The Irish standard., 1900-04-28
AN INDICTMENT OF ENGLAND.

ant" which recently appeared in the
New York Evening Post, contains a
true Indictment of England for it's mis-
government of Ireland during the reign
of Queen Victoria. The following pass
ages will give an idea of the evils in
| flicted on the "Niobe of Nations by
Protestant ascendancy and British
rule:
The one lesson Ireland has been
taught by the parliamentary and adj
ministrative record of this century is,
that so-called reforms or changes have
never been granted out of good will,
but in answer TO agitation, and only
when agitation was accompanied with
riot and outrage, or when the with
holding of legislation became politi-
cally announcement. When Ireland is
quiet she wants nothing; if unquiet.
ungrateful and disaffected, she de-
serves nothing. 10 describe Irish leg
islation during the past fifty or sixty
years as an atonement for past mis-
government is absurd-most of the So
called remedial legislation has been be-
lated and ineffective; what was given
with one hand was taken away with
the other, or nulliied by administra-
ton.
Catholic emancipation is an illustra-
ton. Twenty years after the Catholic
Relief act, John Bright said they still
chad everything Protestant-a Protes-
tant clique dominant; a Protestant
viceroy to distribute places and emolu-
ments among that Protestant clique;
Protestant judges who have polluted
the seats of justice; Protestant magis-
trates before whom the Catholic peas
ant could not hope for justice; not only
Protestant, but exterminating land
lords; and, more than that, a Protes-
tant soldiery, who, at the beck and
command of Protestant priest, have
butchered and killed a Catholic peas
ant in the presence of his widowed
mother" Protestant "Ascendancy"
has not yet wholly disappeared.
The system of land tenure has been
the root and cause Of most misery, dis
content and disaffection. The Devon
commission in 1912 recommended some
mild reforms; legislative effect was
given to some Of these in 1870. That
act was admittedly failure, and in
1881 revolutionary land act was
passed, to the principles of which the
representatives both of landlords and
tenants objected. The land courts be-
came a legal cockpit where landlords
and tenants have wasted their time
and substance ever since in litigation
mainly due to the complications and
obscurities of the act
Over and over again we have been
told that this, that or the other land
act was final; but since 1881 there
have been about a dozen amending and
extending acts, while the Irish land
question remains as unsettled as ever.
Royal commissions and select commit
tees have recommended in vain the
consolidation of this chaotic medley of
laws into one consistent and intelli-
gible act, so that landlords and tenants
might be able to discover their respect
i've rights and duties. Atonement is
still due for the evils inflicted by this
intermittent, ftful and unintelligible
Legislation.
Until 1866 the Irish Parliamentary
franchise was different from and more
restricted than in England, ana it was
only in 1899 that a broadened munich
pal franchise, promised by English
statesmen for fifty years, was estab-
lished, but accompanied by a local
government act so complex that the
cost of local administration is already
vastly increasing. Why should Irish
men be grateful for delayed and be-
lated reforms, for legislation which,
even if it effects some improvement on
the past, is not that which the great
majority of the. people ask for?
Administration of the law is quite as
important as the laws themselves, and
is entirely different from that in Eng
land. Judges and heads of depart
ments in Ireland have been almost in
variably selected for political reasons,
usually Inv Governments hostile to, thu
mass of the people, and are persons
who, as rule, are opposed to the prin-
ciples of the newer laws they have to
administer. They have drawn the
fang teeth of acts of parliament, and
shown an unusual astuteness in find.
ing out ways to defeat the objects of
the legislature. Irish departments
have no representative in parliament,
and so far are not amenable to public
opinion. An English chief secretary,
seldom long enough in office to under
stand his environments, answers al
most all Irish questions, and is practi-
cally their sole representative, the SUI
preme governor of the country.
Is not the most natural explanation
Of Irish discomfort and disloyalty, not
wild and ineradicable hatred of Eng
land, but the same discomfort that
showed itself in every English colony
as long as their domestic affairs were
administered from Downing street in