National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-02-15
Ireland's Right of Revolution.

the ScOurge and then the SedatlVe. NOW
We hear of coercion only. Force without
promise. With land laws which make
life itself dependent upon the brutal
caprice of the resident agent of the non-
resid ent landlord, the Irish people are
about as well treated as were formerly
our negro slaves by Yankee overseer in
the prolongedabsences of the owner. Mr..
Gladstone's government may be hurry
ing on to destruction. There was much
significance in the great meeting at Hyde
Park On Sunday. There were assembled
thousands of English wOrkingmen join
ing hands with Irish Land Leaguers, and
addressed by Irish Home Rule members
of Parliament Either these spoke so
judiciously that the police sought in vain
for pretext for their arrest, or else there
were too many English sympathlzers
with Ireland to make it safe to Interfere.
There are two Englands. One loves
fair play, the other loves absolute power.
One is overbearing and insolent, the other
is resentftll and Independent. One prac-
tees tyranny, the other resistance. One
clings to the divine right of kings and
the vested right Of the nobility to all the
soil, the other is stirred by the story OF
Cromwell and the philosophy OF Herbert
Spencer.
The long struggle for civil liberty goes
on, each combatant of the centuries that
are past still represented in the present.
| Privilege overrides rights, and in each
struggle men who were on the side of
justice are won over to the side of power.
| The old and the new struggle with each
other there as here The right of q
whole people to subsist from the soil
/ they cultivate is face to face with a sys-
/ tenn which places ownership in the soil
higher than Gods right to create human
beings thereon. The struggle of England
to sustain her Will against the direst needs
of human kind is as hopeless as would be
an effort TO change the courses of the
stars. Human destiny will not be shaped
| by cobweb laws. There are desperate
men in revolt in Ireland, who have moth
ing to lose The rights ofproperty are to
| them but a sound, which is drowned by
! the cries of their wives and children.
! Sharp-visaged children of Irish parents
there are in our own land, on whose faces
are written with terribly legible hand the
hunger and suffering of many generations
| in the home of their parents.
The. clustering of the English press
does not conceal the uneasiness Of the
government party in this new struggle.
The Irish leaders are not ignorant dema-
gogues, but able and earnest men. The
rebellion is not a romantic uprising in a
few places to the music OF "The Wearing
Of the Green" to express anew the hatred
of the old act of union. If this were all,
there would be no such hurrying of mill
tary preparations. England knows she
has serious business in hand. Twenty
seven thousand soldiers have been sent
among the Irish kernes," and Of these
six thousand at Dublin have not inspired
enough respect among the people to pre-
vent unpleasant encounters" between
them in the suburbs of the city. But it
is not Irish resistance alone that is
ITO be dreaded. The English working
people are beginning to be aroused, as is
shown by the Hyde Park meeting. If
they decree the relief of Ireland they
will have to be respected. And in this
country the sympathy with Ireland was
never more aroused than now. Faneuil
Hall was crowded but the other night to
hear eloquent Americans plead for Ire
land, and to hear read letter from the
Governor of Massachusetts in protest
against the tyranny of England.
The English Ministry confessed the
whole case against its government when
it promised reform of the landlord and
tenant laws. 1t insulted justice and COM
mon sense when it gave the coercion bill
the precedence over the promised relief
The world doubts the good faith of Eng
land in driving Ireland into rebellion by
an arbitrary policy before correcting a
system admitted to be oppressive. In
our own land revolution against Gov
ernment which does not protect the in
alienable rights" with which "all peo-
pie are endowed by their Creator" was
long ago announced as justifable in
opposition to the pretensions of arbitrary
power. The American colonists had just
cause for the revolution out of which this
Nation was born; but they never did have
a 1.-THE Of the cause under which poor
Ireland suffers. They fought against an
unlawful tax and denial of their right
to participate in their own government.
The Irish rebel against system of
land-ownership and control which
makes them serfs on the soil or home
less outlaws in their own land. Com
plants are crimes, and in another week
any Irishman may be incarcerated in a
Jail who may be suspected by an English
spy or disliked by an Irish renegade in
former. In such an unequal contest
surely the American people cannot re-
frain from giving sympathy and moral
support to the oppressed. These hold
Gods own commission to contend for the
manhood he gave them and sustenance
for their wives and little ones from the
bosom Of their mother earth.
Civil-Service Reform.
We are in receipt of document No. l,
issued by the Civil Service Reform Asso- |
ciation, of which George William Curtis |
is president. The object of this associa-
ton, ds represented. is to take the civil |
service of the Government out of politics |
and put it on a business basis" Such |
purpose may be feasible, but we do not |
clearly see it under the circumstances |
This Government is g of the people, by |
the people, and for the people," and is
planted upon the Constitution and the |