River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1879-10-30
IRISH LAND QUESTION.
Panaceas for Irish EriIs-.-Mr. Biggar's
Prophecies Of Bloody Revolution, and
Mr.. Justin McCarthg's Suggestions of

Mf. justin Mctaflnl = SUGGESTIONS OF
| Home Government.
Mr.. Biggar, Nj. p, of Belfast, believes
/ that the true panacea for the evils of
LELAND is to buy out the landlords and
convert the occupiers into owners. At
meeting held at Dfaperstown resolu-
| tions were passed in which it was stated
that owing to the depression of trade
and agriculture a reduction of rent is
imperatively demanded, but that the
| only satisfactory settlement of the land
| question is TO declare the industrial
occupiers the owners of the soil" Mr.
Bisgar in supporting the latter resolu-
ton, said they did not propose that the
/ land should be taken from the land
owners at all, but that the landlord
should be called upon. for the public
good to sell his land to the occupier at 8
| fair purchase, and that the government,
which should have the interests of all
classes at heart, should interfere to
facilitate the arrangements between
landlords and tenants. If the land
lords refused the reasonable and fair
concession now asked for they might
have to suffer great deal, because ultl-
mately a bloody revolution might take
place in the Kingdom, and the land
might be taken entirely from the land
lords, as it was in France. He
did not imagine that that would be
done, or that it was likely to take place
at any period not remote, hut it was
within the range of possibility.
Mr. Justin Mccarthy, M. p, featuring
at Liverpool, said the elementary right
of man was to live and to be allowed
to work for his living. The right of a
nation was, if it claimed it, to have a
national existence. Difference of ma.
tionality was constituted by difference
of race, of history, of tradition, religion,
perhaps Of language. Where these diff
ferences existed there were of necessity
distinctive tendencies as aspirations
and the sort of legislation which suited
one such people was not by any means
likely to suit the other. He did not
rest the claim of Ireland to local self
government on the presence now of
grievance or oppression. The days of
oppression were happily over. No one
supposed that the great majority of the
English parliament would knowingly
consent to oppression. But the claim
was that Ireland constituted distinct
nationality, and had right to a sys-
tenn of government suited to her own
conditions and conducted by her own
parliament.
The special commissioner OF the
Freen1dn's Journal takes up the already
mooted subject of retaining waste
land. Nearly fourth Of Ireland" he
says, ''is in waste land, or about :, 000,.
600 acres, and that vast area of waste,
instead of decreasing has increased by
100000 acres within the past year.
Galway contributes nearly quarter of
million OF acres to that, and Mayo
another Connaught counLy-307 385
acres. More than 16 per cent. or 984,
563 acres, in the Province of Connaught
are returned as under bog and marsh,
and besides that barren mountain land
finds room in Mayo to the extent of
237 ,676 acres, and in Galway to the ex-
tent of III ,948 acres. Now, how is 1t
that instead of being reclaimed from
waste into cultivation, the land of
Ireland, and especially the land of Con-
nanght is reverting into black morass
Is it that the tenants have no energy :?
Is it that they have no industry? lis
no such thing. The men who go TO
England every year, as their fathers be-
fore them, who reap the harvest there,
and come home in time to reap their
own, with some savings from their
cross-channel earnings,-the men who
send home money at the ratei of G4O0
Saturday, paid in one small country
town in post-office orders,-these men
are lacking in energy, in sinew, in
strength, ave, in enterprise or moral
soundness. They may take wee drop
too much at fair; they may revel at
wake or like hurting; but my good
nessl are they to have no diversion?
Are they to be toiling and moiliDg,
hewing wood and drawing water merely
tor the master to feed his desires at
home or abroad? l opine very humbly,
but challenge counter opinion, that
these mems strength might well and
politically be diverted into another
channel, the channel of reclamation,
"a work neglected by harum-scarum
landlords, but which would be under
taken by stalwart, resolute men, if the
lands they wrested from the leprechaun
and the will-o'-the-wisp were theirs while
grass grows or water flows"