Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1917-03-17
stupidity OF Rulers Is Responsible
For the Crisis That Now
Exists.
Failure to Put Home Rule Into
Operation Caused Turn OF
Feeling.
The Best Thought Turns TO Only
That Which win Bene-
fit All.
SOLUTION IS up 10 ENGLAND.

SOLUTION is UP TO ENGLAND.
Writing from Dublin. Norman
Hapgood has the following to say
of the unrest and troubles that
prevail throughout Ireland:
The last time was in Ireland
was just before the Lusitania went
down in 1915. The feeling of the
Irish then was Running more
strongly toward tho empire than it
had been for long time. Ser
geant O'Leary was the national
hero. The boys were coming back
from the trenches, where they had
fought side by side with the Brit
ksh. There was still some disaffec-
Ton, but it amounted to almost
Nothing. Ireland was friendly and
| growing all the time more friendly.
t5p.Aaddition to the sentiment of
on the same side there was
EtRR encouragement of prosperity,
and partly also by the large war
allowances, to the families of SOL
diers. The tide began TO set the
other way with the failure to put
the home rule plan into operation
and it began to run its strongest
after the executions that followed
the rebellion.
On February there was an cleo
ton in Roscommon. There were a
Nationalist candidate and an Inde-
pendent Nationalist candidate. To-
gether they pooled 1885 votes.
Against them ran Sim Fem can
didate, three of whose sons had
been rirgleaders in the Dublin re-
bellion. Not for fifty years before
this election had any representative
of constitutional action been beaten
at the polls by a candidate oppos-
ing those methods. The Sim Fem
candidate polled 3.022 votes.
The big reasons why the irish
problem is a hard one7 are fairly
simple. In the first. place 1t Is no
l,longer primarily a Sstfon between.
Ireland and England. The English
members of the House of Commons
could probably vote FIVE or six to
one in favor of any home rule ar
rangement on which the Irish
would unite. The difficulty is be-
tween the different elements in Ire
land itself.
Next in importance to the divis-
ion among the Irish themselves
should be put the nature of the
British bureaucracy in Ireland.
Dublin Castle has been almost
wholly without Imagination. 1t has
not been filled with men who were
capable OF doing what Britons had
done in South Africa. 1t has not
tried to understand the Irish and to
act according TO their nature, but
merely to impose upon them the
most rigid British point of view.
Most of the difficulties we see in
Ireland are such as will disappear
with time. but nevertheless will re-
quire a considerable amount OF
time. This particular matter OF per-
sonnet, however, one would think.
could be changed rapidly if it were
realized in England how much of
the difficulty of working out the
Irish situation has been due 10 adj
ministrative density. Even so the
largest lines what the Irish desire
is not an imitation of British insti-
buttons. There are not large
number of Irishmen who do careful.
constructive, patient thinking after
/ the manner of Sir Horace Plunkett
and George Russell. That class.
like the general public, is convinced
that what ireland wants is some
thing widely different from what
England has.
The one chief and successful
business system thus far put into
effect in ireland pertains to agri-
culture. The operative move
Iment which has done so much in
Denmark, Germany, Italy, and is
beginning to make its first timid
advances in the United States. has
been the most valuable work ever
done for the reconstruction OF Ire.
land. II combines a total economic
increase with unquestionabie i'm
provement in the lot OF every indi
vidual worker. The best thought IN
ireland desires that the same thing
shall happen when manufacturing
spreads through the land. They
know how much harder II is Il
cure evils than to prevent them
They do not wish industries to grow
into what we are familiar with II
some of our modern industria
countries, but to grow from the be
ginning into what most moderI
thinkers agree must be for the
actual benefit of all. They wish
no industries that destroy health
that put hundreds OF thousands
into slavery, that widen inequality
They wish laws therefore which
will bring 1t about that industries
are built upon something like
cooperative plan; on a plan a
least that will make il impossibl'
for a few men to control the des
TIMES of all.
The Catholics and Protestant
have worked together pleasant,
land successfully in the co-operatiy'
, agricultural movement merely be
; cause that movement has been con
/ ceived and led in a broad. toleran
| spirit, and this leads to the belle
THAT the religious difficulty will b
| first to vanish. In conclusion tn
: writer says: Here IS people ful
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