Mr. Butt and the Home-Rule party in Ireland have fished
up,
as they think, a solid grievance. When an Irishman catches a fish he sells it, and there is an end of that matter, but there ought not to be an end. The State ought to pay him for being so good as to catch that fish, or at the very least to find him boats and nets, which in England are found either by the fishermen or the fishmongers. Mr. Butt really makes a serious grievance of this childish complaint, asking how Englishmen dare refuse what Irishmen demand, and he has two faots to allege. The Scotch do receive £1b,000 for a Fishery Board, which, if it gives bounties, ,ought to be suppressed at once, and the Commissioners of in- quiry did, in 1834, report in favour of a loan to the fishermen. No such commission would, however, so report now, and Mr. Butt has but one chance of success in his demand. If he can .show that in the fishing villages loans for boats and nets, to be strictly repaid, would be the cheapest and most effective form of poor relief, advances of the kind might be made from the rates. Otherwise he might as well ask that every Iri shoran who made butter should have his cows milked at the taxpayers' expense.
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