It is asserted, apparently on good authority, that Dr. Croke,
Archbishop of Cashel, has published a letter begging Irishmen no longer to pay their taxes :—" Payment is suicidal ; and, in the presence of the actual state of things in Ireland just now, it is inconsistent besides. We run the Plan of Campaign against bad landlords, and stop what they call their rent; and we make no move whatever against the Government that pays horse, foot, and dragoons' for protecting them and enforcing their outrageous exactions. Our money goes to fee and feed a gang of needy and voracious lawyers, to purchase bludgeons for policemen to be need in smashing the skulls of our people, and generally for the support of a foreign garrison or native slaves, who hate and despise everything Irish and every genuine Irishman." We hesitate to believe that Dr. Croke can have advised such a course, not because his Church forbids it—for the Catholic Church in Ireland
must be considered at present a self-governing body—but because it must be so futile. Irishmen may no doubt abstain from liquor, tobacco, and tea; but what State tax is there which is not paid in the first instance by well-to-do persons, sure to be loyal P Nothing is taxed directly except incomes and breweries and distilleries, and the possessors of those advan- tages will pay little heed to Dr. Croke, while English taxpayers, who must make up all deficiencies, will pay much. It is, they will remember, to a country where prelates issue such letters, that they must look for the millions which, under Mr. Gladatone's scheme, were to be paid into the Imperial Treasury.
Previous page
