The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-05-03
IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE.
IRISH NATIONAL PLATFORM.

PHILADELPHIA, April 27.-The fol-
lowing is the report of the committee
on resolutions:
The 1riSh-American people assem-
bled in convention at Philadelphia,
submit to the intelligence and reason
of their fellowmen, that the duty of
government to preserve the lives of
the governed, to defend their liberty,
to protect their property, to maintain
peace and order, to allow each portion
of the people an equitable and eff
ticient voice in legislation, and to
promote the general welfare by wise,
| just and humane laws. We Solemnly
declare and cite unquestioned history
and the universal knowledge of living
men in testimony hereof:
l. That English government has
existed in Ireland, not to preserve the
lives OF the governed, but to destroy
them. Entire communities it has
wantonly maSsacreed by the sword;
to the asylums of terrified women it
has deliberately applied the blazing
torch, and into helpless towns it has
discharged deadly bombs and shells;
through consecrated crypts where age
and infancy sought shelter 1t has sent
its bloody butchers; the sacred per-
sons of venerable priests it has
stretched upon the rack or suspended
from the gibbet; pulling babes have
been impaled on the points of its bay
onets; its gold has been folded in the
hands of assaSSins and has recorded
the infamy of perjured traitors; its
treacherous falSehood has lured pa
triots to unsupported death; as if the
sword, cannon, torch, ScaffOld dag
ger and explosives were not enough,
it enjoys the unique infamy of being
the only government known to
ancient or modern times which has
employed famine for the destruction of
those from whom it claimed allegiance,
forcibly robbing the Irish people of
the fruits of their own toll, produced
by their own labor; it has buried not
hundreds, not thousands, but more
than millions of the Irish race I'M
shrouded, uncotfined, in graves of
hunger; it has mercileSsly compelled
other millions, in compulsory power
ty, to seek in alien lands
the bread they were entitled
to in their own. There is no form of
cruelty known to the lowest savage
which it has not practiced on the
Irish people in times of the highest
civilization; there is no device of
fiendish ingenuity it has not adopted
to reduce their number within two
years; it has masSdcred children, and
women's bodies have been the vic
Tins of the license of it's ruffians.
There is no species of destructive at
tack, however inSiduouS or violent,
ancient or modern, rude or scientific,
whether directed against life or mat
ter in any portion of the globe, for
which its barbarities in Irealnd have
FURNISHED an example. There is no
form of retaliation to which despair
of madness may not resort, for which
England's cruelty in Ireland is ex-
clusively responsible.
2. We declare that English govern
ment in Ireland has not defended the
liberty of the people. but has annihi-
lated it. Statutes enacted since the
invasion amount to series of coer-
cions, and the laws were framed to
deprive citizens of all VestigeS of pos
sible freedom and reduce them to out
lawry, in order to confiscate their
property and compel them to flee to
foreign lands. Since the beginning
OF the present century, when the Irish
parliament was abolished, laws for
Ireland have been made in England,
and during that period habeas corpus
and the right of trial by jury have
been suspended. More than fifty
years of horrors; soldiers have been
loose.e ed on the people, they have
been forbidden to bear arms and
state of war with all it's attendant
horrors, with occasionally those of
retaliation, have been maintained.
To day the representatives of the
people are in prison, guiltless of
crime; the freedom of the press is
abolished, the right of peaceable
public meeting is annulled; no
mans house is secure night or day
from armed mauraders who may in
suit and harass his family without
restraint; citizens may be thrown into
prison without counsel and maybe
put on mock trial before a packed
jury; on the lying avowments of pur-
chased WretcheS his liberty may be
sacrificed or his life taken in the name
of law.
3. Instead of protecting the prop.
erty OF the people, the English gov
eminent in Ireland has been con-
spicuous for its injury and ruin. Out
of 100000 acres of producing land
| lids UOCA dllO gu W ll6
waste; ownership of the remainder,
generally acquired by force or fraud,
has been retained in the hands of
ravenous monopolists, who annually
drain the country Of its money in
the form of rents, no portion of
which goes back to the Irish peo-
ubiquitous system of taxation i'm
| n0co6 tho Taann1n n rIo,1
| for the SuStenance of a foreign army,
for an oppressive cOnstabulary, for
salaries to supernumerarieS officials
and place men, for pensions to Eng
| fish favoriteS, for hlOod-money for in
formers, and for vulgar court whose
extravaganza is equalled only by the
shame of its pretensions.
The naturally created capital of the
country is sent to England on one
preteXt or another, and brings no ex-
change except articles of English
manufacture, which the Irish peo-
pie under self-government would
produce for themselves or purchase
in America. The Irish manufactures
deliberately destroyed by England in
the last century are still dormant.
Her immense water power turns no
wheels; her canals are all but impass-
| able; her rivers are obstructed; her
useful clay and valuable minerals are
untouched; in her beautiful harbors
are few ships except those of her
enemy. The English law for protec-
ton of property in Ireland has been
lance to make Ireland bleed at every
pore, for the benefit of heartless land
lords and English manufacturers. The
English government in Ireland has not
maintained peace and order, but has
for several hundred years broken her
peace and destroyed her order.
5. English government in Ireland
does not allow that portion of the
empire an equitable voice. In Eng
land one-twelfth of the population
votes for members of parliament;
whereas in Ireland one-twenty-f
of the population votes for members
of parliament. In England the regis
/ tration laws are favorable to the
voters; but in Ireland they are inim-
ical to the voters. In England all
classes of the population are fairly
represented, in Ireland poor lawyers
are employed to secure to the land
lords and place hunters a preponder-
ence in the national delegation. In
England the judiciary is Independent
of the executive and sympathizes with
the people; in Ireland the judiciary is
the creature and part of the executive
and is appointed exclusively from the
enemies of the people. In England
/ tho mapiStracV is chosen without re-