THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE IRISH QUESTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 489, 25 August 1882, Page 5

THE R ELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE IRISH QUESTION.

The Sister Mary Francis Clare writes a? follows :— it T ™ e r f .l. li gioußg iouB aspect of the Irish question has been discussed lately by the English press from two different and very opposite points of view. But I think this phase of the Irish question has not met with the consideration due to it amongst ourselves ; I think also that some Irish Catholics have not realized all that is involved in the present struggle, nor have they observed certain facts which peculiar circumstances have brought under my own notice in a special manner. From these 1 have drawn conclusions which may or may not be correct, but for which I would ask a hearing. I propose to show that the whole Land question has far more of a religions character than appears on the surface. To prove this I must briefly mention two facts : First, what was the immediate cause *of the Land agitation ? •* I ke.tead agitation arose simply and solely from the utter inability of Irish tenants to pay their rents. This is an admitted fact, and be would be a bold man who dare dispute it. Now in this case there are two parties to be considered-there is the tenant who could not pay, and the landlord who demanded wbat was impossible. We will admit freely that there are some cases in which tenants would not pay who could ; that there are humane, or rather that there are lust landlords, for we are speaking now of the religious aspect of the case, and not of the political or social. We may also admit that there were tenants who did not make such efforts as religion and justice required to pay their landlords. But, giving the largest margin of allowance for such cases, we have the fact before us that Irish landlords demanded what Irish tenants could not pay, and we would ask is there not a religious question here. Protestants are very fond of quoting the text, 'Kighteousnessexaltetb a nation," but was this righteous or to use the more correct Catholic term, was this justice ? All Scripture teaching goes to show the terrible judgments which God threatens on those who oppress the poor. We are not told that these judgments are in any way lessened or modified now. It is practically the same whether a man defrauds his laborer of his wages, as it is if a landlord defrauds his tenant of food necessary almost for the very existence of his family. J A landlord has no more right to exact rent which is practically gross usury, than a usurer has to practice usury. The same ex"cuse is used by the landlord aad the usurer. The landlord says • These men take my land and agree to pay a certain rent for it ; if they do not pay they are dishonest, because they fail to keep their contract. But it is said in reply to the landlord : You know perfectly well that they could not keep this contract, and that it could not be in any sense a free contract, because they had no choice, or to speak more accurately, they had a choice, and it was either to take your land and try to exist, or to ref aae it and starve. The usurer might just as well excuse his usury by saying " that man had his choice ; he need not have borrowed money from me unless he wished ; he knew the conditions and accepted them. " Does this argument lessen the sin of the usurer? Does the landlord's argument excuse his guilt! I think not. Here, then, we have at once a religious question. And let it be noted that there have been tew risings of the plebeians against the patricians, except where the patrician has exacted usurious interest for bis capital. The land of the landlord is practically his capital—his money. If he practices usury in trading with it, is he not an usurer 1 t• J* mv , sfc *? admitted > evea °y those most prejudiced against the Irish people that they have, as a nation been treated with the most gross injustice. What, then, is to be said of those who never cease to re proach them 1 What is to be said by those who oppress, and yet everlastingly cry out against those whom they oppress ? We need not again repeat Mr. Gladstone's well-known statement that every eviction vi a sentence of death. The landlord who evicts unjustly is practically, and too often literally, guilty of murder. If the body is not destroyed, the infinitely more precious life of the soul is imperiled Is it not a far moie terrible crime to kill the life of the soul than to take the life of the body, and for what hecatombs of slain souls will not Irish landlords have to answer at the great day of account. In order that they may indulge in their pleasure, in order that they may have more of that " root of all evil, » in order that they may gratify their love of gold, the poor are made to starve, body and soul Is this justice? Is not this rather the deadliest crime? Is not the Irish question then a religious question 1 And it should be not*d that almost every revolution in the world s history has had its origin in the injustice of man against his lellqjv-man. I use the word origin advisedly ; call them what you will, revolutions or rebellions, they have their origin in resistance to oppression and injustice— which at last causes its victims to rebel and to resist. The powers of darkness having worked evil on the side of the oppressor, turns now with cruel craft to the victims of oppression and tempts them beyond the bojnds of lawful resistance into the da^paths of unlawful violence. There is a supreme and most danS U \kT lawful resistance to oppression and wrong, ESh £?eVI? cVI , *** tot ? 1 ? th . c force of lawful effortß for redrew into diabohcal crimes of lawful resistance, and of worse, unlawful cr e e e tt!r anCe ° n °PP ressor ; ° f *is we shall say more in a future «, f ut from whence have these landlord oppressors and usurers of Sdl r t?n/?vf ce K PrUDg U S ° me ° f them ar « En S llsh Protestants and at once they become the oppressors and the lawgivers for those whom they have oppressed. But, unhappily, some of those oppresS3l h °«« U n T°f Ple hav ? be^. b ot-b Irish and English Catholics. What shall be said of men who believe in all the teachings of the holy Calfa. he Church and yet act as a very infidel would almost be ashamed to HCw It is with pain and grief that I write of these things, but of a kno y wK e T*r C f °? both England and Ireland, from personal H? °L th r- ff t elme l Of TEneUßhT EneUBh p «*estants and of English Catholics on the Irish question, I am convinced that until the relig.

ious aspect of the present Irish crisis is more thoroughly understood, the whole question will not meet with the attention it deserves. In my next letter I propose to enter into this matter fully, and to give facts, for one fact well established is worth many arguments. SISTEB M. FBA.NCIS CXiARB. Knock, Ballyhaimis, Couafcy Mayo.