This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
152
AUSTRALIA AND THE EMPIRE

fact that the English and Scotch colonists have surmounted the merely tribal or national instincts, and when the need arises they give freely to any deserving cause. The Irish, on the other hand, despite the "filial piety" which Mr. Smith very properly belauds, are not prone to bestow their charity on non-Irish objects.

I refrain from dwelling on the darker aspects of the Irish character. Mr. Topp, quoting from Hayter's Year-Book, summarises the criminal statistics of Victoria thus: "Out of every thousand Irish-born inhabitants of the colony, 80 were arrested, of Scottish-born, 40; of English and Welsh, 26; and of Victorian natives, 11." And of "43 criminals executed during the fifteen years from 1865 to 1879, 18 were Irish-born, and 22 were Roman Catholics;" an appalling ratio, when we bear in mind that they only number altogether one-fourth of the population. I will close this chapter by giving my reasons for considering the autonomy of Victoria and the other colonies no rule for English statesmen to go by in dealing with Ireland. I regret to find that on this subject of Irish Home Rule, I seem to be in conflict with Major-General Sir Andrew Clarke, another of that distinguished band of Anglo-Irishmen, who