THE SEIZURE OF THE "IRISH PEOPLE."
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sia,—May I point out the possibility of your article in the Spectator of May 18th on the above subject being written from the point of view of an Englishman writing of England, and not of Ireland ? One of the few truthful complaints made by the Nationalists is that Ireland is governed from the English point of view (an instance of which is the appli- cation of local government to this country, for the chief reason that it was law in England). Had this "obscene libel" on the King been published in England by an English paper, it would no doubt have fallen "absolutely flat," and where it was seen have been utterly condemned by publio opinion. But precisely the opposite is the case over here. Statements made in these seditious newspapers are implicitly believed in by their readers, who, it must be remembered, never even have a chance of hearing or seeing any other side of a question, far less a contradiction. Thus the fictitious letter as to the slaughter of sur- rendered prisoners published by the Freeman's Journal is generally believed, as are the frequently reiterated statements about the over-taxation of Ireland, its general oppression by England, jury-packing, and the like. Your simile of the little boy in the gutter will not hold good; he is, in reality, sur- rounded by a crowd of other dirty little boys, and if he is allowed to go on calling names unchecked they will all sooner or later begin to throw mud and stones, which result he is anxious to produce. The whole matter is simply a question of how far seditious newspapers, in a country sedulously trained by them in sedition, should be allowed to go; and most loyalists think that they are, and have been, allowed to go too far. There seems, when the limit is passed, to be no course open but to act in a manner which doubtless would be most unwise in England, but which is absolutely necessary here where all the circumstances are so absolutely different.—
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