Incidents of my life, professional, literary, social, with services in the cause of Ireland / by Thomas Addis Emmet.
- Thomas Addis Emmet
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Incidents of my life, professional, literary, social, with services in the cause of Ireland / by Thomas Addis Emmet. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
537/631 page 396
![When Englishmen set to work to wipe the tear out of Ireland’s eye, they always buy the pocket-handkerchief at Ireland’s expense. Col. Edward Saunderson, M. P. [While an Orangeman, Col. Saunderson was in sympathy with his native country.] In a climate soft as a mother’s smile, on a soil fruitful as God’s love, the peasant mourns. Thomas Davis. God made the land, and all His works are good; Man made the laws, and all they breath’d was blood; Unhallow’d annals of six hundred years; A code of blood, a history of tears. (Unknown author.) These poor people [the Irish] have been accustomed to as much injustice and oppression from their landlords, the great men, and all those who should have done them right, as any people in that which we call Christendom. Oliver Cromwell, 1649—Motley's Life of Gladstone. Few would be likely to doubt Ireland’s just cause of complaint, after seeing Cromwell’s endorsement. When writing this work many years ago and as printed in the first edition, as well as the second, just issued, I predicted the present condition of affairs in England, caused by the recent action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Budget [vol. i., 278—first edition, 1903]: “Asa rule the House of Commons has been indifferent to Ireland’s welfare, and whatever action has been taken by that body was directed chiefly to hold- ing Ireland by the throat. Yet at times there were individuals with the fore- thought of statesmen, who laid aside their British prejudices against the Irish people, and made honest effort in the House of Commons to right the wrongs attending the misgovemment of that unhappy country. Such efforts, having passed the House of Commons, were almost invariably defeated by the action of the House of Lords, as the members of this body have never assented will- ingly to the passage of any measure relating to Ireland unless it were a Coer- cion bill or some provision detrimental to the welfare of the country. “In truth it may be held that the Lords of England for several hundred years past have been responsible directly or indirectly, for the greater part of Ireland’s suffering, and have been generally the direct cause of the misgovern- ment of the country, as the head of the Ministry was generally taken from that body. At one period the House of Lords was a powerful organization, as it represented the wealth, education, and political influence of the country as well as the office-holders, who constituted a class almost entirely composed of their impecunious relatives. But they have long lost the blind reverence of the people, and as constituted at present it would be difficult to conceive of a more useless appendage to the body politic than the English House of Lords.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28034776_0542.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
