THE REAL, AUTHOR OF THE " PLAN OF CAMPAIGN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1342, 13 April 1887, Page 5

THE REAL, AUTHOR OF THE " PLAN OF CAMPAIGN."

Alttiougli the initial velocity of the "Plan of Campaign" was given to it by the Chicago Convention, still it would be a mistake to imagine the idea is a new one. It is, in fact , a correspondent of the " Times " pointf put, only an olet, suggf *- tiqn. The autfror of Young Ireland admitted! this back' as far as November 27th, and disclosed' the startling fact that Archbishop Croke had been one of the original patentees 1 of the present anti-rent conspiracy. That paper said:— 'Mr Dillon's rent audit at Portumna will be an historic scene. It seems the simplest thing in the world, now that it has been shown that it can be done, that the Irish tenantry, instead of paying fifteen millions of money a year to enable a handful of worthless and heartless idlers to evict, should keep the money, in their own hands to prevent extermination. Yet what a weary age of suffering for the Irish peasantry there elapsed since the days when Archbishop Croke, and John Mitchel, and James Finton Lalor first broached the idea, until last Thursday, when the Clanricarde tenants brought their rent into a common war-chest, and sent the dread estate agent home,, with a heavy heart and empty pockets." , Whatever share Archbiahop Croke had in the original scheme, is impossible to say, but the entire "Pl§n of Qampugn". wr«j published and signed, by James ' Finton Lalor in a paper called the Irish Felon, which was started, when Mitchel was transported, in order to carry out the views of the United Irishmen, which had

been suppressed by the Government. Only three numbers of the Irish Felon were published— June 24th to July Bth, 1884— and in them the entire "Plan of Campaign" is elaborately described. Lalor had been one of a small group of men who had broken away from O'Connell and fovnrrd the Irish Confederation. He fltnirely disbelieved in Repeal as a national cry, and bo wished to substitute for it a atiike again-* rent.