The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-10-02

| ~ N THURSDAY of last week
the Earl of Dudley made his
| entry into Dublin as Lord
| Lieutenant of Ireland. He
| passed through city as Indifferent to
were an ordinary English tourist on
| his way to his hotel. His progress
| through the streets was marked, to be
sure, by lines of soldiers and the gas
| conade of a few ultra loyal students
from Trinity college; but these puerile
demonstrations only served to empha- :
size the irony of the state entry of
the kings vice regent, his first and
maybe the last.
The new viceroy is a young man,
very rich and in his own circle very
popular. lie bears no i'll will toward
the Irish, nor do they toward him. He
would, no doubt, spend oceans of money
to popularize his tenure of office; but
he knows that during his brief stay
in the country his political influence
will have as little weight in concliat-
ing OF alternating Irishmen to the sys-
~
tons of the weathercock on st. Pat
rick's cathedral. This government
blight has lasted. with some slight
modificat tions. in Ireland for nearly sew
en- hundred years, and grows more hol-
low in its hopeless fatuity from genera
ton to generation.
The London Times seizes the occasion
to publish an unusually pessimistic ar
ticle on the relations between England
and Ireland at the present moment
Probably hree-fourths of the Irish
parliament representatives will be in
Jail before Christmas, not to speak of
the arrest and incarceration of village
politicians whose popularity and con-
sequence are vastly increased in the
eyes of their neghbors by sojourn
in the county Jail. These prosecutions
are brought under the Crimes Act a
measure which is at once so drastic
and inconsequential that ordinary
criminals are not amenable to its pro-
visions. II applies only to politicians
who assert the right of liberty of
speech, of public meeting. freedom of
the press, and such constitutional pre-
negatives of citizenship as Americans
and IInglishmen associate with their
fundamental conception of public lib
erty. From ordinary crime Ireland is
exceptionally, even unprecedentedly
free. From Belfast to Cork and from
Galway to Dublin during the last as
size there was not a single murder
case, and at most of the courts judges
were presented with white gloves.
The Times suggests under these cir
cumstances that the vice regal court
should be abolished ana that Ireland
should be governed similarly to Scot
land. This would mean, in the first
place, the razing of Dublin Castle
which is the centralized bureaucracy
from which the country is governed
without the. governed having voice or
choice in the arrangements. 1t would
mean, above all, civil control of the
police. The Irish constabulary is now
Il military force, armed, drilled, Off
Cered and housed like soldiers. The
magistracy would become representa-
tive. having the confidence of the peo-
pie and not as now only that of Dub
lin Castle. These changes would not
be a substitute for Home Rule, but
they would so far in reducing to SIM
pie proportions "A problem which the
English people, with all their genius
for government at home and abroad
have failed ito muddle through some
how" in dealing with Ireland.