NEWS OF THE WEEK.
No glimpse of hope in the black storm that is breaking over Ire- land, and continually gathering while it breaks ! The elements of disorder are the same, almost withoUt change,—the spread of anarchy among the people, the helplessness of the upper classes, the offensiie and trivial squabbles among the organized agitators.
The Repeal "patriots" come to no accord for the good of their country., Mr. Smith O'Brien refuses the conference sought by O'Connell. How should he relent? The "father of his country" had judged it expedient to look coldly on the O'Brien's martyr- dom, and bad sneered at his personal appearance: it was then O'Connell's turn to repulse, now it is O'larien's. The misery of the land might make most men relinquish their brawls, and unite in decent harmony; but an Irishman is as true as a Corsican to his revenge. Meanwhile, Mr. O'Connell says no more about his thirty millions from England—has he dropped that flagrant project? Accord on one point, indeed, animates the landlords of Ireland : they seem generally bent on a meeting in Dublin. Avowing their utter helplessness to stem the progress of destitute anarchy, they seek refuge in association; but we discern no token of real accord, not a germ of any plan for providing means to appease the wants of the people, vindicate order, and retrieve the culture of the land. -Such plans as are indicated are not ouly marked by conflict of opinion, but by their merely palliative and superficial character, their total inadequacy to grapple with the present overwhelming difficulty, and the general inclination to rely on Government, not merely for regulation, but also for the supply of means. The meeting in Dublin will probably be held ; but it will most likely be nothing but a meeting of mice to consult how they shall bell -the cat.
• The country at lame presents the same picture of madness that we described last week,—corrupt resort to eleemosynary works, lavish and useless expenditure of money, misappropriation of sub- sistence-money to the purchase of arms while the kindred of the purchasers are actually starving, turning of the arms against the officers of public works, attempts to make those officers connive at wholesale cheating by paying a day's wages for half a day's work, and the like. Attempts have been made, indeed, to soften the picture. In some places, we are told, the arms are purchased not by the labouring class for assault but by the farming class for defence. This can be only partially true, since we hear of whole bands prowling about and firing vollies. Defence implies attack. Nor does the distinction make much difference : the gun bought by the farmer is only held in trust for the Ribandman- it is but to break open the cabin-door, beat the father of the family to death, and walk off with the weapon. Some attribute the trade in arms to the Irish love of sporting ! So that, in the midst of a famine, all Ireland, as it were, is gone to the moors. And some try the old exploded excuse of showing that the cases of violence are exceptional : the crimes and disorders are said to be those of comparatively few. That does not appear to be true in the English sense. In England the murderer has no popular sympathy; he is hunted down like a dog with a kettle to
his tail : Ireland the murderer is the only person absolutely safe : orderly people, official persons, policemen, go-in fear of their lives; but the murderer can perform his office in open day and walk off unmolested. So it is always, and so it is now. The cases are not exceptional, but typical ; the murderer is not the outcast of his class, but the ringleader.
Murder is bad, but a still more fatal crime is all but universal —the deliberate abandonment of agriCulture. This also is ex- plained away. Potatoes having failed, food has to be bought ; it is twice or thrice as clear as usual; labourers must have high wages to buy the dear food, but they cannot get high wages from the farmers ; the cottiers usually receive conacre in lieu of wages, but conacre with a crop of potatoes next October is of no present avail to the hungry man ; farmers have conacre to give, but no cash, so that their coin is worthless; landlords cannot supply the deficient capital. Such, in substance, is the explanation. It is as much as to say that the Irish system of dealing with land- tenures has resulted in rendering the landlords and farmers tho- roughly insolvent, the labourers pauperized. The explanation does not mend the matter: it only shows that the abandonment of agriculture is the consequence of past rather than present mis- conduct, and so far more hopeless of remedy. The same prodigal sacrifice of the future to the present has gone all round and en- tailed a common destitution: the landlord has sold his future to the usurer ; the farmer (competing for land at Irish rackrents) has sold his future and all its capacities to the landlord ; the la- bourer to the farmer; until they have all arrived at such a pass that the means of cultivating the land are exhausted. Is England to cultivate "Ireland for the Irish"? Truly it seems come to that.
England, then, is to support Ireland, in part and for a time at least. The process has begun. What elements of trouble—of trouble for England—lie in that simple statement ! There is the drain of means—the internal discontent, in England, caused by increased taxation—the opportunity for seditious schemes which discontent affords. There is the temptation to foreign aggression. Is Ireland the mortified limb whose disease harbingers the decay of the empire? Has England reached her highest point, and is she now on her downward course, dragged under by her twin sister? We are slow to believe it : but we believe that the negative of such a vaticination is not to be found in softening the terrible picture, or in blinking the troubles. Ireland would never have become what she is if the day of reckoning had not been put off continually. But Ireland has now become an English ques- tion; Ireland's danger is England's danger; and statesmen responsible for England's safety must face the danger, know it, and grapple with it. Those who soften it to their view are no true friends.
