THE PEACE OF IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF TIM " SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—It cannot be too clearly understoqd that the riots in the towns of the North of Ireland have nothing whatever to do with the agrarian difficulty. The Land League has an object, perhaps a wrong object and perhaps sought by wrong means, but still it has an object that admits of consideration and of negotiation. But the Ulster rioters have no object. The two parties are at feud because they were at feud two hundred years ago, and the instinct that prompts them to attack each other merits no more respect than the instinct that prompts a dog to worry a cat.
Where this state of feeling exists, it is altogether wrong to
trust for the preservation of public safety to what are called ordinary methods, meaning methods which are sufficient in Eng- land. It is an ordinary practice in Ulster, as a glance at the local papers during the present month will have shown, to use firearms in a mere street row. If the rowdies who so use them were ques- tioned as to why they should possess fire-arms at all, both parties would, no doubt. reply that they must protect themselves against their opponents, This pretence would be untrue, be- cause any one who wishes to live a quiet life can be much better protected by the police than by himself and his fellow-partisans, But it shows that there would be no unfairness in disarming both parties impartially.
The same reasoning applies to the permission of open-air meetings for the purpose of party demonstration. The Irish Government ought to possess, and ought habitually to use, the power of suppressing open-air meetings, without waiting on the action of the magistrates of the locality. I shall be reminded that the magistrates have power to prohibit any open-air meeting, if information is laid before them that the meeting is likely to be dangerous. I am aware of this, but it is insuffi- cient. All open-air meetings in the towns of Ulster are dangerous. To permit an Orange or Roman Catholic open-air demonstration in or near an Ulster town, or to permit Irish rowdies to supply themselves with fire-arms without restric- tion, is to permit the free use of lucifer-matches in a powder- magazine.—I am, Sir, &c., Josxvir Joni Old Forge, Duumurry, County Antrim, August 23rd.
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