Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) by William Henry Hurlbert

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Upon this third point, a correspondence which passed between Father
White and Colonel Turner, after the conviction of the boycotters of Mrs.
Connell, and copies of which the latter has handed to me at my request,
throws an instructive light.

When the report of January 31st reached him, Colonel Turner ordered the
tradespeople implicated in the persecution to be proceeded against. Six
of them were put on their trials on the 3d and 4th of February. All the
shops in Milltown Malbay were closed, by order of the local League,
during the trial, and the police and the soldiers called in were refused
all supplies.

On the 4th, one of the persons arraigned was bound over for
intimidation, and the five others were sentenced to three months'
imprisonment with hard labour.

A week later, February 11th, Colonel Turner addressed the following
letter to Father White, twenty-six publicans of Milltown Malbay having
meanwhile been prosecuted for boycotting the police and the soldiers:--

"DEAR SIR,--I write to you as a clergyman who possesses great
influence with the people in your part of the country, to put it to
you whether it would not be better for the interests of all
concerned if the contemptible system of petty persecution, called
boycotting, were put an end to in and about Milltown Malbay, which
would enable me to drop prosecutions. If it is not put a stop to, I
am determined to stamp it out, and restore to all the ordinary
rights of citizenship.

"But I should very greatly prefer that the people should stop it
themselves, and save me from taking strong measures, which I should
deplore. The story of a number of men combining to persecute a poor
old woman is one of the most pitiful I ever heard.--I am, sir, yours
truly,

ALFRED TURNER."

As the cost of the extra policemen sent to Milltown Malbay at this time
falls upon the people there, this letter in effect offered the priest an
opportunity to relieve his parish of a burden as well as to redeem its
character.

The next day Father White replied:--

"DEAR SIR,--No one living is more anxious for peace in this district
than I. During very exciting times I have done my best to keep it
free from outrage, and with success, except in one mysterious
instance.[20] There is but one obstacle to it now. If ever you can
advise Mrs. Moroney to restore the evicted tenant, whose rent you
admitted was as high as Colonel O'Callaghan's, I can guarantee on
the part of the people the return of good feelings; or, failing
that, if she and her employees are content with the goods which she
has of all kinds in her own shop, there need be no further trouble.

"I have a promise from the people that the police will be supplied
for the future. This being so, if you will kindly have prosecutions
withdrawn, or even postponed for say a month, it will very much
strengthen me in the effort I am making to calm down the feeling.
Regarding Mrs. Connell, the head-constable was told by me that she
was to get goods, and she did get bread, till the police went round
with her. This upset my arrangements, as I had induced the people to
give her what she might really want. In fact she was a convenience
to Mrs. Moroney for obvious reasons, and her son is now in her
employment in place of Kelly, who has been dismissed since his very
inconvenient evidence. It is, and was, well known they were not
starving as they said, they having a full supply of their accustomed
food.--Thanking you for your great courtesy, I am, dear sir, truly
yours,

"J. White."

On the 14th Colonel Turner replied:--

"My dear Sir,--We cannot adjourn the cases. But if those who are
prosecuted are prepared to make reparation by promising future good
conduct in Court, I can then see my way to interfere, and to prevent
them from suffering imprisonment.

"These cases have nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Moroney.[21] They
are simply between the defendants and the police and other
officials, who were at Milltown Malbay that day. I am greatly
pleased at your evident wish to co-operate with me in calming down
the ill-feeling which unfortunately exists, and I am satisfied that
success will attend our efforts."

On Thursday and Friday last, as I have recorded, the cases came on of
the twenty-six publicans charged. Between February 4th, when the
offences were committed, and the 17th of February, one of these
publicans had died, one had fled to America, and there proved to be an
informality in the summons issued against a third. Twenty-three only
were put upon their trial. As I have stated, one was acquitted and the
others were found guilty, and sentenced to be imprisoned. In accordance
with his promise made to Father White, Colonel Turner offered to relieve
them all of the imprisonment if they would sign an undertaking in Court
not to repeat the offence. Ten, the most prosperous and substantial of
the accused, accepted this offer and signed, as has been already stated.
One, a woman, was discharged without being required to sign the
guarantee, the other eleven refused to sign, and were sent to prison.
Father White, whose own evidence given at the trial, as his letter to
Colonel Turner would lead one to expect, had gone far to prove the
existence of the conspiracy, encouraged the eleven in their attitude.

This was his way of "co-operating" with Colonel Turner to "calm down the
ill-feeling which exists"!

During the morning Mrs. Stacpoole sent for the clerk and manager of the
estate, and asked him to show me the books. He is a native of these
parts, by name Considine, and has lived at Edenvale for eighteen years.
In his youth he went out to America, but there found out that he had a
"liver," an unpleasant discovery, which led him to return to the land of
his birth, and to the service of Mr. Stacpoole. He is perfectly familiar
with the condition of the country here, and as the accounts of this
estate are kept minutely and carefully from week to week, he was able
this morning to show me the current prices of all kinds of farm produce
and of supplies in and about Ennis--not estimated prices, but prices
actually paid or received in actual transactions during the last ten
years. I am surprised to see how narrow has been the range of local
variations during that time; and I find Mr. Considine inclined to think
that the farmers here have suffered very little, if at all, from these
fluctuations, making up from time to time on their reduced expenses what
they have lost through lessened receipts. The expenses of the landlord
have however increased, while his receipts have fallen off. In 1881
Edenvale paid out for labour L466, 0s. 1-1/2d., in 1887 L560, 6s.
3-1/2d., though less labour was employed in 1887 than in 1881. The wages
of servants, where any change appears, have risen. In 1881 a gardener
received L14 a year, in 1888 he receives 15s. a week, or at the rate of
L39 a year. A housemaid receiving L12 a year in 1881, receives now L17 a
year. A butler receiving in 1881 L26 a year, now receives L40 a year. A
kitchen maid receiving in 1881 L6, now receives L10, 10s. a year.
Meanwhile, the Sub-Commissioners are at this moment cutting down the
Edenvale rents again by L190, 3s. 2d., after a walk over the property in
the winter. Yet in July 1883 Mr. Reeves, for the Sub-Commission,
"thought it right to say there was no estate in the County Clare so
fairly rented, to their knowledge, or where the tenants had less cause
for complaint." In but one case was a reduction of any magnitude made by
the Commission of 1883, and in one case that Commission actually
increased the rent from L11, 10s. to L16. In January 1883 the rental of
this property was L4065, 5s. 1d. The net reduction made by the
Commissioners in July 1883 was L296, 14s. 0-1/2d.

After luncheon a car came up to the mansion, bringing a stalwart,
good-natured-looking sergeant of police, and with him the boycotted old
woman Mrs. Connell and her son. The sergeant helped the old woman down
very tenderly, and supported her into the house. She came in with some
trepidation and uneasiness, glancing furtively all about her, with the
look of a hunted creature in her eyes. Her son, who followed her, was
more at his ease, but he also had a worried and careworn look. Both were
warmly but very poorly clad, and both worn and weatherbeaten of aspect.
The old woman might have passed anywhere for a witch, so wizened and
weird she was, of small stature, and bent nearly double by years and
rheumatism. Her small hands were withered away into claws, and her head
was covered with a thick and tangled mat of hair, half dark, half grey,
which gave her the look almost of the Fuegian savages who come off from
the shore in their flat rafts and clamour to you for "rum" in the
Straits of Magellan. Her eyes were intensely bright, and shone like hot
coals in her dusky, wrinkled face. It was a raw day, and she came in
shivering with the cold. It was pathetic to see how she positively
gloated with extended palms over the bright warm, fire in the
drawing-room, and clutched at the cup of hot tea which my kind hostess
instantly ordered in for her.

This was the woman of whom Mr. Redmond wrote to Mr. Parnell that she was
"an active strong dame of about fifty." When Mr. Balfour, in Parliament,
described her truly as a "decrepit old woman of eighty," Mr. Redmond
contradicted him, and accused her of being "the worse for liquor" in a
public court.

"How old is your mother?" I asked her son.

"I am not rightly sure, sir," he replied, "but she is more than eighty."

"The man himself is about fifty," said the sergeant; "he volunteered to
go to the Crimean War, and that was more than thirty years ago!"

"I did indeed, sir," broke in the man, "and it was from Cork I went. And
I'd be a corpse now if it wasn't for the mercy of God and the
protection. God bless the police, sir, that protected my old mother,
sir, and me. That Mr. Redmond, sir, they read me what he said, and sure
he should be ashamed of his shadow, to get up there in Parliament, and
tell those lies, sir, about my old mother!" I questioned Connell as to
his relations with Carroll, the man who brought him before the League.
He was a labourer holding a bit of ground under Carroll. Carroll refused
to pay his own rent to the landlord. But he compelled Connell to pay
rent to him. When Carroll was evicted, the landlord offered to let
Connell have half an acre more of land. He took it to better himself,
and "how did he injure Carroll by taking it?" How indeed, poor man! Was
he a rent-warner? Yes; he earned something that way two or three times
a year; and for that he had to ask the protection of the police--"they
would kill him else." What with worry and fright, and the loss of his
livelihood, this unfortunate labourer has evidently been broken down
morally and physically. It is impossible to come into contact with such
living proofs of the ineffable cowardice and brutality of this business
of "boycotting" without indignation and disgust.

While Connell was telling his pitiful tale a happy thought occurred to
the charming daughter of the house. Mrs. Stacpoole is a clever amateur
in photography. "Why not photograph this 'hale and hearty woman of
fifty,' with her son of fifty-three?" Mrs. Stacpoole clapped her hands
at the idea, and went off at once to prepare her apparatus.

While she was gone the sergeant gave me an account of the trial, which
Mr. Redmond, M.P., witnessed. He was painfully explicit. "Mr. Redmond
knew the woman was sober," he said; "she was lifted up on the table at
Mr. Redmond's express request, because she was so small and old, and
spoke in such a low voice that he could not hear what she said. Connell
had always been a decent, industrious fellow--a fisherman. But for the
lady, Mrs. Moroney, he and his mother would have starved, and would
starve now. As for the priest, Father White, Connell went to him to ask
his intercession and help, but he could get neither."

The sergeant had heard Father White preach yesterday. "It was a curious
sermon. He counselled peace and forbearance to the people, because they
might be sure the wicked Tory Government would very soon fall!"

Presently the sun came out with golden glow, and with the sun came out
Mrs. Stacpoole. It was a job to "pose" the subjects, the old woman
evidently suspecting some surgical or legal significance in the
machinery displayed, and her son finding some trouble in making her
understand what it meant. But finally we got the tall, personable
sergeant, with his frank, shrewd, sensible face, to put himself between
the two, in the attitude as of a guardian angel; the camera was nimbly
adjusted, and lo! the thing was done.

Mrs. Stacpoole thinks the operation promises a success. I suppose it
would hardly be civil to send a finished proof of the group to Mr. J.
Redmond, M.P.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

MR. GLADSTONE AND THE AMERICAN WAR. (Prologue, p. xxix.)

This statement as to the action of Lord Palmerston in connection with
Mr. Gladstone's Newcastle speech of October 7th, 1862, made upon the
authority of a British public man whose years and position entitle him
to speak with confidence on such a subject, appeared to me of so much
interest, that after sending it to the printer I caused search to be
made for the speech referred to as made by Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
My informant's statement was that Lord Palmerston insisted that Sir
George Lewis should find or make an immediate opportunity of covering
what Mr. Gladstone had said at Newcastle. He was angry about it, and his
anger was increased by an article which Mr. Delane printed in the
_Times_, intimating that Mr. Gladstone's speech was considered by many
people to be a betrayal of Cabinet secrets. Sir George Lewis was far
from well (he died the next spring), and reluctant to do what his chief
wished; but he did it on the 17th of October 1862 in a speech at
Hereford. Mr. Milner-Gibson was also put forward to the same end, and
after Parliament met, in February 1863, Mr. Disraeli gave the
Government a sharp lashing for sending one or two Ministers into the
country in the recess to announce that the Southern States would be
recognised, and then putting forward the President of the Board of Trade
(Milner-Gibson) to attack the Southern States and the pestilent
institution of slavery. Mr. Gladstone's speech at Newcastle, coming as
it did from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the close of a
session during which everybody knew that the Emperor of the French had
been urging upon England the recognition of the Confederate States, and
that Mr. Mason had been in active correspondence on that subject with
Lord Russell, was taken at Newcastle, and throughout the country, to
mean that the recognition was imminent. Mr. Gladstone even went so far
as to say he rather rejoiced that the Confederates had not been able to
hold Maryland, as that might have made them aggressive, and so made a
settlement more difficult, it being, he said, as certain as anything in
the future could be that the South must succeed in separating itself
from the Union. This remark about Maryland distinctly indicated
consultation as to what limits and boundaries between the South and the
North should be recognised in the recognition, and on that account, it
seems, was particularly resented by Earl Russell as well as by Lord
Palmerston.

Sir George Cornewall Lewis's speech of October 17, 1862, was a most
skilful and masterly attempt to protect the Cabinet against the
consequences of what the _Times_, on the 9th of October, had treated as
the "indiscretion or treason" of his colleague. But it did not save the
Government from the scourge of Mr. Disraeli, or much mitigate the effect
in America of Mr. Gladstone's performance at Newcastle, which was a much
more serious matter from the American point of view than any of the
speeches recently delivered about "Home Rule" in the American Senate
can be fairly said to be from the British point of view.

NOTE B.

MR. PARNELL AND THE DYNAMITERS. (Prologue, p. xxxiii.)

The relation of Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates to what is
called the extreme and "criminal" section of the Irish American
Revolutionary Party can only be understood by those who understand that
it is the ultimate object of this party not to effect reforms in the
administration of Ireland as an integral part of the British Empire, but
to sever absolutely the political connection between Ireland and the
British Empire. Loyal British subjects necessarily consider this object
a "criminal" object, just as loyal Austrian subjects considered the
object of the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 to be a "criminal" object.
But the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 did not accept this view of their
object. On the contrary, they held their end to be so high and holy that
it more or less sanctified even assassination when planned as a means to
that end. Why should the Italian Revolutionists of 1848 be judged by one
standard and the Irish Revolutionists of 1888 by another?

If Mr. Parnell and his Parliamentary associates were to declare in
unequivocal terms their absolute loyalty to the British Crown, and their
determination to maintain in all circumstances the political connection
between Great Britain and Ireland, they might or might not retain their
hold upon Mr. Davitt and upon their constituents in Ireland, but they
would certainly put themselves beyond the pale of support by the great
Irish American organisations. Nor do I believe they could retain the
confidence of those organisations if it were supposed that they really
regarded the most extreme and violent of the Irish Revolutionists, the
"Invincibles" and the "dynamiters" as "criminals," in the sense in which
the "Invincibles" and the "dynamiters" are so regarded by the rest of
the civilised world. Can it, for example, be doubted that any English or
Scottish public man who co-operates with Mr. Parnell and his
Parliamentary associates would instantly hand over to the police any
"Invincible" or "dynamiter" who might come within his reach? And can it
for a moment be believed that Mr. Parnell, or any one of his
Parliamentary associates, would do this? There are thousands of Irish
citizens in the United States who felt all the horror and indignation
expressed by Mr. Parnell at the murders in the Phoenix Park, but I
should be very much surprised to learn that any one of them all ever
did, or ever would do, anything likely to bring any one of the authors
of these murders to the bar of justice. Mr. Parnell and his
Parliamentary associates are held and bound by the essential conditions
of their political existence to treat with complaisance the most extreme
and violent men of their party. Nor is this true of them alone.

There is no more respectable body of men in the United States than the
Hibernian Society of Philadelphia. This society was instituted in 1771,
five years before the declaration of American Independence. It is a
charitable and social organisation only, with no political object or
colour. It is made up of men of character and substance. Its custom has
always been to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by a banquet, to which the
most distinguished men of the country have repeatedly been bidden.
Immediately after the inauguration of Mr. Cleveland as President, on
the 4th of March 1885, Mr. Bayard, the new Secretary of State of the
United States, was invited by this Society to attend its one hundred and
fourteenth banquet. It will be remembered that, on the 30th of May 1884,
London had been startled and shocked by an explosion of dynamite in St.
James's Square, which shattered many houses and inflicted cruel injuries
upon several innocent people. It was not so fatal to life as that
explosion at the Salford Barracks, which Mr. Parnell treated as a
"practical joke." But it excited lively indignation on both sides of the
Atlantic, and Mr. Bayard, who at that time was a Senator of the United
States, sternly denounced it and its authors on the floor of the
American Senate. What he had said as a Senator he thought it right to
repeat as the Foreign Secretary of the United States in his reply to the
invitation of the Hibernian Society in March 1885. This reply ran as
follows:--

"WASHINGTON, D.C., _March_ 9, 1885.

"NICHOLAS J. GRIFFIN, Esq., _Secretary of the Hibernian Society of
Philadelphia._

"Dear Sir,--I have your personal note accompanying the card of
invitation to dine with your ancient and honourable Society on their
one hundred and fourteenth anniversary, St. Patrick's Day, and I
sincerely regret that I cannot accept it. The obvious and many
duties of my public office here speak for themselves, and to none
with more force than to American citizens of Irish blood or birth
who are honestly endeavouring to secure liberty by maintaining a
government of laws, and who realise the constant attention that is
needful.

"In the midst of anarchical demonstrations which we witness in other
lands, and the echoes of which we can detect even here in our own
free country, where base and silly individuals seek to stain the
name of Ireland by associating the honest struggle for just
government with senseless and wicked crimes, there are none of our
citizens from whom honest reprobation can be more confidently
expected than from such as compose your respected and benevolent
Society. Those who worthily celebrate the birthday[22] of St.
Patrick will not forget that he drove out of Ireland the reptiles
that creep and sting.

"The Hibernian Society can contain no member who will not resent the
implication that sympathy with assassins can dwell in a genuine
Irish heart, which will ever be opposed to cruelty and cowardice,
whatever form either may take.

"Present to your Society my thanks for the kind remembrance, and
assure them of the good-will and respect with which I am--Your
obedient servant,

T.F. BAYARD."

What was the response of this Society, representing all the best
elements of the Irish American population of the United States, to this
letter of the Secretary of State, the highest executive officer of the
American Government after the President, upon whom under an existing law
the succession of the chief magistracy now devolves in the event of the
death or disability of the President and the Vice-President?

_The letter was not read at the banquet._

But it was given to the press by the officers of the Society, and the
most influential Irish American newspaper in the United States did not
hesitate to describe it as an "insulting letter," going to show that its
author was "an Englishman in spirit who will not allow any opportunity
to go by, however slight, without testifying his sympathy with the
British Empire and his antipathy for its foes."

This was capped by an American political journal which used the
following language: "Lord Granville himself would hardly strike a more
violent attitude against the dynamite section of the Irish people. When
Lord Wolseley, whom it is proposed to make Governor-General of the
Soudan, is offering a reward for the head of Ollivier Pain, it is hardly
in good taste for an American Secretary of State to condemn so bitterly
a class of Irishmen which, while it includes bad men no doubt, also
includes men who are moved by as worthy motives as Lord Wolseley."

In the face of this testimony to the "solidarity" of all branches of the
Irish revolutionary movement in America, how can Mr. Parnell, or any
other Parliamentary Irishman who depends upon Irish American support, be
expected by men of sense to condemn in earnest "the dynamite section of
the Irish people"?

NOTE C.

THE AMERICAN "SUSPECTS" OF 1881. (Prologue, p. xlvii.)

In his recently published and very interesting _Life of Mr. Forster_,
Mr. Wemyss Reid alludes to some action taken by the United States
Government in the spring of 1882 as one of the determining forces which
brought about the abandonment at that time by Mr. Gladstone of Mr.
Forster's policy in Ireland. Without pretending to concern myself here
with what is an essentially British question as between Mr. Forster and
Mr. Gladstone, it may be both proper and useful for me to throw some
light, not, perhaps, in the possession of Mr. Reid, upon the part taken
in this matter by the American Government. Sir William Harcourt's
"Coercion Bill" was passed on the 2d of March 1881, two days before the
inauguration of General Garfield as President of the United States. Mr.
Blaine, who was appointed by the new President to take charge of the
Foreign Relations of the American Government, received, on the 10th of
March, at Washington, a despatch written by Mr. Lowell, the American
Minister in London, on the 26th of February, being the day after the
third reading in the Commons of the "Coercion Bill." In this despatch
Mr. Lowell called the attention of the American State Department to a
letter from Mr. Parnell to the Irish National Land League, dated at
Paris, February 13, 1881, in which Mr. Parnell attempted to make what
Mr. Lowell accurately enough described as an "extraordinary" distinction
between "the American people" and "the Irish nation in America."

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