The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1916-05-27


were men whose grandfathers came
over with Cromwell and settled upon
the soil.
But it remained for William III in
Ireland to invent the ingenious device
by which Ireland was Frustrated, not
merely materially, but intellectually,
for over two, for nearly three cen
turtles. Every devastation that &C.
Cured in Ireland was promptly re-
paired the moment the invading and
devastating force withdrew. In the
time of Elizabeth, Mountjoy proudly
proclaimed that they had burned
everything that could support human
life, even down to the last root of the
last blade of grass; that the Irish
were driven to die in morasses or
boys; and Macauley tells us they sup
ported themselves by eating dead car
rion and even the bodies of their own
dead. But Elizabeth had scarcely been
consigned to the grave when in Ire
land and in the reign of Charles I,
that country was blooming like gar
den.
After the devastations of Cromwell,
in the reign of Charles II, Ireland had
so far recovered within twenty years,
that every ship crossing the Atlantic
between the colonies in this country
and Europe was an Irish ship, almost
without exception, that being one in
dustry that was the most prosperous
in the world. Her cattle, sheep, cows,
and horses crowded the English mar
ket, and determined the price of these
commodities: and then Charles II,
faithless to his trust as the King, un.
grateful to the people who had in
CURED Cromwell's massacres through
fidelity to his father, first exempted
Ireland from the operation of the
naval law. That destroyed the ship
ping industry over night. Next he pro-
hibited the expectation of cattle to
England, which reduced the value of
those great staples almost Is per
cent In an instant. But he suffered
the woollen industry to remain and
that continued to be the most pros
porous in the world, until William III
prohibited the manufacture of the
woollen industry absolutely and at
the same time, since there was kind
of wool grown in Ireland which, at
that time, could not be paralleled any,
where in the world, forbade the ex-
portation of wool to any country ex-
| cept England, so that the English
manufacturers might obtain the wool
produced through the labor of Irish
men at their own figure. And the
Irish, unwilling to bear that imposi-
ton, began to smuggle their wool to
the low countries, where there was
always quite demand for it. They
could not be paid in bills of exchange,
for that would show the existence of
the smuggling, so they were compelled
to exchange it for wines. These wines
brought into the country developed for
the first time in the history of that
i nation, until then remarkable for it's
sobriety, that intemperance which has
since scourged it. And that intemper.
ance which is thrown today in the
face of Irishmen everywhere as ma
tional vice which it seems impossible
to eradicate, is not Irish; it is an
other curse which arose through Eng
land. If the cost of it is Ireland's, the
shame of it is England's.
That was not all. The woollen in.
dustry destroyed, shipping destroyed,
the expectation of cattle prohibited,
the entire land that was left in the
hands of Irishmen was confiscated
1t was no longer conferred by William
III upon troopers who had settled in
Ireland and would very likely marry
Irish girls with the historic result
but he conferred it upon court favor
ties too base to be described, who
never saw the island, who lived
abroad. And, at the same time, in
his reign and in the reign Of Queen
Anne, acts were passed prohibiting a
Catholic from holding land, prohibit
ing him from taking lease for longer
than five years, prohibiting him from
owning a horse worth more than five
pounds, so that any Protestant meet
ing an Irish Catholic on horseback
could take the horse from between
his knees on rendering him a five
pound note. Worse than all that, this
nation, passionately addicted to learn
ing, were prohibited to study under
the Christian priests who were Their
the only elements of the community
capable of instructing them, and the
attempt was made to plunge that ma
ton into the degradation of igno
rance.
And, moreover, worse than all
where it was found difficult to get q
verdict or to get proofs against man
that he was a Catholic and thus for
felt his land to the crown, the devilist
ingenuity of the penal laws was
reached when a son was authorized tt
dispossess his father by proving that
he was Catholic, and if the he'll
; would not do it, then the next of kin
down to any relation to the Forfeit
generation. So that cupidity and ava