JOHN MITCHEL ON FROUDE'S FEARS FOR THE FUTURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 10, 5 July 1873, Page 12

JOHN MITCHEL ON FROUDE'S FEARS FOR THE FUTURE.

Evil must come of it, as this honest being truly apprehends. In his last lecture, by way of reply to Futher Burke, he cannot conceal his uneasiness. He says — " England is afraid, however, and deeply afraid. She is afraid of being ever driven to use again those measures of coercion against Ireland, which have been the hsame of her history." The shame of her history, inasmuch as they were not duly executed. But what is England afraid of now ? Ireland is very qi iet, and so free from disturbance, and every sort of crime, that many a tingle county in England exhibits more murders, poisonings, fcurglarieß, and waylayings with intent to murder, in one year than the ■whole of Ireland can show. What, then, thinks the historian, is the provocation which is likely to drive his countrymen to now penal laws against Ireland ? Can it be the Home Rule agitation, — an agitation which ia not only perfectlj legal and constitutional, but also entirely harmless and useless ? No ; certainly not this. What, then, precisely, does the Historian's ominous threat portend ? What does he

wish his countrymen to do to us more ? It may be that the learned and eloquent gentleman, having lived a good deal in Ireland of late, has observed that many industrious Irish people, grandsous and descendants of those who were once so thoroughly stripped bare, have gradually worked themselves into possession again of broad estates, often in the very tribe-lands of their own clans. Thora estates were taken from their ancestors and giveu to the " saints " without money and without price : the present owners have won som« of them back in the 'sweat of brow and brain. Catholics, too, having been plundered of their cathedrals, churches, and abbey -lands, are now found in possession of new and splendid churches, and "of great tjJL beneficent religious houses. Here is a matter which is evidently/ worthy of the serious consideration of us the enlightened Protestants./ for if the earth is not ours and the fulness thereof, we should like to know to whom ifc does belong ? Would not a good, prudent system of penal laws jockey those idolatrous Papist's out 'of all they own, even as before ? And is it any wonder that Historian Froude begins really """' to fear V' at England may be forced to resort to the old system of coercion once more ?