THE IRISH QUESTION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 3701, 12 August 1886, Page 3

THE IRISH QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE TIMARU HERALD. Sib, — I have to ask you to find spaoo for an attempt to place before your readers the present conditions of the Irish question. My views may not perbapa be m accordance with those of your paper, but the subject is one of vital interest to both races, hero as well as at Home, and m the fast rising intimacy of relations between our Mother country and her colonies, the growth of a well-considered public opinion on the subject even out hero may have its use. Avoiding, I hope, the passionato declamation which on such a question may surely be forgiven to Irishmen, I should like to ask your readers, as an Englishman to Englishmen, seriously to consider what just ground they are really prepared to advance, for refusing to Ireland a very closo approximation to Mr Gladstone's bill. I shall go into no detail — not for want of materials. Tho story fully told of even tho last five years only would trespass far beyond any limits you can give me. And if I select my matter, who would trust my selection ? It would be a hopeless task to attempt to thread one's way through the maze of contradictions — of outrageous imputations on all Bides — with which tho present hours of Ireland's story teem. Poriculosce plenum opus alecs Tractas, ot incedis per ignoa Suppositos cineri doloso. The "perilous chances," the <; hidden fires" of which my extract speaks, warns mo off from the attempt. I can only act upon the well-known statistical law, according to which, although perbapa not a Bingle figure j m a hundred tables can be pronounced doubtproof, tbo sum of tho whole is indisputable. Tho truth about the Maamtrasma murders is oven still subject of enquiry ; but the state of the country which those murders betoken admits of no question. To put the case broadly : — Since the Union Ireland has been governed by Coercion Acts. Government by Coercion Acts is no longer admissible, and some alternative must be found. Home Kule — the only alternative before vs — is dreaded as leading to the disintegration of the Empire. Is the danger real? Must it nevertheless be faced ? Or, what else P 'Let us consider what the state of Treland I now actually is : what it has been for any time back that may help us to a solution. Is there — I ask it m all seriousness — is there anything m history parallel to it since the French revolution ? I say " parallel," not " identical." The fashion of the crime ia not the same. There are no fusillades, no daily tumbriU full of victims for the guillotine But there is the same social unhingement everywhere. There is the same " terror " ; and a terror m this respect more alarming, that our terrorists show us that thpy know how to keep it under command. In ita milder form it is boycotting; it is the moonlight raid jit is the cruel beating. In ita acuter stage public buildings aro blown up with dynamite ; a Peer is shot ; a Minister of tho Crown is stalked for slaughter m his daily walks ; another is done to death ia broad day m the Queen's Park, tho Viceroy unconsciously looking on. And wo have got to that state that we are not surprised to hear at any moment of any of these happening, and look upon it as quite possible we may yet hear of many of them, and m many places and all at once. Even the excitement of the present crisis at Home is making us forget it. But if the fashion of the crime be different, what as to its cause t The French revolution was a wild uprising everywhere of the serf against his feudal superior, and the more searching history !of the present day had read m its crimes and horrors only tho too mtural outcome of generations of misery and oppression. The Irish rebellion — it 13 nothing less — is the uprising of the Irish people against English law. And this rebellion — not like the French revolution, which lasted only for a time, and after all was quelled by a " whiff of grapeshot" — this rebel'ion is never put down. It is kept m check, no doubt. It is punished. Its secret executioners are hunted down and hanged. But for all purposes of law and order we are no nearer putting it down now than we have been at any time since the Union ; and there is nothing to show that for any result of our past history we ever shall be. The resistance is active, enduring, and suceeasful. Not certainly for want of our trying. Ireland, as I have just said, has been literally governed by coercion acts. From 1800 to 1832 — I need go no further than to Mr Gladstone's speech for this — there were not altogether more than 11 years without a coercion act ; and from 1832 to 1885 there were not more than two years without one. And these acts have a cruel power behind them. While the peace is easily kept m Scotland with a force of 2000, Ireland haß to be held down with an army numbering from 26,000 to 80,000 men. At this moment it ii 26,000. In 1884 it was 30,000 . Major-General Macdonald ; North British command — I detail the facts that youf readers may test what I am saying — which comprises 35 counties, is made up of but one regiment of cavalry, a battery • of artillery, and two battalions of Highlanders ; whereas on the other side of St. George's Channel thero are six regiments of cavalry, thirteen batteries of artillery, besideß depots, three companies of engineers, five of commissariat and transport, and thirty battalions of iofantry ; m all about thirty thousand of all ranks. This is how Ireland has been attempted to be governed. And now it has come to be understood that tho game of coercion can be played no longer. It will not of course die out all at once ; and as a! temporary expediont it may probably, as it is; at this moment, again be submitted to. But now that it has been realised that coercion ia not a temporary expedient, but the actual system of governing, the moral sense of the English House of Commons has risen against it. The first act of open rebellion was Mr aiorley'e article m tho Nineteenth, of Nov.,

1888, and his declaration m the House m tho session of 1885, was recognised all round as destroying the chance of passing the Crime 3 Act then given notico of by Mr Gladstone. It ib true thnt Lord Hartington has faintly apologised fer the past, and Lord Salisbury may without much fear of unfairness bo taken to have betrayed his secret leaning m its favour at the Conservative Union. "Twenty years more of coercion actß and wholesale deportation to Manitoba" smacks of the Lord Robert Cecil of old days all over. But oven Lord Salisbury, when twitted m the Lords, embraced the opportunity offered him to escape from his words. Tho truth is that all the indications of publio feeling nt Home go to show that a policy of coercion will no longer bo snpported. In all tho voluminous correspondence of tho Times upon the Irish question one writor only of any note— Sir James Stephen— has _ committed himself to coercion pure and simple. Sir James is an admirable codifier j ho has held his own as a judge both at Home and m India, but unhappily for his claim to guide us m this matter, he has thrown his weight into the scale of the unrcspectablo party m Indian politics, — that party, I mean, which hold that tho interests of India are always to bo subordinated to the passions and the prejudices of tho English element. The Times itself, moreover, with all its determined opposition to Homo Rule, is careful to say no word m favour of a policy of coercion. But if we are not to have coercion, and refuse Homo Bulo, what third course is there ? ; I have already trespassed on your space, but tho subject iB not exhausted, and I will ask leave to return it. I am, &c., An Englishman.