The Irish standard., 1897-07-03
LECTURE BY RICHARD AsHE KING.
DEEPER THAN MERE ECONOMICS rs
ERIN's OPPRESSION,
Law ABIDING ENGLISH PEOPLE
QUITE RESTIvE UNDER LAWS NOT
MADE BY THEMSELVES.

Some time ago In the city OF Cork, be-
fore the Young Ireland Society, the fol-
lowing address on The Moral Effects
Upon the Irish Character of English Mis-
government" was delivered by Richard
Ashe King, author OF the famous song
"rhe Wearing of the Green:
Mr.. King said he had chosen for his
discourse "'l'he Moral Effects Upon the
Irish Character of English Misgovcrn-
ment"--a subject so wide and many
sided that 1t reminded him of cartoon
which appeared In Punch" many years
ago of an lrishman who had so many
holes in his patched and tattered old
coat that he was not able to find out the
armholes. QLaughter.) He had lived
many years In Yorkshire and often dis
cussed with the people of the country the
subject Of Irish poverty. Those Eng
lishmen held that 1t was not the lack of
coal or capital, or strikes or absentee
landlords, or agricultural depression or
American competition, or Mr.. Gladstone
or the devil; 1t was, In one word, poor
Paddys indomitable laziness-indispo-
sition to hard work, both In mind and
body. He asked his hearers II 1t was not
curious fact that in America and in the
Colonies the lrslman chose the hardest
to the minds of his English friends how
In the seventeenth century the Irish
landlords In their selfishncss applied to
Parliament for bill, and got IT., for the
prevention of the expectation of cattle
from Ireland. and how, notwithstanding
that obstacle to their enterprise, the
Irish pluckcd up heart and spirit and es-
tablished a woolen trade which had such
success that within 80 years English
manufacturers applied to Parliament to
protect them against the competition
from Ireland. He asked how It was that
this lazy race was able to compete with
the English in their own markets until
English manufacturers strangled their
industries with both hands, and the
answer was: THAT is the way you
lrishmen go back upon old gricvancies
and upon old sores long since healed.
Haven't you fair start now, without
any legislative interference, except an
interference which is in your favor?
What have you to complain of now?
Isn't landlordism and every kind of re-
striction dead now? Well, he asked in
was the meaning of the terrible war that
was going on In the country? If land
lonrdism was dead 1t did not know it
and the Irish people did not know 1t.
But If landlordism did not know that it
was dead and the Irish people were peg
| cling away at 1t to make it sensible of It's
m!sfortunes. (Applause.) The lecturer
| illustrated by racy anecdotes the lisabiI-
ity under which Ireland laborcd with re-
| gard to the English Parliament, and
| spoke of the loss II was to this country
| to have her people obliged to go to Lon
| don for even the most trumpery little Act
| of Parliament.
Carlyle, who hated the Irish people
with a thorough hate, said that the op-
preston of the people Of Ireland had gone
deeper than mere economies; 1t had gone
Into their hearts and spirits and had
disordcrcd and dcmorallzed them. Nicnr,
hcar) He Uhe lecturcr) often asked
those prejudiced Englishmcn If they and
| their forcfathers had been robbed of their
n CT fr.in md tn,
abject misery than the dog in an Eng
| lish kennel or the horse In an English
stable, how much self respect and self
| reliance they would have brought with
| them into the world; what part of mall
! hood would they have had If they were to
cringe every day to the landlord or tho
agent In order to keep their wives and
children out of the workhouse? And he
told them that the wonder was that when
| 1rishmen went to other countries their
manhood would rcassert itself and that
they should have displayed such energy
and such industry that in q few short
years they should prove themselves to
| be the most prosperous men In those
communities. (Applause) A commits
sioncr Of the Pail Mall Gazette went out
to America a stccragc passenger from
| Queenstown; his description OF the poor
Irish emigrants was disgusting to read
but in few months what change in
the tone Of his letters: Returning with
some of those same emigrants he saw
and described the manly scf-respect OF
those men-they came back changed In
everything, but their hatred Of England
(Applausc) He (Mr. King) did not
want Irishmen to go TO America to find
manhood (applause); they ought to find
1t here in their own country; they ought
to shake off the nightmare of oppression
and slavery which had for centuries
grown upon them; he wished every Irish