British Isles – Pot Boiling

‘The political pot is boiling, almost over the brim, as expected, in the British isles. Parson Beecher of Brooklyn, in his very first speech, “put his foot in it” so maladroitly, that according to a cable despatch he has felt it to be his best way to back out from speechifying altogether. In order to demonstrate the great fitness of Irishmen for self-government, and probably for governing generally, he instanced their achievements in New York, in which, says the very pro-Irish Washington Star, he “certainly was not happy.” The Star adds, “the Scotch-Irish, whom Mr. Beecher justly asserted to be among the shrewdest and clearest-headed business men In the United States, are the class who in Ireland are fighting against home-rule with all their might. This is a singular confusion for a mind as able as Mr. Beecher’s.” The fact seems really to be that Mr. B. thought he was to go over on a great puffing expedition, which would be likely to put him “solid” with the New York and Brooklyn Irish. John Bright, the Birmingham Quaker, stands very far ahead of our Brooklyn B in the pending struggle. John is sincere and sound, Henry Ward hollow and empty; John has much at stake, Henry sought only self-glorification, and missing even self-approval. Bright objects to giving up the genuine interests of Ireland to the factious men who pretend to be her friends. He says “I cannot intrust the peace and interests of Ireland, north or south, to the Irish parliamentary party to whom the government now proposes to make a general surrender. My six years’ experience of them, and their language in the House of Commons, and their deeds in Ireland, makes it impossible for me to hand over to them the industry, prosperity and rights of five millions of the Queen’s subjects. Our countrymen in Ireland— least ways two millions— are as loyal as the people of Birmingham.” Howe, the historian, denies the capacity of the majority in the south of Ireland for self-government. He says “there is in Ireland, a discontented and miserable population, among whom the desire for separation and hatred of England are universal. He objects to placing the “ioyal and worthy minority in Ireland at the mercy of the mutinous and worthless.” And so they go.