The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-05
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
3 dltOrIai Opinions of the Leading Journals
Upon Current tTopIcs-OOmpiIed Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE GREAT IRISH QUESTION.


From the NJ Y. Tribune
That the Irish problem fundamentally in
wolves the whole British land system that it
is an enormous type of evils under which all
oppressed peoples groan; and thatit is warn
ing to every country, however free, ought to
be remarked. Those who felt afraid that our
negroes might in time cry out against some
added crime of andlordism may observe what
men of the race of O'Connell suffer from the
countrymen of Wilberforce Again, too, we
are bitterly reminded of that immense Eng
lish sin of might-worship as formulated by
the philosopher who glorifed the Jamaica
massacre, and, conceiving that nothing could
be better than q landlord king and a tenant
subject sneered at the gospel of the poor ac-
cording to McCrowdy. Here now is wretched
McCrowdy asking the beggarly right not to
be made vermin of by MIR. Carlyle's wild
beast of Landlords; praying with bloodshot
eyes to be allowed to be thrifty, and not
to be provoked to do murder. Unavail-
ing 'lamentation and heart-break have been
heard from year to year. Irish crones have
torn their hair, and sweethearts and wives,
like sweet Maggie Mccormick, have gone dis
tracted. Men of more utter baseness than
Irish landlords we're never known saith the
Times of 1852. But the widow of McCrowdy
still weeps like Rachel and will not be COM
forted, and some of her children emigrate
and build ramparts of natural hatred against
the blundering tyranny which scatters broad
cast in evictions and exiles the seeds of ill
will By-and-by it may be that martyred
and humble people will work out an unfore-
seen revenge. England made Catholic as
some of her converts threaten, would be
more than poetic retribution; but English
men convinced that only by Justice to Ire
land can they themselves be redeemed in
Church, State, and society, would argue a
sufficient pang.
Va how nc boo l. IL
wrongs. Mr.. Bright thought that the larger
landlordism of the English Government was
brutal. Mr.. Gladstone admits tragic retro
spect when he says that ireland ought to be
governed for Irshmen. Lord Clarendon de-
scribes landlordism as felony. Professor Rod
gers, of Oxford, writes that Ireland's social
condition is the grossest scandal, and that
from no fault of a thrifty people. Shameful
is it to think that in this year of Chris
tian grace, $3.50 landlords, mostly Protestants,
dispose of $40, 900 tenants, and back of them
six millions of people, mainly Catholics.
Ulster tenant right, by which a tenant may
sell his good will to an incomer is the best
that has yet been done for Irishmen and still
seems vastly in favor of the landlord, since it
generally relieves him of any charge for
tenant-made improvements, and does not
secure the farmer against capricious, avari-
cious, OF political eviction, either because he
does not marry, nor does not pay, or does
not vote as his liege lord requires Ninety
five per cent. of Irish farmers have no leases
whatever, and may be evicted, which is to
say transported, at any moment.
What the Irishman most earnestly desires
is to be rooted in the land he passionately
loves. Prussia has given the right of heredi-
tary fixture to her PEASANTS England has
given immunities to her Indian ryots against
evictions, not to speak of her endowing
Pagans when Roman Catholics are neglected.
The Irish tenant asks for right to his i'm
provements, security against the arbitrary
raising of rent, and fxity of holding. Mr.
Brights loan scheme, including the purchase
of the estates of absentees, and the famous
Prussian land system, equally aim to make
he tenant proprietor For the honor of
uman nature, we hope that the British Gov
rnment will do more than adopt the proposed
lister tenant system Against any cowardly
elding to that respectable hardness of heart
shich has done so much to make criminal
English craftsmanship, the priesthood of Ire
land show unanimous phalanx of protest.
At time when Father O'Keefe calls Mr..
Gladstone the greatest statesman of any age,
and Cardinal Cullen, at the head of the
tenants, declares against the Fenians, this is
both warning and assuring. The land reform
must come effectively, not merely as con-
cession, but, let us hope, also in the spirit of
expiation.