THE CONDITION OF IRELAND.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 263, 21 March 1874, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CONDITION OF IRELAND.

(Continued.) ■ " Irish landlords are more culpable, and more answerable for the condition of the country than the English, because, with better knowledge of the wants of the people than the English possess, they have as yet done but little fur the improvement of the people, though much for the improvement of the cattle, and they are just as anxious as English landlords to maintain the present land laws, which prevent proper cultivation of the land, and are fatal to the safety and prosperity of the Empire, and are especially unjust in such a country as Ireland, Cursed with so many absentee landlords. " Ireland, from its climate, is the very country to be turned into a garden. Roots of all kinds, with oats and barley, and purchased oil—cake, and a moderate quantity of pasture, will support twice as many cattle and sheep as can be kept on water power, which would be useless without people. The country is suffering from the last wet summer, but the cattle and sheep look healthy. Poultry farming should be encouraged, and farm laborers might be paid partiyby comioftable fromcS with land attached, on which their wives? and children could keep pigs and poultry and rabbits, and partly in cash ; but unless provided with decant dwellings they cannot remain in the country. Ireland has not been fairly treated, but there is a strong feeling growing up among the' workmen of England, many of whom are imbued with a spirit of the late great thinker and just man—John Stuart Mill —that justice shall be done to the people of Ireland as well as England, and I would' therefore entreat the Irish to wait patiently for the results of another Session of Parliament.

" There is now one sound political doc - tor in* the Cabinet, the man of the people —John Bright—and he will teach those around him that the days of bleeding have passed away, and that political health is to be restored, not by opening the veins to let the life- blood out of the body, but by just laws and wholesome diet. -

" Mr. Gladstone some time ago called the parties to the new social movement a set of quacks, and said they reminded him of a parson preaching to the congregation on one side of the OhiiEch from the Old Testament, and to the other from the New Testament, but Mr. Gladstone, with all his splendid talents and perfect honesty, and desire to do what is rights is as yet simply a quack politician, because he does not make the Bible his political text book, and go to the Old Testament and to Moses for the basis of the land law and proper sanitary measures, and to the New Testament for proper treatment of the poor. He would there learn that the rich are not the to ana/unllv that half-starved, half-naked children, should be clothed and fed at the expense o? the rich before being driven to school to acquire that book-learning which the rich foolishly think will keep them from pluni"Wincr thfxn wKen rrrnw nn s ... - -j" o s r~

" People are everywhere now crying out for home-rule and the release of the Fenians, whom all the poor believe to have suffered m the endeavor to procure them relief from the evils under which they have so long been suffering, and to the injustice of which they are, from the effects of education, daily becoming more alive. " The cry for home-rule should be met bv the Government giving the people real Some-Rule, by die appointment in every county in Ireland of a Board, to take up lands for homesteads for all desiring them, and able to pay for them,.and to carry out the public works, including a regular system of drainage, needed for the country ; and it should be remembered that in a poor country, as Ireland is at present, grand, showy buildings, and expensive railways, on which people can travel at the rate of fifty miles an hour, are not needed, but cheap, safe conveyance at moderate speed, and plain, sound, substantial work. It will be time enough to think of a Parliament in Dublin when the people, Protestants as well as Roman Catholics ; for there are as tnanv fanatics amons the \ - j © one class as the other), can utter .with truth; the noble aentimenfcs of O'Donovan Rosba, • I would not have a free Ireland to-morrow that would not give equal religious rights to Pagan or Jew, Catholic or Protestant.* Until the sacredness of individual liberty is understood, Irishmen ftknnld look V> union with the working-men of England for such measures as will bring Ireland relief. As to the relief of the Fenians, I feel so strongly that, if I iiad been a young Irishman years ago, the sufferings of my country would probably have driven me into rebellion, that I should be glad of the release of all the Fe-

riians but the-M think two—convicted

mildiere. Their release should depend on the absence of all agrarian outrage, or acts of rebellion, during another year. Treachery is the crime to whinh t.h« Irish addicted, and which can easily be accounted for by-any one who has spent years in the East, but it is a crime fatal to the success of any people, and it should sever be overlooked or treated as a trifling

offence. " The condition of Ireland is so sad, and there seems such utter want of confidence in the justice of the Government, such a strong conviction that the Government wish to drive the Irish out of the country, to the certain ruin of the middle—class in all the inland towns, that a special act of clemency would, I believe, be a wise measure. It would prepare the way for the 'introduction and cheerful acceptance of those measures which must at least be tried if it be the desire of the British Government that* the Irish people should not be unjustly compelled, as they are now, to leave their native laud. " I cannot conclude these remarks, without expressing the hope that Englishmen will see, from the history and condition of Ireland, the wickedness arid folly of attempting to force their religious views on others, and to maintain laws unsuited to

habits and condition of the people. is that, but for the influence of the poor, abused priests, agrarian outrages and acts of rebellion would have been ten times as numerous in past times, and sure am I that for one murder chargeable to the people's account a thousand premature deaths may bo attributed to landlords' neglect, and unjust laws made by the rich, and enforced against the poor. The priests have stuck to their people, always demanding justice for them in the matter of the land, and they have thus retained their allegiance and influence, and they will never lose that influence unless, they become less devoted to their, duty than they have hitherto been. It is a remark - able fact that, in the pure Celtic Roman Catholic districts to the west, illegitimacy is just over one per cent. It increases with Protestantism until in the north-eastern parts of Ireland it is about five per cent. Illegitimacy is higher in England, and in pious Scotland higher still. Surely this fact should make Protestants treat Ilomar Catholic piety with more respect than it usually meets with, and teach us Protestants to reform ourselves before we attempt to convert to our particular religious views those who hold equally with ourselves the main doctrine of Christianity, viz.—Repentance for past sins, and Faith in the blood of the Crucified. ' " Henry Atherton. " Brightling, Nov. 3, 1873;'