MR. MORLEY'S TASK IN IRELAND

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 99

MR. MORLEY'S TASK IN IRELAND

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they all take care to feed the noble animal industriously with those cates of dispassionate attention to business which they believe will best impress a strong lover of even justice; but they have the comfortable feeling that the lion is barred safely into an official cage, of which all the keys are in the pockets of sound Unionists. Mr. Morley's contingent in the Irish Privy Council is as small as in the House of Lords. It must have taken some whipping up to get together a quorum of three to sign the proclamation suspending the Coercion Act. Let him suggest a new departure to the Local Government Board, to the Board of Public Works, to the General Prisons Board—he will find himself in a minority of one. Does he aim at creating popular confidence in the Land Commission Court—Mr. Wrench and friends are there to do him battle, vizors down, placed beyond the criticism of Parliament, by the care of Mr. Balfour, upon the everlasting eminence of the Civil List. Any sub-commissioners who had the misfortune to inspire public confidence have been ruthlessly sent to the rightabout. Has he any feeling that the Congested Districts Board is fooling with its million and a half of Irish money, and ought to do something practical to help the congested population to the sheep-farms vacant round about them? The Congested Districts Board retort that Mr. Balfour has secured them a twenty years' tenure of office by Act of Parliament, and in a civil manner give the Home Rule Chief Secretary what the French call a foot of nose. Let him require a Removable magistrate or a police officer in some critical hour and spot—he has to summon a few dozen hostile officials before him, and by some rapid process of anthropometry pick out the man who is least likely to facilitate a riot, or who was least implicated in the transactions of the old 'don't-hesitate-to-shoot' days. … continue reading »

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