IRISH CAPRICE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—May I remark that the Spectator's article of the 16th on "Irish Caprice" is too transcendental ? To those who understand Ireland, there is nothing wonderful in its present state. You wonder that the people of Ireland do not give you at least credit for a wish to be just. The reason of this is that they do not believe in your justice. They know as much of English feeling and the springs of English political action as did those American Secessionists who based their calculations on your going to war for cotton. The common saying in Ireland is that the Established Church was overthrown by the Clerkenwell explosion,—this is alike the Protestant and the Fenian account of the matter—and is it wonderful if the practical inference is drawn that a few murders and a shower of threatening letters will obtain a good land measure?
Another cause of the mischief has been Mr. Bright's wild talk about rooting the people in the soil, &c. They hoped that the present Government would "give them the land," that is to say, give it to them in full property at the present rents ; and instead of this, they are offered the chance of a moderate—in most cases a very small—compensation if evicted. Between their hope and their disappointment, their unbelief in justice, and their belief in violence and agitation, it would not be wonderful if the state of Ireland were worse than it is. Mr. Gladstone is perfectly right, that there is nowhere a people who are inaccessible to justice. But a people may be very slow to recognize justice, or rather to recognize its motive, when it is
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