South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, JULY 23, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2293, 23 July 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, JULY 23, 1880.

Afteii allowing the hat to be sent round the colonics, the British Government has at.last consented to do the right thing. Mr Gladstone, the new Premier, has taken the wind out of the sails of the Irish famine subscription lists, and the Lord Mayor of Dublin will no longer be able to distribute his heart-rending-appeals for aid through the benevolent agency of Dr Lemon, of the telegraph department. The new- British Premier has undoubtedly much to answer for. He has left the begging-letter writer without an occupation, defrauded benevolent colonists of the opportunity of assisting foreign soup-kitchens to the neglect of those at home, and he has killed the Irish famine. The latter owed its origin chiefly to Lord Beaconsfield and the Jingo party, but now that the Jingoes have gone down, the British policy has been reversed and the famine has taken its departure. This may be a hardship for the Lord Mayor of Dublin and benevolent colonists, but it is, we believe, the best thing that could possibly have happened for Ireland. More than that, we arc confident that the Gladstone policy will bo hailed Avith satisfaction by patriotic Irishmen in common with their felloAy Britons in every part of the Avorld. The policy of the Beaconsficld administration Avas to allow Ireland to linger in pauperism, to starve out every symptom of national spirit, and to degrade a deserving population by making them mendacious dependents on foreign benevolence. The policy of the new administration is to set the crushed and 'fallen victims of tyrannical and brutal land larvs on their legs, and by abolishing feudal and barbarous privileges, to enable the starving peasantry to earn their livlihood from the God-given soil, of whose products they and their fathers have so long been defrauded.

The wail of distress which about twelve months ago was wafted from Ireland was evidently intended to degrade the people of that misgoverned land in the estimation of industrious and thriving communities. We believed it at the time to be simply a device on the part of a heartless cabinet to stave off reform. It was not only allowed . to go forth, but it was stimulated and repeated in influential quarters with tire self-evident object of showing that Ireland Avas in a state of chronic beggary, and that bread and alms, not Avork, Avas Avhat the population required. We contended at the time, that if Ireland Avas in Avant, relief should come from the fat treasury to AA'hich she had so long contributed her heart’s blood, on the the other side of the channel. Wc maintained that what Ireland required Avas Avork and wages for her population —not foreign alms. It has been claimed for the colonies that their generous response to the appeal Avhich Avas made did them infinite honor. But in a corresponding ratio, Ave consider the necessity for making such an appeal to deeply indebted branches of the British Empire, did the Beaconsfield Ministry infinite disgrace. If instead of money, remonstrances of a powerful kind had been forwarded to the Government whose mismanagement contributed to the production of the Irish famine, the people of Ireland might have been saved the degradation of accepting colonial charity. Fortunately the beneficial change which has occurred in the British Administration rescued them from the position of public beggary which the. Beaconsfield Ministry allowed them to occupy, and the voice of the Lord Mayor has been hushed. The Irish, people are now being treated by the British Government, not as a nation of paupers, but as enterprising men and women willing and

able to work and become prosperous, the moment they are released from the prostrating influence of merciless agents and besotted absentee landlords.