MR FROUDE ON IRELAND. [To the Editor of "Lloyd's Weekly News."]

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2204, 24 August 1886, Page 3

MR FROUDE ON IRELAND. [To the Editor of "Lloyd's Weekly News."]

Sir, — To increase even by a single voice . the present clamour about Ireland does not seem very necessary. The doctors in a hospital would hardly be assisted in dealing with a difficult case by the volunteered opinions, of miscellaneous individuals who fanoiod that they understood it. As things are, however, it is with the miscellaneous individuals that the decision now rests. The doctors wait for the majority 'to prescribe to them ; and though it might answer as well— or better — to leave the policy to be adopted to a throw of the dice, as to leave it to a multitude of persons, most of whom are totally ignorant of the whole subject, we must consult together as well as we can ; and perhaps you will kindly allow me the use of you columns to say what I, as a single voter, myself think about it. In all classes the things to be looked to are the fact. Opinions change ; but facts remain, and will not be persuaded put of the way .» We have shrunk from looking facts in the face, and that is one of the reasons why we are in our present trouble. Great Britain and Ireland stand geographically so related to one another that Britain cannot afford to leave Ireland independant consistently with her own safety. We cannot— we will not— allow Ireland to be separated from us. That is one fact. Another is that the elementary feeling in the discontented part of the Iri6h population is a desire for separation, and a hope for attaining it. Parliamentary orators may say what they please, but this is so ; and everyone that is acquainted with the Irish people knows that it is so. For a third fact, we have neglected the duty which lies on all strong natidns when they deprive a weaker one of its liberty. A Government which maintains neither peace nor order does not deserve to exist ; and on the beggared soil and on the mutinous features of its inhabitants is written, in unmistakeable characters, that our duty has not been done. We have been unabk to persuade the Irish into order and industry ; we have been ashamed to force them ; and, therefore, they are what they are. It is maintained at this moment (and this is the point on which the Election will turnjthat we have tried force ; that we have tried nothing else ; that it has failed ; and that we must now try conciliation. Since we have governed so ill, we must allow the Irish to govern themselves—then all will be well ; freedom will brins; in its train all *ther virtues ; the ill-feeling will disappear ; and those who now hate ms will become our happy and contented fellow-subjects. Such is the argument. But to place within nearer reach of men the object of their most passionate wishes is not generally the best means of inducing them to abandon such wishes. The way to extinguish a wish is to show plainly that the object is for ever unattainable. It will die then, and till then it will not die. There is a discontented and miserable population in Ireland ; and it is among these that the desire for separation is universal, and the hatred of England is universal. There is another part of the population who are not discontented ; who are not miserable ; and are not disloyal. Tne fourth fact is that the proposed legislation will place the loyal and worthy minority at the mercy of the mutinous and worthless — the least promising expedient which has probably ever been adopted to recover a shaken allegiance. Those are four facts ; and, lastly, it is • not a fact that we have* hitherto" relied only on force. Save under the short reign of Cromwell, we have never tried it consistently : we have rathsr adopted every possible expedient to maintain the forms of our own liberty. We speak of Home Rule. In one shape or other Home Rule his been tried a hundred times. When it was said that all Ireland could not govern the Earl of Kildare, the English Council answered : Then let the Earl of Kildare govern all Ireland. We left the chiefs to rule, each in his own district ; and chiefs and petty chiefs fought and killed each other as if bloodshed was the most delightful of human occupations. We tried Parliaments in which the Catholic Celts were represented : we tried Parliaments from which they were excluded. We tried Penal Laws which, had they been executed, would have ended the difficulty : but we were too lenient to allow them to be executed. We have cuffed the Irish and then carpssed them, and cuffs and caresses alternately have been the surest instigators of disaftection and madness. The Liberal party in England impeached the Earl of Strafford for calling Ireland "a conquered country." Ireland answered by one of the most brutal and murderous insurrections of which history has preserved a record ; and ten years after Cromwell was obliged to conquer Ireland in earnest. The Loyalists in the country know as well now that from the same measures the same results will follow ; as a physician knows that however ardently a man with delirium tremens cries out for brandy, to give it him will drive him to frenzy. Thelrish, like many other races in this world, are loyal and obedient if they are firmly and justly governed. They are as little capable of governing themselves as a ship's crew would be, or an English public school. The proposals of the present Prime Minister are but a repitition of what has been tried again and again, under varying forms, and has always led to disaster. Under his guidance we have already sacrificed principle; we have sacrificed equity ; we have sacrificed our own people, whom wp had induced to settle in Ireland under the promised protection of our laws ; and the effect has been to make the country more ungovernable, as everyone who knew the Irish humour anticipated that it wonlri be. Our fault has been too fond a belief in the regenerating virtue of our own particular Constitution. A firm and just administration, without a distinct assurance that separation would never, under any circumstances, be tolerated, would produce the same effect in Ireland as it has produced in every country which has been resolutely and wisely controlled. Is it prudent , to venture an alternative which, if it fails, will leave us lo choose between a separation that might ruin the British Empire and a bloody and disgraceful re-conqnest ?— Yours obediently, * J. A. Froudk. June 23th, 1886.

The Table is the title of a new weekly paper on cookery, gastronomy, SamLementB,&c, edited by A B Marshall, of Marshall's m School of Cookery. The first number is announced for to-day.