THE TRIAL OF MR. DILLON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7841, 10 January 1887, Page 5

THE TRIAL OF MR. DILLON.

[rkdter's telegrams.] London, January 9. At the trial of Mr. John Dillon, which is now proceeding in Dublin, General Sir Redvers Buller, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, gave evidence in support of the charge of conspiracy for which the defendant is being tried. It is inconceivable (remarks • the Times) that honest men, whatever their opinions about Home Rale, can hesitate to condemn the crusade which Mr. Dillon Is carrying on or to throw their sympathy and support upon the side of the Government in this struggle. A cause which requires approval of direct incentives to outrage, to repudiation of just obligations, and to wilful sedition is ipso facto stamped as bad. Mr. Dillon has been aroused to fury, not by the sight of wrongs, but by the subsidence of an artificial j agitation to which he and his friends owe their importance. He is not the mouthpiece of men i spontaneously rebelling against an nnjust law, but the deceiver of men who, left to themselves, are practically admitting the law to be just. Hence, while the Government may be properly required to exhaust the means at their disposal before demanding more, no difference of opinion concerning Home Rule ought for an instant to tempt any self-respecting opponent into countenancing men who, like Mr. Dillon, are not fighting for Home Rule or any other cause capable of honeßt defence, but are trying to vamp up a Home Bale cry to maintain their own bad pre-eminence.