MR. DAVITT IN WATERFORD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 32, 7 December 1883, Page 9

MR. DAVITT IN WATERFORD.

Ma. Michael Davitt on coming forward received an immense ovation from the multitude. Having congratulated the people of Waterford on the magnificent demonstration which they had been able to organise, and expressed a hope that the lesson of it — viz., that until Irish landlordism was dead they would never cease agitating — would not be lost upon England, Mr. Davitt proceeded to reply to the criticisms which his speech at Cappamore on the previous Sunday had called forth. On this subject he said —I hare been denounced in the choicest language of abuse by the landlord papers of Dublin, because of a speech I made in Cappamore on last Sunday. It seems that when we are discuKing the question of compensation we are Btanding upon the corns of the Irish landlords, and it ii quite natural that they should cry out before they are hurt again. Their specific charge against me is that at the Cappamore meeting I enunciated certain principles of compensation. The faflt is, I simply laid down the doctrine »f comp«Bation ac applied by

the Hcuse of Lords and the laod courts of Ireland to tfee improvements of the farmers ; and for the benefit of these Dublin papers, and of the Irish landlords in particular, I will just enumerate the doctrine of compensation again. The landlord House of Lords, in order to destroy the Healy Clause in the Land Act, inserted a provision which, interpreted, means : " We grant that the improvements made in the land of Ireland have resulted from the expenditure and the labour of the farmers, but we expect t*e length of enjoyment by the farmers of those improvements constitutes an equitable compensation for having made them." This, mind, is the doctrine of compensation laid down by the House of Lords. It is precisely as if a banker should address those who deposited money with him and say :— You have received from me during the past 20 years SI per cent interest upon your invested money. Now, having enjoyed that income at my hands, the principal sum deposited in my bank becomes my property (laughter). Very well, I want to inaiot upon the fact that this doctrine of compensation is the landlords' doctrine, and I mean if I can to turn this doctrine agiinst themselves, because what is justice for the farmer goose must be meted out as justice for the landlord gander (applause), if they will pay the tenant-farmer compensation for the improvements he has made by length of enjoyment of these improvements, Ireland will pay them bVand-by by taking into account the length of time they have enjoyed improvements which they never made (cheers). And if they quarrel with such a scheme, or take umbrage at such a proposal, let them be reminded that they themselves were the first to lay down this immoral and unjust doctrine. If the landlords of Ireland were men remarkable for wisdom they would no longer live in a fool's paradise. That superstitious belief in the so-called sacred rights of property in land which existed previous to the Land League has disappeared and such a creed is consigned to the limbo of exploded political doctrines, where that other monstrous creed, that property can exist in human beings, lies buried for ever. When an honest English official here in Ireland a generation ago reminded the' landlords that property had its duties to perform as well as its'rights, he was only scoffed at and denounced as an interme<idler. Even recently, when Lord Monteagle called upon bis cla-s to become one in sentiment and in interest with the Irish people if they wished to retain their position, the only response was a louHer cry for coercion, and a resort to the old inhuman cry of eviction. The landlords of Ireland are like the Bourbons, they never learn either from experience or from misfortune ; but the people of Ireland do learn, and are studying these great social problems, and the spirit of popular intelligence in this country is sounaingthe knell of Irish landlordism, and will soon read a funeral oration over its dishonoured grave (hear, hear). It may be s.ud that lam preaching a relentless crusade against this class, but in order to show how the people of Ireland can treat a man that was once 'heir enemy, I will give to the landlords of Ireland an example, whicb, if they are wise men, and true to their own interest, they will follow. You all know the services which Captain Boycott rendered to the dictionary (laughter). You also know the plucky and manly fight which he made in the neighbourhood of Lough Mask against overwhelming odds, and you know that the fight ended as every contest must end that 18 fought by a united people. Well. Captain Boycott left Ireland, went to England, and discovered that the English Government could not afford to keep a regiment of soldiers in Ballinrobe to mind the captain's pigs and potatoes. Having made that discovery, the captain, like a sensible man, submitted to the inevitable, came back to Lough Mask, resigned his unpopular position of agent, and is now living on the best possible terns with every man, woman and child in that locality (laughter and applause), and 1 am sure there is not a single individual within the four corners of Ireland who will not wish Captain Boycott long life and prosperity, as one of the citizens of this country no longer h .stile to its national sentiment. Let the landlords of Ireland resign their unpopular portion, follow the example of Captain Boycott, and nobody will molest them. But if they do not they will be grievously surprised by-and-by. for they will make the discovery which Captain Kojcott has made, that the English Government will find it d >es not pay, from an Imperial point of view, to support a worse than useless class against the Irish nation (applause) — against a people who have resolved that even the force of an empire will not be sufficient to sustain a system of spoliation and of enmity against everything that is cherished in Ireland (hear, hear). Now, in proportion to the length of time which it takes the landlords of Ireland to realise their real position will be the terma of settlement which they will finally get. Time is not friendly to the old sy^ems that bar the way of progress, and whem the only claim which Irish landlordism can make upon Ireland is that of being the cause of its poverty and its misery, and being the gaoler of its liberties as well, it cannot expect generous treatment from our hands if the day of settlement is indefinitely postponed (applause). I would advise the landlords to read the sigus of the times aright. The lifeboat for the landlord?, as Lord Derby once called the Land Act, has rescued landlords from the rocks upon which they were hurled by the waves of the Land League, but they have not reached the shore of safety yet ; there are other breakers ahead (laughter) that will do more damage to their rotten system than even the storm of the Land League (applause). Let us bring to this contest for our country's rights the courage of our fathers, that never quailed before the worst tyranny of the worst oppression, with judgment and experience purchased by past defeats, and with persistent energy which a people who have fought the cause of striving nationhood for a right which, if seven centuries of a struggle against alien domination did not entitle us to, truth and justice, history and nature, would proclaim to be our ripht — the right to be the arbiter of our own destiny (cheers). With religion, truth, justice, nationality, courage, and perseverance how can we fail f " These are the forces of conquering power. Chains to sever, if slaves we be ; Then work in your might, O men of (he hour 1 And Ireland springs on the path of the free."