'Irish Outrage': XVII 'Faking' and Exaggeration(8)

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 45, 7 November 1907, Page 10

' Irish Outrage': XVII 'Faking' and Exaggeration(B)

Exaggeration^) The dignity of a submarine cable report was atso accorded to a statement made by another Tory placeman, Mr. Justice Ross, on May 17, 1907, to: the effect that at the time a ' widespread and audacious conspiracy ' was ' rampant in the West of Ireland.' A circumstance that the cable-agent failed to say was this : -that (as the ' Glasgow Observer » of 'June 7, 1907, remarks) Mr. Justice Ross ' had no criminal cases before him upon which to rest his dictum ', as his statement was ' made in the Land Court '. We may here add that such agrarian trouble as existed in Ireland at the time was confined to the areas which were being impoverished and depopulated by the ranching system. Of the which, more will be said in the course of the present chapter. On May 15, 1907, Sir Henry Campbell-Ban-nerman referred to these areas in the course of a speech as follows :—

' He was not aware that there was any foundation for the suggestion that there was an increasing number of outrages throughout the South and West of Ireland. The Chief Secretary informed him that the condition of Ireland, as a whole, was very satisfactory, though in certain limited areas disturbances had recently taken place.' A vague and general charge of widespread and «• savage boycotting,' was made in the House' of Commons some three months earlier— in February, 1907, by Mr. Walter Long. Chief Secretary Mr. Birrell described the statement as ' a shocking misrepresentation '. He appealed to the police returns to show that serious boycotting was limited to a score of cases ; -and (added he), as to ' exclusive dealing and ." cutting " people ', knowing what Nonconformists had to put up .with in English village life, the English records of such incidents would be very formidable (' Weekly Freeman ', February 23, 1907). A more detailed story of boycotting was told by an Ulster Orange member, Captain Craig, in the customary form of a question, in the House of Commons on July 3, 1907. He asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland :-- 'How many persons in the neighborhood of Dromahair, County Leitrim, are boycotted ; how many miles have they to travel to obtain the bare necessaries of lire, hay« their horses shod, and dispose o* their stock c can he give the reasons why they are boycotted, and state the number of police employed .for their protection.' *

The writer of an article in the • Weekly Freeman ' of August 3, 1907, states that « a crowded House of Commons ' awaited the answer to this series of charges

against a whole country-side in Leitrim. Mr. Birrell's answer . ran as follows — 1 No one in Dromaliair or within ten irdles of it is boycotted ' „- And then, , we are told, ' the House rocked with laughter-'-.. - v « . ..'','<•' ' The same writer tells how another question was 4 printed and circulated among the parliamentary papers for several mornings, and sent each morning, to the houses of the 670 members of Parliament, to the numerous 'members of the House of Lords, to every ' newspaper office in London, and to various other persons and places '. This was, in fact, the general practice of the • carrion crows ' of the Irish Unionist Alliance. It indicates a "source from' which the cable-agency that sup- • plies Australasian newspapers probably took- some of their mistaken stories of Irish crime and '.outrage. The question referred to at the beginning of this paragraph, was put by Mr. Lonsdale, a prominent member of .the Ulster Orange party. It ran as follows :— ' To "ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant - of Ireland whether he has received reports of a shooting outrage at Grange, bounty Galway, at the house of • a. Iran named John Costelloe, who took possession of a' grazing farm on " the estate of Lambert, minors, ■ and ■ whether any arrests have been made.' Mr. Birrell replied :— 1 The police authorities inform me they have investigated this alleged shooting outrage, and they are perfectly satisfied there is absolutely no foundation for it.' • Gatta ci cova ', as the Italians say— there's something at the back of all this that needs explaining. Elvira, in the ' Bab Ballads ', sent her Ferdinando on a journey to discover ' who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes '. Ferdinando at last discovered the lollipop bard in the person of an obscure hut 'gentle pieman '. It would be interesting to trace these Unionist Alliance ' outrages 'to their source— to pillory the ungentle political piemen who invent or ' adapt ' this class of crimes and forward them to the Ulster Orange members to be made the subjects of inquiry in Parliament. The writer in the 'Weekly Freeman' of July 3, 1907, whom we have already quoted, says of these stories :-^ ' They must be authenticated in some way or other No member of Parliament, not even the most rabid Orange coercionist, would accept, without some authority or without the hat of someone he knew, questions to Ministers for which, in a measure, he becomes responsible, and which, if unfounded, will make him appeals' and ridiculous. These questions must have a history, and that history would certainly be interesting: if .once made public. No one can have the least doubt that the Unionist- members of Parliament are themselves imposed on, in the first instance, by the invenJ?H +L bosus outra S es ! but while that may miti&*J£«TT%SLS^ oftence !t certainly cannot * Tales of Irish Catholic ' disloyalty ' and ' intolerance ' appear to be among the « bonnes bouches ' or tit-bits of the outrage campaign. We pick a few cases at random from among the many before us. Here is a case which is reported in so unaccustoired and unexpected a quarter as the • Weekly Irish Times ', a coerciojiist organ (issue of June 22, 1907) :— Mo l?tL« L °' n ? d^ e l , asked the Chief Secretary whether rf«H^ nt On h^ d been - called to fact that, at a P anJSZSf* dem r + itration on Sunda y> ™ June Mr P. O Donnellan said the Irish people were not in a nnsi vice ? , and what steps he proposes to take T in the mattoon did not seem to him to convey a correct iii^eS _

of the tenor of the speech. Its general purport was contained in an extract which he would venture to read : Last year the Irish people spent over £13,000,000 on S a i?* f £?* # C , duty collected on the drink bill principally, the English Government was -paying her officials > from the Lord Lieutenant down to the meanest menial and to the meanest spy in her service. Why should they not reduce the drihk bill by one-half, because it would not be too much ton ask any. man taking two bottles of stout in the day. to reduce it -to one not for the sake of any man, but for the sake of Ireland. Were they going to spend £25,000,000 on foreign manufactures, while they • were beggine from Henry Kobmson and others for grants for Unions ? " In S S^vn elo ?« e nt speech, added the Chief Secrelll+ o a D,D ,° F nne , llai l asked the P^Plc to become temperate and self-reliant until they realised their fondest <tspn<ii/ions ,