Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 23, 30 September 1887, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.) The right-about-face in regard to the Land Bill executed by the Tory Government at the bidding of their Disunionist masters has left the Daily Express a prey to sad reflections. Nay, it has done something more wonderful — it has stirred up a feeling of something like fierce resentment against this best of all possible Governments in the breast of that " loyal " organ. Those accustomed to reading the glowing panegyrics on Salisbury and Company's statesmanship, to be found almost daily in the columns of the Express for months paat, mast surely have queried, in the words of Bill Nye, on perusing the following in these identical columns on Saturday last, July 30 :— " It seems, " says the Express, " but a very short time since the loyal and Conservative classes of this country were congratulating themselves upon the defeat of the revolutionary party, and the instalment in power of a Tory Ministry under the leadership of a great and trusted nobleman. Not many months have since elapsed, and now men who made sacrifices, or, at least, felt the greatest satisfaction, are beginning to ask themselves whether the return to power of our own party was a boon after all, while some go so far as to say that it was n ot. These last aver that knockdown blows administered by friends may be crueller than the same delivered by notorious enemies, and that the Conservative Land Bill, though minus Home Rule, is worse than the Gladstonian Bill which was attached to his other rejected measure." This outburst exhibits a change of front almost as astounding as Lord Salisbury's own, and the motive in both casts is about equally creditable. The Tory Prime Minister consented to do what he believed he was morally bound not to do in order that office might be retained, and the Express throws the " integrity of the empire " to the winds because it apprehends a probable paring of the rackrenters' claws. This is landlord " loyalty " all over. Perhaps the garrison have come to see, too, the tremendous mistake they made when they disregarded Mr. Gladstone's prophetic warning that for them " the sands were running in the glass." It looks like it. As events have proved, however, it is themselves only that have reason to regret it. Mr. B. L. Godkin, editor of the New York Evening Post, publishes an admirable reply in this month's Nineteenth Century to the people who assert that "real Americans" detest the Irish race and Mr. Gladstone equally, and that nobody over there supports Home Bule except through fear of " the Irish vote." Mr. Matthew Arnold, Mr. Gold win Smith, Professor Tyndall, and certain Americans who write letters to the Timts, but who never give their names, are the persons who make these assertions. The only American, so far as Mr. Godkin knows, who has been willing to put his name to this sort of misleading rubbish is Mr. G. W. Smalley, London correspondent of the New York Tribune. Mr. Godkin knows a good deal more about " cultivated " American opinion than Professor Tyndall or Mr. Gold win Smith, or de-naturalised Americans like Mr. Smalley. Next to Mr. Dana, of the Swi, be is, perhaps, the most distinguished and scholarly journalist in the United States. Besides the Post, he edits the New York Nation, which is the AtJienoewn of America. And it is Mr. Godkin's deliberate statement that such accounts of American opinion on the Irish question are either silly nonsense or downright misrepresentation Go where you will in the United States you will find that popular feeling, however ignorant of the facts of the case, runs in favour of the Irish, and the farther West you go the stronger it will be. I have not yet seen, nor have I heard of a single American newspaper, North, South, East, or West, which does not side with the Irish on the question of Home Bule, The notion that the editors do this to please the Irish, who probably do not furnish one in five thousand of their readers, and do it in disregard of the real opinions of the American public, does not deserve serious discussion. The scandalous disregard of every principle of equity and justice displayed by the coercionist Government in proclaiming the whole country indiscriminately was effectively exposed in the House of Commons on Thursday night, July 28, by several of the Irish members. Mr. Henry Campbell led off by inquiring the grounds on which the county of Fermanagh, for instance, had been proclaimed under the Coercion Act, seeing that only one outrage in six months had been reported by the constabulary. Mr. Win. Bedmond, Fermanagh's second menber, supplemented this by quoting Judge Murphy's recent address to the Fermanagh grand jury, in which it was declared that nothing could surpass the peace and quiet obtaining there, and asking if the attention of the Government had been called to the fact. To these interrogations Balfour's buffer, Colonel King-Harman, returned the instructive reply that the outrage in question had nothing whatever to do with the action of the Government in proclaiming the county , and that he had not read Judge Murphy's charge. Mr. Bedmond instantly gave notice that he would take the earliest opportunity of protesting against placing his peaceable constituents under the stigma of coercion ; and Mr. Sexton completed the Colonel's confusion by forcing him to admit that, though Fermanagh had been proclaimed under the clause relating to intimidation, the report of the InspectorGeneral of Constabulary showed that no case of intimidation had occurred in the county during the period covered by the last return. This was not a bad exposure of the principle, or rather the want of it, on which the proclaimers acted ; but what followed in reference to Kildare was still more instructive. Mr. Carew having quoted Judge Harrison, who stated at the last assizes that tbe returns pi .cod before him contained " nothing that reflected on the peace and good urder of that fine county," wanted to know if the Chief Secretary had any information tending to displace this testimony, and if not, why the county had been proclaimed. Mr. King-Harman, who again replied, mumbled something about the prevalence of boycotting ; whereupon Mr. Sexton promptly rolled him over by inquiring if intimidation existed in Eildare why that county was not proclaimed under the clause relating thereto, instead of under those which relate to " foroible possession and assaults upon constables," seeing that there had not occurred in the county during six months even one case of the kind.

Cases of an almost identical character were made with regard to the proclamation of the oounties of Down, Kilkenny, and Tipperary by the members therefor, and it was abundantly manifest from the shamefaced attitude of the Tories in the House, and the terms of indignant astonishment in which many Liberals expressed themselves, that a telling exposure had been made of the malignant stupidity displayed by the coercionists in putting their infamous act into operation. The World re-affirms its statement of last week that "an extensive reconstruction of the Ministry will take place in November, when Lord Hartington will become Prime Minister and leader of the House of Commons, Lord Salisbury retaining the Foreign Office, and Mr. Smith proceeding to the House of Lords." "An extensive reconstruction of the Ministry " is an event which may be prophesied with safety ; and as for Lord Hartington, the Bridgeton election is a signal to him that he must either go over to the Tories or else come back to the Liberals. The latter is almost an impossibility. When* ever the time comes that Lord Harlington finds his assistance to the Tories of little value from the outside he will go over. But why fix November f Will all the credit of the present Ministry be worn out in three months more ? Well, it is not unlikely. Wicklow loyalism may be great, but it is above all things fiugal. The Earl of Meatb, backed up by other magnates, sent around the hat for a substantial means of testifying it in connection with the dead-and-gone jubilee, but the only response in bullion was the price of a couple of tar barrels. Making the best of the thing, these were set alight by the Earl's bailiff on the Three Well's Hill and Macßeddin's Hill, near Aughrim ; and in due course, no doubt, an admiring British public read that the hills of gallant Wicklow had been ablaze with the signal fires telling how the heart of the county throbbed with delight over the jubilee of the Sovereign who was about to put her sign-manual to the document extinguishing its liberties for ever and ever. The illumination has not gone out since. The tar- barrels set on fire the furze and burnt up hay of the mountains, and got into the turf, and defies the power of man to put it out. Grazing which was invaluable for sheep has been destroyed and much other damage done. Now Lord Meath's bailiff desires to establish that the firing of the mountain was malicious, inasmuch as some imps of Nationalist boys jpot about the tar barrels and scattered their contents all around. This is his allegation. But the story does not appear to hold water with the young Lord Meath. The tenants whose grazing has been destroyed have been admonished that they had better take care not to kick up any row, and his lordship himself goes in only for fifty pounds damages. Still it is not likely that the matter can be hushed up at this point. Major Acton and Mr. Littledale, who had shooting rights over the burnt-up hills, require damages for the loss of game, but the people who are really to be pitied are the tenantry. Game is a luxury ; the grazing of sheep is a vital necessity. If young Lord Meath go on with his claim, the tenants ought to be allowed, despite his covert intimidation, to present their case, too. Bat the equity of the incident would certainly seem to require that it is upon the jubilators, from the subscribers to the bailiff, that the damages, if any be awarded, should fall. The annual meeting of the British Medical Association opened in Dublin on Tuesday, August 2> In a certain sense the proceedings must have proved unique to some of the members ; for among the first ceremonies of the opening day was High Mass and sermon at Marl borough-street Cathedral. The proceedings were presided over by his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin ; the Bishop of Canea was celebrant of the Mass, and Dr. Klein, S.J. , University College, Dublin, the preacher on the occasion. Dr. Klein is an accomplished biologist but a no less accomplished master of elocutionary style, and bis sermon will not be the least important feature of the meeting. He dwelt upon the exalted character of tbe profession as an instrument of charity, upon the influence wielded by the practitioner, and upon the responsibilities which their position in the eyes of their patients entails. His sermon was an admirable expose of what may be called medical ethics, and deserves the study of all members of the profession, no matter what their creed. Glasgow has been called upon to speak for Gladstone, and the response has been an affirmative thunder-shout. Sir George Trevelyan has been returned on the Home-Rule ticket by a tremendous majority. His predecessor, Mr. Russell, had carried the Bridgeton division by a majority of seven hundred ; he carries it now by a majority of fourteen hundred. This victory may almost be regarded as a crowning one. It has struck the dissentient Liberals with dismay, and their allies, the Tories, with confusion. For the miserable dissentients it is as the handwriting on the wall ; they see in it the announcement that their political grave is made. There is no possibility of blinking the fact that the Liberal-Unionist vote in Bridgeton fell off by 300, and that the Gladstonian Liberal vote increased by a similar figure. For once the defeated party honestly confesses its feelings. The Tory papers acknowledge that the result of this election is a disaster, and an unexpected one. Sir George Trevelyan, in his speech after the declaration of the poll, ventured to predict, that it would cause the Government to forego their intention of proclaiming the National League. But the moral victory is not likely to be confined to that. It is highly probable that it may be the means of winning the vacant seat of Northwich for the Gladstonian candidate. In the result ot the Forest of Dean election there is further proof of the turn of public opinion in England in favour of Mr. Gladstone. The poll was heavier on both sides than it was last year. Seven hundred and odd voters more were whipped up in the gross, and of that number Mr. Samuelson, the Liberal candidate, received four hundred and his opponent three hundred, giving a majority of 1,550 to the victor. The chagrined Unionist organs endeavour to minimise this new token of the decay of their cause by saying that the result was a foregone conclusion, us the constituency of the Forest of Dean are all working men, and so likely to be led away by claptrap ; but the argument hardly applies in the case of other recent elections, such as North Paddington, which is nothing if not a genteel type of constituency. The Times urges the Tories to hold on for fivo years for the bare life, and then it promises them Mr. Gladstone will be out of the way. But the Grand Old Man, who, with all his workß and pomps, was

put out of the way finally at the last election, has been " popping ZZ s ft r re 8S e88 hblh bI f w late< Ti c Tory who ™ ka that i«PSFffi last Saturday, bubb ing over hke a geyser with hope and high spirits, and who then studies the figures of Bridgeton, and who after that can build a future for his party upon the prospect of Mr. Glada tone's elimination, is a sanguine Tory indeed. We should be glad to have the change, counted oat in plain words and figures, for the favourite vague phrases of Colonel KingHarman irhen hard pressed, that considerable boycotting prevails in a county which the judge and the constabulary have just pronounced crimeleßS. If he means there is not a county in Ireland in which the land-grabber and the Emergency man do not get the cold shoulder, we most cordially trust that his description is correct, and we hare no farther reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement than is afforded by the character of the author. But, if such boycotting is to afford an excuse for coercion, there is not a connty of England where a habitation of the Primrose League is established that can escape. By this aristocratic association boycotting is made what it is never made in Ireland, a universal weapon against mere political opponents. It is preached with a cold- blooded deliberation and petty meanness that are unknown amongst us. A declaration has been going the rounds of the papers for the last week, not an anonymous declaration by any means, though we cannot at this moment lay our hand upon the reference— of a poor widow lady whose little confectionary shop was boycotted and business ruined, because she refused to join the Primrose League. Kven the rector of the parish did not consider it beneath him to rob her of her best customers, the boys of his school. This incident is not so blood-curdling as the Chief Secretary's famous anecdote about the midwife, but the story is authentic and probably true. The vigilance of the Royal Irish detectives was very striking when Mr. Congressman Collins landed at Belfast from the Royal mail steamer Alligator from Glasgow. General Collins was accompanied by his son and a couple of intimate friends. The detectives pounced on his luggage like as many sleuth-hounds, and after ransacking it root and branch fell back abashed, but no doubt satisfied that they had inflicted some little annoyance on a distinguished IrishAmerican gentleman, upon whom the Corporation of Dublin have iust conferred the Freedom of their City. Mr. Edward Hughes, J.P., one of the most eminent of Belfast merchants and respectable of Belfast citiiens, entertained the General in the evening at his magnificent mansion, Tudor Park, Holy wood. On Monday, August 1, at the meeting of the Northern Counties Athletic Association, held at the Manchester Exhibition Grounds T Conneff, of the Freeman's Journal Athletic Club, succeeded in at last placing an Irishman's name amongst the winners of an English Championship running event. He easily won the Two Miles Flat Northern Championship, beiDg followed home by such flyers as Mills of Coventry, and E. C. Carter, of New York. The latter, we may remark, holds the American Amateur Record for the two miles and other dutances. We congratulate our little countryman on his victory, and trust that it is only the forerunner of many successes for him across the Channel. The constabulary revolt against the Coercion Act continues. Two more secessions are recorded-onelof a constable stationed in Roscommon the other serving, like Maguire, in Belfast. Constable Fitzmaurice, the first referred to, sent in his resignation the other day, and Constable Kerlahan, the latter, at the same time aa did Constable Maguire, the officer alluded to recently. The action of the police authorities with regard to Maguire's resignation must be entirely amusing to anyone who makes the subtleties of the oflicial mind a subject of study. The officer handed in his notice to be quitted by reason of his disgust at the duty which the Coercion Act imposes upon the constabulary. He is answered by a letter dismissing him from the force because of the insubordinate language of his letter 1 Surely the impotence of toothless malice could no further go than bUIS 1 Sir John Pope Hennessy, who has been perfectly successful in upsetting the little game of Mr. Clifford-Lloyd, has taken an action against the Times, claiming £20,000 damages. The lying journal did its very best to damage the Governor of the Mauritius, by distorted and malevolent statements, sneers, and other familiar tricks Sir John's great crime with this vile print was that in his various Governorships he has endeavoured to shield the native populations against the ciuelty and oppressions of the English colonists. He has proved his case against Mr. Clifford-Lloyd, who sought to meddle viciously with his system of rule in the Mauritius, up to the hilt ; and he goes back to his post with full restoration of his powers. It /is gratifying to Bee that be has taken the cowardly bully of Printing-house-square by the throat, and will drag him to the bar of justice. ° We suppose that by a process of elimination and exhauation it may be possiule at some time to arrive at a knowledge of what it is that the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Government do rest their " case for coercion " upon. Whenever the Chief Secretary finds himself cornered by cross-examination during question time he takes refuge in a negative declaration. For instance, he has told ua that the measure which he calls a Crimes Act does not rest upon statistics of crime. Neither does it rest, he said, upon agrarian offences, which, happily, are decreasing. When pressed to say why proclamations were scattered over the country relating to offences which had not distinguished those parts, Mr. Balfour and his unpaid coadjutor always trotted out statistics of boycotting and intimidation which could not be checked by Parliamentary returns. This was a very convenient system while it lasted, and it seemed as if we had at last got the real basis of •' the case for the Government." Mr. Sexton on Wednesday, August 3, pressed for an official return of these " more or less boycotted " persons and of the persons receiving police protection. But Mr. Balfour, in promising the retuin, was careful to demur to the statement that " the case of the Government rested upon statistics of police protection or boycotting. '' Of course not . The whole case for coercion is a fraud. The captain of the Shannon gunboat believed, no doubt, that he was performing a noble piece of service to his country and his Queen

in seizing the green flag which Mr. Mnrphy, M.P., had the audacity to ny from the mast of his pleasure yacht in the Bay of Bantry. The fact that he regarded the enterprise as one of difficulty and dancer is established by the force which he thought necessary to carry it out * i* 11 ] of blQ e'Jackets under an officer, all armed to the teeth, were sent to do it ; and they effected the feat with the usual dash of the British tar. So far, however, from the gallant deed being praised oy tne Government or an admiring country, the hardy sea-dog hag been officially snubbed and held up to ridicule. The captured ensign has been duly returned to Mr. Murphy, per a postman, with a letter tendering an official explanation from the Admiralty, together with an amende from the captain, and a ten-pound note as compensation. It is believed that all danger of a cams belli is removed by this confession of error on the part of England's naval authorities, and it is a fitting sequel to the incident that Mr. Murphy consigns the compensation to the poor-box. It" An Irish Land Agent," who airs his views in the St. James's Uazette, is to be believed, the new Land Bill "will ruia the Irish landed interest as a class." This is a fate which he naturally bemoans for tnem—a fellow-feeling making us wonderouskind, as we knovr on the authority of tha sage of Stratford-on-Avon. For, though the writer m tbe Ctazette is careful to abstain from saying so, it follows that if tae Irish landlords be ruined the occupation of Irish land agents will be gone, like Othello's. This particular " Irish Land Agent " tries to rouse English Tory feeling to intervention for the safety of the threatened class ; but the reason he gives for being satisfied that a further reduction of rent spells ruin for the landlords is about as good a reason aa human ingennity could adduce for sweeping the class out of existence as being worthless beyond all precedent. " The owners of estates, he says, "have been for generations providing for their younger children out of the land itself, adding mortgage to mortgage • the consequence is that at least two-thirds-some say three-fourths— ot tne rental of all Ireland is due to mortgagees and chargeants of different kinds ; therefore an Act which promises the reduction of In *\ re ? y 80Qae 20 P er cent " and of leasehold rents by some 40, said reductions to continue for the space of three years, means simply the destruction of the class as a class." Was ever a more startling picture painted of happy-go-lucky improvidence than this of generations one after another quartering younger children on the land, instead of bringing them up to some business in which they could obtain the means of livelihood by honest labour f And was there ever a more impudent claim than that tenants and their families should not only slave incessantly on their farms, but half-starve themselves into the bargain, to maintain in idleness and luxury a class of which so damning a depiction can be truthfully given ? Mr. T. W. Russell's see-saw policy is again the subject of scathing condemnation by the Rev. Thomas Ellis, the Orange Grand Chap, lain, whose previous damaging letter was lately adverted to. The chaplain seems to be the better logician of the two controversialists. Me cannot look at political honesty in the same light as Mr. Russell nor agree with him that Toryism must be supported in a policy of adoption of measures more Liberal than Liberals themselves would propose. The chaplain is a wise man in his generation. He believes that Home Rule in Ireland is a thing possible at any moment, and his experience of Conservatism is that love of place and power would induce a Tory Government to give a larger measure of Home Rule than the Liberals offer. To the taunt of Mr. Russell that he is an outsider in Tyrone, and has no right to interfere, the Grand Chaplain retorts that he is a member of every Orange lodge in the county, and that his interference may go the further length of standing as a candidate m opposition to that wobbling Scotch politician, whenever the next election comes round. Never was the truth of the old proverb about fighting with a sweep more strikingly illustrated than in rhe late sensational and most regrettable incident in the House of Commons. We allude to Mr. Healy s suspension, of course. Mr. Healy is admittedly, even on the confession of his enemies, one of the very ablest men in the House of Commons. Mr. De Lisle is, by general concession, exceptionally eccentric. His best contributions to the debates are of the inarticulate order. His cat-calls, howliags, and derisive laughter are, on the whole, less offensive.'and more intelligible than his speeches. No comment, however caustic, can increase the well-merited contempt with which he is universally regarded. Nay more, he courti contempt and thrives on notoriety. He keeps an album, it is said full of newspaper cuttings in which there is an attempt, however feeble, to describe him. Dogberry himself was not devoured with a more burning desire to be " written down aa ass," and the writing it done often enough and in letters sufficiently large for the world to read. The pity of it is that such a creature as this should at such a juncture be the means of depriving the Irish Party of the invaluable services of Mr. Healy. The scaadalouß conduct in which a section of the Tories in the House of Commons are permitted to indulge with impunity towards the Irish members was illustrated afresh on Tuesday night, August 7, in that assembly. Mr. John Dillon having detected in an English print a slanderous statement to the effect that some members of the Irish Party—including Mr. Dillon himself— had a few nights before in the House gleefully applauded the announcement°that the daughter of an Irish land agent had been hit with a stone, brought it under the notice of the Speaker, whereupon three or four Tories yelled out that the statement was true. Mr. Dillon warmly retorted that it was a lie, stated his belief that it had been supplied by one of the Tory gang, and protested against the system of " infamous and atrocious falsehood." pursued towards the Irish representatives. This brought up Mr. Speaker, not to rebuke the disorderly interrupters, but to aid them in endeavouring to prevent Mr. Dillon making a needed exposure of their disgraceful tactics— a display of unfairness which compelled the member for East Mayo to declare indignantly that there was one measure of justice for the Irish members and another for the Tory. To this circumstance is, of course, attributable the intolerable display of rowdyism on the part of De L:sle and Co., who feel pretty well assured of immunity from censure, no matter how outrageously they may conduct themselves.

The assizes are just closed. Throughout, the judges' charges have been a cheerful chorus of congratulation. The only discord tot note was the wolf-like howl of Judge O'Brien in Clare. By that masterpiece of statesmanship, the universal and perpetual proclamation of Inland under the Coercion Act, the Chief Secretary has given the Irish members a splendid opportunity of advertising and enforcing the crimelesenesa of the country . The House of Commons is treated to a county at a time, and night after nighb the Chief Secretary blunders through his explanation of the connection between white gloves and coercion. The coercionists cannot blow hot and cold. The judges are their own witnesses. Tbey have appealed Again and again to the ill-conditioned and unsupported charge of the renegade Judge O'Brien in Clare. It is impossible for them to discount the judicial charges in the thirty-one other counties (not to count the towns) in Ireland in which congratulations have been delivered, backed as they are by incontrovertible facts and figures. The result of the election for the Forest of Dean division of Gloucestershire, declared on Saturday, July 30 — though there a Liberal replaces a Liberal — is properly regarded as affording further proof that the Liberals are everywhere in England rallying to Mr. Gladstone's banner. Mr. Samuelson, the Gladstonian candidate, has been returned by a majority greater by 143 votes than that secured by his predecessor in 1886, and it is stated that the triumph of the former over his Conservative opponent would have been much more marked were it not that many too-confident voters refrained from going to the poll. The fact that the Liberals can hold their own by increased majorities as well as win seats held by Tories and Dissentients is an encouraging augury of the crowning victory. It evidences that the paper-unionist position is being turned with a rapidity which cannot fail soon to result in a rout,. Even the Licurish Times has lifted up its heel against the landlords, and publicly refuses to give them any more of its space for doleful letter-writing, which it needs tor commercial advertisements. Our truckling contemporary, its eyes sharpened by its own interests, expounds the somewhat self-evident fact that no great revolution can be effected or resisted by anonymous correspondence in its columns. The Lwrish Times roundly declares '• that at this, the greatest crisis in their fortune, the landlords are exhibiting perfectly unaccountable apathy." " The fruit of their marvellously obstinate policy of hidden contrivance," continues their Job's comforter, " is now before us. The landlords have less and less influence, and not more and more, until now they write to us very nearly in the language of despair." Then the liarish leader-writer strikes a bolder strain and infuses bis own brave spirit into the words that urge the dispirited landlords to resistance and defiance. " Let them hold meetings," ha cries, " and make sure they will be successful (otherioiso better not hold them), in Dublin." Ay, there's the rub. To parody Cato, " it's not in landlordß to command success, nor (what is more important) to deserve it." That little bit of advice in brackets is specially suited to their condition, and they have taken it by anticipation. " Better not hold them," Bays the Liarish Times, and they don't. The harvest of 1887 is going to be unusually tbin. Everyone who takes a run into the country must Boon become painfully aware of that fact. The yield will be much under last year's yield, and the situation thus created is likely to be worse, too. It will be worse, first of all, because it may be more easily disguised. The failure of the harvest is general throughout the East of Europe, and the scarcity thus created may stimulate prices. People interested in pretending that a prosperity exists will thus find materials ready to hand to prove that the Hgricultural depression is passing away, and that the reviral of prices has actually begun. They may actually persuade Land Commissioners and Cabinets into that belief, and the fight against the evictors will be made more difficult. Worse, however, than that may be the distress caused in the poorer districts. From what we can learn the yield of the potato will be much below the average, and to the difficulty of finding rent may be added for many the difficulty of finding food.