SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE'S VISIT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 33, 14 December 1883, Page 21

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE'S VISIT.

(Dublin Freeman, Oct. 13.) Even those English papers which hurrahed on Sir Stafford Northcote and bis merry men in the North are alarmed at the terrible fruit the " campaign" has already borne. The Daily Telegraph laments, but laments too late, the " rowdy Orangeism which has half wrecked a convent and killed with the alarm a poor sic'c nun." Yes even English bigotry and anti-Irishism are horrified by these awf al events. Gambetta was an avowed infidel, but when asked to baTass the French convents by suppressing their schools, he answered that he would never countenance a " chasse auxfemmes." But the Orangemen of the North, or we should rather say, some among them, are untouched by the chivalry which restrained the Genoese Demagogue. One would imagine that to the greatest villain in all Belfast the convent would be sacred — that brutality itself would be disarmed before the sex, the virtues, the innocence of those who dwell within its sacred walls. But nothing is sacred to an Orange rowdy when heated to madness by such speeches as have been delivered in the North. " The time for words is now nearly at an end ; the time for action is rapidly approaching." Such was the message which Sir Stafford had to deliver in the Noith, and what has been the response? Tho time for action has indeed come, and what action ? The rattle of stones against the convent windows, answered by the death of the poor lady on her sick bed inside — a nun, a foreigner, a guest of Ireland— one to Bave whom from even the breath of insult ten thousand Irishmen would have laid down their lives. Sir Stafford Ninhcote up to this bore the reputation of a dull man, but an honourable politician. We cannot any longer continue to regard him in this light. His campaign in the North was from beginning to end a great political outrage. It was not an honest attempt to convince omnion by argument, and it had no connection with honest politics. "#was an attempt to revive' the virus of sectarian hite in a fine province which has already suffered too much from the curse. It was an attempt to win a few votes at the general election by uniting against the Catholics all the Protestants of the North, the tie of this alliance being not political unanimity, but sectarian hate. The harangues of Sir Stafford did not. perhaps, come up to the fever heat, but he didhis best — no amount of cudgelling will'make out of a beast of burden a race-horse. Bat he, the leader of her Majesty's Opposition, who may any day be the leader of her Majesty's Government—he was present when the Rev. Mr. Kane and the Rev. Mx. Hanna delivered their furious orations ; when Colonel Knox, a magistrate and an officer, announced that if the •' agitators " revisited Dunganon he •' feared they wonld ba ducked in the river." We are glad to note th*t already there are signs in England that men appreciate the wickedness of this progress through the North. The Echo, the most independent of the London journals, dtclares that Sir Stafford's action has "aroused feelings which can only find adequate expression through the smashing of convents and the wrecking of newspaper offices ; that he has stirred into life those

unnatural feuds which have hitherto been so disastrous to Ireland : that he is in short doing a great evil to Ireland." The Daily Nem sums np the situation with the melancholy avowal— melancholy from the English point of view— that Sir Stafford Northcote has actually helped, not injured, the Irish, cause. " Mr. Pamell's mo3t valuable 'allies,' says the Daily JVerts," are the men who refuse to examine any grievance until examination is a superfluous tae'e, and content themselves with exclaiming tljat there is to be no surrender until there is nothing but surrender left." Nor is coademnatioa of the Tory propaganda in Ulster confined to the London journals We find the Liverpool Daily Post asserting that ' every patriotic man in England will stand aghast at the grave wickedness of the Tories and the astonishing desperation of Sir Stafford Northcote in raising what is virtually a standard of civil war in Ulster; and protesting with all the emphasis we can give, and all the sincerity of sadness and surprise, against the most atrociously wicked political mauoenvre which the present generation has -seen." And it adds—" Let as remember what the admitted object of Sir Stafford Northcote's visit to Ireland has been. He went there tore-create that blatant British party which was the cause of endless bloodshed and evil contentions, and which it was hoped had disappeared for ever. On. his platform it was roundly declared that concession to Mr. Parnell must lead to civil war. No device was neglected to aronsa the fierce spirit of Orangeism against all that is genuinely Irish. Toe first fruits of the Tory designs were speedily reaped in the, riot 3 directed agamafc convents and Liberal newspaper offices. Let us suppose that; these things had taken place in Dublin, that a mob had profaned and dismantled St. Patrick's Cathedral, and had spread terror-nmong the ™estants of the city. What would these Tories have done? Would they not have implored us all to forget our party differences and save the nation ;to establish martial law ; to imprison Mr, Parnell ; to forfeit the liberties of a whole country ? Yet, these same men have deliberately and of wickedness after thought created in tie North, everything that they would have hysterically condemned in the South They have successfully revived Tace antipathies which for centuries have cursed the country. They have kindled into flame religious hatreds which are the shame of Christendom. They have let loose the passions of violent men, and all to snatch a worthless victory in the polling booths of England. It is unspeakably shocking that the great Tory party, and especially under so good a man as Sir Stafford Northcote should avail itself of such a criminal expedient, the evil of which in the future it is impossible to measure." The campaign, let us add, is not alone a disgrace but also a disaster, lue cream of the Northern Protestants have refused to answer the appeal to sectarian passions, and at the next general election they will Btand side by side with their Catholic brethren in doing battle for their native land. We are not surprised if Northern shrewdness resents the stuff which Six Stafford has laid before it, for his cooked electoral statistics have received a crashing exposure which, ought to be fatal to the reputation of any public man. The absurdity of Sir. 4V aff^ rd ' 8 referenc e to the franchise was apparent. He compared the English with the Irish system, forgetting conveniently that the two are wholly different. Let the right hon. baronet give us an equal franchise -with England, aad then a comparison • may be logically and fairly instituted.