The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1866-11-10 00:00:00

irritating Cir. of ••• • it.(
have

the NewTo an tbsae—depreeeing sad L__
cutostances mast be added two others, which we

not yet mentioned—religions hatred awl predial dis-
cord. England still retains and supports out of the
tithes of Ireland a Church whose religion is
not the religion of the people—an irritating badge
of corigneet and memorial of oppression. Pro-
testants and Catholics regard each other with feelings
more akin to those entertained in the wars of the
League in France, Or the Thirty'Years' War in Ger-
many, than the moderate and tolerant difference of
opinois which might be expected to prevail among
Christian people, and one mai n occupation of
the Irish Government is to prevent them from
flying at each other's throats. They are learned
in every detail of the irritating history of the
past—of two hundred years ago. Every wrong
then suffered or inflicted is treasured up, every
anniversary celebrated, every defeat remembered and
expatiated upon. In mattere relating to agriculture
the feeling is still worse. The landlord too often guides
himself by the opinion of the least meritorious mem-
ben of his own class, and even learns to view with
satisfaction instance, of misconduct which serve to
palliate in his own eyes any hard dealing with, or
undue advantage taken of, those whom circumstances
place within his power. On the other hand, the feeling
of the tenantry is yet more deplorable. Tney have
learnt to encounter the good will and good intentions
of their landlords with a sullen and suspicious resist-
ance ; they are perpetually labouring to countermine
well-meant efforts at improvement, and seeking by
every means in their poser to prevent that consolida-
tion of small farms into large onee which is demanded
by the science of agriculture. Everything is fair
against a landlord. A nation whose flatterer, are per.
petually praising it for its gratitude has no thanks to
give for the best considered plans for the improve-
ment of the country. The farmer lives in s state of
chronic and sullen discontent, and the landlord in no
unreasonable dread of assassination. The landlord
claims to exercise the same dominion over his pro-
perty as in England; the tenant strives by every
means to convert himself, subject to his rent, into the
owner of his holding. Nor are these evils simply the
remult of tenancy at will; the misery is the greatest
and the cultivation is the worst in places where long
leases have been granted, and the land has been sub-
let to the families of the lessees.
. . .

Such is the painful and humiliating picture which
Ireland presents in the aixty.sixth year of the Union,
and those who, like Mr. Bright, believe that all the
41;
ei nwtotirelaw.ooyffilLanr:ficceenuir
legislation,
and t
eee ihne triad.
unanswerable bill of indictment against the Parliament
1 and Government of the United Kingdom. But those
who believe, with us, that the happinessand prosperity
' of a nation are made npof the happiness and prosperity
of each individualof whom that nation is the aggregate,
that laws and governments are unable to make people
industrious, reasonable, or contented, and that their
power mainly consists in rem6ving obstacles in the
way of individual energy, will probably come to a
contrary conclusion. The laws and institutions of
Ireland are in the main the Wile as those of England,
and where not the same the difference is almost always
in favour of Ireland, The Poor Law is better admin-
istered ; the police is far more numerous and efficient;
the local organization is more perfect; the system of
education of the poor more liberal and more en-
lightened. England pays several taxes which Ireland
does not pay, while Ireland has no special taxation of
her own and the burden of her police and of the educa-
tion of her poor is wholly borne by the United King.
dom. In no country in the world are the laws better
administered or does there exist a more complete
machinery for the protection of life and property.
Even the man who can find hardly anything in the
Government of England that in not execrable can find
only three grounds of complaint in Ireland,--the ad-
mitted grievance of the Eatablaffied Church, the large-
ness of estates, and the absence of leases to tenants.
Ireland is incomparably better governed than the
United States of America, than any of our colonies,
than France, or Italy, or Germany. These things are
enough to show that the evils of Ireland, be they what
they may, do not spring from bad government. The
explanation is only too easy. The people have never
braitted themselves to that discipline which is an essen-
tial condition of material prosperity; they have wasted
in faction, and political and religions hatred the en-
ergies which should have been devoted to developing the
resources of their country. Their history has been one
long conspiracy against the existing atate of things.
versified by successive rebellions and civil war. They
love to live in the past instead of in the present, and to
dream of what never can return, instead of catching at
the great advantages that are offered them. They
drive away manufactures from their shores because
they cannot resist the temptation to combine and con-
spire against capital They will not stretch out their
hands to develope their tine fisheries. They are per-
petually complaining of ahaenteeiam, while they drive
away those gentry who would reside upon their estates
by a system of rural terrorism. Add to this that the
country does not possess the resources which those
who are anxious to saddle all its misfortunes on the
English Government insist, upon attributing to it.
There is little coal, and that of an inferior quality.
The land and climate are not suitable for the produc-
tion of cereal crops, and the country is, even after
the famine and the emigration, far too thickly peopled
for the prosperity of its inhabitants.

merit of corruption and irifluenee has been devised,
liable to the auspicion, and most likely to the reality of
the grossest abuse. Pending the payment if the annuity,
in whom is the property to vest, the Crown or the
ourcharer? Veet it in whom yon will it Trost be
during the period of the annuity in a transition
and anomalous state —property deprived of the inci-
dents, the reeponeibilitim, and the advantages of pro-
perty. It would anbetitnte an uncertain for • certain
tenure. and form an estate which prudent men would
he unwilling to improve or tn advance money noon.
There would be ni.thing to prevent any amount of
geet annuity, we know well
yh were put up for side to the
subdivipion and subletting, arid the purehmer not tiring
required to find ready n.oner would naturally hexione
• sort of middle-man b-tween the cultivator and the
Crow. prhoep ehr
that • price would be offered far beyond that which a
If
solvent purcheser could afford to give. If the annuity
p,Nonn who
othhe id
were a fixed sum, how is the State to determine which
of several candidates is to have the preference? These
estate, are now at least in the hands of persons of
property; Mr. Bright would hand them over to men
of etraw, burdened with a heavy payment over and
above their rent, which would effectually deprive
them of the power, even if they were to poemse the
will, to improve.
But supposing this part if the scheme dropped, and
a ready money payment demanded--to be secured,
of course, m fare, pogsible, by a mortgage—will much
have been gained by the change? The nominal owner
of the land will assuredly divide his estate among his
children, according to the immemorial practice of Irish
cottiers ; and thus Ireland suffering even now from
reoundant population, will be saddled once more with
a tremendous incubus from which the famine and the
subsequent emigration have in part delivered her.
The course of improvement will be arrested; wages will
again fall; her downward career will again begin;
increased poverty will produce increased discontent,
and the country will return rapidly to that false posi-
tion she filled before the catastrophe of 1847. Such are
the blessings which Mr. Bright bears to Ireland,—as
to politics increased discord and disunion ; as to her
economics] position, the diminution of &capital already
too small, the introduction of Government in the
character of the landlord and creditor of • discontented
tenantry. the recommencement of that ruinous subdi-
vision of land from which she has already suffered
so terribly, and the creation of a surplus popula-
tion, which can oulf be disposed of by famine or by
flight.