MB. DILLON GLORIES IN HIS "CRIME."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 40, 28 January 1887, Page 9

MB. DILLON GLORIES IN HIS "CRIME."

A National League demonstration was held on Sunday, November 29, at Eyrecourt, County Galway, a town on Lord Clanricarde's estate, about five miles from Banagher. The attendance was very good, all the surrounding districts being well represented. The chair was taken amid cheers by the Bey. J. Kirwaa, P.P., Eyrecourt The usual resolutions having been passed. Mr. Dillon, M.P., who was warmly cheered, said— l am glad to see you here to-day assembled together in as good a cause I will venture to say, as ever brought Irishmen together in Ireland (cheers). I am glad to see you here for many reasons, and, if for no other because I now believe, and am fully convinced, that in the struggle which we are engaged in along with you upon this estate here for justice— ay, for less than justice— you are perfectly certain to win (cheers). After the sphit which I saw in Portumna yesterday I would not believe any man that it was possible to put down the tenantry of this estate (cheers). Now, I have two important facts to bring before you to-day, and the first of them ia this— that after what I saw in Portumna yesterday, I am entitled to say, and I do say it with confidence, that oefore this day three weeks there won't be a single tenant on the Clanricarde estate that the trustees of the estate fund won't have his money under lock and key (cheers), and I can tell you when that is the fact that you need not be in the least afraid any longer of any of the croakers or timid people who always in a fight like this will go amongst the people to tell them to funk (groans). Lord Clanricarde has come out with another letter (loud laughter) Why, I suppose he is nearly fifty years of age, and I don't believe he ever wrote a letter to the newspapers before, but here I have the second letter which has been written by Lord Clanricarde since this campaign commenced, and it is a most amusing letter. He says that Mr. Dillon in his speech at Woodford declared that he (Lord Clanricarde) had knocked 50 per cent, off his rents. Well, all I can say is he must have a very queer eye (laughter). I never said— l don't think anybody could say— that he ever knocked 50, 30, or 20 per cent, off the rents, because, so far as I am informed, he never gave any reduction at all ; but what I did say, and what was the truth, was that the Land Court in Portumna knocked off 50 per cent, off some of his rents. The amusing landlord goes on to say, " What is to become of distressed creditors? " the distressed creditor being himself (loud laughter). He has nothing at all to say of the distressed creditor to whom he lends the rents on the Clanricarde estate at 20 per cent.— that is his business >n Londou, because you must know that your most noble landlord devotes himself in London to the aristocratic business of a gombeen man (great laughter and applause). In this letter he enters into a large calculation in which he clearly proves that he himself only gets one and sixpence in the pound out of his rents (laughter). All I can say is this— that if it be true that only one and sixpence in the pound out of all the rentd of Clanricarde's estates gets to unfortunate Clanricarde h'mself, I will undertake on behalf of the tenarts that each and every one of them, if he will give him a clear receipt for a year's rent, will send him one and sixpence to the pound (laughter). He then goes on to say — for every word of the letter is a falsehood—" I am informed by my tenantry that if I do not consent to reinstate the few hopeless defaulters I have been compelled to part with— that is a new word for evicting a man (laughter)— that they will conspire with some bogus trustee to defraud their long-suffering creditor "(loud laughter). Now really this is an amusing statement. Who are " the few hopeless defaulters ?" Broder Tom Saunders Fahy, and Conroy (cheers)— as respectable, hardworking, and honest tenants as any landlord ever had on his estate. And this wo-thy lord has no word for these four men but " the few hopeless defaulters " — men who paid him his rent a great deal too long and too much of it (loud cheers). If he does not look very sharp and mend his hand he will have to part company with the whole of his tenantry (renewed cheers). I say that if the temper that I have seen on this estate is maintained by the people of tnis country —■and I believe it will be maintained— there is no power at the disposal of the Government which can carry on evictions upon this estate to any extent which will make it a serious blow to the resources of our fund, and I say. without fear of contradiction, that if tne present Government attempt to cast from their homes the tenantry of Clanricarde because they have asked for justice — aye, and for less than justice— l bay that in the end it will be the Government and not you that will go to the wall (loud cheers). Now, to-day, at Sligo, the Government are entering upon a new policy of coercion— they have undertaken to put down the great meeting "wh,ch is called at Sligo. This meeting was called to protest against the lnr'amous packing of the panel at the Sligo Winter Assizes, packeu with a majority of Orangemen and Protestants (loud groaus) in a district where the Nationalists and Catholics number tea to one — packed for the purpose of robbing of their liberty and coudemning to penal servitude gallant felloes who fought at Woodford against tae evictors (cheers). " I have declared, and I declare again, that so far am I from considering these men have been guilty uf any crime that I consider they deserve the gratitude and thanks of their fellow-countrymen and yet we are to be told, by the action of the Government in suppressing the Sli^o meeting ihat we, the Nationalists and people of Ireland, are bound to stand by sileutly while a\ see honest and brave young men robbed of tbeir liberty by miam. us and scandalous practices in the packing of juries. We shall have means to hold up to public odium and to public execration ihe action of the Govern- i ment and of thp officials in Sligo, who have denied men the right to be tried by a fair and impartial Sligo juiy (cheers). The Government, it would appear, have made up their minds to try their hands at a little coercion again ; but lam bound t-> sd^ , from what I see of it it is a very poor, shaky kind of coercion (.laughter). I was on Lord Dillon's estate last Friday looking after Lord Dillon's rents (laughter), and I was informed by telegram from Dublin that the Government were going to strike a blow. I though at least they would arrest me in the town of Ballaghaderrin, but just before the meeting

a gentleman from Dublin, a detectire (groans), walked in and handed to me a bundle of documents — a summons to appear before the High Court of Justice in Dublin (laughter). Well, now, what do you suppose the charge against me in thf se documents was ? It amounted to this— that I had incited the tenantry of certain landlords to combine against them and refuse to pay their rent. Well I am going to appear in the Court of Queen's Bench and tell them that is exactly what I did do, and what I mean to go on doing (loud cheers), and they can make the b jst use they can of the admission. The next crime was this— that I praised the Woodford men , and they had what they called an affidavit describing the operations of the police in Woodford. That extended to about fifty pages of manuscript, and they accused me of disturbing the country by holding up the example of these men in Woodford as worthy of imitation in other parts of the country (cheers). Well, I intend also to tell them in the Court of Queen's Bench that, with the help of God, I mean to go on praising the Woodford men (chetrs). And if it be tt-ue that it is not possible for unjust landlords to levy their rackrents so long as I am at liberty to go amonget the Irish people, I say that that statement is the proudest starament I ever heard made of myself (hear, hear). I recollect many years ago in the early days of the Land League hearing an old ballad singer in the County Mayo who composed a ballad on my adventures during the time. At the end of every verse he detcribed me as a man who had taught the Irish people " Eackreaters to suodue " (laughter and applause). I recollect the words well, and lam bound to confess that it is not in the power of any sovereign in Burope to give me a title that would make me prouder than that the Irish people should say and belkve that I had taught them how "rackrenters to subdue " (loud cheere). When I was young, living as I did a good deal amongst the people and seeing what they had suffered and how this accursed system of landlordism, of rackrent, and of the office had sunk into their hearts and was tending every day to make them mean as well as poor, I could think ot no higher ambition to lay before myself than to put before the people a plan and a system to raise in their breasts a spirit by which Chdy would iubdue rackrenters (hear, hear) and office officials, and by winch they would be able to live in this country no longer as slaves or as cowards, but as free and brave men, without having any longer that hateful influence continually hanging over them (cheers). When. I saw, as I did, the Irish race chained like slaves to the land, tilling it from morning till night in order to maintain in luxury a race of men, hardly a single one amongst whom cared one straw for the interests of Ireland or for the lives of the people who lived under them — when I saw the people of this country— th« people who if they get fair play, as I have seen them abroad getting fair play, have noble and high qualities — when I saw them degraded — aye, often into liais and cowards by the fatally poisonous influence of the bailiffs and the land agent ; when I saw men who ought to ta proud men, because they made their living by the labour of their own hands, the proudest thing that any man can boast of ; when I saw men who ought to be brave, and honest, and proud cringing like slaves before some base aud hateful bailiff or some wretched rent warner ; when I saw them play the traitor to their neighbour, and go behind his back and seek to rob him of his home, or raise the rent over his head (groans), I said to myself : "If X ever live to be a man, one of the dearest wishes I shall have is this. — that it may be given to me to be an instiument, however humble, to emancipate the Irish people for ever from this hateful tyranny (loud cheers) — to make the Irish farmer no longer what he has beeu in. the past, a rackrented slave, but a free and independent owner of his own. property." If the Government to-day summon me to the Court of Queen's Bench, I take it as a title of nobility and honour that they nave declared to the people of Irelaud that so long as I am free to stan 1 on a platform in Ireland and free to speak to the people of Ireland they cannot carry on the rackrenting game or evictions (cheers). I glory in the crime and 1 :epeat it to-d<*y, tor I appeal to you, and I feel it almost unnecessary for me to do so, to put your shoulder to the wheel like men, and by every means in your power to make the task of the rackrenter and eviccer difficult in. this plr (cheers). lam as convinced as lam that to-morrow's sun will rise, that if you carry out our advice aud aie loyal to oni; another, Clanricarde in this struggle will go down beaten in the era 1 ; and furthermore, that when you have won the victory on this estate you will have won the victory for all the Irish tenantry all over Irelaud (cheers). You have a big fish to deal with— if you beat him there is not an estate in Ireland that won't be only too glad to follow the path for which you have opened the way. And now I shall bring up to the High Court of Justice in Ireland ajd the Government this message — that whatever they may do to me— and I dou't think they are going to do very much — it will be a long day and a tough struggle before they can get a- penny of rent on (Jlanncarde's estate again (loud and prolonged cheering).