UNITED WE STAND—DIVIDED WE FALL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 453, 16 December 1881, Page 21

UNITED WE STAND— DIVIDED WE FALL.

" I hope we have an insurrection this winter." In tbess words we have an expression of the desire of many people in Ireland, especially in the South. These constitute the remnants of the old Ascendency Party ; and though civilisation has somewhat bridled their acts, Christianity has not converted their hearts. The odor of human blood is sveet in their nostrils when it is that of the mere Irishry spilled in their native land. They hunger and thirst to see the masses of unarmed people mad enough to throw themselves against a wall of bristling bayonets and a torrent of hurtling bullets. After that cata- J^fee they would have " peace" — peace such as may be found in a ijefcrt— peace such as reigned in Warsaw when the streets were strewn 'with dead. That such a spirit should exist must seem extraordinary to strangers unacquainted with oar history, and will even appear surprising to those who fondly believe that the wicked past has buried its hatreds. But it is not so. The sons of the Yoemen have inherited their cruelty and their cowardice. The instinct for evil is there — the capacity for iniquity — the barbarous iutent that made them " terrible to anyone but the enemy" — all that they lack to enable them to rival the past are the opportunity and the power. Then very soon we would see the policy that was put in force, with the express and deliberate object of provoking an insunection in Ninety eight again venomously renewed. Now, as then, it would be considered exquisite to fulfill the anticipation and depire of those whose sentiments are summed up in the phrase quoted at the begining of this article :" I hope there will be an insurrection." No doubt the system is preserved in the traditions of the sons of the tortured. Freequarters, picketing, pitch-caps, drumhead courts- martial, the triangle and lash, the daily strangulation — these made " peace" a generation ago — a costly peace, indeed, but still such a one a» settled the Ascendency firm on the neck of the nation for half a century and more. That was all they desired ; power, cemented by human blood, was most acceptable to them, solely because it was most terrible to others. What could they expect to gain by it at the present day 1 It can hardly enter into the heads of the most sanguine amongst them to roll back the stone upon the sepulchre whence Christianity has arisen free from the cerements of death that bound it there so long. Yet we cannot say that the men who cherish such wicked hopes may not nourish others as foolish. There are many yet who would think it a splendid political stroke of statescraft to repeal all the concessions made to liberty during the past half century. If some institutions have fallen, others might be saved and restored ; at all events, the people should be stricken down again to the earth and taught anew the bitter lesson that a subject nation only exists to minister to the wants and luxuries of its cruel masters. When such are the sentiments of a considerable portion of the class from which subordinate rulers of this country are largely taken it is possible to foresee danger to the peace. Their highest idea of policy is to keep the people embroiled either by strife amongst themBelves or by strife with the military and police. Sir John Hawley has related how, when first appointed chairman of Tipperary county, the " greater number of the magistrates," instead of assisting him, as he had a right to expect, in putting down faction- fighting, " did everything they safely could to thwart me," he wrote, '• and thereby keep alive this shameful, detestible custom." He mentions instances where this was done or attempted. One of them is most instructive. A farmer's son had in a faction fight committed a frightful murder. He was returned for trial for manslaughter, merely. The jury, after a short delay, found a verdict of guilty, and Hawley was about to pronounce sentence upon him, when one of the magistrates who crowded, the bench requested him to confer with them. " I turned around to speak to them," says he. " and you may guess my astonishment when I heard them all urge the necessity of inflicting on the man convicted of aggravated manslaughter only a nominal punishment. When I asked what they meant by ' necessity ' they frankly declared that they could not live in the country unless the system of faction-fighting were kept up, as they deemed it necessary for their own iafety to have the people divided." The tactics have but little changed, only in as far as circumstances have caused them to be modified. The increase of intelligence, of education, and political sagacity amongst the masses has taught them the more than madness of such dissensions. If they did not perceive who profited by them, they at leaet learned who lost by them. The strategy of to-day is to precipitate as much as possible collisions between the people and their uniformed servants — the police and the military. So long as this goes on it diverts the attention of the people from the ascendancy remnant, whose influence has been wounded and whose interests are in danger. That is the first point gained on their side. Then there is the expectation that if these skirmishes can be kept up and fomented, the social reform question will become forgotten in the political one, and by provoking a civil warfare the power of the people may be broken for another generation, at least. This strategy does not fail in a certain kind of canning, cruel and base as it is. It goes on the assumption that the liberals would thus be driven to a practical declaration of war against the Irish people, and that their long alliance would be for ever ruptured. Then the halcyon days of ascendency would come again. But cunning of this kind is essentially shortsighted. Here two important considerations are omitted from the provocative scheme which might have been successful a generation ago. The first is the political sagacity of the peasantry, enlightened by a press which advocates their cause and detects the designs of their enemy as soon as formed. The second is, that the ascendency rump is not worth fighting for. In former days the ascendency class had power and prestige ; it has neither now. It has successively been stripped of everything i that rendered it formidable, and this was all it could offer for an alliance. No, it is simply odious. It is a corps with the taint of corruption upon it, and no living political party will bind itself to such a thing. On the contrary, so far as ultimately profiting by the

civil war which it bo anxiously desires, the result of that would, we are convinced, be for ever to sweep it clean from the soil of Ireland. But it does not perceive this, for it has never had the gift of political foresight, preferring to shut its eyes to the future, for the future is against it. Therefore, we warn "the people and the government of its hopes and expectations that they may recognise in time its vicious intrigues and its policy of blood. — Dublin Freeman.