MR. P. J. SMYTH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 43, 13 February 1885, Page 5

MR. P. J. SMY T H.

(Dublin Freeman, Dec. 20,") Me. P. J. Smyth, M. P., has accepted the office of Secretary to the Loan Fund (Ireland) Board. The value of the post is £300 a year. An instructive moral may be drawn from this simple announcement. A bara recital of the incidents of Mr. Smyth's chequered political career would suffice. Mr. Smyth in the many controversies in which he has been engaged has not spared either with pen or tongue those to whom he has found himself from time to time opposed. We are not now, however, inclined to recall these memories or press with undue severity the comparison which necessarily forced itself upon the public attention between Mr. P. J. Smyth the hunted rebel, Mr. P. J. Smyth the rescuer of John Mitchel, Mr. P. J. Smyth the owner and conductor of tLe Irishman, and denunciator of Butt for his halfhearted Nationality, and Parnell, and " the League of Hell," and the Mr. P. J. Smyth who ends his days as a pensioner of Dublin Castle We are disposed 1 to take a more charitable view of the matter, and to believe that if Mr. Smyth has become a Government placeman, he can plead the excuse of Shakspeare's apothecary. The Irish people will not care to be hard upon Mr. Smyth, both for this reason and for another, all sufficient in itself, that his actions have long ceased to be of any conceru to them. If anything, the country will rather view with satisfaction and relieE an ending of a political career which deprives Mr. Smyth of the power of longer asserting that he U a representative of Tipperary. Tipperary is at last free from the incubus, and will quickly show, by electing a pledged follower of Mr. Parnell, how widely the opinion of the Premier County differs from that of its late representative. Notwithstanding the political shortcomings of his later life, the Irish people have never forgotten in Mr Smjth's regard tbe sacrifices which be made and the risks which he ran for them in the generoua days of his youth. Mr. Smyth was the last of the oratois of the Grattan school, and though his manner may in these days have appeared somewhat artificial, there is no doubt that many of his speeches were not unworthy models of a noble and exalted style. That Mr. Smyth's patriotism was originally of a true and unselfish character we at least are not inclined to doubt. We believe that at the last it was sheer necessity which drove him tD accept place. But surely, once Mr. Smyth had determined upon seeking office, he might have endeavoured to earn it without savage attacks upon those who were still labouring for their country to the best of their ability, and without any such object as his in view. As . a politician, Mr. Smyth was from the beginning utterly impracticableHe could neyer work with any person else. With him it was aut Catar aut mdlus, and being as incapable of leading as he was of following, he naturally ended by being nnUus, But despite the

dismal failure of a career which, at one time, gave such brilliant promise, we cannot but recognise that Mr. Smyth had qualities which under happier circumstances might have raised him hi»h in the list of men held in deserved honour by their country." The' ideals painted by him in his bratory, if visionary and Utopian, were always inspiring and ennobling. His aim was to see Ireland a nation in the truest sen«e of the word, a nation such as Grattan created, but greater and nobler than the Ireland of '82, because freed from that sectarian ascendency which was the weakness and eventually the destruction of the Constitution won for their country by the Volunteers. If we cannot hold up Mr. Smyth's career as one to be followed, we may, at least, point to many of his speeches as examples to be studied. If he himself has in his old age fallen s-> terribly short of the goal which afc its outset be may have ambitioned, we' believe that his fellow-countrymen will have for him quite as much commiseration as censure. In parting from him now, although he has said as hard things of us as of others who could not adopt his views, we take the opportunity of saying that we never had against himself personally any unkindly feeling and never did him any intentional injustice. We hope he may live long to enjoy the fruits of his appointment, and we venture to say that no man in Ireland will grudge him the poor salary the Government have given him for services which from them certainly should have had a largt r reward [Since the above was written the report of Mr. Smyth's death has reached us.— Ed. N. Z. Tablet.]