Pbessurk on our space obliges us to hold over several subscription lists, the continuation of Bishop Hadfield'd evidence before the Education Committee, and various other matters.
The Dunedin Catholic Literary Society will hold their usual fortnightly meeting this evening, when the Secretary will read a paper, and Messrs. Deeban and Fitzpatrick will deliver recitations. According to Barnum, then, the description of Mr. Redmond would be something to the following effect :— " Ladies and gentlemen, — You see 'ere the h'lrish h'agitator which he is addicted to lying, and the 'orror of the swells." Nevertheless, to find that our contemporary the Otago 'Daily Times holds in derision respectable working men, such as no doubt are the majority of the delegates to the Melbourne Convention, is not in the least astonishing. — Is he not the organ of the heterogeneous mob whom the accidents of colonial life have tossed up from pick and shovel, from bothie, bar, and kitchea, to the higher stage on which they try to figure as iE May fait had been their birthplace and natural habitation 7 What, therefore) can we expect but contempt of msn who are still engaged in, earning their bread by means of humble but respectable callings? With such men, however, lies the success of every popular cause, and if they support the Irish movement the opposition even of a genuine great world may be ineffectual.-- Nob to speak of a world of snobs whose refinement and elegance find, such admirable expression in the coarse insolence which the Daily Times mistakes for wit and smartness.
As an answer to those would-be aristocrats who accuse Mr. Redmond of declaring falsely that his mission and the Melbourne Convention have been eminently successful, because , the " swells ' have not been in the foremost ranks of his supporters, we may give the following extract from Mr. Healy's late address at Newcastle— " He thought more of the opiuions of the poorest dozen of Irishmen smoking their pipes around a tap-room in the Seven Dials, than he did of tne opinion of the united Cabinet of England. He thought more of the feelings of any body of his own countrymen, no matter how poor and how humble, that he did of the most exalted assembly in the world." This is a fair expression of the feeliDg of the party to which Mr. lledmond belongs, and he justly counts it a success to have rallied to the support of the Irish cause the Irish workingmen of the Colonies. The cause is the ca\ise of the Irish masses, and it is principally on the effu-ts of the Irish workingmen throughout the woild that its success depends. To have secured their aid in these Colonies, and formed them into a united organisation would be a marked success, even though it had been won in face of the stem displeasure of all the " swells"— and with the swells or without Ihcu. Mr. Redmond has won it.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 29, 16 November 1883, Page 17
Word Count
488Untitled New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 29, 16 November 1883, Page 17
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