THE STATE OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 25 May 1911, Page 971

THE STATE OF IRELAND

MOST SATISFACTORY AND HOPEFUL Mr. T. W. Russell, Under Secretary for Agriculture, speaking at Belfast recently, said: Looking back over an experience, of many years, I can truly say that: I never remember the country being in' a more satisfactory and hopeful state. Trade is good, not to say booming; agriculture progresses with rapid strides; peace prevails almost universally; the temperance reformation proceeds apace; crime is at a very low ebb; and the people generally, under these circumstances, are contented and fairly prosperous. I am aware, of course, that a demurrer may be put in to all these statements. It may be said, for example, that tho ; whiskey trade, which is usually held up as one of our staple industries, is not in a flourishing condition, and that, instead of going forward, it is going back. Well, all I can say in this connection is that to go back is to go .forward; and I am more than content that this backward process should still go on. I may also be challenged as to the absence of crime. .There are thirty-two counties in Ireland; and I make bold to .say that, as regards twentynine of these, my statement. is "absolutely accurate.' It is quite true that in Clare, Longford, and part of Galway a state of disturbance does exist. A few months ago it would have been necessary to include Sligo in this list; but only within the last couple of weeks it has been found possible to relieve that county from the provisions of the Peace Preservation Act which had been temporarily applied to it. No newspaper, with the exception of the Dublin Gazette, has even noticed this, gratifying fact. I have never had, and have not now, any defence for disorder of crime wherever it may exist; and I deplore the fact that even in these very limited areas a state of affairs obtains which is not, to say the least, entirely satisfactory.' But it ought* to be borne in mind in this connection that these three counties are probably the places where the remedial land legislation of past years has operated least of all. There"" LANDLORDISM STILL RETAINS ITS FIRM GRIP, and much of the disorder peculiarly attendant upon agrarianism still prevails. But the present record of the country as a whole in regard to crime is absolutely unique and well deserves the plaudits of the judges as they go around on their all but formal duties. At a time like this there is a tendency, greatly aided by our Parliamentary system of interrogation, to enlarge upon any unhealthy aspect of affairs and to "give the go-by,' or very little attention to, all that is encouraging and all that is '. good which may be going forward. All unprejudiced visitors, however, coming to the country realise what is going on. They one and all admit the great changes which are taking place. If we take our great Departments of State they are one and all at" work building up what had been thrown down in bygone years. The Irish Land Commission, for example, is doing more than fixing rents. It is erecting the framework of an entirely new social and economic system. It is in reality carrying out a peaceful revolution. The Local Government Board is doing more than administering Local Government and the Poor Law. It has spent and is spending some millions of money in what can only, be described as a great National Housing Scheme for the Irish laborer—a work for which there is no parallel in any other civilised State, and which is ..-...-. TRANSFORMING THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY. And on- the Poor Law.side, instead of devoting its entire attention to the pauper element and the recipients of outdoor relief, it is, by its administration of the Old Age Pension Act, largely contributing to keep the aged poor out of the workhouse. Another body, the Congested Districts Board, about which people in Ulster hear Very little, is, I venture to say, doing a work that has no counterpart in the economy of any other nation. They are -remaking the people and the conditions of life in a large district, and giving the chance of living decent and civilised lives "to multitudes of men and women. '3 And take the Department over which I preside.- The Irish small farmer, and indeed the Irish farmer of every class and condition, is no longer allowed to remain without that advice and assistance which is so freely accorded to the agriculturists of those other countries which compete with us in our home markets. By its great educational and development "schemes the Department has done more for agriculture in the past ten years than has been done in any other country in the world. Of course at the present time and under present conditions a dirty party SQUABBLE IN PORTADOWN OR LURGAN, a stupid foray of cattle drivers in the West, a trifling quarrel about a bit of land somewhere else, or the desertion of a Protestant wife by a Roman Catholic husband in Belfast, is far more effective material for political warfare than all the splendid work that is now being done in Ireland. Indeed, I am not quite sure that our Ulster representatives know very much about what is being done even at their own doors. I say this, because only the other day when a Supplementary Estimate for the Department was being discussed in the House of Commons, Mr. Charles Craig expressed the hope that the money which was now being

given for horse breeding would not all be spent in the \South and West, and rather indicated his agreement with, a statement in a previous speech of Sir Edward Carson's that the Department was being run as a branch of the Unite! Irish League.-;. A statement of this nature could only have been made "^ in ! ignorance of the facts. "I*...The Department | knows nothing of North or South. Most of its income is allocated to the various County committees on: a fixed scale, and, as regards special, grants for special purposes, it certainly does not lie with Ulster to complain;,.: It is not many weeks ago since the Department sanctioned the: expenditure of a sum of £IO,OOO in Mr. Charles Craig's own con--1 stituency, ; arid, v as most -people are aware, a : large .farm has : been bought close to the town of Antrim, where it is proposed to establish an Agricultural School or Station for the purpose of providing agricultural education for • the North-East of Ulster. This is not quite spending money in the South and West. At the present moment a sum of •-between four and five thousand pounds is being expended in County Tyrone on enlarging the Ulster Dairy School, which in two or three years has become so prosperous as ■to necessitate doubling.the accommodation for'the students. .Another large sum —£7500 —has been set aside for an agricultural school in Tyrone to meet ' the ' heeds of < the NorthWest. 1 Innuendoes such as those made by Mr. Craig are mere random shots, but thej are none the less unfair, to « a great Department of the State. As a matter of fact, the small shortage on the original estimate, which necessitated the supplementary grant I have just mentioned, was in part 'occasioned by new technical .education, schemes started in the town of Antrim, ihfPortriish i^and ; in Ballyclare, and ..'by : the ; extension of technical instruction in the county of Derry. Those who are not familiar with what is. going on at their own doorsteps are not likely to know much of what is being done in other parts of the country. But all who do know, and who take a calm and unprejudiced view of the Irish situation, cannot help being struck by the marvellous change that has taken place within the' last ten years. People breathe a new atmosphere. Except in very limited areas in the West—areas which few people have traversed—- .:.,:)•• ■ ' '//'':.. '""v" !: ' 3-i THE DAYS OF HUNGER AND POVERTY AND m M STARVATION ARE GONE. ;. , .And with the advent of better times there has come a spirit of v independence, of toleration, of sobriety, and "of good feeling which, in my judgment, will stand for the settlement of Ireland both: politically and socially. .Coming to the political situation, I have very little to say, and in truth-it ■ is : not a situation that can be improved by much speaking. The Parliament Bill is on its way to the Statute Book, and in spite of delay it will get there. But the ; situation involved in its passage, would be .almost | comical if it were not pregnant with such grave realities. Just let us recall the facts. In the Parliament of 1906-9 the Tories in the House of Commons were a small bodv, outnumbered by their opponents by some 350. ,: • - It was. in circumstances such as these and in face. of this tremendous majority that the House of Lords, wholly unrepresentative and entirely without responsibility, entered upon a campaign against the House of Commons. They could not understand the significance of the General Election of 1906. It may have practically destroyed their party in the House of Commons, but the House of Lords still stood intact, and they proceeded to indulge in a veritable Rake's ; progress."; They destroyed Mr. Birrell's Education Bill: they threw out the Licensing Bill: they treated the Plural Voting Bill in the same way; a Scottish Land Bill and a Scottish Valuation Bill were cast out with contempt; and, finally, they resolved- upon the idiotic course of stopping the supplies by rejecting the Finance Bill for the year. The Lords went the full length of their tether, and in these three or four fateful years they committed suicide. A General Election following the rejection of the Budget " confirmed- the Government in power, and the Lords had to swallow without amendment what they had contemptuously rejected. It was then realised, for the first time by the peers and their backers in the press that the House of Lords was not. exactly a popular institution in the eyes of the country. Thereupon they began the talk about the Lords reforming. themselves. A Conference between Liberal and Tory leaders was held, but .ended without, arriving at any decision. The Government plan of dealing with the House of Lords was how before the country. *% Another election took place, and the plan of the Government was confirmed at the polls by a large and an adequate majority. And now we hear of nothing but compromise. The Lords, we are told, are willing to concede supremacy in .finance to the Commons. They are willing to deal with tho hereditary element in the Second Chamber, only they have not the power to do so without the sanction of the King. They are willing to t adjust difficulties by adopting joint sessions. ';i* They want i_ a • Referendum: l They admit that Liberal measures do not get fair play • in the House of „ Lords. They are willing to admit anything and to consent to anything if a good, : "safe sTory majority is left in tho House of Lords to do Mr. Balfour's bidding. I say this would all be comical if it were not so serious. It is now five r and twenty years since the question of Irish ' SelfGovernment was first mooted in recent times in the shape of a ''' Bill presented to Parliament. We all know what happened Mr. Gladstone's first Bill, and what became of the second. Twenty-five years constitutes a good spell in

the life of a man, and even in the life of a country. Things impossible or inexpedient a quarter of : a century' ago may be possible and expedient to-day, and I can confidently say that it will be quite impossible for present-dav : opponents of Irish Self-Government to occupy the same ground as that upon which some of us stood in 1886;^ or even in 1893. The ground has been completely swept away. The state of the country in 1886 was very different to what it is now. 'The people then had hardly recovered from; the exhausting effects of the Land League war. That war had destroyed all confidence between man and man. It had seriously impaired the rights of property. It had spread a sense of fear and insecurity all round. A man who said then, as I did, that he was not prepared to trust the government of Ireland under these circumstances to an Irish Parliament may legitimately and logically when everything has been altered, when the great disturbing influence of agrarianism has been all but removed — say that a man believing in the principle of self-government may legitimately maintain that, the facts having altered, a thing may be possible and safe now that was ■ impossible and unsafe then. A nation of agricultural freeholders is a very different thing to a nation of agrarian insurgents. This question, therefore, stands to be fought out, and there are one or two points to which I desire to refer in connection with it. I have no personal interest in the Province of Ulster to-day save that I have many thousands ,of friends in it whose welfare I sincerely desire. My interests are all in the South of Ireland. I am one of the ' isolated brethren' for whom Captain Craig is so solicitous.