The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-10-17
The Woes of Ireland.
[Chicago Times Cork Letter.l

There is no ignoring the fact that Ire.
land is in a bad way. American compe.
tltion and low markets, a succession OF
three bad harvests and exorbitant rents
have brought the country to a state Dor.
dering on that of the famine years Of
1917 and lS4S. The people are desperate
and mass meetings are being held all
over the provinces for the purpose Of
trying to obtain reduction in the rents,
with, it must be confessed, as yet no i'm
portant results. The opinion of wise
people, however, is that, in meeting the
reasonable appeals of their tenantry with
indifference. or, as in many cases, inso-
lent refusal, the landlords are standing
in their own light. The farmers, for the
greater part, are no longer the cringing
slaves they were.
The insurmountable difficulties of their
Observation-Disclosures no longer to be over
come by self-starvation and incessant
labor and degrading economies-and the
clearly expressed teachings of Jealous
men at these political meetings, are wax
ing them up to their rights as tillers of
the soil, and therefore men with the first
claim to a living from it. They are no
longer content that eleven thousand or
so families should live in irresponsible
and luxurious idlencss, while they, whose
lives are spent i'll procuring it for them,
want the common necessaries and decen-
cies of life. The most timid of them at
least see that the landlord has duties at
tached to his position, and that in return
for the privileges which he enjoys it is
not tonmuch for them to ask such treat
ment as will prevent the necessity of
wholesale emigration on their part.
With full knowledge of the miserable
condition of this
MOST UNHAPPY ISLAND,
the leading English papers still persist in
claiming that most, if not all, of its
grievances are sentimental ones, that the
Irish farmer is constitutional grumbler,
and the day-laborer lazy rogue, who
prefers rags and hunger to work; for
work may be had if he will only do it.
If one-third of England's income were
spent in Ireland it is hardly probable
that the English would regard that griev-
ance as a sentimental one. And yet this
is the case of Irel md reversed. If her
farmers were SO oppressed and overbur-
dened with rent (by landlords alien, for
the greater part, in race, and who have
neither sympathy with, nor in many ca ses
knowledge of, them) that they hardly
know the taste of the produce of their
toll, would The Times think them consti-
tutional grumblers whenever they pro-
tested at the injustice of their lot? If
England had no manufacturers nor COM
mercial enterprise, but were entirely an
agricultural country, could The Times
with any show of fairness or common
sense, describe the laboring population as
willfully idle when the landlords would
not give them employment, and the
farmers would not9 Yet this is how the
case stands in Ireland.
There are valuable mines of gold, and
silver, and iron, and coal, and lead, and
copper, in the island, but for the want of
capital they lie unworked, except in a
very few instances. On inquiry, we
learn that most of the ore that is mined
is not refined here, but that east British
workmen are enabled to find bread and
bacon at the expense of the neglected
Irish artisans. Even this little grievance
can hardly be called sentimental one.
WOOL AND FLAX GROWING
may be more profitably followed in Ire.
land than in, perhaps, any other country
of Europe, but what do you see? Both
industries SO discouraged and obstructed
that the woolen factories employ but q
few hundred operatives, while the linen
trade is confined to a comparatively
small section. Other manufacturers fare
even worse, and SO, being completely in
the power Of INSCRIPTIONS and irrespon
sible landlords, under government that
hardly tries to cloak its unfriendliness
the whole population suffers in the pres
ent accumulation of misfortunes.
The PineanDlp.