IRELAND AS USUAL.
STARVATION has fairly set in for the season in Ireland, with the murders, as appears by the multiplication of cases. The Irish season is at its height about the same time with the London sea- son; and as we may look forward to a greater fulness under the head of "fashionable news," so we may anticipate a variety of horrible accounts like that which we copy from the Clare Journal. Two families shared one cabin and one common lot of starvation, and their condition is disclosed by the stench of putrefying corpses. The story is so stale, that the heart of the distant reader is hardened by the tedium of repetition. It has lasted for so many years, that there appears no reason why exertion to end it should be made this year any more than last year, or next year any more than this. The causes are so complicated, that the com- plexity baffles summary treatment and exonerates diligence ; and the suggestions of remedy are so many and so conflicting, that action is paralyzed by bewilderment. Besides, the Irish are so perverse—so ungrateful for help, so tortuous in availing them- selves of it, so incurably supine. Leave it to time : the poverty is not universal ; a muddling prosperity has been detected in the very midst of the starvation ; defaulters to the landlord have been discovered as depositors in savings-banks ; the Scotticized North encroaches gradually on the South ; already insolvent estates are falling into the hands of English capitalists; and a day will come when Ireland will have been redeemed. There is a further rea- son : the present race of children are educated, and will know a vast deal better what to do than their unlettered parents. Leave Ire- land, then, like sorrow, to the healing and restoring hand of time.
For how long ? Surely any operation which can accelerate without enfeebling that steady process is worth exertion ? Could we find any gauge of suffering, the agony endured in any single year by these families that graze with the beasts of the field and go home to lie down and starve amid the corpses of their kin, would display an aggregate of torment quite enough to spur our humanity, however it may be balked by Irish perversity. Eng- land has appropriated Ireland, and by Ireland's misery is mea- sured England's disgrace before the nations. Besides, the Irish, if more educated but not proportionately less poor, would be as discontented, and more able to be dangerous.
Could it be possible to cast Ireland adrift, there is no doubt that she would be better off than she is, though far less happy than she might be made. The union with England, hitherto, has put a strain upon the faculties of Ireland, without supplying her with an adequate increase of strength, and she sinks in the effort. Irishmen are forced into a mockery of English methods, without being forced or enabled to render the imitation complete: they are forced out of the rude plans suitable to a less civilized people, but not endowed with perfect civilization ; and in the interstice be- tween barbarism and civilization they starve. Were Ireland alone, she would muddle on in a hungry ease, as many a savage people does. But that cannot be : England, with her interests to guard and her power to ordain, forbids it. Her power, then, should be exerted to ordain also what is needful to Ireland in her involuntarrcondition.
Everybody, you cry, knows that I Then why is it not done ?- For scruples. Desiring to gain credit with all parties, English statesmen stunt their own measures, in the hope of evading or softening " objection." Measures are proposed without end, but all are crippled or prevented by these scruples. Some improve- ment might be effected in tenure ; but it is thought desirable not to alarm landlords. The priests might be influential tutors of the singularly sequacious people ; but they cannot be engaged as servants of the State, for fear it should vex English sec- tarians. Well-conducted emigration would relieve the process of agricultural and social improvement ; but it would cost something at starting, and English taxpayers forbid the needful funds. And whatever you do Ireland howls. So it is all hopeless and thankless alike.
Still, we say, you are bound to act according to the realities of the case. The fundamental truths are, that Ireland is a subject country ; that England has the power to dispose of Ireland ; and that Ireland has resources from which her wants might be sup- plied. England, not Ireland, is chiefly responsible, because Eng- land alone has the power to decree the effectual use of Ireland's own resources. That is the fact, and it should suggest the prin- ciple of English policy towards Ireland : England should put forth her whole power to compel the proper use of Ireland's re- sources. Vigorous action on such a principle would abridge by generations the agonized sufferings of the Irish. No scruples based upon the ignorant reluctance of Ireland, or the improvident indulgence of temporary interests, should arrest the decree. If a law is good for Ireland in the sight of English councils, it should be passed in spite of Irish howls. if a reconstruction of the local government, mahout the toy Viceroyalty—if a redistribution of Church property, new burdens on land, a wholesale conveyance of real property—if a reorganization of Irish agriculture through the labour-test of the workhouse—if the exode of thousands upon thousands be necessary, and Ireland can supply the means or find room in our Colonial wastes—if these things can amend the con- dition of Ireland, England should bend her power to them with- out scruple or procrastination. It may be true that the Irish are supine and let themselves die; but if England can prevent that social suicide, she is bound to do so. Every recurrence of the Irish season, therefore, is a disgrace to England, her intelligence and power.
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