Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1899-01-14

constitutional principles is that the law
must be whatever the people want to
make it.
And as they wont listen to the Irish
people in the ordinary way in Parliament
we have got to make them listen in an
extraordinary way here on the hills Of
Ireland. And the result has invariably
been in every Irish struggle, and the result
will be again, that it is the people who
will be in the long run the victors and
the lawmakers, and the hirelings who
are at the service of the landlord-made
law today will be Just as Jealous in the
service Of people-made law tomorrow.
The law of England may be strong, but
there is law of nature that is stronger
still, and it is the first law of nature that
this beautiful and fertile land of ours
was created for the sustenance of the
people, and that the men of Connaught
must not be driven to the degradation of
begging the world for aims while there
are half a million acres of the richest
lands in Europe lying half idle at their
doors for the convenience of a handful
of graziers and bullocks. The thing is
unnatural. 1t can not last.
The instant that Englishmen fully un-
derstand this question our victory is won.
Unfortunately, it takes not only surgi-
cal operation, but an earthquake, to get
the comprehension of anything Irish into
the skull of England. But 1 defy any
humane man to travel through this very
district in which we are assembled with
out going home absolutely convinced
that the programme of the United Irish
League is an irresistibly just one, and
that the present state of things is opposed
to every law of God and nature.
Between this and Atheuy, and away
again toward Clare, Galway and Head
ford, there are square miles after square
miles of the most fertile lands as depopu-
lated as the Sahara desert, inhabited only
by the shepherds and their dogs, and in
the county where you have all this
glorious land going to waste you had
even within the present year at least
twenty-five thousand people depending
upon the charity of the world to save
them from starvation.
In Gods name, are we a race of mice,
and not of men, that we should lie down
and die like dogs, simply because an
ignorant foreign law for the moment
sanctions state of things of that kind2
To hear well-fed placemen like Judge
Gibson talking, you would suppose that
we were looking for something utterly
revolutionary, dia5olical and impossible.
Why, you have only to take up any
Blue Book of the Scotch Land Commits
sion and you will read as one of their
place, everyday proceedings that
the tenants of a congested district come
in, as you might do here, and say: "Our
holdings are too small to live, and here
is sheep farm or a deer forest of two or
three thousand acres in the neighborhood
that would give us ample holdings" and
Immediately the Land Commission take
up the deer forest or sheep farm without
the leave of landlord or of grazier and
parcel out among the people. What
brand of inferiority is there on the people
of Ireland that they should lie down and
die in a land of plenty any more than
they do in Scotland?
We don't propose to despoil any man
of his honestly got property, whether he
be landlord or grazier. We say: Your
treasury, on the confession of its own
eminent experts, is plundering Ireland of
two millions and three-quarters of money
every year. Very we'll; use some of that
money, although it is Irish money, in
squaring accounts with the landlords and
with the graziers, but your first duty as
a government is the safety and the exist
ence of the people," and when the people
insist upon obtaining that means of exist
ence in the land of your birth defy all
the power of England to put you down.
You are fighting for very mighty
prize, nothing less, as have described
it, than the replantation of Conuaught.
No man ever entered upon campaign
that was better worth the labor and the
risk. Let this League spread like forest
fire from parish to parish. Form your
executive in North Galway as quickly as
possible of six elected delegates from
every branch, utilize to the utmost the
irresistible weapon that the new County
Council will place in the peoples hands,
go around to the graziers, and get from
them in black and white how far they are
willing to cooperate in bringing pressure
to bear on the government to settle this
question on just and reasonable terms.
By and by, before the meeting of Par
lament, we will have great Provincial
Congress of all the representative men
from every constituency in Connaught,
and we will formulate our demands. We
will then give the Government every
possible fair play if they apply them
selves honestly and on a really states
manlike scale to find a remedy. The
Government themselves know and
acknowledge what is the remedy and the
only remedy. The only difference be-
tween us is that the Government propose
to do in few centuries what we insist
can be done within as many years. By
all means let us be as moderate as posi-
BILE until we see how far MIR. Arthur Bal
four redeems his promise to Mr. Michael