STATE OF IRELAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1787, 9 February 1918, Page 4

STATE OF IRELAND.

The correspondent of a Southern exchange says he has been permited to make the following extracts from a letter recently received from the Irish capital:—In Ireland since the outbreak of war the State has taken over the railways, and I devoutly hope that we shall keep them under State control for the future, for they are far better managed when State-owned than when com-pany-owned. In the latter case dividends are the sole aim and object of the company’s existence, not the comfort and convenience of passengers. I have great faith in State compulsion in various matters where, individuals fall short. Ireland is now in the melting-pot. We are reaping the harvest all over the land of the dragon’s teeth sown by northern politicians a few years ago. Some words of Professor Huxley’s I have read come to mind in this connection: “There is such a thing as a science of social life, for which, if the terra had not been so hopelessly degraded, polities is the proper name. . . . Men, my dear,

are very queer animals, a mixture of horse nervousness, ass stubbornness, and camel malice, with an angel bobbing about unexpectedly like the apple in the posset, and when they can do exactly as they please they are very hard to drive.” I hope you recognise the portrait of some of my countrymen? My prophecy has come true about Irishmen settling Irish affairs —or, at least, trying to settle them, which I admit is rather different. It all depends on whether the ‘angel’ or the ‘ass stubbornness’ will win. A Scotch military officer who has been living in Ireland for the past year said to us recently:“l cannot understand this talk of persecution of the Protestants by the Catholics that we hear when I see all the Catholics and Protestants in the country round about living on such good terms of friendship and neighbourness. We were quite willing to agree that we could not understand the talk either —that living our lives in Ireland we had never seen any foundation for it. What people are agitating for is simply better government of their country, and though the extremists go far in their demands, they have no hatred of their fellow-countrymen, but any ill-feeling is directed to the country that has so misgoverned them in the past. But old wrongs must be forgotten if any real working agreement is to be arrived at. With that consummation so devotuly desired by every true Irishman be ever reached?