MR. ARNOLD FORSTER AND THE LAND LEAGUE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 5, 23 May 1884, Page 19

MR. ARNOLD FORSTER AND THE LAND LEAGUE.

The following correspondence has appeared in one of the Bradford journals :— "TO THK IDITOB OF THE ' BRADFORD DAILY TBLKGBA*H.' " S?, 18 *-- 1 , have just read the somewhat amusing speeches delivered in St. George's Hall on Monday last. I observe that Mr. Sullivan and others indulged in come rather severe criticisms of a small book of mine entitled 'The Truth About the Land League.' I doTot notice, however, that any speaker made a serious attempt to disprove the statement of the facts which the book contains, fam not surprised that this ehould be bo, inasmuch as the work in question has npw gone through three editions, and though the charges conveyed in it are strong and plainly exposed, no attempt bis ever Sen made to disprove a single item of the case which I have presented. vZSX?^?^ bad language after the pattern of that used on Monday night, but my facts remain unassailed and unassailable. \ «r. Sullivan accuses me of a wish to defame the Irish people. This is a mistake. I have always made allowance for thflrish people. I do not forget their nnhappy history, nor do I fail to anpreciate the ill-fortune which has given them their preseSleadeM. But for these self-same leaders, who with full knowledge and deliberate intention have inflicted on their country the system of outwee which has marked the last four years, I made no allowance whatever. I bavecbargad the Land League with being the conscious promoter of a series of infamous and cowardly crimes ; I have charted ltß leaders with acting in concert with such ruffians as Patrick Ford and others of that stamp ; I have charged the central committee of the League a»th deliberately fostering a system of outrage and terrorism for its own purposes. I have done more than maS these *'*£!5T have proved them. I have no inteiest in tbe disposal of T* bo £ f u nd * haTe ' therefore » no hesitation in asking your readers to do me the honour of reading it. It stands unchallenged to this day save bysuch speechesas that of Mr Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan »rt&™ well-worn fallacy tt at the Land League outrages were ever the work ?M-%o P » preß ? d te™**! a S*u»t the landlords and oihers whom it v % f *? hlon *° c » 11 their oppressors. The statement is pure rubbish. Mr. Sullivan knows very well by this time that the victims of the Land League tyranny were in almost every single case poor and defeneless men and women whose eele offence consisted \n doing their duty or telling the truth in disobedience to the orders of Mr Parnelrs association. T- JU? i? * l - rUe i th f * * S Ye ™ ade Btron S <&**S<* against the Land League ; it is also true there is not one of those charges which has not been made with equal vigour and directness by 8 almost ev«y responeibe Minister of the Crown, from Mr. GladstoVdownwaVdT v M>r\sulliyM > r \s ulliy » 1 » has succeeded in once more calling the attention of S«»~d ce heh cn htoh t0 , thedoin g« of th ? "ociety to which, I believe, he belonged, he has done a good service. Only let me ask him to remember that I have made and repeated definite charges before all the world, and that to indulge in rilly abuse of me is not to answer £S?/*3F* Mr ;. S » lliv * n " PJ«»* to compare my book to I brief for the prosecution : if his speech represents the brief for the 2£S TBmT 8m P« r£ectly content to go to the jury on the issue as it standß.—l am, wr, your obedient servant, " H. O. ABNOLD FOBSTKB." "TO THE KDITOB OF THE • BBADFOKD DAILY TKLKGHUPH.' -i " ??r"i MBy * * Bk . . you to S» ve » small portion of your space for a reply to the letter of Mr. Arnold ForsUr which you publish^ la few ~yß~ y8 £ g °ff? at T D V Oa f ? w ob <*™tions made use of by me in my speech at the Irish meeting in Bradford on St. Patrick's Day ? On that occasion I made reference to Mr. Forster's pamphlet on the JfiSiZt^'V? 16 ** o ™^}?/" a ow^Mea and misleading pro- !£«,?«; .. Mr ; Forate *«»7» I did not apply myself to the toslc of refuting its statements. I can assure Mr. Forster that I would regard any such performance as an unwarrantable waete of the time of the SS%f^ been speaking m any other part of England I would not £*£ I !**!£ 7 allußlon tobis work ; but the fact that there happens ftJSJSV^" 161 * 1 v ? rtain section between the towi of Sl^SL*^ *° D fu me he bear » suggested to me the idea of making EsJJ^3h?i. to he Pohti f al ** ying6 and d oings of the Messrs. Forster, both the young gentleman and the old. Were it not for this KSmK? ' K°^ haTe n ° more thou e h * of referring to Mr! tSSSf ™ M er * book ? an t0 an * one of the countless books, pam£2?l'a* g tl mi ?\ * nd ne "«P a Perß in which the Irish people are defamed for the delectation of English reader*. P •». J^ MAM A ? har <? ed f^*" 16 * Mr> Foster '» book was, that although he wS' tf ? S™". th * t itle ot <The Trufch Ab °ut the Land League, thereby implying that in its pages both sides of the case VSSSS^^SS^ W ° Uld be an? honestly SSIS ** i. c reader » lt WM not the truth at all, but merely a SSiS h i M Up f a th f t ea £ vc ' deliT «ed from the point of view of the Irish landlords and the British Government. I abated that o»e might read this book from the first page to thT last and never leJm from it that such athmg as Irish landlordism, with its concomitants of SLfuS^S 8V T lctl Tl. had ever Pandered tortur.d,and maddened lwdlordi?m ttS f "I? t 5 er^ W *f n ° reco B nit ioii of the fact that Irish JS?S *1 ' hundreds of years been a fruitful cause of agra23LS?* C - lUMS ' d Bufferin g in And I argued that, W «T^T^ mm A 8A 8 i an ? e^ it r Wl^ absurd for Mr. Forster to call his I^v iV£l JSSw #' he Land Le^ uc/ X abide bb ' thafc °P inioD - I say it is impossible for anyone to write tbe truth about the Land JffSSi!* JP"? IrU ? most potent factor in the SS.ISS? 1 J ?** Content and the disturbance*^ that have so long unhappily existed m Ireland. The reader of Mr. Forster's piece of literary patchwork, if he had no other knowledge of Irish affairs, might suppose that the Land League came as ' a bolt from the blue ' that it suddenly appeared in the midst of a prosperous and happy people, induced them to believe that they were aggrieved, and £ cued them to turbulence and crime. , But that is nSt the truth about the Land League : it is very far from being the truth ; it is an ela-

borate and deliberate falsification of the facts of the case, such at any honest man should be ashamed to put before the public. Mr. Jforster quotes from the speeches of Land League orators a number of. passages which he contends were calculated to excite popular passions and to lead to crime and outrage. Even if that were so, a gentleman who undertakes to write 'the truth about the .w?Jif BUe / 2W ** "Peeked to look at the other side of the story and note the fact that at most of the League meetings the people were earnestly counselled by their most trusted leaders to act within the law, and to avoid crime and outrage of every kind, inasmuch as isuch things were wrong in themselves, and calculated to bring disgrace and injury to their cause. Extracts of that [ character might be quoted by the hundred from speeches delivered i by Catholic clergymen and othtr responsible persons at large and important meetings of the League. A pamphlet five times the size of Mr. Forster's might easily be filled with them. But Mr. Forster takes no notice of them ; he gives no hint or intimation that any snch words were ever spoken ; and yet he has the hardihood to call his compilation 'The Truth About the Land League/ As well might Mr. Bradlaugh entitle a selection of passages culled by himself trom the sacred Scriptures an<l accompanied by a running commentary of his, « The Truth About the Bible. 1 * " ***• Forster says that he has not only charged the Land League with various high crimes and misdemeanours, but that he has proved his case. I deny that he has proved it ; and I assert that any apparent cogency there may be in his arguments is due to his wilful suppression of facts that are material to the issue. This fatal defect, this shameful taint runs all through bis book, and through his letter, which I have before me. There is everywhere a deliberate concealment of the action of Irish landlordism (which is the creatnre of English law upon the minds, thefortuneß, and the lives of the Irish people— • cloaking up uf that cruel, thievish, and murderous system which was working injustice, exciting resentment, producing crime, and following it with savage punishment, before the Land League came into existence, or before any member of it was born. Mr. Jorstersays that the victims of agrarian outrage ( which he chooses to call Land League tyranny) in Ireland during the past few years were in almost every instance poor and defenceless persons. I do not think the statement is correct. But what point does Mr. Forster wish to make m this case ? Is it that the landlords were well beloved / Are there not many ways of accounting for the comparative safety which, according to Mr. Forster'a allegation, they have enjoyed. The agrarian struggle in Ireland has often during the last 60 years been called a low form of civil war. In every war « the casualties are fewer amongst the officers than amongst the rank and file That is the case even when the officers are in the midat of the fitfht : how would it be if they kept themselves at a distance from it, ensconced behind stone walls, and possessed of special means of protection? * ° °£ c d ° ubte or denies that in tbe course of our grievous agrarian troubles the humbler aiders and abettor* of landlord oppression, the meaner tools of the tyrants, and those who were regarded as traitow to the cause of the tenant class, were more exposed than their masters to the stress of popular vengeance, and suffered accordingly, lbe whole thing is very sad. No one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that a country in which such a state of things as that aboye indicated exists is not in a sound condition. But the question is, who or what is responsible for the evil ? The Land League, says Mr. Arnold Forster. I say no ; the Irish agrarian war is much older tban the Land League. The League did not create the trouble ; the League sought to end it. It would, no doubt, have been better if all the speeches delivered during the land agitation had been of a strictly academic character, and it would have been immensely better if no agrarian crime had been committed during that period : but, let me ask, what right had Englishmen or Irish landlords to "expect that such an ideal condition of things would come into existence 1 Does not the history of the world show that long-continued oppression, injustice, misery, and degradation will demoralise any people, and that the overthrow of such a hateful regime ia never accomplished by speeches within the lines of Parliamentary debate and action kept scrupulously within the limits of legality? Englishmen can understand all that »cry well, except when they come to deal with Irish affairs. Lord Macaulay wrote :— "•' c de P Jore tbe outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The violence of those outrages will always be proportioned to the ignorance and ferocity of the people, and the ignorance and ferocity of the people will be proportioned to the oppresion and degradation under which they have been accustomed to "Lord Macaulay was not thinking of Ireland when he penned those lines. No right-minded Briton would advance any such mitigatory pleas on behalf of Irish misdeeds. But happily those observations, though true in a general sense, do not entirely apply to the case of Ireland, for the conduct of the Irish people is and has always been immensely superior to what might naturally have been expected from them, considering the fearful amount of " oppression and degradation to which they have for centuries been subjected by the debasing pressure of English misgovernment. " In conclusion, I cannot help feeling amused by Mr. Forster's artless reference to English opinion on this question of the good or evil character of the Land League. The charges he has made, he says, have been made with equal vigour and directness *by almost every responsible Minister of the Crown from Mr. Gladstone downwards " Argal, says Mr. Forster, they must be true. But we in Ireland see no force in the argument, and we absolutely spurn the conclusion. So also with regard to his appeal to » the jury.' 1 have compared his book, Mr. Forster says, to a brief for tbe prosecution, and 5 my speech represents the brief for the defence, he is willing to go to • the jury on the issue as it stands ? Yea, but to what jmy ? I know very well the jury that Mr. Forster has in contemplation : but Ido notaccept it. I will not ask England to try herself on the charge of having, shamefully misgoverned fend cruelly wronged the Irish ?w° n * -u^Sknd would acquit heisulf ; England would find herself not guilty 'without leaving the box ; EngHnd would declare that

•be left the court without * stain upon her character. No : we Irishmen will not go to the jury which Mr. Arnold PoMter has in his mind's eye ; but before fair-minded men of any nationality we are willing to plead, and we hare ready for use at any moment a very effectual answer to his miserable indictment. When he puts in evidence his little scrap-book with its picked bits from Irish speeches and figures of agrarian outrages, we shall hold up as a sufficient answer to it a copy of the Irish Land Act of 1881, and we shall produce the Parliamentary Blue Books which record the proceedings of the Land Commission constituted under that measure. There is the fruit of the real work of the Land League ; there is its justification against all who would defame it ; there is its crown of glory —Yours very truly. * J " T. D. Sullivan."