The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-11 00:00:00

Till this is granted, he says, Ireland is worse treated
than a colony, for we have establisled a Catholic
university in Canada.
So far, Dr. Manning argues instructively and
weightily, for he is master of his subject and his
facts. But when he leaves the education and Church
questions, and proceeds to deal with the land ques-
tion, " in comparison with which (he says) all the
others are light," his mode of treatment alters sadly
for the worst. He has obviously never examined
the subject for himself, but takes his ideas and
beliefs from the universal statements of angry and
ignorant sufferers whom he has met in England,
or from intemperate and utterly untrustworthy
party speeches and pamphlets, whose assertions he
receives as gospel. He goes so far as to declare
authoritatively that in cases of emergency, of which
we conclude the hungry man must be the judge,
robbery is quite permissible. " A starving man
commits no theft if he saves his life by eating of
his neighbour's bread so much as is necessary for
the support of his existence." But what if he
is starving merely because he has been obstinately
idle or wilfully improvident? Is he still entitled to
help himself to his more frugal or more industri-
ous neighbour's store ? "Every- people has a right
to live on the fruits of the soil on which they are
born ?" What, even if they have multiplied so
recklessly and cultivated the soil so -villanously that
there is not _enough for all ? They may have a right
to live somewhere, but why in a particular country?
Why not as well in a particular county or a par-
ticular parish ? Dr. Manning echoes the thought-
less complaints of those who cry out against emi-
gration as a great evil and a grievous wrong, when
he might have known, if he had thought or in-
quired at all upon the matter, not only that this
emigration has been the greatest conceivable bless-
ing to the emigrants, but was an absolutely indis-
pensable step towards improving the condition
of those who remained at home. He repeats,
without a scruple as to the wrong he may be doing
by propagating untrue and exasperating state-
ments, the wild assertions of Mr. Butt and others,
that upwards of " a million of human beings have
been driven from their homes by force, without
pity and without refuge." A little investigation
might have informed him that a very considerable
number of these "enforced" emigrants voluntarily
surrendered their farms (their landlords forgiving
them large arrears of rent) and went gladly to join
their prospering relatives across the Atlantic ; that
a far larger number, so far from being dispossessed
" without pity and without refuge," were care-
fully removed at the expense of the proprietors,
and provided with homes in America ; nay, in
some instances accompanied thither by parties
charged to see them comfortably housed and started
n their new life ; and that this process, which he

represents as so cruel and unjust, was in very truth
the best way, the kindest way, and the only way,
in which these poor creatures could have been per-
manently benefited and ;relieved. Dr. Manning
thinks it hard that the 'lrishraan should have nO
land, or not :land 'enough, Yet he dAPlOres and de-
nounces the natural proceeding a expansion over
God's wide earth Which remove that Irishman from
a country where, land costs £3O an acre and labour
gets 7s. a:WeelC.to a country where land can be
bought for ss. an acre and labour earns 7s. a
day. In all that the Archbishop writes in favour
of securing the tenant in the produce of his in-
dustry or his outlay, it is needless to say, we
fully concur; the only controversy concerns the
best and fairest means of doing it. We should
earnestly recommend the issuing of a new edition
of the pamphlet with the omission of the sixteen
last pages.—Pall Mall Gazette.