from the pages of history?

The reason is that down to the eighteenth century, so vigorous was her race, so powerful the influence of her climate and of her pleasant nature, so great the charm of her soul 2 on the souls of the new-comers, that Ireland always assimilated her invaders. "Lord!" said the poet Spenser, "how quickely doth that countrey alter mens' natures." England, on the other hand, was lacking in the first duty of a conqueror, which is to legitimise his conquest by the spread of civilisation, and by works of reparation. This is a truth that none can fail to recognise. "Seven centuries of rapine and violence. Carelessness alternating with ferocity. Not a gleam of humanity, nor of political wisdom. Not even the wisdom of the peasant, who takes care of his beast, lest it perish." 3

Why, then, such long-continued barbarity, one may ask, since not even Cromwell himself sought the complete extermination of the Irish? Why was no honest effort ever made to conciliate the Irish down to the time of the Union, save, perhaps, that of Henry VIII. ? Why were tyranny, bloodshed, and persecution, whether by legal methods or by methods of violence, the only policy attempted; and since the Union, why has there been so much bad grace, and so little good faith in dealing with Irish grievances? Why is it that those concessions that have been made since 1870 were won only by violent methods, and even then hampered by limitations which robbed them of all merit, if not of all value? Filled with ambition, and born to rule, the English, from the moment they set foot in Ireland, feeling themselves stronger than the rival nation, forthwith neglected and despised it, as a property that must some day fall in to them. They contented themselves with putting a stop to all progress in the country, leaving Ireland "to stew in her own juice," as an Englishman has put it. They founded their rule upon Irish dissensions, instead of promoting

2 Aug. Filon, Profils Anglais, Paris, 1893, Chapter on John Morley. 3 John M. Robertson (now M.P.), The Saxon and the Celt, London, 1897, p. 313.

goodwill and equal justice. Instead of devoting themselves to organisation and to the development of the country, they abandoned its whole government to a garrison of unscrupulous adventurers. Self-interest, rather than fanaticism, was the motive which inspired those Penal Laws, as to which Hallam, the historian, has declared that "to have exterminated the Catholics by the sword or expelled them like the Moriscos of Spain would have been a little more repugnant to Justice and Humanity, but incomparably more politic." Either herself, or in the person of her representatives, England exploited Ireland as a dependency, a conquered country, from which nothing need be feared, from which nothing could be hoped; a country that was done for, that could never revive, and towards which the best policy to pursue was to draw from it as large a tribute as possible, of men for the army, and of money for the Empire. Thus, when all is said, the Irish policy of England may, perhaps, be found to be inspired not so much by hatred or vindictiveness, as by selfish indifference, narrowness of view, and imperfect understanding. But is this the whole explanation ? Can we not push the matter a stage further? When we look at the sequence of events since the Great Famine; when we recognise that England has always shrunk from taking any definite or decisive step in Ireland; that she has toyed with problems without seriously seeking to solve them; that she has ever been satisfied to exploit the sister island intellectually and economically, can we go on to say that at bottom the English (Gladstone and his followers always excepted) have been influenced by the idea of merely marking time till the sorely-stricken nation might sink into dissolution; that they are waiting till, when Ireland is drained of her ancient inhabitants-some lost by emigration, others by Anglicisation-the Irish question will, in measurable time, disappear of its own accord ? The solution of this question we leave to the reader, who, having read the introduction to this book, has the patience to read the book.

PART I.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL

CONDITIONS1·

CHAPTER I. THE TWO IRELANDS: THE
ENGLISH COLONY

HISTORY, as we have seen, has created two Irelands in Ireland. These exist, indeed, two opposed nations, the one super-imposed on the other, the one subject, the other master. Above is the British colony or garrisonthat is to say, the newcomers, the latest planters in Ireland, the feudatories of England, the privileged class, the outlanders of Ireland, or the English in Ireland, as

I For this first part see especially besides the important works of G. de Beaumont and Cardinal Perraud already quoted :

Political and Social works.-Ph. Daryl, The English in Ireland, Paris, 1887. De Mandat-Grancey, Chez Paddy, Paris, 1887. E. Piché, Pour l'Irlande (answer to Chez Paddy), Paris, Merich. George Sigerson, Modern Ireland, London, 1868. John Mitchel, Jail Journal, New York, 1854. M. Arnold, Irish Essays, London, 1882. R. Barry O'Brien, Fifty Years' Concessions to Ireland, London, 1883. By the same, Irish Wrongs and English Remedies, London, 1887. William O'Brien, Irish Ideas, London, 1893. M. Davitt, Leaves from a Prison Diary, London, 1885. The Case of the Irish Landlords, by one of them, Dublin, 1899. T. W. Russell, Ireland and the Empire, London, 1901. O'Connor Morris, Present Irish Questions, London, 1901. Ideals in Ireland, edited by Lady Gregory, London, 1901. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., To-day and Tomorrow in Ireland, London and Dublin, 1903. Sir H. Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century, London, 1904. M. Davitt, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, London, New York, 1904. Recollections, Lives and Correspondence of O'Connell, of Dr. M'Hale (Archbishop of Tuam), of Dr. Doyle (Archbishop of Kildare and Leighlin), of T. Drummond, of

Froude, who wrote their history under this title, called them. Below are the people, the conquered, the helots, the confused and mingled mass of the former occupants of the soil, be they of Gaelic or Danish, of Norman or Anglo-Norman, or even of English blood. For division does not really arise from race differences-races are merged and mixed-nor even from religious differencesProtestants may be found in the popular party, and Catholics in the English party. The line of demarcation is chiefly social and political. Interests, prejudices, national aspirations, separate the two Irelands far more than do race or religion. Thus it would not seem that the breach which history has created is definitive and impassable. The two sections are without doubt mutually hostile; shall we say that they are irreducible and refractory, one to the other, by their very definition? Are they, as has been said, like oil and water, or like mercury and lead? England, without doubt, has done everything, and still does everything, to separate the two nations. She excites the prejudices of the one and the appetites of the other, knowing well that her strength lies in their division, and that her power would be in danger were Ireland one and united. But in former days did not Ireland always conquer her conquerors one after the other? How then can she, after two centuries of prescription have run in their favour, refuse the name of Davis, of John Mitchel, of C. G. Duffy, of J. B. Dillon, of Parnell, etc. William O'Brien, M.P., Recollections, London, 1905. Various Periodicals and Publications.-Hansard. New Ireland Review, Dublin. Journal of the National Literary Society, Dublin. Publications of the Irish Press Agency, of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, of the Irish Unionist Alliance, of the United Irish League of Great Britain.

Novels. The Novels of Miss Edgeworth, of C. Lever, of S. Lover, of Carleton, Gerald Griffin, of Ch. Kickham. William O'Brien, When we were Boys. Mrs. O'Brien, Silhouettes Irlandaises, The Novels of Canon Sheehan, especially My New Curate. The Novels of Jane Barlow, espially Irish Idylls and A Creel of Irish Stories; of Miss Lawless, especially Hurrish; of Mrs. Tynan-Hickson, notably A Cluster of Nuts; of Miss Julia Crottie, notably Neighbours. Those of Seumas M'Manus, notably In Old Donegal; and of Shan Bullock, especially The Barrys, and Dan the Dollar. O'Gara, The Green Republic, London, 1903. George Moore, The Untilled Field, 1903. George Birmingham, The Seething Pot, London, 1905.

Irishmen to those landlords whose titles to their property she no longer disputes? How can she disown those men who since the time of Cromwell and of William III. have breathed her air beneath her skies, and who, whatever may have been their faults towards the country of their adoption, gave to her in her hours of tragedy a Wolfe Tone and a Robert Emmet, a Smith O'Brien and a John Mitchel ?

The history of Ireland in the nineteenth century is that of a great and slow revolution, at once political and social, by which the English Garrison, the sovereign minority, tends to lose its privileges and to return to the ranks, while the majority, the subject people, gradually free themselves and resume their natural rights. The progressive uprising of the Irish people, the simultaneous downfall of the governing classes, is one of the great social facts of contemporary Ireland. Equilibrium is not yet attained, but the arms of the balance tend to come to rest.

The British Colony or Garrison consists of two parts. First, there is the English oligarchy, the Ascendancy, so called, the landlords. These trace their descent from the English conquerors planted in the country by England after wholesale confiscations. They have their creatures, agents and middlemen, who live upon them. To this group also belongs a section of the bourgeoisie of the towns-officials, lawyers, professors, business men, or manufacturers-who have been imported by England, or who have become her supporters. Secondly, there are the Presbyterians of Ulster, the descendants or successors of the Scotch colonists in the north-east corner of the island. They are the Scots of Ireland, as distinguished from their allies, the Ascendancy, who are the English of Ireland. Together the two comprise the total forces of the Garrison, the Unionist and "loyal" minority of the day. They comprise a million and a quarter of the inhabitants of Ireland, that is to say, a little over a quarter of Ireland's total population of four and a half millions.