Morning journal and courier., 1881-03-12
 The Antfpathy Between English and Irish.
From the London Spectator. l

The most disheartening feature in this new struggle between Ireland and Britain
 for it is struggle, though the field is, as it were, law court instead of the roped lists is the evidence it affords, evidence, we hope, only apparent that the irreconcilability of the two nations, their mutual steady dislike, has not its basis in history alone. It has always been attributed by observers to the long oppression one race has suffered from the other, and we may hope this is true, for then the hatred will die away at last; but the evidence does not point in that direction. On the contrary, the evidence, whether mis- read or not, suggests the belief that the dis l taste which divides the people is unaffected by fair dealing by justice, and even by sym pathetic consideration.
 TheSe is no puzzle in history like this dis taste ~The French have got rid of similar one between themselves and the Britons, the Scotch Lowlanders have 'tredded-up' their quarrel of ages with the Highlanders, we ourselves have established lasting amity, if not friendship, with the Welsh. But the Irish
 are irreconcilable, and no theory explains the cause. One man talks of race, and then &C., knowledges that the most irreconcilable of Irishmen are the half -bloods, like the men of
 Tipperary Another talks of religion, and | fails to explain why, except on religious ! questions, English Catholics are English of ] the English and politically no trouble at al A third talks history to us, but does not deny that while their history, in regard to ea;h other, has changed, the dislike of the two peoples has not. It is most disheartening puzzle all the deeper becuse unless it is solved future history in both countries must be full of sufferings and because those who see the evil most clearly have least certainty to it's cause. We certainly have little. We have
 conviction, deepening every year, that the dislike, while constantly absent between in
 dividuals of the two peoples, is as regards
 their aggregates as strong as ever, and ex-
 tends to classes which suffer little and are as thoroughly reasonable on all other subjects as any in the world. We suppose the ex-
 planation is the old one-the incompatibility of Valentine and Orson, of reconcilng the nervous, excitable, poetic organization to the duller, stronger and more barbaric. We suppose, difficult as it is to see oneself from the outside, that the Irishman still regards the Englishman, to speak with offensive plainness, as a strong man, sometimes be- nevolent, more often only just, but all the while thick -witted brute, who will not un- derstand what is wanted quickly enough,
 who, when he grants, grants without sympa- thy and when he refuses, refuses with a sort of stolid surprise unutterably provoking, at having been asked. Nothing irritates quick-witted race like being governed by slow-witted one, and that the feeling of the Athenian for the Roman, of the Italian for the Austrian, of the Greek for the Turk, is the feeling of the Irishman for the Briton. It seems incrediblet to the latter, who is aware that his own capacity in many directions is higher than the Irishman's, and who, consci- ous of his own inner kindliness, never can see, any more than @ Prussian can, how in suferably arrogant and stolidly immovable he appears to other people, and especially to a people who read him through the light of that exaggeration of himself, the ruling caste of Ireland The caste are, to Irishmen, the English.
 The English dislike for the Irish is more applicable, and, we are happy to believe, pos sibly more curable. It is not founded on any rooted antipathy of character. The English man is always insular, always borne, and never cordially likes any nation not himself over again but he has power of liking, in degree, people very different from him. self when not directly hostile. We believe it just to say, though the statement may be questioned, that since the great war English men have learned distinctly to like the French, to sympathize with Italians, and to regard the Greeks, a most widely different people, with perfect toleration. They may like the Irish yet, when the causes of differ enee disappear but at present they dislike them, not intensely, but still with certain
 obviousness. Of all the small vices and foibles, nagging exasperates them most, and the Irish are naggers. My people," said one of the most sensible nationalists We have ever known to the writer long before this struggle, ''have genius for worrying, and
 may tire you out yet" It is quite true, and quite natural besides. A quick-witted race in the grasp of a stronger and stupider one, half afraid of it, yet haf-determined on equality, is sure to take to worrying, worrit- ing, nagging-any word will do, when we ali know the thing-and the Irish have ac- quired the art in perfection.