The Irish standard., 1914-02-14
NOTABLE OPINIONS
ON ALIEN RULE
Jurists, Statesmen and Historians
Give Impartial Opinion on
Englano's Misrule in
Ireland

"The uniform policy of England has
been to deprive Ireland of the use of
her own resources, and make her sub.
servient to the interests and the opul-
enoe of the English people.''-William
Pitt.
ireland has been uniformly plunder.
ed and oppressed
This is not the slander of Junius
nor the candor of Pitt; it is history" "
Chief Justice Bushe.
"A union was the only means OF pre-
venting Ireland becoming too great
and powerful.
England first denied Irishmen the
means of improvement, and then in
suited them with the imputation of
barbarism." ."-Paulding.
"The poor people of Ireland are used
worse than negroes by their lords and
masters. Lord Chesterfield.
What from the rapaciousness of
their unfeeling landlords, and the re-
strictions on.their trade, the Irish are
the most wretched people on earth."-
Lord Townsend.
II must say from all accounts and
from my own observation that the
state of the Irish people in the parts
have named is worse than that of
any people in the world."-General
Gordon (1s3O.
"The land Of Ireland, like the land
of every other country, belongs to the
people who inhabit it; and when the
inhabitants of a country quit it in tens
of thousands because the government
does not leave them room to live in it,
that government is already judged and
condemned. John Stuart Mill.
England has held for seven cen.
turies to the lips of her sister Ire.
land a poisoned chalice. It's ingre.
dients were the deepest contempt, the
most unmeasured oppression, injustice
such as the world hardly saw BEFORE"
Wendell Phillips.
ireland is the most deplorable in
stance of modern history that great
and noble people may, for centuries to-
gether, be involved in the same injus-
tice and infatuation, and all the high
ly praised forms of the constitution be
paralyzed by the force of passion and
prejudice. Kings, lords, and commons
have, alternately or simultaneously,
wronged Ireland."-Von Raumer.
Before you refer the turbulence of
the Irish to incurable defects in their
character, tell me If you have treated
them as friends and equals. Have you
protected their commerce? Have you
respected their, religion? Have you
been as anxious for their freedom as
your own? Nothing of all this. What
then? Why, you have confiscated the
territorial surface of the country twice
over; you have massacred and export.
ed her inhabitants; you have deprived
four-f1fths of them of every civil privi-
lege; you have made her commerce
and manufactures slavishly subordi-
nate to your own."-Sydney Smith.
"The whole scheme of union goes
upon the false and abominable pre-
sumption that we could legislate better
for the Irish than they could do for
themselves principal founded upon
the most arrogant despotism and tyr
amy. There is not a more clear axiom
in the science of politics than that
man is his own natural governor, and
that he ought to legislate for himself.
We ought not to presume to legislate
for nation in whose feelings and af-
fections. wants and interests, opinions
and prejudices. we have no sympathy"
Charles James Fox.
"The landlord may become a direct
oppressor. He may care nothing for
the people, and have no object but to
squeeze the most that he can out Of
them. The Russian government has
been called despotism tempered with
assassination. In Ireland landlordism
was tempered by assassination. Every
circumstance combined In that country
to exasperate the relations between
landlord and tenant. The landlords
were,' for the most part, aliens IN
blood and in religion. They represent
ed conquest and confiscation, and they
had gone on from generation to genera
tion with an indifference for the vel
fare Of the people which would not
: H,K t1I io',