MR. J. W. WALSHE IN MELBOURNE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 428, 24 June 1881, Page 7

MR. J. W. WALSHE IN MELBOURNE.

The following is the report given by our contemporary the Advocate of Mr. Walshe's address in reply to the welcome given him at St. Patrick's Hall on the 7th inst. by the committae of the Parnell Land League Defence Fund ' — Mr. Walsbe, who was received with enthusiastic applause, said that he thanked them most sincerely, both for himself and on behalf of the people of their native land, far the kind reception which they had given Mm, and also for the assistance they had rendered the Irish people when the famine was staring them in the face. There were, he believed, hearts beating in Austialia and America which were as true to the cause of Ireland as the very people who were fighting in the great battle which was now going on on Irish soil. When he left Ireland he had no intention of coming to Australia. He only intended to proceed to the Isle of Wight for a month or six weeks, to recruit his health. Some of them had perhaps read, in the Irish papers, that his health had been very bad for some time past. Indeed it was so bad that even the myrmidons of the British law would not remove him to prison, after his arrest in Cork, lest there should be a coronej's inquest on him before the next morning. After leaving Ireland, he went to England and saw Mr. Parnell and others of their co-workers, when it was decided that it was advisable to send someone to Australia to see what was the feeling amongst Irishmen there, with regard to the land agitation in the old country. He was selected for that purpose, and he must say that he was convinced that Irishmen in Australia and their descendants, were as true to the cause of Ireland as their forefathers, who shed their blood for it. As one who had taken an active part in the Land League movement since its inception, he would, perhaps on some other occasion, give them a history of its birth and operations. Its object was to do something short, sharp, and decisive, to remedy the crying evils of the land system in Ireland. That was the work which poor Michael Davitt, who was now in his cold cell in Portland prison, and his only comforts a wooden stool and a plank bed, laid out for himself to perform. He (Mr. Walshe) believed Davitt to b 3 one of the greatest men which the present generation had brought forward. But for his exertions in forming the League thousands of people in Ireland would have died of starvation. If he (Mr. Walshe) lived to return and see Michael Davitt, he would be glad to be able to tell him of the sympathy which existed in Australia for himself and the caHse in which he suffered. He (Mr. Walshe) was not an orator, but he was an humble worker in the cause, and he was always ready, willing, and now, thank God I able to do something for the amelioration of the present wretched condition of Ireland, owing to the disgraceful land laws. It was not his intention to remain very long in Australia ; his duty was to return as soon as he was able and step into the gap caused by those who had been carried away from their ranks. (Applause). If the Irishmen of Victoria who sympathised with the Land League, thought he could be of any service to them, he would be only too happy to do all in his power to aid them. He was prepared to devote all his energies — to fight from barricade to barricade, and rampart to rampart — till every vestige of landlord oppression was wiped out of Ireland. Very few knew the up-hill work which the League had had to perform. At the first meeting at Claremorris, which Michael Davitt and himself had endeavoured to get up, they, with difficulty, got six to attend ; but the small spark which was then lighted had since become a great blaze which spread over the entire laud. There was a solemn crisis in Ireland at the present time. He had expected it, but he was proud of it, and he had every faith that the determination of the Irish people would secure a victorious issue. The question now really was, were the landlords or the people of Ireland to go 1 He said the landlords must. The ppople were now determined, and united, and did not depend upon any man, or body of men, but on themselves. (Applause.) No man respected Mr. Parnell or Mr. Davitt — (a relative of his own) — more than himself, but the question was not now one of Parnellism or Davittism, but the will of a nation. (Applause.) Efforts were made in this colony to make the Land League movement a sectarian one. It was no sectarian movement in Ireland. (Applause.) There Catholics, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and people of all creeds, united for the common good. He recently attended a meeting held in the Rotunda, Dublin, where he saw the Rev. Isaac Nelson, a Presbyterian clergyman, and the Rev. Eugene Sheehy, a Catholic priest, shake hands, and thank God that the day had arrived when a bridge had been erected over the Boyne, and the Irish national standard borne across it. (Applause.) He (Mr. Walshe) had found that in one branch Land League, in Donegal, numbering 2000 members, the president was an Orangeman, and the master of an Orange lodge, the secretary was a Roman Catholic, and the treasurer was a Unitarian. (Applause.) England misgoverned so long as the North kept aloof from the national cause. While the North was neutral, or with her, she seemed not to dread the rest of the country. Her policy had always been " Divide and Conquer." He (Mr. Walshe) knew that that •tate of things had passed away. He had travelled over Ireland from north to south, and from east to west, and everywhere he went men grasped him by the hand and prayed God to prosper the cause in which he was working. The Land League movement was a purely social and national one. It came home to the mechanic in his workshop, the brain-woTker at his desk, the mariner at sea. If the land was not properly secured to the people there could be no mechanics, merchants, or banks. Property was vested in the artisan, backed up by the farmer. He (Mr. Walshe) was no admirer of aristocracy. Aristocracy was correctly and euphoniously defined as " Robbery, jobbery, and snobbery." He was an Irish nationalist first, and a Land Leaguer after. ' Some people thought the League did not go far enough ; "but his reply was, " when the Land League has ceased to be worthy the confidence of an Irish nationalist, let it go I" Although he was not old he had had a good deal of experience of the huge evils of the Irish land laws. His family had suffered severely from landlord oppression. He was obliged to carry his own sister, two nights after her confinement, to a place of shelter, after she had been evicted from her home. ("Shame") Shortly before he left home, he saw a

family of nine lying on the roadside, after having been evicted by Mrs. O'Connor, and who were supported for some time by the Land I eague. He (Mr. Walsbe") had had bitter experience of eviction. He himself, bis father, his uttcle, and his sister had been evicted. His brother was now suffering exilc\ during her Majesty's pleasure. On afnture occasion he would probably go further into the history of the Land League movement and the monster oppression with which it had to enpe. The objects of the Land League were to put an end to rackrenting, to effect a radical change in the Irish land system, to effect organisation amongst the people for self-defence, and refuse to take the farm or purchase the cattle of any person evicted or destrained upon for an impossible rent, and the cultivation of public opinion by means of the press and otherwise. That was a very plain programme. Some said that it did not go half far enough, but he believed that if the thin end of the wedge were got in it would not be very difficult to get in the thick. It was for the Victorian Land League Defence Association to decide whether the programme and operations of the Irish League were worthy the support of Irishmen in this colony. If they thought they were, then he asked them for their moral and material suppwrt to enable the League to pursue its struggle to the end. America had stood well to the League, and he believed that Australia would prove no less true and sympathetic. That evening he had recesved a letter from Mr. Egan, in which he said :— "The people never showed better courage or determination — even better than before the passing of the Coercion Act — and they are acting most loyally to the Land League doctrines. Friends in America are standing well to us. I received, the week before last, £1200 from New York, last week £500 from Boston, yesterday £2000 from Boston, and to-day £1,400 from New York. This is good work. (Applause.) That showed them how their brothers in America were working, and he was sure that they would not be behind America in their substantial sympathy with the cause which they all had at heart. One of the rules of the Land League was the groundwork of the whole structure, and it was that no one should take any farm from which a person had been evicted. At the time he left Ireland there were only three tenant-farmers who violated that rule, and one of those was Cornelius Manning, who was bis (Mr. Walshe's) prosecutor at the Cork assizes. He hoped that it would be shown that there was really an Irish nation still alive, notwithstanding the machinations of " Buckshot Forster," and Castle hacks. He assured them that no efforts which they might make in aid of the Land League would be forgotten by a grateful people. He was sorry that the latest news frem Ireland was dishearteniug — many of the people had been shot by the military or police ; but it was indeed a poor cause that could not afford to lose a score, or even a thousand men. If the people were carried away by dozens or thousands there were just as many > to step into the broken ranks. The Irish people were determined to - have justice, and he hoped the Irishmen of Victoria would give them a helping hand to drive another nail into the coffin of landlord oppression. He asked them r.> be workers. Hitherto there had been too much of sentiment and too little of work in the settlement of Irish affairs, but at the present time the nation, from the hills of Kerry to the Giant's Causeway, was alive and active, and he felt that the issue would be theirs. He warmly thanked the president and all his new-made friends for the kindness they had shown him, and he hoped that when any of them visited the old land they would find in it a contented and prosperous people. (Applause.) Before he concluded he had a message to deliver to the Irish ladies of Australia from Miss Anna Parnell. (Great applause.) She had enjoined on. him not to return to Ireland unless he obtained the hearty and substantial sympathy of the Irish-Australian ladies with the afflicted wives and famished children of the tenant-farmers of Ireland. (Applause.) He sincerely hoped that the ladies of Australia would do all in their power to express their sympathy with their sisters in the old land. Mr. Walshe resumed his seat amidst great applause. Mr. Walshe was unanimously elected a member of the association.