The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-03-18


Henry the Second, Queen Elizabeth.
Cromwell and William the Third. The
American criticism of England is, like
that Of Gladstone, not a. all directed at
Engiand's right to govern ireland
but at her failure to discharge her obliga-
ton 70 give Ireland a good government
OF course any other position than this
would be utterly untenable for . loyal
English statesman, and any other counsel
which holds out to hotheaded Irishmen
the prospect of absolute national indie
pendence OF England, is not only iii-timed,
but impracticable. immoral and insane.
England is no more open to criticism for
man was for conquering England, or the
original colonists Of New England and
Virginia for conquering the Indian and
taking his land.
The English title to Ireland is just a.
good ~ the title of the United States to
the America it occupies. The title Of Eng
land is not the quarrel; it is the mis-
government under the title of conquest
that has made Ireland q thorn in the side
Of Great Britain ever since William the
Third broke the promise of religious
federation made in the treaty Of Limerick
and put Ireland under the rack of that
frightful anti Catholic code that. from the
last decade of the seventeenth to the first
decade of the nineteenth century, knew no
legal relaxation, and was not absolutely
extinguished in law until the passage OF
the Catholic emancipation act in 1879.
During all this time the Irish people
groaned under . vicious system of land
tenure, which was enforced only by inces-
SAINT, uninterrupted coercive legislation.
From 1895 to 1902 an instruction act was
in force. and from 1877 to 1902 the habeas
corpus act was suspended. From 1903 to
and from the same year to 1905 habeas
corpus was suspended. Insurrection acts
were In force from 1907 to 1910. from 1914
to 1878, from 1922 to 1925. Habeas corpus
was again suspended in 1922. After tho
passage of the Catholic emancipation act
followed the repeal movement by O. Cornell
in 1913: then came the frightful "famine"
of 1Si6-47, and the vast exodus of the
Irish to America; then came the Irish re.
bellion of 184S; then Gladstone. in 1868.
disestablished the Irish church: then came
the foundation of the Home Rule party in
1874; its rapid growth under Parnell in
1879: and it, final march to the verge of
victory under Gladstone.
The story of Ireland is simple and easily
told. Ireland is a country with . fertile
soil and an industrious people, but 90
badly misgoverned that her population has
declined from g. 0Oo, 600 in 1s4l to 4, 7O6. 900
in 1891: that is, in fifty years a fertile land,
inhabited by one Of the most prolific peo-
pie in the world. has lost enormously in
population. Is there any reason why the
Irish peasant, with his strong emotional
nature. should cling less tenaciously to the
land of his birth than the French peasant
to his, save the fact that Improvement
in the past, joined to economic evils con-
seQuent upon $50 years Of misgovernment.
has made the Irish peasant an exile in
search Of that reasonable comfort in
America he can not find at homef That
Ireland has been trightfully misgoverned
in the past every distinguished English
man has confessed. Dean Swift drew the
first powerful indictment Of England's
Improvement in his Drapier letters.
Pitt, Fox, Burke, Lord Chesterfield. Earl
Fitzwilliam, Lord CORVALLIS pleaded
guilty for England when Grattan
and Flood charged misgovernment,
and asked and obtained transient
home rule. In ITO Benjamin Franklin.
then the agent and representative of the
American colonies. visited Dublin. He was
received with the highest honors by the
Irish parliament. In writing Of this oc-
currence. he says: II found them disposed
to be friends of America. in which en-
deavored to confirm them. Our growing
weight may in time DO thrown into their
scale, and, by joining our interests with
theirs, more equitable treatment from the
British government may be obtained for
them as we'll as for u.s." The pressure
Of the war with America and France
forced England to grant Grattan
home rule. George the Third forced Pitt
to withdraw this gift by the act of union
in 1901, and since that day the fight for
home rule for Ireland has been ceaselessly
waged. All the great Englishmen of this
century have confessed the justice of Ire.
lands cause save that sour, grabbed mis-.
anthropic Scotch Tory, Thomas CARLYLE,
The great Tory leader, Disraeli, as tar back
as 1874, confessed the shameful failure of
English government Of Ireland, when he
said:
Ireland 10 teeming with astarying population
and suffers from an absentee aristocracy an
alien church aud the weakest executive in the
world. The only remedy Is revolution, " ich
is prevented by connection with powerful Eng
land. Therefore England 10 logically In an
odious position. being the cause Of the misery
In Ireland.
The American press and public have
always been with Ireland when she was
right. The extraordinary thing is that
intelligent Englishmen should wonder at
the sympathy of America for Gladstone
and try to explain it by saying 1--WE are
bidding for the Irish vote" when their
own country is so sharply divided on
the question that Gladstone without the
vote Of the Irish members would lack less
than forty votes OF Saiisbury's full strength
in parliament OF Tories and Liberal
Cnionists. 1t IS not the ignorant Ameri.