Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-10-22

1ne Hon MlCnAGi h0nealy or SLam- ford and his side partner, Attorney General King, are good speakers, but if they meant what they said last night in the City hall building with reference to Irish history, both would do well to sharpen up on the subject before making many more Irish speeches ill Connecticut, MT King espe- cially, who went just step farther | than the Stamford man i'll his efforts to prove that free trade killed the man. nfactures of Ireland. But it is safe i to predict that the orators were giving 1 the audience game of jolly and prob, ably asked each other when they got behind the curtains how the thing worked
 1 A great handle is being made out of Irish affairs, but people who are fa- miliar with the history of that coun- l try know that there is no similarity except in the spelling of the words be- tween what the Irish meant by fires trade and the construction put upon it here. In the old world the Irish want l ed unrestricted trade with the Amert,
 can colonies, the East and West In- 1 dies and the continental powers on the same terms as England. This they en- joyed for time, but during the reign Of William III competition became quite brisk between English and Irish manufactures. The Irish woolen man. ufactures were getting the upper hand of the English in the markets of the world and as a last resort the peoplA of the manufacturing centers of Eng land, including Manchester, Bristol, I Liverpool, Bradford and other, places.
 petitioned the king for a measure of relief. This was followed by what ev, | erybody who knows anything about the story of Ireland will recollect as l the several enactments passed in the house of commons entitled acts foA the suppression of Irish manufactures,
 They worked like charm, too, and in a short time after they became opera tive the Irish were not in it. A heavy tariff was put upon Irish manufactures while the wares from the English fac,
 tories went out free, thus enabling 1 them to undersell the Irish. This was followed by fight for free trade, or, in other words, an opportunity to do busi- ness in the markets of the, world oA the same basis as the English. Was not that and the disabilities which Roman !, Catholics labored under what lead to l the formation of the Irish Volunteers? :? ! What was meant by the lettering Free Trade or Else-'', Free Trade or This," Free Trade or Speedy Reyo- lution," which appeared on the cannon paraded through the streets of Dublin in 1779 and 17SO? Somebody asked Napper Tandy, colonel of the volun- teers. what word was missing after
 ''else," and he replied War" After some time they got relief, but 1t did not go far enough, as was evidenced by the appeal of the sugar refineries and glass industries as soon as the full text of the bill became known, 90 that really 1t was not free trade but over protection in the interest of English capitalists that put the Irish out of business. If Mir Kenealy or any othel campaign speaker doubts this he will be set right by reading the first para graph of Mitchell's History of Ireland, chapter 10, page 128 Here it is:
 ] ITO force from reluctant England a free trade, or rather the declaratory notification of Poynings law, which required the Irish parliament to sub- init the heads of their bills to the English privy council before they could presume to pass them, these were in few words the two great oh l jeots which the leaders of the Volun- teers kept steadily before them. It must be here observed that the idea and term free trade, as then under. stood in Ireland, did not represent | l free trade. What was sought was & release from those restrictions on Irish trade imposed by an English parlia. ment and for the benefit of the Eng.
 fish people. They did not mean that imports and exports should be free of
 all duty to the state, but only thaA the fact of import or export Itself
 should not be restricted by foreign
 laws, and that the duties to be derived
 from 1t should be imposed by Ire
 lands own parliament and for the sole interest of the Irish people,
 1 The above quotation is not used for the purpose of enlightening MT Kenea- ly and MT King, for 1t is but fair to assume that they are not till this hour of the day without running across 1t, 1 but rather to show those who listened l to them how even nice appearing gen. I tlemen like the chairman of the repub- l lican state central committee and the l attorney-general of the state are will I ing to make political capital for theik party by putting a wrong construction upon history. Nobody will say that 1 this is a crime or that the speakers should be called to saccount for their l conduct, but there is enough in 1t to
 prove that the republicans are stop ping at nothing this time. The Irish
 knew what they wanted, but as a mat ter of business the English withheld 1t
 from them, and looking at 1t from the | standpoint of the English people, the government was right. They para lyzed Irish industries, prompted men
 who had money to invest to go across
 the channel and locate in England and take with them their skilled opera.
 tives. But this was not accomplished by free trade. On the contrary, the
 weapon employed was protection that worked but one way. The law pro- tected the English at the expense of the Irish, just in the same sense as the
 republican party protects the trusts
 and leaves labor at the mercy of every
 thing that comes along. Mir King opened up an interesting period of I Irish history The free trade row in
 Ireland was in full blast the day the
 Americans kicked the English tea into the harbor at Boston to show thein
 contempt for the tax of threepence per pound, and if the Irish hadn't been so close to the oppressor's nose they