The Crisis in Ireland.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 1241, 8 February 1881, Page 2

The Crisis in Ireland.

The Times* says : — " The gravity of the situation in Ireland increases daily, and no one can be surprised to hear that ttye members of the Cabinet have again beep- called for this; afternoon. "VTc'^r.v-.:- '.'cssoj'i to\.oV\v rust tr.olvziih •*:4'.Ji"..*tr.vv )i<< ; •viMi •ijiv-w". -«. i j r ' - ' *nfl

repeated remonstrances induced his colleagues thus to accelerate their meeting in council. It is not strange that they have assembled earlier than they had. intended with some relbctaiide. Many other Englishmen have hoped against hope that the reports of lawlessness and crime that reached us contained enormous exaggerations. All doubt has died away in the presence of the three charges delivered by Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, Mr. Justice Barry, and Mr. Baron Dowse in Munster and Connaught. The Irish Secretary knows the meaning of these charges. The worst is proved to be substantially true. The charges of these three judges are very serious facts, and yet we know they do not exhaust the story of the lawlessness that i 3 rampant in the west and south of Ireland. While their anthority must carry home to the Ministers of the Crown, as to all of us, every word they aay, there is more they have left unsaid. The sphere of terrorism daily extends to new victims. A lawyer, after pleading in court for a man who has made himself obnoxious to the Land League, is obliged to fly for his life through a crowded market, and escapes maltreatment only by promising never to take in hand again the cause of a man lying under the ban of of the real local Government. There is no relation of life into which molestation does not intrude to the destruction of lawful liberty. No man is free to do the thing he would, be he tradesman or|f armor, professional man or household servant. Is this, in the words of Mr. Baron Dowse, ' to be allowed to continue much longer,' with the growing dangers he points owt as eminent ? Tt seems too plain that the Irish Government has already allowed the reign of lawlessness to assume dimensions it should never have reached. What is- to be done now ? Can the Government be contentto goonas they have been going on after such light has been thrown on the present situation and such warnings have been given of the future by the Jndges of Assizes ? The remedial legislation which might be proposed and carried under better circumstances cannot be presented as a Bribe to purchase peace from highwaymen. Lawlessness is spreading over one border after another, and becomes bolder through impunity. To check it now may be difficult, we may even aay it must be difficult.

Two occurrences, which are significant commentaries on these words, have just j taken place. Mr. Benee Jonea, a well- i known Irish landlord and writer on ! Iriah matters, has published his exper^ "! ience of the process now familiarly known as " Boycotting." He has lived in Ireland forty years, and has spent i during that time £25,000 in improve- I inonts. He farms extensively, and ex- ! pends £1,300 a year in wages — his beat j labourers being paid Us. a week, with agood cottage and a plot of ground rent free. His tenants have now received | orders from the Land League not to pay j their rents, and have been terrorised I into compliance. His labourers and I servants have been warned to leave him : ! ho has been assailed with threatening j letters ; a grave has been dug in front I of his hall-door for himself and his son. j He has been left without hands for his ; farming operations, and has therefore had no alternative but to dispose of his , stock. The batchers of the neighbour- •■ hood have refused to purchase cattle of a man who was under the ban of the Land League. Even the shippers de- i clared that they did not dare undertake j the removal of the cattle to England, i an 4 it is only aftar repeated attempts i that Mr. Bence Jones has succeeded in ( getting some of hi«| beasts, to Liverpool, j His produce is unsold at market, and if lie were not independent of his Irish property he would be in a fair way of being ruined. And all this because he j disobeyed some months ago the man- * dates of the Laud League, and would ■ not accept Griffith's valuation as the j standard of his tenants' rent, the ' tenants themselves being able and willing to pay the full amount.

The second incident alluded to is a i yet more positive and crucial illustration ' of the paralysis of the law in Ireland. I Two mamhera of tha Land League j named Healy and Walsh— have jnst been acquitted on a charge of intimidation because the man whom they intimi- > dated was manifestly afraid to press the I charge. Cornelius Manning had com- ' 'niifcted the offence of taking a vacant i holding. Almost imniediately afterwards I he was forced to give it up, and then: the charge of intimidation against Healy ' and Walsh was preferred. At the pre- .1 liminary enquiry Manning gave evidence | whjch clearly established the accusation, as also did another witness. That witv ness has now contradicted on oath hia previous testimony, Manning has with- i drawn, and conviotion under theae circumstances being impossible, the jury'} returned a verdict of not guilty. It is clear from this transaction that the Land 1 League both possesses and exercises the ' means which enable it to override the j regular law of the country.