The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1883. The State of Ireland.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 845, 18 January 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 1883. The State of Ireland.

It was in the year 1870 that the Right Hon, John Bright, speaking on the Irish land question, uttered the following words : —“ We propose then a new conquest of Ireland, without confiscation and without blood, with only the holy weapon of a frank and generous justice which is everywhere potent to bring together nations which have been long separated by oppression and neglect. Now, from this new policy, we hope for great changes in Ireland, not that Ireland is to be made a Paradise, but that Ireland shall be greatly improved. It may be—probably it is, or will seem like —the language of exaggeration if I quote the lines of Pope in one of the most exquisite poems in ( our language :

* Then crime shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail, Returning Justice lift aloft the scale, Peace o’er her realm her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. ’ ” Thirteen years have passed since these words were spoken, and yet the prophesy therein contained seems as far from fulfilment as ever. How to govern Ireland so as to satisfy her people has been a problem that the English Government for many successive centuries has been called on to solve, and when we look at the continuous failures that have resulted from every attempt at conciliation it seems likely that the Irish difficulty will remain to the end of time. This difficulty is to English statesmen what the stone was to Sisyphus in the ancient my-

thology. With the 4esy tentions Parliament sets to work to pass laws for the benefit of Ireland, but no sooner is apparent success in sight than something' happens to nullify every effort that has been made and the labor has all to be gone over again. Some noisy demagogues are sure to arise whose hatred of England is far greater than their love for their own country, and thus the worst passions of a hot-headed race are roused and the result is anarchy. It is no excuse for men like Mr Parnell and his followers to say that they are in earnest. Even admitting, as may be easily done, that Ireland has had to endure many wrongs in the past, the attempts that have been made of late

years to right those wrongs should be recognise : 1 . But it seems as if nothing less than a complete separation will satisfy the Home Rule party, and if such a solution of the difficulty were possible England would only be too glad to remove a thorn from her side which has been troubling her so long. The geographical position of the two islands, however,' precludes the possibility of a separation, nor is it likely that if Ireland were given a Parliament of her own the experiment would be any more successful at the present day than it was many years ago. When we learnt that the power of the Land League had been virtually destroyed,

there seemed to be some hope that there would be peace at last, but every mail brings us some fresh item in the record of crime and the outlook is still as dreary as ever. It seems strange that a nation whose people, though so alien in temperament to the English, have so many fine qualities, should be the abode of lawlessness and crime. It would be grossly unjust to believe that the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke, and the more recent

murders of Detective Cox and Mr Field, the juryman, in Dublin, were approved of except by a very small section of the community, and we have no sympathy with such remarks as those attributed to a candidate for the Peninsula seat the other day, when he spoke of the Irish as being less civilised than the Chinese. It is such remarks as these that tend to widen the breach that every true friend of both countries should do their best to heal. Those who know Irishmen can testify to the frankness and generosity of their nature, and the records of England’s wars show that they have always been among the bravest and most loyal of her soldiers. Left to herself, we feel certain that Ireland would long ago have come to understand that the efforts that were made to bind the. two nations-in closer amity were prompted by a desire for her good; but unfortunately she has been cursed with friends who will, unless she throws them off, compass her utter ruin. In the meantime the outlook, as we have'said, is a dreary one. Coercion begets resentment, while any attempt at conciliation is followed by demands that it is impossible to think for a moment of satisfying. Surely no more difficult problem of statecraft has ever been offered, and the man who can solve it has not yet appeared.