34 IRELAND AND THE INDEPENDence of NATIONS.

The plain truth plainly stated, is that England never had a shadow of right to put her foot on the soil of Ireland; to touch it one moment. To England, Ireland is indebted only for invasion, robbery, murder and centuries of insolent oppression. Ages of insult and wrong, have not, and cannot sanctify her bloody title to that dewy land. Ireland is now preparing for one more struggle for freedom. When the hour of her emancipation may come, the God of freedom alone can tell. But that it will come, and may sooner, perhaps, than British statesmen suppose, no thinking man can doubt.

The Independence of Nations is the Common Law of the world. Nations have as much right to be free as men. Why thraldom? Who wants it? Who shall be the serf? Shall it be the Polander, or the Hungarian? The Italian or the Greek? Least of all, shall it be the generous Irishman, whose first impulse is to strike for freedom and the right? The crimes of England towards Ireland, as in all cases of oppression, will yet be avenged-not in blood, we trust--for there is a nobler vengeance than that. The pen outlives the sword. Truth will outlive oppression-the pencil and the chisel survive the injustice of thrones. With these instruments of justice-these messengers and servants of the Eternal, the oppressed and trampled nationalities of the present hour will yet inscribe upon the falling palaces of their tyrants, what Ireland can now say to England-you may die-we shall live. Your oppression has driven half our nation to the New World. The rest will follow if you do not grant our independence. Your Ireland may be depopulated; our Ireland is in America to-day.

It should be plain enough to the obtusest reader of history, that this is the Period which will be hereafter known as the Age of free Nations and free Men. Nearly a century ago, England had to let the Thirteen Colonies have their nationality. Next Spain had to concede the independence of all her colonies in North and South America. Then the Turk took his polluting hand from the bosom of Greece. Again the hour of Italy's redemption came. Now the future of other nations is pressing

THE GREAT CRIME OF ENGLAND.

35

its images of freedom into the lenses of history. Russia, at one blow, strikes the chains from twenty million serfs; America from four million slaves; the spoilers of Poland must strike off her fetters; Austria must take down her hated standard from the towers of Venice, and England must give back to the Emerald Isle her ancient liberty.

The nation which has done wrong, but will do so no more; which will swing her ship of state gracefully into the irresistible stream that, in its swelling, is to bear its precious freight to a calm and secure harbor, will hear the shouts of gratitude pealing from myriads of peoples. But those nations that try to stem this torrent, will be swept away. The shores of Time's great river are strewn with the wrecks of fallen empires. God-who always tells the truth-says, in pleading for the freedom of man everywhere from the thraldom of tyrants: "The nation that will not serve me shall perish."

The great crime of England lies in sustaining a system which oppresses, starves, and brutalizes the masses of her subjects. These fruits are legitimate, in Ireland.

PRIV

XV.

RIVATE benevolence, and alms-giving, cannot make up for this system of wrong which England inflicts on her

people.

No men, no women, no community on the earth will so willingly put kerchief to the eye, or quicker thrust hand into the pocket, to relieve an individual case of helplessness. But the sympathy of individuals, only helps individuals. This help is all noble and generous; but good as the motive may be, it has been proved ten thousand times that private efforts to do good in England, are blotted out by public determination to do wrong. No Atlas of the earth has yet appeared who could bear all our burdens, except our Divine Master.

The Government of England makes poor men poorer, and rich men richer. The fault is not in the noble men and women

38

36

THE WRONG OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM.

of England, for God knows they do well. But what is their drop in the bucket? It is only to help keep the kettle full, while the holes in the bottom are left. Philanthropy pours into the cask; Aristocracy keeps the spigot open.

It is the system of Government which makes things get so much out of joint-which makes everything go so badly. Who could grow vergaloo pears from such thistles?

What I complain of in English statesmanship is this- Why cannot England take care of all her people? If she cannot, it would seem to be only fair, at least, to let them take care of themselves. But I complain of the English system because it does sacrifice most of her subjects to pamper the rest. If I am disputed in this statement, her own writers and public men will come to my rescue.

So far back as the elder Greeks, I may go for my justification in saying, that any Government which takes liberty out of the hands of the people, must see that the people do not

starve.

Twenty-three hundred years have rung out their requiems over the age of Pericles and his scholars, philosophers, sages, poets, and comprehending men; but modern governments have yet to show why the helpless masses must still be crushed into the mire.

That mire means ignorance, because it cannot become intelligence; it means helplessness, because it is ignorance; it means hopelessness, because it sees no light in despair.

L

XVI.

ET England explain to her own people, if she can, why a system of Government should be obstinately adhered to, which can, has and will, as long as it lasts, foredoom one class to opulence and idleness, and another, and infinitely the larger class, to hopeless poverty and exhausting toil.

The worst attribute in African slavery has been this-forcing men to work hard to keep them from starving! This is all

England has done for hundreds of years. She has millions of her own home people who know no more about Jesus Christ than about Mahomet, or Confucius. I have proved this, and (if it be possible) things still worse.

I therefore say that no population can be found on the earth, who live so near Christianity, that know so little of it; that see so much luxury, and have so few of the necessaries of life ; that dwell in such filthy holes and dens; that bask in so little of the sunlight of Heaven.

Who made this system? Who keeps it up? What good is there in the Established Church and its Thirty-nine Articles, when you come to the question of bread and butter? What creed will stand between the stomach of a hungry man and a new or oldfangled creed about the Trinity, or the Unity? Christ came to see and help the poor, the forsaken, the despairing. The Established Church came to tax them, and enrich a prelacy.

It is too late in the day to set up screens between the masses and the few; between Democracy and mankind. The man of Nazareth tore those screens away long ago-and His work once done, lasts. Christ had to die but once; He had to proclaim the Redemption of mankind but once, and it was done forever. Governments must comply with this philosophy or be overthrown.

Either the present British system of society must go down or it must be changed. It cannot last as it is. The men who do the work must be paid-their children must be educated-or a wild mob of wronged men will call somebody to a serious account. Let England take her choice now while she can.

I

XVII.

Do not know, in my whole life, when I have suffered so much by looking on human misery, brought about by a system of government which grows out of society and makes society, acting and reacting, as during my first visit to England

38

"THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND QUESTION.”

-confirmed, deepened more indelibly by subsequent visits. I had read and heard somewhat of the poor of the British Isl ands. The essays of Elia, Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist, and some other works telling much about this state of things, I had regarded more as the limnings of romancing pencils, than sober every-day truths. But none of these gave me any adequate idea of the enormity and extent of the sufferings of the trampled herd of British people. England is a country of almost incomprehensible extremes. She is every thing that is glorious, and everything that is shameful. She has in government, what some of the old masters were so fond of showing in their chiaro oscuro pictures. Overgrown power is balanced in her cartoons by despairing helplessness. One portion of society dies slowly by surfeit-another rapidly by famine. One section of the Established Church gropes back through formulas to scholasticism and the creed of Hildebrand, without his heroism or evangelical devotion to the Founder of the Christian faith; while the other throws off its plethoric humors in the fox chase, and sanctified indulgences. The science of the universities had degenerated into learned ignorance till such men as Brougham, Arnold, Macaulay, Bulwer and their great confreres touched them with the wand of genius, and brought them somewhat nearer to, but a still dim comprehension of, the objects of Letters, Learning and Science. The other extreme left the lower classes in sottishness incomprehensible.

The condition of the helpless classes of England, Thomas Carlyle considered to be a subject worthy of the serious atten tion of statesmanship. Every thinking, reading man knows something of Carlyle's pamphlet: "The Condition of England Question." It is safe to say that a majority of the men of Great Britain know not how to gain enough by their honest labor to secure themselves and their families from want. This is a pretty important item in the estimates which England is mak ing for herself in the future. Into these limits are crowded all the elements of England's "yet to be." The sulphur, the salt