| OCR Text |
Show Ireland's Friends. Are We the Only Ones She Has? 1 Though no one who has lived in the United States can be surprised by the J extraordinary display of interest with which the English government's new Irish land bill has been received in this country, it has served to accentuate once more the strange indifference of all other foreign nations with regard to the Emerald isle. It is not merely an entire lack of Continental Europe for everything that concerns Erin, but likewise the failure of any of their governments gov-ernments to utilize Iredand. either directly di-rectly or indirectly, as a factor in their political relations with Great Britain. Both Russia and Germany have turned to good account the disaffection of Norway toward Sweden in their dealings deal-ings with King Oscar, and neither the Muscovite authorities nor yet the semiofficial semi-official Pan-Slav committee has ever neglected to take excellent advantage of Czech and Croatian discontent in Austria and Hungary. The Polish disturbances, dis-turbances, especially in the '60s, afforded af-forded both to England and France the means of inducing Russia to yield to them In other matters, while all Europe Eu-rope has been wrought up to the boiling boil-ing point by the treatment 'of Finland. Prussia is forced to spend millions upon millions of dollars in buying out the peasantry of her province of Posen, because she feels convinced that in the event of a war with Russia the people in question would join hands with the Muscovite enemy, while France during Napoleon Ill's reign was never tired of intervening at Berlin on behalf of the non-Prussian German states. But no government of Continental Europe has ever given any attention one way or another to Ireland's aspirations and sentiments. Her woes have touched no responsive heart abroad except in the 'United States. 'and as fa, . s the non-British non-British countries of the Old World have been concerned, she has been absolutely ignored, save for the opera bouffe attempt at-tempt by France to land a small force on her coasts in the wars of the first Napoleon, about 100 years ago. Yet Ireland is largely represented on the Continent, and the aristocracies of Austria, Spain, France and Italy are imbued with a strongly developed strain of the best Hibernian blood. Until Un-til the beginning of the nineteenth century cen-tury the oppression of the Roman Catholics Cath-olics in Ireland was such that they emigrated emi-grated by tens of thousands to those parts of Europe where their religious faith constituted no civic and social handicap, and inasmuch as Catholics were barred from holding commissions in the British army, all those youths of gentle birth whose tastes were of a military mil-itary character sought service abroad, entire regiments in Austria and France being manned and officered by Irish- men. That is why one finds so many characteristically Irisa n;inis among the nobility of the countries in question. ques-tion. Thus in Austria there are tha Counts Nugent, de la f'nT and U'Dou-nell. U'Dou-nell. one of the latter having, indeed, while aide-de-camp of Kmperor Francis Fran-cis Joseph, saved the hitter from dath at. the hands of an assassin a few years after his accession to the throne. In France we have seen a duke and a field marshal with an Irish patronymic and proud of his oris in, namely, that holiest and chivalrous ,.!d soldier, Mac-Malion, Mac-Malion, figuring as one of the presidents presi-dents of the third republic, while th- names of O'Conor. Tiernay, Dillon, O'Shea, etc., are quite as frequent in the great world at Paris and among th '. old provincial aristocraey of France as they are among the Irish gentry. It the same ln Italy, in Portugal and espe-! espe-! cially in Spain, where the late Duke of Tetuan, who was minister of foreign affairs at the time of the war between this country and Spain, and who represented rep-resented King Alfonso XII on the occasion oc-casion of the latter's marriage by proxy at Vienna to Queen Christine, used often to recall the fact that his patronymic pat-ronymic was O'Donneli. and that hi . ancestors were kings of Donegal in good old Milesian times. Indeed, once during dur-ing the course of a speech in Madrid, when presenting the prizes at the Military Mil-itary academy, he called attention to the number of O'Neills, O'O'nnells. Ma- 1 hers, etc., among the cadets, remark- ' ing: "We Irish in settling on the Span- ish plains and in offering our swords j to Spain are merely returning to the , j ancient home of our forebears. The J Milesians went from Spain to Ireland, and we have merely come back to live among our cousins." ; i.i spite of this, the- -Americans are the only people who have ever shown sympathy, for Ireland, who have opened their purses wide when the Emerald j isle has been visited by famine, and have manifested an unflagging and pro- j found interest in everything relating to t ; Ireland's welfare and misfortunes. And while the government here has nsver t gone so far as to offer any suggestions, either directly or indirectly, to Eng- ? land on the subject of her treatment of ; Ireland, yet there is no doubt that ', Great Britain's appreciation of popular sentiment here on the subject, coupled with her desire for an "entente cor- diale'Vwith the United States, has con-tributed con-tributed in no small measure to bring j ; about here recent concessions to the Irish. England realized, in fact, that j her understanding with the United ? States would never be either sincere or complete as long as she maintained her former policy of harshness toward Erin. ; Ex-Attache in the New York Tribune. |
