THE CORRESPONDENTS OF THE LONDON TABLET.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 429, 1 July 1881, Page 17

THE CORRESPONDENTS OF THE LONDON TABLET.

QTTAM dulce immites Tentos audire cubantem ! Everyone knows how delightful it is to roll the great easy chair to the fire as it sparkles merrily ; and listen \i itb a sense of luxurious security to the spiteful howling of the storm wittioit. The icy rain, the bitter blast, the whirling snow, the keen frost, and worse than all, thf» thaw covering the land with shivering discomfort, enable us at the present moment to enter with a keener zest into the cosy wellfed sentiments which which English Catholics justify the evictions of the starving Irish. I There were 250 evictions in the month of March alone — two hundred and fifty families rendered homeless ! About a week afterwards, the two letters with which I am dealing, appeared. Indeed it was time. Else, inconsiderate people might fancy these landlords were brutes ; whereas it appears they were acting in the purest spirit of Engli&b-Catholic theology, and are completely justified by the Bible. I now come to Mr. C. Raleigh Chichester. I find it impossible to read his letter without calling him up before me in imagination. He is " fat, fair, and forty " (or more). Two triangular islands of sandy whisker descend to the corner of his mouth, and stop there, leaving his chin free to perform its important functions. He resembles the " Patriarch " in " Little Dorrit" in being bald as well as in other peculiarities. His face beams with a pleasant, unctious, «er-dinner look, as he softly wipes his mouth with his napkin. I ■*« tried to see him without that napkin, but in vain. I can't get without it. It is the sceptre with which he rules any unfortunate tenants he may have. It is the magic rod with which he diffuses his wisdom for the good of his fellow-creatures. I have a suspicion that he lays it across that active chin when he composes himself to sleep. Mr. C. Raleigh Chichester is an author. For it appears from an advertisement in the Tablet that he has published a pamphlet on the Land Question of Ireland, " The interests of the State considered." (Aye 1 catch him considering the interests of the people .') He is also an ex-Lieut.- Colonel. This is as it should be : so sleek a man would be completely out of place amid the toils of war. The only j sort of war which I could conceive him waging with any degree of comfort to kimself would be a war against poor tenants without any defence except their misery. "C. Raleigh Chichester, LieutenantColonel Crowbar Brigade." How well that would read 1 I see him heading his men to an engagement. The great Napoleon had a travelling carriage ; so has this other great man. The sleet is descending, the bitter blast is blowing, and it is very uncomfortable — outside. But this small Napoleon braves the weather for " the interests of the State." He has read that the great Napoleon used to carry a cold roast chicken with him, and he imitates that great- man. Nay, he outdoes him. With a bottle of rich sherry wine and a little cold pastry, he is prepared tor any emergency. Napkin in hand, he beams on liis men through the carefully-closed windows ; and his look of good cheer encourages them in their task. The whole scene is enacted. The mouldy straw, alive with vermin ; the bed-covering, loathsome beyond all imagining, yet a refuge ; where beings so sunk in misery used to forget their wretchedness for a few hours each night, is brought out before the victims' eyes and set down in the wet. We all know that an Englishman's home is his castle : — there is no such thing as an Irishman's castle. The little children are dragged out, and perhaps " clouted " for trying to steal back out of the icy air. The valiant brigadesmenf "can't stop here in the cold all day. and are not going to stand that nonsense, you know." The poor children stand shivering and mingling their tears with the rain. The young babe at one end, the aged man at the other end of a miserable life, and those who are painfully toiling through the dreary morass that lies between are driven out. There is the stupefied despair of brokenhearted men ; there is a wild falling of agonised women on their knees in the mvd — aye in the dung-heap. God, help them ! They don't mind. Theirs is the " lowest deep in which there seems no lower deep." There are piercing cries for pity, and perhaps hot curses mounting high above the din of battle to the throne of God 1 A few strokes of the crowbar destroy the walls of clay. There is a slight crash, and all is over. The rain will soon convert the " house" into a mass of mud. The gallant Colonel can advance now to take the next position of the enemy. And the wretched creatures whose home has been destroyed ?—? — Death, my friend I They are actually wasting with hunger and disease above the earth. They will soon be rotting peacefully below ! Meantime the gallant Colonel pursues his splendid career of victory. It is a little awkward that that old man Kavanagh should havrf'iied of grief and fright just as they brought him out. He must havj oeen a very perverse being. It almost looks as if he did it on purpose. Indeed the gallant Colonel, as he soothes his agitated feelings with another glass of sherry, half suspects he did. " Why it is flying in the face of Providence. All through the Bible God sanctions eviction. All these people have to do is to go 10,000 miles, &c" But I have done enough to introduce " Mr. C. Raleigh Chichester, Lieut.-Col. Crowbar Brigade." It is time to let him speak for himself. Cardinal Manning having foolishly ventured to say something in defence of the most wronged and miserable people on the face of the earth ; the Colonel very properly sets him right. As a great many other inconsiderate persons have held the same untenable sentiments as the cardinal, I enclose their words in brackets after his, in order that the gallant colonel may have the opportunity of setting them right too. THE IRISH LAND QUESTION. / " There is a natural and divine law, anterior and superior to all human and civil law, by which every person has a right to live of the fruits of the soil on which they are born, and in which they are buried." — Letter to Earl Grey by H. E. Cardinal Manning.

[" Thou shalt eat the labors of thy hands." — Paalm 127, 2. " Plant orchards and eat the fruit of them." — Jerem. 29, 5. " Let him who guards the fig tree eat of its fruit." — Piov. 27, 18. " I have brought you into the land of Carmel to eat the fruit thereof." — Jerem. 2, 7. " I will multiply the fruit oP the tree and the increase of the field, that yon bear no more the reproach of famine among the nations." — Ezeck. 36, 30. " He that plougheth should plough in hope, and he that thrasheth in hope to receive fruit.'" — I Cor. 9, 10. '• The husbandman that laboureth must first partake of the fruits." —11. Tim. 2, 6. " Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadcth out the corn.— Deut. 25, 4 ; I. Cor. 2, 9 ; I. Tim. 5, 18.] On a changi tout cela. Mr. C. Raleigh Chichester and his coadjutor prefer as their motto the words of the pagan poet, " Sio vos non vobis." The tenant is to build the house and plough and plant ; and the landlord is to take all and turn him out. Forty years ago we were more than 8,000,000. 3,000,000 are gone 10,000 miles,| and the proper thing for those who remain would be to go 10,000 miles also. By the way, would it do if the travellers went ? But I really must not keep Mr. C. Raleigh Chichester, Lieut.-Col. Crowbar Brigade, waiting any longer. TO THE EDITOR OP THE Tablet. Sir, — The above extract has beeu placed under my eyes by an honoured correspondent, who disapproves of the principles I support and dislikes the tone which I have adopted. The proposition it embodies is, if true, of the utmost importance; its study is opportune, and I crave a truce from those with whom I have been tilting, so that I may, without seeming want of courtesy, abandon them for che readier and more speedy examination of it in your columns. In examining it apart from the context, which may, probably dops, limit, explain, or illustrate it, I expose myself to the danger of doing his Eminence an injustice, but the proposition as it stands, resting on the mere literal rendering of the words, is largely accepted. I am thus, perhaps, justified in taking it simply as it stands. To begin almost at the beginning ; the chequered history of man, and I say it with all reverence, may be said to open with an eviction scene. An eviction which, whether we consider the brilliancy of the brief past, the absolute gloom and almost hopelessness of the future, the inexperience and absolute poverty of the immediate sufferers, the awEul and abiding consequences which were, and are still, to follow, till lost in the depths of an inconceivable eternity, possesses tragic and dramatic elements, which the mind of man fails to realise. There follows close, the flight and vagabondage of Cain ; the flooding of the inhabited earth ; after which the appeased Deity gives to Nbe, the blessing and command, made more emphatic by its repetition, •' Increase and multiply, and fill the JZarth ;" and we read in language magnificent in its brevity, that " the Earth was of one tongue, and the same speech." A few verses lower down, we find that " the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands" Later on, the land was not able to bear Abram and Lot, " that they might dwell together," and Abram said to Lot, " If thou wilt go to the left hand, I will take the right." Agar flies into the desert, from the face of her mistress, and it is prohesied of the son that she was to bring forth, that "he shall pitch his tents over against all his brethren," and the son of the bondwoman became a great nation, because he was of the seed of Abram. The Israelites spend forty years wandering in the desert. Ten tribes out of twelve go no one knows where, and in the final ruin the once chosen, now cast-off people, are scattered over the face of the earth. It must be conceded that, if the unexplained, bare proposition with which I preface my letter is of divine origin, the divine Author refused to allow it any binding force as against Himself. It is very remarkable that, whether in anger to Cain, or to the builders of Babel, iv blessing to Noe, in compassion to the son of Agar, the precept is practically the same — Go forth ! Let us now close our eyes to these grand scenes, and apply the principle under discussion to our own narrow circumstances. Shall we begin with its application to the nation 1 to the tribe ? or to the family ? Is the appplication to be personal or collective ? Take a family (one of others immediately surrounding) which possesses as leasehold or freehold (it matters not which for my purpose) some fifty acres. The farm suffices for the family ; each member of it, if he or she desire no more, may " live of its fruits," and be buried within its ambit. Put men and women desire more than this. The natural end of animal life is the repetition of itself. The neighbours may provide wives and husbands ; they in their turn require wives and husbands ; and the result is that five or six families look to the same area for that support which it before found for one. What is to happen ? There is a crowding, a comparative failure of food, and of other requirements of life. If these inconveniences are submit t> d to for one generation, in the next there sets in the straggle for the surviv.il of the fittest : the difficulties we hare to contend with in Mayo become universal, and starvation, if not established as a permanent institution, is at least of periodic recurrence. But you will s<iy there is plenty of land elsewhere ; millions of rechimable land which would rear industrious families in comfort ; fat pastures in Meath uml elsswhere, now silent except for the lowing of the cattle and the bleat of the sheep, which might be better

used for man ; it is clear that some of the people must migrate, and if they must needs multiply, let them at least carry out the remainder of the divine command, and " fill the earth." But if they do this, they will have ceased to " live of the fruits of the soil on which they were born," their place of burial will be elsewhere. If they are to move one mile, why not 10 ? why not 100? why not 10,000 ? The principle, if true now, was true 100 years ago, and at that time fifty miles was in point of time, money, and facility of bringing it, a wider <spaot> than 5000 miles is now. If people must migrate, the principle I discuss notwithstanding, why should they not emigrate ? Seas were made for the service of man, not to fetter him. If the principle be true, it follows that it not only enshrines a sacred right, but that men will bo benefited by availing themselves of it, for all our rights are blessings. Tnat being so, as the amount of the soil is limited absolutely, and the increase of the human species only relatively so, the English people would, from a mere feeliiig of self-preservation, find themselves compelled to exclude from their shores those Irish labourers|| whose sole means of support is tbe selling of their labour in the English market, lest these intruders should seek to remain, and deprive them of their own right to " live of the fruits of the soil on which they were born, and to be buried in it." Similarly, for the preservation of these rights, there would be Home Rule and a standing army in each palish. It may be objected to me. that all this is special pleading ; it appears to me that the proposition I am examining is a " special plea," and as such must be dealt with. In my next I will examine the personal application a little further, and will endeavour to show how it would involve us in very heavy financial loss.— Yours obediently, C. Raleigh Chichester. 30, Lower Mount street, Dublin, April 12, 1881. Now, my oily man, if I had my will of you, I would put you into one of those wretched hovels you are going to throw down — and I would not let Colonel Gordon give you £1000 either. I would keep you there till all the unction bad been completely smoked out of you. Then, when you had come down to the level of those poor wretches you would so lightly send " 10.000 miles," and would be glad in your misery of even such a shelter as that. I would evict jou, and as you sat shivering disconsolately in a muddy ditch, I would bring you your own letter to console you, and to afford you the exquisite satisfaction of applying your own remedies to your own vi retchedness. Away, you men of straw ; you bate served your purpose, you have showed which way the tide sets. I let you float. And what of tbe journal which admits such anti-Irish letters. It is an acknowledged principle in journalism that no paper is to be held responsible for the opinions of its correspondents. But it is manifest that correspondents will write rather to one that holds their views than to one that does not. Would these men have written to the London Tablet if it held, the same views on the land question that the Irish people does ? And if they had written to a paper friendly to the cause of Ireland, say, for instance, the Irish Nation, would the editor have made no allusion, expressed no disapproval ? But, indeed, the attitude of the London Tablet is unmistakable. Being Catholic, it would wish to see Protestant ascendency destroyed ; being English it would endure our woes till the " crack of doom " rather than allow the English ascendency to be shaken. Two facts will place the animus of the London Tablet in its true colours before our eyes. Some months ago a meeting of 100,000 persons assembled in Hyde Park to express their sympathy with Ireland. AH the f i iendly papers appealed to this demonstration as a sign of encouragement. The Tablet dismissed it with a cold declaration that it had no significance. Some years ago, Dion Boucicault made an appeal on behalf of the poor Fenian prisoners. These men, he argued, had failed where Washington had succeeded. In tbe persons of his heroes, he had put them on the stage in order to ascertain the sentiments, not of the English Government, but of the Engiish People ; and he was answered by generous and universal applause. The papers friendly to Ireland all saw here a good argument. Not so the London Tablet. It hastened to reply that tbe English people would have applauded Jack Sheppard just as readily !§ For upwards of ten years men had been enduring those agonies which have driven so many out of their senses, and so many into their graves. Like poor Michael Davitt — (God save Michael Davitt 1) — they bad been associated with the most loathsome of the human race, morally and physically. For upwards of ten years they had undergone tbe loss of liberty, the cold, the hanger, the •' strippinps ;" all the refinements of British brutality, if there can be anything refined in anything so brutal. And whenever co faint a faint hope began to glimmer, the London Tablet, true to its principles, piomptJy stepped forward to extinguish it with as much seal for the '• State "' as ill. Chichester ; and as much anti- Irish English Catholic theology as his Coadjutor. I believe this paper is boycotted throughout Ireland. I hope sincerely it is. Editors of Irish journals, and others whose duty it is to acquaint themselves with what our enemies say, and answer them, should of course get it ; but all others should follow the example of the Archbishop of Cashel.