"IRELAND FIFTY YEARS AGO."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:]
should like to know who are the persons to whom Mr. Joseph John Murphy refers in his letter, who maintain "that Irish agrarian and political discontent has been called into existence by the Gladstone Government for party purposes." If there are any persons in England or elsewhere under the influence of any such belief, one would certainly not expect to find them among the readers of the Spectator.
Will you permit me to tell you what I believe, and what (if I am not mistaken) a great many intelligent and well-informed people believe also ? It is this, that about the time when Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues took office, Irish agrarian discon- tent was comparatively quiescent, and political discontent was actually dying out. Mr. Parnell and his associates deliberately set themselves to stir up the smouldering agrarian discontent, in order to keep the political discontent alive. Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues played into the hands of the Parnellite party, whether consciously or unconsciously I do not know. I am willing to believe that they thought the land law of Ireland wanted reform (which was true, though not reform of the kind they gave), and that the agrarian discontent stirred up by Mr. Parnell and his confederates was genuine. They were much more credulous than Mr. Parnell himself, who by acts as well as words showed that he did not believe in the genuineness of his own agitation.
Here, then, is the real accusation of Irish Conservatives (to whom, I suppose, Mr. J. J. Murphy refers) against the Gladstone Cabinet. Either they knew what they were doing, or they did not. If they did, then, for party purposes, they allied themselves with revolutionists and separatists. If they did not, they were wholly destitute of statesmanship—first in allowing the separatist faction to hoodwink them ; and, secondly, in applying wrong methods to the redress of very mild grievances. But no one ever asserted, as Mr. J. J. Murphy insinuates, that there was no discontent in Ireland before Mr. Gladstone.—I am, Sir, ttc., Dublin, July 6th. EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON.
[Our correspondent is not well informed, though he is sin- gularly dogmatic. At the time Mr. Gladstone took office agrarian offences had been increasing in number for some months, and Lord Beaconsfield then described the state of Ireland as one of "veiled rebellion."—En. Spectator.]
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