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Every available fishing place from top to bottom of the whole west coast has been similarly aided, and the value of their produce has increased from next to nothing to something like fifty thousand pounds per month. This on the authority of Father P.J. McPhilpin, parish priest of Kilronane, Innishmore, who said:
Av 'twas Misther Balfour himself that wanted their vote he'd get it fast enough. But 'tisn't. An' they'll vote agin' him without knowin' what they're doin'." Father McPhilpin said, "It is very hard to get them to move. The Irish people are the most conservative in the world. They will not stir for telling, and they will not stir when you take them by the collar and haul them along.
Speaking on the general question of Home Rule, I asked Father McPhilpin if the people of Ireland would be loyal. "Loyal to what?" said the Father, replying quickly. "Loyal to England, to the Crown, to Queen Victoria." "The Irish people have always been loyal much more loyal than the English people. You have only to look at English history.
Having been carried from Galway to the ice-hulk in Killeany Bay, and having been duly put ashore in a boat, one of the first persons I saw was Father Thomas Flatley, coadjutor of Father McPhilpin, an earnest Home Ruler, like his superior, and like him a great admirer of Mr. Balfour.
They are essentially bone-idle laziness is in their blood. They will not exert themselves. As Father McPhilpin says, "They will not move. You cannot stir them if you take them by the shoulders and haul at them." What will Home Rule do for such people? Will it serve them instead of work? Will it content the grumblers? Will it silence the agitators? Will it convert the people to industry?
Hastings, of Westport, said: "I care not who hears me say that the Tories have instituted the public works which have so much benefited the country. The Liberals have always been illiberal in this respect. Mr. Balfour did Ireland more good than any Liberal Irish Secretary." Mr. Hastings is as good a Catholic Home Ruler as Father McPhilpin, who said substantially the same thing.
But when did Irishmen act on the lines of Englishmen or Scotchmen? They never did; they never will. The peoples are actuated by entirely different motives. Englishmen look at what is going to pay. They act on whatever basis promises the most substantial return. Irishmen are swayed by sentiment." Here I remembered a remark of Father McPhilpin, parish priest of Kilronane, Aran Isles.
Father McPhilpin holds some honorary official position in connection with the Aran fisheries, and from him I derived most of my information. Another authority assured me that the Araners were not grateful to England nor to Mr. Balfour, and spoke of the viper that somebody warmed in his bosom with disagreeable results.
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