IRISH LAND PURCHASE BILL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 435, 29 March 1890, Page 2

IRISH LAND PURCHASE BILL.

Bv the condensed telegraphic report it is impossible to gain a fair idea of the nature of the Land Purchase Bill which the Salisbury Government has intimated its intention of introducing, but the principle of it can be judged. It is evident that the Conservatives, while pretending to be so wrath at the volatile Lord Randolph Churchill, are at the same time trying to outbid the Liberals, though their policy takes a different form. Year after year we have had it repeated that Ireland has no just claim to consideration, that its discontented condition is purely the work of political agitators to whom such agitation means a living, and what result do we arrive at after all ? Why, that the Conservative Government has come to admit that notwithstanding all the declarations to the contrary, the cause of the Irish is a just one. We have indeed come to 'this that the Government which was so long deaf to the appeals of Ireland, and trusted to the bayonet for the stamping out of discord, has now brought forward a great scheme which has for its object the effecting of much good for the Irish peasants, and has undertaken to use millions of the British taxpayers’ money to achieve that purpose. We suppose that even with this remarkable evidence there maybe found shallowbrained people who will say that the Irish peasantry had no just cause of complaint I For centuries the Irish have been taught that it is only by persistent agitation that they can get proper attention to the most just claims they can put forward, and it is only natural that they are little disposed to feel grateful—except to the agitators—for concessions which have to be wrung from unwilling administrators. Had Mr Goschen’s scheme been introduced a few years ago it would have been received with enthusiasm, as a generous and honest attempt to improve the deplorable condition of Ireland, and would have made unnecessary the enormous expense entailed by the large number of soldiers

quartered in the unhappy country. It would be ridiculous to try and form a judgment on Mr Goschen’s scheme, without having a full knowledge of the details. In principle and theory it certainly appears to be a scheme that ought to meet with the approval of the Home Rule party, but really everything depends upon the details.