The Middlebury galaxy. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1848-1850, 1848-06-13
From the London Spectator.
IRELAND AND THE BRITISH CHIEF
GOVERNOR.
BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

I
Parliament happily got together again, Lord
John Russell comes forward with his remedial
measures for Ireland. A most proper duty,
surely: he has put down pike-rioting, open
and advised incenGiary eloquence, ard sieni-
: fed to Ireland that her wrongs are not to be
: redressed by street-barricades Just at present
: an act for which all sane men, Irish and Eng
D lish, applaud him. But this act done, the
t question rises, more naked and irrsoressbla
than ever BY what means, then, are Irish
wrongs to be redressed? Fifty thousand arm
5 ed soldiers,-in red coats or in green, there
are said to be about so many,-here is prohi-
bition OF repeal treason, but here is no cure
Of the disease which produces repeal treason,
t and other madnesses and treasons among u.s.
Here is still no indication how the Irish popu-
lation Is TO begin endeavoring to live on Just
terms with one another and with us,-or, a.
las, even how it is to continue living at all.
Of truth, remedial measures are very
needful; for Ireland's sake and indeed for
Britains, which is indissoluby chained to her
and Is drifting along with her and by reason
of her, close in the rear other, toward ur-
Speakable destinies otherwise, Our copart-
merry being iudissoluble, and the " Warmer op-
Grafton" lately spoken of impossible, it is 10
ourselves also ofthe last Importance that the
depths of Irish wretchedness be actually sound
I'd that We get to the real bottom of that I'M
speakable cloaca, and endeavor by Heavens
blessing, with all the strength that is in us, to
commence operations upon IT. Purified that
| hideous mass must be or we ourselves cannot
live More stringent than O'Connell elo-
quence or O'BriGn pike manufacture, the law
of nature itself makes us row, in every fibre,
participant of Irciand's Sretchedness. Steam
passage from Ireland is occasionally rs low a.
1 fnrtrt, an1 NJ IT,
lackall that comes over to US, to parade his
rags and hunger, and sin and misery, but
conies in all senses as an irIepressible mission
airy Of the like TO our own people, an inartic-
ulate prophet Of Gods justice 10 nations her
aiding TO US also doom ike his own.
OF our miscrics and fearful entanglsments
here in Britain, he, that Irish lackaIl, Is by far
the heaviest and VIC cannot shake him OIL
No, VIC have deserved him bv our incompc-
tence and unvcracity-by our cowardly, ialse,
and altogether criminal neglect of Ireland
by our government Of make believe and not Of
truth and reality, 50 long continued there, we
have deserved him, and suddenly, by the aid
Of steam and modern progress of the sciences,
We have got him.-The irrepressible mission
! airy and Gods messenger 70 Us, say, is this
one, he : \ strange SIGHT, and one that gives
rise to thoug hts-''the fathers have eaten sour
edge lie comes to us to revenge his coun-
try; and he does revenge #. The mad cry Of
repeal you can put down,-change into arcth-
er as mad, or less, or still more mad; but HIM
you cannot put down.
For Britain's sake itself,f Britain is to contin-
ne habitable much longer, Ireland must sctr,-
ally attain remedial measures, and Of a kind
we have not been much used TO, for two cen
turtles back in this country We have been
little idle, in respect of Irish remedial meas
urcs, for two centuries back In fact, ever
since Oliver Cromwell's time, We have dona
little but grimacc and make-believe, and sham
kind ofgoverning DEMONSTRATING Ourselves
to any entity or sham that would help US a
long from year to year-iniagining miserable
criminals that We have been y that falsities'
and injustces, well vanished, would do in
stead OF facts and continuous performance ac'
cordng to the eternal laws--as if not God
had male ireland and us, but Devil, who
could quote Scripture On occasion Andnow
il has all come down upon us, and we weller
among it, on the edge Of huge pcris and VIC
must alter it or prepare to perish. Surely. if
ever for any country in the world, remedial
measures are needed for Ireland now
The remedial measures propounlcd, or 10.
be propourde for ireland, b the British chi,
governor, in this crisis, are-what does the
reader think ?-FUsi, bill for improved reg
istration of Irish county voters; secondly, I
bill for improved dittofn Irish municipalities:
and-and nothing else at all for the present;
these for the present are the remedial meas
ures contemplated by the British chief gov
ernor, on behalf Of Ireland.
How it may pass in Parliament, thsi first at
tempt at the discharge of govertors duty and
debt toward subjects dying for want of gov
erning, we do not know but certainly out Of
Parliament, the attempt does seem almost sur
prising. Rather lean instslment, you would
say, of the big debt due; probably among the
eanest instruments toward so enormous liq-
udaton ever offered by any son Of Adam =
Extension of the electoral sufIraee-good Hea-
yens, what Will that do for country which la
bors under the frightfulest immediate want of
potatoes Potatoes, possibility OF work that
viii procure potatoes, or substitute for that
sad root, and enable the electors to sustain
themselves alive; there lies the awful prime
necessity for Ireland just now.-Towarri that
goal first of all, and not as yet toward any 9TH
er, does Ireland. from the depth OF its being,
struggle and endeavor. Extension Of the suf-
frage? Could the chief governor,in his bene6-
cencc extend the suffrage through nidnici-
palities-and counties through villages and par
shes, so that not only all the men of Ireland
out all Inc women anu CnlluTeH. anu cNCu an
the oxen and asses and dogs ofIreland, should
be asked their vote, and taught to give it with
The exactest authenticity, and the last finish
of constitutional pcrfection,-of what avail
would all that be? Not that course, should
say, leads toward work and potatoes but rat :
er it leads directly away from it. Not by ex-
tending the electoral OF other suffrage, but by
curtailing it(wcre the good method once
found. )could a constitutional benefit be. done,
there or here Not who-sotes but who or
what Is voted for, what Is decided on that is
the important question Constitutional men
are bv no means aware Of it yet; but the resa
truth, in a private way, Is that no fools vote,
no knave's, no liars, no gluttoncus, greedy
minded, cowardly persons (rich or poor in
word. no slaves vote is other than nuisance,
and even the chief Of nBisances in its kind, be
given any where. VIXEN, or in what manner i