THE IRISH-AUSTRALIAN CONVENTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 13, 20 July 1883, Page 7

THE IRISH-AUSTRALIAN CONVENTION.

We (.Advocate) have much pleasure in publishing the following important letter from a gentleman whose approval of the proposal to hold a convention his countrymen will regard as a guarantee of its success :— " Frescati, Ann street, Brisbane, 24th June. "My Dbak Redmond, — " I received your note with much pleasure. I well recollect the first time I had a conversation with you on Irish affairs, expressing a hope that such a convention as you propose should be held before you left us, and that the cause of Ireland in Australia should be handed over to its safe keeping. The agitation you have stirred up amongst us with consummate skill and eloquence has paved the way for what, lam certain, will prove a great success. Until your arrival we have been completely in the bands of the lying Euglish Press ; every action of our people had been distorted to their discredit, and the national aspirations represented as a cloak to outrage and assassination. Had your visit resulted in nothing more than crushing out this miserable lie, it would have been fruitful in great and beneficial results to U3. You have, happily, persuaded all who would be convinced that you are here the representative only of that great Reform party, rapidly, thank God, becoming the strongest in the State, who «ndert<he leadership of C. S. Parnell, Justin McCarthy, Joseph Cowan, and their fellows, are leading the people of both countries to the determination to make away once for all with the crowning scandal of the empire by restoring to our country her just rights. It is not too much to say that you have breathed a new spirit into the hearts of your countrymen, and, whilst doing so, have had the fullest opportunity of gauging the intensity of their love for the old land. The convention, the crowning act of your mission, will represent, I have no hesitation in sayiug, as important and representative a section of our race as is to be found on the face of the globe. Under these beneficent Australian skies we enjoy all the rights and privileges of the Britsh Constitution, and are loyal, therefore, to that great empire our people have largely shared in building up. We have no desire to bring to our aid in this work of ours any weapon but that of public opinion and our purse strings. We have no sympathy with the miserable factions, sprung from the dregs of our race in America, who suppose they can advance the cause of Ireland by such weapons as dynamite and assassination. Sitting in the broad light of day, our convention will, I trust, declare our unalterable determination to stand by Charles Stuart Parnell until he has happily gained for our people at home the same constitutional rights we here enjoy. Fneed scarcely add that, if my professional duties will allow of it, I shall be present at so important a gathering of our people. — Believe me, most faithfully yours, "K. I. O'Doherty. «J.B. Redmond, Esq."