Mr Dillon.

Evening Star, Issue 7141, 19 February 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Mr Dillon.

♦ The ' Pall Mall Gazette' is publishing a series of articles on "The Irish Leaders," from which we quote the following : Mr Dillon everyone knows—Mr Dillon, of whom his colleagues say in almost incredulous admiration" He believes every word that he says." " A fine fellow is Dillon," said my Dublin jarvey; " one of the right sort, he is." Se would take to the pistol as soon as look at you, he would ; and faith there's nothing left but that now." Friends and foes alike admit that among all the motley host that obeys Mr Parnell there marches no .follower more sincere, no patriot more disinterested than John Dillon. He shares with Michael Davitt the reputation of being the idealist of the National party. He has been in gaol—every man worth his salt in Ireland has been in gaol, except Lord Mayor Sullivan—and there is no one who stands a better chance of going to gaol again I than the member for Mayo. If the Government would but make him a firstclass misdemeanant, they might do worse things for the cause of liberty than send him to gaol again; for Mr Dillon is subjecting his frail constitution to a dangerous strain this autumn. Agitating in Ireland is no holiday pastime. To be whirled across the i country from one town to another in a firstclaßs carriage is one thing; to drive ten, fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five miles in the rain outside an Irish car along muddy roads is altogether another thing. It is the latter which falls to the lot of Mr Dillon. Nor is lit only the travelling. It is no easy thins; to I address 5,000 persons in the open air for an hour at a time, and then to spend all the rest of the twenty-four hours not given to sleep in discussing plans of campaign with local committees defending the policy of the League, and making after-dinner speeches ad lib. That, however, is what Mr Dillon has been doing for six weeks past; and if the Government lock him up they may save his life, and they will certainly strengthen his cause. When he stood forward to speak at Woodford, his fine melancholy features hardly showed even a responsive glow as' aj wild, shrill cheer went np from the crowd. He had got a message to deliver, and he delivered it, not with great fire and fervor, but with that quiet, ready earnestness ol his which has occasionally compelled hostile, majorities in the Hou3e of Commons to listen with respect to arguments which they despised and to facts which they ignored. Mr Dillon's speech was not to my thinking a particularly judicious one ; but it should not be forgotten that he was charged with a particularly delicate task. The National League has left Woodford in the lurch at a critical moment. Considerations of policy had led the Central Executive to counsel concession when the local branch had insisted upon fighting. There had been a temporary breach, and Mr Dillon had come to heal it by accepting on the part of the League iv\\ responsibility for Woodford's action, and so to reassert the leadership of the Central Executive oyer its local branch." He had also to promulgate the new plan of campaign subsequently formulatedin 'United Ireland,' and so to proclaim a new land war at the very moment when all were prophesying peace. And, lastly, he had to dissuade, the tenants from buying their holdings under Lord Ashbourne's Act. His speech was closely reasoned, vigorous, and full of points } but it was open to the criticism that it was unnecessarily provocative, and exposed the League to the unjust imputation of being anxious to stir up strife, instead of being, as it really is, a regulating and restraining 'force.