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 sometimes to be faced. There shall be no rhetoric of mine in it, even if I had 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, however, 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 everything, but because they 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 traditional 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

a book by J. P. Prendergast, the author of The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, that those who were intruded 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 supplanted them; and Archbishop King likewise complained 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 Disestablishment was sacrilege and spoliation. A quarter of a century ago, Gladstone's land measures were denounced, as a denial of that sacred maxim of the fifties, a repudiation of the binding power of contracts, an injury to proprietary rights. The 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 every prophecy. Whether the cry which is now raised be true 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 years of service have proved him worthy of every trust which the From the Settlement to the Revolution: pp. 63, 64.

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 their 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 reported as follows*: He knew nothing of Sir Antony save what is known by the man in the street. He had two conversations with him on public business, not at all of a satisfactory 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 suspected 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 Lieutenant. The clerical staff of that Department is recruited by the Civil Service Commissioners, and conse

In the Irish Times.

quently no question of religious partisanship can arise. Out of the three Estates Commissioners appointed under the Land Act by the Lord Lieutenant two were Protestants and one was a Roman Catholic. When Parliament rose in August last there were twenty-one inspectors employed 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 dismissed, or about to be dismissed, owing to the sales in the Court having lessened the work. These men, temporary 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 suitable 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 partisan.' He (Mr. Russell) protested in the strongest manner against this effort to 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 tribunal 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 population all but three-fourths Catholics, were the Protestants 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

acre of that 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 Institution, 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 Officers of State at the Castle, five are Protestants and only one Roman Catholic. There were, he thought, sixteen Superior Court Judges, and thirteen of these were Protestants. Of the six Land Commissioners, three were Catholics. Of the host of highly-paid officials in the Local Government Board, Land Commission, and Agricultural Department, not one-fourth were Catholics The three Commissioners of Public Works were all Protestants. The Resident Magistrates and police 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 predominance in the magistracy of Protestants was enorUp 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

mous.