Morning journal and courier., 1882-02-11
Saturday Morning, Feb. IL. 1852.
THE SITUATION IN IRELAND.

| A traveller in Ireland writes a doleful let
ter to the New York EUentng Post concern
ing the depressed trade, the idIeness, the
| poverty and the intemperance which he has
| seen. The commercial travellers declare that
| they never knew their orders from trades
men to be so small. The shopkeepers say
| they have contracted their credits among
tenant farmers, and complain bitterly of slow
trade. Many of the factories are idle.
| Though the season is mild the farmers are
| not breaking ground for grain. In the larger
towns gaping idlers in groups of dozen
cluster at street corners and before gin-shops,
too listless almost, to give room for the
passer by. SIT seems as though Incidence
were organized and all Ireland gone on a
| loafer's holiday" Poor as the people are
the drinking of intoxicating liquors is sys-
| tematic and deep. ttOn the platform of
every little country railroad station are piles
of liquors in bottle, cask and case No hotel
is too mean or dirty not to have barroom
| almost gorgeous as compared with the rest
of the shabby structure. The bill of fare is
contemptibly short, the list of liquors indef-
nitely long. 1t is common talk, moreover,
that the poorer classes are getting to prefer
more and more strong spirits to ale, porter,
or wines, and select the vilest compounds be-
cause they are cheaper, and scratch as they
go down me throat"
The correspondent declares that the Amer
lean influence on the political situation in
Ireland is most baneful and unfortunate. He
k1,oEE hal
turn toward the United States. He thinks of
that country in almost the same spirit that
the Mohammedan dreams of paradise. No
praise is too fulsome, no ideal of national po-
tency too vast for the ''other Ireland" across
the blue water. This notion, fostered and
strengthened by the Irish Americans who
come back to wear fire clothes, spend money
and brag, has grown to most mischieyous
proportions. The Irishman, remembering
how America has had one or two historical
struggles with the Briton, how she has sue
cored Erin in famine, how even now the
Land League funds are pouring in from over
the sea, talks as though we were in offensive
and defensive alliance with ireland, and only
waited her signal for war. The Irishman,
too, has boundless conceit as to the impor-
lance of his race in the United States. To
hear him boast one would imagine that the
Celt was dominant in America, that Presi-
dent Arthur was an Irish monarch, and that
only waiting for the fullness- of time delays
the transfer of the Papal See to Washington.
The correspondent heard an eloquent Irish
orator boasting about how successfully the
Irishman had indicated his capacity for ru-
lership by his wise administration of the af-
fairs of large American cities, particularly
New York. All this has vicious effect 1T
deepens and prolongs the agitation by max
ing the Irishman dream of a special Provi-
dence on the transatlantic shore which
watches over him, and, in the emergency,
will come actively to his rescue"
Another obstacle to order and good morals
is the decline of the influence of the Roman
Catholic Church over the people. Protest
ants, particularly landlords, attribute it to
the momentum of the agitation. But to the
correspondent it seems far more likely that it
is due to the internal divisions of the Church
itself. "The clerical attitude is no longer
consistent and invariable. The priests are
Irishmen as well as servants of an infallible
head, and they yield in the majority of cases
to their sympathies with their environment
The effect is discord- something the Irish
layman has rarely seen in his Church While
the Archbishop of Galway abets agitation,
the Archbishop of Tuam decries it; while a
priest at Clopbur helps to Boycott Lord Ar
dilaun, Father McCullagh at Dromeckin is
deserted by his congregation because he has
advised them to pay their rents" The result
is to impair the religious authority whose
full power is now so much needed.