THE IRISH QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 7248, 27 June 1887, Page 4

THE IRISH QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Oh every page of the Tory Press \w read hysterical appeals to religion and morality. The Radictls are represented as the advocates of treason and murder ; tho Irish as the most abandoned and lawless of revolutionislia. The position remainds one forcibly of those linoj of MooreWhile praised at distance, imt at hom.i forbid, Rebels in Cork are patriots at Madrid.

The Tories' conclusion that the rebellion of the Irish against English rule is execrable is a true conclusion. But to tak«j an obvious instance. What man, whose acquaintance with history is deeper than an admiration for the portraits of Vandyck and for the gold-laced coats of cavaliers, contends that the Great Rebellion was not a blessing to England ? The Tories obscure the reason of thtir hearers with tales of crime, and then they clamor for order and for law. But we all wish for peaco. The happiness of our fellows is tho obje t witli us as with them. But the ore must pass through the scorching firo before we get the gold. If men ask for what i hey want, and are refused, they ask again; and if they be denied a socond time, and they be patient, they ask yet a third time; but at last they must appeal to that ultimate and dread tribunal—'orce. My desire is only to point out to those who have been misled that abme of the means to an end does not disprove the utility of that end, and to remind thorn that as our nature is imperfect, eo have our greatest reforms been accompanied, and ever will be accompanied, by much that must dishearten and distress. The following story and prophetic condemnation of coercion will be read with interest in the light of the great question of the hour. It was delivered by Mr Bright, in the House of Commons in 1866, when the Government of the day proposed the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act:—" You may pass this Bill, you may put the Home Secretary's 500 men into gaol—you may do more than this, yon may suppress the conspiracy and put down the insurrection. But the moment it is suppressed there will still remain the germs of this malady, and from those germs, as heretofore, there will'spring another crop of insuocction and another larvesi cf misfortune. And it may be that th>«; who sit her;: eighteen years after this moment will find another Mhjiytry and another Secretary of State ready to propose to you another administration of the same everfailinr; and ever-poisonous medicine." To make this prophecy required no very great foresight; but where is tbvrr.an who could have suggested that during the eighteen yje#rn mentioned by Mr Brght the great tribune of ihe people would have become the ally of the Tories and the supporter of coercion.—l am, etc., Si'EHANZA. Djiiedin, June 20.