New-York daily tribune., 1851-07-17
The Abomination Of Desolaiion.

| StdTLllH0 were never COhIaiHO" a" ~
and vet they are little more than we have
expected. They are what the causes long
in operation have tended to make them
While other countries have been in
creasing in population, Ireland has at this
day three hundred thousand people fewer
| than thirty wears ago above million and
half fewer than ten years ago, and two
millions less than it would have been at
the usual rate of increase. The diminution
has been caused by disease and emigration.
| 1t is estimated that at least half a million
of persons have died BY famine within these
ten wears. There are even fewer houses
now than there were then. Above mil
lion have emigrated because at home despair
and death alone awaited them in the future.
ApoIogists for human wickedness and
disorder blasphemously call this exterml-
mating process the Visitation of God. We
proclaim it to be the Crime of Man.
Ireland is fair and pleasant country. Its
climate is genial, its soil fertile, its position
excellent. 1t might support in abundance
dense and happy population. Before they
were conquered and annexed by the Saxon,
the Irish were advancing on the road Of
civilization, wealth and power. The peo-
pie are industrious and endowed by nature
with talents and qualities that, if developed,
would make their green island paradise on
earth. But now it is He'll.
Who is responsible for such ruin Who
is the Cain that has slaughtered this Abel
and ravaged his abode 1t is ENGLAND.
England seized upon the country, prevent
ed it from attaining any kind of lndepen-
dence, forbade it from engaging in foreign
commerce, allowed no manufactures to
spring up there, drew thence all the profits
of Agriculture, and rendered impossible the
Improvement of the soil and the elevation
of the people-made it, in short, the mcrest
dependency of English landlords and English
manufacturers, burdened it with taxes, and
having reduced the entire nation to starva-
ton and beggarv, and made of the island one
vast pest-house and alms-house, has finally
confscated the land to pay the poor rates,
and support the paupers that remain. This
is the doing of England this is the system
which in mild degree, and without the
landlordsm and taxation, is sought to be
applied to the United States under the living
name of Free Trade
We shall be told, no doubt of the I'M
providence of Irishmen but what made
them improvident Was there ever a
provident nation that had become habltu-
ated to being plundered and dispossessed of
everything which prompts to thrift and
foresight We shall be told, too, of the
tendency of the religion protessed by the
Irish to keep nations IN the background
but this. cannot account for tithe of the
facts in the case. And no matter what the
effect of Catholicism on Ireland in respect
of industrial progress and strength, 1t Is
still certain that landlordism, taxation and
the monopoly of manufactures and com
merce, as managed BY England have been
enough ten times to ruin the most powerful
and energetic people that ever existed.
But this half million of human beings
who have perished by famine and the dis
eases thence arising, what shall be said OF
their destruction That, too, is the effect
of the system England has imposed on this
most unhappy country.
Let no man in these days dare to say
that the loving and blessed Heaven sends
war, pestilence and famine to devastate and
DESTROY the nations. God gives man bless
ings not curses, and starvation, disease and
misery are the work of human wrong and
human ignorance alone. Had Ireland not
been for years desPoiled of the products OF
her soil and of the labor of her sons had
the wealth yielded by her fields been re-
turned TO them in the shape of Improvements
increasing their fertility, by an independent
peasantry owning their own land. she would
never have been dependent for sustenance
on the crop of single root, but there would
/ have been an abundance OF varied harvests,
and every farmer and every neighbOrhood
would have garnered ample supplies for
every want. The very year Of the famine
there was shipped to England for sale food
enough to have saved the death OF the hum
dreds of thousands then pershiug Had
the soil belonged to the people, and had
they had no taxes to pay but those for the
support of their own government, they