NAILING THE LIE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 29, 7 November 1884, Page 9

NAILING THE LIE.

(Dublin Freeman, September 13.) The Dublin correspondence of the London Times reached a point on Tuesday at which some formal protest against the misrepresentation and scurrility of that journal when dealing with Irish affairs is absolutely necessit vted. The Dublin correspondent outherods himself (and everybody knowing his Press connection and political proclivities will understand the full meaning of that statement) in the opening sentence of his letter appearing in the Times of Tuesday. " The organisation of crime and outrage," writes the editor of the Daily Empress — for he is by common repute the Dublin correspondent of the London Times — " is proceeding with more rapid strides in the provinces under the auspices of the National League, and with the benediction of the spiritual guides of the people." We need hardly say that there is not a single item from the accounts of current events to justify this bigoted libel. The editor and correspondent, who we presume is the author of the statement, has the advantage amongst correspondents of being permitted by the present management of the Times to send them a hash or rechauffe of his Orange articles in the Express, in lieu of the news ot thd day. The result is that, so far as the Times is concerned, its Irish news is really worth nothing, because it is anticipated by all the other papers. When we look down the correspondence which has attracted our attention by its excessive virulence, we find the first paragraph of news beginning " Last week." To illustrate haw little even the writer of this correspondence feels himself justified by actual facts in his comment, the slanderons opening sentence of which we have quoted, we have only to extract the second and third sentences. " There is still," he writes, " a comparatively settled aspect of affairs. Peace and order generally prevail, and the public mind is seldom shocked by brutal acts of intimidation and revenge which remind the country of the terrible ordeal it passed through two years ago." Then he reverts to the maligning. " The machinery of mischief," he saya, as it were in excuse for his unfounded diatribe, and for the absence of outrage, "is not yet in working order. Several of the party have to be fitted," he adds, and meanwhile " the process of getting up steam is going on steadily." "Ministers of religion," be continues " who might be expected to teach the highest lessons of morality and to point out the danger which is incurred by a reckless disregard of authority, countenance and commend their acts of fraud and violence." Mark ye, " their acts of fraud and violence " 1 What and where and whose are the acts of fraud and violence? We have instanced Dr. Patton in the beginning of this letter, upon which we are forced by its own blind virulence to comment thus, saying that " peace and order generally prevail." What more, if so much, could he say of England or Scotland 1 They are at this moment the theatre of an agitation, of which the Prime Minister is the head, and of which the Chief Secretary for Ireland is first lieutenant. Yet, no English provincial correspondent of the Times dares to despatch to his paper a message regarding the agitation against the Lords, saying that "the machinery of mischief is not yet in working order." What would be the journalistic fate of the London Times corespondent in England or Scotland who telegraphed of the parsons that they were "countenancing and commending acts of fraud and violence ? " Let Dr. Patton ransack the files for evidence of his charge against the priesthood of Ireland, and again we say after his search he will have to fall back upon his imagination for his faots and supply to his journal stage Orange thunder for forked-lightning reality. Of course we can do no more than brand Dr. Patton's emanation as a libel on the priesthood and the whole country. Unfortunately the readers of the Times get the libel first, and the truth always lags a day or so behind, if the trouble ever be taken to give it to the English public at all . Thus are the chances of an honourable understanding between the peoples who ought to be allies and friends on equal terms undermined and prevented by base prejudice on the part of men who have plenty of opportunity of knowing and doing better ; and thus, for whatever filthy motive, a real unity of feeling between the people of England and Ireland is rendered impossible by Whigs and Tories of the old school who, like dying wasps, put forth all their poison with their last sting.