The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1879-09-02
A GLOOMY

Some two or three weeks ago the shooting
of a landed proprietor at the door of his own
house, in Meath county, Ireland, gave rise to
severe condemnation of the tenantry whose
surrender to the communistic tendencies of
the times Was leading them to destruction.
From the stand point of a comfortable parlor
it is an easy matter to tax a severely virtuous
view of such an action, but how is it when
viewed from the distrained tenants position?
Which is apt TO WELD the paramount iniu-
ence in the mind of the man whose little ones
have been turned out of house and home, a
smarting sense of wrong done home, OF pun
ishment he has not deserved, or a nice appre-
citation of the legal rights of his %tyrannical
landlord and a reverential respect for the law?
In another column is given an account of
the woes suffered by Ireland's working peo-
pie of to-day; the people whose condition is
said to be rapidly approaching that of the
years preceding 1S4S. What a picture of
national poverty and suffering is presented
to the mind by that graphically written de-
scription! In times of general disaster; in
times when misfortune overtakes whole COM
munities we are apt to take an optimistic
view of the situation. We are p.one to re-
member only the Peabody's, the Towards,
the Florence Nlghtengale's Of the past, and to
think that the recurrence of deep affection is
the only signal needed to call again to the
front philanthropists whose lives and for
tunes will be devoted to the welfare OF their
fellowmen. This rose colored view is essen
TALLY a pleasant view Of life, but unfortun-
ately stern reality proves that it is far, far
from being justified by fact.
Take the case of the farmers for instance,
whose produce has decreased thirty per cent.
in value in one year, and whose rents were
increased twenty per cent. during the very
SAINT year. What excuse can here be urged
in justification of the landlords action7 Was
it because the business of farming was be-
coming more profitable and consequently
because the land was worth more to the
| farmer? No, the fact of ga succession of
bad harvests" contradicts this supposition.
In fact it looks alarmingly as if the rise i'll
rent were owing to an agreement entered into
by the landlords, a combination formed by
the men who hold the power In their own
hands and are resolved to Use that power
solely to their own advantage. 1t may be
maintained in defense that selfishness is the
main spring of all business transactions that
self ACKNOWLEDGEMENT is the end in view in
even the grandest most wide-reaching scheme,
and that any attempt to conduct business on
a sentimental basis would infallibly end III
disaster to IL parties concerned. Further
mere, the Fundamental principle upon which
rests the idea of property may be brought
forward in tt e plea that what belongs to a
man is his "wn to dispose of as may seem to
him best, and that in this instance the Irish
landlords have indisputably the right to ask
whatever rent they may choose to demand
for the land whose ownership is vested in
themselves by a title un~disputed.
Admitting all that can be said in this vein,
it is nevertheless true that someaphere there
is a limit beyond which the motive power of
seltishness must not be permitted to operate
to the oppression, the destruction of others.
Where the long surviving effects of incidents
in a remote past operate as they do in Ireland
to place whole classes of men in widely diff
ferent social positions, it is instinctiuely felt
that something beyond the mere plea of what
IS "right' or of what is " lawful" should be
kept in view by those who possess privileges
and weld power won by no merit OF their
own. Where whole classes, born to the her.
itaee of labor, look above them and see other
classes whose happier fortune it was to be
born into possession of the good things OF
this world, they think this unkind discrimina-
ton of fate is quite enough without being
further aggravated by the action of those up
per classes in employing the law made by
themselves to Cypress t:lcsc below them.
Instinct tells them whoa it is so employed,
and when they lird themselves crushed to
the wall what are .hny 10 10? Yes, what are
they to leg rC.naG{cs they have none.
T establish u Ji,iarcns social system would
H:yoiye al overthrow Of the British Empire,
snn1ythins MI undesirable perhaps, but i'm
practicable. Must the tLcn calmly submit
tuiin, eviction which they know to be based
on ilinstice~-on a dem md for increased rem,
which can by no possible Interpretation Of
business relations &c justified? In such stu
atious we need not be SURPRISED if deeds Of
violence cilsue. Ae tho individual strikes tc
kill 81 en- he Ends his own lie in danger sc
may we expect 2 whoi> class to strike witt
fatal intent against another when it finds it
self threatened with destruction.
The outlook is gloomy it mast be confessed
The only ray OF hope disccrna5le is tina
which springs from the West, the hope tina
the Irislmen of America may give their pa
Iriotism Il practical turn by combining thei
energies and uniting their resources to brin'
, about as large an emigration as possible from