Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1879-12-27


with Wing politicians OF the second /
rank; bat with the detection Of
Grey, Stanley and their friends the
Cabinet lost a large number Of their
They had still major
ity in the House of Commons, but
not without counting their Irish
supporters--withOut them they were
in a minority. This occasioned a.
closer unity of action between the
Irish members.s.and the Cabinet,
and the howl was louder than ever.
Charges Of conspiracy for the dis
memberment Of the nation and de-
struction Of the Church became the
louder from being reinforced with
the voices of the Wing statesmen, /
and in a great measure they were /
successful. The Protestant feeling /
of the nation was alarmed, and at |
the next election the waning ma
jority of the Wing Cabinet van
ished altogether, Lord Melbourne
and his Cabinet resigned, and a
Tory Cabinet was formed with the
Duke Of Wellington and Sir Robert
Peel at-its head.
Our readers will by this time be
looking for our parallel in American
politics. To the more intelligent of
them il will have been already sug-
gested: The Tories are the Repub-
lican party, the Wing Cabinet and
its English supporters the Northern
Democrats, and the Irish members
the Confederate Brigadiers." Nor
was the bloody shirt wanting in the
British Parliament. Unhappily,
many centuries of subjugation had
taught the Irish to seek in murder
the fatal remedy for oppression, and
a return of the Tory party 10 power
led many Of them to anticipate
return to the days when law meant
nothing but the will of the conquer
/ ors, and so iawlessness and patriot
{ ism had come TO be identified in
the minds of the people.
( And so the stalwarts of the Tory
party had ample pretext for the
most ferocious denunciations of
them and the most stringent meas
ures of repression and coercion.
Lord Lyndhurst, the Tory Lord
Chancellor, who was stalwart of
I the stalwarts, was emboldened to
say that "the Irish were aliens in
language, aliens in race and aliens
in their religion" and that "they
were a conquered people, and only
as a conquered people could they be
ruled by their conqperOrs.
4 The WellingtOn-Peel administra-
I tion did not last long, and, parties
/ being very nearly balanced, there
was a frequent change from Tory to
Wing and back again, party divis-
ions generally turning on Irish
questions, though frequently an ex-
tension of the suffrage throughout
the kingdom was the bone of con-
I tentiOn. The course of events was
J generally as follows: The Wings
while out Of office would confabulate
with their Irish allies and select
some grievance for the removal of
which agitation was commenced.
BY degrees.this agitation was suffi-
GENTLY successful to gain for the
z Wings a majority in the House of
Commons. Then they came into
office again, and, when there, agita-
ton was not 50 much i'm favor with
them; they were rather disposed to
''rest and be thankful" according
to a favorite phrase of Lord Russell
(when in office. But this rest and
thankfulness, however acceptable to
] Wings in office, was never in favor
with their Irish allies, who always
became restless under it, insubordi-
nate, irresponsible to the party lash
discipline got out of gear, har-
mOny flew away and the Wings
could no longer carry their meas
ures, so the Tories would again
come into office.
! At last, during one Of the inter-
walls when the Wings were out of
office, Lord Russell wrote a letter to
the Times maintaining that the
time was come when the monster
grievance of ireland, the established
Protestant Church there, must be
dealt with by the axe of reform
alton; i'm other words, must be re-
/ formed off the face of the earth. 1t
was a way with Lord Russell, when
out of office to write letters 10 the
/ Times, and these letters generally
prefigUred what was to be the sub
4 ject of agitation during the period Of
exile and of legislation during the
subsequent term of Office. And 50
| it turned out this time, but Russell
only gazed prOphetically on the
contamination of his lifelong pol
I icy. He was now very old and
infirm, too much so for the exacting
labOrs of public Office, and Mr..
/ Gladstone carried out the final dis
! establishment of the Irish Church,
which extinguished the last real
/ grievance of the Irish people.
! We have yet our parallel to pur-
sue. In doing 50 we shall be occu-
pied with the recent past and the
present in English politics, with the
present and the possible future in
those Of our own country. We are
seriously convinced that the paral-
lei thus completed conveys a warn
ing which it will be fatal to the best
interests Of North and South to neg
lect. BY the North we shall not be
heard, in the South we hope to
secure q fow serious hearers on
whom the warning may not be
wasted.
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