No one, except the English army, is proud of a retreat, however well it may be conducted, and though it may be the most difficult thing to do. Of the sorry business we had to manage when there could no longer be any doubt as to the definite failure of the Land League, there is not, fortunately, much that is necessary to say. The first thing to be done was to stop relief to poverty cases, as far as we could, because there was now a certainty that some of the ‘principle’ cases (tenants who had been solvent enough to have avoided eviction that time) would be left out of their holdings for an indefinite period, perhaps permanently, and the chief danger at present was that the Land League might not be able to support them or make good the damage done to them.
But it was the most difficult thing in the world to discriminate between the two classes of cases. Feeling sure in our own minds that any numbers of applicants were not entitled to support was not enough; we had to prove it, and the material for proof we mostly lacked. And even one mistake in refusing relief was capable of doing immense harm. Only for the loyalty of our branches we could never have pulled through even as well as we did. This loyalty must have been exercised at a painful cost to themselves; they must have suffered much for it and incurred much enmity through trying to avoid recommending illegitimate claims. To try and get as much of the money that was ‘going’ for dispensation in their own district would have been much the easiest and pleasantest course.
During this winter the imprisoned Land League took a step towards reducing the national expenditure which they ought to have taken a long time before. When the first arrests under the Persecution Act were being made, and the question of feeding the prisoners was on the tapis, we suggested the plan of making each prisoner a weekly allowance and letting him make his own arrangements, except where any one might prefer to be catered for. The Land League negatived this proposal and appointed a succession of caterers for the Dublin prisoners, while the branches of the Ladies’ Land League catered for the country prisons. The task of checking all the accounts, which were paid by the Land League, supervising the caterers and supplying the other wants of the prisoners was in our hands.
From the first it was obvious that from all points of view except one, the method we would have chosen was the only right one. The other was expensive, troublesome, and unsatisfactory to the prisoners. The only point that reconciled us to it was our fear that a money allowance would be used for the payment of rent by those prisoners who had any rent to pay. But the Land League had by no means the same objection to rent being paid as we had, and so their preference for the most costly system was hard to explain. After the suppression of the League, they decided to allow each prisoner £1 a week for food, which he would be free to spend as he liked. Though this was less than the prisoners’ food had previously cost per head, and though it was not enough, the prisoners were much better pleased with the new arrangement, as it permitted them to gratify their individual tastes better, and.the slight increase of interest and occupation afforded them by ‘house-keeping’ for themselves, served to lighten the dreadful ennui of prison life.
To be sufficient, the weekly allowance should have been £1.5s.0d. per head, and if the common sense system had been adopted in the beginning, this weekly expenditure would have secured a great saving in money, combined with a good deal - more comfort for the prisoners. It is true that the Sustenation Fund, especially raised for the prisoners, was often applied to the payment of rent; landlords even procured the imprisonment of their tenants in order that they might be enabled to pay their ’ rents out of their weekly allowance. But at this stage in the proceedings such a diversion of funds no longer signified, in comparison with the need for spending no more than could be helped. What could not be helped was quite enough.
The imprisoned Land League did not withdraw the No Rent manifesto, though they knew that not only it, but any kind of resistance to rent had been a failure. There was a strong practical difficulty in the way of their doing so; for they would thereby have again incurred the responsibility for nearly all the costs the tenants had made themselves liable to since its issue — the very responsibility that issue had taken off their shoulders. Though the manifesto had been a dead letter, there was nothing to prevent tenants who had not paid their rent from any cause whatever, including those who were living in Land League houses and intending to pay before the six months redemption expired, from saying they had been deterred from paying by the No Rent manifesto alone. The public withdrawal of the No Rent commandment might also have had some stiffening effect on the landlord and so prevented many tenants from getting reductions and other settlements.
In fact, the No Rent manifesto, from being a pure and simple nuisance at first, at last became something of a protection. We had to stop recommending tenants to resist paying rent now, except in those rare cases where the majority of an estate were still refusing payment and a large number of tenants had already been evicted, relying on the understanding that their comrades would be loyal to them. We were obliged to promise their costs to any tenants who consulted us, as well as to the evicted tenants whose term of redemption had not expired, who claimed to have sustained eviction for the sake of the No Rent manifesto.
Though the advice to make the best settlement they could, accompanied by the promise to pay their costs, given to evicted tenants, generally resulted in the disclosure of their insolvency, it still did not abrogate their claims on the Land League for support, since they could say they had refused substantial reductions for its sake. Our being perfectly sure they had done nothing of the sort, was not evidence. But paying rent was going on rapidly, and every day removed some claim that might otherwise have been brought against the Land League funds. In April, a surprising thing happened. A rumour spread, firstly, that Lord Cowper, the Lord Lieutenant, was going to resign, and secondly, that his reason for resignation was disgust at the kind of government he had observed in Ireland. The second clause of the rumour was obviously not true. No one could hold a post which involved conniving with all that was done by the Irish government during those two years and have a scrap of conscience or a grain of scruple left at the end.
Then it began to be rumoured that Mr Forster was also going to resign. Nobody went so far as to accuse Mr Forster of conscientious motives, but a very alarming idea seemed to spring up in the country that Mr Forster’s departure would mean the end of the reign of terror, and that the English government had repented of its ways and was going to be good forthwith. This idea was alarming because of the blindness to realities it indicated, and the consequent incapacity it implied for dealing rightly with any situation that might arise. And very soon a situation was to arise that required to be dealt with very ably and was dealt with almost as wrongly as was possible. Now came the apotheosis of the Ladies’ Land League.
Cowper and Forster, it was argued, must have felt themselves beaten, or they would not have resigned, and obviously the victory must be due to the Ladies’ Land League. That Cowper and Forster had not been beaten ought to have been quite plain to everybody. It certainly was so to us, and we felt this brief period of fictitious triumph to be even more unsatisfactory than the cold atmosphere of censure we had so long been used to. Whether this belief in victory was real or assumed, it augured equally ill for the future.
When the release of the suspects began we knew that a change of policy had taken place, but knew also that it would not be a better one for the country at large. There could be no escaping the-consequences of failure by such a noisy and defiant body as the Land League had been. Even if it had tried to succeed, the consequences of failure would most likely have been equally bad, while they lasted, though they scarcely would have lasted so long. A period of persecution must have ensued, or rather, have continued, and probably in an intensified form. Had we wanted confirmation of our views, we could have found it in the attitude of another Irish body, much more important than we were.
The Royal Irish Constabulary evidently held the same opinion as we did, for their outrages and persecution continued with unabated vigour. These gentry would have been the very first to scent an approaching change in the spirit of the government, and would have adopted a cautious procedure, if any such change had been approaching. The real explanation, however, of Mr Forster's dismissal and the release of the suspects, is easy to guess. The fiasco of the Land League must have suggested to a person of Mr Gladstone’s political acuteness and long experience that the eventual incorporation of the Irish parliamentary party with his own, which did afterwards actually come to pass, would be one natural sequel. But even Mr Gladstone did not seem to see his way clearly to this desirable end while he continued to keep the Irish parliamentary leaders in prison. Some concession, therefore, had to be made, and the only question was, how little the leaders would take. It proved to be very little indeed. From correspondence since published, it appears certain that there was at this time only one real point of disagreement between Mr Gladstone and Mr Forster. They both appear to have agreed on passing a new and more savage Persecution Act for Ireland than the one they were already enjoying the use of. The split took place over the release of the imprisoned members of parliament, to which Mr Forster would not consent. He could never hope to lead the English Liberal party, or any party whatsoever, and therefore saw no need for appeasing anybody for Mr Gladstone’s sake. The release of the members of parliament was especially obnoxious to him, as he had personal cause to dread their ridicule in the House of Commons. Their sharp tongues were more comfortable, from his point of view, in Kilmainham. But he was over-ruled by the Cabinet, and had to resign, Lord Cowper, presumably, resigning to keep him in countenance.
So neither of this pair reaped any reward for their two years of ill-doing, one of them, indeed, being pursued by a species of fatality that is, unhappily, very rare in the annals of those who have secured a position of eminence amongst the oppressors of Ireland. At the General Election of 1880, Mr Forster was in the front rank of the Liberal party, spoken of amongst the number from which a leader might be expected after Mr Gladstone. He had only been a short time in Ireland before he had completely lost his status in his own party, and all idea of leadership for him had vanished forever. When he left Ireland in disgrace, he had become an object of ridicule on all sides.
The spectacle of this wretched old man, trying simultaneously to forward his career under a chief like Mr Gladstone and to keep a rag of self-respect wherewith to hide his shame the while, driven finally to absolute obedience by the master whom he had irritated by his half-scruples, too dull to see that such a master was not safe to irritate and serve under at the same time, and at last ignominiously wiped out of political existence when he was no longer needed as a tool, should be a lesson to all who think that a profitable business can always be made of sacrificing principle (to their own ‘advancement’, or that there will never be any difficulty about hunting with the hounds and holding the hare. Such sport, even in Ireland, requires more brains than Mr Buckshot Forster ever had.
The scarcely veiled eagerness in the ranks of the Irish MPs for an alliance with the English Liberal party contributed to deepen the apprehension as to what the new era of ‘conciliation’, which we were being gravely assured had already commenced, was likely to bring forth. The situation, indeed, resembled nothing so much as that described in Hans Andersen’s story of the two false tailors, who reaped much profit by pretending to make clothes with a magnificent fabric which had the magic property of being invisible to the stupid and base. There was no alteration whatever in government methods, unless perhaps that they were getting a little worse, except the release of a few prisoners. But long before these prisoners had been put in prison, the government of Ireland had been clearly recognised as one of sheer persecution, with no redeeming features, by the same people who were now suddenly unable to see anything amiss with it, and who had then found no language too strong to denounce it with.
They seem to be as much struck with its merits as the King and his people in the story were with the beauties of the King’s new and invisible clothes. From a purely personal standpoint, however, the clouds were not without their silver lining for the Ladies’ Land League. The end of our long nightmare was in sight. If the Land League came out of prison, they could have no excuse for leaving the work they had put on our shoulders much longer. In the beginning of May the three members of parliament who had been imprisoned were released, and a meeting between them and the executive of the Ladies’ Land League was arranged at a private house. Before they left we warned them that we wished to dissolve without unnecessary delay. To our surprise, they wanted to know why we entertained such a wish. We had neglected to agree beforehand on our answer to this question, should it be asked, because there was no possibility of their not knowing that we must wish to dissolve. We had overlooked the fact that their possessing this knowledge need not prevent them from pretending not to have it. On the spur of the moment two answers were given: the first was, that we wanted rest, which was true, though not the whole truth; the second was, that it was ‘morally impossible for us to go on working with the men’. This was the most complete, though to me it hardly sounded emphatic enough. They asked us to continue ‘for the present’, and to this we had, of course, to consent, for we could not expect relief immediately.
X - The Ballina and Phoenix Park Murders