The San Francisco call., 1898-04-03
ENGLAND SEEMS PITILESs.
Tho Calls Special Correspondent fl Dublin Describes tho Situation
 in the Island
BY J. J. CLANCY.

DUBLIN. March 19.-It is scarcely too much to say that the eyes of most Irishmen are just now turned on the debate which is to begin on Monday next in the House of Commons on the local government bill. This measure, as I have before mentioned. has ex- cited among the Orangemen of the north of Ireland almost as much oppo- sition as did the home bills of MT. Glad stone. That party regard 1t as a con- cession to what they call sedition and separation, and for supporting it they have already called to account the one or two representatives of Orange con- stituencies who belong to the Govern ment which has proposed it. The At torney- General for Ireland, for in- stance, MT. Atkinson, who sits for North Derry County, has been practi- Cally called upon to resign his seat.
 The question which Is exciting at tention is whether the Government will listen to those rabid outcries against all genuine reform, and MT. Balfour's speech on Monday is expected to give the answer. AS far as l can judge the Government will not recede from the position they have assumed. This is all the more likely in view of the fact that the "loyalist" minority in the three southern provinces, although ob- jecdng to many proposals of the bill, do not object to it's main principles. This week the Earl of Mayo, a typical Irish landlord, who has his estates in Kildare, has written an article in which he advises his fellow UnionistS to ac- cept the inevitable" and make the best of 1t, and this is the attitude of most of his class outside Ulster. It will oe rather difficult for the Government, with such declarations before them, to yield to the intolerant views of their extreme supporters in Ireland. But a day or two will tell.
 Meanwhile. the Unionist Ministers are at a fearful discount among the main body of their Irish friends. They came into office on an anti-1rish cry, and, so far as Ireland is concerned, they have scarcely done single thing which was expected on either side. It is an in teresting but very instructive specta- cle, for. in point of fact, what 1t teaches is that English Governments have no natural regard for any party in Ire land, and do for any party only what eXpediency dictates.
 l regret to say that the latest ac- counts from the distressed districts in the west and south of Ireland represent the state of things there as exceedingly grave. It would be an eXaggeration to say that the failure of last years crops produced general distress in Ireland or indeed. any real distress throughout the greater part of Ireland, but 1t would be equally wrong to minimize the se- verity of the distress which it has oc- casioned in the COngeSted districts of the south and west-that zone of per ennial misery which borders the sea and. at intervals, extends a good dis tance inland, from the coast of Done gal to the coast of Kerry Within that zone the condition of the smaller occu- piers of land is simply heartrending. The ordinary food supply having failed, the people are obliged to live on Indian meal. and they cannot procure a suf- ficient quantity even of that means of subsistence without the aid of charity
 The Government, after much pres sure, started some relief" works for their benefit, but the wages paid for labor done are scarcely enough to keep body and soul together. A few shillings week, when everything has to be bought, go but a very little way, as 1t may well be. imagined, toward main- taining a family often numbering from eight to. twelve members, and when 1t is added that this wage has sometimes to be earned bv the women of the fam fly owing to the enfeebled bodily con- ;, be easily understood that the most har- rowing: incidents are often witnessed
 The: worst of the matter is that the remedy for this terrible state of things is perfectly obvious and easily attain able, and yet is not adopted. What causes this distress Is that in the dis tressed districts:the people are huddled together upon little patches of land from which they can hardly derive suf- ficient subsistence even in prosperous " seasons, while in their immediate neighborhood are immense tracts of land wholly devoted to the rearing and feeding of sheep and cattle. What is wanted-and the only thing that is wantedI-is to divide up this grazing land among the small occupiers. It is not. proposed that the land should be taken without compensation. It is pro- posed tkat. the proprietors should be paid for 1t, and it is simply dsgraceful that a Government which can spend