The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-02 00:00:00

L it

LORD DUPPERIN ON IRELAND.

Lord Dufferin has written another long letter
to the Tines which be calls an answer to the question put
to the Kilkenny parliament—" How is it that the King is
not the richer for Ireland ?" Dealing first with the state.
went that the fountain bead of Ireland's calamities is
traceable to the Irish proprietary of former days, Lord
Dufferin first suggest. and then inquires " whether the
Irish landlord of 100 years ago may not himself have
been • creature of circumstance, involved in the com-
plexities of a system of which he was as much the victim
as his tenants." In dealing with his property
the Irish landlord _must be supposed to have
" pursued his own advantage with more or less
intelligence, and in doing so exercised • right not only
legitimate in itself, but which has been universally recog-
nised as the main spring of human progress. But it is
objected that the practical results of his proceedings have
been over-population, rack-rents, and an exodus of
2,000,000 souls. The question is, have these phenomena
followed in such direct sequence as is alleged, or have
other influences, independent of the landlord's agency,
vitiated • system which otherwise would not have been
unhealthy? Now, of the three evils he is supposed to
have occasioned, the two last are the direct con-
sequences of the first. A rack.rent is the pro-
duct of competition, and both competition and
emigration are the results of over population.
As a matter of fact, however, it does not apppear (says
Lord Dufferin) that the Irish landlords of former days
dealt harshly with their tenantry. Even Mr. Eutt admits
that during the whole of the eighteenth century there
were scarcely any evictions, and that long leases were
almost universal ; while Judge Longfield states that so
late as 1835 there was very little land in the southern and
western counties not on lease, and that ' most of the
leases were all in the tenants' favour.' Nor are even the
middlemen deserving of all the abuse which has been
heaped upon them, for they, too, were rather the
exponents than the cause of the people's misery."
Lord Dufferin then addressing himself directly to the solu-
tion of the question why" the king is none the richer (or
Ireland," finds the answer in the commercial jealousies of
Great Britain. " From Queen Elizabeth's reign until the
Union the various commercial confraternities of Great
Britain never for a moment," he says, " relaxed their
relentless grip on the trades of Ireland. One by one, each
of our nascent industries was either strangled in its birth,
or handed over, gagged and bound, to the jealous custody
of the rival interest in England, until at lest every
fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed and even the
traditions of commercial enterprise Lava perished
through desuetude." Having quoted the enact.
menta against the exports of Irish cattle, wool,
hides, Stc., ke., he asks " What has been the COO-
sequence of such • system, pursued with relentless per.
tinacity for 2.'hl years? This : that, debarred from every
other trade and industry, the entire nation thing itself
back upon the land ' with as fatal an impulse as
when a river whose current is suddenly impeded
rolls back and drowns the valley it once fertilised.
For a long time, however, the limits of their own
island proved sufficient for the three or four mil-
-1 lions which then inhabited it. The cheapness of proof.
eions used to be the bugbear of the English manufacturer.
But each successive century found the nation more strait-
ened within its borders. At last a choice had to be made
between the sacrifice of domestic happiness or of physical
I comfort. ; the natural liveliness of their affections, coa-
-1 blued with a buoyant temperament, led the people to ac-
cept the latter alternative. The mildnessof the climate, the
cheapness of fuel, and, above all, the suitableness of the po-
tato to what is technically called fa petite elettare' ountri-
i buted to turn the scale, and early marriages continued
Ito remain a characteristic of the Irish peasantry."
One manufacture alone in Ireland was left free and un-
affected by the hostile tariffs of England—that of linen—
and the prosperity of Derry, Belfsat, and Lisburn shows
what the rest of Ireland might have been but for the
commercial restrictions which irnpedid her progress. It is
/ his lordship's profound conviction that "bad Ireland only
been allowed to deve:op the other inotimenille resources
at her command, as she has developed the sing!. industry
in which she was permitted to embark, the equilibrium be-
tween the land and the population dependent the land
would never have been disturbed, nor weal I tle relations
between landlord and tenant have betsolie a subject of
anxiety." " If," he says, in conclusion, "an alteration is
to be made iu the tenure of laud in belied, the alteration
must be founded on abstract principk. of justice, and
the requirements of present policy. my eminent state,-
men view with regret the relative position of the cathialm
and protestant clergy of Ireland. But whenever the tine
arrives for effecting an improvement the change will be
because a century ago Irish bis'iops were
sometimes lax and individual clerityliwn occasionally
inefficient, but because it is required by justice and
recommended by expediency. By a parity of rear
souring it is evident that it would lio as great an outrage
now to visit with penal legislation the purchaser cf a pro-
perty in the Encumbered Estates Court because :0) years
ago the grandfather of the former pre prietor created 40s.
freeholders (a tenure of which Mr. Butt, I ob,erve• speaks
almost with approval) and took the best rent, as it would
be to load Mr. Bright with the responsibility of Ireland's
misfortunes because the particular manufacture in which
he is interested owes more than any other its present pees
perity to the cruel policy towards Irelniid his prolecessurs
inaugurated."

"S. G. 0." remarks that Dr. Pusey's late
lottery make it clear that though in the opinion of the
school of neo-catholics a priest has power to hind and
loose, it is a limited power. "If a person makes a vow,
being very young, under some delusion common enough is
an age when religion, especially with women, is made so
exciting as to become little short of hysterical, no priest
can absolve from it. A young son or d .egliter afflicted
with the intimacy of one of these priests may be inoeu•
lated with their pernicious nonsense, he suhjected to their
arrogant assumption of Divine power, be separated from
parental control, and before he or she has tinned by ex.
perience at any real power of sound judgment be bound
for life by a vow they may at last see they rashly took;
they are now told that for such breach of the command
which claims their allegiance to their parents there is
absolutely no absolution. I ask your reader.; to turn to
the 30th chapter of the Book of Number. ; they will there
read that in the case of children making vows unknown to
their parents, wives doing the same thing unknown to their
husbands, the voice of the Almighty declares them free--
that such vows shall not Mead."

The death of Lieutenant-General (leo. Saunders
newts. took place on Sunday last, at bia residence at
Brompton, at the advanced ago of 88.