Part 45

Mr. Blackburne's "Causes of the Decadence of the Industries of Ireland," p. 19.

There are two copies of the work in the College Library, both of which have been recently obtained, and from one of them, by the obliging indulgence of the Provost and Board, the present re-issue is taken.

Froude--"English in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 228.

See the State Papers of Henry VIII., and the official certificates almost ever since. See also Lord O'Hagan's Address to the Social Science Congress in Dublin, 1881. If any of these pronouncements were right, it would be difficult to discover any room for future improvement. All of these glowing congratulations were, however, invariably exposed and exploded by sober contemporary historians and observers, and the O'Hagan passage illustrates the process. His lordship said: "I have indicated to you the results of honest effort by Irishmen of this generation in obtaining for their country amended laws, cheap and facile justice--education liberal, unconditioned, and available to all--... increased provision for the national health and comfort--and security in his possessions and encouragement to his industry for the tiller of the soil. In the midst of many troubles and much discouragement, these have been steps of real cheering progress--improvements, permanently conquered from the past, and auspicious, as they will be fruitful, of a happier future." Compare with this charming view the following versions.

In his speech in the adjourned debate on the Address in the House of Commons, January, 1881, Mr. Shaw, M.P. for Cork County, showed the value of this "real cheering progress," and of the "permanent improvements and increased provisions for the national health and comfort." "Within three or four months," said Mr. Shaw, "I have gone through various parts of the country, and I must say this--I did not think it possible for human beings to exist as I found tenant-farmers existing in the West of Ireland.... It is a disgrace to the landlords, it is a disgrace to the Government, it is a disgrace to every institution in the country to think of it that now for years, for generations, this cry year after year has been coming up from the people."

In the debate on the 28th of January MR. GLADSTONE said that "there are still hundreds of thousands in Ireland who live more or less on the brink of starvation, and that forty years ago that was the case not with hundreds of thousands but with millions."

A writer in the current number of the Quarterly Review, after picturing the maddened and disturbed state of the country, adds:--

"And all this with between four and five hundred suspects in gaols with an army of 50,000 men in the country, with Land Bills, Coercion Bills, Proclamations, new magisterial boards, the island parcelled out into military districts, spies, informers, and all the endless appliances of a Liberal Government in full operation."

See, too, what Mr. Justice O'Hagan said in his judgment on the Stacpoole leases. It is not very easy to reconcile these four unassailable statements of facts with the smooth optimism of the ex-Lord Chancellor, although without question the "Conquests" enumerated by him have been, as he says, won. The truth is that these specialist statistics are no more a real index of the condition of the country than a brick is an index of the quality of a house. There is no use in attempting to deny that England--both when meaning well and meaning ill--has kept Ireland in a deplorable condition.

Concerning this debate "Pepys' Diary," vol. iv., p. 109, records--1666--October 8th:--"The House did this day order to be engrossed the Bill against importing Irish Cattle--a thing, it seems, carried on by the Western Parliament men wholly against the sense of most of the rest of the House; who think if you do this you give the Irish again cause to rebel. Thus plenty on both sides makes us mad."

P. 135--1666. October 27th:--"Thence to talk about publique business; he [Lord Belassis] tells me how the two Houses begun to lie troublesome, the Lords to have quarrels one with another. My Lord Duke of Buckingham having said to the Lord Chancellor (who is against the passing of the Bill for prohibiting the bringing over of Irish cattle) that whoever was against the Bill was there led to it by an Irish interest or an Irish understanding, which is as much as to say he is a foole. This bred heat from my Lord Chancellor, and something he [Buckingham] said did offend my Lord of Ossory (my Lord Duke of Ormonde's son), and they two had hard words, upon which the latter sends a challenge to the former; of which the former complains to the House, and so the business is to be heard on Monday." Clarendon and Carte attribute cowardice to Buckingham in the matter. Both he and Ossory were sent to the Tower. The Bill, as noticed above, was subsequently passed.

"Life of Ormond," vol. iv., p. 234, &c.

Ten years later Dublin sent out a cargo of provisions valued at L937 13s. to New England, and the benevolence was gratefully and gracefully commemorated in 1880 by Captain Potter, of the Constellation, when he brought over America's consignment to our famishing agriculturists, and received the honorary freedom of our city. It may be noted, too, that ten years before the contribution to London, Dublin sent a relief amounting to L1,000 to the Waldenses, when suffering from the persecution of the Duke of Savoy. The last-named collection was made by a Cromwellian Fellow of Trinity College, the Rev. Samuel Mather, an excellent man, who on the Restoration was thrown into a Dublin prison, probably the "Black Dog," for declining to sign the Act of Uniformity. The New England collection was made by his brother, the Rev. Nathaniel Mather, Minister of the New-row Meeting-house. The collection for London was made by the Duke of Ormond.

This encouragement of the linen trade here proved a hypocrisy and imposture. The linen trade was never an equivalent for the wool trade.

Excepting, perhaps, Poyning's Act, and the Act of Union, this was the most disgraceful Act ever passed by an Irish Parliament.

See page lxx, note, and 35.

See page lxx, note, and 43.

It was on the Army Augmentation Bill that Hutchinson made one of his early "strides in apostasy." It was on this occasion also that Ireland was for the first time called upon to contribute to England's war expenses. She passed a vote of credit for L200,000. See pages 44, 46.

The condition of the people would thus seem to have declined from what it was a century before. In 1672, Petty stated in his "Political Anatomy," that the drink of the Irish people was milk, and in winter small beer or water; and that their food was bread made into cakes, with eggs and rancid butter, and with muscles, cockles, and oysters, on the sea-shore parts.

There are also several inaccuracies in the printed edition, which are reproduced as they stand. E.g., in page 81 "between L12,000 and L13,000" is set down as an increase on L1,100,000; and Petty's "Survey" is throughout put for his Political Anatomy. In the note to page 127 the literal misprints in the Greek quotation are corrected. The line is given "as Homer quoted by Longinus," and as if it were a Homeric line, but it is not a hexameter at all. The quotation joins the beginning of one line to a portion of another, and it is needless to say that the break was duly notified by Longinus, though apparently it was not perceived by the Provost.

The passage occurs in the 17th book of the Odyssey, V.V. 323-3:--

Rendered by Pope,

"Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away."

See Freeman's Journal, Nov. 3 and Nov. 24, 1881.

Querist, 134.

On account of the inability of Ireland, Great Britain, since Christmas, 1778, relieved her from the burden of paying forces abroad.

A sum of L50,000 has been lately sent from England for that purpose.

By a Proclamation, dated the 3rd of February, 1776, on all ships and vessels laden in any of the ports in this kingdom with provisions of any kind, but not to extend to ships carrying salted beef, pork, butter and bacon into Great Britain or provisions to any part of the British empire except the Colonies mentioned in the said Proclamation. 4th of January, 1779, taken off as far as it relates to ships carrying provisions to any of the ports of Europe.