Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 24, 7 October 1887, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.) Thb Government want an excuse for vigorous coercion,* so once again the evictors are pushed to the front. A just, even a moderately just, Land Bill, they saw with dismay, would settle the agrarian question for a time, and leave the Nationalists free to concentrate their attention on Home Rule. The Nationalists displayed unexampled moderation in their reception of the Bill. The perverse obstinacy and deliberate bad temper of the Government could net provoke their opponents to give them the longed-for pretext of dropping the measure and shirking the responsibility. Meantime, they stood the laughingstock of the world with their cumbrous Coercion Act on their hands in the middle of a crimeless country. Something must be done. Evictions wer» determined on. The facts fix tne guilt of this brutal policy on Mr. Balfour as plainly as if he pleaded guilty to the charge from the dock. The bland statement that the Government cannot stop evictions is just one of those plausible commonplaces which nobody believes. The Government can stop evictions, and does, whan it suits its book. It is theirs to curb the evictors or give them loose rein. We remember how easily Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and General Boiler, " by pressure always within the law," kept the Kerry rack-renters in order so long as it suited their purpose. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, and the boldest exterminator of them all will not venture on the war-path unleßshe is sure he has the Government at his back.

In various parts of Munster the landlords have this week, ending August 13, proceeded with the fell work of eviction. At Kanturk and Knocklong there were repetitions of those scenes that have made Glenbeigh and Bodyke famous. At Currae, near Kanturk, where a Mr. Leader brought Sheriff Gale and his bailiffs to hunt ont three tenants for refusing to pay rackrents, the invading party were met with volleys of tar and showers of hot water. At Elton, near Knocklong, a still more formidable resistance was offered to the agents of destruction and extermination Stones were freely and effectually rattled on to the heads of the bailiffs and policemen, many of whom were made to feel that the work of breaking into houses and casting forth the inmates is not as safe and pleaiant a pastime as they were led to •xpect. When the fight became closer the stones were laid aside by the heroic defenders and hayforks substituted . Several of the policemen, including a sub-inspector and some of the bailiffs, were rendered htrt de combat by the vigorous thrusts which they received from the hayforks energetically wielded by strong liish hands. The cry is still, they go 1 Resignations from disgusted policeconstables continue tumbling in upon the alarmed authorities. Constable Healy, of Bally more-Bust ace, within the past few days intimated his intention to follow the examples of the constables in Belfast and elsewhere lately referred to, as any further service to this Government or under the Coercion Act, he says, would •' be disgusting "to him. Had the Government been able to foresee such consequences of their coercion policy, it is highly prsbable they would havei incorporated in their all-embracing and everlasting coercion something to meet the case — some clause making it a crime to refuse to be an instrument of it. This was a sad oversight, but there's no help for it now.

The savage evictions in the County of Limerick are artificial evictions— they are political evictions. It is not for us to set a limit to the blindness and brutality of the evictors, but we see plain proof here of an external stimulus. Every landlord in Ireland knows that in about a week's time, when the Land Bill is passed, a registered letter will do more in the way of eviction than the Sheriff, with horse, foot, and artillery at his back, can accomplish at present. Left to himself the evictor, we are convinced, would have waited tor the eviction-made-easy clause to heip him. The Government, which could hare compelled him to wait, has encouraged him to'proceed. The taxpayer may have a word to Bay to this later on. Oa Tuesday, August 9, Colonel King-Harman confessed that the eviction on the Skinners' estate of 6 tenants had cost the Treasury close on five hundred pounds ; the amount of rent to be recovered was a hundred. As a landlord and rack-renter himself, this seemed to the gallant Colonel a most satisfactory condition of things. "When legal processes had to be enforced," he said, " the Government could not be influenced by the proportion of the costs to the amount." The ratepayers may take a different view of the question . They may object to rack-renters being accommodated with evictions at the rate of a hundr.d pouuds apiece from the public funds, more especially at present, when the same dirty work can be accomplished a week hence for a penny postage stamp. The wanton and cold-blooded cruelty of the proceeding raises a larger issue, of which the Government are not likely soon to hea? the end. We assume they hope to have the County of Limerick ripe presently lor the reaping hook of coercion The Archbishop of Cashel has, through the Rev. Father Riordan, the " emigrant priest " of Castle Garden, made a very interesting present to our countrymen in the United States. It consists of two flags — one, the national flag of America, which is intended for the famous 69th Irish Regiment of New York ; and the other, the green flag of Ireland, with harp and sunburst, is to be at the dis; osal of Father Riordan, to be used by him in such manner as he m • v deem most profitable for the charitable work in which he is eDgagu : : Jastla Garden. Both flags are made entirely of Irish material", o taves being of Irish ash, and the bunting of Irish poplin, embruiJered by the nans of the Presentation Convent, Cashel. It may well be imagined what- a warm ontburst of patriotic feeliog ttio ad veat of this presentation will call forth amongst the Irish exiles. The Liberal Unionists mustered their forces at the Saip Hotel, Greenwich, the other week, to see whether any consolation could be found in companionship for the disasters that have fallen upon them. Lord Har tington was the guest of the evening, and although, evidentn t ly, no pains had been spared to make the demonstration of Liberal Union ftrenptb as imposing as possible, it was remarkable that little more than half the members of the heretical section obeyed the summons.

- . : * Many of the Liberal Unionist members are beginning to feel v«ry\ uneasy at the awkward position into which they have been led by the chiefs in whom they foolishly placed their confidence. Every day's experience is making it clearer that Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamber lain have no following in the country ; and their numbers in the House of Commons are oat of all proportion to the support which they can command outside. Lord Salisbury is plainly disposed to set less weight on their influence since the recent elections have exposed their weakness at the polls. Their recommendations in the House of Commons have been repeatedly snubbed when they ran counter to the wishes of the Government, Lord Hartington is an easy man for the Conservatives to conciliate, as he is instinctively more Tory that the Tories themselves ; but the Liberal voters who have been duped into fabricating a crutch for the support of a Tory Ministry are not quite so well satisfied with the existing state of affairs. • < ■■ Though vast preparations have been made to carry oat the threatened evictions on the Kingston estate, no real step has yet been taken to go on with the work. Irresolution and doubt seem to per- . vade the councils of the exterminators. A few head of cattle have been captured in a midnight raid, owing to want of vigilance on the part of some persons, but this poor triumph is the only thing the evictors can boast of after nine months straggle. The splendid organisation which exists among the tenantry was exemplified in a manner in which a great meeting held at Mitchelstown |on Tuesday, August 9, got itself together without .any visible summons. Mr^fW^n. O'Brien, M.P., pointed out to the tenants the magnitude of thexsuccesses which their action had won in bringing both the Government and landlords to their knees ; and Mr* T. Condon, M.P., who has distinguished himself throughout the whole contest by his indefatigable industry, also showed strongly what reasons the tenants had for keeping up the fight to the end. If the Tories thought the six months' brutal confinement which they have decreed against the Iri9h peasant who dares to make. a stand for his home, would frighten into silence and submission the threatened victims of landlordism, the events at Elton, Co. Limerick, will show them how much they have been mistaken. The " scandal," as Mr. Goschen would describe the determined protest against the desecration of the homestead, was as great in Limerick as in Wicklow, and the prospect of six months in her jubilee Majesty's gaol does not seem to hare much terrors for the peasant doomed to a six months' or longer stay in the ditches. We fear very much the " scandal " will continue, and and that the attention of the English democracy and of the civilised world will, inconveniently for Goschen acd Company, be thereby fixed on the truly atrocious scandals of the landlord system and of the system of government. " Irish landowners are sacrificed on the base excuse of maintaining the Union." This is a somewhat startling description of the highprincipled, self-sacrificing Unionists. Their policy is but a base pretence of maintaining the Union. If an enemy had said thjse things his envy and hatred might be held responsible. But this stinging accusation comes from the lips, or rather comes from the pen, of an ardent, if revolted, supporter. It is no hasty, hot-tempered passage from a nobody's speech. It is a well-considered opinion in a deliberate letter of the Duke of Abarcorn to Colonel Taylor, Deputy Lieutenant of County Tyrone. Lord Abercorn's opinion of the Government of which Lord Salisbury is head is that they are base hypocrites, masquerading as Unionists for their private ends. The Duke of Abercorn ought- to know. We willingly defer to his superior knowledge. He has been behind the scenes. If he is not in the Cabinet, he has stood, like the Peri in Moore's fable, at the Cabinet door, and saw the light and heard the whispered secrets within. Only yesterday authoritative rumour declared him the coming Irish Lord Lieutenant of the Coercion Government ; to-day he is denouncing them with a brutal candour their bitterest enemies could not rival. " The base excuse of defending the Union," Here, truly, is a glorious policy for this noble band of brothers to go to the country with.

What a terrible loss the manipulators of the blue lights of the imaginary region of the Irish diaboli have sustained by the discovery that Mooney, who attempted to blow up the steamer Queen, ii an unfortunate lunatic. A Russian Nihilist paternity had already been discovered for the dynamitard ; and we daresay in the attics of Printing House Square inventions were actively providing a connection with Parnellism for the politician. How glorious it would have been. At last the connecting link between Nihilism and Parnellism would have been found ; and Gladstonianism would have been thereby proved to hare been one and the same with the whole devilish revolutionary movement that threatens to destroy civilisation. Only for that miserable American doctor, with his knowledge of mental diseases, there would have been a grand new senaa'ion, and the circulation of the Times would have gone up four thousand three hundred and ninety per day, while the old women among whom it finds its only room for extension were nnder the delusion. Mr. Gladstone received a very enthusiastic ovation at Chester, ou his arrival there by the 9.33 train on Saturday evening, August 6. Recognising on the platform an Irish priest, the Rev. Father Mc'lner* ney of Wicklow, he at once entered into conversation with him. Finding that Father Mc'lnerney was from Mr. ParneU's native country, and that he had presided at the great meeting which was held there after the convention, Mr. Gadstone said that the Irish priesthood had now a great work to perform in common with the Irish people. Father Mc'lnerney replied : '■ The Irish priests and people will co-operate with you in producing harmony where there was hatred between the two peoples." Mr. Gladstone appeared to be delighted at receiving this assurance, md after an interchange of some more remarks on Irish affairs, the two gentlemen parted with cordial acknowledgments and aalutatioaa.

One thing the progress of the L nd Bill through committee has brought out very clearly which it is worth a good deal to have established. That is, the utter fraudulence of the Liberal -Unionist's attempt to pose as the friend of the tenant. Their plan was ingeniously simple. They proposed a nnmber of amendments in the names of Mr. T. W. Russell, Mr. Lea, and Mr. Finlay — amendments most of which would have been useful had they passed — and they

allowed a couple of these gentlemen to " tell " for tho amendments on the divisions, but as a party they voted against them. By proposing the amendments and naming Liberal- Unionist tellers, they calculated on getting credit for having dona their utmost for the tenants. By negativing their own amendments by their vote they would, of couTse, make themselves all right with their friends the Tories and landlords It was a dodge eminently worthy of the genius of the singular and lofty political party which has conceived it. But like all the dodges of these superior persons, it left out of count the common sease and perspicacity of the vulgar public. The vulgar public have scrutinised the division list and made out the figures of every division on a Liberal-Union>sc amendment— figures, for example, such as those of the division on Mr. Finlay's amandmsnt dealing with arrears, when six Liberal-Unionists out of seventy-six voted for the proposal— and wherever a Liberal-Unionist henceforth Bhows his nose he will be confronted with this rough-dpoken proof of his outrageous fraud and humbug. The last thing the British public likes— the last thing anybody likes— is to be taken in, and this insolent attempt to fool and cheat them will prove the bitterest drop iv thtir cup of indignation against the Liberal-Unionists.

The action of the Liberal Unionists in forcing the Tory Government to re-cast the Land Bill in the face of their declared intention, and the part taken in reference thereto by Mr. T. W. Russell in particular, seems to have raised the ire of the Orangemen to an alarming extent, judging by the manifesto just addressed to the brethren of South Tyrone by '■ Grand Chaplain," the Rev. Thomas Ellis. Referring to a resolution recently passed by the Orange Lodges of the district of Benburb, condemning Mr. Russell's tactics, and which was forwarded to Lord Salisbury, the Ruv. Mr. Ellis says : " To you belongs the honour of having grasped the situation in which Mr. Russell had placed the Prime Minister of England by his extraordinary action with regard to certain clauses cf th« Land Bill, and of your having immediately protested against it;" and ha goes onto charge that Imperial patriot with having "sprung a mine" on the Government which he was elected to support. This, according to Bey. Mr. Ellis, the plotting member for South Tyrone managed to do by deferring his extraordinary action until Lord Salisbury " was put in the position either of being turned out of office or stultifying himself in the eyes of the world by eating his own words." The Grand Chaplain also quotes a letter from the Grand Master, the Earl of Erne, in which that disgusted nobleman expresses agreement with the sentiment b contained in the manifesto, and adds : •' I have worked for the party (Tory; for 20 years, but shall now hold myself aloof from any party, and, like yourself, stand an Orangeman pure and simple." A plague on both your houses is evidently the Orange motto now. The Marquis of Hartington has actually performed a feat. lie has delivered a speech which the Daily Newt pronounces to be a moit important one. Reading the speech, there is nothing very striking about tt. It is like all the rest of his speeches, lumbering, dull, and unredeemed by a single scintilla of original thought or felicity of expression. But it ia in its drift that the importance which is attached to it exists. The whole tenor of the pronouncement shows that in his lordship's mind the dividing lines of policy have faded away or merged into each other, and that the outcome of the chaos must be his emergence as n Tory statesman. His lordship considers that it would be a great misfortune if the Liberals who are not Uuionists should oome to b« regarded as the party of progress and reform, and to prevent this he would have the Conservative party take up, even though they could nut do it with light hearts, legislation of a progressive character. This is the only means which he sees by which to bring about that closer uuion between his follower* and tbe Tory party so often spoken of as a desideratum. But he declares the time for such a union is not yet ; and he takes anything at all but a roseate view of the general prospect of his own section or the party to which they h*ve lent themselves as a crutch. Bucb was the post-prandial hilarity of the noble Marquis at the Liberal Unionists' banquet at the Ship Hotel, Greenwich ; and it must be owned that his mood was fully shared, so far as we can judge from the speeches of the principal guests present, The toothless and malignant ex-Tnbune, John Bright, Tented his bile by a spleoetic attack upon Mr. Gladstoue, and *lr. Chamberlain displayel his statesui inlike mmd iv another oration eo»r as aeafcetida.

We are sure the gallant men of the 69th New York Regiment will receive with pride the graceful token of apprecia.ion aud fraternity which hi« Grace of Casnel sends them, perßsv. Father Riordan, of Castle Garden. As an offering it stands unique. Ie is the first time, we believe, that an Irish prelate has presented a flag to any body of hie countrymen abroad ; hence the standard of the Stare and Stripes, consecrated by the great Archbishop's blessing, which the Irishmen of the 69th are now about to receive, will be prized by them more highly than their lives, and guarded as the apple of their eye. Another flag is &ent outsat the same time to Father Riordan— the Sunburn of Erin, on its giouuu of immortal green. This is given to Father Biordan, who has been the instrument of untold good to the poor Iribh female emigrants landing at Castle Gardens, to be disposed of by him in such a way as he deems most fitting. Both flags have have been worked and embroidered by the Nuns of the Presentation Convent in Tburles, and are models of needlework and good taßte. ▲11 the materials used, aa well as the flagstaffs, are Irish. They are carried to their debtination by Father MacDonnell, of Chicago. Mr. Whitely, the great London warehoiseman, has Borne right to complain that the provibkns of the Crimss Act do not extend to London. His huge pautechuicon at Paddington, in which everything from a penny winstle to a paaner for life could be obtained, was burned down on Saturday evening, August 6. Now, from the sudden rnauner in which the fire broke out, from the fact that it sprang up in a icore of plhces all through the building at once, and from other ciicumbtanceß attending it or preceding it, Mr. Whitely concludes that the blaie was malicious. This is third time within a few years that bis vast premises have besn either wholly or partially destroyed by fire, and on each occasion he suspects malice to have been the cauße. Just look at the consequences. By the tire of Saturday last

he has loit s > naS ing kk-i h UE a million of money, and in the previous conflagration somgthing like another. Now, Irish landlords pot before everything loss of money. Can thay show anything like this huge monetary 1033 as the result of any of the doings on which the Crimes Act was based ? In the secondary matter of human life, thera were four excellent public servants, policemen and firemen, besides three others, sacrificed to what Mr. Whitely believes to be malice ; yet he has no means of availing himself of the Irish landlords' privileges of holding a secret inquisition. Mr. Whitely has reason to be jealous of the privileges of us, mere Irish, and to demand that the British Constitution ba for ever abrogited in Great Britain as well as here.

What is Mr. Chamberlain about ? There are three facts to bt noted in connection with his receat pronouncements, and which point along an altogether different routs to that which he has been travel* ling. First, a secretary has been authorised to declare for him that all he has claimed with regard to the separate treatment of Ulster is, that when the Home Rule question is being settled— there is a Home Rule question to settle be it noted— the claims put forth by Ptatettant Ulster— the qualified on is new — should be considered. Second, instead of taking: up an unchangeably Unionist stand at the Liberal Unionist banquet the other evening, he put forward as his main ground of difference with SLr George Trevelyan, a conviction that Sir Ge >rge*s interpretation of Mr. Gladstone's '■ oracular utterance " at Swansea was mistaken, There might, if Mr. Chamberlain's necessities demanded it, be developed out of that objection, aa stated, a declaim* tion that Sir George Trevelyan's own position is strictly Unionist. Indeed, Mr. Chamberlain in another of his sentences went very olos* to that statement, for he assumed that Sir George Trevelyan had persuaded himself that the Gladstonians had conceded all that the Dissentients demanded. Third, and most significant fact of all, Mr. Chamberlain has had the grace to concede that Mr. Dillon and his colleagues have the interest of the Irish tenant at heart. It is not many months since Mr. Chamberlain declared that the Irish party were exploiting the land question for the most sordid personal ends ; and his concesalon to the demands of decency and truth in this recent statement is a refreshing novelty. These little incidents show how the wind blows. If we are not mistaken, a few more " blessings in disguise " would leave the Tory cause without the doubtful assistance of the renegade Radical. At all events, among the many uncertainties of the Tory position Mr. Chamberlain is the most incalculable.