156

THE IRISHMAN IN AMERICA.

grate, or die on the roadside, as thousands have, during the last fifteen years; or indeed, in the last extremity, these pilgrims from famine may receive some pittance-relief in a workhouse, where they have reserved for them a more lingering, but absolutely far more humiliating, mournful, and dreadful death.

W

XXXII.

WHATEVER may have been the crimes of African slavery in the United States, or in any other part of the world, the systematic starvation of whole masses of slaves, has never been known. The condition of the Irish peasant, therefore, is without an example on the face of the globe. Is it any wonder, under such a system as this, that we should hear so much about the lack of proper agriculture in Ireland? The Irishman is often reproached in England, with laziness, idleness, unwillingness to work. All men display these attributes to a certain extent, when all motives to exertion are taken away. But the Irishman, be it said, is characterized by two things in an eminent degree; the first is a disposition to be busy, which we perceive all over the United States among Irish emigrantsthe first move they make on landing, is to dash for a job. The second characteristic, is patient perseverance-steady, continued labor, all through life. Show me a single instance on this continent, of an Irishman who has ceased to work, or relapsed into ease and luxury, even after having become rich. Yes, the Irish peasant, the worst fed, the worst clad, the worst used in Europe; the man who, in his own country, was crushed down into powerless degradation-see him transformed when he touches the soil of a free country, after he has fled from the land of his oppression. He left in rags, insulted and despised, aided perhaps, as has been done in tens of thousands of instances, by some friend in America, who remitted him the money. It has been ascertained by careful figures, that during the last twenty years, from five to twenty-five millions of dollars annually, have been sent to Ireland, for the purpose of aiding emigration.

IRELAND'S CANAAN.

157

Large sums are also sent for that purpose from the British Provinces, particularly those in North America, and the whole Australian world. In the British Colonies, the Irishman betters his condition; but his natural and political paradise is in this Republic. It is the very Canaan of his oppressed people; and oh! how gladly they plant their feet upon this, to them, holy soil-holy to them by adoption and freedom, as the spot that gave them birth; for the one has few lasting associations except those which cling tenderly and sadly to the strings of the heart; and strong as these may have grown, only a few unbidden tears burst from the springs of memory, bedewing the cheek of the Irish emigrant.

W

XXXIII.

E have shown how British legislation first impaired, and then exterminated the Irish manufactures. Laws with this sole object in view, were constantly being enacted, from 1699 to 1782. The industrial prosperity of England, reposes to a great extent, upon that stupendous iniquity practised towards Ireland; and, even now, were the British hand of government taken off from the shoulders of Irish industry, how poor would be the chance, without capital, without social standing, without the power of social organization, for the protection and encouragement of labor, for anything like a rivalry with her ancient foe. Those who have not visited Ireland, and gone over it for themselves, or read, with great care, reliable accounts of the physical and moral condition of the population, will have a very lean idea of the proportions of this misery. The county of Ulster is often pointed at, as being in the enjoyment of commercial prosperity. This is easily accounted for. When the English Parliament in the time of William III. required the destruction of woolen manufactures in Ireland, the linen trade was allowed to be continued there, because the climate was favorable to the growth of flax; and England wanted Irish linen for her use on the one side, and to exclude the linen fabrics of

158

BOASTED PROSPERITY OF ULSTER.

Holland on the other. The emigration of Protestants into Ireland, after the Revocation of the edict of Nantes, was encouraged by some concessions in Ulster; and Protestant Scotch farmers, under special privileges, established themselves; and finding no formidable rivalry with the Irish around them, who had no privileges or immunities, the Scotch became owners of farms, and took precedence of the Irish in all things. But facts show, that even in the county of Ulster, laborers, artisans, and the mass of the people, are wretchedly poor, Nearly all the great landlords are either habitually, or occasionally, absentees; and not one-fourth of the rents of Ulster are spent at home. Even the linen trade of Ulster, with all the fostering of class legislation and administrative favor, has never reached one-tenth the importance it might have done. Even in Ulster, the Irish peasant finds it almost impossible, except at exorbitant rates, to get possession of a piece of ground with a hut— this being the height of his ambition in his own country—where, rather than not have something of the consciousness of having a home, even if it be but temporary, he will share his single apartment with his companion, the pig. If he can grow potatoes enough, to keep him and his family, he dares hardly hope for more; and even in this laudable endeavor, he is often interrupted by an order of eviction.

XXXIV.

N this process of eviction, as I have said, all the law is on

IN

the side of the landlord. More than this: he is furnished with officials to execute his orders; and on the appointed day, women, old men, children and the sick, must abandon the cabin which the destroyers are preparing to raze; for the policeconstables are on hand, with iron crowbars, to help these drivers of human beings from their homes. Popular indignation has given a name to this whole force throughout Irelandthey are called "The Crowbar Brigade." The official statistics of the British government before me state, that, during

FAMINE AND PLENTY SIDE BY SIDE.

159

ten years, from 1841 to 1851, they destroyed two hundred and sixty-nine thousand, two hundred and fifty-three dwellings, or cabins; and in 1849, they evicted fifty thousand families.

THE

XXXV.

HE horror with which these statements are received implies the question "Has nothing been done to modify the barbarity of such proceedings?" There are on record eighteen attempts to this effect. The last was made by the enactment of a law pretending to be more thorough than the Commission of 1844; for, although that Commission was charged by the British government to make inquiry into the relations existing between landlord and tenant, it was composed of landlords; and, although it established the existence of great misery and abuses, the Commission reported that there would be danger for the just rights of property to grant "Tenant Right" in full. They recommended the fusion of small farms as "absolutely necessary;" but, since this plan would necessitate the expulsion of over 190,000 families-at least a million of people they seriously recommended emigration as the most reliable remedy.

In 1847, a Special Committee of the House of Lords on this same subject, after covering the whole ground, reached the fundamental conclusion that it was necessary, in some way or other, to reduce the population. The great famine began in 1846, and it is a fact that should never be forgotten, that, during the whole period of this famine, which was prolonged five years, Ireland produced enough to feed and clothe double the number of its inhabitants. Had not the breadstuffs and provisions raised in Ireland been carried off to enrich bloated proprietors, and stolen by the Established Church, the word "famine" would never have been spoken on the island during that period. But the Royal Commission decided that it was better to send a million of Irishmen to other parts of the world than to stop robbing them of bread. What the government,

160

MR. MAGUIRE'S SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT.

however, failed to achieve by any remedy whatever, was partly done by terrible necessity. Hundreds of thousands of the wretched peasants rushed in crowds on board rotten ships, and set sail for eternal exile.* Many of them were rotten coffin

*To show, on pretty high authority, what was the condition of Ireland, even in February of the year 1865, Mr. Maguire, an Irish member of the House of Commons, in the debate on the Queen's Speech, said: "He could not concur in that portion of the Speech which declared that Ireland "partook of the general prosperity of the country. What was the fact at present as regarded emigration? They had one hundred and twenty thousand people crossing the ocean last year, despite the bad trade that interrupted commerce by the war which raged on the continent to which they turned their steps. Must there not be something wrong to account for this, and was it not the duty of the government to endeavor to remove it? If the government took the question up as they ought, he believed they could stop the tide of emigration, which was sweeping away not only the bone and sinew of the country, but a good deal of the strength of the empire. If leases were given to the tenant farmers, or if the law stepped in and gave a liberal measure of compensation for improvements, it would stop the tide of emigration, and the people of Ireland would be happy and contented, instead of what he knew them to be, and was sorry to be obliged to say they were, deeply discontented; and he was ready to say, with the honorable member for Cork (Mr. V. Scully), deeply disaffected. He solemnly and sincerely declared that there was in Ireland discontent and disaffection, which nothing under heaven but just laws could change. The Lord Lieutenant, a few days ago, expressed his deep regret that the people were leaving the country in such numbers, and carried with them a feeling of hostility to the British government. Let them look at the case straight in the face, and not shrink from a consideration of the question. The feeling carried to America by Irishmen would have an influence upon the policy of American statesmen. The Irish emigrants, and their children born in the United States, outnumbered the population of Ireland. They were active and energetic, and many of them commanded the press and the platform. They were animated by hatred of England; and he asked them into what calamities might they not precipitate the two countries. He hoped that the government, instead of troubling themselves about complications in distant parts of Europe, would endeavor to heal the sore that existed in the heart of the empire. Royal visits would not meet the wants of Ireland. They would only be as courtplaster over a deep seated ulcer. The Irish people would be glad to see her Majesty, or any member of her family; but the starving people who saw the utter hopelessness of any effort for which there was no reward, did not want the sunshine of royalty, or the glitter of pageantry; what they wanted was just laws, that would liberate their arms, and give them a field for their exertions."