•rfttf'^tertsif^-C^^Tr 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
IBRARY 
 
 NIVERSITY or 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 Ex Libris 
 
 R. A. TWOMEY. 
 
 ^41 
 

 f?^ 
 
CATHOLICITY AND PROGRESS 
 IN IRELAND 
 
 BY 
 
 EEV. M. O'EIORDAN, D.Ph., D.D., D.C.L. 
 
 If a man will make courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuoiia." 
 
 — Shakespeare (Henry IV.) 
 
 Tempiis tacendi et fempus loquendi. 
 
 THIRD EDITION- 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TKENCH, TEUBNER & CO., LTD., 
 
 Dbyden House, Gebraed Street, W. 
 
 OT. LOUIS, MO. 
 B. HER DEE. 
 
 1906 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
 PRINTED BY CAHILL & CO., DUBLIN. 
 

 DIVO 
 
 AQUINATI ET SALESIO 
 
 DICATUM 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages have been arranged from a series 
 of criticisms which have appeared during the past year on 
 questions raised by Sir Horace Plunkett in his book 
 " Ireland in the New Century " :— But whilst his book 
 has been the occasion of them, their scope is more 
 general. As readers will at once observe, passages are 
 quoted from it, and merely used as texts for the general 
 discussion of those questions which he has raised. Sir 
 Horace represents a certain phase of thought; and I 
 have taken him to be as sincere in his criticism as I 
 believe him to be earnest in his work. Several books 
 have recently been published for the purpose of pointing 
 out that things are very wrong with Catholics in general, 
 but most of all with the Catholics of Ireland. These 
 compilations are however privileged, at any rate as far 
 as I am concerned. To touch them would be to touch 
 pitch. But Sir Horace lives on a higher plane, and 
 thinks in another sphere. :\Ioreover, he has given 
 proof that he is in earnest by the work which he has 
 done, and is doing, for his country. Those others are 
 not known to have ever done much that is useful for 
 anybody, some of them have succeeded in doing but 
 little for themselves. 
 
 In an Epilogue which he has added to a Popular Edi- 
 tion of his book he thus refers to the contents of the fol- 
 lowing^ pages:— "I have not a word to say against its 
 tone,°but the writer frequently reads into my words pro- 
 positions which I certainly never intended to advance. _ 
 I think it right to place in this Preface his own testi- 
 mony that I have tried to treat him fairly. \Vhether I 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 have mistaken his meaning, or have drawn just and 
 natural inferences from his words, belongs neither to 
 him nor to me to judge, but to the public for whom I 
 have written. I have quoted the context from his 
 book in each case, and the reader can judge for him- 
 self. Although the Epilogue in the New Edition of 
 his book has been specially added as a rejoinder to 
 critics, he disposes of the contents of the following 
 pages in the few words I have just quoted. He does 
 not name those particulars in which he says I have mis- 
 understood his meaning. But he adds these few words 
 as his reason for not doing more : — " Moreover, a re- 
 view is usually a chapter about a book, but when, as in 
 this case, it assumes the proportions of a book about 
 a chapter, such space as I could aflford to devote to a 
 rejoinder would appear disrespectfully small." 
 
 It is true that the following pages are devoted chiefly, 
 but not exclusively, to the contents of one chapter of 
 his book ; which only calls to mind the well known 
 truth, that an accusation can be made in one short 
 sentence the damaging consequences of which might 
 take a whole book to thoroughly undo. If the purpose 
 of the following pages were mere controversy rather 
 than right criticism, dialectical triumph rather than 
 the discoveiy of truth, nothing should please me more 
 than that he had disposed of what I have written in 
 those few lines of his Epilogue. For, notwithstanding 
 the shortcomings of this book which I now submit to 
 the public, I do not think that those who read it dis- 
 passionately will agree with Sir Horace that he has 
 met the case by merely avoiding an appearance of dis- 
 respect for the writer. 
 
 It is true that a chapter in his book has been mostly 
 the occasion of this volume ; and the best lesson for him 
 to read in the fact would be one to which several 
 friends have directed his attention, namelv, the mistake 
 
PEEFACE. Vll 
 
 of ever having made that chapter a part of his book. 
 The chapter was not at all necessary; in strictness it 
 was even irrelevant. Without it, his book would have- 
 usefully instructed the public in the propaedeutics of 
 the economic enterprise which he has undertaken ; with 
 it, he has alienated or cooled the enthusiasm of some 
 cordial helpers, raised suspicions in many who most 
 trusted him, and has turned the tongues of some who 
 never welcomed his work towards his own economic 
 shortcomings, directing public attention, prematurely 
 as I think, but still with destructive effect, towards the 
 fruitless financial arrangements of the Department 
 which he controls. 
 
 He writes iu his Epilogue: — "I have placed my 
 countrymen neither in the dock, on a pedestal, or on 
 the stage. My offence is more grave — 1 have criticised 
 them;" * and : " As I took some national shortcomings 
 for my theme, it was inevitable that the greater the 
 truth of what I wrote the more bitterly should I be 
 condemned by those who mould popular opinion in 
 Ireland." f Now, the quarrel which Catholics have 
 with him is not over the economic drawbacks of their 
 country. They are quite conscious of these — more pain- 
 fully conscious than others, since they are affected more 
 intimately. Their quarrel with him is over the causes 
 to which he traces those drawbacks. Had he taken 
 the country as it stands, pointed out its wants, and 
 simply set about helping to improve the condition of 
 things. Catholics would no more quirrel with him for 
 pointing out the disease than for trying to cure it. As 
 a matter of fact, which indeed he spontaneously acknow- 
 ledged in his book, his earliest encouragement came 
 from them, and the most zealous of his unpaid sup- 
 porters have been priests. But he would be an etiolo- 
 gist also ; he would point to their Catholic faith as one 
 
 * Pag© 295. t Page 2S7. 
 
vni 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 of the great sources of their economic shortcomings. Even 
 though their Catholic principles or practices were chiefly 
 or largely the cause, reminding them of it could not 
 help his project for their improvement unless they con- 
 sented to have that alleged obstacle removed by casting 
 away their faith, or by twisting its principles till they 
 fitted into his. He intruded religious causes into the 
 question, and told them that their want of industrial 
 success is largely due to their Catholic faith. That is 
 the cause of the quarrel; and in his Epilogue he up- 
 braids them for complaining. No Catholic has denied 
 his right to criticise them ; but they in their turn reply, 
 and he resents it. He seems to have expected that he 
 might criticise with impunity; which implies his right 
 of criticism, and their duty of silence. Non-Catholics 
 in Ireland have been so long the sportsmen and Catho- 
 lics so long the targets, that those who have had a 
 monopoly in criticism as in almost everything else, are 
 surprised to discover marksmen standing where only 
 targets used to be. That circumstance possibly ac- 
 counts for his complaining in the Epilogue of " censors 
 who combine a total disregard for the feelings of others 
 with a morbid sensitiveness for their own, "(3) whilst he 
 himself could write in his book: — "And without doubt 
 a good many motives which have hut a remote connection 
 with reliyion are, unfortunately, at work in the Church- 
 building movement." {^) It is due to him to note that 
 he has removed this sentence from the New Edition; 
 but he has let it disappear from the page without 
 record or apology in the Epilogue. 
 
 What I have written as an Introductory Chapter was 
 begun within an hour after the thought of writing first 
 occurred to me, with the intention of completing in a 
 few articles what I was to write But the field opened 
 before me as I went on, and now I find myself letting 
 
 • Pau-p 299. t First Edition, page 107. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 a book go before the public which was far from my 
 thoughts much less than a twelvemonth ago. Hardly 
 a dozen pages of it have been written in the daytime ; 
 most of it has been done hurriedly, and during hours 
 taken from sleep. I do not offer that circumstance as 
 an apology, but as an explanation of its defects. 
 
 After having, in Chapter II., discussed the charge 
 made against Catholics in Ireland, of extravagance in 
 church-building, I pass on to consider whether the social 
 influence of the Catholic faith is responsible, to the 
 large extent alleged, for their present economic con- 
 dition, or whether that condition can be fully accounted 
 for by other causes. With that view I first discuss the 
 meaning of human progi'ess; the relation of 
 Catholic teaching to it; then the application 
 of that teaching as illustrated in certain Catho- 
 lic nations, and the application of other teach- 
 ings in other countries. I next proceed to account 
 for the exceptional case of Catholic Ireland ; and in order 
 to make my position clear I begin by discussing the 
 meaning of what Sir Horace Plunkett calls "character 
 and morale." Then through several chapters I discuss 
 the legislative and economic factors which have left the 
 Catholics of Ireland in the condition in which they find 
 themselves to-day. I next pass on to inquire into the 
 relation of the priests to the social, political, and indus- 
 trial interests of the people, and their influence on each. 
 Having done all that, I thought I had established my 
 right, and I think it was my duty to turn back and ask 
 what have the Government, the Landlords, and the Pro- 
 testant Church got from the country, and what has each 
 done in I'eturn for its social and industrial good 1 In the 
 next place, I discuss the charges made against Convents 
 and their relation to the temporal concerns of the people. 
 Finally, I review the history of education in Ireland ; 
 the object of which is to show how grievously Sir Horace 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 misrepresents facts when he speaks of the priests as hav- 
 ing an "almost undisputed influence on education." The 
 plain conclusion to be drawn from the statement of facts 
 which I make is, that their difficulty has been to secure 
 as much influence as would enable them to guard the 
 faith of the Catholic youth from the persistent plans for 
 proselytism which have been made part of every system of 
 education introduced into Ireland in modern times. The 
 reader will be able to fasten the fault of educational 
 drawbacks on those who have framed our successive edu- 
 cational schemes and have controlled them. 
 
 The Authorities I quote throughout the book are, 
 except a few, all non-Catholics; and these few I cite 
 only as witnesses to matters of fact, but I do not quote 
 them for opinions or inferences. 
 
 M. O'R. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 iNTRODUenON 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Buildikg of Catholic Churches in Ireland 
 
 Complaints of extravagance; by whom made— Source of 
 difference between Catholic and Non-Catholic Ideals— 
 Historic causes of modern Catholic Church-building— 
 "Why this waste?"— some reflections on tha position of the 
 utilitarian critics; their inconsistency— The alleged extra- 
 vagance tested by comparison with Catholic Churches in 
 England and America, and with Protestant Churches m 
 Ireland— The Critics throw stones out of glass houses— The 
 money spent on Church-builduig compared with money 
 spent in other ways. Some observations on Church Art. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Catholic Church and Progress ... ... ••• ... 4o 
 
 Economics not the mission of the Church— Its social ui- 
 fluence-The meaning of progress discus.sed— Catholic and 
 Non-Catholic principles in their respective relation to 
 human progress— Those principles in practice; historical 
 illustrations. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Soci.iL Economics in England... ... •■ ••• ... 73 
 
 Witnesses give evidence— Some reflections on National 
 Prosperity; the two sides of the picture— More witnesses 
 examined— Some reflections on the spirit of mere indus- 
 trialism—Rapid spread of divorce, and its social conse- 
 quences^Other evil influences on family life— More wit- 
 nesses. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Loss OF Faith Abroau; IxTiMPtBAXct at Home ... ... 269 
 
 " Tho Leakage " in England — " Converts " to Protestantism 
 in Ireland, in the famino timee and sinc<> — Intemperanoe 
 amongst the Catholics of Ireland : to what extent it is 
 true : The people at large not the only nor the greatest 
 culprits— The action of the priests against intemperance — 
 The Anti-Treating League, its use and its limits— Sir 
 Horace Plunkett s plan of killing intemperanoe by philo- 
 cophy : a Captain Bobadil nietho<l, ever ancient and always 
 easy 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 How thk Priests Cause Emige.^ttox ... 271 
 
 The chastity of Irish Catholics considered as a cause of 
 lunacy and emigration — The priests instructed in their duty 
 — Sir Horace Plunkett learns the mind and ways of the 
 people from Sunday cyclists — The true causes of emigrat^n 
 suggested and discussed. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 Wtt^T THE GOVERKMEKT AND ITS GaBEISON IN IrEL.\ND HAVE 
 
 GIVEN THE People in Rfttcrn tor what thet have got ... 204 
 The position of the priests in relation to the economic in- 
 terests of the people — The financial relations between Eng- 
 land and Ireland at the Union — What it cost to carry the 
 Union, and how the sums were spent. — What it has cost to 
 maintain the Union — What Ireland has given the Govern- 
 ment and what is given in return — The eums sent as rent 
 from Ireland to absentee landlord? — The savings of tenants 
 notwithstanding— How thrift in their condition did them 
 more harm than good— Rack-rents ; eviction; emigration — 
 Evidence of The Times and other witnesses — Trinity College, 
 landlord and educationist. 
 
 CII.\PTER XVII. 
 
 What the Protestant Church has got in Ireland, and what it 
 HAS done in Return . . • 3U 
 
 The Tithes and the Tithe War— Tithes appearing under 
 various phases— The Re^urces of the " Church of Ireland " 
 enormous and various; Tithes; lands; Government grants, 
 etc. — How it has been e<iuipped for its mi.^sion in Ireland; 
 
CONTEXTS. XV 
 
 page: 
 
 the results — " Charity begins at home " illustrated — Wit- 
 nesses give evidence — What the Irish nation meant to Chief 
 Justice \Miiteside, and those whom he represented: LTr- 
 lande ; c^cst mot. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Lessors IN Tolerance and in Intoleeance ... ... ... 342 
 
 A new notion of tolerance — Catholic and Non-Catholio 
 Tolerance illustrated bv facts. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Religious Corporations in Ireland : their Cost and their 
 Work ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 354 
 
 Ideas of the Religious State spun out on the spider system 
 — The rationale (jf Catholic institutions and practices mis- 
 understood — Civil rights claimed for Catholic men and 
 women independently of the approval of outsiders — Sir 
 Hcfraoe's economic division of the "productive" and the 
 "unproductive" classes discussed^Religious communities, 
 the contemplative and active. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Critics of Convents Criticised; Nuns, their Civil Rights 
 .and thqr Work ... ... ... ... ... 375 
 
 Catholic ladies do not lose their civil rights to be teachers 
 or nurses by joining a religious community — The inconsis- 
 tencies of their critics — The position of nuns engaged in 
 works of a private character — Convent teaching considered 
 in its shortcomings and its benefits. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Nuns as Teachers and Nurses ... ... ... ... 382 
 
 Nuns engaged in works of a public character — 3lr. F. H. 
 Dale's official testimony to the excellence of Nuns as 
 Teachers in the Irish National Schools — Some statistics in 
 confirmation — Evidence of the efficiency of Nuns as hospital 
 nursee — Reply to objections against Nuns as teachers and 
 nurses — Nuns taught the poor in Ireland when all others 
 disowned the duty or shirked the work — The state^ient 
 illustrated — As Teachers in the National Schools and as 
 Nurses in the Workhouse Hospitals, their work a gain to 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the public in ofiiciency, and a saving in cxpenso — Sir Horaoe 
 Plunkett'e mist.ike in thinking that the Conventual Esta- 
 blishments of the country have been raised at the expense 
 of the public — The finances of the Convents in the dioce&e 
 of Limerick exposed in illustration, and taken as a type for 
 the country in general. 
 
 CHAPTER XXir. 
 
 Nuns and TiicmacAL Training... ... ... ... ... 405 
 
 What Nuns are doing for industrial work in Ireland— The 
 
 subject illustrated by facts. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI II. 
 
 A Review of Education in Ibel.\nd. ... ... ... ... 420 
 
 Evolution of the design to educate Catholics out of their 
 faith and patriotism — The Parish School System; The Dio- 
 cesan Free Schools; The Royal Schools of the London 
 Companies; The Erasmus Smith Schools; Bluecoat Hos- 
 pital Free Schools ; Foundling Hospital Schools ; The 
 Charter Schools ; The Hibernian Military and Marine 
 Schools; "The Association for Discountenancing Vice and 
 Promoting the Knowledge and the Practice of the Chria- 
 tian Religion"; "The Irish Society for Promoting the 
 Education of the Native Irish through the medium of their 
 own Language"; The Kildare Street Society Schools — The 
 National System ; The functions of the Managers under the 
 System; Its Training Colleges; What Priests Eave done 
 for popular Education in Ireland — The rise of Catholic Col- 
 leges in Ireland : The Model Schools designed to supersede 
 them; the failure of these to hold their own against Catholic 
 Primary Schools— The Intermediate System; Catholic Col- 
 leges win prestige under it — University Education; The 
 Royal University; Catholic Colleges leave the Queen's Col- 
 leges behind in the race — Trinity College; its wealth; its 
 failure as an Educational Institution shown by facts; its 
 hollow prestige — The Catholic University : its aim and work 
 — The work of the Catholic University of Louvam an illus- 
 tration of what a Catholic University can do — The failure of 
 tho.'e who have undertaken to educate us a reason for 
 letting us educate ourselves. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett's " Ireland in the New Century," 
 is an instructive book. Yet, I am doubtful whether 
 it will further or hinder the good work which the author 
 has been doing for Ireland. Speaking generally, I 
 think it is unwise for anyone who holds a public adminis- 
 trative position to publish a book on his own ofl&ce. 
 That he is sincere and means well, the work he has been 
 doing for some years past is the best evidence. More- 
 over, strange as it may appear, those things in 
 his book from which I most differ give me 
 strong testimony to his honesty if not to his 
 prudence. He has given expr^sion to some 
 
 thoughts as to the influence of Catholicism on 
 economics and national character in general, and of Irish 
 Catholicism on the welfare of Ireland in particular 
 which might have been left out without leaving the book 
 incomplete, and which may create prejudice again&t 
 himself and his motives in those quarters where he mos4 
 needs sympathy and co-operation for the economic work 
 with which he is identified. Many who will not read his 
 book will pass judgment on it ; but it will be an impreSr- 
 sion of it and of its author made by the criticisms of it 
 which they read, with the possible result that some who 
 might be ready to help may now keep away — if not in 
 opposition, at least in neutrality. I think that would be 
 a great pity, and the criticism which I propose to make 
 on some points he has raised is not intended to create 
 prejudice against him or his work, but merely to point 
 out some errors into which I think he has fallen. 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I am A Catholic — I hope an intelligent one. I do not 
 pretend to be non-political. Those who say they hav« 
 no politics are almost always the keenest of political 
 partisans. No person who regards the duties of citizen- 
 ship can bo non-political. What some persons mean 
 when they declai'e themselves non-political is that they 
 ai'e opposed to the popular politics of the hour ; 
 that is, they want to let things stay in statu quo, 
 even though grievances exist, and though many suffer 
 hardships for the advantage of a few. Those who, 
 a quarter of a century Sigo, affected a dislike 
 of politics, were those who preferred political 
 passivity which would let things be as they were, to 
 any political activity which made for a change in the 
 order of things that was, and threatened existing poli- 
 tical privileges vrith the gradual growth of political 
 justice which we have been witnessing in recent years. 
 I call that politics of the deepest tinge, partisan politics, 
 moreover. Whilst I profess political leanings, I think I 
 am less given to partisan politics than they. I have 
 never stood on a political platform, have never belonged 
 to a political association, have never made a political 
 speech, or written a political letter to a newspaper. Thus, 
 I hope that what I am about to write will more reveal 
 the spirit of truth than the spirit of party. Sir Horace 
 avows himself a Protestant and a Unionist, and one 
 cannot expect him to look at Nationalism or CJatholicism 
 from a Nationalist or Catholic point of view. To sup- 
 pose that he should see either or both as Catholics and 
 Nationalists see them, would imply that a man of his 
 earneetness is insinoere in remaining as he is. He 
 naturally looks at them through the coloured glasses of 
 a Unionist and a Protestant. But he has formed his 
 judgment, ae he tells us, from observation and practical 
 experience, and he is satisfied that he has found the 
 truth. But, further experienoe and observation to- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 monxyw may correct and discredit his ooncltwicns of 
 to-day. 
 
 I propose to consider chiefly those points which ha ha« 
 raised with regard to the responsibility of the Catholic 
 Church in Ireland for the position in which we Irieh find 
 ourselves at the opening of the twentieth century. A* 
 to the relation of his economic revival with the politi- 
 cal movement, I do not see why they cannot work in 
 harmony. Mere politics and Parliamentary work will 
 not save the country. They can not build up iU prosr- 
 perity ; they can at best only give the people the power 
 to build it up. On the other hand, in no country 
 more than in Ireland is economic work more in n«ed 
 of Parliamentary work. To take one c&ae. Let us 
 suppose that we had achieved the result of having 
 ©very town in Ireland bl<B6sed with some manu- 
 facture. The cost of production is not all counted till 
 the goods are exposed for sale at the market. Hence, 
 the expense of taking the goods to market has to be cal- 
 culated as part of the cost of production. Our markets 
 are in England. Hence we must count the cost of 
 transit from, let us say, Ballinasloe to Liverpool. Now 
 everybody knows the extravagant cost of transit through 
 Ireland ; and, consequently, the question of transit will 
 have to be faced and settled before economic Ireland 
 can be in a position of fair play to compete with 
 foreigners in the market. But the only economic Ire- 
 land which the Railway Companies know of is that 
 element in Ireland which brings them dividends. They 
 will never make a sacrifice of dividends for the sake of 
 the public gocd, and they do not seem to have breadth 
 of vision enox"igh to see that, by lessening the cost of 
 transit, they would gain in the long run by increas« of 
 traffic, just as the penny postage increased the Imperial 
 Revenue. That Irish grievance must be redressed by 
 political action, for only Parliament can make the Irish 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Railway Companies behave themselves with some regard 
 for those on whose patronage they h&ve to depend for 
 pixjfit. 
 
 Lest the criticisms which I propose to make on his 
 book should in any way help to create prejudice against 
 him, I have thought that I ought in justice to quote the 
 following points which he places to the credit of the 
 Catholic Church in i^ckoning its influence on Irish. Nar 
 tional progress. What follows are the words of Sir 
 Horaoe, which I let speak for themselves : — 
 
 " I now come to the second great influence upon the 
 thought and action of the Irish poople, the influence of 
 religion, especially the power exercised by the priests 
 and by the unrivalled organization of the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church* I am, of course, here 
 
 concerned with only those aspects of the religious situa- 
 tion which bear directly on secular life. I am en- 
 deavouring, it must be remembered, to arrive at a 
 comprehensive and accurate appreciation of the chief 
 influences which mould the character, guide the thought, 
 and therefoi^ direct the action of the Irish people as 
 citizens of this world and of their own country f. 
 
 *' It is true that we cannot expect of any church or 
 religion, as a condition of its acceptance, that it will 
 furnish an economic theory; and it is also true that 
 Roman Catholicism has, at different periods of history, 
 advantageously affected economic conditions, even if it 
 did not act from distinctly economic motives — for ex- 
 ample by ite direct influence on the suppression of 
 slavery, and its creation of the mediaeval craft guilds. 
 It may, too, be admitted that during the Middle Ages, 
 when Roman Catholicism was freer than now to mani- 
 fest its influence in many directions, owing to its practi- 
 cally unchallenged supremacy, it favoured, when it did 
 nob originate, many foims of sound economic activity, 
 
 * Page 94. t Page 97. 
 
INTRODUCTION. D 
 
 and was, t-o say the least, abreast of the time in its con- 
 ception of the working of economic causes. But from 
 the time when the Eeformation, by its demand for what 
 we Protesta-nts conceive to be a simpler Christianity, 
 drove Roman Catholicism back, if I may use the expres- 
 sion, on its first line of defence, and constrained it to 
 look to its distinctively spiritual heritage, down to the 
 present day, it has seemed to stand strangely aloof from 
 any contact with industrial and economic issues."* 
 
 " What I have just been saying with 
 
 regard to Roman Catholicism generally, in relation 
 to economic doctrines and industrial progress, applies, 
 of course, with a hundred-fold pertinence to the case of 
 Ireland. Between the enactment of the Penal Laws 
 and the date of Roman Catholic Emancipation, Ii-ish 
 Roman Catholics were, to put it mildly, afforded scant 
 opportunity, in their own country, of developing econo- 
 mic virtues or achieving industrial success. Ruthlessly 
 deprived of Education, are they to be blamed if they did 
 not Tise the newly acquired facilities to the best advan- 
 tage? "With their religion looked on as the badge of 
 legal and social inferiority, was it any wonder that 
 priests and people alike, whilst clinging with unex- 
 ampled fidelity to their creed, remained altogether cut 
 off from the cuirrent of material prosperity? Excluded, 
 as they were, not merely from social and political privi- 
 leges, but from the most ordinary civil rights, denied 
 altogether the right of ownership of real property, and 
 restricted in the possession of personality, is it any won- 
 der that they are not to-day in the van of industrial and 
 commercial pix>gress? Nay, more, was it to have been 
 expected that the character of a people so persecuted and 
 ofltracieed should have come out of the ordeal of centuries 
 with it* adaptability and elasticity unimpaired? That 
 would have been impossible. Those who are intimate 
 •with the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, and at the 
 
 • Pages 102 and 103. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sam« time familiar with tlaeir history, will recognise in 
 ttieir character and mental outlook many an instanoo of 
 ihsA epoch of serfdom. I speak, of covirse, of the ma«s, 
 for I am not unmindful of many exceptions to thia 
 generalisation "* 
 
 " . . . . What I may call the secular short- 
 oomings ol the Roman Catholics in Ireland cannot be 
 fairly judged except as the resulte of a seriee of enact- 
 ments by which they were successively denied almost all 
 mean* of succeeding ae citizens of this world. From 
 such study ae I have been able to give to the history oi 
 their Church, I have come to the conclusion that the ira- 
 mon»e power of the Roman Catholic clergy has been 
 singularly little abused. I think it must be admitted 
 that they have not exhibited in any marked degree 
 bigotry towards Protestante. They have not put ob- 
 stacles in the way of the Roman Catholic majority 
 choosing Protestants for political leaders, and it is signi- 
 ficant that refugees, such as the Palatines, fi-om Catholic 
 persecutions in Em-ope, found at different times a home 
 amongst the Roman Catholic people of Ireland. My 
 own experience, too, if I may again refer to that, dis- 
 tinctly proves that it is no disadvantage to a man to be 
 a Proteetant in Irish political life, and that where op- 
 position is shown to him by Roman Catholics, it is 
 almost invariably on political, social, or agrarian, but 
 not on religious grounds. "f 
 
 " The evil, commonly deacribed as ' The 
 Priest in Politics ' is, in my opinion, greatly misrepre- 
 sented. The cases of priests who take an improper part 
 in politics ajre cited without reference to the vastly 
 gi'eater number who take no part at all, except when 
 genuinely assured that a definite moral isaue is at stake, 
 I alao have in my mind the question of bow we should 
 have fared if the control of the different Iriah agitations 
 had b«en confined to laymen, and if the clergy had not 
 
 * Fagoi 104 and 105. t Pafe 106. 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 oonsistently condemned secret associations. But, what- 
 ever may be said in defence of the priest in politics in 
 the past, there are the strongest grounds for deprecating 
 a continuance of their political activity in the futiure. 
 As I gauge the several forces now operating in Ii-eland, 
 I am convinced that, if an anti-clerical movement simi- 
 lar to that which other Roman Catholic countries have 
 witnessed, were to succeed in discrediting the priesthood 
 and lowering them in public estimation, it would be fol- 
 lowed by a moral, social, and political degradation, 
 which would blight, or at least postpone, our hopes of a 
 national regeneration. From this point of view I hold 
 that those clergymen who are predominantly politicians 
 endanger the moral influence which it is their solemn 
 duty to uphold. I beKeve, however, that the ovct- 
 active part hitherto taken in politics by the priests is 
 largely the outcome of the way in which Roman Catho- 
 lics were treated in the past, and that this undesirable 
 feature in Irish life will yield, and is already yielding 
 to the removal of the evils to which it owed its origin, 
 and in some measure its justification. 
 
 " One has only to turn to the spirit and temper of 
 such representative Roman Catholics as Archbishop 
 Healy and Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Ross — to their words 
 and to their deeds — in order to catch the inspiration of 
 a new movement amongst our Roman Catholic fellow- 
 countrymen, at once religious and patriotic. And if my 
 optimism ever wavers, I have but to think of the noble 
 work that many priests are to my own knowledge doing, 
 often in remote and obscure parishes, in the teeth of 
 innumerable obstacles." . ..." I may mention 
 that of the co-operative societies organised by the Irish 
 Agricultural Organisation Society there are no fewer 
 than 331 •odeties of which the local priests are the 
 chairmen, while, to ray own knowledge, during the sum- 
 mer and autumn of 1902, ae many ae 50,000 person* 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from all parte of Ireland were personally conducted over 
 the exhibit of the Department of Agriculture and Tech- 
 nica.1 Instruction at the Cork Exhibition by their local 
 clergy. Tlie educational purpose of those visits is ex- 
 plained in Chap. X. Again, in a great number of 
 oases, the village libraries which have been recently 
 started in Ireland with the assistance of the Department 
 (the books consisting largely of industrial, economic, and 
 technical works on agriculture) have been organised and 
 assisted by the Roman Catholic clergy."* 
 
 I shall consider other passages in the book in the 
 light of those I have quoted. 
 
 * Pages 117-118-119. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 I. 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett says*: — "A charge of another 
 kind has of late been brought against the Roman 
 Catholic Clergy, which has a direct bearing upon the 
 economic aspect of this question. Although, as I have 
 read Irish history, the Roman Catholic priesthood here, 
 in the main, used their authority with personal dis- 
 intereate-dnees, if not always with prudence and discre- 
 tion, their undoubted zeal for i-eligion has, on occasion, 
 assumed forms which enlightened Roman Catholics, in- 
 cluding high dignitaries of that Church, think unjusti- 
 fiable on economic grounds, and discourage, even from a 
 religious standpoint. Exoeesive and extravagant dimch- 
 building in the heart and at the expense of poor com- 
 munities is a recent and notorious example of this 
 misrdirected zeal. It hae, I believe, been too often 
 forgotten that the best monument of any clergyman's 
 influence and earnestness must always be found in the 
 moral character and the spiritual fibre of his flock, and 
 not in the marbles and mosaics of a gaudy edifice. And 
 without doubt a good many motives, which have but a 
 remote connection with religion, are, unfortunately, at 
 work in the church-building movement. It may, how- 
 ever, be regarded to some extent as an extreme reaction 
 from the penal times, when the hunted Soggarth had to 
 celebrate the Mass in cabins and caves in the mountain 
 side. . . . This expenditure, however, has been in- 
 curred, and no one, I take it, would advocate tii* 
 
 * At pages 106, 107 and 108. 
 
10 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 demolition of existing religious edifices on the ground 
 ihat their erection had been unduly costly ; the moral is 
 for the present and the future, and applies not merely 
 to economy in new buildings, but also in the decoration 
 of existing churches. . . • One of the unfortunate 
 effects of this passion for building costly churches is the 
 importation of quantities of foreign art-work, in the 
 shape of wood-carvings, stained glass, mosaics, and 
 metal-work. . . . These articles which have been 
 actually imported, in the impulse to get everything 
 finished as soon as possible, generally consist of stock 
 pieces produced in a spirit of mere commercialism in 
 the workshops of Oontinental firms, which make it tlieir 
 business to cater for a public who do not know the 
 difference between good art and bad. Much of the 
 decoration of ecclesiastical buildings, whether Roman 
 Catholic or Protestant, might fittingly be postponed 
 until religion in Ireland has got into closer relation 
 with the native artistic sense and industrial spirit now 
 beginning to seek ci^ative expression." 
 
 He lias no doubt that other motives than religious 
 have been at work in tlve church-building movement! Now, 
 the church-building movement with which he finds fault 
 may afford a fair field for discussion ; but he should 
 have clearly eeen that to go behind those actions in 
 stone and discuss the motives which inspired them, is 
 a very grave impropriety. What can he know of the 
 motives which actiiated those who have been building 
 churches over the country ? He cannot see the meaning 
 of those fine churches ; he would not build them himself 
 from a motive of divine worship ; and so, projecting his 
 own ideas into those who have built them, lie cannot 
 see how they have had religious motives either. 
 
 If any priests have had unworthy motives in building 
 chuLTches, that is a matter between them and God; 
 and tliere would be neither reason nor religion in my 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 11 
 
 prying into them. Coming from an outsider it is an 
 act of unbecomingnees such as one would not expect from 
 a person of Sir Horace Plunkett's character. It is possible 
 that some have had unworthy motives; it is even pos- 
 sible that none of those who have been building churches 
 in Ireland have been inspired by the higher moti\e3. 
 I do not know ; and he has far leas opportunity of 
 knowing. Neverthele^, he says so ; and even he has 
 no doubt §.bout it. The question applies almost ex- 
 elusively to jaai-ish priests. Now, as a rule, a pai'ish 
 priest before he has an opportunity of setting about 
 the bTJiilding of a church is well in the decline of life ; 
 and by the time he has completed it, it is nearly 
 time for him to sing his Nunc Dirnittis. Very little 
 margin, then, is left for the play of his ambition ; but 
 '.f in his old age he looks with complacency on the work 
 he has done, it is the least pleasure we might allow 
 him for the time and trouble and money and occasional 
 misunderstanding it has cost him. He can hope to 
 enjoy it but for a few years more; but his people will 
 enjoy it, and their children after them. A parish 
 priest builds a church not for himself but for his 
 people. He takes all the trouble; he takes his share of 
 the cost; and the people with their generations after 
 them will enjoy the memorial of his labour when he is 
 gone. 
 
 Again, is this '' exoessive and extravagant church- 
 building" general, or only exceptional If this charge 
 of excess infers only to exceptional cases, then, even 
 though true, it is improper to complain of it. Such ex- 
 ceptional cases of errors and shortcomings take place in 
 every department of life. If I had a mind to turn on 
 the working of the Department which Sir Horace directs 
 I think I could point out some particulars which would 
 "shock the economic sense" — yes, even in that place 
 "where we are expected to believe that the genius of 
 
12 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 economics reigns. But if those shortcomings are ex- 
 ceptional, few pei-sone acquainted with practical life 
 would think of making them a cause of public complaint 
 or reproof. But he speaks as if the charge refen-ed to 
 an excess that is common. By whom, then, is the 
 charge made? Wlio are those "High Chui'ch digni- 
 taries" who make it? If they are bishops, they have the 
 prevention as well as the cure in their own hands, since 
 no priest may build a church without the sanction of 
 his bishop. A bishop who complains of extravagant 
 church-building in his own diocese thereby inculpates 
 himeelf. If he blames that extravagance as happening 
 in another diocese, I reserve my judgment till I he>ar 
 what the bishop of that diocese has to say, for he musrti 
 know tiie state of his own diocese better than any out- 
 sider, even though the critic be episcopal. Church 
 dignitaries, as well as churchmen who are not digni- 
 taries, may name a church here and there which in their 
 opinion is too expensive. Yes, in their opinion ; but not 
 in the opinion of those who bore all the task of building 
 them, nor of the bishops who let them do it. Who, 
 then, are they who make the charge? The Protestanta 
 of Ireland ? Why, it is in spite of Protestantism that 
 we have a chuxoh at all. Is it the notorious compiler of 
 the book called " Priests and People in Ireland," and 
 such persons as retain the name of Catholic, whilst they 
 scoff at articles of faith ? But one must not expect much 
 knowledge of Catholic principles from persons who have 
 been brought up from childhood in Institutions where 
 Catholic doctrines and principles are not taught? Is it 
 the " Roman Catholic Farmer," whose conscience was so 
 sorely tried by the unpriestly avarice and neglect of 
 Canon Mclnerney, P.P., V.C, that he had to appeal to 
 the Irish Times for a reformation in the ecclesiastical 
 affairs of Killaloe? Is it the "Connaughtman," " Catho- 
 licuB," the " Roman Catholic Barrister," and the other 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN lEELAND. 13 
 
 nameless " Catholics " who caught the epidemic of slan- 
 der which broke out in the oflace of the Irish Times and 
 over-ran the country for several weeks ? Oanon Mclner- 
 ney has, by his evidence in Court, torn the mask from 
 those "enlightened Catholics," and exposed them to 
 public scorn ; so that whenever such as the " Roman 
 Catholic Farmer " appear again in the Irish Times, or 
 elsewhere, we shall know them for the Pharisees and 
 the forgers that they are.* It is well known now that 
 the •■' Roman Catholic Farmer " is not a Catholic at 
 all ; and I presiime that those other anonymous " Catho- 
 lics" who unburdened their consciences in the Irish 
 Times walk the same way of salvation. 
 
 This is a curious fact. One never hears a complaint 
 of excess or extravagance from those who subscribe most 
 to church-building and such objects. The complaint and 
 criticism comes from those who never subscribe at all, or 
 as rarely as they can, and as little as they can offer 
 for vei*y shame. It is so with that class in every depart- 
 ment of life. If the Parliamentary Party ask them for 
 a subscription they take no interest in politics, they 
 think that economic Ireland is too much forsaken. If 
 an industrial movement is started and they are asked to 
 help, they have neither interest nor hope in the possi- 
 "bility of such movements until Home Rule comes. The 
 truth is that they have neither economic, political, nor 
 
 * This refers to the action for libel brought by the Vicar Greneral 
 of Killaloe against the Irish Times on account of a letter pub- 
 lished in it, which accused the Vicar of neglecting the poor of his 
 parish, and of caring only for the rich, and for hie revenues. 
 Counsel for the Irish Times did not even cross-examine the Vicar 
 on his evidence, but settled the case at once. The reader will 
 have an insight into the character of those "Roman Catholic" 
 correspondents from the fact iliat, although the " Roman Catholic 
 Parmer" from Killaloe confided his name and address to the 
 Editor of the Irish Times, a registered letter did not find him 
 there when the Editor wanted his evidence to meet the action. 
 Besides the financial element of the settlement, counsel for the 
 Irith Times made a most unqualified apology in Court on erery 
 statement and suggestion in the letter. 
 
14 CATHOLIC CHURX3H BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 religioxis principle. Their only principle is in their 
 pocket — and their only interest also. It is a pity thai 
 Sir Horace Plunkett has published those expressions afc 
 a time when they will be interpreted not according to 
 the spirit in which I believe h© writes them, but in 
 the shadow of the epidemic of slander against Irish 
 Catholicism which has lately broken out in many quain- 
 ter s of the country. 
 
 n. 
 
 The sort of houa© which a people build to God de- 
 pends on the nature and depth of their faith, and 
 on the form of their worship. A people who did not 
 believe in God at all would not, of course, think of build- 
 ing a church wherein to worship Him. It would be a 
 work without meaning or merit. The positivist, whose 
 "god" is Humanity, is satisfied with a hall. An agnostic 
 needs only the earth and ocean with the dome of heaven 
 above, to worship the Great Unknown, hidden behind 
 boundless space and time. The awe which that con- 
 templation inspires gives his i-eligion a resonance which 
 is wanting in that of the positivist. But Catholics 
 believe in God and in Divine Providence; and they 
 feel the need of a special place devoted to His service, 
 because men are socially as well as individually bound to 
 EKvine worship. And they do not think that any sort 
 of a place is good enough for the purpose. Their faith 
 and love, and their feeling of homage, would express 
 themselves not merely in bricks and mortar, but in 
 beauty of architecture, painting, and sculpture. The 
 Protestant cannot understand that, because he cannot 
 appreciate the Catholic ideal ; and I do not blame him. 
 He thinks that a quadrilateral edifice, with bare walli 
 like a barn, is enough. And why not, since he has 
 nothing to put in it? For him God is present in th« 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 15 
 
 church only aa He is preseni in one's home, in the fields, 
 or in the woods. The Irish people, with their inttino- 
 tive insight into religioiis ideals, commonly call a Pro- 
 testant place of worship " the preaching church." But 
 Catholics believe in the Real Presence; and, therefore, 
 instead of a communion table which satisfies the purpose 
 of Protestantism, they employ art to build a church and 
 an altar of beauty around the tabernacle where the 
 Incarnate God reposes under the Sacramental Species. 
 They believe in the veneration and intercession of Saints, 
 and memorials of them in the from of frescoes or statvies 
 is another element of adornment and expense. 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett says that " the best monument to 
 a clergyman's influence and earnestness must always be 
 found in the moral character and the spiritual fibre of 
 his flock, and not in the marbles and mosaics of a gaudy 
 edifice." I quite agree with him. But I thought it was 
 generally acknowledged, at least outside the nan-ow mind 
 of Irish Protestantism, that the " moral character " of 
 Irish Catholics stood high amongst the people of Christen- 
 dom ; and it is just that " moral character and spiritual 
 fibre " which would express its idea of himian homage to 
 God in those churches which he calls " excessive and 
 extravagant." Catholic faith refuses to measure its ex- 
 pression by utilitarian standards ; such as, how many 
 square feet will give kneeling room to so many of a con- 
 gregation, or will seat so many worshippers'? Would 
 not a plain table which could be bought for a few 
 shillings at any second-hand furnittire shop do for an 
 altar? Does not a table serve that pu.i-pose when Mass 
 is said in private houses? Did rock ledges not serve 
 that purpose in the Penal days wlien Irish Catholic faith 
 was as deep as martyrdom? And anyone who holds to 
 the utilitarian view of chuich-building must admit that 
 those questions imply what is true, and yet everyone 
 who rieads them will at onoe aay that they imply what is 
 
16 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 ridiculous. And so tliey do. But the Catholic religious 
 ideal is not the ideal of utilitarian industrialism. They 
 are iucommensurahJe quantities, as the mathematicians 
 say. What is enough, for economics is not enough for 
 Catholic faith. 
 
 What the supernatural faith of Catholics demands 
 the aesthetic sense of Ruskin sees in the natural fitness 
 of things. He writes : — * 
 
 " Now, this Lamp, or Spirit, of Sacrifice prompts us to 
 the offering of procious things, merely because they are 
 pi-eoious, not because they are useful or necessary. It 
 is a spirit, for instance, which of two marbles, equally 
 beautiful, applicable and durable, would choose the more 
 costly, because it was so, and of two kinds of decora^ 
 tions, equally effective, would choose tlie more elaborate 
 because it was so, in order tKat it might in the same 
 compass present more cost and more thought. It is, 
 therefore, the most unreasoning and enthusiastic, and 
 perhaps best negatively defined, as the opposite of the 
 prevalent feeling of modern times, which desires to 
 produce the largest results at the least cost. 
 Now, it cannot but at first appear futile to assert the 
 expediency of self-denial for its own sake, when, for so 
 many sakes, it is every day necessary to a far greater 
 degree than any of us practise it. But I believe it is 
 just because we do not enough acknowledge or contem- 
 plate it as a good in itself, that we are apt to fail in its 
 duties when they become imperative, and to calculate 
 with some partiality, whether the good pui'posed to 
 others measures or warrants the amount of grievance to 
 ourselves, instead of accepting with gladness the oppoi^ 
 
 tunity of sacrifioe as a personal advantage 
 
 Can the Deity be indeed honoui^ed by the presentation 
 to Him of any material object of value, or by any direc- 
 
 • The Seven Lamps of Architectm-e. Chap. I., pp. 10, 11, 16, 19 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 17 
 
 tion of zeal or wisdom -which is not immediately benefi- 
 cial to men? 
 
 It has been said — ^it ought always to be said, for it is 
 true — that a better and more honourable offering is 
 made to our Master in ministry t-o the poor, in extend- 
 ing the knowledge of His name, in the practice of the 
 virtues by which that name is hallowed, than in material 
 presents to His temple. Assuredly it is so; woe to all 
 who think that any other kind or manner of offering may 
 in any wise take the place of these. Do the people need 
 a place to pray, and call to hear his word? Then it is 
 no time for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits; let us 
 have enough first of walls and roofs. . . . But let us 
 examine ourselves and see if this be the reason for oiu- 
 backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not 
 between God's House and His poor; it is not between 
 God's House and His Gospel. It is between God's 
 House and ours. Have we no tesselated colours on our 
 floors ? no frescoed fancies on our roofs 1 no niched statu- 
 ary in our con-idors? no gilded furniture in our 
 chambers? no costly stenes in our cabinets? Has even 
 a tithe of these been offered ? They are or they ought 
 to be, the signs that enough has been devoted to the 
 great pxirposes of human stewardship, and that there 
 remains to us what we can spend in luxui-y; but there 
 ia a greater and pi-ouder luxury than this selfish one — 
 that of bringing a portion of such things as these into 
 sacred service, and presenting them for a memorial that 
 our pleasure as well as our toil has been hallowed by the 
 remembrance of Him who gave both the strength and 
 the i-eward. And until this is done, I cannot see how 
 such possessions can be retained in happiness. I do 
 not understand the feeling which would arch our own 
 gates and pave our own thresholds and leave the church 
 with its nari'ow door and foot-worn sill; the feeling 
 which enriches our own chambei'S with all manner ot 
 
18 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 costliness, and endures the bare wall and mean compase. 
 of the temple. ... I say this emphatically that 
 the tenth part' of the expense which is sacrificed in 
 domestic vanities, if not absolutely and meaninglessly 
 lost in domestic discomforts and incumbrances would, if 
 collectively offered and wisely employed, build a marble 
 church for every town in England ; such a church as it 
 would be a joy and a blessing, even to pass near in our 
 daily ways and walks, and as it would bring the light 
 into the e}-es to see from afar, lifting its fair height 
 above the purple crowd of humble roofs. . . . It is 
 not the church that we want, but the sacrifice ; not the- 
 emotion of admiration, but the act of adoration ; not the 
 gift, but the giving. . . . Let us not ask of what 
 use our offering is to the chui'ch; it is at least better 
 for us than if it had been retained for ourselves. It 
 may be better for others also; there is at any rate a 
 chance of this; though we must always fearfully and 
 widely shun the thought that the magnificence of the 
 tempi© can materially add to the efficiency of the worsliip 
 or to the power of the ministry. Whatever we do, or 
 whatea^er we offer, let it not interfere with the sim- 
 plicity of the one, or abate, as if replacing, the zeal of 
 the other." 
 
 In a foot-note to the above, he writes — " Thirteen lines 
 of vulgar attack on Roman-Catholicism are here omitted, 
 with much gain to the chapter's grace, and purification of 
 its truth." Sir Horace Plunkett would do well to fol- 
 low his example if another edition of his book is called 
 for; from others of our critics we neither ask nor ex- 
 pect it. 
 
 The utilitarians do not seem to be governed by their 
 own standards in the case of buildings for profane uses. 
 Why the waste of elaborate architecture in the National 
 Museum in Dublin? Would not plain walls and roofing 
 shelter its antiquarian treasures quite as well ? Nelson's. 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IX IRELAND. 19 
 
 monxunent was built at an enormous cost; and as a 
 monument it has no meaning, for the Irish people have 
 never held him in honour, but they were forced to pay 
 for his monument. The Corporation of Belfast, " the 
 home of the strictly civic virtues and efficiencies," 
 according to Sir Horace Plunkett, insist that anyone 
 building or repairing a business house in the city shall 
 have the front enriched with architectural adornmentB. 
 We observe the same non-utilitarian expense in Banks, 
 Insurance Offices, Custom Houses, Court Houaes, and in 
 the netw College of Science for whose expensive architec- 
 ture Sir Horace himself is responsible. The houses of 
 many landlords cost a great deal more than the local 
 hoxise of God. Kylemore house and place probably cost 
 more than all the Catholic Ohuxches in Oonnaught. 
 Would he say that those structures " shock the 
 economic sense?" And if not, why not? Since 
 buildings which would cost a great deal less would serve 
 their purpose just as well, and in some cases the cost 
 has brought their owners to bankruptcy. I do not find 
 fault with those buildings and their expensive appur- 
 tenances; for a thing of beauty, sacred or profane, ia a 
 joy for ever. But the utilitarians who have the eco- 
 nomic sense strongly developed should in consistency 
 condemn them as 'excessive and extravagant." Yet I 
 have never heard of such condemnation made in public 
 by those who look at the cost of CathoHc Churches as 
 through a microscope. It is only when a beautiful 
 house is built to God that they discern extravagance 
 and excess. The root of the difference between Catholics 
 and men like Prof. Ruskin on the one hand, and the 
 ordinary utilitarian economist on the other hand, seems 
 to be a difference in the depth of faith and in the per- 
 ception of the fitness of things. I have seen it recorded, 
 with what correctness I cannot say, that about £400,000 
 was spent in connection with the King's coronation. 
 
20 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 From au economist's point of view it might have been 
 done for a small fraction of that sum ; but I have not 
 heard that any economist has been scandalised at the 
 cost. I am not now complaining ; I mei-ely make a not© 
 of it, to jxjint a contrast. 
 
 If the economist's ideal had always obtained we should 
 have no St. Peter's at Rome, no Cathedrals of Milan, 
 Cologne, Westminster, Salisbury, or York, or the 
 old Abbey Chui'ches of Ireland ; and yet we glory in the 
 faith of our fathers which expressed itself in those monu- 
 ments of beauty. The ordinar}' Protestant mind cannot 
 understand that; and consequently those memorials of 
 spiritual enthusiasm were not inspired by Protestantism. 
 
 Yet, Protestants possess them in these countries. 
 When Protestantism arose it rejected all the Catholic 
 doctrines which it found inconvenient, and laid hold of 
 all the Catholic churches which it cared about or could. 
 Unlike positivism, and the brood of other modern isms 
 which Protestantism has begotten in time, it did not cast 
 all the clothes of Catholicism. It would have churches, 
 but its founders would not bear th© cost of building 
 them. They found a more ecenomic way — their plan of 
 church provision in Ireland was as simple as plunder. 
 They would worship Grod ; so they broke the Seventh 
 Commandment in order to fulfil the First. What is 
 troubling them here in Ireland is, not that our chuichea 
 are too expensively built, but that we have any churches 
 at aJl. I do not include Sir Horace Plunkett in th© 
 number of those to whom I allude; I willingly exclude 
 him, although his words have supplied me with a text. 
 For, why should the excessive expense give them trouble 
 since they have not been asked to share it? They 
 appropriated the churches which our fathers built; 
 they burnt some; others they let go to ruin. They 
 now find that on the one hand their vandalism has been 
 in vain, and that on the other hand th© Catholic Ohurch 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILBING IN IRELAND. 21 
 
 has arisen from its ashes. They will never forgive us 
 for having survived. " Primum humani ingenii e4t, 
 odisse quern laeseris."* Time was, and only two 
 or three generations ago, when, despoiled of their 
 churches and not permitted to build others, the 
 Catholics of Ireland v/ho lived in the country had 
 to worship God in the woods and amidst the 
 mountains; and those who lived in cities gathered 
 together in garrets, as when the parishioners of St. 
 Michan's in Dublin used to hear Mass in a back room in 
 Hangman's Lane. As soon as the dawn of liberty broke 
 upon them they began to build ; but they had to struggle 
 against other difl&cuities than poverty; such, for in- 
 stance, as when so late as forty years ago, the parish 
 priest of Carrigaholt, Co. Clare, had a van constructed 
 on wheels in which he said Mass on Sundays and Holi- 
 days, and which he had moved from place to place for 
 the convenience of the people. The landlord would not 
 let him have a perch of ground on which to build a 
 church, nor even a school unless on the condition of 
 proselytism. Dean White, who was then a young priest 
 in Carrigaholt, has told the story of " The Little Ark," 
 as it was called, in an interesting booklet of the Catholic 
 Truth Society, from which I learn that it is still pre- 
 served in the parish church as a memorial of the things 
 that were. That was late in the morning of the Catholic 
 revival; it was the time of thatched chapels which our 
 grandfathers built both because they were poor, and 
 because they dreaded publicity, or were afraid to show 
 their strength. Then came the fulness of day. A new 
 generation of Catholics had arisen. They cast off the 
 winding bands from their limbs, and began to walk erect 
 in the presence of their oppressors. With that genera- 
 tion began to appear one by one those churches which 
 " shock the economic sense " of our neighbours, not 
 because they paralyse Catholic industry or consume 
 
 •Tacitu«: Agrieola, 42. 
 
22 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 Catholic money, but because they vindicate the inde- 
 structibility of Irish Catholic faith and patriotism which 
 the prototypes of the new-born patrons of our tem- 
 poral prosperity had done their worst to destroy. Those 
 new churches are the expression of Irish Catholic faith 
 tOKiay ; the ruins of our old churches stand in their de- 
 solation, the memorials of Protestant injustice, the neg- 
 lected relics of their shame. Protestants, amongst whom 
 I number certain nondescripts who go by the name of 
 " Catholic," are sorely tried by the extravagance of our 
 modem church-building, since it absorbs money which 
 they say might be spent in other and better ways, and 
 they express the keenest sympathy witb us in our want 
 of wealth. If we had not been robbed of our old churches 
 we should not now have to "shock their economic sense" 
 by spending money on new ones, which they say would 
 be moi-e usefully spent in industria.l activity, or in giving 
 employment to the poor. Tbat is the cry; but they 
 cannot claim a patent for it. Tbey have been anticipated 
 by a prototype who has become notorious. When Mary 
 brought the alabaster-box of ointment to anoint the feet 
 6f the Divine Founder of the Catholic Chxu-ch, there was 
 one present whose economic sense was shocked. In his 
 pretended love for the needy he cried out, " Why was not 
 this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor? " 
 — why this waste? That philanthropist was Judas Is- 
 cariot. And curious to think, it was St. John, the Evan- 
 gelist of love, who makes this commentary on his conduct 
 — " Now, he said this, not because he cared for the poor ; 
 but because he wa^ a thief, and having the purse, carried 
 the things that were put therein." Now, I propose a 
 question, the solution of which will throw much light on 
 the question I am discussing — Which was more faithful 
 to Christ and had more sympathy for the poor, Iscariot, 
 the philanthropic economist who was scandalised at 
 Mary's extravagance, or St. John who said that her critic 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 23 
 
 liad his heart, not in the 3xx>r, but in the purse? If 
 Judas lived in Ireland to-day he would probably shed 
 crocodile teaxs over the poverty of the people, whilst 
 money is squandered in raising Churches to God ; and 
 ha would say — "Why this waste? Many factories 
 oould be equipped for the money thus squandered ; and 
 the Department could be subsidised to carry on its mis- 
 sion of industrial revival in Ireland." It was the expen- 
 sive ointment purchased to honour Christ that shocked 
 the " economic sense " of Iscariot of old ; it would be the 
 expensive churches raised to honour Christ which would 
 shock his "economic sense" if he lived in Ireland to^iay. 
 Churches have been springing up over the countiy during 
 the past fifty years and more. The clergy have naturally 
 taken the initiative in that revival — and they have never 
 been forgiven for it. That is the philosophy of church- 
 bxiilding criticisms in a nut-shell. If they had let the 
 old thatched chapels go to ruin, or if they had replaced 
 them only by chapels equally poor, the expedient piety 
 of our critics would probably express itself, with clasped 
 hands, eyes turned prayerfully to heaven, a tear of 
 compassion for the poor in their eye, and the following 
 ory of indignation on their lips, " Oh, those Romish 
 mercenaries! See their neglect! They have let the 
 houses of God become hovels! The people, out of the 
 fulness of a living faith, have been ready for two genera- 
 tions since we emancipated them, with their subscrip- 
 tions, wa.iting to be called upon by those whom they 
 look to as their spiritual guides and leaders. But they 
 have been waiting in vain; no call ever came.' 
 
 But, perhaps, I am beating the air ; the protest is not 
 gainst chui'ch-building, but against " excess and extra- 
 fyagance " in that praiseworthy work. That brings me to 
 the economic aspect of the work, which I will now 
 ^consider. 
 
24 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 III. 
 
 I HAVE hitherto considered chiefly the differences be- 
 tween the Catholic and non-Catholic motives and 
 ideals in church-building. But, what Sir Horace Plun- 
 kett finds fault with is not the building of churches to a 
 reasonable number or cost, but the " excessive and ex- 
 travagant church-building in the heart and at the ex- 
 pense oif poor communities." 
 
 Now, lot us consider this church-building, ag to the 
 number of churches. 
 
 In Ireland there are 2,417 Catholic Churches for 
 3,308,000 Catholics. 
 
 In Great Britain there are 1,954 Catholic Churches for 
 2,013,400 Catholics. 
 
 In the United States there are 11,000 Catholic 
 Churches for 12,000,000. 
 
 That is to say: — In the United. States eveiy 1,090 
 Catholics are provided with a church ; in Great Britain, 
 every 1,030 Catholics aro provided with one; in Ireland, 
 there is a church for every 1,368 Catholics. I have no 
 knowledge of the churches in the United States. But 
 J can speak of those in Great Britain, and I am con- 
 vinced that, taken one with another, they are more 
 expensive than those in Ireland. More expensive and 
 more numerous! but I have never heard that the 
 " econofmio sense " of our critics has been shocked bv 
 their "excess and extravagance," although they have 
 been for the most part built, and have been almost 
 entirely kept up by the pennies of the Irish poor. 
 But Catholic Ireland is looked upon as a fair tai'get 
 for everyone. The truth is, it is hated by those who 
 have tried in vain to destroy it. The Irish Catholic 
 across the Atlantic or across the Channel, may, with 
 impunity and out of his poverty, build churches, as 
 many and as costly as he likes; but the Irish Catholic 
 at home should have garnered his savings exclusively to 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 25 
 
 keep up supplies for the spendthrift absentee, and be- 
 cause he has thought fit to build his own churches in 
 his own way he is held up to public scorn as wanting 
 in those " civic virtues and efficiencies " which are said 
 to find their home in the North. 
 
 Again, there are in Ireland, 1,362 Pi'otestant Incum- 
 bents for 581,089 Episcopalian Protestants — I am leav- 
 ing out the Presbyterians, Methodists, and others. But, 
 many Incumbents have more than one church ; some of 
 them have three. If we fix the number of churches at 
 1,500, which I believe to be a low estimate, we find that 
 whilst every 320 Protestants are provided with a 
 church, there is only a church, for every 1,368 Catholics. 
 I will be reminded that 320 Protestants could better 
 afTord to build a church than 1,368 Catholics. I admit 
 it. I am not at all accusing tiiem of extravagance in 
 church-building. Far from it ; their churches are to me 
 a symbol, not of their extravagance, but of their " econo^ 
 m:c sense," inasmuch, as most of these have been built 
 at the expei^e of Catholics. I do not i-efer to 
 the old cburches of which, they despoiled our fore- 
 fathers ; I refer to modern churches built even within the 
 19th century. Sir Horace Plunkett has not made a full 
 indictm.ont of extravagance in church-building against 
 the Catholics of Ireland. I take leave to add another 
 item to the charge. He indicts Catholics only for extra- 
 vagance in building churches for themselves; I indict 
 them for the additional extravagance of building churches 
 for Protestants also. 
 
 Amongst the most shameless iniquities which the 
 Catholics of Ireland have had to bear in modern times 
 were the Vestry Laws. A few Protestants met together, 
 and, without let, hindrance, control, or responsibility of 
 any sort, levied a cess at their discretion or caprice OD 
 the Catholics for the building or the repairing of their 
 church, for cleaning it, for ringing the bell, for washing 
 
26 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 l/hepajson'ssfurplioe, buying wine for the Communion, pay- 
 ing the parish clerk, the pew-openers, and vestry-maids, 
 etc. It waa bad enough that Catholics shooild have to 
 bear these burdens at all, but it was worse that they 
 should not dare to ask if they were necessary, had no op- 
 tion but to pay whatever applottment it pleased the ves- 
 trymen to levy. From 1725, when Catholics were ex- 
 cluded from having a voice in vestries, the powers of 
 these bodies passed through three processes of extension 
 till it came to this, that the Protestant bishop was em- 
 powered to unite for any such cess purpose any parish he 
 chose, even though there was not a Protestant in it, to 
 another parish where the vestrymen determined to build 
 or to Impair a church. It depended on them to assign 
 what value they thought fit to each one's property, to 
 levy a cess accordingly, and then let the churchwardens 
 loose upon the Catholics whom they had decreed to fleece. 
 Thus wealthy Protestants could escape scot-free, wliilst 
 the poor Catholics, fleeced already for their rents, were 
 fleeced anew for their churches. Thus the Catholics of 
 a district were often made to bear the bui-den of building 
 a church for Protestants who perhaps lived fifty miles 
 away. Thus had the burden of Protestant church- 
 building to be borne not only by CathoHcs who lived 
 where Protestants were, but also by those who lived where 
 Protestants were not. That is a count which Sir Horace 
 Plunkett has not put into his indictment against the 
 Catholics of Ireland. 
 
 They appropriated the old Catholic churches; they 
 confiscated Catholic church property also, which, when 
 Catholics held it, bore the burden of churches and 
 schools. They turned that to personal use, although they 
 had the tithes besides ; and withal they let the churches 
 go to ruin.* Then Government gave them grants for the 
 
 *In a speech delivered in 1763 by Sir Lucius O'Brien, M.P. for 
 Enriis, he said that in 62 out of the 76 parishes of the County 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 27 
 
 ^juilding and repairs of churches, which should have 
 been done out of the church property. From 1760 to 
 180O they received Government grants for church-build- 
 ing and glebe-houses to the amount of £250,000. Be- 
 tween 180O and 1812, they received over £200,000 for 
 the same purposes.! Notwithstanding all these church 
 revenues and Government grants, they made the Catho^ 
 lies build and repair their churches through the church 
 cesseg levied by the vestries. So constant and enormous 
 were these church oesses that the scandal could no 
 longer be disguised, and in 1825, a Government enquiry 
 made revelations of sacrilegious dishonesty, before which 
 the frauds, filth, and dishonesty for which a previous 
 
 Clare no Protestant Church existed, that the rectors of them were 
 non-resident, and that ' therefore the inhabitants of many parishes 
 were reduced either to the total neglect of all religious duties or 
 to have recourse to a Popish priest.' 
 
 In a Letter to the Bishops and Clergy of Ireland, published 
 in 1760, it is said: — " There are 1,600 parish churches in the king- 
 dom in ruins, and of the 600 that are standing, one-third are ready 
 to tumble, and the clergy do not reside as they ouglit to." Cf. also 
 The English State Church in Ireland, by Dr. Maziere Brady, and 
 The History of the Catholic Association, by Sir Thomas Wyse, 
 page 254. 
 
 1 1 take the following from that very exhaustive work on Ireland 
 and her Churches, by James Godkin, published in 1867. Pages 
 xvii. and xviii. Introduction. 
 
 " From a return made to Parliament on 24th July, 1803, it 
 appears that the number of parishes in Ireland then was 2,436; 
 of benefices, 1.120; of churches, 1,001; and of glebe houses, 355. 
 This represents the state of the Established Church in the year 1791. 
 
 " From a Parliamentary return ordered in 18^, it appears that 
 within the present century the following amounts had been voted 
 l)y Parliament up to that date:— Gifts for building churches, 
 £224,946; loans for building churches, £286,572; total, £511,538, 
 for building churches in 25 years. 
 
 "During the same period gifts were made for glebes, £61,484; 
 gifts for glebe houses, £144,734. Loans were granted for the 
 same purpose amounting to £222,291, making a total for glebes 
 and glebe houses, £428,509. Thus, between the year 1791 and 1826 
 the Establishment obtained for churches and glebes the sum of 
 £940,047. The number of glebe houses in 1826 was increased to 
 771, and of benefices to 1396. The number of cures with non- 
 i««8idenoe wa£ 286." 
 
28 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 Grovernment Commission had denounced the Charter 
 schools were but a shadow. If I had space I would give 
 some specimens taken from the Exjport of that Commis- 
 sion of 1825 ; they would be amusing, if they were nc^ 
 disgusting. Some of those chuixhes were built in parishes 
 where there was hardly a Protestant besides the parson's 
 family. At Tulla, Co. Clare, they built one beside the 
 ruined Abbey on the hill, and then, to save the trouble 
 of reaching it, they built another in the plain. 
 
 Little wonder they cannot appreciate how we build 
 our churches, since that is how they have built their 
 own. That is how these men of " civic virtues and 
 efficiencies " showed their " economic sense " — and their 
 sense of justice and public decency. 
 
 So much for the Catholic churches in Ireland as t^ 
 number. Now, as to cost. What we do not approve 
 in the churches which you, Roman Catholics, have been, 
 building, says the typical Protestant critic, is, that they 
 cost too much for your poverty. Now, the short answer 
 to that is — Who has asked for your approval? When 
 you ai'© asked to bear a share of the cost, it will be 
 time for yoii to complain; but since our churcheai, 
 reasonable or extravagant, have cost you nothing, w« 
 request you to mind yoiir own business. It is we who 
 have made our churches, not you; it is you who have 
 made our poverty, not we. In either case, what is 
 our glory is your shame. We are proud of those 
 churches, and of the faith which, in spite of 
 your oppression, has lived to build them. In your 
 hatred you did your worst to extinguish it, in your angec 
 you revile it for having survived. We are proud of our 
 poverty too — not,liowever, of that poverty in itself, which 
 we regret, but rather of the fidelity to conscience and 
 to honour which has kept us poor. And it is a strange 
 irony that those who despoiled us of nearly all we owned 
 shouJd now turn to advis© us how to economise the little 
 
CATHOLIC CHUECH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 29 
 
 ■we have left, in relation to the activity of our faith 
 which has outlived their injustice. It seems as if they 
 axe ashamed of the histor}- they have made in this matter, 
 and, like Mr. Chamberlain who tried to direct the 
 thoughts of the British public from the expensive folly 
 &f the Boer war to the economic wisdom of protective 
 tariffs, they want to erase our poverty from their own 
 account, and to place it to the credit of what they call 
 our church-building extravagance. 
 
 I have tried to roughly estimate the cost of all the 
 Catholic churches which exist in Ireland at present. 
 The vast majority of them are rural. Most of them 
 date from the first half of tbe last century; a great 
 many are small and plain ; most of them were built at 
 a time when building cost much less than it costs now. 
 In country places, where the vast majority of the 
 churches are, a great deal of expense is saved by the help 
 which is gi'atuitously given by the people in the form of 
 labour and horse-work, etc. Taking the large and the 
 small, the old and the new, a most competent clerk of 
 wcrks, of wide and long experience, whom I have con- 
 sulted, tells me that their average cost would be about 
 £2,000. A priest of muoh experience and judgment in 
 chujcli-building, thinks that average considerably too 
 Mgh. If we fix an estimate befcAveen both we get about 
 i;4,000,000, as the whole cost; and, deducting from 
 iJiat the money which has come from outside, especially 
 tvom America, we find that all which has been spent 
 "fcy the Catholics of Ireland on church-building is about 
 £3,000,000. ■'^ We must not look on that sum in the 
 
 ^ SJiH-G the above was written I have read a pamphlet on "The 
 progress of Catholicity in Ireland in the \^th century," by Myles 
 O'Reniy, B.A.. LL.D., M.P. It was read first before the Congress 
 of M«ch!in, and then published in 1865. He collected informa- 
 MOB from the Irish Bishops on the cost of the Churches built in 
 their respective dioceaes, during (he previous 65 years of the cen- 
 iOTT", an^ he gives the result in an appendix. There were 1,842 
 dkarches, built at a cost of £3,098.627. Judging by analogy from 
 
30 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 same light as money spent on extra-rents, extra- 
 taxes, or extra-drink, which disbursements are 
 renewed from year to year. A similar outlay 
 {.hall not have to be renewed for 200 years more, unless, 
 which is not likely, those who appropriated our old 
 chmxjhes should celebrate a ter-oenteuary of their con- 
 fiscations by appropriating our new churches also, for 
 most of thedr own, or rather those which we have 
 built for them, will have gone to ruin, and they are 
 not likely to shock their "economic sense' by wasting 
 money on others to replace them. But the annual 
 drink bill for Ireland is about £13,000,000. The 
 duty alone on the drink-bill is about ,£6,000,000 ; 
 to which Catholics, unfortunately, contribute theii' 
 share. What was paid as extra-rent before the 
 Land Courts came, that is to say, money paid 
 almost exclusively by Irish Catholics who made 
 and rightfully owned it, to those who legally claimed but 
 did not own it, amounted each year to vastly more than 
 has been spent on all the churches in Ireland for the 
 last hundred years. Moreover, that yearly drain was 
 not a mere passing of so much money from one class in 
 the country to another; it was so much wrongfully 
 wrung from the people, taken out of the country, and 
 spent abroad. According to the Report of the Recess 
 CJommission, we pay as much each year over and above 
 our just share of Imperial taxes as we have spent on 
 all our churches. 
 
 The Catholics of Ireland paid in any five years for 
 the support of the Protestant Church before its Dis- 
 establishment, for which they got no value whatever, as 
 
 tho number of churches built in the diocese of Limerick since then, 
 I estimate the cost of the churches built in Ireland since the begin- 
 ning of tho ]9th century down to the present at £5,000,000; and 
 deducting ^El, 000, 000 as having come from abroad, there would 
 remain £4,000,000 contributed in Ireland. I believe my esti- 
 mate is rather high. 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAN©. 31 
 
 much as they ha,xe spent in chiirch-building for a hun- 
 dred years. The tithe-rent charge was really, though 
 indirectly, paid almost exclusively by Catholics. 
 Our share in the cost of the Boer war is probably 
 much more than we have paid in church-building for 
 the past hundred years. The Department during the 
 four years of its existence, has consumed as much 
 money as all the Catholic churches which have been 
 built in Ireland for the past thirty years. With the 
 exception of this last, all those other expenses are 
 looked upon by Irish Catholics as extravagant and 
 worse. They were compulsory contributions moreover, 
 not the spontaneous offerings of their convictions. 
 
 Now, what element is it that makes the " excess 
 and extravagant church-building in the heart, and 
 at the expense of poor communities " in Ireland 
 "shock the economic sense?" It was money spent on 
 Catholic churches j that seems to be the head and frooit 
 of the economic ofFence. Sir Horace Plunkett is good 
 enough to write : — " This expenditure, however, has been 
 incun^d; and no one, I take it would advocate the 
 demolition of existing religious edifices on the ground 
 that their erection has been unduly costly ! The moral 
 is for the present and the future, and applies not merely 
 to economy in new buildings, but also in the decorafeion 
 of existing churches.''* One is sTirprised that a caJm 
 thinker like Sir Horace did not see, whilst he was 
 writing those words, that he, a non-Catholic, was laying 
 himself open to a charge of the plainest impertinence. 
 Let him keep his soul in peace-; the buildings erected 
 shall not be demolished, and those which Catholics 
 think well to build will be built. I am sure he was 
 quite unconscious of the offensive character of those 
 words when he wrote them ; but he has been misled all 
 along by measuring Catholic religjoua work by Pro- 
 testant ideas. 
 
 • Page 109. 
 
32 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 John Mitchell was i-eading Macaulay's essay ou Bacon 
 one day on board H. M. S. Scourge, on his way to Ber- 
 muda; after which he wrote down the following reflec- 
 tions on utilitarian philosophy which I think very much 
 to my purpose.! I respectfully offer them to Sir 
 Horace as sauce wherewith to season his economics: — 
 
 " "WTiat a very poor fool Jesus Christ would have 
 been, judged by the ' new philosophy ' — for his aim 
 and Plato's were one. He disdained to be useful in 
 the matter of our little comforts ; yes, indeed ' he 
 could not condescend to the humble oflBce of minister- 
 ing to the comfort of human beings.' On the contrary, 
 whatsoever things are pui'e, whatsoever things are holy, 
 if there be any virtue. 
 
 " Why, good Messiah, this is the mere Academy over 
 again. Have you considered that these are unattain- 
 able frames of mind? You offer us living bread, and 
 water which he that drinketh shall not thirst again; 
 very beautiful, but too romantic. Can you help us to 
 butter the mere farinaceous bread we have got, to 
 butter it first on one side and then on the otlier? — to 
 improve the elemental taste and somewhat too para- 
 disaic weakness of this water? These are our vulgar 
 wants; these are what the mass of mankind agrees to 
 call good. Whatsoever things are snug, whatsoever 
 things are influential — if there be any comfort, if there 
 be any money, think on these things. Henceforth we 
 acknowledge no light of the world which does not light 
 our way to good things like these. 
 
 " Almost this sounds profanely; but the profanity be- 
 longs to the essayist. His comparison of Plato's philo- 
 sophy with modern inventive genius is exactly as reason- 
 able as if he had compared the Christian i^eligion with 
 the same. Ancient philosophy was indeed natural re- 
 
 ■fjail Journal: pp. 42, 43, 44, 45. I should like to quot* from 
 pp. 37 to 42 also, but for the length of it. 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BXnLDING IN IRELAND. 33 
 
 iigiou — was au earnest striving after spiritual truth and 
 good; it dealt -with the supersensuous and nobler part 
 of man ; and its ' aim ' was to purify his nature, and 
 give him hope of an immortal destiny amongst the en- 
 throned gods on sainted seats. 
 
 " Just so, says the essayist ; that was what they called 
 wisdom — this is what I, Lord Bacon and I, call wisdom. 
 ' The end which the great Lord Bacon proposed to him- 
 self was the multiplying of human enjoyments and the 
 mitigating of human sufferings.' Anything beyond 
 this we simply ignore ; let all the inquirings, all the as- 
 pirings of mankind stop here. Leave off dreaming of 
 your unattainaible frames of mind, and be content with 
 the truth as it is in Bacon. 
 
 " I can imagine an enlightened inductive Baconian 
 standing by with scornful nose as he listens to the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount, and then taking the preacher sternly 
 to task — ' What mean you by all this ' — " Bless them 
 that curse you " — " Love your enemies " — " Be ye per- 
 fect as your Father in Heaven is perfect." What mor- 
 tal man ever attained these frames of mind? Why not 
 turn your considerable talents, friend, to something 
 useful, something within reach? Can you make any- 
 thing? improve anything? You are, if I mistake not, 
 a carpenter to trade, and have been working some- 
 where in Galilee; now have you invented any little 
 improvement in your own respectable trade ? Have you 
 improved the saw, the lathe, the plane? Can you ren- 
 der the loom a more perfect machine, or make a better 
 job of the potter's wheel? Have you in any shape 
 economized materials, economized human labour, added 
 to human enjoyment? Have you done, or can you 
 show the way to do, any of all these things? No. 
 ' Then away with him. Crucify him.' 
 
 " Ah, but the enlightened Briton would say, now you 
 talk of religion ; that is our strong point in this admir- 
 
 C 
 
31 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 able age and country. Is nob thei-e our venerable 
 church? — our beautiful liturgy? There is a department 
 for all that, with the excellent Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury at the head of it. If information is wanted about 
 the other world, or salvation, or anything in that line, 
 you can apply at the head-office, or some of the sub- 
 ordinate stations. 
 
 "True, there is a department, and offices, and salaries, 
 more than enough ; yet the very fact is, that modern 
 British civilization (which may be called the child of 
 this great British teacher) is ^not only not Christian, 
 but is not so much as Pagan. It takes not the smallest 
 account of anything higher or greater than earth 
 bestows. The hopeless confusion of ideas that made 
 Bacon and Macaulay institute a comparison between 
 ancient philosophy and modern ingenuity, has grown 
 characteristic of the national mind and heart, and 
 foreshadows national death. The mass of mankind 
 agree to call money, power, and pleasure, good; and 
 behold the Spirit of the Age has looked on it, and pro- 
 nounced it very good. The highest pha.se of human 
 intellect and virtue is to be what this base spirit calls 
 a philanthropist — that is, one who, by new inventions 
 and comfortable contrivances, mitigates human suffer- 
 ing, heightens human pleasure. The grandest effort of 
 godlike genius is to augment human power — power over 
 the elements, power over uncivilized men, — and all for 
 our own comfort. Nay, by tremendous enginery of 
 steam, and electricity, and gunpowder — by capital and 
 the "law of progress," and the superhuman power of 
 co-operation, this foul Spirit of the Age does veritably 
 count upon scaling the heavens. The failme of Otus 
 and Ephialtes, of Typhaeus and Enceladus, of the 
 builders of Shinar, never daunts him a whit; for why? 
 they knew little of co-operation ; electricity and steam, 
 and the principle of the arch, were utterly hidden from 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 35 
 
 them ; civil engineering was in ite infancy ; how should 
 they not fail ? 
 
 " The very capital generated and circulated, and uti- 
 lized on so grand a scale by civilized men now-a-days, 
 seems to modern Britons a power mighty enough to wield 
 worlds; and its numen is worshipped by them accord- 
 ingly, with filthy rites. The God of mere natiu^ will^ 
 they assure themselves, think twice before he disturbs 
 and quarrels with such a power as this; for, indeed, it is 
 faithfully believed in the city, by the moneyed circles 
 there, that God the Father has money invested in the 
 three-per-cents., which makes him careful not to disturb 
 the peace of the world, or suffer the blessed march of 
 " civilization '' t-o be stopped. 
 
 " Sembie then, first, that the peace of the world is 
 maintained so long as it is only the unmoneyed circle 
 that are robbed, starved, and slain ; and, second, that 
 nothing civili25es either gods or men like holding stock. 
 
 " But I am strong in the belief that the portentous 
 confusion, both of language and thovight, which has 
 brought us to all this, and which is no accidental mis- 
 understanding, but a radical confounding of the English 
 national intellect and language, a chronic addlement of 
 the general brain, getting steadily worse now for two 
 hundred years, is indeed more alarming than the gib- 
 bering of Babel, and is symptomatic of a more disas- 
 trous ending. By terrible signa and wonders it shall be 
 made known that comfort is not the chief end of man, 
 
 " I do afiirm (1) that capital is not the ruler of the 
 world, that the Almighty has no pecuniary interest in 
 the stability of the funds or the European balance of 
 power. Finally, that no engineering, civil or military, 
 can raise man above the heavens or shake the throne of 
 God. 
 
 " On that day some nations that do now bestride the 
 narrow world will learn lessons of true philosophy, bufc 
 
36 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 not new philosophy, in sackcloth and ashes. And other 
 nations, low enough in the dust now, will arise from 
 their sackcloth and begin a new national life — to repeat, 
 it may be, the same crimes and suffer the same penalties. 
 For the progress of the species is circular; or possibly in 
 trochoidal curves, with some sort of cycloid for deferent ; 
 or more properly it oscillates, describing an arc of a 
 circle, pendulum-wise; and even measures time (by 
 aeons) in that manner; or let us say, in one word, the 
 
 world wags " 
 
 This day I saw a lamp placed before the altar of the 
 Blessed Sacrament in a new church. It is the gift of a 
 family, and cost about £100. From a utilitarian point 
 of view, a common kitchen lamp woidd do as wedl. 
 Why then spend £100 on one? It is an act of Catholic 
 faith, a spontaneous expression of worship. The indus- 
 trial economists who read this will at once say — " Oh ! 
 the gift of some pious old maid, or unthinking old man." 
 No, although a man of deep and simple piety, he is 
 one of the most successful and enterprising merchants 
 in Ireland, who has branches of his trade in more 
 than one continent. I believe that he is so much 
 Sir Horace Plunkett's superior in practical economics, 
 that if they both started business in a strange place he 
 would be everywhere and Sir Horace nowhere; although 
 if I asked him whether he belonged to the economic 
 school of Smith, Ricardo, or Mill, he would, I am sure, 
 smile at my simplicity. A comparatively poor woman, 
 before leaving Ireland with the intention of never return- 
 ing, made the gift of a Monstrance which cost £100 
 to the same church. It was unexpected and spon- 
 taneous; she insisted on its being accepted. Now, from 
 a utilitarian point of view, a Monstrance made of block 
 tin would do as well. Again, it was an expression of faith 
 and worship. I take the following from a discourse deli- 
 vered on April 24th, 1904, by the bishop of Limerick : "If 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 37 
 
 there is anything wrong in making the house of God rich 
 and beautiful, then the laity are quite as culpable as the 
 clergy. Yet it is strange what a personal interest they 
 take in the Church. The poorest and humblest amongst 
 them regard it as their own, and are proud of it, and 
 with some instinctive untutored feeling recognise and 
 warm to what is good and true in its architecture or its 
 decoration. I had a very interesting instance recently of 
 the high views which the laity entertain in these matters. 
 I got a letter from an old lady living in Brooklyn, in the 
 United States of America, in which she sent me 10,000 
 dollars for the improvement of the church of the parish 
 where she was born. She emigrated to America about fifty 
 years ago, in the great exodus of our poor people after 
 the famine. She was a young girl at the time, and she 
 went, or rather as millions of our race, was driven from 
 her old home to seek a livelihood abroad. God blessed 
 her, and she prospered. She married, and her children 
 grew up, and were provided for, and having good means 
 at her disposal, in her old age, her heart untravelled 
 turns to the home of her childhood, and in the undying 
 faith of the people of Ireland her thoughts, after all these 
 years, go back to the poor little humble church where she 
 heard Mass on Sundays long ago — to that living centre 
 of all that is happiest and brightest in the lives of the 
 Iiish peasants, and she would wish to use some means 
 with which God had blessed her in doing something for 
 the beauty of that house which, in a desolate land, shed 
 on her and hers, in their darkest days — the one gleam of 
 light, the one ray of hope, that upheld them in all their 
 sorrows. But what I wish to direct your particular at- 
 tention to are the detailed instructions which she gives 
 me. She desires that the altar should be of marble. 
 That is the spontaneous thought of this old Irish woman, 
 and in this she is a type." Ruskin could see the pro- 
 priety and the meaning of those gifts, although not in 
 
38 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 the same light as those who gave them ; and if an 
 economist like Sir Horace Plunkett asked him for a 
 reason he might reply that 
 
 *' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio ! 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
 
 Naturalism cannot see the meaning of such donations ; but 
 it will at once find an economic niche into which it would 
 fit the payment of as much for the use of a balcony whilst 
 aKoyal procession is passing as that Lamp and Monstrance 
 cost. Those gifts were not made on any principle of 
 economics, but on the principle of faith. Yet, they have 
 an economic value inasmuch as they further Irish art 
 and distribute so much money amongst so many artists. 
 In like manner, church-building, though not done from 
 economic causes, has economic resxdts. It implies quarry- 
 woa-k, stone-cutting, carpentry, masonry, stucco-work, 
 brass-work, painting, etc. The money which is sub- 
 scribed in a parish towards the building of a church is 
 distributed amongst workmen, and circulates through 
 them again amongst business people and those who gave 
 it. Then we must bear in mind that a church is not an 
 eapense which has to be periodically repeated, it lasts 
 for generations, and the more expensively it is built, the 
 longer it lasts. It is, besides, an object of beauty before 
 the eyes of the people; and in remote places, where 
 objects of art are never otherwise ©een, it has an educa. 
 fcive and a refining influence. 
 
 That is a satisfactory explanation, a utilitarian 
 economist will reply, if the people can afiford it; but 
 when so much expense is taken from poverty it is " mis- 
 directed zeal." Now, the priests who are responsible for 
 the churches which have been built during the past 
 century in Ireland might point to them in evidence that 
 they have not been idle or neglectful of the religious cou- 
 nerns of the people; and they might also retort that if 
 
CATHOLIC CHUKCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 39 
 
 their critics, who claim to have a mooiopoly of economic 
 acquirements and to be the natural leaders of the people 
 in their material conoems, had devoted as much dis- 
 interested and constant care to the people's temporal 
 interests as the priests have devoted to their religious 
 concerns, those churches would not be built "in the 
 hearti, and at the expense of poor communities," but in 
 the heart of a prosperous people. The poverty of the 
 Irish people is mostly of their making, and partly the 
 result of their neglect. When they claim to be the 
 natural and the only capable leadei-s of the people, they 
 do not seem to see that they cut their own throats; 
 because the claim implies that they should and could 
 have done much for the material well-being of the 
 people, and they have done nothing. 
 
 It is not necessary to say that Sir Horace Plunkett 
 has done his part — more than one mam's part; and 
 if the sacrifice of time, thought, and money, gives a man 
 a right to speak, no man in Ireland has a better right 
 than he has. For that reason, those criticisms which I 
 am making on his book are not personal to him, although 
 I am taking my texts from passages which he has irrele- 
 vantly, and I think unfortunately, written. 
 
 Again, looking over the country I do not know of 
 many churches which could be caJled excessively expen- 
 sive; I have known more cosrtly churches raised b}' 
 poorejr congregations in England, where they have be- 
 sides to build and support their schools. There are some 
 which, in my opinion, are excessive; but they are much 
 fewer than appears to be the case. I take the church in 
 Nenagh as a type. I thought it extravagant, and I had 
 the hardiliood to say so to Dean White; but the explana^ 
 tion which he condescended to give, not only oonvinoed 
 me of my mistake, but gave me an object-lesson in 
 humility which I hope shall not be lost on me. Instead 
 of telling me to mind my own biisinees he kindly told 
 
40 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 me that whea he had received tenders from contractors 
 he foxmd the cost so muck beyond his power that he 
 got the arohifeect to draw a design which would cost Ies3 
 to execute. Meanwhile, one person told him to go oca 
 with the original plan, and placed at his disposal more 
 than half the cost. Henoe the beautiful church we eeo 
 in Neuagh to-day; and, although very spacious, it is 
 crowded eveiy Sunday and Holiday, and at all the 
 Masses, from the altar to the door.'*' He got a good deal 
 
 * The following letter from Mr. Hugh Law, M.P., appeared in 
 the Daily Express of December 3rd, 1903, in reply to a sonnet by 
 Prof. Tyrrell, of Trinity College, which the Bishop of Limerick 
 made notorious by castigating its author, and to the Professor's 
 apologetic letter in reply, which was more silly than the sonnet: — 
 
 Sir, — It not infrequently happens that the letters which people 
 write in vindication of some action of theins which has met with 
 criticism serve an exactly opposite purpose. 
 
 That, I think, will be proved true of Dr. Tyrrell's letter in your 
 columns some days ago. What a very strange document it isf 
 First of all, he declares that he " never said, thought, or wrote 
 anything against the Catholic religion," and then proceeds to 
 repeat in prose what he had already stated in verse — viz., that 
 " the Catholic clergy inculcate on their flocks cold acts of obser- 
 vance in lieu of sincere feelings of religion, and exact from an 
 impoverished peasantry money to be spent on sacred buildings 
 erected in places where no such edifices are needed, and where 
 there are but a handful of worshippers to frequent them." And 
 finally, he seeks to clinch his argument by a quotation from a 
 v/riter in the Daily Mail, who finds in the cheap decorations of 
 the Irish country chapel " the ugly expression of an ugly kind of 
 disease," and who deplores (good Christian man!) the fact that 
 "shillings of the people, cheerfully given to God instead of to 
 the nourishment of themselves, have raised the fabric of these 
 chapels." 
 
 I will not insist on the discrepancy between Dr. Tyrrell and 
 his chosen witness on the point as to whether the shillings are 
 "exacted'' or "cheerfully given." My own knowledge, so far 
 as it goes, indeed, bears out Mr. Young's rather than Dr. Tyrrell's 
 view of the matter. I have known an old woman give literally 
 and actually — nay, insist upon giving — all she had in the world 
 towards the building of God's house, trusting with an apostolic 
 faith (not often found, I regret to say, among Anglicans) that 
 He to Whom she gave would not fail to remember her. Nor will 
 I express more than a passing wonder in what part of Ireland 
 are these churches erected with " but a handful of worshippers 
 to frequent them." I do, indeed, recall many edifices where 
 the congregations are very spare indeed ; but, oddly enough, these 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 41 
 
 also from America and from his friends; so that the 
 people were not called upon, to bear half the burden of 
 building it. The case of Nenagh is the case of several 
 others which have come within my own knowledge. When 
 all their history is known, I believe that very few of our 
 churches are really so " excessive or extravagant " as they 
 appear. In most cases what happens is that money 
 comes in from outside and is distributed in the locality, 
 rather than that money is drained away out of it. And 
 
 belong not to the Roman Catholic but to the Irish Church. On 
 the other hand, many people must, like myself, be but too familiar 
 with the spectacle of worshippers kneeling outside the doors of a 
 Roman Catholic chapel during the celebration of the Mass, the 
 interior of the building being too full to hold any more. 
 
 As to the first part of Dr. Tyrrell's invective, I do not know 
 what the Roman Catholic clergy " inculcate " on their flocks (no 
 more, I very strongly suspect, does Dr. Tyrrell), but I do know 
 something of what these flocks believe. I live amongst a Catholic 
 peasantry, and I have over and over again been amazecl (and I 
 must add, as an Anglican, humiliated) by the evangelical simplicity, 
 fervour, and reality of the faith by the light of which they live 
 their dailv livce. 
 
 Dr. Tyrrell would be better employed, I am quite sure, in 
 inculcating similarly " smoere feelings of religion " among the 
 members of the Communion to which he and I both belong. 
 
 I have onlv to add that it is strange to find a man like himself 
 objecting to sacrifices made for the sake of religion. I should ha,ve 
 thought that it was rather a matter for congratulation that still, 
 in one small portion at least, of the modern world, there are some 
 few people who are still prepared to Beek first the " Kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness."— Very faithfully yours. 
 
 HUGH. A. LAW. 
 I find the following in Truth of May 19th. 1904 :—" Regarding 
 Cathedrals in Ireland, Dublin is in the curious position, as the 
 Capital of a Catholic Country, of not alone possessing no Cathe- 
 dral, but of having two Protestant Cathedrals. Lato Anti- 
 Catholic writers on Ireland, to whom Bacon's dictum that writing 
 makes an exact man can hardly be applied, find great fault with, 
 and trace the countrv's failures to the over numerous Catholic 
 Churches. The fact of the two Protestant Cathedrals of Dublin 
 escapes their notice, as well as the fact that the supply, as regards 
 congregations, by no means demands so much accommodation. 
 Neither do these writers record the undeniable fact that, however 
 numerous the Catholic Churches may be, they one and all have 
 conErregations to fill them." 
 
 Their "Simpler Christianity" took, and has kept the churches; 
 but it has not kept the congregations. 
 
42 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING l>r IRELAND. 
 
 if a priest, wishing to build a church more costly than his 
 parishioners could pay for, takes upon himself the strain 
 of debt, and bears the burden of collecting it abroad, 
 what right h^ve I or anyone else to pass sentence on 
 bim ? "We would not do it ourselves, and we at once con- 
 clude that therefore nobody else should ! At any rate, 
 I have never known a person or a parish to be poorer for 
 what their parish church cost. Whatever poverty ap- 
 pears over tile face of Ireland is due to those alone whose 
 representatives to-day want to patronize our poverty, and 
 pretend to protect us from the priests. 
 
 From an resthetic point of view, I have heard or rea-d 
 of those churches as ''archit-ectural monstrosities." I 
 heard them severely condemned a few years ago for their 
 want of artistic taste by one who put forth a good deal of 
 knowledge, but who appeared to me to know very little 
 about art. At any rate, I do not agree with those who 
 condemn them in that wholesale manner. On the con- 
 trary I think that both in themselves, and as compai-ed 
 with similar churches in other countries, they are build- 
 ings of much beauty. I lived for several years in the 
 birthplace and home of ecclesiastical art, and I think 
 I did not lose my opportunity; I have seen nearly 
 all the great churches of England and the Conti- 
 nent, some of them several times. I do not say this as if 
 I claimed to be an authority, but as giving me the right 
 to have an. opinion. Tliese criticisms have come chiefly 
 from persons who are warm advocates for Irish art and 
 artists; but they strangely forget that when they call 
 those churches " horrible " they are condemning the Irish 
 architects wiio designed them. Sir Horace Plunkett 
 thinks that the decorations of the churches should be 
 deferred until Irish art has had time to improve. ITis 
 purpose is of course excellent ; but how is Irish art to im- 
 prove unless Irish artists have some objects upon which 
 to work ? And the chief patronage which Irish artists 
 
CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 43 
 
 have received has come from those who are connecteid 
 with ecclesiastical art. To aiay that artists should first 
 perfect theanselves before they get an object on which 
 to prove their skill is to turn the history of art inside 
 out. If that idea were carried out in the history of art, 
 the genius of Perugino would never probably have been 
 known. If I were dealing with tbe subject of technical 
 education, I would say that those who control it shall 
 have to be cautious lest they be training persons who 
 will go abroad to practice that skill which Ireland is pay- 
 ing to impart to them. 
 
 In the Epilogue which he has added to the new 
 Edition of his book, he writes: — "My remarks as to 
 the alleged excessive Church building were, I regret to 
 say, made in a form which laid me open to misconcep- 
 tion. Some readers feel that I did not make sufficient 
 allowance for the fact that much Church building was 
 absolutely required for the mere physical accommoda- 
 tion of a people among whom regular church atten- 
 dance is practically universal, and who had been de- 
 prived of all the ancient churches in the country. It 
 is also urged that the extravagance complained of is 
 the exception and not the rule. All this I gladly admit. 
 Still what strikes many observers is the undisputed 
 fact that while the number of Catholic churches and 
 religious houses is rapidly rising, the Catholic popula- 
 tion itself is rapidly falling. Had the reverse been 
 true, my strictures would have been more open to ob- 
 jection. I trust, however, that I shall give no fresh 
 oflfence if I express the hope that the zeal now put forth 
 in church building may find a counterpoise in a 
 vigorous effort to improve the economic condition of a 
 people who must be preserved to the country if the 
 churches are not to be emptied of their worshippers." 
 
 On which I observe — (1) His remarks in the 1st Edi- 
 tion were quite as intelligible as those I have jxist 
 
44 CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILDING IN IRELAND. 
 
 quoted. (2) Anyone who compares page 107 in both 
 Editions will find the middle of the page changed, and 
 in the new Edition he stealthily lets slide out of the 
 text, without any allusion, a sentence in which he 
 charges Catholics with unworthy motives in the Church- 
 building movement, filling up the space with a few 
 harmless expressions. Is this a model of " the brutal 
 truth " for which he avows a special respect in a note 
 in the new edition? I give the sentence in the Pre- 
 face. (3) Whilst he slides over that charge he osten- 
 tatiously retracts two charges, one of which he did not 
 make. (4) He revives the whole charge in a modified 
 form in the 5th sentence. It is, unfortunately, true 
 that the population is "rapidly falling;" but it is not 
 true that the number of churches is "rapidly rising." 
 He confounds the substitution of a new church for an 
 old one with an increase in the number of churches. 
 Would he want three contiguous parishes, the popula- 
 tion of which has very much decreased, to let two 
 churches go to ruin, and to repair the third, as spacious 
 enough for the dwindled population, and let the people 
 tramp a dozen miles to Mass 1 His reference to Religious 
 Houses will be found dealt with in Chapter XXI. (5) 
 The rather inelegant sarcasm wi'apped up in the last 
 sentence is blunted and deadened by his own sponta- 
 neous admissions at page 119 of his book; and, I hope, 
 by what the reader will find in Chapter XI. of this, 
 book. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE (CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 At pages 102 and 104 of his book, Sir Horace Plun- 
 3cett writes : — " The industrial character of Roman 
 Catholics in Ireland, however caused, seems to me 
 to have been intensified by their religion. The 
 reliance of that religion on authority, its repression 
 of individuality, and its complete shifting of what I may 
 call the moral centre of gravity to a futm^e existence — 
 to mention no other characteristics — appear to me 
 calculated, unless supplemented by other influences, to 
 check the growth of the qualities of initiative and self- 
 reliance, especially amongst a people whose lack of 
 education unfits them for resisting the influence of what 
 may present itself to such minds as a kind of fatalism 
 with resignation as its paramount virtue." 
 
 " While voluntary asceticism may have its 
 justification, it behoves a Chui'ch to see that its mem- 
 bers, while fully acknowledging the claims of another 
 life, should develop the quaUties which make for well- 
 being in this life. In fact I believe that the influence 
 of Christianity upon social progress will be best main- 
 tained by co-ordinating those spiritual and economic 
 ideals in a philosophy of life broader and truer than 
 any to which nations have yet attained." 
 
 This, then, is the process of his reasoning. In- 
 dividuality and self-reliance are necessary for indus- 
 trial progress. But the reliance of Catholics on 
 authority represses individuality, and checks self-re- 
 liance. Therefore, the religion of Roman Catholics is 
 
46 Tin: catholic church and phogress. 
 
 easeatially an impediment to industrial progress. More- 
 over, industrial progress demands the development of 
 the qualities of this life. But Catholicism completely 
 shifts the moral centre of gravity to the other life. 
 Hence the absence of those qualities in Catholics which 
 make for industrial progress. 
 
 Now, I might admit all that, and pass it by as being 
 outside the business of the Catholic Church. Even 
 though I granted that Catholicism is an obstacle to 
 industrial progress, there would be no ground for com- 
 plaint unless it professed, or ought to have professed, to 
 promote the temporal interests of man. To use Cardinal 
 Newman's words : " Not till the State is blamed for not 
 making Saints, may it fairly be laid to the fault of 
 the Church that she cannot invent a steam-engine or 
 construct a tariff." * 
 
 She has been the means of numberless temporal 
 blessings to humanity; but she is not to be judged by 
 these, since she does not take them within the scope of 
 her institution or her work. As Card. Newman points 
 out, "it is merely because she has often done so much 
 more than she professes, it is really in consequence of her 
 very exuberance of benefit to the world, that the world 
 is disappointed that she does not display that exu- 
 berance always — like some hangers-on of the great, who' 
 come at length to think that they have a claim on 
 their bounty." 
 
 The want which Sir Horace Plunkett finds in Catho- 
 licism, any Roman citizen would have found in the 
 teaching of Christ. Any economist of old Rome might 
 object that He made no provision for commeixial enter- 
 prise, said nothing about the copper or corn trade in the- 
 Sermon on the Mount, in fact that His principles 
 tended to tear up by the roots the very idea of Roman. 
 
 * DiMcultiei of Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, pages 206, 211, 215. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 47 
 
 Citizenship. St. Paul, a Roman citizen, taught that 
 " they who become rich fall into temptation, and 
 into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofit- 
 able and hurtful desires which draw men into des- 
 truction and perdition;" — so opposed to what Juvenal 
 writes of the prevailing Roman spirit of that time : 
 '' Unde habeas qncerit nemo, sed oportet habere i" which 
 I may translate : — How did }-ou come by your wealth ! 
 is a question which is not asked in polite society; but 
 it behoves you to have wealth. 
 
 The Christian is not obliged to forego wealth, 
 but is warned of its dangers ; the Pagan man of 
 material progress must look on wealth as the one thing 
 it behoves him to have, and must try to have it anyhow. 
 To the mind of the Roman Imperialists, the early 
 Christians no doubt wanted that individuality which, 
 we are told, is wanting in Catholics to-day. Like 
 the Catholicism of to-day, they placed their centre 
 of gravity in another life. Yet, Roman society con- 
 tained the germs of decay, and soon fell of its own 
 weight and through its own rottenness. To Chris- 
 tianity fell the task of building up society again, and 
 Christianity succeeded in the task. 
 
 Here, then, we have a people, great in peace 
 and war, whose works of art we contemplate with 
 admiration, in whose writers we still study literature, 
 whose orators are models for us, on the writings of 
 whose jurists the laws of modem Europe are based 
 both as to principles and as to procedure. They had 
 not the disadvantage of fixing their centre of gravity in 
 the other life ; their thoughts were entirely centred in 
 the concerns of this. They had their agrarian and com- 
 mercial quarrels as we have now, and able and ardent 
 men amongst them studied the economic systems accord- 
 ing to which the issues should be decided, without any 
 reference whatever to the interests of any other life 
 
48 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 than this. Sir Horace Plunkett, or a man of his tem- 
 per of mind and bent of will, visiting Rome in those 
 times, would at once discern those " strenuous quali- 
 ties," those " civic virtues and efficiencies" which make 
 for progress. But if he spent an evening at the house 
 of Aciliiis Glabrio, the Consul, where he would probably 
 meet Flavius Clemens, or other Christian converts of the 
 Imperial household, I am sure his " economic sense " 
 would be shocked by their conversation, their aspira- 
 tions, and their ways. He woidd not hear a word about 
 Juvenal's oportet habere, but a great deal about St. 
 Paul's, " our conversation is in heaven." 
 
 Now, the end of these conquerors, economists, orators, 
 artists, poets, and jurists, whose centre of gravity was 
 quite in terra ftrma, came suddenly and soon ; and 
 these uneconomic Glabrios and Clemens and Domi- 
 tillas whose " conversation was in heaven," fostered a 
 new race of manhood out of their dissolution, just as new 
 corn comes up when new elements bring back life to the 
 elements into which the old seed had been corrupted. I 
 set out from that time of social dissolution when Impe- 
 rial Rome became the easy prey of the Northern Bar- 
 barians. Roman civilisation was crushed ; society had 
 gone into its primitive elements; ignorance, selfishness, 
 passions supported by brute force tore amongst them aU 
 that was left of humanity and whatever relics remained 
 of pagan progress. I begin at that time, because the 
 only form of Christianity which then existed was Roman 
 Catholicism, and because its field of labour was a human 
 wilderness, vast and wild. Catholicism had, at that 
 time, if ever it had, its Mass-idolatry, Image-worship, 
 monkish ignorance, priestly domination, and a rich 
 array of all those Romish superstitions which have been 
 driven into their dark dens of ignorance by the meridian 
 light which the Reformers brought — supei'stitions such 
 as,, we are told, ar© tO' be found "in backward districts" 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AXD PROGRESS. 49 
 
 of Ireland to-day ''sapping all strength of will and 
 purpose." 
 
 Here, then, v/e c-au fairly test the tendency of Catho- 
 licism in relation to hiunan progress. Popery could 
 do what it pleased in those days ; and let the history of 
 Europe for the next thousand yeai-s bear witness to its 
 deeds. Civilisation unquestionably revived, human pro- 
 gress went on, and what power or influence under heaven 
 but the Catholic Church was there to create the one and 
 to foster the other ? Amidst the mingling of races, and 
 the formation of nations; without a remnant of the 
 old civilisation, or any other rival to stir her energy; 
 whilst the world assailed her from without and intrigued 
 against her from within ; many of her own, both clergy 
 and laity, led on through human weakness by the lawless 
 passions of their time; wealth lying at her feet tempt- 
 ing her to subside into the animal indolence which 
 became the ruin of old Rome — in spite of all these she 
 instilled into society those principles of human progress 
 on which modern civilisation is founded. The seeds of 
 all that is really great and enduring in our modern 
 civilisation — the abolition of slavery, the Republics of 
 Italy, and the Magna Charta of England, municipal 
 liberties, commerce, distributive justice, hospitals, 
 literature and art, agriculture, geographical discoveries, 
 ancient literature guarded and saved — were then sown 
 and cultivated, from generation to generation, when 
 priests and monks had undisputed intellectual sway 
 over the mind of Europe. 
 
 Modex-n times can show nothing to compare with 
 the social v.-ork which Catholicism did in those days. 
 Protestant nations started with the capital which Catho- 
 licism had made. No non-Catholic nation — neither of 
 Protestantism which took its share and went its own 
 way, like the Prodigal Son; nor of naturalism which 
 is begotten of it, with the •' pig philosophy " which it 
 
 D 
 
50 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 picked up in its wanderings — has ever civilised itself 
 from within, as the Christian Commonwealth of Europe 
 arose from the bosom of the Catholic Church. How can 
 any man, with such a history before him, think of 
 doubting that the tendency of Catholicism is to human 
 progress? No modern instances of national decadence 
 can disprove the evidence of a thousand j'ears. I am now 
 neither admitting nor denying that decadence; but, in 
 any case, the social structure which Catholicism had 
 raised out of ruins and rubbish is a fact which should 
 make us seek some other cause than Catholicism of 
 that decadence. 
 
 I should occupy too much space if I treated this 
 question exhaustively. But I can serve my purpose by 
 a shorter method. I subjoin what some non-Catholic 
 writei's have written on the subject. 
 
 M. AugiTStus Thierry : — f 
 
 We have been far outstripped in the quest for public 
 libei'ties by those burghers of the Middle Ages who re- 
 built the walls and revived the civilisation of the old 
 municipal cities. 
 
 M. Lavallee: — J 
 
 iMie Monarchy of the Church was the commencement 
 of liberty ; it had nothing in it that was narrow or per- 
 sonal ; it was the most illustrious triumph of intelligence 
 over matter, and had the greatest influence over the 
 popular movement that gave birth to the Communes 
 and the Republics of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Lecky, having pointed out how the old civilisation had 
 passed into complete dissolution, writes: — § 
 
 "At last the spirit of Christianity moved over this 
 chaotic society, and not merely alleviated the evils that 
 convulsed it, but also reorganised it on a new basis. 
 
 fLeitres sur I'histoire de France, page 13. 
 
 XHist. des Francais, Tome I., liv. I., chap. 3. 
 
 %Bationalism in Europe, vol. II., pages 234, 236, 237, 245, etc. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 51 
 
 It did this in three ways: it abolished slavery, it 
 created charity, it inculcated self-sacrifice. 
 
 "Other influences could produce the manumission of 
 many slaves, but Christianity alone could efiFect the 
 profound change of character that rendered possible 
 the abolition of slavery. There are few subjects more 
 striking, and at the same time more instructive, than 
 the history of that great transition. The Christians 
 did not preach a revolutionary doctrine. They did not 
 proclaim slavery altogether ujilawful, or, at least, not 
 until the Bull of Pope Alexander III. in the 12th cen- 
 tury, but they steadily sapped it at its basis by oppos- 
 ing to it the doctrine of universal brotherhood, and by 
 infusing a spirit of humanity into all the i-elations of 
 society. . . . In all the rites of religion the dif- 
 ference between bond and free was studiously ignored, 
 and the clergy invariably proclaimed the act of enfran- 
 chisement to be meritorious. . . But as long as 
 the old antipathy to laboxu: continued, nothing of any 
 lasting value has been effected. But, here again the in- 
 fluence of the Church was exerted with iinwavering 
 beneficence and success. . . . At a time when re- 
 ligious enthusiasm was all directed towards tlie monas- 
 tic life or towards the ideal of perfection, they made 
 labour an essential part of their discipline. Wherever 
 they went, they revived the traditions of old Roman 
 agriculture, and large tracts of France and Belgium 
 were drained and planted by their hands. ... A 
 monastery became the nucleus around which the inhabi- 
 tants of the neighbourhood clustered. A town was 
 thus gradually formed, civilised by Christian tjeaching, 
 stimulated to industry by the example of the monks. 
 At the same time the ornamentation of the Church 
 gave the first impulse to art. 
 
 " By these means the contempt for laboui- which had 
 been produced by slavery was corrected, and the path 
 
52 THE CATHOLIC CHURiCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 was opened for the rise of the industrial classes which 
 Jollowed the Crusades. ' The ferocity of character that 
 hsid preceded Christianity was combated with equal 
 seal, though not quite equal success, by the organiza- 
 iioQ of Christian charity." 
 
 He shows at some length how the spirit of the Church 
 took care of the sick and founded hospitals; "and for 
 the fii'st time the aureole of sanctity encircled the brow 
 o.? Siwrrow and invested it with a mysterious charm." 
 IJi' then shows how the Church opposed the principle 
 cf self-sacrifice and individual freedom to selfishness 
 ■and slavery, and thus created industry; but in the 
 £ours» of his exposition he has some things which are 
 kistorically false, and some which I think are philoso- 
 phically foolish. 
 
 Henry George, treating of the law of human progress, 
 irrites of the cunent evolutionary theory that " the 
 |a:actical outcome of this theory is a sort of hopeless 
 fatalism, of which current literatui-e is full;"(l) "that 
 ihe obstacles which finally bring progress to a halt are 
 raised by the coui-se of progress; that what has des- 
 trcjed all previous civilisations has been the conditions 
 jffoduced by the growth of civilisation itself. "(2) Of the 
 iiifliience of the Catholic Church on human progress, he 
 ■writes : " Two things happened of the utmost moment 
 ^ incipient civilisation — the establishment of the 
 Papacy, and the celibacy of the clergy. The first pre- 
 sented the spiritual power from concentrating in the 
 same lines as the temporal power; and the latter pre- 
 sented the establishment of a priestly caste, during a 
 tzisDie when all power tended to hereditary form. In 
 .ber efforts for the abolition of slavery; in her Truce of 
 Grod; in her monastic orders; in her councils which 
 imited nations, and her edicts which ran without regard 
 
 tl) Frogresx and Poverty. Book X., chap. I., page 431. 
 '2) Do. Do. Do. page 439. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PKOGRESS. ■D<J 
 
 to political boundaries; in the low-born hands in which. 
 she placed a sign before which the proudest knelt; in 
 her bishops who by consecration became the peers of 
 the greatest nobles; in her 'servant of servante,' for 
 so his official title ran, who by virtue of the ring of a 
 simple fisherman, claimed the right to arbitrate hei>wee.iei 
 nations, and whose stirrup was held by kings", tlae 
 Church, in spite of everything, was yet a promoter <oi 
 association, a witness for the natural equality of men; 
 and by the Church herself was nurtured a spirit, when 
 her early work of association and emancipation was well 
 nit^h done — when the ties she had knit had become 
 strong, and the learning she had preserved had been 
 given to the world — broke the chains with which she 
 would have fettered the human mind, and in a great 
 part of Europe i-eut her organization. "(3). Elsewhere 
 he writes : " The Church lands defrayed the cost of 
 public worship and instruction, of the care of the sick 
 and destitute." As a consequence he holds, with every 
 dispassionate historian, that the confiscation of those 
 lands from the Catholic Chm'ch at the time of the Re- 
 formation, was a robbery really committed on the poor, 
 
 Mr. Hyndman, the well-known English socialist, 
 writes : — * 
 
 "Catholicism in its best period raised one continued 
 protest against serfdom and usury, as early Chnsr 
 tianity had denounced slavery and usury too." 
 
 In his Historical Basis of Socialism in England, h? 
 writes : — 
 
 "The relations of the Church, the monasteries, an4 
 
 (3) hoc. cit., page 470-471.— I have quoted Henry George as « 
 Non-Catholic's testimony to the influence of the Church on civili- 
 zation. Being a Non-Catholic, one should, of course, expect frora. 
 him the opinion that she ' would have fettered the human mind." 
 At page 460-461, he bears even stronger testimony to her civilising- 
 influence. 
 
 * Principles of Socialism. 
 
54 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 the clergy, to the people were most noteworthy from 
 every point of view. There is nothing more note- 
 worthy in the history of the human mind than the 
 manner in which this essential portion of English society 
 in the middle ages has been handled by the ordinary 
 economists, chroniclers, and religionists. Even sober 
 writers seem to loose their heads, or become afraid to 
 tell the truth in this matter. Just as the modem 
 capitalist can see nothing buit anarchy and oppression in 
 the connection between the people and the feudal nobles, 
 so the authors who represent the middle class economy 
 of our times, the Protestant divine whose creed is the 
 devil take the hindmost here, and hereafter, fail to dis- 
 cover anything but luxury, debauchery, and hypocrisy 
 in the Catholic Church of the 15th century. It is high 
 time that, without any prejudice in favour of that 
 Church, the nonsense which has been foisted on to the 
 public by men interested in suppi-essing facts, should be 
 exposed. It is not tnie that the Church of our ances- 
 tors was the organized fraud which it suits fanatics to 
 represent it. It is not true that the monasteries, 
 priories, and nunneries, were receptacles of all uncleanli- 
 ness and lewdness; it is not true that the revenue of 
 the celibate clergy and the oslibate recluses were squan- 
 dered in riotous living. . . . The Church, as all 
 know, was the one body in which equality of conditions 
 was the rule from the start. 
 
 The lands of the Church were held in great part in 
 trust for the people, whose absolute right to assistance 
 when in sickness or poverty was never disputed. What 
 useful, even noble functions, the priests and monks, 
 friars and nuns, fulfilled in the middle-age economy 
 has been stated in the last, chapter. Universities, 
 schools, roads, reception-houses, hospitals, poor-relief, 
 all were maintained out of the Church funds. Even the 
 retainers who were dismissed after the wars of the 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 55 
 
 Hoses were in great part kept from actual starvation by 
 the conventual establishment and by the parish priesft. 
 Not a word was heard against them in high quarters, 
 barely a sputter of ridicule came up from the people 
 against the Church, until Henry the VIII. wanted to 
 form an adulterous, if not an incestuotis marriage, in 
 the first place, and to get possession of this vast property 
 in order to fill his purse^ and bribe his favourites in the 
 second. 
 
 As to the whole infamous plot from beginning to end, 
 it is enough to say that the heroes of the business were 
 CVanmer and Thomas Cromwell, tJie victims More and 
 Fisher. The maner in which our middle^lass history 
 has been written is evidenced by the strenuous attempts 
 to whitewash the pander and the rogue, and to belittle 
 the philosopher and the patriot." 
 
 He then proceeds to trace the economic effects of what 
 Sir Horace Plunkett calls this " simpler Christianity " 
 which supplanted Catholicism in England. The property 
 taken was appropriated by the King and his courtiers, 
 and the poor were left to starve. After the Mortmain 
 Laws and the spoliation of the Church we first hear of 
 those English " valiant beggars and sturdy vagabonds " 
 who roamed at large over the country till the people were 
 taxed to support them through the Poor Law system, 
 whilst the Pharisees whose "economic sense was shocked" 
 by the " unproductive " Monasteries and Convents piously 
 appropriated their lands out of which the poor used to be 
 provided for, and schools, churches, and hospitals built 
 and supported. 
 
 I may add another non-Catholic writer to the same 
 ■effect, namely, Sir Horace himself. For, in spite of the 
 repression of individuality, the shifting of the moral 
 centre of gravity to another life, and other economic 
 faults of which Catholicism is guilty, he saysf that 
 
 J page 102. 
 
56 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 — " Roman Ciatholicism has, at difTerent j^ei-iods of 
 history, advantageously affected economic conditions 
 . . . . and that, during the Middle Ages, when Ro- 
 man Catholicism was freer than now to manifest its in- 
 fluence in many directions, owing to its practically un- 
 challenged supremacy, it favoured, when it did not 
 originate, many forms of sound economic activity, and 
 was, to say the least, abreast of the time in its conception 
 of the working of economic causes." 
 
 "But," he continues, "from the time when the Re- 
 formation by its demand for what we Protestants con- 
 ceive to be a simpler Christianity, drove Catholicism 
 back, if I may use the expression, on its first line of de- 
 fence, and constrained it to look to its distinctively 
 spiritual heritage, down to the present day, it has seemed 
 to stand strangely aloof from any contact with industrial 
 and economic issues." 
 
 Now, a Roman economist in the early days of Chris- 
 tianity might have said the same of the Church of that 
 time. The business of the Cliurch has been by its in- 
 stitution, and at all times to guard " its distinctively 
 spiritual heritage,'' and it has always stood " strangely 
 aloof from any contact with industrial and economic 
 issues " unless in so far as these have fitted into the 
 spiritual concerns of man, or have helped the march of 
 human civalisation as a whole. Sir Horace Plunkett says 
 that the "spiritual and economic ideals should be co-ordi- 
 nated." What he plainly means by that is that Catho- 
 licism should modify its principles and practices in order 
 to fit in with industrial and economic movements. I 
 should rather say: — ignore man's spiritual interests, 
 cast his soul and its concerns aside, as things not to be 
 thought of ; or else give them their due place in human 
 life and action. If man's spiritual interests are to be 
 considered at all, they must be immeasurably more im- 
 portant than his temporal interests which are bounded by 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 57 
 
 the present life. And if either is to be modified, in the 
 process of co-ordination, for the sake of the other, in- 
 terests which end in time should give way to those that 
 are eternal. If there be a future life at all, we dare not, 
 without stultifying ourselves, live irrespective of it, 
 either in our individual, social, religious, or commer- 
 cial character. I, of course, admit the need of co- 
 ordination ; it stands to reason as well as to religion ; 
 and since the present life is a phase of human existence 
 it must have its due place and attention. But Sir 
 Horace's co-ordination is like that which the American 
 discerned in the preacher's quotation from Isaiah : " and 
 the wolf will lie down with the lamb " — " Yes ; I guess 
 the lamb will lie inside." But he greatly misrepresents 
 tho principles of Catholicism when he says that it " com- 
 pletely shifts the moral centre of gravity to a future 
 existence." Like non-Catholics generallv, and those non- 
 descripts who have learned " Catholic " teaching in non- 
 Catholic Colleges and go by the name of " Catholic," he 
 can tell us more about our principles than we know our- 
 selves. Since I learned my Penny Catechism, as 
 a little boy, I have thought that it is sinful to neglect the 
 daily duties of the present life. It is true, the Church 
 does not say to us : '' attend to your daily occupations, or 
 you will lose money ''; but, seeing a plain moral duty 
 in the business of daily life, it says : — "If you seriously 
 and habitually neglect your daily duties you will lose 
 your soul." 
 
 But the direct purpose of the Church and that of the 
 world are quite different. To use the words of Cardinal 
 Newman : — 
 
 " The world believes in the world's ends as the 
 greatest of goods; it wishes society to be governed 
 simply and entirely for the sake of this world. Pro- 
 vided it could gain one little islet in the ocean, one 
 foot upon the coast, if it could cheapen tea by sixpence 
 
58 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 a pound, or make its flag respected among the Esqui- 
 maux or the Otaheitans, at the cost of a hundred lives 
 and a hundred souls, it would think it a very good 
 bargain." 
 
 On the other hand, the Church "considers the action 
 of this world and the action of the soul as simply in- 
 commensui'ate, viewed in their respective spheres ; she 
 would rather save the soul of one single wild bandit of 
 Calabria, or whining beggar of Palmero, than draw a 
 hundred lines of railroad through the length and 
 breadth of Italy, or carry out a sanitary reform, in its 
 fullest details, in every city of Sicily, except so far as 
 these great national works tended to some spiritual 
 good beyond them. ... If she encourages secular 
 enterprises, studies, or pui-suits, as she does, or the arts 
 of civilisation generally, it is either from their indirect 
 bearing upon her great object, or from the spontaneous 
 energy which great ideas, such as hers, exert, and the 
 irresistible influence which they exercise, in matters 
 and in provinces not really their own." 
 
 And if we acknowledge the soul to be a substantial 
 element of man's nature at all, and the future life to 
 be a reality in man's existence, is not the philosophy 
 of the Church the philosophy also of common sense? 
 And is not the " economic sense " which is shocked by 
 that philosophy, the plainest common nonsense ? Philo- 
 sophers of naturalism ! tell me straight out that what 
 I call my soul is only phosphorous, or merely the re- 
 sult of molecular forces; assm-e me that what I call my 
 future life is only my fancy projected beyond the 
 grave, and I will make short work of each by ignoring 
 both. But if the former is a reality of my being, and 
 the latter a reality in my existence, I must in consis- 
 tency give them their due place. At the cost of dis- 
 
 * DiMcidtirs of Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, pagce 206, 211, 
 215. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 59 
 
 gracing my reason as well as of damning my &oul, I 
 •dare not tinker with their claims. It provokes one's 
 common sense, almost irritates one's nerves, to hear of 
 these awful things dealt with, trifled with, as if they 
 were chattels of man's absolute ownership, which one 
 may beg, borrow, buy, or st-eal, at one's pleasure. In 
 the last analysis, naturalistic economics are reducible to 
 mere gastronomies; the concerns of the soul and of the 
 future life fall to the same level with the concerns of a 
 creamery, the Vatican Council should have consulted 
 the House of Commons, and the Synod of Maynooth 
 should become a section of the Department. 
 
 It may be said to me that the moral and divine law, 
 or the Catholic Church which I suppose to be their 
 official interpreter, have nothing to do Avilh politics or 
 economics; I reply — with politics or economics as such, 
 certainly not. But, may Parliament then justly revive 
 the Penal Laws, make laws of distributive injustice, 
 legalise a system of slavery by which human beings may 
 be bought and sold and become the property of their 
 purchaser? Is an economic system right which sanc- 
 tions usury, or linds a place for trusts and monopolies 
 which place the public at the mercy of a grinding in- 
 dustrialism? If not, why not? What is the criterion 
 according to which they are wrong? Not surely the 
 politics or the economics which sanction them. Then 
 we must seek the source of their injustice in a higher 
 law, namely, the moral and the divine, whose official 
 interpreter is the Church of Christ. It will be asked, 
 what has the Gospel of Christ to do with factories or 
 the Stock Exchange? I reply, no more than a pro- 
 fessor of mathematics has to do with the building of 
 railway bridges, or a professor of chemistry with the 
 sowing of potatoes or oats; and yet, let a railway 
 bridge be built irrespective of the principles taught in 
 mathematics, and it will be shattered and broken down 
 
60 THE CATHOLIC CHUIUCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 by the first goods train that passes over it ; let potatoes 
 or oats be sown in a soil not smted to them, and the 
 crop will be a failure. In like manner, society, either 
 in its political or economic action, cannot go on irres- 
 pective of the moral and divine law. It was tried in 
 old Rome by the wisest and the ablest men the world 
 has ever known, and we have seen what came of it. 
 As Leek}' pointed out, the Catholic Church simply 
 taught the doctrines of the equality of men, the sacred- 
 ness of marriage, the rights of woman, the spirit of 
 sacrifice, the duty and dignity of labour — none of them 
 directly economic, but all bound up with the mystery 
 of the Incarnation — and selfishness, slavery, divorce, 
 luxuiy, and the other social evils which began in 
 naturalism and finally ruined Roman society, had no 
 part in the new civilisation, a.s far as the Church could 
 prevent it, or human passion yielded to its principles. 
 
 We must not identify human or social progress with 
 mere material or industrial progress. They are quite 
 separable, and are often found apart. They are neither 
 necessarily opposed nor necessarily united. One is found 
 without the other, for instance, in the millionaire who 
 lias no higher notion than making money, and he makes 
 it ; whose highest aspirations are on a level with the 
 luxury which wealth can minister. Old Rome was in a 
 state of national decadence at the time Avhen its litera- 
 ture, art, and wealth were at their highest. A man may 
 subdue the forces of nature and turn them to his use by 
 the application of science, and when he has made him- 
 self most the master of matter may have become most 
 its slave. It can be so with a nation also. 
 
 Human progress and civilisation then must not be 
 identified with material progress; with gas, electricity, 
 railroads and factories. "Not in bread alone doth man 
 live." Progress is the natriral growth and ripening of 
 anything from its first germs or principles to its per- 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 61 
 
 fectiou. An oak grows from an acorn. A man de- 
 velops, in size, symmetry, and strength, from infancy 
 to manhood. But that is only physical progress; it is 
 not human progress, for a man may grow muscular and 
 fat and remain a fool. There is then intellectual pro- 
 gress, when his mind assimilates thoughts as his body 
 assimilates food. But that is not all which is implied in 
 human progress. What if a clever man uses his 
 superior sharpness to cheat his neighbour and to live on 
 his wits 1 We could not rightly call him a man of progress, 
 or a type of civilised humanity, who habitually went 
 to market or to the Stock Exchange, leaving his conscience 
 at home with his prayer-book in the pocket of his Sim- 
 day coat ; we should rather call him a " clever devil." 
 What applies to the individual, applies to the family, 
 to the nation, and to society at large. 
 
 Industrialism is not civilisation; industrial progress 
 is undoubtedly both a law and a duty for a people, but 
 it is not their highest law, nor their first duty. 
 
 But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed. 
 What then ? Is the reward of virtue bread ? * 
 
 I HAVE now pointed out the wide difference there is 
 between human progi-ess and mere material progress. 
 To speak then of the progress of a people because 
 of their industrial spirit or material prosperity 
 is plainly to treat man as an animal ad fruges consumere 
 natus. And the position is not improved even though 
 the claims of intelligence be considered, if the intelligence 
 is trained solely with a view to material progress ; for 
 in that case the mind is made a mere machine to minister 
 to the appetites of sense. The soul becomes in practical 
 life a function of matter, however spiritual be the philo- 
 sophy we may follow in theory. Human progress or 
 civilisation implies improvement and expansion in all the 
 
 • Pope.— Line 149 150. 
 
62 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 elements which make up man's nature, in all the human 
 interests of a people. The will and the heart are the 
 great motive forces in human activity, and if due atten- 
 tion is not given to the proper cultivation of those, the 
 attempt to build a truly prosperous nation is as vain as 
 the task of the fool in the Gospel who tried to build his 
 house on sand. TTie old Romans tried it, and they ended 
 in miserable failure ; and no people of to-day are more 
 worldly wise than they were. By the most natural pro- 
 cess they passed from comfort to wealth, from wealth to- 
 luxury, from luxury to indolence, from indolence to sel- 
 fishness, and thence through " the survival of the fittest " 
 to the distinction between the few masters who alone 
 were citizens of the great Republic, and the multitudes 
 who were their slaves and chattels. 
 
 It was the Catholic Church built up civilization again, 
 and led men along the way of human progress. 
 
 I have already pointed out the mistake which Sir 
 Horace Plunkett has made in representing the Catholic 
 Church as " completely shifting the moral centre of 
 gravity to the future existence." I now recall his argu- 
 ment, that its reliance on authority is an impediment to 
 progress, inasmuch as it checks initiative and se^f- 
 reliance. 
 
 If reliance on authority be a check to individual 
 initiative and an obstacle to progress, how is progress 
 possible at all 1 Authority is an essential element in 
 every society. It is authority which gives unity and 
 stability to society and is the safeguard of the liberty of 
 its members. Society is the offspring of human intelli- 
 gence and liberty. Civil authority unifies millions of in- 
 dividuals of different personal interests and passions, and 
 makes them act with common national interest and pur- 
 pose. It guards the rights and liberties of each, protect- 
 ing each from the injustice or the despotism of the selfish 
 and strong. Any society, from a municipal corporation 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHUEjCH AND PROGRESS. 63 
 
 to a nation, is simply inconceivable without an authority 
 to rule it. Authority, so far from lessening individual 
 liberty was conceived by human intelligence and estab- 
 lished by human liberty for its own safeguard ; and thus 
 it is not an obstacle, but a help to initiative, and is a 
 necessary condition of human progress. If anyone com- 
 plain that his liberty is restricted in not being allowed 
 to invade the rights of others, he has to explain how he 
 came by the right to invade their rights and thus to re- 
 strict the liberty of his neighbour. For his complaint 
 implies simply that others have no rights or liberties in 
 the presence of his, that he has unlimited liberty, and 
 even the right to do wrong. We thus alight on the 
 difference on the one hand between authority which 
 secures liberty and despotism which restrains it ; and on 
 the other hand, the difference between liberty which 
 is the birthright of everybody, and license — the abuse of 
 liberty — which is the right of nobody. Tbe truth is, 
 authority and liberty are two phases of one and the same 
 principle. 
 
 Sir Horace will remind me that he was not speaking of 
 civil, but of religious authority. But, then, how is it 
 that authority which secures individual liberty in the 
 State, restrains it in the Church? Authority is the safe- 
 guard of liberty also in religion, he will reply, except in 
 the Catholic Church. It is reliance on that authority 
 which "represses individuality," "checks the growth of 
 the qualities of initiative and self-reliance," and is for 
 that reason an impediment to progress. But how would 
 he explain, then, the genesis of liberty, the impulse to 
 enterprise, the birth, growth, and the vast strides of 
 human progress which began at the dawn of the Middle 
 Ages, when there was no power but Catholicism to create 
 them, and whilst it was in the power of the Catholic 
 Church to check their growth or to nip them in the bud if 
 
64 THE CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 it cliose? And Guizot,* together with every non-Catholic 
 historian of name, admits that human progress in all its 
 jihases was then protected and promoted by the Catholic 
 Church. Sir Horace saves me the trouble of more quota- 
 tion, for he himself admits it all ; and yet he denies the 
 possibility in principle of what he admits has happened in 
 fact. 
 
 Every Catholic knows, unless those " Catholics " who 
 are outside everything Catholic except the name, that 
 he is as free as air in all his political and economic, in his 
 temporal activities and relations of all sorts, as long as he 
 does not run counter to the teaching or discipline of that 
 Church which he believes to have been instituted by 
 Christ to expound the moral and divine Law, and to 
 guard their observance by the necessary discipline of life. 
 And the doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church 
 gives every member of it plenty of scope for all the 
 economic activity he wishes to put forth. I know that 
 Catholics may not lawfully believe or do some things as 
 to which non-Catholics enjoy untrammelled scope for 
 thought and action. But, if those things are false it is 
 not liberty of thought to assent to them ; if those things 
 are wrong it is not liberty of action to do them. It is not 
 liberty of thought or of action, but license in both, that 
 lets a man think what is false and do what is wrong. If 
 I do my neighbour an injustice I do not use my liberty ; 
 I abuse it. It is an act, not of liberty, but of license. In 
 truth, there is no such thing in nature as free-thought. 
 It is a chimera ; a crude expresision without a meaning. 
 
 Authority in society is for the s?ke of and is the safe- 
 guard of the liberty of the subject. But what is the safe- 
 guard of authority 1 Force may make it feared ; only re- 
 
 * Histoire ginerale de la Civilisation en Euro'pe. 2ieme, Sieme, 
 5ieme Lecon.— In this last place (page 132, 3rd Edition, 1840), h© 
 says: "Her influence on modern civilisation has been immense, 
 greater perhaps than has ever been imagined by her most ardent 
 adversaries or her most zealous advocates." Milman, Hallam, 
 and others bear similar testimony. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHUPXH AND PROGRESS. 65 
 
 ligion inspires the sense of duty which renpeets it. But 
 it must be a religion which does not owe its power to the 
 individuals whom it is supposed to guide. If it depends 
 on the people to determine what doctrines it shall teach, 
 what discipline it shall order, it is only a religion of their 
 own making which they may shape or discard at their 
 will. Made by the people they can unmake it with equal 
 right ; it is a function of the State ; nothing more than 
 the concrete manifestation of what happens to be the 
 trend of public opinion for the time being. To subject 
 oneself to a religion of human manufacture like that is 
 to bear a yoke of religious despotism which a people can 
 never venerate, and which they will not long endure at 
 an inconvenience. \Vell, that is Protestantism precisely; 
 for it assumes that God has ordered a religion ; but in- 
 stead of having to take charge of an} body, everybody has 
 to take charge of it. Protestantism is eisentially of home 
 manufacture ; each person makes his own according to 
 his conviction or fancy. I apprehend that Sir Horace 
 Plunkett will not approve that exposition of it. I set it 
 forth as what I think to be a plain corollary from what 
 he will of course avow. Because Protestantism was 
 inaugurated on the supposition that Catholicism had 
 grown so corrupt that the Church of Christ had long 
 ceased to be. But they assumed that individuals may 
 succeed where a whole Church failed, and each one 
 thought himself commissioned by God to construct the 
 real article at least for his own use. 
 
 The Reformers, therefore, considered religion as a 
 thing which was not to teach or to take care of them-, but 
 as a thing to be taught and taken care of by them. I will 
 be reminded that Protestants are bound by the 
 Thirty-nine Articles; but I remind whoever reminds 
 me that if I were a Protestant I would, on 
 the principle of my divine right of private judg- 
 ment, resent the impertinence of any person or 
 
66 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 institution that would ask me to subscribe to 
 any number of them more or less than I thought well 
 to accept. May not Parliament in the morning change the 
 number to thirty-eight ? May not any Member bring in a 
 bill to enlarge or lessen their number, or to modify them, 
 side by side with a bill to fix a duty on tea or tobacco I 
 It may be said that I am now casting ridicule ; it may be 
 ridicule, but it is reason. Nay, it is fact. The Act of 
 Union decreed that in future the Protestant Church in 
 Ireland should hold the same articles of belief as the Pro- 
 testant Church in England. The 5th Article of the Act 
 provided " that the Churches of England and Ireland, as 
 now by law established, be united into one Protestant 
 Episcopal Church, to be called the United Church of 
 England and Ireland ; and that the doctrine, worship, 
 discipline, and government of the said United Church 
 shall be, and shall remain in full force for ever, as the 
 sa^me one now by law established for the Church of Eng- 
 land." However, they did not remain the same for ever, 
 but only for 70 years; for in 1871 the chief legislative 
 power in the Irish Protestant Chiu'ch was transferred to 
 a General Synod consisting of clergy and laity in Ire- 
 land, who, in spite of the natural variations of private 
 judgment, as if by the inspiration of a Deus ex machina, 
 have happened upon the usual creed of thirty-nine articles 
 and other formularies, "subject to such alterations only 
 as may be made therein from time to time by the lawful 
 authority of the Church." * I have no intention to make 
 Protestantism look ridiculous; my purpose is to make 
 plain that it is part and parcel of the State ; pure natural- 
 ism in principle. It is simply the conviction, feeling, or 
 fancy which actuates each individual for the time being. 
 In other words, it leaves each one in the condition in 
 which it found him ; it gives a glow to noble instincts if 
 
 *The Constitution of the Church of Ireland. — Preamble and De- 
 claration, adopted by the General Convention in the year 1870. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHLTRCH AND PROGRESS. 67 
 
 he happen to have such; it bends to baser passions if 
 Euch be his; in a word, it satisfies his selfishness, what- 
 ever form his selfishness assumes. 
 
 Such is Protestantism in principle ; let us see what it is 
 in practice. We have seen on the avowal of non- 
 Catholic writers, what Catholicism did in the ages of 
 faith. Protestantism began its work with the accumu- 
 lated capital of civilisation which Catholicism had 
 created; nevertheless, during the three centuries of its 
 existence, it has not Christianized or civilised a single 
 barbarian or pagan people. Let us take England as a 
 type. What is the result of the civilising influence of 
 English rule in India? That influence began in the 
 middle of the 18th century, when the Mogul power had 
 been crushed by Olive. How did it set about civilising 
 the natives ? They were subjected to a systematic oppres- 
 sion, under the name of government, which is one of the 
 blackest blots on the pages of human history. They, as 
 well as their country, which they no longer dared to call 
 their own, were made mere instruments of wealth for the 
 relays of English adventurers who went there to make 
 money and came home when they had it made. Burke 
 thus painted in Parliament the barbarity practised on 
 the natives : " If we were driven out of India this day, 
 nothing would remain to tell that it had been possessed, 
 during the inglorious period of our dominion, by any 
 better than the ourang-outang and the tiger." And 
 what has been the history of English civilisation there 
 since Burke's day? Periodical and frequent famines, 
 during each of which multitudes are swept away, whilst 
 the country yields immense resources to England, and 
 they have to support an enormous native army to hold 
 themselves in subjection. And have their rulers tried 
 to Christianize them ? Protestantism has been more occu- 
 pied in preying on them than in praying for them. Eng- 
 land pretended to extend the Gospel, but it merely meant 
 
6S THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 to extend its trade. It is the economics of commercial 
 prooress, I admit. Whilst Protestantism was forcing it- 
 self down our throats here in Ireland, it let the Hindoos 
 hug their idols and worship tholr gods, provided they 
 l^eacefully gave up their treasures, and paid the taxes im- 
 posed on them. We find the "economic sense " asserting 
 itself also in this fact, that Protestantism had held sway 
 over India for more than half-a-century before it thought 
 of building a church for itself. 
 
 Let us pass to Australasia, and a similar history meets 
 us A century and a-half ago, Australia, New Zealand, 
 and Tasmania, were inh.abited solely by barbarian 
 natives. It was a fruitful field from which a rich harvest 
 of civilisation and Christianity might have been reaped. 
 Protestantism had the field to itself; because Catholic 
 influence, for good or evil, was for long kept awa}- by the 
 Penal Laws. How did it civilise the natives? By a 
 simple process — it exterminated them. They were chased 
 to death as the beasts that roamed through their forests; 
 they were betrayed and butchered, and that under pro- 
 tection of government. In twenty years the Tasmanians 
 were extinguished ; the Australians are almost gone ; and 
 the Maories of New Zealand, whose bravery and natural 
 ability deserve a better fate, are fast disappearing. 
 
 The same method of civilisation has done its work on 
 those native tribes of Africa whose natural right to live 
 where they got life English Protestantism found obstruct- 
 ing the march of its industrial progress. And here I am 
 reminded to ask: — which shows more proof of human 
 civilisation, the honest industry, the frugal comfort, the 
 heroic bravery of the Boers, or the aggressiveness of Bri- 
 tish commercialism which only, from a confusion of ideas 
 and by a misuse of words, could be called human pro- 
 gress? It may be called material progress. 
 
 The North American Colonies tell a similar story. 
 Bancroft, the Protestant historian of the United States,. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 69 
 
 tells us that there was universal liberty, civil aud reli- 
 giou?, in the Catholic colony of Maryland, whilst Pro- 
 testantism proscribed every other form of religion than 
 itself in those colonies where it held sway. It became the 
 lirst asylum in America for the oppressed of every creed 
 and of every land. Protestants fled there from the New 
 England States, driven out by the bigotry of the Puri- 
 tans ; and when they grew strong in number they revolted 
 against that Catholic constitution which had sheltered 
 them ; and when the rebellion was put down, the General 
 Assembly of Maryland, ignoring the ingratitude and 
 the bigotry of the rebels, passed a law securing liberty of 
 conscier.ce to everyone who came within its frontier. 
 After, the English power had supplanted the French in 
 North America, Bancroft says that " influence by com- 
 merce took the place of influence by religion, and Eng- 
 lish trading houses sujDpIanted French missions." And 
 how did that influence exert itself on the fortunes of the 
 natives? AVe shall see from the following law which was 
 passed in Massachusetts in 1675: — "Ordered by the 
 Court, that whosoever shall shoot off any gun on any un- 
 necessary occasion, on any game whatever, except an 
 Indian or a wolf, shall forfeit five shillings for every such 
 shot, till further liberty shall be given." And, accord- 
 ing to Bancroft, a reward of £15 was offered for an 
 Indian's scalp, which was afterwards increased to £100. 
 I admit that those were economic laws made, and econo- 
 mic money spent, since they threw aside obstacles to the 
 march of material progress. I do not dispute that ; I 
 merely deny that it was human progress. The grim 
 brutality of those laws and bounties reveal what is the 
 natural outcome of that industrial progress which natural- 
 istic economics provide for. The influence of the 
 "simpler Christianity" marched the Indians, tribe by 
 tribe, not from the primitive shelter of their wigwams to 
 the ways of civilised life, but to slavery, chains, and ex- 
 
70 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 termination. And the wigwam of the Indian fared no 
 worse, far better, than the cottage of the Acadian farmer. 
 Let us consider by contrast the colonies of Spain. Tlie 
 native races of North America are gone ; those of South 
 America remain to this day. The natives of the English 
 colonies were exterminated, not civilised ; the natives of 
 the Spanish colonies were civilised, not exterminated. 
 How did the Spaniards deal with the natives of the Philip- 
 pines? They were not exterminated at any rate, as the 
 present population of those Islands shows. Of what the 
 Spaniards have done to civilise them I call to witness the 
 University of Manilla which was founded so early as 1611 
 and has si.v Faculties, and about 2,000 students; I call 
 to witness the Colleges for Secondary Education which 
 are attended by over 8,000 students ; I call to witness the 
 2,167 Primary Schools. To colonise a country, in the 
 true sense of the term, is not to work it for the exclusive 
 benefit of the colonisers and to the detriment or the 
 destruction of the aborigines, but to bring to these and 
 to diffuse over their country the civilisation which the 
 colonisers already enjoy. In that sense the Spaniards 
 and the Portuguese stand out in clear contrast to the 
 English and the Dutch. Mr. Crav.-ford, Governor of 
 Singapore, said at a meeting of Protestant missionaries — - 
 '■' In the Philippine Islands alone the Spaniards converted 
 several millions of natives, and therefrom resulted an 
 enormous amelioration of their social condition." ""* Sir 
 Henry Ellis praises the Spaniards for the foundation of 
 schools throughout the whole of the colony, f Sir John 
 Browning wrote in 1859 : — " The Catholic clergy exercise 
 an influence which would ap}>ear magical, if it were not re- 
 garded by partisaJis as divine." And again : — " The in- 
 habitants of Manilla, serving on board their vessels, are 
 generally able to sign their names, which is verj' often 
 
 *The Times, Dec. 2ncl, 1858. 
 
 f Journal of an Embassy to Cliina. Chap. VIII.. page 442. 
 
THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AXD PROGRESS. 71 
 
 not the case ^vith the English sailors in the Philippine 
 Islands. Tliere are very few Indians who do not know 
 how to read, and this satisfactory result has been ob- 
 tained in a countr}' entirely given up to the dominion of 
 the clergy and colonised by Spaniards, in a country 
 without an education league and without anv form of 
 compulsory instruction."; And yet, America pretends 
 that its purpose in supplanting the Spanish power in the 
 Philippines was to civilise the natives I 
 
 A writer in the New York Sun quotes the following 
 from the " Hispano-American Encyclopedia" as to the 
 state of education in the Philippines : — 
 
 '' In 1889 there were 870 schools for boys and 749 for 
 girls in the island, with an average attendance of 154,000 
 children. There is a splendid University — St. Thomas's 
 — established in 1619, an academy for girls dating from 
 1696, and several other chartered colleges where the most 
 advanced branches of learning are taught." 
 
 The Hon. John Barrett, the American Minist-er to 
 Siam, wrote on the same subject in the North American 
 Review in 1879 : — 
 
 " Charity and benevolence are represented in hospitals, 
 homes, and asylums; education by colleges, schools of 
 law, theology, medicine, pharmac}-, and manual training ; 
 fine arts and science by museums, rare collections, and 
 observatories ; manufacturing by immense cigar, ciga- 
 rette, and rope factories." 
 
 On the same, Mr. W. B. Palgrave writes in the 
 "Scientific American Supplement": — "As a social 
 bond, a harmonising influence, a promoter of friendly in. 
 tercoui-se, of right, of love even ; a balm — ideal, but not 
 inefficacious — for the wounds and bruises of fact, Chris- 
 tianity has, it would seem, rarely been more advantageous 
 to its followers than here." 
 
 J Taken from Baron de Haulleville's Social Aspects of CathoUchm 
 und Protestantism. Translated by Sir Henry Bellingham. 
 
72 TllK CATHOLIC CHURCH AND PROGRESS. 
 
 Far dilTcreut has been the fate of the aborigines of 
 Australia under England. Even at this day the atroci- 
 ties practised on those of them who remain is almost un- 
 speakable. In support of which I have the authority of 
 Dr. Gibney, Catholic Bishop of West Australia, who has 
 been a witness to them for a generation, and has often 
 denounced them to the Government authorities in vain. 
 I have also the authority of Mr. MaJcolmson, and of Dr. 
 Rentoul, a Professor in the Presbyterian College of Mel- 
 bourne. 
 
 But, England and America have advanced themselves 
 to a high slate of civilisation, at any rate? We shall 
 see, and perliaps our conclusions will be a little startling. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 In pre-Reforruation times in England, according to 
 the Anglican Bishop Stubbs, ''every man or woman, 
 of what state or condition that he may be, shall be 
 free to set their son or daughter to take learning at any 
 school that pleaseth them within the realm." That 
 provision for popular education applied to the serfs as 
 well as to their masters. 
 
 Prof. Thorold Rogers,* writing of the time before the 
 Black Death, says that: — 
 
 " The means of life were as plentiful, considering the 
 population, in the 13th century, as they were in the 
 18th; the continuity of labour was secured, and the 
 prospects of those who lived by manual labour was good. 
 The age had its drawbacks, as every age has ; but it had 
 it® advantages ; and I hope to be able to show that the 
 peasant of the 13bh centuiy, though he did not possess, 
 and therefore did not desire, much that his descendant 
 had in the 18th, had some solid elements of present 
 advantage, and not a few hopes of future advancement." 
 And again : — f 
 
 "There can be no doubt that in the 13bh century, 
 every peasant had his pig in his sty. It is more cer- 
 tain that he had his fowl in the pot. Poultry-keeping 
 was univei-sal." 
 
 In the pre-Reformation times every working-man with 
 a family had a house and land ; in England, about four 
 
 * Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 69. 
 \Loe. cit., page 83. 
 
74 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 acres; in France, about six acres; in Germany, about 
 the same as in England. He had one or more cows, 
 some pigs, and poultn- of every kind. They had, more- 
 over, the right of pasturage for their cattle on the com- 
 mons, and for their pigs in the woods. A mason of the 
 15tli century earned about sixpence a day; which was 
 equal to about six shillings a day at the present time, 
 and its purchasing power as to house-rent, food, and 
 clothing was several times more than it is to-day. We 
 can get a good idea of the value of workmen's wages in 
 the 15th century from what Thorold Rogers writes at 
 page 389 of his book: — 
 
 " The price of wheat in 1495 was 4| shillings a quar- 
 ter, or eight bushels; of malt, 2s. 4|d. ; and of oatmeal 
 5s. 4id. a quarter. . In so cheap a year as this 
 
 the peasant could provision his family for a twelve- 
 month with three quarters of v/heat, three of malt, and 
 two of oatmeal, by fifteen weeks of individual work; an 
 artisan could achieve the same in ten weeks. Such 
 wages were i-egularly paid, and even more, particularly 
 in London." 
 
 Mr. ITyndman tells us that, from extant account-books 
 of the monasteries, it has become known how large a 
 share of their revenues was spent on the poor, the sick, 
 and other works of charity; and he says: — 
 
 " Granting that large sums were wasted on the useless 
 ceremonies of Masses and candles, that some of the 
 monasteries had a well-mraiaged refectory and an ad- 
 mirable cellar of wine and beer, it is certain, neverthe- 
 less, that the abbots and priors were the best landlords 
 in England, and that so long as the Church held its 
 lands and its power, i^ermanent pauperism uas U7i- 
 knoirn." 
 
 Those are strong words; for whilst Mr. Hyndman's 
 disposition may be shocked at having money wasted 
 
 X Historical Basis of Socialism, pages 16 and 17. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 75 
 
 on " the usieless ceremonies of Masses and candles " 
 
 and it is due to him to observe that he only grants, 
 
 but does not assert that it was waste — he holds it as cer- 
 tain that in those days of which he writes, " permanent 
 pauperism was unknown " in England. Now, I think 
 that the true test of sound social economy is, not the 
 formation of centres of accumulated wealth, but the 
 absence of permanent pauperism. There must be some- 
 thing out of gear, or something wanting, in any system 
 of economics which, however it may stimulate the in- 
 dustrial spirit or multiply spinning- jennies, produces a 
 few millionaires and a million paupers. It is not a law 
 of nature that any man should be a Croesus, but it is a 
 law of nature that no man should starve. Let us take 
 a parish of a thousand families ; would anyone call that 
 parish wealthy because a dozen families could afford the 
 luxury of a motor-car, if five hundred others could only 
 keep an ass and the rest could barely keep body and soul 
 together ? 
 
 Looking over, not a few years, but over generations 
 brought up with the " individuality " and with " those 
 qualities of initiative and self-reliance " which we are 
 told that Protestantism promotes, can it be said that 
 the advancement of national prosperity in England has 
 been the result of the Reformation? In forming our 
 judgment we must keep in mind that the England of 
 to-day is heir to the national traditions of those Catholic 
 times when "permanent pauperism was unknown." 
 Many generations must pass before the inherited ten- 
 dencies of a people cease to influence them. When 
 England threw off Catholicism, she v/as in the prime of 
 her national life, and in the natural course of things 
 she should go on living and thriving, just as a man with 
 a well-built constitution will retain his health for a long 
 time in spite of indolence, vice, or luxurious living. A 
 man does not lose every virtue, because he has lost his 
 
76 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 faith ; neither does a nation. One controlling vice 
 might have brought abovit the loss of faith, but the man 
 who has lost it may remain as energetic, as industrious, 
 or as benevolent as before. Avarice may keep a man 
 industrious and thrifty ; selfishne&s may be the source 
 of self-restraint and courtesy ; personal ambition or 
 vanity may be at the bottom of the benevolence 
 which one displays. It does not follow that a man 
 would trouble about those natural virtues for 
 the sake of a higher principle from the fact 
 that he carefully cultivates them for the sake 
 of personal advancement. The virtues of such a man 
 are mere commercial assets ; behind the energy, the self- 
 restraint, the courtesy, the truthfulness, the benevo- 
 lence is simply self in some form or other. Such a 
 man is sure to make money; and such a people will 
 achieve material prosperity. Why not? But the indi- 
 vidualism v/hich begins in self will also end in self. 
 The egoism of initiative and self-reliance will end in the 
 survival of the fittest, will in the long run disregard the 
 interests of the many who are down unless as levers to 
 elevate still more the few who ai'e up. But will that 
 man's money make his happiness? Can that nation 
 stand ? 
 
 Those thoughts have come to me from reading a book 
 lately written on " The Effects of the Factory System,"* 
 by Allen Clarke. He writes : — 
 
 ■'To-day men are of less consequence than machines; 
 they are the servant-s of machines. The machine, in 
 its wonderful development, has become almost human ; 
 while man has been reduced, as far as possible, to the 
 condition of a machine. . . . Not that machinery 
 in itself was, or is, such a bad thing ; its curse lay in its 
 being the property of capitalists who soon realised what 
 vast fortunes they could capture by its use. . . . Iron, 
 *Prgos 1, 2, 3. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 77 
 
 ingeniously fashioned into a giant's bodj^, with a venous 
 system of steam, leathern muscles called straps, and 
 Mammon for soul or guiding power, became a monster 
 that snatched hand-workers from their homes, dragged 
 them to one of its dungeons, and said — here you shall 
 be my slaves, or starve. . . . Though the iron 
 demon has made luxur}- for the few he has made poverty 
 and crime and feelings of rebellion for the many; and 
 out of these two things — fat tyranny on the one hand 
 and lean slavery on the other — no good can come, but 
 only evil." 
 
 In 1779 Crompton invented the spinning-mule; and six 
 years later steam was first used as a motive power instead 
 of water. In 1786 the largest spinning-mule in Eclton 
 had 108 spindles; to-day some of those machines have 
 1,200 spindles. That shows the mechanical progress 
 made within a hundred years. Then came the age of 
 machinery and steam ; villages grew into large manufac- 
 turing towns ; homes of industry were supplanted by 
 factories ; and from the factory system and the expansion 
 of commerce has come our modern economics, and our 
 "economic sense." 
 
 During the last years of the IStli and eai-Iy years of the 
 19th century, v;hilst the Continent became an inter- 
 national cock-pit, industries were expanding in England ; 
 she was spinning and weaving for those v/ho had no 
 time to spin or weave for themselves. Thus has her in- 
 dustrial greatness arisen from the combination of a 
 number of circumstances. Like an avaricious man v;ho 
 begins to seek wealth for the sake of his happiness, and 
 ends by forgetting or sacrificing his happiness for the sake 
 of wealth, the industrial spirit in England worked itself 
 out at a terrible cost. This is how Gibbins tells the 
 story* : — 
 
 " The manufacturers wanted labour by some means or 
 other, and they got it. They got it from workhouses. 
 
 f Indusf rial Hist ory of England, p.ige 17S-181. 
 
73 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The mill-owners systematically communicated with the 
 overseers of the poor, who arranged a day for the in- 
 spection of pa.uper children. Those chosen were con- 
 veyed by wagons or canal boats to their destination, 
 and from that moment were doomed to slavery. Some- 
 times re^xlar traffickers would take the place- of the 
 manufacturer, and transfer a number of chiidren to a 
 factory district, and there keep them, generally in some 
 dark cellar, till they could hand them over to the 
 mill-owner in want of hands, who would come and 
 examine their height, strength, and bodily capacities, 
 exactly as did the slave dealers in the American markets. 
 After that the children were simply at the mercy of 
 their owners, nominally as apprentices, but iu reality 
 as mere slaves, who got no wages, and whom it was 
 not worth while to feed or clothe properly, because 
 they were so cheap, and their places could be so easily 
 supplied. It was often arranged by the parish authori- 
 ties, in order to get rid of imbeciles that one idiot 
 should be taken by the mill-owner with every twenty 
 sane children. The fate of those idiots has never been 
 disclosed. The treatment of the " appi entices ' was most 
 inhuman ; the hours of their labour were only limited 
 by exhaustion after many modes of torture had been 
 unavailingly applied to force continued wrok. Sunday 
 Vv-as spent cleaning machinery. They were fed on the 
 coarsest food, often with the same as that served out 
 to the pigs of their master. They slept by turns, in 
 relays, in filthy beds. There was often no discrimina- 
 tion of sexes; and disease, misery, and vice, grew as in 
 a hotbed of contagion. To prevent them from escap- 
 ing, some had irons riveted on their ankles, with long 
 links reaching to their hips, and were compelled to work 
 and sleep in these chains, young women and girls as 
 well as boys suffering this brutal treatment. During 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAKD. <» 
 
 this period of unheeded and ghastly suffering in the 
 mills of our native land, the British philanthropist was 
 occupying himself with agitating for the relief of the 
 very largely imaginary woes of negro slaves in other 
 countries. The spectacle of England buying the free- 
 dom of black slaves by riches drawn from the labour of 
 white ones, affords an interesting study for the cynical 
 philosopher." 
 
 In 1833 the black slave trade was abolished; but in 
 that same year Southey, the Poet Laureate, wrote that 
 " the slave trade is mercy compared with the factory 
 system." 
 
 According to Olarke, 528,795 persons (of whom 320,000 
 are females) get employment from the cotton trade of 
 England, whilst 655,636 are employed in factories of all 
 other kinds of t-extile industry. "We may take the cot- 
 ton trade, then, as typical of English factories; and 
 Bolton and Oldham are its two great centres. A cen- 
 tury ago Bolton had a population of only a few 
 thousand; its population is now over 125,000. The in- 
 crease of population is owing to the cotton industry; 
 and as the cotton industry has increased its inhabitants, 
 it must suppoi-t them, or they starve. They entirely 
 depend upon it; and I am told that last winter, owing 
 to the decline in trade, thousands of them were in a 
 state of absolute want. But taking it at its best, what 
 has it done for civilisation in Lancashire? The death- 
 rate in Bolton is 36 to 1,000; the average death-rate of 
 Lancashire is 10 to 1,000. A sign of the precarioiis 
 health of the inhabitants is, that quack doctors do a 
 roaring trade in herbs, patent medicines, and pills. 
 Clarke tells us, and he writes from personal knowledge, 
 that beneath the labouring class there is a fourth class 
 of people in Bolton who when they die are not buried 
 in graves, as we understand it, but are dumped into a 
 
80 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 common pit. As to the effect of the factory S}'st€m on 
 morality, he says* that — 
 
 " There is alive to-day (or was not long ago) not far 
 from Manchester, an employer who makes seduction 
 one of the conditions on which females may have work 
 at his establishment. If they decline they must quit. 
 Singb or married makes no difference, and the same 
 rule applies to the girl of sixteen and the woman of 
 thirty. How many victims have fallen to this gentle- 
 man it would be difficult to estimate, but he has been 
 enforcing this game for many, many years. There are 
 many employers like him ; I knew two or thi-ee myself 
 some years ago." 
 
 And again, he writes'^'' — 
 
 " I am reluctant to write it, but it is a sad fact, that 
 the majority of parents in Lancashire regard children 
 only as commercial speculations, to be turned into wage- 
 earning machines as soon as the child's age and the 
 law will permit. For this they oppose the raising of 
 the age of half-timers ; for this they resent all legisla- 
 tive interference, either educational or hygienic, in the 
 matter of their children. If the children could only 
 hold a congress, and speak, what shameful revelations 
 would be made. No wild beast ever treats its young as 
 too many of the fathers and mothers of Lancashire have 
 treated and still treat theirs. I write in all sorrow, 
 for I am a Lancashire lad myself. A lion, a bear, or 
 even the basest of brutes, will fight to the death to 
 protect their young ; but a great many human beings 
 in Lancashire — and elsewhere — are eager to turn their 
 young to the most advantage by sacrificing them on the 
 altar of trade for paltry pecuniary gain." 
 
 It is all very well to write rhetoric about the hum of 
 industry, busy centres of trade, " individuality,"' " initia- 
 
 • Page 83. 
 t Page 106. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 81 
 
 tive," "self-reliance,"" "civic virtues and efficiencies," 
 but after what I have quoted from Clarke, a man who 
 went through the mill himself in metaphor and in fact, 
 can we say that the state of things which we learn from 
 him is a sign of civilisation 1 I think I have justified the 
 distinction I have drawn between mere material progress 
 and human progress. 
 
 But there is more to be considered. '\A''ith the rise of 
 the factory system began the decline of agriculture in 
 England. Wealth could be more expeditiously made by 
 manufacture than by agriculture. England gave up its 
 corn and meadows for cotton and machinery, because 
 capitalists found these the shortest way to wealth ; and 
 hence it is turning into so many festering sores as there 
 are manufactui-ing cities, whilst the country is deserted, 
 lu 1851 there were 1,253,800 agricultural labourers in 
 England; in 1881 there were 870,800; and in 1891, the 
 number had decreased to 780,000. To-day they number 
 about 700,000. And will the cotton industry continue 
 to support the populous cities it has created? The de- 
 cline in the export and the increase in the import of cotton 
 goods seem to say — no. In 1881 cotton goods to the 
 value of i£58,404,212 were exported; in 1893 cotton 
 goods wei-e exported to the value of £47,281,114. On 
 the other hand, in 1883 cotton goods to the value of 
 £520,897 were imported; in 1896 the value of those im- 
 ports was £1,040,748. Moi-eover, whilst the cotton 
 trade is on the decline, or at least at a stand still in 
 England, it is growing fast in India, China, Japan, 
 Mexico, Egypt, on the Continent, and in America And 
 when the cotton industry decays, how will it be with 
 the teeming populations of such places as Oldham and 
 Bolton ? The civilization which has brought them along 
 riding on the tide of material progress will leave them 
 sti-uggling in the mire when the tide has gone out. That 
 " simpler Christianity "' which has taught them to 
 
82 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 "develop the qualities which make for well-being in this 
 life " will not help them much at any rate, since out of 
 a population of about 125,000 in Bolton, about 14,000 
 go to any place of worship. And these are the econo- 
 mics to which we are counselled to co-ordinate our 
 spiritual ideals ! 
 
 And even on the score of material prosperity what has 
 England gained? I find in a book recently published* 
 that 27'84 per cent, of the people of York are living in 
 poverty, i.e., whose earnings are either insufficient, or 
 barely sufficient, for the maintenance of merely physical 
 efficiency. According to Mr. Cliarles Booth, f 307 per 
 cent, of the inhabitants of London are in a similar con- 
 dition. 
 
 I have taken the following cutting from a London 
 newspaper : — 
 
 " During the last week in January twenty officials of 
 the London County Council searched the streets for 
 the homeless. The area covered extended from Hyde 
 Park on the West to Whitechapel on the east. The 
 northern boundary was High Holborn, Old Street, and 
 Bethnal Green Road; the southern margin, the 
 Thames. This is what they found: — 1,463 men, 116 
 women, 46 boys, and 4 girls walking the streets ; 100 
 males and 68 females asleep on stair-cases, in doorways, 
 and under archways; in all, 1,797 homeless persons. 
 The searchers estimated that one in every 2,000 persons 
 was homeless on that particular night." 
 
 Charles E. Lester, an American traveller, in his work, 
 "The Glory and Shame of England," speaking of "in- 
 fant and female slaves in the English coal-mines," says 
 that " slavery in its most hideous form never equalled 
 this, and the condition, physical as well as moral, of the 
 most degraded bondsman may be esteemed exalted if 
 
 '^Poverty: A Study of Town Life: bv B. Seebohm Rowntree. 
 Chap. IV. 
 
 '[Life and Labour of tlie People in London. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 83 
 
 compared with that of a free collier in England * And 
 he quotes, as follows, the comments of a London paper 
 on a report laid before Parliament: — 
 
 " The infernal cruelties practised upon boys and 
 girls in the coal mines, those graves of comfort and 
 virtue, have never in any age been outdone. We have 
 sometimes read, with shuddering disgust, of the out- 
 rages committed upon helpless childhood by man when 
 existing in a state of naked savageness. We aver our 
 belief, that in cold-blooded atrocity they do not equal 
 what is going on from day to day in some of our coal 
 mines." 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain wrote in 1883t — 
 " Never before in our history were wealth and the 
 evidences of wealth more abundant ; never before was 
 luxurious living so general and so wanton in its display, 
 and never before was the misery of the poor more in- 
 tense, or the conditions of their daily life more hopeless 
 or more degraded. . . . England has a million 
 paupers and millions more are on the verge of it." 
 
 The natural purpose of a man's industry and effort 
 i? the comfort and happiness of himself and his 
 family. To sacrifice happiness for the making of money 
 is as unnatural as if one gave himself no time for dinner 
 in his eagerness to earn more than the price of it. What 
 IS the meaning of earning the price of a dinner, unless 
 one buys and eats it? The same principle applies to a 
 people. National prosperity, the happiness of a people, 
 is the purpose of social economics, and the natural end 
 of their industry. Ttat political economy which makes 
 millionaires of a few and begets misery for the multitude 
 must have the germs of corruption concealed in it some- 
 where. The industrial spirit which sacrifices every other 
 human interest on the altar of Mammon is unnatural, 
 
 »Vol. II., page 339. 
 
 jFoiinigiitly Btviiic, Dec<?mber, 1883. 
 
S4 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 and the sooner a nation is exorci&ed of it the better. 
 Material prosperity, simply accumulated wealth in a 
 country, is not the true end of national industry. Social 
 economics imply distribution as well as accumulation. 
 The material prosi)eritY in a nation does not then imply 
 national prosperity. The best test of national pros- 
 perity is the happiness of the people taken as a whole. 
 
 Now, Mr. Lester, from whom I have already quoted, 
 writes*: — "It has been well said by an Englishman 
 himself that to talk of English happiness is like talking 
 of Spartan freedom — the helots are overlooked." Quite 
 true. AVe stand on the quays of Liverpool and look 
 along miles of merchant ships ; we see a similar sign of 
 commercial greatness if we visit London docks. Flying 
 through the country in a train we see the manifestation 
 of prosperity and a ss-ttled civilisation everywhere — 
 stately mansions, broad demesnes, farm-houses and cot- 
 tages nestling in comfort; in the cities and towns, 
 forests of factory chimneys which tell us of industrial 
 activity, and splendid West-End mansions where land- 
 owners, mill-owners, iron-masters, etc., try to spend as 
 much as they can of the rental of their estates or of the 
 profits of their industries during the winter season, un- 
 less they go abroad. That is the sunshine ; but we must 
 not forget the shadow. We must see the slums where 
 the workers live as well as the mansions of the capi- 
 talists who employ them ; we must learn the conditions 
 of the miners who delve out the wealth, as well as the 
 state of those who roll in it. It is necessary to know if 
 ignorance, vice, vulgarity, human misery of every kind, 
 be not hidden away, be not festering behind the outer 
 coating of external culture, prosperity and 'happiness 
 that we see. If one spoke of the people to a Spartan he 
 would not think he was asked about the helots ; if one 
 asked even the noblest philosopher of pagan Rome for 
 
 *Vol. I., paye 141. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 85 
 
 a census of the citizens he vrould uo more think of count- 
 ino' in the slaves than he would think of the horses, 
 carts, or cows. Christianity changed all that; for, ac- 
 cording to Christian principles, there was to be no dis- 
 tinction between bond and free; and I remember to 
 have seen that idea beautifully brought out in the letters 
 of Sir Thomas More, in which, when away from home, he 
 used to ask about the servants as well as about his own 
 children. According to his enlightened Catholic idea 
 they were all members of his family. In English the 
 word family now excludes the servants ; whilst in Spanish 
 and Italian it includes the servants, who are considered 
 to be members of the family, as they were in England in 
 Catholic times. Thus the Catholic doctrine of the 
 equality and brotherhood of man is enshrined in the lan- 
 guage of Catholic nations, living at least as a memorial 
 of the consistent conduct of our fatHers. That instinct 
 is alive in Catholic Ireland to-day, unless where and in 
 so far as we have become Anglicised. 
 
 I have already drawn attention to the shade of the 
 social picture in modern England. Let us have another 
 look ; I have allowed, and I will allow no Catholic writer 
 to paint it. Fifty years ago, Joseph Kay, commissioned 
 by the University of Cambridge, drew such a picture of 
 the poor in England, in his Social Condition and Educa- 
 tion of the English People, that the Statistical Society 
 of London, aghast at his disclosures, formed a committee 
 of enquiry into the matter, and the following is one ex- 
 tract from their history of horrors : — 
 
 " Yovir Committee have thus given a picture in detail 
 of human wretchedness, filth, and brutal degradation, 
 the chief features of which are a disgrace to a civilized 
 countiy, and which your Committee have reason to fear, 
 from letters which have appeared in the public journals, 
 is but a type of the miserable condition of masses of the 
 community, whether located in the small, ill-ventilated 
 
86 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 rooms of the manufacturing towns or in many of the 
 cottages of the agricultural peasantry. In these 
 wretched dwellings all ages and all sexes — fathers and 
 daughters, mothers and sous, grown-up brothers and 
 sisters, stransrer adult males and females, and swarms 
 of children — the sick, the dying, and the dead, all 
 herded together with proximity and mutual pressure 
 which brutes would resist ; where it is physically im- 
 possible to preserve the ordinary decencies of life ; 
 where all sense of propriety and self-respect must be 
 lost." 
 
 In 1848, Aubrey de Vere, in a series of letters* 
 which he addressed to an English Member of Parlia- 
 ment,, wrote the following. That was before he became 
 a Clatholic : — 
 
 " You inveigh. Sir, against the squalidness of many 
 an Irish village; have you read the report of a Com- 
 mission which was instituted not long ago to inquire 
 into the state of certain English mining districts? If it 
 does not recount fables, your mines contained not long 
 since, a degree of misery and a peculiar species of de- 
 gradation, whereof we in this country know nothing. 
 Amongst us, women have never toiled in the attitude 
 of beasts, amid slimy caverns, and surrounded by a 
 savage race, naked, blasphemous and brutal. In this 
 country, children of twelve years old are not to be 
 found who do not know the name of their country or 
 their sovereign. Whether these atrocities have since 
 been amended, I know not; but they existed two years 
 ago; nor can aught else so pointedly illustrate the de- 
 gradation that had sunk through the social into the 
 moral being, as the fact, that when the Legislature 
 found it necessary <-t "- "'^r^'cre, and, si^.pplying the 
 
 *Eiu/li3li Misrule and Irish Misdeeds, pages 197, 198. 199. It is 
 a work which is now little known; yet I think that no work of 
 so high an order hae been written on Irish affairs since Edmund 
 Burke wrote. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 87 
 
 place of morals with laws, to protect womanhood and in 
 it humanity itself from outrage, those unfortunates 
 raised up from the depths and remanded to their native 
 air but to die, bewildered and helpless, staggering be- 
 tween contending claims, for their own sake and that 
 of their starving children, petitioned to be indulged 
 again in what was there accounted but freedom of 
 labour. You are offended at the cottiered and foodless 
 wastes of Kerry ; have you ever visited the alleys of 
 your manufacturing districts Have you ever read any 
 of the Parliamentary Reports on that subject? 
 In Irish hovels you meet with a worship which you con- 
 demn ; it is in English manufacturing districts that 
 you are confronted by multitudes who have never heard 
 of the existence of a God. or named that name at which 
 the nations bow." 
 
 But that is of the distant past; and have things im- 
 proved since then ? In some respects and to some extent, 
 that is true ; but let us follow the process of social evolu- 
 tion there. In 1876, Lester wrote in the work already 
 quoted^: — ''The ignorance, vice, disease, deformity, 
 and wretchedness of the English operatives as a 
 body almost exceed belief. I am persuaded the physical 
 miseries of the English operatives are greater by far than 
 the West Indian slaves suffered before their emancipa-. 
 tion. They are too ignorant to understand their rights, 
 and too weak to assert them." In January, 1880, the 
 Protestant bishop of Rochester wrote, in Good Words : — 
 '■ I lament that dense, and coarse, and almost brutal 
 ignorance in which the toiling masses of the people who 
 have outgrown the Church's grasp are permitted to live 
 and die, of all that touches their salvation and explains 
 their destiny. To hundreds of thousands of our fell nv- 
 countrymen Almighty God is practically an unknown 
 Being, except as the substance of a hideous oath ; Jesus 
 
 * Page 161. 
 
88 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Christ, in His rcdccniing love and luiman sympatby, as 
 dist-ant as a fixed star." 
 
 Now, a few words of digression- — The English people 
 have been luxuriating in the license of the " simpler 
 Christianity"* for three centuries. Last March they 
 celebrated the centenary of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society, which boasts of having published 
 the Word of God in 350 different languages and dialects, 
 of spending about £240,000 a year on its distribution, of 
 having spent over £13,000,000 on the same work during 
 the century, of having issued or caused to be issued in all 
 about 251,000,000 copies of the Word of God to make God 
 known to the speakers of 350 different tongues; yet an 
 Anglican bishop admits, and his estimate is a very modest 
 one, as I could easily show, that there are to-day multi- 
 tudes in England who know nothing about God, and just 
 enough of His Name to swear by It. And so, the 
 " Simpler Christianity," the religion of "civic virtue and 
 efficiency," the open Bible, and the Protestant apostolate 
 of light abroad to those " who sit in darkness," have left 
 God and Jupiter on the same level as objects of belief 
 and worship at home; for they swear "by Jove," as 
 freely as they use the other expletive — they swear by 
 both and v.-orship neither. The American Tract Society 
 boasts that within the past two years it has published 
 750,000,000 tracts, in every knov/n language and dialect ; 
 and the American Bible Society boasts that on the lists of 
 its publications are 370 different languages, and 60 dif- 
 ferent kinds of alphabets ; yet, what is true of those of the 
 the •' simpler Christianity " in England is at least as true 
 of their brethren in America. It is a pitiful, although 
 in a sense an amusing, commentary on the Pharisaical 
 conceit of spreading the light of the Word amongct the 
 Irish, the Spanish, the Italians, the Hindoos, the 
 Kamptschatkadales, and amongst every people and tribe 
 under heaven except themselves. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 89 
 
 Lester again writes in 1876'^ : — 
 
 "Jly statements have stood the test of twenty-four 
 years, and all my jDicturcs of the vice, the degradation, 
 the sufferings, the sottishness, the heathenism of the 
 masses of the English people have been outdone since, 
 by Reports made to the British Parliament on the 
 horrors of the collieries, the barbarities practised in 
 the workhouses, the worse than slave toil of the fac- 
 tories, the plethora of the Prelacy, the spiritual as well 
 as the physical poverty of their flocks, the ignorance of 
 the great herd of England's own subjects." 
 
 If any persons should suspect that I have selected the 
 most horrifying accounts I would recall the revelations 
 made by the Commission on the Housing of the Poor 
 some years ago. I would also refer them to Mayhew's 
 London Labour and London Poor for a picture of London 
 fifty years ago ; to Lester's book for a picture of England 
 of thirty years ago; to How the Poor Live, b}' G. R. 
 Sims, for a picture of London twenty years ago; to 
 ToilerH in London, by the British Weekl}' Commissioners, 
 for a picture of London fifteen years ago : to the works 
 of Clarke and Rowntree already quoted for a picture 
 of actual factory life ; to a series of discourses by the 
 Hon. and Rev. Mr. Tyrhwitt, called '•' The Devil in the 
 Potteries," which created a sensation some months ago, 
 as they appeared in The Staffordshire Sentinel — and 
 they will find that I have respected the modesty of my 
 readers by sparing them the sickening sight of pictures 
 of human misery, depravity and ignorance, which should 
 make rational nature ashamed of itself. I could produce 
 pictui-es of American life quite of a piece with those I 
 have shown regarding England ; but I have taken Eng- 
 land as a type of that civilisation which material progress 
 and Protestantism have produced, and I must not go 
 beyond it. Plowever, as I have quoted Lester, an 
 
 *Vol. I., page 26. 
 
90 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 American, against England, I give the following extract 
 which the Howard Association, in their Report for 1903. 
 quote from what Dr. Shirley Bragg, Insj>sctor of Prisons, 
 wrote in the Montgomery Advertiser for December 19th, 
 1902, of the condition of some prisons in the home of 
 material progress: — "The condition of many of the 
 jails in Alabama beggars description. Prisoners are 
 herded together in them like sheep, with no ventilation. 
 
 no sanitation reeking with filth and 
 
 covered with vermin This is a mild 
 
 picture of existing conditions." Let us take another 
 point of view. Inspector M. Lechstrecher, of New 
 York, in his Report just made to the State Board of 
 Charities, says he found that out of 10,707 children in 
 the East Side districts of that city, only 1,855 began 
 the day v/ith a sufficient meal; 439 frequently came 
 to school without any breakfast; nearly 1,000 children 
 never had for their breakfast more than bread only or 
 coffee only. That is the case, let it be observed, in one 
 section only of the American capital. And New York 
 is nevertheless a city of millionaires. Does that state 
 of things tell us of human progress Xo; not even of 
 material progress, which means much less. It reveals 
 the extreme wealth of a few and the extreme want of 
 many. A similar condition amongst the school chil- 
 dren of English cities was the subject of a recent debate 
 in the House of Commons; and some proposed as a 
 remedy that the State should provide these children 
 with breakfasts as well as with schools. 
 
 Charles Booth, President of the Royal Statistical So- 
 ciety, in his book, Pauperism and the Endoument of Old 
 Age, says that of the people of England 2.8 per cent, of 
 those under 16 years old; 3.8 jier cent, of those between 
 16 and 60 years; 8.1 per cent, of those between 60 and 
 65 ; 25.9 per cent, of those over 65 years old, are paupers, 
 depending on the State for their support. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND . 91 
 
 According to the Statesman's Tear Book, there is 
 
 lu Holland 1 pauper to every 20 inhabitants. \ 
 
 ., Germany 1 pauper to every 31 inhabitants. f Probestant 
 
 „ Norway 1 pauper to every 25 inhabitants. ,- Countries. 
 
 „ Great Britain and Ireland 1 pauper to every I 
 
 39 inhabitants. J 
 
 „ Belgium 1 pauper to every 1,321 inhabitants. ■> Catholic 
 
 ,, Austria 1 pauper to every 145 inhabitants. ^ Countries. 
 
 We are not to understand that there are no more poor 
 in Austria and Belgium than appears from those statis- 
 tics. " The poor we have always with us." But they 
 are supported by the Christian delicacy of jDrivate 
 charity; they are not thrown upon the State, and made 
 to bear the ignominy of being labelled and branded as 
 paupei-s. Ohristian charity provides for those who can- 
 not provide for themselves in Catholic countries. The 
 workhovise, with all the vice and indolence begotten of 
 the system, is the offspring of the same spirit which also 
 begat- the Eeformation. In England, when the patri- 
 monies of the poor which were held in trust for them 
 by the Church had been confiscated, and the poor, left 
 to starve, were roaming over the country and were be- 
 coming dangerous to those who now possessed what 
 should be theirs, the selfishness which robbed their pa- 
 trimony instituted the workhouse system to save its 
 plunder from their vengeance. 
 
 Thus, the "simpler Christianity," the "civic virtues 
 and efficiencies,"' " the initiative and self-reliance," which 
 it creates, and the material progress which it promotes, 
 have left England with much more than an average share 
 of want and wretchedness. Then economic selfishness 
 comes to cure the evil by hiding the unfortunate ones in 
 a workhouse away from its sight, and, forgetting that it 
 has any such at home, goes abroad to be scandalized like 
 a Phaj-isee at the mendigos of Madrid, or the lazzaroni 
 of Naples. On the same principle Dives repelled Lazarus 
 from his door; his " economic sense " was shocked by the 
 sight of the poor man's misery. In an article in the 
 
92 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Gonteni poranj Rer'uit:* Rev. W. "W. Edwards contrasts 
 the manner in wliich the poor are treated in English 
 towns and the manner in which they are treated in 
 Elberfield, a town of over 80,000 inhabitants in the 
 Catholic province of Westphalia. He tells us that 
 there is neither a pauper prison nor a public beggar 
 there. The pcor are helped in their homes. He says : 
 " The Elberfield system is founded on the idea of respect 
 
 for the destitute It is deemed un- 
 
 worth}', to use the expression of Herr Prell, Chief of the 
 Department of Poor Relief, to try a person's need bv any 
 such expedient as that which we English possess in the 
 v.'orkhouse test." There are no workhouses to break up 
 families and degrade the poor ; such as the self-respect 
 of our people turn away from in horror here in Ireland, 
 and which the Catholic instinct of O'Connell rightlv pre- 
 dicted would become hotbeds of vice; but there are, the 
 Rev. Mr. Edv.-ards tells us, " several alms-houses or 
 nsylums, into which admission is eagerly sough': for by 
 the aged and destitute poor . . . these are mostly 
 connected with various religious denominations, and are 
 free from State control." 
 
 Let mere economists try as they will, they v.-ill fail to 
 properly provide for poverty; for the spirit of industrial- 
 ism makes wealth the measure of worth, and therefore it 
 really looks on poverty as a kind of crime. Tennyson's 
 "Northern Farmer" was a true philosopher when he 
 argued thus from his own principles, such as they 
 were : — 
 
 Proputty, pioputty's ivrything 'ere, an', Sammy, I'm blest, 
 If it isn't the sajime oop yonder, fur them as 'as 'it's the best. 
 'Tis'n them as 'as inunny as breaks into 'ouscs an' steals, 
 Them as 'as coiits to their backs an' taaks their regular meals. 
 Noa, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meal's to be 'ad. 
 Tailke my word for it, Sammy, the poor in a loomp is bad. 
 
 *For July, 1878. 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 93 
 
 That same spirit of industrialism which takes mothers 
 from their homes, which leaves children without the 
 refining influence of a mother's love, which indiscrimi- 
 nately mixes the sexes in factories and mines, drags 
 human life at the v/heels of the machinery which makes 
 for material progress, ignores any higher mutual relation 
 between employer and employed than that of so much 
 wages for so much work, has naturally ceased to look 
 upon the family as a sacred thing, and the essential unit 
 of society. Hence economists, such as Bebel and Schame, 
 say that " the family constitutes a. function of society 
 which we use provisionally, in want of others." Let 
 that theory not be thought a dream of German meta- 
 physicians. Only a few weeks ago one of the leading 
 London newspapers opened its columns to a discussion 
 on the subject. One of the correspondents, George 
 Meredith, the novelist, suggested, as an improvement on 
 the marriage contract for life, that the contracting 
 parties v/ould take a lease of each other for a term of 
 ten years, after which they might renew the lease, or 
 separate ; and that the State should look after the rear- 
 ing and training of the indefinite offspring which would 
 be the natural result. It looks more disgusting than 
 divorce, but it is only the logical outcome of the divorce 
 system. Either system must ultimately turn human 
 society into a menagerie of animals. But why a 
 lease of ten years? Why not tenants-at-will The 
 facility for divorce really leaves the actual non-Catho- 
 lic system not a whit better than marriage at pleasm-e. 
 And this brings me to consider briefly another element 
 of national destruction or stability; namely, family 
 life, and divorce. According to The Guardian,"^ 700,000 
 divorces have been granted in the United States within 
 the past thirty years, whilst in Canada, except two 
 provinces, the number is exceedingly low. In the 
 
 *cf. The Tablet. May 7th, 1904. 
 
94 THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 United States, 30,000 divorces ou an average are 
 granted every year. In England the average is about 
 700 a yeai-; and petitions are becoming so numei'ous 
 that the Divorce Court cannot cope with them. Lret us 
 reflect on the social consequence of so many houses and 
 families broken up, of so many children left without a 
 home, of so many characters of questionable reputation 
 let loose upon society, and quite free under the sanction 
 of the law, to found another home, to deceive another 
 fellow-being, and again to be set at large by " the sim- 
 pler Christianity " to corrupt society. South Dakota 
 derives a considerable revenue from the facility with which 
 divorces are granted there ; for numbei's flock there 
 from all parts to share in those privileges which " the 
 simpler Christianity" sanctions. Accoi'ding to the statis- 
 tics made out by the Xational Family League — - 
 
 In the State of Maine there is 1 divorce to every 6 marriages. 
 
 ,, ., New Hampshire there is 1 divorce to every 8.3 mar- 
 
 riages. 
 ,. Vermont there is 1 divorce to every 10 marriages. 
 „ Massachussette there is 1 divorce to every 16 mar- 
 riages. 
 ., Rhode Island there is 1 divorce to every 8.-1 mar- 
 riages. 
 ,, .. Ohio there is 1 divorce to every 8.8 marriages. 
 
 ,, Indiana there is 1 divorce to every 7.6 marriages. 
 ,, ^Michigan there is 1 divorce to every 11.0 marriages. 
 
 Mr. Burke Cockran, the well-known American Catholic 
 orator, in a speech which he made on this subject last June 
 at the Carnegie Hall in New York, very aptly said 
 " Polygamy comprehends a group of wives at one time, 
 while divorce simply means driving them tandem." 
 
 Those who call that a sign of civilisation would do 
 well to reflect on those words of Jules Simon : — " It is 
 not the loss of a battle and the annihilation of an army, 
 or a province torn away, that brings the fall of a people. 
 A people dies only by the relaxation of its morals, by 
 
THE SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 95 
 
 abandoning its manly habits, by the effacement of its 
 character through the invasion of egoism and scepticism. 
 It dies of its corruption ; it does not die of its wounds." 
 
 Relentless fact has been recently forcing on states- 
 men, economists and publicists the truth of the economic 
 and social philosophy contained iu the doctrine and 
 discipline of the Catholic Church which has always 
 taught that the marriage contract cannot be untied, 
 and has always kept that element in family life sacred 
 from the interference of the civil power. It is instruc- 
 tive to reflect that the religious revolt in Germany began 
 in lust, and that the sacrifice of marriage to the same 
 passion was the occasion of the religious revolt iu Eng- 
 land. The Pope was unbending — he could not choose 
 but be so; he sacrificed England to the sacredness of 
 the marriage bond. Every form of Protestantism 
 which has arisen since then, from orthodox Anglicanism 
 on to Agnosticism, has attached the mark of obscuran- 
 tism to the Catholic name, in Great Britain, the United 
 States, Australasia, and throughout the British Empire, 
 for guarding as a thing sacred from human touch the 
 sacramental character of the marriage contract. The 
 Church did not perceive the inter-action of economic 
 forces; did not appreciate or mark the trend of social 
 evolution, did not in fact know its Bible or grasp the 
 true meaning of Christ's teaching on the nature of 
 marriage. 
 
 But the Nemesis has come at last. The desecration 
 of a Sacrament has slowly but surely brought its con- 
 sequences out from the home, into economic, political, 
 and civil life at large. Legislators laughed at Catholic 
 teaching, politicians ignored the Sacramental ground- 
 work of family life, and the nations are paying for 
 their profanity. According to The Guardian, 700,000 
 divorces have been granted in the United States from 
 1869 to 1901. Taking account of the men and women 
 
96 THE SOCIAL tCONOMICS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 thus made homeless, and of the children left as if 
 parentless, the Divorce Courts of the United States 
 have left no less than 4,000,000 individuals without 
 the blessing of family life within the past thirty years. 
 Accordingly, what will be the condition of family life 
 another generation hence? With that fact and that 
 prospect before him, Pi'esident Roosevelt spoke these 
 words to a deputation of Episcopalians who recently 
 appealed to him to help in healing the evil : — Questions 
 like the tariff and the currency are literally of no con- 
 sequence whatever compared with the vital question of 
 having the unit of our social life, the home, preserved. 
 It is impossible to over-estimate the cause you represent. 
 If we have solved every other question in the wisest 
 possible way, it shall profit us nothing if we have lost 
 our own national soul ; and we will have lost it if we 
 do not have the question of the relations of the family 
 put upon the proper basis." A few days afterwards he 
 sent a message to Congress in which he ordered statis- 
 tics to be collected on the subject, and declared that 
 ' the divorce laws are dangerously lax and indifferently 
 administered." The conviction as to more or less 
 laxity will not settle the question ; as long as divorce is 
 allowed at all reform laws will be only patchwork. 
 The germ of the evil is secreted in the very principle of 
 Protestantism. Once the doctrine of indissolubility is 
 let go, the tide of human passion will flow in, breaking 
 down all barriers and sweeping away all laws. 
 
 Material progress is only part of human progress, and 
 tliat the least important part. When it is allowed to 
 swallow up and assimilate the other elements by which 
 it should be checked and controlled it brings its votaries 
 back to barbarism a^ain. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 I HAVE taken England as a type of countiy in which 
 Protestantism, the i-eligion of " self-reliance and of 
 civic virtue," has had full play, in which the '' spiritual 
 and economic ideals have been co-ordinated" according to 
 the mind of Six Horace Plunkett. I have traced, so far 
 as the scope of my work requires, the trend of the in- 
 dustrial spirit there, and I have set forth the result in 
 the words of non-Catholic writers exclusively. I wish 
 that to be borne in mind. And this is the substance of 
 what they have told us. 
 
 As happens in the case of an avaricious man who, in 
 his eagerness to rush into riches by the most expeditious 
 way, forgets that permanency is an element of pros- 
 perity, England has neglected agriculture, which would, 
 under any circujnstances, be a permanent source of 
 national subsistence, and has striven for and achieved 
 industrial ajid commercial greatness, which circum- 
 stances have mostly helped to make and which they can 
 as easily unmake. The industrial prosperity of England 
 has been the result of transient causes, such as the 
 application of machinery and steam to industry, and 
 those wars which, whilst they distracted the Continent, 
 left England in peace at home and gave her a start of 
 all other nations. Thus she took away the silk industry 
 from France, the steel industry from Spain, the cloth in- 
 dustry from Germany, the glass industry from Bohemia, 
 and she made all Europe a market for her manufactures. 
 All that is now changed, and, what is more, the tide is 
 turning fast. 
 
 G 
 
*JS SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BEI-GIUM. 
 
 On the other hand, agriculture has been neglected, the 
 relations of social life founded on land are gone, and 
 the people are crowding one another out of the centres 
 of industry. It is, I think, clear that England hna 
 passed the highest point of her prosperity, and is al- 
 ready on an inclined plane. And from the point of 
 view of material progress, what does that prosperity 
 mean, taken at its best? Industnalism has brought 
 enormous wealth to the few, and has left the multitude 
 in a condition of want and misery which external 
 glamour has till lately concealed, and which the stress 
 of social necessity is now exposing in all their unspeak- 
 able nakedness to the public gaze. But that is not na- 
 tional wealth, not material progress from a national 
 point of view. And in the specifically human element ot 
 progress what has this "simpler Christianity," with its 
 co-ordinated ideals and the consequent "broader philo- 
 sophy" brought to England? It has engendered vul- 
 garity and vice in the individual, and is fast dissolving 
 family life through the positive sanction of the divorce 
 court. Again, I repeat, material progress is not human 
 progress, material wealth is not the symbol of civilisa- 
 tion; it is not all, nor the most important part of what 
 a nation should legislate or work for. Is man anything 
 more than an animal ? Answer yes, or no ; philoso- 
 phers of Naturalism ! Economists of mere material pro- 
 gi'ess ! ! If not, then why at all obtrude even the name 
 of religion or morals in the affairs of human life? Why 
 trouble our thoughts with even the name of God? 
 Why trammel our animal license with the fetters which 
 religion and morals impose ? If man is something more, 
 then that something is the noblest element in liis nature ; 
 then that sometMny must be considered first in the pur- 
 pose and in the activities of his personal and social life, 
 and the animal element must follow after ; then religion 
 and morals must be the first and unquestionable con- 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 99 
 
 dition of human progress and civilisation. It would be 
 the plainest self-deception to label ourselves men, and 
 then frame laws of economics for ourselves as if we were 
 dogs or donkeys. And it does not improve matters to cul- 
 tivate intellect; a sharpened intellect, without a will and 
 heart rightly trained and disciplined, only makes one the 
 better able to make mischief. The three elements in 
 human nature must be combined and harmonised in 
 order to secure a true and permanent human or social 
 progress. One can respect, however one may grieve for 
 the position of the late Professor Huxley. He found no 
 place for God as a hypothesis for his science, and he 
 said so. He held that his ideas budded from his brain 
 by the same law under which flowei^s blossom on the 
 rose-bush, or heads of cabbage grow in a garden; hence 
 every idea of his was to him a dogma about which 
 no man should dare to ask him doubt, whilst he rejected 
 with scorn the dogmas of the Catholic Church; hence 
 he equally scorned the religion of Humanity as a god 
 presiding over the material progress of mankind, pro- 
 testing that he would as soon " bow down and worship 
 a •^alderness of apes;" hence he held fast to the law of 
 the " survival of the fittest " in human as well as in 
 animal life ; hence his method of managing the poor as 
 manifested in letters which he wi-ote towards the end 
 of 1890 whilst the unemployed of London were clamour- 
 ing for bread or work. Let us only get ourselves to 
 imagine that the first principle on which he stood is not 
 a philosophical quagmire, and his position is sound and 
 consistent throughout. But the philosophy of those, 
 under whatever form of thought they enrol them- 
 selves, from Anglicanism to Positivism, who, whilst avow- 
 ing that man is born for bett-er things than this world can 
 give, would have the economics which govern his present 
 life to disregard the concerns of the next, is only 
 solemn trifling with the sacred name of religion and 
 with the eternal destinv of man. 
 
100 SOCIAF. ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 On page 101 of his book Sir Horace Plunkett said that 
 " Roman Catholicism strikes an outsider as being in some 
 of its tendencies non-economic, if not actually anti-econo- 
 mic.'' On page 102 he says that "Roman Catholicism 
 has, at different periods of her history, advantageously 
 affected economic conditions," and that " during the 
 Middle Ages, when its supremacy was practically unchal- 
 lenged, and it was freer than now to manifest its in- 
 fluence in many directions, it favoured when it did not 
 originate many forms of sound economic activity, and 
 was, to say the least, abreast of the time in its conception 
 of the working of economic causes." Having quoted 
 these statements made on two consecutive pages, I let Sir 
 Horace reconcile them for the public : I cannot do it. 
 On page 103 he says that " We do net find Roman Catho- 
 lic countries in the van of economic progress, or even 
 the Roman Catholic element in Protestant countries, as 
 a rule, abreast of their fellow-countrymen." " It would, 
 however," he continues, "' be an error to ignore some 
 notable exceptions to this generalisation." And then he 
 passes on to contradict himself in the next sentence, for 
 he gives the reader some cause to smile at the number of 
 exceptions to his generalisation. " In Belgium, 
 in France, in parts of Germany and Austria, 
 and in the North of Italy, economic thought is 
 making headway amongst Roman Catholics, and the 
 solution of social problems is being advanced b)'- Roman 
 Catholic laymen and clergymen." He might have in- 
 cluded other exceptions, and he pulls the bridle on those 
 he mentions bv adding: — '"Even in these countries, 
 however, much remains to be done." I should like to 
 know in what country much does not remain to be done. 
 Now, let us first consider what he means by that last 
 sentence. Does he mean that these countries have not 
 realised all their social and economic possibilities? If 
 he means that, I sinijjly reply that the sentence is not 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 101 
 
 worth wasting time on it. But I suppose he does not 
 mean that; moreover, as he seems to be of those econo- 
 mists who believe in what is called the law of indefinite 
 progress. Does he mean that, having no definite criti- 
 cism to make on the economics of those countries, he 
 writes the sentence for a make-believe that he has some 
 fault to find ? If that be his meaning, I classify it with 
 the preceding. What, then, does he mean? Does he 
 mean that much remains to be done by those countries 
 before they have reached the economic water-level of 
 those nations in which the " simpler Christianity " has 
 left the people full economic elbow-room ? That is what 
 I now proceed to examine. I have taken England as a 
 type of " economic" Protestantism; I now take Belgium 
 as a type of " un-economic " or " anti-economic ' Catho- 
 licism. 
 
 Belgium having passed under the dominion of the 
 Spaniards, Austrians, French, and lastly under the domi- 
 nion of the Dutch, it finally freed itself and became an 
 independent country in 1830. The Belgians are prepar- 
 ing to celebrate the 75th anniversary of their indepen- 
 dence neiit year. It is little more than one-third the size 
 of Ireland ; in fact, not much more than the size of 
 Muuster. Its area is 11,373 square miles. 
 
 In 1884 its population was 5,784,958. 
 
 In 1897 its population was 6,586,593. 
 
 In 1899 its population was 6,744,532. 
 
 In 1900 its population was 6,815,054. 
 
 In 1902 its population was 6,896,079. 
 
 In 1904 it must be about 7,000,000; that is, more 
 than 000 persons to a square mile. It has pro- 
 portionately a greater population than any other coun- 
 try in the world. How do they make it support them 1 
 Let me say first of all that there is no Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board in Belgium. According to the New Popular 
 Encyclopedia, edited by Dr. Aunandale (ISOl), the total 
 
102 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 value of its exports in 1900 was £131,900,000; the total 
 value of imports for home consumption was £88,632,000. 
 Its transit trade during the same year was £110,000,000. 
 Its Railway System makes it the seat of so great a 
 transit trade. Tliere is not a town of any importance 
 in Belgium which, owing to its complete railway ramifi- 
 cations, cannot, without difficulty and with little ex- 
 pense, convey the products of its manufactures to any 
 market in the world. It has 3,000 miles of railway, 
 that is, nearly as much as we have in all Ireland. Three- 
 fourths is the property of the State, which keeps the 
 rates of transit very low, in contrast to what happens 
 here where trade is hindered by the cost of transit. In 
 1875 the amount of coal raised was 14,669,029 tons; in 
 1896 it was 21,252,000 tons; of which 5,000,000 tons 
 were exported. The other principal mining industries 
 are iron, lead, and zinc ; and its chief manufacturing in- 
 dustries are linen, lace, carpets, cloth, cotton, porcelain, 
 besides those of steel and iron. 
 
 According to a very exhaustive work b}'^ Father Ver- 
 meersch,* private industries in Belgium give em- 
 ployment to 1,130,000 persons. Taking the value of its 
 commerce relatively to its population, Belgium holds the 
 first place in the world. In 1902 the total value of ex- 
 ports and imports of the United Kingdom was 
 £20 18s. 5d. a head of the population; in Belgium, for 
 the same year, it was £25 a head. Since 1884 its "special" 
 commerce trade has nearly doubled, and its transit trade 
 has increased by more than one-half. Dui'ing the same 
 period the net receipts from the Post Office have nearly 
 
 * Manuel Social: — La Legislation et les Giuvrea en Belgique. It 
 is a very exhaustive work on the social economy of Belgium. The 
 latent edition, which appeared in 1904, published by A. Uystpruyst 
 of Louvain, contains 1,009 octavo page-, of. also — Les Associations 
 Affiico/es en Belgique, by Max Turmann; published by Lecofire 
 of Paris, in 1903. Also, Au sortir de Vecolc ; Les Patronages, by 
 the same author. The former explains and traces the development 
 of the co-operative movement in Belgium ; the latter shows what 
 is done there for youth after leaving school. 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 108 
 
 doubled — i.e., have gone up from 14,000,000 to 
 27,000,000 francs. During the same period the tele- 
 graph and telephone receipts have nearly quadrupled — 
 i.e., have gone up from 2,718,000 to 9,927,355 francs. 
 The Savings Bank Account, which tells us of thrift and 
 comfort, is as follows: — The deposits during 1884 were 
 86,368,705 francs; the deposits during 1902 were 
 340,490,263 francs; in other words, the deposits have 
 nearly quadrupled. In 1884, the total balance to cre- 
 ditors was 141,942,464 francs; in 1902, the balance to 
 creditors arose to 720,563,054 francs; in other words, 
 had increased more than five-fold. At the end of 1884 
 the number of separate accounts in the Savings Bank 
 was 406,656; at the end of 1902 the number was 
 1,973,480. 
 
 If one passes through the districts around Liege, Char- 
 leroi, Mons, and a few other industrial centres, one is in- 
 clined to think that Belgium depends on its mineral re- 
 sources and its manufactures. He is mistaken. More 
 than two-thirds of Belgium is under cultivation ; about 
 one-seventh is meadow and pasture land ; and about one- 
 sixth is covered with forests. Besides the profit made 
 on the timber cut down, by dressing the stumps copses 
 grow up from which they obtain tons of bark, which, 
 after they have supplied their own tanneries, they ex- 
 port to England and other countries. Tlie forests are 
 also used to feed vast herds of swine. In 1880, out of 
 1,202,919 families, 910,396 were engaged in agriculture; 
 but that includes those who hold only a small plot in- 
 sufficient for their support, and who have to supplement 
 it by some trade or other occupation. Of those, 472,471 
 hold about an acre each; 347,963 hold from one to 
 twelve acres; 74,373 hold from twelve to fifty; 10,772 
 from fifty to a hundred; and 4,817 hold more than a 
 hundred acres. Let us contrast England with that. Ac- 
 cording to MulhalK the number of landholders of over ten 
 
104 80CIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 acres in England is 141,000; those owning 500 and up- 
 wards are 10,070. There is hardl}^ a patch of available 
 land in Belgium that is not either cultivated or turned 
 to some profitable purpose. The Carapine, a waste on 
 which heathy and lichens hardly grow, lies partly in the 
 provinces of Antwerp and Limburg. It is mostly moor- 
 land and barren sand ; but wherever a patch is available 
 the hand of industry has shown its work; cornfields, 
 pastures, and meadows, are to be seen there on every 
 side ; some of the finest cattle in the country are raised 
 there, and some of the best dairy and farm produce of 
 the countiy is made there. It has been reclaimed by 
 agricultural colonies; some of them poor families who 
 voluntarily sought a living there rather than bear the 
 brand of paupers ; others are convicts who are made to 
 give their labour for the nation in penalty for oQ"ences 
 committed against it. Seeing what their industry has 
 made of the worst, we can understand vv-hat they make 
 of the best. In Flanders alone about .£1,500,000 is 
 annually raised on flax. 
 
 Some years ago the Belgians began to suffer from 
 those economic conditions which have lessened the value 
 of farming. In 188S, the Abbe Mellaerts, the parish 
 priest of a district in the Campine, called his people 
 together, explained to them the power of organization 
 and its necessity under actual circumstances. The people 
 were convinced and had the courage to try ; and thus 
 began the Boerenbond or Peasants' League which has 
 since spread over all Belgium. Its objects are : the 
 defence of the religious, moral, and material interests 
 of the peasantry ; the improvement of land legislation ; 
 and the organization of agi'iculture. It is placed under 
 the patronage of St. Isidore, the patron of agricul- 
 turists ; and although the League is not a religious asso- 
 ciation, the members of the different guilds which are 
 affiliated to it must go regularly to their religious 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGICM. 105 
 
 duties; and each year the Feast of St. Isidore is specially 
 celebrated by the membei-s and their families. There 
 is also the Agricultural Federation of Hainault founded 
 bv Canon Douterlungue and Father Lechien ; the 
 Luxembmg League, the chief promoter of which is the 
 Abbe Couturiaux; but the sti'ongest association is the 
 Boerenbond of Louvain, founded by the Abbe Mellaerts, 
 with the help of M. Helleputte and M. Schollaert. It 
 has 400 local guilds and 25,000 members. In 1901, it 
 had business transactions to the amount of 13,906,986 
 francs. 
 
 In 1897 there were in Belgium 572 Agricultural Leagues 
 In 1898 „ „ 607 
 
 In 1899 „ „ 638 
 
 In 1901 „ ,, 776 
 
 As to Agricultural credit there were in 1894 only 4, 
 
 In 1895 there were 33 with 1,160 members. 
 In 1897 „ 158 „ 5,689 
 
 In 1900 „ 264 „ 11,669 
 
 In 1901 „ 286 „ 13,308 
 
 For improving the breed of cattle — • 
 In 1836 there were 71 Societies of 4,000 members 
 In 1901 „ 312 „ 12,000 ,, 
 
 In 1884 there were 36 technical schools for boys. 
 
 ,, ,, girls. 
 
 55 55 51 
 
 It will be obsei'ved that all this progress has been 
 made since 1884, whilst the Catholic Grovernment has 
 been in power. On ten different occasions since then 
 the country has been appealed to, and the country, 
 with its universal suffrage has each time returned the 
 Catholics t-o power. From 1870 to 1878 the Malou 
 ministry was in power ; that ministi-y was also Catholic. 
 
 In 1896 
 
 55 
 
 70 
 
 In 1884 
 
 55 
 
 4 
 
 In 1896 
 
 J 5 
 
 26 
 
106 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IX BELGIUM. 
 
 When it went out there was a Budget surplus of 
 33,000,000 francs. From 1878 to 1884 the Liberals 
 were in power, and the)' went out with a deficit of 
 59,000,000 francs. In 1884 the Catholic Ministry came 
 into power again, and in 1886 they began to show a 
 credit balance, which, has now reached 166,000,000 
 francs. Yet, no new tax has been imposed, and some 
 have been either abolished or reduced. About 
 100,000,000 francs are spent each year on works which 
 are directly reproductive ; about 26,000,000 francs on 
 works that are indirectly reproductive ; about 5,000,000 
 francs on works of general utility; about 3,000,000 
 in the interests of agriculture, etc., etc.. 
 
 If I am asked now to show the shade of the picture 
 as well as the light, I reply that it is not my business 
 to do so. My purpose has been to show, from the in- 
 stance of Belgium, that Catholicism is not a hindrance 
 to national progress. Yet I think I am correct in say- 
 ing that there is more misery in one of England's great 
 cities than there is in all Belgium with its 600 persons 
 to the square mile. I rhink I can also safely say that 
 one never hears of a death from starvation there. 
 Moreover, since the Catholics came into power in 1884, 
 they have almost put an end to the work of women and 
 children in mines, which is the source of so much de- 
 pravity and vice in England. Catholics have been the 
 first to raise their voices generally against the employ- 
 ment of women and children in factories and mines. 
 In Germany, the Centre Party fought the question on 
 the lines marked out by Von Ketteler, the Bishop of 
 Mayence. In Belgium, the question was raised by M. 
 Bernaert, the leader of the Catholic Party. It waa 
 raised in France by Count de Mun; in Switzerland by 
 M. Decurtins; in Austria by Dr. Ebenhoch and by 
 Mgr. Scheicher; in Holland by Father Schaepmam, the 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 107 
 
 leader of the Christian democrats in Parliament; in 
 Spain by Rodriguez de Cepeda.* 
 
 I now conclude with the following extract fi-om the 
 Statesman's Tear Book for 1901. At page 438, it tells 
 us : — " The Roman Catholic Religion is professed by 
 nearly the entire population of Belgium. The Pix>- 
 testants number only 10,000', while the Jews number 
 about 4,000. The State does not interfere in any way 
 with the internal affairs of either Catholic or Protestant 
 Churches. Full religious liberty is granted by the 
 Constitution, and part of the income of the ministers of 
 all denominations is paid from the National Treasury. 
 The sums granted in the Budget for 1898 are 5,234,000 
 francs to Roman Catholics, 93,200 francs to Protestants, 
 and 19,000, francs to Jews, besides 56,000 francs for 
 various Ecclesiastical expenses. There are few endow- 
 ments, and the clergy derive their maintenance chiefly 
 from fees and voluntary gifts." 
 
 I have made this extract as a lesson in toleration to 
 some of my readers, if they will only learn it. 
 
 From an interesting book published in 1896 by 
 E. E. Williams,! I take the following proofs of industry 
 and progress in Belgium : — 
 
 In 1893, her output of foundi-y-pig, forge, and Besse- 
 mer-pig was 745,264 metric tons. 
 
 In 1894, her output of the same articles was 810,940 
 metric tons. 
 
 In 1893, her output of finished iron, rails and plates 
 was 113,602 metric tons. 
 
 In 1894, her output of the same articles was 122,474 
 metric tons. 
 
 In 1893, her output of steel ingots, etc., was 273,113 
 metric tons. 
 
 * cf. La Revista Infernazionalc, Aprile, 1902. Pages 555 and xeq. 
 fifude in Germany. 
 
108 SOCIAL ECOKOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 In 1894, her output of the same vcas 396,914 metric 
 tons. 
 
 In 1893, her output of steel rails and plates was 
 224,922 metric tons. 
 
 In 1894 her output of the same was 314,770 metric 
 tons. 
 
 Belgium began the steel industry with any kind of 
 activity about 1868 or 1870, and the production of it 
 increased 50 per cent, in ten j-ears. According to a 
 letter of Mr. Simon, of Manchester, quoted in the Iron 
 and Coal Trades Review, January 31st, 1896: — 'Every 
 pound of the iron roof of the large railway station in 
 Middlesborough is made of Belgian iron;" and Middles- 
 borough is one of the chief centres of the English iron 
 trade. 
 
 According to H. de B. Gibbons,""' the produce of 
 Belgian smelting works increased in value from 
 £2,000,000 stg. in 1838 to £5,000,000 stg. in 1860. In 
 1845 there were 14,000 operatives engaged in iron- 
 works, and the output was 62,000 tons for that year; 
 in 1860, more than 26,000 were employed; in 1870, 
 more than 40,000 were employed, and the output for 
 that year was 500,000 tons. The iron and steel manu- 
 factures are worth £10,000,000 stg. In textile fabrics 
 Belgium has shown a similar record of success and pro- 
 gress. As early as 1830, about 12,000 steam engines 
 were iu use, employing 20,000 horse power. But the 
 steam power employed soon increased enormously. In 
 1860, it was 162,000; in 1880, it was 200,000. The 
 flax and linen trade has not increased so fast as others. 
 But in 1890 there were 100,000 acres under flax; and 
 for ten years ending 1887, the export of linens averaged 
 about £800,000 annually. In the 40 years from 1840 
 to 1880, her textile manufactures increased in value 
 from £6,000,000 stg. to £17,000,000 stg., that is nearly 
 
 * Economic and Industiiul I'lCijrtss of the Century, 1003. 
 
SOCIAL ECOXOMICS IX BELGIUM. 109 
 
 threefold ; and altliougb their value is at present about 
 the same, it represents an increased volume of trade. 
 The value of hardware goods made now is more than 
 that of the textiles. It is estimated at £19,000,000 
 stg., which is an increase of £3,000,000 stg. on the 
 value for 1888. Mining also has increased 50 per cent, 
 since 1870. 
 
 England rests her hope for the future in her trade 
 with her colonies. But in this also, we can learn a 
 lesson from the following table, which shows the ex- 
 ports of iron and steel from the United Kingdom and 
 Belgium to India: — 
 
 From the United Kingdom. From Belgium. 
 
 YEAR. IRON. STEEL. IRON. STEEL. 
 
 tons. tons. tons. tons. 
 
 1883-84 3,473,619 240,149 86,657 10,981 
 
 1894-95 1,956,721 369,753 1,176,179 448,091 
 
 Thus England, from supplying India with 98 per 
 cent, of her iron, and 95 per cent, of her steel as in 
 1883-1884, shows a decline to 61 per cent, of iron, and 
 41 per cent, of steel in 1894-95. England's actual 
 decline has been nearly 50 per cent, in ii-on against 
 Belgium's increase of 1,257 per cemt., and Germany's 
 increase of 700 per cent. Of steel, England supplies 1^ 
 as much in 1894-95 as in 1883-84; but then Belgium 
 supplies 40 times as much, and Germany 50 times as 
 much in 1894-95 as they supplied in 1883-84. 
 
 Of linen yarn the exports from England are steadily 
 decreasing, whilst the imports are steadily increasing. 
 
 In 1870, she exported 37,239,314 lbs., and imported 
 3,081,597 lbs. 
 
 In 1880, she exported 16,437,200 lbs., and imported 
 5,958,731 lbs. 
 
 In an article in the Xineteenth Century* Archibald 
 
 ♦June, 18S3. 
 
110 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 W. Finlayson says that a Manchester Merchant 
 showed him an invoice for :£500 worth of goods 
 for shipment to the East, and said — " Formerly, I gave 
 all such orders to English manufacturers, now I order 
 all in Belgium on account of price. These goods are 
 shipped direct from Belgium, and of course are not 
 heard of in this country." 
 
 I think I have now given evidence quite and more 
 than enough to establish these two things : first, that 
 their Catholicism has neither extinguished nor weakened 
 the industrial spirit of the Belgians ; and second, that 
 even in th.e sphere of mere material progress, Belgium 
 is more progressive than England. I have not yet ex- 
 hausted my evidence, and if anyone be not convinced by 
 what I have given, I shall be glad to give more. Mean- 
 while I think what I have already given confirms these 
 words which Mr. Rae wrote in the Contemporary Re- 
 view, in 1880: — "Belgium is not only a Catholic 
 country, but the most Catholic of countries. 
 No other Catholic nation contains so small a propor- 
 tion of dissidents from the faith, nor is there any other 
 Catholic nation where the dogmas of the Church are 
 so sincerely accepted. . . Yet it has adopted 
 
 from the first the most modern of modern constitutions, 
 embodying every popular liberty in its complete length 
 and breadth. Freedom of conscience, religious equality, 
 freedom of the press, of meeting, of association, of edu- 
 cation, Parliamentai-y Government, ministerial respon- 
 sibility, universal sufi'rage, inviolability of person and 
 house, equality before the law, permanence of judicial 
 appointments, publicity of legal courts, trial by jui-y, 
 have all been not only legalised but protected in Bel- 
 gium, without any of the evasions which make similar 
 legislation in some countries virtually a dead letter." 
 
 I will supplement those words of Mr. Rae by the 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. Ill 
 
 following which appeared in the Daily Telegraph* : — 
 " Civil liberty in Belgium exists in almost repub- 
 lican profusion. Even the fact that the ultra- 
 montane (Catholic) priesthood garrison the land, 
 does not prevent the Belgians from enjoying the 
 utmost freedom in respect of religion. Commerce 
 flourishes, and manufacturing industry advances at a 
 pace so rapid that even we in Britain are every now 
 and then pressed by the shadow of Belgian rivalry. 
 Time would fail us, too, were we to speak at adequate 
 length of the agricultural prosperity of the countiy. 
 It is not an exaggeration to say that it is simply a huge 
 garden, that every available spot of earth is under 
 tillage of the finest sort; that every economist, from 
 McCulloch down to Mill, has lavished the highest praises 
 on the Belgian farmer, and on the condition to which 
 he has brought high husbandry in his happy country." 
 These words, which I have transcribed from Young's 
 Catholic and Protestant Countries Com/pared, are con- 
 firmed by the following which appeared in the Mark 
 Lane Express, in January, 1903: — "The Belgians can 
 say to us with truth — We support ^'„ of our population 
 with the produce of our own land, besides exporting each 
 year £20,000,000 of agricultural produce, whilst your 
 agriculture svipports onl)' half of youj: population. 
 Where you feed one cow, we feed two, and in every 
 square mile of arable land we support 360 persons more 
 than you." 
 
 I have not undertaken to show that there are mil- 
 lionaires in Belgium. Millionaires are not a sign of 
 national progress or prosperity; the presence of many 
 of them is rather a sign of the contrary. But on the 
 other hand I am certain that nobody can write of the 
 Belgians what Mr. Sherrard has written of the English 
 in the White Slaves of England, in The Cry of the Poor, 
 
 * August 2nd, 1878. 
 
112 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 and in the series of articles ou the Child Slaves of Britain 
 which he has been contributing to the London magazine 
 since last Janiiar. . Let anyone read those writings and 
 say whether England is in a state of progression or of 
 retrogression, whether it is marching onward in civilisa- 
 tion or receding backwards. We see the natural 
 outcome of mere industrialism in the misery, ignorance, 
 and vice of the English millions who have nothing, 
 and in the more malignant viciousness of the 
 few who have everything ; iu the license to break up 
 family life which is implied in the decisions of the divorce 
 court; in that which President Roosevelt has fittingly 
 called the race suicide, v/hich is threatening the popula- 
 tions of America and England. Who will say that 
 Australia has not made material progress ? Yet I have 
 just read an article* on the Report of a Birth Rate 
 Commission which has been held there recently, and it 
 makes the awful revelation that Australia has forfeited 
 a third of the people it should have, through the 
 "civilisation" which a Godless industrialism and a 
 Godless education have brought them. I make this 
 long extract from it, because of its importance, and 
 because it is based on an official document : — 
 
 " The Report of the Birth-Rate Commission throws 
 a red light on the frightful state of morality in Aus- 
 tralia. As the result of immoral practices the popula- 
 tion of this young country, it is now officially stated, 
 is one-third less than it ought to be — that is to say, a 
 million of people have practically been murdered by 
 Australian parents. The Austaliau nation is in the 
 dock to answer the most gigantic charge of homicide ever 
 drawn up, and one which is supported by unanswerable 
 evidence. There is no reply. The truth is admitted 
 by all. To out- Herod Plerod was long thought to be 
 a crime too great to compass, but Australians have 
 
 *The Catholic Press of Sydnpy, March 17th, 1904. 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 113 
 
 achieved that notoriety. Our land is dyed with the 
 blood of infants ; and yet as so many are guilty there is 
 no popular outcry for punishment. The attitude seems 
 to be that of moral irresponsibility. The daily papers 
 have dealt v/ith the situation in a lackadaisical manner. 
 It may be that the revelations are so great and shocking 
 that to suggest a remedy is beyond their power. The 
 crime goes on cheerfully, and it is probable that the 
 Report of the Commissioners will soon be forgotten, and 
 that child-murder and race-suicide will proceed in 
 triumph. 
 
 "What is the cause? Is it that our civilisation is 
 effete, and that out of it has come the most vicious 
 form of paganism ? When you take religion from 
 civilisation you have left only a cold materialism or 
 utilitarianism which puts personal convenience and com- 
 fort above everything else in life. In other words the 
 Commissioners give the same reasons for the prevalence 
 of child-murder : — • ' An unwillingness to submit to the 
 strain and worry of children, a dislike to the inter- 
 fei'ence with pleasure and comfort involved in child- 
 bearing and child-rearing, a love of luxury and of social 
 pleasure which is increasing.' Here is civilisation with- 
 out God with a vengeance. 
 
 " It is only within the past 20 years that race-suicide, 
 as President Roosevelt calls it, has been prevalent in 
 this country. One of the reasons given by the Com- 
 missioners is that the religious feeling which was a 
 restraining force in the past, has lately been weakened 
 or removed. They do not dwell on the fact that 
 secularism has been the policy of the State during that 
 period, and that children are being educated in the 
 State schools without any religious influence whatever, 
 just as if they lived in a pagan country. It is sad to 
 think that this system of education, which is the fruit- 
 
 H 
 
114 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IX BELGIUM. 
 
 ful mother of infidelity, is supported by the Protestant 
 churches because they believe that no change could be 
 made without doing justice to Catholics, who alone are 
 protecting the faith and imbuing education with the 
 principles and the spirit of religion. 
 
 " The laws in regard to divorce must also be reckoned 
 as a cause of the looseness of morals in the community. 
 Hundreds of families are being broken up in the Sydney 
 Divorce Court every year, and the guilty persons are 
 being re-married by men who call themselves ministers 
 of religion. What sanctity does that leave in the 
 marriage bond, when outrages on it are so encouraged 
 by the State and sanctioned by the Protestant churches ? 
 
 " The Royal Commissioners have also to confess that 
 race-suicide has had Judicial sanction given to it, and 
 to quote the decision of the Full Court (per Windeyer 
 and Stephen, JJ. ; Darley, C.J., dissentiente) in the 
 case ex 'parte Collins recorded in the Law Reports, New 
 South Wales, vol. ix. 1888. The Commissioners say: — 
 ' Extracts from this decision have been scattered broad- 
 cast, not merely in Australia, but in Great Britain, by 
 the advocates of limitation of families, and by a certain 
 class of booksellers who cater for vicious tastes or en- 
 gage in the traffic in preventatives. In a four-page 
 leaflet published in England, a copy of which is before 
 the Commission, Mr. Justice Windeyer's remarks are 
 quoted at some length. The remarkable coincidence 
 between the promulgation in 1888 of the views ex- 
 pressed in this judgment and the sudden fall in the 
 birth-rate in 1889, cannot, we think, be considered for- 
 tuitous. Those views have, we consider, been a power- 
 ful factor in reconciling the consciences of many people 
 to the degrading practices of prevention, and have thus 
 materially helped to cause the acceleration of the de- 
 cline of the birth-rate which so soon followed upon their 
 enunciation.' 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 115 
 
 " That surely is a sliockiug scandal, a Xew South 
 Wales supreme Court Judge encouraging from the 
 Bench practices which can only be described as mur- 
 derous. Is it any wonder, when all these causes are 
 <:onsidered, that a low moral tone exists? And now, 
 ■which are the safeguards? The legislation suggested 
 may do something, but we fear it will not go far. 
 Unquestionably, the only hope is religion. Instead of 
 preaching sectarianism and hatred among people, Pro- 
 testant ministers must turn their attention to the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount. Some non- Catholic clergymen are 
 known to sacrifice themselves for the good of the people. 
 Is it too much to hope that their example will be fol- 
 lowed? The Catholic Church is, of course, the only 
 safeguard and the greatest moral force in the com- 
 munity. She protects her children from the cradle to 
 the grave, and no such practices can take place within 
 her household. She and she alone has authority over 
 her people ; she directs the individual conscience through 
 the Confessional ; she lays down what we must believe, 
 what we must do, what we must reject, what we must 
 avoid. The Church's creeds and pronouncements are 
 loyally and frankly accepted for the guidance of mind 
 and heart; for she is the perpetual voice of Christ. In 
 Ireland, the most Catholic country in the world, the 
 Commissionex's show that the decrease is the smallest on 
 record, and is scarcely perceptible, although the young 
 people have been leaving the country for the United 
 States at the rate of about 60,000 a year." At a con- 
 ference organised by the Department of Education, on 
 April 5th, 1904, to discuss the Commissioners' Report 
 on which the article from which I have just quoted has 
 been based. Cardinal Moran drew attention in the course 
 of a searching and powerful speech to the grave perils 
 which threaten the country through the materialistic 
 spirit, and he showed on the testimony of non-Catholics, 
 
116 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 especially in the United States, tliat what is called non- 
 sectarian education has been in great part the cause. 
 and that a definite religions education is the true 
 remedy for the social disease that is destroying the 
 nation's vigour. 
 
 The late Herbert Spencer truly said — " There is 
 nd mere political alchemy by which you can get golden 
 conduct out of leaden instincts." And mere mental cul- 
 ture is as powerless as numey to procure it. Education 
 whicli is not founded on religion is but mere instruction' 
 whicli sharpens the intellect, and thus enables a person 
 or a people to make vice more malignant by making it 
 appear more refined. A man's or a people's intellect 
 may be so trained as to become a mere instrument to 
 minister to the passions of sense. Again, I repeat, mere 
 material progress is not human progress, and mere 
 wealth, or even mere mental culture is neither civilisa- 
 tion nor a sure sign of it. Unless the nobler element of 
 a man's natui-e is properly provided for, his progress is 
 impossible ; that is, he mav progress as a pig, but not as 
 a man ; and what is true of the individual is true of the 
 nation. 
 
 Having set economic England and economic Belgium 
 side by side, my task is so far finished ; and the public, 
 not Sir Horace Plunhett or myself, shall be the judge as 
 to how far Catholic Belgium, a little countrv about twice 
 the size of Yorksliire, shows signs of economic life in com- 
 jmrison with England. If I passed on to consider 
 Germany, which has now become proverbial for its in- 
 dustry, I think I could show that its Catholic provinces 
 show more economic activity than the other provinces. 
 The heart of German technical education and industrial 
 life is the Rhineland, which is as Catholic as Ireland. 
 In the Diisseldorf exhibition of last year — only a local 
 exhibition — the machinery section alone covered over 
 five acres. Diisseldorf is as Catholic as Limerick. It 
 
SOCIAL ECOXOMICS IN BELGIUM. 117 
 
 is often pointed out that the Catholic Cantons of 
 Switzerland are poorer than those that are Protestant ; 
 and that even in the same Canton the Catholics are 
 in misery and the Protestants are in comfort. Thus 
 Mr. Hepworth Dixon says that in the Canton of Appen- 
 zel, the Protestants are industrious, sociable, and rich, 
 whilst the Catholics are indolent, poor, and form a 
 scattered population. It is partly true; but it reminds 
 me of these words of Tennyson, which are equally ap- 
 plicable to many like allusions to the condition of Catho- 
 lic countries : — 
 
 " And the parson made it his text last week and he 
 
 said likewise — 
 That a lie that is half the truth is always the blackest 
 
 of lies. 
 That a lie that is all a lie may be met and fought with 
 
 outright. 
 But a lie that is part the truth is a harder matter to 
 
 fight." 
 
 The whole truth is that the Canton of Appenzel is 
 divided into two districts — Inner-Rhoden, a moun- 
 tainous district, and Ausser-Rhoden in the valley. The 
 former is inhabited by Catholics, and the latter by Pro- 
 testants. The former has naturally a scattered popula- 
 tion, mostly herdsmen, for the district can be but little 
 cultivated; the latter can be easily cultivated, and 
 naturally maintains a thicker population in greater com- 
 fort. Religion has had nothing to do with it, unless in 
 so far as religious intolerance forced the Catholics to the 
 mountains. But, on the other hand, statistics of ille- 
 gitimacy show that the morality of the inhabitants of 
 Inner-Rhoden is as superior to that of the inhabit-ants of 
 Ausser-Rhoden, as the morality of the people of Mayo Ls 
 superior to that of the people of Antrim and Down. 
 
118 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 The Times* informs us, on the authority of an analy- 
 sis of marriages, births, and divox-ces, published by the 
 Bureau of Statistics, at Berne, that in 1881 there were 
 19,425 marriages in Switzerland, which is a low pro- 
 portion compared with other countries in Europe. And 
 it proceeds: — "The number of divorces in 1881 was 
 greater than that of any previous year on record — 
 1,171 suits were tried, and 946 decrees for dissolu- 
 tion of matrimony granted. In 1880 the figures were 
 1,069 and 856 i-espectively. In some of the older can- 
 tons — ■Uri, Obwalden, Nidwalden, and Appenzell-inner- 
 Rhoden — no divorces were either asked for or pro- 
 nounced. In Appenzell-ausser-Rhoden, the Protestant 
 half of the canton, the proportion of divorces to mar- 
 riages in 1881 was 13.18 per 100, the highest in the 
 Confederation. In Thurgau the proportion was 9.22; 
 in Geneva 8.79; Zurich 8.68; Lucerne 1.48; the Valais 
 0.18 per cent. ; the purely Catholic cantons being always 
 much less given to divorce than the Protestant and 
 mixed cantons." 
 
 It is to be observed that divorce, which means a 
 dissolution of marriage leaving either party free to 
 marry anyone else, cannot exist amongst Catholics. 
 The indissolubility of marriage is a doctrine of the 
 Catholic Church. Anyone who disbelieves or doubts 
 that doctrine ceases ipso facto to be a Catholic. If any 
 persons whilst believing it, act against it by accepting 
 a decree of divorce from a civil tribunal, they may call 
 themselves " Catholics," but till they retrace their steps 
 they cannot receive- the Sacraments of the Church nor 
 participate in any of its spiritual gifts. For valid 
 reasons, husband and wife may lawfully live apart ; but 
 that is quite a diflFerent thing fi'om divorce which leaves 
 either of them free to marry somebody else. Such a 
 thing as divorce, that is the dissolution of a ratified 
 
 * September 15tb, 1883. 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IX BELGIUM. 
 
 119 
 
 aud consummated marriage has never been, is not, and 
 cannot be recognised in the Catholic Church. 
 
 It is also to be observed that, according to auti- 
 Catholic writers, the Catholics are, as a body, the 
 poorest of the Swiss population. I have already ex- 
 plained the cause; but I wish to add the following 
 which I take from Tht Times' article which I have just 
 quoted: — "Divorces iu Switzerland, it may be well to 
 mention, are much less frequent among the easy classes 
 than among small traders and working folk. In good 
 society, divorces, as giving rise to scandal, are not re- 
 garded favourably; and people who apply to the tri- 
 bunals for release from their matrimonial bonds run 
 the risk of being cut by their acquaintances. But 
 among the masses these scruples are unknown." Xow 
 let us draw our inference from these three facts. — The 
 Catholics are the poorest of the population; divorce is 
 most frequent amongst the poorest of the population; 
 and yet it is least frequent amongst the Catholic por- 
 tion of the population. In the course of the article it 
 is also stated that " difference of religion {i.e. mixed 
 marriages) is one of the most frequent causes of 
 divorce." 
 
 If I am reminded of the fallen condition of Spain, I 
 remind my remindei-s of her once prosperous condition. 
 Moreover, Spain was most prosperous when she was most 
 Catholic. It would be outside the scope of my work to 
 trace the causes of her decline, but whoever consults 
 Balmes* will learn that her fidelity to Catholic faith 
 need not be numbered amongst the causes of it. Tyre 
 and Babylon were once wealthy; so was Rome; and 
 the Spanish conquerors of Mexia> found there an accu- 
 mulated wealth which they had not dreamed of. Na;- 
 tions, like families, whatever be their religion, have 
 
 * Catholicism and PiotefVintism compared in their effects on 
 European Civilization. 
 
120 SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 
 
 their iufaucy, their matvu'ity, and their decline. But, 
 unlike old Rome, Spain has not become eiTete; she has 
 not lost the power of rejuvenescence. On the contrai*y, 
 she shows unquestionable signs of i-evival. Mr. J. S. 
 Mann writes'^ : — " M. Victor Borard has shown us a new 
 Spain — vigorous, practical, adaptable ; and the latest 
 i-eports of our consuls confirm his conclusions, as has 
 been shown above. Spanish industry and commerce, mis- 
 judged or ignored by tourists who visit Madrid, and the 
 memorials of the mediaeval glories of the peninsula, are 
 
 i-eviving and multiplying Barcelona, 
 
 formerly the great colonial port, is now making extra- 
 ordinary strides But the conspicuous 
 
 instance of economic progress is in mining, which 
 ought to be the primai-y industry of Spain. Bilbao in 
 1901 export-ed upwards of 4,000,000 tons of iron ore. 
 
 and the success of Bilbao, which has been 
 
 progressing for forty years, is stimulating mining indus- 
 tries in other parts of Spain. Corunna and Santander 
 were centres of trade with the colonies ; they are be- 
 coming ports for mining regions. Similar progress is 
 noted at Huelva, and in the numerous mining regions of 
 Southern Spain ; and the Altos Hornos works make 
 bars, girders, plates, and frames of every description, 
 employ 5,000 men in all, and are quite able to bear 
 comparison with first-class works in the United 
 Kingdom." 
 
 M. Berge, in a very interesting article in the Cor- 
 respondant\ shown that the loss of Cuba and the 
 Philippines has awakened the national conscience, and 
 has marked the beginning of a new departure and of a 
 new life in Spain. G-overnment provision and private 
 industiy have already so inci-eased and improved agri- 
 culture that the Spaniards ai-e no longer so dependent on 
 
 *The Fortniglif'i/ Revieic, February, 1903. 
 
 \ Le ri'l'evevicnt tconoviiquc dc VEspaijne. September 10th, 1904. 
 
SOCIAL ECONOMICS IN BELGIUM. 121 
 
 foreign produce as tliey used to be. He also shows that 
 commerce and industry, especially mining industry, have 
 progressed beyond all expectation. The Government 
 has been encouraging and helping private enterprise by 
 the creation of technical schools, by industrial commis- 
 sions, by the reduction of tariffs and taxes, and by 
 patronising the formation of new companies. A nation 
 in which society has not become intrinsically corrupt 
 may have its day of decline, but it never loses the power 
 to revive, however historic or economic causes may have 
 paralysed it for a time. It is one thing to catch a 
 cold and to lie prostrate with a fever; it is another 
 thing to lie prostrate with one's energies wasted from an 
 evil life. One feels the fever more whilst the illness 
 lasts, but it soon passes; one never i-ecovers from the 
 decrepitude begotten of vice. Old Rome was rotten, and 
 it could never rise again. When the day of England's 
 or America's decline will have come, will they show the 
 same power of recuperation which Spain is showing now ? 
 The question closely concerns the subject I am 
 discussing. 
 
 Now, I suppose that some, who have been reading 
 what I have written on the prosperity of Belgium, have 
 been saying — "Ah; but what about Ireland?" They 
 will know presently more about Ireland than perhaps 
 will be welcome news to them. 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 
 
 Having fairly traced to their historic causes the 
 present shortcomings of Irish Catholics iu re- 
 lation to their civic and industrial functions, Sir Horace 
 Plunkett writes*: — "But, after all, these criticisms 
 are, for the purpose of my argument, of minor 
 relevance and importance. The real matter in which 
 the direct and personal responsibility of the Roman 
 Catholic clergy seems to me to be involved, is the char- 
 acter and morale of the people of this country. No 
 reader of this book will accuse me of attaching too little 
 weight to the influence of historical causes on the present 
 state, social, economical, and political, of Ireland, but 
 even when I have given full consideration to all such in- 
 fluences I still think that, with their unquestioned 
 authority in religion, and their almost equally undis- 
 puted influence in education, the Roman Catholic clergy 
 cannot be exonerated from some responsibility in regard 
 to Irish character as we find it to-day. Are they, I would 
 ask, satisfied with that character? I cannot think so. The 
 impartial observer will, I fear, find amongst a majority 
 of our people a striking absence of self-reliance and moral 
 courage; an entire lack of serious thought on public 
 questions; a listlessness and apathy in regard to econo- 
 mic improvement which amount to a form of fatalism ; 
 and, in backward districts, a survival of superstition, 
 which sajjs all strength of will and purpose — and all this, 
 
 »Pab'o 110 
 
CHARACTER IN HUSH CATHOLICS. 123 
 
 too, amongst a people singularly gifced by nature with 
 good qualities of mind and heart." 
 
 I have already dealt with the influence of Catholicism 
 on human progress and civilisation. I have shown that 
 even in the sphere of mere material progress, towards 
 which the Catholic Church disavows any direct duty, 
 Catholic countries have led the way where countries 
 which have adopted " the simpler Christianity," or 
 naturalism, have not followed. But, Sir Horace will 
 say, why have not the Catholics of Ireland done so ? I do 
 not fix the blame on the Catholic Church, but on the 
 persons who represent it, or belong to it; and I appeal 
 to the condition of Catholic Ireland in proof of my case. 
 
 That wise old pagan philosopher, Epictetus, used to 
 say — " Initium doctrines est definitio nominis.'' I fol- 
 lowed his wise counsel when I was discussing the question 
 of progress. I considered what the idea of progress as 
 applied to man should be, and I hope I have left my 
 readers convinced that the view of progress which is set 
 forth in Sir Horace Plunkett's book is a low and a naiTOw 
 one. What I said did not imply that he admits no 
 wider or higher view. I prescinded from what his per- 
 sonal notion of it may comprehend, and dealt with what 
 was set forth in his book; which I have taken to be that 
 of mere naturalism. I showed that if we boldly follow 
 out that notion to its consequences we must in consis- 
 tency place men and kangaroos on the same specific level. 
 Naturalistic economists do not like to be reminded of 
 that ; they are frightened by the ghost which their own 
 philosophy raises; they try to put it away and hide it 
 from their sight, but logic will not let them. They 
 like the reality, but they dislike the name; just as 
 certain persons will be " fast " men and women, but 
 they affect offence and show resentment if they are taken 
 for such. Tlie philosophy of naturalism is perfected be- 
 fore the looking-glass ; it penetrates one's personality no 
 
124 chahactek in irish catholics. 
 
 deeper than one's achievements in the dining-room. 
 
 I proceed now to analyse the idea of character after 
 the same manner. I will rather trace a description than 
 give a definition of it. Character is the moral texture 
 or disposition which is formed in a person as the result 
 of repeated action and of habitual thought. We say 
 that one is a man of character if we find him showing 
 persistent activity in striving after some purpose which 
 he has set before himself, or in sufl'eriug trial and loss 
 for a principle. For character is proved in passivity as 
 well as and even more than in activity. The early 
 Christian martyrs proved themselves men and women of 
 character by sacrificing their lives for their principles. 
 I do not now consider whether those principles were true 
 or false. Our fathers who gave up their lives as well as 
 their lands in Ireland for their principles proved them- 
 selves thereby to be men of character ; otherwise they 
 would have kept their lands and saved their lives, as 
 they might easily have done by turning their backs on 
 their principles and by lying to themselves. Our 
 national poet thus set forth the inspiration of their 
 lives : — 
 
 ' There is a world, where souls are free, 
 \Vhere tyrants taint not nature's bliss ; 
 
 If death that world's bright opening be, 
 Oh ! who would live a slave in ihis? 
 
 It is by suffering and loss rather than by activity and 
 gain that character is chiefly tested. Again, the Jews 
 have proved themselves to be a people of character in 
 that they have jDreserved their racial identitv thx-ough 
 the vicissitudes of two thousand years. The Boers have 
 shown themselves men of character in their struggle for 
 their homes and their independence. The miser is a 
 man of chax*acter; even the rout shows his character in 
 the plans he lays and persists in carrying out in spite of 
 
CHAUACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 1'25 
 
 danger and difficulty for the gratification of his desires. 
 Dr. Smiles gives a bookful of examples of persons who 
 proved their character in the persistency with which they 
 surmounted difficulties in the pursuit of success in life. 
 Nano Nagle and Catherine Macauley showed themselves 
 women of character in establishing and spreading the 
 communities they founded, in spite of the opposition of 
 persons and other difficulties of the times. Sister 
 Bernard has proved herself to be a woman of character 
 in thinking out and executing her plans for the great 
 industrial work she has done at Foxford. 
 
 The purpose towards which one directs his activity, or 
 the principle for the sake of which one suffers, colours 
 the nature of the character that is formed or revealed, 
 although the character itself is proved by the persistency 
 with which one pursues a purpose or suflfers for a 
 cause. Hence a man of character is on© whose in- 
 dividuality comes out, shows, and asserts itself in doing 
 difficult deeds or in bearing great trials. 
 
 And even when wo say that a person is "a character '" 
 who has little will of his own and is easily moved by 
 others, we place his individuality in relief inasmuch as 
 we suggest that he is a person of peculiarities. There is, 
 therefore, a good and a bad character, just as there is a 
 merit for good and a merit for evil. The martyrs 
 showed their character in seeking heaven, the miser 
 shows his character iu keeping money, the man of in- 
 dustry shows his character in making it. Again, of 
 those who show character in pursuing purposes which 
 are good in themselves and in their sphere, the Saints and 
 Martyrs showed character in striving through difficulties 
 and in facing death for a reward in the life to come. 
 The immediate object of the industrial spirit is a reward 
 in this life. It is the distinction which St. Paul drew 
 between the corruptible and the incorruptible crown. 
 Amongst the strongest characters of any age have been 
 
126 CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 
 
 those whom the Catholic Cliurch calls Saints; such as 
 St. Paul, St. Agnes, St. Gregory VII., St. Catherine of 
 Siena, St. Teresa. St. Francis de Sales was a man of 
 uncompromising character in spite of his singular meek- 
 ness, or rather because of it. In other walks of life, 
 Columbus, Fernando Cortez, Napoleon, Clive, were 
 variously men of character; and so on to Barney 
 Barnato or Whitaker Wright. 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett links character with the in- 
 dustrial spirit, but in that he is plainly wrong. To 
 identify with one thing a quality which manv things 
 have in common is a pitfall into which hobby-jockies in- 
 variably and unthinkingly tumble. Sir Horace is pos- 
 sessed of the industrial spirit, and he easily takes for 
 granted that there is no such thing as character unless 
 that which spends itself in industry. On the other hand, 
 a Quietist who seeks rest for his soul, a INIahatma await- 
 ing the Nirvana, the modern Christian scientist, or 
 others cast in a like mould would call themselves men of 
 character. But a philosopher would open his eyes and look 
 without prejudice before and around him over the whole 
 field of human activity where ever^^ human energy is 
 exercised and every human activity is pursued. As a 
 Catholic I must look at life in that way, and if I narrow 
 my reason exclusively within a spiritual sphere, in so far 
 do I turn off at a tangent from the Catholic ideal. The 
 spirit of Catholicism is opposed both to the spirit of in- 
 dustrialism and to the spirit of esoteric Buddhism. In- 
 dustrialism and experimentalism are like a magpie's nest ; 
 everything on which their votaries can lay their minds or 
 hands goes into it. Those who are led on by that spirit 
 want to gather into their own narrow corner of interest 
 every human activity, as if men were made to live either 
 in a laboratory or in a factory, or at least should have 
 their highest interest there. Those who are possessed by 
 tlie industrial spirit, and those wh"^ call themselves "men 
 
CHAPvACTEE IX IRISH CATHOLICS. 127 
 
 oE science " are ever boasting of their breadth of view, 
 whilst they are amongst the most narrow-minded of 
 mankind. The consumptive talks of health, because 
 he has it not, and the men of fallen fortune talk of 
 wealth, for they feel the need of make-believe. So with 
 many who affect enlisrhtenment beyond their kind. 
 They are the magpies and the bullies of the day ; but a 
 bully is soon beaten, and his rule is never long; and once 
 he is beaten he soon shows himself for what he is. The 
 naturalistic economist or the '" man of science " is satisfied 
 t-o tliink of men as only evolved animals — will quickly con- 
 cede evervone to be an ass except himself — provided he 
 reigns as silver-king, or as philosopher among the apes. 
 
 Character shows itself in every phase of human ac- 
 tivity, exerting its divergent energies in every direction, 
 heavenly or earthly, good or evil. According to Catholic 
 philosophv man has his supernatural and his natural pur- 
 pose in life ; each must be kept in view ; and each 
 human activity, spiritual, moral, and material, must 
 have its proper place, working into one another in the 
 machinery of human life. 
 
 But, let us examine the relation of Irish Catholics to 
 character in the sense in which Sir Horace uses it. 
 
 The first condition that is necessary for the exertion 
 of human activity is liberty. I refer to character as it 
 manifests itself in activity, and which is impossible 
 without liberty; but I do not forget that the 
 strongest character might be proved in the sacrifice of 
 liberty for principle, and in such case slavery would be 
 the result and the proof of character. I have already re 
 called the sacrifices made by our fox'efathers under the 
 Penal Laws in proof of their character ; because only a 
 strong character could suffer so much for a principle. 
 Many of the Young Irelanders and Fenians were men 
 of strong character. Had they turned the ability and 
 constancy which they showed in furthering those move- 
 
128 CHAKACTEU IK IRISH CATHOLICS. 
 
 raents towards making their way in the world some of 
 them would unquestionably have achieved remarkable 
 success ; and they proved themselves men of strong char- 
 acter as much, and even more, in prison than when they 
 were free and were forming plans for the realization of 
 their hopes. Many of them, after they were set at 
 liberty, became men of distinction in civil and commer- 
 cial life. It will be said that it is a pity they had not 
 always used their ability and constancy for some more 
 useful purpose. That is not the question. I prescind 
 altogether from the merits of their cause or the wisdom 
 of their conduct. I want to show that they were men 
 of character. If anyone should think that their objects 
 were evil, or useless, or foolish, let him not conclude 
 that therefore they were not men of character, but that 
 their character exerted itself in evil, useless, or foolish 
 ways. That would be the only consequence; for char- 
 acter is specified by the purpose which it pursues or by 
 the principle which it tries to maintain. Hence a char- 
 acter might be good or bad, profitable or useless; but 
 it is character all the same. I have insisted on this so 
 much, because economists seem to think that character 
 should necessarily turn to industrial pursuits, that it 
 exclusively or chiefly belongs to economic life, that it 
 is essentially meant to act rather than to suffer. 
 
 I find another instance of the sti-ength of 
 character of Irish Catholics in the action of the 
 40s. freeholders who voted against the Beresfords in 
 Waterford in 1825, and against the dominant class in 
 Clare in 1828. It was a great sacrifice made for a great 
 principle at a great ci'isis. It meant eviction and loss of 
 suffrage for them, but they had counted the cost. It 
 will be said that they were not free to vote otherwise than 
 they did at those elections. But, I ask, how so? Be- 
 cause, it will be said, they were forced by O'Connell and 
 by the priests to do as they did. Very well. 
 
CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 129 
 
 then. It used not to be so. Their votes used 
 to be determined by those who had got the 
 franchise for them, not to make them freeaien, but to 
 make them more useful slaves. Tbe franchise was ex- 
 tended to the 40s. freeholders with the Relief Bill of 
 1793, not for the sake of those freeholders themselves or 
 the Catholics in general, but in order to strengthen the 
 voting power of the other side, since it was taken as a 
 matter of course that their votes as well as their lands 
 were the property of the landlords. They used to be 
 driven to the polling places at election times, and kept 
 together, as cattle are kept in pens beside a goods-train 
 at the railway station of a market town. They used to 
 be driven by the landlords. When they voted on the 
 popular side it was said by those whom they had dared 
 to defy that they were driven by O'Connell and the 
 priests. Now, supposing this to be true, the question 
 remains, what is that determining power which made 
 them change their driver? Plainly it was principle, the 
 instinct of civil right, which had been dragged along by 
 the despotism of those who had it in chains, but which 
 at a crisis rose up in the might of desperation, and, cast- 
 ing away its shackles, beat the Beresfords in Waterford 
 and irreparably smashed the power of oppression in 
 Clare. They suffered sorely for their courage; but they 
 have the honour of having been the first to lay the axe 
 to the root of the upas-tree, and of giving the Catholics 
 of Ireland a foretaste of the potential energy that lay 
 reserved in the will of a people. The lesson was not lost 
 on them. And, if the 40s. freeholders were deprived of 
 their right of suffrage when Catholic Emancipation came, 
 the sacrifice added as much honour to 
 them as it brought dishonour to tliose who 
 had them disfranchised. But was it not unwise 
 for those Catholics to forfeit their franchise, and 
 to suffer eviction, or to bear increased and impossible 
 
 I 
 
130 CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 
 
 rents? It certainly was an act of unwisdom which 
 " shocks the economic sense "' ; it would not come within 
 the sphere of the " civic virtues " of those practical 
 people whose " strenuous qualities " threaten to line the 
 ditches about the Boyne when there is no danger of 
 ha\ang their chivalry tested by even the report of a pop- 
 gun. 
 
 The Irish Catholics who did those deeds and bore those 
 consequences in their struggle for their civil and re- 
 ligious rights unquestionably proved themselves to be 
 men of strong character. Or, what better evidence of 
 their strength of character should anyone want? 
 Should we expect them to inaugurate industrial move- 
 ments or form co-operative societies ? Such things were 
 not thought of, or if thought of, only thought of as Uto- 
 pian in those days. The Catholics of Ireland were then 
 struggling to secure such a condition of affairs as would 
 make industry possible or profitable. " Self-reliance 
 and moral courage " were necessary for such a purpose, 
 and the Catholics of Ireland proved their character in 
 striving for and achieving it. It was the only kind of 
 opportunity they then had of proving that they were men 
 of character, and they proved it. 
 
 The history of Irish Catholics for the last hundred 
 years has this thread running through it — a 
 denial of existing grievances ; a partial redress of 
 those same grievances ; that partial redress made 
 with a bad grax:e and unwillingly ^ when made, a 
 boasting of the fairmindedness of those who yielded up 
 those rights; the admission that such grievances 
 had existed, together with expressions of regret that they 
 should ever have been, and a demand on the gratitude of 
 the people for the pretended liberality that lessened 
 those wrongs, and an acknowledgment of the magnani- 
 mity which now acknowledged and regretted them ; a 
 denial that any more grievances remained to be re- 
 
CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 131 
 
 dressed — reprobation and imprisonment to any -who 
 pointed out to the people that more remained, or who 
 dared to urge the people to another struggle to take those 
 also away; again, an unwilling and partial redress 
 of those — then tiie same staging of magnanimity, justice, 
 contrition, and tears — then the further demand for the 
 removal of remaining wrongs — the denial of any more — 
 then another struggle — more turmoil and trial — ^then un- 
 willing and partial redress — and so, denial, assertion, de- 
 mand, struggle, and success, have followed one another 
 by rotation in the political life of Ireland during the 
 past century. That has been the web of our history in 
 every department of Irish Catholic life. And if those 
 long withheld rights have been yielded to the people only 
 after struggle, strife, and suffering in every case, how 
 have those measures of justice been effected? Only by 
 the persistent fight for principle on the part of the 
 people, in spite of misrepresentation, obloquy, imprison- 
 ment, exile and death. And they have never considered 
 the creed or even the country of those who championed 
 their cause. They followed Butt and Parnell as they 
 had followed O'Connell, Gavan Duffy and Frederick 
 Lucas. Sir Horace Plunkett acknowledges that he him- 
 self has secured a following beyond all his expectation, 
 and notwithstanding personal disadvantages of more 
 than one kind. In fact he says that the priests " have 
 put no obstacle in the way of the Roman Catholic 
 majority choosing Protestants for political leaders " ; that 
 " it is no disadvantage to a man to be a Protestant in 
 Irish political life, and that where opposition is shown 
 to him by Roman Catholics it is almost invariably on 
 political, social, or agrarian, but not on religious 
 grounds." 
 
 The history of Irish Catholics for the past century, 
 then, shows not only character, but character of a very 
 
13'2 CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLICS. 
 
 eiilight'Cued kind.* That century has been spent in 
 political strife, because it was the only path, although a 
 thorny one, open to them for the enjoyment of those 
 civil rights which are a necessary basis of any industrial 
 life or success. 
 
 *For evid?nces of "character and morale" shown by Irish emi- 
 fjrants abroad, see Fronde's English in Irelavd, Vol. I. — 570. 571, 
 572. Lecky's Hist, of Ireland in the ISth century. Vol. I.— 153, 
 169. 228. 232. 233, 234, 247, and seq. 570, 571. 
 
 It is important also to note that most of the Protcst.ant colonies 
 brought over and planted in Ireland have died out. A number 
 of Scotch farmers who came over about two generations ago, and 
 took land to farm by improved methods, have long since disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The following is taken from the yew York Evening Post, cf 
 Nov. 10th. 1903: — 
 
 A novel analysis of the last census returns has been made by 
 the Massachusetts' Bureau of Statistics of Labour to show the 
 proportion of the different nationalities in the various industries. 
 The result shows such a predominance of the Irish race that Massa- 
 c^iusetts may almost be said to be a New Ireland. Just where the 
 old native stock of Massachusetts is left seems problematical, for 
 the foreigners have an overwhelming majority in the industries — 
 and tha Irish are a large majority of them — while in the Govern- 
 ment service the Irish are more than double all others of foreign 
 birth, and they are about a third more than those of Massachusetts 
 birth or descont. or of other native birth or descent. It is true 
 that if all of native stock or descent in the State, or born out of it, 
 are counted, they have a bare majority in the Government service, 
 or 50.98 per csnt. But in the classification, all those whoso parents 
 were born in this country are counted as natives, and thus the 
 foreign stocks do not get the credit of their true total ; for the 
 second generation acts with the first generation as a whole, in 
 religious, social, and political affairs. 
 
 Nine classifications are made under the head of professional 
 occupations — religion, law, medicine, literature, art, music, amuse- 
 ments, education, and science. In everyone except art the Irish 
 are the most numerous among the foi'eign born, and the distri- 
 bution among the different professions in this State doubtless indi- 
 cates what is probably true of the race in all other States. In 
 science, next to art, the race shows the least relative lead ; but 
 under the head of Education, which includes thousands of school- 
 teachers, they have 2,506 out 4,700 of foreign descent, while the 
 English stand a remote second with only 527. In Science, the 
 Irish have 326 to 248 English ; in Literature, they have 
 252 to 129 English; in Medicine, they have 489 to 215 English; 
 and in Music, they have 458 to 361 Germans, 306 English, 152 
 Italians, 120 French-Canadians, and so on. The record under 
 Art is, 86 Irish to 132 English, 85 Germans, 30 Scotch, and down- 
 
CHARACTER IN IRISH CATHOLiCt. 133 
 
 ward. But in Religion, where the priests count, the Irish have 
 1,134 to 331 English, who are second. In Law, they number 333 
 to 64 English, who come second. In Medicine, they have 489 to 
 215 English, and 206 French-Canadians. In each of the nine pro- 
 fessions classified the native element is in a majority, except in 
 religion, where the proportion stands 49.40 per cent, native to 50.60 
 foreign,' and in most instances the excess of natives is very large, 
 rising to 80.69 in Law, and being nearly as high in literature, 
 medicine, education, and science. 
 
 In Domestic Service the Irish have predominated. Out -^f 
 56,500 foreigners in all in this field they have 33,079, the Nova 
 Scotians coming second with a small total of 4,095, the Swedes 
 being almost abreast with 4,088, and the English being fourth with 
 3,045. Out of the total in Domestic Service the foreigners have 
 79.57 per cent, to 20.43 natives. The extent to which the Irish are 
 pushing forward in trade is seen in the fact that of the 
 20, 630 Merchants and Dealers, 7,885 arc of this stock, while "^ujsi.ms 
 number 2,29i, and English 2,200. Foreign and native are divided 
 about evenly under this occupation, for the latter have only 23,414, 
 or 53.15 per cent of the whole. The total percentage of foreigners 
 under the head of Salesmen and Saleswomen is 45.87, and there 
 are 5,866 Irish to 1.629 English, who stand next in number, with 
 English-Canadians third at 992, and Germans fourth at 956. Under 
 the classification of Accountants, Bookkeepers, and Clerks, there is 
 a total foreign percentage of 43.44, but of the foreign, Ireland has 
 10,963 representatives to 3,331 for England, and 1,935 for the French- 
 Canadians, who stand third. 
 
 In Manufactures, the work has passed largely away from 
 Americans, and has gone into foreign hands. Boots and shoes 
 show best for the natives, for they have 46.23 per cent, of the total 
 employees. The Irish come first of the foreigners with 20,665 to 
 6,552 for the French Canadians, who are second. In building trades, 
 the foreigners have 61.87 per cent of all workers, and the Irish have 
 15,690 to 6,359 for the French-Canadians, who are second. In Carpet- 
 making the foreigners have 89.54 per cent of all, and the Irish are 
 1.796 to 630 Engli.ih, who are second. In Clothing Manufactures the 
 foreigners have 66.72 per cent., and the Irish count 12,626 against 
 2,754 French-Canadians, who are second. In making cotton goods 
 there is the only instance in which the Irish are outnumbered or 
 anyv/here near it. The proportion of foreign workers is 91.58 
 per cent. The Irish are 23.298 strong to 23,829 French-Canadians, 
 12,686 English, and 2,204 Germans. So one turns to occupation after 
 occupation and finds similar predominance of the Irish over all 
 other foreign-born. The second place is at a long distance below 
 the first, and this fact seems to have its bearing upon the recent 
 adoption by the Boston Aldermen, in concurrence, of the order that 
 the educational authorities be requested to have the Irish language 
 taught in the public schools.'' 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 I HAVE taken the trouble to show that a pcrsoa or 
 a people may iu other ways, both passively and 
 actively, than in industry or commerce, give evidence 
 of " character and morale." I have done so because 
 it is not only false in itself, but it is unfair to the 
 public to discuss questions which affect the social well- 
 being of a nation, on the assumption that the only test 
 of characfcer in a person, or in a people, is their 
 activity and success in industrial or commercial life. 
 It is unfair because it is a dangerous and a degrading 
 ideal to set before a people. In spite of reason and 
 conviction, it is sure to influence them; because it is 
 a plain appeal to the stomach, and to the passions of 
 sense in general. From what I have already written, 
 and more than once insisted on, no person can suspect 
 me of ignoring civic duties, the natural virtues, or the 
 claims of industry. Moreover, let enthusiasts have 
 their way ; they have a right to it ; no great movement 
 has ever been begun or carried through without en- 
 thusiasm. Let men also have their hobbies, but unless 
 they ride with circumspection they are sure to come 
 to grief ; at any rate, they have no right to ride rough- 
 shod over everyone and over everything that comes in 
 their way. "We must, before all things, search for trvith 
 in its fulness, and grasp it if we can, and as far as we 
 can; it is unworthy of us whom God has gifted with 
 reason, not with sense merely, to be satisfied with truth 
 watered down bv fancy or by conventional assumptions. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 135 
 
 Having lifted the notion of " character " from the 
 low level on which Sir Horace Plunkett places it, to a 
 higher plane and in a broader view, I proceed to ex- 
 amine whether he is correct in saying that the Catho- 
 lics of Ireland are wanting in that " character and 
 morale " which industrial life demands. It is due to 
 him to recall that he has taken account of the historic 
 causes of their industrial shortcomings. But he holds 
 those causes to be only partial ; and to account for all our 
 drawbacks he supplements them with the un-economic 
 spirit of our Catholicism and the neglect of the indus- 
 trial concerns of the people on the part of those who 
 represent Catholic authority in Ireland. 
 
 Now, his general reference to those historic causes 
 and his particular reference to Catholicism as a supple- 
 mentary cause of the industrial apathy of Irish Catho- 
 lics, makes it necessary for me to look back and see if 
 those historic causes may not be plenary and not only 
 partial causes of our industrial drawbacks. He admits 
 the historical factors of orir economic shortcomings, it 
 is true. But since he also brings in Catholicism as a 
 supplementary factor, he forces me to go over the 
 ground. 
 
 The Navigation Act of 1660, let Irish ships enjoy the 
 same privileges as English ones. The importance of 
 that privilege will appear at once from the fact that 
 European commodities or manufactures could not be 
 imported into the English colonies except from England 
 and in English ships, manned by English sailors; nor 
 could any be brought from those colonies into Eiirope 
 except through England and by English ships. There 
 were a few exceptions not worth considering. Irish 
 ships manned by Irish sailors, then, were, according 
 to Navigation Act of 1660, to be taken for trading 
 purposes as English ships manned by English sailors. 
 But that community of privilege seems to have been 
 
136 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY 
 
 given for a purpose. " For," says Froude, " the equality 
 of privilege lasted only till the conclusion of the settle- 
 ment, and till the revenue had been assigned to the 
 crown."* That Navigation Act was amended in 1663, 
 and in the amended form Ireland was left out. All ex- 
 poi-ts from Ireland to the English colonies were pro- 
 hibited. Moreover, the main source of Irish wealth 
 at this time was the fattening of cattle, and the cattle 
 trade with England. That also was prohibited; and 
 the i-eason was bluntly given, namely, that " the richest 
 and best land of this kingdom {i.e., of England) is em- 
 ployed in the feeding and fattening of cattle, and that 
 by the coming in of late of vast numbers of cattle al- 
 ready fatted, such lands are in many places much fallen, 
 and like daily to fall more and more in their rents and 
 valu.es.'' In 1665 an Act was passed which declared the 
 importation of Irish cattle, live or dead, into England 
 to be " a publick and common nuisance." For, 
 when the cattle trade was prohibited the Irish killed 
 the animals and sent large quantities of salted 
 meat across to England ; and the prohibition was 
 then extended to beef, bacon, pork, mutton, butter, 
 and cheese. Soon afterwards, according to Lecky.y " it 
 was provided that no goods of any kind could be im- 
 ported directly from the colonies into Ireland." At this 
 time began the Irish trade with France, Spain, Portu- 
 gal, and Italy; but it was very limited. The cattle 
 trade was killed as we have seen, and it was the chief 
 trade of Ireland, since, owing to the Cromwellian war 
 and its consequences, the countrj^ had been mainly 
 turned to pasture. 
 
 "Being forbidden," says Lecky,t "to export their cattle 
 
 ■■•■ English in Irclaiid, vol. I., page 179. Cf. also Lccky — Eistoi-y 
 of Ireland in the 18th Century/, vol. I., pages 173, 175, 176. 
 ^Ireland in 18th Century, Vol. I., p. 174. 
 :j:Loc. cit. p. 175. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 137 
 
 to England, the Irish landowners turned their land into 
 sheep walks, and began on a largo scale to manufacture 
 wool." Bub the following Avill best show how fared this 
 nsxt resource of Irish industry. 
 
 How the Irish woollen trade was destroyed is thus 
 described by a Select Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons in 1S25 : — 
 
 Both Houses of Parliament addressed King William on 
 June 9tlj, 1698. The Lords stated in their Address that " the 
 growing manufacture of doth in Ireland, both by the cheap- 
 ness of all sorts of necessaries of life, and the goodness of 
 materials for making all manner of cloth, doth invite your 
 subjects of England, with their families and servants, to leave 
 their habitations and settle there, to the increase of the 
 woollen manufacture in Ireland, which makes your loyal sub- 
 jects in this kingdom very apprehensive that the further 
 growth of it may greatly prejudice the said manufactures 
 here, by which the trade of this nation and the value of the 
 lands will greatly decrease, and the number of your people 
 be much lessened here ; wherefore, we humbly beseech your 
 Most Sacred Majesty that your Majesty would be pleased, 
 in the most public and effectual way that may be, to declare 
 to all your subjects oi Ireland that the growth and increase 
 of the woollen manufacture there hath long and will be ever 
 looked upon with great jealousy by all your subjects of this 
 kingdom, and if not tim9ly remedied, may occasion very strict 
 laws to prohibit and suppress the same ; and, on the other 
 hand, if they turn their industry to the settling and improv- 
 ing the linen manufacture, for which generally the lands are 
 very proper, they shall receive all the countenance, favour, 
 and protection from your royal influence for the encourage- 
 ment and promotion of the linen manufacture to all the ad- 
 vantage and profit they can be capable of." 
 
 The Commons stated their sentiments at the same time in 
 the following terms : — " We, your Majesty's moat dutiful and 
 loyal subjects, the Commons in Parliament assembled, being 
 very sensible that the wealth and power of this kingdom do 
 in a great measure depend on the preservation of the woollen 
 manufacture as much as possible entire to this realm, think 
 
138 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 it becomes u.s, like our ancestors, to ba jealous of ilro increase 
 and establislimcnt of it elsewhere, and to use our utuiost en- 
 deavours to prevent it. And, therefore, we cannot without 
 trouble observe that Ireland, which is dependent on and pro- 
 tected by England in the enjoyment of all that they have, 
 and which is so proper for the linen manufacture, the estab- 
 lishment and growth of which there would bo so enriching to 
 themselves, and so profitable to England, should of late apply 
 itself to the woollen manufacture, to the great prejudice of 
 the trade of this kingdom, and so unwillingly promote the 
 linen trade, which would benefit both themselves and us; 
 the consequence whereof will necessitate your Parliament of 
 England to interpose to prevent the mischief that threatens 
 us, unless your Majesty, by your authority and great wisdom 
 shall find means to secure the trade of England, by making 
 your subjects of Ireland to pursue the joint interests of both 
 kingdoms. And we do most humbly implore your Majesty's 
 protection and favour in this matter, that you will make it 
 your royal care, and enjoin all those you employ in Ireland 
 to make it their care, and use their utmost diligence to hinder 
 the exportation of wool from Ireland, except to be imported 
 hither, and for discouraging the woollen manufacture, and 
 encouraging the linen manufacture of Ireland, to which we 
 shall always be ready to give our utmost as.sistance." 
 
 His Majesty thus replied to the Commons : — " I shall do 
 ail that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture in 
 Ireland, and encourage the linen manufacture there, and to 
 promote the trade of England." 
 
 Stronger declarations could not well be made than these 
 Addresses and answers, that if the Irish would come into the 
 compact of giving up their great staple of woollens to Eng- 
 land, and cultivating the linens in lieu thereof, they should 
 receive "all the countenance, favour and protection for the 
 encouragement and promotion of their lineri vianufacture to 
 all the advantages their kingdom was capable of" ; that the 
 Commons would always be ready to give their utmost assist- 
 ance, and his Majesty would do all that in him lay to en- 
 courage the linen manufacture there; and they had the 
 effect of inducing the Parliament of Ireland to accede, as 
 will appear from what follows : — 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 139 
 
 The Lords Justice^ of Ireland say, in their speech to the 
 Irish Parliament, September 27th, 1698 : — " Amongst those 
 Bills there is one for the encouragement of the linen and 
 hempen manufactures. . . . The settlement of this 
 manufacture will contribute much to people the country, and 
 will be found more advantageous to this kingdom than the 
 woollen manufacture, which, being the settled staple trade 
 of England, can never be encouraged here for that purpose : 
 whereas the linen and hempen manufactures will not only 
 be encouraged, as consistent with the trade of England, but 
 will render the trade of this kingdom both useful and neces- 
 sary to England." 
 
 The Common'^; replied :— '' We pray leave to assure your 
 Excellencies that we shall heartily endeavour to establish a 
 linen and hempen manufacture here, and to render the same 
 useful to England, as well as advantageous to this kingdom ; 
 and we hope to find such a temperament in respect to the 
 woollen trade here that the same may not be injurious to 
 England." In pursuance of this answer they evinced that 
 temperament most eftectually by passing an Act for laying 
 prohibitory duties on the export of their own woollen manu- 
 facture — thus accepting the national compact, and fully per- 
 forming their part of the agreement, and by that perform- 
 ance giving an incontrovertible claim to Ireland upon Eng- 
 land, and consequently upon Great Britain, for a perpetual 
 encouragement of the linen manufacture " io all the advan- 
 tagfs and profit that Ireland should at any time be capable 
 of." 
 
 It is to be observed that .so anxious was England to con- 
 firm and enforce this ratification given by Ireland, that their 
 Parliament soon after passed a law affecting to enact what 
 subsequent times have shown it was incompetent to, and which 
 we, therefore, here mention merely to point out the stress 
 which England laid on the sacrifice made by Ireland of its 
 great and natural staple trade, in exchange for a new staple 
 resting on a material not the natural growth of the country, 
 and the establishment of which was but in its infancy, though 
 nurtured for over sixty years by the Government of the king- 
 dom. The Act wo refer to is the 10 and 11 Will. III., cap. 
 10, which recites " that wool and the woollen manufacture of 
 
140 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 cloth, serge, bays, kerseys, and other stuffs made or mixed 
 witli wool, are the greatest and most profitable commodities 
 of the kingdom, in which the value of lands and the trade 
 of the nation do chiefly depend ; that the great quantities 
 of the like manufactures have of late been made, and are 
 daily increasing in the kingdom of Ireland, and in the Eng- 
 lish Plantations in America, and are exported from thence to 
 foreign markets heretofore supplied from England ; all which 
 inevitably tends to injure the value of lands, and to ruin the 
 trade and the woollen manufactures of the realm ; and that 
 for the prevention thereof, the export of wool and of the 
 woollen manufacture from Ireland be prohibited under the 
 forfeiture of goods and ship, and a penalty of £500 for every 
 such offence. 
 
 Xow, what do we learn from those official documents? 
 They testify: — (1st) "The goodness of materials for 
 the mauufactui'e of all manner of cloth " in Ii-eland. 
 (2nd) " The growth and increase of the woollen manu- 
 facture in Ireland hath long been and will ever be looked 
 upon with great jealousy by " the people of England. 
 (3rd) That Iieland had of late applied itself " to the 
 woollen manufacture to the great prejudice of the trade" 
 of England. (4th) " That great quantities of woollen 
 manufactures have of late been made and are daily in- 
 creasing in the kingdom of Ireland.' 
 
 Now, in face of this, how can we attribute industrial 
 apathy to the Irish people whose " strenuous qualities " 
 in the production of wool and in the manufacture of 
 woollens so roused the alarm and jealousy of England? 
 They had been engaged on the woollen manufacture for 
 a long time, but they began to devote special attention 
 to it when their shipping and cattle trade had been legi- 
 slated unto death ; and in a few years they so succeeded, 
 both as to " the goodness of materials for making of all 
 manner of cloth," and as to the " daily increase of the 
 same," that their success threatened to attract his 
 Majesty's " subjects of England, with their families and 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 141 
 
 servants to leave their habitations and settle in Ireland." 
 Were the Irish a Catholic people then? And did 
 their ' uneconomic ' or ' anti-economic ' Catholicism 
 relax their character, or unnerve those ' strenuous quali- 
 ties ' which make for commercial enterprise and industrial 
 success ? The chief centres of the woollen manufactures 
 in Ireland were Clonmel, Kilkenny, and Carrick-on-Suir. 
 I am not unaware that colonies of Walloons had been 
 brought over; but the chief support of the trade came 
 from the Irish themselves. 
 
 Let anyone honestly examine those words of the Eng- 
 lish and of the so-called Irish Parliament, and then let 
 him try if he can find a parallel to the tergiversation, the 
 treachery, avarice, meanness, and dishonesty, which 
 they reveal. Ireland had perforce to accept the compact 
 involving the destruction of the Irish woollen trade and 
 the encouragement of the linen trade in Ireland. It 
 was a compact of England's own making. We shall see 
 how she kept it. 
 
 Those Parliamentary documents which I have already 
 quoted at some length plainly imply, even avow, that 
 the Irish traders in wool, and the manufacturers 
 of woollens had in a short time made such progress in 
 that industry as to threaten the destruction of English 
 wool and woollens and the consequent decrease in the 
 value of laud in England. I have said that the same 
 documents reveal tergiversation, treachery, avarice, 
 meanness, and dishonesty. The petition of the Lords in 
 the English Parliament humbly sheweth that the con- 
 tinuance of the woollen manufacture in Ireland would 
 tend to depeople England. The Lords Justices of Ire- 
 land, in their speech to the Irish Parliament, say that 
 its discontinuance would " contribute much to people " 
 Ireland. Again, according to the Lords and according 
 to the Commons of England, the land of Ireland " is so 
 proper for the linen manufacture " ; and they regret that 
 
342 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 the Irish "so unwillingly promote it,'' which "would 
 benefit both themselves and us." All that is set forth in 
 the same context in which they declare that the trade of 
 England is threatened by Ireland's progress in the pro- 
 duction of wool and in the manufacture of woollens ; 
 and, in spite of that progress, the Lords Justices of Ire- 
 land assure the Irish Parliament that linen manufacture 
 which Ireland had, till then, but little tried, " will be 
 more advantageous to this kingdom " than the woollen 
 manufacture, which Ireland had tried, and so success- 
 fully. The Irish Commons, in their reply, hoped " to 
 find such a temjoerament in respect to the woollen trade 
 here that the same may not be injurious to England " ; 
 and the Irish Parliament proved that " temperament " 
 by imposing " an additional export duty of 20 per cent. 
 ad valorem on Irish broadcloth, and of 10 per cent, on 
 new drapery, exceiot frieze."* Let us reflect on the fact 
 that this Irish Parliament thus openly helped 
 to fetter, manacle, and hang the woollen in- 
 dustry of the people whose wishes and interests they 
 were supposed to represent. "To complete the work of 
 destruction," says the writer just quoted, "the English 
 Parliament passed a law on June l!9th, 1699, interdicting 
 the exportation of Irish woollens except to England and 
 Wales ; and import duties were previously laid on them 
 so high as to be prohibitoi'}\" 
 
 " The English, however," says Lecky,f " were still 
 unsatisfied. The Irish woollen manufactures had 
 already been excluded by the Navigation Act from 
 the whole Colonial market; they had been vir- 
 tually excluded from England itself, by duties amount- 
 ing to prohibition. A law of crushing severity, enacted 
 by the English Parliament in 1699, completed the work 
 
 ■■ Commentaries on Ireland — The Cloncurnj Prize Essays. IJy 
 VVm. Stanley, page 130. 
 Loc. cit., page 177. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 143 
 
 and prohibited the Irish from exporting their manufac- 
 tured wool to any other country whatever. So ended 
 the fairest promise Ireland had ever known of becoming 
 a prosperous and happy country. The ruin was absolute 
 and final." 
 
 This final prohibition is contained in the Parliamentary 
 document which I have alread}' quoted; namely, that 
 " the export of wool and of the woollen manvifacture from 
 Ireland be prohibited under the forfeiture of goods and 
 ship, and a penalty of £500 for every such offence." 
 " Thus deprived of their export trade," says Stanley in 
 the work already quoted, " and not having a 
 home trade of sufficient extent to maintain their estab- 
 lishments, the Irish manufacturers emigrated, some to 
 the Protestant States of Germany, where they founded 
 manufactories for the celebrated Saxon cloths — some, 
 who were Catholics, to the North of Spain — and many, 
 both Protestants and Catholics, to France, where they 
 founded establishments at Rouen, and other places, and 
 were warmly received by Louis XIV., who guaranteed 
 to the Protestants the free use of their religion, although 
 he had previously revoked the Edict of Nantes." * The 
 country was thus cleared both of the manufactures and 
 of the manufacturers. Not of all the manufacturers, 
 however. According to Hely Hutchinson, author of the 
 Commercial Restraints of Ireland, within two years after 
 the prohibition from 20,000 to 30,000 workers in wool 
 had to be supported by charity in Ireland. We can 
 understand what proportion of the people had thrived 
 v/ith the success of the woollen industry, and were ruined 
 with its ruin, when we consider that the whole population 
 of Ireland was at that time only 1,034, 102t according to 
 the Census of Captain South. That industry, the ac- 
 
 * Page 131, Cf. Dobbe, page 6. 7, and seq. 
 According to others the population was 2.000,000. 
 
144 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 kuowledged success and the sudden progress of which un- 
 questionably establish the industrial ability and " charac- 
 ter " of the Irish Catholics of that time, was thus swept 
 away, root and branch. I speak of the Irish Catholic 
 manufacturers only, because only their character is in 
 question. The Scotch and English who had been 
 engaged in the woollen industry in Ireland were, as 
 we are asked to believe, industrial by nature; 
 their " simpler Christianity " did not allow a " complete 
 shifting of the moral centre of gravity to a future exist- 
 ence '' ; they had learned from their economic Chris- 
 tianity to " develop the qualities which make for well- 
 being in this life " — just as their representatives in Ire- 
 hind to-day who " have developed the essentially stre- 
 nuous qualities which, no doubt, they brought from Eng- 
 land and Scotland." And was the industrial skill of 
 those exiled manufacturers lost or lessened when they 
 went abroad ? The following, which I quote from 
 Stanley,* will tell us. " Mr. Dobbs, whose work on Ire- 
 land, published in 1729, and who was an eye-witness of 
 those commercial changes, observes : — ' The Irish have 
 so much improved the woollen manufactures of France, 
 as not only to supply their own markets, but vie with the 
 English in foreign markets; and by their correspondence 
 have laid the foundation for the running of wool thither, 
 both from England and Ireland, highly to the prejudice 
 of Britain.' " The same has to be recorded of those who 
 went to Spain. 
 
 So far, at any rate, it is not Irish Catholics who 
 "shock the economic sense," but the economists who 
 paralysed their industries unto death ; and so far also it is 
 not correct to say that " the Roman Catholic clergy cannot 
 be exonerated from some responsibility in regard to Irish 
 character," unless that, as I suppose, they preached a 
 doctrine then as now which prevented the Catholics from 
 
 ""■■ Loc. cit. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 145 
 
 confounding " character " with exclusively making wool 
 or making money. 
 
 But, in destroying the Irish woollen manufacture, it 
 was not intended at all to destroy every Irish 
 industrj'. What then was the grievance? There 
 was the linen industry, which was " so very proper to the 
 land of Ireland,"' and which would "benefit both them- 
 selves and us." Parliament pledged itself to the Irish. 
 to give " all the countenance, favour, and protection, for 
 the encouragement and promotion of their linen manu- 
 facture to all the advantages their kingdom was capable 
 of " ; and King William pledged himself to do all that in 
 him lay "to encourage the linen manufacture there." 
 It was a compact forced upon Ireland, I quite admit ; but 
 yet it was a compact of England's own making, and ac- 
 cepted in the name of Ireland by a so-called Irish Parlia- 
 ment which represented England and about one-seventh of 
 the inhabitants of Ireland. It was a compact even less free 
 than those " free contracts " which used to exist between 
 landlord and tenant before the impress of Mr. Glad- 
 stone's work appeared in the Irish land laws. 
 
 Now, let us see how they kept their compact. 
 
 Flax had been cultivated and linen had been made in 
 Ireland long before this time; but not much of it. Lecky 
 says that " Strafford had done much to encourage it." 
 
 That is true; but it is not the whole truth. Strafford 
 encouraged the linen manufacture instead of the woollen 
 manufacture which he did his utmost to destroy in the 
 interest of England, long before it was legislated out of 
 existence. In helping the linen manufacture he 
 was only proving himself a faithful prophet of 
 the power he represented. The Duke of Ormond 
 had also helped to advance it; but it had never 
 become a staple industry in Ireland as the woollen 
 industry was; and the war of the Revolution which had 
 given a temporary check to the latter had almost de- 
 
146 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 stroyed the former; so that it neither profited uor pro- 
 mised much for the country when those who legislated 
 away the woollen trade pledged themselves to promote it. 
 As to the promised encouragement of the linen manu- 
 facture, Stanley says, in the work already mentioned : — 
 " All that can be said for the monopolists is, that they 
 tolerated the Irish linen trade for a time, as it did not 
 clash with their interests; but as soon as they thought 
 of manufacturing linen, the spirit of monopoly was 
 evoked, and a law was passed prohibiting the iiiiporta- 
 tion of chequed, striped, printed, painted, stained, or 
 dyed linens, of the manufacture of Ireland; and grant- 
 ing bounties on the exportation of such linens, of the 
 manufacture of England. Tliere was also a duty imposed 
 on the importation of Irish sail cloth, and a great en- 
 couragement was given to establish the linen trade iu 
 Scotland, of which the Scotch made so good a use, that 
 in 1783 no less than 17,000,000 yards of their linen were 
 stamped for sale." 
 
 Nothing was done till 1705, when, the Irish Parlia- 
 ment having reminded them of their pledges and setting 
 forth the poverty which the loss of the woollen manufac- 
 ture had brought on the country, they allowed the Irish to 
 export white and brown linens, and those only, to the 
 British Colonies ; but the Irish traders were not allowed 
 to bring back any Colonial goods in return. If I am 
 asked how that could be, I have only to recall the fact 
 that ships should be laden in England. That pro- 
 hibition to import Colonial goods in return for their own 
 exports was in itself a dajnper on the limited 
 Irish linen trade which was allowed. According 
 to an address presented by the Irish House of 
 Commons to the Viceroy in 1774 — ' The Irish had manu- 
 factured flax and hemp to such good purpose that at one 
 time they had supplied sails for the whole British navy."' 
 Yes, " at one time," but not at the time ci the address; 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 147 
 
 because, in 1750, heavy import duties were laid on Irish 
 sail-cloth sent into England which seriously damaged 
 the trade Again, Lecky says that " Irish checked, 
 striped, and dyed linens were absolutely excluded 
 from the Colonies. They were virtually excluded 
 from England by the imposition of a duty of 30 per cent., 
 and Ireland was not allowed to participate in the boun- 
 ties granted for the exportation of these descriptions of 
 linen from Great Britain to foreign countries." Lord 
 Xorth, when he was Prime Minister, in a speech in Par- 
 liament, said of this compact — " This compact was no 
 sooner made than it was violated by England, for instead 
 of foreign linens, duties were laid on and necessarily col- 
 lected, which, so far from amounting to a prohibition on 
 the import of the Dutch, German, and East country linen 
 manufactures, that those manufacturers have been able, 
 after having duties imposed on them by the British Par- 
 liament, to meet, and in some cases to undersell, Ireland, 
 both in Great Britain and the West Indies, and several 
 other parts of the British Empire." The pledges made 
 were certainly kept, but within limits, and after 
 a fashion. Bounties were given to encourage 
 
 the manufacture of linen; but that was not till 
 1743 when, says Lecky, " the country had sunk 
 into a condition of appalling wretchedness '' ; and even 
 then, that encouragement was confined to the coarsest 
 kinds of linen. It was, moreover, enacted in 1756 that 
 " no Irish linen exported from England shall be entitled 
 to a bounty, if it were the property of a resident in Ire- 
 land." The conditions of that bounty, make it not only 
 not a bounty, but a plain bribe to Irish linen m-anufac- 
 turers to settle in England. 
 
 Whilst the solemn compact of 1698 was thus kept for 
 Ireland, and its linen manufacture was fast facing the 
 iate of the woollen, the linen manufacture of Scotland 
 
148 ir.ISPI CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 •was growing apace. How did that come about? By the 
 " strenuous qualities '" of the Scotchman, Sir Horace 
 Pluiikett would say. Perhaps, it is so; but this is what 
 Buckle says*: — "During the seventeenth century, the 
 only Scotch manufacture of any importance was that of 
 linen, which, however, like every other branch of indus- 
 try, was very backward, and was exposed to all sorts of 
 discouragement. But after the Union, it received a 
 sudden impetus, from two causes. One of these causes 
 was the demand from America, consequent on the trade 
 of the Atlantic being thrown open. Tbe other cause was, 
 the removal of the duty which England had imposed 
 upon the importation of Scotch linen." England thus 
 not only broke her pledge of special protection and en- 
 couragement for the Irish linen industry, but even de- 
 prived Irish manufacturers of the distributive justice of 
 fair competition by taking av/ay duty from the Scotch and 
 by imposing a heavy one on the Irish. 
 
 Moreover, let us read in the light of what I have just 
 written the following which happened in Ireland. 
 The linen manufacture had, as in Scotland, been 
 also extending in the North of Ireland. Some 
 French workers settled there in 1700, and one of them 
 Crommelin, became a well-known manufacturer. He 
 agreed to establish a centre in Kilkenny, if his patent 
 were extended. It was well enough whilst Crommelin 
 was extending the industry of the North ; but it was 
 another thing when there v,-as danger of carrying his 
 beneficence to the South. The English authorities set 
 their face against the patent ; which, however, through 
 the influence of Ormond, was afterwards granted, pro- 
 vided that the southern manufacture would be limited to 
 linen of the coarsest kind. We can understand how the 
 " economic sense " of our non-Catholic masters was 
 differently affected by the prospect, of prosperity 
 
 ■Hist, of Civilisation in England,'' Vol. III., 178-179. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 149 
 
 in the North and in the South. But one of 
 the reasons given involves another violation of the 
 compact. It was, that if Irish linen displaced Dutch 
 linen in the English market, the Dutch might boycott 
 English woollens in Holland; and, in that way, the suc- 
 cess of the linen manufacture in Ireland, especially in 
 the South, might indirectly injure the woollen manufac- 
 ture in England. Those economists cannot, at any rate, 
 be accused of " shifting the moral centre of gravity to 
 the other life." Lecky writes* : — " The linen manufac- 
 ture also greatly increased, but especially in the 
 North, where, the population being in a great 
 degree Protestant, the paralysis of the Penal Laws 
 was comparatively unfelt. The English Govern- 
 
 ment gave it some real encouragement in the form 
 of bounties, and Irish linen was admitted freely to Eng- 
 land, while that of other countries was clogged bj^ heavy 
 duties. . . . Belfast, though still ranking very low 
 in the list of Irish towns, was beginning to emerge into 
 prominence." Lecky must have here forgotten what even 
 he has written elsewhere — and indeed he is not always 
 consistent — or he must have included the rest of Ireland 
 outside the North, amongst those " other countries 
 clogged with heavy duties." In spite of those disabili- 
 ties, " the Irish linen manufacture, within the narrow 
 limits that were assigned to it, had attained a consider- 
 able prosperity, and it continued to increase till 1771, 
 when an alarming decadence began which continued with 
 accelerated rapidity during the next two years. Many 
 causes were assigned for it, the principal being the inter- 
 ruption of commerce due to the rising troubles in 
 
 America, "t 
 
 That is not bad testimony to Irish industrial acti- 
 vity, struggling against almost insurmountable diflfi- 
 
 * Loc. cit., page 338. 
 j" Lecky — loc. cit. 
 
150 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY 
 
 culties. And even in the woollen trade Ireland was not 
 idle. Prevented bj^ law from the manufacture of wool- 
 lens, the Irish could not so easily be prevented from the 
 rearing of sheep and the production of wool, and they 
 continued to do a large wool trade with the Continent. 
 Wool was secretly sent in smuggling ships to the Con- 
 tinent from every bay in the southern coast of Ireland ; 
 and other goods were smuggled back in return and sold 
 in Irish towns. Gradually the smuggling became con- 
 tagious, and was extended to other articles of commerce. 
 Many Catholic families who, when the restraints of the 
 Penal Laws had been taken away, became extensive land 
 owners, had made the purchase money and more with their 
 smuggling ships of the Penal Days. Even in that smug- 
 gling trade there is clear evidence of their industrial char- 
 acter. I will be reminded that such trading bears witness 
 to their lawlessness. Be it so ; but it also is evidence of 
 the industrial character of the traders ; and it is a ques- 
 tion whether that contraband trade was more or less law- 
 less than the " law "' which forced it on the people as a 
 necessary alternative to starvation. They had to keep 
 their money in strong boxes till an outlet came, and then 
 it was used in buying back those lands from which their 
 fathers had been cast out for conscience sake — and 
 forsooth in the name of free thought and private judg- 
 ment — by those in whose favour an iniquty, which was 
 nicknamed law, appropriated their property and annihi- 
 lated their trade. On the other hand the smuggling trade 
 enabled the French to do an extensive woollen trade in 
 England — to do that thing which Ireland was dishonestly 
 and deceitfully kept from doing. Verily, the laws of 
 economics sometimes seem to work out the laws of God s 
 Providence. However, let that be as it may; my pur- 
 pose has been to point out the evidence of industi-ial life 
 and character which the Irish people maintained even 
 under terrible stress and trial. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 151 
 
 Stanley writes^: — "In the 19th year of Greorge 
 II. 's reign, an Act was passed to prohibit the expor- 
 tation of glass from Ireland, and, either to England, 
 or to any other country, as the English manufacturers of 
 glass were apprehensive of competition from some Irish 
 establishments which, at that period, had been advanced 
 to a prosperous condition."' Ireland used to import glass 
 from abroad ; but as it was an article of general use, it 
 opened an avenue of industry, and an extensive glass 
 manufacture arose. But then there was a glass manu- 
 facture in England ; and hence that law of 1746. Ireland 
 was prohibited from exporting glass to any country — it 
 was part of the Act that Irish glass was not to " be ex- 
 ported, or as much as to be laden on any horse or carriage 
 with intent to be exported."' That clause probably 
 aimed at smuggling; and the mere packing glass iu a 
 oart, drawn up at the door of the factory, came within 
 the meaning of the Act. And Ireland was also pro- 
 hibited bv the Act from importing glass from any country 
 except from England. To put it plainly, a system of ex- 
 clusive dealing in English-made glass was forced on Ire- 
 land by an Act of Parliament ; and then the Eng- 
 lish manufacturers, whose influence forced on this ex- 
 clusive dealing, forced up their prices when they had the 
 market to themselves. Moreover, beer and malt made 
 in Ireland were not allowed into England ; but beer and 
 malt made in England were sent to Ireland at a nominal 
 duty. By an Act of Parliament made in 1711, only hops 
 grown in England could be imported to Ireland; and an 
 Act made in 1720 declared that the duty on hops ex- 
 ported from England should not be reduced in favour of 
 Irish purchasers. Similar enactments repressed Irish 
 manufacturers iu cotton, silk, iron, hats, gunpowder, 
 etc., according as they arose, or threatened to compete 
 with similar industries iu England. In fact, persons 
 
 * Loc. cit., page 133. 
 
162 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 
 
 engaged in any industry in England had only to make 
 known to Parlianient their actual or impending grievance 
 from a rival industry in Ireland, and an Act was passed 
 according to their petition. In 1698 the fishermen of 
 Folkestone and Aldborough complained to Parliament 
 of the wrong they suffered from Irish fishermen " catching 
 herrings at Waterford and Wexford, and sending them 
 to the Straits "; and others petitioned that all fishing on 
 the Irish coast should be prohibited except from boats 
 built in England, and manned by English fishermen. 
 What perversity and impudence it was for the people of 
 Waterford to dare to catch fish in their own harbour! 
 Really, Edmund Burke had much reason to ask, in a 
 Letter to Gentlemen in Bristol, in 1778, when he was seek- 
 ing to take off some of those restraints which had 
 strangled every Irish industry according as it appeared 
 to prosper: — " Is Ireland united to the Crown of Great 
 Britain for no other purpose than that we should counter- 
 act the bounty of Providence in her favour ? and in pro- 
 portion as that bounty has been liberal that vre are to 
 regard it as an evil, which is to be met with in every sort 
 of corrective."* And the author of A?! Essay on the 
 Trade of Ireland,^ wrote in 1729 : — " I am sorry to find 
 Bo universal a despondency amongst us in respect to trade. 
 Men of all degrees give up the thought of improving our 
 commerce, and conclude that the restrictions under which 
 we are laid are so insurmountable that any attempt on 
 that head would be vain and fruitless." And Froude| 
 sums up the situation as follows : — '" With their shipping 
 destroyed by the Navigation Act, their woollen manufac- 
 tures taken from them, their trade in all its branches 
 crippled and confined, the single resource left to those 
 of the Irish who still nourished dreams of improving their 
 
 •'••Burke, On Irish Af'ain. edited by M. Arnold, page 101 
 t Quoted in Lecky, Vol. I., im—notc. 
 ^ Etiglish in Ireland, Vol. 1.. pare 439. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY. 153 
 
 unfortunate country was agriculture. The soil was at 
 least their own, which needed only to be drained, cleared 
 of weeds, and manured, to produce grass crops and corn 
 crops as rich as the best in England. Here was employ- 
 ment for a population three times more numerous than as 
 yet existed." 
 
 But let us see how the agricultural industry fared. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 
 
 A LARGE part of the confiscated lands came inta 
 the possession of Englishmen. They continued to 
 live in England, and acknowledged no relation to their 
 estates in Ireland unless the right to take over rents and 
 to spend them. The rest was put on the market and was 
 bought by speculators; none of whom of course were 
 Catholics, since the law held these incapable of owning 
 land. Thus ownership in land was the monopoly of non- 
 Catholics ; and they became for the most part absentees, 
 subletting their lands to middlemen on long leases, and 
 with a security of tenure. Those middlemen were also 
 non-Catholics; for Catholics were disabled by law from 
 renting land except on short leases, never longer than 
 thirty-one years. Thus the Catholics were reduced to 
 the condition of cottiers. The absentee landlords gave 
 no employment ; industries, as we have seen, had been 
 legislated out of the country ; those who owned lands, as 
 well as those who rented them with a fixity of tenure, 
 held immense tracts which they turned into pastures as 
 the cheapest and most profitable method of farming, 
 when, after the peace of 1715, the ports of the Continent 
 were open to Irish beef. Hence> numerous evictions, 
 which reduced the poor to absolute want. Hence arose 
 a keen competition between the Catholics for such 
 tenancies as the law left them capable of, high rents, 
 short leases, and no security. 
 
 Having made that general sketch, I let Froude describe 
 the process and the condition of affairs: — " The gentry 
 hated labour. Everyone who could subsist in idleness 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC IXDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 155 
 
 &3t himself up for a gentleman. Everj-one who held a 
 farm which he could divide and sublet, became a land- 
 lord and lived on his rents. The land was let, and 
 underlet, and underlet again, till six rents had sometimes 
 to be provided by the aetual cultivator before he was 
 allowed to feed himself and his family, whilst the pro- 
 prietor and quasi-proprietor grew into the Irish black- 
 guard, the racing, drinking, duelling, swearing squireen, 
 the tyrant of the fair, the shame and scandal of the 
 order to which he aflfected to belong."* 
 
 Thus "land-jobbing finished the ruin which the wars 
 had left incomplete, " and the middleman "pared the 
 peasant to the bone."f And Lecky writes — "All real en- 
 terprise and industry among-st the Catholic tenants was de- 
 stroyed by the law which placed strict bounds to their 
 progress by providing that, if their profits exceeded one- 
 third of the rent, the first Protestant who could prove 
 the fact might take their farm.";j; 
 
 But they could exert their energy, develop habits of 
 industry and " strenuous qualities '' by carefully culti- 
 vating such holdings as were allowed them ? They could 
 not, and they should not. They could not, for the 
 simple reason that they were not allowed. I let Froude 
 explain: — "The tenants were forbidden in their 
 leases bo break or plough the soil. The people 
 no longer employed were driven away into holes 
 and corners, and eked out a wretched subsistence 
 by potato gardens, or by keeping starving cattle of their 
 own on the neglected bogs. ... Of corn, very little 
 was grown anywhere in Ireland. It was imported from 
 England, Holland, Italy, and France, but in quantities 
 unequal to any sudden demand."!] The wretchedness to 
 
 -English in Ireland, Vol. I., page 310. 
 
 fFroude, Vol. I., page 441. 
 
 JYol. I., page 218. 
 
 ||Loc. cit., Vol. I., page 441, seq. 
 
156 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY — AGRICULTURE. 
 
 ■which the people were reduced, as well as the fear of 
 popular fury, at length woke up some animal feeliug in 
 the Irish Parliament, and in 1716 they passed a vote 
 that " covenants which prohibited the breaking of the 
 soil were impolitic, and should have no binding force." 
 They also drafted a measure which would make everv 
 tenant to till at least five acres out of everv hundred 
 which he rented, and would secure a small bounty from 
 the Government to encourage the growing and export of 
 corn. They sent, as they had to do, the heads of the 
 Bill to the English Parliament for approval. The 
 answer which came back has the merit of blujitness, if 
 not the merit of justice. It was simply this: — "The 
 corn is supposed to be at so low a rate in Ireland in 
 comparison with England, that an encouragement to the 
 exportation of it would prejudice the English trade." 
 The Lords Justices of Ireland reminded them that, in- 
 stead of corn being cheap in Ireland, there was hardly 
 any corn there at all, the best evidence of which wa? that 
 large quantities of it were regularly imported from Eng- 
 land and elsewhere. This rejoinder spoke to a fact which 
 could not be denied, and had to be faced, but yet their 
 selfishness was so deep that the fact could not obliterate 
 the fear of competition, nor exorcise the demon of com- 
 mercial jealousy. The Bill was finally sent back, ap- 
 proved with the reservation that thev might withdraw 
 the premiums at their pleasure, and the Irish Parliament 
 refused to have any more to do with a measure which, to 
 use the words of Froude, " had been mutilated into a 
 mockery." " Their real motive for refusing approval was 
 probably," says Froude,* "the same which had led 
 to the suppression of the manufactures — the de- 
 testable opinion that to govern Ireland conve- 
 Kiently Ireland must be kept weak. Although the 
 corn consumed in Ireland had been for many years im- 
 
 ' Loc. cit.. Vol. I., page 441. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 157 
 
 ported, the English farmers were haunted with a terror 
 of being undersold in their own and foreign markets by 
 a country where labour was cheap." 
 
 Moreover, let us bear in mind that England had a 
 monopoly of the woollen industry since the 'compact,' 
 and the law of 169S. The larger the supply of wool 
 which England had, the more cheaply she could manufac- 
 ture woollens, and the more successfully could she com- 
 pete with France and other countries ; and consequently 
 she thought that, instead of agriculture, the rich land 
 of Ireland should be converted into a universal sheep- 
 walk for the wool supply of her manufacturers. 
 
 As a matter of fact, these had been complaining that 
 the supply from Ireland had recently become less. That 
 v.as true, owing to the extensive smuggling trade v/hich 
 Ireland was carrying on with the Continent, which, in- 
 creasing the wool supply of France, therefore cheapened 
 French v,-oollens in comparison with those of England, 
 and thus secured an extensive sale for themselves amongst 
 the English people. But the Irish Revenue Commissioners 
 would not admit that which would condemn them of in- 
 efficiency ; and their reports rather went to show that the 
 Irish farmers, in their perversity, had lately taken to 
 tillage and corn instead of to sheep-walks and wool. The 
 truth was quite otherwise ; but even the ghost 
 of a grounded fear frightened the English Parliaiusnt, 
 and they would not approve a measure in the interest of 
 justice which might be against the interest of England. 
 Of course, when those two interests collided the former 
 should be elided to make way for the latter. Two cen- 
 turies have passed since then, and the leopard has not 
 changed his spots— he never will. However, a Bill was 
 at length passed in 1727 which provided that a tenant 
 should till at least five acres out of one hundred. But 
 that law, as far as it afTected the Catholic tenants, was 
 practically useless, and as far as it affected the Pra- 
 
158 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 
 
 testaut tenants who had large farms and fixity of tenure, 
 it -was needless. These latter did not want it, because 
 their interest and tendency was to pasture and cattle, due 
 to the increasing demand for salt beef and butter for 
 exportation and for the fleets ; the former gained nothing 
 by it, because their landlords still prevented them from 
 " ploughing and breaking the soil," and being Catholics 
 they had only landlord and anti-Catholic tribunals before 
 which to seek redress. Thus the grazing lands grew 
 apaoe ; the commons on which the Catholic cottiers used 
 to graze a cow or a goat, as well as the holdings which 
 they rented, were absorbed into immense farms on which 
 only a few scattered herdsmen lived. Grazing so grew 
 and tillage so lessened that Primate Boulter wrote at 
 this time that " in some of the finest land in Ireland 
 you may travel for fifteen miles without meeting a house 
 or a cornfield." There was sound sense in this sarcasm 
 of Swift — " To bestow the whole kingdom on hay and 
 mutton, and thereby drive out half the people who should 
 eat their share, and force the rest to send sometimes as 
 far as Egypt for bread to eat with it, is a most peculiar 
 and distinguishing piece of public economy of which I 
 have no comprehension." 
 
 I hcve said that the Catholics of Ireland could not 
 put out their energies in agriculture any more than in 
 manufactures; there was a legal obstacle. I have also 
 said that they should not, even though they could ; there 
 was an economic difficulty. 
 
 Sir William Petty, writing in 1672 on the condition of 
 the Catholics of Ireland, said: — "Their lazing seems to 
 me to proceed rather from want of employment and 
 encouragement to work than from the natural abundance 
 of flegm in their bowels and blood. Why should they 
 breed more cattle, since it is penal to import them into 
 England ? Why should they raise more commodities, since 
 there are not merchants sufficiently stocked to take them, 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 
 
 159 
 
 nor provided with more pleasing foreign commodities to 
 give in exchange for them 1 And how should merchants 
 have stock since trade is prohibited and fettered by the 
 Statutes of England?"* 
 
 The same economic instinct deadened agricultural 
 energy amongst the Catholics at the time of which I now 
 
 write. 
 
 Would any man of common sense trouble himself to 
 improve his holding, knowing that if " his profit exceeded 
 one-third of his rent the first Protestant who could prove 
 the fact might take the farm " which he had fertilised 
 with his sweat? Would any man of common sense 
 waste his labour on land in which insecurity of tenure 
 leaves him but a fugitive interest, knowing not whether 
 the holding which he is improving to-day will not be 
 taken from him and levelled away to form part of an 
 immense grazing farm to-morrow? Even a Papist has 
 not his centre of gravity so shifted into the next life 
 as not to work in this life for profit; and it would 
 " shock his economic sense," if he were asked or expected 
 to work for loss. 
 
 Again, pasture lands were made exempt from tithes in 
 1735; which meant that Protestants as a body 
 became exempt from them, and, as Froude says, " the 
 burden of supporting the Protestant Church fell on the 
 Catholic poor." The following extract from Lecky will 
 sufficiently explain the position of the Catholics of those 
 days with regard to tithes: — ''The Irish tithe system 
 was, indeed, one of the most absurd that can be con- 
 ceived. Tithes in their original theory are not absolute 
 property, but property assigned in trust for the discharge 
 of certain public duties. In Ireland, when they were not 
 appropriated by laymen, they were paid by an im- 
 poverished Catholic peasantry to a clergy who were op- 
 
 • Political Anatomy of Ireland, page 68. For which see Vol. II. 
 of Tracts and Treatises on Ireland, reprinted in 1861. 
 
160 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY — AGRICULTURE. 
 
 posed to their religiou, and usually not eveu resident 
 amongst them, and they were paid in such a manner that 
 the heaviest burden lay on the very class who were least 
 able to bear it. It was a common thing for a parish to 
 consist of some 4,000 or 5,000 acres of rich pasture land 
 held by a prosperous grazier who had been rapidly 
 amassing a large fortune through the increased price of 
 cattle, and of 300 or 400 acres of inferior land occupied 
 by a crowd of miserable cottiers. In accordance with the 
 vote of the House of Commons in 1735, the former was 
 exempted from the burden which was thrown on the 
 latter. In Limerick, Tipperary, Clare, Meath, and 
 Waterford, there were to be found, in the words of 
 Arthur Young, ' the greatest graziers and cow-keepers 
 perhaps in the world, some who rent and occupy from 
 £3,000 to £10,000 a year .... the only occu- 
 piers in the Kingdom who have any considerable sub- 
 stance.' These men were free from the tithes which 
 were extorted from the wretched potato plot which was 
 the sole subsistence of the cottier. . . . The tithe- 
 proctor who collected the tithes for the clergyman, and 
 the tithe-farmer who bought them from him at a fixed 
 rate, were amongst the worst figures in Irish life, and 
 tbey were at the same time an inevitable product of the 
 Irish ecclesiastical system. In the great majority of 
 cases, the clergyman resorted to an agent, who often 
 intercepted mvich the larger portion of what was paid. 
 Sometimes the agent charged a percentage in addition to 
 the tithe, and extorted it from the people. More com- 
 monly he paid a fixed sum tb the clergyman, and re- 
 couped himself by a grinding tyranny of the tenants. 
 Sometimes he sublet his agency for a fixed sum to a sub- 
 ordinate oppressor. Sometimes the cottiers who were 
 unable to pay in full were obliged to give a bond bearing 
 interest, and were in this manner soon reduced to ab- 
 solute slavery. ' In some of the southern parts of Ire- 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 161 
 
 land,' said Grattan, in one of the tithe debates, 'the 
 peasantry are made tributary to the tithe-farmer, draw 
 home his corn, his hay, and his turf for nothing; give 
 him their labour, their cars, and their horses at certain 
 times of the year for nothing. These oppressions not 
 only exist, but have acquired a formal and distinct appel- 
 lation — tributes.' The cottier, it was said in a debate 
 in 1787, often paid £7 an acre for land, received sixpence 
 a day for his labour and paid eight shillings to twelve 
 shillings for his tithes."* Thus the tithes and the rents 
 went on parallel lines, were in many cases engineered on 
 the same farming principles, and the impoverished Catho- 
 lics had to bear the brunt in all the ramifications of this 
 legalised system of tyranny and wrong. 
 
 Arthur Dobbs.f frequently quoted by Lecky and 
 Froude, says that " the discouragement to improvements 
 arising from our present method of letting our lands by 
 short leases of 21 years is obvious to all." At 
 page 472, seq., he writes: — "Places where the num- 
 ber of Papists is great, it is plain, will never be im- 
 proved ; this is occasioned by the shortness of their 
 leases."' In the same context he tells us that Protestant 
 bishops, in anticipation of promotion to another diocese 
 from the diocese where thev are placed, took fines for 
 leases of three or four vears. And he goes on : — " Have 
 not tenants daily instances before them of landlords 
 squandering away their time and money, and living above 
 their fortunes, upon the prospect they have of retrieving 
 their affairs at the expiration of such leases, by raising 
 extraordinary fines, or setting their lands to those who 
 offer most for them ? Upon renewals, the improving 
 tenant must pay for the landlords' extravagance a sum 
 of money equivalent to the improvement he has made 
 and the utmost value of the land, in case he has been so 
 
 * Lecky : loc. cit 
 
 "f Essay on the Tiade and Improrement of Ireland, 1729; re- 
 printed in The Tracts and Treatises on Ireland already mentioned. 
 
 L 
 
162 IKISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY — AGRICULTURE. 
 
 provident as to have acquired any money, which seldom 
 happens upon such tenures ; or he must give a nominal 
 great rent for the future if he renews his lease, otherwise 
 the next person who offers a trifle more gets his land, 
 and he is turned adrift, to serve in like manner the next 
 whose lease is expired. Thus, where the landlord proves 
 extravagant, he scarcely ever distinguishes between an 
 imjoroving and a non-improving tenant." He then de- 
 scribes how, when leases fell in, the fact was published 
 at the chapels or market towns, and tenders of rents 
 Were invited and taken, just as contractors to-day send in 
 sealed tenders for a building ; and consequently the oc- 
 cupying tenant, in order to secure his tenancy, v,-as 
 forced to offer more than the value. And he proceeds 
 — " If any tenant had been a greater improver than his 
 neighbom-, or had his houses and lands in better order, 
 he was sure to be the sufferer. These have been the 
 methods used by some agents to the ruin of the nation, 
 by which means they give landlords a nominal rent-roll, 
 and very often paid part of their rent with a mouthful 
 of moonshine, by reason of tenants breaking and running 
 off in arrears, whilst they themselves, by ways and means, 
 get estates sometimes equal to those of their employers. 
 How then can a tenant improve his land, 
 when he is convinced that after all his care and toil, his 
 improvements will be over-valued, and he be obliged to 
 shift for himself? .... The want of tenure de- 
 prives them of sufficient encouragement for improvements 
 and industry. The present short tenures only serve as a 
 snare to induce the nobility and gentry to be extra- 
 vagant, arbitrary, and sometimes tyrannical, and the 
 commonalty to be dejected, despirited, and in a manner 
 slaves in some places." Thus was all energy paralysed 
 in the people, since, first in the shipping, then in the 
 cattle trade, next in the woollen, then in the linen, then 
 in the glass, cotton, hat, iron, and other manufactures. 
 
ir.ISPI CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 163 
 
 and finally in agricultural industry — their last resource, 
 every obstacle, legal and economic, was thrown in their 
 way, and they were cast down spiritless and prostrate, 
 without encouragement and without hope. No class, no 
 race, would, or could even though they would, maintain 
 a habit of industry under such conditions, unless they 
 were a race of irreclaimable idiots. Now, I put this 
 question straight to Sir Horace Plunkett — for, however 
 I have criticised some of his expressions, I hope as re- 
 spectfully as I would wish, I am thoroughly convinced 
 that he is truthful and sincere — If you, Sir Horace, 
 rented a farm under those conditions just described, 
 would you purchase a plough or even a spade, waste a 
 fraction of your energy or an hour of your time for the 
 sake of improving that farm, excepting the plot on which 
 you could raise as much potatoes as would keep away or 
 kill the pangs of hunger in yourself and your little ones ? 
 I am sure I would not ; it would " shock my economic 
 sense." There is less economic philosophy in hunger and 
 labour than in hunger and ease. 
 
 Yet, Berkeley, the Protestant Bishop of Cloyne, and 
 a philosopher moreover, took it on himself to address the 
 priests of Ireland in 1752, through a pamphlet entitled — 
 A Word to the Wise: or an Exhortation to the Roman 
 Catholic Clergy of Ireland. It has been reprinted in 
 Tracts and Treatises on Ireland, from which I have al- 
 ready quoted. In that pamphlet he appeals to the 
 priests to use their influence in rousing the Catholics from 
 idleness to industry. Whilst reading it I could not 
 make up my mind whether it spoke sarcasm or sincerity, 
 irony or earnestness, or whether the reading of it tended 
 to make me cry or laugh, to be angry or amused. I give 
 the following extracts from it; which, to appreciate their 
 proper meaning and purpose, must be read in the light 
 of what I have written : — 
 
 " It is the want of industry that occasions all our 
 
164 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY — AGRICULTURE. 
 
 wants. There remains in the natives of this island a 
 remarkable antipathy to labour. You, Gentlemen, can 
 alone conquer their innate, hereditary sloth. Do you, 
 then, as you love your country, exert yourselves "* 
 " Havinty long observed and bewrailed this wretched 
 fitate of my countrymen, and the insufficiency of several 
 methods set on foot to reclaim them, I have recourse to 
 your Reverences, as the dernier resort." \ "Alas! 
 liow many incentives to industry offer themselves 
 to the inhabitants in this island, crying aloud to the 
 inhabitants for work ! Roads to be repaired, fisheries on 
 the coasts, plantations to be raised, manufactures im- 
 proved, and above all, lands to be tilled and sowed with 
 all sorts of grain. When so many circumstances provoke 
 and animate your people to labour, when the laws, the 
 magistrates, and the very country calls upon them, you 
 cannot think it becomes you alone to be silent, or hind- 
 most in every project for the public good. . . . There 
 is small encouragement, say you, for them to build or 
 plant upon another's land wherein they have only a tem- 
 porary interest. To which I answer that life itself is 
 temporary. . . It will be said that the hardness of 
 the landlord cramps the industry' of the tenant. But if 
 rent be high and the landlord rigorous, there is more need 
 for industry in the tenant. . . . Certainly, if I may 
 advise you, you should in return for the lenity and in- 
 dulgence of the Government, endeavour to make your- 
 selves useful to the public. "J " Many suspect 
 your religion to be the cause of that notorious idleness 
 which prevails so generally among the natives of this 
 island, as if the Roman Catholic Faith was inconsistent 
 with honest diligence in a man's calling. But, whoever 
 considers the great spirit of industry that reigns in 
 Flanders and France, and even beyond the Alps, must 
 acknowledge this to be a groundless suspicion. In Pied- 
 
 * Page 208. t Page 209. X Page 212. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE. 165 
 
 mont and Genoa, in the Milanese and Venetian state, 
 and indeed throughout all Lombardy, how well is the 
 soil cultivated, what manufactures of silk, velvet and 
 paper and other commodities flourish ! The King of 
 Sardinia will suffer no idle hands in his territories, no 
 beggar to live by the sweat of another's brow ; it has 
 been made penal at Turin to relieve a strolling beggar. 
 To which I might add that the person whose authority 
 will be of the greatest weight to you, even the Pope him- 
 self, is at this day endeavouring to put new life 
 into the trade and manufactures of his country."* 
 Berkeley was, what is called in metaphysics, an 
 idealist ; that is, roughly speaking, he held that the ex- 
 ternal world was but one's own idea projected outwards 
 and fixed outside one like a man's face in a looking-glass. 
 I am not surprised. I could hardly save myself from 
 idealism whilst I was reading those passages I have 
 quoted from his pamphlet. It is hard to trust one's eyes 
 to the reality of things when reading such cruel effron- 
 tery and untrammelled nonsense from the pen of a man of 
 a singularly acute and powerful mind. But his economic 
 idealism was in theory to be applied only to the Papists 
 whom each Protestant soul in his diocese cost in tithes 
 every year £10 a soul to save. In practice he 
 pinned his faith to a princely income, to the 
 extensive mensal lands which stretched out from 
 his palace at Cloyne, to the four acres of a garden 
 noted for fruit-culture, especially strawberries which his 
 Lordship loved, to the surrounding shrubberies and the 
 winding walks, some of them more than a quarter of a 
 mile long, and adorned with hedges of myrtles, six feet 
 high, planted by the bishop's own hand, or leading away 
 among sequestered and over-hanging crags of limestone into 
 caverns of unknown depth such as the imagination of the 
 people might colonise with traditions of fairies, gob- 
 Page 221. 
 
166 IRISH CATHOLIC INDUSTP.Y — AGRICULTURE. 
 
 lins. and ghosts. I am merely giving a rough sketch of the 
 place as described by one of Berkeley's immediate suc- 
 cessors in a letter to Dr. Parr. Berkeley, the apostle 
 of economics and industry to the Irish priests 
 and people of his day, gave his services free and uncalled 
 for : Ijerkeley, the Protestant bishop, enjoyed as large an 
 income for doing nothing, as the Catholic bishop and all 
 the priests of Cloyne together. Pity on those Papists 
 who remained uninfluenced by his example of industry 
 in cultivating strawberries and planting myrtle hedges! 
 But why do I at all revive what was written so long ago ? 
 Because, as an expression of feeling, it is no better and 
 no worse, but of a piece with similar counsels of insult 
 and insincerity, which have been given to the priests and 
 people of Ireland in unbroken succession down to this 
 dav. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW THEIR SUPERIORS OF THE " SIMPLER CHRISTIANITY " 
 
 HAVE TRAINED IRISH CATHOLICS TO INDUSTRIAL 
 
 HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 
 
 Lecky writes: — "For reasons whicli have been often 
 explained, Catholicism is, on the whole, less favourable 
 to the industrial virtues than Protestantism, but yet 
 the case of France, of Flanders, and of the Northern 
 States of Italy, show that a very high standard of 
 industry may, under favourable circumstances, be 
 attained in a Catholic country. But, in Ireland the 
 debilitating influence of numerous church holidays, 
 and of a religious encouragement of mendicancy, 
 was felt in a society in which employment was rare, inter- 
 mittent, and miserably underpaid, and in which Catholic 
 industry was legally deprived of its appropriate rewards. 
 Very^ naturally, therefore, habits of gross and careless 
 idleness prevailed which greatly aggravated the poverty 
 of the nation. At the same time the class of middlemen 
 or large leaseholders was naturally encouraged, for 
 whilst they escaped some of the most serious evils of the 
 landlord, they were guarded by the law from all Catholic 
 competition, and accordingly possessed the advantage 
 of monopoly. It was soon discovered that one of the 
 easiest ways for a Protestant to make money was by 
 taking a large tract of country from an absentee land- 
 lord at a long lease, and by letting it at rack-rents to 
 Catholic cottiers." He is here writing of the condition 
 of Irish Catholics at the time when Berkeley wrote. It 
 is a clever amalgam of truth and falsehood, in which 
 
168 INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 
 
 anti-Catliolic bigotry is glossed over with that apparent 
 philosophic impartiality which Lecky affects. As be- 
 tween Catholicism aud Prot-estantism generally, he is 
 on the whole an impartial writer. But that does not 
 absolve him from the stain of non-Catholic partiality. 
 We must recollect that he was not a Protestant of the 
 ordinary Anglican or Church-of-Ireland species. His Pro- 
 testant doctrine of private judgment had led him to 
 ignore the supernatural ; and the form of Protestantism 
 in which he thought he had found salvation was simple 
 naturalism. He discusses every question which bears on 
 Catholicism from a naturalistic standpoint, taking for 
 granted that Ihe Catholic principle as opposed to his own 
 is for a certainty false, and then proceeds to discuss the 
 consequences of the Catholic principle using his own as 
 the criterion of his judgment — a most unfair and un- 
 philosophic thing to do. Hence, whilst as between 
 Catholicism and what is called orthodox Protestantism 
 he is impartial on the whole, as between Catholicism and 
 naturalism he is as keen a bigot as the rest of them. 
 The same narrow philosophy pervades the writings of 
 agnostics generally. They have a fundamental, positive, 
 and definite doctrine, that man knows nothing about 
 what is called the supernatural. If they themselves 
 happen not to know it, let them by all means enjoy their 
 agnosticism if they can ; but when they say that it is 
 "unknowable," they make their minds the measure of 
 the minds of all men, including St. Thomas, Leibnitz, 
 Pascal, Rosmini, and Brownson ; and thus they assume 
 their own personal conviction to be the criterion of truth. 
 From the fact that they have passed beyond the stage of 
 partiality towards the ordinary forms of orthodox Pro- 
 testantism as against Catholicism, they pose before the 
 public as the only men of disinterested investigation. 
 They assume to have earned and to possess a monopoly of 
 impartial criticism all round. The fact is that one can 
 
INDUSTRIAL HABTTS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 169 
 
 find in agnosticism and naturalism bigots quite as blue 
 as a Belfast Orangeman. They want the public to grant 
 them a patent for impartiality because they impartially 
 i-eject all principles except their own. 
 
 Burke called trade, commerce and manufactures, "the 
 gods of the economical politicians." Thus to the mind of 
 Lecky, Protestantism is preferable to Catholicism, inas- 
 much as it is more favourable to the industrial virtues ; and 
 having committed himself to that opinion he directly 
 passes on to commit himself, even in the same sentence, 
 to the same inconsistency to which Sir Horace Plunkett 
 has committed himself. Indeed, the social economics of 
 Sir Horace and himself are so closely allied that either 
 they must have compared notes, or they sat under the 
 same master, took away his teaching and wrote it down 
 as their independent thinking; unless the case be that 
 one of them borrowed his philosophy from the other. 
 
 As I have already shown, I am not, as a Catholic, at all 
 concerned to prove that Catholicism is better or even 
 equal to non-Catholicism of any kind in the matter of 
 trade, commerce, manufactures, or making money. Those 
 matters, of course, form part of human duty ; but to 
 take them as implying a philosophy of human life is as 
 foolish as to take a fraction of a man's body for the 
 whole. If the cases of France, Flanders, and Italy, 
 show that a " a very high standard of industry may be 
 attained in a Catholic country," what are those " favour- 
 able circumstances " which he wedges in as a necessary 
 complement to Catholicism? Is it that they should be 
 without an England to misgovern them? If so, what 
 about those " industrial virtues " of Protestantism? Is 
 it that they should start on their industrial career by 
 rejecting the supernatural? If so, then his own cases, 
 especially Belgium, belie his own principles. He and 
 Sir Horace stand on the same turf-bank, and both tumble 
 into the same bog-hole. The rest of the extract I have 
 
170 INDUSTRIAL UABlTS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 
 
 just made, not to speak of what I have alread}- quoted 
 from him, ought not to have left it necessary for Lecky 
 to seek " in the debilitating influence of numerous church 
 holidays, and of a religious encouragement of mendi- 
 cancy ' for a supplementary cause of those " habits of 
 gross and careless idleness," which he finds in the Irish 
 Catholics of the eighteenth century. I will say nothing 
 now about the Church holidays, except that he might 
 have learned from the pamphlets of Dobbs or Sir \Vm. 
 Petty, which he often quotes, that the Church holidays 
 iu Ireland were not at all as numerous as in France, 
 rianders, or Italy; and yet he admits that these have 
 prospered. Later on I shall have to say more on 
 the subject in connection with similar diatribes made by 
 Sir Horace Plunkett. But, why does he drag in " reli- 
 gious encouragement of mendicancy " as a cause of the 
 habitual idleness of which he writes? He himself tells 
 us that Catholics were evicted from their holdings and 
 were driven in thousands from their homes, by middle- 
 men, or by some one of the series of middlemen who came 
 between the absentee landlord and the Catholic cottier, 
 to be superseded by sheep or cows. He says 
 " an inevitable consequence of the pressure of 
 pasture upon population was an enormous increase of 
 that nomadic pauperism which is one of the chief sources 
 of national idleness and crime " ; and elsewhere he tells 
 us, as if with tears iu his words, that they were driven 
 to beggary. What then were they to do? The Poor 
 Law system had not been yet introduced into Ireland, 
 nor for a long time after ; hence they could not go to the 
 workhouse. Were they to turn foot-pads on the 
 common, and appeal to force and the natural law for that 
 extreme right to live which fraud and the civil law 
 denied them? But that would "'shock the economic 
 sense' ; it would scandalize the scientific consciences of 
 naturalistic philosophers. The needy begged their bread 
 
INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD A^^D EXAMPLE. 171 
 
 of those who, though poor, were better oflf than them- 
 selves ; and because they were not driven from the door 
 and left to starve in the name of economic science, the 
 Catholic charity which was touched by their tales of dis- 
 tress and which relieved their wants is stigmatized as " a 
 religious encouragement of mendicancy " and as a con- 
 siderable cause of a great social evil. 
 
 Attain he writes of the penal code that "it 
 rendered absolutely impossible dn Ireland the forma- 
 tion of that habit of instinctive and unreasoning re- 
 verence for law which is one of the most essential condi- 
 tions of English civilisation, and, at the same time, by 
 alienating the people from their Government, it made 
 the ecclesiastical organization to which they belonged 
 the real centre of their affections and their enthusiasm." 
 That "instinctive and unreasoning reverence for law" 
 has ever been, to the mind of Catholics, a consummation 
 devoutly to be wished, provided that the law observe that 
 distributive justice which has the sanction of a higher 
 law than the law of the land. Hence, I do not recall the 
 passage to differ from it, but merely to ask how does 
 Lecky fall in with an " unreasoning reverence for law," 
 whilst he falls out with an " unreasoning reverence " for 
 religion ? For, the attempt to fret away and undermine 
 that " unreasoning reverence," which is the crown of the 
 virtue of supernatural faith, forms the weft and woof of 
 his History of Rationalism, and of his History of 
 European Morals; and the same trend is betrayed on 
 every occasion in the work with which I am now dealing. 
 The penal code, he says, " made the Irish people the most 
 fervent Catholics in Europe, but yet it was nut without 
 an injurious influence on the moral side of their religion. 
 No class amongst them had such moral influence as the 
 priests, but few classes have ever subsisted under more 
 demoralising conditions. Springing for the most part 
 from the peasant ranks, sharing their prejudices and 
 
172 INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE, 
 
 tlieir passions, and depending absolutely on their contri- 
 butions, miserably ignorant, and miserably poor, they 
 were an illegal class compelled to associate with smug- 
 glers, robbers and privateers, to whose assistance they 
 were often obliged to resort in order to escape the minis- 
 ters of justice." If then the penal code " made the 
 Irish people the most fervent Catholics in Europe," are 
 we to conclude that, before the penal code inspired them, 
 they had never merited any special distinction by the 
 fervency of their faith ? That is what his words plainly 
 imply. I have no doubt that the penal laws had an 
 accidental influence on their attachment to their 
 faith. Virtue is both tested and improved by 
 trial. But what Leeky implies in the passage is a 
 misrepresentation of history as well as a mis- 
 understanding of Catholic pidnciples. What he means 
 by the "injurious influence on the moral side of their 
 religion " we may learn from these references to the 
 action of the Catholics : — " Illegal combination was con- 
 secrated when it was essential to the performance of 
 religious duty. . . . Eternal salvation, in the eyes 
 of the great majority of the Irish, could only be obtained 
 by a course of conduct condemned by the law." And 
 that is the injurious influence on the moral side of their 
 religion ! They were so devoid of an " unreasoning re- 
 verence for the law which is one of the most essential con- 
 ditions of English civilisation," that they dared to cling 
 to their faith and to practise their religion in spite of it ! 
 And, like people, like priest. 
 
 And what are those demoralising conditions under 
 which the Irish priests of those days subsisted 1 Why, 
 here they are: — They sprung "for the most part from 
 the peasant ranks"; which, by the wa}', is untrue in 
 fact, as he might have learned from Sir W^m. Petty, who 
 <:>ught to know more about them than Lecky, since he was 
 their contemporary. I find on page 65 of the pamphlet 
 
INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 173 
 
 to which Lecky often refers: — "The priests are chosen 
 for the most part out of old Irish gentry, and thereby 
 influence the people as well by their interest as by their 
 office." I must not be understood as thinking this to be 
 a circumstance of importance ,;, the early apostles were not 
 of consular rank, and yet the result of their labours was 
 great ; but Lecky should not ask the public to take fancy 
 for fact. Again, " they shared the prejudices and the 
 passions " of the people. Yes, I suppose that they had 
 their " prejudices " against the condition of civil life 
 under which they had to live ; and by all accounts they did 
 not piously hug their chains nor conceive an '' unreason- 
 ing reverence" for the law that put them in shackles. 
 Again, they "absolutely depended on the contributions" 
 of the people, whilst they had several ways of escape from 
 that position of dependence. They might have retired 
 to the woods and starved ; or they might have 
 fled the country, and thus would have spared 
 the ministers of the law the trouble which 
 their presence gave; or, if they had only the 
 "economic sense" to adopt the "simpler Christianity" 
 they would have secured the rich benefices which had 
 once been theirs, but which that Christianity in its sim- 
 plicity had absorbed. What Lecky evidently means is 
 that the dependence of which he speaks so demoralised 
 them that thej' did not use their influence in getting the 
 people to respect the law — that law forsooth which made 
 them outlaws. But thev did use their influence in sup- 
 pressing an}- social disorder which arose ; and of their 
 action in this regard, Lecky himself admits that they 
 acted " with great uprightness and courage." They 
 did not fail then, as they do not fail now, to do their 
 duty ; but it was not their duty to inculcate reverence 
 for what was law in name, but iniquity in reality. 
 Again, they " were miserablv ignorant "; although their 
 very disregard for the law secured for almost all of them 
 
174 INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 
 
 the advantage of an education in the Universities and 
 Seminaries of France, Spain, and Italy. I presume that 
 Lecky accepts their " ignorance " on the authority of Sir 
 Wm. Petty, who says that "there is much superstition 
 amongst them," because " they have a great opinion of 
 holy wells, and of the cells of men reputed saints" — a 
 superstition which was, and is, common to all Catholics. 
 Again, " they were miserably poor." I admit it — to 
 their honour, and to the shame of those who caused it. 
 Although he informs us that they were " miserably 
 poor." he informs us also that the Catholics "were ground 
 to the dust by three great burdens — rack-rents paid, not 
 to the landlord, but to the middleman; tithes paid to 
 the clergy — often the absentee clergy — of the church 
 to which they did not belong; and dues paid to their 
 own priests." Now, if the dues paid to the priests were 
 so large as to be associated with tithes and rack-rents, 
 how could the priests be " miserably poor? " or, if they 
 were " miserably poor," how could the dues paid to them 
 be one of the three great burdens which ground the 
 people to the dust ? Of course the two do not lit to- 
 gether ; but consistency does not count with Lecky any 
 more than with Froude when contradictory statements 
 come in as convenient missiles with which to pelt the 
 priests. He cannot put this oppression of the people on 
 the stage without bringin-2, the priests into the play 
 " armed with the terror of damnation," to use words 
 which he borrows from Boulter, the Protesta^nt Primate, 
 and father of the Charter Schools. As a luatter of fact, 
 the vast majority of t'le priests of those days had no 
 home, but went about amongst their scattered flocks, 
 who gladly gave them hospitality — without "the terror of 
 damnation " — an insult which Lecky might have spared 
 the people for whom he affected sympathy. I 
 also admit that it is " a demoralising condition " if we 
 take the ' economic sense ' for a moral code. Filially, they 
 
INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 175 
 
 " were an illegal class compelled to associate with smug- 
 tilers, robbers, and privateers, to whose assistance they 
 were often obliged to resort in ojder to escape the 
 ministers of justice." Yet, in the same context he 
 writes that " their conduct in many respects was very 
 noble. The zeal with which they maintained the re- 
 ligious life of their flocks during the long period of per- 
 secution is beyond all praise." And after quoting the 
 contrast which Spenser drew between their zeal and "the 
 negligences of the idle ministers, the creatures of a cor- 
 rupt patronage," he says that " they displayed the same 
 fervid r.eal in the days of the Cromwellian persecution, 
 and during all the long period of the Penal Laws " ; that 
 " they were singularly free from moral scandals " ; that 
 " the strength of their principles was sufficiently shown 
 by their almost unanimous refusal of the abjuration 
 oath, and by the extreme paucity of conversions among 
 them at a time when a large reward was offered for the 
 apostacy of a priest." But all that does not justify them 
 in his eyes, because " they were not disposed to set them- 
 selves in bold opposition to disloyalty," and " their in- 
 fluence, though sometimes exerted to save life and to 
 repress disorder, has not on the whole been favourable 
 to law." Loyalty to the law of the land is Lecky's 
 supreme moral code. Now, loyalty is the spirit of 
 obedience to law. But what law? The law that placed 
 them outside its protection, and yet expected them to be 
 loyal to it? The law that placed them in a position of 
 disloyalty by placing them outside itself ? 
 
 I have gone so much into this matter for the purpose of 
 pointing out that the principles by whieh Lecky judges 
 and censures the Irish priests and i>eople of the 18th 
 century have led Sir Horace Plunkett to judge and 
 censure their successoi-s of to-day. But let us return. 
 
 In the midst of the commercial, manufacturing, and 
 
176 INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 
 
 agricultural ruin which was made, pity for the neglected 
 condition of Irish Catholics was stirred up in the philan- 
 thropic breasts of those who caused it, and inspired the 
 establishment of schools for the technical training of those 
 •who had been left without an industry on wliich to practise 
 whon they were trained. At first sight it looks as 
 great a mockery as some of our present technical schools. 
 But the sacriligious dishonesty of the founders found a 
 way out of that difficulty, for which the self-sacrificing 
 honesty of Sir Horace Plunkett cannot find any parallel 
 through our present difficulties. Their plan was as 
 simple as their " simpler Christianity." I will let 
 Froude explain it :— " In 1710, boys and girls who would 
 become Protestants were taught to grow hemp and flax, 
 and to spin, etc." That is how those philanthropists 
 helped them to industrial habits. Then came the 
 Charter Schools, founded in 1733, which the Protestant 
 Bishop of Elphin, inspired by pious hope for the prosely- 
 tism and Anglicizatiou of the people, described " as Eng- 
 lish Protestant working schools established for English 
 and national interests, from which little colonies, in- 
 structed in religion, and inured to labour from their 
 tender years, might be sent out to cultivate the barren 
 and neglected parts of the kingdom, and raise a spirit of 
 industry and activity in the nation." Froude says that 
 this Charter School system shows " a degree of practical 
 intelligence as good as could be found in the most 
 favoured parts of Europe. . . . The education itself 
 •was probably the very best which has ever been devised 
 in modern times. Pity only that for so large a harvest 
 there were but few reapers, and that the work that could 
 be done was limited bv restrictions of finance." But he 
 adds — " the priests were furious."'* Campbell, in 
 his Philosophical Tour in the South of Ireland, says of 
 the Catholics who boycotted those schools : — 
 " Such is the bigotry of those deluded people, 
 
 * Vol. I. pages 575-577. 
 
INDUSTFJAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 177 
 
 that nothing but absolute want could prevail on 
 them to suflfer their children to receive an education 
 which, as they conceive, endangers their salvation " — 
 There are philosophers to-day who also bewail the 
 same ''bigotry'' in u?, and almost daily chant 
 the same threnody over our delusion. Will we Papists 
 ever learn " economic sense " ? Will we ever bring balm 
 to the wounded spirit of our pious benefactors by trans- 
 ferring our ''' centre of gra^aty'' from the next life and by 
 fixing it in this ? Yet Lecky assures us that " the system 
 was set up, no doubt, with the best intentions." And, 
 notwithstanding the want of financial support which 
 Froude deplores, they were supported by the Irish Par- 
 liament till the Union ; and after the Union the English 
 Parliament spent £675,707 on them in twenty-five years, 
 till thev literally died of physical and moral rottenness. 
 In all, they cost the public £1,606,237, which is equal 
 to about £8,000,000 at present, for the education of an 
 average of about 1,800 pupils. Howard, in his State of 
 Prisons, denounced them as dens of lies and deception 
 on the part of those who controlled them, as dens of 
 mental and religious ignorance and of moral and physical 
 filth on the part of the unfortunate children who were 
 decoyed into them. Even government, which had sus- 
 tained them so long, could endure them no longer ; and 
 a Commission of Inquiry found that the children were 
 half fed, were almost naked, were covered with vermin, 
 that many of them at the age of twelve could neither 
 read nor spell, that at an early age they were made to 
 work in the fields for the profit of their masters. That is 
 how they were tiained to industry — and to save their 
 souls! 
 
 So much for the manner in which our fellow-country- 
 men of the superior order sought to school the Irish 
 Catholics of those days into '' industrial virtues " and 
 
178 INDUSTRIAL HABITS BY WORD AND EXAMPLE. 
 
 " civic efficiencies." But " the zeal of God's house had 
 eaten them up." They were not satisfied with word, 
 they taught us also by example ; and I will let Lecky 
 tell how they did it. " The country gentry inherited 
 traditions of violence, extravagance, and bigotry. Their 
 relations to their tenantry were peculiarly demoralising. 
 Men who in England would have been modest and 
 laborious farmers, in Ireland sublet their land at rack- 
 rents, kept miserable packs of half-starved hounds, wan- 
 dered about from fair to fair and from race to race in 
 laced coats, gambling, fighting, drinking, swearing, 
 ravishing, and sporting, parading everywhere their con- 
 tempt for honest labour, giving a tone of recklessness to 
 every society in which they moved. The class of middle- 
 men and squireens were utterly destitute of industrial 
 virtues, and concentrated in themselves most of the dis- 
 tinctive vices of the Ii'ish character. They were the chief 
 agents in agrarian tyranny, and their pernicious in- 
 fluence on manners, in a country where the prohibition 
 of manufactures had expatriated the most industrious 
 classes and artificially checked the formation of indus- 
 trial habits, can hardly be over-rated. They probably 
 did more than any other class to sustain that race of ex- 
 travagance which ran through all ranks above the level of 
 the cottier, and that illiberal and semi-barbarous con- 
 tempt for industrial pursuits, which was one of the 
 greatest obstacles to national progress. False ideals, 
 false standards of excellence, grew up among the 
 people, and they came to look upon idleness and extra- 
 vagance as noble things, upon parsimony, order, and in- 
 dustry as degrading to a gentleman."* 
 
 ^- Vol. I., 292, 293, 294. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY; IRISH 
 
 INDUSTRY UNDER A HOME AND UNDER A FOREIGN 
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 From what I have written it appears plain that the 
 Catholics of Ireland, even though they were " strenuous" 
 Protestants instead of " uneconomic " Papists, could 
 not have remained industrial by reason of the legalised 
 manacles which tied their activity. If they had the 
 will, they had not the way; and, from the description 
 which Arthur Young and others have left us of the 
 Protestant gentry of his time, it must be admitted 
 that those who had the way had not the will. And set- 
 ting the worst against the worst of each class, I think 
 that the misguided peasants who, in white garments or 
 blackened faces, flew for redress to the wild justice of 
 revenge, had provocation and oppression to extenuate 
 their guilt, in contrast to the wilful and dissolute law- 
 lessness practised by the fashionable " Blasters " of the 
 Hell-Fire Club. 
 
 The Penal laws had failed to force the Catholics into 
 Protestantism ; the Charter Schools and other institu- 
 tions had failed to coax them into it. That stands in 
 proof that they were a people of purpose and character. 
 In industrial life, commerce, manufacture, and agricul- 
 tui-e gave them no scope, and they were disabled from 
 showing whether they were industrious or indolent. They 
 were excluded from every profession, from every public 
 ofl&ce, high or low. They were excluded from the common 
 rights to which the taxes they paid entitled them ; and 
 they were burdened with taxes from which the Protes- 
 tants were exempt. They had to pay double to the 
 Militia, and if England happened to be at war with a 
 Catholic nation they had to make good the damage done 
 by the privateers of the enemy. Although, in the course 
 of the 18th century, the law which forbade them to live 
 
180 IRISH CATHOLIC ilERCHAXT INDUSTRY. 
 
 in such cities as Limerick and Galway became a dead 
 letter, they were not recognised as citizens of any cor- 
 porate town.* They were but as aliens in the land 
 of their fathers and in the cities of their birth. They 
 could not purchase property in the country, neither could 
 they purchase it in the town. It is true that in com- 
 merce and in manufactures the Catholics and the non- 
 Catholics of Ireland were crippled by the same restrictive 
 laws; but even within that limited sphere of industrial 
 life the position of the two was very different. Irish 
 energy, in general, was tied down only in as far as it 
 might come in conflict with English interests, but Irish 
 Catholic energy had no play at all lest it should injure the 
 interests of Irish Protestants. The well-known law 
 which forbade a Catholic to possess a horse worth more 
 than £5, and which empowered any Protestant discover- 
 ing such to claim its ownership, was directed against their 
 industrial progress. Such also was the pui*pose of the 
 law which prohibited a Catholic tradesman from having 
 more than two apprentices, and the most lucrative trades 
 were long kept exclusively in the hands of Protestants 
 by their refusing to take any Catholic apprentice. Even 
 as tradesmen, merchants, or shopkeepers — the only in- 
 dustries which remained open to them — they laboured 
 under many disadvantages. The direct action of the law 
 did not affect them much in this respect, but it gave their 
 Protestant comj>etitors privileges and means of harassing 
 them, through which they became the victims of many 
 illegal disabilities. For instance. Catholic tradesmen or 
 shopkeepers were not allowed to work at their trade or 
 
 *"I gladly record the fact that Catholics in some cases held 
 property through the kindness of Protestants, who allowed their 
 names to appear as the owners. I know a Protestant family in 
 Limerick who possess a document which their grandfather received 
 from the Catholic Bishop about church property which their 
 ancestore had held in private trust for the Catholic Bishop of 
 Liiufrick thrciigh the Penal Days." 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 181 
 
 to sell their goods in the cities or towns without the pay- 
 ment of an exorbit^ant tax laeculiar to themselves, which 
 was called quarterage. That was not a legal exaction; 
 but they vrere driven to submit to it under threat of being 
 summoned to take the oath of abjuration.* The cities and 
 towns were ruled exclusively by Protestant corporations, 
 and the Catholics had to take what they got, thankful 
 that they were allowed to live at all. They were without 
 a voice in municipal affairs far into the 19th century. 
 And so late as 1812, Denys Scully, a well-known Catholic 
 lawyer, in his Statement of the Penal Laws, a work of 
 great ability which, though little known now, made 
 a sensation when it appeared, complains that " Pro- 
 testant merchants and traders possess decided local 
 advantages over the Catholics, which frequently serve 
 as substitutes for capital, skill, and industry; bestowing 
 fictitious credit, personal respect, and undue priority of 
 information. The number of Protestants thus favoured 
 has been shown to amount to nearly 4,000, in the dif- 
 ferent cities and towns in Ireland. How severely must 
 trade be oppressed, and its freedom coerced in a country 
 where those persons monopolize all power, influence, and 
 public recommendation, enjoying (at the expense of the 
 community) unquestioned authority, exemption from 
 tolls, preference in the markets, and peculiar favour in 
 all beneficial contracts within the influence or disposal 
 of the crown, whilst, on the other hand, the Catholic 
 merchant, tradesman, artisan, etc., is involved in a con- 
 tinual, but ineffectual, struggle against, not only the 
 general severity of the Anti-Catholic system, but also 
 the i^eculiar hardships and vexations attached to his lot 
 in his particular town. He sinks under the pressure of 
 these accumulated burdens. He is debased by the gall- 
 ing ascendancy of privileged neighbours ; depressed by 
 partial imposts; undue preferences bestowed upon his 
 
 ■* Burkf — Tracts on tlie Popery Laws. 
 
182 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 competitor ; a local inquisition ; an uncertain and un- 
 equal measure of justice ; fraud and favouritism daily 
 and openly practised to his prejudice. 
 
 " This hostility is so virulent as to refuse employment 
 to Catholic tradesmen, artisans, servants, Szc, merely on 
 account of their religion. Persons are to be found, even 
 in the higher ranks of life, holding great offices or com- 
 mands, deriving splendid incomes from the taxation of 
 the Catholic people, who will not hire or employ any 
 Catholic. They import their stewards, agents, tenants, 
 gardeners, household servants from England, Scotland, 
 Germany, Switzerland, rather than employ an Irish 
 Catholic. They even pique themselves on this un- 
 natural fastidiousness. The Irish prints abound with 
 advertisements, and offers of various situations, stipulat- 
 ing for the Protestantism of the party as the chief recom- 
 mendation. If any Protestant, foreigner or other, is to 
 be had, he is preferred to the native Catholic. 
 
 " Thus the honest industry of Catholics is very 
 generally damped and repressed, especially in the cities 
 and towns. Those employments, indeed, which are be- 
 neath the sphere of Protestant ambition, such as day- 
 labourers, etc., are still within the reach of Catholics; 
 but no selection for beneficial occupation, no public re- 
 ward or honour, cheers the Catholic artist or tradesman. 
 His inducements to attain excellence are limited and 
 scanty; whilst those of his Protestant neighbour are 
 various and in-esistible." 
 
 And in 1807, William Parnell, in his Historical 
 Apology for the Irish Catholics, thus points out the ordi- 
 nary and daily disabilities of Catholics : — " A Catho- 
 lic suffers the three most poignant feelings that can 
 touch the human heart. The Government of his 
 country passes a vote of censure on him. His fellow- 
 citizen expresses contempt for him, and expresses it with 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 183 
 
 impunity. The child of his aflfection blushes for him, 
 and mourns for himself, when he learns that he neces- 
 sarily inherits from his father a blot and a reproach, 
 which no private virtues or mental endowments can 
 obliterate or conceal. Not only a Protestant Lord looks 
 down upon a Catholic Lord, and a Protestant gentleman 
 upon a Catholic gentleman, but a Protestant peasant 
 upon a Catholic peasant; and, in proportion as the 
 degrading scale descends, the expression of contempt 
 becomes more marked and gross." 
 
 Yet, in spite of quarterages, of unjust town rates, 
 against which they had no means of redress, in spite of 
 having no voice in the town council or market, of getting 
 no fair play, of having to bear social and business dis- 
 abilities in silence, the Catholic tradesmen, merchants, 
 and shopkeepers of Dublin, Limerick, Cork, and Water- 
 ford, etc., were the ablest and wealthiest business men 
 in their respective cities. Am I palming fancy for fact 
 upon my readers? Let us see. Sir William Petty 
 ^rote:— " It is not to be denied that in Ireland, where 
 the Roman religion is not authorised, there the profes- 
 sors thereof have a great part of the trade."* 
 
 The Protestant Archbishop King wrote in 1719 :—" By 
 the Act against Popery that hinders Papists to purchase 
 land, they have turned themselves entirely to trade, and 
 most of the trade of the kingdom is -ngrossed by them." 
 In 1739, the author of the pamphlet, Some Considera- 
 tions on the Lavs which incapacitate Papists from Pur- 
 chasing Land, etc., wrote :—" Papists being incapacitated 
 either to purchase land, or to lend money on such securi- 
 ties, have engrossed to themselves a great share of the 
 trade and commerce of this island, and of consequence 
 annually come into possession of a considerable quantity 
 of the wealth accruing to it." In 1741, the author of 
 A Dissertation on the Enlargement of Tillage, warns the 
 public that " the Papists are daily engrossing what Htble 
 
 * Political Arithmetic, page 118. 
 
184 IRISH CATHOLIC MEKCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 trade remains, and consequently the greatest part of cm' 
 current cash into their own hands.'' On the strength of 
 such evidence, Lecky admits that " in the Southern 
 counties, at the time when the provision trade was 
 flourishing, many Catholic merchants had acquired large 
 foi*tunes and great local influence, and they exercised 
 seme indirect patronage over Protestants, and wei^e the 
 chief money-lenders in the island.''* The indirect patron- 
 age and the money-lending ai-ose in this way. The law 
 had forbidden the Catholics to puixhase land, and, as a 
 corollary, to lend money on land securities, lest a Pro- 
 testant debtor should have to yield up his land to his 
 Catholic creditor. But things came to a dead-lock. The 
 wild extravagance of the Protestant landowners, that 
 race of " strenuous qualities " and " industrial virtues "' 
 swamped them in debt, and let their lands grow as wild 
 as their owners. Male parta, male dilabuntiir. Money 
 should be rais-ed somehow; and the Catholics, whose re- 
 ligion so sins against economic science as to "completely 
 transfer the moral centre of gravity to the next life," 
 were the chief possessors of ready cash in the country. 
 The anti-Catholic economists found that they had made 
 an economic mistake in forcing Catholics to invest their 
 money in foreign securities, thus depriving the country 
 of so much available cash. Hence it Avas not a growing 
 spirit of tolerance towards the Catholics, as Lecky would 
 have us believe, but their own desperate necessities 
 made them, towards the close of the 18th century, gradu- 
 ally and under stringent conditions, permit Catholics to 
 invest money in land, either in extended tenancy or in 
 mortgage. But the process of yielding any rights to the 
 Papists was painful and slow. Even so late as 1812, 
 Denys Scully, in his once celebrated work from which I 
 have already quoted, thus deploiies the result of Catholic 
 disabilities : — " The same misfortunes have prevented the 
 return of many Irish families who have acquired large 
 * Loc. cit. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTFA'. 
 
 185 
 
 fortunes upon the Ck^ntinent, iu the Indies, or in the 
 Colonies. Their valuable capital, experience, skill, in- 
 dustrious habits, enlarged views— what a treasure of im- 
 provement would they not yield to the native land of 
 their possessors ! For years past we have had opportuni- 
 ties of learning some inteiesting particular of this 
 nature; and we can affirm, without exaggeration, that 
 during the last twenty years, capital, to the amount of 
 not less than £4,000,000, with all its attendant benefits, 
 would have been transferred to Ireland by Irish families 
 residing upon the Continent and in the Colonies, if the 
 Penal faws against the Catholics had not disgusted and 
 deterred the proprietors. 
 
 " Some had actually reached London on their return 
 to Ireland, for the purpose of purchasing estates, build- 
 ing dwelling houses, and settling in the land of their 
 fathers. But, upon becoming apprized of the intoler- 
 ance of its laws, system of government, and state of 
 society, they have either stopped short in England, or 
 returned, with breaking hearts, to resume their accus- 
 tomed habits, and breathe their last complaints in 
 foreign climes" 
 
 Now, before leaving this part of my subject, I wish to 
 invite Sir Horace by me, and, with those trade restric- 
 tions, town restrictions, quarterages, and the other dis- 
 abilities which hampered the Catholic traders and shop- 
 keepers of a century ago before our eyes, to beg him to 
 answer his conscience the following simple questions : — 
 Who were the men of economy, of industrial virtues, the 
 men who saved money in those days? And, who wei^ the 
 spendthrifts, the idlers, the extravagant profligates, 
 "the Irish blackguards"* and the "Blastei-s f'f Sir 
 Horace, you don't know what gods you are ! 
 
 » Froiido -r/ic English in Ireland, Vol. I., pagre 451. cf. Also 
 Arthur Yrw.g—Tour in Ireland; Edited by A. H. Hutton, Vol. II., 
 page 155. 
 
 t The name <riven to the naonibrrs of the Kell-firo Club—a Society 
 well worthy of either iianio, -which was open only to tho-e who 
 
18G IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 Shopkeeping, which was the onlv industry left to the 
 Catholics, needed to have little concern for the Pro- 
 testants. These had the land, the possession of which 
 either in fee-simple or in tenancy was not only a source 
 of wealth, but the tessera of respectability. But the 
 want of commerce and manufactures was a grievance 
 common to both. The legislation which had killed those 
 industries in Ireland was more than a century old, when, 
 to use a phrase which has been often used since, 
 England's difficulty became Ireland's opportunity. Eng- 
 land was trying to play with the American colonies the 
 same game which she had played so successfully and so 
 fatally in Ireland ; but the colonists defied and defeated 
 her, and American Independence was the result. More- 
 over, whilst she was occupied with her American troubles, 
 she feared a French invasion of Ireland. The Irish, 
 Catholics and Protestants, saw their opportunity, and 
 they used it. In 1779 they started an Association, the 
 object of which was to exclude the purchase and use of 
 all such English manufactures as could be produced in 
 Ireland. The ladies started a similar Association, which 
 was more determined and destructive ; because they re- 
 solved not only not to wear any goods except Irish, but 
 they declared that they would " not permit the addresses 
 of any of the other sex who are not equally zealous in the 
 cause of their country." The result was that in one year 
 the value of goods imported from England to Ireland fell 
 from £2,000,000 to £595,000. The Irish Parliament 
 met on October 24th, 1779, and passed this resolution: 
 — " That it is not by temporary expedients, but by free 
 trade alone, that this nation is now to be saved from 
 impending ruin." The king's reply was indefinite, but 
 they were not to be deceived. On November 4th the 
 
 claimed to be geiitlenien, with the privilege of misconducting them- 
 selves. There were several houses in Dublin and over the country. 
 The remains of one is still shown near the Falls of Doonas on the 
 Shannon. There was one also in Askcaton, constructed in the old 
 Abbey. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 187 
 
 Volunteers marched to Oollege Green, placed two pieces 
 of cannon before King William's statue, bearing the in- 
 scription — " Free Trade, or this." England, in her diffi- 
 culty, understood the force of that argument, and she 
 was convinced at once. Within a month a Bill had 
 passed through the British Parliament, had received the 
 royal assent and had become law, permitting the free 
 export of wool, woollens, and glass from Ireland. In* 
 the following month, another Bill was passed permitting 
 free trade between Ireland and the colonies ; and within 
 two months more, another Bill was passed permitting the 
 free importation into Ireland of hops, and allowing her 
 to re-open her trade with the East. But those Acts 
 were not a year old when England set about undoing 
 their effects. The Lord Lieutenant was ordered to place 
 an embargo on the export of provisions from Cork, and 
 the English Privy Council reduced a duty which the 
 Irish Parliament had put on refined sugar. It was 
 plain to the Irish that a mere Act of Parliament was no 
 protection, and that they would have the past century's 
 experience over again, of pledges made and broken. The 
 law which had given them free trade was a law made by 
 the English Parliament; but the same Parliament might 
 as easily unmake it. They saw no permanent security 
 unless in a law made by an Irish Parliament. But the 
 Irish Parliament was declared dependent on the English 
 Parliament by the 6 George I., and consequently could 
 not independently make a law. The only remedy was 
 the radical one of making the Irish Parliament autono- 
 mous, so that it could independently make its own law, 
 and regulate its own trade. On February 15th, 1782, 
 the Volunteers assembled at Dungannon and declared 
 that only the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland can 
 make laws for Ireland ; moreover, that the ports of Ire- 
 land are open to all countries not at war with the king, 
 and that any interference therewith except by authority 
 
188 IRISH CATHOLIC MEKJ:HANT INDUSTKY. 
 
 of the Irish Parliament is " unconstitutional, illegal, and 
 a grievance." Behind those resolutions were 80,000 
 men, and more — logic that told like steel on an opponent 
 in difficulties. That was the beginning of Grattan's 
 Parliament. True, it was not an Irish Parliament. The 
 Catholics formed the vast majority of the people ; but no 
 Catholic had a voice in that Parliament; no Catholic 
 had a voice even in electing those who had a voice in it. 
 It was a Protestant Parliament, the Parliament 
 of a mere fraction of the Irish people. It was, how- 
 ever, the beginning of better things. But bigotry- 
 blinded them to even their own interests. If that 
 so-called Irish Parliament at once set about consolidat- 
 ing its independence by sharing with the Catholic 
 majority their rights of citizenship, it would have secured 
 a popular afifection and interest which would have made 
 the Union impossible. Grattan pleaded for justice, but 
 he spoke to deaf ears and st-ony hearts. 
 
 The free trade which was secured by the 
 Volunteers and sustained by Grattan's Parliament 
 is not to be understood in the sense in which 
 we now understand free trade as opposed to 
 protection. That is a species of free trade introduced 
 by English economists about half a century ago. But 
 the Irish Free Trade of 1782 meant freedom from trade 
 restrictions imposed by England ; it really implied pro- 
 tection from English legislative interference. Let us 
 see what was the effect of it on Irish industries. During 
 the 18 years of its existence, the Irish Parliament was 
 chiefly engaged with the economic interests of the 
 country. It does not come within the scope of my work 
 to deal with the laws made during that time.* I have 
 merely to point out the industrial progress made when 
 the Irish people were once more free to work out their 
 
 *For a full account of these, see '/'//»■ I'oiinncrcial I'cUillona of 
 England and Irelaud, by Alice Efiie Ifurray, D.Sc. — a work published 
 last venr. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTKY. 189 
 
 own national salvation. But, let us see the results. Tlie 
 export of linen from Ireland in 1783 was 16,039,705 
 yards, valued at £1,069,313; iu 1796 it was 46,705,319 
 yards, valued at £3,113, 687. 
 
 The following Table, which I take from O'Connell's 
 speech on Repeal before the Dublin Corporation in 1843, 
 shows the relative increase in England and Ireland of 
 the consumption of tea, tobacco, wine, sugar, and cofiee. 
 from 1785 to the Union : — 
 
 Tea — Increase in Ireland 
 
 84 per cent. 
 
 ,, ,, England 
 
 45 
 
 From 1786 to 1800. 
 
 
 Tobacco — ^Increase in Ireland ... 
 
 100 
 
 „ England ... 
 
 W 
 
 From 1787 to 1800. 
 
 
 Wine — Increase in Ireland 
 
 74 
 
 ,, England 
 
 oo 
 
 From 1785 to 1800. 
 
 
 Sugar — Increase in Ireland 
 
 57 
 
 ,, England 
 
 53 
 
 From 1784 to 1800. 
 
 
 Coffee — Increase in Ireland 
 
 600 
 
 ,, England ... 
 
 75 
 
 That table points out the increased purchasing power 
 cf the Irish people from 1782 to 1800. The increase in 
 the consumption of tea, especially in those days, was an 
 evident sign of prosperity, for it was a very expensive 
 article ; and the increased consumption proves that per- 
 sons in the humbler classes, who formerly could not 
 afford to purchase it, gradually became prosperous enough 
 to be able to enjoy that luxury. The table also shows 
 that during that period Ireland became relatively more 
 prosperous than England. 
 
 Let me now give the impressions of a few contem- 
 poraries. Lord Clare, in a speech which he made in 
 
190 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 1798 and published, said: — " There is not a nation on 
 the face of the habitable globe which has advanced in 
 cultivation, in agriculture, in manufactures, with the 
 same rapidity- in the same period, as Ireland." And in 
 1798 Lord Grey drew a contrast between the slow im- 
 provement made by Scotland and the rapid progress 
 made by Ireland : — " For a period of more than 4Q years 
 after the (Scotch) Union, Scotland exhibited no proofs 
 of increased industry and rising wealth. Till 1748 there 
 was no sensible advance of the commerce of Scotland. 
 Several of her manufactures were not established till 60 
 years after the Union, and her principal branch of manu- 
 facture was not, I believe, set up till 1781. The aboli- 
 tion of the heritable jurisdictions was the first great 
 measure that gave an impulse to the spirit of improve- 
 ment in Scotland. Since that time the prosperity of 
 Scotland has been considerable, but certainly not so great 
 as that of Ireland has been within the same period." 
 
 In 1799 Lord Plunkett, in a speech against the Union, 
 refers to " her revenues, her trade, her manufactures, 
 thriving beyond the hope or the example of any other 
 country of her extent ; within these few years advancing 
 with a rapidity astonishing even to herself." 
 
 Well, the Union came, and what was the result? In 
 1810, Mr. Hutton, the head of a great Dublin carriage 
 manufactory, said in the Dublin Corporation — " Some of 
 us remember this country as she was before we recovered 
 and brought back our Constitution in 1782. We are 
 reminded of it by the present period. Then, as now, 
 our merchants were without trade, our shopkeepers with- 
 out customers, our workmen without employment ; then, 
 as now, it became the universal feeling that nothing but 
 the recovery of our rights would save us. Our rights 
 were recovered; and how soon afterwards, indeed, as if 
 by magic, plenty smiled upon us, and we soon became 
 prosperous and happy." 
 
25 
 
 per 
 
 • cent. 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 1,800 
 
 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 191 
 
 I give another table which I take from O'Connell's 
 speech, and which, like the former one, was prepared by 
 Mr. Spring Rice, afterwards Lord Monteagle. It shows 
 the relative consumption of tea, tobacco, wine, sugar, 
 coffee, in England and Ireland in 1827, when the Union 
 bad time to produce its fruits. 
 
 Tea — Increase in England 
 „ Ireland 
 Tobacco — Increase in England 
 
 ,, Decrease in Ireland 
 
 Wine — Increase in England 
 
 ,, Decrease in Ireland 
 Sugar — Increase in England 
 
 ,j J J >> Ireland 
 
 Coffee — Increase in England 
 ,, Ireland 
 
 Acain, in 1800, there were 91 woollen manufacturers 
 in Dublin, and 4,938 hands employed; in 1840 there 
 were only 12 manufacturers, and 682 hands employed ; 
 in 1880, only 3 manufacturers in Dublin and around it. 
 In 1800 there were 56 blanket manufacturers in Kil- 
 kenny, and 3,000 hands employed; in 1840, there were 
 12 manufacturers and 925 hands employed. In 1800 there 
 were 900 hands employed on ratteens and friezes in Ros- 
 crea ; in 1840 the industry had completely disappeared. In 
 180O there were 1,000 flannel looms in Co. Wicklow; 
 in 1840 there was not one. In 1800, there were 2,500 
 looms at work in Dublin for the manufacture of silk and 
 poplin; in 1840, there were only 250. In 1800, there 
 were 27,000 cotton workers in Belfast and around it; in 
 1840, there were only 12,000. In 1800, there were 
 61,075 tradesmen in Dublin for the woollen, silk, and 
 cotton industries; in 1834, there were only 14,446; and 
 of these 4,412 were idle, showing a decrease of 51,041 in 
 the employed. The Fall and Rise of Ireland, a work 
 
192 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 compiled in 1834 by W. J. Battersby as a Repeal 
 Manual, is a magazine of statistics bearing on this sub- 
 ject. The few I have given sufficiently illustrate the 
 decline of Irish industries after 1800. But the radical 
 cause of the decline is to be found in the 6th Article of 
 the Union, and in its application to Ireland by the 
 British Parliament.* The infant manufacturers of Ire- 
 land were exposed, by the abolition of protective duties, 
 to the overwhelming competition of the great capital and 
 the long-established advantages of England. 
 
 The hope of Irish Catholics was again thrown back 
 upon the land. But it was hoping against hope. Dur- 
 ing the eighteenth century, excessive rents, rather than 
 evictions, constituted the main grievance of the Catho- 
 lics. If they were serfs, they enjoyed to a large extent 
 the privilege of serfdom — they were adscripti glehce . The 
 necessity of a serf for his master in most cases prevented 
 eviction, as it often prevented also the strict enforce- 
 ment of the Penal laws. When the 40s. -freeholders got 
 the franchise in 1793, the}^ became politically useful; 
 for the importance and power of a landlord or a middle- 
 man was measured very much by the number of voters 
 whom he could march to the hustings on election day. 
 The multiplication of cottier tenants increased his poli- 
 tical power as well as his rent-roll. And the 40s.-free- 
 liolder held under a life lease. But a change soon came. 
 Leases were given during the wars with France, when 
 prices were high, at rents which became impossible after 
 1815; and such leases became worse than useless, since 
 the tenant could not pay. Again, after the elections of 
 1826 and 1828, the people began to vote not as machines, 
 but as men. For which cause the franchise was raised to 
 £10 in 1829, and the custom then crept in of not gi'ant- 
 iug a lease to anyone whose valuation came within the 
 
 "■■■ Tho Articles of the Union are given in Battersby's work, from 
 page 249 to 273. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 193 
 
 franchise, if he could not be trusted to vote with his 
 landlord. 
 
 The system of tenancy on leases gave place to tenancy- 
 at-will; and the tenant, according as he used his poli- 
 tical right, became either a serf or a victim. Before 
 the Franchise Bill of 1850, the granting of leases 
 had almost ceased.* At this time, as O'Connell stated in 
 1843, 10,500,000 acres were owned by Protestants, and 
 only 645,000 were owned by Catholics, though the latter 
 were ten times more numerous than the former. Again, 
 after the introduction of the Poor Law in 1838, the land- 
 lords having to bear half the poor rate, and fearing the 
 cost of the threatening increase of paupers, f began 
 the process of what was called " clearing " their estates. 
 I wonder is the word a metaphor taken from the practice 
 of " clearing " new countries, by removing the forest- 
 trees, the brushwood, and the wild beasts. Whatever 
 be the etymology, the facts, according to M. G. Mulhall, 
 are these ;J: : — 
 
 Evictions were most numerous immediately after the 
 
 famine : — 
 
 Yeare. Families. Persons. 
 
 1837 50 263,000 1,841,000 
 
 1852—60 110,000 770.000 
 
 1861—70 70,000 329,000 
 
 1871—86 104,000 728,000 
 
 Tbe number of persons evicted is equal to 75 per cent, 
 of the actual population. No country, either in Europe 
 or elsewhere, has suffered such wholesale extermination. 
 Emigration since 1837 has amounted to a number equal 
 to 84 per cent, of the present population. 
 
 1837—50 1.085,000 
 
 1851-60 1,231,000 
 
 1801—70 867.000 
 
 1871—86 1,003,000 
 
 * Cf. 'Butt^Land Tenure in Ireland, page 32. 
 
 t The Poor Inquiry Commissioners, in their 3rd Report, in 1836, 
 say : " We cannot estimate the number of persons out of work and 
 in distress during thirty weeks of the year, at less than 585,000, nor 
 the number of persons dependent on them at less than 1,800,000; 
 making in the whole 2,285,000." 
 
 + Fifty Years' National Progress. 
 
 N 
 
194 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 Existing Irish settlements abroad, and the estimated 
 wealth in their possession, show that the bulk of the 
 emigrants were good citizens, of thrifty and industrious 
 habits, viz. : — 
 
 United States 
 
 2.040,000 
 
 £388,000,000 
 
 Canada 
 
 1,053,000 
 
 £111,000,000 
 
 Australia 
 
 666.000 
 
 £132,000,000 
 
 Bueno6 Ay res 
 
 37,000 
 
 £18,000,000 
 
 Cape Colony, etc.... 
 
 25,000 
 
 £6,000,000 
 
 3,811,000 £655,000,000 
 
 In one generation, 4,000,000 emigrants, who left 
 home penniless, have become possessed of real and per- 
 sonal property to the amount of £655,000,000 sterling, 
 besides having sent home since 1851 a sum of 
 £32,000,000." 
 
 Mulhall's book was written more than tv/enty years 
 ago. That extract is a long one, but I have given it to 
 save space; because it sets forth, on the authority of 
 the greatest statistician of our time, the condition under 
 which the Catholics have hitherto lived in Ireland. It 
 also answers the charge which Sir Horace Plunkett 
 makes against them of want of " character and morale,'' 
 "self-reliance," "strenuous qualities," and the "civic 
 virtues and efficiencies " of those who follow the 
 " simpler Christianity." 
 
 When the subdivision of land and the multiplication 
 of tenancies served them politically and financially, they 
 sub-divided and multiplied. When they were forced to 
 bear part of the burden of relieving the increasing desti- 
 tution which their own avaricious economics had be- 
 gotten, the sub-division of land was at once construed 
 into a national evil, and the " consolidation of land," 
 and the '" system of clearances " became sacrosanct 
 maxims in Irish agricultui-al economics, which it would 
 be a sort of sacrilege to touch. Then came the new-born 
 idea of " congested districts," and the patent remedy of 
 emigration; as if a dozen tenants, the sole residents in a 
 county, would not make that county economically " con- 
 gested," if those dozen tenants were starved out by rack- 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 195 
 
 rents. In 1849 the Encumbered Estates Act came into 
 operation. It was simply a Parliamentary plan for 
 helping those who had not helped themselves. It pro- 
 vided encumbered land-owners with a cheap and easy 
 way of transferring their property and of releasing them- 
 selves from the toils of debts which their extravagance 
 had contracted. From October, 1849, to August, 1850, 
 1,0185 cases of sale came before the Court of Commis- 
 sioners in Dublin. In those 1,085 cases, the gross rental 
 was £665,470, whilst the encumbrances amounted to 
 £12,400,348. I introduce that fact in passing, merely 
 to illustrate the example of thrift which that race and 
 class of " civic virtues and efficiencies " gave the people. 
 But the Act brought to the Catholic tenants only a 
 change of masters. Some of the old race of landlords 
 were kindly men, better than the spirit they inherited 
 and the circumstances into which they were born ; but 
 the land-jobbers who in many cases superseded 
 them had neither family tradition nor personal 
 honour to relieve them. They came with the 
 vices of speculators and the vulgarity of up- 
 starts. Rack-rents and evictions went on worse than 
 before ; pay or quit was the grinding alternative which 
 the Catholics had to face almost down to this day. This 
 should explain to anyone who has the will to learn, why 
 the Catholics of Ireland spent the nineteenth century at 
 politics rather than at economics. Their Catechism 
 taught them that the supernatural virtue of Faith is the 
 foundation of Hope and Love ; bitter experience taught 
 them that, for themselves at any rate, only politics could 
 make economics useful or possible. A people cannot 
 practise economics on chimeras. Common sense told 
 them not to spend more time or labour on their lands 
 than they did spend. Insecurity discourages industry. 
 They had to pay fines for renewal of leases ; rents were 
 raised on the improvements made by their time, labour, 
 and money; in other words, they would have to invest 
 
196 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 their own capital, aud pay rent on it. "Ye are idle, ye 
 are idle," said the Egyptian taskmasters to their Hebrew 
 serfs, when they failed to make bricks without straw. 
 
 Aubrey de Vero writes in the work which I have 
 already quoted* : — " Of all the oppressions with which 
 your England had afflicted this countrj^ there was not 
 one which, by means however various, did not tend to- 
 wards a common end; and whether you proscribed her 
 religion, or warred upon her morals; whether you made 
 it her necessity to despise herself, or her duty to detest 
 you; whether you engulfed her in apathy, or provoked 
 her to rebellion ; whether you assailed her with confisca- 
 tions, or withheld from her rights ; whether with plenary' 
 authority and the bell, book and candle of the State, you 
 passed an interdict on her for ages, and committed her 
 to darkness and the blank of outlawry ; or imparted to her 
 the perfidious and terrible gift of laws, restricting her 
 legally from civil and religious privileges, when these 
 fii-st asserted themselves; from property, when property 
 was enfranchised ; from education, when knowledge 
 moved abroad; from commerce, when commerce became 
 a power in the world ; the tendency of your versatile 
 policy continued unchanged, and its result has been the 
 reduction of this land to poverty. Poverty, the consum- 
 mation which you had reached, and if not the chief griev- 
 ance of Ireland, the joint product of all her wrongs, 
 their concentrated and abiding representative record and 
 result^ — poverty could not be moved by Catholic Eman- 
 cipation. On the contrary, by the long denial of that 
 just measure and the long struggle thus rendered neces- 
 sary, a new evil was added to those already existing, a 
 more rankling discontent, accompanied by a systematic 
 agitation, less degrading than the servile content of the 
 last century, but unfavourable to an advance in the 
 peaceful arts, because inconsistent with staid expecta- 
 
 « English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds, pages 99-100, 101-102. 
 
IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHAKT INDUSTRY. 197 
 
 tions. The struggle for emancipation bred in the heart 
 of this country a sorer, though not a deeper, wound, than 
 fifty years of the penal laws. If this circumstance should 
 surprise you, account for it by the fact that men may 
 sleep in their chains and be unconscious of them, but that 
 they feel those chains when they strain against them. 
 That poverty, sir, still remains, though many of its ori- 
 ginal causes are abolished; and it looks up at you, de- 
 manding food, and inquiring of its parentage. I have 
 detained you thus long on a painful subject, because if 
 I can induce you to pore upon those significant characters 
 crraven by the foot of your country upon the breast of 
 Ireland, I may spare you the trouble of reading a feeble 
 commentary from my pen. You will not now ask me 
 so pertinaciously why we are poor. It is because you im- 
 poverished us, confiscating property over and over again, 
 incapacitating the great mass of the people from acquir- 
 ing or bequeathing it, proscribing industry and foment- 
 ing mutual animosity and common insecurity. You will 
 not ask me why the people are reproached for sloth ; it 
 is because there was no object for their energy ; why they 
 piocrastinate — it is because there is no difference be- 
 tween to-day and to-morrow when each is a blank; why 
 they bully you — ^it is because you bullied them, and failed 
 to make them just concessions except on compulsion ; 
 why they are deficient in truth — it is because truth is the 
 language cf freedom ; why they are lawless — it is because 
 for three centuries they knew them too well ; why they 
 are reproached with levity — it is because they are not 
 ennobled by the graver happiness that entails responsi- 
 bility ; why they do not love the memory of their masters 
 — it is because they could not love it without hating all 
 they are bound to love." 
 
 I conclude with this short dialogue between Luke Del- 
 mege, who brought over from England some humani- 
 tarian views which he mistook for wisdom, and one of 
 
198 IRISH CATHOLIC MERCHANT INDUSTRY. 
 
 his parishioners, which Father Sheehan puts into their 
 mouths : — 
 
 " But. Conor, apart from the question of sanitation, don't you 
 think that a few flower beds would look better than that dismal 
 swamp? " 
 
 " Of course, yer reverence, but we'd have to pay dear for them." 
 
 '■ Not at all. A few wall-flowers in spring, and a few tufts 
 of primroses — there are thousands of them in the spring-time in 
 the hedgrows — and a few simple geraniums in the summer, would 
 not co6t you one half-crown. Now, Lizzie, don't vou agree with 
 me? " 
 
 " I do, Father," Lizzie would say. 
 
 '■ So do 1, yer reverence ; but it isn't the cost of the flowers I'm 
 thinkin' of, but the risin' of the rim. Every primrose would cost 
 me a shillin' ; and '" 
 
 " I thought that was all past and gone for ever? " said Luke. 
 The poor man would shake his head. 
 
 " 1 daren't, yer reverence. Next year, I'm goin' into the Land 
 Court agin ; and, begor, the valuators and Commissioners would 
 put it on, hot and heavy, if they saw a sign of improvement 
 about the place. 
 
 "Good heavens!'" Luke would say. '"Then 'tis to your in- 
 terest t« drag everything back to prairie conditions, instead of 
 improving house, land, and gardens." 
 
 " You've said it, yer reverenc'e," said Conor. 
 
 I believe that there is raore practical economics, and 
 a keener insight into the philosophy of modern Irish 
 history in those few sentences of "' Conor " than in all 
 Sir Plorac^'s book. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ACTION OF IRISH PRIESTS IN THE TEMPORAL 
 CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Anyone who, after an absence of several years, re- 
 turned to Ireland within the past decade must have 
 noticed a considerable change for the better in the 
 condition of the people. What is the cause? Indus- 
 trialism? They have not shown much "character" as 
 to industrial life ; although in other respects they have 
 proved themselves to be a people of very pronounced 
 " character," inasmuch as they have survived at all, and 
 have preserved those religious and national principles 
 for which they have made so many sacrifices. That they 
 have not displayed an industrial character is not a sign 
 that they have not been industrious, but that they have 
 not been fools. What, then, is the cause of the change? 
 The action of the Department? No; but because land 
 tenure is no longer precarious, and rent is no longer arbi- 
 tary; no longer the result of an arrangement which 
 was not an agreement but a forced contract. I have 
 no business to criticise the new Purchase Act, and I do 
 not think that my opinion of it would be worth publish- 
 ing even though I gave it; but, at any rate, it has 
 fixed a principle of land tenm-e which will put it in the 
 power of every landowner to reap what he will sow, as 
 to money, labour, and time. A peasant proprietary 
 prevails over all the district of Abbeyfeale, a large 
 parish in the west of Oo. Limerick ; and the appearance 
 of improvement is already so visible that it promises a 
 great transformation in the near future. That passing 
 
200 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of ownership has been going on gradually for some 
 years, and all is due to the ceaseless endeavour of 
 the parish priest for the past twenty years. I think 
 that he would call his action political rather than 
 industrial, although it has distinct industrial effects. 
 He has been also, and for many years, closely iden- 
 tified with the Total Abstinence and the Gaelic move- 
 ment. No representative of the Department, as fa." 
 as I know, has ever gone there to enlighten him. 
 No pioneer of any movement would be heeded in 
 the neighbourhood without his patronage ; not that he 
 would oppose any well-meant project, but that any man, 
 ecclesiastic or lay, politician or economist, who did not 
 go there with his sanction and support would be beating 
 the air. Now that he has a sound basis laid on which to 
 build industrial life I have no doubt that he will give his 
 support to any movement in which he will see the pro- 
 mise of benefit to his people. 
 
 I have referred to this case because it illustrates the 
 action of the Irish priests generally with regard to the 
 temporal affairs of the country. The material life of 
 the people is not the bvisiness of a priest; it is brought 
 ■within the sphere of his work only by the charity which 
 should inspire him after he has provided for their 
 spiritual life, to which he is in justice and in charity 
 bound. If I asked Sir Horace Plunkett what is the 
 x-eligion of his economics, he would at once say "none;"' 
 but he will persist in asking : "What is the economics 
 of your religion?" \Miy, it is sometimes asked by those 
 who play at economics more vigorously than wisely, 
 have not the priests done for the industrial life of 
 Ireland what the priests have done with such signal 
 success in Belgium, Westphalia, and Piedmont? For 
 the plain reason that they had more " economic sense" 
 than to follow the fool in the Gospel who built his 
 bouse on sand: — " and the rain descended, and the 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 201 
 
 floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that 
 house; and it fell, and great was the fall of it."* 
 What the " rain," and the "floods," and the "winds" 
 have been in economic Ii-eland I have already pointed 
 out in the historical review I have made. Everybody 
 whose brain becomes possessed of a patent remedy for 
 Irish ills thinks himself warranted to accuse the 
 priests of neglecting the interests of their people, if 
 they refuse to thoughtlessly accept and swallow his 
 dose with their eyes shut and their mouths open, and 
 to ask their flocks to follow and do likewise. Yes, in- 
 deed : — A man comes out, mounted on his hobby, and, 
 taking for granted that he is right without considering 
 even the possibility that he may be wrong, he thinks he 
 is justified in blaming or abusing the priests for keeping 
 the people in the background, if they do not at ©nee place 
 themselves, each at the head of a cavalcade of his 
 parishioners, mounted on hobbies of the same breed, to 
 exploit the showman. Let philanthropists who think 
 they have a mission to the Irish people by all means use 
 their civil right to promote it; but they have no right 
 to trample on the reason of the priests on their way to 
 the minds of the people, as if a priest must not use his 
 judgment at all, but must misuse his influence with the 
 people by at once getting a recognition from them for 
 every well-meaning philanthropist who happens to think 
 himself a philosopher. Newspapers, magazines, pamph- 
 lets, and books for the past fifty years, bear the tracks 
 of disappointed Don Quixotes who have spurred their 
 hobbies prancing through this country. I do not 
 speak of the few " Catholics," more notorious than dis- 
 tinguished, who have never been known to do anything 
 in the country unless to find fault with those who have 
 done their best ; who have failed even to make a decent 
 living for themselves, and have taken to the lesa 
 
 * Matt, vi., 26, 27. 
 
202 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 difficult but more profitable business of defaming their 
 fellow-countrymen whom they pretend to protect from 
 the priests. 
 
 From the early days of the O'Connell movement, when 
 the Irish priest first appeared on the public platform 
 after the penal times, his action in Irish public affairs 
 has been down to the present day chiefly political. For 
 that he has been called a '" political priest " by those 
 whose interested testimony testifies more to his power as 
 a politician than against his character as a priest. In 
 fact he has been usually between two fires. Whenever a 
 new political movement was started, the priests, on ac- 
 count of the responsibility of their position and the con- 
 sequence of their influence with the people, held aloof 
 until they felt themselves morally justified in joining it. 
 Meanwhile there were not wanting persons, not always 
 of unimpeachable patriotism, who accused them of not 
 caring for their flocks, and who incited the people to 
 upbraid them with the same. In some cases the 
 priests persisted in holding themselves aloof to the end, 
 or in open opposition; in which event they have been 
 aiccused by some politicians of " dictation," because 
 they would not be dictated to by the said politicians, 
 or because they told their people to discriminate be- 
 tween dictatoi-s and patriots. But whenever they 
 joined such a movement they were accused by the other 
 side of sinking the priest in the politician, of betray- 
 ing their sacred trust as pastors, and of disregarding 
 the moral interests of their people. They were "poli- 
 tical priests " — but they would have been "non-politi- 
 cal " if they had taken the opposite political side! In 
 effect, they were to have no mind of their own as to 
 the moral or temporal concerns of the people ; in 
 no case were they to be the judges of their own action. 
 Their influence with the people was I'ecognised, and 
 they were coveted as machines wherewith to move the 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 203 
 
 people; to be cast aside like all machines when their 
 work was done. Hence the attempts which have been 
 made at every opportunity to undermine their influence 
 over the people ; because if their influence were lessened 
 or destroyed their co-operation would no longer be 
 needed, and neither politician nor economist would 
 need to count on their opposition or their neutrality. As 
 far as I know, the chief fault for which Irish priests 
 have to examine their consciences for the past fifty 
 years, is, not that they have followed their own judg- 
 ment, but that they have in some instances mistaken 
 for patriots persons who turned out to be place-huntei-s. 
 However, that is an error of judgment in which all 
 parties have had their share. It has been, and always 
 will be, inevitable that priests and laymen alike have 
 been and will be deceived by place-huntere disguised in 
 the war-paint of patriots. The priests have, from 
 time to time, been abused by persons of every party; 
 have been abused for the side they happened to take 
 by the party with whom they did not happen to side. 
 
 Quidquid delirant reges plectunfiir Achivi. 
 Yet, the trust of the people in them has not been worn 
 away or warped. Because, whatever the people may feel 
 or say during the passion of popular excitement or under 
 the inflammatory oratory of parties, when the storm is 
 over and the electricity has left the air, they recognise 
 this as peculiar to the priests, that they can have no 
 personal ambition to serve in the part they take ; and it 
 is only natural that those who consider the interests of the 
 people as a whole would be blamed by those whose in- 
 terests are centred in parties. 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett writes*: — "I believe that the 
 over-active part hitherto taken in politics by the 
 priests is largely the outcome of the way in which Roman 
 
 *Page 118. 
 
204 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Catholics were treated in the past, and that this undesir- 
 able feature in Irish life will yield, and is already yield- 
 incr, to the removal of the evils to which it owed its 
 origin and in some measure its justification." 
 
 From what I have already written it rather follows, I 
 think, that the part they have taken in politics is entirely 
 "the outcome of the way in which Roman Catholics were 
 treated in the past." Till the storm of persecution sub- 
 sided as the 18th century closed, neither the Catholic 
 priests nor the Catholic laity interfered in the political 
 affairs of their country; for the simple reason that they 
 were not allowed. Late in the 18th century it was de- 
 liberately declared from the judicial bench* that the law 
 did not suppose such a being as a Catholic to live in the 
 country. I ask the reader to pause for an instant over 
 the iniquitous impudence and the grim humour of such 
 a law running in a country which had been in the ex- 
 clusive ownership of Celts and Catholics, in which even 
 then they were five out of every six of the population, 
 and of which they were made to bear in their poverty 
 the main burden of the taxation. The law permitted 
 them the privilege of paying everything and of saying 
 nothing. Then came the dawn of their civil rights, not 
 graciously given, but reluctantly forced by their irresist- 
 able determination — not a bad proof of the " morale and 
 character " which had survived their serfdom. But 
 they had few persons of education, except the priests, to 
 lead or to stand by them on the political vantage-ground 
 which they had newly obtained. If the priests did not 
 stand by them, who was to speak for them f That "un- 
 desirable feature in Irish life" was then forced upon the 
 priests by the persistent injustice of those who have 
 never ceased to traduce them for forming it. It was a 
 feature undesirable to the priests because under other 
 circumstances it should not be their work; it was a 
 feature undesirable to the despots, because it welded 
 
 * By Chancellor Bowee. 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 205 
 
 tlie people into political unity, and tlieir unity be- 
 came a power which gradually forged onwards through 
 the 19th century to the extended civil rights which 
 we at present enjoy. Sir Horace is good enough 
 to say that this undesirable feature owed its origin, 
 and in some measure its justification, to the evils of the 
 past. Now, why not wholly its justification? I hope 
 that when Sir Horace examines that saving clause he 
 will have light enough to see that, by intruding it, he is 
 dealing out, in a halting way and by retail, those mis- 
 representations which others have been dispensing whole- 
 sale. I am not prepared to stand sponsor for every act 
 and word done and said by every priest in the political 
 arena during the long and desperate struggles of the last 
 century, and often under circumstances of great provoca- 
 tion. I do not think that those priests who acted or 
 spoke inconsiderately would stand sponsor for all they 
 had done or said, when the heat of battle was over. The 
 delicate position which they often had to take would test 
 the meekness of St. Francis de Sales; and not to have 
 made mistakes during the strife? in which they often had 
 to engage would be as wonderful a phenomenon as we 
 read of in the lives of the early apostles. "What Sir Horace 
 evidently means is that the priests should not have taken 
 part in politics, notwithstanding the circumstances which 
 calledfor their co-operation. I do not, of course, dispute 
 his right to have his opinion. But I remind him that the 
 priests themselves thought otherwise, that the Bishops 
 who permitted them thought otherwise, that O'Connell 
 thought otherwise, and that, at one trying epoch, 
 Frederick Lucas, an Englishman, thought otherwise, 
 and I may say died a martyr to the thought. At present 
 I dare say that representative men like Sir Thomas 
 Esmonde think otherwise. I may be answered that Sir 
 Thomas is a politician, and has an axe to grind ; but 
 I rejoin that Sir Horace is an economist — and is the edge 
 
206 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 of his axe all right? Between them all, what am I to 
 think? I am not at all unmindful of the disadvantages 
 and dangers to the priestl}- character which political 
 strife contains. I myself have never been on a political 
 platform, have never taken part in a political election, 
 or written a political letter, have never been a member 
 of a political association ; but, paying, as I do, my share 
 of the public taxes, bearing, as I do, my share of the 
 duties of citizenship, if circumstances should at any time 
 convince me that I ought in the interest of the people 
 to take any political action which the law allows me, 
 I would repel the impertinence of anyone who would 
 dare to deny that civil right which I own and claim. 
 I would not, though the law had not made me ineli- 
 gible, allow myself to be elected on a County Council, 
 unless circumstances made my presence there very pres- 
 sing or useful, which, if I know myself, could hardly hap- 
 pen. Nevertheless, inasmuch as it implies an arbitraay 
 power to limit my civil rights, I resent the action espe- 
 cially of those Catholic Irishmen who ap^jealed to non- 
 Catholic Englishmen in Parliament to penalize me for 
 my priesthood. It is a curious irony that if I am a priest 
 in Protestant England I may be elected on a County 
 Council or on a Board of Guardians, but whilst I am 
 her© in Catholic Ireland the law makes me ineligible 
 for either. I note the indignity contained in this 
 newest penal law, for which it is only fair to acknow- 
 ledge that Englishmen and Protestants are not much 
 to blame. So much for the political aspect of my 
 position. As to the religious or moral aspect, as long 
 as my ecclesiastical superiors did not prohibit me, the 
 views of economists on the religious and moral peril of 
 Catholics involved in my political conduct woixld not 
 bring much trouble to my conscience. 
 
 The action of the priests in public affairs has in the 
 past been chiefly political, because they believed that 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 207 
 
 only through politics could any solid ground of hope be 
 laid for the industrial and social betterment of the 
 people. Sir Horace Plunkett gives it as his conclusion 
 that the " immense power of the Irish Roman Catholic 
 clergy has been singularly little abused."* But 
 where he sums up his position towards them, 
 he writes: — "While recognising to the full that 
 large numbers of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy have 
 in the past exercised undue influence in purely political 
 questions, and, in many other matters, social, educa- 
 tional, and economic, have not, as I see things, been on 
 the side of progress, I hold that their influence is now. 
 more than ever before, essential for improving the con- 
 dition of the most backward section of the population."! 
 On which I observe that their purpose and influence, 
 due or undue, on political questions has been to make 
 economic progress possible. And will not their in- 
 fluence, which was " undue " in politics, be equally un- 
 due in economics? Yet, v/hile it was, according to him, 
 only " in some measure "' justifiable in the former, he 
 holds that it is not only justifiable but '"essential" in 
 the latter. But he does not explain how that which 
 is a mistake and an evil in one case is not only useful 
 but essential in the other. Economic projects for 
 the prosperity of Ireland have been introduced off and 
 on for many years; the priests have been asked to 
 enter into them, and have been blamed and upbraided 
 for declining to co-operate. I suppose that they used 
 their own judgment, and thought the game not worth 
 the candle. Rightly or wrongly those prescriptions 
 were received or i-eoommended by veiy few priests. 
 But let us note the change that has come with the change 
 in land tenure and rent-fixing. Just ten years ago 
 the co-operative movement, known as the Irish Agricul- 
 tural Organization Society, was started ; and already 
 
 * Page 106. t Page 119. 
 
208 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 over 800 societies are affiliated to it. In reference to 
 that movement Sir Horace Plunkett, by whom it was 
 chiefly initiated, writes*: — "1 may mention that 
 of the co-operative societies organized by the 
 I.A.O.S., there are no fewer than 331 societies, of which 
 the local priests are the Chairmen, while to my own 
 knowledge during the summer and autumn of 1902, as 
 many as 50,000 persons from all parts of Ireland were 
 personally conducted over the exhibit of the Department 
 of Agriculture and Technical Instruction at the Cork 
 Exhibition by their local clergy." I write under cor- 
 rection, but I think that priests have already identi- 
 fied themselves with over 600 of those societies. Sir 
 Horace and the organizers of the movement may be dis^ 
 satisfied with that extent of clerical co-operation. They 
 naturally would wish the clergy to take up the burden 
 of every local society they thought well to start; but I 
 think that the number which the priests have taken up 
 within so s-hort a time is surprisingly large. He was 
 four years trying to set the movement going in 
 Ulster before he could get any appreciable number to 
 join it; and I believe I am right in saying that priests 
 have been the first to heed him, and have been his best 
 co-operators. We must recollect that it is one thing 
 for a pioneer lecturer to enlighten a parish on the 
 scope and nature of their local industi'ial possibilities, 
 for an organizer to come after and point out how his 
 theories are to be put into working shape; but it is 
 another thing for the local priest, with the darkness of 
 the past and the dimness of the future still influencing 
 his people, knowing that they will blame him alone for 
 having recommended them to try should the trial turn 
 out a failure, to undertake the responsibility and to face 
 the risk involved in the working out of the scheme. The 
 man who states the principles and the man who does the 
 
 ♦Page 119. 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 209 
 
 details are placed quite differently, and the task of 
 the latter is immeasurably the more delicate and difficult. 
 
 The lecturer who expounds principles knows not tin- 
 cei-tainty, is impatient of any hesitation to set his pro- 
 ject at work ; and he is so far right ; his principles may be 
 quite certain. But in the detailed application of those 
 principles to concrete circumstances, in the combination 
 of local conflicting interests, there remains a great deal 
 of uncertainty in the work, in spite of all the care and 
 thought and tact which may be spent on it. The lec- 
 turer leaves the locality, having traced out the way ; the 
 priest stays behind with his people to painfully and 
 cautiously tread it, every cross-roads bringing fresh diffi- 
 culties and doubts. I could name instances where Sir 
 Horace himself very much miscalculated the possibilities 
 of projects which he had organized and guided. I do 
 not recall them in blame ; no great undertaking has ever 
 been, or -will ever be, without them ; and I think it would 
 hi ungracious to throw in the face of a man who has done 
 his best, the blunders he has made in the course of a vast 
 industrial movement. 
 
 Besides those rural co-operative societies, the priests 
 have also identified themselves with nearly all the indus- 
 trial and technical work done in the cities and towns. 
 And outside those industries which are worked under the 
 patronage of the Department, there are some thriving 
 ones which are worked by priests without any help from 
 it, and there are some most successful ones which were 
 started by priests before the Department was thought of, 
 and are still under their control. 
 
 I have said that the promotion of political or indus- 
 trial movements is not the business of a priest. 
 Only special circumstances can make such works incum- 
 bent on him, and in those cases they are not a duty of 
 justice but of charity. WTien priests in Ireland have, 
 for reasons which seemed good to themselves, held aloof 
 
 o 
 
210 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 from such movements they have been accused of disre- 
 garding the temporal interest of their people. When they 
 have taken an active part in politics they have been some- 
 times and by some persons told that they have been 
 going beyond the boundary of their rights, and when they 
 have interested themselves in industrial work they have 
 been sometimes reminded that they are not men of busi- 
 ness; from which, it seems cleax to me, that the presence 
 of the priest in those movements is desiderated by some 
 merely as a sort of lever, as an instrument to be used or 
 rejected according as he serves or impedes their purpose. 
 The priests of Ireland have never, and if I know them 
 rightly they never will consent to be the shuttlecocks of 
 any party in the aflfairs of their country. They bear 
 civil burdens, and they claim civil rights. When, there- 
 fore, they interest themselves in political or industrial 
 work they do so without saying " by year leave " to any- 
 bodv. I assume, as a matter of course, that priests are 
 not business men. Their training and life do not tend to 
 habits of business in the technical sense of that expres- 
 sion. Yet some of them show remarkable business gifts 
 and habits, and carry business transactions through with 
 unqualified success. On the other hand, men who are 
 supposed to be specialists not unfrequently show them- 
 selves remarkable only for causing confusion or failure in 
 business transactions which they undertake. I now 
 make a short review of some industrial works promoted 
 by priests in Ireland ; undertaken because of their neces- 
 sity, and because those showed no care to initiate them 
 who might have more fittingly done so. 
 
 In Galway, the Most Rev. Dr. M'Cormack and Father 
 Dooley stalled a woollen industry. They provided or 
 became responsible for more than half the capital, which 
 was over £10,000. The concern is now worth more than 
 double that amount after paying regularly a dividend of 
 7i per cent. It has never received either money or coun- 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 211 
 
 sel from the Department, and yet it has been made a 
 very successfvil undertaking, which is in a great mea- 
 sure due to the ability and care of the manager, who has 
 been described to me as " a good Catholic, a good Irish- 
 man from Tipperary, and a total abstainer." 
 
 About two years ago the Bishop of Galway and Father 
 Dooley also initiated a hosiery industry at their own ex- 
 clusive expense. They applied to the Department for 
 help, even for a loan at a moderate rate of interest, but 
 they were refused both. Tbis industry is still in its in- 
 fancy, but it gives employment and fair wages to over 
 thirty girls. Over eighty are employed in the woollen 
 factory, of whom one earned 26s. and several earned £1 
 during the week before I made inquiry about its success. 
 
 About twenty years ago Father Dooley started a loan 
 fund for the purpose of teaching thrift to the young, and 
 of putting down the usury of the gombeen man. Some- 
 times as much as £4,000 is lent out of the fund in the 
 course of a year. Last year the}' had 900 bank books 
 out. The children deposit their pence or shillings, which, 
 are afterwards lent perhaps tO' their parents to buy 
 clothes, provisions, a cow, or to pay rent. The money is 
 lent on loan fund conditions. The capital in circulation 
 is over £750. Besides that sum, over £2,000 is lent to 
 the woollen factory, and invested in bank shares. Last 
 year over £150 was paid in interest to the depositors, 
 who received 5 per cent, on the money invested, and got 
 the loan of money at 4 per cent. It seems a paradox, 
 nevertheless a profit is made owing to Father Dooley 's 
 financial skill and care. 
 
 Now, the possibilities of a woollen factory which the 
 Bishop and Father Dooley discovered in Galway, and 
 which the Sisters of Charity discovered in Foxford, might 
 be found by the Department in many parta of the coun- 
 try. Wool is plentiful, and the demand for the output 
 of such a factor}' must be always certain. The chief con- 
 
212 TEIIPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 dilion of success would be a competent manager — one who 
 has a practical knowledge of the process in all its details. 
 Such a manager would be much more efficient in a factory 
 working on a small scale than one brought across the 
 Channel, who had become a specialist in one or two de- 
 partments of some immense English factory. The money 
 which is unnecessarily spent by the Department in salaries 
 or in the extravagance of the New College of Science 
 would be enough to pay for the training of as many mana- 
 gers as would make successful woollen factories in parts 
 of Irela.nd which are as neglected and poor as Foxford 
 used to be. 
 
 I next turn to Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo. The parish 
 priest is Father O'Hara, well known for many years in 
 connection with every movement made in the interest of 
 his people. He started a lace and dress-making industry 
 about seven years ago, and now keeps 120 girls em- 
 ployed. From inquiries I have made, I learn that 
 twelve of the best of them earned £250 last year ; that if 
 the girls gave their whole time to the work the average 
 earning of eacli would be close on 10s. a week. 
 The work has got neither counsel nor 
 financial help from the Department, and never- 
 theless it has up to the present been a success. 
 The Congested Districts Board, however, gave some help 
 to build the school, paid a teacher, and helped to get a 
 market for the work turned out. The Board showed 
 that substantial interest in it before Father O'Hara be- 
 came a member. About the same time that he began 
 those industries he started an agricultural bank. He 
 had borrowed money on solvent security from the Con- 
 gested Districts Board to build artisan*' dwellings. He 
 built fourteen, and out of the profits of these, together 
 with some help which he i-eceived from his friends at 
 home and in America, he began the bank, and he now 
 works it with £500 of a capital. He himself is manager, 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 213 
 
 and he gives up to £3 loans to applicants without bill, 
 bail, or bond. Since he opened the Bank he has, as a 
 matter of fact, never refused a loan to anyone, and in 
 no case has the borrower failed to pay. In one case, 
 owing to losses, sickness, and other unavoidable difficul- 
 ties, the borrower has so far been a defaulter, but he 
 has no doubt that the loan will be repaid as soon as pay- 
 ment will be in the power of the debtor. 
 
 The parish of Dromore embraces a village and a coun- 
 try district in the Co. Tyrone. Five years ago the emi- 
 gration drain on its population was appalling ; since then 
 emigration from the district has wholly ceased. It is 
 true, at least, to say that those who emigrate from Dro- 
 more at present — and they are very few — are persons who 
 are not likely to improve their position in, or to be a use- 
 ful acquisition to their adopted country. Some impor- 
 tant factors must have come into play to work so great a 
 change in so short a time. The chief factor is the pre- 
 sence of Father Maguire, C.C., and the next is the school 
 of lace, crochet, and kindred industries which was opened 
 in the place little more than four years ago. The indus- 
 try was started in September, 1901, with the valuable 
 counsel of Father Finlay, S.J , representing the Irish 
 Agricultural Organisation Society The industry has 
 been carried on from the beginning as a Co-operative So- 
 ciety, so that each girl receives the whole priceof her work 
 instead of a stipulated wage That mostly accounts for 
 the fact that the girls, although they have in many cases 
 to travel long distances, are as earnest in the work now as 
 in the beginning; because each worker regards the suc- 
 cess or failure of the industry as her own, and realises 
 the necessity of meeting the expectations of purchasers 
 in every consignment of goods to which her name is at- 
 tached. The S}'stem on which the industry is worked 
 really brings about a competition between the workers, 
 for each one's credit in the eyes of the pubUc is involved 
 
214 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 in the work she turns out, and for which she is paid ac- 
 cording to its merits. 
 
 The beginnings of the industry were very 
 humble. At first the work went on partly in 
 the courthouse, kindly lent by the local magistrates, and 
 partly in a few rooms in which a large number of lace 
 and crochet^workers were huddled together. But from 
 the start it had the patronage of the Irish Agricultural 
 Organisation Society, and the active friendship of Father 
 Finlay, who procured for it competent teachers through 
 the Department. The girls themselves saw their interest 
 in it, the people of the district sa,w reality in it, and with 
 their support, t<)gether with money set aside from the 
 profits of the industry itself, the girls are now provided 
 with spacious and suitable work-rooms. Last year they 
 earned over £1,000, which is a great deal, since many of 
 the workers use th© industry only as a supplement to 
 their home duties I quote the following from the report 
 of the public auditor who, as required by law, examined 
 the accounts of the Society last year : — " You are giving, 
 under the prudent and vigorous direction of Rev. Father 
 Maguire, occupation in skilled, dignified, and profitable 
 labour to 100 employees, who are all members of the 
 Society. You have introduced into your district, and 
 are conducting on sound, practical lines, an industry 
 which seems destined to become a prominent factor, 
 direct and indirect, of prosperity for the country. This 
 enterprise and example are worthy of unstinted admira- 
 tion, and I trust will command what you probably regard 
 as a better reward — unstinted success. I am glad to be 
 able to report that your accounts have been kept with 
 business-like system and accuracy." 
 
 The industry which I have thus briefly reviewed sup- 
 plements the incomeg of the families to which the workers 
 belong. It gives them the means of making money. 
 But an increased income does not always bring increased 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 215 
 
 comfort to a family. Money is only a means to an end. 
 A wise man makes money for the sake of his personal 
 comfort ; he is a fool who inverts the order of nature by 
 sacrificing his comfort for the sake of making money. 
 But, setting aside that extreme of foolishness, I think it 
 is true to say that in ordinary home arrangements it is 
 more important for personal or family comfort to know 
 how to spend money than to know how to make it. I can 
 illustrate the truth from experience : — I know families 
 who live in frugal comfort on 15s. a week, and I know 
 families who live in slovenly discomfort on twice that in- 
 come. Father Maguire has realised that truth, and is 
 at present occupied in solving the problem which it in- 
 volves. Since the building was erected for his lace and 
 crochet industry, Domestic Economy in all its branches 
 has been taught in it, in order that actual or prospec- 
 tive housekeepers might learn how to make short incomes 
 go a long way. But according as the pupils who at- 
 tended the lectures learned the secrets of domeistic eco- 
 nomy, the problem arose : — How many of them will 
 carry the theory of the school into the practice of their 
 homes ? Sir Horace Pluukett has recognised that there is 
 not a necessary connection between the two, and he has 
 enabled Father Maguire to have the teaching of the 
 school carried into the homes of the people one by one. 
 On July SQth, 1904, Father Finlay went to Dromore to 
 inaugurate this new departure, and Miss 0' Conor Eccles 
 iiemained there to put the scheme into effect, going from 
 house to house, and employing the utensils which each 
 family could afford. Amongst the schemes which Sir 
 Horace has at least done his best to promote, I believe 
 that not one will have more beneficial and far-reaching 
 consequences than that one. Chi va piano va sano, e chi 
 va sano va lonfano, is a proverb in common use with the 
 Italians. This new system of teaching domestic economy 
 is slow, but sure. It will take time to spread over the 
 
216 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 countay ; but it will help to propagate itself ; because it 
 will be contagious in whatever district its benefits are 
 seen. 
 
 Baltimore is a village on a headland jutting out 
 into the Atlantic from the Southern coast of Co. 
 Cork. Cut away from the mainland by a narrow sound 
 are Hai-e, Skerkin, and Clear Island. Before the "bad 
 times," as the famine years are commonly called by the 
 people, the inhabitants of Baltimore and its neighbour- 
 hood managed, by fishing along the coast, to pay heavy 
 rents for the use of plots of poor land on which they 
 grew patches of potatoes and corn. For a remote place 
 thev had a considerable fishing fleet. But "black '47" 
 brought the blight to more than their staple food. It 
 wiped out the young and the strong, the bread-winners 
 of the place. The inhabita.nts of the islands off the 
 coast crowded into Skibbereen, in hopes of saving them- 
 selves from starvation and death. Some got temporary 
 employment at road-making under the Board of Works, 
 but many died of hunger or of the famine-fever, and 
 were buried in a common grave which can to-day be 
 identified by a grass-grown mound. It serves as a 
 memorial of their martyrdom, for they were the victims 
 of duty disowned by those in power till it was too late 
 to save them. Of those who survived, the emigrant 
 ship took away many who used to man their little crafts 
 along the coast. A visitor to the place thus describes 
 what he saw there in 1863 : — "When I first visited Oape 
 Clear, a couple of hookers and small rowing boats were 
 all that remained of what had been a respectable fishing 
 fleet. Beside there were only to be seen a few wrecks 
 lying on the strand at North Harboiu-, with the green 
 sea-weed climbing over their mouldering timber. Ves- 
 sels, nets, gear — all went in the agony of craving for 
 food at any price, and in the period succeeding there 
 were no means to replace them, and it seemed even as 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 217 
 
 if the energy to desire their i-eplacement was wanting,"* 
 Father Leader, who was then parish priest of the dis- 
 trict, enlisted the sympathy of the Baroness Burdett- 
 Coutts in favour of the people. Besides giving tem- 
 porary relief she helped a number of them across to 
 Canada, and gave them the means of following their 
 avocation of fishermen. It is sti-ange that they had to 
 cross the Atlantic to catch fish whilst they had them in 
 shoals almost at their feet along their native coast. 
 Yet it had to be so, and their benefactress did what 
 seemed best to her under the circumstances. 
 
 The threateuings of famine appeared again in 1879. 
 Those in power were warned in time of what was com- 
 ing, but they heeded not the wai'ning. Father Leader 
 had died some years before, and Father Davis, who was 
 now parish priest of Baltimore, saw in sadness the doom 
 of his people. His forecast of the impending ruin was 
 all the more painful, because the famine could so easily 
 be fought and kept away from them by the 
 means of living, even of prosperity, which daily came up 
 to their very doors if they only had the power to use 
 them. It was the old story ; natiue was a kind mother, 
 but Grovernment officialdom was a Sarah Gamp. There 
 Wcis the wide ocean expanding before them and teeming 
 with fish, but they needed the appliances, the boats and 
 the nets, to catch them ; and what made their position 
 more pitiful was that they had to look on helplessly and 
 hopelessly as the teeming shoals were shipped away to 
 England, Scotland, the Isle of Man, to France, and even 
 to Norway, whence fishermen came to catch them. To 
 adopt the words of The Saturday Review^: — "'Until a 
 few yeai^ ago the people of the coast looked on while 
 others took the fish and made the profits. This neglect 
 was not due to any ignorance of the value of what is 
 
 ♦ Cork Examiner Angust 27th, 1887. 
 t Oct. 15th. 1887. 
 
218 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 poetically called the Imrveet of the sea. Irishmen talked 
 freely about the fisheries they ought to be able to work if 
 insTirmountable obstacles of some kind did not get in 
 the way. It was not even due to want of the wish to 
 encourage the fishermen on the part of the Government. 
 Money has been specially voted for the purpose; but 
 unfortunately, it has gone, as money has a trick of 
 going in Ireland, on harbours which serve no purpose, 
 on public works which never came to anything, and 
 labour which was temporarily profitable to the 
 labourer." Whilst the poor people were lying fallow, 
 without help and even without hope. Father Davis set 
 about lifting them up, as the statesmen whose duty it 
 was to provide them with the means, and the scientific 
 economists who afi"ect exclusive ability to direct them, 
 were leaving them to their fate. One who knew Father 
 Davis and his work well, once wrote to me that "his 
 chief merit seems to have been that he saw and under- 
 stood the capabilities of the South Coast fisherman, and 
 knew that if the poor fellow got a chance he would hold 
 his own with the foreigner, whether French, English, 
 Scotch, or Manx. But the Joint Stock Banks of this 
 country, conducted as they were by professional eco-no- 
 mists, set no value on the industry, honesty, and 
 ability of the local fisherman. It was reserved for an 
 English lady to lend a helping hand, at the request of 
 Father Davis ; and, accordingly, the Baroness Burdett- 
 Coutts placed £10,000 to the credit of Father Davis, 
 and asked him to undertake the distribution of it 
 among the fishermen, and so enable them to obtain 
 boats and nets on favourable terms. He undertook 
 what was supposed by many to be a thankless job ; but 
 he knew his men, lent them according to their wants, 
 and generally to supplement their own endeavours; he 
 was repaid the loans in due time, which lepayments were 
 of course lodsred to the credit of the Baroness. That 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 219 
 
 in short was the beginning of the Baltimore fishing in- 
 dustry." She stipulated only for the repayment of the 
 loan by annual instalments; but she required no in- 
 terest, and no steciirity ; and, according to The Ti?nesl : — 
 "Not only has her benevolence produced prosperity, but 
 her confidence in the honour of the poor people has been 
 amply justified. The annual instalments have been 
 punctually paid, except where, as last year, the Baroness 
 herself has offered a temporary remission on account of 
 an exceptionally bad season. Those whom she thus 
 helped, have thus helped themselves, and falsified all 
 predictions that they would be pauperised by philan- 
 thropy." I quote the following from The Weekly Des- 
 patch^: — "Whilst all the statesmen, and politicians. 
 and 'inspectors,' and experts have been talking about 
 reviving fishing industries in Ireland, the Baroness has, 
 as Mr. Squeers wouJd say, 'simply gone and done it.' 
 And how has she done it? Why, by trusting the 
 people to carry out her benevolent scheme in their own 
 way by agents they trust, and who are not imported by 
 her from England to bully and worry them. She has 
 given the lie to the fallacy of centuries, which says 
 that the Irish do not work their fisheries because they 
 are idle. She advanced money to the Baltimore men to 
 buy proper boats and nets, and to get a decent harbour. 
 She put the management of the thing in the hands of 
 the excellent Father Davis, their priest. She has never 
 patronised or pestered them, and behold the result. 
 In spite of her blatant Toryism, when she goes among 
 them she is received like a queen. Not a penny has 
 she ever lost by them. . . . That one old English 
 lady can do so much by simply acting on Home Rule 
 principles in regard to her charities in Ireland is a 
 terrible satire on Castle G-overnment." Everything waa 
 
 t Aug. 18th, 1887. 
 § Aug. 2l8t, 1887. 
 
220 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 done under the direction of Father Davis. The Fishery 
 Board aftenvards made advances, and the Congested 
 Districts Board which has succeeded it; but neither of 
 them has lost one penny by their loans. There is now 
 in the island of Cape Clear, the population of which is 
 about 600, a fleet of three schooners engaged in the 
 coasting ta*ade, 24 large decked fishing boats, each carry- 
 ing seven men, and nearly all supplied with steam gear 
 for hauling their nets at sea, and about 50 large open 
 sailing yawls, five to seven-ton boats, which ai-e chiefly 
 used for autumn fishing when the mackerel are nearer 
 the land than in the spring of the year. This property 
 in boats, geaj-, and nets all created within the past 25 
 yeai-9, is worth up to £20,000. 
 
 But Father Davis saw that it was not enough for 
 fishermen to have boats. They must know how to 
 make and repair them, to make and mend nets, to cure 
 and keep fish ; they must have all those trades which are 
 associated with the fishing industry, such as carpenter- 
 ing, coopering, net, rope, line, and sail-making. In a 
 paper of interest which he read in 1886 before 
 the Cork Literary and Scientific Society he said that 
 he remembered "the pleasant whir of the humble rope- 
 maker's wheel in many of our sea^side villages." 
 But at the time he was speaking nearly all the fish- 
 ing gear used in Ireland had to be imported from 
 abroad. To remedy that defect, the Baltimore Fishery 
 School, owing to his representation and influence, was 
 opened in the autumn of the following year by the aid 
 of a grant from Government, from the Co. Cork Grand 
 Jurj% and many munificent subscriptions from private 
 sources. If the original idea was carried out, the school 
 should have borne fai--reaching results for the fishing 
 industry of the country. It was placed under the In- 
 dustrial Schools' Act in order to secure an income for 
 the maintenance of pupils who came from a distance. 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 221 
 
 A promise was given on behalf of the Government that 
 children from the sea-coast who were subjects for an 
 Industrial School would be sent there; but it turned 
 out that legislation was necessary for that arrangement, 
 and nothing was done to do away with the obstacle. But 
 this piece of patchwork was proposed : that children be 
 sent as usual to Industrial Schools, but that an exchange 
 process should go on : inland-born children to be trans- 
 ferred to other schools in exchange for coast-bom chil- 
 dren to be transferred from other schools to Baltimore. 
 Like many another project designed by draft-scheme 
 economists, it worked out all right on paper, but it 
 worked confusion in practice. Father Davis had charge 
 of it for five years, and in spite of those difficulties 
 left it in a sound financial and working 
 condition in 1892, when God called him 
 away from his work on earth. For the next 
 five years it was chiefly under the control of "experts," 
 with the result that it was run hopelessly into debt and 
 to the brink of ruin. If I remember rightly, it was 
 talked of as about to be closed. But a young priest, 
 with his "centre of gravity in a future existence," con- 
 sented to leave his parish work in order 
 to take over the management of it, to work it 
 on strict business lines — Paradox ! oh, you experts and 
 economists ! As far as I am aware. Father Hill has not 
 appealed to any source outside the income of the school 
 itself for financial help out of his difficulties, yet I am 
 told, on what I consider reliable authority, that not only 
 has the debt which stared him six years ago when 
 he took it over been already paid off, but that the work 
 itself has been extended. At any rate, according to the 
 report of the Industrial Schools' Inspector, the boys of 
 the Baltimore School are well cared for, the technical 
 work of the school is kept going at a heavy yearly expense, 
 and I know that the boats and nets which are made 
 
222 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 there are known all round the Irish coast from Bere- 
 haven to Donegal. Considering the special purpose for 
 which it was founded, it is plain that it should never 
 have been subject to the Industrial Schools Act which 
 determines the boys who are sent there. But the cast- 
 iron of the law would not be moulded. 
 
 There are about 2,500 miles of coast-line in Iieland, 
 and there is potential prosperity for the people along 
 every mile of it. Foreigners by the thousand realise :t 
 and make a living out of it. The fish are there; it is 
 only a question of catching and curing them. Irish 
 fishermen are not ignorant of that source of wealth 
 which nature throws up daily before their dooi-s; but 
 without large boats they cannot venture far out into the 
 ocean, and thess cannot be built for less than £400 or 
 £500 each. Again, Ireland once did a flourishing trade 
 in the export of cured fish ; but it has become extinct, 
 and improved methods of fish-curing have meanwhile 
 come into use. At present Ireland does not even supply 
 herself wnth cured fish. According to Father Davis — 
 •' In the year 1883 we find Scotland alone sending us 
 25,870 barrels of herrings and 36,000 cwt. of cod, 
 and it has been stated with every appearance of truth 
 that portion of this fish had been actually captured on our 
 coast, cured in Scotland, and sent back for our use. It 
 has been ascertained that the price of fish cured in other 
 countries annually imported into Ireland exceeds a 
 quarter of a million pounds sterling." * Pilchards, with 
 which Dungarvan habour teems, are not used in these 
 countries; but foreign fishermen take them away and 
 find a market for them in Italy. Want of suitable boats, 
 want of technical training according to the improved 
 methods which have arisen since the fishing industry 
 
 ■■•Deep Sea Fisheries in Irelaiul." By Rev. Charles Davis, P.P. Page 23. 
 Cf. also " Histoiy and Position of tlip Sea Fisheries of Ireland, and 
 how they may be made to afford food and eni2"tlo}-ment." By John A. 
 Blake, M.P., 1868. Printed for private circulation. 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 223 
 
 flourished in Ireland, and our exorbitant Railway tariffs 
 and cost of transit generally make up the triple difficulty 
 which Father Davis set himself to solve, beginning at 
 Baltimore. Who is going to solve it over the 2,500 miles 
 of Irish coast-line ? Is every priest along the coast to go 
 looking for a benefactress like the Baroness Burdett- 
 Coutts for the loan of money to build boats for the 
 fishermen of his parish? It would be an easy way of 
 shirking a duty which others are bound t-o do. We are so 
 accustomed to see the priest do so much for the temporal 
 concerns of the people that we have thoughtlessly fallen 
 into the conclusion that to do so is part of his functions. 
 Some critics seem to think, when something has to be 
 done for the temporal interests of the people, that the 
 priest exists for no other purpose on earth except to take 
 and do it ; that is, until he has done it, and then they tell 
 us he has no business to meddle with it, in fact, does 
 not know anything about it; that these 
 things should be left to experts or eco- 
 nomists. Well, their work is cut out for 
 them along 2,500 miles of Irish coast-line ; let them take 
 and do it. I do not at all think that it is part of the 
 functions of Government to become a sort of national 
 nurse to the people. But it is plainly its duty to set the 
 nursery in order. Much money is wasted, at least is 
 risked, on problematical schemes from which theorists 
 argue a -priori that consequences of far-reaching national 
 importance should follow; and so they should follow, 
 perhaps, although they usually do not. But in the 
 fishery question it is all plain sailing, if the fishermen had 
 the boats. Why should not the Department help to 
 solve the question? Father Davis, in great measure, 
 solved it, for Baltimore, and would probably have solved 
 it wholly had he lived. 
 
 I now pass across to the Aran Islands, where the chief 
 industry of the inliabit^nts is fishing. Not many years 
 
224 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 ago the industry was almost neglected. As was the case 
 at Baltimore, their fortune was at their feet and sur- 
 rounded them on every side, but they were powerless to 
 utilise and enjoy it. Father 0"Donoghue, who was parish 
 priest of the islands some years ago, after having made 
 many effoi-ts in vain to get the Government even to con- 
 sider the matter, at length induced them to help in pro- 
 moting the industiy. One of the chief initial difficulties 
 was to get the people to realise its possibilities and to feel 
 their power to help themselves. Some spasmodic efiforts 
 had already been made, but they failed for want of suffi- 
 cient external aid, and the Islanders were not disposed, 
 even with the promised help of the Congested Districts 
 Board, to phiee much hope in another venture. Per- 
 suaded by past failures of their powerlessness they had 
 lost all hope. Father Farragher, the present parish 
 priest, who was then Father O'Donoghue's assistant, sug- 
 gested this simple and eflFective way of convincing them. 
 Fishermen from Arklow were brought to the place, but 
 they could not induce one of the Islanders to man their 
 boats; in fact, they jeered at the new-comers and ridi- 
 culed what they thought to be an idle project. But 
 directly they witnessed the successful hauls of fish, what 
 they saw done at once convinced them of what they could 
 do ; their possibilities and their hopes came back ; their 
 fishing propensity prevailed and led them to the work. 
 It was the initial revival of the Aran fishing industry. 
 The Islanders became steady and successful fishermen ; 
 the industry has gradually grown since then, and at pre- 
 sent all the Islanders are interested in its success, because 
 those who do not themselves fish are employed for work 
 on their plots of land by those who do. Father Farragher, 
 probably, would not call himself an expert in the fishing 
 industry, but from his long and constant residence in 
 Aran I am told that he understands it much better than 
 most of the experts. He might be called the captain of 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 225 
 
 the Aran fishing fleet. He counsels and directs the 
 fishermen in every undertaking. The Congested Dis- 
 tricts Board, without whose aid he would of course have 
 been powerless, have sense enough to see that although 
 a priest he is competent to advise, and they invariably 
 follow his advice. Hence they spend very little on red- 
 tape, draft-s-chemes, itinera.nt experts, and "improved 
 methods,"in connection with the Aranfisheries;and their 
 true economic sense is rewarded by the result that the 
 turn over of the industry varies from £6,000 to £8,000 a 
 year. There is also a boat-building yard, whence the 
 fishermen are supplied and where boys are taught. Young 
 men and boys are also taught to make and mend nets, to 
 clean and cure fish, and the other arts by which the fish- 
 iag trade is equipped. There is also an Agricultural 
 Bank, of which Father Farragher is founder and chair- 
 man. All those works have been carried on under the 
 patronage of the Congested Districts Board, without 
 whose help they would of course have been impossible. 
 The agricultural work of the Congested Districts Board, 
 as far as regards cottage gardening and the breeding of 
 animals, has been for some time transferred to the control 
 of the Department ; and I think I am conect in saying 
 that since then those industries have either ceased or re- 
 mained undeveloi3ed, so far as the Department has taken 
 any interest in them. 
 
 I came to know a few years ago of the work 
 done by Father Farragher for the Aran Islanders. 
 I learned it not from himself, but from another 
 source, and I was left under the impression that he is at 
 the beginning and end of ever}' project undertaken in 
 their behalf. I met him but once, some years ago, and 
 only during a short conversation : but the impression 
 he left on me as a man of keen observation, of wide in- 
 terests, and altogether an attractive personality, turned 
 all my sympathy to him in a passing misunderstanding 
 
 p 
 
226 TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 which arose between him and some of the leaders of tlie 
 Irish Language movement a few years ago. It is easy for 
 those engrossed in one special interest to expect a man 
 engrossed in many vital interests to earn- out others' 
 notions in others' ways; but for the man himself it is 
 quite another thing. He works in the midst of circum- 
 stances, the influence of which on his daily activity no 
 outsider can thoroughly measure or weigh. But I pre- 
 sume that a man who does many things well will do ©very- 
 thing as well as he can ; I conclude that a man of ap- 
 proved zeal who knows his business best does it best ; that 
 at least he does it better than any outsider can teach him. 
 Only within the past few days, and quite by accident, 
 I learned of the Youghal Art Metal and Repousse Work. 
 It is one of the lessons which Father Aherne, C.C., took 
 away from the Cbrk Exhibition of 1902. He asked the 
 Co. Cork Technical Instruction Committee to pay a 
 teacher for him. That Committee was satisfied with the 
 project, but the Department refused to sanction the 
 arrangement beyond half the teacher's salary. Father 
 Aherne took what he got, made himself responsible for 
 the rest, procured a competent teacher and opened the 
 School in April, 1904. He carries on the School in the 
 premises of the League of the Cross, and his purpose in 
 starting it was to teach the members, or others willing to 
 learn, an interesting and profitable occupation to which 
 they might devote their leisure hours, or to which they 
 might turn when no more remunerative work was to be 
 had. It struck him from his observations at the Cork 
 Exhibition that he could turn the craft to some purpose 
 for the young men of Youghal, seeing that it is simple 
 and at the same time interesting and artistic. He started 
 the little venture on a capital of £17 17s. 7d., which was 
 the reduction made by the Great Southern and Western 
 Railway for the special trains run in conneotion with the 
 Gaelic League Feueana of 1903. It was a small sum to 
 
TEMPORAL C0NCEEX6 OP THE PEOPLE. 227 
 
 begin with, but it enabled him to pay half the teacher's 
 salary, to distribute amongst the pupils about £50, to 
 spend £30 in fitting up the workshop, about £30 in in- 
 cidental expenses, and he has as much remaining over 
 after all as would repay the Gaelic League what they 
 gave him. There are at present fourteen pupils attend- 
 ing the School, most of whom are engaged at other occu- 
 pations during the day, and although they have been at 
 the School for two hours every evening for some months 
 only, they can add a few shillings a week to their regular 
 wage, and by a craft that both recreates and educates 
 them. Whoever would like to see some specimens of 
 their work can find them in the magnificent mirrors 
 which are to be seen at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. 
 
 Several years before the coming of the Department, 
 Father Hurley, parish priest of Inchigeela, Co. Cork, 
 had instructions on Dair}^ work given in his parish, in 
 connection with the Munster Dairy School. For more 
 than fifteen years he has lace, crochet, and knitting in- 
 dustries in two or three centres in his parish. At Ballin- 
 geary, near Gougane Baxra, he turned a disused school- 
 room beside the village into an Industrial School, where, 
 with the help of the Congested Districts Board, he had 
 the unemployed girls of the village and neighbourhood 
 taught Carrickmacross Lace and Limerick Crochet. Over 
 forty girls are thus employed, and earn each from 8s. to 
 10s. a week. Besides these, he has established cookery, 
 laundry, and manual instruction classes. 
 
 About thi'ee years ago Father Cregan, of Limerick, 
 established St. Ita's House for the instruction and re- 
 creation of the members of his Women's Total Abstinence 
 Sodality. Irish, reading, writing, arithmetic, music, 
 and dressmaking are taught in it under the supervision 
 of ladies who talk little afcout altruism, but practise 
 much of it. About a year ago he started a shirt-factory 
 in connection with the establishment, and at present has 
 
22S TEMPORAL COXCEltXS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 up to thirty girls employed. The work is steadily ex- 
 tending, and promises to grow into a large industry in the 
 near future. He has been enabled to take and fit up a 
 large house for the work through the help of private 
 friends. He applied to the Department for help, and 
 was refused. 
 
 I might also review the industrial work done by Father 
 Hegarty, of Eris ; by Canon McGeany, of Crossmaglen ; 
 by Father M'Cleary, Father Marron, also in the North ; 
 by Father Glendon, O.P., in Dublin, and by 
 Father Creagh, C.SS.R., in Limerick; and by 
 many other priests of whose works I have heard — 
 and there are a great many such works going on unknown 
 to the public at large. I know of hardly any industrial 
 work carried on through the country for the benefit of 
 the people in general which priests do not take an 
 active and usually a leading part in initiating and pro- 
 moting. Only last evening I learned from a casual 
 remark made in the course of conversation that Father 
 O'Donnell, the parish priest of Rathkeale, started a 
 poultry and egg trade on the co-operative system about a 
 twelve-month ago. He is one of the most intimate 
 friends I have, and he lives about a dozen miles from 
 where I write ; yet it was quite unknown to me that the 
 poultry breed in his parish and district has been gra- 
 dually improved under his directions, and that the egg 
 trade which he started less than a twelve-month ago has 
 so far succeeded that it has had a turn over of over 
 ■£2,000 within that short time. I daresay that there are 
 very many similar cases through the country. 
 
 I give this as a last instance. Creevelea is a district 
 retired amidst the mountains of Leitrim. It is several 
 miles from a railway-station. During the past fifteen 
 years it has lost a fifth of its inhabitants by emigration, 
 and those who remain have to struggle for a bare liv- 
 ing against the most adverse circumstances. For » 
 
TEMPORAL CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE. 229 
 
 priest living in such a place it is provoking to hear 
 the criticisms of those who spin out industrial possi- 
 bilities which he is expected to translate into facts. In 
 the midst of those surroundings did Father Meehau 
 find himself cast some years ago for the first time. He 
 spent a holiday one year at the Glasgow Exhibition, and 
 another year at the Cork Exhibition, to find out some 
 new industry suitable to the circumstances of his people ; 
 but he came to the conclusion that he would have to 
 content himself with poultry, bees, gardening, and such 
 industries as he had already introduced. Even these 
 he had first to learn, and then to teach to the people ; 
 and he has acquired such proficiency that he is accepted 
 as an expert on poultry in The Country-Side, a journal 
 on that subject recently published iu London, and he is 
 a frequent contributor to the Bee-Kceper. It was not 
 an easy change from science and modern languages 
 which he had been teaching with much success for some 
 years before, to the study of poultry, bees, and the 
 growing of apples and pears. But he suffered the 
 change for the sake of his people; and under his 
 guidance they won, a few years ago, the First Prize for 
 "The Brightening of Rural life," and First Prize for 
 "Improving the Homes of the People." At his own 
 expense he held a stall at the Cork Exhibition. He 
 introduced a Cattle and General Agricultural Show to 
 Creevelea, for which he has never asked a subscription, 
 and yet it not only pays, but it is spoken of as a success 
 by all classes. I have seen the catalogues of it for 
 1902 and 1903, and their varied character makes one 
 wonder at the business ability and enterprise which 
 could secure so much success in such a place. He has 
 also a Hall for concerts and plays, which are given by 
 the young people of the place whom he has trained. 
 Besides these and other local works, such as Temper- 
 aj3ce and Libraries, he takes a leading part in several 
 
230 TEMi'oKAL CONXERXS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 public organizations, and is principal promoter of a 
 railway scheme which, when completed, will open up 
 several congested districts, and will help to realise a 
 project of coal and ii'on mining which he desires to 
 promote. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE " CIVIC VIRTUES ' OF THE XOP>TH COXSIDERED. 
 
 From the historical review I have made one will have 
 observed that the Irish people have proved their in- 
 dustrial character by their industrial success at every 
 time they have had an opportunity. We have seen 
 it, first in the woollen, then in the linen, then in 
 other manufactures, then in the cattle trade, then in 
 agriculture ; and, when all these had been destroyed by 
 restrictive legislation, the Catholics of Ireland became 
 successful merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen in 
 spite of their drawbacks and disabilities, and they saved 
 money by their thrift, whilst those who had supplanted 
 them in every civil right and advantage had sunk in 
 debt through extravagance. Then came the time when 
 events enabled them to work out their national salvation 
 through a free trade and a free parliament, and the in- 
 dustrial progress they made from 1782 to 1800 was 
 phenomenal. Then clouds passed one after another 
 over that dawn, blasted their hopes once more, and left 
 them in industrial life a nation of enervated serfs down 
 almost to the present day. For the fairness of that con- 
 clusion I appeal to the evidence I have given. And no 
 sooner does a ground of hope appear in the shape of 
 fixity of tenure, dual ownership, or the power of pur- 
 chase, than the latent energy asserts itself again. About 
 ten years ago the co-operative movement was inaugu- 
 rated to meet foreign competition, and the following 
 table, showing the membership of the various societies 
 for rural interests during the past few years, reveals a 
 
232 THE "civic Vir.TUES" OF THE NOIJTH CONSIDERED. 
 
 wonderful elasticity of mind considering the prostra- 
 tion of the past : — 
 
 1899. 1900. 1901. 
 
 No. of Member*. No. of Memberi. No. of Membern. 
 
 Leinster ... 4,605 5,924 6,60U 
 
 Munster ... 7,366 S,023 10,289 
 
 Ulster ... 10,911 13,137 18,750 
 
 Connaught ... 16,970 19.122 21,572 
 
 At the eod of 1902 the total number of members was 
 71,296, and at present it must be over 100,000. 
 
 It will be noticed that the membership in Munster and 
 Leinster falls far short of that in Ulster. But that does 
 not prove that any special civic virtues are to be found 
 in the North. Lord Monteagle, the President of the 
 Organization Society, explained the cause of the differ- 
 ence in a speech he delivered at the Fifth General Con- 
 ference of the Societies in 1901. To which I add the 
 observation that the membership in Connaught is far in 
 advance of that in Ulster ; and does that prove the 
 existence of special " strenuous qualities " in the Catholics 
 of Connaught? Moreover, in Ulster and Connaught 
 the farms are usually very small, and the output of a 
 dairy society in those provinces might not be more than 
 that of a similar society in Munster with a membership 
 several times less. In fact, Munster was the pioneer in 
 the movement ; and Ulster came last, waiting to learn 
 wisdom from the enterprise of the South. Is it not a 
 fact that Sir Horace had in vain tried to establish a 
 society in the North until the strenuous Northerners 
 had learned the likelihood of success from the enter- 
 prise of the South ? Besides those societies which) 
 belong to the Irish Agricultural Organization, there 
 are many industries in the country chiefly due to the 
 action of nuns and priests, some of which had been 
 in existence before it, and some of which have grown 
 up since then. 
 
THE "'civic virtues" OF THE NORTH CONSIDERED. 233 
 
 Sir Horace writes'-^: — "The Protestant Commuuities 
 of the North have developed the essentially strenuous 
 qualities which, no doubt, they brought from England 
 and Scotland. In city life their thrift, industry, and 
 enterprise, unsurpassed in the United Kingdom, have 
 built up a world-wide commerce. In rural life they 
 have drawn the largest yield from relatively infertile 
 soil. Such, in brief, is the achievement of Ulster Pro- 
 testantism in the realm of industry." 
 
 And againf : — "I find that while the Protestants 
 have given, and continue to give, a fine example of thrift 
 and industry to the rest of the nation, the attitude of a 
 section of them towards the majority of their fellow- 
 countrymen has been a bigoted and unintelligent one. 
 On the other hand, the Roman Catholic people of Ire- 
 land, while more free from bigotry, are apathetic, thrift- 
 less, and almost non-industrial, and that they especially 
 require the exercise of strengthening influences on their 
 moral fibre. . . . North and South have each virtues 
 which the other lacks ; each has much to learn from the 
 other; but the home of the strictly civic virtues and 
 eflBciencies is to be found in the North." 
 
 The reader will be able to adjudge the value of those 
 expressions from the short review which I proceed to 
 make. Belfast had its beginning three centuries ago in the 
 huts made for the soldiers of Essex around the Castle of 
 the O'Neills. Its first inhabitants were the soldiers and 
 the retainers attached to that Castle. It began, grew, 
 and got its Charter and its privileges as an English city. 
 After the flight of the Earls, 4,000,000 acres in Ulster 
 were confiscated, and given to London companies, to Pro- 
 testant bishops and incumbents, to corporations, forts, 
 free schools; and Trinity College came in for its share. 
 
 'Page 9S. 
 tAtfpage 120. 
 
234 THE "civic virtl'es" of the north considered. 
 
 The purpose of the previous confiscations was the estab- 
 lishment of the English power in Ireland; but in this 
 confiscation there was a fresh purpose, namely, the 
 establishment of Protestantism in Ireland. In 1652, 
 after the Cromwellian wars, all Ireland was practically 
 confiscated by Act of Parliament. In the system 
 of plantation which followed these confiscations, one of 
 the conditions under which the lands were dis- 
 tributed was that the vindertakers should colonise 
 their lands with English Protestants, and clear 
 out the Irish who had lived in them. There 
 were a great many English settlers in Ulster af*^^^r 
 it was first "plant'Cd" ; but they gradually gave place to 
 the Scottish Celt ; the Irish who were suffered to remain 
 had become labourers on the properties which they had 
 once owned. I would here remind the reader of two im- 
 portant facts : one is that there is no province in Ireland 
 so Celtic or less English than Ulster, except perhaps 
 Connaught; the second is that very nearly half the 
 population of Ulster is Catholic. In Donegal, Tyrone, 
 Monaghan, Fermanagh, and Cavan, the Catholics are in 
 a majority. In Ai'magh and Derry, they are almost as 
 numerous as tho Protestants. And if, in Down and 
 Antrim, they form only about a fourth of the population 
 it is owing to the presence of Belfast which extends into 
 those two counties. Sir Horace, then, forgets his his- 
 tory and his facts when he writes of strenuous qualities 
 and civic virtues, brought over from England, and 
 flourishing in Protestant Ulster ; as if the English race 
 were a strong element there, or as if the Catholics did not 
 form half the population. 
 
 What is known as the Ulster tenant-right is supposed 
 to have begun when that province was " planted " in the 
 time of James I,, and after the flight of the Earls. 
 That right was not founded on law, but on custom. 
 
THE "civic virtues" OF THE NORTH CONSIDERED. 235 
 
 Any landlord who chose might disregard it, and the 
 tenant had no legal security against eviction, no legal 
 claim to the benefit of his improvements, no legal right 
 to sell his good-will to another. The custom probably 
 arose as an inducement and a privilege to the " planters " 
 who were brought over from England and Scotland, and 
 it has been usually respected, at least in favour of Pro- 
 testant tenants, down to our day. I mean, of course, 
 down to the year 1870, when Gladstone's first Land 
 Act decreed that the usages prevalent in Ulster should 
 thenceforth be legal. Tbe Ulster custom can even still 
 be used to advantage. The Act of 1881 which gave the 
 right of free sale to the tenant, gave the right of pre- 
 emption to the landlord. Hence the latter can claim 
 the right to buy; and according to the Act of 1881, the 
 price is to be fixed by the Court, which will fix not 
 what open competition may bring, but what may be 
 considered a fair price. There is no escape from that 
 outside Ulster. But in Ulster a tenant has the 
 option of selling either under the new Act or under the 
 old custom; and he will naturally choose the latter, 
 since the landlord has no right of pre-emption, and the 
 sale is made by open competition between all wko wish 
 to buy. What the industrial result of that advantage 
 has been, I let Butt explain : — 
 
 "Evidence clear, distinct, and overwhelming, abun- 
 dantly proves that to the custom of tenant-right Ulster 
 owes its prosperity, the character of the population, and 
 above all its freedom from agrarian crime. . . • 
 Ie these districts where the Ulster custom prevails we 
 meet with a manliness, a boldness, and a sturdy in- 
 dependence of character, which we seek in vain in the 
 naturally finer population of the South. The northern 
 yeoman, for such is almost his position, can call his 
 farm his own, his farmhouse his castle, and the fruits 
 of his industry he can claim for himself. He does not 
 
236 THE "CIVIC VIRTL-ES" OF THE NORTH CONSIDERED. 
 
 live in constant expectation of the visit of the baihf! 
 with his notice to quit, or fear to show any sign of 
 superior comfort, lest it may be an invitation to the 
 agent to raise the rent. He has all the conscious dig- 
 nity which belongs to the sense of proprietorship in the 
 soil. To this, and not to difference of race or religion, 
 must we attribute the independent spirit which is the 
 characteristic of the farming population of the North. 
 It is from men trained from childhood in this sense of 
 independence, that we would expect the habits of energy 
 and enterprise, and self-reliance, which alone can make 
 a people prosperous and great. Exactly in the very 
 districts in which tenant-right has impressed indepen- 
 dence on the people, we find all these qualities exerted, 
 with a result of manufacturing progress and prosperity 
 as great as has been achieved by any English commu- 
 nity. The marvellous advance of Belfast is the best 
 testimony to the value of fixity of tenure. In natural 
 qualities — in intellectual and physical power, the race 
 that have created it are certainly not superior to the 
 races that inhabit the plains of Munster. In climate, 
 in soil, in all natural advantages of position, Belfast is 
 far behind Limerick and Cork. We are told that re- 
 ligious dissensions are the ruin of Irish prosperity. 
 Limerick and Cork are free from them. In Belfast, 
 the town has been held for days by partisan mobs en- 
 gaged in deadly conflict with each other in the sti-eets. 
 We are reminded of the history of the Italian Republics, 
 some of whom made the most rapid progress in ma- 
 terial wealth while they were torn and distracted by 
 the furies of civil strife. Shall I be met by the bigot 
 cant that it is Protestantism that gives Belfast its 
 superiority ? Roman Catholics, and Celtic Roman 
 Catholics, are among the most energetic and enterpris- 
 ing of those who have been the architects of their own 
 fortunes in the metropolis of the North. We are com- 
 
THE -'XIVIC virtues" OF THE KOETH CONSIDERED. 237 
 
 pelled to find the cause of its unparalleled prosperity in 
 the fact, that it stands in the centre of a district in 
 which tenant-right has trained the people to habits of 
 independence and industry, and has taught them those 
 lessons of self-reliance, from which spring the powers 
 of energy and enterprise— the great, the only elements 
 of national success."^ 
 
 Besides, the spirit which " planted " Ulster, and the 
 purpose of Protestantizing the province which gave rise 
 to the tenant-right custom in favour of the Protestant 
 colonists had a natural tendency to deal otherwise with 
 the Catholics; and these have been rack-rented and 
 evicted iu Ulster as elsewhere, although not perhaps to 
 the same extent. In 1830 was formed the Protestant 
 Colonization Society of Ireland, when emigration was 
 threatening the Protestant Ascendancy in the North. 
 Its name tells its object; and the means by which it 
 proposed to attain that object was to secure waste lands, 
 or lands which had become " unoccupied from other 
 causes,'" and to plant therein "eligible farmers and arti- 
 sans, with Scriptural education for the benefit of settlers, 
 and the ordinances of pure and undefiled religion for the 
 people at large.'" The following were amongst its 
 rules : — 
 
 4th. Every tenant distinctly understands and agrees, that no 
 Roman Catholic, under any pretence whatever, shall be allowed 
 to reside or be employed in any Colony of the Society. 
 
 5th. Every colonist who shall marry a Roman Catholic shall, 
 after due notioe, retire from the colony, he being permitted to 
 dispose of or carry away his private property. 
 
 The Society, which included landed proprietors, par- 
 sons, military men, Fellows of Trinity College, etc., 
 began their work with about 1,000 acres of land on the 
 property of Sir Edmund Hayes, Bart., in Co. Donegal, 
 lo a statement read at a meeting of the Society, held in 
 Dublin, on May 24th, 1832, Mr. Ruxton Pooler, the 
 
 *A P'f2 for the Celtic J.'ace. pages -18. 49. 5^ 
 
£33 THE "civic yiutues" of the north considered. 
 
 Local Superintendent of tbe Colony, fittingly illustrates 
 how the happy brotherhood were putting out their stren- 
 uous energies in that Eden of the North: — "We are at 
 present in full employment, burning the ground laid out 
 by the deputation — men and boys, horses and asses." But 
 the Babel came after the Xsahs Ark. This was the 
 result, described by a resident in the neighbourhood in 
 1889. 
 
 " About the time referred to, the late Sir Edmund 
 Hayes built on a large tract of mountain land six or 
 seven slated houses, and brought Scotch settlers to 
 occupy them. I could not find out on what terms. 
 But there is not a remnant of the original settlers 
 in the place for many years. They remained for some 
 time, until they spent any means they had, and went 
 away paupers. He intended to build more houses, and 
 hoped to be able to proselytise all the Papists in the 
 neighbourhood. He laid out the foundations of a Pro- 
 testant church, and got large quantities of stones for 
 the building, when the bubble burst. Nothing has 
 been attempted since, and the houses are now in a 
 tumble-down condition." 
 
 The project died, but not the spirit that created it. 
 At a meeting of the Protestant Conservative Society, 
 which was held in Dublin in 1834, a well-known parson. 
 Rev. Charles Boyton, told them that, in seeking the 
 cause of their insecurity, they should not look to Popery, 
 disaffection, or democracy, that they " must go deeper, 
 and seek it in the destitution and agony of the popula- 
 tion " ; to which expression of truth and common sense, 
 Rev. Marcus Beresford, afterwards Protestant Arch- 
 bishop of Armagh, amidst the cheers of the audience, 
 replied by exhorting his brethren to drive the Popish 
 rebels from their glebe lands and plant good godly Pro- 
 testants in their place. Evidently, in the frenzy of his 
 oratorv he forgot to consider the tithes, and who would 
 pay them when the Papists were gone. 
 
THE "cnuc virtues" of the north considered. 239 
 
 In 1841, a fresh start was made by the Protestant 
 Tenantry Society. Its Prospectus deplores that " where 
 the Established Church once stood, and the pure re- 
 ligion of Christ was disseminated, now stands the Popish 
 Mass-house, pouring forth the soul-destroying doctrines 
 and immorality of Maynooth," and it proclaims the duty, 
 for the sake of religion and civilisation, of preventing 
 the disappearance of the " present Protestant tenantry 
 of Ireland to make way for the Papist who introduces the 
 misery, the supei-stition, and conspiracy, of which his 
 religious and political creeds are so prolific." And it 
 says that " the Irish Protestant Tenantry Society will 
 strenuously labour to meet and counteract this de- . 
 structive course of things. It will exert itself by every 
 lawful means within its reaeh to retain the Protestant 
 population, and to introduce a Protestant peasantry 
 into the districts before alluded to."* 
 
 I have quoted those passages for the admission they 
 contain, rather than for the purpose they set forth. The 
 Prospectus implies that the pious Protestant peasantry 
 of the North — the men of energy and success, Avere gra- 
 dually disappearing before an immoral Popish peasantry 
 — the men of misery and failure. It is unnecessary to 
 tell the story of a project set on foot by men who pro- 
 duced a prospectus like that— it flickered for a while and 
 died. What is more, one of its patrons, the Earl of Dun- 
 raven, became a Catholic, and the family of another, 
 Lord Lorton, is, I believe, known no longer in the 
 North where it was then a power. All this tells of the 
 privileges which Protestantism enjoyed in Ulster; and 
 of course those in authority favoured it with every lucra- 
 tive or influential ofl&ce and appointment in their power. 
 But, putting all special patronage aside, the agricultural 
 population of Ulster, Protestant or Papist, must needs 
 
 •Quoted in Essays on Ireland, by O'Neill Daunt, page 298. 
 
240 THE "civic VinTUES" OF THE NORTH CONSIDERED. 
 
 be luoie industrious than the more pastoral population 
 of Munster : — the land is poorer, and demands more 
 diligent labour. In the South, or even in the same 
 Munster county, let us say of Limerick or Tipperary, 
 those who live in mountainous or poor land are, as a mat- 
 ter of fact and as a matter of necessity, more industrious 
 than those who dwell in the fertile districts of the plain 
 where they can leisurely look on as the grass grows and 
 the cattle fatten. 
 
 A few years ago I heard a well-known priest, given 
 to making economics without facts, say, that " what we 
 want in Ireland is, to have a number of Scotch farmers 
 brought over and placed here and there through the 
 country, as models from whom Irish farmers could 
 learn how to farm their lands with profit." "Yes," 
 replied a distinguished Ecclesiastic who was present, 
 and who thought that facts should govern economics, "I 
 remember a number of them who did come over. They 
 held fine farms, farmed them after your more perfect 
 way, and got ' broken.' There is not one of them left. 
 Every Irish farmer knows, from his experience and from 
 the tradition of his father before him, what every field 
 of his farm can do. His difficulty is, not want of know- 
 ledge — which of course may be improved — but want of 
 capital, and want of security." 
 
 Stanley wrote in 1833 of the state of things amongst 
 the cottiers of the North : — " People cannot think of 
 cleanliness and order, who for the most part have not 
 habitations fit for human beings, or sufficient food. 
 Some reviewers of Ireland have supposed that the Roman 
 Catholic religion is the cause of these habits ; as in the 
 North, the working classes professing other religions 
 are in a more comfoi-table condition. The diflFerence 
 there has no doubt arisen from the religious influences 
 which obtained advantages for the few not ex- 
 tended to the many. Almost all the cottiers in the 
 
THE "civic virtues" OF THE NORTH CONSIDERED. 241 
 
 North professing the reformed religions, got with their 
 cottages a small quantity of ground, and were weavers. 
 While the CMDttiers professing the Catholic religion were 
 for the most part field labourers. This made all the 
 difference in their condition.'* 
 
 Let us now turn from agriculture to manufactures. I 
 have already related that Crommelin, one of the linen 
 manufacturers who were brought over to Ulster from 
 France in 170O, agreed to promote his industry in the 
 South, if his patent were extended ; but Government 
 refused the condition. An Act of Parliament made in 
 1706, speaks as follows : — " Forasmuch as the Protestant 
 interest in Her Majesty's kingdom of Ireland ought to 
 be supported by giving the utmost encouragement to 
 the linen manufactures of that kingdom, Her Majesty 
 is graciously pleased in tender regai'd to her good Pro- 
 testant subjects of her said kingdom, and for the further 
 encouragement of the linen manufactures thereof, to al- 
 low Irish manufactured linen to be shipped to the English, 
 colonies." In 1742, Parliament granted a bounty on 
 British and Irish linens. That is how Belfast was made, 
 how " the strenuous qualities" of Protestantism were 
 brought out, and how " the civic virtues and efficiencies" 
 came to be found in the North. The economic changes of 
 the past half century have depressed agricultural in- 
 dustry, have destroyed those home industries which in 
 the past generation prevailed over Ireland, and have 
 turned the people towards those industrial centres which, 
 when machinery came into play, had already grown 
 strong enough to take advantage of it. Hence the 
 rapid growth of Belfast during the nineteenth century ; 
 and the introduction of ship-building has helped to ex- 
 pand it more. Now, let me introduce the following 
 facts as jewels into the setting I have just made. They 
 
 *Commentaries on Ireland The Cloncurry Prize Essay, page 313. 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE "civic virtues" of the north considered. 
 
 arc twelve years old, but that does not lessen their value 
 as evidence:— Of 29,798 males employed in the linen 
 factories of Belfast, only 8,120 are Catholics; of 57,262 
 females, 20,773 are Catholics. The number of persons 
 employed in the ship-building industry is 3,331, of 
 whom only 443 are Catholics. The Local Government 
 of Ulster has in its service 1,192 male and 230 female 
 officials; and of these only 199 males and 56 females ai'e 
 Catholics. But, in spite of evictions and Protestant 
 Colonisation Schemes, old and new, out of 154,876 far- 
 mers in Ulster, 87,453, or o\^r 56 per cent, are Catho- 
 lics. There are in all 314,372 persons engaged in agri- 
 cultural industry in Ulster, and of these 179,684, or 57 
 per cent, are Catholics. 
 
 But, setting all consideration of these Catholic dis- 
 abilities aside, and looking at actual facts as to thrift, 
 prosperity, industr^^ cultirne, and the other civic virtues 
 which, we are told by Sir Horace, find their home in the 
 North, let us see how matters stand. Taking the In- 
 come-tax paid as a basis of comparison, the following 
 table made from the Income-tax assessment used by the 
 Home Office, and presented to Parliament in 1882, 
 shows : — 
 
 Leinster pays per head of the population ... £10 6 9 
 Munsfcer Do. ... .£6 7 
 
 Ulster Bo. ... £5 14 5 
 
 Oonnaught Do. ... £3 13 7 
 
 That comparison shows how things were before the 
 rest of Ireland began to benefit by tenant-right which the 
 Protestants of Ulster had been enjoying for three cen- 
 turies. Comparing Dublin and Belfast, the former was 
 charged £102,609, and the latter only £40,736 Income- 
 tax. Comparing Londonderry and Waterford, which 
 have about an equal population, the former was assessed 
 at £3,981 , and the latter at £6,253. 
 
THB "civic VIETUES" OF THE NORTH CONSIDEI^ED. 243 
 
 Tte following Table shows the Income-tax on profits 
 mnde in professions and trades: — 
 
 Leinster ... ... £4 2 6* 
 
 Ulster ... ... £1 9 1 
 
 Munster ... ... £17 4 
 
 Connaught ... ... £0 6 1 
 
 Again, at a conference of flax-growers and flax-spinners 
 held in Belfast on June 7th, 1900, Mr. R. H. Reade, 
 D.L., who presided, said in the course of his speech, 
 that " the growth of flax will be an extinct branch of 
 agriculture in this country unless means are taken to 
 arrest its downward progress," and he recommended the 
 Belgian methods of flax culture, in order to improve the 
 quality to the proper degree of fineness. And Mr. 
 Anderson, Secretary of the I.A.O.S., said: — "There is 
 no need for me to point out that the flax industry is de- 
 clining ; one has only to take the statistics showing that 
 the area under flax has diminished from 200,000 acres 
 to 34,000 or 35,000 acres." The growers, the scutchers, 
 and the spinners assign different causes for the decline 
 of the industry, and in general they blame one another. 
 But the fact, at any rate, is, that the spinners of Belfast 
 spend £3,000,000 a year in the purchase of foreign flax. 
 Mr. Anderson agrees with Mr. Reade that the strenuous 
 industrialists of Ulster would do wisely to go and learn 
 flax culture from the industrialists of Catholic Belgium. 
 
 The Protestants of Ireland are at present paying the 
 natural penalty of past monopoly, in their want of 
 industrial efficiency. Competition is the life of trade, and 
 they had no competitor in Ireland. But, as competition 
 comes on them from at home or from abroad, it finds 
 them lying fallow. In relation to their Catholic fellow- 
 countrymen they are trying to live on their reputation 
 
 *Statistics taken from A Word for Ireland, by T. M. 
 Healy, M.P., pages 155, ct seq. 
 
244 THE "civic virtues" of the north considered. 
 
 for business ability, as their colleges used to live on their 
 educational prestige till the Catholic colleges, having got 
 an opportunity of measuring merits with them, made the 
 bubble burst. Their industrialism was a growth forced 
 by favouritism ; and their reputation had not an ab- 
 solute value, but only shone out on the industrial apathy 
 of the Catholics, who for generations put out little 
 energy because they were left little hope. Let us take 
 two illustrations which have come before the public dur- 
 ing these days. Tlie Provincial Bank is almost exclu- 
 sively managed by Protestants, and all its Directors ex- 
 cept one are English or Scotch ; yet during the past half- 
 year, its profits have fallen by £8,000, and its deposits 
 by £92,000, whilst the business of the Munster and 
 Leinster Bank, which is managed mostly by Catholics, 
 has improved. The Midland Railway which is managed 
 in the same manner, shows similar signs of mismanage- 
 ment. On the other hand, the County Councils have 
 gained much praise from many and high quarters for 
 the administrative and constructive ability they have 
 shown. I have seen it stated somewhere that Lord 
 Dunraven has given the Limerick County Council credit 
 for a keener and clearer insight into their work than 
 the London County Council. The Great Southern and 
 Western Railway is also notoriously managed by Pro- 
 testants, and yet the value of its stock has fallen 
 to an alarming degree. But how did they meet the 
 difficulties and criticisms which aggrieved shareholders 
 set before them at their recent meeting? They parried 
 them with " We have come here to do business ; we 
 are men of business and we cannot waste time over those 
 trifles." They parry appeals for proportionate Catholic 
 representation on the Directorate with — " This is a 
 non-sectarian meeting; we cannot allow religious mat- 
 ters to be discussed." That is, their spirit of sectar 
 rianism having manned the directorate with their own,. 
 
THE "civic virtues" OF THE NORTH CONSIDERED. 245 
 
 they call it sectarianism for Catholics to complain. 
 For them, non-sectarianism means monopoly, and to 
 attack their monopoly is to intrude sectarianism. 
 
 I have now said all that I have thought necessary to 
 say on the present state of material progress in Ulster 
 and its metropolis. One word on the evidences of human 
 progress to be found there. As to religion; a friend of 
 mine tells me that, during a recent visit to a town in 
 Antrim, he was struck by the contrast between the well- 
 dressed sameness of the Protestant worshippers and the 
 Catholic variety of the Papists, as he saw each congrega^ 
 tion leave their respective churches on Sunday. He saw in it 
 an illustration of the thrift of the one, and the thriftless- 
 ness of the other, until he was informed that the Protes- 
 tants feel that their presence in church is not desirable 
 unless they can afford to appear in proper Sunday 
 elegance ; and those who cannot dress well do not go. As 
 a body, they bottle up their devotion through the year, in 
 reserve for the religious practices of the 12th July, when 
 their piety pours forth like a volcano, polluting every- 
 thing with a mixture of intoxication, blasphemy, bolts, 
 and blood. But, then, they have the " civic virtues and 
 eflSciencies," and we are asked to take that as the test 
 of civilisation, since it is the religious ideal of naturalism. 
 Of literarj^ life, there is a painful absence in wealthy 
 Belfast; it has not produced even a respectable news- 
 paper or magazine. Of art, they seem to have little con- 
 ception. The practical life they live unfits them for the 
 ideal. I suppose it is a sign of the "economic sense "; 
 for Sir Horace Plunkett thinks we should put away the 
 thought of art in our churches, and wait for "the native 
 artistic sense and industrial spirit now beginning to seek 
 creative expresssion." But if Belfast means to wait for 
 its art till a Giotto or a Fra Angelico has arisen, it will 
 have to wait a long time. No national art has ever grown 
 in that way. The artistic genius is created, or rather 
 
'246 THE "civic virtues" of the north considered. 
 
 discovered, in the process of growth. If the people of 
 Perugia were like the people of Belfast, Perugino would 
 probably have gone to his grave unhonoured and un- 
 known. And the " industrial spirit seeking creative ex- 
 pression " has simply no meaning in sesthetics. The 
 highest point in the way of art which the industrial 
 spirit could reach is a photograph ; but that is not art, 
 unless we impart elasticity to the word. Sir Horace's 
 aesthetic philosophy reminds me of a paper I heard read 
 on this subject a few years ago by one of his disciples; 
 he impressed me on that occasion as one who had studied 
 art in guide books, but never saw the master-pieces to 
 which he alluded, and I have since learned that he had 
 never been outside Ireland. 
 
 Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille 
 Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum. 
 
 That is the principle on which we are asked to have 
 Ecclesiastical Art developed in Ireland. On the same 
 principle, I suppose, the people of Belfast have waited 
 till they are wealthy, to build a cathedral. Yerily, 
 " the children of this world are wiser in their generation '" 
 than the Catholics of Cloyne and Cashel, of Limerick 
 and Armagh, who have anticipated their wealth, and the 
 " ready cash " which their cathedrals have cost. One 
 thing is certain — Belfast is not the Athens of Ireland. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 We have not yet sounded the depths of priestly re- 
 sponsibility in Ireland. "But after all," Sir Horace 
 writes, " these criticisms are, for the purposes of my argu- 
 ment, of minor relevance and importance. The real 
 matter in which the direct and personal responsibility of 
 the Roman Catholic clergy seems to me to be involved is 
 the character and morale of the people of this country." 
 And he proceeds to say that after making full allowance 
 for historical influence, " I still think that with their un- 
 questioned authority in religion, and their almost equally 
 undisputed influence in education, the Roman Catholic 
 clergy cannot be exonerated from some responsibility in 
 regard to Irish character as we find it to-day. Are they, 
 I would ask, satisfied with that character? I cannot 
 think so." Neither do I think so. But let us consider 
 how he discerns the want of character and morale in Irish 
 Catholics. Later on I will examine how far the in- 
 fluence of the priests in education has been undisputed. 
 Meanwhile, let us consider the following: — "The im- 
 partial observer will, I fear, find amongst a majority of 
 our people a listlessness and apathy in regard to eco- 
 nomic improvement which amount to a form of fatalism ; 
 and, in backward districts, a survival of superstition, 
 which saps all strength of will and purpose." -^ 
 
 From his point of view, not only Irish Catholics in 
 backward districts, but every Catholic everywhere is 
 superstitious in many things. 
 « Page 110. 
 
248 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 He, of course, thinks that our belief, for instance, in 
 the Real Presence is a superstition ; even the king, on 
 assuming the sceptre to rule us, had to call on God to 
 witness that he believes it of us. And there is no doubt 
 that the Blessed Eucharist is the object of either th« 
 sublimest act of human worship or of tlie most abject 
 superstition known to civilisation. Sir Horace will reply 
 that he does not think us superstitious in that belief ; to 
 which I rejoin that he must think us so, under pain of 
 inconsistency. As I, or any other Catholic, kneel down 
 to receive the Blessed Eucharist we adore as God what is 
 in appearance only bread. Sir Horace, I am quite sure, 
 respects the sincerity of our belief. But that is not the 
 question. Our sincerity will excuse -us, but it will not 
 do away with the superstition. If it were otherwise, 
 those superstitions which he tells us play such moral 
 havoc in backward districts, would likewise cease to be 
 superstitions ; because those poor folk to whom he alludes 
 are no doubt quite sincere as to fhe righteousness of their 
 beliefs or customs. He does not specify what those 
 " survivals of superstition " are, and he therefore pre- 
 cludes me from discussing them on their merits. Does 
 he allude to the notorious Tipperary witch case ? Pre- 
 scinding from the question whether the chief actor in 
 that tragedy was a lunatic, or not — and religious 
 maniacs are to be found everywhere, that his was a 
 singular case appears from the fact, carefully concealed 
 by our traducers, that he was hooted by his neighbours 
 whose moral instincts were shocked by his action. 
 
 We axe supposed to be always on the defence, making 
 apologies for our beliefs or customs ; even held i-espon- 
 sible for the conduct of fanatics or fools. But the home 
 of the "simpler Christianity" across the Channel has been 
 the home of superstition and fanaticism from the days 
 of the Lancashire witches and Johanna Southcote down 
 to the faith-healers, the spirit-rappers, the crystal gazers, 
 
CATHOLIC V. KON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 249 
 
 the traders in borderland yarn, the Elijahs and all the 
 other- world messengers of to-day.* I have before me 
 
 * A fortune-teller was lionised last year by crowds of visitors to 
 Blackpool. The Times, of Aug. 18th, 1904 reports a witch case, 
 which was tried at the Marlborough Street Police Court. Two 
 similar cases were tried the week before. On Oct. 6th, at the 
 Clerkenwell Sessions, the case of Charles and Martha Stephenson, 
 professionally known as the " Keiros," was tried. Their clients 
 were not Popish peasants living " in backward districts "' in Ire- 
 land, but " simpler Christians " living in English cities. According 
 to the lawyer who defended them, they had " some of the most 
 distinguished people" amongst their clients. One lady, who 
 wanted to know if a certain gentleman would marry her, wrote — 
 " Enclosed is order for £2 for the crystal, but I have not seen any- 
 thing in it yet." Another who had been warned by the crystal- 
 gazers against riding in December want-ed to know if the 
 warning included driving also, as she did not ride. A gentleman 
 who was anxious about some examination that was to come off, 
 wanted to help him over it successfully. 
 
 A child seventeen months old died at Scarborough recently. 
 There was an inquest; and the mother, in answer to the Coroner, 
 gave evidence that the child was bewitched, that, she knew the 
 woman who did it, because the said woman threatened "to bewitch 
 the child by boiling eggs and mashing them." 
 
 In May, 1903, Truth states : " The latest case is reported from 
 Exeter, where a ' witch doctor,' named Thomas, was convicted of 
 having defrauded a number of country people. Thomas had a 
 great reputation in his occult profeseion, and the practice he 
 carried on is said to have been worth £300 a year. Fatheads, 
 who imagined they had been ' overlooked ' or bewitched, were 
 constantly paying him handsome fees to exorcise the malign 
 spirit or influence. In a typical case a farmer who had had the 
 misfortune to lose some of his stock parted with £22 for a ' cure ' 
 in the form of a powder, which Thomas instructed him to throw 
 about the homestead, between 9 p.m. and midnight while he said 
 the Lord's Prayer." 
 
 Such a man even as Harold Frederic died a martyr to that craze 
 called "Christian Science." I take the following from The Daily 
 News, of Sept. 29th, 1904 :— " In so far as the tragedy of Mr. Harold 
 Frederic should have proved a warning against ' Christian Science 
 healers,' the sacrifice of that brilliant writer was, apparently, in 
 vain. There are circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Colin 
 Hunter. A.R.A., the famous artist, which recall that pathetic case 
 
 to mind For close upon three years Mr. Hunter had 
 
 suffered from grave internal maladies, as well as brain trouble, and 
 throughout that long time, while he was slowly and surely dying, 
 he was in the hands of 'Christian Science healers,' who were 
 absolutely ignorant of all medical science. He was not himself a 
 ' Christian Scientist.' Mr. Colin Hunter had now and again, in 
 ita early days, attended that ' First Church of Christian Scientiste.' 
 which has now disappeared from Bryanston Street, Edgeware Eoad. 
 But he never believed in their tenets. Unhappily, Mrs. Colin 
 
250 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 a list of society palmists, Cliristian scientists, crystal 
 gazers, clairvoyants, psychometrists, psychic developers, 
 and other borderland interpreters, open to receive 
 clients or to attend "at homes;" fi'om which it 
 appears that they are doing a profitable trade. 
 
 About a generation ago the name of Biddy Early had 
 spread far and wide from the hills of Clare where she 
 resided. Now, Biddy was of the same trade as those to 
 whom I have just referred. There was only this dif- 
 ference : — Biddy was not known to the unscientific folk 
 around her as a crystal gazer or a "scientist," but as 
 a " knowledgeable woman " ; and .whereas her English 
 
 Hunter and her two charming daughters became victims to the 
 alluring nonsense preached by Mrs. Eddy and the followers of that 
 American bare-faced female apostle who founded her pre- 
 sent gigantic fortune when, without scruple, she put herself forward 
 as the re-incarnation of the Divinity, and protended to bestow th« 
 gift of miracles and healing upon those who became her disciples. 
 They followed the Church from Eryanston Street to its present 
 shelter in Wilbraham Place, Sloano Square, and were prominent 
 and highly esteemed members of the aristocratic but deluded 
 community of 'Christian Scientists.' When Mr. Hunter fell ill, 
 so great was the faith of his poor wife in the powers of these 
 people that she at once sent for a ' healer.' Six or seven were 
 tried in succession. Then there came to this country from India 
 a new miracle-worker, Charles A. Wase, a young man of thirty 
 years. Mr. Wase rapidly acquired the position of ' principal 
 healer' among the ' Christian Scientists,' ... So great became 
 the demand for his services that he had to connect his rooms with 
 the telephone. He was sent for by the family to attend Mr. Colin 
 Hunter, and for nearly two years he has been in atteiidauca on 
 the unhappy and dying artist." ihis is Mr. VVase's account of his 
 philosophy to a represenlative of the Daily News: — "I am simply 
 a mental healer, a Christian Science healer. Wo do not work by 
 hypnotism, but by realising man's connection with his cause, that 
 in his greater self he is part of his cause, and that, while we 
 recognise physical ailments, there can be no illness in the man's 
 greater self, and that therefore physical ailments must disappear 
 the moment the greater self is realised." Is there a peasant in 
 Iieland who could be fascinated by blasphemous " blarney " like 
 that? St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians of "him whoso coming 
 is according to the work of Satan, in all power, and signs, and 
 lying wonders, and in all seduction of iniquity to them that 
 perish; because they received not the love of truth that they might 
 be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, 
 to believe lying." (2 Thess. chap, ii., 9, 10). 
 
CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 251 
 
 sister divinities charge fashionable fees, Biddy was satis- 
 fied if her clients brought her a bottle of whiskey. 
 Would Sir Horace point out the difference between the 
 jnsJiog II e^ma-kevs and the fashionable fortune-tellers who 
 are called palmists ? I will tell him ; the latter make 
 more dupes and more money than the former, and the 
 former are all but extinct in Ireland, whilst the latter 
 are living and thriving in London and in other centres 
 of material progress and of the industrial spirit. Super- 
 stitions are to be found in forward as well as in 
 "backward districts" of Ireland, England, America, 
 and everywhere. But, which beai-s the brand of de- 
 gradation deeper — ^the superstition which refuses to 
 use basic slag recommended by the Etepartment, or 
 the faith-cure which refuses medicine and keeps out 
 the doctor? Sir Horace does not specify the super- 
 stitions to which he alhides; but, after a fair ex- 
 perience both of England and of the Continent I am 
 bound to say that Catholic Ireland is by comparison verj' 
 free from those excrescences of the human fancy v.-hich 
 are common to both, scepticism and faith. Pascal used to 
 say that the age of incredulity is the most credulous age. 
 But those who affect scientific acquirements may with 
 impunity nail a horse-shoe to their halldoor for luck, or 
 a New York girl may sew a lock of her hair in her 
 friend's wedding-gown as a charm to make her own turn 
 oome next ; but an Irish Catholic peasant dare not turn 
 home when he sees a lone magpie under pain of hav- 
 ing himself and the Catholic faith which he professes set 
 forth in terms of pity or contempt by writers who ima- 
 gine they are philosophers. What are those superstitions 
 to which he particularly alludes? Is it that Catholics "in 
 baxkward districts" wear scapulars? Many eminent. 
 Catholics devoutly wear them. I may mention the late 
 Lord Emly, for an instance, as the fact was published in 
 the newspapers after his death. Is it that they use Holy 
 
252 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Water? Every Catholic does so. Is it that they "pay 
 rounds " at holy wells ? That is one way of reducing the 
 Catholic doctrine of the Invocation of Saints to practice, 
 and I think it is a very excellent way. The Duke of 
 Norfolk used to take his late son to the Grotto of Lourdes 
 and to St. Winifred's Well. To the mind of his Grace, 
 it was an act of faith ; according to the mind of certain 
 philosophers it was an act of foolishness ; to the feelings 
 of elite souls it was an act of superstitious vulgarity, the 
 stain of which could hardly be washed out by " all the 
 blood of all the Howards." The late M. Pasteur used to 
 practise similar "superstitions" when, for years before 
 his death, he yearly^ visited Arbois to take part in their 
 parish Feast with the inhabitants of his native village. 
 We will find similar " superstitions " in Belgium and in 
 the Khenish Provinces of Germany, and yet they lead 
 the way in phases of economic life where England lags 
 behind. The fact is, Sir Horace is incapable of inter- 
 preting the thoughts of the Catholics in those " backward 
 districts" to which he alludes. They may have some 
 practices which a Catholic should condemn as supersti- 
 tious. I cannot say, for he does not name any. Every- 
 one who believes in Divine Providence and in the in- 
 fluence of the Supernatural in the world runs a risk of 
 being at some time or other, in some practice or belief, 
 superstitious. Because one who believes at all in super- 
 natural agencies may be led, in one case or in another, 
 to attribute to the supernatural an effect which might 
 have come from natural causes. That is natural. Such 
 accidents happen in every phase of human thought and 
 conduct. The very human freedom which gives us 
 power to do good leaves us also the power to do evil; 
 the very power we have to find truth, sometimes leads 
 us into error. To preclude the possibility of super- 
 stition we should disown the supernatural altogether. 
 And even that would not prevent it, since, as we have 
 
CxVTHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 253 
 
 seen, those who do deny the supernatural are often 
 superstitious, although in their case it implies incon- 
 sistency as well as error. But a Catholic who is super- 
 stitious, and he is so much less frequently than our 
 critics think, is not inconsistent; he merely falls into 
 an error of judgment. Superstition is an excrescence on 
 supernatural faith in the person who believes ; and it is 
 morally certain to exist amongst a people who realise the 
 unseen. But, for those who disown belief in any super- 
 natural influonce to act as if they did believe, is the mark 
 of men whose minds are out of gear. Last year a very 
 severe illness kept me for some time on the balance be- 
 tween death and life. I had the benefit of medical care 
 and skill than which I would not seek in Dublin or 
 London any on which I would place more trust. Yet I 
 believe that my recovery was very much due to the 
 prayers of the people. I suppose that some who read this 
 confession will say : " The superstition only of an ignorant 
 Catholic ! " 
 
 Be it so; but having accepted Catholic principles, I 
 sha,ll not let myself be thought the coward to disown, 
 nor the fool to refuse the consequences. I will insist in 
 believing that " more things are wrought by prayer than 
 this world dreams of." Sir Horace, with the best 
 intentions, cannot understand us; but he evidently 
 thinks that he does. He has in several matters fallen 
 into precisely the same mistake to which he, too chari- 
 tably I fear, traces English misrule in this country : 
 namely, he has " standardized " us. 
 
 It is so with Lecky also. He thus writes with off-hand 
 contempt; "St. Januarius, it is true, continues to liquefy 
 at Naples ; "* and he says in general that, even amongst 
 Catholics, no educated person would accept a miracle 
 to-day on any evidence ; and he adds, " they are repu- 
 diated, not because they are unsupported, but because 
 * History of Rationalism in Eurcpe, Vol. I., page 142. 
 
254 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 tbey ai-e miracles." As to the particular instance he 
 gives, I had the privilege of examining the phial con- 
 taining: the Saint's blood on one occasion when it was 
 said to liquefy. I withhold the impression that was 
 made on myself ; I merely observe that Cardinal Newman 
 thinks that there is evidence of the liquefaction quite 
 enough to convince one. To dispose of the assumption 
 that no educated person believes in modern miracles, it 
 is enough to place Newman on one pan of the balance 
 and Lecky on the other. These critics will not even con- 
 sider the evidence for a modern miracle. An occurrence 
 cannot be a miracle, they say, because mira^cles do not 
 happen now. I wonder when had such men a.s Lecky a 
 letter from heaven, announcing that from a certain date 
 back in history the Hand of God was to be shortened, 
 and that miracles were to be no more. A Catholic does 
 not reasion in that way. He weighs the evidence in each 
 case and decides for himself, as every Catholic is free to 
 do as to the alleged miracles at Naples or Lourdes. The 
 Catholic founds his judgment on the evidence of fact ; 
 the rationalist draws his conclusion from a preconceived 
 fancy — miracles do not happen. Thus they i-eason who 
 deplore Catholic superstition. 
 
 There is far less superstition even amongst the Catho- 
 lic illiterate folk in Ireland than outsidei-s think. But 
 if I went in search of downright and unexceptionable 
 superstition I should go to Protestantism of all shades, 
 from Church of England orthodoxy to agnosticism. 
 What is "Christian science" but a superstition? The 
 notorious Dowie, whom a Catholic might in charity think 
 a lunatic, was taken for Elijah on his own testimony in 
 America, the Mecca of the industrial spirit. He had the 
 "economic sense," and he traded successfully on their 
 superstition till he rose — or fell? — from a pauper to a 
 millionaire. And had he not let his prophetic 
 afflatus mislead him to preach at the king when he came 
 
CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPEESTITION. 255 
 
 to London, he would have filled every hall there with 
 superstitious audiences, and his pockets with their cash. 
 Superstition in a rationalist is much more degrading 
 than superstition in a Popish peasant of a " backward 
 district." There is reason at the root of the peasant's 
 Fuperstition — which is but an excrescence on the living 
 tree of faith. The rationalist who is afraid, for instance, 
 to sit down to dinner, one of a party of thirteen, or who 
 follows the " Christian science " craze, simply sets his 
 principles and his practice by the ears. A rationalist, 
 whose conduct in any way at all implies the reality of 
 the supernatural, is a square circle; is a hollow sham 
 who acoepte sometimes what he affects to deplore in 
 others at all times. In a Catholic superstition is acci- 
 dental, the result of a personal error of judgment in a 
 particular case ; in a rationalist it is essentially a denial 
 of his principles. Error is bad ; inconsistency is worse ; 
 superior wisdom affected in inconsistency is contemp- 
 tible. Standing on those premises, I declare this 
 opinion, that the most illiterate Catholic old crone I 
 have ever met, taken with some superstitions accidental 
 to her faith, is higher in the scale of rational civilisation 
 than some of those who abuse reason and try to subli- 
 mate the result of the act by calling it rationalism. 
 Those always remind me of a sign-board bearing the 
 inscription " Spirit store and tea emporium " which I 
 once saw over the door of what was little better than a 
 huxter's shop. 
 
 We hold ourselves open te the criticism of all ; but 
 let those who undertake the task do us the justice, 
 or rather let them show their reason the respect of 
 first taking the trouble to understand what they criti- 
 cise in us. If a Catholic, bori'owiug their over-weening 
 spirit for a moment, turns on them and treats them 
 as ignorant, they resent it. "When they refer te Catho- 
 lics as ignorant, it is their natural privilege; if a 
 
256 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Catholic refers to them as ignorant, it is due to his want 
 of culture. But we are thought fair game for all classes 
 of critics, from the well-meaning man, such as Sir 
 Horace is, down to those who malign us for money. 
 
 In a book just published in London, called Father 
 Clancy, the author represents a Catholic girl as replying 
 to a priest who asked her what she wore around her 
 neck — " Oh ! it's a scapular I have, yer Riv'rence ; there 
 is the Blessed Eucharist in it." The author must have 
 got his knowledge of the scapular from some book on 
 etymology ; and the idea of having the Blessed Eucharist 
 in a scapular is not only unreal but simply shocking. 
 I have taken the trouble to get from an illiterate old 
 woman living in one of the lanes near me her idea of 
 the intelligence of this writer; and without wasting 
 space on the circumstantial ornaments, I give the sub- 
 stance of the conversation : — 
 
 " I read in a book lately of a woman who kept the 
 Blessed Eucharist in her scapular." 
 
 The old woman — " Yerra, Lor', Father, who said 
 that? Sure, no wan ever heard of the Blessed Saycra- 
 ment in a scaflSer ? " 
 
 " Well, it is in the book at any rate." 
 
 The old woman — "Yeh! your Reverence, he was a 
 Prodishtant or somethin'. Wboever said that didn't 
 know no betther. What would thim know about 
 scafflers or the Blessed Saycrament — no more than Jack 
 there," pointing to a dog lying comfortably in a snug 
 corner near the fire. And after a few moments' pause, 
 turning her eyes towards heaven, and gathering her 
 beads between her thin veiny hands, she continued — 
 "Sure, but for the goodness of God and His Blessed 
 Mother, I might be as ignorant meself ! God help us ! 
 an' 'tis thankful to God we ought to be. I was taking 
 out me bades to say a few prayei's when your Reverence 
 came in. 'Tis nothin' else I am able to do now! Glory, 
 
CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOLIC SCPEKSTITION. 257 
 
 honour, and praise be to His Holy Name!" Anyone who 
 understands Catholic teaching will discern behind those 
 spontaneous utterances of that simple woman a clearor 
 conception of the meaning of the Supernattu-al, of the 
 impotence of the human intellect to grasp the mysteries 
 of faith, or of the human will to do meritorious acts 
 than is to be found in the brains of half the critics who 
 would measure the Infinite, and are wise in thear own 
 conceit. 
 
 Those superstitions found by Sir Hora-ce in " back- 
 ward districts, sapping all strength of will and purpose," 
 are as imaginary as the peasant who refused to spray his 
 potatoes lest he might be guilty of denying the Provi- 
 dence of God. Tliat ubiquitous peasant has been met 
 by every itinerant economist in the country, from Clare 
 to Donegal. But one understands such chestnuts, all 
 plucked from the same tree. It is possible that some 
 shrewd countryman made the excuse as a good-natured 
 way of getting rid of an agent for spraying machines. 
 The Irish peasant is very sceptical of every dms ex 
 machina that comes to kill microbes and to revolutionise 
 agriculture. Any neighbour who affects these novelties 
 they call " The Scotchman," in memory of the Scotch 
 farmers Avho came over here a few generations ago, 
 worked their farms on improved methods, and went 
 away paupers. Nevertheless, the Irish peasant is 
 amongst the piurest of empiric philosophers, inasmuch 
 as he will spi-ay his garden, without meaning any 
 offence to Divine Providence, once he sees fair grounds 
 for thinking that the process will prevent the potato 
 blight. 
 
 I would remind Sir Horace that, not superstition, not 
 fataKsm, has " sapped all strength of will and purpose 
 in the backward districts '" and in the forward districts 
 of this country, but the intolerance, the injustice, and 
 the despotism of those for whom he makes himself the 
 
258 CATHOLIC V. NON-CATHOMC SUPERSTITION. 
 
 well-meaning, but not very logical apologist. The 
 fatalism which he has found amongst the people waa 
 caused by the insurmountable barrier which the law 
 built up between them and all industrial improvement. 
 Even a drowning man strikes out strongly as long as he 
 has hope to reach the shore, but he sinks helplessly to 
 the bottom when all hope is gone. Their fatalism arose 
 not from the inexorable laws of nature, but from the 
 inexorable laws of man. It is true they were under 
 the power of three Fates. They had their Clotho 
 Lachesis and Atropos, in misgovernment, in land- 
 lordism, and in Protestantism; their only ray of hope 
 and spring of happiness came from that Catholic faith 
 to which their critics trace all their woes. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD; INTEMPERAXCE AT HOME. 
 
 Sir Horace finds another proof of the want of 
 character iu Irish Catholics, which he thus ex- 
 presses: — ''Nor can the Roman Catholic Clergy alto- 
 gether console themselves with the thought that religious 
 faith, even when free from superstition, is strong in the 
 breasts of the people. So long, no doubt, as Irish 
 Roman Catholics remain at home, in a country of sharply 
 defined rehgious classes, and with a social environment 
 and a public opinion so preponderatingly stamped with 
 their creed, open defections from Roman Catholicism 
 are rare. But we have only to look at the extent of 
 the ' leakage ' from Roman Catholicism in the United 
 States and in Great Britain, to realise how largely 
 emotional and formal must be the religion of those who 
 lapse so quickly in a non-Catholic atmosphere." 
 
 That is to say : even in our faith as distinct from our 
 superstitions, we are wanting in character. Those who 
 write about the "leakage" in England and else- 
 where, remind one of the scientists who tell 
 us the age of the earth. The widely discrepant 
 information they give us only brings us deeper darkness 
 instead of light. I have no personal knowledge of 
 America, bul I could quote American bishops and 
 priests who have spent their lives there against the 
 exaggerated account of the " leakage ' which Sir Horace 
 quotes from Father Shinnors, who little more than 
 passed through it giving missions, and whose knowledge 
 of it must be superficial. But, of England I can speak 
 
260 LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 to some extent. I have been oii the missioa ia 
 the Archdiocese of Westminster for some years. I 
 lived in different parts of it; attended during the 
 time two large hospitals, a large infirmary and 
 a workhouse. The necessity of the case must be 
 my excuse for publishing that I visited every house, 
 and in tenement houses every room, in the districts where 
 I lived — nou-Catholic as well as Catholic, in order to find 
 out the Catholics. Having made my census, I kept re- 
 peating my visits as priests usually do. I still preserve 
 the census I then made. Now, in the course of that 
 sifting I do not remember having met one Irish-born 
 Catholic who had really lost the faith. Many bad grown 
 careless in the practice of it, but that is quite another 
 thing. I remember one with a very Irish name who was 
 thought by his neighbours not to be a Catholic, for some 
 time after his arrival in their neighbourhood. I visited 
 his house, saw himself, and asked him if he was a 
 Catholic. " No, Sir," was the reply, with the door ajar 
 and his head half through. I said to him — "Now, per- 
 haps you mean that you are a bad Catholic ?" At once 
 he brightened up and said " That's right, Father — I am 
 a careless and bad 'un ; worse luck." The poor fellow 
 had been careless, though not very much so, and he 
 speculated on the denial as the best way of escaping the 
 importunity of the priest. But his faith was as firm as 
 my own. I believe that the " leakage '' in England, such 
 as it is, has mostly come through the children of mixed 
 marriages brought up in indifference, and through 
 orphan or pauper children who, having been sent to Pro- 
 testant Poor Law institutions, were not brought up in 
 thoir own faith. And when I say that many Irish 
 emigrants in England have grown careless in the prac- 
 tice of their religion, I mean that they neglect to go to 
 tha Sacraments, not that they object to go, as if denying 
 the duty. The Irish emigrants in England have been for 
 
LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 261 
 
 the most part the poorest of the poor. They did not go 
 to America or Australia because they could not afford 
 the passage-money. They found themselves penniless 
 and strangers in some large English city, and con- 
 sequently had to live in the lowest lanes and alleys, 
 in a physical and moral atmosphere so different 
 from their surroundings at home and from the pure 
 air that blew across their native hills. Moreover, 
 priests, churches and schools were few and far between. 
 They found themselves few in the midst of many, 
 and few of those many ever left their homes on a 
 Sunday morning to go to any place of worship. 
 They found themselves lost in the midst of surroundings 
 where they noticed no pulse of religious life ever 
 beating. I am not now writing hearsay ; I write what 
 I know ; and considering their circumstances, the won- 
 der to me has always been, not that so many of them 
 have neglected the practice of their faith, as that so 
 many have remained faithful to it. I own that the 
 spiritual wilderness through which I daily passed 
 had a depressing influence on the activity of 
 my own faith. And let me not be understood to say 
 that the negligent never go to their religious duties; 
 they do go, though not often ; but in case of illness the 
 most careless often become the most conscientious and 
 careful. Hence, I conclude that Sir Horace cannot 
 find in the fate of Irish emigrants in England the proof 
 of their want of " chai'acter and morale" which he 
 thought he had found in it. By the way, if losing 
 one's faith be a sign of wa,nt of character, multitudes 
 in England, the home of "strenuous qualities," have 
 little of it. I have known whole streets and lanes 
 where the only inhabitants who thought of any pUoe of 
 worship were the Irish Catholics who resided there. 
 With that fact before us— and I am writing what I know 
 — I now invite Sir Horace to apply his own test of 
 
202 LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 character andmoraleto English Protestants living amidst 
 the surroundings of their birth, not emigrants cast, few, 
 penniless, and strangers, in the midst of multitudes. I 
 could give instances from my own experience of Pro- 
 testant husbands or wives becoming Catholics owing to 
 the influence or example of their Irish-Catholic partners, 
 and of poor Irish workingmen and women bringing Pro- 
 testant neighbours or acquaintances to the priest to be 
 instructed. I remember one poor old Englishman, liv- 
 ing in one of the lanes about Clare Market, of! the 
 Strand, who asked me to receive him into the Church. 
 Whilst I was instructing him, I once asked him why- 
 he desired to be a Catholic, and his reply was : — 
 " When I was a young man, sir, I had a chum — he 
 was an Irishman — a Roman Catholic. He's a good bit 
 dead now — a very good man he was, sir — a very good 
 man, sir — and I thought as I should belong to that 
 man's religion, and I want to die in it." 
 
 Sir Horace is good enough to avow that in Ireland 
 "open defections from Roman Catholicism are rare." 
 Now, to my mind, that spontaneous avowal, with its 
 apparent impartiality, is one of the most blam^able 
 expressions in his book. The open defections are 
 rare! But the secret defections — how many are they? 
 That is the plain implication. I do not deny the possi- 
 bility of such cases and of such persons. Judas was one 
 of the Twelve, and his apostacy was not a case of open 
 defection; he was at Communion with the other Apostles 
 at the Last Supper, and he kissed his Saviour even later 
 on. Is the notorious compiler of " Five Years in Ire- 
 land," one of them? For, looking over that compilation, 
 the fact which iapi>eared to me to be specially obtruded, 
 brought out as in alto relievo from the whole picture, is 
 that he is a " Roman Catholic." If they are of that 
 class, we make a present of them, or rather we return 
 them with thanks, to the " simpler Christianity," in the 
 
LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPEHANCE AT HOME. 263 
 
 lastitutions of which they were brought up, and in 
 which they learned their " Catholic " teaching, besides 
 their "character and mnrale." There are some "open 
 defections" from the faith in Ireland, but they are 
 "rare!" I do not deny it. Every tree in the course 
 of a long life produces branches v/hich, not absorb- 
 ing and assimilating the sap, die by degrees, and 
 finally fall rotten to the ground from the living 
 trunk. A very distinguished Canon of the Angli- 
 can Church, Sydney Smith, said that the only accessions 
 which Protestantism gets from the Catholic Church are 
 the weeds which the Pope throws over his garden wall. 
 And those " open defections from Roman Catholicism " 
 in Ireland have, as far as I know, invariably taken place 
 under suspicious circumstances. In the " bad times " 
 those defections were spasmodic, and were never very 
 numerous. But where are all the Mick McQuaid con- 
 verts of West Kerry and Connemara, who during the 
 famine went over to the " simpler Christianity," to 
 have their souls saved, with their bodies in the bargain? 
 How long did they stay in the school of their new 
 Apostles? I believe that Dean White had the joy of 
 receiving back to the fold the last remaining " convert" 
 of Camgaholt, who, like the othei's who had preceded 
 him homewards, had been decoyed away by bread and 
 soup when the weakness of hunger was upon him. 
 Not far from where I spent my boyhood there used to 
 be a warren of those " converts;" it lasted but a short 
 while, and it lay desolate even beyond my memory. 
 One or two who held fast by their new faith were 
 appropriately " planted " on small freeholds on the 
 slope of Knockfierna, the retreat of all "the good 
 people." I used to hear persons speak of them, and 
 I remember in my early boyhood looking with mysti- 
 fied feelings towards that historic hill across the valley 
 where I lived, wondering what sort of beings those two 
 
264 LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 strange races wore — the fairies, and the few solitar}' 
 "converts" who had their home there. In good time 
 those few also, I am told, turned homewards, like the 
 " converts " of Carrigaholt and elsewhere. Sir Horaee 
 will, I am sure, agree with me that those showed 
 character in coming back to that faith in v.-hich they 
 inwardly believed, and which they had only externally 
 forsaken. And when they were leaving the faith of 
 their fathers " for the time being," I would ask him 
 which showed the worse " character and morale?" — those 
 poor perverts of famine and infamy, or the thousands of 
 wealthy subscribers who, taking advantage of the famine 
 created by themselves, although they used to throw the 
 blame of it on Grod, paid for Bible-readers and prosely- 
 tisers to persuade those poor people that " not in bread 
 alone doth man live," — ^but in meat also ? These are not 
 proofs of industrial character, I admit; they show 
 character, nevertheless. And before I leave this point 
 I wish to give Sir Horace a few thoughts for meditation. 
 If Irish Catholics became as industrial as he would wish 
 to see them, had acquired all those strenuous qualities 
 which form his ideal man, and if withal they came to 
 disregard their faith and lose the prestige for morality 
 which they have earned for themselves, raising for in- 
 stance their percentage of illegitimates as high as the 
 English, the Scotch, or the industrialists of Ulster, would 
 he then think them a people of " character and 
 morale? " He seems to me to be colour-blind as to the 
 meaning of " character," and an earnest meditation on 
 that point may cure hini. 
 
 Another proof of want of '" character and morale " in 
 Irish Catholics he finds in their abuse of intoxicating 
 drink. He deals with this question also in relation to 
 economics and character ; and he says — " I do not think 
 it unfair to insist on the large responsibility of the clergy 
 for the state of public opinion in this matter, to which 
 
LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 o.r.; 
 
 the few facts I have cited bear testimony." I wonder is 
 there any Iris-h evil at all, social, industrial, economic, 
 or moral, for which the priests are not responsible. But 
 let us consider the "few facts" to which he refers. He 
 admits that " the Roman Catholic clergy have an honour- 
 able record amongst temperance reformers." He also 
 admits that the Irish drink less than the English or the 
 Scotch. But he addg that we can afford it less: — The 
 economics of the question com^e in here. But he says 
 that " police statistics as well as common experience dis- 
 closes that we drink more to intoxication " than they do. 
 Does he mean to say that nobody gets drunk to intoxi- 
 cation except those whom the police catch " incapable " 
 in the streets? If he thinks so, he must either have 
 passed his life in a hei-mitage, or passed through life 
 without observing what goes on around him. Yet, 
 those are the only cases of which police statistics or 
 common expex'ienoe can take note. And having thus 
 deceived himself by his use of " police statistics and 
 common experience," he proceeds to establish still 
 more the temperate habits of our neighboui-s by 
 pointing out that " many a temperate man drinks more 
 than the village drunkard." I admit the axiom ; but 
 I must then call him back to his economics, and ask him 
 if he thinks that, because a man can, without getting 
 drunk, consume a gallon of whiskey with a few bottles of 
 champagne thrown in, within a week, he can therefore 
 afford to pay for it all better than the village drunlcard 
 can afford to pay for his few gallons of porter. 
 
 He finds another excuse for our neighbours which he 
 thinks the Irish Catholic has not; namely, " The Irish- 
 man is, in my belief, physiologically less subject to the 
 craving for alcohol than the Englishman, a fact which is 
 partially attributable, I should say, to the less animal 
 dietary to which he is accustomed." Now, physiologically 
 there is a keener craving for stimulants inherent in 
 
266 LOSS OF FAITH ABHOAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 women than in men, as anyone must know who has ever 
 tried to wean a woman from drink. Therefore, following 
 Sir Horace's physiological philosophy, we are to conclude 
 that they eat more meat. I should rather say on the 
 other hand that the texture of the Irishman's constitu- 
 tion is more nervous and delicate, and is more disposed 
 to that excitement which the use of alcohol provides. 
 
 Again, he tells us that " by far the greater portion of 
 the drinking which retards our progress is of a festive 
 character. It takes place at fairs and markets, and 
 sometimes, oven yet, at ' wakes,' those ghastly parodies 
 on the blessed consolation of religion in bereavement.'" 
 And this he says " is intensified by the almost universal 
 sale of liquor in country shops ' for consumption on the 
 premises ' ; an evil in defence of which nothing can be 
 said, but it has somehow escaped the effective censure of 
 the Church." I have never heard of any ecclesiastical 
 censure on licences for the sale of drink, to be consumed 
 in or out of the premises; and what has not existed can 
 have been neither effective nor ineffective. Evidently 
 Sir Horace does not understand the scope or meaning of 
 ecclesiastical censures; for which he is not, of course, 
 to be blamed. I have heard of censures in connec- 
 tion with drink at " wakes'' and funerals, and they 
 have been effective to the extent of almost blotting 
 out the abuse. Ttose who go to fairs and markets, 
 not by proxy, but in person, and whose information 
 on these matters comes by experience and not from 
 floating reports and hearsay, tell us tliat there is not 
 at all the drinking at fairs and markets that there 
 used to be. But there are, unfortunately, fresh 
 centres around which the curse of drink has been gather- 
 ing in Ireland. Those are the creameries of the country. 
 Thus, his own solution of an economic problem is breed- 
 ing another problem to be solved. If they happen to be 
 in or near a village the temptation is ready made; if 
 
LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 26( 
 
 they do not approach tlie publichouse, the publichouse 
 approaches them. A house is built, and a licence is 
 got. Oh! but then, what are the priests doing? — 
 Verily, the i^eople soon cannot choose between Orpingtons 
 and Plymouth Rocks, or take the eggs to market, but 
 the economists and the new-fangled reformers of 
 every sort will cry for the priest, demanding the presence 
 of the local parochus to superintend the business. I 
 have known some cases where the parish priest pro- 
 tested against the granting of such licences, and their 
 efforts were effective. I have known other cases 
 where the licences were granted in spite of the priest — 
 and not by Morley magistrates, let me remind those 
 whom it may concern. In justice, to the Morley magis- 
 trates, with whom it has been the fashion to find fault, 
 I think it well to recall the fact that they are still in a 
 minonty, and therefore have not the power to restrict or 
 to extend licences against the will of those who are set up 
 as model magistrates; moreover, that the great increase 
 in the number of public-houses had taken place before 
 the Morley magistrates came. The Recorders of Dublin, 
 Derry, Cork, and Belfast, are not Irish Catholics ; they 
 have the control of licences, and yet licences have grown 
 wild in those places. 
 
 Now, I ask by what right does Sir Horace hold the 
 priests " largely responsible for the state of public 
 opinion in this matter " I—" And to which," as I have 
 shown, "the feic facts he has cited hear" no "testimony" 
 whatever. One would think that Catholics have the 
 drinking vice to themselves ; or that ether-drinking and 
 opium -eating which in Ireland are peculiar to the North. 
 are not more degrading and deadly than whiskey- 
 drinking which the North has also in common with the 
 South. Public opinion in this as in every other thing 
 is the outcome of generations of practice. And who have 
 placed the hall-mark of social respectability on getting 
 
268 LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANXE AT HOME. 
 
 "as druuk as a lord"? I unwillingly refer to this; 
 and I merely invite my readers to learn it from some 
 quotations which I have already made from Lecky and 
 Froude. 
 
 I do not say that some of the priests might not have 
 done more determined battle against the drink enemy; 
 but I sav that whatever has been done has been done 
 almost exclusively by them ; and if their efforts have 
 not made things better than they are, they have kept 
 them from having become a great deal worse. 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett is certainly not to be blamed for 
 not understanding the difficulties against which tem- 
 perance i-eformers have to fight, and the amount of effort 
 which is spent in little apparent result. I do not speak 
 of the platform reformers, those who diaw up schemes 
 and let others work them, or those who set about solving 
 the problem by sitting down at Committee meetings. 
 Experience has persuaded me that those " temperance 
 i^eformers " who make most noise do least work. Those 
 who have worked hardest and have achieved most real 
 success, who have persistently worked on individuals 
 one by one — only they can realise the difficulty of the 
 task. Let him consult men like Father P. O'Leary of 
 Cork who has done real work for temperance, and ho 
 will learn its difficulties and the constant strain it in- 
 volves. But he has probably never heard of him as 
 a temperance man, although he has in my opinion done 
 within the limits of a parish more than any man in 
 the United Kingdom for the cause of temperance. He 
 has kept his work within his parish, and he has literally 
 banished drunkenness from it. Hence his work is not 
 known abroad, but it is done withal. Sir Horace 
 attributes the failure of the priests " to deal 
 with a moral evil of which they are fully cognisant to 
 the fact that they do not recognise the chief defect in 
 the character of the people, and to a misunderstanding 
 
LOSS OF FAITH ABRO.U) j INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 269 
 
 of the means by which that character can be strength- 
 ened." Now, is it not a strange thing that the priests 
 do not understand the people and their shortcomings as 
 well or a great deal better than he does ? For that reason 
 I would respectfully suggest to him the possibility of the 
 mistake and the misunderstanding being all on his side. 
 But he makes an exception of the Anti-Treating 
 League. He says of it that "it is a happy augury for 
 the future of Ireland that many of the clergy are now 
 leading a temperance movement which shows a real 
 knowledge of the causa causans of Irish intemperance." 
 Nobody who knows me will, I think, susiDect me of 
 prejudice against or of indifference to any movement 
 directed to the destruction or to the decrease of intem- 
 perance. Yet, as one who, I daresay, has more expe- 
 rience in that matter than Sir Horace Plunkett, I may 
 say that whilst I am in full sympathy with the Anti- 
 Treating League, I do not set the same value on it that 
 he does. Even its founder does not claim it to be 
 more than a factor in the work. It is applicable not 
 to those who drink from desire, but to those who 
 easily drink too much on occasion and in company. 
 I think that there is some tinith in what a home-spun 
 philosopher from the hills said last year to his parish 
 priest who asked him to join it:— " Yerra, Father, you 
 know that I was never dhrunk in my life. But, sure, 
 that Laigue you have now lets a man get dhrunk as 
 often as he likes, as long as he does it manehj.'' It was 
 that poor man's witty way of suggesting that a pledge, 
 the prominent element in which binds a man not to 
 treat another, might easily let him forget to restrict 
 himself in the amount he pays for and drinks. No 
 system is without its weak points. If I have made 
 those observations, it is not because I am at all opposed 
 to the Anti-Ti^ating League, but to show that Sir 
 Horace does not see where its strength or its weakness 
 
270 LOSS OF FAITH ABROAD ; INTEMPERANCE AT HOME. 
 
 lies. His praise of it is merely meant to emphasise 
 the general disregard of the priests for temperance re- 
 foi-m. But, taking it on its merits, the credit is 
 due, not to an economist, but to a Wexford priest. Sir 
 Horace also finds that even the Anti-Treating League is 
 not fundamental enough : — " It makes no direct appeal 
 to character, and so acts rather as a cm-e than as a pre- 
 ventive of our moral weakness." That is to say, let it 
 be granted, as they say in the geometries, that each one 
 of the Irish people unswervingly act up to his resolution 
 not to get drunk, and we shall have a sober Ireland. I 
 quite assent to the proposition. But then, men are not 
 made of cast steel. It is not my business now to propose 
 a remedy. But I know priests who are so successful in 
 their temperance work, considering the obstacles which 
 the licensing laws and many of those who administer 
 them have thrown in the way, that if the temptation to 
 drink were cut down to one-half of what it is by the les- 
 sening of public-houses, they would make Ireland as 
 sober as one might hope a people to be; by another 
 way, however, than by the Captain Bobadil method 
 suggested by Sir Horace. As long, however, as 
 temptations in the shape of public-houses meet the 
 eye on every side and at every step, many of 
 our people will fall in their weakness. Irish Catholics, 
 any more than the most perfect Buddhist on earth, do 
 not aspire to the Nirvana in a neighbourhood congested 
 with public-house'.'. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGKATION. 
 
 There is still another account which Sir Horace has 
 thought it his duty to settle with the priests in the name 
 of economic Ireland; namely, they cause emigration 
 
 without knowing what they are doing, however, 
 
 he is good enough to say. He traces the connec- 
 tion between cause and effect, as follows. The dulness 
 of life in Ireland causes the people to leave the country ; 
 want of amusements causes that dtdness of life; the 
 priests cause want of amusements by having discoun- 
 tenanced them ; to prevent the association of the sexes 
 has caused the priests to discountenance amusements ; 
 and to secure the chastity of their flocks, has caused 
 them to oppose the association of the sexes. That is a 
 chain of far-reaching philosophy ; and I now propose to 
 consider how it can bear examination. 
 
 It is only fair to him to separate the position be 
 takes up from that taken by the author of Ireland at 
 the Cross Roads, an Ulster Protestant named Filson 
 Young. Mr. Young traces not only emigration, but 
 also the increase of lunacy in Ireland to the extrava- 
 gant chastity i f the Catholics ; and he says that " a 
 hundred bastards would be a more gracious and healthy 
 sign than a lunatic." I can understand the view of this 
 philosopher when I recall the fact that from 1879 to 
 1889, there were 322 illegitimate births in Co. Mayo, 
 out of a population of 245,212 — how many of these 
 should be assigned to nou-Catholics I cannot say, unless 
 I guess by analogy drawn from statistics elsewhere; 
 
 a 
 
272 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGUATION. 
 
 and that during the same ten years there were 3,034 
 illegitimate births in Co. Down, out of a population of 
 272,107.* It is "more gracious and healthy" to be with- 
 out a tail than with one, said the fox that had lost his, 
 to other foxes that had kept theirs. I merely add that 
 those who decry and disregard chastity, qualify better 
 for a lunatic asylum than those who practise it. With 
 those observations I pass on to Sir Horace. 
 
 * I take the following from an article ia the I'all Mall Gazette, 
 based on the Registrar-General's returns for Ireland: — "Of the 
 children born, 112,733 or 97*2 per cent, were legitimate. Taking 
 the illegitimate births in their order of magnitude, they are — 
 Ulster, 4"3 per cent. ; Leinster, 23 per cent. ; Munster, 2"2 per 
 cent. ; Connaught. 0"9 per cent. As these are in the provinces, we 
 will take the highest and the lowest of the counties in order to 
 show the shame and the glory of Irish womanhood. 
 
 The highest in their order of unchastity are: — Antrim, 5*8; 
 Armagh, 5'0; Londonderry, 48; Down, 4"5 ; Tyrone, 4'0; Fer- 
 managh, 3-5; Alonaghan, 2-8; Donegal, 20; Cavan, 1-6. Theae 
 nine counties are in Ulster. In Connaught. where the average of 
 illegitimate births is 0"9, there are five counties : Galway, 1"5 per 
 cent.; Sligo, 1"0; Mayo. 07; Roscommon, 07; Leitrim, 0"6 In 
 chastity thfse counties represent the flower of womanhood. Let us 
 consider the meaning of these figuree. In 1,000 persons in Banff, 
 Scotland, there are 171 bastards; in Shropshire. 85 bastards; in 
 Antrim, 58 bastards; in Leitrim, 6 bastards. If female chastity be 
 virtue, then the above figures show the relative proportions between 
 I he virtue of the women of the four counties named. 
 
 What can give rise to the great difference between the chastity 
 of the greater portion of the women of Ulster and those of the 
 other parts of Ireland? Dividing Ulster into two portions, Pro- 
 teotants and Catholics, and judging those by the numbers of Pro- 
 testant and Catholic marriages celebrated last year, we find the 
 proportions to l>e per cent. : — 
 
 
 
 
 Protestant! 
 
 1. 
 
 Catholics. 
 
 Illeg^itimate Births. 
 
 Antrim 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 5-8* 
 
 Down 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 
 4-5* 
 
 Londonderry 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 4-8* 
 
 Fermanagh 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 35 
 
 Tyrone 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 
 
 47 
 
 
 40 
 
 Monaghan 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 
 2-8 
 
 Cavan 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 
 
 7,; 
 
 
 1-6 
 
 Donegal 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 75 
 
 
 2-0 
 
 1 countie-. marl 
 
 ccd 
 
 I*) 
 
 returned 
 
 
 
 ran: 
 
 ge Alei 
 
 mbers 
 
 to the pre- 
 
 sent Parliament. It seems that Orangeism and illegitimacy go 
 together, and that bastards in Ireland are in proportion to the 
 Orange Lodges. No other county in Ireland returns an Orange- 
 man." 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 273 
 
 He says* that " in the inculcation of chastity 
 the success of the Irish priesthood is, consider- 
 ing the conditions of present life and the fire of the 
 Celtic temperament, absolutely unique. No one can 
 deny that almost the entire credit of this moral achiev- 
 ment belongs to the Roman Catholic Clergy." I add 
 the following words which Froude spoke in one of his 
 lectures in New York, in 1872. They were spoken in 
 a lecture directed against Catholic Ireland in general 
 and against the priests in particular. Those were the 
 lectures to which Father Burke replied during his 
 famous American tour: — ^" I do not question the enor- 
 mous power for good which has been exercised in Ire- 
 land by the modern Catholic priest. Ireland is one 
 of the poorest countries in Europe, yet there is less 
 theft, less cheating, less house-breaking, less robbery of 
 all kinds than in any country of the same size in the 
 civilized world .... In the last hundred years 
 impurity has been almost unknown in Ireland. This 
 absence of vulgar crime, and this exceptional delicacy 
 and modesty of character are due, to their everlasting 
 honour, to the influence of the Catholic clergy." Sir 
 Horace thinks that chastity has become so much like 
 second nature to Irish Catholics that " a gradual relaxa- 
 tion of the disciplinary measures by which it is insured 
 might be safely allowed without any danger of lowering 
 the high standard of continence which is general in 
 Ireland, and which, of course, it is of supreme impor- 
 tance to maintain." I wonder would he apply that 
 canon to any other treasure in his possession which 
 he thought of "suj^reme importance" to secure. I also' 
 take leave to suggest that those who, according to him- 
 self, have done so much to form that chaste character 
 in the Catholics of Ireland, might be better authorities 
 than he or those others who criticise them, as to the best 
 method of preserving it. The presumption is, at any 
 
 • Page 115. 
 
274 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 rate, on the side of those who have admittedly done eo 
 much in this matter; although there is a vast amount 
 of presumption, but of another kind, on the side of 
 their critics who have done nothing, unless to place 
 obstacles, or to find fault. I do not at all agree with 
 Sir Horace's sliding-scale system of morals. Neither 
 does St. Paul ; who, even aft«r his heavenly visions, said 
 that there was a '* thorn in his flesh," and that " there 
 is a law in our members that wars against the law that 
 is in our mind." But then St. Paul was not aware that 
 Irish Catholics are made of alabaster. I am living with 
 a priest who has a total abstinence sodality of about 
 1,700 women, the great majority of whom have been 
 very faithful to their pledge since the sodality was 
 started a dozen years ago. On this sliding-scale prin- 
 ciple, might he loosen the discipline a little? Take away 
 the system of sections and prefects through which tlie 
 sodality is organized? In fact tell them that, as they 
 are such confirmed abstainers they may now lean on 
 their acquired virtue without a pledge or a sodality to 
 sustain them? Although I much admire the natural 
 virtue of Cato of Utica, of Epictetus, and of Marcus 
 Aurelius, I cannot follow Sir Horace quite into the 
 School of the Stoics. Chastity is as delicate as the lily, 
 and as easily tarnished. 
 
 He writes — " This kind of discipline, unless when 
 really necessary, is open to the objection that it elimi- 
 nates from the education of life, especially during the 
 formative years, an essential of culture — the mutual 
 understanding of the sexes." I have no fault to find 
 with the views expressed in that passage. But, as it 
 stands, it is only a thesis, which determines nothing 
 for or against the discipline which he condemns. The 
 practical question is, what discipline is, and what is not 
 necessary? From whom, then, am I to learn? From 
 Sir Horace, Filson Young, and other outside ethicians? 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 275 
 
 or from the parish priests who, after a formal course of 
 Ethics and Moral Theology, have matured their specu- 
 lative knowledge by long experience? Let us then be 
 empiric, and try to learn from fact. The non-Catho- 
 lics of Ireland, England, Scotland, America and Aus- 
 tralia, are not subjected to this mistaken discipline 
 during their formative years. They learn what he calls 
 " the pathology of the emotions," and are rightly edu- 
 cated into that "culture" of which he speaks — "the 
 mutual understanding of the sexes." "Well, then, 
 their formative years are passed, and what is the 
 x-esult? I call himself to witness; I call Froude to 
 witness ; I call to witness the statistics of illegitimacy ; 
 of what is known in New England as " fashionable 
 murders;" of matrimonial infidelities which overwhelm 
 the divorce courts of those countries ; of sexual uu- 
 natui'alness which threatens to depopulate them. A 
 physician of long experience wrote in the "Boston Medi- 
 cal and Surgical Journal " for 1879 — " I have never 
 known an Irish mother, no matter how poor, or how 
 many little ragged children around her, that did not 
 receive every new-born babe with emotions and expres- 
 sions of gratitude as a blessed gift from God. This 
 sentiment, however rudely expressed, has never failed 
 to win my admiration, and I take pleasure in pointing 
 it out as the finest trait of Irish female character." 
 
 Now, then, of what precisely does he complain ? Of 
 tije following : — " There are," he writes, " many parishes 
 where in this matter the strictest discipline is vigorously 
 enforced. Amusements, not necessarily or even often 
 vicious, are objected to as being fraught with dangers 
 which would never occur to any but the rigidly ascetic 
 or the puritanical mind. In many parishes the Sunday 
 cyclist will observe the strange phenomenon of a nor- 
 mally light>hearted peasantry marshalled in male and 
 female groups along the road, eyeing one another in 
 
276 HOW THK PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 dull wonderment across the forbidden space through the 
 long summer day." 
 
 It is regrettable to find Sir Horace falling, in that 
 passage also, to the level of the common anti-clerical 
 critic. He suggests much, and specifies nothing. But 
 I think I can define his indefiniteness. Of course he 
 does not refer to golf, for Catholic peasants cannot play 
 it; and if I am rightly informed, it would be well if 
 some influence curbed the conduct of some of those who 
 do play it. A gentleman has told me that urchins in 
 the neighbourhood of golf-links are demoralised by 
 them, inasmuch as they are utilised as errand boys 
 while they should be at school, and because they learn 
 more than their prayers from the golfers. He cannot 
 refer to hurling or football, since they are the luxury of 
 one sex only. He can hardly refer to the various 
 amusements which come under the Gaelic Revival, since 
 priests are amongst the warmest patrons of those. How 
 then does he make the priests responsible for " the 
 strange phenomenon of a normally light-hearted peasan- 
 try marshalled in male and female groups, eyeing one 
 another in dull wonderment across the forbidden space 
 the long summer day?" The plain meaning of his words 
 is that the local piiest marshals them into several 
 groups, and forbids them to come closer to one another 
 than the breadth of the road. But he does not mean, 
 I suppose, anything so absurd. The priest who would 
 or could do that might satisfy his " puritanical mind ' 
 much more easily and efficaciously by dispersing them 
 altogether. I am inclined to think that most of those 
 peasant boys and girls pass their lives much more 
 happily than many of those Sunday cyclists who affect 
 pity for them. I suppose that those boys and girls 
 g^athered into groups together according to their taste or 
 pleasure. Tlieir taste appears not to have pleased those 
 Sunday cyclists, but it pleased themselves; and to please 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 277 
 
 oneself is pleasiu-e. On the other hand, the nerves of 
 these peasants might allow them little pleasure or rest 
 if they had to sit out and listen to small t^alk over an 
 afternoon tea, although that would probably make Sir 
 Horace's Sunday cyclists supremely happy. I neither 
 praise nor blame either side ; " let each abound in 
 his own sense;" the taste of each is pleasure to each. 
 Sir Horace and the cyclists would probably smile 
 at the undeveloped thoughts of those peasants, 
 and those peasants would possibly smile at some 
 developed thoughts of Sir Horace and the cyclists, 
 just as the old woman whom I interviewed thanked 
 God that she was not so ignorant as the Author of 
 "Father Clancy." And what do those Sunday cyclists 
 know of the feelings which govern those country folk 
 whom they spin past at the rate of ten miles an hour? 
 How many of those Sunday cyclists are merely qualify- 
 ing as bona-fide travellers "to enjoy themselves?" Do 
 they bring to, or find more happiness in, their homes in 
 the evening than do those country people whom they 
 pity ? These perhaps enjoy life in their own simple and 
 quiet way a great deal more than Sir Horaoe or his Sun- 
 day cyclists think ; possibly more than he or his Sunday 
 cyclists themselves. The life of the Acadians was 
 monotonous, but their bliss is proverbial: — 
 
 Men whose lives glided on like rivers that watered 
 
 the woodland, 
 Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting the 
 
 image of heaven. 
 
 And of those Irish peasants who betake themselves in 
 after life to some city at home or abroad, how many keep 
 ringing in their memories — 
 
 " Full many a path I've tried since then. 
 Through pleasure's flowery maze. 
 But ne'er could find the bliss ag:ain, 
 I felt in bho&e sweet days.'' 
 
278 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 Persons who have passed their lives in a city, or 
 whose lives have been distracted by the hurry of busi- 
 ness, or by the turmoil of politics, cannot realise the 
 pleasure of a quiet country life because their dispositions 
 have been formed in other ways; and I should myself 
 find the country lonely, although I may live as a solitary 
 in a city. But that does not measure the feelings of 
 those who have passed their lives in the country, whose 
 habits have been formed there, and whose interests are 
 centred there. Happiness to some persons is a sort 
 of Jack-o'-lantern ; their happiness never reaches beyond 
 the hope of finding it, but they waste away their lives 
 in the pursuit. Tbey mistake hunting after happiness 
 for the thing itself — they are the Micawbers of pleasure. 
 St. Francis de Sales, one of the wisest and most accom- 
 plished men of modern times, writes in his crisp 
 way, " It is easy to discern the gaiety of a light head 
 from the gaiety of a light conscience." 
 
 I presume then that what Sir Horace is driving at ''s 
 this latest war-cry raised by the secular Salvationists of 
 Ireland against the priests — Oh, you priests! you curse 
 of our country ! You obscurantists ! you despots of our 
 beautiful peasantry ! Why did you rob our country life 
 of its charm bv killing cross-roads dancing? You have 
 laid the " rigidly ascetic " hand of death upon that fine 
 old pastime of the people, and your " puritanical mind" 
 has cast a cloud over the sunshine of their lives. And 
 then, "Oh! for the days of the Kerry dancing," is 
 caught up as a Jeremiad by a chorus of fangled philan- 
 thropists who, till quite recently, have shown very little 
 care for the people or their pastimes ; nor do they 
 really care a whit more now than they have ever cared. 
 And the irony of this tragi-comedy is that most of those 
 who are raising this and other like cries belong to a 
 class with such strong Sabbatarian proclivities that, as 
 happened in the case of the Banbury cat, they would 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 279 
 
 almost pass sentence of death on one of those useful 
 animals for pursuing its domestic avocations on a 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 Now, it is a curious thing that before the " bad times" 
 the dance-stage was to be seen, and " the ring of the 
 piper's tune" was to be heard more generally than it 
 has ever since been heard on Sunday afternoons through- 
 out Ireland. The people had their dance in the after- 
 noon at the cross-roads or beside the bridge, or at 
 their homes in the night time, without let or hin- 
 drance ; and I have never heard that the parish priest 
 even expected that under ordinary- circumstances they 
 should consult him or ask his permission. For the 
 dominant note in the religion of Catholics is love, 
 hope, and joy; in contrast to the religion of non- 
 Catholics, the dominant note of which is pietistic solem- 
 nity and fear. St. Francis de Sales writes that one of 
 his books which was " approved by the most grave Pre- 
 lates and doctors of the Church did not escape the rude 
 censure of some who did not merely blame me but 
 bitterly attacked me in public because I tell Philothea 
 that dancing is an action indifferent in itself, and that 
 for recreation's sake one may make quodlibets. " '^' G&iety 
 aaturally becomes an Irish Catholic ; it sits sorrowfully 
 on his neighbours, and somehow presents the api>earance 
 of awkward artificiality. How then has it happened that 
 those dances have become so rare which were once so 
 common? If persons tell me that it is because the 
 priests objected to them, they will also have to tell me 
 how it happened that the priests did not object to 
 them before the famine times, when the people danced 
 as they listed, and when the priest's influence over the 
 social relations of his parishioners was much more un- 
 questioned than it is now; when they would have only 
 
 * The Love of Ood. — Preface, page 14. 
 
2S0 HOW THE PRIKSTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 to say the word, and dancing was dead in every parish 
 in the country. The fact is, cross-roads dancin;^ began 
 to fall away when the famine bent the spirit of the 
 people; then came evictions when homes were broken 
 up, and families were dispersed: — 
 
 Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty 
 blasts of October 
 
 Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 
 far o'er the ocean. 
 Then came a terrible struggle for life between those 
 who remained, which warped or broke the old bonds of 
 friendship that had bound families together as one, 
 without formality or suspicion. I was not then born ; 
 but I will let the late A. M. Sullivan describe the 
 social transformation which followed those events ; he 
 witnessed it all, and he knew the people well, much 
 better than their present critics. " It is impossible for 
 anyone who knew the country previous to that period, 
 and who has thoughtfully studied it since, to avoid the 
 conclusion that so much has been destroyed, or so 
 greatly changed, that the Ireland of old times will b© 
 seen no more The losses will, I would fain hope, be 
 in a great degree repaired ; the gains entirely i-etained. 
 Yet much that was precious was engulfed, I fear, be- 
 yond recovery. ' Here are twenty miles of countiy, 
 sir,' said a dispensary doctor to me, ' and before the 
 famine there was not a padlock from end to end of it.* 
 Under the pressure of hunger, ravenous creatui^es 
 prowled under barn and storehouse, stealing corn, pota- 
 toes, cabbage, turnips — anything, in a word, that might 
 be eaten. Later on the fields had to be watched, gun 
 in hand, or the seed was rooted up and devoured raw. 
 This state of things struck a fatal blow at some of the 
 most beautiful traits of Irish rural life. It destroyed 
 the simple confidence that bolted no door; it banished 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 281 
 
 for ever a custom whicli throughout the island was of 
 almost universal obligation — the housing for the night, 
 with cheerful welcome, of any poor wayfarer who 
 claimed hospitality. Fear of ' the fever,' even where 
 no apprehension of robbery was entertained, closed 
 every door, and the custom, once killed off, has not 
 revived. A thousand kindly usages and neighboxirly 
 coui-tesies were swept away. When sauve qui peut had 
 resounded throughout a country for three years of 
 alarm and disaster, human nature becomes contracted 
 in its sympathies, and ' everyone for himself ' becomes 
 a maxim of life and conduct long after. The open- 
 handed, open-hearted ways of the rural population have 
 been visibly affected by the 'Forty-seven' ordeal. Their 
 ancient sports and pastimes everywhere disappeared, 
 and in many parts of Ireland have never returned. 
 The outdoor games, the hurling match, and the village 
 dance are seen no more."* Aubrey de Vere, in his 
 Reminiscences y gives a pathetic description of the change ; 
 and if all of his class were disposed as his family was, 
 and lived as his family lived, in friendly intercourse 
 with the people, the tide of emigration would not liave 
 come as it came; cross-roads dancing might be in evi- 
 dence to-day as much as ever, and the old informal hos- 
 pitality of which A. M. Sullivan speaks would have left 
 the door of every peasant unbolted. When the land- 
 war came, the pity is that such men were made to suffer 
 with those whose unyielding selfishness brought it on. 
 
 As the population became sparse, and the youth of 
 the country were departing, cross-roads dancing and 
 other rural pastimes gradually disappeared. Then 
 came the three waves of political agitation which have 
 stirred the country since the great exodus began. A 
 continued series of monster meetings drew the young 
 men Sunday after Sunday, from year to year, to the 
 
 * Neio Ireland.— Chap. VI., pages 67-68. 
 
282 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 political centres, and kept their thoughts turned from 
 local amixsements. Passing along the country during 
 the past few years, I have seen a few dance platforms 
 lying against the road-side fences, a sign that they axe 
 still used on Sundays. But, I have more than once 
 asked persons living in the country why these dances 
 are not so common as they used to be, and the answer 
 has invariably been — " Oh ! the people are all gone — 
 There are no people in the country now." When Sir 
 Horace and other critics tell me that cross-roads danc- 
 ing has disappeared because it was stopped by the 
 priests, I invite them to tell me also by whom was 
 hurling and football stopped? There was surely no 
 sexual danger in those amusements that could trouble 
 the conscience of the most puritanical priest; yet they 
 also had well nigh disappeared for many years. Would 
 not the same causes account for the disappearance of 
 cross-roads dancing? The truth is that the purity of 
 Irish Catholics is an eye-sore to their critics, because 
 it is a rebuke. It is a living fact which they dare 
 not deny, whilst it is a standing reproof which they 
 cannot bear. Hence the flat philosophy, and the tears 
 specially shed over that one departed pastime which 
 gives it coloiu'. 
 
 If cross-roads dancing prevailed at pi'esent as it once 
 prevailed over the Catholic parts of Ireland, and if 
 statistics at the same time showed Co. Mayo to be more 
 immoral than Co. Down, those critics who now shed 
 tears over the departed pastime and who accuse the 
 clergy of having killed it, would then denounce them 
 for having let it live. Very little they cai'e for cross- 
 roads dancing, or for any other of those popular amuse- 
 ments whose disappearance they pretend to regret. 
 With them it is a game of "heads I win, tails you 
 lose;" but I willingly withdraw Sir Horace Plunkett 
 from the class to whom I allude. Our critics have 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 283 
 
 very short or very convenient memories. The only 
 persons who have ever tried to positively put down cross- 
 roads dancing were they whose representatives to-day 
 shed crocodile tears because those popular amusements 
 have disappeared, who rise in theii' indignation to curse 
 the clergy for having destroyed them. I wonder is 
 Sir Horace aware that in 1820 and the following years 
 those who ruled the people then with a monopoly of 
 power, absolutely forbade cross-roads dancing, and sum- 
 marily whipped whoever gathered together to dance w 
 defiance of their orders. Perhaps those prohibitions 
 were not directed against dances on their own account, 
 but as meetings for Whiteboyism or to promote 
 O'Connell's agitation; the purpose of the prohibition 
 was not to prevent amusement but to prevent dis- 
 loyalty to the law. Our critics will see m that a :usti- 
 fication of the prohibition. Very well then. But can 
 they not see that a parish priest is immeasurably more 
 justified in preventing a dance when in his judgment 
 there is danger of disloyalty to Godi According to the 
 ethics of our critics and their class, to sin against their 
 rule is evil; to sin against God is only pleasure. Quite 
 so; I understand tliem. 
 
 I must not be understood as saying that the priests 
 
 have never opposed dancing. I have no doubt that 
 
 they have often done so; not, however, because of the 
 
 dancincr, but because of some evils connected with 
 
 particular cases; and I know that in many such cases 
 
 the objection comes first from the parents of the young 
 
 people, who make complaints to the priest. Perhaps 
 
 those dangers have been in some cases more imaginary 
 
 than real. If that be so, the priests who happened to 
 
 be mistaken acted I suppose according to their light, 
 
 just as the economists and the industrial specialists act 
 
 even when they make mistakes. If a priest stops a 
 
 dance in any parish up or down the country, and 
 
284 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 thinks he is right in doing so, how in the name of 
 i-eason can Sir Horace or his Sunday cyclists undertake 
 to say that he has done wrong ? " Oh ! but persons 
 told them who know," he will reply. Indeed! and the 
 priest who did the deed knew nothing? When Sir 
 Horace has heard of any such case, has he ever asked 
 the parish priest what he had to say? Wliether those 
 priests have been mistaken in any or in many such cases, 
 I do not know; but I do know that a priest who is re- 
 sponsible for the moral character of his parish, and who 
 knows intimately the local influences at work there, can 
 form a much safer judgment on such a question than 
 any outsider can. At any rate, I would not like to 
 commit mj^self to the foolishness of passing sentence on 
 the action of any responsible man acting officially, 
 under circumstances which he knew well, and of which I 
 knew nothing. I take the following fi'om The New 
 York Freeman's Journal*: — "Chief of Police Murphy, 
 of Jersey City, issued an order, Monday, to the pre- 
 cinct commanders directing that hereafter no girls with- 
 out male escorts be allowed to attend dances where 
 liquor is sold, and no girls under sixteen be permitted 
 to attend such dances whether escorted or not. 
 
 This order followed an inspection of dance halls on 
 Saturday night. Chief Murphy found a number of 
 young girls v/hom he sent to their homes, after taking 
 their ages, names and addresses. 
 
 In the order, the chief says that in some of these 
 jilaces disgraceful scenes are witnessed. Girls under 
 sixteen go unaccompanied by male escorts, paying their 
 own entrance fees. In most of those dance lialls liquor 
 and beer are sold either on the floor or so adjacent to 
 the hall that it might as well be in the hall. This 
 
 * February 4th. 1905. 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 285 
 
 condition of affairs is highly demoralizing to the youth 
 
 of our city." 
 
 Would Sir Horace think it right to condemn the 
 action of Mr. Murphy on the evidence of those who 
 organise those dances'? 
 
 Let me suppose that I paid a visit to the Department 
 in Dublin, and after a superficial inspection, condemned 
 the arrangements of the place, I wonder what would 
 Sir Horace say— well, politeness would, I expect, pre- 
 vent him from saying all he thought. A friend of mine 
 remarked to me not long ago that wherever a dance 
 has disappeared from where it used to be, it is either 
 owing to the fact that the young people of the place 
 have°become too few, or because the parish priest op- 
 posed it on account of some scandal or the danger of 
 one, or because the local fiddler died. I have never 
 heard of a priest who objected to a dance from pure 
 prejudice against dancing in itself. But if there be any 
 such priest, I differ from him as widely as Sir Horace 
 does, except with regard to certain kinds of dance which 
 I think are graceless without being graceful. Priests have 
 sometimes also set their face against certain hurling and 
 football matches, but not certainly because of any moral 
 evils involved in those athletics. Quite recently the 
 Bishop of Kildare wrote a strong protest against some 
 sports which were announced to take place in a town of 
 his diocese ; but surely his Lordship did not denounce 
 them for any evil he saw in the athletics themselves ; be 
 sent in fact a subscription towards some sports held 
 in the same place about the same time. A 
 priest who has actually fitted up a dancing apart- 
 ment in connection with a Women's Total Abstin- 
 ence Institute for the use of the members and their 
 friends, tells me that he stopped a dance in a parish where 
 he lived some years ago. There was another dance 
 in the same place which he in no way discouraged; 
 
286 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 nevertheless it gradually died from natural causes, 
 partly because of a dwindled population, and partly be- 
 cause of the political meetings which became a greater 
 attraction for the young men. There is an instructive 
 lesson to be read in facts like these, if critics will only 
 read and leara it. 
 
 So far, Sir Horace has been speaking from hearsay, or 
 in theory. "But of my own knowledge," he adds, "I can 
 only speak of another aspect of the effect upon our 
 national life of the restriction to which I refer. No 
 Irishmen are more sincerely desirous of staying the 
 tide of emigration than the Roman Catholic Clergy, and 
 while, wisely as I think, they do not dream of a wealthy 
 Ireland, they earnestly work for the pliysical and ma- 
 tsrial as well as the spiritual well-being of their flocks. 
 And yet no man can get into the confidence of the 
 emigrating class without being told by them that the 
 exodus is largely due to a feeling that the clergy are, 
 no doubt from an excellent motive, taking joy — inno- 
 cent joy — from the social side of home life." 
 
 That is the final link in the chain of reasoning by 
 which he shows how the priests cause emigration. He 
 is good enough to give them credit for " excellent 
 motives," and he exonerates them from guilt inasmuch 
 as they do not consider the consequences of their action. 
 He blames not their guilt but their innocence. Now, 
 let me speak plainly — Sir Horace shall not hide himself 
 under those cheap condescensions by which he apolo- 
 gises for the priests. I know not their motives; I deal 
 with their actions. Their motives affect themselves 
 alone; their actions affect the public. His condescen- 
 sion which excuses them for their motives, asserts all 
 the more strongly by implication that his criticism on 
 their conduct is right. 
 
 I live in a parish the Catholic population of which 
 is about 22,000. The district which I am told off to 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 287 
 
 look after is the poorest aud most populous part of it. 
 I think I know that district better than anyone living. 
 I have made a thorough census of it, which I have revised 
 three times over, and in some parts several times. My 
 census contains, besides other things, the occupation of 
 the adults and the ages of the children. The purpose of 
 my argument must be my excuse for mentioning these 
 details. I have been here several years; I am daily 
 amidst the poor ; they daily make known to me their 
 trials, and give me their confidences — more confidences 
 than, I am sure, they would give Sir Horace or his 
 Sunday cyclists. I have known many of them who 
 have emigrated within that time; some of whom have 
 come to me before they left, others I have blest in 
 their homes. Their families are living here still, and 
 I meet them every day. Now, it is a curious fact 
 that none of those emigrants, nor any member of their 
 families whom they have left behind, has even once 
 confided to me the secret that they left for want of 
 amusement at home. They left chiefly for want of 
 work at home ; and I am sui-prised that a professed 
 economist is not satisfied with that simple cause of 
 emigration, without fishing for its philosophy in the 
 realms of poetry. As far as I know, such a secret has 
 not been confided to any of the priests with whom I 
 live, nor to any priest in the country. It cannot be 
 through fear of appearing to i-eprove us for " taking joy 
 — innocent joy — from the social side of their home life." 
 For, besides the Women's Temperance House which I 
 have already mentioned, there is in the parish a large 
 Total Abstinence Society for men, carefully looked after 
 by another priest, in which the members have various 
 means of amusement, including a boat-club, and can 
 have dancing whenever they desire it. Yet the people 
 emigrate, and they never confide to us the cause to 
 which, we are told by Sir Horace, their "exodus is 
 
288 HOW THE I'RIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 largely due." If be make an impartial enquiry he will 
 find that, by a strange irony, his own co-operative move- 
 ment, in some of its phases at least, has helped the 
 tide of emigration to no inconsiderable extent. I do 
 not find fault with the movement for that reason ; 
 those consequences are inevitable ; creameries for in- 
 stance are not the less necessary because they lessen the 
 number of hands required by farmers, and thus cause 
 some to emigrate who would otherwise be employed at 
 home. 
 
 I am not to be understood as implying that priests 
 should inaugurate schemes for the amusement of the 
 people. That is not a priest's business ; it is not the 
 business of anyone except of those who want to amuse 
 themselves. Amusement is spontaneous, else it is not 
 amusement ; and those who, when they may, will not 
 start it, do not desiderate it; at least, will not run 
 away to America for want of it. Has Sir Horace ever 
 reflected on how a Presbyterian spends Sunday? Yet, 
 many of them have emigrated from the North, and not 
 surely, in search of Sunday amusement, or from want 
 of it.* Who ever heard of a Protestant longing for 
 amusement on the Sabbath ? I have no doubt that some 
 persons are induced to emigrate by the flattering letters 
 
 * The following are taken from tho Blue Laws, inspired by the 
 " Simpler Christianity " of New England. " The Court . . . 
 do therefore order that whoever shalf profane the Lord's Day, by 
 doing unnecessary servile works, by unnecessary travelling, or by 
 sports and recreations, he or they that so transgress shall forfeit 
 for every such default forty shillings, or be publicly whipt." 
 
 " 21. — -No one shall run on tlie Sabbath Day, or walk in his 
 garden or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting'. 
 
 " 22. — No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep 
 house, cut hair or shave on the Sabbath Day. 
 
 "23. — No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or Fasting 
 Day. 
 
 " 160. — It is enacted bj' the Court that any p>erson or persons 
 that shall be found smoking tobacco on the Lord's Day, goin-,' to 
 or from nieetings, within two miles of the meeting-house, shall pay 
 twelve pence for every such default to the Colony's use." 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CA.USE EMIGRATION. 289 
 
 they get from their friends ; and in that way, emigration 
 may to some extent, be caused by the promised pleasures 
 of life abroad. But the same influence attracts persona 
 from the country into the towns and cities at home. 
 Tlie same influence has depopulated some of the country 
 parts of England, having drawn the people into the 
 cities. From the nature of things, the country cannot 
 supply that variety of distractions which is to be 
 found either in American or in Irish cities. If Sir 
 Horace or his Sunday cyclists set about providing Irish 
 country districts with amusements to rival those of New 
 York or Boston, I should be curious to know how they 
 would do it. The majority of Irish emigrants, in 
 leaving Ireland for America, are running away not 
 from loneliness in search of pleasure, but they are 
 simply answering an American letter which contained 
 their passage ticket. I think that the passage ticket 
 causes a gi^eat many more to emigi'ate than the dul- 
 ness of home life or the promised pleasures of the 
 States. The parish priest of a country parish, who 
 takes a very wide interest in his people, has told 
 me that he has kept a list of the emigrants from 
 his parish during the last two years, and of these only 
 two paid their own passage ; and he shrewdly and truly 
 added that, "' giving those who thus tempt the people 
 with passage tickets and flattering promises credit for 
 the best intentions, they are the greatest Emigration 
 Agents we have." My friend anticipated the Registrar- 
 General. Hithei'to no statistics have been made out to 
 show how many go to America on prepaid passage 
 tickets. Such statistics have just been given for the 
 first time, and they inform us that of 12,784 emi- 
 grants to the United States during the June 
 quarter of this year, 5,204 have gone on pas- 
 sage tickets sent from America. Besides those, a 
 considerable number emigrate, paying their own passage 
 
290 HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGUATION. 
 
 out of money sent from America for that purpose. 
 Therefore, at least, one half of those who go to America 
 at present ai'e tempted away from home by the sight of 
 the passage ticket and the passage money, and by the 
 fancy pictures of Lagenian mines which are exhibited in 
 the American letter, but wliich are seldom realised by 
 those who go across, " allured by the gleam that shone." 
 
 I think that what I have written justifies me in con- 
 cluding that it is not " the deadly dulness of rural life 
 in Ireland " that causes emigration, as it has been 
 phrased by a well-known rhetorical politician, but that 
 it is emigration has caused " the deadly dulness of rural 
 life in Ireland." One would think that country life in 
 Ii-eland is exceptionally dull, beyond the country parts 
 of England, the backwoods of America, or the Austra- 
 lian Bush. The philosophy of these critics consists in 
 phrases. It is much easier to find out an imaginary 
 cause for an evil than to take the trouble to cure it. 
 To give Sir Horace his merit, he is doing his part; and 
 he would be much more successful than I fear he is 
 likely to be, had he simply taken the needs of the coun- 
 try as they exist, and tiied to apply them without telling 
 the public how he thinks they have been caused. 
 
 Until lately the cry amongst a certain class of the 
 community was — clear the congested districts by emi- 
 gration ; the priests, against all laws of economics, en- 
 courage the unfortunate people to stay in their misery. 
 Now, the cry is — stop emigration, or Erin is no more ; 
 the priests are the cause of it all, because they will not 
 let " a naturally light-hearted peasantry " enjoy them- 
 selves. Sixty yeai"s ago Sir Robert Kane published 
 his book on The Industrial Resources of Ireland, and at 
 that time there were, according to him, 4,600,000 acres 
 of waste but improvable waste land in Ireland. At that 
 time the population of the country was double what it ia 
 to-day. What happened? Poulett Scrope, in a letter to 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 291 
 
 Lord John Russell, in 1847, says that there were 500,000 
 acres of waste land in Co. Mayo which might easily be 
 cultivated if the owners would only let the peasants do 
 it. " But the landowners of Mayo," he says, " prefer 
 driving the people out of the country to America or 
 England, or starving them out of existence, to encourag- 
 ing them by long leases to settle on waste lands at 
 home. This is why Mayo appears to be over populated, 
 when the contrary, is, or ought to be, the fact." In 
 1839, a meeting of landlords was held in Loughrea for 
 the purpose of raising funds to benevolently send the 
 "surplus tenants" of the district to Australia. They 
 showed they had " the economic sense." Loughrea was 
 threatened by the Poor Law, which had just been 
 passed. They speculated that it would be cheaper 
 for them to pay for transporting the poorest abroad, 
 than to pay for supporting them at home; and they 
 would have the gloiy moreover of doing a philanthropic 
 deed. The inhuman fun which they found in the 
 scheme may be read in these words of the chairman, 
 as cruel as they are uncouth: — "We may select that 
 quantity of laud in the best situation, and call it 
 Loughrea; and there may b© a handsome lake, too, 
 attached to it; and thus, those settlers may fancy 
 themselves still in their dear Loughrea, with their 
 associations and friends about them." The famine 
 cannot be said to have been a factor in that plan of 
 depopulation. 
 
 According to Father Lavelle's, The Irish Landlord 
 since the Revolution, the number of houses levelled in 
 twenty years (1841-1861) was 270,000; which meant 
 so many families dispersed and gone, the evictor cai-ed 
 not whither. According to the same work, the Marquis 
 of Sligo left not a soul, except a few herds, in wide 
 areas of the West ; and " the clearance "' tragedies which 
 were enacted in the West, went on more or less in th« 
 
292 HO-.V THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 
 
 East, the South, and the North. The people did not 
 run to America in search of amusement from life's 
 monotony in those parts ; but, driven from their homes, 
 they ran there for their lives, and their absence caused 
 " the deadly dulness of the rural life " which they Left 
 behind them. From 1840 onwards, when the system of 
 "consolidating lands" was adopted by landowners for the 
 purpose of increasing their rents and of lessening their 
 poor-rates, the number of small farms went on con- 
 stantly decreasing, and the number of large ones were 
 constantly increasing. 
 
 But I have said enough. There is no need for Sir 
 Horace to come before the public, with his philosophy 
 in swaddling-clothes, to seek the cause of Irish emigra^ 
 tion elsewhere than in the economic necessity thus arti- 
 ficially made. The root of it is to be found in those 
 facts, of which I have given but a few, for a sample. 
 What thus began in necessity became in time also a 
 custom, and it has now grown into a tradition. Most 
 of the people have friends in America ; some have more 
 relatives there than at home. Hence the " American 
 wake " has ceased to be what it once was. The wailing 
 which was once witnessed at the parting of old friends 
 and the separating of families is heard no more. Most 
 of our present emigrants are leaving friends at home 
 only to join others beyond the sea. Children learn 
 from their childhood that their destiny is America; 
 and as they grow up, the thought is set before 
 them as a thing to hope for — Going to America 
 is to be their way of living. And it is so : public 
 wrong has made it stern truth. Children are intended 
 for America, as they are intended for carpenters, 
 labourers, masons, or smiths. These are facts, not 
 fancies: and he would, I think, have done more 
 wisely to have learned them and faced them 
 straight rather than to have taken the trouble of 
 
HOW THE PRIESTS CAUSE EMIGRATION. 293 
 
 thinking out for us that " many of the clergy ignore the 
 vast difference between the ephemeral nature of moral 
 compulsion and the enduring force of real moral train- 
 ing;" which distinction thei-e is not a priest in Ireland, 
 or anywhere else, who does not understand quite as 
 clearly as he does; and very many of them, I am sure, 
 a great deal better. It is a pity he does not 
 reflect that priests and Catholics in general, when their 
 thoughts do not happen to be in harmony with his, 
 may have solid gi'ounds for their judgments and good 
 justification for their ways. That want of i-eflection has 
 done more damage than the publication of his philo- 
 sophy could ever do good. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WHAT THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND 
 HAVE GIVEN THE PEOPLE IN RETURN 
 FOR WHAT THEY HAVE GOT. 
 
 In strictness, no duty devolves on a priest to take an 
 active part in the political or in the industrial 
 work of his country; that is, in normal circumstances. 
 When I made up my mind to become a priest I did not 
 count on having to face such work. On the contraxy 
 my natural disinclination for such duties had more to 
 do than any other natural motive in determining the 
 choice of life-work which I made. And am I to be 
 told that I share responsibility as to the material con- 
 dition of the country if I abstain from work which I 
 expressly set aside on making up my mind to become 
 a pi-iest? One might as well say that a barrister neg- 
 lects his duty because he does not compound medicine 
 as well as plead causes, or that a physician neglects his 
 duty because he does not plead causes as well as pre- 
 scribe for patients. And it is a curious inconsis- 
 tency that those who would most vociferously assert my 
 duty towards such work under one set of circumstances, 
 would under a different set of circumstances not only 
 ignoi-e my duty but even repudiate my right. I do not 
 say that a priest is under all circumstances to be 
 absolved from such public duties. Exceptional circum- 
 stances will impose obligations which under normal 
 conditions do not exist. Such circumstances did exist 
 when, in the early pai*t of the last century, the people 
 of Ireland woke up from the lethargy of the penal times, 
 and dared to assert that they had wrongs to redress. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 295 
 
 Before that time they had, from sheer helplessness, 
 lapsed into a state of resignation to their fate. It waa 
 but nat\iral that the priests took a leading part in 
 working for a removal of religious disabilities. They 
 merely did what they ought to have done. But the 
 political and economic interests of the people came only 
 indirectly in their way; and they would never probably 
 have taken to the political platform if the material 
 interests of the people had not been neglected, ruined, 
 and ignored by those whose business it was to guard 
 them, or if the people's wrongs had been voiced and 
 their cause pleaded by those who had the power, the 
 position, and the gifts to do so. The priests went out 
 of their way and took up the pla-ce wliich those who 
 ought neglected to fill, and they have occupied that posi- 
 tion down to this day. Why is it that no other per- 
 sons in the country, taken as a class, are expected to 
 work for the temporal interests of the people? Why 
 is it that no other class are rebuked or abused for not 
 doing so ? Why does Sir Horace not upbraid, for in- 
 stance, the medical or the legal profession as sharing 
 responsibility for the industrial shortcomings of the 
 people ? Why not the parsons / He will say that these 
 are not numerous enough? Between Episcopalian, 
 Presbyterian, and Methodist ministers, they number 
 2,724, for a little over a million Protestants. 
 He will say that these do not belong to the religion of 
 the people? But do they not belong to the country of 
 the people? Indeed, Dr. Bunbury, Dr. O'Hnra, 
 Dr. Chad wick, and other Protestant bishops have been 
 assuring the country in chorus that they, and they 
 alone, take a really deep and rational interest in the 
 people. And, descending from a social to a commercial 
 level of thought, they have received vastly more of 
 Irish public money for personal uses than the priests 
 have ever got. The truth is, we have become so accua- 
 
296 THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS UAKRISON IN IRELAND. 
 
 tomed to see the priests interest themselves in tlie tem- 
 poral as well as in the spiritual concerns of the people 
 that we have come to look on it as a matter of course 
 and as a matter of duty. Thus, their supposed respon- 
 sibility in the present is begotten of their free and 
 generous action in the past. Hence it has come to 
 pass that every political, social, or economic evil in 
 the country is laid at their doors, as if those on whom 
 duty as to those things devolves only indirectly and by 
 accident, were the only class in the country who had any 
 duty in the matter, and as if those whose duty as to those 
 things is direct and indisputable at all times, had no duty 
 or responsibility at any time or at all. But, he will say^ 
 having such "' undisputed influence," they might be 
 reasonably expected to yes, they might be reason- 
 ably expected to do what is their duty ; but he censures 
 them because, having done more than they were bound 
 to do, thev have not done still more. One would 
 think that their " undisputed influence " was a gift that 
 dropped down from the moon, and therefore entails re- 
 sponsibility ; whereas whatever popular influence they 
 possess has come from their having taken the part of 
 the people, when those who ought and might have done 
 much to relieve the people's wrongs not only ignored but 
 helped to intensify them. Their present popular in- 
 fluence ig the result of their popular action in the past, 
 and it is false to infer their duty in public afi^airs from 
 their popular influence. 
 
 I now propose to review what the representatives of 
 Government, the landlords, and the Protestant Church 
 have taken from the country, and to ask what have they 
 done for it in return, politically, industrially, or socially? 
 And 1st as to Government : — 
 
 On 26th May, 1800, Grattan, protesting against the 
 relative taxation of England and Ireland arranged by 
 Castlereagh, said that " Ireland, like every enslaved 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 297 
 
 countiy, will ultimately be compelled to pay for her 
 own subjugation." And so it has been. Wealth is 
 created by industry, but it is saved by thrift. The 
 Union left Ireland little power to create, and it left her 
 as little power to save. O'Neill Daunt says that the 
 " aggregate drains of income have been estimated by 
 careful enquirers to amount to £13,000,000 per annum" ; 
 which means that during the century £l,30O,0O0,00Ohas 
 been transported from Ireland to England, besides the 
 loss sustained by being deprived of the profits which 
 would have come from the use of it at home. In that 
 estimate are included over-taxation, absentee rents, 
 money spent on English manufactures owing to the de- 
 struction of home industries, etc. At the Union the 
 debt of Ireland was only one-sixteenth of the^ debt of 
 England ; but they were soon afterwards assimilated in 
 taxation, and Ireland was made to pay one- 
 seventh as her share of the burden. Thus, 
 from the start instead of sharing England's wealth 
 she has shared only her debt. To trace the 
 consequences to the present day, I take the following 
 from an article contributed to The Nineteenth Century, 
 for March, 1886, by Mr. Giffen, Secretary to the Statis- 
 tical Department of the Board of Trade:— "I desire to 
 call special attention to the fact, which has come out in- 
 cidentally, that Ireland is over-taxed in comparison with 
 Great Britain. It contributes twice its proper share to 
 the Imperial Exchequer." 
 
 I should begin with the initial cost in carrying the 
 Union. Twenty-six Members of the Irish Parliament 
 were created peers, for which they sacrificed their coun- 
 try to their selves. £1 ,500,000 was spent in bribing the 
 holders of pocket boroughs to vote away the indeiDendence 
 of their country. Over and above that sum, £60,000 a 
 year was spent on pensions to secure the same treachery. 
 Then, insult was super-added to injustice by saddling the 
 
298 THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 
 
 Irish j:>eople witli the entire expenditure : that is, tliey 
 were made to pay the cost of their own degradation. 
 Tlie popular outcry and resistance which was raised by 
 that wrong, made it necessary for the Government to 
 keep up a military force in the country of 137,000 men, 
 at a cost of £4,815,367 a year. For that also the people 
 had to pay. But that does not fill the measure of 
 iniquity ; because the soldiers, although their expense 
 had thus been provided for, were for the most part quar- 
 tered on the people, and the savings thus made were 
 appropriated by the officials of justice and order. Is 
 that a sign of the "economic sense''? At any rate, 
 that is how the Government and those who were paid to 
 distribute justice in the name of law, consulted for the 
 economic interest and for the industrial regeneration of 
 Ireland. 
 
 The Report of the Financial Relations Commission has 
 revealed that Ireland has been paying £3,000,000 a year 
 in taxes more than her share. Again, there are in Ireland 
 12,307 police at a cost of £1,418,562 per annum; be- 
 sides whom there are 7,142 police pensioners at a cost of 
 £365,476. How they are distributed over the country 
 will be understood from the following: — In Antrim and 
 Down they are 13 to 10,000 of the population; in x\r- 
 magh they are 15 to 10,000. In Limerick, Tipperary, 
 King's County, Galway and Dublin they are 33 ; in 
 Meath, 34. In England there are 45,544 police; in 
 Scotland, 5,107. That is to say: — In Ireland a police- 
 man is set to mind every 360 of the population; in Eng- 
 land a policeman is considered enough for every 715, and 
 in Scotland for every 885. Yet, in England 8,631 Jier- 
 sons were convicted for criminal offences in 1901, and 
 there were 3,112 convicts; in Scotland, 1,872 were con- 
 victed for criminal offences, and there were 289 convicts ; 
 in Ireland, 1,211 were convicted for criminal offences and 
 there were 261 convicts. And what has ffovernment 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 299 
 
 done for all those exj>eases imposed? Much less than 
 nothinc^. Some remedial measures have been passed from 
 time to time ; but these only pay off the debt by instal- 
 ments. But Ireland has never shared that distributive 
 justice according to the taxes she pays ; and the remedial 
 measures she has got she has extracted ; they have never 
 come from a sense of governmental duty. Dr. Johnson 
 was a prophet vphen he said to an Irish acquaintance in 
 1779, "Do not unite with us, sir; we should unite with 
 you only to rob you." 
 
 Let us now see what the landlord class have done for 
 the country during the past centui-y. 
 
 According to the evidence given before the Exchange 
 Committee in 1804, by Mr. Puget, the remittances from 
 Ireland to absentee landlords at that time were more 
 than £2,000,000 a year. In 1830, according to the 
 evidence of Mr. Ensor, before a Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee, absentee landlords took away annually 
 £4,000,000 ; or, as he said, one-third of the whole rental 
 of Ireland. He stated, on the authority of Dr. Jebb, the 
 Protestant Bishop of Limerick, a man of note ia his day, 
 that £300,000 was thus taken from County Limerick, 
 and £150,000 from County Kerry. Thus the absentee 
 drain on the country was doubled in less than thirty 
 years. Tbose landlords in being absentees not only 
 helped the prosperity of England and of other countries 
 where they spent their money, but also in the same ratio 
 helped to impoverish their own. There was a damnum 
 emergens, and a lucrum cessans. If their rents had been 
 fair, the loss would have been great, though less. But 
 they left their agents in Ireland to grind out exorbitant 
 rents, and they stayed abroad to spend them. They 
 acted no doubt according to their principles, because they 
 arrogated all rights and disowned all duties towards the 
 country whence they drew their revenues. Ireland was 
 their country in the sense that it belonged to them, but 
 
3U0 THE GOVERNMEXT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 
 
 not in the sense that they belonged to it; and 
 the unguarded confession recently made about " Eng- 
 land's faithful garrison in Ireland " reveals the same 
 principle of conduct at work to-day. 
 
 Mr. Sadler, an English Tory member of Parliament, 
 in a work published in 1829,* writes: — "Are we 
 still to garrison a defenceless country in behalf 
 of those whose property was, generally speak- 
 ing, originally conferred on the special condition of re- 
 sidence, but whose desertion occasions all the evils under 
 which she has groaned for centui-ies — property so treated 
 that it would not be worth a day's purchase were the 
 proprietors its sole protectors. But they are aware that 
 their absence is balanced by the presence of a body of 
 militar}^ and police, which enables them to conduct them 
 selves with as little apprehension as remorse. And are 
 these so meritorious a class that their utmost demands 
 are to be extorted from a distant and suffering country, 
 and themselves protected in open neglect, or rather 
 audacious outrage, of all those duties, on the due and 
 reciprocal discharge of which the whole frame of the 
 Bocial system is founded? If they persist in this course, 
 let them do so, but let it be at their own proper peril.'" 
 Such is the view of an English Protestant of how the 
 landlords who lived abroad contributed to the 
 economics of the country. And how about those 
 who lived at home? According to a non-Catholic 
 paper. The Dublin Pilot, of January 2nd, 1833: — 
 " The Irish country gentleman is, we are sorry to say, 
 the most incorrigible being that infests the face of the 
 globe. In the name of the law he tramples on justice; 
 boasting of superiority of Christian creed, he violates 
 Christian charity — is mischievous in the name of the 
 Lord. Were the Irish Government inclined to govern 
 
 * Ireland and its Evils. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 301 
 
 the country -with good policy (which, bless its heart! it is 
 not) the greatest impediment it would find would be in 
 the arrogant, besotted, grasping, rack-renting, spend- 
 thrift, poor, proud, and profligate country gentleman." 
 In a speech delivered at a meeting of the Protestant 
 Conservative Society on 12th August, 1834, the R«v. 
 Charles Boyton, the acknowledged leader of that Society, 
 
 said : "If honourable gentlemen and noble lords would 
 
 look to the title-deeds of their estates they would find it 
 was held, too, under conditions, in all cases a condition 
 of residence : in some, as in the grants of James I., with 
 a reservation that they should pay the tithes to the 
 established clergy ; and most, on the expressed compact 
 that these estates were to be tilled by a good Protestant 
 tenantry." Possibly when they found that they were 
 neither able to create Irish Protestant tenants nor to 
 keep British ones, they conveniently concluded that the 
 conditions no longer bound them. Hence, Sydney Smith 
 suggested at the same time that the people should do 
 their duty to themselves, since those who also owed a 
 duty to them neglected it. " As long as the patient will 
 sufifer, the cruel will kick. If the Irish go on withhold- 
 ing and forbearing, and hesitating whether this is the 
 time for discussion or that is the time, they will be 
 laughed at for another century as fools, and kicked for 
 another century as slaves." 
 
 We have seen how they subdivided lands into small 
 plots in order to manufacture votes through the 40s. 
 freeholders. Under that syste^m families multi- 
 plied and the population rapidly increased. We 
 have seen how, when those voters had dared 
 to use their natural right in voting as they pleased, their 
 power of voting was stopped. But there they were, with 
 their families, and the population was still increasing. 
 According to an Official Report of 1836. 585.000 men 
 M^ve out of work for 30 weeks in the year. Then was 
 
30'2 THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 
 
 introduced the system of consolidating lands, uhich made 
 matters worse. Now, according to Sir Robert Kane, 
 there were 4,600,000 acres of waste but reclaimabie land 
 'v\ the country. If the people were encouraged to settle 
 en these, the wastes would have been cultivated, the poor 
 would have employment and their condition would be 
 improved. But neither in that nor in an^- other v,ay 
 did those who had the power, do anything for the people. 
 Quite otherwise. 
 
 Let us look at it in another light. The 
 amount of money accumulated by the people owing to the 
 high prices which prevailed during the Napoleonic wars 
 was enormous. Sir Hussey Vivian, in his evidence be- 
 fore a Select Committee in 1832, estimated the capital 
 «f the small farmers at £30,000,000. They were thrifty 
 enough to save it, but they were powerless to use it pro- 
 ductively. Some of them committed their savings to the 
 keeping of trustworthy neighbours ; others hid them away 
 to keep them more secure from the knowledge of the land- 
 lord, who would either demand it on loan, or would make 
 it a pretext for raising the rent. Of course, they did not 
 think of employing it to improve their holdings; they 
 were made helpless, but they would not be fools. Mr. 
 Dixon Holmes, in the course of evidence which he gave 
 before a Select Committee on Public Works in Ireland, 
 in 1835, gives several illustrations to show how much 
 money the people had saved, but which he says " they 
 had to hoard up for want of the means of emplopng it." 
 He told the Committee, amongst other things, that he 
 had proposed to an extensive Tipperary landlord to buy 
 up a large quantity of waste land from him. He then 
 went to the parish priest of the place and asked him to 
 recommend him some trustworthy persons amongst his 
 people who had money and were ready to invest it in land. 
 Alter a few weeks the priest sent him a list of persons 
 -who had the mcuey and were anxious to take the land. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 303 
 
 They proposed to lodge the money in the Provincial 
 Baaak at Clonmel, in their own names and in his, to be 
 drawn out for the purpose of being employed on the land 
 as it was wanted. The money contributed amounted to 
 i:9,70O, ranging from sums of £20 to £600. He found 
 a gentleman in London to join him in the undertakinjr. 
 They proposed to spend a sum of money on the under- 
 taking, in erecting buildings, making roads, etc., and to 
 require only a fair compensation for the use of it. But 
 when all was ready for work, he found the landlord too 
 unsatisfactory to deal with. His terms were liberal 
 enough, but he would only lease those waste lands for 
 three lives or thirty-one years. That landlord had " the 
 economic sense." He had an eye to eventuali- 
 ties of thirty-one years in the future. That 
 money saved by the people became the misfortune ot 
 many, rather than an inducement to save more. The 
 writer of a very able article in The Dublin Review* 
 says : — " And fatal have been the effects to the peace of 
 families. There is but too much reason to believe, that 
 many an industrious farmer has owed his transportation, 
 in times of disturbance, to the pecuniary accommodation 
 he has afforded to the needy justices of his neighbour- 
 hood." 
 
 In the meantime the absentee drain went on ; in 1843 
 it amounted to £6,000,000. 
 
 Let us pass on to another phase of the question, and to 
 a later date. Mr. Goldwin Smith became one of the 
 multitudinous cheap advisers of Irelandf The great 
 economic black spots he saw in the country were " con- 
 gested districts " and " surplus population " — that, 
 after more than a generation of " clearances," famine, 
 fever, evictions, and emigration. His panacea was 
 
 * For July, 1863. 
 
 f Xinetce?Uh Century for June, 1883. 
 
30-1 THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IK IRELAND. 
 
 to help the people out of the country. The 
 late A. M. Sullivan replied to him," and pointed out Ihat 
 Ireland was not " congested," although certain districts 
 mav be so ; and that even in these the congestion was not 
 due to the poverty of nature but to the avarice of man, 
 not to the indolence of the people but to the greed of 
 landlords. Instead of discussing the question in my own 
 words, I give his : — " This Irish misery is no mysterious 
 problem. Irish poverty is created and manufactured be- 
 fore our eyes by a process as simple and direct as the 
 scuttling of a ship. The real wonder would be if Irish 
 farmers as a class were ever much above starvation level. 
 For fifty years past the charge has been specifically urged 
 on their behalf that for time out of mind extortionate 
 rents left them no means of subsistence much above that 
 of cattle. Since Sharman Crawford's time it has been 
 explicitly charged that an excess of £5,000,000 a year has 
 been wrung from them. For eighteen months past this 
 charge has been under investigation in the Queen's 
 Courts by Land Commissioners. In the result, so far, 
 it is judicially declared that the rents have been unfair 
 or extortionate, on an average, to the extent of about 27 
 per cent, per annum. The rental of Ireland for thirty 
 years pa^t is estimated at £15,000,000 or £16,000,000 ; 
 so that, at this rate, after allowing a margin for proper- 
 ties fairly rented, a yearly sum of at least £3,500,000, or 
 more than £100,000,000 since 1851 has been wrongfully 
 squeezed out of Irish farmers. Aye, wrung out of them 
 by a process as agonising as the courbash. £100,000,000 ! 
 How many tragedies of humble life darkened the back- 
 ground of these figures ! How much of unrequited toil ; 
 how much of cruel injustice, of heart-sinking and hope- 
 lessness; of hunger and privation I If this £100,000,000, 
 or even half the amount, were in hand just now for 
 * la Xineteenth Century for July, 1883. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 305 
 
 settling Conneraara cottiers on depopulated or reclaim- 
 able Irish land elsewhere, they would need no help from 
 Mr. Tuke. The lowest computation I have ever seen, 
 but which I have not tested, fixes at another £100,000,000 
 the net loss — the direct and aetual loss — to Ireland in 
 the same period on the disastrous agricultural statistics 
 already cited; while, as if to render inevitable the 
 pauperisation of the country, within the same period the 
 Imperial taxation imposed on and drawn from Ireland 
 has been increased from the yearly amount of 
 £4,006,711 in 1851, to £7,086,593 in 1871. And 
 this was on a falling population. The Imperial 
 taxation of Ireland stood at 12s. 2d. per head 
 for population in 1851. It stood at £1 6s. 2d. per head 
 in 1871 — an increase of 14s. per head per year. Within 
 the same period the burden on rich and prosperous Great 
 Britain, with an increasing population, has been 
 lightened by a reduction of 3s. 3d. per head per annum." 
 I am now, I think, in a position to invite Sir Horace 
 Plunkett to examine his conscience and ask himself — • 
 What have the landlords done for the country in return 
 for all they have taken from it? How have they exerted 
 those civic virtues which v;e are told they possess, or the 
 superior intelligence of which they are for ever boasting, 
 and by reason of which they are for ever asserting their 
 title to privileges? How have they used the privileges, 
 the monopolies, which they have hitherto enjoyed ? They 
 originally supplanted the people in their possessions by 
 legalised force, and then, privileged by the same force, 
 they made the people their slaves. They rack-rented, 
 evicted, and " cleared " them off their estates, and after 
 dissipating their extorted revenues abroad and sinking 
 themselves hopelessly into debt, having slept off the in- 
 toxication of their lawless power, they drowsily rub the 
 cobwebs from their eyes, wonder that there can be any 
 poverty amongst the people, and can see nothing econo- 
 
306 THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 
 
 mically amiss but "congested districts," and a "surplus 
 population." And what has been their remedy for it 
 all? Emigration. Having as landlords "cleared" the 
 people off their estates, as philanthropists they would 
 clear them out of the country. Their system of econo- 
 mics has been as simple as their Christianity. But I 
 have not yet sounded the depths of their economics. 
 During and after the famine times, not only the people 
 who remained at home, but also those who emigrated 
 helped to provide their rents. According to Lord 
 Dufferin,* the Irish emigrants in America sent 
 to their friends at home £13,000,000, within 
 the span of sixteen years, from 1848 to 1864; 
 and most of it was consumed in rents. Thus 
 America, as well as Ireland, was laid under contri- 
 bution for rent, which was as usual spent mostly in Eng- 
 land, or everywhere and anywhere except at home. But I 
 had nearly forgotten that they have proved their sympathy 
 for the people ; they did interest themselves once in im- 
 proving their condition. During the famine years, hav- 
 ing absorbed their rents, they appealed to England and 
 to the beneficent of every clime to extend a helping hand 
 towards the starving people. Even the Ti?7ies could not 
 endure it.f It upbraided them as "a confederacy 
 of rich proprietors craving employment for the 
 poor which they are themselves bound to pro- 
 vide by every sense of duty to a land from which 
 they derive their incomes. It is too bad that the Irish 
 landlord should come to ask charity of the English and 
 Scotch mechanic ; but it seems that those who forget all 
 duties forget all shame. The Irish rent must be paid 
 twice over." On February 25th, 1847, it returned to the 
 assault. In Ireland, it said, "Property ruled with a 
 savage and tyrannical sway. It exercised its rights ^nth 
 
 * Irish Emigration and Tenure of Land in Ireland, page 3. 
 f On September 22nd, 1846. 
 
THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS CAKP.ISON IN IRELAND. 307 
 
 a liand of iron, and renounced its duties with a front of 
 brass." In 1852 it said that " the name of an Irish land- 
 lord stinks in the nostrils of Christendom." It would 
 not be correct to infer that all deserved such a whipping 
 as that. There were some, unfortunately not many, 
 amongst the old race of landlords who, considering the 
 traditions into which they were born, did act on the 
 principle that property has its duties as well as its rights ; 
 and they deserve great honour for having risen so high 
 above their surroundings. But I am dealing with them 
 as a class, who might and ought to have done a great 
 deal for the country, and who did very much less 
 than nothing. 
 
 Let us now see what Trinity College has, as landlord, 
 done for the country. It has estates in seventeen coun- 
 ties; over 200,000 acres in all. It is immediate landlord 
 of 14,404 acres in Kerry, Queen's County, Wicklow, and 
 Louth, besides being head landlord of large estates in 
 the other counties. As a specimen of its action in the 
 other counties I take its action in Kerry. It is direct 
 landlord over 10,341 acres around Caherciveen, a part of 
 the confiscated estates of The McCarthy More. The 
 O'Connell family used to be middlemen under it till 
 about forty years ago, and about 80 years ago they trans- 
 formed Caherciveen from a mere row of huts into the 
 beginning of a prosperous town. They gave sites for 
 houses at small rents, built schools, and helped it to be- 
 come a thriving place. With its beautiful position, be- 
 hind it the Iveragh mountains, before it the expanse of 
 Dingle Ba}', and placed directly on the way of the tourist, 
 Trinity College, with its enormous wealth, might have 
 done a great deal for it, and it has done less than nothing. 
 The only progress which can be laid to the credit of its 
 landlord is progress of rent. It takes a large revenue 
 from this town made by the O'Connells and improved by 
 the people. Allowing it that unearned increment to 
 
308 THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN lUF.LAND. 
 
 which it is at least by law entitled, it has not the 
 " economic sense " to see that it would be a profitable in- 
 vestment to spend money on the improvement of the 
 place. There have been schools there under the charge 
 of the Presentation Nuns since the days of O'Connell. 
 Tlie children who attend those schools are the children of 
 the tenants of Trinity College. One would expect that 
 an Educational Institution, and the richest College in 
 Europe, would patronize at least the educational in- 
 terests of its tenants. Well, the Nuns needed to en- 
 large their schools some time ago. They bought a plot 
 on which to build, and our wealthy model of educational 
 progress charges them £10 a year rent for it. The 
 Manager, in their behalf, set before Dr. Traill who was 
 then Bursar and is now Provost, of their landlord, the 
 purpose for which the plot was taken, but the reply was a 
 peremptory claim for rent. In the town there is also a 
 Protestant school, attended by a few Protestant children. 
 That school has, I believe, neither rent nor rates to pay ; 
 the "non-sectarian" landlord does all. Its conduct to- 
 wards the country part of its estate is as bad. It ex- 
 tracts the highest rents it can screw out of wastes of 
 moorland and water, and even a wretched row of wayside 
 huts called the village of Doory, which a village money- 
 lender would be almost ashamed to own, contribute 
 their Elite towards educating the students of Trinity. 
 And how do those poor tenants make the rent? They 
 find most of it in the sea beside them, and in America 
 beyond it. The fish they catch and the American letter 
 they get supply the rent. Some bog freedom which they 
 once enjoyed helped them also, for they used to sell what- 
 ever turf they cut over and above their needs. But our 
 versatile University has turned bog-ranger, and allows 
 that turbary no more. Its dealing through all its 
 estates is of the sajne kind. 
 
 I am aware that its rents are apparently very low. But 
 
THE GOVEEXMENT AND ITS GARRISON IN IRELAND. 309 
 
 the consequent loss to the College brings no gain to its 
 tenants. Only the Provost and Senior Fellows gain by 
 the transa<;tion. Its estates were rented out at short 
 leases, and atevery renewal of lease a fine had to be paid. 
 About half a century ago, the law sanctioned the prac- 
 tice of the Provost and Senior Fellows to appro- 
 priate the fines, the rents to be devoted to the 
 educational interests of the College. The " econo- 
 mic sense " of the College Governors felt the ad- 
 vantage — not to education, but to themselves — of a 
 system of low rents and high fines. It was all the same 
 to the tenants, but it was not all the same to the Provost 
 and Fellows. The tenants would have to pay in some 
 form; hence they lost nothing, whilst the Provost and 
 Senior Fellows gained a good deal. The College was 
 made the victim, and education became the scape-goat. 
 Thu3 it happens that, notwithstanding the enormous 
 wealth of Trinity College, it lags far behind in the educa^ 
 tional progi-ess of the day.* Its revenues which, like food, 
 should pass to and be assimilated by every part of the 
 body, are prevented by a cancer and are in great part con- 
 sumed in one spot. Thus it happens that, whilst according 
 to its revenues it should be the best, it is in reality one of 
 the worst equipped Universities in the world. Thus it 
 happens that, with all its wealth, it is arbegging for sub- 
 sidies ; that it has so far failed to fulfil the condition on 
 which Lord Iveagh has offered a subsidy ; that the curri- 
 culum of its Medical Faculty has been condemned by the 
 Gen. Medical Council. These, however, are incidental to 
 my present argument. ^\'hat I want to point out is that, 
 like the other landowners as a class, it has given no re- 
 turn to the country for all it has consumed of its sub- 
 stance. It cannot afford to give the country even a first- 
 rate school of science and technics. 
 
 *Cfr. an article by Prof. Mahaffy in proof thereof, in The Con- 
 lemporary Bevieic for January, 1882; also a Report drawn up by 
 the late Prof. Fitzgerald in the early part of 1899. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WHAT THE PEOTESTANT CHURCH HAS GOT IN IRELAND, 
 AND WHAT IT HAS GIVEN OR DONE IN RETURN. 
 
 The Catholics were prostrate. Slavery, and the 
 dread of more of it, had become their normal 
 condition. They had inherited oppression, and had 
 almost come to be satisfied with it provided they were 
 allowed to hug their chains in peace. They lived and 
 acted, or rather suffered, as though they were a people 
 tt'ithout rights, whom nature had ordained to be outlaws 
 and strangers in the land of their fathers. But courage 
 to resist the exaction of tithes came to them from a 
 combination of causes. The first moving power was 
 their poverty, and their inability to pay. Then there 
 was the sense of injustice which they felt in having to 
 pay for a creed which slavery and chains had failed to 
 make them accept, and there was the sense of cruelty 
 which they felt in being driven to leave their children 
 without bread in order to pay an impost which the law 
 had privileged with a first claim on the fruits of their 
 labour. Then came the New Reformation Society in 
 1824. Those " New Lights," as they were called, made 
 the people feel as they had never felt before that in 
 paying tithes they were paying the parsons to insult 
 them. The Rev. Mr. Blakeley declared before a Select 
 Committee in 1832 that those Scripture Missioners were 
 inspired more by political rancour than by religious 
 zeal; and, according to the evidence of Mr. Mont- 
 gomerv, the people " knew little of the Protestant Epis- 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 311 
 
 copalian parson, except iu the character of tithe- 
 proctor." Then, the intrepidity of O'Connell gave 
 them hope, his eloquence roxised them from their 
 lethargy, and the winning of Catholic Emancipation 
 made them feel their power. With O'Connell was 
 associated Dr. Doyle, who wrote these words, the last of 
 which became a kind of war-cry: — "There are many 
 noble traits in the Irish character, mixed with failings 
 which have always raised obstacles to their own well- 
 being; but an innate love of justice, and an indomitable 
 hatred of oppresson, is like a gem upon the front of our 
 nation which no darkness can obscure. To this fine 
 quality I trace their hatred of tithes ; may it be as lasting 
 as their love of justice!"* Finally, the people were 
 exasperated into fight by the action of Rev. Mr. 
 McDonald, who, whilst supplying for th.e Protestant 
 rector of Graigue, a man who had lived in harmony 
 with his Catholic neighbotu^, not only collected the 
 tithes with a provoking impeiiousness, but demanded 
 them also from the parish priest and had his horse 
 destrained for the debt. That was in 1830. They felt 
 the collection of tithes from themselves to be an injury 
 which they should no longer bear ; they felt it was add- 
 ing insult to injury to collect them from their parish 
 priest, and the super-added insult stung them to ven- 
 geance. The tithe- war was begun. It rapidly spread over 
 Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and over 
 all the South. The police and the soldiers who were called 
 on to assist in collecting the tithes, came in conflict with 
 the people at Newtownbarry, Thurles, Castle pollard, 
 Carrickshock, Wallstown, Rathkeeran, Oarrigtwohill, 
 KilmuiTy, Mullinahone, Palleskenry, Castlemahon, and 
 Rathcormac; and blood was shed, and lives were lost in 
 each encounter. Grattan said in Parliament years 
 
 * Letter to Thomas Spring Rice, Esq., M.P. (afterwards, Lord 
 Monteagle) ; page 121, 
 
312 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 before : — " The most sanguinary laws in your Statute 
 Book are the tithe-bills; the Whiteboy Act is a tithe- 
 bill; the Riot Act is a tithe-bill." In fact, to the 
 exax;tions of the tithe-proctor are to be traced the White- 
 boys, the Whitefeet, and other societies of those days 
 whose members injustice and oppression had driven into 
 a guerilla warfare because the law which they were 
 asked to respect had outlawed them from all constitu- 
 tional action to recover their civil rights. 
 
 Mr. Stanley, the Irish Chief Secretary, said that "the 
 people must be made to respect the law." In 1832, 
 Parliament meanwhile gave a grant of £60,000 to the 
 parsons to recoup them for the tithes they were unable 
 to collect, and the Grovernment undertook the work of 
 collecting them to recoup itself. "The Lord Lieutenant," 
 as O'Connell said, " was made tithe-proctor general of 
 Ireland." Between the cost of lawyers, soldiers, police, 
 and proclamations, they spent about .£60,000 more on 
 the work, but they succeeded in collecting only £12,000. 
 In 1833, the aiTeai-s went up to £1,200,000, in place of 
 which, £1,000,000 more of public money was granted by 
 Parliament to the parsons. Instead of making the 
 people to respect the law, the law was made to respect 
 the people, or rather the justice of their cause ; and the 
 Tithe Composition Act was passed in 1834. That Act 
 did not take the burden of the tithes from the people. 
 It altered them into a fixed average quantity instead of 
 letting them vary in amount with the industry of the 
 husbandman and the value of his produce. It made no 
 change in the burden of the tithes, but only in the 
 method of collecting them. The tithe was still to be 
 collected, no longer however by taking away the tenth 
 of the actual harvest, but the composition estimate of 
 the tithes, taking their average value for a series of 
 years. Tlie Catholics still persisted in protesting 
 against being made to pay for insulting their faith. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 313 
 
 They refused to respect a law which was made to dis- 
 respect them; and finally, in 1838, a tithe rent-charge 
 was substituted by Parliament for tithes collected 
 from the people. 
 
 It is to be observed here also that the tithe burden 
 still remained ; only the manner of payment was again 
 changed. The landlord was for the future to pay the 
 tithe to the parson, and he was to recoup himself by 
 raising the rent on the tenant. In other words, the 
 landlord became tithe-proctor, for which the law allowed 
 him 25 per cent, commission on the collection. The 
 parson got only three-f oui'ths of what he used to claim ; 
 but he had the benefit of getting his tithe without 
 trouble, and with security. The landlord was well paid 
 by the extravagant commission which he received. The 
 one who still had to bear the burden was the Catholic, 
 on whom the rent was raised as a set-off against the 
 tithe rent-charge which the landlord paid the parson. 
 The parsons still got their tithes; the Catholics still 
 paid for them; and the landlords gained over £125,000 
 a year by the transaction. As the spokesmen of the 
 Protestant interest have been insisting that, not 
 Catholics, but the Protestants themselves, have 
 been paying for its maintenance, I think it well 
 to quote the following from a pamphlet published 
 in 1867, by Dr. O'Brien, the Protestant Bishop 
 of Ossory :— " The tithe rent-charge is paid by the pro- 
 prietor to the parish clergyman, not as a voluntary con- 
 tribution to his maintenance, nor as an impost laid on 
 him for that purpose by the State ; it is a consideration 
 for the tithes, which were the property of the Church, 
 but were transferred to the landlord, and are enjoyed by 
 him .... the fraction of the rights of the Church 
 which the Tithe Composition represented, was ascer- 
 tained and secured by the law to the Chnrch. And one- 
 fourth of the amount of this composition was allowed to 
 
314 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 the landlord for receiving the whole from his tenants, 
 and paying over three-fourths to the clergyman. So 
 that, for every £75 that he pays in rent-charge, he has 
 received £100. This is the only sense in which the 
 revenues of the Irish Church are extracted from the 
 landlord.''* I have other Protestant witnesses to the 
 same interpretation of the tithe rent-charge ; but I have 
 selected Dr. O'Brien, because he was in his day one of 
 the ablest and one of the most uncomj^romising cham- 
 pions of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. Having 
 given his words, I let its present champions settle the 
 matter with him, and with writers of authority like 
 Dr. Mazdere Brady. But, that the burden of Uie 
 tithes was not taken from the people is evident from 
 the Tithe Commutation Act itself. It allowed the land- 
 lords 25 per cent, commission. Commission on what? 
 Not, certainly, on voluntary offerings of their own ; and 
 yet it was a commission on something. It was a com- 
 mission on the tithes which they were to collect from the 
 people under the new name of rent. We are thus en- 
 abled to set its proper value on what Bishop Chadwick 
 wrote some months ago in the coui-se of the usiial anti- 
 Catholic cry: — "We never ask anything from the 
 people," he said, with that unblushing coolness which 
 seems to be one of the charismata of the " simpler Chris- 
 tianity" in Ireland. To which the Freeman's Journal 
 promptly replied : — " No ; you have long since taken all." 
 We are also enabled to think of with the right idea, al- 
 though one may not call by its right name, the expression 
 which Bishop O'Hara, at his Synod in VVaterford within the 
 past few weeks applied to a plain and unquestionable 
 statement of facts as to the Catholic source of Protestant 
 
 "® The Case of the Established Church in Ireland, by James 
 Thomas O'Brien, D.D., page 32. See also The L'liffh'sh State 
 Church in Ireland, published in 1869, by Wm. Maziere Brady, 
 D.D., Vicar of Donoughpatrick, and Chaplain to four Lord Lieu- 
 tenants; page 21, et passim. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 315 
 
 Church revenues, embodied in their Maynooth Resolu- 
 tions by the Bishops of Ii-eland last summer. The Reso- 
 lution was as follows: — "That, whereas in addition t-o 
 their endowments for higher and intermediate education 
 and the great wealth of their Church, amounting to a 
 capital of £8,000,000, derived originally from the appro- 
 priation of Catholic Oliurch property, etc." Having 
 recalled that statement, Dr. O'Hara said : — " Now, that 
 is a lie." One thing is true at any rate, that this Pro- 
 testant bishop of four dioceses is consistent with himself. 
 When the Protestant Church was disestablished in 
 1869, another change was made in the mod© of pro- 
 viding it with revenue. The revenue was again secured 
 for it by Commutation. That is what its apologists 
 love to call "disendowment." It is a consoling ambi- 
 tion to bear the name of martyr, as long as one has 
 not to bear the reality of martyrdom. They would 
 keep the cash in their pockets, and at the same time 
 retain the grievance of having been " disendowed." 
 I have traced the identity of the source of their Church 
 endowment to the Catholic spoliation of the past and 
 to the tithe imposts of 300 years down to our own day. 
 For my present purpose, however, I am not much in- 
 terested in the arrangements made at the time of the 
 disestablishment. My purpose is to set forth the re- 
 sources of Protestantism in the past, and to ask what 
 it has done for the people in return. But before I make 
 a statement of these resources, it is well to consider for 
 how many were those resources provided. At the time 
 of the tithe-war there were 6,427,712 Catholics in Ire- 
 land, and only 852,064 Episcopalian Protestants. In 
 1861, there were 4,505,265 Catholics, and only 693,357 
 Protestants. But of these there were 417,011 in the two 
 Protestant dioceses in Ulster, leaving only 276,346 Pro- 
 testants in the rest of Ireland. There were in 1861, 
 only 80,860 Protestants in Munster; that is, nearly 
 
316 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH Ix\ IRELAND. 
 
 6,000 less than the population of Cork. There were 
 only 40,000 in Connaught; that is, less than the popula- 
 tion of Limerick. At present there are 3,308,661 Catho- 
 lics, and only 581,089 Episcopalian Protestants in Ire- 
 land, notwithstanding the emigration of the Catholics 
 on the one hand, and the enormous amount of money 
 which has been spent to gain converts for love or money, 
 or for culinary considerations, over to Protestantism. 
 But in the rest of Ireland outside Ulster there are 
 2,609,459 Catholics, and only 220,716 Episcopalian Pro- 
 testants; that is nearly 12 to 1. Even in Ulster, the 
 Episcopalian Protestants are just a little more than half 
 the Catholics of Ulster, and the Presbyterians about 
 three-fifths. In the rest of Ireland outside Ulster there 
 are only 17,750 Presyterians ; of other Protestant sects, 
 there are 56,703 in Ireland, but in the rest of Ireland 
 outside Ulster, only 9,845. 
 
 As I am dealing with population, I may as well, once 
 for all, get rid of a pharisaical scandal which our critics 
 take from what they call the awful army of priests in 
 Ireland. There are 3,542 priests in Ireland, for 
 3,301,661 Catholics; that is, 1 for every 934. If I 
 deducts priests disabled from work by illness or old 
 age, there would remain about one for every 1,000 
 Catholics. And if we deduct members of Religious 
 Orders and priests engaged in teaching, there remain 
 2,714; that is 1 for every 1,206. Now, let me first 
 compare that with the Catholic Church in Great 
 Britain. There axe in England and Scotland 3,711 
 priests for 2,014,000 Catholics; that is 1 for every 542. 
 As is the case in Ireland, many of these are engaged 
 in teaching; but on the other hand, nearly every 
 Religious Community in Great Britain has charge 
 of a parish or mission ; in Ireland, members of 
 Religious Orders have no parochial duties. I do not 
 make this comparison for the purpose of showing 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 317 
 
 that there are more priests in Great Britain than are 
 necessary; I think that there should be more 
 priests than are available for missionary work there. 
 I make the comparison to recall the curious fact 
 that we never hear the cry about the awful army of 
 priests in Great Britain, although the priests are 
 more numerous, and the Catholics, as a body, are 
 poorer there than in Ireland. But why do our 
 critics of " the economic sense " turn their microscope es- 
 pecially on Ireland? I take the cause to be that they 
 can no longer hide the economic desolation which they 
 themselves have made, and they want to throw the blame 
 of Ireland's poverty on anything or on anyone to shield 
 themselves from public scorn. It is a paradox in human 
 nature, yet it is proverbial, that one is bated by the 
 man who harms h-m. The very presence of the injured 
 one is a living rebuke to him, and one does not like 
 a rebuke. If the victim not only lives but thrives, his 
 success reminds the wrong-doer that his injustice has 
 been in vain, and he is angry that the victim succeeds. 
 Forgiveness to the injured doth belong. 
 But they never pardon who have done the wrong.* 
 It is in Ireland they have made the ruin, and, 
 of course, they do not like to be held accountable, 
 or to have it thrown in their face — Hence Romanism 
 has caused it all ! It is the Romish priests, monks and 
 nuns, the Romish religion, that have desolated the land ! 
 Now, considering the cry they raise about the army of 
 priests in Ireland, one would be inclined to think that 
 there are only a few scattered parsons to be found in 
 the country. But what do I find? According to the 
 Irish Church Directory, there were 1,724 parsons in Ire- 
 
 * Hr J deu— Conquest of Granada. Cf. Hoc habent pessimum 
 nnimi magnd fortund insolentea; qtios laeserunt et oderunt. Seneca 
 —Ve Ira, II. 33. 
 
318 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 land iu 1903, for 581,089 Protestants; that is, 1 for 
 eveiy 331. Hence, setting aside all consideration as 
 to hearing confessions and various other duties of the 
 Catholic Church which require proportionately many 
 more priests than parsons, if the priests in Ireland were 
 proportionate to the actual number of parsons, they 
 should be about 10,000 in all, and if the parsons were in 
 proportion to the actual number of priests they should be 
 only about 600 in all. But they are 1,724; and if we 
 suppose that 1,000 of them are married, and that each 
 has a family of about five, we have in all about 6,000 
 inhabitants of the episcopal palaces and of the glebe 
 houses of Ireland. There are 800 Presbyterian ministers 
 for 443,276 Presbyterians; that is 1 for every 554; 
 there are 250 Methodist ministers for 62,000 Metho- 
 dists; that is, 1 for every 248. Let us set down 250 
 more ministers for other Protestant sects. And if we 
 count in the families of the married ministers and add 
 them to those of the bishops and parsons, we arrive 
 at a gi-and total of about 11,000, out of the 1,086,371 
 Protestants of all sorts in the country. I do not com- 
 pute those statistics to complain of the revelation they 
 make. Why should I complain? Protestants might 
 vei'y reasonably remind me that it is none of my busi- 
 ness. To be sure, they constantly and offensively com- 
 plain SO' of Catholics. But then it is one of the many 
 privileges into which they have been born, a monopoly 
 prescribed by long tradition and by constant use, to 
 denounce or to defame any Catholic person or practice 
 they dislike, and the further protective privilege to 
 taunt us with stirring up sectarian strife should any of 
 us dai'e to strike back in defending ourselves. Neither 
 have I made the calculation for the pm'pose of making 
 our critics appear ridiculous, although I see that, of 
 coiu'se, it will have that effect. I am merely discussing 
 the question. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 319 
 
 According to Dr. Mazier© Brady, writing in 1867,* 
 out of the 2,428 parishes in Ireland there were 199, 
 covering an area of 557,000 acres, in which there was 
 not a single Protestant. Yet revenue to the amount of 
 £13,400 a year went out of that district to non-resident 
 Incumbents for their labours in saving souls that did 
 not exist there. The old churches which had been 
 taken from the Catholics were let go to ruin, and may 
 be seen to this day standing in lonely desolation in the 
 midst of country grave-yards. Sometimes that dis- 
 grace is disguised by uniting several parishes into one 
 benefice, and by placing the whole in charge of one In- 
 cumbent. According to Dr. Brady there were, out of 
 the 1,570 benefices in Ireland, 107 covering an area of 
 626,000 acres and yielding a revenue of £20,000 a year, 
 in each of which there was only an average of two or 
 three families, including the family of the parson and 
 the sexton. According to Godkin,t in 1834 there were 
 456 parishes, each of which had a Protestant population 
 of from 1 to 20; that is, only a few families 
 at most, always, of course, including the families 
 of the parson and the sexton. And the number 
 of such parishes had increased to 575 in 1861. 
 In 1834, there were 382 parishes, in which the 
 Protestants varied from 20 to 50; and the number of 
 such parishes had increased to 416 in 1861. In 1834, 
 there were 307 parishes, in which the Protestants varied 
 from 5 to 10; and the number of such parishes had in- 
 creased to 349 in 1861. According to the Report of 
 the Commissioners of Public Instruction, issued in 1834, 
 there were 157 parishes in which the parson was non- 
 resident, and in which there was no Divine Service. In 
 1849, George Henry Moore stated in Parliament that 
 he paid tithes in eight parishes, and that in all there 
 
 * The Enr/ilsh State Churcli in Ireland; page 158 and geq. 
 + Ireland and Iter Churches. 
 
320 THE PROTESTANT CHUKCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 ■was neither Protestant church nor glebe, nor a resident 
 parson, nor a single Protestant as far as he knew. Not 
 without reason, therefore, did Lord Lytton say in 1835 : 
 " They talk of Irish bulls ; but the words Irish Church 
 was the greatest bull in the language. It was called the 
 ' Irish Church ' because it was a church not for the 
 Irish." About the same time Sydney Smith wrote of 
 the anomaly of Irish Protestantism: — "I have always 
 compared the Protestant Church in Ireland (and I be- 
 lieve my friend Tom Moore stole the simile from me) to 
 the institution of butchers' shops in all the villages of 
 our Indian Empire. We uill have a butcher's shop in 
 every village, and you Hindoos shall pay for it. We 
 know that many of you do not eat meat at all, and that 
 the sight of beef-steaks is particularly oflFensive to you; 
 but still a stray European may pass through your village, 
 and want a steak or a chop ; the shop shall be estab- 
 lished, and you shall pay for it? There is no abuse 
 like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in all the discovered 
 parts of Africa, and in all we have heard of Timbuctoo. 
 It is an error that requires 20,000 armed men for its 
 protection in time of peace; which costs more than 
 £1,000,000 a year.''-^ 
 
 Let us now consider a few of the dioceses. I will take 
 those in charge of Dr. Bunbujry and Dr. OHara, who 
 have made themselves specially notorious in reviving cur- 
 rent polemics. Dr. Buubur}MS bishop of three dioceses: 
 Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe. According to returns 
 given before the disestablishment, there wei"e 15,103 
 Protestants in the three dioceses; that is, about 5,000 
 loss than the number of Catholics at present in the 
 parish where I live, even after the emigration drain 
 of 36 years. There were 188 parishes, which 
 would leave an average of 15 or 16 families in each, 
 
 * Works, Vol. III., page 500 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IX IRELAND. 321 
 
 including the family of the parson and the sexton. 
 Of those, 22 parishes had no Protestant; and 68 
 parishes had an average of 5*3 Protestant indivi- 
 duals. Dr. O'Hara has four dioceses : C'ashel, Emly, 
 Waterford and Lismore. At the time of the disestab- 
 lishment there were 13,853 Protestants in the four 
 dioceses, including ci\nl, military, and other officials. 
 There were 261 parishes, in 40 of which there was no 
 Protestant, and in 65 of which the number of Protes- 
 tants varied from one to ten. There were only 94 
 churches, the rest having been let go to ruin in the 
 course of time. Some of the Catholic parishes within the 
 same area contained each more Catholics than all the Pro- 
 testants of these four dioceses taken together. Yet 
 there were one Protestant Bishop, four Deans, four 
 Archdeacons, four Precentors, four Ohancellors, four 
 Treasurers, Rural Deans, Choral Vicars, in all 152 
 clergymen to look after souls of the 13,853 ; that is, a 
 parson for every 91 Protestants. If I went through all 
 the Protestant dioceses of the country I should have 
 a similar tale to tell. 
 
 Having to face such facts, and such a state of things 
 as I have thus briefly exposed, Lord Macauley once said 
 in Parliament — " Two hundred and eighty-five years has 
 this Church been at work. What could have been done 
 in the way of authority, privileges, endowments, which 
 has not been done? .... Did any other set of 
 bishops and clergy in the woi'ld ever receive half as much 
 for doing twice as much? And what have we to show 
 for all this lavish expenditure? What but the most 
 zealous Catholic population on the face of the earth! 
 Where you were a hundred years ago, where you were 
 two hundred years ago, there you are still, not victorious 
 over the domain of the old faith, but painfully and with 
 dubious success defending your own frontior. 
 
 Now, what were the resources by which the Ecclesias- 
 
 V 
 
322 
 
 THE PR0TJ:STANT church IX IRELAND. 
 
 tical machinery was Icopt going, which rninisfcered to 
 nobody in 199 parishes, to the family of the parson and 
 the sexton in many others, and to only a few families in 
 more than a thousand parishes? The following is a 
 retvirn of the Bishops' landed estates made to Parlia- 
 ment by the bishops themselves, and published on 11th 
 February, 1824:—* 
 
 The Archbishop of Armagh 
 
 .. 63,470 
 
 >> 
 
 Dublin 
 
 .. 28,781 
 
 >> 
 
 Tuam and Ardagh 
 
 .. 49,281 
 
 5> 
 
 Cashel and Emly 
 
 .. 13,372 
 
 The Bishop 
 
 of Meath 
 
 .. 18,374 
 
 
 Clogher 
 
 .. 32.817 
 
 
 Kilmore 
 
 .. 51,350 
 
 
 Derry 
 
 .. 94,836 
 
 
 Ossory 
 
 .. 13,391 
 
 
 Ferns and Leighlin 
 
 .. 11,697 
 
 
 Limerick, Ardfert and 
 
 
 
 Aghadoe 
 
 6,720 
 
 
 Waterford and Lismore 
 
 .. 8,500 
 
 
 Cork and Ross 
 
 .. 22,755 
 
 
 Cloyne 
 
 .. 15,871 
 
 
 Killaloe and Kilfenora 
 
 .. 11,081 
 
 
 Elphin 
 
 .. 31,017 
 
 Those 16 bishops who sent in returns had 473.313 
 acres of See lands. 
 
 No returns are given for the other six dioceses ; but 
 according to Parliamentary Ileports 1831-1833, the See 
 lands of the 22 bishops were ... 669,277 acres. 
 
 But besides the See lands they had 
 
 demesne lands estimated at ... 5,500 acres. 
 
 Thus the total landed property of the bishops alone 
 was 674,777 acres. 
 
 *I have compiled those from "Ireland <tnd her Churches," by 
 James Godkin. Pp. 96, 97, and 141; and from the History of 
 Tithes," by John D"Alton, Esq., B.L., JM.R.I.A. P. 50. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 323 
 
 According to a letter* which appeared in The Times 
 of January 29th, 1866, from the Rev. Dr. Alfred Lee, in 
 reply to one from the late Aubrey de Vere, "the whole of 
 the glebe lands now in possession of the beneficed clergy 
 of Ireland amount to 132,756 statute acres, no very con- 
 siderable quantity when compared with the area of Ire- 
 land." The Deans and Chapters had, at the lowest 
 estimate, 500,000 acres. The grand total of all would 
 be 1,307,533 acres. Baron Foster estimated the average 
 value of the See lands at £1 an acre, and taking the 
 other Church lands at the same value, we find that the 
 revenue derivable from its landed lornperty alone by the 
 •' Church of Ireland,"' that is, the Church of a small 
 fraction of the population, would be £1,307,533. The 
 reader is not to underst-and that the bishops actually 
 received in rents £674,777 a year from those to whom 
 their 674,777 acres of See lands were leased. According 
 to the bishops themselves, their revenue from their 
 lands was only £140,704 7s. a year; according to a 
 statement made in Parliament by Grattan, it was 
 £250,000 a year. But taking either of these estimates, 
 why did the bishops not draw from their lands all the 
 income which their lands were worth? They received 
 much more than appears from the rental, because they 
 let their lands on the Trinity College system ; that is, 
 at a low rental which made a show of general leniency, 
 at heavy fines which retained the reality cf revenue, and 
 on short leases which secured a renewal of those fines 
 almost as regularly as rent. Moreover, they let many of 
 their lands to relatives in whose favour they might forer 
 
 *By the Rev. Alfred T. Lee, M.A., LL.D., Rector of Ahoghill. 
 aud Rural Dean, and Hon. Sec. to the Church Institution for tie 
 Province of Annagh. I have italicised the words " no very con- 
 siderable quantity." The letter was published as a pamphlet 
 afterwards, from which I quote, at page i—The Ecclesiasticaf 
 Settlement of Ireland. 
 
324 THE PnOTESTANT CHURCH IX IRELAND. 
 
 go the fines, and according to Read""" some of tl em let 
 lands on trust for their own benefit. The residue be- 
 tween the rental and the value of those lands did not 
 go to further the interests of the Protestant Church; 
 the Papists were made to pay for that, as we shall 
 presently see. 
 
 The revenue was retained in the family, or at all 
 events was not diffused beyond the limit-ed circle of 
 the Protestant interest, either to the economic interest 
 of the people at large, or to the spiritual interest of the 
 Protestants themselves. 
 
 That is how the difference between the value of the 
 bishops' lands and their rental went, whilst they were 
 getting public money from Government and were exact- 
 ing cesses from the Catholic cottiers of the country to 
 build their churches, or to repair those which the 
 Catholics had built and had once vased, but which had 
 passed into the possession of Protestantism by the right 
 of plunder. I will return to this presently. Their 
 " simpler Christianity " showed its " economic sense " 
 against the interests of that Christianity itself. Bis- 
 hops and parsons had to pay out of their bishoprics and 
 benefices an impost called First Fruits, that is, one 
 year's revenue which was administered by the Board of 
 First Fruits for general Church purposes ever since that 
 impost was transferred from the coffers of the Sovereign 
 to the treasury of the Church in the reign of Queen 
 Anne.f That taxation of First Fruits was fixed according 
 to the value of the See lands and the glebe lands in the 
 time of Henry VIII., and was payable ever afterwards 
 in the same unchanged ratio of a remote and low 
 valuation. On the other hand, the tithes which the 
 
 *0n Simony, page 137, cited by J. D'Alton. Esq., in his History 
 of Tithes, page 54. 
 
 t Blackstono's Commentaries on the Laics of England vol 1 
 page 284. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IX IRELAND. 325 
 
 poor Catholic had to pay for the work of the Protestant 
 Church increased according to the increasing value of 
 the land, to the increa&ed produce of his tillage improved 
 by the labour of his hands. Thus, the Archbishop of 
 Armagh paid First Fruits on £400 a year, the ancient 
 value of his See lands when they were in the hands of 
 Catholics, instead of on £15,080 15s. Od., the actual in- 
 come which he got from his See lands according to his 
 own retiu-n. The Bishop of Derry paid First Fmits 
 on £250, the ancient value, instead of on £10,000, 
 his actual yearly income from his lands. The Bishop 
 of Ossory paid on £50, the ancient value, instead of 
 on £3,000, his actual yearly income from his lands. 
 The Bishop of Cloyne paid on £10 10s. Od., the 
 ancient value, instead of on £2,000, his actual yearly 
 income from his lands. And so on. In this, as in 
 every phase of the question, " heads I win, tails you 
 lose," was the fundamental economic principle which in 
 its dealing with Catholic Ireland the '" Simpler Chris- 
 tianity'' never failed to apply. 
 
 Besides the See lands, the bishops held 5,500 acres 
 of demesne lands, which brought them an income 
 of £10,295 13s. Od. a year, according to their own 
 return. The Estates of the Deans and Chapters 
 brought an income of £130,000 a year. The glebe 
 lands brought an income of £150,000 a year. The 
 tithes (excluding those payable to laymen) brought an 
 income of £590,450 a year. Then there was the 
 Ministers' money, which brought an income of £25,000 
 a year. As that impost was abolished in 1857, 
 
 and is now forgotten, I may explain that it was a 
 house tax levied in corporate towns. It was the 2Jf<^«- 
 liutn of the parson, and went to supplement the revenue 
 he received from the glebe lands and the tithes. The 
 reader will get an idea of the share of that impost which 
 
32G THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 Catholics had to pay from the fact that such Catholic 
 towns as Olonrael paid £341 a yeai-, Cork paid £3.324, 
 and Dublin paid £9,868. towards the Ministers' Money 
 in 1853. According to the Blach 7?ooZ-, quoted byD'Alton, 
 they derived an income of £25,000 a year from Church 
 Fees, that is, from burials and other such offices. Any 
 monies paid by Protestants for their own Church could 
 not of course be considered a grievance, and was never 
 made a ground of complaint by Irish Catholics. But in 
 former times the faithful wei-e buried beside the parish 
 church; hence a burial ground is called a churchyard. 
 Mass was always offered up in the Church for the dead 
 person, the corpse being present, and the funeial rit-es 
 were afterwards completed by the priest at the grave 
 outside. The churchyards were taken over with the 
 churches for the use and profit of the " simpler " and 
 more economic Christianity. Nevertheless, the Catho- 
 lics continued to lay the remains of their dead in the 
 graves of their fathers. They had to pay burial fees to 
 the parson, but the priest was not allowed to perform 
 the Catholic funeral rites at the grave side any moie. 
 That was one of the grievances to correct which ''The 
 Irish Catholic Association" was started by O'Cbnnell in 
 1823 He said at one of their meetings, on November 
 3rd 1823, at the house of Mr. Coyne, the Catholic 
 bookseller, in Capel Street — " They were not content 
 with oppressing Catholics when living, but they must 
 insult them when dead. . . . He heard it gravely 
 asserted that the churchyard was the parson's freehold, 
 and he could do as he pleased with it. And so he 
 always understood that a man could make what use he 
 pleased of his own fi-eehold. But he had yet to learn 
 whether a parson could plough up the burying-ground 
 and sow turnips in it ; and yet he was told it was his 
 freehold. If he could appropriate the ground to sowing 
 turnips or other vegetables, yet he doubted whether 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 327 
 
 such au occupation would be as productive as sowing 
 Papists, for the ' freehold ' of St. James', he was in- 
 formed, produced the minister near a couple of thousand 
 a year." O'Counell's memory was fresh of what had 
 happened a few weeks before, when Father Blake, a 
 Dublin parish priest, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, 
 was prevented by the Protestant sexton from reciting 
 the burial rites over the remains of Mr. Darcy, in St. 
 Kevin's churchyard; although the family of the de- 
 ceased was not prevented, rather compelled, to pay the 
 parson £10 for burial fees, in other words, for the 
 privilege of having their dead father insulted. A 
 similar case occurred on the occasion of the burial of a 
 nun in Tipperary within the memory of persons still 
 living, and not very many years ago. The 
 paupers of the Limerick workhouse used to be buried 
 in St. Patrick's churchyard, which legally was under 
 the jurisdiction of the Kector of the parish. In 1847, 
 disease and want so raised their death-rate that burials 
 in St. Patrick's soon increased considerably, whereupon 
 the parson appeared before the Guardians and raised 
 his burial fees to two shillings each.* 
 
 Putting aside pensions, proxies, symbols, and re- 
 fections, not considering the fines raised on leased 
 lands, or the family interests secured by the residue be- 
 tween the value and the actual rental of See lands, and 
 after the loss to Church purposes of lands which were 
 from time to time legally sneaked into and re- 
 tained in bishops' families, the actual revenues used up 
 by the machinery of the " Simpler Christianity" in Ire- 
 land to take 693,357 souls to heaven amounted each 
 year to about £1,500,000. 
 
 Let us bear in mind that this immense revenue 
 was made up from the alienated property of the 
 Catholic Church and from the confiscated lands of 
 
 » See the Limerirk Beforter, April, 1847. 
 
328 THE PROTESTANT CUUECH IN IRELAND. 
 
 Catholic families. But tliat portion which belonged to 
 the Catholic Church had certain burdens to bear. Out 
 of it churches and schools had to be kept up, the desti- 
 tute poor had to be provided for, and the children of 
 the poor had to be educated. Did those who succeeded 
 to the booty succeed to the burden ? It was all ab- 
 sorbed, yet the children weie left untaught unless on 
 the condition of proselytism, the poor were left un- 
 provided for, even the appropriated churches were left 
 unrepaired, and those that fell into ruin wei-e left in 
 ruins, as every churchyard over the country exhibits 
 them at present in the grey loneliness of their decay. 
 All disappeared year by year, and the public treasury 
 was apj>ealed to for help, and the already despoiled 
 Catholics were compelled to contribute to the repair of 
 old churches or to the building of new ones, for the 
 spiritual luxury of congregations consisting in hundreds 
 of cases of only the parson's clerk. From 1800 to 1826, 
 according to Grodkin, Parliament granted them for 
 church-building £224,946; for glebes, £61,484; for 
 glebe houses £144,734. Within the same period. Par- 
 liament gave them loans for church-building to the 
 amount of £286,572; and for glebe houses, £222,291. 
 That is to say £431,164 in gift, and £506,863 on 
 loan. Thus, as gift and loan together, they who had 
 so much already received from the public treasury 
 during the first quarter of the 19th century nearly 
 £1,000,000 more.* Again he writes, on the authority 
 of Parliamentary returns, that from the time of the 
 Union to 1844, the Protestant Church in Ireland 
 received from the public treasury for building churches, 
 £525,371; for building glebe houses, £336,889; for 
 
 * Godkin : Ireland and her Chitrchrs : Introduction, p. xviii. 
 Godkin observes that, the Protestant Church in Ireland which ab- 
 sorbed so much money from .--u many sources, had 286 cures with a 
 non-re!iident parson ; this ho eays on the authority of the Liber 
 munerum ptiblicorum Eiberiiicr, VoL II., pp. ^OS; 226. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAXD. 329 
 
 Protestaut Cliarity Schools, £1,105,588; for the Society 
 for discountenancing vice, etc., £101,991; for the Kil- 
 dare Street Society Schools, £170,502; that is to say, 
 leaving out one set of the elements common to both 
 these statistics, the Protestant Church in Ireland re- 
 ceived Parliamentary grants from ISOO to 1844 to the 
 enormous amount of £2,301,725; to which if the loan 
 of £508,863 be added, we have a grand total of 
 £2,810,588. And if tliere were any Pailiamentary loans 
 from 1826 to 1844, as was probably the case, the siun of 
 Parliamentary favour should be expressed in cash to 
 the amount of £3,000,000.* During the sixty 
 years preceding 1833, from Parliament, chui'ch 
 rates and parish cess, the Protestant Church in 
 Ireland received £1,070,435 for the building of churches, 
 and £809,699 for the building of glebe houses; only 
 £170,000 came from private donations. f The church 
 cess brought in £80,000 a year; and of this Catholics 
 had to bear the burden almost entirely, although, as I 
 have already explained, they had no voice in the Vestries 
 which levied the oess. That cess was abolished by the 
 Church Temporalities Act of 1834, which also reduced 
 the number of Archbishops from four to two, and the 
 number of Bishops from eighteen to ten, and ordered 
 that the revenues of the suppressed Sees and some other 
 benefices be — not used for the economic improvement of 
 the country — but difi"used over the Protestant Chuixh 
 itself. In the landed estates of fourteen dioceses alone, 
 there were 144,775 acres of waste land, but easily re- 
 claimable by labour. The economic condition of the 
 country generally would be better for the reclama- 
 tion ; it would be a soui-ce of employment for the poor, 
 
 * Godkin, loc. cit., page 96. 
 
 t Figures quoted by the late Aubrey de Vere in his Clnirch 
 Setlement of Ireland, pofje XIV., from a work called The Irish 
 Chttrch, its History and Statistics. 
 
330 
 
 THE PRDTKSTANT CHUHCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 of wliom, according to the Report of the Poor Inquiry 
 Commissioners in 1836, no fewer than 585,000 were then 
 out of work and destitute for thirty weeks of the year ; 
 nobod\' would suffer by it ; and it would be a source 
 of profit to the bishops themselves, besides the apostolic 
 pleasure of doing good. But their lordships seemed to 
 have no passion for that luxury, although they were the 
 beacon lights of the economic Christianity in Ireland. 
 
 How then did their revenues disappear? '' I 
 have," writes Godkin,* with the kind permission of 
 the Registi-ar, extracted from the Registry of the Court 
 of Probate the amount of assets left by every bishop who 
 died since 1822, with the exception of a few who were 
 but a sliort time in their Sees. The assets are sworn 
 to be under a certain sum on which duty is paid. But 
 this sum does not include any i-eal property the deceased 
 may have purchased, nor any settlements he may have 
 made on membei's of his family, nor any stock he may 
 have transferred to avoid legacy duty, or possibly to 
 avoid the fame of having died too rich for the bishoj) of 
 a poor church." The following is what he found in the 
 Probate Court : — 
 
 Archbishops of Armagh 
 
 ,, Dublin 
 
 „ Cashel 
 
 ,, Tuam 
 
 Bishops of Meath 
 
 \ Bei-esford 
 ■ ■ ■ [ Stewart 
 
 J Magee 
 ••• tWhately 
 
 J Broderick 
 •• [Lawrence 
 
 ( French 
 ■■■ (Plunkett 
 
 / Alexander 
 
 ! O'Beiine 
 ■•* \ Singer 
 
 ( Stopford 
 
 70.000 
 25,000 
 45,000 
 40,000 
 80,000 
 55,000 
 73,846 
 26,331 
 73,000 
 20,000 
 25,000 
 14.000 
 
 » Loc. cit., pago XV III. -XIX. 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IX IRELAND. 
 
 331 
 
 Bishop 
 
 of Clogher 
 Raphoe 
 Limerick 
 
 Kilmore 
 
 Killaloe 
 
 Deny 
 
 Cork 
 
 Laftus 
 
 Bisset 
 
 Griffin 
 j Leslie 
 i Beiesford 
 
 Butson 
 
 Knox 
 
 Kyle 
 
 £ 
 
 60,000 
 46,000 
 45,000 
 
 40,000 
 36,000 
 40,000 
 27,692 
 20,000 
 
 On tlie 12t.h July, 1842, Mr. Grattan produced in 
 
 Parliament another list taken also from the Probate 
 Court; this list is of bishops who preceded those I 
 
 have named : — 
 
 £ 
 
 Fowler ... 150,000 
 
 Agar ... 400,000 
 
 Beresford ... 260,000 
 
 Warburton ... 600,000 
 
 Percy ... 40,000 
 
 Stopford ... 25,000 
 
 Cleaver ... 50,000 
 
 Bernord ... 60,000 
 
 Knox ... 100,000 
 
 Porter ... 250,000 
 
 Hawkins ... 260,000 
 
 Archbishop of Dublin 
 , , Cashel 
 
 „ Tuam 
 
 Bishop of Dromore 
 Cork 
 Ferns 
 Limerick 
 Killaloe 
 Clogher 
 Raphoe 
 
 Godkin writes in the work from which I have quoted* 
 that the Protestants of L^eland in addition to 
 their vast rental as landed proprietors, have for 
 their younger sons, brothers, sons-in-law, and all their 
 kinsmen and kinswomen who marry clergymen, 
 those church lands and revenues which I have just set 
 forth. And he continues :—" In addition to this we 
 must note the fact, that there are many of those families 
 of the Protestant nobility and gentry who were born in 
 
 « Pages 525. 526. 533. 
 
332 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 the lap of the Church, and have derived their whole 
 Bupport, and all their rank and wealth from this most 
 generous ' Nursing Mother.' The tot-al number of 
 bishops who ruled the Irish CJhurch since its foundation 
 by Queen Elizabeth, is 326; of these, 123, or more than 
 one-third, were Englishmen, who came over aa clencal 
 adventurers or Viceroy's chaplains to seek their for- 
 tunes, and generally they found, especially since the 
 Revolution, a mine of wealth with which many a poor 
 family was made rich. I have taken the trouble of pre- 
 paring a catalogue of all the bishops, English and 
 Irish, Avho were enabled by their incomes from the 
 Irish Establishment to found families, whose repre- 
 sentatives are still in existence. From this it will be 
 evident that a large portion of the Irish nobility and 
 gentry have ecclesiastical blood flowing in their veins, 
 and that the 7,000 Episcopal proprietors are a sort of 
 Levitical tribe, far better endowed than any other 
 priestly order ever was in the history of the world." 
 He then gives a list of 127 Irish Protestant bishops 
 who have founded families of wealth and power in Ire- 
 land; and he adds: — "We thus see that 127 bishops — 
 a third of the whole number, realised estates and 
 founded families, many of which ha\'e entered the ranks 
 of the nobility. . . . There is scarcely one of our 
 Protestant representatives that has not the blood of 
 bishops or dignitaries flowing in his veins, and who 
 does not instinctively cling to the Establishment as an 
 appanage of his order." 
 
 I have now made a general review of the revenues 
 received by Government, by the Protestants as land- 
 lords and public o-fficials, and by the Protestant Church, 
 from Ireland. They have had the power, the social in- 
 fluence, the patronage, and the wealth of the country. 
 Sir Horace Plunkett tells us that they have the " civic 
 virtues and efficiencies," of which he also tells us the 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 33H 
 
 Catholics are bereft. Very well, then, they might have 
 easily moved the economic forces of the country on to- 
 wards material progress, and, as we arc assured, they 
 alone knew how to do it. Have they don© it? Have 
 they used those "strenuous qualities" which we are 
 told they brought over with them across the Channel? 
 Their public advantages, their unlimited power, and 
 their indefinitely acquirable wealth, surely incurred 
 some social responsibility. They surely had a duty 
 towards the country whence their wealth and power 
 came. How did they respond to that responsibility? 
 How did they do that duty? Let it be learned, not 
 from me, but from a pamphlet on the need of provision 
 for the poor in Ireland, by Mr. Douglas, of Glasgow^ : — 
 
 " In Ireland there is not only a fund provided by 
 the law of nature and human feeling for preventing the 
 starvation of the labourers in the midst of that plenty, 
 which their own hands have produced by toil, unex- 
 ampled in any other civilized country, and privations 
 scarcely exceeded in the most savage tribes, but there is 
 a fund established by law for the maintenance of the 
 poor — in Ii'eland as well as England — by the laws of 
 England, as they stood antecedent to the statutes of 
 Elizabeth, which transferred from the Church lauds 
 the original burden of maintaining the poor under 
 which the Church benefices were at first granted, and 
 laid that burden on land generally. 
 
 " For the immense possessions of the Irish Catholic 
 Church, wei-e equally burdened with the maintenance 
 of the poor, by the terms of the original grants — and 
 by the uniform tenor and practice of that common law 
 in England, which, by the right of conquest became the 
 common law of Ireland, The statutes of the English 
 Parliament, for relieving tiie Church lands and reve- 
 
 * Published by Longmans & Co. in 1828. and quoted by Dr. Doyle- 
 in his letter to Mr. Spring Rice, to which I have already referred. 
 
334 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 nues, which had been i^sumed by Henry VIII., of the 
 burden of maintcoining the poor, under which Henry 
 had effected the resumption, and for laying the expense 
 of maintaining the poor on the whole land of England, 
 were intended to tranquillize the minds of the new 
 ownei-s of the Church property in England. Bub these 
 statutes never extended to Ireland, nor even to Scot- 
 land — till Scotland, by her own legislature, enacted 
 a similar provision for the poor out of the land, in order 
 to put down the 100,000 ' maisterfu' reevers and sor- 
 ners,' mentioned by Fletcher of Saltoun. 
 
 " In Ireland, therefore, the law regarding the main- 
 tenance of the poor, stands precisely where it did befoi-e 
 the time of Henry VIII., when the Church was bound, 
 from its revenue, to maintain the poor, and did so 
 while the Catholic CliurOh had these i-evenues. If 
 therefore, the Episcopal Church of Ireland obtained and 
 holds the princely revenue of the ancient Catholic Es- 
 tablishment, by what principle of common law, or 
 common sense, does the successor in the property re- 
 fuse to perform the duty inseparably atta<,'hed to that 
 property? It cannot be because the revenues are in- 
 sufficient, or because the spiritual duties of the Irish 
 Church are too severe for the i-emuneration. For it 
 was ascertained that of the population of Ireland, 
 when taken at 6,800,000 only l-14th or 490,000 were 
 Episcopalians, and 300,000 Dissenters; while nearly 
 six millions were of the original religious establishment, 
 to whom the pi'operty belonged, and among whom, 
 from obvious causes, the great bulk of the poor are to 
 be found. The Episcopal Cburcli of Ireland contains, 
 besides cm*ates, who do the duty where there are 
 churches, 687 sinecure dignified clergy in 1829 parishes, 
 who may be said, with few exceptions, to be non- 
 resident. 
 
 " The lental of Ireland has been rated at 20s. an acre, 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 33o 
 
 including mountains and bogs; and the extent of the 
 surface being, by some, taken at seventeen millions of 
 acres; but let it be taken as low as fourteen millions, 
 the total will be a rental of fourteen millions sterling. 
 The proportion of the land composing Church Property, 
 exclusive of tithes, has been estimated, by good 
 authority, at two-elevenths of the whole, which is 
 annually ... ... ...£2,545,454 
 
 The tithes of the 1,289 benefices are said 
 scarcely, in any case, to be under 
 =£500 per annum, and, in many cases, 
 £1,000 to £5,000; but say £550, 
 which gives ... ... ... £708,950 
 
 Total ... £3,254,404 
 
 " But this shows the revenues of the Church at much 
 too low an estimate ; because the Church lands are 
 generally situated in the most fertile districts, and 
 they are let usually at the old low rent, not a fifth of 
 the true value, because the incumbent receives a large 
 fine, grassum, at the renewal of each lease, by which 
 practice some dignitanes have amassed half a million 
 of money. Five millions, therefore, would probably be 
 nearer the truth than any other sum, as the annual 
 revenue of the Irish Church ; and this for doing the 
 spiritual duty of 490,900 souls. Such enormous waste 
 of public wealth, for such a purpose, is altogether 
 without examp''e in the history of human extravagance. 
 
 " Such a fund for the maintenance of the poor was, 
 perhaps, never known iu any age, and this, too, one of 
 its primary purposes; and yet we are asked, where is 
 the fund from which to maintain Irish poverty, and 
 suppress Irish beggary — the opprobrium of the empire? 
 
 " It has often been proposed to commute the tithes, 
 at a low valuation, which would undoubtedly tend to 
 tranquillize the people whose feelings are constantly 
 
33l') THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 exasperated by the harsh prcK^eediugs of tithe proctors 
 in seizing their poor pittance of potatoes, or their pigs, 
 for such an offensively levied impost, for the support 
 of a Oliurch of which they know nothing but by its 
 practical oppressions, which, too, readily prepares them 
 to think ill of the heretical principles, that can lead 
 to such conduct in its ministers. 
 
 " But the commutation of tithes, if the remission 
 were made to the landlord, would not do much for the 
 tenant, except to increase his rent, although it would 
 so far be of benefit, as the payment would not be so 
 vexatiously taken in kind, or enforced by the oppressive 
 and expensive process of ecclesiastical courts, where the 
 clerg\' are judges in their own causes, and ecclesiastical 
 officers reap the gain of the costs which ruin the 
 tenantry. 
 
 " The commutation should be accomplished with a 
 legislative declaration that the proper maintenance of 
 the poor was originally a condition of granting the 
 tithe, and that the price should be low in consequence 
 of this burden being expressly retained and i-e-enacted 
 in the law of commutation, as a pei-petual payment 
 from the land. 
 
 " A verv small portion of the immense property in 
 land belonging to the Church, after the death of the 
 present incumbents, would suffice for the liberal endow- 
 ment of a fair proportion of dignified clergy, both Epis- 
 copalian and Catholic. 
 
 " Tlie great bulk of three miliions a year, belonging 
 in property to the Church, might form a fund for the 
 most magnificent improvements, by employing, at ade- 
 quate wages, the Iiish poor in cutting canals, making 
 roads, draining and cultivating bogs, and morasses; 
 exploring coal, lime, marl, and other minerals; forming 
 harbours; enclosing and planting on the Church lands; 
 establishing fisheries, foundries, and various manu- 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 337 
 
 factures. By such means, tbe country might be inde- 
 finitely improved ; and the demand for employment 
 would raise the wages, the comforts, the character, the 
 caution, the repugnance to reckless marriage, of the 
 people ; a.nd retard the increase and improve the con- 
 dition of the population. 
 
 " There is another fund for defraying the expense of 
 providing for the Irish poor, which is but little thought 
 of, though it is most important. Were Il^8land con- 
 ciliated by just government, by the impartial admission 
 of all religions to civil and political privileges, by a 
 just an-angement of Church property, so as to provide 
 fairly for all the teachers of religion, without taking 
 away anything which any man has a right to enjoy 
 during his life, and were that abject poverty in the 
 people abated, and their comforts improved, by a judi. 
 cious system of relief, we should no longer see desperate? 
 hunger in arms against jrolitical and i-eligious monopoly 
 and oppression : the minister of peace leading on 
 troops to shoot his starving flock, for rescuing or secret- 
 ing the animal which yielded milk to their famishing 
 children. We should see Ireland protected as Scotland 
 is, by a few skeleton battalions, instead of a regular 
 army, at an expense of two millions sterling — besides 
 another army of local yeomanry and armed police — 
 all of whom, besides the enormous expense, so far from 
 producing peace, seem only more to embroil the fray, 
 by local grudges and religious animosity, carrying arms 
 only on one side. 
 
 " The pacification of Ireland, and above all the eleva- 
 tion of the character of the common people, would ren- 
 der the country safe and comfortable for the wealthy 
 land-owners to reside in, and would induce persons of 
 skill and capital to establish manufactures. In the 
 present state of that unhappy country, it is difficult to 
 blame absentees, who have the means of living in the 
 tranquil portions of the empire." 
 
 w 
 
338 THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 
 
 But they let their opportunities go waste. As a body 
 they thought only of themselves. They behaved as if 
 Ireland uere they themselves, as if they were everybody, 
 and as if the Catholics of Ireland were nobody. It 
 must be in that sense they say that they have always 
 consulted for the interests of the country, inasmuch as 
 what they did for themselves they did for Ireland ; for 
 they and the Ireland of their ideal are one. Does any- 
 one think that I misrepresent their position? Then I 
 let Chief Justice Whiteside state it. He spoke these 
 words in Parliament as the avowed champion of Irish 
 Protestant interests: — "Ignore two-thirds of those who 
 follow any intellectual pursuit in Ireland; ignore five- 
 sixths of the landed gentry, the greater portion of the 
 aristocracy, foi-ty-nine out of fifty of the manufactm-ers, 
 and ignore also the skilled artisans, and then you have 
 the nation." The people of Pagan Roine were not the Ro- 
 man people whom the orators addressed in the forum, 
 but their slaves. The Populus Eomanus were few, but 
 were everybody; the people of Rome were the multi- 
 tude, but they were as though they were not. The men 
 of Athens were not tlie Athenian men to whom the 
 orators appealed, but the populace who did not count. 
 I should be curious to learn from Sir Horace, or from 
 anyone, liow the language of Chief Justice Whiteside 
 does not reveal the same pagan spirit. Yet, he spoke 
 truly; in the sense that the wealth as well as the civil 
 and militaiy power of the country was in Protestant 
 keeping. Not much more than half a centuiy ago, a 
 pai"son's son, when quite a little boy, was installed as 
 Clerk of the Peace for a certain county in Ireland. He re- 
 ceived the salary, or rather his father received it for him 
 lest the ofiicial himself should spend it on sweets, and 
 his Deputy did the work whilst he might be seen pegging 
 a top or playing marbles about the Peace Office. As a 
 body, Irish Protestants lived in Ireland, they lived on 
 
THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN IRELAND. 339 
 
 Ireland, but they did not live for Ireland. As a body 
 tliey lived for themselves alone. They lived out of the 
 country as much as they could. They mis-spent their 
 opportunity and their power to improve it. They had 
 their day, and now that it is declining they would per- 
 suade the public, if they could, that its undeveloped con- 
 dition is due to the uneconomic trend of our Catholic 
 faith, and to the uneconomic character of our Catholic 
 people whose energies they paralysed and whose hopes 
 they blasted. It is a pity that Sir Horace has let him- 
 self be led into the choir to join their chorus, for 
 through many notes he does not chant in harmony with 
 them. The County Councils and other public bodies 
 will have a busy time of it for many a day gathering 
 together and putting in order the neglected economic 
 elements of the country after the rigid narrowness, the 
 creed and class selfishness, the incapacity or carelessness, 
 and the mismanagement of generations. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 OBJECT LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 What I am now about to write will, I fear, be 
 rather dry reading; but I hope it will be convincing. 
 To me it is not pleasant writing; comparisons 
 are always odious, but the unpleasant has some- 
 times to be faced. There shall be no rhetoric of mine 
 in it, even if I bad the gift of rhetorical expression. I 
 will trust to the plainer but more powerful eloquence of 
 facts. No person denies or questions now that down to 
 recent years the non-Catholics in Ireland had a monopoly 
 of power and official position. Lately, hov/ever, Catho- 
 lics have been allowed to take some part in the public 
 duties of the country ; and because they have been 
 claiming their due share, a cry has been raised that they 
 are making for monopoly. It is a cry without a cause. 
 They are accused of intolerant exclusiveness, not because 
 they seek to lay hold of evei*}'thing, but because tliey 
 dare to aspire to anything. In a sense the cry is 
 natural; the more so because it is habitual with those 
 who raise it. They have been born into monopoly in 
 Ireland, and they have come to think of it as the normal 
 condition of affairs. According to their thoughts, and 
 of course, according to their wishes, that is as it should 
 be. They do not like to be disturbed from their tradi- 
 tdonal vantage ground — nobody in their circumstances 
 would like it ; and whoever undertakes to disturb them 
 is held guilty of dislocating the civil elements of the 
 country. It has always been so. Last night I read in 
 
LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 341 
 
 a book by J. P. Prendergast, the author of The Crom- 
 wellian Settlement of Ireland, that those who' were in- 
 truded into the lands of the old Irish gentry used to 
 complain of their laziness because they " coshered 
 on the people" rather than consent to become 
 labourers on the estates of those who had sup- 
 planted them; and Archbishop King likewise com- 
 plained that the priests, when deprived of their 
 homes, lived from house to house amongst the people, 
 instead of deserting them or disappearing from the 
 country* Whilst the fight for Emancipation was going 
 on, it was objected that the Catholics had already got 
 their meed of civil and religious rights, and that they 
 could not, with safety to the constitution, be trusted 
 with more. Fifty years ago the maxim was held against 
 the Tenant League that "tenant right is landlord wrong." 
 Less than forty years ago the cry was raised that Dises- 
 tablishment was sacrilege and spoliation. A quarter 
 of a century ago, Gladstone's land measures were de- 
 nounced, as a denial of that sacred maxim of the fifties, 
 a repudiation of the binding power of contracts, an in- 
 jury to proprietary rights. Th© Local Government Bill, 
 it was said, would let loose upon the country a popular 
 power, without discipline or public conscience, which 
 would daub or destroy everything it could control. 
 Nevertheless, every event has one by one belied evei-y 
 prophecy. Whether the cry which is now raised be 
 tiiie or false we shall presently see. 
 
 Since Sir Antony M'Donnell, a distinguished 
 public servant, was made Under Secretary at 
 Dublin Castle, a continuous onslaught has been made on 
 his official character. Those who keep up the cry can 
 show nothing to justify it ; but the head and front of his 
 offending is that he is a Catholic who neither screens nor 
 waters down his profession of faith, whilst many yeare of 
 service have proved him worthy of every trust which the 
 * From the Settlement to the Revolution : pp. 63, 64. 
 
342 LESSONS IN' TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 Government has committed to his care. For which 
 reason they are angry. They will never forgive him for 
 being a trustworthy public servant, and, at the same 
 time, uncompromising in the Catholic principles which he 
 owns. If he were what a lady described to me a short 
 time ago as an " Irish Times Catholic," he would happily 
 fit into tlieir arrangements, and they would cherish him 
 as their own ; if he were found wanting in his official duty 
 they would have the consolation of raking it up in proof 
 of the incapacity of Papists. He has disappointed them 
 on either side ; and that is the sin which shall never be 
 forgiven him. 
 
 I will let Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P., say the rest, as he 
 is neither a Catholic in faith nor a Nationalist in politics. 
 In a speech made on October 6th, 1904, he is imported as 
 follows*: — " He knew nothing of Sir Antony save what 
 is known by the man in the street. He had two conver- 
 sations with him on public business, not at all of a satis- 
 factory character. But he protested in the strongest 
 manner against the dead set which was being made 
 against any man in the service of the State who is a 
 Roman Catholic or a Nationalist. One day it is Mr. Gill, 
 another day it is Sir Antony M'Donnell, and Colonel 
 Saunderson had even attacked Mr. Finucane. one of the 
 Estates Commissioners, whose real offence he susjDected 
 was that that gentleman is the son of a Limerick tenant 
 farmer. The whole proceeding was unconstitutional and 
 unfair. Who ever heard of an English Department being 
 attacked in this way? . . . Last year Sir Antony 
 M'Donnell personally superintended the formation of 
 the new Land Purchase Department. For everything 
 connected with it he was personally responsible, although, 
 of course, final responsibility lay with the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant. The clerical staff of that Department is re- 
 cruited by the Civil Service Commissioners, and conse- 
 
 ' In the Irish Times. 
 
LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 343 
 
 quenti}' no question of religious partisanship can arise. 
 Out of the three Estates Commissioners appointed under 
 the Land Act by the Lord Lieutenant two were Protes- 
 tants and one was a Roman Catholic. When Parliament 
 rose in August last there were twenty-one inspectors em- 
 ployed by the Estates Commissioners at salaries of £800 
 a year each. Every one of these was a Protestant. 
 What a splendid illustration that was of the alleged 
 methods of the Catholic Association. Again, certain 
 clerks in the Land Judge's Court were recently either dis- 
 missed, or about t-o be dismissed, owing to the sales in 
 the Court having lessened the work. These men, tem- 
 porary clerks, who had, however, been some fifteen years 
 in the service, appealed to him, and he intervened on 
 their behalf. Now, largely, he believed, owing to the 
 action of Sir Antony M'Donnell, they had secured suit- 
 able and satisfactory^ employment. He knew nothing of 
 their religion, but from their names he should say two 
 were certainly Protestants, while the third might be a 
 Roman Catholic. All these public actions must have had 
 the sanction of the man traduced as ' a shameless par- 
 tisan.' He (Mr. Russell) protested in the strongest 
 manner against this effort t-o stir up religious rancour, 
 whether it be done by Bishop or Parliamentarian, and all 
 because an Asylum Board passes over a Protestant doctor 
 for promotion in Co. Galway, and because a police tri- 
 bunal found a case against a Protestant constable, the 
 original and confirming authority in the case consisting of 
 two Protestants and a Roman Catholic. He appealed 
 earnestly to all reasonable men against this hateful and 
 disastrous policy. To the reasonable and sane Ulster 
 Protestants he would say, where would they be landed if 
 this thing went on ? Look at the facts. With the popu- 
 lation all but three-fourths Catholics, were the Protes- 
 tants trampled upon .^ In the first place, the land of 
 Ireland was largely held by Protestants, and they 
 were now getting hard cash and plenty of it for every 
 
344 LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 acre of tliat which originally cost their ancestors nothing. 
 Until quite recently Protestants had all the privileges of 
 an Established Church, and when the establishment 
 ceased to exist, the Church was left with a capital of 
 £8,000,000 sterling, and the Churches of other religious 
 bodies had no such endowment, and must provide their 
 own churches and manses — the only exception being the 
 regium donum in the hands of the Presbyterian Church. 
 Trinity College, up to 1873, was a strictly Protestant In- 
 stitution, with an income of £30,000 per annum derived 
 from confiscated Irish lands. And so far as salaried 
 officers are concerned, it was the same to-day. Until 
 quite recently the Secondary and Royal Schools, with all 
 their endowments, were in the same hands. So much 
 for the past. Look at the position at present. Of the 
 six great Oincers of State at the Castle, five are Protes- 
 tants and only one Roman Catholic. There were, he 
 thought, sixteen Superior Court Judges, and thirteen of 
 these were Protestants. Of the six Land Commis- 
 sioners, three were Catholics. Of the host of highly-paid 
 officials in the Local Government Board, Land Commis- 
 sion, and Agricultural Department, not one-fourth were 
 Catholics The three Commissioners of Public Works 
 were all Protestants. The Resident Magistrates and 
 }X)lice officers were largely Protestant. In fact, through 
 the whole official hierarchy the story was the same. The 
 railway offices, banks, and breweries, were mainly 
 manned by Protestants. Leaving salaried offices, and 
 coming to positions of trust, what did they find? The 
 Privy Councillors and Lords Lieutenants of counties and 
 cities were almost exclusively Protestants. The pre- 
 dominance in the magistracy of Protestants was enor- 
 mous. Up to the passing of the Local Government Act, 
 the county patronage went the same way. No wrong 
 was done to any official in the passing of the Act ; but 
 with the advent of democratic government, the growth of 
 education, and the rise in the social status of those who 
 
LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 345 
 
 had been long proscribed, was it conceivable that the 
 popular bodies should continue the policy of the old 
 county authorities? The thing was inconceivable. He 
 had used the word Protestant all through, but it ought 
 not to be forgotten that there was a Presbyterian griev- 
 ance in all this. Presbyterians were, up to quite recent 
 times, as ruthlessly proscribed as Catholics. To-day they 
 had nothing like what, by number, ability, intellectual 
 and social position, they were entitled to — although they 
 had as much as some of them deserved. But since the 
 gentlemen who represent a party which has virtually had 
 a monopoly of patronage chose to drag the country into 
 this sectarian morass, he thought the time was opportune 
 for Catholics and Presbyterians to say to any future Gro- 
 vernment : — ' We resent the practical monopoly of oflficea 
 of profit and of honour by one section ; we desire fair 
 play for all creeds ; we desire equality of opportunity for 
 all.' They ought to say firmly that in these matters the 
 only ascendancy that could be tolerated is the ascendancy 
 of character, ability, and fitness — of public worth. It 
 was a shocking thing for public men to invent a baseless 
 cry of the kind. He should do his best to prevent Ulster 
 people from being misled or deceived. Sir Antony 
 M'Donnell could not defend himself. In that fact lay 
 the exceeding meanness of the attack. The truth, how- 
 ever, ought to be known. This able and distinguished 
 servant of the Crown was lent by the Government of India 
 to the Irish Government for a specific purpose. The 
 Government desired to settle the agrarian feud, to provide 
 better facilities for the higher education of Roman 
 C-atholics, to cut down the expenditure of useless offices, 
 and to spend the money saved upon useful works in Ire- 
 land. It was a policy hateful to the ascendancy party; 
 but it is nevertheless the policy of the Government which 
 they are forced to support. Let them assail the Govern- 
 ment then, not the instrument used to carry out its 
 behests." So far iMr. Russell. 
 
346 
 
 LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 Let US now turn to the workhouses and asylums, which 
 are under popular, and chiefly Catholic control. 
 
 In 1882 there were 163 workhouses in Ireland; but 
 some have either disappeared, or have been amalgamated 
 since then. At present there are 48 of these in which 
 there is usually no Protestant inmate — 
 
 In 7 of these the Protestant Minister receives no salary. 
 1 ,, ,, £4 a yeai' for attending to nobody. 
 
 5 
 
 
 2 
 
 , £6 
 
 17 
 
 , £10 
 
 2 
 
 , £12 
 
 4 
 
 , £15 
 
 5 
 
 , £20 
 
 4 
 
 , £25 
 
 1 
 
 , £30 
 
 Amongst' the observations made to me on the above 
 cases are : — "No Protestant service for some years;" the 
 salary is £5 a year there. " Occasionally a tramp comes 
 to the Infirmary who puts himself down a Protestant;" 
 the salary is £25 a year there. " No Pfotestant inmate 
 for years;" the salary is £10 a year there. " None for 
 years past;' the salaa-y is £4 a year. " For 9 yeai's 
 there have been only three Protestants inmates, ofteu 
 none ; " the salary there is £20. The Guardians are nearly 
 all Catholics ; the Protestant Chaplain's salary was £5 ; 
 ho applied for an increase of salary, although there 
 is usually no Protestant inmate, and at a time 
 when there was actually none in the H«use The Guar- 
 dians agreed to raise his salary to £20 ; but the Local 
 Government Board thought it too much, and fixed it at 
 £15." And so his salary has been raised from £5 to 
 £15 for the increased labour of ministering to nobody. 
 It is almost a " bull." " There has been no Protestant 
 inmate for a long time;" the salary is £10. " For some 
 
LESSONS IX TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 347 
 
 years there has been no Protestant inmate;" the salary 
 is £10. "No Protestant in the Workhouse; very sel- 
 dom a tramp may turn up who enters as a Protestant ; " 
 the salary is illO. " No Protestant inmate has been in 
 the Workho\ise for at least fifteen years;" the salary is 
 £12. "There has been no Protestant for twelve years;" 
 the salary is £6. "Very seldom there is a Protestant 
 pauper;" the salary is £5. "The Protestant Chaplain 
 never comes — he has no business to do — except to receive 
 his salary every quarter;" it is £10. And so on. I 
 find the following newspaper report of a recent meeting 
 of the Guardians of the Ennis Union :—" At the sugges- 
 tion of the Rev. Dr. Griffith, it was decided to advertise 
 for a Protestant nurse at £12 a year. It was stated 
 that there was only one Protestant in the house, a con- 
 sumptive, in the consumptive ward, which drew from 
 Mr. Glynn the observation ' £1 a month and nothing to 
 do is a fair thing.' " Nearly all the Guardians are Catho- 
 lic; and thei-e is usually no Protestant pauper in the 
 Ennis Workhouse. 
 
 There are 25 Workhouses with only one Protestant 
 pauper in eaoh on an average — 
 
 In 8 of these the Protestant Chaplain receives £10 a year 
 „1 „ M ,, .. ^15 „ 
 
 £20 ,, 
 
 £25 
 £2G 
 £30 
 
 \ ,, ,, payment by capitation. 
 
 There are 12 Workhouses with only two Protestant 
 paupers in each on an average — 
 
 In 1 of these the Protestant Chaplain receives £5 a year 
 ,. 3 - •. ^15 
 
 £18 
 £20 
 £30 
 £35 
 
3i8 LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 There ai-e 12 Workhouses with only 3 Protestant 
 paupers in each on an average — 
 In 1 of these tJie Protestant Chaplain receives £15 a year 
 
 
 
 £20 
 
 5} "^ >» >> j> >} ■i'.^O 
 
 .«> 1 >> >> J> -•> .i/b 
 
 >> 1 >> >> >> jj Aol> 
 
 )5 ■*• >> J> '5 J> XOO 
 
 There aa:e 5 Workhouses with only 4 Protestant 
 paupers in each on an average — 
 In 1 of these the Protestant Chaplain i-eceives £10 a year 
 
 )j ■•■ >> >> >> •} AiU ,, 
 
 1 i"?*! 
 
 >5 ■■■ >> »> J> J> <A/^C» ,, 
 
 J) •" J5 >> 5> '5 •*"->^ >) 
 
 There are 5 Workhouses with only 5 Protestant 
 paupers in each on an average — 
 
 In 2 of these the Protestant Chaplain receives £20 a year 
 9 J^^O 
 
 >5 ■^ 5> >J >> >> .i-UV/ ,, 
 
 >> -'• 5) J> )> ?5 J^O\J f, 
 
 Tliere are 7 Workhouses with only 6 Protestant 
 paupers in each on an average — 
 In 1 of these the Protestant Chaplain receives £20 a year 
 
 4 £''5 
 
 )> ^ >> >> >> >5 *«>t' ,, 
 
 There is 1 Workhouse with 7 Protestant paupers on 
 an average ; the Protestant Chaplain receives £30 a year 
 
 There are 2 Workhouses with 8 Protestant paupers in 
 each on an average — 
 In 1 of these the Protestant Chaplain receives £25 a year 
 
 Of the Workhouses in Ireland, I have thus accounted 
 for 117. In these there are 194 Protestant paupers on 
 an average ; and the Protestant Chaplains, besides the 
 one who is paid by capitation, receives £1,995 a year 
 for attending them. Now, nearly all the Guardians of 
 these 117 Workhouses are Catholics, those who pay the 
 
LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE . 
 
 349 
 
 poor-rates in those Unions are nearly all Catholics, and 
 yet practically £2,000 a year is voted for the reUgious 
 use of these 194 Protestant inmates of these 117 Work- 
 houses; only 1.6 Protestants in each Workhouse on an 
 
 average. 
 
 I do not write these things in complaint. I merely 
 set them down in evidence of the sort of religious in- 
 tolerance which is practised by Irish Catholics on these 
 few Protestant paupers ; who indeed are so few that 
 their existence in a Workhouse at all is not creditable to 
 the wealthy Protestants of Ireland. The money spent 
 on trying to proselytise a certain degraded remnant 
 of the Catholic poor if spent on those few Protestant 
 paupers, would make a workhouse unnecessary for them. 
 But Irish Protestantism has been more occupied in 
 pulling down than in building up. 
 
 Let us now cross the Channel. On July 20th, 1882, 
 the House of Commons ordered the printing of a RtUim 
 relating to WorlcJiouse Chaplains in the United Kingdom. 
 From that Return I find that there are 641 Workhouses 
 in England, and 63 in Scotland. There are fev; of them 
 in which there are not some Catholic inmates. In each 
 of about 100 of them there are upwards of 50 Catholic 
 inmates. For instance, in Kensington there are 155 be- 
 tween the Workhouse and Infirmary. In Fulham there 
 are 79. In Fulham Road there are 266 between the 
 Workhouse and Infirmary. In Vv^estminster, 236. In 
 Marylebone, 454. In St. Pancras, 212. In Islington, 
 287. In St. Giles" 964. In the City Road, 320. In 
 Archway Road, 420. In Whitechapel, 242. In Wap- 
 ping, between Workhouse and Infirmary, 347. In Step- 
 ney, 242. Passing on to the provinces, there are in 
 Stoke-on-Trent 104. In Wigan, 167. In Warrington, 
 172. In Wolverhampton, 158. In Birmingham, 565. In 
 Birkenhead, 152. In Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, 1530. lu 
 Walton, 498. In Stoke-on-Trent, 104. Of course, the 
 
350 LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 priest, as part of his ordinary duty, attended to the in- 
 mates whether he was paid or not. But, according to the 
 Return from which I quote, in hardly a dozen out of the 
 703 Workhouses did he receive any remuneration for his 
 services. Of those 21 which I have named, only in Biir 
 mingham, Birkenhead, and Bi-ownlow Hill, did he re- 
 ceive a salary — of £50, £45, and £150 a year respec- 
 tively. I think it right to say, as I happen to know, 
 that since the Eet-urn from which I quote was published, 
 other Unions have followed the example of those few. 
 I find that at present the priest receives remuneration 
 from 75 Workhouses in England. But there are 641 in 
 all, very few of which are vsnthout a few Catholic in- 
 mates, many have over a hundred, and several 
 have hundreds. Tlie movement is making slow progress, 
 and is the result of repeated discussions, and of the per- 
 sistent fight of years in some cases, made for fair play by 
 Catholic or by tolerant non-Catholic guardians. Such 
 disputes are going on still over the country, but so far 
 without success, in Workhouses where there are hundreds 
 of Catholic paupers. Of course, they are not left unat- 
 tended by the priest in any case for want of remu- 
 neration ; but they cannot have Mass on Sundays with- 
 out an additional priest, and no Catholic Mission in 
 England can afford to tax itself to relieve the public 
 at large of a plain duty. It was once part of 
 my duty to attend to the inmates of one of those London 
 Workhouses and Infirmaries which t have named, for 
 which my Rector received about £80 a year. The Guar- 
 dians voted it to him a short time before I went there ; 
 but up to that time he received nothing. I am pleased, 
 however, to be able to set down here my remembrance of 
 the kind attention and favour which the Guardians and 
 the officials always showed me. I have given those sta- 
 tistics, not to point an invidious contrast, but to show 
 what value is to be set on the cry of intolerance which 
 
LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 351 
 
 certain non-Oatholics raise in season and out of season 
 against the Catholics of Ireland. 
 
 Let us now turn to the Lunatic Asylums. I submit the 
 following statistics for 15 out of 23 Asylums in Ire- 
 land : — 
 
 In one, where there are 20 Protestant patients, the 
 Protestant chaplain receives £25 a year. In three, 
 where there are 14, 9, and 10 Protestant patients respec- 
 tively, the Protestant chaplain to each receives £30 a 
 rear ; and he who is chaplain to the asylum with only 9 
 Protestant patients lately applied for an increase of 
 salarv. In one, where there are 42 Protestant patients, 
 the Protestant chaplain receives £35 a year. In the 
 same asylum, the Catholic chaplain who has charge of 
 447 patients receives only £70 a year. In one, where 
 there are 35 Protestant patients, the Protestant chaplain 
 receives £37 a year. In one, where there are 91 Protes- 
 t-ant patients, the Protestant chaplain receives 
 £60 a year. In two, where there are 43 
 and 102 Protestant patients respectively, the Pro- 
 testant chaplain to each receives £50 a year. In one of 
 these asylums there are 46 Presbyterians, for whom the 
 Presb\ix3rian chaplain receives £40 a year. In five, where 
 there are 34, 40, 47, 50, and 58 Protestant patients re- 
 spectively, the Protestant chaplain to each receives £40 
 a year. In the last-named there are 44 Presbyterian 
 patients, for whom the Presbyterian chaplain receives 
 £40 a year; and there are 582 Catholic patients, for 
 whom the Catholic chaplain receives only £60 a year. 
 In the first-named there are 4 Presbyterian patients, for 
 whom the Presbyterian chaplain receives £20 a year. In 
 the last but one there are 400 Catholic patients, and the 
 Catholic chaplain receives only £70 a year. In one, 
 where there are 175 Protestant patients, the Protestant 
 chaplain receives £100 a year. 
 
352 LESSONS IN TOLERANCE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 
 
 Now, let US compare that with what takes place in 
 England. 
 
 I take the following extracts from " The Fifty-eightli 
 Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy to the Lord 
 Chancellor, ordered by the House of Commons to be 
 printed 29th June, 1904 " : — 
 
 Salop and Montgomery Asylum: — "Patients of the 
 Roman Catholic faith, being 30 in number, are visited 
 periodically by a priest. This clergyman is unpaid. 
 Somerset and Bath Asylums : — '' There are no services 
 provided for the Roman Catholic patients, who are 17 in 
 number." Yorkshire (North Riding) Asylum:— "No 
 s.ervice is provided for the 66 patients who profess the 
 Roman Catholic faith." Yorkshire (West Riding) Asy- 
 lum (1) : — " For the 134 patients who profess the Roman 
 Catholic faith no regular service is provided ; but Mass 
 is celebrated twice a year by a priest, who also visits the 
 patients occasionally, but receives no remuneration.'' 
 Yorkshire (West Riding) Asylums (3) :— "A patient who 
 professes the Roman Catholic faith, and who is a well- 
 conducted and orderly man, complained, in very bitter 
 terms, that no service was provided on Sunday, which he 
 and the other 102 patients who profess the same faith 
 could attend. Our colleagues have frequently expressed 
 their regret that no regular service is held in this insti- 
 tution on Sunday for the Roman Catholic inmates, and 
 we would again commend this matter to the very anxious 
 consideration of the committee." Yorkshire (West Rid- 
 ing) Asylums (4): — "For the 155 patients who profess 
 the Roman Catholic faith a weekly service is held in 
 Ward 34 ; but we regret to report Mass is never cele- 
 brated, and the priest receives no remuneration for his 
 s-ervices." L-eicester Borough Asylum: — " Tliere are 21 
 Roman Catholics whom a priest attends weekly, but he 
 receives no stipend." Newcastle City Asylum: — "For 
 the 162 patients who profess the Roman Catholic faith a 
 
LESSONS IX TOLERANXE AND IN INTOLERANCE. 353 
 
 chapel morning service is also provided, although we 
 regret to notice only once a month." And so on. 
 
 I do not want to insist on those extracts as an evi- 
 dence of intolerance across the Channel. I merely state 
 the facts ; I assign no cause to them ; I let them speak 
 for themselves ; their explanation will be more convincing 
 than any commentary of mine. Let each one as he reads 
 them, in the light of those facts which I have given on 
 the provision for Protestant inmates in Irish workhouses 
 and asylums, form his own judgment according to his 
 own light. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 KELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IX IRELAND ; THEIR COST 
 AND THEIR WORK. 
 
 "But it is not alone the extravagant churcli-building 
 wliich, in a country so backward as Ireland, shocks the 
 economic sense. The multiplication — in inverse ratio to a 
 declining population — of costly and elaborate monastic 
 and conventual institutions, involving what, in the aggre- 
 gate, must be an enormous annual expenditure for main- 
 tenance, is difficult to reconcile with the known conditions 
 of the country. Most of these institutions, it is true, 
 carry on educational work, often, as in the case of the 
 Christian Brothers and some colleges and convents, of an 
 excellent kind. Many of them render great serxdces to 
 the poor, and especially to the sick poor. But, none the 
 less, it seems to me their growth in number and size is 
 anomalous. I cannot believe that so large an addition 
 to the ' unproductive ' classes is economically sound, and 
 I have no doubt at all that the competition with lay 
 teachers of celibates ' living in community ' is excessive 
 and educationally injurious. Strongly as I hold the im- 
 ^Ktrtance of religion in education, I personally do not 
 think that teachers who have renounced the world, and 
 \\ ithdrawn from contact with its stress and strain, are the 
 best moulders of the characters of youth who will have to 
 come in direct conflict with the trials and temptations of 
 life. But here again we must accept the situation, and 
 work with the instruments ready to hand. The practical 
 and statesmanlike action of all those concerned is to en- 
 deavour to render these institutions as efficient educa- 
 tional agencies as may be possible. They owe their 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 355 
 
 existence largely to the gaps in the educational system of 
 this country, which religious and political strife have pro- 
 duced and maintained, and they deserve the utmost 
 credit for endeavouring to supiJy missing steps in our 
 educational ladder. If they now fully respond to the 
 spirit of the new movements, and meet the demand for 
 technical education by the employment of the most ap- 
 proved methods and equipment, and by the thorough 
 training, on sound lines, of their staffs, it is impossible 
 that the influence on the young generation should not be 
 as salutary as it will be far-reaching." So writes Sir 
 Horace." 
 
 He says elsewhere that " whatever may be said 
 in defence of the priest in politics in the past, there are 
 the strongest grounds for deprecating a continuance of 
 their political activity in the future;" that "in many 
 other matters — social, educational, and economic — they 
 have not been on the side of progress," but " that their 
 influence is now, more than ever before, essential for im- 
 proving the condition of the most backward section of the 
 population." I would ask him, then, has a priest no civil 
 rights, or has he no right to exercise them, unless, and so 
 far as he gets permission or approval from some layman 
 who undertakes to lecture him on the limits of his civil 
 functions? No person can, I think, suspect me of an 
 undue disposition to politics, since I have never made a 
 political speech, and have never been present at a politi- 
 cal meeting. But when he tells me that, being a priest, 
 it is my duty to abstain from politics, and, at the same 
 time, that it is my duty to occupy myself with economics, 
 I have a right to ask him, why 1 If, on the other hand, 
 some politician tells me that I should have nothing to do 
 v,-ith economics, but that I ought to take part in politics, 
 what am I to do between my two rival monitors? 
 
 *Pa'iCs 108 109. 
 
356 REUGioua corporations in Ireland. 
 
 This simply : I use tliose civil rights which I own equally 
 with either of them, and I follow my own judgment set- 
 ting aside the dictation of both. Sir Horace, being en- 
 gaged in one phase of social work, gives his blessing to 
 the priest in economics, and gives the back of his hand to 
 the priest in politics ; but, from a cai-eful reading of his 
 book, I have come to the conclusion that, to his mind, 
 either in politics or in economics, the priest is, at best, a 
 necessary evil, but a useful instrument under existing cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 He seems to be of like mind with regaj-d to reli- 
 gious communities, male and female. He thinks that 
 m educational work they cannot be equal to the lay 
 teacher. " But we must accept the situation, and work 
 with the instruments ready to hand. The practical and 
 statesmanlike action for all those concerned is t-o endea- 
 vour to render these institutions as efficient educational 
 agencies as may be possible." In other words, making 
 the best of a bad market, he would provisionally retain 
 them. He is even good enough to think that "if they 
 now i-espond to the spirit of the new movement, and meet 
 the demand for technical education by the employment of 
 the most approved methods and equipment, and by the 
 thorough training, on sound lines, of their staffs, it is 
 impossible that thedr influence on the young generation 
 should not be as salutary as it will be wide-reaching;" 
 which, being interpreted, means that if they faithfully 
 follow his directions, place themselves unreservedly at the 
 disposal of the Department and work under his control, 
 he might be able to turn them to some use for the coun- 
 try It is a delightful psychological study to observe 
 such men posing as the supreme rule of right and truth, 
 and assuming as a postulate that nobody else knows as 
 well as they how to think or do anything. 
 
 With similar self-confidence Lecky sits on the tripod, 
 and writes as much nonsense about rehgious lif« in a few 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 357 
 
 sentences as the oi-acle ever uttered at Delphi. He thinks 
 that " the complete suppression of the conventual 
 system was ven' far from a benefit to women, 
 or to the world." He then gives his idea of 
 what convents ought to be. But he says — " Most 
 unhappily for mankind, this noble conception was from 
 the first perverted." And the perversion consists in 
 this: — "Institutions that might have had an incalcul- 
 able philanthropic value were based upon the principle 
 of asceticism, which makes the sacrifice, not the promo- 
 tion, of earthly happiness its aim, and binding vows pro- 
 duced much miser}' and not a little vice." One would 
 think that he lived in a convent, he knows so well the 
 amount of misery and vice uhich binding vows 'produce. 
 I know too well the wavering weakness of human nature 
 to think that no member of a religious community has 
 ever fallen a victim to vice. But whenever such a one 
 has faltered or fallen, the fall came, not from "binding 
 vows " according to religious rule, but from a personal 
 "promotion of earthly happiness" against it; and it is 
 only a corollary that a half-hearted member of 
 a religious community must needs feel miserable. 
 He himself would have invented a much better system 
 than came from the combined wisdom of all 
 the founders of communities since the hermits of the 
 Thebaid— he would promote, rather than sacrifice, the 
 earthly happiness of his community. He would incul- 
 cate the principle of hedonism instead of the principle of 
 asceticism. 
 
 Ah! St. Augustine! St. Thomas Aquinas! I always 
 took you to be the two greatest intellects which have 
 shone in the world in the course of human history. I 
 learned from you both that mortification is a virtue : 
 but now I learn from Lecky that you have betrayed me. 
 Let me go back to St. Basil and the early founders of 
 Religious Communities ; I find them thinking, teaching, 
 
358 RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 
 
 and acting uuder a like delusion. I go back t-o the 
 early martyrs and confessors, and I find them equally 
 foolish, for tlie latter suffered and the former died for 
 the same mistake. They dressed a hard bed for them- 
 selves, without any need, if they only knew; in fact 
 were guilty of a social evil by living and dying as they 
 did. I go back to Apostolic times, and I find that St. 
 Paul blundered badly when he told the Galatians that 
 "they that are Clirist's have crucified their flesh, with 
 the vices and concupiscences." He plainly did not 
 know his business. Had he the good luck to live nine- 
 teen centuries later, he could have learned from Lecky, 
 as I learn from him now, that the true principle of asce- 
 ticism is not the sacrifice, but the promotion of earthly 
 enjoyment. To cut the matter short, Christ did not 
 understand Christianity, else H© would neither have 
 fasted in the desert, nor suffered for our sake. He, 
 too, perverted a noble conception when He sent His 
 Apostles on their mission " without purse or scrip," a 
 condition certainly which did not promote their earthly 
 happiness. Yet He seems to have designedly settled 
 those conditions of their Apostolate ; Hs seems moreover 
 to have counted the consequences and i-eckoned with the 
 world, for He said to them : " If the world hate you, 
 know you that it hated me before you ; if you had been 
 of the world, the world would love its own." But we 
 have changed all that. St. Paul wrote about the law of 
 the members warring against the law in the mind. 
 Thei'e need be no such warfare. Let the spirit cave in, 
 let the flesh have its way, and we shall realise " the 
 promotion of earthly happiness," instead of perverting 
 a noble conception by sacrificing it. Of course we ai-e 
 Christians still, but we have been improving on Chris- 
 tianity in every new edition of it w© bring out. We 
 have changed for the better the conception of Christ 
 Himself. He was, we allow, a worthy moralist, a great 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 
 
 359 
 
 philosopher; but He was not so wise as we are. We 
 have penetrated into the mysteries of the unseen world 
 and have even discovered a modified form of the 
 Godhead, Whom we view through the twilight or guess 
 at behind a veil. 
 He is only a cloud and a smoke that was once a pillar 
 
 of fire. 
 The guess of a worm in the dust, and the shadow of its 
 desire. 
 The Book of Wisdom thus represent, humiliated 
 critics speaking of those whom they once thought 
 fools : — " These are they whom we had some time in deri- 
 sion, and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed 
 their life madness and their end without honour. Be- 
 hold how they are numbered amongst the children of 
 God, and their lot is among the saints. Therefore, we 
 have erred from the v^ay of truth, and the light of justice 
 hath not shiued unto us, and the sun of understanding 
 hath not risen upon us."* If Lecky founded a 
 religious community on nis improved plan, his Reli- 
 gioiis would, before a twelvemonth, if they at all held 
 top'ether so long, have become a spectacle before 
 angels and men. I am sure that the youngest novice in 
 any convent in the country would smile at his simplicity, 
 although, no doubt, he thought it profoundly wise to ob- 
 serve these flaws in the ideals of all the ascetics of Chris^ 
 nan history. The following reveals more of the knowledge 
 he had of convent life :— " The convent became the perpe- 
 tual prison of the daughter whom a father was disinclined 
 to endow, or of young girls who, under the impulse of a 
 transient enthusiasm, or of a transient sorrow, took a 
 dcp which they could never retrace, and useless penances 
 and contemptible superstitions wasted the energies that 
 might have been most beneficially employed." Evidently 
 lie learned more about convent life and condi- 
 
 ' Chap, v.- 3, 4. 5, 6. 
 
360 RELIGIOUS. CORPORATIONS IK IRELAND. 
 
 tions in Trinity College, or from the May meetings of 
 Exeter Hall than from any independent investigation of 
 his own. Yet, in spite of all this, he goes on to say: — 
 " Still it is verv doubtful whether, even in the most 
 degraded period, the convents did not prevent more miserv 
 than they inflicted, and in the Sisters of Charity the reli- 
 gious orders of Catholicism liave produced one of the most 
 perfect of rM the types of womanhood. There is, as I 
 conceive, no fact in modern history more deeplv to be 
 deplored than that the Reformer? who, in matters of 
 doctrinal innovations were often so timid, should have 
 levelled to the dust, instead of attempting to regenerate. 
 the whole conventual system of Catholicism."* There 
 it is. Lecky thought that he knew more about religious 
 life than all the ascetics from St. Penedict to St. Teresa : 
 and yet anyone who does know anything about it, knows 
 that he could hardly be more ignorant of it than he was. 
 He plainly had no clear conception of the principles on 
 which the Religious State is founded. Likewise Sir 
 Horace Plunkett thinks that the spiritual children of St. 
 Ignatius, St. Vincent de Paul, de la Salle, Edmund 
 Rice, Nano Nagle, Catherine Macauley, etc., could 
 not do better than get a coui'se of instructions from 
 the Department on the various duties for which those 
 communities were respectively founded. 
 
 It does not come within the scope of my purpose to 
 give the public a dissertation on the Theology of Asce- 
 tics. I merely observe, \\dth all necessary respect, that I 
 dare think St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John 
 of Grod, St. Francis de Sales, St. Teresa — all of them 
 l>ersons of the highest mental training and of sui-passing 
 natural gifts, specialists moreover in ascetics, more likely 
 to know that subject incomparably better than amateurs 
 can reasonably pretend to know it. It is curious that, 
 whilst a physician will not presume to lecture lawyers on 
 * HiHory of European Morals: Vol. II.. pages 391-392. 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 361 
 
 jurisprudence, or a properly trained lawyer lecture phy- 
 sicians on therapeutics, a geologist lecture bacteriologists 
 ou the ways of germs or lecture engineers on the building: 
 of bridges, a carpenter lecture a tailor on bow to cut out 
 a suit of clothes, persons are to be found in every walk of 
 life who, drawing out an idea from their inner conscious- 
 ness and fixing that pet idea immovably as on a pedestal, 
 make it the test of theological truth, and pass sentence 
 without a suspicion of being ridiculous on all the theo- 
 logians and metaphysicians who have written, from St. 
 Augustine to Rosmini. 
 
 It is, of course, easy to see why all men should take an 
 interest in such subjects as theology and sociology, for 
 all have a common concern in what these studies explain. 
 But that a dilettante should play the expert, and expect 
 the public to sit under his cathedra, is quite another 
 thing. John Stuart Mill wisely remarks, I think it is 
 in his Autohiography, that " a man who knows only his 
 own side of a question knows little of that." 
 
 Sir Horace Pluukett does not deal directly with Re- 
 ligious Communities as to their interior life, but as to 
 their relations with the public in the various external 
 functions which they undertake. It is in regard to this 
 latter phase of their life that I propose to consider his 
 criticisms ; but in the course of what I am about to write 
 I will refer in passing to the former in so far as he in- 
 volves it in the latter. 
 
 I t>ake up this position : — When Religious Communi- 
 ties, of men or women, undertake public duties of a 
 secular nature, maintained at the public cost, they bind 
 themselves thereby to efficiency according to the require- 
 ments of public authority, and they may not ask the 
 public to consider their religious character as an apologv 
 for inferior work. I take up that position from the out- 
 set, to relieve myself of any reasonable suspicion of 
 special pleading. I mean to make no ad misericord! am 
 plea in favour of Religious Congregations ; and before I 
 
362 RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 
 
 have finished I hope to have made it clear that they do 
 not need any. Those who on one ground or another dis- 
 like or disapprove of Catholicism have at all times 
 marked out for their first object of attack those who are 
 in a special way representative of it, priests and nuns 
 who are bound to it not only by the common bond of 
 faith, but also by office and vow, and those amongst the 
 laity who have distinguished themselves as its champions 
 or apologists. Only the other day Dr. Mahaffy abused 
 the courtesy of the Catholics who invited him to speak 
 at a lecture on the Catholic University Question by 
 singling out the priests as bearing a special brand 
 of bigotry. It was his unbecoming method of placating 
 tlie Catholic laity, whereas the clumsy compliment im- 
 plied that his audience were too obtuse to detect the 
 covert implication that they were only Popish slaves. 
 
 At the Reformation the cry of Protestantism was — Cut 
 down monks and nuns, why cumber they the ground ? 
 To-day Protestantism is in many places constructing imi- 
 tations of Catholic Community life, of men and women. 
 Lecky admits the mistake then made when he says that 
 " no fact in modern history is more deeply to be deplored 
 than that the Reformers should have levelled the monas- 
 teries and convents to the dust instead of attempting to 
 regenerate the whole conventual system of Catholicism." 
 All eminent non-Catholic writers deplore the same mis- 
 take, and many of them in less qualified terms. Sir 
 Horace Plunkett does not ask to have them levelled to 
 the dust ; he merely calls for their regeneration, by les- 
 sening their numbers and by improving the work done 
 by those that remain. 
 
 I observe, first of all, that no Religious Community, 
 of men or women, can be established in a diocese Asdthout 
 the sanction of the Bishop ; and I assume that a Bishop 
 knows the requirements of his diocese a great deal better 
 than outsiders can teach him. 
 
KELIGI0U3 CORPOHATIONS :N IRELAND. 
 
 363 
 
 That consideration alone is enovigh to put out of court 
 an}^ outsider who takes upon himself the task of upbraid- 
 ing us for the number, extent, or expense of our monastic 
 and conventual institutions. I put the matter thus 
 bluntlj- — What is it to him, or to anj^ outsiders, what 
 Catholics think of their religious organization or what 
 they do with their own? When have Catholics commis- 
 sioned Sir Horace to pass sentence on their action in re- 
 lation to religious institutions for which neither he nor 
 his are asked to pay? Can he name any representative 
 Catholic or body of Catholics who have undertaken the 
 unbecoming task of passing sentence on similar action on 
 the part of Protestants? Catholics have never inter- 
 fered or complained of Protestant religious work, unless 
 Ih cases wiiere they have Deen saddled with a share of the 
 ':)urden, or when its purpose is proselytism. They 
 do more; I recall, as one instance only, 
 the £2,000 a year which Catholic guardians 
 vote towards the spiritual concerns of 195 Pro- 
 tant inmates of Irish workhouses. I pass over the Pro- 
 testant churches we have built, the church rates, the 
 tithes, the minister's money we have paid, and the many 
 other burdens which we have borne in the interest of 
 Protestantism in Ireland. These people have been so 
 long and so much in the habit of interfering with, and 
 of insulting us with impunity, that they have come to 
 think they can go on doing so freely and for ever. Sir 
 Horace has received, as he himself indeed avows, a great 
 deal of patronage and help from bishops, priests, and 
 nuns, in his industrial mission throughout the country. 
 I fear it has spoiled him ; and perhaps some " enlightened 
 Catholics," with more of the economic than of the Catho- 
 lic sense, have milled him. He does not understand us; 
 he has mistaken our co-operation for thoughtless grati- 
 tude on which he might play at will -ndthout penalty or 
 limit; he has intruded himself through the windows as 
 
304 RELIGI0U3 CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 
 
 well as by the door iuto the saactuary of our household, 
 and he has no right to complain if he be given the alter- 
 native either to behave himself within or to suffer the 
 indignity of being bowed out. He cannot, of course, be 
 expected to appreciate our faith, but he might have 
 understood the value up set upon it from the sacrifices we 
 have made for its sake. Although it has not been the 
 cause, it has been the occasion of those disabilities of the 
 past and of those drawbacks of the present which he 
 equally, and I am sure sincerely, deplores. Our poverty 
 is simply the material price we have paid for our spiritual 
 principles. He tells us that we are squandering money 
 which we should have kept, as well as losing money which 
 we might have secured, owing to our foolish notions of 
 religious requirements. I think his charge against ns 
 blameable, not because it goes too far, but because it 
 does not go at all far enough. The deception of his 
 position is in the mildness of his complaint; his charge 
 should be immeasurably more comprehensive to be wholly 
 true. Why, we have lost everything for our Faith, and 
 for those notions which he thinks foolish — our land, our 
 commerce, our industries, our civil and religious liberty, 
 the very churches which we built to practise it, letting 
 the shell be winnowed by every storm that came and 
 preserving the seed and the substance only by concealing 
 it — for its sake we lost everything that is earthh^ except 
 honour. And now when that seed, so long hidden and 
 cherished by stealth in the bogs and in the woods, is 
 again sown in every plain and valley of the land, and is 
 blossoming into the bloom, the beauty, and the grandeur 
 of other days, Sir Horace crosses over from his potato 
 garden, a grafting knife in one hand, a spray pot in the 
 other, and prescribing economic remedies to 
 regulate the growth and to prune the 
 
 blossoms. As Catholics we are unintelligible to him. 
 It is not a question to be decided by economics ; and the 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IX IRELAND. 365 
 
 economist in the case is only as a red lierring across the 
 path. That there are points of contact with economics 
 is not unknown to me, and my readers may depend upon 
 it that I am not going to shelve or shirk the question. 
 I mean to face it more plainly than, I suspect, Sir Horace 
 and the economists think that I dare. Meanwhile, I give 
 the following to illustrate one point of contact between 
 the " economic sense " and Catholic practices. I take it 
 from a letter addressed to Lord Cloncurry, on December 
 11th. 1829, by Dr. Doyle — " ^\y cpu^xg 5.M1 oigpe 'n.\ 
 5 ]:.\iif.v.\t)." 
 
 It was a i-eply to a letter addressed by Lord Clon- 
 cun-y to the Secretary of the Society for the Improve- 
 ment of Ireland, in which his Lordship suggested to the 
 Iieads of the Roman Catholic Church that " the Saints 
 days and holidays obsei*ved by our people in greater 
 number than in any other countiy are a great loss to 
 the country, and a great cause <if one of the besetting 
 evils — dmnkenness." Amongst other mistakes in the 
 letter. Dr. Doyle says that " holidays are not observed in 
 greater number by our people than in any other 
 country; that the sum total of our holidays which in 
 any way interfere with public industry are reduced to 
 six or seven in the year. ... I do not think that 
 drunkenness — our besetting sin — our permanent plague 
 — would be materially lessened by the abolition of all 
 the holidays, for drunkards will drink at all times ; and 
 when they do not find a holiday ready-made, they them- 
 selves make one for the purpose. Witness Saint Moiv- 
 day, which an impious, and besotted, and abominable 
 race of tradesmen, add to the Lord's Day, for the pur- 
 pose of indulging in their horrid excesses. Look also 
 to the Presbyterians of the North, who observe no holi- 
 days. Nor do I think that an obligation of resting 
 from servile works on six days, besides the Sundays, 
 throughout the year, can be any loss whatever in a 
 
360 RELIGIOUSI CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 
 
 country where the market is always overstocked w!th 
 labour, and in which a man's labour is nob worth, at 
 an average, more than three-pence a day. Add to this, 
 that in cases of great necessity or public utility, every 
 person is permitted to work upon holidays. The tmith 
 is, my Lord, that when idlers were few ancl labourers 
 many, and when holidays were more numerous than thev 
 now are, the peasantry were better fed and better clothed 
 than the}' are at present; besides which, frequent holi- 
 days — or days of prayer for some, and of rest and 
 amusement for all — contributed not a little to produce 
 and to presei-ve that gay, cheerful, friendly, sti'ong, and 
 athletic race of men, which by-and-by will be nowhere 
 to be found in Ireland. It is not the peasant now who 
 gains by his labour, or loses, I might say, by his rest ; it 
 is the employer or the driver of the slave. Are our 
 peasants not broken down and withered at forty or fifty 
 years of age? Are they not everywhei'e badly fed and 
 over-worked ? And we who idle six days and do not 
 labour one, would, when we have made them vicious and 
 miserable, bind them down even in their few holidays, 
 like a slave to the oar." 
 
 One of the charges brought by the Reformers against 
 the Catholics was that industry was restrained by the 
 number of their holidays, and the same cry has been 
 constantly raised in the name of economics, from Sir 
 William Petty in the 17th century down to Lecky in our 
 own time. Yet Monday was observed in Great Britain 
 from Cromwell's time, but after the manner described 
 by Dr. Doyle. It began, I believe, on the occasion of 
 the death of one of Cromwell's followers named Mon- 
 day. Cromwell offered a reward for the best lines on 
 his death, and a shoemaker produced the following: — 
 
 Blessed be the Sabbath Day, 
 And cursed be worldly pelf ; 
 
 Tuesday will begin the week. 
 Since Monday's hanged himself. 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 357 
 
 Ci-omwell recognised the excellence of the epitaph by 
 granting the shoemakers a holiday every Monday. 
 
 In recent yeai-s Bank holidays were introduced by 
 Sir John Lubbock, on the ground that the British 
 workingman had too much work and too little recrea- 
 tion, and the Catholics of Ireland, except in the dio- 
 cese of Ferns, where the men of Wexford have stood by 
 their own, have yielded up their ancient holidays bo far 
 as sei'vile work is concerned, and have followed the 
 Britisher in keeping St. Lubbock's day, that is, in the 
 manner in which Bank holidays are kept. More re- 
 cently half-days have been taken from business every 
 week and given to recreation. I pass no judgment on 
 those holidays which, in obedience to the orders of in- 
 dustrialism, we have accepted from across the Channel 
 to the neglect of our own. I refer to them merely to 
 illustrate the inconsistency of oui' critics. For what is 
 the difference between our own ancient holidays and 
 those new and more numerous ones which, we have 
 adopted in their place ? None that I can see, except 
 that these arose from the worship of Mammon, and 
 ours arose from the worship of God and the honour of 
 His Saints. Our national holidays weathered the storms 
 of persecution and outlived the penal days, and I own 
 it is not creditable to us that we have pliantly discarded 
 them for exotics in the days of our freedom. The 
 Gaelic League has had t-o force the observance of St. 
 Patrick's Day on the country, and their struggle is not 
 yet over, nor has the country become yet quite recon- 
 ciled to it. 
 
 Adam Smith divided a nation into two classes — the 
 productive and the unproductive. Sir Horace 
 evidently adopts that division, but I cannot say if he 
 follows it fully in the sense of its author. If he does, he 
 had better refresh his economic studies, because no econo- 
 mist of name follows it now. Some, as Sidgewick, Mar- 
 shall, and Nicholson have substituted another distinction ; 
 
368 RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IX IRELAND. 
 
 and some, confused by its absurd cousequcuces, have done 
 without any substitute, and have run into conclusions as 
 absurd as those 'which had scared them. One would 
 think from what he writes that those only who live in 
 religious communities belong to what he calls the " un- 
 productive classes." But, adopting his division, lawyers, 
 physicians, artists, scientific and literary men, officers of 
 the army and navy, civil servants, statesmen, even the 
 personnel of the Department belong to that class ; and oi 
 some of these, at any rate, I think that the country has a 
 great many more than are good for it. 
 
 The right of free association is one of those imprescrip- 
 tible rights sanctioned and boasted of in modern society, 
 rights allowed even in cases of questionable consequences 
 to public or private good. Why, then, should not a 
 number of persons — men or women — be equally free to 
 associate in religious corporations to serve God 
 according to their light? It may be a vain and 
 foolish thing to do. Be it so ; but they have the right to 
 do it, and the further right to remind those who censure 
 them to mind their own business. A Carthusian monk 
 might write a letter to the newspapers and say that we 
 have too many military officers; in fact that, since two 
 kennels of champion mastiffs could settle an international 
 quarrel of right quite as rationalh' — -or rather 
 quite as irrationally — as two armies mowing 
 each other down with cannon and rifle, all military 
 expenses are so much money wasted ; that the Depart- 
 ment costs too much for the work it shows, or that as 
 useful a building as the New College of Science might be 
 erected for a fraction of what the Department has pro- 
 posed to spend on it. The man with the "economic 
 sense " might reply that those institutions are most im- 
 portant for the State. But the recluse might rejoin that 
 there are human interests immeasurably more important 
 than the concerns of the State, and that the association 
 
RELIGIOUS^' CORPOEATIOXS !X IRELAND. 369 
 
 to which he belongs was formed to promote those higher 
 human interests. His rejoinder would " shock the eco- 
 nomic sense;" that I know. But what reply could the 
 economist make ? That I want to know. I can imagine 
 one who is accustomed to class as articles of value only 
 those things which he can taste or touch, turning disdain- 
 fully on the Carthusian and taunting him with wasting 
 his life in prayer vrhich has no market value, in an asso- 
 ciation which no stockbroker would register in his lists ; 
 but I can also imagine the bright, calm eye of the recluse 
 pitifully turned on him, followed by that phrase of the 
 great interpreter of the modern spirit — '"' More things 
 are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." 
 
 Sir Horace will remind me that he does not object to 
 religious communities, but to the extravagant increase in 
 their number, inasmuch as they are not producers but 
 consumers only, living on the wealth made by the produc- 
 tive classes of the country. Now, I think that M. 
 Combes is a more consistent economist than Sir Horace. 
 He has no right t-o stop short at merely preventing their 
 growth or cutting down their number. If they do not 
 produce, but only consume at the cost of producers, the 
 " practical and statesmanlike action "' in their regard 
 should be either to drive them out, or to starve them out 
 of their communities. The honest question to consider in 
 their regard is not — why cujnber they the ground so 
 much? but, v.-hy cumber they the ground at all? M. 
 Combes is, in my opinion, a better logician, and conforms 
 his conduct to his principles more consistently than Sir 
 Horace. "What right has he, or any statesman, to permit 
 such " unproductive classes " to exist at all, especially 
 since even thos© of them who teach are, he tells us, in- 
 ferior to lay teachers as "moulders of the characters of 
 vouth," and compete with the latter to the undoubted in- 
 jury of education ? Being a practical statesman, he ad\dses 
 to "accept the situation, and work with the instruments 
 
 Y 
 
370 RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IX IRELAND. 
 
 ready to hand," would "endeavour to render these insti- 
 tutions as ef&cient educational agencies as may be pos- 
 sible," which means that they are a worthless lot, whom, 
 however, circumstances make it wiser to use till they can 
 be got rid of. Yet he says that under certain conditions 
 '•' it is impossiblo that their influence on the 3'oung gene- 
 ration ishould not be as salutary as it will be wide-reach- 
 ing." He evidently does not approve of Catholic reli- 
 gious communities of any sort, or in any sense ; but he 
 thinks it unwisei to say so, and therefore he lurches about 
 into those inconsistencies. 
 
 I pass over the great historical fact that the fairest 
 spots in Ireland and Great Britain have been made so 
 by the labours of mediaeval religious communities, that 
 the former wastes and forests of Italy, Germany, and 
 France were reclaimed and fertilised by their toil. I 
 also pass over the fact that religious communities are, in 
 relation to the number of Catholics, much more numerous 
 in England and in America than in Ireland ; but in this, 
 as in other alleged Catholic extravagances Ireland is 
 segregated as a scape-goat — chi offende non i^erdona, an 
 Italian proverb says. 
 
 Kestricting my observations to Ireland, besides the reli- 
 gious communities who work for the public, there are 
 those who are engaged wholly or chiefly in the contempla- 
 tive life, such as the Trappists of Mount Mellarey and 
 Roscrea, and the Redemptoristine and Carmelite nuns. 
 I am not aware that any of these have built their houses 
 or are supported at the jiublic expense. I should be 
 iuriou3 to learn from Sir Horace a single instance in 
 which they have appealed to the public. Individuals 
 may have given them gifts or left them bequests, which 
 they had a perfect right to do if they thought well of it. 
 just as Sir Horace himself, I believe, generously hands 
 over his salary to promote the work of the Organisation 
 Society. The late Count Moore,! believe, purchased their 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 371 
 
 place for the Ti-appists at Roscrea. If he started a fac- 
 tory there, Sir Horace would, no doubt, think the money 
 better spent. But the Count thought differently; and 
 who knows but he was right ? This I do know ; I knew 
 him well, and I believe tJ^at he was at least as well made 
 up in economics as Sir Horace. In neither case has any- 
 one a right to interfere by criticism or by complaint. The 
 Little Sisters of the Poor have succeeded in erecting, 
 from time to time, a splendid cluster of buildings in the 
 suburbs of Oork. Where did the money come from? I 
 do not know, nor have I any right to know ; neither has 
 the public, since they have not appealed to the public for 
 help. The Sisters go about begging money, old clothes, 
 broken bread, meat, anything; but they can show more 
 work than these alms they get could account for, in the 
 numbers of poor people whom they clothe and support 
 in a manner much superior to the maintenance given in 
 the workhouses out of the rates, and without killing the 
 self-respect of their clients, which is one of the most de- 
 grading features of that system of poor relief with which 
 the State economists have cursed the country. The con- 
 templative communities are supported, I presume, by the 
 dowries of their members. I know two young ladies who 
 recently entered one of these communities with dowries 
 amounting probably to about £4.000 between them. All 
 have not such large dowries, but each must bring some- 
 thing. Nuns live very simply; they make their own 
 habits, cook their own food, and so their maintenance 
 costs very little. Natviralistic economists, of course, 
 think that those large dowries would be better spent on 
 industrial work ; on which I make no remark except that 
 those who owned the dowries think otherwise. The 
 " economic sense " may be shocked that those ladies bury 
 their money on the country, and deprive tlie public of the 
 industrial work they might do by remaining in 
 the world. But, pray, how would the " economic 
 
372 RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS !N IRELAND. 
 
 sense " be influenced by the action of those ladies 
 if they spent their money on the conventional ex- 
 travagances of what is called " society," and spent 
 their time at balls or theatres in the night, and talking 
 drawing-room trivialities or selecting fashions during the 
 day? Their money and their lives would bear abundant 
 fruit for industrial Ireland — would they not? But my 
 simple and direct apology is — that those ladies do the 
 work they have set themselves to do, and they should be 
 let do it free from the criticism of those who do not 
 understand them, and with whose own ways and works 
 they do not interfere. The first principle of liberty is to 
 respect the liberty of others ; but our critics, palpitating 
 as it were with the spirit of modern life, do not seem to 
 grasp that first principle of the programme which they 
 pretend to plead for. If those ladies formed a club, and 
 took a winter residence in the Riviera or at Monte Carlo, 
 or handed over each her dowry to a husband who would 
 squander it on the turf, or gamble it on the Stock Ex- 
 change, they would escape the censures of those critics 
 who iguorantly decry the path of life they have chosen, 
 and insolently question their liberty to choose it. St. 
 Paul said: — " Animalis homo non percipit ea quae sunt 
 .^piritus Dei " ; ay, there's the rub. 
 
 The contemplative life of course has no value iu the eyes 
 of the mere economist. Naturally, since the work of 
 that life cannot be catalogued as an article of value in 
 the technical language of economics; nor do I propose 
 to explain its value for the economist's sake, because I 
 should speak in a language which he does not under- 
 stand; and what om- outside critics cannot understand 
 about Catholic ideals and ways is, they assume, neither 
 worth consideration nor intelligible in itself. I am 
 quite prepared to hear that they have been confirmed 
 in their judgment by "enlightened Catholics," those, 
 namely, who have passed thi'ough the miraculous process 
 
RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 373 
 
 of learning Catholic principles and Catholic teaching in 
 non- Catholic institutions where those things are never 
 taught, and who have improved their " Catholic " 
 studies in after life by imbibing the spirit 
 of such society as fosters those " enlightened " 
 views on Catholic life and principles which are 
 the heirloom and the tradition of Trinity College. 
 It is curious that those alone are classified by 
 themselves as well as by outsiders as " enlightened 
 Catholics'' who happen to disown everything Catholic 
 that displeases them, or is disapproved by those whose 
 patronage they pursiie. I can quite understand all 
 that, and in a sense they have my sympathy. If the 
 uninitiated go into a laboratory of physical science, 
 seeing the strange instruments and the experts at 
 work, they can discern nothing but toys and pastime, 
 and if they listen to the views of the factotums em- 
 ployed to keep the place in order, instead of getting 
 better informed they will be led more astray. The case 
 of our critics is similar in relation to Catholic principles 
 and practices, and to be led by " enlightened Catholics" 
 is only to be led astray; it is the blind leading the blind, 
 and both tumbling into the same ditch. 
 
 To pass sentence on religious communities on the mere 
 economic test of whether they belong to the productive 
 or to the unproductive class is in the last analysis to 
 value the work of men and women by the standard of 
 cattle made for man's use. We take account of what 
 they consume and of what they produce, then balance 
 our books, and if the balance is at the wrong side we 
 account them as profitless animals, as barren fig-trees 
 v/hich should be cut down. But if we take and weigh 
 the value of our critics with their own balance, what do 
 we find ? Not that they do uneconomic work, but that 
 many of them do no work of any kind. Some of those 
 who decry the useless life of religious communities are 
 
374 RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IN IRELAND. 
 
 those who, either from want of brains or want of ballast, 
 have failed to make even a decent livelihood for 
 themselves. Some belong to the " unproductive 
 classes," but they live idly on their own 
 income. And if the mere economist will classify 
 man as a productive being, what apology for his presence 
 can he make to the man of manual labour in the garden, 
 in the factory, or in the mine, who insists on claiming 
 that he alone is the real producer, and that the capi- 
 talist, the wi'iter on industrialism, the economist him- 
 self are to be catalogued in the same category with the 
 Trappist and the Yis'taudine? 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE CEITICS OF CONVENTS CPaTICISED ; NUNS, THEIR 
 CIVIL EIGHTS AND THEIR WORK. 
 
 AlY position then is that religious communiUes who 
 do no work for the public benefit have no claim ou 
 public support; for, if pei^ns, men and women, think 
 well of retiring from the outside world to such a com 
 munity for the purpose of practising the Evangebcal 
 counsels, that is their own concern only, and they have 
 no richt to expect the outside world which they re- 
 nounid, to bear the burden of their maintenance 
 But if they maintain themselves, those who may not 
 approve of the life they have chosen, have no right to 
 question their choice. 
 
 But the vast majority of religious communities in 
 Ireland do not follow the contemplative life; they 
 follow either the mixed or the active life. I propose 
 to consider chiefly religious communities of women; 
 because, though critics assume the task of criticising 
 them at will, they cannot defend themselves. _ 
 
 Nuns do various works. Some are engaged in nur^ 
 ing; and of these some undertake private nursing and 
 some undertake the work in public Institutions. Some 
 devote their lives to teaching; and of these, some have 
 private schools, and some teach in public schools as 
 under the National Board. Some devote their lives to 
 Orphanages and to Penitentiaries; and so on. Now, 
 with regard to those who undertake the work of private 
 nursing or of teaching private schools, I hold that they 
 have no claim on anyone except on tho&e for whose 
 
376 THE CRITICS OF CONVENTS CRITICISED. 
 
 benefit they teach or uurse ; and their being members of a 
 religions community gives them thereby no right to public 
 support. If a few young ladies join in establishing a 
 private hospital or a private school, they acquire no 
 claim to public support unless in so far as they earn it, 
 and if they were to form themselves into a permanent 
 community by making religious vows under the sanction 
 of Ecclesiastical authority, no superadded claim upc:i 
 the public would come with their vows and their change 
 of life. Neither, on the other hand, would they forfeit 
 by their religious life any rights which they had before, 
 unless in so far as they willingly had vowed them away. 
 The rest remain as untouched as if they had never made 
 a religous vow. 
 
 A young lady has as inalienable a right to enter a 
 Convent as she has to live with her family or to get 
 married ; and when she has exercised that right she 
 continues to own, in face of the public, every civil right 
 to teach or nurse, or to occupy herself with any civil 
 functions, which she had before. She may not exercise 
 those only which are not permitted by the rules of 
 the community of which she voluntarily became a 
 member. I have heard the foolish question asked — 
 What if all ladies became nuns ? To which the answer 
 is easy : there is no fear. Those who think the life of 
 nuns a life of ease and uselessness will soon learn better, 
 and will leave when their temper has been tested and 
 their character sifted by a few months' noviciate. Let 
 those who doubt it only try, and their doubt will soon 
 become a certainty. 
 
 The critics of Convents have cui'ious consciences. 
 Let a lady get married, or remain single for life ; let 
 her spend her days sporting in the hunting field, or 
 dawdling in a drawing room ; let her go gambling to 
 Monte Carlo and lose as much money in a day as would 
 keep a whole convent for a century; let her join the 
 
THE CRITICS OF CONVENTS CRITICISED. 6(i 
 
 society founded by Madam Blavatsky and become a Ma- 
 hatma, or that founded by Mrs. Eddy, and become a Chris- 
 tian scientist, or let her spend her life searching for 
 spooks ; let her join a proselytising society which proceeds 
 with unlimited funds to sov/ the seed of the Word in the 
 Aran Isles, and be called "sister;" let her do as she 
 likes, and no word of reproach is ever spoken or written 
 against her. But let her use her imprescriptible right 
 to load a life of celibacy, penance, and prayer in a 
 Cbnvent; let her join the society founded by Catherine 
 Macauley, Nano Nagle, or Mary Aikenhead, and she 
 is at once " immured," doomed to a dungeon; the piety 
 of Protestantism is plentifully poured out in crimina- 
 tions and in crocodile tears for the Evangelical light 
 that has been quenched and for the civil liberty which 
 has been torn from her. The '' economic sense " is 
 shocked for the reason that the Convent which she lias 
 entered is one of those upas trees which poisons the 
 public and paralyses the spirit of national industrialism 
 — an octopod that gathers into itself the wealth of the 
 country, but, being of the " unproductive class," does 
 not contribute in any way towards the upkeep or the 
 prosperity of the nation on which it preys. 
 
 Now, what is a community of nuns who nurse or 
 teach but a society of ladies devoted to either work? 
 The difference between them and other ladies who may 
 associate in the work of nursing or teaching is that 
 the primary purpose of the latter is to make a living, 
 and the prime motive of the former is to sanctify them- 
 selves. But the primary object of either should have 
 no concern for me or for anyone else if they give capable 
 and assiduous care to the patients, and if they educate 
 well the pupils committed to thetir care. Nuns who 
 are engaged in such works make their own arrangements 
 with their clients, and it is to be assumed that those 
 who patronize them for either work understand what 
 
378 THE CRITICS OF CONVENTS CRITICISED. 
 
 suits themselves as well as others cau tell them. 
 At any rate, their own judgment is their own business, 
 and if they choose to turn their patronage elsewhere 
 they are quite free to do so. I have known several 
 non-Catholic parents in England who placed their 
 daughters in Convent schools; many non-Ca- 
 tholics in England send their daughters to 
 Convents in France, Belgium, and Germany; and 
 the same happens very frequently in America. 
 If these parents do not think that they get good 
 educational value for their money at those Convents, 
 there is nothing to keep them from looking for better 
 elsewhere. And confining our consideration to Ireland, 
 Convent schools like other schools of course differ in 
 efficiency; but comparing them grade for grade with 
 the best and the mediocre schools taught by non- 
 Catholic ladies, I think that they educate better than 
 these. If anyone tell me I am mistaken, I will want to 
 know where I am to find superior results from secular in- 
 stitutions. I know Catholic ladies engaged in teaching to 
 whom I would entnist the training of girls as readily 
 as to any Convent; but I think that the cases are 
 exceptional, taking into account the prime motive 
 which nuns have in their work, and the strict discipline 
 under which their Rules and their Rev. Mothers con- 
 stantly keep them. 
 
 During the past few years the education of girls has 
 taken a more practical turn. A training in domestic 
 economy, as an essential element in the 
 ideal of a girl's education, is supplanting 
 the aesthetic refinements of the past. I think that the 
 practical formation of a housekeeper has been too much 
 neglected in the education of girls, and I have no dispo- 
 sition to shield our convent schools from their share of 
 the defect. In this neglect they yielded chiefly to the 
 wishes of parents who, influenced by the spirit which pre- 
 
THE CRITICS OF CONVENTS CRITICISED. 379 
 
 vailed amon^t their '" betters," would have practical 
 training give way to the ornamental accomplishments of 
 tlieir daughters; and the disposition which would have 
 that education in school, fostered and developeditat home. 
 As teachers, nuns could not entirely withstand the wishes 
 of their clients. There was nothing bad in it except from 
 an educational standpoint ; and some of the nuns them- 
 selves had, like others, pa.ssed through the same process, 
 and were probably not ftiUy conscious of 
 its consequences. But when all is said, 
 
 nuns in my opinion cannot be quite excused for 
 having yielded to the prevailing disposition as much as 
 they have yielded. In saying this, I am expecting more 
 from them than from others; I judge them by a higher 
 standard. But that admission does not justify their 
 critics, because at the worst they have merely more or 
 less neglected an important element in education which 
 was equally or more neglected in non-Catholic and secu- 
 lar schools. Yet, since the cry for domestic economy 
 has been raised it has grown into an extravagance with 
 some, and those who are always ready to 
 throw discredit on convents instinctively turned 
 their criticism exclusively on nuns, as if they alone, or 
 chiefly, had neglected the practical and the useful in the 
 education they imparted. During the Irish Times epi- 
 demic, when the "Roman Catholic farmer " from Killaloe 
 relieved his soul of Canon M'Inerney's enormities,* other 
 " Roman Catholic " correspondents t-old us of Catholics 
 who have decided t-o i-emain single rather than jeopardise 
 their happiness with a Catholic wife who, owing to her 
 Convent education, could not superintend their kitchen 
 or the arrangements of their home. "We were, of course, 
 expected by these anonymous letter-writers to suppose 
 that those unnamed heroes of the faith, failing to find a 
 suitable Catholic wife, would rather bear the martyrdom 
 •■ See page 13 and noU'. 
 
380 THE CPvITICS OF CONVENTS CSITICISED. 
 
 of single blessedness than propose for a Protestant lady 
 and embark on a mixed marriage, or that it was not the 
 case that they proposed for both and were accepted by 
 neither. Genuine Irish Catholic girls are never short 
 of proposals to share a home with them ; but they would 
 hardly accept proposals from those who forget their 
 chivalry in their desire to danui Convents, and who by 
 implication thus belittle the Catholic maidens and 
 matrons of Ireland. 
 
 I have no wish to make invidious comparisons in other 
 respects, but my experience both here and in England 
 has impressed me that in the sphere of domestic economy, 
 Catholic and non-Catholic housekeepers, those who have 
 been educated in convents and those who have been 
 educated el&swhere, taking them grade by grade in the 
 social scale, have about equal merit.* A lady who was 
 educated in one of the highest Protestant educational 
 establishments in this country told me lately that, her 
 
 «• I take the following from Truth of Nov. 24th, 1904 : — 
 
 " The following letrer, which reached me the other day from 
 the North of England, seems to me worthy of notice. It is a 
 standing grievance that the people who pay the most rates get 
 the least advantage out of them, and I can readily believe thai 
 there is room for the exteiisio.n of technical education in the direc- 
 tion indicated by my corresfKindent : — 
 
 " * Dear Trcth. — The County CJouncils send out teachers of 
 laundry-wcrk, cookery, dairying, etc., for the benefit of the 
 country districts; they do nothing, however, for the education 
 of those who are most heavily rated. People rated at ,£1,000 or 
 £2,000 per annum ought to have the opportunity of learning as 
 much as the daughter of a farmer or a parson rated at ,£50. 
 There is one subject in which education is specially needed — 
 namely, practical housekeeping and the management of servants. 
 I think the County Councils should supply expert? who would 
 visit all the big houses in the country, look through the house- 
 keeping books, and make reports with suggestions. They might 
 also hold classes in convenient centres for the benefit of ladies 
 and housekeepers. Apart from the educational work, the visits 
 of the County Council's experts would have a valuable effect in 
 opening the eyes of masters of houses to the great and needless 
 waste of money that goes on in their establishments. Awful as is 
 the waste of money on dres?, far larger is the waste of money 
 on housekeeping.' " 
 
 Those to whom the above complaint refers have not been edu- 
 cated in Convents, nor are they Irish. 
 
THE CRITICS OF CONVENTS CRITICISED. 
 
 381 
 
 family havnig suffered reverses of fortune, she had, on 
 leaving school, to make a livelihood for hersalf , and that 
 though she had learned painting and music, could play 
 on two or three instruments, she was utterly ignorant of 
 housekeeping, and found herself without any equipment 
 for the battle of life. She is a person of uncommon intel- 
 ligence, has been married for some years, and she has 
 become one of the best housekeepers I have ever known. I 
 do not mention this for the purpose of reflecting on non- 
 Catholic institutions. I merely want to point out that 
 domestic economy has been more or less neglected every- 
 ^^here But no sooner did a better impulse move the 
 public to wiser ways than the nuns began to put their 
 house in order, and I think they are well abreast o the 
 new movement. Why, then, should they be singled out 
 for criticism and blame, as if domestic economy did not 
 form a sufficiently important part of the curriculum of 
 
 their schools alone ? . , j i 
 
 I wish it to be observed, that I have consiaered exclu- 
 sively what I may call this material element in the edu- 
 c.tioii of girls. I do not forget that there are other ele- 
 ments in their education which are more important than 
 c.okery for the permanent happiness of homes, _ more 
 powerful mainstays of family life; in consideration o 
 which French infidels, who declaim in frenzy against 
 Convents and clerical Colleges in the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties, send their sons and their daughters by preference 
 to be educated in both. I remember that some of them 
 were publicly taunted with the inconsistency a few years 
 a-o in The Chamber. The Belgian liberals, or infidels as 
 w°e would call them, also send their daughters to Convent 
 Schools instead of to Institutions under lay controL 
 But I have kept exclusively to those points on which 
 Convent critics specially fasten for their complaints. 
 
CHAPTKR XXI. 
 
 Passes in 
 Model Schools. 
 
 887 
 
 Passes in Convent 
 and Monastery Sohoola. 
 
 88'9 
 
 90-0 
 
 90' 1 
 
 899 
 
 89-4 
 
 89-4 
 
 89-6 
 
 88-1 
 
 89-5 
 
 88'4 
 
 89-2 
 
 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NUPvSES. 
 
 I NOW consider the nuus who teach in public schools, 
 and I test their efficiency by public returns. The 
 following table shows the percentage of pupils who 
 passed the results Examinations in Irish National 
 Schools during the six following years: — 
 
 Tear. 
 
 1885 
 
 1886 
 
 1887 
 
 1888 
 
 1889 
 
 1890 
 
 I have taken these percentages from a speech made bv 
 the Ai'chbishop of Dublin about fourteen years ago. 
 They speak for themselves. We must bear in mind also 
 that the pupils of the Model schools belong to the more 
 wealthy and comfortable classes. They attend school 
 regulaxly, and they have home advantages for study 
 which the children of the poor, such as generally attend 
 the Convent National Schools, have not. 
 
 I take the following from the Report of Mr. Dale, 
 who was commissioned last yeai' to inquire into the 
 condition of primary schools in Ireland. He writes*: — 
 "Dingy walls or ceilings, broken woodwork or plaster, 
 and dirty flooi-s are far more common in Irish town 
 schools than in English. From these last obseiwations 
 
 • Report of Mr. F. H. Dale, His llajesly's Inspector of Schools, BoariJ 
 of Education, on Primary Education in Ireland. Page 3. 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NUI SES. 383 
 
 I am f^lad to be able to except the Convent scliools. I 
 found them in all cases kept in an excellent state of 
 repair, cleanliness, and neatness;" and in a note: — '• It 
 is interesting to note that the Assistant Commissioners 
 to the Powis Commission in 1868, especially commended 
 the Convent schools on these same grounds." Again : — 
 " It is noteworthy that the 292 Convent schools paid on 
 the English system by a lump sum from the State, for 
 the proper distribution of which the community con- 
 ducting the schools is primarily responsible, are at once 
 the least expensive to the State, and among the most 
 efficient and best^managed schools in Ireland. The aver- 
 age cost of maintenance to the State per child in average 
 attendance at these schools was only £1 17s. ll|d., as 
 against £2 8s. 5d. in the ordinary National schools ; yet 
 they are far better furnished and provided with a more 
 adequate staflf than the ordinary schools. I have al- 
 ready had occasion to comment on the admirable 
 cleanliness and neatness of the premises and the excel- 
 lence of the equipment; but these are only a few 
 among many advantages of the careful supervision and 
 manaoement which are the indispensable conditions of 
 the success of an elementary school. I was impressed 
 in every Convent school that I visited, by the knowledge 
 and interest shown by the conductors, even when not 
 actually teaching in the school, with regard to all the 
 details of the school-work and organisation, and by then- 
 readiness to consider and, if possible, to adopt any 
 changes in the curriculum or organisation which the 
 Central Ofi&ce might consider would render their schools 
 more efficient. "f 
 
 Again:— "It is noteworthy that in the Convent 
 schools, though the pupils are frequently drawn from 
 the very poorest classes, the percentage of average at- 
 tendance to the average number on rolls is 69.7, and 
 
 t Heport of Mr. F. H. Dale. Page 45. 
 
£f84 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NUE«ES. 
 
 ill many individual schools, e.g., the King's Inn Street 
 Oonvent school in Ihiblin, reaches 75"^ 
 
 Again: — "It is impossible to doubt the admirable 
 influence which the teachers in these schools {i.e. Con- 
 vent schools) have over their pupils or the training 
 which is given in habits of order, neatness, and ready 
 obedience. In any broad ^^ew of what is involved in 
 the education of children of the poorer classes, these 
 merits, though not capable of being measured with the 
 same definiteness as intellectual proficiency, ai-e not less 
 deserving of recognition. With regard to the instruc- 
 tion, the reading of the older children was generally 
 better than in the ordinary schools, and in some Convent 
 schools, notably the Josephian Convent in Dublin, and 
 the St. Vincents Convent in Cork, reached a very high 
 standcird as regards intelligence and dstinctness. It is 
 interesting to note that the same point of supei'iority im- 
 pressed itself on several of the Assistant Commissioners 
 to the Powis Cbmmission ; and the reason assigned by 
 one of them for it is, I think, in substance correct, that 
 the Sisters controlling the schools ai-e, as a rule, ladies 
 of higher education and better social position than 
 ordinary National teachers. The composition was also, 
 as a rule, above that produced in the National schools. 
 I cannot, however, say that the arithmetic reached so 
 high a level of accuracy as in the best National schools, 
 and it was not more intelligent. Nor did the instruc- 
 tion in geography and grammar impress me as being 
 essentially different in character from that on which I 
 have already commented. "§ 
 
 Again: — ''The curriculum of the Convent schools has 
 for many years been wider than that of most ordinarj' 
 National schools. Singing and drawing were commonly 
 taught long before they were made compulsory by the 
 New Programme. Of the proficiency in singing it 
 
 ; Page 56. § Pa?o 60. 
 
KUNS AS TEACHERS AND NUBSES. 385 
 
 would be difficult to speak too highly; in some of ihc 
 Convent schools, e.g., the Sligo Convent, the Queens- 
 town Convent, and the St. Vincent's Convent at Cork, 
 it was equal to any that I have heard in the best 
 English schools. The physical exercises were also well 
 done.''^ 
 
 Yet Sir Horace tells us that he has " no doubt at all 
 that the competition with lay teachers of celibates ' liv- 
 ing in community ' is excessive and educationally in- 
 jurious." He has, however, kept his reasons to him- 
 self ; but after what I have just now written, the public 
 might be curious to know them. I also recall that he 
 " personally does not think that teachers who have re- 
 nounced the world and withdrawn from contact with 
 its stress and strain are the best moulders of the 
 characters of youths who will have to come into dia-ect 
 conflict with the trials and temptations of life. But 
 here again we must accept the situation and work with 
 the instruments ready to hand." What those "instru- 
 ment's ready to hand " for the teaching of girls are 
 like, we have learned from the statistics and the reports 
 which I have quoted. He is good enough to say that 
 "they deserve the utmost credit for endeavouring to 
 supply missing steps in the educational ladder " in the 
 past. Mr. Dale, however, thinks that they do a great 
 deal more even in the present. Besides other proofs 
 of excellence in. Convent teaching which Mr, Dale 
 gives, he also refers to the " training which is given in 
 habits of order, neatness, and i-eady obedience." I 
 think that girls who are trained to be orderly and neat, 
 and to so far control themselves as to give ready O'be- 
 dieuce in school, are having their characters well 
 moulded for the duties of after life. Moreover, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Dale's repor-t, the National schools taught 
 by nuns are not only more efficient than other National 
 
 IPage 71. 
 
 z 
 
386 Nl-'N'S AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 
 
 schools, bub they are much cheaper also ; and, according 
 to the sUtistics compiled by the Ai'chbishop of Dublin, 
 they are more efficient than even the Model schools 
 which, only 28 in number exclusive of the Central 
 Model school, cost £500,000 to build and equip, and 
 £31,316 7s. 2d. a year to work. With those facts be- 
 fore me I am at a loss to know how the teaching of 
 nuns is " educationally injurious." Not surely because 
 their teaching is better than that of others. Then it 
 is the "competition?" But I should have thought 
 that the "economic sense" would above all look for 
 educational residts, would consider public rather than 
 personal interest, and would assume that the teaxihers 
 are for the pupils, not the pupils for the teachens; 
 would prefer teachers who educate at a cost to the 
 State of £1 17s. ll^d. per child, to teachers who edu- 
 cate at a cost to the State of £2 8s. 5d. per child with 
 inferior educational results. 
 
 I now pass on to nuns who nvirse ; and I think it is 
 the conviction of those who best know, that work- 
 houses and hospitals under the care of nuns are 
 managed best as to efficiency and economy. I believe 
 that is the opinion of medical men and of Poor Law 
 Guardians. 
 
 In The lion'pital, a very interesting medical review 
 published in London, a series of articles on the nursing 
 question in Paris apj^eared during 1898. They were 
 written by Sir Edmund Spearman, who described in de- 
 tail the gradual laicisation of the Parisian hospitals, 
 which change, according to him, has not been an improve- 
 ment. In the same review for October, 1S03, an account 
 i-. given of the nursing as carried on in the Paris Muni- 
 cipal School of Nursing which began in 1878, the first 
 move in the process of laicising the hospitals. In the 
 same number an account is given of the nursing as it is 
 done in the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth in 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 387 
 
 London, which is in charge of the Sisters of Mercy, and 
 depends on private donations. An editorial in the same 
 number says of the laicised system in Paris : — " It will 
 be seen that the condition of affairs is at present far 
 from satisfactory. Certificates, it is true, are insisted 
 on by the municipality before the nurses can be pro- 
 moted, but as these are often granted at the end of a 
 single year, and c^n be earned either by a nurse in the 
 wards, or a woman who studies in her own home, and has 
 never seen a patient, their value is obviously small, and 
 necessarily may be a source of serious danger to the pub- 
 lic. Contrasting this system with that which is described 
 by our Commissioner as prevailing at the Hospital of St. 
 John and St. Elizabeth in London, it must be acknow- 
 ledged that the advantage lies with the nun who has re- 
 ceived hospital training rather than with the half- 
 trained, but certificated, French lay nurse." Some per- 
 sons insist that the only security for good nursing is the 
 hall-mark of a government or a municipality. Those 
 observations I have just quoted, at any rate, dispose one 
 to doubt or to discount the value of certificates approved 
 by government or by municipal authority. Some time 
 ago the nuns were expelled also from the hospitals of 
 Marseilles, and were replaced by certificated lay nurses. 
 The doctors and the patients protested, but in vain. The 
 nuns' substitutes, however, in spite of the certificates, 
 did not prove satisfactory. About a year ago their ser- 
 vices were dispensed with, and the nuns were invited to 
 taJie their place once more in the hospitals. 
 
 It was said to me a few years ago by a lady that it is 
 unfair for nuns to usurp the province of lady nurses who 
 want to make a living. My answer was, in substance, 
 this : — Whose province ? What native right has the lady 
 living in the world to nurse, which may not be equally 
 claimed by the lady who becomes a nun But the lady 
 nurse has to make her living? Well, if we are to think 
 
388 KUNS AS TEACHERS AND NUr.SES. 
 
 out the question on these lines, has not the lady who 
 becomes a nun to make her living? Or is a lady, once 
 she becomes a nun, supposed henceforth to live on the 
 wind? If you and a few other ladies wish to join in a 
 private nursing establishment, you claim a perfect right 
 to do so. Very well; and if you, after a time, determine 
 to form a permanent association for nursing, and bind 
 youi-selves by religious vows, by what process do you lose 
 the right which you had before? 
 
 A century ago, when the Catholic poor of Ireland had 
 to remain for the most part untaught unless they con- 
 sented to be educated on the condition or the risk of 
 proselytism, a young Ck)rk lady set about providing for 
 the education of the poor of her native city. There was 
 nothing wrong, I suppose, in her doing so. Well, she 
 got other ladies to co-operate with her. It was, I sup- 
 pose, a truly philanthropic work. They worked under 
 the patronage of Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, finally 
 formed themselves into a permanent society by taking 
 religious vows, and are known as the Presentation Nuns. 
 If the work which Miss Nagle and her first associates 
 undertook was a good one, it was wise of them to secure 
 that it would live after them. When they took religious 
 vows, how did they thereby lose any right to teach, 
 which they had before ? Was their competition with lay 
 teachers "excessive and educationally injurious," then? 
 If so, there was nothing to prevent others, without taking 
 vows, from supplying the want which they sought to 
 supply ? Why did others not do so ? There were neither 
 critics nor complaints about convent competition in 
 those days, because there were no government grants. 
 A generation passed on, and another lady began a simi- 
 lar educational work in Dublin. She found other 
 ladies to associate with her. They also taught poor 
 schools as a society ; and still a want remained in the 
 education of the poor, which any ladies who desired 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 389 
 
 miglit liave helped to supply. But how many did so, 
 besides those who became nuns? After some time, 
 Miss Macauley and her associates, to secure the 
 permanence of their society and their work, took religious 
 vows, and are known as the Sisters of Mercy. Those 
 two congregations of ladies soon spread over Ireland and. 
 in time, over England, Australia, and America. They 
 taught the poor in Ireland without receiving a. penny of 
 public money for the building of their schools or as re- 
 muneration for their vrork. It passes my understanding 
 how they hcive not the same right to teach to-day, when 
 the public rewards them for their work, which they had 
 in those days when there was no public remuneration, 
 and therefore no critics to complain of their work or to 
 envy them the privilege of doing it ; especially 
 since, according to official testimony, they do 
 their work more efficiently than others, and 
 at less cost to the public. Oh I in those days 
 they were freely allowed to tread the v/ine-press 
 alone. But in those days there was no government 
 recognition of their work. In these days they, receive 
 a capitation grant for teaching from the National Board 
 — considerably less no doubt than lay teachers receive — 
 but still a grant of public money. Thus the times are 
 chansred, and we have changed with them in more 
 senses than one. Hence the new-born zeal for the edu- 
 cation of the people. Hence the jealousy, the criticism, 
 the complaint, and the calumny. Why should nuns 
 dare to teach? — That was not said till recent years. 
 Why should they usurp the province of ladies who want 
 to make a living? — That was not thought of when Miss 
 Nagle, Miss Macauley, and their early associates, out of 
 the fulness of their Catholic charity, began their work, 
 and when there was a vast field of labour for any who 
 had the will to do it. Why should they receive piiblic 
 remuneration for teaching? What right have they to 
 
390 NUXS AS TEACHEKS AND NURSES. 
 
 receive any share of the public taxes for doing a public 
 work? This right — They have been born and bred in 
 Ireland like others; have as much, right to live in Le- 
 land as othei-s have; and, since Sir Horace's standpoint 
 forces me to discuss whether their presence is "economi- 
 cally unsound," they have as much right to work for 
 their living in this land of their birth as others have. 
 One would think that nuns are some foreign importa- 
 tions blown into the country as exotics by some adverse 
 breezes. A young lady has been born on Irish soil, of 
 Irish parents, and because, when she comes to choose a 
 line of life, she chooses to become a nun, she is not let 
 use that common civil right without having to bear the 
 criminatory impertinences of those especially who are 
 in Ireland but not of it ! 
 
 Sir Horace has '" no doubt at all that their compe- 
 tition with lay teachers is excessive and educationally in- 
 jurious." If they were not bound by religious vows, but 
 were simply ladies associated in the work of teaching, 
 would their presence or their multiplication be " economi- 
 cally unsound " and "educationally injurious?" If au}'^ 
 dozen ladies associated for similaj* work, would he pass 
 a similar criticism on their action? If he would, I 
 should like to know on what grounds, and I should look 
 out for their reply with much interest. Rings, trusts, 
 syndicates, and companies of all sorts arise, increase, and 
 multiply, and the economist acknowledging them as 
 economic factore provides a place for each in the paral- 
 lelogram of economic forces. Creameries or co-operative 
 stores may multiply over the land, and although they may 
 swallow up the small shopkeeper or farmer, although they 
 have unquestionably been the occasion of having drinking 
 centres multiplied in the country, although they have 
 also lessened the demand for labour, and have thus, un- 
 like the passing of cross-roads dancing, become a real 
 cause of emigration. Sir Horace is not only their cham- 
 
NUXS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 391 
 
 pion and their propagandist, he is their father and their 
 prophet. Xon eqtLidem invideo, miror magu. But then, on 
 what principle of consistency does he attack the multipli- 
 cation of t-eaching associations such as nuns ? Is it be- 
 cause they ai-e associations, or is it because they are 
 associations bound by religious vows? The former 
 would be contradictory, the latter would be bigotry. 
 
 The buildings belonging to those two congregations are 
 amongst "the costly and elaborate monastic and conven- 
 tual institutions, involving what, in the aggregate, must 
 be an enormous annual expenditure" to which he finds 
 "it difficult to reconcile to the known conditions of the 
 countiy." Now, we are told by Mr. Dale that the work- 
 ing of their schools costs considerably less t-o the public 
 than the other similar schools; I know from personal 
 knowledge that they help the poorer pujDils to a large 
 extent in the way of food and clothes ; and their income is 
 spent in the locality of their work, and not in London or 
 the Riviera. What he condemns, then, is not true of 
 the work they do. Is it true of the school-houses where 
 they teach, or of the convents where they live? The 
 buildings which belong to them in the city where I am 
 writing are among-st the largest in the country; and I 
 speak of these only, since, unlike the convent critics who 
 speak as knowing everything about every convent 
 in the country, I have no definite knowledge 
 of any outside the place where I live. The 
 principal convent of the Sisters of Mercy in 
 Limerick is St. Mary's. It is built beside the ruins of the 
 old Dominican Abbey, and accommodates about 50 nuns 
 who do the internal work of the establishment, visit the 
 sick and poor daily, and take charge of schools in which 
 over 2,000 children are taught. Their conventual build- 
 ings on this spot consist of the convent, a house of refuge 
 for servants out of place, and splendid schools for over 
 1,000 children. Not a penny of public money has ever 
 
392 NUNS AS TKACHER" AXD NURSES. 
 
 been spent on any <if those building:--. Ah ! vou Roman 
 casuist; but have they not been built by public subscrip- 
 tion made in the city or its surroundings? No, they 
 have not. About thirty years ago a bazaar was, I am 
 told, held to enlarge the convent chapel, and a few bene- 
 factors, who had relatives in the community, made gifts 
 of an altar and windows. For the rest, no public sub- 
 scription of any kind has ever been asked or given to meet 
 the cost of those buildings. In charge of the same com- 
 munity are schools beside the cathedral some distance 
 away — a fine block of buildings in which also more than 
 1,000 children are taught. The building was raised at 
 the sole expense of a Limerick physician, Dr. Frith, 
 who, I suppose, had a perfect right to turn his own 
 money to such a use without consulting any economists. 
 Attached to it is a school for boys, which was paid for 
 by the nuns themselves, supplemented by a grant from 
 the National Board. Where, then, did the cost of all 
 these buildings come from ? It is an impertinent question 
 for me to ask ; but I answer, it came from the dowries 
 of the Sisters, and from savings made from the grants 
 allowed them by the Commissioners for teaching. That 
 is, besides their dowries, they give part of the capita- 
 tion grant which they get for teaching, to build their 
 schools. I know, on reliable authority, that ow'.v.g to 
 such outlay they were once brought to great straits till 
 Bishop Ryan, who, from living very simply during a. long 
 episcopate of fortv year's, saved a considerable sum of 
 money, knowing their needs, left them a large portion 
 of his savings for their personal support. 
 
 The Presentation Nuns have charge of .schools in 
 which more than 1,000 children are taught. The oldest 
 part of their convent wag built seventy years ago by a 
 parish priest in the city. He was architect and clerk of 
 works, paid for the work out of the savings of a lifetime, 
 and was himself buried by public subscription. Later 
 
NUXS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 393 
 
 wings and a cliaiiel have since been added mostly at the 
 expense of the nuns tliemselves. But a few benefactors 
 helped, including Bishop Eyan, who distributed between 
 this and other such works what remained after what he 
 had given to the Sisters of Mercy. Their schools also 
 were originally built by Father Hogan, the parish priest 
 to whom I have just referred, at his own ex^Dense and 
 under his own superintendence. They were then un- 
 pretentious buildings, so different from what they are 
 now; and all that has been added to them has been 
 done at the expense of the nuns themselves, excepting 
 a supplementary grant from the Commissioners for a new 
 w-ing recently constructed. With regard to those 
 building grants from the Commissioners which the 
 Presentation Nuns and the Sisters of Mercy -receive:'., 
 they are not special favours given to nuns. They are 
 given towards all National Schools. Those nuns hav3 
 built almost all their schools ; those Government Gra^'ts 
 have helped them only to add a few wings to buildings 
 already made, and even for the building and equipment 
 of those few wings the nuns have paid at least half the 
 cost. 
 
 Within the past few years the Sistei's of Msrcy have 
 built a magnificent Training School, in which about 100 
 teachers are educated. It has not cost the city a penny 
 to build, whilst not only the outlay on the building has 
 been distributed in the city, but the maintenance of the 
 institution, like the other conventual establishments, 
 brings the city a large annual revenue. I can say, on 
 the best authority, that its maintenance alone leave? 
 £3,000 a year to the city. The nuns themselves have 
 borne all the cost of the building. They have appealed to 
 Government for help to pay the debt inciu-red by the 
 cost; but, so far, the representatives of Govern- 
 ment in Ireland have refused, although the 
 College is doing the same work as the Training 
 
594 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 
 
 College under the Commissioners' cxintrol in 
 Dublin, on which £113,358 of public money was origin- 
 ally spent to build and furnish, and on which £50,000 is 
 now voted out of the Irish Development Fund for build- 
 ings in connection with the same College. The Sisters 
 of Mercy have another establishment in Limerick which 
 began as an orphanage, was enlarged after a 
 time, and is now used also as an Industrial 
 School. In this they now bring up about fifty 
 orphans partly at their own expense, and partly with 
 funds left for that pui-pose, especially by two benefactors ; 
 in it also they teach over 100 children under the National 
 Board. The Sisters began that splendid cluster of build- 
 ings with one half-crown which a poor woman came one 
 day many years ago to offer them as a help for the sup- 
 port of the few orjjhans whom they had taken under their 
 care. I am told that a diocesan collection was made for 
 the extension of its humble beginning; but the greater 
 pai-t of the cost was borne by the nuns themselves, and 
 by about a score of benefactors, most of whom were 
 priests. From this community is taught another school 
 some distance away of over 500 children, which was origi- 
 nally built in part by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, 
 and enlarged at the expense of the nuns with the help of 
 a, grant from the Commissioners. Some years ago the 
 Sisters of Mercy received a Church collection through the 
 city for their orphanage, buti on receiving a considerable 
 sum by bequest they ceased to appeal to the people for 
 help. At present they receive an annual Church collec- 
 tion in the city for the maintenance of their House of 
 Refuge and the relief of the poor. One who was their 
 chaplain some years ago tells me that this collection 
 makes about £100'. They also receive an annual grant 
 for the same purpose from a wealthy and beneficent lady 
 who is interested in the work. But, considering that 
 they have about 40 servants usually in the House of 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 395 
 
 Refuge, and that two nuns from each of their two city 
 convents go daily amongst the poor, I was not surprised 
 to learn also from the same source that they spend in 
 those two works about £1,000 a year. The Presentation 
 Nuns also have an annual city collection to provide the 
 poorest of their school children with food and clothes. 
 That collection, which comes to about the same as that 
 received by the Sisters of Mercy, is, I have reason to 
 know, only a small part of what they spend in various 
 ways on the poor in the course of the year. Besides 
 these works, fom- Sisters of Mercy are engaged in nurs- 
 ing the sick poor in their homes without a penny cost 
 to the city; they do it all at their own expense. 
 
 Let us now stop to reflect a little. Nearly 4,000 chil- 
 dren are educated in all those schools which I have con- 
 sidered. They are usually marked "excellent" by the 
 School Inspectors, and I believe that some of them never 
 fail to get that distinction. According to Mr. Dale they 
 are superior, and yet cost much less than other National 
 Schools. Excepting a small fraction of their cost, all 
 those buildings have been erected from time to time 
 within the past seventy yeai's without an appeal to the 
 public taxes or to a local public subscription. If it be 
 true of any in Ireland, it is true of them that they are 
 " costly and elaborate institutions, involving what must 
 be an enormous annual expenditure for maintenance," 
 which " it is difficult to reconcile with the known condi- 
 tions of the country." Now, let us suppose that Sir 
 Horace and the Department set about providing equally 
 fine school buildings and excellent teaching for 4,000 
 children, how would he set about doing it at less, or at 
 as little, cost to the public? On the contrary, he would 
 have to dive deeply into the public purse. Why, the 
 salary which, let us say, himself and Dr. Starkie re- 
 ceive in one year from the public funds is considerably 
 more than all those buildinofs for the school accommo- 
 
396 NUN8 AS TEACHERS AND NUIISES. 
 
 dation of those 4,000 children have cost the public. Sii- 
 Horace is paid to administer the Department, Dr. 
 Starkic is paid to administer the National System of 
 Education ; neither of them is paid to bloom into critics 
 of public affairs, but simply to attend to the work they 
 are paid to do. To have thus misunderstood their 
 position is the fundamental blunder each of the two 
 has made. The public must be the judge as to how far 
 I have succeeded in exposing the ignorance each has be- 
 trayed of his own proper functions, in the course of his 
 excursions into what is the business of neither. Let him 
 pass judgment on himself, then, by his own standard, 
 "the economic sense," which he says is shocked by the 
 multiplication of those conventual institutions in Ire- 
 land. What justification — what appearance even of 
 justification — can he pretend to have, in face of those 
 facts I have given, for making against conventual 
 institutions the charge he has made? There are about 
 100 members in those two communities which I have 
 been discussing. Looking at the facts I have given 
 straight in the face, and I defy contradiction as to 
 them, can he find any hundred ladies living outside 
 religious communities who would do as much work 
 for the public at ten times the public expense? 
 And yet they "shock the economic sense!" Those facts 
 I have given prove, beyond doubt or suspicion, that the 
 position of aggressiveness towards convents which he has 
 taken up is a false one ; and even though it were well- 
 founded it would be unbecoming, because, vrcre those in- 
 stitutions ever so extravagant it would badly become 
 him to complain, .since neither he nor his have booii 
 asked to share the burden of their cost. But our econo- 
 mic critics evidently have not yet exorcised themselves of 
 the feeling that it is their privilege to pry into our ac- 
 count books and into our cash boxes even when we are 
 spending our own. Usurped prerogatives die slowly. But 
 
KUNS AS TEACHERS AND NVRSES. 397 
 
 tliey die: and the sooner oui- critics let them go the 
 better. We forgive past injustice, but we shall noL 
 tolerate present insolence. 
 
 In connection with the Good Shepherd Convent in 
 Limerick, there are five distinct establishments, 
 forming a cluster of buildings — the Convent itself, the 
 Penitents' House, the Industrial School, the Reforma- 
 fcory School, and a house for girls out of employment. 
 When the nuus came to Limerick, nearly 60 years ago, 
 part of the land now enclosed within the Convent grounds 
 was a bog not quite disused, to raise and levol which 
 mud had to be carted from the road close by. The old 
 part of the Convent cost £7,000, of which the nuns 
 themselves became responsible for £4,000. The late Dr. 
 O'Shaughnessy contributed £1,000, and the rest was sub- 
 scribed by some benefactors. Within the last ten years 
 a new and imposing building was added, the whole 
 burden of which the nuns themselves have borne \^4t.h the 
 exception of £87. The Penitents' House was built partly 
 at their own expense, but mostly through bazaars and by 
 the subscriptions of some benefactors, including Bishop 
 Ryan, Bishop Butler, bequests from many priests, Dr. 
 Frith, Dr. Geary, Mr. Murtagh O'Brien, a wealthy clo- 
 thier, and Dr. O'Shaughnessy, who contributed £1,000. 
 I take sincere pleasure in making this memorial of the 
 last-named gentleman, " The Doctor," as he was com- 
 monly called ; one of the most lovable men I have ever 
 known. He died just two years ago at the age of 93, 
 with his intellect as clear a.s it was in his early manhood ; 
 and not many days before his death he went about the 
 city and visited the homes of the poor with a step as light 
 as one only half his age. The morning he died he was in 
 communication with the magistrates about the committal 
 of a few destitute children to an Industrial School, and 
 he was able, from his death-bed, to make known the suc- 
 cess of his communication to their widowed mother 
 
393 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 
 
 twenty minutes before he dejoarted. Besides other dona- 
 tions he also contributed towards fitting up the house 
 used for girls out of employment ; took a great interest 
 generally in the woi-k of the Good Shepherd nuns, and 
 was the most munificent benefactor tliey have ever had. 
 He contributed very largely also towards the 
 Industrial School for boys under the charge 
 of the Christian Brothers, and towards other 
 works of charity in the city. But he did 
 more than give largely of his money in the interest of the 
 poor — he gave all his time- Till not many days before 
 hisi death he was one of the most active members of the 
 St. Vincent de Paul Society. He was a man of excep- 
 tiouaJ ability; he knew the value of money well; and if 
 an economist came and told him that he was misusing his 
 money or his time on these works of charity on which he 
 had set his heart, the charming play of his wit in reply to 
 his critic would be very interesting. Those who knew 
 him well can easily make a picture of it, and how the 
 worldly wise economist would retire a sadder and a wiser 
 man. 
 
 The Industrial School cost £9,000, which expense has 
 been borne by the nuns themselves except about £500 
 received from a few benefactors. The Reformatory School 
 cost £4,000, which expense has also been borne by the 
 nuns, except about £700, of which £600 was given by one 
 who is living still, and who would, T know, be displeased 
 if I mentioned his name. Within the last few years they 
 have spent over £2,000 on necessary improvements on 
 the Penitents' institution, for which they themselves 
 have also become responsible, except about £800, the re- 
 sult of a bazaar. Besides money paid originally for the 
 ground they pay about £200 a year in rent ; they also 
 pay, I believe, borough rates and poor rates. So much 
 for the buildings. 
 
 As to the maintenance of these institutions, 
 the nuns receive a capitation grant for the children of the 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 399* 
 
 Industrial and Reformatory Sclicols. But they have 
 about 120 penitents from various parts of the country, 
 for. whose maintenance they hold themselves responsible, 
 except about £170 a year, which they receive through an 
 annual collection. That department is chiefly maintained 
 by a laundry. Besides these they have about 90 children 
 under their charge, for whose support tbey provide with- 
 out aJiy outside help- Will any economist get so much 
 work done through the same number of ladies 
 without a religious community at so little cost 
 to the public as to buildings and as to main- 
 tenance ? And yet if any Convent critic saw 
 that splendid pile of buildings without knowing the 
 facts of the case which I have in part stated, they would 
 be sure to " shock his economic ^ense." Instead of deplet- 
 ing the city of money, as Sir Horace would have us be- 
 lieve, the maintenance of so large an establishment bring? 
 a large annual revenue to it, over and above the distribu- 
 tion for labour of the mone}^ which the building cost 
 The three ladies who are at the head of those three com- 
 munities of which I have specifically written — -the Sisters 
 of Mercy, the Presentation and the Good Shepherd Nuus 
 — arrange with architects and contractors, and make a 
 general supervision over any buildings in course of erec- 
 tion for them. An experienced clerk of works, speaking 
 recently of one of them, said that he has never met a 
 person not in the building trade who under- 
 stood the details of a building better. I 
 hope for the sake of the public purse that the New Col- 
 lege of Science in Dublin, which is being built by the De- 
 partment, will bear witness to as much ability and eco- 
 nomy as these conventual establishments of which I have 
 just written. Rev. Mothers are not the witless pietists 
 their economic critics seem to take them for ; they know 
 more than their prayers. 
 
 As I have dealt with the economics of the Convents in 
 the City of Limerick, I may as well complete the work,. 
 
400 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NLT.SE3. 
 
 and cousidev the case of all the C(mveiits in the diocese. 
 The Reparation Nuns and tlic Faithful Com- 
 panions come under the general statement 
 I have already made about communities engaged in 
 works of a private nature. I have reviewed the economic 
 position of the Good Shepherd, the Presentation Nuns, 
 and the Sistci-s of Mercy. Besides the works already 
 mentioned on which the Sistei-s of Mercy are engaged, 
 :hev also have charge of the workhouse hospital. Ten 
 Sisters are paid £20 a year each out of the rates for their 
 services there. But the community gives the services of 
 thirteen Sisters instead of ten — all for £200 a year; ?.nd 
 the thirteen have to support themselves out of that sum, 
 which, of course, has to be supplemented out of the funds 
 of the community itself. I do not moition this at all in 
 complaint against the Poor Law Guardians, who would 
 probabh- give more if they were asked- The Sisters, as 
 far as I know, are satisfied to continue their work of 
 charity for that allowance. I refer to it merely for the 
 purpose of giving an opportunit}'^ to economists to con- 
 sider whether they could, through lady nurses not living 
 in religious community, get the same work done, and as 
 efficiently, a-t three times the cost. The econojnist will 
 say: — Oh; but if these nuns did not undertake that 
 work it should be given to ladies who live by nursing ; 
 and although it would be more ex}5ensive those lady 
 nurses would have a. livelihood. I see, then, the stand- 
 point of the Convent critic who would excommunicate 
 nuns in the name of economics. It is that nurses in 
 workhouses are not for the sake of the sick poor who are 
 sheltered there, but that the sick poor are for the sake of 
 nurses who want to make a, living. But, being only a 
 Catholic, whose religion is uneconomic, I have thought 
 that the doctors, nurses, masters, and all workhouse offi- 
 cials are for the sake of the poor, in whose interest tlie 
 people pay rates which they elect Guardians to 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 401 
 
 administer without waste, and cousequeutly that the 
 Guardians carry out the will of the people best when 
 they get the work done best at least cost. 
 
 The Sisters of Mercy, besides those houses I have men- 
 tioned, have branch houses in Adare, Rathkeale, New- 
 castle West, and Glin. Let us consider their share in the 
 "enormous annual expenditure for maintenance" which 
 " is difficult to reconcile with the known conditions of 
 the country." In Adare there are six nuns, some en- 
 gaged in the Convent and some in teaching under the 
 National Board. The late Lord Dunraven built the 
 Convent for them, and endowed it with £50 a year, which 
 the present Earl pays. An economist would, of course, 
 think that the late Earl, having been a convert to the 
 Catholic Church, had lost "the economic sense;" but 
 I suppose that his Lordship thought otherwise, and he 
 did as he thought best with his own. 
 
 The Sisters of Mercy were established in Rathkeale 
 fifty-five years ago. Father "Walsh, the parish priest, 
 gave his house to them for a Convent, and bequeathed 
 £1,200 to build schools. About twenty-five years ago 
 when the new church had been built, the old one was 
 turned into schools ; and the cost of the alteration was 
 met partly by a bazaar, partly by a parish collection 
 which amounted to £100; but chiefly by a legacy left 
 by Archdeacon Halpin, P.P., and by the nuns them- 
 selves. The school is xmder the National Board. Beside 
 the Convent is a small orphanage, originally built for a 
 residence by Archdeacon Fitzgerald, in which foiirteen 
 orphan girls are maintained at the sole expense of the 
 nuns. 
 
 They were established in Newcastle West in the 
 forties. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to relate 
 that the ground on which their Convent and schools are 
 built was given up in their favour by Parson Locke, 
 svho held it in tenancy from the Earl of Devon. Till 
 
 AA 
 
102 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NUI8ES. 
 
 that time there was only a mixed school in tlie town, 
 which was specially inconvenient in those days when 
 grown boys and g^rls went to school. The parson, who 
 was a magistrate also, knew well the need of a separate 
 female school, and he generously consented on the sug- 
 gestion of one of the priests to resign his tenancy of a 
 few acres beside the town with a view to bringing the 
 Sisters of Mercy from Limerick to open a school for 
 girls. Dean Call, the parish priest, laid the case before 
 a conference of the priests of that part of the diocese, 
 and between them they subscribed £700 towards the 
 work. Bishop Ryan also subscribed, a few of the 
 parishioners, and a priest of an adjoining parish left 
 £100 at his death to pay off the debt on the Convent 
 and Schools. The nuns themselves did the rest. They 
 pay £18 or £19 rent to the Earl of Devon for the five 
 acres, the tenancy of which was passed over to them by 
 Parson Locke; but on the other hand, the Earl with 
 characteristic generositv gives them £20 a year for the 
 poor; and \Vm. Smith O'Brien used to give them £5 a 
 year for the same object, but I cannot say whether it 
 goes on still. Their schools are under the National 
 Board, from which they receive a capitation grant for 
 teaching. Attached to the Convent is an orphanage in 
 which they maintain and educate about 20 orphan girls 
 at their own expense. They have also a technical school 
 in which they teach lace and shirt-making to about 20 
 girls from the town, who, when they are trained, are 
 paid for their work by the nuns. They have charge also 
 of the Newcastle West Workhouse. Two of them are 
 paid £30 a year each, out of which they have to sup- 
 port themselves; but four nuns give their services be- 
 sides the two who are paid ; so that the poor have the 
 service of six nuns for £60 a year. I should say that 
 the Guardians of the Newcastle Union must have '■ the 
 economic sense" to manage such a barsfain as that. I 
 
NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 400 
 
 do not think that the Department could get the work 
 done so efficiently and economically without the aid of 
 a religious community. 
 
 At Glin they have chai-ge of the Workhouse school. 
 Five are paid £250 a year ; but the community give the 
 services of two more for nothing. The Very Rev. Dr. 
 Shanahan, V.G., when he was parish priest of Ballin- 
 gaiT\% built a parochial house after he had built two 
 churches, but after a short residence he gave it over to 
 tlie Sisters of Mercy at about one-third what it cost him. 
 and repaired for his own use another house over 200 
 years old. The Sisters of Mercy have also a Convent 
 and Schools in Abbeyfeale, and have charge of the Work- 
 house in Kilmallock. The Little Company of Mary have 
 charge of St. John's Hospital, in Limerick, and take pri- 
 vate nursing besides. The Sisters of St. Paul have re- 
 cently taken charge of the Female National School at Kil- 
 finane. They have been brought there on the insistant 
 request of the people. 
 
 I have now given a general statement of the economic 
 position of the Conventual establishments of the diocese 
 of Limerick. The nuns have erected all those buildings 
 almost entirely at their own expense, and without any 
 expense whatever to the general public; they do the 
 work in which they are engaged far cheaper than any 
 other ladies would do it, and according to official retiirns 
 they do it more efficiently ; and besides all that they pay 
 borough rates and poor rates Just as occupiers 
 who have never done anything except for them- 
 selves. So far from being an enormous expense to the city 
 and county, so far from being an expense at all, they 
 have brought an enormous revenue, especially to the 
 city. On the face of these facts, will Sir Horace persist 
 in publishing to the world that the actiial position of 
 Conventual establishments in Ireland is " economically 
 un.sound " and irreconcileable " with the known 
 
404 NUNS AS TEACHERS AND NURSES. 
 
 conditions of the country?" I challenge contradiction 
 as to my statements ; if I am challenged perhaps I may 
 make the case for the nuns more overwhelming. I have 
 dealt only with the Conventual establishments of the 
 diocese of Limerick ; I know nothing about them in 
 other dioceses, but I assume the case of Limerick to be 
 an average example. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE Na'NS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 
 
 I NOW propose to make a summary review of some of 
 the industrial and technical work which nuns have 
 been doing in Ireland. 
 
 Foxford is a village in the northern part of Co. Mayo, 
 not far from the shore of Lough Conn. Economists and 
 statesmen have occupied themselves from time to time 
 with the problem of relieving the poverty of the village 
 and the district- The cure for economic congestion is 
 to relieve the congested district of its surplus population. 
 Foxford was labelled by economists a " congested dis- 
 trict." Then apply the prescription, and the cure is 
 complete. Hence the emigration schemes of Mr. Tuke, 
 Goldwin Smith, besides others who, if they had not more 
 sense, should at least have more sympathy with a people 
 who were the victims not of nature but of man. That 
 economic cure was as simple as misunderstanding the true 
 meaning of congestion and shirking a plain public duty. 
 Mr. Balfour latea: on went to see the place for himself, saw 
 the need of some remedy, and established temporary relief 
 work in the meantime. But temporary relief is but tem- 
 porary patchwork. No remedy will effect a permanent 
 cure for a social or economic evil unless one which has 
 in itself what I may call the potential energ)^ of perma- 
 nent productiveness. But the blood-letting therapeutics 
 of the economic surgeons and the temporary relief given 
 by Mr. Balfour's more humane method had left the con- 
 dition of Foxford as it was. There was the disease, as 
 patent, painful, and destructive as ever. 
 
106 THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 
 
 Now, to adopt Sir Horace's economic distinction, there 
 remained two sections of the people — the " productive 
 class " who produce, and the " unproductive class " v.ho 
 consume, but who neither sow nor spin. The former 
 would include, I suppose, the wealthy landlords of the 
 country, capitalists, e<x>nomists, and statesmen: the lat- 
 fer would include those who retire to convents from the 
 battle of life, the actual position of whose institutions 
 can hardly be " reconciled with the known conditions of 
 the country."' Here then was a spacious field of labour 
 for the economic insight and the philanthropy of all — con- 
 vents and convent critics. And the work appealed to the 
 latter more than to the former, since, as we ai'e told, 
 they alone know how to do it thoroughly, and they claim 
 the exclusive right to do such work whenever it promises 
 to be productive of salaries. 
 
 There was the River Moy washing the village with its 
 rapid waters as it flowed idly into Killala Bay. Foxford 
 and the whole district of Kinnemany was a picture of 
 poverty, helplessness, and hopeilessness. The Hon. Emily 
 Lawless, in one of her novels, paints a disheartening pic- 
 ture of the " indifference to squalor — rather the admis- 
 sion of it — in peasant Ireland " generally. She made her 
 notes, made her book, went her way and sold it; but 
 Burren, whence she got her model, remained where it 
 was, and as it was for all she and similar critics cared. 
 '' When all ^'s said, however," she writes, " we must leave 
 the ill to work its own cure. National idiosyncracies are 
 hard things to mend, and exceedingly awkward things to 
 meddle with." When she had said that she had said all 
 she wanted to say or meant to do. Many others have 
 told us the same story in interviews, magazines, and 
 books, as if we had never known of it till the theoretic 
 philanthropists came "to see for themselves," and then 
 Avent to tell the public what they saw. 
 
 In 1891 the Sisters of Charity were brought to Foxford 
 
THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 407 
 
 by the Bishop of Achonry, and, according to a writer in 
 The Daily Chronicle,'^ this is what thoy found there : — 
 " The country is dreary, the earth dai'k, sodden with 
 rain as if it never had time to diy between one shower 
 and another, and covered \vith boulders that offer an 
 almost insurmountable obstacle to cultivation. The resi- 
 dent gentry are few, and apparently indifferent for the 
 most part to the condition of the people so long as rents 
 are paid. To pay these rents the men usually migrate 
 to England for the summer and autumn, and find work 
 with farmers, leaving theii- wives and children to garner 
 as best they may their miserable harvest. With tlie 
 month of November sets in a period of winter idleness, no 
 labour to do, and no market for it if done." The Sisters 
 turned a large barn into a schoolhouse, spent their i-j- 
 geuuity in getting in the children, for though the district 
 is very populous they came very irregularly owing to 
 poverty and distance. In a short time the daily attend- 
 ance had increased so much that school room had to be 
 extended. There are now nearly 250 girls in average 
 attendance. As the education of the children went on, 
 Mrs. Morrogh Bernard, the superioress, looked forward 
 into the future, and asked herself this practical question, 
 which, by the way, the economists of the Department do 
 not seem to have seriously considered whilst they have 
 been dispersing itinerant technical teachers over the 
 country — what is to become of these children when they 
 gi-ow up and have learned all we will have taught them ? 
 Are time and money to be spent in training them for the 
 benefit of the foreign countries whither they are sure to 
 go for want of a way of living here? And the answer 
 she made to herself was not to " leave the ill to work out 
 its own cure," nor did she inconsiderately set down its 
 cause to " national idiosyncracies," and take no pains to 
 consider a cure. Miss Bremnei', an English non-Catholic 
 
 • Feb.. 1897. 
 
408 THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 
 
 visitor, thus descinbes lier answer iu the Educational 
 Times*: — " ^Yalking in the Community garden, the 
 foaming Moy (Maxy'g river) always sounded in her ears, 
 'Try me, try me,' it said quite plainly. What could it 
 do, all this water power running to waste? It could 
 turn a saw-mill, but there was little timber. It could 
 supply motor power for a miJl of some kind. Since the 
 neighbourhood is agricultural, supporting a large number 
 of sheep, why not buy their wool from the farmers, start 
 a woollen factory, and sell woven goods'? The Rev. 
 Mother mentioned the idea to a fev,- people, and they 
 douched it well with cold water. A very likely thing that 
 nuns — women who are, and always have been, mere babes 
 in knowledge of the world — could buv wool, manage a 
 mill, when labour is so difficult to control nowadays, sell 
 in the right markets. The good Mother and her senses 
 must have parted company to think of it for a moment. 
 . Clouds, opposition, difficulties, arose on every 
 side, but still Mother Bernard's faith made her calmly 
 say — 'It is God's work; He must help His people.' The 
 general opinion was that the nuns were fools, and the feel- 
 ing of being opposed did not make the task of these 
 gentle women more easy. There is no need to lengthen 
 the story. The Divine Providence Factoiy has been a 
 great success. It has been extended again and again till 
 it bids fair to swallow up the Convent Garden ; it is still 
 far from an imposing building. It is £17,000 in debt, 
 but then it has brought work and wages to more than a 
 hundred people, and has caused comparative wealth to 
 flow into Foxford. There are numbers of workers who 
 earn 15s. or 20s. a week, and that means wealth. Last 
 year £2,600 was spent in the pui-chase of wool in the 
 neighbourhood. They make blankets, ti'avelling rugs, 
 flannels, shawls, serges, tweeds, friezes, and other woollen 
 stuffs. Their goods cannot be called low-priced, but 
 
 * April, 1899. 
 
THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 409 
 
 those who like a good article for their money -will not con- 
 sider them dear. The nuns have an annual turn-over of 
 between £8,000 and £9,000-" The nuns began the fac- 
 tory in the autumn of 1894, and what I have just quoted 
 from Miss Bremner is only part of the change effected in 
 less than five years. In 1894 there was not a butcher's 
 shop in Foxford; in 1897 there were three. There are 
 more tha.n 1,000 families in the district making a radius 
 of five miles around Foxford, nearly all occupiers of plots 
 of land, or rather rocks, of a few acres in extent. In 
 1894 there was a manure heap before every door, and 
 their live stock were installed in the kitchen; to-day 
 liardlv a manure heap is to be seen before a cabin door in 
 all Kinnemany ; flower beds have supplanted them ; the 
 chattels no longer lodge with their masters, but occupy 
 houses of their own ; several of the cottiers have planted 
 orchards, and nearly all the district is dotted over with 
 chestnuts, sycamores, fixs, and poplars. I again call 
 Miss Bremner to witness: — "In the Sisters' garden you 
 will also find another branch of technical work — a co- 
 operative oreamery. People come and sell their milk 
 to the creamery, obtaining ready cash in exchange. At 
 first they were distrustful, and ej-ed the thing askance ; 
 the Sisters lost on the venture, because in their desire to 
 do good they gave too big a price. But now it is an ac- 
 knowledged success. There is a constant coming and 
 going of small children with milk cans. The milk is 
 made into excellent butter, and since the best and most 
 recent machinery is used, the creamery affords an object- 
 lesson in dairy work. One skilled dairy woman, with 
 three or four learners, is constantly engaged in the dairy 
 work. A third branch of the nuns' organisation of Fox- 
 ford la.bour is a large workroom where various employ- 
 ments are taught and carried on. A number of girls are 
 busy shirt'-making, several sewing-machines being in use- 
 There are a dozen knitting-machines which turn out large 
 
410 THi; NUXS AND TECHNICAL THAININC. 
 
 numbers of stockings. Here is a girl busy making- quilts 
 out of waste woollen fluff, which is encased in tlie same 
 way as eider-down. Sister Hickey is in charge of this 
 depaxtment, and it is popularly believed that however 
 extraordinary a thing is demanded from the work-room 
 the Sister will find some way of supplying the demand. 
 A number of young girls — farmers' daughters— work in 
 this room, in the dairy, or aa-e pupil teachers in the day 
 school. For these board and lodging is provided by the 
 Community at a moderate figure." 
 
 Such is the transformation wrought in forlorn Foxford 
 in less than five years. The iraprovement has progressed 
 during the past six years, and is going on now. The 
 change appears all the stranger when we know that it 
 has come without initiative or aid from either magazine 
 writers or draft-scheme economists. Even the Depart- 
 ment was not called into synod, for it did not yet exist. 
 It is all due to the initiative and energy of a 
 few nuns who rise at five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, begin the day with about two hours at medi- 
 tation and Mass, repress their individuality for 
 the rest of the day by complete obedience to a Rev. 
 Mother, and have committed themselves by vow to the 
 lifef-long foolishness of "shifting the human centre of 
 gravity to a future existence." The Congested Districts 
 Board gave them a gift of ill, 500, and a loan of £7,000, 
 to begin the work, and they boiTowed about £7,000 more 
 from other sources. With those loans, which they are 
 paying back by degrees, they have practised their econo- 
 mics on Foxford, and have tested the truth of the " na- 
 tional idiosyncracy" theory of theoretical altruists. It 
 15 not my purpose to consider the work of those nuns more 
 in detail ; but what I have said gives me the right to ask 
 Sir Horace if he can point to a single instance in which 
 the Department, mth its ample supply of public money, 
 with its highly-salaried experts and professional econo- 
 mists, has wrought such a transformation in any district 
 
THE XUXS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 411 
 
 in Ireland as those dozen ladies of the " unproductive 
 classes" have made in Kiuuemany? Economists and ex- 
 perts of the Department ! you have plenty money at your 
 disposal, yet you have nowhere in Ii-eland don© such a 
 work as that. It is time for the public to ask, why 1 Is 
 it because you do not know how to do it? or is it because 
 YOU do not take the trouble to do it? There are many 
 districts in Ireland at present as Foxford 
 was eleven years ago. Allowing you the 
 
 vast advantage of the public money -which 
 you control, so unlike Sister Bernard who, with 
 her community, has had to work mostly with money bor- 
 rowed, and with principal and interest weighing them 
 down, will you take up any of those deserted districts and 
 show us in a few j-eaa-s such a change made by you as that 
 which the Sisters of C?harity have made in Kinnemany ? 
 But if that does not come within the functions of the 
 Department — ^and if it does not I do not' know what does 
 — can you get any dozen ladies, with money or family 
 influence at their back, living in the world, and ac- 
 quainted with its needs and ways, who will face such a 
 task, and work a transformation such as that which has 
 been made by those nuns of whose incapacity you write 
 by implication : — " I personally do not think that tea- 
 chers who have renounced the world and withdrawn from 
 contact with its stress and strain are the best moulders 
 of tha characters of youths who will have to come in direct 
 conflict with the trials and temptations of life?" If 
 bishops should invite other communities of nuns to estab- 
 lish convents in the midst of those places, and if they suc- 
 ceed, as they have succeeded elsewhere, in bring- 
 ing brightness and life to where there was 
 desolation and death, will you see in their pi"e- 
 sence also only an increasing ' multiplication of costly 
 and elaborate conventual institutions " which " is diffi- 
 cult to reconcile with the known conditions of the coun- 
 try?" And may economists of a generation hence com- 
 
412 THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 
 
 plain tbat the Foxford nuns have usurped a work which 
 secular ladies would be glad to do, and could do better ? 
 But the first thin;]: necessary to do a work is to be willing 
 to do it, and the besit proof of being able to do it is to 
 have done it. And as it is with women, so it is with men. 
 Amongst the most unbusiness-like men I have known 
 have been those who call themselves "' men of business;' 
 they arc often the Captain Bobadils and the militia-men 
 of industry. It is often those of them who have never 
 proved their work by doing it, or even by trying to do it, 
 who prattle most platitudes about "the battle of life," 
 and about the need and the way of training the youth of 
 both sexes how to fight it. 
 
 The Youghal Needle Lace Industry- began in 1847. 
 Whilst Government statesmen were disowning their duty 
 by ignoring the famine which was actually ravaging Ire- 
 land ; whilst economists were pauperising the people with 
 doles of relief, though enough food to feed them was 
 grown in the country, but was being shipped from its 
 shores ; whilst the accredited agents of the economic reli- 
 gion were wasting money and time in trying to persuade 
 them that an unstinted supply of bread and beef is the 
 best test of evangelical truth, the Presentation Nuns, 
 feeling the famine around them, tried another and a 
 better way to fight it in Youghal. There was in the Con- 
 vent a piece of old Italian lace, which suggested to one of 
 the nuns. Sister Mary Anne Smyth, that she might make 
 orie like it. She examined the stitches as she cautiously 
 took the piece asunder, and reproduced the model- She 
 then taught the secret to the girls in the school and in the 
 town who showed an aptitude for such work. That was 
 the beginning of the Youghal Lace School and Industry 
 which, in spite of many a hard struggle, has, through the 
 care of the nuns, been kept alive without a breakdown 
 to this day. She soon had 120 girls at work, and was 
 able to pay them about £2,000 wages in one year. 
 
THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 413 
 
 Some years ago tliey started a Crochet Industry at the 
 request of a French merchant who came over from Paris 
 for the purpose of iruducing them to supply him with 
 such work. They now employ about 200 crochet-workers. 
 But the Lace Industrjr is the one to which they are most 
 attached. The nuns and the workers are bound to it, 
 not only for the employment that it gives, but by the tie 
 of affection and a praiseworthy pride. In many cases 
 the mothers, and, in some cases, the grandmothers, of the 
 school-children are to be seen working in the lace-room 
 every day — old women who learned the art when it was 
 in its childhood like themselves, and have never forsaken 
 it. A^ery few girls who learn laiOe-work in Youghal ever 
 emigrate, and some of those who have done so have come 
 back again. 
 
 This Lace Industry — although created and promoted 
 to success by the skill and care of the nuns — has been 
 given over by them to the ownership of the workers- 
 Some years ago they tiurned it into a Co-operative Society, 
 and since then the workers share the profits, such as they 
 are, as well as receive the wages of their work. But the 
 nuns still manage the business, find a market, pay the 
 wages, distribute the profits, keep accovmts, and supply 
 the designs. The co-operative system has been adopted 
 also by the nuns at Gort, Oarrick-on-Suir, Carrickma^ 
 cross, and several other places through the country. Why 
 those nuns have given away the ownership of industries 
 made by their own skill and at their own cost, I do not 
 know, unless it be tha.t they wished to perfect the pur- 
 pose of charity, which was their prime motive in creating 
 them. If I were giving a Retreat to those nuns, and 
 wei'e deaJing with the question on the principles of as- 
 cetics, I should judge it by the law of charity, and in the 
 light of the evangelical counsels which nuna profess to 
 follow. But neither I nor the economists, nor the Con- 
 vent critics, nor outsiders of vvdiatever sort, have any 
 
41-1 THE NUN'S AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 
 
 claim to consider the question in that light; for as far as 
 we are concerned wc see in those industries onlv works 
 begun and promoted by the nuns themselves, and which, 
 for that reason, they have a perfect right to conduct on 
 wliatever system they please. I measure judgment to the 
 economic critics out of their own bushel. I look at the 
 question liere in the light oi' economics; 1 judge it not bv 
 the law of charity, but by the la-;'/ ~f cemnoutative justicei. 
 ir any other ladies had created an industry, and had 
 spent their time and skill and money on it till they had 
 made it a success, those critics would not dare to demand 
 an audit of accounts, would get a rude repulse if they 
 intruded their counsels unbidden into a business which 
 they did not help to make. 
 
 Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura cuhimhas 
 When nuns lead their own life in their own way the 
 complaint of their critics is that they do not observe the 
 laws of economics, and when they tread the path of econo- 
 mics, the complaint is that ttey are not led by the law of 
 charity. But if other ladies who attempt similar in- 
 dustries observe either or neither, the Convent critics 
 are satisfied, or at least are silent. They dare not do 
 otherwise, for they know they could not criticise with 
 impunity. It is only right to observe that, as a rule, 
 those only complain how things are done who have never 
 helped to do them. 
 
 I now pass on to Sligo. The Sistei's of Mercy have the 
 following industries there : — A School of Fine Needle- 
 work, Lace, Embroideiy, Drawn-work, and Crochet; Ho- 
 sier}-. Cookery, Laundry, Dairy, Poultry, Bees. The 
 Sewing School was started in 1880, and giveQ employment 
 to about 60 workers, eaeh of whom receives in wagx?i- 
 sums varying from £10 to £25 a year. The Hosiery 
 School began also in 1880, gives employment to about 11'. 
 who receive about the same wages as those in the Sewing 
 School. The Cookerv School was also started in 1880, 
 
THE NUXS AXD TECHNICAL TEAINIXG. 415 
 
 At this school girls are trained to be cooks and general 
 sex-vants; private students from the neigh boiir hood also 
 attend for lessons; classes are also taught in connection 
 with the National Board, and since 1902 in connection 
 with the Technical Board- The Laundry School dates 
 from 1847. and the Dairy School from 1890. Between 
 40 and 50 are employed in these. The pupils are boarded 
 and lodged, and some are clothed ; and besides they are 
 paid from £8 to .£10 a year. When their course of train- 
 ing is over, situations as laundresses or domestic servant? 
 are provided for them ; and to better fit them for the 
 future the3'^ are also trained in poultry-rearing and in 
 bee-keeping. Until 1902 all those industries were carried 
 on at the expense of the Sisters of Mercy, but since then 
 the nuns receive some help from the Technical Board for 
 the Sewing, Hosier)^ and Cookery Schools. Similar in- 
 dustries are taught at the branch houses of the Sligo Com- 
 munitv in Roscommon, Athloue, and Summerhill, and on 
 a smaller scale at Boyle, Elphin, and Strokestown. At 
 Roscommon. Hosierv. Shivt-niakius-, Lace-makino-, and 
 Embroidei-y began to be taught in 1895 Poultjy-rear- 
 ing was introduced the following year, and I believe that 
 experts consider the poultry-yard and its arrangements 
 about the best of the kind in Ireland. Laundrj-, 
 Cooken-, and Dairy training have formed part of the Con- 
 vent, work for nearly half a century. About 30 girls on 
 an average are employed at the Hosiery- and Shrrtrmak- 
 iug Industry, and each earns about Is- a week. About 
 the same number are employed at the Lace-making, but 
 their wages depend upon the amount of work they do, and 
 on the market that ia fcimd for it. About 20 girls are 
 engaged at the Laundry, Cookery, and Dain,' work ; 
 these, for the most part, pass out as suitable vacancies 
 offer for domestic service. It will be observed that all 
 those industries were in existence before the Department 
 came ; thev have all been organised and worked bv the 
 
416 THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 
 
 Sisters of Mercy without aid from any outside source ; 
 but during the past few years the Department, I believe, 
 supplies occasional courses of lectures. 
 
 In Ballyshannon a Shirt^making Industry was started 
 by Canon M'Kcnua about ten years ago; it gives employ- 
 ment to about 20 girls, who earn from Is. 6d. to 2s. a 
 day. A Hosiery Industry is also conducted by the Sis- 
 ters of Mercy, at which 30 girls are employed, who earn 
 about Is. 6d- a day. The Department has refused to co- 
 operate in either industry. 
 
 At Bundoran the Sisters of St. Louis opened a class 
 for the teaching of Carrickmacross Lace in Sep- 
 tember, 1900. After about a year's work they received 
 some help from the Technical Board for about a year ; 
 but for the last three years they have carried on the work 
 with their own resources. The industry affords employ- 
 ment to an average of 15 girls. In the autumn of 1903 
 they commenced to teach the Clones Crochet-Lace, at 
 which 17 girls on an average are employed. This indus- 
 ti'y also the}'- have carried on at their own risk and with 
 their own resources. They provide a market for the 
 work, and hand over to the workers the full price they get 
 for it. 
 
 Lace-work was first taught in Can-ickmacross in the 
 year of the Famine by a philanthropic lady for the bene- 
 fit of the poor ; but the wox'k ceased in the course of time. 
 The Convent of St. Louis, in Monaghan, established a 
 branch house there fourteen yeai's ago, but their work 
 wasi limited to the teaching of primary and secondary 
 schools. Meanwhile the lace-work was carried on by a 
 lady in the Bath and Shirley School, but the workers 
 complained, and had I believe good cause to complain 
 of the remuneration they received for their work. In 
 1898 the Convent built a Technical School at their own 
 expense, and started the Lace Industrj'^ on the co-ojjera- 
 tive system. Tliree years later they introduced the 
 
THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 417 
 
 Machine-knitting Industiy, the Department giving a 
 grant of £52 to defray the expense of a teacher for one 
 year. The Department recogiused one of the nuns as 
 teacher ; but as it would not supply the plant, they spent 
 the grant, and as much more, on the purchase of the ne- 
 cessary machinery, although they were heavily in debt 
 on account of the Technical School and their other teach- 
 ing establishments. During the few years those indusr 
 tries have been in existence, the workers have received 
 about £8,000 for their work. About 130 girls axe at 
 present employed. 
 
 I now come down South again. At New Ross the 
 Sisters of Mercy opened a school of machine-knitting. 
 But they soon gave it up as a hosiery factory was started 
 in the town, which promised to give employment to those 
 for whose benefit they had undertaken the work. The 
 Sisters then turned their attention to Irish crochet, on 
 which they are able to keep about 24 girls at work. At 
 Enniscorthy they keep about 20 employed at hosiery and 
 shirt-making. 
 
 The Sisters of Mercy in Galway keep about 20 girls 
 employed at lace-making and at making the lower ends 
 of trawling nets. The trawlers of the district have to 
 get their nets from Glasgow and elsewhere. That is 
 not as it should be in a fishing town like Galway, nor 
 as it would be if their economic critics had imitated or 
 even helped the nuns in their attempt to create and 
 extend so necessary and hopeful an industry. But our 
 Departmental economists seem to be bewildered between 
 their draft-schemes and their army of experts who have 
 suddenly sprung up like Athena out of the brain of 
 Zeus, sweeping through the country in full economic 
 panoply, sometimes advising industries for unsuitable 
 places, as if they neglected the iron industry in the 
 Cleveland district of Yorkshire and established it in the 
 Golden Vale. In 1887 the Galway Sisters of Mercy 
 
 SB 
 
418 THE NUNS AND TECHNICAX TRAINING. 
 
 made a novel departure. Tlicy started the book-bind- 
 ing trade with the sole help of £20 which Bishop 
 McCormack gave them towards initial expenses. They 
 employ several girls at the industry, who turn out 
 cheap and serviceable work. 
 
 In Grort the Sisters of Mercy opened a school of knit- 
 ting, linen and woollen weaving, lace^making, crochet, 
 embroider}', vestments, and altar work in 1889. They 
 have about 50 hands at work, who each earn from 5s. 
 to 12s. a week, according to their diligence and skill. 
 
 In Kinsale the Sisters of Mercy began a school of 
 limerick Lace about twenty years ago. Since then they 
 have added Point lace. Clones, and other varieties of 
 crochet and needlework. There are about 100 girls em- 
 ployed, including beginners, who earn from lOs. a week 
 downwards. 
 
 In 1886 the Sistersi of Mercy in Dungarvan started a 
 school for machine-knitting, in which all kinds of such 
 work are taug*ht; and ten years later they began em- 
 broidery and sewing of every description. About a 
 dozen girls are constantly employed, who earn from 3s. to 
 8s. a week. They began, and have carried on, the work 
 out of their own resources. In Dunmanway the Sisters 
 of Charity opened a school of domestic economy a few 
 years ago at their own expease, but have since been 
 helped by the County Council. The curriculum includes 
 simple nursing, dairy-vi^ork, poultry-rearing, bee-keeping, 
 fruit, flowers, preserves, etc. They make over £70 a year 
 on blackberries alone. In Limerick the Sisters of Mercy, 
 a few yeai's ago, altered and repaired a disused school- 
 house at considerable cost for the pui'pose of lace-work 
 and knitting. They carry on the work in connection with 
 the Borough Council, keep about 50 girls employed, in- 
 cluding learners, who earn from 15s. a week downwards. 
 They are also taught to draw and design, and they have 
 to spend some time each week at cooking and laundry 
 
THE NUNS AND TECHNICAL TRAINING. 419 
 
 work. To those I add the Sisters of Mercy at Dundalk, 
 Ardee, Cookstown, Longford, Edgeworthstown, Derry, 
 Queeiistown, Westport, Castlebar, Claremorris — tlie 
 poor Clai'es at BallyjamesdufiF, Ballyshannon, and Ken- 
 mare ; the Sisters of Charity at Seville Place and Bal- 
 laghadereen; the Presentation Sisters at Cashel, Thurles, 
 and at Kilkenny, where they started a linen factory iu 
 1S92, in order to provide employment for girls who had 
 left their schools. I read an account of it eight or ten 
 years ago, and at that time they had twelve looms at 
 work, over twenty hands employed, and turned out linen 
 articles of all descriptions. I believe that there is 
 hardly a primai'y school in the countn- under the charge 
 of nuns in which training of a practical or industrial 
 nature has not always formed part cf the education of 
 the pupils. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Besides expressions of like import elsewhere iu his 
 work, Sir Horace Pluukett writes*: — "I still believe 
 that, with their unquestioned authority in religion, 
 and their almost equally undisputed influence on edu- 
 cation, the Roman Catholic clergy cannot be exonerated 
 from some responsibility in regard to Irish character 
 as we find it to-day." I have already considered the 
 "character and morale" of Irish Catholics. I have 
 shown that they have proved their " character and 
 morale " in the most important elements and concerns 
 of individual, family, and social life. They do not 
 indeed manifest much " character and morale " iu the 
 direction of industrial activity, and I have set forth the 
 reasons at some length. He writes in the Epilogue to 
 the new edition of his book that some of his critics con- 
 fuse "morale with morals.'' They do not so. The 
 want is in himself. He writes as if he wanted to im- 
 press his readers that there is no " character and 
 morale " unless along the line of industrial activity, 
 whereas that is only one manifestation of the quality 
 called character. I now proceed to consider whether 
 the influence of the priests on education in Ireland 
 has been almost undisputed, as he supposes. 
 
 From the Anglo-Norman invasion to the attempted 
 " reformation " of the country the education question 
 in Ireland was a political one only. Such interests 
 as language, laws, manners, national ideals were in- 
 volved in it. But the inhabitants of the Pale only 
 
 * Page 110. 
 
A REVIEW OF EBUCATION IN IRELAND. 421 
 
 were affected ; for, even in the reign of Henry VIII., 
 the laws made by the Parliament of the Pale were not 
 obeyed twenty miles outside Dublin. But the year 
 1537 marks the beginning of a new epoch in the rela- 
 tions between England and Ireland. The King claimed 
 spiritual as well as political supremacy, and the attempt 
 to make the Irish substitute his authority for the spiri- 
 tual supremacy of the Pope brought a new element into 
 the edu<;ation question. It henceforth became a politico- 
 religious question, and it has remained so to this day. 
 
 The object, avowed or concealed, of every system of 
 education which has been devised for the Irish people 
 even since has been the Anglicisation of their country. 
 The introduction of the religious element has not 
 changed the ultimate purpose. It has been sought to 
 Protestantise them, not so much to save their souls, as 
 to Anglicise them. The spiritual authority assumed 
 by Henry was wrapped up in his royal authority, as the 
 lesser is contained in the greater, or as the means is 
 directed to the end. Hovrever the name may be dis- 
 owned, it is not easy to see how a religion can be na- 
 tionalised without being Erastian. Had the attempts 
 to Protestantise the Irish Catholics been wholly or 
 mainly successful, Ireland should no longer be a nation, 
 but a province, with no more national individuality 
 than Yorkshire. The Irish in using one and the same 
 v;ord S.'f.vn.-.c, to express Protestant and Englishman, 
 interpret the philosophy of their history more truly and 
 thoroughly than most of them have thought. 
 
 If we except whatever education Irish Catholics ac- 
 quired by stealth, from that time to 1782 the stern alter- 
 native for them was, their faith without education, or 
 education without their faith. An Act passed in 1665, 
 during the reign of Charles II., fixed that alternative 
 by law ; and more stringently still, an Act passed in 
 1695 durino; the reign of William III., and another 
 
4i22 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 passed in 1703 under Queen Anne. During all the 
 18th century the law did not suppose a Catholic to re- 
 ceive an education, since, as was declared officially from 
 the bench by an Irish judge in 1758, the " law did not 
 suppose a Papist to exist in the Kingdom, nor could 
 they breathe without the connivance of government." 
 Catholic education became possible in 1782, but under 
 certain difficult and dangerous conditions. In 1793 the 
 first Relief Act came. The clouds of persecution then 
 began to break, and Catholics were allowed the privilege 
 of having their own private schools at their own ex- 
 pense; they were also permitted to graduate in Ti'inity 
 College, but without the privilege of its prizes or emolu- 
 ments. Since that time sevei-al systems of education 
 have been framed for them. But they have not been 
 allowed to frame any public system for themselves, and 
 they justly disown all responsibility for educational 
 shortcomings and failures. They rightly say; let those 
 who have framed those systems which have hitherto been 
 tried, presuming to understand better than ourselves 
 what system suits us best, bear the discredit of failure 
 to which all those systems have one by one been doomed. 
 I propose to show that one supreme purpose runs 
 through and is visible in every system of education 
 which has been prescribed for us since 1537 down to the 
 Intermediate System ; only the method or the manner 
 has changed. Anyone who carefully considers the various 
 systems as they follow one after another in a sort of 
 funeral procession, will notice how the methods have 
 been fined down gradually from the open assault on 
 faith and nationhood made by the Parish School System 
 which was inaugurated in the sixteenth century to the 
 National System, the Model Schools, and the Queen's 
 Colleges in which a system of United Education pro- 
 fessed to bind the youths of all creeds or of no creed in 
 bonds of non-sectarian love, in the same non-sectarian 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 423 
 
 atmosphere, and under the common instruction of the 
 same non-sectarian teachers. The most innocent coun- 
 tenance is proverbially the most dangerous; and the 
 framers of this brotherly system would have Catholics 
 forget that it provides best for those who believe least. 
 It must, of course, thoroughly satisfy those who have 
 no belief at all, or for whom religion is but the subjec- 
 tive emotion as it comes and passes. Educational secu- 
 larists coolly assume that secularism is not a sect; and 
 sitting aloft in the serene heaven they naively under- 
 take the office of impartial arbitrator in composing the 
 consciences of warring creeds by the arithmetical arti- 
 fice of a religious common denominator. But what they 
 really do is to grind the axe of their own creedless sect. 
 I thus roughly draw out the order of procession. 
 First, the doctrines retained by Protestantism were to 
 be taught, and those rejected by it as Romish excres- 
 cences on the pure Gospel were to be denounced in the 
 schools. Next, the Bible, to which no Christian could 
 object, was to be taught and explained by "competent" 
 teachers. Those two having failed, Christian com- 
 passion for the illiterate condition of the Catholics 
 would undertake to teach them how to read and write, 
 and to bring them up as loyal and godly citizens. The 
 idea then dawned on our educators that past failure 
 was due to a serious oversight, inasmuch as they had 
 been trying to teach the Papists through a language 
 which these did not understand ; and hence a new edu- 
 cational venture was tried, in which the Irish language 
 was to be the language of the schools. It was to carry 
 out that idea that a chair of Irish was founded in 
 Trinity College ; although the dons of that Institution, 
 now that the G-aelic League has become a power in the 
 country, tell us that patriotism, not proselytism, was 
 the inspiration. When that system also followed the 
 failure of its predecessors our educators declared that 
 
424 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 " every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and 
 hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become 
 straight, and the rough ways plain." They professed to 
 decree the doom of educational privilege by a National 
 System of "separate religious and united secular instruc- 
 tion." And lastly, it is now discovered that there has been 
 something wrong with our education all the time. It 
 appears to Sir Horace that priests, monks, nuns, and 
 Irish Catholics generally are largely responsible for their 
 unpractical education and for their consequent economic 
 condition. They have made themselves responsible, it 
 is said, by having given a wrong direction to their sys- 
 tems of education — systems which, be it remembered, 
 they have not framed, but which have been framed for 
 and forced upon them. Their faith is to be 
 strengthened, the national idea is to be intensified by a 
 system which will cultivate "character and morale," 
 and will generate "the civic virtues," and "those 
 strenuous qualities " which the non-Catholics of the 
 North have brought across the Channel. This new idea 
 has this in common with its predecessors, that the true 
 inspiration must still be wafted from Holyhead towards 
 Dublin Bay. 
 
 Before I pass on to justify what I have said I pause to 
 ventvire a suggestion — Perhaps, after all, the Irish 
 people know their own mind, and can measure their 
 own adaptability better than outsiders; perhaps, after 
 all, it may be true that no nation can know how to edu- 
 cate another so well as one can educate itself. What 
 then if, as a last resort, after those successive financial 
 extravagances and educational failures, the Irish people 
 were allowed to devise a system to educate themselves? 
 At any rate, if they fail their educators will admit that 
 the failure will have followed the best example. 
 
 I have before me a list of nearly thirty systems with 
 objects, dates of institution, regulations, and sources of 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 4*25 
 
 revenue, which have been introduced into Ireland since 
 the 16th century. But I must limit my observations 
 to a few, and only so far as to illustrate what I have said. 
 
 By an Act passed in 1537 (28. Henry VIII.) parsons 
 were obliged by oath and under pain of forfeiture of 
 benefice, amongst other parochial offices in the English 
 interest, " to keep or cause to be kept within the paroch 
 a schole for to learne English." That is the origin of 
 what came to be known as the Parish School system, 
 the object of which was to promote " the English 
 order, habit and language," and to abolish the "manner 
 and native apparel." But little was done to carry out 
 the scheme till the reigns of Chai'les, William, and 
 Anne; and then, according to the Report of the Edu- 
 cation Commission of 1810, " the advancement of the 
 Pi'otestant religion was more distinctly provided for " 
 in them. But the Commissioners also report that in 
 the vast majority of parishes no schools were kept, 
 that those which did exist were not free according to 
 the provisions of their institution, but were maintained 
 by the fees of the pupils ; and finally the Commissioners 
 condemned them as failures. 
 
 In 157'0, a system of Intermediate schools, known as 
 the Diocesan Free Schools, was instituted b]/ the fol- 
 lowing Act (12fth Elizabeth): — "Forasmuch as the 
 greatest number of the people of this your Majesties 
 realm hath of long time lived in rude and barbarous 
 states, not understanding that Almighty God hath, by 
 His divine laws, forbidden the manifold and haynous 
 offences, which they spare not daily and hourly to com- 
 mit and perpetrate, nor that he hath by his Holy Scrip- 
 tures commanded a due and humble obedience from the 
 people to their princes and rulers; whose ignorance in 
 these so high pointes touching their damnation, pro- 
 ceedeth only of lack of good bringing up of the youth of 
 this realm, either in publique or private schooles, where 
 
42G A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 through good discipline they might be taught to avoid 
 those loathsome and horrible errours ; it may, therefore, 
 please your Most Excellent Majestic that it be enacted, 
 and bee it enacted by your Highnesse, with the assent 
 of the Lords spirituall and temporall, and the Commons 
 in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same, That there shall he from hence- 
 forth a free school e within every diocese of this realm of 
 Ireland, and that the schoolmaster shall be on English- 
 man, or of the English birth of this realm, etc." That 
 Act explains the object of those schools. But although 
 it provides that they should be provided and main- 
 tained out of the diocesan revenues, the provision was 
 carried out only in some dioceses. Hence an Act was 
 passed in 1755 empowering Grand Juries to levy the cost 
 of building off the counties. But little heed was paid 
 to it, and a Royal Commission (1789-1791) in reporting 
 the neglect, recommended that in addition to a building 
 grant half the masters' salaries should also be borne by 
 the county rates. Yet, in spite of every artifice to help 
 on the scheme the Education Commissioners of 1810 
 doubt " whether a system should be continued which in 
 its principle appears not altogether equitable, and has 
 never been found efficient in practice." Things had 
 gone on so badly that the Lord Lieutenant and Council, 
 in 1824, fixed endowments for the maintenance of such 
 schools as remained habitable. But the Education En- 
 quiry Commission of that year report in May, 1827, that 
 although he ordered the salaries for the masters he did 
 not exercise his power of appointing masters to earn and 
 claim the salaries ; and they doubt " whether any at- 
 tempt to establish permanent schoolhouses appro- 
 priated for the diocesan schools will be found ultimately 
 successful. It has been seen that every endeavour 
 hitherto made for that purpose, from the reign of 
 Elizabeth, has failed, and that in fact there never were 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IX IRELAND. 427 
 
 SO few, either of schools oi- scholars as at the present 
 moment." Dr. Kyle, Secretary of the Commissioners 
 of Education, stated in his evidence before the En- 
 dowed Schools Commission of 1855, with respect to 
 seven of those Diocesan Free Schools, that five had not 
 been in operation for 20 years past, one for 5 ^ears, and 
 another for 16 years; and in the case of those seven 
 schools alone that " thus a sum of £9,000 has within 20 
 years been illegally withdrawn from the purposes of 
 education."* Basing their calculation on Lord Lieu- 
 tenants' Warrants and on Education Commissioners' 
 Reports, a Committee of Irish Catholics in 1872 made 
 out the following Bill of " arrears owing on account of 
 contributions which the Protestant Bishops and Clergy 
 were bound by law to make towards the support of 
 Diocesan Schools, and which they did not pay : — 
 
 £ 
 Amount owing ... from 1570 to 1661 — 100,555 
 
 ,, 1661 to 1824— 63,570 
 „ for 22 dioceses ,, 1661 to 1695— 24,310 
 ,, ,, since 1824 acording to the notice 
 
 in Dublin Gazette of April 17th 1824-20,360 
 
 £208,795 
 The last sum may, in part at least, as we have shown 
 above, be recovered from persons still living. The re- 
 mainder is fairly chargeable on the gross property of 
 the late Established Church which is now vested in the 
 hands of the Chm-ch Commissioners. That property 
 was held subject to the charge of maintaining Diocesan 
 Schools as a primary burden. Therefore, the accumu- 
 lated arrears payable on foot of that charge must in 
 equity be liquidated out of it. . . . That is to 
 say: — For the purpose of reconstructing the system of 
 Intermediate Education in Ireland, there is available an 
 
 ♦Endowed Schools Commiflsion, Ireland, 1858, Question 21,369. 
 
428 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 actual fund connected with Diocesan Schools of .£1670 
 15s. 3d. (or under proper arrangements, of £5,000) a 
 year, besides a capital sum of accumulated arrears 
 amounting to £208,795, the interest upon which at 5 
 per cent, would be nearly £11,000 a year. In other 
 v/ords, were a new system of Intermediate Education 
 in Ireland started, there ought to be available for the 
 purpose of its support an annual income of nearly 
 £16,000, derived from funds exclusively connected with 
 the Diocesan Schools of the 12th Elizabeth." t 
 
 Dr. Kyle, whom I have already quoted, also stated 
 before the Royal Commission on Primary Education, on 
 24th October, 1868, that " The whole system of Dio- 
 cesan Schools is perfectly and completely rottcu." 
 
 As part of his Plantation Scheme, James I., in 1608, 
 set apart 100,000 acres of the confiscated lands for the 
 endowment of the Protestant Church and the education 
 of the people of Ulster ; and he ordered that there should 
 be one Free School at least in each county. That was 
 the origin of the Royal Free Schools. But wc can learn 
 of the interest taken by his representatives in the edu- 
 cation even of themselves from the fact that in 1633, 
 Strafford, the Lord Deputy, complained that " the lands 
 which were given to these charitable uses were dis- 
 sipated, leased forth for little or nothing; and all the 
 moneys raised for charitable uses are converted to pri- 
 vate benefits." Little was done for thirty years more. 
 The Commissioners of 1789-1791 report on the six Royal 
 Free Schools then existing, that the master of one had 
 no scholar ; the master of another never kept a school, 
 in fact, was an absentee; the master of another had, 
 neither himself nor by proxy, done the duties of school- 
 master for some years. Later on some signs of life ap- 
 peared ; but the Reports of the Commissioners of 
 
 t Cf. Chap. III. of a Tery exhaustive work on " Intermediate and Univer- 
 sity Education in Irelani." Part I.: Intermediate Kducation. W. B. 
 Kelly, Dublin. Simpkin, Marshall and Co., London. 1872. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 429 
 
 1854-1858, and again of 1880-1881, show them as a 
 whole in a condition of inefficiency and decay. Their 
 net revenue from lands at the time of the Commission 
 of 1879 was i;5,463 17s. 8d. They were instituted as 
 Free Schools; but although endowed for that purpose 
 they have never been quite free. Ever since they have 
 been used at all, they have been monopolised by middle- 
 class Protestants although they should be made avail- 
 able for all. 
 
 In 1613, James I. gave to the Irish Society — i.e., the 
 London Companies of Undertakers — a charter of incor- 
 poration and grants of the City and County of Derry 
 for, amongst other trusts, the purpose of education ; in 
 the words of the charter, " to stir up and recall the same 
 province (of Ulster) from superstition, rebellion, cala- 
 mity, and poverty, which heretofore have horribly raged 
 therein, to religious obedience, strength, and pros- 
 perity." The property in charge of the Society has 
 been frequently sequestrated for misuse of the trust. 
 The surveyor of the Society, in his evidence before the 
 Education Commission of 1868, set down its gross an- 
 nual income at £21,059; and from a general statement 
 of accounts which he presented, it transpires that one- 
 third of that income held in trust " to recall (the people) 
 from superstition, rebellion, calamity, to religious obe- 
 dience, strength, and prosperity," has been consumed 
 in the process of management. 
 
 In 1657, Erasmus Smith, who had obtained large 
 tracts of land in several parts of Ireland under the 
 Cromwellian Settlement, devoted some to the establish- 
 ment of Free Grammar Schools. The most that can be 
 said of that trust is that it has produced better educa- 
 tional results than those already mentioned. The Com- 
 missioners of 1854-1858 report that " the governors 
 have not only neglected the primary trust of the Gram- 
 mar Schools, but have not prudently managed the 
 secondary trust of the English Schools." Their 
 
430 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IX IRELAj:D. 
 
 complaint bears ou neglect of inspection, extravagance 
 in legal expenses, irregular keeping of accounts, and 
 other such shortcomings. 
 
 I pass over the Bluecoat Hospital Free Schools 
 founded in 1672; several endowed Grammar Schools 
 founded in the course of the 18th century, after the 
 manner of those of Ei'asmus Smith and the Irish Society, 
 for the "settlement" of the country; the Foundling 
 Hospital Schools, instituted in 1704 by the Duke of Or- 
 mond for the education of deserted children, maintained 
 chiefly by Parliamentai-y grants for the " English order, 
 habit, and language" purpose, ran as reproachful a 
 career as the Charter Schools, and died for the benefit 
 of the country about seventy years ago. The Charter 
 Schools,* the tradition of which is one of injustice, 
 cruelty, filth, immorality, and ignorance, whose mana- 
 gers and teachers would have been imprisoned if the 
 Anti-Cruelty Society had existed in those days; the 
 Hibernian Military School founded in 1769, and the 
 Hibernian Marine School in 1775, both maintained out 
 of the public funds, yet, till recently, appropriated for 
 the children of Protestant soldiers. I pass over all 
 those, and I come to the Schools founded in 1792 by 
 '■ The Association for Discountenancing Vice, and 
 Promoting the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian 
 Religion." 
 
 These received very little support from private 
 resources, but in 1800 a Parliamentary Grant was 
 asked for and obtained. Their purpose was the same as 
 that of all their predecessors, but some time passed before 
 the cloven foot appeared. It was essential that the 
 masters should be Protestants, and that the Bible should 
 be read daily by all the pupils. Their promoters desired 
 above all things the attendance of Catholic childi-en. 
 
 * I havoi said enoiipfh about these schools in Chapter XVII., to 
 which I refer the reader. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 431 
 
 They professed to show a liberal disposition by 
 insisting on no religious instruction for Catholic 
 pupils beyond the simple reading of the Bible to 
 which no Christian should object. They afforded 
 the most spacious guarantee against proselytism 
 which any school system had yet given, and 
 many of the priests and laity thought that the necessity 
 of the case justified the Catholics in giving them a fair 
 trial as there was no hope of anything better. Having 
 secured Catholic patronage they showed after some time 
 that Popery was really the " vice " they desired to " dis- 
 countenance." As soon as suspicion was raised they 
 were denounced as being as bad as their predecessors. 
 The Catholic children at once deserted them ; they began 
 to decay ; the Parliamentary Grant which had already 
 amounted to £80,000 was discontinued, and they finally 
 disappeared in 1827. 
 
 The same in purpose, and similar but more militant 
 in method was the London Hibernian Society which set 
 to work in the early years of the last century to, in the 
 words of its leaders, " make perpetual inroads on the 
 Kingdom of Satan " in Ireland " by the power of truth 
 and of superior piety." Similar also was the result of 
 its activity ; for it died after a few years' labour, leaving 
 their faith more dear to the Irish people, and Protes- 
 tantism an object of deeper contempt in their memory. 
 
 Seeing that other methods, both overt and covert, were 
 in vain, a number of Protestant gentlemen put their 
 heads together in Dublin to devise a more in- 
 sidious and effective process of proselytism. No, 
 they would not seek to proselytise the people ; 
 they would not wean them from their old 
 mother tongue. They themselves in fact loved the 
 old Gaelic {i.e., in the mouths of Popish peasants), and 
 they would do their best to preserve it. But the Chris- 
 tian love that bound all Christians into one common 
 
432 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 family made their hearts melt with pity for the illiteracy 
 of the people, and they would educate them. Thus arose 
 the " Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the 
 Native Irish through the Medium of their own Lan- 
 guage," which began operations, I think, in 1818. It 
 professed simply to teach the people reading and writing 
 in the dear old language which they loved, and through 
 the Word of God which as Christians they professed to 
 love also, and thirsted to know if the priests would only 
 let them. I have now by me several volumes contain- 
 ing different parts of the Bible published at that time 
 and for that purpose. In proof that their motive 
 was charity only, the work was maintained by volun- 
 tary contributions ; the people for whom the boon was 
 meant were not asked to contribute a copper, so unlike 
 the Popish worship, the cost of which is always borne 
 by those who practise it. The British and Foreign Bible 
 Society had, before the sitting of the Royal Commission 
 of 1825, spent £80,000 on the printing and publication 
 of Irish Bibles. Bibles were scattered broadcast every- 
 where. Dr. Doyle, in a letter* written in 1824, was 
 able to give this testimony of the propagandist zeal : — 
 " Do not the pawn-offices in every town bear testimony 
 of the profusion there is of what these saints quaintly 
 call 'the bread of life,' and of what we Catho- 
 lics call Protestant Bibles — books on which our 
 peasantry look not with reverence, but with 
 dread?" But on the same page he gives the 
 following evidence of the result : — " I have heard 
 of a poor man in the Co. Kildare who, if I 
 gave him a Bible approved of by the Church, would 
 venerate it more than anything he possessed, but having 
 been favoured by the lady of his master with one of the 
 Societies' Bibles without note or comment, accepted of it 
 
 * Letters on Education in Ireland and on Biblo Societies : Ad- 
 dressed to a friend in England : 1824 — page 39. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 433 
 
 with all the reverence which the fear of losing his situa- 
 tion inspired ; but, behold ! when the night closed, and 
 all danger of detection was removed, he, lest he should 
 be infected with heresy exhaled from the Protestant 
 Bible during his sleep, took it with a tongs, for he would 
 not defile his touch with it, and buried it in a grave 
 which he had prepared for it in his garden." That Kil- 
 dare man's action was a symbol of Catholic instinct all 
 over the country ; the work was subsidised, the zeal was 
 spent in vain, and this new patent for the proselytism of 
 the Papists followed fast its predecessors to the grave. 
 
 But their zeal was not quite spent, and they tried an- 
 other way. They knew that — " No maa putteth new 
 wine into old bottles ; otherwise the wine will burst the 
 bottles, and both the wine will be spilled and the bottles 
 will be lost. But the new wine will be put into new 
 bottles." Their zeal, however, led them astray in the 
 application — they put the old wine into new bottles. A 
 new system was introduced in 1811 under the name of 
 " The Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor 
 of Ireland." A guarantee was given to the Catholics 
 that no attempt would be made to turn the teaching 
 into a proselytising agency. The Catholics did not at all 
 approve of the system ; but they were in a desperate con- 
 dition in those days, and as they had no hope of getting 
 what they desired, they determined to do the best they 
 could with what they were getting, trusting for security 
 to the guarantees given. Government after a few years 
 gave a grant-in-aid. In 1817 the Board meetings of the 
 Society began to be held in Kildare St., and it has since 
 been known as the "Kildare Street Society." For a 
 few years faith seemed to be kept with the Catholics. 
 But the Society having got the Catholic children into its 
 schools thought it could afford to play with the guaran- 
 tees and defy the Catholic leaders, and in 1820 began to 
 co-operate in the work of three well-known proselytising 
 
 cc 
 
434 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Societies. Father M'Hale, then a young Maynooth Pro- 
 fessor, afterwards Archbishop of Tuam, who, whilst 
 he privately condemned the system from the 
 beginning, had hitherto kept silent, as O'Connell 
 and some of the Bishops and priests consented 
 to give it a fair trial, now saw his opportunity, 
 and under the name of " Hierophilus " assailed 
 without mercy both the principles and the working 
 of the Society. O'Connell withdrew from and denounced 
 it ; so did such Protestants as the Duke of Leinster and 
 Lord Cloncurry; and the Society was left without any 
 members on whose impartiality the Catholics could rely. 
 Dr. Doyle had become Bishop of Kildare the year before, 
 and he at once, in letters to Sir Henry Parnell, Ai'ch- 
 bishop Murray, and others, assailed the system without 
 condition or quarter. In a letter to Dr. Murray dated 
 16th Sept., 1824, he wrote: — "I am clearly and de- 
 cidedly of opinion that it is not lawful for any Catholic 
 to assist or co-operate with the Kildare-Place Society in 
 carrying into effect their system of Education." Yet 
 Lecky,* in the course of a paragraph in praise of that 
 Society's schools, writes — " A great number of useful 
 publications were printed by the Society, and we have 
 the high authority of Dr. Doyle for stating that he 
 never found anything objectionable (to Catholics) in 
 them." Sir Horace Plunkett gives the passage in his 
 book, and with characteristic credulity accepts it with- 
 out question. Thus are untruths unconsciously palmed 
 off by writers on their readers, and a party tradition is 
 formed in time. The class who now desiderate words to 
 praise the genius of Dr. Doyle, used to malign him 
 without scruple and attack him without regard for 
 truth whilst he was alive. Little wonder ! For him, prin- 
 ciples were things too sacred to trifle with. Once he 
 grasped a principle he never let it go; and whilst he 
 
 •Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: Vol. II., 124. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 435 
 
 fearlessly fought for his principles he asked for no 
 quarter and he gave none. 
 
 He wrotef : — "But it is said to the Catholics: you 
 and your clergy are only tolerated in the State ; and 
 therefore the Grovernment cannot be expected to con- 
 fide to you the regulation of public instruction 
 
 If then we deserve to be even tolerated, we deserve to 
 be educated; for otherwise, even as slaves, our value is 
 diminished; and if it be desirable to educate us, and 
 that it is a crime against nature to withdraw our child- 
 ren from our authority and control, why not permit us 
 to regulate their education? Why obtrude on our in- 
 alienable rights? "Why infringe on the parental privi- 
 lege of which the Legion itself did not deprive us? Do 
 we wish or require to be entrusted with the public in- 
 struction ? No ; we seek only that the portion of it 
 which regards ourselves be entrusted to us ; we do not 
 desire to put our sickle into another man's harvest; 
 you would not confide the instruction of your children 
 to us; do not oblige us to entrust ours to you. 
 
 " As to the State bestowing aid — we feel indebted for 
 it — we will be gratefui for it; we shall not even think, 
 if you will, that the State exists only for the good of 
 the people, that we are its subjects, that we pay its 
 taxes, supply its luxviries, bear all its burdens, fight 
 and die for its aggrandisement or glory. We will waive 
 •all right to the public money, and sit like Lazarus, ex- 
 pecting the crums. All this we will do, only do not 
 afflict us by interposing your authority between us and 
 our children ; do not estrange from us the mind or affec- 
 tion of our little ones, or teach them from their infancy 
 to regard the stranger as entitled to their confidence; 
 do not intimate to them that their parent and pastor 
 are unfit to train their mind, and form their heart, or 
 
 t Letter^! on Education in Ireland, and on Bible Societies, to a 
 ffriend in England : by J. K. J.. 1824. Pages 13 and 14. 
 
436 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION' IN IRELAND. 
 
 introduce them to the world. If your object be to 
 seduce them from the faith for which we have suffered, 
 and into which they have been baptized; avow it — 
 tell us so — and we will retire with them into the desert, 
 and tell our misfortunes to the rocks; or we will cease 
 to beget children in our bondage, and let our name be 
 forgotten, and our race extinguished." The schools of 
 the Kildare Street Society were soon deserted by the 
 Catholic children ; the system was practically swept 
 away by tlie storm of O'Oonnell's agitation, and in 
 1831, Mr. Stanley, the Chief Secretary, declared in 
 Parliament that it was an utter failure, and that it 
 should no longer be subsidised by public money. 
 
 He proposed our present system of Primary Education 
 as an improvement on the Kildare Street system. It 
 seems that Mr. Stanley, who designed the National Sys- 
 tem, earnestly meant to protect Catholic children from 
 proselytism in the system of united secular and separate 
 religious instruction which he introduced. He knew that 
 an absolute ban had once been placed on the education of 
 the Catholics of Ireland, and that the prohibition was a 
 failure. He knew that the Charter Schools, which for 
 ninety years had been used to entrap Catholic children 
 at a total cost to the public of nearly £2,000,000, were 
 a failure and a fraud — finally condemned by Royal 
 Commissions as sinks of ignorance and iniquity, or as 
 John Howard, the English philanthropist, said, " a dis- 
 grace to Protestants— a disgrace to all society." He 
 knew that the Kildare Street system which followed, 
 pledged to fair play and thereby securing the counten- 
 ance and support of Catholics, allied to avowed prosely- 
 tising societies as soon as its promoters thought them- 
 selves safe, then forsaken and denounced by the Catho- 
 lics whose trust had been thus betrayed, was dying the 
 death of the Charter Schools. The delusion was at 
 length given up by government that the Catholics of 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 437 
 
 Ireland could be Protestantised by Scripture Schools 
 established under pretence of educating them. The 
 Chief Secretary, therefore, designed a system for the 
 combined secular and separate religious instruction of 
 the children. It was set forth in a letter addressed by 
 him to the Duke of Leinster, and according to the terms 
 of that letter Parliament granted to the Commissioners 
 appointed to administer tTie system the necessary money 
 for the purpose. The Commissioners were to be ap- 
 pointed by the Lord Lieutenant. In fact the whole 
 system, money and administration was placed under 
 his supreme control. He appointed seven Com- 
 missioners, of whom only two were Catholics — only 
 two Catholics out of seven to apply a system of popular 
 education intended for children the vast majority of 
 whom were Catholics ; and of those two, one, Dr. Mur- 
 ray, the Archbishop of Dublin, having passed through 
 penal times, naturally saw in any concession an improve- 
 ment of what had been, and now nearly 70 years old, 
 was more disposed to sing his nunc dimittis that he had 
 seen the dawn of better days, than to fight a privileged 
 majority; the other, the Right Hon. A. R. Blake, of 
 whose grasp of Catholic principles, or of whose willing- 
 uiss to incur Protestant displeasure for their sake, the less 
 said the better. Of the Protestant majority, if all were 
 men like the Duke of Leinster the Catholics might get 
 fair play ; but then there was Dr. Sadlier, Professor of 
 Divinity in Trinity C'^-llege ; Robert Holmes, whose prj- 
 sence was as regular at Protestant Synods as at the Pour 
 Courts ; Dr. Whately, an English parson and well-known 
 anti-Catholic writer, just sent over as Protestant Ai'ch- 
 bishop of Dublin ; and Rev. Mr. Carlile, a Scotch Pres- 
 byterian minister, hitherto unknown unless in connec- 
 tion with Bible Societies. Rev. Mr. Carlile held the 
 position of Resident Commissioner; the work of the 
 Commissioners was practically done by him and by Dr. 
 
438 A REVIEW OF EDVCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Wbately, and the design of Mr. Stanley was soon dis- 
 torted by them. 
 
 Tliey interpolated the letter of the Chief Secretary, 
 which was to all intents and purposes a State document, 
 and the Charter of the System. They introduced a 
 clause into it which enabled them to gradually mix 
 religious and secular instruction in the schools. The 
 following is the whole passage, with the interpolated 
 part in italics : — 
 
 " The Commissioners will exercise the most entire con- 
 trol over all the books to be used in the schools, whether 
 in the combined moral and literary, or separate religious 
 instruction; none to be employed in the first, except 
 under the sanction of the Board, nor in the latter but 
 with the approbation of those members of the Board who 
 are of the same religious persuasion with those for whose 
 use they are intended. Although it is not designed to 
 exclude from the list of hoolcs for the combined instruction 
 such portions of sacred Scripture, or of religious or 
 moral teaching, as may he approved by the Board, it is 
 to be understood that this is by no means intended to convey 
 a perfect and sufficient religious education, or to super- 
 sede the necessity of a separate religious instruction on the 
 day set apart for that pur2Jose." They had the letter in 
 its genuine form hung up in the schools over the country, 
 but they acted according to the meaning of the inter- 
 polated letter. 
 
 Let us see now how they played on that passage. (1) 
 — They published their first Report in 1834, and in it 
 they say: — "We have thus shown to all who choose to 
 read our Rules, with the view of understanding them, 
 not perverting them, that, while we desii'e to bring 
 Christian children of all denominations together, so that 
 they may receive instruction in common in those points 
 of education which do not clash with any particular reli- 
 gious opinion, we take care that sufficient time be set 
 
A REVIEW OP EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 439 
 
 apart for separate religious instruction, and that the 
 Minister of God's Word of all Christian creeds, and 
 those approved by them, shall have the fullest opportu- 
 nity of reading and expounding it, and of seeing that the 
 children of their respective denominations do read and 
 understand it, not only weekly, but daily if they think 
 fit." Here was the first attempt at giving to all children 
 religious instruction in common, but " without clashing 
 with any particular religious opinions." The Rule of 
 '•'separate religious instruction" for the children, as 
 approved by the clergy of each, was still in operation. 
 (2) — But in 1834 the Rule assumed this form — " One 
 day in each week (exclusive of Sunday) is to be set apart 
 for religious instruction of the children, on which day 
 such pastors or other persons as are approved of hy the 
 parents or guardians of the children, shall have access to 
 them for that purpose." Thus the pastoral authority 
 was wholly ignored, and religious instruction was to be 
 given by those only whom the parents approved. Thus 
 was taken away all security for any regular or real reli- 
 gious instruction in the schools. Yet parents should 
 approve of the religious instruction given to their chil- 
 dren, and no person should dare to give such instruction 
 to their children without theii* positive act of approval. 
 (3) — In 1838 appeared the following change in the Rule 
 — " One day each week, or part of a day, is to be set 
 apart for religious instruction." The way is carefully 
 prepared for the change in the Fourth Report (1837), 
 Nos. 35, 36, and 37. According to Mr. Stanley's letter 
 one whole day was to be specially devoted to religious in- 
 struction, so as to keep the religious instruction quite 
 separate. But now secular and religious teaching are 
 to meet on one day of the week. That change was 
 brought about by Mr. Carlile, at the desire of the Pres- 
 byterians. (4) — In 1838 another change was also made 
 to the effect that children might be present and receive 
 
440 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 religious instruction if their parents did not object. 
 Hitherto they should not be present at any religious in- 
 struction unless their parents positively approved, now 
 they may attend unless their parents object. Tlius, what 
 was an exception now becomes a rule. Anyone can see 
 the suspicious connection between those two changes 
 made in 1838. Children might have passed without 
 their parents' knowledge, through much religious in- 
 struction to which their parents would object if they only 
 knew of it. (5) — In 1840 another change was made, ac- 
 cording to which " patrons of schools have the right of 
 appointing such religious instruction as they think pro- 
 per to be given therein provided that each school be open 
 to all children of all communions, that due regard be 
 had to parental right and authority; that accordingly 
 no child be compelled to receive, or be present at, any 
 religious instruction to which his parents or guardians 
 object, and that the time for giving it be so fixed that no 
 child shall be thereby, in effect, excluded, directly or in- 
 directly, from the other advantages which the schools 
 affords. Subject to this the religious instruction may be 
 given either during the fixed school hours or otherwise." 
 According to this new form of the Rule, neither a day 
 nor part of a day is specially set apart for religious in- 
 struction. The manager may have it at any hour of the 
 day he chose, but children shall not be compelled to be 
 present at itr— not compelled, but they may be invited, 
 persuaded, or induced. 
 
 Let us see how we stand now. Mr. Stanley's letter, on 
 which the system was based, provided that a special day 
 be set apart for religious instruction, which was to be 
 under the control of the clergy. In the hands of Dr. 
 WTiately and Mr. C'arlile the special day became part of 
 a day, and might be any hour of the day according to 
 the wish of the managers of the school. Side by side 
 with those changes as to time, authority over religious 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 441 
 
 instruction was transferred from the clergy to the 
 parents or guardians, as if the clergy who instructed 
 the parents and guardians had not also their approval to 
 instruct their children or wards. The purpose of the 
 change is quite plain. But the children should not be 
 present at any religious instruction unless the parents 
 positively approved; then the children may be present 
 unless the parents objected; and when the hours as well 
 as the days for religious instruction were mixed up with 
 those for secular instruction, the Commissioners afifected 
 a characteristic care for the consciences of the children 
 by providing that they should not be compelled to re- 
 ceive any religious instruction to which their parents or 
 guardians objected. And now after ten years, when all 
 this process had been gone through, when the original 
 design which Mr. Stanley proposed and which Parlia- 
 ment oonfirmed had been completely changed and the 
 country had got used to it, the Commissioners felt that 
 the seed they had sown was ripe, and they publish for 
 the first time in their Report for 1841 Ivlr. Stanley's 
 letter with the interpolated passage on which they had 
 been acting all along, but which they had carefully con- 
 cealed. There it was — their legal justification for hav- 
 ing broken down the barrier which the original Charter 
 was supposed to have placed between secular and re- 
 ligious instruction in the National Schools. And they 
 publish it without the slightest note or hint that it was 
 not the exact letter written by Mr. Stanley, hung up 
 in every school in the countiy, and published as an in- 
 troduction to their 1st Report. If I call such conduct 
 downright dishonesty, or public perfidy, I may be 
 blamed for using strong language ; so I let those who 
 would think so find some milder expression to fit it if 
 they can. 
 
 (6) — In 1847, the preposition "to" was inserted into 
 the Rule, and its presence made another change, known 
 
442 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 as the " Stopford Rule," which left the childreu com- 
 pletely at the mercy of managers and teachers for the re- 
 ligious instruction which they received. Thus, by a 
 process patiently and cunningly worked out, not only 
 the clergy but the parents were shut out from the con- 
 trol of the religious training of their children. By such 
 chicanery, it came to pass that hundreds of Catholic 
 children in the National Schools of the North were daily 
 receiving religious instruction from Protestant teachers. 
 According to Mr. Keenan, Head Inspector, the practice 
 was universal in Belfast, and in the Counties of London- 
 derry and Antrim. By sharp practices like these Dr. 
 Whately, whilst protesting in public against a sus- 
 picion, or even the possibility, of proselytism, was able 
 to write in private — " Such I believe to be the process 
 by which the minds of a large portion of Roman Catho- 
 lics have been prepared, and are now being prepared 
 for the reception of Protestant doctrines. The Educa- 
 tion supplied by the National Board is gradually under- 
 mining the vast fabric of the Irish Roman Catholic 
 Church "* 
 
 The Presbyterians had only to make a protest and 
 they got whatever concessions they wanted, although 
 the granting of some of those concessions changed in 
 their favour the fundamental constitution of the Na- 
 tional System. They received concession after conces- 
 sion till by the year 1840 they had gained all they 
 wanted, and henceforth they became vehement parti- 
 sans of the system which they had hitherto vehemently 
 assailed. That same year the Catholic Bishops asked 
 for same very reasonable concessions, but they were 
 peremptorily refused. Dr. McHale opposed the system, 
 or rather the administration of it, because he thought it 
 at least un-National and un-C'atholic. And looking 
 back at the working of the system in those days, will 
 
 * Life of Dr. Whdtely, pag-e 244. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 443 
 
 anyone say that he was mistaken ? He felt, and he had 
 reason to feel, that every system of education tried in 
 Ireland was a system the purpose of which was not so 
 much to educate as to pervert the people. It was only 
 a question of degree, or a difference in the method of 
 reaching the one fixed purpose, from the penal prohibi- 
 tion of all Catholic teaching, to schools of open prosely- 
 tism, thence to a system in which the purpose was more 
 cleverly concealed. And what was the National Sys- 
 tem, as applied by the early Commissioners who con- 
 trolled the Board, but a more sly and slow, yet equally 
 sure process by which the perversion of the people was 
 sought to be accomplished? Of those methods, the first 
 was the fairest, though bad was the best of them. The 
 earlier contrivances were clumsy, but their purpose was 
 at least avowed. I remember reading in Aubrey de 
 Vere's Inisfail the following lines written by him on a 
 parallel episode in Irish history ; but they make a pic- 
 ture also of the position of Irish Catholics v/ith regard £o 
 those anti-Catholic and anti-Irish schemes for educat- 
 ing them : — 
 
 Praise to the valiant and faithful foe. 
 Give us noble foes, not the friend who lies; 
 We dread the drugg'd cup, not the open blow, ' 
 We dread the old hate in the new disguise. 
 According to Mr. Stanley's letter, the Commissioners 
 were directed to supply the schools with books for moral 
 and literary instruction at half price, and with books 
 for separate religious instruction, to be compiled by the 
 different denominations for the use of the children of 
 each, at first cost; also the Protestant version of the 
 Scriptures for Protestant children, and the Douay Bible 
 for Catholic children. The Catholic members of the 
 Board, anxious to give the system a fair trial, agreed to 
 the arrangement. But Rev. Mr. Oarlile objected that 
 he had " a conscientious scruple, as a Protestant, to have 
 
444 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 books exclusively Catholic disseminated at the public 
 expense." The Catholic members were overruled, and 
 the Resident Commissioner had his way. But, whilst 
 "the zeal of God's house had eaten up" the English 
 Protestant Aixhbishop and the Scotch Presbyterian 
 minister for the salvation of Irish Catholic children, 
 they had the Evangelical prudence ' to make friends 
 with the Mammon of iniquity.' The Rev. Mr. Carlile 
 proposed that books of selected extracts from the Scrip- 
 tures be compiled, and he had no conscientious scruple 
 to undertake the task himself, nor does he appear to 
 have thought that Catholics should have any conscien- 
 tious objection. Moreover, the Reading Books for the 
 use of the schools as well as the religious books were 
 compiled, some by Dr. Whately and his daughters, the 
 rest of them by Rev. Mr. Carlile, assisted by some 
 Scotch Presbyterians and English Protestants. In 
 fact, it was quite a family affair. No Irishman or 
 Catholic was supposed to understand the literary, 
 moral, or religious needs of the children of his own 
 race and faith. And those are the men whose memory 
 is revived, when we would fain forget them, by Dr. 
 Starkie, the present Resident Commissioner who, in 
 his address before the British Association in Belfast, in 
 1902, vaunting himself a Munster Catholic, extols the 
 " zeal and ability " of a Whately and a Carlile in the 
 cause of Irish education, whilst he casts a slight on the 
 memory of John of Tuam, and marks the stigma of an 
 obscurantist upon his grave. 
 
 The natural consequence foUowed ; and justly did 
 Cardinal Cullen, in the course of his examination before 
 the Royal Commission of 1869, declare that " if all the 
 books printed by the National Board were sent out to 
 the middle of the Atlantic and cast into the ocean, Ire- 
 land and her literature would suffer no great loss." He 
 computed as a probable estimate that £200,000, or 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 445 
 
 £300,000, had been expended in printing those books, 
 in selling them at reduced rates, or in distributing them 
 as gifts. Thus, they were forced on the countrj' with- 
 out the possibility of competition as to printing or 
 authorship. In other words, the Commissioners created 
 a monopoly for Dr. Whately and his daughters, for 
 Rev. Mr. Carlile and his friends, and made the public 
 pay for it. It is not recorded that either Dr. Whately 
 or Rev. Mr. Carlile ever protested to the Board that he 
 had "a conscientious scruple, as a Protestant," to re- 
 ceive revenue by the monopoly thus created in school- 
 books and Scripture lessons, which were moreover as 
 anti-Catholic and as anti-Irish as they dared to make 
 them. In one of those books they refer to our Divine 
 Lord as horn of tJie Children of Eve, although even ac- 
 cording to their own Bible He was born of the Virgin 
 Mary ; but I suppose they had " a conscientious scruple" 
 to tell the truth, lest it should cherish in the children 
 a veneration for our Blessed Lady. In another book 
 they cunningly connect civil liberty with the "Reforma- 
 tion," leaving the impression that slavery was begotten 
 of the "Church of Rome." I could give other in- 
 stances, all with an anti-Catholic bias, and some of 
 them plain historical untruths. 
 
 There are only a few passing references to Ireland, and 
 these are either misleading or simply false. The First 
 Edition of one of the books contained some jjieces of 
 poetry in which reference is made to " harps," "sham- 
 rocks," and the "Green banks of Shannon." Very 
 harmless, one would think; but these pieces disap- 
 peared from the Second Edition. Also Campbell's 
 Downfall of Poland, and Scott's well-known lines, 
 "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, etc." were 
 kept out of the Second Edition, lest Irish children 
 should have occasion to read that " Freedom shrieked as 
 Kosciusko fell," or lest any of them should pronounce 
 
446 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 " This is my own, my native land." No — such words 
 as "The Virgin Mary," "The Green Banks of Shan- 
 non," " Freedom," " Native Land," might be produc- 
 tive of Idolatry or disloyalty if the tongue or mind of 
 an Irish Catholic child got used to them. But in their 
 stead, the Second Edition, published in 1838, contains 
 such as the following: — 
 
 " I thank the goodness and the grace 
 That on my birth have smiled, 
 And made me in these Christian days 
 A happy English child." 
 And again : — " On the east of Ireland is England where 
 the Queen lives; many people who live in Ireland were 
 born in England, and we speak the same language, and 
 are called one nation," 
 
 Now, what was the plain purpose of all this? Evi- 
 dently, to steal the love of their faith and the love of 
 their motherland from the young hearts of those little 
 ones whom these men undertook the awful responsibility 
 of educating according to the Irish Catholic instincts 
 which they inherited from their fathers. It was a plain 
 perversion of ingenuity to rob young hearts of the 
 treasures which God and nature gave them. 
 
 Thus, Irish Catholic children, whilst their hearts were 
 plastic, were brought under un-Catholic influences, and 
 were trained to think of Ireland as a western province 
 of England with no more national individuality than an 
 English shire. In my boyhood I thought the epithet 
 "West-Briton" a far-fetched nickname; but I have 
 come to learn that it is literally correct. Whenever in- 
 dividual Catholics get unmoored by proselytising in- 
 fluences from the rock on which Christ built His Church, 
 they either wander about in religious indifference with- 
 out a compass to guide them, or whilst hating the old 
 religion they use but despise the new one. Similarly, 
 the effect of the thins: called National Education on the 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 447 
 
 Irish mind and character has been to lessen or to des- 
 troy that genuine idea of patriotism which is a positive 
 principle of thought and action subsisting in itself, and 
 to replace it by a spurious patriotism, which chiefly con- 
 sists in hating England. True Irish patriotism should 
 not consist in being anti-English, or anti-French, or 
 anti-German, but simply in being Irish. The action of 
 the Early Commissioners, when it did not produce a 
 West Briton, fostered, unknown to themselves, in spite 
 of their plans, and opposed to their purpose, a counter- 
 feit patriotism which consisted chiefly in being anti- 
 English. 
 
 Having watched the working of the system with 
 suspicion till he could remain doubtful no longer of the 
 danger to the faith and nationality of the rising genera- 
 tion. Dr. McHale began in 1838 a series of letters, which 
 he addressed to Lord John Russell, and in which he 
 unravelled without reserve or mercy the web of falsehood 
 and fraud which, as I have pointed out, Dr. Whately 
 and his friends had been carefully weaving under pre- 
 tence of providing popular education for the Irish 
 people. In 1852 Dr. Murray died. Dr. Cullen suc- 
 ceeded him. He fully shared Dr. McHale's opinion of 
 the National System; and with an ability and a con- 
 stancy rarely combined in one man he fought the Com- 
 missioners and the System which the}'' administered 
 from the day he came to Dublin till the day he died. 
 The Commissioners soon found that they had now to 
 deal with a very different man from the aged Dr. Mur- 
 ray. Dr. Cullen was only one year in Dublin when he 
 forced them to put aside the edition of those school- 
 books which contained such objectionable passages as 
 those I have quoted. Dr. Whately now lost all hope of 
 abusing the system to pervert the people. He finally 
 retired from the Board in 1853, when he had failed to 
 force his Evidences of Christianity into the schools — a 
 
448 A REVIEV.' OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 book iu which, by the way, I do not remember to have 
 seen a word about the Divinity of Christ. The evidence 
 Cardinal Cullen gave before the Powis Commission is 
 the ablest evidence of the kind I have ever read, not 
 excepting the famous evidence of Dr. Doyle before Par- 
 liament. It was the first fair opportunity that he got 
 of exposing the system, and when he had done with it 
 there was hardly a rag left to cover it. His evidence 
 was the first really effective assault that was made on 
 the un-Irish chai'acter of the National School books ; 
 and as a result a new set of lesson books was provided, 
 more Irish than their predecessors, but yet unfit, as even 
 the best of the National School books are unfit to-day. 
 to interest Irish Catholic children, to make reading an 
 attraction to them rather than a task, or to draw out 
 their native feelings to their natural development as 
 heirs to the traditions of their country. 
 
 Ever since the National System began the Catholic 
 managers have been in a state of suspicion, watching and 
 struggling against the tendencies and the attempts I 
 have just described. They have never had that feeling 
 of security which is necessary for one who wants to de- 
 vise projects of improvement for the schools which he is 
 supposed to control. Besides, it would have been waste 
 of time for them to devise such projects, for they have 
 always been so fettered by the Commissioners that their 
 projects could not pass beyond the paper on which they 
 drafted them. Some time ago, a person with more im- 
 pulsiveness than experience said to the manager of a 
 country school, "Why don't you, managers, do some- 
 thing to improve education in your schools? " Tlie 
 manager saw that he was dealing with a person of more 
 assurance than sense, and he replied — Well, I cannot : 
 but I am not incapable of learning how. Suppose, then, 
 that you were manager of my schools, what would you 
 do? Wha,t improvement would vou make, and how- 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 440 
 
 would you set about it] I mean, in fact, not in talk." 
 The bubble burst at. once ; the critic felt foolish, and 
 his educational zeal was spent. It is so with the hyper- 
 critical generally. Their theories are but bubbles and 
 bladders. They can find holes or make them, but they 
 cannot mend them. They appear solid, but are all an 
 outside; are usually men with little intelligence, and 
 the little they have wants balance. 
 
 We have seen that the Presbyterians objected to the 
 National System from the start. But the Early Com- 
 missioners granted them all the concessions they asked, 
 and from being its fiercest opponents they became its 
 warmest friends. But those concessions completely 
 changed the original constitution of the National System, 
 which was to be a system of united secular and separate 
 religious instruction. Denominationalism then reigned 
 in the Presbyterian schools, but their denominationalism 
 implied the proselytism of Catholic children. The Catho- 
 lics were opposed to the principle of the mixed system, 
 inasmuch as a complete Catholic education is not pos- 
 sible under such a system; but hopeless of better they 
 determined to give it a fair trial. They thought that 
 under the cii-cumstauces it was both right and wise to 
 tolerate in fact what they disapproved as imperfect in 
 principle; and they showed themselves ready to make 
 compromises as far as their principles allowed them. 
 But their toleration was turned against them. " I 
 cannot openly support the Education Board as an iu- 
 struinent of conversion," wrote Dr. Whately; "I have 
 to fight its battle with one hand, and that the best, 
 tied behind me."* 
 
 But the action of those who controlled the Board in 
 the cause of proselytism became a Balaam's ass for 
 the Catholics, inasmuch as separate schools for Catholics 
 and Protestants arose, and have been steadily increas- 
 ing in number ever since. Hence, Lord Derby, formerly 
 
 * Life c( Dr. Whatehj, page 246. 
 
 DD 
 
450 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Mr. Stanley, speaking in the House of Lords in 1858 oa 
 the change made on his original plan, confessed that "as 
 a system of united education it had to a considerable ex- 
 tent failed." In 1867, as many as 39 per cent, of the 
 National Schools were unmixed, that is, were used by 
 either Catholics or Protestants exclusively. Cardinal 
 Cullen proved before the Royal Commission of 1869 that 
 the trend of Protestants as well as Catholics in Ireland 
 was towards Denominational Education, and he held 
 that the disposition should be respected, special pro- 
 vision to be made for places where separate schools 
 would be impossible ; and the Commissioners, mostly 
 Protestant and without a single Catholic ecclesiastic 
 amongst them, were nearly unanimous in affirming the 
 Cardinal's views. Isaac Butt, in a work which he 
 published in 1865,* made out a powerful case for the 
 denominational system. The Irish people themselves 
 who have most right to be heard on the question, since 
 " Institutions are made for the people, not the people 
 for institutions," have been constantly asserting the 
 principle by their action ever since. I give the shortest 
 and strongest proof of their wishes in the following per- 
 centages of National Schools which are used solely by 
 Protestants or solely by Catholics. I have said that in 
 1867, 39 per cent, of the National Schools were un- 
 mixed ; that is, used solely by Protestants or solely by 
 Catholics. In 1881 it was so in 44.9 per cent. They go 
 ou yearly increasing till 1887 when they are 50.6 per 
 cent., i.e., more than one-half. Then, beginning with 
 the year 1891 and going ou to the year 1900, the per- 
 centages are as follows: — 54.3, 54.4, 54.5, 55.5, 55.6 
 61.2, 61.6, 61.9, 62.5; and the year 1900' shows that 
 64.4 of the National Schools are unmixed. That is, in 
 1900, out of 8,673 National Schools in Ireland, 5,585 
 are used by Catholics or by Protestants exclusively., 
 
 * The Libtrty of Teachirifi Vindicated. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 451 
 
 But that is not all. Mr. Butt, in the book I have just 
 referred to, says that when he moved for a Parliamen- 
 tary return of the Catholics and Protestants in each 
 school in 1862, it transpired that " a large number 
 were set down as united schools, because in a school 
 attended by 70 or 80 Roman Catholics, one solitary 
 Protestant appeared to have been entered on the 
 books."" Those 5,585 schools are absolutely unmixed; 
 but of the remaining 3,088 schools it is certain that many 
 are practically unmixed. I suppose that all the Na- 
 tional Schools in the villages and small towns of 
 Munster are used exclusively by Catholics, except when- 
 ever a Protestant police-constable with a family happens 
 to be stationed in the neighbourhood. Yet, the chil- 
 dren dare not bless themselves, or place a Penny Cate- 
 chism on the benches, or look at a religious picture, or 
 even at the Sign of Man's Redemption hanging on the 
 wall, lest the sacred principle of mixed education 
 be profaned — a principle which the Early Com- 
 missioners themselves were the first to violate to please 
 the Presbyterians. If the managers of schools which 
 are exclusively Catholic or exclusively Protestant would 
 heed my advice I would say to them — ^Let the children 
 of the Protestant schools have their Bibles on the 
 benches, let the children of the Catholic schools practice 
 what acts of devotion they please, provided the standard 
 of secular education be secured, and let the Commis- 
 sioners refuse the School Grant, if they dare. That 
 would make f:hort work of this ofiicial trifling with the 
 will of a people. It is high time the country were set 
 free from the Royal Commissions, the changes, the 
 muddling and the tinkering such as we have witnessed, 
 in order by hook or by crook to justify the fiction of 
 mixed education, or lest a Catholic child should do the 
 " idolatrous " act of praying before a picture of our 
 Blessed Lady. 
 * Page 141. 
 
452 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Referring to the Conscience Clauses, which are neces- 
 sary in every system of mixed education, Butt says: — 
 " I believe it is impossible to estimate the mischief that 
 is done to the true cause of education by a constant and 
 vexatious interference with the course of each school. I 
 have heard it said that two-thirds of the correspondence 
 of the Commissioners is occupied in investigating cases of 
 real, or supposed, violation of those rules. The inspec- 
 tion of the schools becomes a species of police visitation. 
 Education in Ireland is carried on under 
 the most vexatious supervision of a moral excise — a con- 
 stant and harassing vigilance against contraband reli- 
 gious teaching."* 
 
 I will let Butt also answer the plea, or rather the pre- 
 tence, that " the influence of mixed education would 
 mitigate the religious asperities which are the bane of 
 Ireland." His reply is very plain: — "It is a singular 
 commentary on the theory of united education, that the 
 only districts in Ireland in which anything like united 
 education is to be found, are exactly those in which re- 
 ligious dissensions too often manifest themselves in con- 
 flicts of violence and blood. The town of Belfast, in 
 proportion to its population, has more children of dif- 
 ferent persuasions in the same schools than any other 
 district of Ireland, "f 
 
 For a quarter of a century Cardinal Cullen attacked 
 the administration of the system, and before his death he 
 had succeeded in drawing the anti-Catholic poison from 
 the system, and in eliminating from the class-books at 
 least what was anti-Irish. Had he lived longer he 
 would have done more. 
 
 It is true that parish priests have been managers of 
 the vast majority of the National Schools. But the 
 functions of a manager have been restricted from the 
 
 *loc cit : page 148-149. 
 t Page 142. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 453 
 
 beginning to simply seeing that the Rules of the Board 
 are observed. Managers have never had any control 
 over the teaching, the subjects taught, or the books 
 used. Under the Revised Programme of 1901, they 
 were granted power to initiate programmes suited to 
 their respective localities. But, as they have been made 
 to understand more than once, that pretended power to 
 initiate merely meant the power to suggest, which every 
 man in the country as well as the managers enjoys with- 
 out any Revised Programme, or without saying by your 
 leave to anybody. Whether their initiative would have 
 been an influence for good or evil on the Primary 
 Education of the country cannot be known, since they 
 have never had the right to initiate. A man has no 
 incentive to put his heart and head into a work unless 
 he has the power to produce results. Who but an im- 
 becile would take the trouble to think out programmes 
 unless he feels that he has an efl^ective voice in their 
 adoption? Dr. Starkie who, as Resident Commissioner 
 controls the system, seems to be either incapable or 
 careless. The Revised Programme, such as it is, has 
 been carried out in such a hap-hazard way as to leave 
 one in doubt whether the Resident Commissioner takes 
 any more pains or gives any more serious thought to 
 the system which he is highly paid to administer than 
 to rush occasionally into the Education Office, order 
 men and things about according to his passing humour, 
 and have his fiat felt in every school in the country. Of 
 one thing I am certain ; he has shown himself blamably 
 ignorant of the development of the system. I have 
 read the Address, or rather the attack which he went 
 to Belfast to deliver against the managers. Whatever 
 may be the shortcomings of the managers, that address 
 revealed the Resident Commissioner as a very clumsy 
 diplomatist and even a crude educationist. He evi- 
 dently had not grasped some of the leading features of 
 
454 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 the English Education system, and whilst he referred 
 authoritatively to the early Reports of the Irish Com- 
 missioners, he plainly betrayed the fact that he had not 
 read them at all.* How far the managers would have 
 shown themr.elves capable educationists if they had any 
 initiative power in the schools during the past seventy 
 years, it is hard to say, since they have had no such 
 power. But considering what the functions of mana- 
 gers have been in the system, it is neither fair nor in- 
 genuous in Sir Horace Plunkett to hold them respon- 
 sible for the " character and morale " of the people, so 
 far as these qualities have been influenced by the teach- 
 ing of the National Schools. 
 
 The managers, it is true, have had the appointment 
 of the teachers. But the efficiency of teachers depends 
 largely on their training ; yet the National System was 
 in existence for half a century, its teachers were multi- 
 plying over the country, and there was only one Train- 
 ing College provided to turn them out fit for their work. 
 The Catholic bishops would willingly have established 
 a Training College for Catholic teachers ; but not only 
 were they refused any G-overnment subsidy for its sup- 
 port, but it would not be recognised, even though main- 
 tained without any public subsidy at all. The number 
 of untrained teachers was increasing to such an alarm- 
 ing extent that so far back as 1859 the Chief Inspector 
 officially recommended what the bishops had been asking 
 for; but the Resident Commissioner of the time solved 
 the difficulty simply by cutting out the passage from 
 the Chief Inspector's Report. What was the conse- 
 quence? In 1866 there were 4,369 untrained teachers 
 in the National Schools of Ireland. The Powis Com- 
 mission of ] 869 recommended the petition of the bishops, 
 but the recommendation remained buried in a Blue 
 
 * Cfr. Reply to Dr. Starkie's Attack on the Managers or Xational 
 Schools. Gill & Son, Dublin, 1903. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 455 
 
 Book. In 1874 the number of untrained teachers had 
 increased to 6,284, and in 1883 to 7,069; that is to say, 
 two-thirds of the teachers were untrained. The re- 
 sponsible authorities preferred to see the country swarm- 
 ing with untrained teachers than let Catholic teachers 
 have a place where they would get a professional train- 
 ing both as teachers and as Catholics. Yet, in England 
 and in Scotland, where the Catholics were in a small 
 minority, Catholic Training Colleges had been for years 
 recognised and supported by the State. Finally, Earl 
 Spencer, in 1883, ordered the scandal to be removed. 
 Two Catholic Training Colleges, one for male and the 
 other for female teachers, at once sprang into existence. 
 But they had to be built and equipped from private 
 sources, and they received from the State only part of 
 the annual cost of their support, whilst the one unde- 
 nominational College had been built, equipped, and sup- 
 ported entirely by public money from the beginning. 
 Seven years later, Mr. Balfour arranged that all the 
 annual cost of their support should be defrayed by the 
 State ; but the principal, and the interest on the money 
 borrowed for their building and equipment still re- 
 mained. These Catholic Training Colleges have not 
 only increased the number of trained teachers in the 
 country, but they have improved the training also, even 
 in the Government Ti-aining College. For forty years 
 the course of training in that Institution of Marlborough 
 Street extended over about half a year. In 1875 it 
 was extended to one year. The Catholic Training Col- 
 leges began their work with a two years' course of train- 
 ing, and the expensive undenominational nursling of 
 half a century had to follow in their wake. Yet in face 
 of all this, it appears from a correspondence between 
 the Bishop of Limerick and Mr. Wyndham, the late 
 Chief Secretary, that £50,000 has been recently devoted 
 to the extension of the Marlborousrh Street Training 
 
456 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 College out of the Irish Development Fund, whilst 
 three Catholic Colleges are left to live in hope of being 
 considered in some prospective " improvement " in the 
 system of Irish Primary Education. It is said now that 
 the system is defective. Be it so; but it is what its 
 framers and its organisers have made it. Let those 
 who are responsible bear the blame. It shows only the 
 weakness or the selfishness of a street-urchin, on being 
 found out, to point the finger towards another and cry, 
 " 'twas he did it." Those who framed the system and 
 have had supreme control of it in their hands now seek 
 to fasten the fault of its shortcomings on the priests, 
 as if these ever had any effective power to improve it. 
 
 Before the confiscation of Catholic property the schools 
 of this country were supported out of means which eccle- 
 siastical authorities held in trust for these and other pur- 
 poses. The legalised spoiler came, and the people and 
 their Church were left beggars and outlaws in their own 
 land ; left without a school in which to instruct their 
 children, or a house in which to adore their God. Out 
 of that confiscated property, besides Parliamentary 
 Grants from the Treasury, were founded and maintained 
 Trinity College, the Parish Schools, the Diocesan Free 
 Schools, the Eoyal Free Schools, the Charter Schools, 
 the Hibernian Military and Marine Schools, the Kildare 
 Street Society Schools, and other Endowed Schools down 
 to our own day, the acknowledged purpose of some of 
 them, and the real object of all, being to Anglicise and 
 to Protestantise the people. It v/as the plain purpose 
 to make them renegades from their nation and traitors 
 to their faith ; and what was above all wicked in the 
 policy was that they were to pay the cost of their own 
 perversion. They were deprived of their property, and 
 then reviled as paupers; they were disabled by an ini- 
 quity which legislators call " law " from teaching or be- 
 ing taught unless at the cost of their faith and their 
 national honour, and then held up to scorn for being 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 457 
 
 illiterate. After millions of acres and of money had 
 been plundered from, and then used against them ; after 
 they had been beaten to the ground, had, like the early 
 Christians in the Catacombs, hidden the mysteries of 
 their Faith amidst the mountains, and kept their na- 
 tional spirit alive in the bogs and in the woods, they came 
 out and appeared again at the opening of the last cen- 
 tury with the freshness, the hope, and the vigour of 
 youth. And yet they are without "strenuous qualities!" 
 They provided their own primary schools till the Na- 
 tional system came, and they have, for the most part, 
 out of their private resources, paid for the schools which 
 have been built under that system down to this day. Sir 
 Thomas Wyse * states that the Irish priests provided for 
 the education of four times as many children " with in- 
 finitely less than one-twentieth part of the means ' ' than 
 did the State-endowed Charter Schools. Be says that 
 a priest in Lewisburg, Co. Sligo, " established no less 
 than thirteen schools with little other assistance than 
 what he derived from his own exertions," and that 
 " there are man}'^ similar instances to be found in many 
 parts in Ii'eland.'" Father Thos. Maguire, the celebrated 
 controversialist, established eight schools over his exten- 
 sive parish amidst the mountains of Leitrim.f I have 
 been told by one who has seen the wills of several priests 
 of those days that those who had any money saved left 
 
 * HisWry of the Catholic Association, Vol. II.— Appendix : page 
 92. Published in 1829. 
 
 At a meeting in Leitrim, in 1826. Father Maguire said : 
 "There are five schools in my parish under the plan of tlie Hiber- 
 nian School Society. I warned the people not to send their 
 children to them, and, at the same time, set a subscription on foot, 
 by collecting a penny a week from some, and a halfpenny a week 
 from others, and paying £5 5s. a year myself. I was able to estab- 
 lish eight schools in their stead. They are now open to public 
 inspection, and I would venture to say that the children improve 
 faster, and make greater progress in loam ng than any of those in 
 the Hibernian Schools." 
 
458 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 it mostly for the buildings of schools for the people. 
 Froude writes of the Irish Catholic Schools of the 18th 
 century: — "The Catholics, with the same steady cour- 
 age and unremitting zeal \vith which they had main- 
 tained and multiplied the number of their priests, had 
 established open schools in places like Killarney, where 
 the law was a dead letter. In the more accessible coun- 
 ties, where open defiance was dangerous, they extem- 
 porised class teachers under ruined walls, or in the dry 
 ditches by the road-side, where ragged urchins, in the 
 midst of their poverty, learned English and the elements 
 of arithmetic, and even to read and construe Ovid and 
 Virgil. With institutions which showed a vitality so 
 singular and so spontaneous, repressive Acts of Parlia- 
 ment contended in vain. ... It was the boast of 
 Protestantism that it was the religion of Intelligence. 
 The hold of the priests — Protestant writers were never 
 weary of repeating — was on the ignorance and supersti- 
 tion of their flocks. Yet the priests were caring more for 
 knowledge than they, beating them on their own ground, 
 and fighting them with their own weapons, of which they 
 were neglecting the use." 
 
 The clergy, and those of the gentry and nobility who 
 survived confiscation, were, for the most part, educated 
 abroad, and were brought home after the manner of all 
 contraband goods. Dean Herbert of Limerick, after 
 having completed his education at one of the Continen- 
 tal Universities and become a priest, had himself stowed 
 away in a barrel, was shipped back to Ireland and 
 landed on Shannon's banks under the eyes of the Cus- 
 toms Officers as a harmless and legal article of com- 
 merce. And it is not so long .ago ; for he built St. 
 Munchin's church in Limerick, in 1799. But the sup- 
 pression of the Irish Colleges of France and the Low 
 Countries during the Revolution, and the disturbed state 
 of the Continent generally towards the close of the 18th 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 459 
 
 century, shut out Irish students in great measure from 
 those opportunities. On the other hand, the dawn of 
 liberty was breaking at home, prepared by the War of 
 American Independence and heralded by the indepen- 
 dence of the Volunteers. The first Relief Act was passed 
 in 1793, and the Catholics of Ireland at once set about 
 making provision for higher education at home. " On 
 the Sunday when the news reached the city of Kil- 
 kenny, the bishop, Dr. Lanigau, held a public meeting 
 in the chapel, and the immediate result was the open- 
 ing of the Kilkenny College of Burrell's Hall. The 
 College of Carlow was opened soon after."* Next 
 came Maynooth in 1795, specially founded for 
 the education of priests. The Bishops desired 
 that the lay Catholics should also share its ad- 
 vantages, and a department for lay students 
 was opened in iSOl.f The Maynooth lay College was 
 closed in 1817; for which the Bishops, of course, are 
 blamed. They have been recently abused for that 
 additional attempt to preclude the laity from enlighten- 
 ment in order to crush their liberty. Dr. Starkie, hur- 
 ried away on his hobby, thinks that having 
 " no root-fibres in a system of primary and secon- 
 dary schools, it soon languished and died." His 
 account of the case is certainly more respectable than 
 that which is given by those who allege, as one of the 
 acts of episcopal injustice to the Irish Catholic laity, that 
 they closed the lay College in Maynooth, and closed on 
 the funds into the bargain. The truth is that when the 
 lay College was opened, the Maynooth authorities were 
 warned by the Government that it would not be sanc- 
 tioned, inasmuch as it was against the original pur- 
 pose of the College. Government was opposed to it 
 
 * " Progress of Catholicity in Ireland in the 19th century." Being 
 a Paper read before the Catholic Congress of Mechlin, September, 
 1864. By Myles O'Reilly, B.A., LL.D., M.P. 
 
 t The late Sir Dominick Corrigan, the eminent physician, was, 
 I believe, the last survivor of the lay studenti of Maynooth. 
 
460 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 lest it should draw away Catholic students from Triuity 
 College — the inspiration probably came from Trinity. 
 Although it was officially stated in Parliament during 
 the debate on the Maynooth Grant in 1845* that the Gro- 
 vernment, and not the Irish Bishops, caused the College 
 to be closed, and althoujjh the full amount which the 
 lay College had cost was then paid over by the ecclesias- 
 tical to the lay trustees, the calumny was too useful to be 
 let die. If a story of that sort is to be spread and per- 
 petuated, let it be committed to the care of " enligh- 
 tened " folk with " liberal " minds, and it is sure to 
 live and thrive ; let it be ci'ushed a hundred times, those 
 apostles of fair play will revive it again. Such a story 
 serves their purpose, and it is sure to be heeded by those 
 who wish the case to have been as they say. According 
 to the code of "broad-minded " morals, it seems to be 
 quite justifiable to break the 8th Commandment on the 
 head of a bishop or priest. I find in the work on 
 Intermediate Education from which I have already 
 quoted, that ten Intermediate Schools and Colleges were 
 founded before 1829, in spite of the difficulties of the 
 time; between 1829 and 1850, ten more Schools and Col- 
 leges V ere established, notwithstanding the distraction 
 of the Repeal Movement; and between 1850 and 1872, 
 when the work from which I quote was published, twenty- 
 seven Schools and Colleges was established. The com- 
 pilers of that work estimate the total cost of sites, the 
 
 *Oii Aprl 18!h, 1845, in the course of the Debate, Sir Robert 
 Peel said: " ^Vc are told that this Institution of Maynooth is of a 
 monastic and ascetic character. Whose fault is that ? Not of the 
 Roman Catholics. In 1795, at the institution of the College, Mr. 
 Grattan presented a petition from the Roman Catholio body 
 against that clause which proh bited the education of Protestants 
 at Maynooth. The Trustees of Maynooth College were desirous of 
 establishing a lay college. They did not wish it to be of an ex- 
 clusive character. They were, however, interfered with and pre- 
 vented, and Mr. Abbott informed the Secretary that the creation 
 of a lay college would be contrary tj the intentions of the Act; 
 and in consequence of the intervcnt on of the British Government 
 it was prevented." 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 461 
 
 building of 47 Colleges from 1793 to 1872, at £362,750. 
 I have not an estimate of what has been spent on Catho- 
 lic Intermediate Schools and Colleges during the past 
 thirty-three years; but several have been built. Tbus 
 the Catholics of Ireland, having sacrificed their posses- 
 sions, their industries, their education, the land of their 
 country, their liberty, thousands of them their lives — 
 everything except their God, their faith, and their con- 
 science; shut out from the use of civil rights and from 
 the practice of skilled labour until only the tradition of 
 technical industry remained, set to work the moment 
 they were freed from theu' fetters, and have, out of their 
 poverty and exclusively with their private resources, 
 organised a system of Intermediate Education more com- 
 plete and better, within the span of one century, than 
 the Government through confiscation, monopoly, and 
 public endowments has been able to do for its favourites 
 in the span of three. 
 
 The Model Schools were, in their original purpose, 
 part of a co-ordinated plan. They were meant to be 
 Intermediate Schools to prepare the way for the Queen's 
 Colleges, although they were established in connection 
 with the National Schools, and are controlled by the 
 Commissioners. 
 
 They cost no less than £500,000 to build and fur- 
 nish. For more than two generations they have been 
 carrying on their work at a cost of about £35,000 a 
 year ; at the time of the Powis Commission at any rate 
 they had a teacher for every ten pupils ; they have had 
 the unspeakable advantage of being quite free from 
 priestly interference or control ; have never been under 
 the shade of Catholic obscurantism ; have been managed 
 by a succession of Resident Commissioners, according to 
 what Dr. Starkie would call the " independent and edu- 
 cated" lay mind; have been attended by the children of 
 the well-oflF middle classes instead of by the children of 
 
46l^ A REVIEW OF KUUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 the poor for whom they were professedly intended — 
 Well, what have they done? They have educated con- 
 siderably less than 6,000 pupils in average annual atten- 
 dance. A Resident Oommissiouer in 1866 gave as a 
 reason why they should not be abolished, that " they 
 are amongst the best examples in the world of sound 
 secular instruction." They were glorified in the In- 
 spectors' Reports and by the Board's officials generally. 
 The people, accustomed as they had been, owing to 
 uon-Oatholic privilege and to Catholic poverty and 
 exclusion, to expect educational superiority from what 
 was non-Catholic or secular, believed all they had heard 
 or read of them. Who could doubt, after the Annual 
 Reports of Commissioners, the highest official praises. 
 Parliamentary assurances of excellence, that the Model 
 Schools were all that they professed to be? or that tlie 
 vast amount of public money they had cost was well 
 and wisely spent? But those testimonies hardly rival 
 the official praises of the old Charter Schools, and yet 
 we know the revolting exposure which Mr. Howard and 
 a Royal Commission made of these. Similarly, another 
 Royal Commission came — thePowis Commission of 1869* 
 — and left these official and Parliamentary praises of the 
 Model Schools worth about as much as the Annual Re- 
 port of a " Bird's Nest " belonging to the Irish Cliurch 
 Missions. Again, an Endowed School Commission v.-as 
 held in 1878-1880, of which the late Lord Randolph 
 Churchill was a member. In 1884 the abolition of the 
 Model Schools was proposed by the late Edmond Dwyer 
 Gray, and they were defended by the Government. In 
 the course of the Debate, Lord Randolph Cliurchill, 
 speaking from the information which he had got dur- 
 ing the Commission Enquiry, said, " If he (one of the 
 Government Ministers) had not been hopelessly ignor- 
 ant of these afltairs, he would not have concealed from 
 
 * See Rpport. pages 456-459. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELVND. 463 
 
 the Committee that these Model Schools are about the 
 greatest imposture which could be kept up in Ireland." 
 Let me test their educational condition by a comparison 
 made from cold-blooded figures. Taking the ordinary 
 National Schools, attended, often irregularly, by the 
 children of the very poor in towns, and taught by nuns 
 and monks, for six consecutive years (1885-1890), I find 
 that their average per cent, of passes under the Results 
 Examination v/as 89.45. I find that the average per- 
 cent, of passes during the same years and under the 
 same examination made by the Model Schools which 
 are attended regularly by the children of the middle- 
 classes was 89.08.* If I am told that these comparisons 
 do not prove that these Convent and Monastery Schools 
 are up to the best modern requirements, I reply that 
 they are up to the requirements set before them by 
 Government, and if those requirements be not high or 
 progressive enotigh, let the blame rest on those who have 
 framed the programme and forced it on the schools, not 
 on the managers or the teachers who have to submit to 
 it whether they approve it or not. These Catholic 
 Poor Schools with all their hindrances, are nearer to 
 the ideal set before them by Government authorities, 
 than are the Model Schools with all their helps. That 
 is my case. Can nothing better be done with these 
 buildings which originally cost £500,000, and with that 
 £35,000' a year which goes mostly to give free education 
 to children who should pay for themselves, an educa- 
 tion, moreover, which, if we are to judge by Royal Com- 
 missioners' Reports and by Examination Results, is 
 inferior to that which is given in ordinary Primary 
 Schools to the poorest of the poor by nuns and Chris- 
 tian Brothers, and by many lay teachers The pupils 
 of the Model Schools could be easily accommodated in 
 
 '* The respective percentages for each year will be found in the 
 Chapter on Convent Teaching. 
 
464 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 suitable schools already existing, and an educational 
 outlet of more beneficial expenditure could be easily 
 found for their annual cost. 
 
 Down to 1878 Catholic Intermediate Education was 
 absolutely unendowed. There were endowments of Inter- 
 mediate Education — and rich ones — but nou-Catholics 
 exclusively enjoyed them. In that year Earl Cairns intro- 
 duced the Intermediate Education (Ireland) Bill, and it 
 was without much difficulty passed into law. The sum of 
 £1,000,000 out of the sm'plus fund of the Disestablished 
 Church was set aside for the purpose. All Irish In- 
 termediate Schools might win their share of the annual 
 revenue which that capital afforded, according as each 
 proved its efficiency in open competition. But the 
 Catholic and the non-Catholic Schools entered the arena 
 under widely different circumstances. The latter had 
 their endowments, and a supposed educational supe- 
 riority. The Catholic Schools had no endowments, and 
 a supposed inferiority. The privilege of competing was 
 simply given to them; that was all. The prestige of 
 non-Oatholic education had become a tradition in Ire- 
 land. Quite naturally. I have been told by some of 
 those who were teaching in Catholic Schools at the 
 time, that they sent their pupils to the first year's exami- 
 nations with fear and trembling. But the result was a 
 revelation. Their pupils left their competitors behind; 
 and their victory, year by year ever since, has bi'ought 
 educational prestige over to their side. The Interme- 
 diate System has had this important effect : it has made 
 Catholic teachers and pupils conscious of an educational 
 superiority of which they were unconscious before. They 
 have come to believe in themselves ; and non-Catholics, 
 amongst them Dr. Archdall the Protestant bishop of 
 Killaloe, and Dr. Bunbury, Protestant bishop of Lime- 
 rick, in his notorious Synodal Address three years ago, 
 have openly admitted their superiority. The 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IKELAND. 465 
 
 system has this other important result : it is in principle 
 a denominational system. The old subterfuge of refus- 
 ing public money to denominational Colleges can be con- 
 sistently resorted to no more. The principle of secu- 
 larism has ceased to be sacred. Competitive tests have 
 exploded its excellence ; the legislature itself has rele- 
 gated it to the past as a public principle. If I am re- 
 minded that the Intermediate system is educationally 
 defective, that victory under it does not connote true 
 educational efficiency, I readily assent. Public com- 
 petition has its right place when one's education, such 
 as it maj'^ be, is completed ; but I think that introduced 
 before that term it tends to vitiate the process of educa- 
 tion. But here again, Catholics have not created the 
 system; they have acepted it for want of better. They 
 have gone into an arena not of their own choice, and 
 they have come out with the laurels. If, therefore, 
 Catholic Intermediate Schools be still said to have their 
 shortcomings, let the blame be not put on them, but on 
 the system under which they have to work. It is worthy 
 of remark that the Christian Brothers' Schools, which 
 are absolutely Catholic, are of admitted excellence. They 
 have never come under the influence of Government 
 officialdom, nor have they been originally designed under 
 Government patronage, bul precisely against it. More- 
 over, it is doubtful whether since they have partially 
 changed their primary character and gone under the In- 
 termediate System, they have maintained their general 
 excellence as primary schools. 
 
 Let us now consider University education. As a 
 Catholic nation, it is our anomalous fate to be ac- 
 quainted with non-Catholic Universities only. Non- 
 Catholic thought permeates our literature, science, and 
 art. We have been reared in that atmosphere. As in 
 our fathers' time, to speak of the gentry was to mean 
 Protestants ; so the delusion of identifying Protestantism 
 
 £E 
 
46G A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IX IRELAND. 
 
 or secularism with University life came upon us also, 
 and is living still— a lingering relic of the past. We 
 have thus been brought by the force of circumstances to 
 look on University life and the Catholic idea as almost 
 incompatible. Little blame to us: we have been denied 
 the opportunity and the right of witnessing in our 
 midst the work of a Catholic University untrammelled 
 by difficulties. It has been the persistent policy of our 
 neighbom-3 to represent the Catholic Church as the 
 nurse of obscurantism. They first robbed, and then 
 reviled her; and a few Catholics help to keep the illu- 
 sion alive, forgetting that they are defaming their own 
 mother and cutting their own throats. That was the 
 condition of things before the Royal University came 
 in 1879 ; but it is so no longer. The Royal University 
 is not in strictness a University at all ; it is simply an 
 examining body. There can be no doubt that its Degrees 
 require much more positive knowledge than those of Tri- 
 nity College ; nevertheless, many have obtained them by 
 private study as well as those who have undergone a 
 formal course of teaching; and anyone who has had ex- 
 perience in these things knows the difference which that 
 makes in most cases. Trinity College gives Degrees to 
 candidates from private study also. 
 
 As under the Intermediate System, so also in the 
 Royal University, the Catholic Colleges had to enter the 
 lists in their poverty, whilst the non-Catholic Colleges 
 had their endowments. The three Queen's Colleges had 
 been at work for thirty years. £100,000 of public 
 money was originally spent on their buildings and 
 equipment; and they enjoyed a revenue of £30,000 a 
 year. In an able pamphlet published last year. Dr. 
 Delaney, S.J.,* points out that "the estimates for the 
 past three years, 1901-2-3, show that the total expendi- 
 ture on the three Colleges in these years amounted re- 
 spectively to £34,098. £34,916, and £34,966; and this 
 
 'A Plea for Fair Play : by Rev. Wm. Delanev. S.J. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 467 
 
 last Slim £34,966 is also the estimate for the current 
 year 1903-4." Including the charge involved in the 
 original outlay, the total cost to the taxpayer is 
 £38,000 a year. The Catholic College had to 
 compete against those three Colleges, with their en- 
 dowments and their prestige, in which the education 
 given, according to Dr. Johnstone Stoney, " aims at 
 being the best which the twentieth century is able to 
 develop."* Let us see some of the results. From the 
 year 1884 to 1896, of the candidates from the Catholic 
 University College, Dublin, who passed the B.A. Degree 
 of the Royal University, 80.7 per cent, took Honours 
 and Exhibitions; of those from Blackrock College, 92.5 
 per cent, took Honours and Exhibitions. On the other 
 side, of those candidates from the Cork Queen's College, 
 only 60.6 per cent, took Honours and Exhibitions; of 
 those from the Gal way Queen's College, 68.2 per cent, 
 took Honours and Exhibitions. Again, from the year 
 1893 to 1900, in the medical examinations of the Royal 
 University, the following shows the proportion of those 
 who took Exhibitions to those who passed the examina- 
 tions from the different Medical Schools — The Catholic 
 University School of Medicine, 1 : 13 — Queen's College, 
 Belfast, 1:24 — Queen's College, Cork, 1:21 — Queen's 
 College, Galway, l:24.t I learn from Dr. Delaney's 
 pamphlet that, from 1894 to 1903 inclusive, the Catho- 
 lic University College obtained 374 First-class distinc- 
 tions; the Queen's College, Belfast, 242; Queen's Col- 
 lege, Galway, 86; Queen's College, Cork, 20. That 
 is to say, it obtained 26 more than the three Queen's 
 Colleges together; those wealthy Institutions which 
 flower in the sunlight of secularism, without fear of 
 Catholic blight. Of the Studentships (£300) in the 
 same period, University College won 14; the three 
 
 • Ses his examination before the recent Boyal Commission on 
 University Education. 
 
 jMonsignor Molloy in the /. E. Record, Feb., 1902. 
 
468 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Queen's Colleges 13 (Belfast 10, Cork 2, Galway 1). In 
 1904 the Queen's College, Cork was beaten by half-a- 
 dozen Catholic Colleges. The Queen's College, Galway, 
 succeeded better than Cork, but was just ahead of one of 
 the Convents. The Junior Fellowship in Mental and 
 Moral Science went to the Dublin Diocesan Seminary. 
 One student of the Catholic University School of Medi- 
 cine competed for the Studentship in Pathology, and 
 won it from the Queen's Colleges. That has happened 
 on the last three consecutive occasions in spite of the 
 poverty of the Catholic School of Medicine which leaves 
 Dr. McWeeney, the Prof, of Pathology, under the dis- 
 advantage of teaching with an imperfectly equipped 
 laboratory and in a miserable hall. 
 
 "Whether Trinity College merits the traditional pres- 
 tige which is attached to it in Ireland as a seat of learn- 
 ing, we have no such data for determining as the Royal 
 University affords us in the case of the Queen's Colleges. 
 I say, its prestige in Ireland, because outside Ireland it 
 has no prestige. Whilst the Queen's Colleges stood out 
 in academical aloofness, a prestige was carefully manu- 
 factured for them, and they enjoyed it. It was easy ; 
 for in those days the mere name of a secular or non- 
 Catholic College at once secured a prestige of academi- 
 cal superiority in Ireland. Then came the Royal Uni- 
 versity system v/hich put that prestige to proof by 
 competition, and the prestige proved to be but a bubble. 
 When the bubble was blown off the prestige at once 
 collapsed, and although attempts to revive it have often 
 been made, it has never risen again. That event makes 
 one reflect whether the prestige which Trinity College 
 still enjoys in Ireland may not be an air-bubble also. Ore 
 thing is, I believe, certain about that Institution; it 
 is the richest College in Europe. It owns 200,000 acres 
 of land confiscated in Munster and Ulster, besides other 
 considerable sources of income. Its total annual revenue 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 469 
 
 is variously estimated. At any rate, is is enor- 
 mous. All its revenue is derived from Irish 
 sources, and mostly all from Catholic sources. 
 It has been enjoying its wealth since the 16th 
 century, and one may be excused for enquiring in the 
 20th century what has it done for Ireland? What 
 value has it given for its wealth? Its apologists are 
 fond of reminding Irish Catholics in proof of its toler- 
 ant tendency always, that it opened its doors to them 
 so long ago as 1793. In any case, that would not be so 
 much the sign of a liberal spirit as of an awakening 
 sense of justice, since it was subsisting on Catholic re- 
 sources, and Catholics were the vast majority of the 
 nation. The great function of a University claiming 
 to be National is to leaven the nation as a whole, not a 
 favoured fraction of the people. But, setting that con- 
 sideration aside. Trinity College deserves no credit for 
 that partial concession of right ; the privilege came from 
 the Relief Act of 1793. It rather showed its intolerance 
 by restricting the privilege as much as possible. For 
 instance, it was doubtful whether that Act made Catho- 
 lics eligible for Scholarships. In 1843, Denis Caulfield 
 Heron, afterwards a well-known Catholic lawyer, com- 
 peted for a Scholarship, thinking he was eligible. He 
 won it by examination, but was denied it because he 
 was a Catholic, and of course had not been registered 
 for attendance at the University chapel. If Trinity 
 College was liberally disposed, even so late as sixty 
 years ago, it would have given him the benefit of the 
 doubt, since there was a doubt. Quite otherwise was 
 its disposition. According to Mr. Heron, " it had the 
 honour of causing the last of the Penal Laws to be 
 enacted, and it still remains unrepealed. It was passed 
 in a late year, too, being 1808."* Not until 1873 were 
 Catholics made eligible for Scholarships and other privi- 
 leges of the University. Dr. Stoney, in his evidence 
 
 • Constitutional History of Trinity College, by D. C. Heron, 1845. 
 
470 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 before the recent University Commission, spoke of that 
 ae the concession of " a most reasonable Catholic claim." 
 But such liberal acknowledgments have one drawback : 
 they are made in the 20th century. The concession 
 would have come better, had it come towards the close 
 of the 18th century, or even in the middle of the 19th, 
 when Mr. Heron won his Scholarship. The concession 
 was made, it is worthy of remark, when Trinity College 
 was threatened by Mr. Gladstone's University Bill with 
 a loss of its monopoly, besides £12,000 a year of its 
 revenue. Since 1873, other influences have softened it 
 unto generosity towards Catholics. The Degrees 
 of the Royal University kept away many students who 
 would otherwise have entered Trinity ; many who can 
 afford the cost, pass its doors, notwithstanding its 
 alleged prestige, and go to Oxford, Cambridge, and 
 elsewhere. The number of its students has been 
 steadily lessening for years, and to an alarming extent. 
 Other clouds also have been gathering over it which, 
 had it not been kept exempt from the enquiry of the 
 recent University Commission, might have poured down 
 their contents and drowned its prestige in the deluge. 
 Such circumstances will hardly let the public allow its 
 latest claim for liberality towards Catholics on the 
 ground that it has within the past year founded new 
 Exhibitions specially for their sake. I cannot say if it 
 pretends that it was a liberal inspiration moved it to 
 grant its Degrees lately to a galaxy of girls who had 
 made their studies in Oxford and Cambridge, passed 
 the necessary examinations, but could not get their 
 Degree, since lady graduates are not admitted in those 
 two Institutions. They lost about £1,500 by their 
 academic fastidiousness, which Trinity College gained 
 as fees by its academic facility. About the concessions 
 which Trinity College has from time to time made to 
 Catholics it is a remarkable circumstance that after 
 
A KEVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 471 
 
 they were made it was a most reasonable thing to 
 have claimed them, before they were made it was mon- 
 strous to expect them ; and they have always been made 
 under circumstances which suggest the hope of gain or 
 the fear of loss. 
 
 Mr. Heron, in the chapter of his book from which 
 I have already quoted, records the nickname "silent 
 sister " by which Trinity College has been known across 
 the Channel, and he refers to " the fewness of distin- 
 guished names which shine forth as stars from out its 
 long list of lettered obscurity." It is right to remem- 
 ber that, since Trinity did not show itself a true Alma 
 Mater to him, he, whilst the sense of unfairness was 
 fresh in him, probably did not write its history as an 
 enthusiastic son, nor possibly as a quite dispassionate 
 historian. One may dispute his opinions, but one cannot 
 deny his facts. However, the following testimony as to 
 the prestige of Trinity College abroad is from a singu- 
 larly dispassionate witness, and it was written, more- 
 over, in connection with another and a very important 
 subject. When Cardinal Newman was casting about 
 for a professorial staff for the Catholic University, he 
 wrote to Cardinal Cullen on 14th August, 1852: — 
 " Professors of name, not merely able men, are abso- 
 lutely necessary. What is our bait for students to come 
 to us? We have no direct temporal motives; we have 
 the weight of Government against us; we must have 
 names-. Trinity College, the Queen's Colleges, have, I 
 doubt not, able Professors, but they have not names; 
 I doubt if they have any, or more than one or two, 
 whose names are known out of Ireland. It will be a 
 great thing, for the success of the Institution, to get 
 Professors whose names are known to the Continent, to 
 the world." 
 
 The means of measuring the value of the teaching and 
 the Degrees of Trinity College by any recognised academic 
 
472 A REVIEW l)F EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 standard are very scant ; for by jDleading its venerable 
 age and by plaintively pointing to the hoary walls that 
 guard it, those who direct the destiny of that Institution 
 have always succeeded in shielding it both from public 
 inspection and from academic comparison with other 
 teaching Institutions in Ireland. In that it has been 
 more fortunate than the Queen's Colleges. The General 
 Medical Council is, so far as I am aware, the only outside 
 authority which has any power of inquiry ; and I take 
 the following from its Heport of 1886*: — "We feel 
 bound to state that our joint opinion is, that the Exami- 
 nation for the Degree of Bachelor of Medicine in the 
 University of Dublin is inadequate for a degree admit- 
 ting to the Medical Register; and that the candidates 
 were not sufficiently tested in Medicine, Siu'gery, and 
 Midwifery, inasmuch as there was no riva voce or prac- 
 tical examination in Pathology, Sui'gery, Obstetrics, or 
 Medical Jurisprudence." They add that, with the ex- 
 ception of the specially medical portion and that in 
 Physiological Anatomy, '"' in all the other departments 
 Ihe E:r.amination was unworthy of a University Degree, 
 and iii3ufEci2::t for a Registrable Qualification." 
 
 " Those who succeed in passing the Examination for 
 the M.B. of Dublin University are not only admitted to 
 the Medical Register, and have thus conferred on them 
 all the rights and privileges of registered medical practi- 
 >ione:\i, but iliey may jilso become the happy possessors 
 of a University Degree, which is usually regarded as a 
 higher qualification than a mere licence admitting to the 
 Begister. The University of Dublin itself does not, how- 
 ever, take this view. The University requires for its 
 mere licence that the candidate should pass through the 
 same medical curriculum, and undergo the same Exami- 
 nation as those more fortunate men who obtain its hisher 
 
 * The Minutes of the General Medical Council for the year, 1886 ; 
 Vol. XXIIL, pp 342, 343, 344. Spottiswood & Co. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 473 
 
 qualification or Degree. The only difference between 
 the Licentiates, or simple pass men, of the Dublin Uni- 
 versity and its Graduates, is merely this, the Licentiates 
 have had only a two-years' course in Arts, while the 
 Graduates have passed through the full course of four 
 years, and have also obtained the degree of B.A. A 
 mere Licentiate in Medicine may become a Graduate at 
 once, without any fiu'ther Medical Examination, by com- 
 pleting the four years' curriculum in Arts, obtaining the 
 B.A., and paying a small fee. I suppose there is no 
 other University, or even Licensing Body, in the King- 
 dom that occupies a position so anomalous, or that grants 
 its own Higher Qualification for attainments in a totally 
 different Faculty." Until I read this Report I had 
 thought that the Rule of the Dublin University making 
 students with a B.A. Degree only eligible for Degrees in 
 Medicine meant that one should have obtained his B.A. 
 before going through the curriculum for a Degree in that 
 Faculty. But it appears from the Report that the two 
 courses may run concurrently, and we can thus measure 
 the educational value of the B.A. Degree of Trinity Col- 
 lege. V.'hat follows in the Report gives us a more con- 
 crete measure of it: — "The system of permitting the 
 education for the B.A. to be continued simultaneously 
 with that for M.B. is most unwise, and cannot but be 
 injurious to both. So far as could be ascertained, it is 
 accompanied by no compensatory advantage whatever. 
 Any Bachelor of Arts might surely be expected to under- 
 stand the spelling and grammatical construction of a 
 simple Latin prescription, while a very limited know- 
 ledge of Botany and Chemistry ought to be sufficient tc> 
 prevent any glaring mistakes in the nomenclature of sub- 
 stances in ordinary use. And for a B.A. to write Uncias 
 sextos, Drachmas quattuor, Tussu urgente, and other 
 similar absurdities, is surely intolerable. 
 However desirable it may be for a University Graduate 
 
474 A RF.VIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 in Medicine to be also a Graduate iu Arts, it is surely 
 not worth while running the risk of starving the medical 
 education for the sake of such a limited knowledge of the 
 Literae Humaniores as is shewn in the examples given." 
 
 "With such a Report before him, the following observa- 
 tions of Dr. Laffan cannot be thought too strong : — " It 
 passes comprehension, that Graduates of this University 
 are so scandalously ignorant of the very rudiments of 
 Latin as is disclosed by the Visitors' Report. So long 
 as the M.B. was palmed off on the public for something 
 that it is not, it seemed anomalous to admit the mere 
 Licentiates of this University to the M.B. Degree; but 
 now that the cat is out of the bag the seeming anomaly 
 disappears. . . . The writer of this paper has more 
 than once anticipated the Visitors as to the value of 
 Trinity College Degrees. When he considered the num- 
 ber of stupid and idle youths that one meets with, he 
 was often astonished how it was possible that these crea- 
 tures could master both the Arts and the Medical Cui'ri- 
 cula simultaneously. Either would give smart and in- 
 dustrious youths enough to do. The suspicion crossed 
 my mind that the whole thing must be a sham and a 
 fraud, and something very like a sham and a fraud these 
 Visitors now declare it to be." * 
 
 In a similar Essay, to which The Carmichael Prize was 
 awarded also in 1879, Dr. Laffan writes: — " Most of us 
 have great ideas about the value of Trinity College — its 
 examinations and its teaching. . . . Well, Mr. 
 M'Namara, at a late meeting of the General Medical 
 Council, brought under notice a remarkable correspon- 
 dence between his College and one of the officials of 
 Trinity College which must rudely dispel our illusions 
 as to the value of the examinations of the latter place. 
 
 *The Medical Profession in the Three Kingdoms in 1887. The 
 Essay to which was awarded the Carmichael Prize of £100 by the 
 Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland. 1887. By 
 Thomas Laffan, M.C.P.I., Cashel; pp. 288, 289. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 475 
 
 The Irish College of Surgeons is a respectable Body, but 
 it does not aflfect to exact more than a moderate exami- 
 nation. The correspondence disclosed the extraordinary- 
 fact that a youth, whose information was so poor that 
 even the well-known pity which his examiners must have 
 felt for the oft-rejected tyro was insufficient to put him 
 over the stile, was, nevertheless, able to pass in flying 
 colours over the preliminary barrier with which Trinity 
 guards the entrance to our Profession. Explanations 
 were, of course, in abundance ; but all the explanations 
 in the world will not get rid of the fact that the re- 
 putedly most respectable Body in the country passed a 
 candidate who had been again and again rejected by 
 another whose examination does not pretend to be very 
 strict." t 
 
 I call another witness to the academic requirements of 
 Trinity College — namely. Trinity itself. We have re- 
 cently seen placed before the youth of Ireland by the 
 Board of Trinity College the offer of valuable Entrance 
 Scholarships to be awarded to them as the result of the 
 Intermediate Examinations, without further test. This 
 offer enables us to measure with considerable accuracy 
 the standards of Trinity College, compared with those of 
 the Royal University. These New Scholarships, be it 
 noted, are offered not only to Exhibitioners of the Senior 
 Grade, but also to those of the Middle Grade ; that is, 
 to boys of sixteen, and not unfrequently of fifteen years 
 of age, who have not yet completed the ordinary school 
 course. We are bound to presume that the Board of 
 Trinity College, in offering such inducements to those 
 brilliant boys of that age to enter Trinity College, con- 
 sider that they are already fitted to follow with due 
 profit the courses of the University. If they are not 
 thus qualified — that is, if the standard of Honours in 
 the Junior Freshman year is notably higher than that of 
 
 t Pages 134, 3S5. 
 
476 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 the Senior Grade to which they would have passed if 
 they remained at school — then the Board of Trinity Col- 
 lege, in inducing them to enter that Institution, will 
 have seriously injured the educational career of these 
 young students. In the Royal University, it has been 
 found by experience that students have little or no 
 chance of distinguishing themselves at Matriculation in 
 the year of the Senior Grade. Hence, with hardly an 
 exception, it will be found that students who win dis- 
 tinctions in that University, have taken, at least, one, 
 and often two and even three years, after passing the 
 Senior Grade, before presenting themselves for Matricu- 
 lation. I coufii-m my words by facts. From 1890-1900, 
 out of 297 candidates who won Exhibitions on matricu- 
 lating in the Royal University, 257 had passed the Senior 
 Grade ; but only one of the 257 presented himself in the 
 same year for Matriculation; and though that one had 
 been 1st in the Senior Grade, he obtained only 20th 
 place in the Matriculation. After their Senior Grade 
 course, 218 took one year to prepare for Matriculation; 
 31 took two years; and many of these had been amongst 
 the first in their Senior Grade Examinations. The rest 
 of the 257 took three or more years before presenting 
 themselves for Matriculation. Now, what places would 
 those new and ready-made Scholars of Trinity be likely 
 to win in such a competition, offering themselves direct 
 from the Middle Grade? And yet. Trinity College now 
 accepts those Middle Grade Honours as in themselves 
 qualifying, not for mere Matriculation there, but for 
 valuable Scholarships. Here we have given to us by 
 the Board of Trinity College itself, a fair test as to the 
 Comparative standards of Entrance Scholarships at that 
 Institution, and at the Royal University. The Bishop 
 of Killaloe, in one of his replies to addresses, called this 
 new inducement " sublimated Souperism." He has been 
 blamed for the term. But is it incorrect ? At any rate, 
 
A EEVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 4:77 
 
 it looks very like holding out a bribe to promising boys 
 to leave school in the middle of their school course in 
 order to enter Trinity College, from which they will come 
 out full fledged Graduates at the age of nineteen. 
 
 Another basis of comparison is afforded by the success 
 of the University College and Trinity College respec- 
 tively in passing candidates into the Home and Indian 
 Civil Service. I happen to have before me the results 
 of those Examinations for 1898 and 1901. In those two 
 years, five candidates from the University College were 
 successful, and eleven from Trinity College. We can- 
 not draw any comparative conclusion from the difference 
 in the number of successes, since it might be accounted 
 for by the difference in the number of students in each 
 of those two Institutions. But we can draw a conclu- 
 sion as to the quality of teaching from the quality of 
 the places obtained by their respective candidates ; and 
 I find that those from the University College obtained 
 on an average 34th place, whilst those from Trinity Col- 
 lege obtained on an average 72nd place. The well- 
 guarded privileges of Trinity shut us out from better 
 grounds of comparison ; but those we have enlighten us 
 a good deal to its disadvantage. 
 
 The late Prof. Fitzgerald, one of the ablest men 
 whom Trinity College has produced for a long time, 
 addressed a Report in December, 1898, to the Senate of 
 Dublin University, from which I take the following: — 
 " When I was re-elected a member of the University 
 Council in 1894, the Council was letting drop a scheme 
 of agricultural education for students of the University. 
 The scheme then brought forward, though not involving 
 any serious outlay on the part of the University, in- 
 cluded provision for the teaching of the Sciences and 
 other subjects that are required by a person who intends 
 to engage in the profession of agriculture. It proposed to 
 utilise the Model Farm at Glasnevin in somewhat the 
 
478 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 same way as hospitals arc at present used by the School 
 of Medicine, and it provided a Scientific Course within 
 the College. The ostensible reason, and indeed the only 
 one that I could discover, for the reluctance to recom- 
 mend the scheme to the Board was the possibility that 
 it might lead to further expenses. One cannot, how- 
 ever, help feeling regret that an effort to extend the 
 usefulness of the University in a direction which would 
 be of service to the country, and which has been recog- 
 nised as part of their functions by so many other great 
 Universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, was 
 treated with apathy by the University of Dublin. 
 
 " In February, 1895, a resolution in reference to 
 another important advance in the usefulness of the 
 University was carried. It was as follows: — 'That it 
 is desirable that the University of Dublin provide 
 courses of instruction and examinations suitable for 
 those who intend to take up the profession of teaching, 
 and that a committee be appointed to consider how this 
 can best be done.' . . . The want of interest in 
 Ireland in educational questions is largely due to the 
 want of interest felt in them by the University of Dub- 
 lin, which has not followed the example of most other 
 Universities in providing at least a lecturer on this 
 important subject. ... It must, however, be re- 
 collected that the funds at the disposal of the University 
 are very limited. The endowment of the University of 
 Dublin and Trinity College is not more than about one- 
 eighth part as great as that of either Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge with their Colleges. . . . Unless the 
 Graduates of the University and the people of Ireland 
 provide the necessary funds for developing the Univer- 
 sity of Dublin in accordance with the needs of the pre- 
 sent day, it must sink into almost insignificance in com- 
 parison with its enormously developed rivals. 
 
▲ REVIEW OF EDUCATION !N IRELAND. 479 
 
 " When the great and well-supported Science Schools, 
 which must, no doubt, be founded in Dublin within 
 the next few years, in obedience to the requirements of 
 modern technical education, are in existence, the really 
 deplorable character of many of the scientific depart- 
 ments of Trinity College will be obvious to all, and no 
 student will run the risk of having to study science 
 under such auspices. Why should not the University 
 of Dublin provide the highest class of education ? Why 
 should we not provide for historical research, for art, 
 for agriculture, mechanical science, like Cambridge ; for 
 commercial education, like Leipsig; for textile and 
 dyeing education, like Leeds ; for psychological research, 
 and for education in how to teach, like so many Uni- 
 versities all over the world? Because we have no funds 
 for all these things. We do not even work our present 
 functions respectably." 
 
 Two things appear on the face of that Report — a 
 confession of failure, and a complaint of poverty ! 
 Passing from its mere teaching functions, if we want to 
 know its general educational influence over the country 
 we look for the distributing channels of that leavening 
 influence to the Protestant gentry, and in general to 
 that class who might have been trained in Trinity. And 
 what do we find 1 I refer the reader for an answer to 
 an article on the subject which Prof. Mahaffy, himself 
 one of the dons of Trinity, contributed to the Contem- 
 porary Review for January, 1882. It saves me an un- 
 gracious work in which I may be suspected of prejudice. 
 Its influence on Catholics who have passed through it 
 I can speak of more freely ; and I adopt the description 
 given of it by a very distinguished Catholic layman, 
 Dr. W. K. Sullivan, who succeeded Sir Robert Kane 
 in the Presidency of the Queen's College, Cork. Speak- 
 ing of the revival of middle-class society in Ireland^. 
 
480 A EEVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 he writes* : — * Its growth is an evidence of the wonder- 
 ful recuperative power of the Irish people, and a 
 promise of still better things in the future. A society 
 like that of the Irish middle class, which has no tradi- 
 tional culture, which has not had the advantages which 
 spring from centres of intellectual thought, and whose 
 educational institutions have grown up so rapidly, must 
 possess all the defects of new societies ; while the pecu- 
 liar circumstances of Ireland have not been favourable 
 to the development of the corresponding virtues. Fore- 
 most among these virtues should be a love of truth 
 and self-assertion. In a country which may be said to 
 have no aristocracy, and yet the current of whose life 
 is nevertheless eminently aristocratic, newly enriched 
 Catholics strive by every means to become respectable. 
 The most prominent indication of this quality in society 
 is the fear to express any opinion which would indicate 
 a political or a religious faith, or indeed, independent 
 thought upon anything. . We have seen that 
 
 the majority of Catholic barristers have been educated 
 in Trinity College. The education which a Catholic 
 could receive there is not likely to develop those higher 
 qualities in which our new society is so deficient. I 
 !iave already stated that Trinity College could not per- 
 rorm the functions of an educational brain for an in- 
 termediate education. It is, if possible, still less 
 adapted to perform the function of intellectual centre 
 for Catholic society. Is the intellectual life which 
 it transmits to Catholic society through its Catholic 
 students, in harmony with the religious and moral con- 
 stitution of that society? It could not be. The 
 Catholic student of Trinity is an intellectual pauper, 
 admitted by suffrance to its halls. He is offered the 
 mental food prepared for its true students, whose con- 
 stitution it suits, whose minds thrive upon it, and who 
 
 ' UrnveTsity Education in Ireland: A Letter to Sir Jo/in Dalherg 
 Acton, Bart., 1866. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IX IRELAND. 481 
 
 become self-reliant men, whose opinions, even when pre- 
 judiced, are their own. But how can he assimilate 
 what must be unsuited for his constitution? The tone 
 of the place is not only Protestant, but its moral and 
 intellectual atmosphere is pervaded by a spirit of ascen- 
 dancy, which must be eminently disagreeable to high- 
 minded Catholic gentlemen. Catholics may, and as a 
 matter of fact, do pass through it without loss of faith ; 
 but with this I do not concern myself. I refer to the 
 moral and intellectual action of the place, which I be- 
 lieve to be good upon Protestants, but which fundamen- 
 tally changes the mode of thought of the Catholic stu- 
 dent. I do not object to intellectual influence upon 
 men's minds ; it is one of the most important agents of 
 education, and Universities are among its best instru- 
 ments. But in order that its action may be healthy 
 and invigorating, should it not be untramelled ? Are 
 the positions of the Protestant and Catholic students of 
 Trinity College, in respect to the intellectual influence 
 of their teachers, alike ? The one can accept all their 
 teaching unreservedly ; the other can only accept the 
 part timidly, while he must forego another part. His 
 early ideas must be in perpetual conflict with his later 
 teaching, and instead of developing his mind according 
 to its natural law of evolution, and boldly discussing 
 the problems of philosophy, he becomes suspicious of 
 their tendency and weakly sceptical, without having 
 passed through the mental process which makes philo- 
 sophical scepticism at least honest; he loses enthusiasm 
 for intellectual truth, for his mind has never enjoyed 
 the liberty through which alone it can be recognised. 
 This is the typical pseudomorphic Englishman ; his mind 
 has the outward form and mould of the natural man, 
 but the internal structure is wanting. The issue of a 
 new society which has risen to wealth amidst the misery 
 and discontent of the majoi-ity of their co-religionists, 
 
 FP 
 
482 A r.EVIEW (.^F EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 and educated in an atmosphere to which they could 
 only become acclimatized by the sacrifice of their intel- 
 lectual individuality, Catholic lawyers cannot be ex- 
 pected to judge of political questions according to rigid 
 principles. They are therefore the fit represe.ntatives 
 of a society, whose only aim is ' respectability.' 
 For a long time past the redress of Irish grievances has 
 meant simply the bestowal of places upon lawyers. The 
 influence exerted by all these legitimate and ille- 
 gitimate places upon the legal professions is marked 
 by the production of a peculiar code of social 
 ethics. Among those who aspire to ' respecta- 
 bility,' the chief qualification for any office is 
 freedom from any strong belief in anything. To 
 possess this quality is to be ' liberal-minded ' and ' edu- 
 cated.' The possession of a belief — but above all, its 
 expression, however moderate — not only disqualifies in 
 their opinion the unfortunate believer himself, but com- 
 promises all his friends. In order to prevent society, in 
 its exclusive sense, from becoming tainted by so dread- 
 ful a disease as independent thought, it is called by 
 some hard name, and every effort m-ade to isolate it 
 and stamp it out." Instead of offering a criticism of 
 my own I have quoted those passages as the opinion of 
 one of the ablest laymen, of any class or creed, whom 
 Ireland produced during the 19th century. The reader 
 will be able to judge from his experience if they are a 
 true picture of the case, a correct diagnosis of the social 
 disease which Catholics run the risk of contracting in 
 Trinity. In the course of his lengthy letter Dr. Sulli- 
 van deals with the position of another type of "Catholic" 
 in the person of a " barrister and a graduate of Trinity 
 College " who had published a pamphlet on " Freedom 
 of Education " which professed to voice the opposition 
 of " dissentient Catholics " to a proposed measure which 
 would give some recognition to the work of the Catho- 
 lic University. The pamphlet protested against the 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IK IRELAND. 483 
 
 design of placing the higher education of the people of 
 Ireland in the hands of " the emissaries of Italian 
 fanaticism." In the name of enlightened Oatholics, the 
 same writer published a little book in 1872 — "Catholi- 
 cism and the Vatican " — in which he repudiated Papal 
 Infallibility ; that is, two years after it had been de- 
 fined as an article of Catholic faith by the Vatican 
 Council. I make that reference in order to point out, 
 prescinding from the value of the doctrine, the con- 
 sistency of that " Catholic, ' ' and the enlightenment he 
 enjoyed. He wrote as a Catholic, thoiight he was still 
 a Catholic, whilst he repudiated an Article of Faith. 
 Of such kind is the Catholic education which one na- 
 turally brings from an Institution where Catholic teach- 
 ing is never taught. Natural politeness, or a pervading 
 religious indifference may save one from insult, offen- 
 sive epithets, or from aggression of any sort ; bu.t there 
 is nothing to save one from that queer condition in 
 which one is so ignorant of Catholic principles that he 
 does not know whether he is a Catholic or not ; or 
 worse still, thinks he is a Catholic when he has 
 unknown to himself ceased to be one. Dr. Snllivau 
 observes " that the liberal Catholic party is very 
 large in Ireland — it embraces nearly the whole 
 Catholic body. But that party is not repre- 
 
 sented by the writer and his co-dissentients. Let 
 me further add, that when Irish Catholic liberalism 
 shall be represented by such as he, it will be a misfor- 
 tune for Ireland and a serious loss to the English liberal 
 party."* Later on f he says that statesmen "take 
 this pseudo-Catholic opinion as the real opinion of the 
 country, because it is the only one with which they come 
 into contact. When the present Sir Robert Peel came 
 to Ireland he must have heard the hum of the " dissen- 
 tient " Catholics around him, announcing to him that 
 
 * Preface, page 4. t Pages 32, 33, 34. 
 
484 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 he had only to appeal to the educated classes of the 
 country, and he would get such an expression of opinion 
 as would crush the growing " ultramontanism" for ever. 
 Sir Robert, believing that the establishment of the 
 Queen's Colleges was a gi-eat benefit conferred by his 
 father on Ireland, bethought him of using them as a 
 test of Irish public opinion. With this view he 
 o^enerously offered to found for ten years, three scholar- 
 ships, of the value of £40 each, to be held each for one 
 year. This offer was of course gladly accepted, as it 
 really deserved to be, by the Senate of the Queen's Uni- 
 versity; and the example thus set was followed, as it 
 was intended to be, b}' a movement to raise subscrip- 
 tions for the endowment of other Scholarships. This 
 surely was a favourable oppox-tunity for the " dissen- 
 tient " Catholic element to show forth its real strength, 
 and confirm the prevalent idea that all educated Catholic 
 opinion was in favour of " United " education — a happy 
 phrase which some cunning man invented to express the 
 true condition of the Queen's Colleges — students of dif- 
 ferent religions united under teachers belonging to one. 
 A Committee was formed. On this Committee there is 
 not the name of a single Catholic ; not a repi'esentative 
 of that " dissentient " element, anxious to prove his in- 
 dependence of all sectarian prejudices. The address is- 
 sued by the Committee was, one would suppose, well 
 suited to elicit the support of that numerous class of 
 Catholic " dissenters " and opponents of "Ultramon- 
 tanism," which we are told exists in Ireland. This 
 appeal realised £8,749, besides £125 a year during the 
 
 life of the donors, or until further notice 
 
 About one-half of it was subscribed by English noble- 
 men and gentlemen, either wholly unconnected with 
 Ireland, or permanent absentees, English officials in 
 Ireland, Professors and officers in the Queen's Colleges 
 and the Government schools, Irish subordinate officials, 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 480 
 
 and a few Protestant clergymen. As regards its real 
 object, the eliciting Catholic opinion and support in 
 favour of the Queen's Colleges, it was not only a 
 failure, but brought forth one of the most remarkable 
 protests from the Irish Catholics, and in which more 
 than two hundred Peers, Members of Parliament, 
 Magistrates, etc., joined. . . . The total Catholic 
 subscriptions contributed — subscribed by forty-two in- 
 dividuals, amounted to £385 2s. Od. and £15 a year 
 during the life of the donors, of which £170 5s. Od. 
 was subscribed by ten Catholic officials; and even of 
 this small sum, £145 came from six professors and 
 officers of the Queen's Colleges, leaving the munificent 
 sum of £25 5s. Od. as the total subscription of all the 
 Catholic officials of Ireland, not directly connected with 
 the Queen's Colleges. Of the small sum of £212 and 
 £15 a year, a portion was subscribed anonymously, and 
 may, for aught I know, be an official subscription, and 
 the larger portion by persons whose motives might not 
 be uninfluenced by some of those agreeable favours it is 
 in the power of a Government to bestow, such as a High 
 Sheriffship. The same year in which this subscription 
 was raised, the Catholics contributed to the Catholic 
 University of Ireland £8,677, besides £200 per annum 
 for ten years, raised by the Catholics of the city and 
 county of Limerick, and the munificent subscription of 
 the late John Connolly, Esq., of £100 per annum for 
 ten years, to found scholarships therein, as answers to 
 Sir Robert Peel's challenge." But the principles of 
 those " liberal " folk are always better expressed by 
 the tongue than by the purse. It is one of their pecu- 
 liarities that their principles never lead them towards 
 sacrifice, but always tend towards social or financial 
 gain. 
 
 The revenue of Trinity College is a public trust for 
 
486 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 higher education in Ireland. What that revenue is, 
 and how it is managed, I will let Mr. Howley tell.* 
 
 " The Senior Fellows of Trinity College are not the 
 proprietors, but only the stewards and trustees of the 
 public endowment ; and it follows that if those stewards 
 are found to have managed the national property un- 
 faithfully, they may justly be deprived of their steward- 
 ship, and more responsible persons may be appointed in 
 their stead. The Commission of 1853 reported that 
 the estates of Ti-inity College comprised over 200,000 
 acres of land, valued at £92,000 a year ; but that the 
 actual rental and renewal j&nes only produced £34,000 
 per annum. The value of the property ought now to 
 be near £108,000; but it seems the receipts have only 
 reached £37,000. Mark well, every friend of integrity, 
 that the difference between the value and the rental of 
 th lands has arisen from the mismanagement, and I 
 believe I must say, the misappropriation of the Senior 
 Fellows. The Report of 1853 admits 'that leases have 
 been usually granted on payment of fines, at a rent con- 
 siderably below the true value.' Vv^hy? Is there any 
 clue to this fraud on the public endowment? Let the 
 Report speak, and give the reason for this masked 
 peculation. ' Because,' says the Report, ' the fines 
 were distributed amongst the Provost and Senior Fel- 
 lows, as part of their respective incomes.' And twenty 
 years ago, Parliament interfered, and a Royal letter 
 bought off those customary delinquents, the Provost and 
 Senior Fellows, by allowing them to ' receive £800 a 
 year each, out of the general funds of the College, in 
 lieu of their share of the fines.' The contrast between 
 the value and the rental of the College estates makes 
 manifest to what an extent the Fellows neglected their 
 
 •"The Universities and Secondary Schools of Ireland." By 
 Edward Howley, Esq., of the Middle Temple. B.L. Sinipkiu, 
 Marshall & Co.," London, 187]. pp. 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 487 
 
 trust to set the lands at the utmost improved rents- 
 nay, at half the yearly value. On a valuation inquiry 
 made by order of the House of Commons in 1799, it 
 transpired that part of the College estate in the City of 
 Dublin was valued at £3,316 a year, but that it had 
 been leased for thirty-three years to the Protestant 
 Bishop of Kaphoe at £400 a year, t The historian of 
 the College says, this was done ' by some great over- 
 ?ip-ht.' . . . Is it not true of the Senior Fellows, 
 as of the Protestant Bishops, that for their own selfish 
 ends they have given leases to strangers for a fine, 
 thouo-h, perhaps, not to relatives or dependants without 
 a fine ? \Vhether by avaricious self-seeking or venal 
 compliances, it is clear that they have frittered away 
 holf of the national fund for University education ; and 
 the State must now ask them, like the Protestant 
 Bishops, to give up their stewardship over public endow- 
 ments. It is time to limit the avarice of a University 
 body that has broken its trust, and has practically 
 diverted large estates from their original use to support 
 sinecures and to aggrandise families. . . . The 
 
 Commissioners of 1853 reported that ' the fees on de- 
 grees should, we think, be discontinued; as it is objec- 
 tionable to have any portion of the income of the mem- 
 bers of the Board so directly connected with the ejcercise 
 of an impotant power entrusted to them.' Reason 
 was on the point of gaining a victory over excessive 
 charges, when self-interest brought up a reinforcement ; 
 and the Fellows pleading that degrees would not be 
 valuable which did not cost money, the fees were re- 
 tained for the general purposes of the College. How 
 little benefit the public had derived from the mode in 
 which the fees for degrees used to be appropriated by 
 the Fellows, may be judged from the fact that the Com- 
 missioners of 1853 stated that the income of the Junior 
 * D. C. Heron's University of Dublin, page 1U7. 
 
488 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Proctor, arising chiefly from fees on the degree of B.A., 
 amounted to £900 a year ; in return for which he vouch- 
 safed to perform 'nominal duties.' " Mr. Mahaffy, the 
 latest apologist for Trinity College, is candid enough to 
 admit that there are " some useless offices which should 
 be abolished." ... I shall arraign and condemn 
 Trinity College, out of the mouth of her own spokes- 
 man. We are informed by Mr. Mahaffy, in the Fort- 
 iiiffhtly IfevieWy. that the thirty-three Fellows of Trinity 
 College are not voracious when they take £27,000, in 
 the shape of students' fees, as this large sum represents 
 the earnings of the Fellows by teaching ; but the £27,000 
 not being enough to pay them for managing as well as 
 teaching, they, in addition, help themselves to £11,800 
 out of the annual revenue of the College. And yet, the 
 Fellows who have thus divided amongst themselves 
 nearly £39.000 a year for the duties of teaching and 
 managing, find it necessary to employ Professors at a 
 cost of £6,000 to aid them to do one of the duties, for 
 which they have already paid themselves so handsomely. 
 " . . .It seems to me a great scandal, and a violation 
 of decency and common sense that the Fellows should 
 pay themselves out of a public endowment, at their own 
 valuation of their services ; and it seems to me a greater 
 scandal, if possible, that they should drive a roaring 
 trade in Examinations. They appropriate to themselves 
 an enormous income derived from the fees of students ; 
 and thus it happens that they have a strong interest in 
 not making examinations too difficult — the rugged 
 heights of Parnassus are made smooth that the climbing 
 students may pay their fees with alacrity and patience. 
 The passing of examinations has too near an approach to 
 the reality of a money bargain. . . . When even 
 they, who have been nurtured at Trinity College, who 
 have shared its emoluments, and gained its honours, re- 
 volt at the system of distributing the College funds; are 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 489 
 
 those Irishmen who are practically excluded from the 
 University to assume an air of content and resignation ? 
 I could speak of several agitations among the scholars 
 to obtain increased rewards for talent ; but discontent 
 has still reached a higher sphere, and the power of the 
 Board has been wielded to put down incipient mutiny 
 among the Junior Fellows. An unjust monopoly fears 
 exposure, trembles at publicity, and welcomes only a 
 mellifluous commission or a friendly visitation. The 
 Board in 1858 censured and silenced two of the Junior 
 Fellows, who sought to expose the abuses of the College 
 in the public Press ; and the censure upon one of the 
 Fellows was confirmed on an appeal to the visitation 
 body of the University. It seems that the condemned 
 Junior Fellow was guilty of a breach of discipline, when 
 he publicly alleged that the Board distributed the re- 
 venues of the College in a manner opposed to the in- 
 terests of education ; and he also appears not to have re- 
 flected that once a use is ever a custom — and that the 
 Board, by long enjoying fees, acquire a right to enjoy 
 them ; but the merits of a technical dispute waged before 
 a domestic tribunal are not the merits of a public ques- 
 tion, which appeals to the entire country for sympathy 
 and support, and to Parliament for redress and justice. 
 The Junior Fellows have been silenced in their com- 
 plaints ; but the Catholics of Ireland shall not wear a 
 padlock on their lips. Let not the Senior Fellows dream 
 they have for ever silenced discord in the spheres ; there 
 are thunder-clouds drifting towards them, and when the 
 storm has burst their monopoly shall be swept away, 
 and the genius of free education shall stand unstained 
 by condoned corruption, unswayed by religious ran- 
 cour." 
 
 Our only experience of Catholic Universities in Ire- 
 land has not been, it is true, an experience of success; 
 once in the 17th century, and again in the 19th. No 
 
490 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 wonder these attempts more or less failed; the most 
 lasting purpose they could in their circumstances have 
 served was a national protest against educational wrong. 
 Our circumstances have brought us to associate Protes- 
 tanism or secularism with higher education as ideas 
 which naturally blend, and, as if against our instincts, 
 to consider Catholic faith and higher education incom- 
 patible. It is one of the remaining relics of our past 
 disabilities ; marks of slavery which are not yet quite 
 healed, though the chains which made them have been 
 cast off. We have kept the faith; we glory in the 
 sacrifices it has cost, and we would, if necessary, make 
 them all over again for its sake ; and yet we hesitate to 
 claim for it a foremost place in the movement of 
 natural enlightenment. Our religious instinct recoils 
 from non-Catholicism under any form, from High 
 Church to No Church, and yet it is associated in our 
 thoughts with educational and social superiority. It 
 is a feeling which must have an injurious influence on 
 us, since it connects intellectual stagnation with religious 
 truth, and what is progressive in reason with what is 
 false in faith. For the impression itself we rather de- 
 serve praise, since it is a record of sacrifice for prin- 
 ciple and conscience ; the blame lies with those who 
 have withheld from us the opportunity and the right 
 of witnessing in our midst the influence and the work 
 of a Catholic University duly chartered and sufficiently 
 endowed. The Catholic University founded in Dublin 
 by the Irish Bishops in 1854 did not realise their hopes, 
 nor yet has it been quite a failure. I cannot paint 
 the light and the shadow better than in this lengthy 
 passage which I borrow from a Lecture delivered before 
 the Catholic Graduates' Association, on the lOth of last 
 February by Dr. Sigcrson, F.R.U.I., who spoke from 
 personal knowledge: — " The method of carrying out the 
 project was such and so wise that, had it obtained due 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IX IRELAND. 491 
 
 recognition, it would have placed their (the bishops') 
 conduct above all carping. It has been constantly al- 
 leo'ed that the aim of the Irish bishops was to make the 
 University an engine of clerical domination over the 
 laity. If they had desired that they need never have 
 striven as champions of lay education. What was their 
 course upon the present occasion? They went outside 
 their rank, and even outside their country to seek for 
 and gain the one most capable man perhaps in the 
 world as a University head. Dr. John Henry Newman. 
 They undertook the responsibilities of financing the 
 Institution ; they gave him charge to draw up a Con- 
 stitution. A prompt and generous response met their 
 appeal for funds, over £58,000 being contributed in five 
 years, of which sum one-fourth came from the exiled 
 Ii'ish in the United States and elsewhere." Erom the 
 
 * In Dr. Sigerson's estimate of the share which those outside 
 Ireland had in the financial support of the University for the first 
 five yeans, there is an oversight which it is only fair to correct. 
 Outsiders took a more generous part than he assigns to 
 them. The whole amount received within that time (1854- 
 1859) was £58,071 la. 5d. (which, however, mcludes £3,746 
 18s. Od. interest received on atoclc, £5,000 received through 
 Cardinal Cullen from one anonymous benefactor, and £271 
 from another). Of that sum, £21,437 25. 7d. came from 
 abroad. The amount of money altogether received for the Uni- 
 versity is variously estimated, and sometimes extravagantly so. For 
 some years money flowed in fast, expecting Government recogni- 
 tion; but. later on, when that hope was fading, money came in 
 elowly. The following few estimates which I give from persons 
 once clo-ely connected with the Institution, may be of interest: — 
 Dr. W. K. Sullivan, Professor of Chemistry at the University, and 
 afterwards President of the Cork Queen's College, stated, in 1866, 
 that the amount contributed up to that time was £130,000. Ac- 
 cording to Mr. Howley, the amount collected up to the time he 
 wrote (1871) was £150,000. According to the Committee of Irish 
 Catholics v;ho compiled the work on "Intermediate Education," 
 published in 1872, from which I have already quoted, up to that 
 time £150,000 had been received. Dr. R. D. Lyons, Professor of 
 Pathology at the University, in a pamphlet on " The Intellectual 
 Resources of Ireland,' published in 1873, tells us that the work of 
 the Univeruty was then carried on "on a limited scale of expen- 
 diture of about £6. COO a year." From " A Report on the Condi- 
 tion and Circumstances of the Catholic University of Ireland, Pre- 
 sented by a Committee of the Senate, July, 1859," 1 learn that its 
 
492 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 ITth March, 1851 to the end of December, 1865; that 
 is, in less than fourteen years, the large amount of 
 £120,000 had been received, almost exclusively from 
 annual collections in Ireland. With respect to its 
 Constitution, it should be necessary to state, consider- 
 ing who the author was, that it was based on large and 
 liberal lines, in the spirit of the older Universities. 
 There were five Faculties, the Professors of each meet- 
 ing to transact business, and to appoint a Dean an- 
 nually. The Deans of Faculties and the Vice-Rector, 
 with three additional members of the Faculty of Philo- 
 sophy and Letters (having one vote) constituted a 
 Rectorial Council, to advise monthly. Against two- 
 thirds of its vote the Rector could do no public act. 
 Above this was the Senate, composed of Vice-Rector and 
 Secretary, the Professors, the Heads and Tutors of Col- 
 legiate Houses, and the Fellows of the University, con- 
 voked and presided over by the Rector. In his nomen- 
 clature, the term Fellow is equivalent to M.A. His 
 entire plan vibrated with the vigour of the higher men- 
 annual cost at that time was " something less than £8,000 a year " ; 
 that to meet that exjjense, its only available internal resources 
 besides Students' fees waa £1,200 a year. That -would leave a 
 reeidue of about £6,000 to be provided somehow. The annual 
 Sunday collection begun in 1854 was meant to make up that sum. 
 But the Report states that the amount realised annually by that 
 collection was " though considerable, far short of the sum named 
 as the annual expenditure of the University." That collection 
 went on for about 25 years. Everything considered, I e-stimate 
 from the <1jita I have given that about £170,000 in all was contri- 
 buted towards the Catholic University. Of couree that was not an 
 original capital sum bearing interest yearly, but the sum total of 
 contributioiis made in the course of 25 years. The late Aubrey do 
 Yere, who was once closely connected with tiie University, botli as 
 Professor and intimate friend of Dr. Newman, ite first Rector, 
 told me more than once that about £150.000 was contributed in all; 
 and he used to invariably add " that those who were hardly likely 
 to use it were the most generous in subscribing; that's the poor." 
 
 A rumour li.'if! been also set afli.at by critics that nn proper ai'counts 
 were kept in the Catholic University. But Dr. Delaney, S.J., has finally 
 nailed tlic calumny bv declaring that he has the accounts, that they accooni 
 for every penny, ;'nd that anyone who desires may .see them. He say* 
 that the sura total is £210,000. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 493 
 
 tal life, and stands as an exemplar of a broad and 
 deep academic structure. It was sanctioned by the 
 Irish bishops, as was his opinion — ' I think nearly all 
 the Professors had better be laymen ' — for they left the 
 selection of Professors entirely to his choice, with the 
 exception of those of the Faculty of Theology which he 
 perf erred they should select. He chose the most dis- 
 tinguished men available, and found that, while many 
 were Englishmen, the Irish nation gave them all wel- 
 come. None more that he appreciated its high quali- 
 ties, or more encouraged the study of its ancient litera- 
 ture. O'Curry's words bear testimony to his sympathy, 
 and O'Curry's monumental work to his fostering en- 
 couragement. This is one matter in which the new 
 University took precedence of all others. The next 
 innovation was the publication of Atlantis, a magazine 
 of literature and science which at once gave prestige to 
 the University at home and elsewhere, and set an 
 example for other Universities to follow. It drew 
 many students from foreign parts. One contributor, 
 Pierre le Page Renouf, Professor of Oriental Languages, 
 afterwards accepted the post of Keeper of the Oriental 
 Antiquities in the British Museum and became Presi- 
 dent of the Society of British Ai-chaeology. Another 
 matter in which the new University made a forward 
 step was the establishment of a thoroughly equipped 
 scientific, physiological, and medical practical labora- 
 tory. Up to that time, and after it, not Trinity Col- 
 lege, nor the College of Surgeons, nor any of the several 
 schools had possessed such an appanage. The}'^ followed 
 unquestionably, but it is right to give the prestige to 
 the pioneer. If there be any Catholics who are dis- 
 satisfied with the work done so far — though it has 
 raised them out of intellectual contumely into respect 
 and honour — then one might refer to a matter which 
 may seem more practical. In 1857, wrote Dr. Newman, 
 
494 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 " out of all the Dublin Hospitals, only three had any 
 Catholic practitioner in them at all. ... On the 
 other hand, out of sixty-two medical officers altogether 
 in the various hospitals, the Catholic portion did not 
 exceed the number of ten. Again, out of five Medical 
 Schools in Dublin (exclusive of the University) three 
 had no Catholic lecturer at all, and the other two one 
 a-piece ; so that out of 49 lecturers only two were Catho- 
 lic. Putting the two lists together, we find that out of 
 111 medical practitioners in situations of trust and 
 authority, 12 were Catholic and 99 were Protestant." 
 Those who can now look around them, and see their 
 Medical School occupying the foremost position in the 
 city, with great hospitals in co-operation, should remem- 
 ber that without the impulse of the University there 
 might have been no such changes, and that without such 
 or a similar centre of intellectual energy there is sure 
 to be decadence and loss of status. It may be asked, 
 why did not the other Faculties succeed as well as that 
 of IMedicine? The answer is that the Medical Faculty 
 had but to ask for recognition of its lectures from the 
 College of Surgeons and Physicians, and these, with 
 that enlightened and large-minded liberality which has 
 always been the characteristic of a progressive and 
 humane profession, immediately gave their sanction. 
 The other Faculties had to appeal to the Governments 
 of the time, and though they shared some of the most 
 distinguished Professors of the period, working under a 
 most famous Rector, their plea was rejected. It cer- 
 tainly must amaze men of clear thinking to observe that 
 a diploma was at once granted to a proficient student, 
 whose licensing involved the power of life and death, 
 and the control of the freedom of men in certain cases, 
 whereas if the same student had shown a similar pro- 
 ficiency in Philosophy, Literature, or Science, he would 
 have been instantly refused recognition, as a danger 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATIOX IN IRELAND. 495 
 
 to the State. Virtually it declared — We will grant 
 you power over life and liberty, but not that of afTixing 
 a B.A. to your name. Can one be surprised that Arch- 
 bishop Hughes of New York could not appreciate this 
 esoteric philosophy, for he came from a great Common- 
 wealth which claims for man freedom, equality, and the 
 pursuit of happiness, where also there are several Catho- 
 lic Universities? Or can one wonder that he should 
 have chosen as the text of his sermon in Dublin, the 
 Divine words, " Woe unto you, ye lawyers, you have 
 taken away the keys of the kingdom of knowledge your- 
 selves ; you have not entered in, and others you have 
 hindered."' In spite of all resistances, an obviously 
 just cause and the pressm-e of public opinion prevailed 
 over many barriers. In 1866 a Supplemental Charter 
 was granted to the Queen's University enabling it to 
 admit students other than those trained in its Colleges. 
 As this indiscriminate opening seemed likely to injure 
 collegiate life, the Catholic graduates of the Queen's 
 University memorialised Earl Russell in favour of the 
 admission of the Catholic University solely. The 
 Senate accepted the Charter by a majority, but the 
 Belfast graduates, a majority in convocation, rejected 
 it, and pleaded their privileges with success. " It was 
 understood at the time that had the Charter proved 
 valid the Catholic University would have had a College 
 Charter, and that an endowment would come later." 
 But neither Charter nor endowment ever came. As 
 far as public official recognition went, the students of 
 the Catholic University, however brilliant or proficient 
 they might be, were wasting their time. The only 
 exception was in its Faculty of Medicine, due to the 
 liberal spirit of the College of Surgeons; and it is 
 worthy of remark that the Medical Faculty of the 
 Catholic University, the Cecilia Street School, in spite 
 of its poverty, worked its way into the foremost position 
 
496 A UEVIEW OF EnrCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 amongst the Medical Schools of Dublin. As Mr. John 
 Dillon, M.P., an old student of the Catholic University 
 Medical School, observed on the occasion of Dr. Siger- 
 son's lecture, " in the first few years of its existence the 
 Catholic University actually gave an impulse to the 
 teaching of science in this city (Dublin), from which 
 Trinity College and the other Institutions of learning 
 are now, even at this hour, deriving advantage. I can 
 remember myself when the chemical laboratory for the 
 practical teaching of chemistry in this city was the 
 laboratory in Cecilia Street, which was constructed by 
 that great man, Prof. W. K. Sullivan, one of the 
 greatest teachers of science who has ever taught in Ire- 
 land ; and when Trinity College was obliged to set up 
 a chemical laboratory because its students were coming 
 down to Cecilia Street to learn chemistry." 
 
 Since the Catholic University was constituted on the 
 model of the Catholic University of Louvain, it may be 
 well to illustrate the aim of its foiindei's by showing 
 briefly what Louvain has achieved for Belgium. The 
 old University of Louvain, which had been founded in 
 1425 by Pope Martin V., and which in the course of its 
 glorious career had produced some of the most famous 
 men of the modern world — amongst them, Erasmus, 
 the humanist ; Justus Lipsius, the polygraphist ; Vesa- 
 liiis, the creator of the science of anatomy : Dodoens, 
 the botanist ; Riga, the physician ; Mercator, the geo- 
 grapher; Jansenius, and many other theologians of 
 great name, amongst them not a few Irishmen — was 
 destroyed at the French Revolution. When the Revo- 
 lution became incarnate in the person and despotism of 
 Napoleon, and he in his turn was extinguished. Catho- 
 lic Belgium demanded back its ancient University. It 
 was partially restored under the Diitch Government, 
 which succeeded the Revolution era in Belgium. But 
 troubles arose from the Chair of Philosophy. Principles 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IX IRELAND. 497 
 
 were propounded which the conscience of Catholic Bel- 
 gium could not accept, and the storm came which had 
 much to do with the uprising that set Belgium free. 
 In 1834 the history of the new University begins, 
 restored by a Pontifical Decree — Catholic in its constitu- 
 tion, and in all its parts. Its Rector is appointed by 
 the Bishops. It has about a hundred Professors, about 
 one-fourth of whom are ecclesiastics. It has no State 
 endowment ; it is supported by an annual contribution 
 of the people, as was the Catholic University of Ireland, 
 and by the occasional munificence of individuals. About 
 £20,000 a year is said to be its revenue. But, unlike 
 our Catholic University, its Degrees are recognised by 
 the State. The French Revolution and the Dutch 
 domination left a legacy after them in the form of Bel- 
 gian liberalism which had its own way till 1884. It 
 chartered three Godless Universities, at Ghent, Liege, 
 and Brussels. Against those, Louvain in its compara- 
 tive poverty had to compete ; and this is the testimony 
 of the Belgian people to its efficiency. It began in 
 1834 with 86 students; the next year it had 261; in 
 1845 it had 809: in 1871 it had 1,045; in 1885, it had 
 1,700; in 1889, it had 1,891 ; it has now over 2,000. It 
 has five Faculties, namely. Theology, Law, Medicine, 
 Philosophy and Letters, and the Sciences. From the 
 Annuaire of 1899, I find that 54 students entered for 
 Theology the year before, 363 for Law, 403 for 
 Medicine, 247 for Philosophy and Letters, and 256 for 
 the Sciences. It had not complete autonomy till 1876, 
 v/hen the mixed Commission before which the students 
 had to be examined for Degrees was abolished. Sines 
 then it confers its own Degrees, which are recognised 
 by the State ; and it is worthy of remark that its 
 greatest progress dates from that time when it was un- 
 yoked from the State and left to expand freely as a 
 Catholic University unfettered by outside officialdom. 
 
 GG 
 
4S8 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 The other three Universities had a free course also, un- 
 trammelled by catechisms, dogmas, or ecclesiastical 
 superstitions of any kind ; yet Louvaiu had been attract- 
 ing so many students that the others have been 
 modifying their secularism in recent years. Ths con- 
 sciences of the ultra-liberals were so troubled thereby 
 that about a dozen years ago they had a second Univer- 
 sity established in Brussels, the Uvlversite Nouvelle. It 
 did not succeed in establishing the four faculties neces- 
 sary for obtaining the legal recognition which would 
 give it power to grant its own Degrees. For 139 pro- 
 fessors it had 154 students. To leave the liberals no 
 ground of complaint, M. Schollaert, the Minister of 
 Public Instruction, appointed Boards for four consecu- 
 tive years to examine students presented by it for 
 Degrees. The candidates were found to be so deficient 
 that M. Schollaert refused to have any more to do with 
 it, and to justify his action against the protests and 
 charges of clericalism made by certain liberals, he made 
 a public exposure of the imposture in the Senate. It 
 died about six years ago — from natural causes, a 
 Coroner's jury would say. Not to speak of those whom 
 it has sent to other countries, the graduates of Louvain 
 are to be found in Belgium amongst the clergy, in 
 parliament, in the press, amongst country gentlemen, 
 lawyers, physicians, engineers, in the military and civil 
 service, in diplomatic and commercial life. It has sent 
 out amongst the people men of highest culture and 
 truest Catholic thought, who have leavened public senti- 
 ment with the principles of action which should govern 
 a Catholic nation. And have these been leaders of 
 obscurantism ? Have they damped the aspirations of the 
 people, or paralysed their energy ? The singular posi- 
 tion of Belgium in the world of industry contains the 
 answer. In 1884 the Catholics drove the liberals from 
 power. Since then, if they have not held undisputed 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 499 
 
 sway, they have for the most part guided the destiny of 
 the kingdom, and its prosperity has advanced. Techni- 
 cal schools for boys and girls, which were very few in 
 1884, have greatly increased. Workingmen's Aid 
 Societies have sprung up with remarkable rapidity. 
 The clergy take a leading part in this work, and have 
 formed an Ecclesiastical Committee with representatives 
 in different provinces for the promotion of the movement. 
 There is also the Boerenbond, or Peasants' League, 
 something like our Agricultural Societies here, founded 
 by the Abbe Mellaerts some years ago. Its object is to 
 promote the moral and material interests of agricul- 
 turists, to improve land legislation, to promote agricul- 
 tural co-operation. There is the Aumoniers du Travail, 
 a society of priests instituted by the bishop of Liege, 
 who make a special study of social questions, and pro- 
 mote in their parishes, as cii'cumstauces demand or 
 opportunity offers, economic and social institutions for 
 the betterment of the people. They have established 
 workingmen's hostels in the great industrial centres. 
 Then there are two great social organisations, both with 
 a common object, but seeking to reach it by different 
 ways. One is the Federation des Cercles Catholiques, 
 under the leadership of M. Woeste ; the other is the 
 Ligue Democi-atique Beige, under the leadership of M. 
 Arthur Verhaegen. The former are Conservatives; the 
 latter call themselves Catholic democrats. They were 
 founded by the Abbe Pottier about fifteen years ago, 
 and have already several hundred societies and several 
 hundred thousand members. They jDrofess to follow 
 the lines traced out by Leo XIII. in his famous En- 
 cyclical De Condifione Opificum. The light which has 
 led to those associations came from Louvain, and I 
 mention them as evidence of the influence which a 
 genuine Catholic University exercises on the public and 
 social life of Belgium. 
 
500 A ItEVlEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Besides the five ordinary University Faculties, Schools 
 of Special Studies have been established in Louvain in 
 recent years; and to those Ecoles Spec/ales I will limit 
 my observations. From 1865 to 1872, the Schools of 
 Arts and Manufactures, of Civil Engineering, Mining, 
 and Architecture, were established. The authorities 
 did not think a University to be a literary and scientific 
 museum meant only for show, or a mere factory for 
 turning out professional men ; it should be a centrf. 
 whence light, inspiration, and influence should radiate 
 into every corner of the land and over every class of 
 the community. The sons of landed proprietors would 
 leave the University and live amidst an agricultural 
 population. Those who would farm their own land 
 need a training which would enable them to use scien- 
 tific knowledge in improving the soil and increasing its 
 productiveness. To that end was established the School 
 of Scientific Agriculture (L'Institut Agrunomique) '-n 
 1878. It began with eight students; it has now over 
 200, and has a staff of eleven professors. The com- 
 plete course is four years. Three are occupied with 
 what may be called agricultural engineering, including 
 physical, chemical, and other natural sciences, in so 
 far as they are applicable to farming; also a course of 
 social economy and law so far as rural legislation is con- 
 cerned. In the fourth year the courses are specialised, 
 to suit the i^urposes of students according to the sphere 
 of agricultural pursuits on which each is to be engaged. 
 Thei-e is a suitable museum attached to the Institute, 
 and laboratory v/ork is obligatory on the students. An 
 important element in the course are excursions into the 
 country, which are organised by the different professors, 
 and conducted by them. They are more for business 
 than for pleasure. The students must join them as part 
 of their course, must take notes of the lectures given, 
 v.-hich they must submit to the professors whenever 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 501 
 
 tliey are called for during the year. A course of Moral 
 Philosophy runs over the four years. The Institute 
 publishes the Revue Agronomique, a monthly periodical 
 of forty-eight pages. The work of the Institute has 
 been extended since its foundation, amongst the most 
 notable additions being a Brewery School. There is 
 also a School of Commercial and Consular Sciences, the 
 object of which is to prepa,re students for a commercial 
 or for a consular life. The course extends over three 
 or four years, and includes such subjects as the follow- 
 ing : — Commercial, Industrial, and Colonial Law ; In- 
 dustrial and Commercial Geography; Diplomatic and 
 Commercial History ; the principal European Languages 
 and their Literatures; also Russian and Chinese. For 
 many years Chinese, with other Oriental languages, had 
 been taught; but more as a philological study. The 
 new school of Chinese teaches students to speak the 
 language, and thus enables them to take positions 
 which had been held by strangers, often belonging to 
 countries which are commercial rivals of Belgium. 
 Besides the advantage such a school is to the nation at 
 large, it opens up consular and commercial positions to 
 ^'oung men. 
 
 There are two other Special Schools — the Institute of 
 Higher Philosophy, and that of Biology and Bacterio- 
 logy. The former is due to the munificence of Leo XIII. ; 
 the latter is chiefly d^ie to the late Canon Carnoy, one 
 of the jDrofessors. When Canon Carnoy became pro- 
 fessor in 1876, Louvain was without a laboratory for 
 Cellular Biology. He gave up apai'tments in his own 
 house for the purpose, which he furnished with appara- 
 tus at his own expense, and gathered his students 
 around him there for microscopic experiments. In 1888 
 he got possession of the College de Villers for his work. 
 This contained his laboratories of Cytology and Cellular 
 Biology, and Prof. Denys' laboratories for experimental 
 
502 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 Pathology aud Bacteriology. In 1899 a new building 
 was opened for Bacteriology, and the old one was de- 
 voted exclusively to Canon Caruoy's work. I believe 
 he was the first to study Cellular Biology as a special 
 science, so that he may be considered as the founder of 
 that important branch of biology. The Institute com- 
 prises six distinct laboratories, besides a museum and a 
 library— viz., for Cytology, Comparative Vegetable His- 
 tology, Microbiology, Embriology, Comparative Histo- 
 logy, and Biological Chemistry, each under two pro- 
 fessors. Each is furnished with the most modern 
 appliances; and the Canon wrote to me a short time 
 before his death that he thought it is the only Institute 
 in the world which has a special school for each of these 
 subjects. In 1884, he founded a periodical. La Ccllvle, 
 which contains, so to speak, the scientific history of the 
 Institute. 
 
 I now pass on to the bacteriological work of M. 
 Denys. If it were not outside my purpose, I should 
 like to transcribe a description of how work is done in 
 his laboratories which I read some time ago in a Belgian 
 magazine; it reads like the folk-lore stories of the im- 
 aginary laboratories of the old alchemists. I limit 
 myself to observing that two depar-tments of work go 
 under him and his assistants. There is bacteriology, 
 which has two sections; one for analysis, the other for 
 experimental bacteriology. The second is the depart- 
 ment of serum-therapeutics, which was established in 
 Louvain immediately after the discovery of Behring. It 
 will surprise many to hear that the work of this depart- 
 ment is partly done in stables. As every one who has 
 a general knowledge of bacteriology knows, if the poison 
 containing the bacilli of certain diseases, for instance, 
 diphtheria, blood-poisoning, or typhoid fever, be in- 
 jected under conditions into the blood of certain animals, 
 whilst these animals become " immune," the serum of 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 503 
 
 their blood becomes a therapeutic agent against those 
 respective diseases in man. Hence we get, for instance, 
 anti-diphtheritic serum which prevents or cures diph- 
 theria, etc. In the stables I have mentioned, twenty- 
 horses are kept specially for the purpose of experiment, 
 and for producing serum against the various diseases. 
 Serum has now become a commercial commodity, and 
 nearly all of it that is used by the medical men in 
 Belgium is supplied from Louvain. It is worthy of 
 note that M. Denys has a new serum of his own for 
 the cure of consumption, which has proved, I am told, 
 to be largely successful. 
 
 In 1882, the Belgian Bishops, at the desire of 
 Leo XIII. established a Chair of Thomistic Philosophy 
 in the University. Afterwards he determined to have 
 several Chairs in connection with it, and gave 150,000 
 francs towards the expenses. That is the Institut 
 Superieiir de Philosophie. The Bishops appointed 
 Monsignor Mercier its President, and the Belgian 
 Catholics who assembled in 1891 at the Congress of 
 Malines authorised him to complete the work, and pro- 
 mised that they would meet the cost. The Institute 
 has fourteen professors; and the lectures are free, and 
 open to all. Besides Philosophy and its History, the 
 curriculum includes Higher Mathematics and the 
 Natural Sciences which bear upon philosophy; also 
 Political and Social Sciences. The course combines 
 experiment and speculation. Thus, to each branch of 
 Philosophy the corresponding branch of experimental 
 science is joined : — To Cosmology, Physics and Mathe- 
 matics; to Psychology, the Natural Sciences; to Criterio- 
 logy. Historical Science; to Moral Philosophy, the 
 Moral Sciences, and by special application social, 
 economic, and political science. The Institute has two 
 Reviews: — La Revue Neo-Scholastique, published 
 quarterly, and La Revue Sociale Catholique, published 
 
504 A REVIKW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 moutbly. Besides its lecture halls, the Institvile has a 
 laboratory for physics, psycho-physiology, and chemis- 
 try ; also a library and reading-room where over a 
 hundred periodicals in all the European languages are 
 taken, amongst them eighteen English and thirteen 
 American periodicals. Thirteen periodicals are pub- 
 lished from the University itself; some of considerable 
 size, and some only little brochures. 
 
 I have on purpose kept to the present work of Lou- 
 vain ; and I have referred only to those sciences which 
 are the subjects characteristic of the present time. 
 From what I have written, it will, I think, appear that 
 although the University of Louvain is a young and 
 poor sister, she is not a silent one. The late Provost of 
 Trinity College expressed his concern,* lest the founda- 
 tion of a Catholic University in Ireland might lower 
 the standard of University education which Trinity 
 College maintains in this country. If a Catholic Uni- 
 versity in Dublin followed in the footsteps of the 
 Catholic University of Louvain, and there is no reason 
 why, under proper conditions, it should not, it would 
 not only lift University education above its present 
 level, but would extend its work into fields of knov/ledge 
 which are as yet uncultivated in Trinity. It is not out 
 of jjlace to repeat the question, what value has it given 
 for its wealth ? What has it done for Ireland at whose 
 cost it has been built and supported ? At any rate, to 
 inform the life of a nation is the duty corresponding to 
 the right which a University claims to be called 
 National. 
 
 From the foregoing review it will appear that from 
 the days of the hedge-schools on to the present day the 
 Catholic Church has taken the initiative in whatever 
 has been done for the secular education of the Catholics 
 of Ireland. But there are those who object to clerical 
 control over Colleges and Schools. Over the purely 
 
 * Contemporary Review, April, 1899. 
 
A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 505 
 
 secular element in education, bishops or priests as such 
 have never sought any control beyond what in their 
 civil capacity they have an inherent civil right to. 
 Control of secular education in Ireland, as far as they 
 possess it, has been thrust upon them ; first of all by the 
 exigency of the case, but most of all, strange to say, by 
 the action of the Government which has been specially 
 directed ever and always towards their exclusion. That 
 clerical control is the Nemesis. The Catholics contri- 
 buted towards the maintenance of Government ; but 
 Government, whilst demanding their duties, denied 
 their rights. That happened in education as in other 
 phases of Catholic civil life in the country. If the 
 bishops and priests had not thrown themselves into the 
 task of building colleges and schools, which they did as 
 soon as the law allowed them, how many educational 
 Institutions for Catholics would there be in Ireland 
 to-day ? They did it because there was nobody else to 
 do it. And it is remarkable that those, Catholics or 
 non-Catholics, who are heard most in protest against 
 their presence in the school are those who have never 
 done anything for the education of the people, little 
 even for the education of themselves. I for one should 
 not like to see the secular education of the country 
 under the exclusive control of the clergy. There are 
 elements in the education of the laity which laymen 
 should be the best to direct. But, as the foregoing 
 review shows, the Catholics, clergy or laity, have never 
 had, at least in modern times, such exclusive control ; 
 and for that reason they repudiate responsibility for 
 any reproach which may be justly attached to the pre- 
 sent condition of education in the country. But they 
 claim, and it is for them a matter of pardonable pride, 
 that those colleges and schools which they most control 
 are, in spite of their disadvantages, the best. If they 
 had devised the educational systems which we have, and 
 
506 A REVIEW OF EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 
 
 had the administration of them without let or hind- 
 rance, they would indeed be responsible. But they 
 have not been allowed to frame systems to suit them- 
 selves, nor have they been allowed to administer those 
 systems which have been framed for them by others. 
 Indeed, as far as I have been able to observe, none of 
 those systems has been framed with a view to educate 
 us; they are mostly makeshifts which have been made 
 in time of stress to stop our clamour by conceding 
 something of our claims. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Aborigines of Australia, Fate of, 7-2 
 Act of Union, •■• "" 
 
 Agriculture:— " 
 
 In England, -,•. »^ 
 
 Bestriction on, \°^' |oo 
 
 The Burtlien of Tithes on, 159, IbO 
 
 Alabama, Condition of Jails in, 90 
 
 American Tract Society. ... "^ 
 
 "American Letter," The, 
 
 " American Wake," ••• 
 
 Anti-Treating League, .iba. 
 
 Authority: — 
 
 Reliance on not a Check to 
 
 Progress, ,. , , 
 
 Aran Islands, Fishing Industry 
 
 ia ^ISetaeq. 
 
 21 
 
 289 
 29-2 
 •270 
 
 63 
 
 Baltimore Fishing Industry, 216 et seq 
 Baltimore Fishory School, 220, 2-.1 
 Belfast: — 
 Bounty on Linens granted by 
 
 Parliament, 
 Causa of Advance, according to 
 
 Butt, 23o, 
 
 Compared with Dublin as to 
 
 Income Tax paid, 
 Origin of, 
 Belgium: — 
 Agriculture m, iOJ ei 
 
 Co-operative Societies in, 104, 
 Progress of Industry. 
 Rpjlway System of. 
 Religious Toleration in, 107, 110, 
 Statistics of Population eince 
 1884, ••• 
 
 Steel Industry; Belgium and 
 
 United Kingdom compared. 
 Value of its Commerce, 
 Berkeley, Bishop: — 
 Exhortation to Catholic Clergy, 
 163, 
 BirtliRate Commission in Aus- 
 tralia, Report of, 112, 
 Bishops, Assets left by, 33iJ, 
 Bishops* Landed Estates, Return 
 of, 322 et 
 Boer War : — 
 Mr. Chamberlain and the. 
 Our Share in the Cost of, 
 Booth, Charles: — 
 Number of Unemployed in 
 
 London, 
 Percentage of Pauperism in 
 England, 
 British and Foreign Bible Sooifty, 
 Burial Fees, a^-G 
 
 241 
 236 
 
 242 
 
 2S.i 
 
 •■eg. 
 105 
 107 
 102 
 
 111 
 
 109 
 103 
 
 164 
 
 PAO« 
 
 Carrigaholt. Co. Clare; Persecu- 
 tion of Catholics in. 
 Catholic Church: — 
 In Relation to Politics or Eco-^ 
 
 nomics, ^'^< ^^ 
 
 Influence on Industrial Pro- 
 gress, 45 et seq. 
 Points Placed to its credit by 
 
 Sir Horace Plunkett, 4 et seq. 
 
 Power of the Clergy little 
 
 The creator of a New Civiliza- 
 tion after the destruction of 
 the Roman, 4,9 et «eq. 
 
 Catholicism : — 
 Not Directly Concerned with 
 
 Industrial Progress, ••• 169 
 
 Was it a Partial Cause of Irish 
 Industrial Failure? ■•• 135 
 
 Character: — 
 
 Vnalysis of the Idea of, 124, 12o 
 In Irish Catholics, 127 et seq. 
 
 Not linked exclusively with the 
 Industrial spirit, --^ 
 
 Chamberlain, Mr., on National 
 Prosperity, ■■■ 
 
 Charter Schools, etc., lib, l.. 
 
 Church Building in Ireland: — 
 
 Cost not extravagant, 38 H seq. 
 
 Number of Churches in Ireland 
 compared with that in Eng- 
 land and U.S.A., - 24 
 Protestant and Catholic ideas 
 
 concerning, contrasted. ••• 15 
 The Motives of the Builders, 10 
 Church Holidays, 167, 170, 36.i 
 Commissioners of National Edu- 
 cation: — ,,„ ^ 
 
 Changes in Rules of. 439, 440 et xeg 
 Concessions to Presbyterians. 44i 
 Dr. CuUen as Commissioner, 
 
 447, ioi 
 
 Dr. Whately and Mr. Oarlile, 
 
 444, 44.:> 
 Managers no initiatory power 
 
 under, , .„ •• *^* 
 
 Nature of First School Book3_ ^^ 
 
 Proceedings of First Board. 
 
 438 ef »eq- 
 Training Colleges, 455,456 
 
 Colonies of Spain contrasted 
 
 with those of Ergland. 70et«eq. 
 Co-operative Movement in Ire- 
 land : — , , . . 
 Statistics of Membership in 
 Four Provincea, ■ ■ «>» 
 
 126 
 
 S4 
 
508 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Crmv^^nts: — 
 Civil Rights ol' Nunb, ■■■ 3(0 
 
 Competition of Nuns with Lay 
 
 Teachers, ^J et feq. 
 
 lleport of Mr. Dale on, .'fci, •^3, 38t 
 Good Shepherd Convent in 
 
 Limerick, ■■■ 397 
 
 Statistics of Passes in Convent 
 
 Schools, •■■ 382 
 
 Clarke, Allen: — 
 Eft'ects of Factory System, 70 et seq. 
 
 Dale, Mr., l?cport of*. 3-^2,385 
 
 Dancing, Crossroads, 278, 281, 283 
 
 Dancing. St. Francis de Sales on, 27'J 
 Dancing Saloons in New Ycrk 281 
 De Vere, .Aubrey:— . 
 
 Causes of Irish Poverty, 1!!6, 197 
 
 The R'sults in England of In- 
 dustrialism, • •■ 88 
 Divorce: — 
 In America, 95, 90 
 In .Vustralia, ■•. H-l 
 Dobba, Arthur: — 
 
 Short Leases, ■■• 101 
 
 Drink Bill, Irish, ... 30 
 
 Duffcrin, Lord: — 
 Money Sent Hems by Irish 
 Emigrants, ... 'M6 
 
 Education in Ireland: — 
 
 Charter Schools, 176, 177. 430, 436 
 Committee of Irish Catholics 
 
 (1872), ••■ 427 
 
 Diocesan Free Schools (1570), 425, 
 
 428 
 Erasmus Smith Schools, 429 et "fq. 
 In the Penal Days, 422 et xeq. JSS, 
 
 459 
 Intermediate Act (1878) ... 461 
 
 Irish Society for Ediioting 
 
 Native Irish through medium 
 
 of their own language, 4:12, 4:33 
 Is^iac Butt on Denominational 
 
 System of, -InO, ^.'jl 
 
 Kildire Street Society. 4:53e«?eff. 
 London Hibernian Society, ... 4:J1 
 Model Scl'oolg, 461 ?«>•(•(;. 
 
 Mr. Stanley's Letter to the 
 
 Duke of Leinster, ... 457 
 
 Political Object of English 
 
 Schemes of, 420, 421 
 
 Royal Free Sohools. 428, 429 
 
 Sch(.o!s of " Association for 
 
 Discountenancing Vice,'' 430, 4:j1 
 Efficiency of Convent Schools, 
 
 382 et seq. 
 Elberfield System of Poor Relief 92 
 Emigration : — 
 (Joldwin Smith on. ... 304 
 
 Of Woollen !Hanufaeturers to 
 
 Germany, France and Spain, 143 
 
 " The .Vmeriean Letter," ... 289 
 
 Want of Work, Chief Cause of, 287 
 
 Encumbered Estates Act, ... 195 
 
 Evictions after the Famine ... 193 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Fenians Men of Chara<>tcr, ... 127 
 Financial Relations Commission, 298 
 " First Fruits. •• 324, 325 
 
 Fisheries : — 
 
 Prohibited except from boats 
 built in England, ... 153 
 
 School of, at Baltimore, 220, 221 
 F'las Industry declining, ... 213 
 
 George, Henry: — 
 Influence of the Catholic 
 Church on Progress, ... 53 
 
 Germany: — 
 Industrial Progress in the 
 Catholic Rhineland, ... 116 
 
 Glass: — 
 
 E.\portation Prohibited, ... 151 
 
 Grattan's Parliament: — 
 Not an Irish Parliament. ... U'S 
 Progress of the Nation under, 
 
 189, 190, 191 
 
 Holidays, Catholic and Industrial, 
 
 305 et seq. 
 Hvndman, Mr. :-r 
 Catholic Church in England 
 
 before the Reformation, 53, 54 
 
 Monasteries and the Poor, ... 74 
 
 Factory Svstom 
 ESects of, 
 
 England. 
 76 et feq. 112 
 
 India, Result of English Rule in. 
 
 Industry : — 
 Agricultural, 155 et 
 
 Causes of Decline after IfOO, 
 Historical Causes of Failure of 
 Irish, 13.3 pf 
 
 In Belgium, 102. 108 
 
 Irish Catholic, 134 et 
 
 Linen, in North of Ireland, 148 
 
 Industrial Resources of Ireland, 
 
 Intemperance : — 
 Anti-Treating League, 269, 
 
 Craving for Alcohol i'l Irish- 
 men and in Englishmen, 
 Ecclesiastical Censures on, 
 
 206 et 
 Ether Drinking in the North, 
 Father O'Leary of Cork. 
 Irishmen more susceptible to 
 
 e^'l effects of Alcohol, 
 Responsibility of Priests for 
 Public Opinion on, 264, 267, 
 
 Inte;-mediate I'ldncation: — 
 Denominational in Principle, 
 Success of Catholic Schools, 
 
 Irish Gentry: — 
 Fronde's Descriptirn of, 154. 
 
 The D:iJ)U.i Filot on. 
 Their Exi-.mple, as described by 
 Lecky, 
 
 Iri.'h Lan'U'vd since the revolu- 
 tion, The 
 
 Irish Times and Canon Melncrney 
 
 King's Coronation, Crst of. 
 
 Lace Industrv in Youghal, 
 La,w, Hugh. M P. ; — 
 Letter to Daily Express, 
 
 67 
 
 seq. 
 
 193 
 
 seq. 
 
 :, 1U9 
 
 seq. 
 
 , 149 
 
 290 
 
 ,270 
 
 265 
 
 seq 
 267 
 263 
 
 263 
 
 3G8 
 
 465 
 464 
 
 l.'JS 
 300 
 
 178 
 
 291 
 , 13 
 
 19 
 
 412 
 40 
 
INDEX. 
 
 509 
 
 Catholicism and the Industrial 
 
 Virtues, ■•• ^°' 
 
 Civilizing Influences ot the 
 
 Church. 50, ol 
 
 His Form of Protestantism, 
 
 Simple Naturalism, •■■ loH 
 
 His Views on the ludustnal 
 Influence of Catholicism 
 criticised, 167 ?*««?• 
 
 On the Religious Life. Mb. 0.39 
 
 Lester, Charles:— . 
 
 Horrors of the Collieries, =« 
 
 " Slaves in the English Coal 
 Mines," ■■■ »'- 
 
 Linen Industry: — 
 Encouraged by Straflord, ... 14o 
 How the Pledge was Kept, 14G, 14. 
 In Scotland, , , 1*' ■ 1« 
 
 In the North of Ireland, 14*<, i4J 
 Pledge by William III. to en- 
 courage, ,-„ *' 
 
 Less of Faith Abroad, 2o') et seq. 
 
 Lunatic Asylums: — 
 Remuneration of Catholic and 
 Non-Catholic Chaplains com- 
 pared. 351 et.eq. 
 
 Macanley. Lord, On Protestant 
 
 Church in Ireland. •■• -^-l 
 
 Mavnooth Resolutions, • • ^iJ 
 
 Mci)onnell. Sir Antony, ail et geq 
 
 Medieval Craft Guilds. ■•• 4 
 
 Merchant Industry: — 
 
 Disadvantages of Catholics. ISO. Ibl 
 Success of Catholics as Mer- 
 chants in the Pensl Times 
 
 Ico, lo4, lO'j 
 Meredith, George, Views on Mar- 
 
 riage, •;• *^ 
 
 Ministers' Money, ">-». "-" 
 
 Mitchell, John; On the Utilitarian 
 
 Philr.sophy, 33 et yeq^ 
 
 Monasteries and the Poor, ... '* 
 
 Navigation Act of 1660. • 135 
 
 Nenagh, Cost of Church in, ... ^> 
 Newman. Cardinal: — 
 
 Contrasts Objects of the Churen 
 and the World, i>«- •->9 
 
 Number of Catholic auirches: — 
 
 In Ireland; in Great Britain; 
 
 in America, ••■ '-'* 
 
 Nuns and Technical Training: — 
 
 Foxford, metseq. 
 
 Nuns as Teachers and Nurses. 
 
 382 et ieq- 
 
 Over Taxation of Ireland, 237 et leq. 
 
 Parnell, William, on Catholic 
 Disabilities, 18"-. 1^3 
 
 Pauperism in Protestant Coun- 
 tries and in Catholic Compared 91 
 
 Peasant Proprietary. Effects of. WJ 
 
 Penal Code, Influence of Catho 
 
 licism, 
 
 1:2 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Politics : — 
 
 In Relation to Economic Work, 3 
 Part of the Priests in. 
 
 202 et seq. 210 
 Poor Relief, F.lberfleld System 01, 92 
 Presentation Nuns in Limerick, 3i)2 
 "Priest in Politics," ... 6 
 
 Priests as Promoters of Indus- 
 trial Works: — 
 
 Davis, Father, 217 et seq. 
 
 Dooley, Fathe-, • ■ 210 
 
 Farragher. Father. 225, 22G 
 
 (-lendon. Father. O.P :i2S 
 
 Hurley, Father, Inchigeela. ... 227 
 leader. Father, ••• 217 
 
 Maguire, Father, ■■ 213 
 
 iTcClearv, Father, ... 228 
 
 McGeany, Father, Crossmagkn, 22S 
 McSenna. Rev. Canon, Bail;- 
 
 shannon. ••■ 416 
 
 lleehan. Father. Crecvelea, 228, 229 
 
 O'Donnell, Father, Rathkeale, 228 
 
 OHara, Father, ••• 212 
 
 Priests and Emigration. 271 et seq. 
 
 Priests and the Co-operative_ 
 
 Movement, 7, 203 
 
 Priests, Number of in Ireland, 316 
 Progress: Human not identical 
 
 with Material, 61 et seq. 
 
 Protestant Colonization Society 
 
 of Ireland. 237,2.38 
 
 Protestant Churches in Ireland: 
 
 Government Grant for Building. 27 
 Protestant Industrial Inefficiency, 
 
 Cause of. 243,244 
 
 Protestant Tenantry Society, ... 239 
 Protestantism : — 
 A Religion of Human Manu- 
 facture. •■• 60 
 Influence on India ••• 6. 
 On Australasia, •-■ "8 
 On America, ■•■ 69 
 
 Religious Corporations : — 
 
 Opinion of Sir Horace Plnnkett 
 
 on, Ajietseq. 
 
 Position of, as to Public 
 Secular Duties, ■■_■_ '562 
 
 Views of Lecky on, 356, 357, 359 
 
 Revenue of Protestanc Church in 
 
 Ireland. ^ ••• 33o 
 
 Rodge.-s. Professor Thorold : — 
 
 Condition of English People in _ 
 Pre-Reformation Times. ... "3 
 Roosevelt. President, on Race 
 
 Suicide, •■• 1^3 
 
 Buskin, John: — 
 
 Church Building, 10 et seq. 
 
 Russell, T. W., on Protestant 
 
 Privileges, 341, 345 
 
 Saint Januarius. Liquefaction of 
 Blood of, 253, 254 
 
 ScuUv. Denys. on Catholic Dis- 
 abilities. ISl. 182 
 
 Select Committee of House of 
 Commons, Report of. 137 et sej. 
 
 Sheehan. Father. •■■ i3& 
 
 Short Leases, Effect of, ••• 162 
 
110 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 r\Qi; 
 
 Pisters of Mercy in Limerick. 3'.il, 3'.)1, 
 333, 401, 402 
 
 Sisters of Mercy in Sligo, 4\i et>!e(j. 
 
 Sisters of St. Louis at Bun- 
 doran, . ■ 41() 
 
 Slander Ajjainst Irish Catho- 
 licism, Kpidemic of, 12 et »eq. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, on Emigration, 304 
 
 Smuggling and the AVoollen 
 Trade, •■• 150 
 
 Social Economics in Belgium, 
 
 97 et fcq. 
 
 Spain : — 
 
 Revival of Industrial Energy 
 
 in, 120, 121 
 
 Sullivan A. M. : — 
 Excessive Rents and Over 
 Taxation, 304 et feq. 
 
 .■Sunday in New England. ... 288 
 
 Superstition : — 
 Biddy Early, ... 2.j0 
 
 Catholic and Non-Catholic, 
 
 245 et seq. 
 Christian Science, 249, 250, 254, 255 
 Faith-healers, etc., 249, 250 
 
 Tipperary Witch Case, ... 248 
 
 Switzerland: — 
 Comparison of Protestant and 
 
 Catholic Cantons, 117, 118 
 
 Divorce in, ... 119 
 
 Technical Schools: — 
 
 Founded for Proselytising Pur- 
 poses in 1710, ... 176 
 Technical Training under Nuns, 405 
 Tenure. Insecurity of in Ireland 
 
 destroyed energy, ... 159 
 
 " The Little Ark," ... 21 
 
 Thierry: M. Augustus, on 
 
 Liberty in the Middle Ages, 50 
 
 Tithe Commutation Act, ... 314 
 
 Tithe Composition Act, 1630, 312 
 
 P.tOB 
 
 Tithe W ar. The, 311 et geq. 
 
 Trinity College; — 
 As a Landlord. 307,308 
 
 .Medical Faculty of. ... 309 
 
 System of Low Rents and High 
 "Fines, ... 309 
 
 Tyrhmtt. Rev. Mr.: — 
 " The Devil in the Potteries," 89 
 
 Ulster: — 
 .Absence of Literary Life, ... 245 
 Linen Industry, 148, 149 
 
 No Conception of Art, ... 276 
 
 Religion in, ... 345 
 
 Return of Illegitimate Births 
 in, ... 272 
 
 I'nion: How it was Carried. 
 
 297 et seq. 
 University Education: — 
 Catholic ITniversity, The, 490, 492. 
 493 
 Cardinal Newman on the Pres- 
 tige of Trinity College, ... 471 
 Louva in ITniversity, 796ef«eg. 
 
 Queen's Colleges, 466, 467 
 
 Trinity College, 468 et seq. 
 
 Utilitarian Inconsistency, 18, 19 
 
 Vesti-y Laws, ... 25 
 
 Vivian, Sir Hussev, ... 302 
 
 Tohmtecrs, The ... 187 
 
 Woollen Trade: — 
 
 How Destroyed, 140 et seq. 
 
 Lecky on Destruction of, ... 142 
 
 Report of Select Committee of 
 House of Commons, 137 et seq. 
 
 Workhouses : — 
 
 Salaries of Catholic Chaplains 
 in England, 349 et seq. 
 
 Salaries of Protestant Chap- 
 lains in Ireland, 346ef«eg. 
 
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