Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-01-09
IRELAND'S WANTS.

How the Landlord System Expresses the
PEOPLE of that Unfortunate Island-An
ELOQUENT Tribute to Parnen.
The following is the address OF Hon. L.
Donnelly, delivered at the Land League
meeting at the Opera House, on Friday
evening:
Fellow Citizens: This large assemblage
in this American city, of people of differ
ept nationalitles, to express words of
sympathy and encouragement to the far
mers of Ireland, is another illustration Of
the truth that
Mankind is one
And hath but one great heart. It's thus it feels,
With gigantic throb across the seas,
Each Others rights and wrongs
The Irish people are simply striving for
that which it is the purpose OF republl-
can form of government to give; viz: the
Improvement of their material condition.
This is the root and ground Of our own
Institutions. We hold, in this country,
that wrong has no rights that white
man is bound to respect; that as soon as
the people decide upon the remedy for a
wrong, it is the duty of the government
to apply that remedy; in fact, that that is
the chief end of government. We fur
Their hold that, all men heing equal, the
rights of the many must always prevail
over the so-called rights of the few.
Hence we subordinated the powers of the
king, even with the amounting oil upon
his head, to the rights of the people;
hence, for the same end, we blotted out
the privileges of the aristocracy, based, as
they were, upon feudal conquests; hence,
too. we swept away the time
sanctioned privileges of an es-
tablished church; and hence,
too, in these latter days, we have COM
PEELED the slave-owner although his
rights were intrenched behind ancient
custom, constitutional recognition and
local law, to give up his human property
And in this spirit the republic must pro-
coed, or fatally depart from its essential
principle Whenever the rights of the
few are productive of great wrongs to
the many the lesser must yield to the
greater, the few to the many.
We are not here to attack the right of
property in land or the right to collect
rent for the use of land. In our present
imperfect state of society these things
seem to be essentials of civilization In
our great country where land is abundant
and awaits the taker, he who enters into
possession of it and causes food to grow
where erewhile nature yielded nothing
but wild grasses, is a public benefactor
and deserves the thanks Of all men, But
in little island like Ireland, where the
people are poor, where there is no pur-
suit but agriculture, and where the title
to the land is founded not upon peaceful
settlement, but upon old world conquest,
brutality and robbery,a system which still
further impoverishes the people, starves
them, reduces population and produces
incalculable suffering, must give way to
the good of the whole people.
The natural, inalienable and funda-.
mental right of the many to life and hap
piness must prevail over the purely legal
right of the landowners to their lands.
The Irish people do not propose to rob
the landlords of the value represented by
their lands; they simply ask that they
shall sell the lands and invest the proceeds
in other pursuits, not detrimental to the
public welfare.
Is this interference with private right
justified by public necessity? l think it
is.
1t is said that the strange birds and
animals of Australia represent the con-
dition of the whole world in far remote
geological era. The great continents have
advanced step by step to higher and
nobler forms of animal life, while Au-
stralia has remained without change or
improvement. The same, in historical
sense, may be said of Ireland. She rep
resents a case of arrested development.
She is a forgotten pool, or eddy of dead
water, outside the great tides and cur
rents of civilization; and hence, while
mankind in the rest of Europe and in
America has been swept forward to the
great ends off peace, liberty and prosperity,
Ireland still struggles in the tolls
of that terrible feudalism which once
crushed and cursed the whole European
family. She is a fossil of the past,
testifying IN her miserieS to the dark and
bloody condition out of which humanity
has arisen in these latter ages--a condi-
ton in which power meant oppression,
religion signitied hatred, and govern
ment was simply an engine of destruction.
do not desire to be understood as at
lacking the English character. l don't
wish to rake up the cruel past to infame
race-prejudices; the dead past should
bury its dead; we must derive from histo-
~ not heat but light. No man has a
keener sense of fair play than the En-
glisman; but it is difficult for just man
to be just to his slave; for unlimited pow
er begets injustice, and Ireland has been
England's slave for centuries.
1t is an appalling fact that while every
other country in Europe and in this con-
tinent has been increasing rapidly in pop
ulation Ireland has refrigerated. In 1916
she contained s, 250, 900 persons; in 1875
she had but 5,3O9, IA. a loss of nearly
5000, 600 out of a'little more than S,OO0,-
600. Nor was this decrease due alto
gether to emigration. There had been
during this period an actual destruction
of human life unexampled in history
Over 300, 600 human beings died in one
year of the great famine, from starvation
or pestilence. Between 1s45 and 1851
1885, 600 out of S,000,O00 suffered from
the famine fever. In the Cork
workhouse the deaths were at the rate of
one per hour; 140 corpses were found
along the Clifden road The commits
sionerS of the census for 1857 saw: "No