File:Ireland yesterday and today (1909) (14587039720).jpg

Identifier: irelandyesterday00suth_0 (find matches)
Title: Ireland yesterday and today
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Sutherland, Hugh
Subjects: Land tenure Home rule
Publisher: Philadelphia, The North American
Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ts offanaticism continue to this day, but they are growing lessfrequent and less bitter. There is hope that some day thespirit of democracy in Ulster will outgrow the spirit of in-tolerance and that the province will realize that it is betterto be a part of a united Ireland than a tool of Toryism andreaction. Meanwhile the garrison—the landlords, the socialaristocracy and their supporters in northeastern Ulster—re-mains supreme. But it is doomed. The processes of evolu-tion cannot be stayed, and evolution is making the garrisonthe vermiform appendix of the Irish political body. Themercenaries of England and parasites of Ireland have lostground rapidly during the last forty years. The first blowwas the disestablishment of the state church in 1869. In thevery next year came the establishment of tenant right, the ex-tension of the Ulster custom to all of Ireland. In 1881the first move toward Land Purchase was made, and now thepeasants are rapidly becoming landowners, and hence power-
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MISGOVERNMENT 227 ful factors in the countrys development. In 1884 the fran-chise was extended; the voters now number fourteen per cent,of the population, whereas in 1832 they numbered only 1.19per cent. And in 1898 the right of self-government (thatis, Home Rule) in local affairs was won, establishing Na-tionalist authority in twenty-seven of the thirty-two counties.Yet while the garrison is gradually losing its grip, it still re-tains immense authority. It no longer dictates the laws, butit administers them. It is supreme in Dublin Castle, it dom-inates the judiciary, it controls the police and the local courtscIt has only nineteen of the one hundred and three membersof the House of Commons, but it has full sway in the ad-ministration in Ireland. Slowly, but surely, it is passing away, and passing un-honored. Its exit from the stage is not graceful, not evendignified. Throughout its long ascendency the landlordgarrison fought every reform idea advanced for the bettergovernment of th

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