The Irish standard., 1908-10-24
So Says 7. W. Russell in Speech Delivered Before the
North Belfast Liberal Association on
Recent Occasion.
NO RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE OR B|G0TRY THERE
Rebues the British Tory Organs and Says No Shire of
England Can Compare With the Irish Counties in
the Absence of Crime.

tionaist. this is the state of feeling
which prevails. Would anyone gather
this from tho diatribes or from the lur-
id pictures drawn by correspondents of
the Harn,sworth press? There are "a
counties in which absolute peace pre-
walls, where order is general, and with
which no English county could COM
not a little scandalous for 1rishnen,
because of lawlessness in parts Of
seven or eight countless to hold up the
whole country as given over to dis
order? I told you that the land in
Wexford has been nearly all purchased.
l met those strong, sturdy freefolders.
l sat with them in conference and dis
cussed agricultural questions, but what
I confess pleased me more than any
thing that I saw in the county was
the hundreds of laborers' cottages
which have arisen everywhere since
the passing of the Labprers-' 'ttetes l.
visited many of these cottages. l ell
tered one occupied by man who
earned 12s. a week. 1t was a four
roomed cottage with half-acre plot,
and the rent was Cd. week. Both
the kitchen and the room downstairs
were scrupulously Clean, The bed
rooms upstairs We're superior to any:
thing you could get in many small
country hotel. There We're ten differ
ent kinds of vegetables in the half
acre. There was piggery with a con-
crete floor and two pigs. There was a
poultry house with a fireplace in an
adjoining room, donkey and cart both
under cover, and there was flower
plot in front of the cottage which was
real thing of beauty. I visited an
other of these cottages where a laborer,
newly married, earned 6s a week and
his board. This cottage was as neat
as the other and there was not a room
in it in which it would not have been
possible for any one to sit down in corr
fort (hear, hear). noticed also that in
these cottages the windows were all
down at tho top, showing that Lady
Aberdeen's crusade had reached that
part of the country. These two cot
tages which / have described were
e,,,,p1oc ~ ecoros oovo,.in- tho 11;ctr;
The legislation under which they were
built may be Socialistic. If it be so
then am SO far and heartily a Social
list (applause). 1 also inspected fruit
plots held by farmers and laborers.
One laborer who kept strict account
of his incomings and outgoings told
me that this acre had produced-even
in this bad fruit year-a sum of for
ty pounds. There were larger plots
that they mad discovered the royal road
to success. beekeeper told me he
had made 1913 pounds this year by
honey. All across the county wherever
went the story was the same. An
orderly, wcll-conductcd, Industrious
people living pure and simple lives,
genuine I.ishmen and Irishwomen,
feeling what was wrong in the govern
ment Of the country and admitting
what was right. greatly wish some
of our Ulster members would go down
to Wexford and see for themselves
what are the actual facts before they
roll their country in the mire.
"On this very day week." Mr.. Russell
went on, II motored right across the
country into Galway landing at Ath-
enry at 10. o'clock in the morning"
Il am going to make a concession
here to those gentlemen who think so
badly of Ireland. Galway, confess, is
one of those counties whose record Is
not of the best, and Athenry itself has
for some time been the center of dis
turbances which have attracted the at
tention of Parliament and of the Eng
lish press and public. I have Official
relations with the district Of Athenry.