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840 T H E XEAP E B. [No. 264, SiiTimpAY,
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MARSHAL RADETZKI AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Last Of Young Ireland. Suppose That ...
would be considered a grave fact in the Jhiropean system : the . Hungarian M-P . would be watched as . illustrating the felicitous cohesion of Austrian affairs . Mr . G-avan Duffy , member for New Uoss , Ireland , in the English House of Commons , has thrown up the cause of Irish nationality and is going to Australia , and the event marks an important stage in the history *> f the Union which Pitt , to provide against / dangers from republican and Roman Catholic
France , accomplished in 1800 . It is remarkable that Ireland and Scotland have taken about the same time to reconcile themselves to the loss of their nationality . The Scotch , united to England in 1707 , struggled wellnigh up to 1750 against the provincialisation to which ! Lord Somebs had reduced them : the ' 45 was , after all , an attempt to " repeal the " Onion . " C \ r English press has been making merry at Mr . Duffy ' s wailing fareweE to his country , somewhat forgetting that
so short a time ago as 1846-50 the Irish repealers and republicans were in such strength that the English Government garrisoned Ireland with 70 , 000 soldiers , had mart ial law in two provinces , gagged the popular press in Dublin , and was trying an agitator or two for his life every term . It is too soon forgotten that Mr . Smith O'Bbeen , one of the nobles of Ireland , the darling of a race with feudal instincts , was one year ago among our criminal convicts in Van Diemen ' Land , and that he is
still an exile in a small house in Brussels with other political refugees of all countries . The . British journalist loses sight of the circumstance that all continental politicians have been educated in the faith , quite sound up till 1850 , that Ireland was to England as Iiombardy is to Austria , or Poland to Russia . From the time that Henbt II . got rid of the most dangerous of his Barons by sending them off to plunder Ireland , the country was , till the other day , in a chronic state of insurrection—a rebellion was the
periodical incident once every ten years . It is not forty years since French statesmen calculated as a matter of certainty upon striking England to the heart through Ireland . In 1798 a storm and a fool saved Protestant England from the neighbourhood of a Roman Catholic ally of France . In 1829 Ireland was again on the eve of successful rebellion—or so Wellington thought when he described to the House of Lords , whom he had to convert , the horrors of civil
war , as the necessity for acceding to Catholic Emancipation . O ' Conner , from that day up to within a year or two of his death , wielded independent sovereignty in Ireland , doing little more than feudal homage to " the Castle , " and at any moment he had but to whisper the word , and Ireland , headed by her priests , would have been in arms .
His fassociates , who ranged themselves into the party called " Toung Ireland , " failed because he , still powerful against them , aided the English Government in withholding the priests from them , in precipitating the military and the law upon them . They were nearly all transported in 1849 , just after he died , and out of the country went with them the fiercest spirits that make a conquered
nation restive . One man of the " treasonable" confederation escaped " law and order "' and Lord CLARENDON . Released from prison , he recommenced the work in Ireland . But abandoning the old cries of revolution and of " repeal , " the utmost " independence" he now agitated for was in the shape of ap , independent Irish party in Parliament , whose Object it should be to wring from competing jVglish factions a measure of " Tenant Iwght" for- the oppressed peasants of Ireland . He no doubt hoped for more : but he
was resolved to be " practical" and reserved . After four years' struggle he finds even this too much to aspire to ; that English factions have bought up his confederates ; that no " Tenant Right" is possible ; that the bishops are calmed , by British diplomacy operating on them through Rome via Louis JNapoi , eon , into genteel disdain for Irish nationality ; and he leaves the country in disgustthe Ireland of to-day is no p lace for an Irish nationalist . The Scottish Lion ' s self-assertion is not more rid iculous or more hopeless than the ambition of an Irish gentleman refusing to recognise that Dublin is as much a provincial city as York is , and that Ireland has about as much nationality as Jersey can pretend to . We , something more than Liberals , have never ' quarrelled with the men , whether in Canada or in Munster , who have demanded freedom from England : we know "that Englishmen have not the liberty that men ought to have , and while not sympathising with rebellion in Ireland , we join with Irishmen in insisting on the concession to that country of political and religious equalitj 1 " . But , for the present , it is not our business to do more than recite the circumstances which have baffled Mr . Duffy . In the first place , the famine of ' 46 , which subdued Peel into Free-trade , and the " exodus" which has been in permanence since 1848 , have nearly halved the population , the classes remaining being the non-revolutionary classes . The country that was left was not strong enough , whatever the grievance , to support independent movements . But the grievance daily diminished . The working of the Encumbered Estates Court reformed the landowners as the emigration eased the land tillers;—the railways , including the tubular bridge across the Menai , connected Ireland by the intimacies of trade and intervisiting to England ;—the island became a province , prosperous and apathetic if not contented . The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill of Lord John Russell interrupted the process of international fusion ;? the religious element was presented in the virulent shape , and then there arose a national independent Irish party in the House of Commons—the party , the Irish Brigade , which was strong enough in ' 52 to turn the balance against Lord Debbt . But Lord Aberdeen resumed the policy of Sir Robert Peel ; he declined to apply the act , which became a dead ^ . letter , and is all but forgotten . Tempted by Lord Aberdeen ' s sagacious offers of place and career , the members of the Brigade joined the Coalition , ceased to bo mere Irish members , and are " getting on . " Mr . Duffy , left behind , heading now but three or four faithful followers , denounces , ere he departs , the corruption of M . P . ' s , and the subserviency of Catholic bishops and priests to Protestant masters . In truth he is conquered by circumstances . Rebel in heart and intellect to the English supremacy , a man of his stamp cannot subside into the routine of decent citizenship . But all this may be the best for his country . It would be more picturesque were Scotland an independent nation , but we trust the Irish province will at least bo ns prosperous as Scotland has become , and that in the imperial interests all those national distinctions will be forgotten . Mr . Duffy has lived and leaves with dignity ^—the last of his class and creed . Too much confounded with too Celtic confederates , he has , among the many English Liberals to whom he has become known , been better understood as a man of calm , courageous , self-reliant character , never exaggerating , always practical . In the long list of * brilliant Irishmen who have battled with England , his name must ever occupy an
eminent place . At thirty he had so impressed himself on his contemporaries , that he had founded a creed in politics and a school in literature , trained a poet in . Davis and an orator in Meagheb , and established the journal , the Nation , which is European in fame , which conquered O'Conn ell , and which is identified with-the modern history of the country . In the lane to which he is going his eager and cor scientious nature will find liberal work to d
" We canno $ believe that so keen and accomplished a person will think " of constructing any pure Irish party : he goes as a colonist , where he will enjoy perfect freedom and find a fine career ; and it is the Colony , in its magnificent progress and perfect self-government , which he will adorn and serve .
840 T H E Xeap E B. [No. 264, Siitimpay,
840 T H E XEAP E B . [ No . 264 , SiiTimpAY ,
Marshal Radetzki And Lord John Russell. ...
MARSHAL RADETZKI AND LORD JOHN RUSSELL . ( From , a Correspondent . * ) Between the despots of Southern and Northern Italy there is this remarkable difference : the first , unwilling that polemical discussion should render his subjects aware that his system of go-¦• ernment is censured through the world , annihilates the press ; while the Austrian Marshal affects to challenge the free opinions of foreign papers , especially when they come from England , although the Parliament , and sometimes even the Ministers themselves , indiscreetl y raise their voice and disturb the Marshal ' s favourite occupation of arresting , transporting , flogging , hanging , and confiscating property for imaginary or political offences . The Gazzelta Officiate di Verona , the Gazzetta di Venezia , the Gazzelta Officiate di Milano , the Gazzetla Officiate Austriaca , with three . or four other papers which , though apparently unauthorised , are in reality the organs of the Austrian Ministers , are now uttering violent denunciations against the paltry and insignificant observations suggested by Lord John Russell . Austria fears that even those remarks , if secretly communicated to the Lombard demagogues , might raise their hopes , therefore Radetzki , making tbem a pretext for offering to the Italians new philosophical doctrines of his own on public international right , has , at length , condescended to honour Lord John with a reply . The Marshal ' s first and favourite aphorism is , " that when the sword has decided , there can be no further question about right , therefore no appeal can be offered in favour of the Italians , who must henceforth be ruled by violence . " The second is , that " foreign statesmen and governments have no right to interfere with the internal administration of other states , " although the Marshal ' s excursions into the Ticino and the Papal States are practically rather at variance with his theory . The third , that ?* statesmen who have proved they are not wise enough to rule their own country should not criticise foreign governments , " must , after Lord John's exertions in favour of Austrian
policy , be regarded as shocking ingratitude . While the fourth , that " parliamentary forms are a failure , as the experience of England shows , and that idle and unbridled speech creates confusion and embarrassment , therefore the best form of government is that which makes the many obey and one rule , " is an opinion in which our ally beyond the Channel wiM perfectly agree . The fifth paragraph asserts that Lord John has exaggerated nil that relates to Italy , whether north or south . We have , however , quoted sufficient for our purpose , and shall , therefore , leave the remaining arguments for the Marshal to manage as he best can . # > Tim f » r > iftnm « van liavo inrivHn of Radctzkl S The epitome we have given or liadctzKis
straightforward political wisdom , which resolves itself into action , is a positive antithesis to the coquetting liberalism of Lord John and Lord Pufmorston , which evaporates in words . I" f » c * » after ministerial and ex-ministorinl speeches have been circulated in Italy , new barracks have been prepared , new regiments of epics have been trained , new garrisons have been quartered on private citizens and on the municipalities ; « n « l \ & though to abstract public attention froin political misery by private sorrows and ' mourning ) every measure to prevent the fearful ravages of the cholera has been either purposely neglected or fetrictly forbidden . That a man almost ninety
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 1, 1855, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_01091855/page/12/
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