DISORDER IN IRELAND..
To zaz EDITOR OF TEl "SPECTATOR...3
Sza,—The crisis in Ireland, which appears to amount to open and widespread defiance of the law, affords a good test of the character of party government. Will the leaders of the • Opposition in Parliament bury faction in the common duty of _citizens, and lend its support to the Government in the sup- pression of disorder ? There is a limit to everything. Great allowance must be made for the effect which a series of historical calamities and a long period of gross misgovernment had on the character of the Irish people. But the Irish people have their natural defects also, or they would not have been on this side of the Atlantic the rank-and-file of Tammany, the oppressors of the negro, and the partisans of slavery, for which they rose in New York in the middle of the Civil War, and were sternly put down. To encourage them in lawlessness would surely be the greatest possible unkindness.—I am, Sir,
GOLDWIN SMITH.
Toronto.
[We do not think there can be much doubt as to the willingness of the Opposition to support the Government in every possible way should the latter determine to put an end to cattle-driving and other forms of lawlessness and intimida- tion now being practised in Ireland.—En. Spectator.]
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