STATE OF IRELAND. To the Editor of the Daily Southern Croos.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3401, 10 June 1868, Page 3

STATE OF IRELAND. To the Editor of the Daily Southern Croos.

g IB _The subjoined extracts from the speech of ,Mr. Maguire in the recent debate on the state of Ireland may interest many of your readers, EDgliph as well MB Irish :—: — ' • |. , . i_ ', i,. „ il "The present? position of affairs in Ireland (said Mr. Maguire) is enough to fill the mind of any commonly thoughtful man with feelings, not ' merely of anxiety, but of foreboding and •l«rni. Ireland presents the aspect of a/country on the eve ot a great struggle.' It is occupied by an army as if it were /a Poland, or aprovincebf European Turkey. ItsMwns juresirongly garrisoned, .its barracks filled to their utmort 11 oap a dfiy, J Aiiaaet^ta«tBbf i^iifaykjite be seen in quarters where the face.pt A Btatuh Soldier had not'beln seen for years before: Then he alludes 'to 'the 13,000 armed' con-, stabulary, who are' 'nothing else ' than soldiery in reality. " Their ' stations are," he con : tinues, "converted into so many village fortresses loopholed, with iron stanchions a>d shutters. In the harbours of Ireland we have, from time to time, a powerful fleet ; gunboats are placed on rivers which never before had been cut by the keel of k man-of-war; and all rdund the cdast were cruisers on the lookout for suspicious craffc. Then there were searchings of houses for arms of any kmd, and beyond all this the; Constitution was, suspended. - Constitutional liberty was so far dead, and individual - inviolability was at an end. Any humble man s 1 liability to arrest depended, on the, whisper^f a spy, ' the suspicion of a feommon policeman-, the-' swearing 'of a perjurer, or the, folly or stupidity of » paid or ! unpaid official. In the midst of all this there was scarcely any ordinary crime in the country. Erery Judge congratulated the jury on'the stateof the ! country, except in reference to the state of things to which he was now alluding. It is curious r to notice that, while the Fenians -are as being a> small, and powerless, and/, contemptible' band of assassins, all thia preparation should be made to put them down."- He, might luive added that at this very time some i of . the! Judges in. (England were deploring the heavy calendars in their, .circuits, some of the crimes being k attended with circumstances of a most painful or revolting kind. ■ In replying to Mr. Maguite, Lord Mayo, the Irish 'Secretary, said', •'•Well, if Ireland be so treated, if she be subjected to (to much tyranny, I must say that in this cisc it is most .unfortunate that the tyrants are the I rish themselves. " Then he goes on to show .that -the chief 'officers of the EDglishGovernment *n Ireland, from the Lord-Lieuteaant and Lord Chancellor downwards to' the humble policemen and private soldiers in the ranks, are mostly Irishmen, and a very great proportion of them Catholics. It appears to me that .there is a fallacy m Lord Mayo's argument. The cbmplaint'is not against the administrators of the law in Ireland, but against the state of the law itsejfj, and those yrho m«de the existing law*, or refuse to alter them so as to do justice to this oppressed people. No country in the ,world could exhibit such an aspect as Ireland now ! does if its people w&e Weated with ordinary juitice. > •,0. ,1 . •••' ' - J ' W -

! Si» David Brents* and PJjoraSsdfl ZWhßA.iv. Stonb.— lt must be, v<?ry interesting to those of our headers who were aware, of the disputes between Sir D.vid »nd Mr. (now Sir Charles) Wheat ? t.me as to, the priority of the'^alm to the mventiop of fod stereoscope, trfkiiow, that they »t last becaipe.recon^ ciled/ A theWetin'gPof the British AsaoMftfaim kj { Dundee. Sir David went up to Mr. Wheatstone »ud BriA-^'"Ydu l afad J rhave had many a dtsagreeable dispute; I hope it is all forgotten.'" Mr/Wheat^tone reciprocaUd-theleeJipg./and the two distinguished meAftUqo^J»»i>4aiMi^kaß of their renewed friendship. -r-JEdiiiburgh Oourant.