712
AN GAODHAL
tabharfaidh, I shall give, and labharfaidh I shall
speak. Yet tabharfaidh is, on the phonetic
law of blending and condensing such long
syllables, reduced to tiurfaidh while labharfaidh
in, on account of the general rule for dissyllables
and the liquid r after a formed into labhrochaidh, I
shall speak. Labhair, speak is formed from luadh
utterance, and beir, bestow. And thus with other
verbs, which seem to follow no law, like codail, sleep
future codlochaidh, I shall sleep, not codalfaidh.
One who wishes to speak Irish correctly must
not follow any particular provincial forms of lan¬
guage but select that which is grammatically cor¬
rect in each. Each province and portion of a prov¬
ince has, as in England and France, some special
forms of speech, but these should not be held up
as patterns of excellence unless, indeed they should
happen to be in conformity with the written lang¬
uage and with sound principles of linguistic science
The written language is one, dialects and the spo¬
ken language are multiform. In France there are
seventy four patois, but only one speech of the
French nation.
Do not ask who said this or who said that or
where was this spoken, but as what is the correct
method on what principles and on what authority
does the phrase or word rest. It is well also not
to carry on a controversy for personal ends, but
for the sake of truth. I see the conjunction acht is
written ach, omitting the t. That is not right.
Acht, but, is found in the oldest printed and MSS.
authorities. The presence of t is supported by the
Latin form ast and atque which come from Keltic
forms over three thousand years old.
I remain your faithful servant,
U. J. CANON BOURKE.
Mr. HAGERTY'S UNJUST ALLEGATION.
Burlington, lowa. May 23, 1887.
Dear Sir, — Your allusion to Henry George in the
GAEL for June proves that you have not had time
to read the Standard and discover that neither
"fools" nor "frauds" but practical matter-of-fact
business men and workers are crowding into the
movement for the shifting of taxation from all
forms of industry on to land values, so as to open
opportunities in Brooklyn and on Manhattan Island
even, for the employment of labor which is now
idle, and unable to join the Gaelic colony even if
so minded. Men and women born in Brooklyn, or
adopting your city as their home, ought not to be
exiled while there are so many pastures and other
unimproved property in their city.
You know we Irish are a social race. We do
not like exile: though it is forced on is very much
as the English language was thrust into our months
and the atrocious English system of landlordism
forced onto us and others, in spite of our tra¬
ditional hate and opposition to the system
You cannot do that landordism in Brooklyn
is worse than in Ireland, for in the latter country
its claws have been trimmed a little, while in Am¬
erica we are only beginning to restrain its rapacity.
Your humble servant has so persistently held the
villany of land speculation up to view in the papers
that our assessor has raised assessments on unused
lands by $200,000 this season, and already there is
a visible tendency in the direction of improving un¬
productive lots or selling them to some one who
will. This lowers the price of land and raises the
wages of labor. Furthermore a resolution has
been offered in the City Council to remit all taxes
on factories, shops, fixtures, machinery and stock
in all buildings where any lawful business is car¬
ried on, and taxing only the ground occupied by
by such establishments. If the revolution is ad¬
opted, it will make of Burlington a great commer¬
cial, manufacturing and educational center, If
not, our manufactures will continue to seek loca¬
tions where land is cheaper and taxes more equit¬
able, so as to compete with other establishments.
The Irish of this region are largely in sympathy
with Tax Reform, except a few lawyers or land
speculators. It is difficult enough to increase the
subscription list among them even without hurting
their sensibilities on the politico-economic issues of
the day.
I am preparing a 5 minute address in Irish, and
a translation, for the Irish-American Club meeting
June 9th. The first Irish address ever delivered
in Burlington, but not by any means the last. I
want to make some of our quasi-patriots ashamed
of their lack of zeal for the Olden Tongue.
Yours very truly
James Hagerty.
It seems that our friend Hagerty has not read
our views on the land question expressed ten years
ago. Our views then were, that the government
should own the land, colonize it and advance the
necessary means to poor colonizers — charging such
interest only as would pay clerical expenses, and
placing the colonizers in communities sufficiently
numerous to afford protection to each other and to
carry on trade and general business.
If the land under the cities of New York and
Brooklyn were taxed to-morrow to pay all the ex¬
penses of government, both local and national (as
it should be) how would that benefit manufactures
unless a market were open to purchase them? If
our friend had his shop full of manufactured goods
and no market open in which to dispose of them,
of what use would they be to him? Here is where
the foolishness or fraudulency of the agitators
comes in. An outlet for the produce of labor
must be created or the agitation is a sham. Where
is the outlet? It is in the land. One hundred
million dollars lie idle in the national treasury.
At $500 a family this would place 200,000 families
on farms of land. Raise another hundred million
dollars by the issue of bonds, and 400,000 families
or two million souls, can be relieved of poverty,
and these 400,000 farmers will afford a market for
our surplus manufactures, and will relieve the glut
in the labor market. This is no socialism, no im¬
possibility, but a real practical channel through
which the blessings of independence and home
comforts will flow to the people. Neither the gov¬
ernment nor the individual would lose by this but
all would be gainers. The government would get
back its money in the course of time, and the gen¬
eral public would gain by extending the range of
business.
We repeat, then, that those labor agitators who
do not propose some practical plan are open to our
characterization of them. Our friend must know
that a man may be a fraud without entertaining an
intentional wrong. A man's intentions may be ge¬
uine yet his theories may be fallacious. They are
so if he deal in impossibilities and generate ex¬
pectations which cannot be realized.
One hundred thousand men are idle in the
cities of New York and Brooklyn to-day who are
willing to work but can find none to do, because
