A CHAPTER ON IRISH POLITICS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 5308, 1 October 1885, Page 2

A CHAPTER ON IRISH POLITICS.

Very recently, at a dinner of the Eighty Club, the Right Hon. G. O. Trevelyan, in the course of a speech on the fall of the Ministry and Home politics generally, made the following remarks on the relations between the , Conservatives and the Home Rule party : — There is one part of the' empire in which the fall of the Ministry and the circumstances under which it has fallen will produce results niuch graver than people at present appear to anticipate. No one who witnessed the triumph of Mr Parnell's followers after the division on the Budget, and no one who has studied the National Press before and since that event, can doubt that, in the opinion of the Nationalist party, the game of what has hitherto been known as ' ' law and order" is -up in Ireland. For three years the Nationalists have been working to upset Lord Spencer, and now they have done it. They are an integral and indispensable part of the majority which has turned out the Government, and it is impossible to deprive them of their share of the spoils of victory ; and the more so as what they want are, not places and pensions and titles, but a change in the system of administration. I do not wish to be taken as expressing an opinion on the question whether the Conservatives were justified in accepting the co-operation of the Nationalists ; but I say this, that when the party whose chief pride is that they are the party of order — who in Ireland contain in their ranks almost all the landlords, against whom the party of disorder directs its efforts — whose charge against us has always been that we have not taken sufficiently prompt and stringent measures to enforce order ; when, I say, this party, in conjunction with the Nationalists, turns out of office a Lord-Lieu-tenant who. is furionsly attacked by the Notionalists because he has boldly and faithfully vindicated the law, the consequences will be such as a good many of the people who tossed up their hats when the late Government was beaten will not greatly relish. (Cheers.) Some of those consequences we have upon us already. Mr Parnell has given notice that he is going to move for an inquiry into the conduct of the Irish officials in connexion with the trial of the Maamtrasna murderers. We argued that question for several nights in the House of Commons, and I, am not going to re-argue it now ; but I. repeat what I then said, and what Mr Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt said likewise, that if you grant that inquiry you extinguish all hope of enforcing the law in Ireland. (Cheers.) But Lord Randolph Churchilland Mr Gorst, two of the ablest, and certainly two of the most influential members of the party mow in power, supported the demand for that inquiry last N ovember. Can they withdraw "that sup • port now, when they are sitting on that bench where the votes of the Parnellites have placed them ? (Hear, hear.) And, again, I see that Mr Howorth, an active and energetic member of the Conservative party, » ho was the first to announce that the Crimes Prevention Act was to be abandoned, has now put forward another manifesto. Writing of the Caatle at Dublin, he says, "It appears to the .outside world to be a nest of sinecurists out of sympathy with the Irish people, and most unlikely to make Ireland either happier or more united. Let it go, and let its name be forgotton." Now, I do not intend here to express any opinion as to the changes which I should like to see adopted in Irish administration ; but I do. say that such a manner of speaking of those ; who have worked the system of Irish, administration, under which they were appointed to serve, is indecent and cruelly ungrateful. (Cheers.) Who are the men against whem these insults are directed ? They are the public servants who, under obloquy and calumny, such as non-political officials never before endured, worked harder than public servants have ever worked for five years together to uphold in Ireland the system under which the landlords, nine-tenths of whom belong to Mr How orth's party, are enabled to enjoy" that protection from the law which the citizen has a right to ask. (Cheers.) The chief officer in Dublin Castle, during half of thet most-trying time, was Mr Burke, who ere this would have succumbed to overwork if he had not died beneath the daggers of assassins ; and I do not think that I. am depreciating Mr Burke when I say that in industry, courage, and public spirit he was a worthy, but no more than a worthy, sample of those who were proud

»-*m . :■■-- . \ . , T to serve him..; (Cheers.) On onSjgomp-J---have come to a firm resolution, aSja that is.to be very cautious in critising thoSfcwbo are engaged in the government of Irelaad. In the matter of strong language^ applied to that province of human attaim I have an awful example before me. _ ltt<& present Attorney-General for Ireland is a^ gentleman who never failed to pursue Lord Spencer with every weapon or rhetoric that he could ( draw from^^jMß specially selected to carry' out the stipulations of the Kilmainham Treaty ;" he was "engaged in the base effort to buy off rebellion ;" on his head rested Vpre: eminently, and in the first degree; the blood" of a young man who had been killed when the Orangemen, were attacking some Nationalists whom the police were protecting; And all this invective was called forth by the fact that, ! to use Mr Holmes's own*-! words, Lord Spencer did not' employ " the" power with which the Legislature had intrusted him to stop the Nationalist meetings." And, now, after .having denounced. Lord ! Spencer throughout theiNorth of Ireland ; for not using the pdw_ej£which he possessed under the Crimes Act, Mr -Holmes becomes the chief law officer of a Government which apparently intends to administer Ireland without any Crimes -Act at all. The deduction I'draw from this inconsistency is not one eitherfor or against' theTCrimes ict ;, the fair inference issthat th<s ."other charges which; have been so persistently and clamorously ,; addressed' against Mr Gladstone's Government,, and. to >which, more than any other cause, jits fall is due, will, like this charge, be refuted, 1 and perhaps very soon refuted,^ by-;the laction of their successors. (Cheers;) . . :