The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1868-08-19
Earl Russeu ON IreIand.

Earl Russers second letter on ireland con-
tains the following passages:
In my former letter had to notice gross
personal attack made upon me by Secretary
of State, before my publication appeared, and
thought myself entitled TO return the blow.
AT present, am glad to have no such attack
to resent But / can not forbear to notice
that General Peel, on April End, made biting
jest on the party to which have the pride TO
belong.
1.-The liberal party have been referred to-"
be said, "as the engineers and pioneers who
clear the road, but l rather look upon them
as guide-posts, which point out the road
and very bad road il often is-but who never
advance one inch themselves" lCheers and
laughter.
General Peel is SO honest and good hu-
mored that one is always inclined 10 take in
good part anything he may say. But lest his
joke should be taken in sober earnest. ven
ture to put to him the following questions:
l. Was it not an inch of advance to abolish
56 close boroughs, sending III members to
Parliament, and to deprive 30 more boroughs
of member each?
2. Was it not an inch of advance to give
representatives to Manchester, Leeds, and
Birmingham, a concession which the Duke of
Wellington and Sir Robert Peel peremptorily
refused?
8. Was it not an inch of advance to reform
the Poor Laws, task which Sir Robert Peel
professed himself unable 10 undertake?
4. Was it not an inch of advance to com
mute the 1.-THE in kind, in England, vexa-
tion to the clergy and laity alike, task to
which Mr.. Pitt found himself unequals
3. Was it not an inch of advance 10 abolish
slavery in our colonies, a measure to which
Lord Derby, in his better days, so greatly
contributed?
6. Was it no gain to religious liberty to
enable the Baptists to register the birth of
their children without baptism in the Church,
and the Unitarians to be married without
blessing in the name of the Trinity, and to
relieve all Protestant Dissenters from the
yoke of being compelled to take the Sacra-
ment according TO the rites of the Church of
England:
!. Was it no gain TO freedom of trade to
repeal the navigation laws, TO form COM
mercial treaty with France, and TO reduce
the tariff from the large volume which Mr..
Huskisson boasted of as digest, into sim
gle page? Were not the financial plans of
Mr. Gladstone an inch in advance?
s. Were not the introduction of Poor Laws
in Ireland, the commutation of tithes, and
the act for the sale of encumbered estates,
an inch in advance 10 that country Lastly,
was not the support given to the unity and
independence of Italy an inch in advance
III DGLdl Vi luG great NdusC VI NiNi anu
Religious Liberty all over the World" the
old standing toast of the Wing party? lean
imagine that this list, added to the Catholic
emancipation and the repeal of the Corn
Laws, measures of which the Liberal party
are the pioneers, will grieye the heart of
many an old Tory, and that General Peel, on
reading it will say, with Macbeth:
"a fourth2 Start, eyesi
What will the line stretch out 70 the crack Of doom
tUa thar Naf2 A eeNp gaq m
And yet the eighth appears who bears glass
Which shows me many more"
Yes, "many morel The diseased mind of
ireland has yet TO be ministered to; q "sweet,
obliYious antidote" may yet induce her to
forget her griefs, ancient and of modern date;
the "perilous stuff which weighs upon her
breast may yet be removed, and in her exult-
ant strength she may hail the wearing of
the green'' as the emblem of q new hope,
and the sign of renovated youth. Yes,
"many more !' To name but one, National
Education-a measure really national, per-
yading the whole people, and leaving in the
shade the meagre proposals of the present
Goyernment-would clear the way for that
long and fair train of further reforms already
reflected to US in the glass of the future.
When we reflect that for twenty-siX years
Wilberforce and Clarkson labored without
success to abolish the slave trade, and that
twenty four years more elapsed before slavery
was extinguished by law; when we remem-
Der that, although for more than a century
the House of Stuart have ceased to compete
for the Crown, the grievances of ireland are
yet waiting for full redress; that for twenty
six years the cause of Catholic Emancipation
met with defeat at county elections, while
its leaders were ostraeised, we must ac-
knowledge how slow and feeble is the pro-
gress toward knowledge and justice, even of
the noble-hearted people of this free country.
When we perceive how many there are even
now, who fail to feel for the ill-used Irish
man as their predecessors failed to feel for
the enslaved African, we must own that we
still shrink from the light of day.
''What from this barren being do we reapl
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail;
Life short, and truth gem that loves the deep,
And all things weighed in customs falsest scale;
Opinion an omnip0tence, whose veil
Mantles the Garth with darkness, until right
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale,
Lest their judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have
too much light"