The Irish standard., 1898-09-24
removed, discomfort and grievance |

and disturbance will vanish from
the land. I want to know who
are these Englishmen who profess to be
shocked because we in Ireland speak
and act as we do in reference to the re-
bellion of 1898. Why they boast of two
rebellions in their own country. Ii is
true that their -ebelaons were sue ,ess.
full, and successful rebellion becomes
revolulicr, but it is rebellicl for all
that. Rebellion is morally justified upon
two conditions-frst, that there are
grievances which are serious, over
whelming and long endured, and that
peaccable redress has turned out to be
impossible; and secondly. that there is
some reasonable chance OF success at
any rate in the rising. Now, Ireland in
1898 was held by force, she was over
ruled, her land was confiscated, penal
laws of the most barbarous character
We're in force against the great masses
of our population. their trade was de-
stroyed for the profit of their conquer
ors, there was denial of political rights
to the great majority of the nation, and
lastly, shortly before the rebellion,
Grattan's parliament, the parliament
that had been extortcd by force from
England, was turned into mockery by
English overrule and by gross acts of
corruption. will take the words of our
adversaries to show whether the rebell-
ion of 1898 was justifiable. Here is what
Mr.. Lecky says: "By habitual colrup-
tion and the steady employment of the
system of nomination borough, the gov
elnment had reduced the Irish legisla-
ture to condition of so dcspicable and
almost ludicrous subserviency that the
policy which was probably supported by
the great majority of educated Irishmen
could not command more than 20 or 80
votes in the house of commons. They
had done this at time when the French
revolution had made the public mind of
the highest degree sensitive to questions
of representation, and when the burden
OF the war was imposing extraordinary
hardships on the people. They had re-
sisted the very moderate reform bills of
Ponsonby and Grattan as strenuously as
the wild democratic systems of the
United lrishmen, and they had thus
thrown into the path of treason a crowd
of able and energetic men, who must
have been contcnted By reform. The re
call Of Lord Fitzwilliam under circum-
stances that We're calculated to inflame
to the uttermost popular passions, the
deliberate appeal by the government to
the sectarian spirit among the Protest
ants, and Pelham's language of eternal
persecution against the Catholics soon
completed the work" Mr.. Lecky at an
other place says: "When the news ar
rived that the English government had
determined to recall Earl Fitzwiliam,
and to dash to the ground the hopes
which Catholics had been given every
reason to entertain, those who knew
Ireland best foresaw nothing but ruin"
Mr.. Lecky quotes Lord Fitzwilliam, who
said that the English ministers must
face almost the certainty of driving this
kingdom into rebellion" and Forbes.
one of the acutest members of the
house of commons, said: ut will end
in the total alienation Of Ireland"
Bishop Hurley, one of the ablest
English-speaking Catholic bishops,
who was employed by the gov.
ernment in the negotiations with the
Irish Catholics, wrote in January when
the question seemed certain to triumph,
that the loyal spirit of Irish Catholics
was so strongly reused that he believed
there were not five of them in the king
dom worth $40 who would not spill
their blood to resist French invasion.
Three weeks later, when doubts had
arisen, he wrote "the question involved
another very awful one-N neither the
cabinet means to retain Ireland or to
abdicate it to a French government or
to revolutionary system of it's own in
vention." When the decision was taken
we read: 1.-THE disastrous news of Lord
Fftzwilliam's recall is come, and Ireland
is now on the brink of civil war"
Lecky thus sums up the situation:
From the day when Pitt recalled Fitz-
william the course of Irish history was
changed. Intense and growing hatred
of England, revived religious animosi-
ties, savage rebellion savagely re-
pressed, a legislative union prematurely
and completely carried, marked the clos
ing years of the Eighteenth century, and
after 80 years of the British government,
the condition Of Ireland is universally
recognized as the chief scandal and the
chief weakness of the. empire" have
proved from unimpeachable sources that
our grievances were intolerable, and
they have been long borne, and the
very instrument by which they might
have been remedied--Grattan's parlia-
ment-had been rendered useless by cor
ruption. The only question remaining
is whether the rebellion had a chance of
success. Who today can doubt that the
chances of success were great? (Cheers.)
Ballinamuck was practically the last
fight made in the rebellion of '9S. Though
the French were made prisoners of war,
the Irish pikemen, who had been fight