OPEN COLUMN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 62, 7 March 1868, Page 3

OPEN COLUMN.

(To the Editor of the Waibaeapa Mebcuby.) Sib, —How and when was the wind sown that has ripened into the plentiful harvest of Fenian whirlwind that“England|is now reaping is a question that was suggested to me on reading the English uews in a late issue of the Mebcuby, and having no wish to hide my light, as it is, under a bushel, I may tell you that my imagination was carried back so the days of Spenser the poet, who advised Queen Elizabeth to reduce Ireland to subjection to English rule by means of a famine to be caused by the troops destroying all the crops and stock that they could lay their hands on. And where is the man 10 be found who would envy Spenser’s feelings when lie was afterwards an eye-witness in unhappy Ireland to the success of his infernal suggestion. But that means of subduing the Irish would have been forgotten and forgiven long ere this by the descendants of those who survived Spenser’s policy had they been fairly treated until now during the eleven subsequent reigns. To conciliate tbe subdued Irish, the property of the Church of their ancient faith was confiscated by the State for tbe use of tbe national church of the conquerors. The English Parliament legislated during the reign of William 111., and subsequent reigns on Irish affairs with a view of discouraging such industry in that unfortunate country as would compete with the English manufacturer. The most striking instance of this occurred in reference to the adopted for destroying the manufacture of woolen cloth in Ireland by a tax of four shillings per yard, and the next step was to prohibit the exportation of Irish grown wool to any other country except to England, and it is a noted fact that the first revenue Coast Guards that were established by England were organised for the purpose of preventing the-Irish from smuggling their wool to foreign lands out ’of their own country, although they were prohibited from manufacturing it themselves by a heavy tax. What need is their to extend instances of the selfish commercial policy that was pursued bv the conquerors towards the conquered when the intolerant persecution of the people for their religious belief remains unnoticed? What makes the Irish more devoted to their clergy than any other people, but the fact for a long time their clergy made themselves liable by death or banishment for saying mass, and if their is a large share of ignorance and superstition still remaining among the people it should not he forgotten that under the penal laws that were brought into existence to force the Irish into a change of their religion was one for making any Roman Catholic liable to the penalty of death for educating or teaching any children whatsoever. Even m our own day a marriage solemnised by a Roman Catholic priest between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant is not a legal marriage. The confiscated property of the Romish Church, that church of the great majority of the people is enjoyed by the clergy of the wealthy minority that also enjoy the properties of the ancient lords of Ireland. Such is a slight sketch of how the wind was sown that has ripened into the present luxuriant crop of Fenian whirlwind. Tour’s &c., COSMOPOLITAN,