CLIFFORD LLOYD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 26, 23 October 1885, Page 13

CLIFFORD LLOYD.

(Dublin Freeman, August 29.) The Time* last week published a long paper from Mr. Clifford Lloyd on the political necessities of Ireland, and we give extracts on pa<*e nine. From whatever standpoint we regard it, this pronouncement appears to us to be one of the most significant indications of a coming change in the principles and methods of Irish Government To b.-gm with Mr. Clifford Lloyd himself, his arbitrary acts in the South and West of Ireland during the later period of the Land League agitation earned for him the bitter ill-will of the people. In Newcastle West and Killmallock he imprisoned children for .he crime of whistling '• Harvey Duff " in the hearing of a policeman • in Miltown-italbay he arrested in one day more than a dozen tenants on some vague charge, the real object attributed to his action being to break down a combination not to pay rent. He ruled over Ljugbiea for a time with a rod of iron, and he is accredited— unjustly he declares— with having quartered the extra police force upon the citizens of Limerick, thereby laying up an abundant store of troubles for Governments, past, present, and future. And yet, it appears, Air. Clifford Lloyd was not a particle more odious to the people at large thaa to thOie frienlsof Haw and order," the unpaid magistrates la Ire'and, as subsequently in Egypt, he appears to have ha I strong opinions of his own, and as he swerved neither to the right nor to ;l,e eft, being a perfect law unto himse.f, he made euemi.-s on both hiids. Hia letter to the Times explains his actions, and goes far to account for the utter failure of his efforts to rule the people over whom he was placed by sheer force. He was the instrument of a Sjatim which is anomalous and inefficient, which lags behind the a^e, seeking to govern a nation permeated with independent ideas on toe principles of a narrow despotism. Dublin Castle he pronounces an ntter failure. In such emergencies as the Land League storm the complex bureaucracy gets clogged with work, and the machinecy of Government is at once brought to a standstill. Even when all is peace, when only the humdrum work of admtnutration is to be done tue system bears fruits which con lemu it. According to Mr. Clifford Lloyd, in such seasons "the fire of revolution smoulders on from month to month and year to year, only to bb blown into the blaze of rebellion by the first favourable gust of wind." He gives other reas jns for his sweeping proposal to entirely abolish the Castle and all connected with it, but they will weigh with Imperialists rather than Nationalists. On the ruins of the Castle he wou^d construct a decentralised system of administration. To elective county boards he would commit the management of all their purely Leal affairs reserving to the Crown entire control over justice, police, and taxation. The bureaucracy of the Castle being no more, he would entrust us functions to the bureaucracy of the English Home Office. The last of all the Viceroys having gone for good, he would procure a r p^entative of Royalty t> vn,it Ireland occasionally a d to '■ perfoim those social duties which are so conducive to the wellbeing of ta« people." It is very questionable it the Irish tenantry hnd th lush artisans would become suddenly recouciJed to Knghah rule by b, ing permuted to decide for themselves " in what direcuon a new road should run, the accomm >ddtion required for the sick the lunatics, and the paupers ; of the most remunerative destitution of local funds ana the most equitable manner of replenishing tuem." These are the subjects with wtuch, in the opinion of the Tunes, Me county boards should deal. And the fact tbat the paperi will be enabled 10 announce perio ncally that a landlord or two, with their families, had the honour of receiving invitations to riiue with a prince of the blood would not win an additional particle of popular support for Mr. Cliff oid Lloyd's system— supposing for a moment that any Govtrnment would be foolish enougti to set it up, or tbat the lush Party would permit such folly. Air. Clifford Lloya is dead against Home Kule in any shape or form. It is an abstlute impossibility "su long as there is an Ulster peopled as at present." The time-honoured bojiie of ciril war is again requisitioned, though we had thought that the la->t had been heard of it. la the warlike language of Mr. William Johnston, of Bullykilbeg, "every ditch fioni the Boyne to Belfast" was to have been lined with rifles and Orange sharpsnooters to the hack of them at least half a doten fines in the la*t twenty jean. When the Church was disestablished, when Isaac Butt startea the Home Bule agitation, when tbe Laud League was established, wuen Healy weui to Monaghan and proved Nationalism vvas a living force in the North, when tbe National League organisation commenced to i-xtend all over Ulster— on each and all of tnese occasions we were to have a bloody civil war. But we never had, and there is not the slightest piobabiluy that we ever thall have, a' war of provinces. Mr. Ciffoid Llo^d should surely remember that Uister is not as anti-national as Ireland altogether is anti-Bnu^h. It may be a cho cc of evils, but m that case the lesser evil is ttje wisest choice. Ulster, the home of independence, woul I benefit by Home Kule, and would souo. come to accept n, not with reluctance, but with pride. More thaa half the province i 3 National, an i therefore the question is whether the Orange section la to rule all Ireland, or to dictate whether we are or not u/have Home Kule. We do not take Mr. Clifford Lloyd's non jiosmmu^ for a fiual answer. " And yet it moves," said Galileo, when his doctrine that th° earth revolved around the sun was condemned; "and yet we will have it" is the reply of Irishmen to the assertion that an Irian Parliament must never git in College-greea.