JOINING HANDS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 25, 14 October 1887, Page 13

JOINING HANDS.

(United Ireland, August 27.;

GREAT and memorable as have been the popular gatherings at the Dublin Rotunda, it must be owned that the vast demonstration of Tuesday evening last eclipsed them all in point of numbers and spirit. It was literally overwhelming, for those who were enabled to force their way into the rooms an hour before the proceedings began were compelled to eudure a crushing and a stewing whioh put the physical endurance of the strongest to the proof. The occasion was one whick must be described as forming an historical landmark. Side by side with popular leaders on the Irish side stood a number of English Liberal members of Parliament— a fraction only of those who have thrown themselves heart and soul into the Irish movement— to denounce the infamy of the Government in " proclaiming " a crimelesa country and a League whose objects are open and avowed and perfectly legitimate. So immense was the crush that the doors of tha Bound Room had to be closed in a very short time after they had been thrown open, and the Concert Room and Pillar Room became speedily filled ; all the while there were many thousands outside who, though hopeless of gaining admission, held on with the idea of getting a look at the English visitors. These gentlemen-Messrs. Jasob Bright,Haldane Cobb, and Fenwick, M.P.'s— arrived by the afternoon mail steamer' and were reoeived by the Lord Mayor and several other popular chiefs. Their arrival at the Rotunda was the signal for a tremendous outburst of cheering, again and again renewed asQ they passed through the building and struggled to their places on the platform. The Lord Mayor presided at the Round Boom meeting, and Mr. H. J. Gill, M.P., and Alderman Winstanley were the respective chairmen at the two overflow meetings. BeT. Professor Galbraith, the :riccius Dentatus of the Home Rule movement, proposed the main resolution of the demonstration, ani it was seconded by an Irish landlord, Mr. VinceDt Scully. It was supported by Messrs. Bright, Cobb, Haldane, Fenwick, John Dillon, and William O'Brien,' M.P.'s. The English speakers impressed everyone by the stolid earnestness of their logic and their manner, and they seemed to be powerfully impressed by the astound. ng enthusiasm of their reception. The whole circumstances and the whole tone and tenor of the speeches' at the meeting invested it with the character of a grand international ceremony— the solemn ratification of a compact, for the first time ia all history, between the English people and the Irish. The two democracies, in their struggle against class rue, have now fused. This appearance of English Liberal Parliamentarians at the Rotunda shows an earnestness and a business-like prompitude on the part of our Englibh allies in their political action whioh give them a Btroug individuality of their own. It followed immediately on the heels of a circular couvening a meeting of the Liberal members of Pailiament to consider the " proclamation " of the League and adopt means for supporting the Iriah party. It was, moreover, the earnest of a preceding announcement to the effect that fifty English Liberal M.l'.'s hid intimated their desire to join the Irish National League and throw themselves heart and soul into the struggle and cast down the challenge of free men to Balfour, King-Harman arid Co.