The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-01-20

OF Mr.. Disraeli that "no time is lost 30
much as that which is lost in making
explanations in newspapers" but M
Golden was certainly unwise in making
personal quarrel with Mr.. Delane
on account Of the criticisms in the
Times.
All this happened some fifteen years
ago, and a great deal has come to pass
since 1865 to bring the question Of land
tenure in Er gland and in Ireland sharp.
ly to the front in British politics. Acre
after acre of fresh soil has since that day
been opened to cultivation in the West.
ern States of America; mile after mile of
new railway has been constructed the
steel rail has taken the place Yf the more
expensive iron rail; great econon les have
been introduced into railway manage.
ment by men like Vanderbilt (for which
by the way, the Conkling. Arthur ma.
chine proposes to punish Mr. Depew);
large and swift steamers have been made
to navigate the Atlantic with amazing
regularity and Cheapness of trsnsporta.
ton. Chicago is now as near to Liver
pool, in the sense of cheap freight, as it
was to New York when Mr.. Vanderbilt
took hold of the railway business. The
supply Of cheap food and cheap meat in
England was never 80 great and 80 little
preCarious as now, although the supply
is a foreign supply. Free trade, great
ocean steamers and steel rails have dem.
onstrated the truth of the paradox about
foreign supply 80 vexing to protection.
lists. To the absence of proper security
for the tenant in England and Ireland,
growing out of the system of English and
Irish landletting consequent upon en-.
tails and settlements under which even
in England the proprietors of the soil
can deal on with life interests which de.
ter large investments for permanent i'm.
provements, Mr.. Golden twenty years
ago traced the defective agricultural con-
dltioh of Great Britain.
No class of people in the United States
understand better than the Irish-Ameri-
cans what are the real causes of the pres
ent discontents in Ireland. They know
how much Of these discontents comes of
actual suffering, and how much is to be
attributed to Irish imagination fed by
cunning agtators. They appreciate how
much population, sterile soil and
the absence of habits of industry and of
temperance have to do with the terrible
ills of Ireland. They can form pretty
good idea whether any change of land
tenure will tend to remove those terri.
BILE ills and make good government in
Ireland secure against the consequences
of bad harvests and famine. This much
however, the Irish immigrants into the
United States must feel-which is that
they, as Americans, have contributed to
compel the English people and the Sax
on race, as represented in Parliament, to
at last come face to face with Ireland
and with the Celtic race in Ireland.
There have been famine and revolt and
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus
in Ireland before to day, but to-day it is
The cheap food from the Western States
of the United States which not only al
levates the sufferings entailed upon Ire.
land by the bad harvest of 1880, but has
driven the British Parliament to send
hither a commission to inquire into the
conditions of American agriculture, and
to inquire by another commission into
thn la md Of TrnlanA
free trade legislation in England which
Mr.. Golden and Mr.. Bright promoted
that oper ed in Great Britain market
for the wheat of America by repeating,
thirty years and more ago. the "proteC.
tive" duty then levied on cereals. Surely
every Irishman in the United States or
in Ireland should be free trader in the
sense of forming a "tarf for revenue
only" If the Irish laborer is ever per.
mitted to resettle the soil of Ireland from
which Mr.. Golden said the Irish farmer
had been "divorCed," free trade will have
been one of the moet powerful agents of
Irish emancipation from oppressive land
lordism. If the Irish immigrant to
America is now a Western farmer, his
Irish wit tells him that nothing is so i'm
portant to his as freedom to choose
market for his surplus Crop-freedom to
trade with whomsoever he will, in Eu-
rope or in South America or in Mexico
If American manufacturers are so blind
as not to see that they also need SINH
lar freedom, then all the worse for them;
but the Irish farmer in the West feels
and will if wise act upon the feeling, that
in order to tell his wheat and pork and
meat to the best advantage abroad, he
must have the freedom to exchange
them for foreign articles and the freedom
TO bring those articles into the United
States unhindered by protective tariff.
An Irish Western farmer knows well
enough that he cannot sell his crop to
advantage in Liverpool or Bremen for
gold coins alone, and then bring these
coins to America. If English or Irish
manufacturers are freely to buy his W st.
ern products, he we'll understands that
he must take in exchange their wares,
which protective tariff will not permit
him to take and freely carry to his West.
ern home.
But that is not all that Irish immi-
grants to the United States have done
for Ireland. They have demonstrated
to the Saxon leaders in Parliament that
members of the Celtic race, in land
where they have something to hope for
and live for, alike for temselves and their
children, can in time become as orderly
as saving as industrious, as temperate
and as enterprising as any of the races
which have peopled America. Is not
that lesson which is worth while for
Britons to learn2-New York World,