THE IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS.
[To THE EDITOR Of TAR " SPECTA:206:] Sin,—Your article on the recent Irish elections, though marking the anxiety of the situation, hardly does justice to that revolutionary change which for all purposes of local administration has made Outlanders of the propertied classes. Ireland is a purely agricultural community ; thus its capitalist class is its landlords; anti-capitalism in Ireland is anti. landlordism. The landlords of Ireland being rigidly excluded from the House of Commons because they oppose Home- rule, have been powerless to protect their interests, with what result we know. But until the grand jury system was superseded by the Act of last Session, Irish local govern- ment was to a considerable extent in the hands of the land- lord "garrison," so that this garrison, while deprived of representation in the central Legislature, was yet in a position of considerable authority within Ireland. The new Bill of a Tory Government has disbanded the garrison.
The position disclosed to-day is very interesting. You recognise the existence of a Jacobin element in Irish politics, an element which is probably quite as formidable in England and the United States, but which does no harm, and indeed much good, here and in America because the various capitalist organisations are dominant on election day. But what is the situation in Ireland ? Mr. Dillon says to the capitalist class : 'Unless you work for a Parliament in Dublin, you shall have no more share in local legislation than you have for thirty years possessed in the central Legislature ; your vote will be
about as effective as his vote is to the coloured elector in Louisiana or South Carolina.' The landlords of Ireland may bave to reconsider their position on the Home-rule question. Where does our duty lie at a time when further opposition to Home-rule may involve the triumph of Jacobiniem within Ireland ? The moral dilemma each man must decide for himself. "My shirt," said the Swiss patriot, "is nearer than my coat;" and to many of us the disaster to Ireland which must attend the elimination from politics of the only leisured and educated class may well seem irrepsrable.—I am, Sir, 8:e.,
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