• SINN FEIN PROPAGANDA.
[To THE EDITOR OP TEE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I was much interested to read the letter by " Historicus" refuting the statement in the book recently published by a professor of the Queen's University, Belfast, R. M. Henry. Mr. Henry is a learned Professor of Classics in the University, but his knowledge about history is limited. It is no doubt true that most Irish children in the national schools are taught from infancy that the great Irish famine was the work of the British Government. What ground is there for such teaching? I remember a few years ago being told by an old lady whose youthful friends came through the famine times that the Irish famine was caused by the failure of -the potato crop, just as a failure of rice causes famine in India. She told me that two friends of hers were driving out to dinner about 5 o'clock on the memorable day before the blight, and how one said to the other, "Have you ever seen the country so smiling and prosperous?" That evening they drove back to their homes about eleven o'clock, and as they drove they experienced a terrible smell of rot, but put it down to filth on the carriage wheels. Next morning the servants rushed into the breakfast room to say that the potato fields all round were black and the potato crop blighted. Now, was this the British Government Or was it an act of God? What did the British Government do then, as in every other potato failure since? They helped both Government and English people to the best of their ability. There are songs in Galway in the Irish language in which the story is still Preserved of the kindness of those who helped. The great Coast Road from Larne to the Causeway (over which Mr. Henry must often have driven) is a permanent memorial to the Government, who, at the instigation of Annie, Mar- chioness of Londonderry, built the road to employ the people. Th.is is only one of the relief works, but Mr. Henry cannot be unacquainted with it.
In more recent times during Mr. Balfour's administration, when there was a partial failure of potatoes, work was brought into the very homes of the people. Indeed, many a little centre of industry was the outcome of the grants given them and the work taught by teachers who went round the country helping the people. Indeed, so generous were the grants, that some more far-seeing teachers who took the stand that the work should be of a certain " standard " were told by Mr Balfour not to be too particular, but to give, give, give. These are merely a few personal reminiscences. To come to a just conclusion about anything one should read the history of every country at the same period. Were there no famines anywhere else? Was the British Government careless or slow in adopt- ing means 4o combat potato disease? I say " No." In my own lifetime I remember the outcry against the scientific " potato spraying" as an interference with the ways of Providence. It was with the greatest difficulty the peasant farmers could be got to use it.
And if we want to hit back and recall unkindnesses, a method for which I have no partiality, Mr. Henry should look up old records, and he will find in the year 1641, in which other horrors happened besides starvation, a record in the House of Commons in which Mr. Rudyerd made a great appeal for help for the "Starved English recently out of Ireland." Let us be just !—I
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