Page images
PDF
EPUB

thus: The deep grief of their imperial majesties and of every member of the imperial family is great. They have sent each one his messenger to present prayers and offerings. Deign graciously, O soul, to accept these offerings, and sleep, O body, unmolested in the depths of this sacred ground.' The reading was followed by the offering of the gohei, folded streamers of paper fastened to small branches of the sakaki. What inward and spiritual grace is signified and conveyed by these outward symbols is a matter not to be lightly expounded; but they are sacramental tokens never far absent from the lives of the people, and their presentation is the supreme act of worship at each crisis of life wherever the Shinto rites prevail. In measured order-imperial representatives first, their gohei bound round with crimson silk, then mourners and friends-each received from the hands of the priest the branch with its waving zigzags of paper, laid it, deeply bowing, upon the altar, and turned away, conducted by the chamberlains.

An endless ceremony it seemed; but nothing tires the patience of a Japanese assembly, least of all a function so solemn as this. At last it was over; the crowd dispersed slowly, and, as the short day closed in, the mourners bore the coffin up the steep ascent to where, deep and granite-lined, the open grave awaited it, under the shelter of yet another newly erected temple. Slowly, and with many prayers, it was lowered, the pilgrim's shoes and the warrior's sword resting together on the top, along with a handful of coins, and a plate of copper bearing a long inscription, in which expressions of grief, eulogy, and reverential worship of the departed all found place. The widow stood by the head of the grave while the mound was heaped high, ten feet or more, above it. The darkness fell before the last prayers were said and the last mourners moved away, save those who took the first turn in the unceasing watch to be kept for fifty days beside the dead.

For this watching, begun in the death chamber, is continued for so long. Priests occupy the temporary houses erected near the grave, and offer up unceasing prayers, not to the dead, although his deification has been recognised in those writings and speeches. We must not be too logical, or we may miss after all the meaning which we and they feel after O Kami San. The great God is over all these minor myriads of gods, and O Kami San's judgment follows the deeds done in the body. At the end of these fifty days it will be delivered, and the prayers and alms of the survivors will help to weigh down the scale of his virtues; and thus it is that day by day, the men unshaven, and the women with their long black hair floating unbound, those who love him, come and worship at his grave. After the fifty days are over the mourning is relaxed, but there is a monthly celebration at the grave during the first year, and an annual commemoration during seven years or longer.

Prince Takihito has laid aside his sandals and his pilgrim garb and is again at his post on the Matsushima Kan, making history. As yet the old order and the new go on side by side. The old is rooted deep in the national life. The new? He who lives will see.

ALETHEA YAYENO SANNOMIYA

(English wife of the Vice Grand Master of the Ceremonies to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Japan).

THE FINANCIAL GRIEVANCE

OF IRELAND

It need not be a matter of surprise if a good deal is heard next Session of Parliament of the financial grievance of Ireland. At any rate, the Irish public of all sections and all political parties are just now giving fair and ample warning on the subject. It is unfortunately true that there are not many matters on which Nationalists and Unionists, landlords and tenants, peers and peasants, Catholics, Protestants, and Presbyterians are united; but there are some, and one of them is the robbery of Ireland which has been conclusively exposed by the report of the Financial Relations Commission and by the evidence on which it is founded. For the present it would appear as if the political campaign on the one side and on the other in Ireland were about to be suspended in favour of an agitation, participated in by all parties, in support of the demand that the robbery referred to should cease. In Cork, a requisition signed by Unionists, Parnellites, and anti-Parnellites has been presented to the Earl of Bandon, as Lord Lieutenant of the county, to call a general meeting of the county and city to consider the question and pass resolutions in reference to it; Irish public bodies of all kinds are almost every day expressing their minds upon it in emphatic terms; and there can be little doubt that, before Parliament meets, a body of opinion will have been obtained in favour of the popular view, the national character of which cannot possibly be questioned. Even Englishmen will probably admit that it would be strange if all this were not the case. If England were a part, say, of France, as at one time it seemed not impossible that it would become, and if, after several generations of common government and indiscriminate' taxation, it were declared by a tribunal mostly composed of Frenchmen that England had been despoiled at the rate of some millions sterling a year by the predominant partner,' Englishmen would almost to a certainty take advantage of such a declaration to declare, in their turn, that they would not submit longer than they were compelled to so great an injustice. Moreover, it is felt that this financial grievance is not recognised or admitted in England as

widely as could be desired, and that accordingly a vigorous agitation is necessary if redress is soon to be obtained. But the great fact to be noted is that, for the first time probably since the Union, the whole population of Ireland is, as has been said, united on an Irish question, and that, should England resist the Irish demand, it will have, at least on this occasion, no Irish aiders or abettors.

The conclusions of the Financial Relations Commission, which are sufficiently remarkable in themselves, are rendered more so by remembering the constitution of that body. Putting out of account the Irish members of the Commission, who may by some persons be regarded as prejudiced in favour of the Irish view of the question inquired into, but who, however, include Unionists as well as Nationalists in their number, let us see how the rest of the Commission was constituted. To English and Scotch readers it will be sufficient to mention the names of the late Mr. Childers, Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, the late Sir Robert Hamilton, Sir Thomas Sutherland, M.P., Sir David Barbour, Mr. Bertram Currie, and Mr. W. A. Hunter, ex-M.P., to enable them to know that British interests and the interests of the Treasury in especial were amply represented. Indeed, it may be said, without any disparagement whatever to the Irish Commissioners, that British interests were better represented than the interests of Ireland, for no Irish Commissioner possessed the expert knowledge which comes and can only come of such lengthened official experience as that of Mr. Childers, Lord Farrer, Lord Welby, Sir Robert Hamilton, Sir David Barbour, and Mr. Currie. Yet, of the eight British representatives on the Commission, four have signed the joint report to which all the Irish representatives have attached their names; two others, Mr. Childers and Sir Robert Hamilton, would undoubtedly have done so if they had lived; one other, Sir David Barbour, has presented a report of his own, which shows that he too might have followed suit without outraging his conscience; and even the remaining member can hardly be said to deny the main facts. Never before, it may safely be said, has an inquiry by men of such widely divergent views on political and other subjects into a question so complicated, and involving such antagonistic interests, resulted in so practically unanimous a verdict. But this verdict is unusually remarkable for another reason also. The facts and figures on which it is based were mainly supplied by the officials of an English Government, and made out under the directions of the various departments of that Government. No such objection, therefore, can be taken to the evidence by Englishmen as that it was one-sided or insufficient. It is doubtful, however, if such an objection may not properly be made by Irishmen. In this matter Irishmen have always been at a great disadvantage. Not only have they not had the expert skill which official experience alone brings, but they have not had access to the sources of information necessary

to determine the question. I do not, of course, suggest that any fact of importance has been deliberately kept back from the Commission; but it is quite possible that if Irishmen, unconnected in any way with the Government departments, had before them all the official information possessed by those departments, they might, by reason of looking at matters from a different point of view, not only put a different meaning on some facts and figures that have been furnished, but might even see importance in other facts and figures that have been passed over as of no significance.

But to come now to the actual findings of the Commission. They are five in number, and are as follows:

I. That Great Britain and Ireland must for the purpose of this inquiry be considered as separate entities.

II. That the Act of Union imposed upon Ireland a burden which, as events showed, she was unable to bear.

III. That the increase of taxation laid upon Ireland between 1853 and 1860 was not justified by the then existing circumstances.

IV. That identity of rates of taxation does not necessarily involve equality of burden.

V. That, whilst the actual tax revenue of Ireland is about one-eleventh of that of Great Britain, the relative taxable capacity of Ireland is very much smaller, and is not estimated by any of us as exceeding one-twentieth.

To an Irishman who has been following the course of this financial controversy, the first observation that suggests itself, on reading this series of conclusions, is that they completely justify all that has ever been said upon the subject from the point of view of Ireland. From time to time during the last half-century Irishmen of every political party have complained of the over-taxation of their country. The late Mr. O'Neill Daunt, a Repealer of the old school, of whom it may be said that neither his pre-eminent abilities nor his public services have ever met with adequate appreciation; The O'Conor Don, a Liberal Unionist; the late Colonel Dunne, a Conservative, and sometime member of Parliament for Queen's County; Sir Joseph McKenna, a Home Ruler, and other representative Irishmen, whose names it is needless to mention, have all at various times laid down the main propositions just quoted; the exact amount, of course, of the excess of Ireland's contribution to the Imperial revenue beyond her proper share being with them all a matter of doubt. But they have all been, as it were, laughed out of court. That Ireland was unjustly treated in financial matters, either at the time of the Union or afterwards, was a circumstance which no British statesman would admit. The contrary, indeed, was asserted-namely, that Ireland was unduly favoured. The fact that she was exempt from certain taxes to which Great Britain was subject, the exceptional' grants and remissions of loans made to her, and the abnormal expenditure upon the government of Ireland, were all pointed to as conclusively showing that that country was really the petted and

« PreviousContinue »