The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-10-04

consideration of the last and greatest griev-
ance Of Ireland, the fountainhead OF the others
and the main cause of the pauperism, crime
and exile Of her people, the land question; or
the actual state of the relations existing
between the owners of real estate in entail in
the island and the tenants who till the soil and
are tributary to them as rentpayers. Lord
Clarendon, since his return to London after
his interviews with Napoleon at St. Cloud,
has announced, publicly and Immediately, that
the Irish land question will form the most alb
solutely necessary plank in the future platform
of the British government, sketching at the
same moment and in very few words the essen
tial points which he deems necessary for its
constitutional elaboration and settlement.
Cardinal Cullen endorses the position of the
British Minister, giving, as it were, the fiat of
the Church to the commencement of the agita-
ton for Irish tenants right, besides enforcing
moderation in it's conduct and aim in the
words mot interfering with the legitimate
rights of any class" 1t is grand and Sc
rious work, but inevitable as to its
commencement for England. 1t is needless
here, and at this day, to enter into con-
slderation of the many local complications
which surround and embarrass this subject.
The Irish emigrants in America understand
them, not as political economists in theory, but
as men who have experienced their operation
in some shape or other personally and to their
grief The American people are very well
informed as to their consequences for it may
be said that the Irish farmers and labor
ers who have been evicted from their
little holdings and cabins and sought
and found shelter and employment on our
shores during many years past have been uni
versal and simply eloquent propagandists of
the home situation. They have told of it from
Maine to San Francisco so that the citizens of
the American republic constitute, as it were,
at this moment, grand international jury to
which Ireland appeals on the question of the
necessity of its adjustment. Mr.. Gladstone
and Lord Clarendon understand this well, and,
consequently, although physically wearied by
his parliamentary and cabinet exertions on the
Irish Church bill, the British Premier is pre-
pairing to grapple with and master the difficult
ties of an Irish land bill in constitutional
manner, and to do justice to all without VIC
lence to existing interests.
Although we use the word difficulties 1t is
scarcely in place. There is, or should be, little
or no difficulty about it. The Irish tenant
requires an equitable and simple plan of leasing
land, security Of tenure during the period
oT Aho fol NJ ito
termination for all solid improvements made on
the soil, with his money or the labor of his own
hands or those of his children when in possess
sion. This is ALL He will then become an in
dustrious producer and consumer instead of an
ill-clad, ragged and frequently hungry rent pay
aug inoOrinO, ~..r~. y
coast line of Ireland will not be fringed with
steamers conveying off the produce of the soil
to Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Birming-
ham to be sold at such prices as knots of
English spectators may dictate. Irish land
lords will find it their interest to return to their
homes, and the money received in Ireland from
England will not be Immediately forwarded
to feed aristocratic absentees resident in Lon
don, in Paris, or still more distant foreign
lands. Political agitation would cease as an
Irish profession, secret organizations be dis
solved and ''agrarian MURDER classif-
cation of felony peculiar to Ireland and which
expresses the present land system in words Of
woe-unknown. The politicians cry of ''Erin go
Bragh' would be forgotten or discarded, and the
sensible motto advised by Sidney Smith OF s'Erin
go bread and cheese, Erin go pantaloons with
out holes in them," adopted by the Irish in its
stead. A work looking to such accomplishment
is work worthy Of Mr.. Gladstone and Lord
Clarendon, and Mr.. Gladstone is just the man
to ''crown the ediflce" in Ireland.
Impressed with these convictions we have
anticipated Lord Clarendon, and to a great
extent his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop
ofDublin also, In placing the Irish land tenure
subject before the world In our pages in the
land, one of which was published last Monday
and another, exhaustive, interesting and
affecting in its details, appears this morn
ing. Writing from Wexford, the scene at
once of Oliver Cromwells wanton slaughter
of the people, as well as of the fierce
battles Of the Irish rebellion of 1913, the
extremes Of brutal oppression and an attempt
at redress by brute force, the writer supplies
facts to show that the land question is the one
essential, vital question Of Ireland. He also
proves that Ireland looks to America for
approval and moral support in her efforts for
its peaceable solution. This support she hopes
to obtain mainly through the great organs of
the free press Of New York. Her desire was
expressed, forcibly and well, in the words made
use Of by prominent Irish clergyman to our
special writer when he said 1.-THE influence,
the irresistible influence and power Of America
are being daily felt throughout Europe, and in
no part more than in Ireland. Write that we