AN OLD LETTER OF GORDON’S.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1203, 20 March 1885, Page 3

AN OLD LETTER OF GORDON’S.

As anything relating to the late Gen-nil -•ovd-ni—it is too much to nope that he is St ill alive —will he read with interest, we pub I sh the f 1 lo" in ' h*c f er fom him to the editor of the Times in 1880, afr- r having paid a Msiv to rela d. It mav asi he mentioned that on having Ireland he enferntiaed a verv diif •rent opinion on Irish m tiers to wh it he hehl when he went there. With the omission of a iew introductory sen’euc s, the let’ec ran as f-110 "s ; -

“ No half-measured Acts which left the landlords with any say to the tenantry of these pontons of Ireland I will n e ot any use They wonl I he rendered—as past Land Ants in Ire land quite abortive, f-irthel -iidloids will insert clau-es'todoaway wi-'h their force. Auy r half measures will o ly place the Government face i-o fa--e wiih the people of IreU -d as the, chamnions of the land orJ interest. The Government would be bound to enforce their decision, and with a result, which hone cm fa-see, 1-u.t which c*raiuly would he disastrous to the common weal. Myidei is that, seeing -through this c iuse or that, it is immaterial to examine—a deadlock has occurred between the present landlord and the tenants, the Government should purcha-e tip the ri hts of the landlords over the whole or the greater nort of I ongfor I, Wosimeath. Limerick, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Leitrim, s Hg<*, Mayo, Cavan* and Donegal. The yearly rental oHihose districts is some four millions ; it the Government give the landlord 20 1 ears’ pn chase it would cost 80 millions, which at 3| percent, w mid give a yearly t ter es’ of L2,800,000,0f.whi0hvL1,500.000 could lie recovered; the lands would he Crowir lands ; they would he administered by a land cmimission, who w- uld he supplemented hy an emimratim commission, wi ich u ight for ■< short time need LIOO 000. This would not injure the landlords, and so far as it is an interference with the proprietary rights it is as just as is the fore s Lord A to allow a railway through hi- pa>-k for the public benefit. I would restrain the landlo’-ds from having any power or c-ntrol in these Crown land districts Poor-law, roads, schools, should he under the land cotnmiss’on. For the rest of Ireland I would pass and Act allowing free sale of leases, free rents, and a Government valuation. In conclusion I must say, from all accounts and mv own observation, that the state of our fellow countrymen in the parts 1 hive named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. 1 believe tfcftt these people are made as we are,

•that they ai*» pirient hey aid belief, lovd, but at the game Mine brokenspi ited and desperate, living on the vecsje of starvation in places where we wou'd not keep our cattle The Bulgarians, Anatolians, Chinese and Indian* are bet er off than many of them are. The pvi-sN alone have any sympathy with their sufferings, and naturally alone have a hold over them. In these days, in common justice, if we endow a Protestant Universify why not endow a Catholic University in a Catho ic country 1 Is it pot as difficult to get a L 5 O’-to from a Protestant as from a Catholic or Jew] In 18S3 Engla d gave freedom to the West Indian slaves at a cost of twenty millions—-worth now eighty millions. This money left the "ountry. By an expenditure of eighty millio s she mav tree her own jieoplo She would have the hold over the land, and she would cure a cancer. lam not well off. hut I would offer or his agent LIOOO if either of them would live one week in one of these poor devil’s place’s and feed as these peop'e do. < Mir c >mic prints do aniinfini y of harm for their caricatures are not true, for the crime in Ireland is not greater than that in Kng'and ; and, secondiv, they exisperate the people on hoth sides of the Channel, and they do no good. Tt is ill to laugh and scoff at a question which affects our existence.”