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

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"This double nationality," said Mr. Lowell, "is likely to be of great
practical inconvenience whenever the 'Coercion Bill' becomes law." By
"this double nationality" in this passage, the American Minister, of
course, meant "this claim of a double nationality;" for neither by Great
Britain nor by the United States is any man permitted to consider
himself at one and the same time a citizen of the American republic and
a subject of the British monarchy. Nor was he quite right in
anticipating "great practical inconvenience" from this "claim," upon
which neither the British nor the American Government for a moment
bestowed, or could bestow, the slightest attention.

The "great practical inconvenience" which, first to the American
Legation in England, then to the United States Government at Washington,
and finally to the Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone, did, however, arise from
the application of Sir William Harcourt's Coercion Act of 1881 to
American citizens in Ireland, had its origin not in Mr. Parnell's
preposterous idea of an Irish nationality existing in the United States,
but in the failure of the authorities of the United States to deal
promptly and firmly with the situation created for American citizens in
Ireland by the administration of Sir William Harcourt's Act.

As I have said, Sir William Harcourt's Act became law on the 2d of
March 1881, two days before the inauguration of President Garfield at
Washington. Without touching the question of the relations between Great
Britain and Ireland, and between the British Parliament and the Irish
National Land League, it was clearly incumbent upon the Secretary of
State of the United States, who entered upon his duties three days after
Sir William Harcourt's Bill went into force in Ireland, to inform
himself minutely and exactly as to the possible effects of that Bill
upon the rights and interests of American citizens travelling or
sojourning in that country. This was due not only to his own Government
and to its citizens, but to the relations which ought to exist between
his own Government and the Government of Great Britain. It was no affair
of an American Secretary of State either to impede or to further the
execution of "Coercion Acts" in Ireland against British subjects. But it
was his affair to ascertain without delay the nature and the measure of
any new and unusual perils, or "inconveniences," to which American
citizens in Ireland might be exposed in the execution there by the
British authorities of such Acts.

And it is on record, under his own hand, in a despatch to the American
Minister in London, dated May 26, 1881, that Mr. Blaine had not so much
as seen a copy of Sir William Harcourt's Coercion Act at that date,
three months after it had gone into effect; three months after many
persons claiming American citizenship had been arrested and imprisoned
under it; and two months after his own official attention had been
called by the American Minister in London, in an elaborate despatch, to
the arrest under it of one such person, a man of Irish birth, who based
his claim of American citizenship upon allegations of military service
during the Civil War, of residence and citizenship in New York, and of
the granting to him, by an American Secretary of State, of a citizen's
passport. And when he did finally take the trouble to look at this Act,
Mr. Elaine seems to have examined it so cursorily, and with such slight
attention, that he overlooked a provision made in it, under which, had
its true force and meaning been perceived by him, the State Department
of the United States might, in the early summer of 1881, have secured
for American citizens in Ireland the consideration due to them as the
citizens of a friendly State. A curious despatch from Mr. Sackville
West, the British Minister at Washington, to Earl Granville, published
in a British Blue-book now in my possession, plainly intimates that in
the summer of 1881 the American Secretary of State had given the British
Minister to understand that no representations made to him or to his
Government by the Government of the United States touching
American-Irish "suspects" need be taken at all seriously. The whole
diplomatic correspondence on this subject which went on between the two
Governments while Mr. Blaine was Secretary of State, from the 4th of
March 1881 to the 20th of December 1881, was of a sort to lull the
British Government into the belief that "suspects" might be freely and
safely arrested and locked up all over Ireland, with no more question of
their nationality than of any evidence to establish their guilt or their
innocence. During the whole of that time the State Department at
Washington seems to have substantially remained content with the
declaration of Earl Granville, in a letter sent to the American Legation
on the 8th of July 1881, four months after the Coercion Act went into
effect, that "no distinction could be made in the circumstances between
foreigners and British subjects, and that in the case of British
subjects the only information given was that contained in the warrant."

No fault can be found with the British Government for standing by this
declaration so long as it thus seemed to command the assent of the
Government of the United States.

But when Mr. Frelinghuysen was called into the State Department by
President Arthur in December 1881, to overhaul the condition into which
our foreign relations had been brought by his predecessor, he found that
in no single instance had Mr. Blaine succeeded in inducing the British
Government, either to release any American citizen arrested under a
general warrant without specific charges of criminal conduct, and on
"suspicion" in Ireland, or to order the examination of any such citizen.
The one case in which an American citizen arrested under the Coercion
Act in Ireland during Mr. Blaine's tenure of office had been liberated
when Mr. Frelinghuysen took charge of the State Department, was that of
Mr. Joseph B. Walsh, arrested at Castlebar, in Mayo, March 8, 1881, and
discharged by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, October 21, 1881, not
because he was an American citizen, nor after any examination, but
expressly and solely on the ground of ill-health.

When Mr. Frelinghuysen became Secretary of State in December 1881 the
Congress of the United States was in session. So numerous were the
American "suspects" then lying in prison in Ireland, some of whom had
been so confined for many months, that the doors of Congress were soon
besieged by angry demands for an inquiry into the subject. A resolution
in this sense was adopted by the House of Representatives, and
forwarded, through the American Legation in London, to the British
Foreign Office. Memorials touching particular cases were laid before
both Houses of the American Congress. On the 10th of February 1882, Mr.
Bancroft Davis, the Assistant-Secretary of State, instructed the
American Minister at London to take action concerning one such case, and
to report upon it. The Minister not moving more rapidly than he had been
accustomed to do under Mr. Blaine, Mr. Davis grew impatient, and on the
2d of March 1882 (being the anniversary of the adoption of the Coercion
Act in England) the American Secretary of State cabled to the Minister
in London significantly enough, "Use all diligence in regard to the late
cases, especially of Hart and M'Sweeney, and report by cable."

Mr. Lowell replied the next day, giving the views in regard to Hart of
the American Vice-Consul, and of the British Inspector of Police at
Queenstown, and adding an expression of his own opinion that neither
Hart nor M'Sweeney was "more innocent than the majority of those under
arrest."

This was an unfortunate despatch. It roused the American Secretary of
State into responding instantly by cable in the following explicit and
emphatic terms: "Referring to the cases of O'Connor, Hart, M'Sweeney,
M'Enery, and D'Alton, American citizens imprisoned in Ireland, say to
Lord Granville that, without discussing whether the provisions of the
Force Act can be applied to American citizens, the President hopes that
the Lord-Lieutenant will be instructed to exercise the powers intrusted
to him by the first section to order early trials in these and all other
cases in which Americans may be arrested."

There was no mistaking the tone of this despatch. It was instantly
transmitted to the British Foreign Secretary, who replied the same day
that "the matter would receive the immediate attention of Her Majesty's
Government."

The reference made to the Coercion Act by Mr. Frelinghuysen touched a
plain and precise provision, that persons detained under the Act
"should not be discharged or tried by any court without the direction of
the Lord-Lieutenant." Had the Coercion Act received from Mr. Blaine in
March 1881 the attention bestowed upon it in March 1882 by Mr.
Frelinghuysen, this provision might have been used to obviate the
dangerous accumulation of injustice to individuals, and of international
irritation, resulting from the application to possibly innocent foreign
citizens in Ireland of the despotic powers conferred by that Act upon
Mr. Gladstone's Government, powers as nearly as possible analogous with
those which Mr. Gladstone himself, years before, had denounced in
unmeasured terms when they were claimed and exercised by the Government
of Naples in dealing with its own subjects.

After the consideration by Her Majesty's Government of this despatch of
the United States Government, it is understood in America that Mr.
Forster, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, was invited to communicate with
the Lord-Lieutenant, and request him to exercise his discretion in the
sense desired, and that Mr. Forster positively refused to do this.

How this may be I do not pretend to say. But as no satisfactory reply
was made to the American despatch, and as public feeling in the United
States grew daily more and more determined that a stop should be put to
the unexplained arrest and the indefinite detention of American citizens
in Ireland, the American Secretary of State made up his mind towards the
end of the month of March to repeat his despatch of March 3d in a more
terse and peremptory form. As a final preliminary to this step, however,
Mr. Frelinghuysen was induced to avail himself of the unusual and
officious intervention of his most distinguished living predecessor in
the State Department, Mr. Hamilton Fish. After measuring the gravity of
the situation, Mr. Fish at the end of March sent a despatch to an
eminent public man, well known on both sides of the Atlantic, and now
resident in London, with authority to show it personally to Mr.
Gladstone, to the effect that if any further delay occurred in complying
with the moderate and reasonable demand of the American Government for
the immediate release or the immediate trial of the American "suspects,"
the relations between Great Britain and the United States would be very
seriously "strained."

This despatch was at once communicated to Mr. Gladstone. Within the
week, the liberation was announced of six American "suspects." Within a
fortnight, Mr. Parnell, Mr. O'Kelly, and Mr. Dillon, it is understood,
imprisoned members of Parliament, were offered their liberty if they
would consent to a sham exile on the Continent for a few weeks, or even
days; and within a month Mr. Forster, in his place in Parliament, was
imputing to his late chief and Premier the negotiation of that
celebrated "Treaty of Kilmainham," which was repudiated with equal
warmth by the three Irish members already named, and by Mr. Gladstone.

NOTE D.

THE PARNELLITES AND THE ENGLISH PARTIES.

(Prologue, p. 1.)

As I am not writing a history of English parties, I need not discuss
here the truth or falsehood of this contention. But I cannot let it pass
without a word as to two cases which came under my own observation, and
which aggravate the inherent improbability of the tale. In November 1885
I went to America, and on my way passed through Stockport, where my
friend, Mr. Jennings, long my correspondent in England, was then
standing as a Conservative candidate. I attended one of his meetings and
heard him make an effective speech, much applauded, which turned
exclusively upon imperial and financial issues. That he had no
understanding whatever with the "managers" of the Irish vote in
Stockport, I have the best reason to believe. But he was assured by them
that the Irish intended to vote for him; and at a subsequent time he was
rashly assailed in the House of Commons by an Irish member with the
charge that he had broken faith with the Irish who elected him. It was
an unlucky assault for the assailant, as it gave Mr. Jennings an
opportunity, which he promptly improved, to show that he owed nothing to
the Irish voters of Stockport. Whether they voted for him in any number
in 1885 was more than doubtful; while in 1886 they voted solidly against
him, with the result of swelling his majority from 369 to 518 votes.

In January 1886 I returned to Europe, and going on a visit into
Yorkshire, there met a prominent Irish Nationalist, who told me that he
had come into the north of England expressly to regiment the Irish
voters, and throw their votes for the Conservative candidates, on the
ground that it was necessary to make the Liberals fully understand their
power. He had fully expected in this way to elect a Conservative member
for the city of York. Great was his chagrin, therefore, when he found
the Liberal candidate returned. Upon investigation he discovered, as he
told me, that the catastrophe was due to the activity of a local Irish
priest, _who was a devoted Fenian_, utterly opposed to the Parliamentary
programme, and who had exerted his authority over the local Irish to
bring them to the polls for the Liberal candidate.

Sir Frederick Milner, Bart., the defeated Conservative candidate for
York, afterwards told me that the local priest referred to here was a
most excellent man, and that so far from playing the part thus ascribed
to him, he took the trouble, as a matter of fair dealing, to see his
parishioners on the morning of the election and warn them against
believing a pamphlet which was sedulously circulated among the Irish
voters on the night before the polling, with a message to the effect
that Sir Frederick despised the Irish, and wanted nothing to do with
them or their votes. Sir Frederick has no doubt, from his knowledge of
what occurred during the canvass, that direct instructions were sent by
Mr. Parnell or his agents to the Irish voters in York to throw their
votes against the Radical candidates. These latter brought down a Home
Rule lecturer to counteract the effect of these instructions, and the
pamphlet above referred to was an eleventh-hour blow in the same
interest. It was successful; the Irish votes, some 500 in number, being
polled early in the morning under the impression produced by it. The
moral of this incident would seem to be, not that there was any real
understanding in 1885 between the Parnellites and the English
Conservatives at all, but simply that the English Radical wirepullers
are more alert and active than either the Irish Parnellites or the
English Conservatives. It is interesting, too, as it illustrates the
deep dread and distrust of the "Fenians" in which the Parnellites
habitually go.

NOTE E.

THE "BOYCOTT" AT MILTOWN-MALBAY.

(Vol. i. p. 209.)

Father White of Miltown-Malbay, taking exception to the statement made
by me, upon the authority of Colonel Turner, that he was "the moving
spirit" of the local "boycott" of policemen and soldiers at that place,
addressed a note to Colonel Turner on the 5th of September, in which he
desired to know whether Colonel Turner, had given me grounds for making
this statement. To this note Colonel Turner tells me he returned at once
the following reply, which he kindly forwards to me for publication:--

"ENNIS, _6th September_ 1888.

"REV. SIR,--I am in receipt of your letter of yesterday, and in
reply thereto beg to state that I informed Mr. Hurlbert that you
said 'in open court' that you had directed (I believe from the
altar) that the town was to be 'made as a city of the dead' during
the trials of 23 publicans who were charged for conspiracy in
boycotting the forces of the Crown who had been employed in
preserving the peace on the occasion of a former trial--this you
said you did in the interests of peace. The magistrates, however,
took a different view, viz., that it was done with the object of
preventing the military and police from obtaining any supplies,
which they were unable to do; and that their view was the correct
one was proved by the fact that half of the accused pleaded guilty
to the offence, and on promise of future good behaviour were allowed
out on their own recognisances. That the people followed your
instructions on that day, coupled with the fact that in your letter
to the _Freeman's Journal_, dated 17th March of this year, you
stated that you offered me peace all round on certain conditions,
thereby showing that at least you consider yourself possessed of
authority to bring about a state of peace or otherwise, probably led
Mr. Hurlbert, to whom I showed a copy of this letter, to infer that
you admitted that you were the moving spirit of all this 'local
boycott,' while you only did so in the particular case above
mentioned. Whether Mr. Hurlbert is correct in drawing the inference
he does as to your being the moving spirit, and as to your conduct,
may perhaps be gathered from the numerous numbers of _United
Ireland_ and other papers which he saw giving reports of illegal
meetings of the suppressed branch of the Miltown-Malbay National
League, at which you were stated to have presided, and at some of
which condemnatory resolutions were passed, and also from the fact
that you are reported to have presided at a meeting on Sunday, April
8, which was held at Miltown-Malbay in defiance of Government
proclamation.--I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,

ALFRED E. TURNER.

"Rev. P. White, P.P., Miltown-Malbay."

On further investigation of his records, Colonel Turner found it
necessary to follow up this letter with another, a copy of which,
through his courtesy, I subjoin:--

"ENNIS, _10th September_ 1888.

"REV. SIR,--A slight inaccuracy has been pointed out to me in my
letter to you of the 6th inst., which I hasten to correct. It
occurred in transcribing my letter from the original draft. I should
have said that I told Mr. Hurlbert that you stated in open court, at
the trial of 23 publicans charged with boycotting the forces of the
Crown on the occasion of a former trial, that you had told the
people (I believe from the altar) that the town was to be made as a
city of the dead during the former trial; and that in consequence
the soldiers and police could get nothing to eat or drink in Miltown
that day.

"I also told him that this boycotting of the police was by no means
new, since on the 13th March 1887, at a meeting of the
Miltown-Malbay branch of the League at which you are reported to
have presided, in _United Ireland_ of 19/3/87, the following
resolution was unanimously adopted:--

"'That from this day any person who supplies the police while
engaged in work which is opposed to the wishes of the people with
drink, food, or cars, be censured by this branch, and that no
further intercourse be held with them.'

"I regret that through inadvertence I have had to trouble you with a
second letter.--I am, Rev. Sir, yours faithfully,

"ALFRED E. TURNER.

"Rev. P. White, P.P."

[1] Vol. ii. p. 376.

[2] Vol. ii. p. 364-370.

[3] The exasperation of the local agitators under the cool and
determined treatment of Mr. Tener may be measured by the facts stated in
the following communication received by me from Mr. Tener on the 20th of
September. I leave them to speak for themselves:--

"POLICE BARRACKS, WOODFORD, _17th Sept._ 1888.

"DEAR MR. HURLBERT,--I enclose you _a printed_ placard found posted
up in Woodford district on Sunday morning the 9th inst. It alludes
to _tenants_ who had paid me their rent,--and broken the 'unwritten
law of the League.' All the men named are now in great danger. The
police force of the district has been increased--for their
protection; but the police are very anxious about their safety!

"I send you also a _pencil_ copy taken from a more _perfect_ placard
which the police preserve. John White or Whyte is the tenant whose
name I already have given you. He is the tall dark man whom you saw
(with an ex-bailiff) at Portumna. He was then an "Evicted Tenant."
He has since been, on payment of his rent, restored to his farm by
me. And now, as you see in the placard, he is held up to the
vengeance of the "League of Hell," as P.J. Smyth called it.--Yours,
etc.

"ED. TENER.

"_P.S._--The evictions were finished on the 1st of September, and on
the 9th (_after_ it became known that the men whose names are in the
placard had paid) the placard was issued."

_(Placard.)_

"IRISHMEN!--Need we say in the face of the desperate Battle the
People are making for their Hearths and Homes that the time has come
for every HONEST MAN, trader and otherwise, to extend a helping hand
to the MEN in the GAP. You may ask, How will that be done? The
answer is plain.

"Let those who have become traitors to their neighbours and their
Country be shunned as if they were possessed by a devil. Let no man
buy from them or sell to them, let no man work for them. Leave them
to Tener and his Emergency gang. The following are a few of the
greatest traitors and meanest creatures that ever walked--John
Whyte, of Dooras; Fahey (of the hill) of Dooras; big Anthony
Hackett, of Rossmore; Tom Moran, of Rossmore! Your Country calls on
you to treat them as they deserve. Bravo Woodford! Remember Tom
Larkin!--'GOD SAVE IRELAND!'"

[4] Appendix, Note A.

[5] Appendix, Note B.

[6] Appendix, Note C.

[7] Appendix, Note D.

[8] Since this was written fifteen Catholic bishops in England,
headed by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, have united (April 12,
1888) in a public protest against the Optional Oaths Bill, in which they
say: "To efface the recognition of God in our public legislature is an
act which will surely bring evil consequences." Yet how can the
recognition of God be more effectually "effaced" than by the unqualified
assertion that the will of the people, or of a majority, is the one
legitimate source of political authority?

[9] Mr. Blair was then a member of the Lincoln Cabinet, and its
"fighting member."

[10] Mr. Quill stated that the Savings-Banks deposits increased
in Ireland during 1887 eight per cent. more than in thrifty Scotland,
and _forty per cent._ more than in England and Wales!

[11] This was the Provost's last appearance in public. He died
rather suddenly a few weeks afterwards.

[12] In the Census of 1880 it appears that of 255,741 farms in
Illinois, 59,624 were held on the metayer system, pronounced by Toubeau
the worst of systems, and 20,620 on a money rental.

[13] I have since learned that Father M'Fadden sold another
holding, rental 6s. 8d., for L80. He has three more holdings from
Captain Hill, at 15s., 6s. 8d., and 11s. 2d., for which he was in
arrears for two years in April 1887, when ejectment decrees were
obtained against him. For his house holding he pays 2s. a year! So he
was really fighting his own battle as a tenant in the Plan of Campaign.

[14] Yet of Connemara, Cardinal Manning, in his letter to the
Archbishop of Armagh, August 31, 1873, cites the "trust-worthy" evidence
of "an Englishman who had raised himself from the plough's tail," and
who had gone "to see with his own eyes the material condition of the
peasantry in Ireland." It was to the effect that in abundance and
quality of food, in rate of wages, and even if the comfort of their
dwellings, the working men of Connemara were better off than the
agricultural labourers of certain English counties.

[15] For this holding, of 10 Irish acres, I have since learned
the widow O'Donnell pays 10s. a year. She is in the receipt of outdoor
relief, there being fever in the house (May 1888).

[16] This "townland" is a curious use of a Saxon term to
describe a Celtic fact. The territory of an Irish sept seems to have
been divided up into "townlands," each townland consisting of four, or
in some cases six, groups of holdings, occupied by as many families of
the "sept." The chief of the "sept" divided up each "townland"
periodically among these groups, while the common fields were cut up
among the families as they increased and multiplied according to the
system--against which Lord George Hill battled at Gweedore--known as
"rimdale" or "rundeal," from the Celtic, "ruindioll," a "partition" or
"man's share." This is quite unlike the Russian "mir" or collective
village, and not more like the South Slav "zadruga" which makes each
family a community, the land belonging to all, as, according to M.
Eugene Simon, it does in China. But it is as inconsistent with Henry
George's State ownership of the land or the rents as either of those
systems.

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