Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1879-12-26

sons who are alien to the blood and untaught in
the sufferings of the Irish people few Of the
reasons why that sympathy il due. Had hall
the COMMUNICATION been given to Ireland which
England, consulting N, extended to the Amer
loan slave whose ancestors she plant
ed here, or which has been wasted
on tho savage American Indian the record of
Irish snhering would have closed eighty years
ago. Had any political party during or after
our civil war, attempted to inflict upon single
county in the South the murders, coniscations,
penal laws. deputations, selling white people
Is slaves, that the English government has in
flioted upon both Catholic aud Protestant
Irish time after time, since the reign of Eliza.
beth begun, the whole civilized world would
nave aided people In insurrection and made
this government the most shapeless wreck
upon the shore of time. (Applause.)
THERE Is CAUSE
for tho present discomfort. 1t begins far
back, and ives to-day in it's evil couse.
quenoes. The stexn Justice Of history
before whom no rent abatea but proceeds gen.
GRAFTON after generation to final Judgment, pre-
to end.
The facts which shall state are not gathered
from the vauntings of national vainglory.
They como from the researches of q skeptical
historian whose books lie under the interdiot
OF both churches and who disbelieves imparti.
| ally in both of them. They are not tho aoou-
| ations or excuses of a bigoted sectary.
rope lay in the night of the dark ages, and was
haunted by events which read like sanguinary
dreams, civilization and religion-exiled
| brother and sister-took refuge in Ireland.
Before Augustus evangelical the English peo
pie the Irish missionary had crossed the chan
| mel and commenced the work. In the words
OF Saint Bernard, ''From Ireland as from ar
scended upon foreign oountries.' They were
the pioneer apostles from Iceland to the Dan
ube. (Applause.)
The feudal system which now survives il
Ireland in it's last ferocious type of an al
powerful landlord and remideless tenant up
rooted then very different system. Unde
the Breton laws the chief was elective; he die
not own the fee of the teaemental lands. II
them the olansman was joint proprietor will
him. The former had the fullest rights of in
heritance, and his property descended with
out burden to all of his children
equally. 1t was . code made by and for fret
people.
This system was overturned by conquest ane
chlcane, and was succeeded by
! -FOUR CONVERSATIONS
| which took away nine-tenths of the land o
Ireland from native lord and occupant with
out compensation and gave it to aliens.
| In the reign of Elizabeth nearly go, 900 acre
| were conhscated in Munster alone, and re
granted to Englishmen upon condition tina
! thay should admit to tenancy no Irishman
This and other forcible separations Of tn
people from the soil beggared them, ant
were the beginning of those agrarian out
RACES which, though merely an effect of oppres
sion, are persistently misrepresented as it
| cause and excuse.
In the reign of James I. two great nobleme1
~ere accused of plots-not Of acts, but simpl
of bad intentions, for there was no rebellion
They were never tried. Nothing was eve
proved against them. They were driven iron
their country and, under pretext. of their OF
fences, six counties were confscated and plant
ed with Scotch and English. Thu very sour
and lees of chose nations were placed in tn
homes from which thousands of happy and ur
offending people had just been driven into tn
jaws of starvation.
In this reign the infamous vocation of til
Ducoriun was first piled. Under the tictio
that all titles are derived from the king, thes
persons undermined possessions which ha
been undiaturbed for centuries, by flaws i
exhumed from the town of London, by dol
mant grants made by Henry II. three hundre
years before. The judges were more terribl
than an army with banners. They were merel
the Instruments by which the compendiou
| ruin of a race was wrought.
The proprietors of Oonnaught, who held
! q recent royal grant raised 100, 500 pounds AZ
paid that sum to Charles I. upon agreemer
that undisturbed possession for sixty yea
should secure their titles from attack by IL
crown, and that their grants shout
be valid. Strafford afterwards wi,hdre,
these conditions, and let sliE upon Connaugl
a pack of discoveries, bribed judges and Pillar
jurors. The juries were instructed to find fl
the king and no WONDER for the chief JUST,
received four sbilllngs on the pound on Il
6rst years rental Of the estates which he az
judged forfeit. Upon this the Irish rebellec
and tire war with the parliament followed.
was war for RELIGIOUS liberty and for foot
Famine and fanatic;sm did bloody work. TT
result was conquest. All the land in thre
soldiers, or to usurers who had lent money I
the parliamentary government.
| This Is hardly an outline of the proce
by which nine-tenths of Ireland was take
from its people and given to aliens. 1t is to
filled in by penal laws which executed the prie'
for consoling the dying; which made famin
bid against the mother for her child to place
which forbade Catholic to acquire real estat
or to lend money upon it; which scattered e.
| tates by distribution among all the childre
unless the eldest son bee anne an apostate; b
such appalling want az no civilized people ha
ever suffered, by which thousands died in til
fields and by the roadsides.
| Auxiliary to this general system of rui
other
INDUSTRIAL EXPRESSIONS
! were imposed. Ireland was rich i
Aocks and herds, and their expo,
tation to England was chief source O
wealth. This was prohibited upon the groun,
that the competition was detrimental to Englis
erazers and tended to reduce rents in Ems
| land.
Forbidden to export cattle, the people turne,
| to producing wool. As soon as the rising in
dustry became competitory with the Englsl
manufacturer and producer the export Of bot
| raw and manufactured wool we're prohibited
| The only industries fostered were linen an
hemp.
All the while rack-rents were exacted. Stat
| utes might blast the soil with sterility an,
make famine the immediate result of thei
! enactment. but the rent must be produced.
The result was that the Irish began to expor
themselves, and there is not civilized state il
! the world which has not been, in a marked de
gree, under the influence of Irish genius, ez
patriated yet influential even in exile. GAP
plause.)
The distress which has time and again afaict
ed that country is almost Incredible. 1t is tn
only Christian land into which for centurie
famine has entered. 1t has repeatedly beer
such q scene as lured death from hell into tn
waste, wide anarchy of chaos when he tosse,
| from the earth
''The savior of death from all things that the
| live: y and untorn.a
His nostril wide into the mvrky air
Sagaclous of his quarry from so far"
Such have been the results of q code which
have been mathematical by the great apostle
OF humanity the world over 1t was deuounce,
by Burke in the most refined contrivanc
which the ingenuity of man has ever devised
for human degradation. 1t was held up flo
amending execration by Swift in the narrowing
irony of his cannibal project for the dispo
sition of Irish children. 1t was stigmatized b,
Montesquieu a conceived by devils, writer
in human gore and registered in hell.
It - was made shameful by thu
humor of Sidney Smith. One of it
last monuments were overthrown by Gladstone
God speed him in his present work! (Grea
applause.)
The system exists to-day in its last conse
quence. One by one the penal, disability ane
church establishment laws have been abrogat
ed. The world must eympathize in the effor
to redress this last wrong and revest the soil
| by peaceful means, in the men who till it
Not a. it was taken away-by battle and muir
der, but by laws which will give the proprie
tor the fullest compensation. Nor is Irelan.
alone in making this demand. The same evil
afaict the English farmer. He, too, can
not pay, his rent and drive hi!
cattle to tho nearest market town in competi
/ tim with Am haeP He alan 70