THE REV. MR. FAGAN ON KERRY—A PLEA FOR HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 52, 22 April 1887, Page 17

THE REV. MR. FAGAN ON KERRY—A PLEA FOR HOME RULE.

This gentlemaD, whose sympathies with Ireland are well-known, contributes to the Contemporary Review with the title we (Nation) have quuted above. At the outset Mr. Fagan explains his qualification to treat the subject on which he has undertaken to write. " Early this winter I was a whole month in Kerry, not interviewing only, but living with people of all sorts. May I venture to state, as the net result of my observations, my belief that moonlighting is partly a survival of the old secret societies ; that for the most part the Kerry peasants really cannot pay their rents ; that in Kerry the League has always been weak and ill-organised, and that this accounts for the cruel way in which boycotting has there more than elsewhere, been used for private ends ? I found, moreover (though I have been assured on the contrary), that in Kerry the vast majority, including nearly all the intellect that is not by fancied self- interest drawn the other way, goes in strongly for Home Rule. I satisfied myself, too, that in no part of the country have the tenants been ' spending all their money on meat, and drink, and dress '; that Communist ideas are unknown amongst them ; and that their reverence for the Catholic ( hurch is unabated. I noticed the widespread disappointment that through legal technicalities the Land Acts have often failed to give protection to those who me»st needed and deserved it. I saw that where a landlord treats his tenants as human beings he seldom fails to keep in touch with them ; and I marked the old grievance, that, instead of having to deal with a sympathetic chief, the peasant too often finds himself at grips with the'sharpest of chicaning lawyers, and that this is a sadly demoralising experience. I saw, too, what I had years ago seen in Donegal, men who had improved a banen mountain side, carrying up earth on their backs, bringing sea-sand and ore-weed a day's journey because no lime was to be bad, turned out because, owing to this unexampled drop in prices, they had got behind in their rents. I heard their not unnatural murmurs and the equally natural complaints of the landlords, who, themselves sore pressed, often cannot, if they would, abate their claims unless helped by some sort of tabula novce." On the question of rent in Kerry Mr. Fagan's opinion may be summed up in one short sentence which we take from his article :—: — " Rent really could not be paid." That sums up the situation in that part of Ireland at any rate. The following quotation will give our readers an idea of the way in which the reverend gentleman utilises Kerry as an argument for Home Rule :—: — " There is nothing for it but to hasten on Home Rule. I entered Kerry thinking that the Home Rule question was less important than some others ; I came back assured that Home Rule cannot wait. Ireland wants quiet ; but, to qu jte a farmer's words, ' lhiags won't be quiet till we get our own Parliament men, who'll soon lay the lash on Ihoße blackguards' sides, and we shall cheer them on H doing it.' A Home Rule Government would at once get rid of mo lV iting, at any rate. 'Ah ! Mr. Parnell would stop all that kinu m work, if only he got the chance.' ' Why ?' ' Because he would have the people with him ; and, now, it's a painful fact, but down here in Kerry, at any rate, lingers the old tradition, that there must be something right, something lielpful to the popular cause, at the bottom of whatever the Government sets itself to put down. In our view it's an alien Government, remember ; and till yesterday it could not possibly be just between man and man, because it took all its magistrates from one party. Tour Caßtle machinery may forcibly drive

moonlighting under, but it will smoulder on ; whereas a National Government would quickly quench it by removing the discontent on which it feeds.' The speaker was a parson with life-long experience of the people and their sympathies. " Bring in Home Rulh, then, since it neither means separation, nor the beggaring of Ireland, nor the persecution o£ Protestants, nor the establishment of a Rome-ruled Btate. You believe in Beotham — here is a clear case of ihe greatest happiness for the greatest number. You have never yet believed that we Irish were the best judges of our own needs ; in Church, in education, it has always been the same. You've insisted on giving us what you, from your wholly wrong point of view, judged to be best for us. Change your plan at last. Have a little faith in us. Believe that behind all this agitation there is a reserve foree — tho quiet tenacity with which people hold what they are assured is right. " And let Mr. Gladstone bring it in ; for the immense faith in him, the deep love of him, in all those Kerry peasants' minds no one can measure who has not been among them . " ' Ah, but the land question must first be settled, or the landlords v-ill be robbed wholesale ; and to settle the land question will take time,' " Yes : and surely that's a reason for first bringing in Home Rule, and so putting an end to this wretched demoralising deadlock. Leave thu land question to a Commission of mixed English and Irish lawyers and practical men, in whose impartiality both sides will have confidence. The Commission now sitting is only one of inquiry. It has (we bear) been learning strange truths, as the Bessborough Commission did before it ; and what it has learned might well be the basis of future action. Meanwhile, let Government adopt something like Mr. Dillon's Plan of Campaign, and let it make such an arrangement with the mortgagees as shall enable the landlords to await a final settlement. " The all-important thing is to stamp out that lawlessness which now burns so fiercely because it feeds on the unsatisfied national sentiment. " I appeal to educated Englishmen— to men like my old London schoolmates and Oxford fellow-studeuts : fling aside party and small personal interests. Ireland has too long been a Parliamentary shuttlecock. That mode of government (or rather non-government) is for her an ignominy ; for England it is not only a scandal, but a fatal weakness. Have faith in Ireland's professions ; do there what you have done with such admirable results in Canada ; and henceforth we 6hallhave a contented Ireland, all parties being contented because each will fit into its natural place ; ana a contented Ireland, remember, means a strong United Kingdom. Once believe that we are in earnest, that we have given pledges of sincerity— all of us ; not the poor fellows only who have been for four years out in the cold. Ask yourselves how it is possible to govern successfully when the state of things is such that a newly appointed Government officer could tell me : ' We found at once that the Castle system Is quite rotten.' "