PEACE IN IRELAND.
(To Pus EDITOE or THE " SPECTATOR.")
SIB,—In your issue of last week " A Looker-on," alluding to the aims of the Sinn Feiners in Ireland, says: "I was struck with the consensus of opinion that the ` foreigners' must be driven out and the land restored to its 'rightful owners"'; and, in conclusion, "I am confident we shall have to make arrange- ments for the loyalists in the South to give up their holdings, and, of course, they should be compensated at the cost of the South Irish Parliament." May I ask who are the " foreigners," and how are the " rightful owners " of the land to be dis- covered? Immigration into Ireland from England has been going on steadily since the twelfth century, and there are thou- sands of Roman Catholic peasant proprietors with English names. Is it proposed that these men should be compulsorily dispossessed, as the Huguenots were in France in the seven- teenth century, and driven into another country? What possible guarantee is there that an Irish Parliament would find compensation for any one of them? The Anglo-Irish com- munity comprises Civil servants, clergy, professional men, teachers, farmers large and small, business men, small shop- keepers, artisans, ex-soldiers and policemen and many of the working classes. Even allowing that the removal and com- pensation of there numerous families is feasible, how are houses and work to be found for them elsewhere? The proposition is too childish. The Irish question will never be solved until the real issue is faced. It has so far been consistently ignored. The object of the present revolutionary movement in Ireland is not the redress of grievances, nor are the revolutionaries actuated merely by a desire for national self-government. The object in view is far more dangerous. In the words of the Duke of Northumberland : " We are confronted with a world-wide con- spiracy, whose aim is the destruction of the British Empire through this insurrectionary movement in Ireland." In face of such issue as this, it is inconceivable that any loyal citizen can hesitate as to the proper course to be pursued.—I am,
Sir, &c., A RESIDENT IN SOUTHERN IRELAND.
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