THE CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 15, 5 August 1887, Page 21

THE CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND.

(From the Nation and United Ireland, June 4.) Thebe were peculiar reasons why the meeting which it was determined to bold last Sunday at Avondale, aa a protest against coercion and in sustainment of the Coolgreany tenantry, should be as imposing and pronounced a demonstration us it was possible to make it. Seside the fact that it was to be held on tbe ground of the leader of the people, there was an additional reason that bis enemies and the people's enemies bad been preternaturally busy for some days previously with a cock-and-bull story about bis dealings with a man named Kennedy, whom his agent bad been obliged to serve with a writ. The story had oeen eeized on with avidity by the mendacious Tory Press and distorted into a sort of monstrosity. The medium of a public meeting was the very best that could be chosen for a full refutation of their slanders, and accordingly at Sunday's meeting the chairman, the Rev. Father Carberry, P.P,. was enabled on behalf of Kennedy, who was ill and unable to attend to refute them, to express bis sorrow that he bad been impelled by anger and ill-health to make rash statements, which bad been misrepresented by tbe Tory organs, and to bear testimony to the kindnes and indulgence of Mr. Paruellas a landlord. The meeting before which this amende was made was one of large proportions. It was attended by large numbers of men not only from all parts of the county Y7icktow. but from a good many districts in Wexfoni and Carlow as well. Tine Bray National League attended in great strength, and was accompanied by the St. Kevin's Band, which contributed much towards the day's proceedings, Messrs, John Dillon, Dr. J . E. Kenny, and W. J. Corbet, represented the Irish Parliamentary party ; and they were accompanied on the platform by Mr Leamy, 8.L., and Dr. Hunter, M.P. for Aberdeen, an eminent Scotch Radical, who is a great admirer of tbe Irish party in Parliament, and who has stood by them through thick and thin ever since his return. Tbe day was eminently one of good speaking, Mr, Corbet, Dr. Kenny, Dr. Hunter, Mr. Dillon, and Mr. Leamy were all in good platform trim. Mr. Dillon made a deeply-impressive appeal to the meeting to stand by the men of Coolgreany now that Ibe crisis of the struggle was coming on, pointing out how, even though they were evicted, the tenants have the beat of the game, for they would be maintained as long as the funds lasted, while the landlords who resort to extremities must certainly be beggared. Mr. Leamy made some pointed observations touching the bearing of the people when they will be face to face with coercion and subjected to the moral terrors of the star-chamber system. A U those, he declared, who do not wish to be converted Irom honest men into informers must be ready to suffer imprisonment for their country's sake. It is right tbat this truth should be recognised as widely and as soon as posible, so that no man can say wben tbe hour of trial comes that he was taken by supiise. In an interview with a Freeman's Journal reporter, after his release, Oanou Keller, who stated tbat he had been made as comfortable in prison as he could have expected, said Judge boyd did an inestimable service to the tenants, for he proved to demonstration the utter absurdity and hollo wness of his own threats,which,if he attempted to cairy them into execution with one tithe the vigour of his pronouoca ments, by this time would have landed the Government in a difficulty from which they could only extricate themselves by sacrificing tbe landlords bag and baggage. It is now manifest that the Unionists are about to undertake the work which we anticipated from them from the very beginning. The landlords are already basking iv their new-found freedom, the freedom which the master of ihe Hottentot policy promised thet . For one reason or another they wi'l use it ; and under the shelter of English cua ie-law and English bayonets they will advance once more to the assault on our Irish h imedteads. Tne people need look for no protection to Government: the Government is Orange down to its journeyman clerk, Kiag-llarman. They must trust to themselves. By union and by lig.itiusj the fight to the last they will suceed ; but if they flinch one inch they are lost. There is uo hope to escape from the struggle except by an avenue that leads to certain and complete ruin, lhey may, pernaps, purchase a peace at a price that will hereafter bear them dowu ; but the only hope of salvation for them and for to 3 country is to fight tbe landlords and the Orange Governmaot to the last It is gratfying te be able to record tha tthe Protestant Nationalists of Ulster have defied ihe attempts made by the Orange rowdies, with tbe connivance of the Castle, to suppress ths public expression of their patriotic sentiments. The splendid meeting held under the auspicies ot tbe Protestant Home Rule Association at Cookstown on Saturday completely exposed tbe hollow nature of the Orange opposition and brought into awkward prominence the disgraceful tactics hitherto pursued pursued by Uastleredgb'n hireling magistrates in regard to the meeting which they suppressed. Saturday's meeting was to have been held a week previous, but rumors of Orange violence having been circulated, the local R.M.s duly proclaimed it. The East Tyrone Protestant Home Rulers were determined, however, not to be put down after this palpably fraudulent fashion. They fixed their meeting for Saturday last and held it, untroubled by Orange bravo or partisan R.M. The speaking at this demonstration was as significant an indication of the progress of the National cause, amongst a class in Ulster supposed to bd inimical to it as the large attendance. While most people, politicians incluied, have seized the Whitsuntide holidays in order to enjoy a short period of rest, tbe tireless energy of the evicting landlord, to whom the tim; brings no wisdom has turned the holiday season into a se-ison of woa to many an Irish homestead. North, South, East, and West the Jubilee evictiou cam* paign proceeds. The peasants of Bodyke, with whose history our readers ought to be familiar, were visited oa last Thursday by the troops and ciberifE acting in the name of the Jubilee Sovereign, aud their stay within theip homes wa* prolonged only b/ the nuiden illness of the officer of tbe law. Ii Alonu^haa an] Djnegal, the fate with which the Bodyko peasantry have been threatened overtook

several tenants ; and the week's proceedings of the exterminators furnish abundant evidence that we are in for a lon» stru^le with landlord brutality. ° ao Coercion ha* put a new life into the monsters. They imagine that wb^n the Bill becomes law, boycotting will be impossible, and land-gf»i>bers will app»ar in hoHes to t>ive a Slip to tbc land market and make eviction once m>re a paying t*ann. Too stupid to play even the roU of robber with succms, they fail r 0 s?e that the spirit of the people is unbreakable ; or that even if the people could be cowed there would still remain the insurmountable obstacle of the utter unprofitibleneis of fanning to the success of the plan. If the landgrabber bad not been killed eis*ht years ago hf would have died a natural death long since. Coercion will not restore him ia aay event. What can. then, be the purpose of these proceedings T Mr. William Moffatt, of Dungannon House, Tyrone, into whose demesne a force of constabulary, headed by two impertinent R.M.s. broke on the occasion of the suppression of the Protestant Home Rule meeting called for Dungannon some weeks ago, has is*aed a writ claiming £5,000 damages from the law breakers. This is as it should be. if the future rulers of the country cannot restrain their lawless instincts until the passing of the Jubilee Coercion Act gives them a —rt* blanche for the indulgence thereof, it is only right that an effort should be made to bring them to account for their high jinks, whilst there is yet any la* in the land. Should Mr. Moflatt's action be tried before that rara avis in the Four Courts — a constitutional Judge —it does seem probable that Messrs. Mayne and Cullen, the R.M.s in question, will find to their cost that they have been a little " too previous." Perhaps not since the rueful famine year has Irish landlordism given more convincing proof of its inherent wickedness and savagery than it is furnishing in these days. In almost every corner of the land the evictors, backed by the armed forces of a foreign tyranny, are busily at work desolating the homes of the peasantry and niching from them their property and means of livelihood. In Monaghan, in Donegal, in Kerry, in Galway, in Clare, in Cork, Limerick, and elsewhere the Shirleys, the Hamiltons, the Clanrickarda, theOrmathwaitts the Kenmares, the O'Callaghans, the Ponsonbys, etc., are waging relentless war upon the people and daily peipetuating deeds of inhumanity which would disgrace a tribe of savages. In no other country under the sun could such infamies as those revealed by the record of the eviction campaign now proceeding be enacted, much less aided and abetted by a Government. This outbreak of landlord ferocity is not. without its uses, however. It will stamp more firmly than ever on the Irish mind the conviction that there can be neither peace nor prosperity, in the country until the felonious system, covered with bo many crimes, is finally crushed and broken.