GENERAL

New Zealand Tablet, 4 October 1906, Page 27

GENERAL

The Government and Ireland

ih •t^ , fore Jp ast ° £ work to which Mr. Bryce and the Under Secretary will devote themselves during the recess (says the London < Morning Leader ') will the a thoroughgoing measure of refornV, dealing in a widJ spirit with the forty-one ' boards which Lord Dunraven has held up to such distinctive ridicule. It is d i£ to think that this will really come as Wd news to anybody It is i a the.- truest sense of the w?r7 con tinuity of policy since it will give - Sir InW Mac" Donnell the opportunity of carrying into execution tho ideas of government which he was® umfoubtedfy invited to. Ireland by Mr. Wyndham to initiate Of cours P there wall .be enormous difficulty. The root of admif istrative reform in Ireland, as in most p ?ace s ?s" economy. It is a characteristic paradox, but s

the fact, that until the financial relations . of . _ the country with the United Kingdom are Irish economy merely saves '"the British- Treasury's money. University education is another -difficulty. It bested Mr. Balfour. It will. put. a . strain upon any new machinery set up in Ireland even if, as . by the appointment of the Royal. Commission, the solution is in some measure provided for by the Imperial Parliament. There is a new spirit manifesting itself An Ireland which will not allow itself to be ignored, and which will not without grave loss to the future be silenced. But it is in the working out of j-ust such complications as these that ' the best Irishmen ' will find a patriotic occupation that they have hitherto been denied. Of course reform will be opposed, not indeed by Ulster, but by a handful of Ulster members and a group of English peers. That is no longer a peril. There is just one danger in the possibility of disagreement between the Nationalists and some Liberals, not on Irish, but on English affairs. Insurance Company Wanted At a recent meeting of the Board of Guardians of North Dublin Union, on the 'question of the renewal of. the fire insurance on buildings amounting to £81,750, Mr. Crozier said he thought it a pity that there were no Irish companies to whom they could give these important assurances. Mr. Sherlock said that a company on similar lines to the Irish Church Property Insurance, founded by Mr. Sexton, ought to find support from the public Boards alone, and if the Irish Boards agreed they could have a first-rate Irish company at once. A suggestion was approved that Mr. Crozier should call some members of the Board to confer with Mr. Sexton and other men of standing outside with a view to the formation of an Irish Insurance Company. ' The Boycotting of Catholics We are glad to see (says the 'Catholic Times') that the practice of boycotting Catholics in business, which has largely prevailed where Protestants have power in Ireland, is gradually disappearing. Thanks to the recent attitude of the Irish National Party in Parliament, the directors of the Irish Great Northern Railway have now thrown open vacant clerkships to competition by examination. 'How exclusive has been the policy hitherto pursued may be inferred from the following figures given at the annual meeting which has just been held. In the head department there are one hundred and five Protestants and four Catholics, and the salaries of the Protestants amount to over ten thousand pounds, whilst the Catholics receive only two hundred and sixty pounds. 'Such a disparity would not have 'been justifiable even if the Catholics ■had been but a minority of the population served by the railway, but they are actually in a majority and the greater portion of the revenue of the railway comes from them. Though the company have now adopted the principle of competitive examination, they reserve the right of a further and subsequent judgment in fitness as to manners and character. They will not, it is to be hoped, allow the formation of this judgment to be influenced by sectarian bias. The Irish Catholic public will, we may assume, exercise some vigilance in the matter. Punctual Payments A report which the Irish Land Commissioners have just issued is at once a testimony to the rapid growth of a national peasant proprietary in Ireland, and the punctuality and readiness with which 'the new tenant purchasers are paying their purchase instalments to the Government. The suggestion that the purchasers under any of the Irish Land Acts were deliberately falling back in their payments is altogether baseless, as jMie Land Commissioners show. On November 1 last the total amount payable in respect of advances under the Purchase Act of 1885 for the halfyear's instalments, which had- then ibecome due, was £184,690, payable by about 25,380 tenants. On July 1 last year all this had been paid, except a sum of £'2,829, which was still outstanding from 313 purchasers. With regard to the payments of the instalments payable under the Purchase Act of 1891 the amount receivable on November 1 last from 46,654 payers was £355,181. Of this sum £352,970 had been paid on Jtuly 1, leaving 1 the small balance of £2,211, due by 273 tenants. Coming to the Land Act of 1903, it appears that of the instalments payable under the Act, the amount falling due from 19,065 purchasers was f^.O&S. This amount had been paid in full on July 1, with the exception of an . outstanding balance •of £813, owing by seventy-four tenants. This means that of an aggregate sum of £738,966 owing by 91,099 new tenant proprietors, the small sum of £5,854 only was outstanding on July 1.