The whole thing would be laughable if it were not so very sad. Even such matters as sports and education, where all creeds and parties might be expected to work together amicably, must be used as instruments to bring about separation; and the result already is not so much to widen the gulf between Ireland and England as the gulf between the two parties in Ireland; for the Protestant minority in the south, who know that most of their children will have to leave the country, are not likely to let them fritter away their youth in the study of a language which can be of no possible benefit to them in any part of the world to which they may go; and the idea that the Ulstermen will ever adopt a Celtic tongue is too ridiculous to be considered. But perhaps the most painful thought of all is that the Nationalists should be ready even to sacrifice the prospects in life of the rising generation of the country in order to satisfy their blind hatred of England.
CHAPTER XIII.
IRELAND UNDER THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT.
I come now to the policy which has been pursued by the present Government since 1906. It must be remembered that the Radical party returned to power pledged to Home Rule as a principle, but with a sufficient majority to enable them to retain office without depending on the Irish vote. Hence there was no necessity for them to introduce a Home Rule Bill; but of course they set aside the policy of the Unionist Government, and resolved to govern Ireland according to their own ideas. What those ideas were, and what the result has been, I shall now proceed to show; but in doing so I shall as far as possible confine myself to quotations and statistics which can be verified, so that I may not be accused of giving an unfair report.
The Chief Secretary for the first year was Mr. Bryce, who was afterwards appointed British Amba.s.sador at Was.h.i.+ngton. The Government at once repealed the Act which forbade the carrying of arms without a licence; withdrew all proclamations under the Crimes Act of 1887; and resolved not to stop any political meetings. Accordingly the Nationalists commenced holding a series of demonstrations all over the country. A few specimens taken from the speeches made at them will suffice to show their general tenour.
”Let them all be ready, and when England got into trouble with European Powers, they would pounce upon her with the ferocity of a tiger.”--_T. Walsh, District Councillor._
”They must stand together as one man, and make it impossible for England to govern Ireland.”--_P. White, M.P._
”If there had been 100,000 Fenians in Ireland at the time of the Boer War there might now have been a Republic in Ireland, and British supremacy would have been tumbled in the dust.”--_J. Daly, formerly Mayor of Limerick._
And Mr. Bryce, when leaving Ireland at the end of the year, stated that he had not found any harm in any of the speeches delivered at the meetings.
At this time the agitation began to a.s.sume a new form. One of the most important of Irish industries is the cattle trade with England, the annual value of which exceeds 14,000,000. In several parts of Ireland, notably in Meath and the central counties, the soil and climate are specially suited for cattle raising, and the land is generally held in large grazing farms. It was decided by the Nationalists in the autumn of 1906 that this industry must be destroyed. Bodies of men a.s.sembled night after night to break down the fences and gates of the farms and drive the cattle many miles away, in order that the farmers might be ruined and forced to leave the country; and then the derelict farms would be divided amongst the ”landless men.” L. Ginnell, M.P., explained the programme fully in a speech he made in October 1906:--
”The ranches must be broken up, not only in Westmeath but throughout all Ireland ... He advised them to stamp out the ranch demon themselves, and not leave an alien Parliament to do the duty ... He advised them to leave the ranches unfenced, unused and unusable ... so that no man or demon would dare to stand another hour between the people and the land that should be theirs.”
The agitation, commencing in Meath, was gradually extended, county by county, over a large part of Ireland where the Nationalists are supreme. Other measures were resorted to, in order to carry out their object. Arson, the burning of hayricks, firing into dwelling-houses, spiking meadows, the mutilation of horses and cows, the destruction of turf, the damaging of machinery, and various other forms of lawless violence began to increase and multiply. At the Spring a.s.sizes in 1907, the Chief Justice, when addressing the Grand Jury at Ennis, in commenting on the increasing need for placing law-abiding people under special police protection, said:--
”In a s.h.i.+re in England, if it was found necessary, either by special protection or protection by patrol, to protect from risk of outrage thirty persons, what would be thought?”
And Mr. Justice Kenny at Leitrim, after commenting upon the increased number of specially reported cases, as shown by the official statistics, and alluding to several cases of gross intimidation, said:--