THE IRISH SICKNESS.
[To THE EDITOR OF rnz " SPECTATOR."' SIR,—Surely no Peer of the Realm has ever turned the beauty of achievement to more inglorious purpose! The last para- graph of Lord Northcliffe's message to the heroic conquerors of the Atlantic calls to mind the picture of_ a splendid yacht, which on approaching nearer is seen to be a medium for advertising pills! The simile is weak, but it will serve. The pill that Lord Northcliffe offers is known by every loyal Irish- man to be a quack remedy that by much advertisement may gull a large section of the public but can never cure a sickness that is real. I have never seen that sickness satisfactorily diagnosed to its fundamental cause. It is caused by the restraint of law and order upon a people that lore lawlessness. The newspaper reports of such meetings as the Dublin Housing Commission or the Clare Asylum Board are typical of every Irish political meeting when there is no British Aunt Sally to shy sticks at. It is their delight to " scrap" among them- selves, and as soon as the peacemaker comes to separate them their . animosities are forgotten in a common resentment against his interference. The appeal to history is fictitious argument. We who have upheld England in the past and, still uphold her have been:guilty of many follies, but the folly of the uncontrolled spirit that strives continually not for self- mastery but for the imineal of restraint is infinitely greater.
We have not sinned wilfully, but the determination to throw off a control that is law-abiding and righteous both in action and in object is wilful sin.
There is something so supremely lovable in the Celt, and yet something so utterly uncontrolled as yet! In a certain Exhibition there appeared a hideous portrait of a youth with a title in the catalogue that implied disgrace. Two days after the opening it had disappeared. The story of it was whispered later. The artist, a Celt of Celts, was commissioned to paint a portrait of the youth, and the portrait was refused. By way of revenge the artist smudged the lips with red, gave the picture an objectionable title, and sent it to a public Exhibition. We who uphold the traditions that have made England great and strive towards her still nobler ideals do not know whether to let our indignation or our amusement predominate on hearing such facts as these. We cannot understand the littleness of meanness of such a mind; and it is probable that the Celtic artist for his part cannot either share our feelings or comprehend them. This artist considered himself aggrieved, and therefore justified in adopting any method of "getting his own back."
This is but a further illustration of the lawlessness of spirit that a man of vision perceives in its suppressed form in every place of congregation where disaffection whispers throughout Ireland. And such propaganda as this above referred to are most infinitely regrettable because a voice of authority holds out a promise that cannot be faithfully fulfilled. A great political physician offers as a certain cure a prescription that is at best a dope. The only cure for lawlessness is the law; and the law of Right is after all a single law. It differs in no jot or tittle whether administered by a Briton or an Irish- man. Lawlessness -will object equally to the restraint of either; and as yet there is no evidence that the self-styled Irishman who professes to desire to rule himself has anything at heart beyond the mad longing to throw off restraint.—I am,
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