Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 2, 4 May 1883, Page 1

Current Topics

AT BOMS AND ABROAD.

Now that we have at last received a full report of mb. pobstbs's Mr. Parnell's speech in reply to Mr. Forster, and* consistency, which will be found in another place, we are con-

firmed in our opinion that even the most fervid condemnation of the outrages he could have made would have fallen flat and cold on the ears of prejudiced England. The speech is as powerful and effective as the manner in which it was delivered was dignified, and full of a wonderful self-command under the strongest provocation — Mr. Forster even having so far forgotten himself as to mimic the tones of some of the Irish speakers. But yet we know how the speech was received, and treated, and in the very same way would any utterance on the part of the speaker have been treated — with a bullying shout, whose loudness would have given it all its value. And not only did Mr. Parnell completely refute Mr. Forster's charges, Mr. Justin M'Carthy also made a reply, and, with a chapter of contemporary history, turned the tables on the maligner, and showed him to be, at least, in appearance, what even in appearance Mr. Parnell was not— a sympathiser and patron of assassins and men of violence. He recalled to the memory of the House how in 1861 Mr. Forster had defended Mazzini, the advocate of assassination, and an accomplice in it more than once : " But on that occasion," said Mr. M'Carthy, " the right hon. member for Bradford stood up for Mb friend (the member for Halifax), and what did he say in reference to Mazzini, from whose letter called 'The Theory of the Dagger' a number of extracts were read in the hearing of the right hon. gentleman. The right hon. gentleman rose in his place and said,' ' The hon. and learned gentleman has brought a charge against an absent man, Signor Mazzini, who, whatever, his faults, is a man of high character.' Whatever his faults— what though he did bless the knife of one man and the dagger of the other, and a system of guerilla warfare which removed Count Rossi — yet, whatever bis faults, he was a man of high character. The Present Prime Minister did not agree with the right hon. gentleman in his estimate of Mazzini, for he said that ' these satellites of Mazzini make common cause with assassins.' Four days afterwards, when the question was raised again, the right hon. gentleman said, ' I should not be ashamed of being the friend of Mazzini ; I am not ashamed of being his acquaintance.' " Mr. M'Carthy, nevetheless, did not accuse Mr. Forster of sympathising through Mazzini with assassination ; he recalled the incident only to remind him that he owed the same indulgence towards others which he had himself expected to receive. There were other occurrences also which Mr. M'Carthy called to mind, and which abundantly showed that Mr. Forster and his friends were by no means the men to lay to the account of any leader of a party deeds of violence committed by even members of that party — still less, by wild men striking out for themselves a path abhorrent from all the plans [of the party. But Mr. M'Carthy's convincing argument produced no better an effect than Mr. Parnell's powerful reply, it also fell upon the ears of men who had prejudged the cause, and who were not to be convinced by anything that could be said to them. Mr. Parnell, with the knowledge that it must be so, was fully justified in declaring that it was the good opinion of Ireland only he sought, and he would have stultified himself if, knowing the disposition in question, he had made a display of feeling. — And, indeed, who but an insincere man and a trained actor could have stood forth and made such a display in presence of all the coldly critical pnd immovable world assembled expressly to hear and condemn him 1

THREK LETTERS.

motives were discerned, and their arguments valued at their proper worth, by men not carried away altogether by their prejudices. — And, indeed, the arguments of the newspapers, particularly, appear -to us shallow and even childish to a degree, and, judged by them, the cause they were written to support seems but a

poor one. We find, then, three letters especially, written by Englishmen in the London papers, and which are most significant. — Mr. T. Thornton Hoskins, for example, writing from the Reform Club to the Echo, asserts that there are immense numbers of Englishmen who cordially share the views of that paper as to the " shocking manner in which Ireland is misgoverned by an assemblage of what Irishmen consider alien and repulsive foreigners," and he predicts that there will never be peace in Ireland until a legislative counoil, vested with power over all but strictly Imperial concerns, is established there. Another of this gentleman's conclusions would, we have no doubt, be agreeable, for instance, to the tastes of that veteran legislator, the O'Gonnan Mahon, but Mr, Porster, in whose favour the writer more particularly arrives at it would hardly find it in accordance with his principles, and we are convinced that under no circumstances could an aggrieved opponent ever have had-a slap of the kind at him. — It is that it would be desirable to renew the practice of duelling so that parliamentary libellers might meet with their deserts. The practice, adds the correspondent, is " in itself susceptible of careful regulation, and under certain conditicns morally and religiously defensible." — "We have ourselves, however, no desire to see Mr. Parnell returning to his coffee after having left " Old Buckshot " kicking on the sward — we hope, in fact, the venerable gentleman may survive to witness a state of things that will be a more severe punishment for him than even a charge about his skin of his own remedy would be — that is, Mr. Parnell treated by England herself as the great man he most undoubtedly is, and which it only needs the complete success that he is now hastening towards to make apparent even to his worst enemy. A second letter is that addressed by Mr. E. 8. Beesly toth&PaU Mai Gazette, and in which the writer approves of Mr. Parnell's parliamentary proceedings, and, while himself advocating the dissolution of the Union, vindicates his irreconcilable attitude, and that to which he has stimulated his fellow-countrymen, as the most effective means of bringing round Englishmen to see that the Union had better, be rescinded in the interest of both islands. To Mr. Parnell's character the writer testifies as follows : — " I for one hold that he is an honourable and patriotic man, who has rendered to his country more solid and more splendid services than any Irishman before him. I | believe him to be worthy of the trust and devotion that Ireland* so I heartily gives him. She was long the sport of knaves masquerading as patriots. It is to her eternal honour that she did not sink into a cynical disbelief in the possibility of public virtue, but knew and accepted an honest leader when he stood forward." His conclusion is, that the gratification arising from an exhibition of rabid hatred by Mr. Parnell's enemies is dearly purchased at the increase of hia popularity among the Irish people. The most important of the three letters, however, is that which appeared in the Daily News, not only because it bears the well known signature of Mr. Boyd Kinnear, but also from its contents. The writer very tellingly criticises the wisdom of Mr. Forster's Coercion Act, under which, he says, the Chief Secretary, with power to imprison for two years anyone suspected by his police, was himself six times signalled in the streets of Dublin by men whose purpose was to murder him, and not one of whom was suspected by the police. The conspiracy of murder, he adds, was actually the fruit of the Coercion Act, it not having come into being until Mr. Parnell and Mr. Billon had been arrested. " Can more striking proof be conceived " he asks, " that unconstitutional and arbitrary government is not a resource o civilisation — that, on the contrary, it is a weapon of barbarism, and creates the savagery it professes to curb ? " His conclusion is excessively pregnant and forcible ; it is as follows :— " If there is one thing more than another through the dismal story it is that it was the application of the Act to purposes of repression of fair criticism that led to the conspiracy which culminated in the Phoenix Park murders of Mr. Forster's subordinate and his successor. There is one thing that ought to be said, though it is hard to say without being misunderstood. Detestable as was the deed, infinite as our grief, heightened, if it were possible, by the knowledge now gained that one of the victims fell because he would not save his life by abandoning the other, and by the words of divine forgiveness that seem to come to ns from his grave by the lips of one who alone is entitled to forgive, let us for Otir own sakes not forget that these fell assassins were moved by no vulgar or selfish purpose. Their act could bring them no reward, it

But it would appear that Mr. Forster, and the Press that supported him, went too far in their arraignment of Mr. Parnell, so that even in England their

never could be avowed, it was urged by no personal revenge. The motive, in their miserably perverted intelligence, was the hope to do some good to their country. Alas the country where minds may be to warped to deeds of cowardly cruelty 1 But let the lesson be to us to change that manner of government which turns men to wild beasts ; to give those real institutions of free government which in other countries we can see clearly enough are the sole remedy against conspiracy and assassination ; to admit the Irish people, unstained by the crime of a few individuals, to those powers of self-government which shall range the whole population on the side of Government.' Mr. Forster's victory, then, which has led to such an imbecile, and childish cry of triumph in the anti-Irish Press— but which has been correctly seen through by the eyes of unprejudiced Englishmen, and has produced, especially, so plain and powerful a statement of the truth as that of Mr. Boyd Einnear, may be reckoned at best with that of the conqueror of old who cried, " One more such victory and lam undone." — And yet hardly even that, for, after all, that- was a real victory, though a destructive one, while Mr. Forster's palm might have been stitched up by the most paltry manufacturer of Artificial flowers that ever lived.

The London correspondent of the Dublin Daily MB.TBEVELYAN's.Ecpfm gives as a specimen of Radical manners, PET but by no means the worst specimen, the conduct assistant, of an English Radical member who, when showing

some friends around the House of Commons the other night, exclaimed, so as to attract general attention, at seeing Mr. Forster and Mr. Trevelyan within a short distance of each other in the lobby, " That is Old Buckshot, and the other is Young Buckshot." But whatever may be the aspect of the Radical member's condnct from a mannerly point of view, there is little donbt that such as Mr. Forster was during his hour in Ireland such has Mr. Trevelyan rapidly become. The heartlessness of the office he holds— twice cursed in the injury it inflicts on him who fills it and on those over whom he is set, has gained ground in his case also, and has left him the ruthless minister of a cruel system, and the pitiless oppressor of the poor and miserable. An extract or two from a speech made by him the other day will, however, be enough to prove how gentle is the man to whose hands the famine-stricken people of Ireland are now looking for aid.— But if they look there for bread they shall have a stone, and a snake will be given them instead of a fish. Mr. Trevelyan, then, finds that the workhouse test is that by which the poverty of the people, or more properly the degree of starvation they are able to submit to, may. best be tried. He brings forward the figures of 1849, when the number of people receiving outdoor relief was 784,000, a number that was reduced to 12,000 in a few months, when the outdoor relief given was stopped, and the people were forced to go into the poor-house. That, however, by no means proved that the outdoor relief was not still needed, and sorely needed, but it showed the willingness of the people to brave death itself rather than bear the horrors of the workhouse, a place where their humanity was outraged and the life that was prolonged to them was dearly purchased at the sacrifice of all that made life worth living.— Have we not ourselves seen the misery that was borne rather than that those condemned to it would kave recourse to the workhouse, and have we not heard the true descriptions given of that institution by those who had been driven to take refuge there ? But for those who have never had the means of learning what it was, and is, there is the description given, without a word of pity, or without a feeling of anything but hatred towards the poor, by the brutal Carlyle of what he saw at Westport, and it should be sufficient to tell any intelligent man what is the nature of the indoor relief that the Government provides for the Irish poor. As for those of us who have heard of the place in question from the poor themselves, and witnessed the shrinking agony with which they were forced to approach its doors, we cannot even think of it, after many years, without indignation and a burning heart. But " Young Buckshot's " cheerful test, by which he measures the degree of famine the Irish people can Buffer and still live, is the following : "In 1847, when the people began to feel the pinch of starvation, they went most readily to the workhouse. They were begining to do so in 1879, and would do so now if they were not advised to do otherwise." The " pinch of starration " is well availed of, and admirably serves as the hell-hound by which this official and his Government drive the poor into subjection to their will. Why,;hardly the famous custodian who turned the key in the door of the Tower of Hunger itself could have surpassed in Stoicism the man who made such an utterance unmoved. But is it not a sacred duty that every Irishman, we had almost said every Christian man, owes to humanity to labour with all his might to free the people from this ancient bondage that shows no signs of relaxing the cruelty of its spirit? And as to what the " pinch of starvation " is, that the people will bear we find an instance at hand, and it also gives us an illustration of what the refuge is that the Government provides. A woman, then, at CloW Jrilty, named Keohane, had clung to her cabin, notwithstanding the

pinch of starvation which had for some time held her and her family in its tightest grip. But still, she said that if she went to the Union, and gave up her little cabin, she could not get it back again, and even this miserable being, it seems, dared, although contrary to the behests of British law in Ireland, to cling to the thoughts of home and its associations, wretched as they were. — Is there not some error in the creation that has not provided for the loss of human feelings when the being becomes too poverty-stricken to be able to support them properly ? — or, at least, British, law in Ireland seems based' on some such doctrine as this. When this poor woman, however, gave birth to a child as Bhe lay without food or raiment on such a bed as we may imagine, if our imaginations have been sufficiently schooled in the surroundings of the wretched, and in addition the flood came into her hut, she was removed to the workhouse hospital. — And how was she treated there ? Well, she was driven by " the pinch of starvation" — Mr. Trevelyan's favourite hell-hound, wherewith he would discipline the poor, to her death. She went to the workhouse on Thursday, and on Tuesday she was dead of neglect, — neglected in soul as well as in body, for they could not even find a messenger to bring the priest to give her the comforts of her religion, as she went out of the life in which she had been so hardly used. When Radical members, then, or any others, point to Mr. Forster and Mr. Trevelyan, they may in future distinguish the younger man as he who, to the buckshot and coercion of the elder, has added the " pinch of starvation " as the means of subduing the people, and making them law-abiding, and the faithful, loving subjects of British rule in Ireland.

Among the signs of the times which it is agreeable to mark, and as indicating that, however violent has been the denunciation of the leaders of the Irish League, their steadfastness and perseverance in the face of all obstacles are beginning to tell on the mind of England, we hail the following paragraph, which we clip from the London correspondence of our contemporary the Otago Daily Tvmes : " So inviting is the opening for a general and spirited assault on Parnell that few persons care to consider whether or not the attitude of the Home Rule leader is consistent with the political theories he and his party have all along avowed. They ask — Why does he not denounce Irish crime ? Why has he taken advantage of it ? One reason, at least, may be given. The persons who call upon him to denounce Irish disorders are those who believe that these disorders proceed from the incorrigible depravity of the Irish character. If Parnell joined in with them, that would be taken to mean that he accepted their view without reservation. He will not risk such a misconstruction. He is the exponent of a party who believe — unreasonably perhaps, but quite naturally— that the Irish are not worse than other people, but worse governed. His attitude does not necessarily imply sympathy with crime. He might deplore Irish outrages as an effect of English rule, but nobody would listen to the qualification. What can he do under these circumstances but let the outrages point his moral and fulfil his prophecy ? In that sense he has taken advantage of them, It is not Irishmen only who assign-a deeper cause to Irish atrocities than a wanton habit of dirking. More than a century ago, Junius summed up thus the Irish question of his day : ' The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and oppressed. In return they give you eve~ry day fresh marks of their resentment.' That occurs in his letter to the King. A modern writer on politics lays it down as a general principle, applicable to all times and countries, that the imposition of laws on a people who are averse to them, or unprepared for them, results in an enduring opposition between the people and the Government, which is incompatible with all political and social progress, and constantly threatens revolutions and spasmodic changes in the personality of the rulers. The papers of yesterday contain a long letter from Captain O'Shea in defence of Parnell. It comes like a still small voice after the hurricane of abuse to which that much-enduring man has been subjected."

Another sign of the times, and a very notable one, was the motion by Lord Lansdowne, in the House of. Lords on March sth, fora Royal Commission, to report as to the most effective means of forming by purchase a peasant proprietory in Ireland, which his Lordship declared to be necessary for the interests of landlords, as well as for those of the State. The present facilities, he said, .were not sufficient to bring about such a condition of things, and it would therefore be desirable to increase them. Relief by emigration, he added, would be a slow process, and, with a view to the amelioration of the peasantry, and amendments in local government soon to be made, it would be well to establish a large body of men cultivating their own freeholds. He also added, and in this we no doubt find the true motive of his proposal, that the lecent legislation had so depreciated the value of land in Ireland that no one would lend money on it, and no one but Irish tenants would buy it. — Had his Lordship only said further, that, now their power of exacting rackrents had been, taken from Irish landlords, their chief interest in their property was lost to them, he would have exposed his whole t mind on the subject. — But is it not a remarkable thing to find this nobleman whose,' or whose

father's, dealings with his Irish tenantry have acquired for his house the right to quarter in their coat-of-arms a skeleton on a field of blood, condemning emigration with which his name must ever be most cruelly associated, for the mortality among the exiles of the Lansdowne estates will never be forgotten in America 7 It is, indeed» a most encouraging token to find one of the most extensive amongst the absentee proprietors of Ireland calling out", that his investment »o longer pays him, and that he is a-xioua for the privilege of being allowed to lemove his capital elsewhere. Our Irish absentees were, in fact, usurers of the coarsest kind, and all their attraction to the country they so long cursed, was that they were able to exact their murderous percentage. Now that that power has been wrested from them, they are anxious to make the best terms they can for themselves, and begone, and verily the country may wish them God-speed, although to do so will give proof that there exists there no Bmall degree of Christian charity. Nevertheless, Lord Lansdowne and the other lords, of whom there were several; were informed by Lord Carlingford that they must curb their impatience until the effect of the Bright clauses of the Land Act had been fully tried. Let us hope, meantime, as the times seem hopeful, that an Irish Parliament may legislate on this matter to the full satisfaction of both landlord and tenant.

The state of affairs on the Congo seems to grow in complication, not only France and Belgium are represented there respectively, and perhaps somewhat hostilely by Messrs Stanley and De Brazza, but England, Portugal and Italy are also reported to have shown some disposition to have a voice in the matter. Mr Stanley, attended by a company «f Protestant missionaries who, let us hope, will flourish and make a profitable settlement under the protection of this doughty champion, is at Stanley Pool, where two steamers divided into pieces for the sake of convenient carriage, are being brought on men's shoulders up the precipitous country on the river's lower course, and by means of which, no doubt, the explorer will be able to defy the vengeance of ther hereditary boatmen of the stream excited against him by his short method of dealing with them on his first visit. M. de Brazza, who is no friend to missionaries of any kind, let us add, is, meantime, advancing also towards the river, and also possessed of a vessel, intended for its navigation, — having, moreover, for his escort two detachments of tirailleurs, and a personal staff of 20 gentlemen —of whom one is the son of the famous M. Bochefort. But between the rival leaders and the sea, there intervenes the power of Portugal whose claim to the control of the mouth of the river, dating from time immemorial, England is said to have now recognized. — And a com. mercial expedition from Italy is, at the same time, said to be approaching. It is of some interest, then, to speculate as to what the issue of all this may be, and as to how the native races are to be introduced to European civilisation — not altogether impossibly as the spectators and auxiliaries, on one side or the other, of the contending forces of enlightment, — of Protestant Christianity, championed by. Mr. Stanley, and Freethought principles defended by M. de Brazza. Portugal, however, may perhaps secure a footing in the territory protected by her for Catholic missionaries, of whom, no doubt, there is sore need, but whose mission will be made more difficult than ever.

A TBiAi/ which excited a good deal of interest terminated the other day in London by the defendants' being found guilty. We allude to that of Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp, indicted for publishing a blasphemous libel in the Christmas number of the Freethvnker, and which had been published, as the paper itself said subsequently, " in order to cause a stir and carry our ideas far and wide." The Judge, in summing up the case, said that the legal meaning of blasphemy was any " contumelious reproach or profane scoffing against the Christian religion or the Holy Scriptures, and any act exposing the Holy Scriptures and the Christian religion to ridicule, contempt, or derision," and he denied that there was, in any .of the works of eminent writeis referred to by the counsel for the defence, anything which could approach to the illustrations contained in the Freethinker* But apart from all considerations of irreverence, or of the insult offered to holy things by such publications as that referred to, it strikes us as very necessary to prohibit the obtrusive issue of literature calculated to offend the feelings of Christian people, or such as may furnish to the ill-disposed a ready weapon of attack upon them. To defend the Christian religion altogether from being attacked is what nobody would now think of doing. In a state of society where all were united Christians, it would be possible and legitimate, we hold, to do thiß, and we believe it would be done with usefulness, not only to save from perversion the faith of the young and weak, but to preserve from disturbance the established form of things ; but where disunion exists among Christians and all forms of religion are tolerated, it would be absurd and unjust to make any attempt of the kind. — Even a breach of the letter of the law on the part of such writers as Shelley, or Mill, or Spencer, or any of those mentioned in he list brought forward, could not without folly and inconsistency

be made the grounds of legal action. This, however, is a different thing from the issuing of a publication for the express purpose of making religion ridiculous and contemptible among the mob, and to gain proselytes, perhaps at the expense of causing divisions among families, and certainly at the risk of doing so, and being the means of annoyance and suffering in many forms. It is, undoubtedly, necessary to protect freedom of opinion, but the protection to be rational must be impartial, and the Christian sentiment of the day. may claim a share of consideration as well as that which is son* Christian.— We hold, then, that obtrusive blasphemy being an offence against good manners and decency, and the rights and feelings of of the Christian public, is very justly punished. A feature, however, in connection with this trial, of no little significance, was the fact that the court and its precincts were filled with a crowd who sympathised warmly with the accused, and who reproached the Judge on his passing the sentence of 12 months' imprisonment on Foote with cries of " Christian, Christian."--The title " Christian," then begins to become one of reproach in England as that of Bondteif sard is in Paris, and " so runs the world away

Of the spirit which guided Mr. Forster in his Irish career, and which still guides him in his denunciation of the Irish cause, we have found no more clear illustration than that which appeared in the Bradford Chronicle, a newspaper which we may reasonably look upon as inspired by him, or, at least, as taking his utterances and principles for its guide. Commenting on Mr. Parnell's reply, then, this newspaper speaks as follows :— " When Irishmen have set aside their evil paesions and learned the value of human life ; when they pay due respect to the rights of property and obey the law, adopting legitimate means for its alteration when it is absolutely wrong, then will have arrived the time for more remedial legislation, and not till then." The treatment due to Irishmen, then, is to be measured by their conduct rather than by the justice which is their light 1 And not only is it to be based on their conduct but upon Buch an interpretation of their conduct as may seem fit to men who dislike, and thoroughly misunderstand them. But what must be thought of the Statesmen from a careful study of whose motives and actions a journalist is able justly to derive such views ? Meantime Macaulay speaks thus as to that which is the due of even an Jill-behaved and untutored people 1 •' Many politicians of our time," he writes in his " Essay on Milton," " are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free until they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water until he had learnt to swim, If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may, indeed, wait for ever."

Mb. Bryce in his speech the other night at New Plymouth referred to a history that had recently been published, in which he affirmed that he had been grossly calumniated, and in a manner for which he meant to call the slanderer to account.— Nor will it be denied by anyone, when the passage alleged by Mr. Bryca to be calumnious ii read by him, that a very emphatic remonstrance, and a convincing proof of the falsehood of the accusation brought against the Minister is necessary, not only to clear his own character from a very horrible stain which has been caßt upon it, but to deliver the Colony from the disgrace of counting among the members of its Government a man who had at any time been guilty of so frightful a deed as that imputed to him. The passage alluded to, and which occurs in Busden's « History of New Zealand " runs as follows : " The literary cravers. for blood were soon to be gratified on the West and Bast Coasts by events of which some were not officially reported, nor told in. Mr. Gudgeon's ' Beminiscences of War.' Lieutenant Bryce, who was in after years a Native Minister, distinguished himself. Some women and young children emerged from a pah to hunt pigs. Lieutenant Bryce and Sergeant Maxwell of the Kai Iwi Cavalry dashed upon them, and cut them down gleefully and with ease. This exploit will be looked for in vain in Mr. Gudgeon's book, which records a rash and unfortunate affair in which, subsequently (December 28th), Sergeant Maxwell, riding up to Titokowaru's pah, Tauranga-ike, was shot. But the treatment of the children was not unknown. Dr. Peatherston, the Superintendent of the Province of "Wellington, expressed his horror ; Bangihiwinui declared that he would not have joined the local forces if he had thought them capable of such acts. He earned thereby the hatred of Bryce, who, long afterwards, when Native Minister, dismissed Bangihiwinui from office. Bryce earned among the Maoris a title which will cling to him. They called him kohuru (the murderer)." If this, indeed, were true— and let us hope not only for Mr. Bryce's sake but for that of the whole Colony, as we said, and perhaps even for the British name generally, that it may be speedily and convincingly proved to be false, there would be no further need for Mr. Bryce to apologise for shaking hands with Te Kooti, or to explain that he had done so only in the public interests! For, in that case, Mr. Bryce would shake hands with a comrade most suitable for him ; or, if there were any difference, it would be rather in

favour of Te Kooti, who might plead the excuse of native barbarism and a savage nature, which would make his deeds less guilty than those of the civilised, even if plain and unpolished, European. The credit of the Colony, then, as well as that of Mr. Bryce, requires that the true version of this event described by Mr. Rusden may be at once published. But in connection with the outrages in Ireland and the clamour that has been made for the leaders of the League to control andjprevent them, the thought presents itself to us that an impossible claim is made. The leaders of the League are impotent to control the men who do these things, and no degree of denunciation on their part could restrain the commission of ciime. The men who commit crime are not capable of being restrained by moral influences, and the effort to persuade them would be wholly thrown away. Were the leaders of the League, indeed, able to follow up their denunciations by repressive measures, and to punish criminals, there would be some reason to call upon them to act, and to condemn them as the accomplices of crime were they to refrain from action, but as it is they are powerless. They must, indeed, be more than human if by a word they could control millions of people, and had so gained their confidence that no man among those millions should hold them capable of making a J mistake, or refuse to accept their decision in all instances asfinal.— Wild spirits there are in abundance, and the members of secret societies, who will look upon them as cowards, and consider their own device of violent measures far the best. Let the leaders of the League speak or be silent, and these men would still follow their o\i a way. But let power be given to the leaders of the people by which they can enforce their denunciations, let them have power, in a national parliament to pass repressive measures as well as denounce crime, and the face of affairs will be altered. An Irish Parliament would be still more severe upon the evil-doers of the country, than the English Parliament has been. — But it would be so upon the evil-doers only, and would not confound the innocent with the guilty,— so that the whole force of the well-disposed people of Ireland would be brought to bear upon repressing crime and rooting it out.