Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 26, 21 October 1887, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

* (From the National papers.) 't'hk courageoui action of Chief Secretary Balfour in " proclaiming " the whole of Ireland under the Coercion Act has been followed up most fittingly. The Lord Lieutenant has been got to " proclaim " the National League as a " dangerous " ass ciation. A notice to the effect that the great organisation is by the Lord Lieutenant's goodwill and pleasmrp brought within Section 6 of the Coercion Ac* appeared in the Dublin Gazette of Friday night, August 19, and copies of the proclamation were forwarded to the various police stations thioughout the country to be duly posted up. So far nothing very frightful has resulted from this heroic action of Mr. Balfour and his deficto subordinate but de jure superior, Oastlereagh the Little, offlciallv known as the Lord Lieutenant.

The proclamation of the National League baa been met with an outburst of condemnation and ridtcule from two bemispherea. We believe the Time* and its tiro followers in Dublin approve of the action of the Government, many Liberal Unionists regret that the Lord Lieutenant was interrupted in his light amusement at the Phoanix Park to meet the two judges who signed the official proclamation, the rest of that interesting party — for every species rapidly becoming extinct is interesting — strongly disapprove of the measure. On the other side is arrayed a solid body of intelligent public opinion. The greatest meeting that ever assembled in a Dublin hall met on Tuesday night, August 23, to hear some of the most trusted leaders of the English Radicals join with the men who lead the van in the National Party in the denunciation of the Government policy. Our reports from English branches of the League are numerous this week ; they all breathe a spirit of robust energy and a determination that this new blunder on the part of the Government will only stir them up to fresh energies. Even Mr. T. W. Russell has spurned the present Administration.

The Coercion Act was base and rotten in all its parts ; they chose the basest and rottenest section to rest on. They proclaimed the League, not because it is criminal, but because it is dangerous. Of course it is dangerous — it would be worthless if it were not ; and in the fact that it is not criminal its main danger, from the Government point of view, consists. They would be as justified in hanging Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell because they are dangerous as in attempting to suppress the League. Why need we now split hairs about new crimes T Why wrangle about the suppression of free speech ? By the mere issuing of an order in Council, by the simple signing the magic word " Londonderry," the Lord Lieutenant can convert the great bulk of the population of Ireland at one stroke into convicted criminals, and give them, or get his magistrates (it comes to the same thing) to give them six months' imprisonment with hard labour apiece. Such tyranny would justify, would demand armed revolt, if there were the slightest chance of its success or its continuance. No man worthy the. name would submit for an hour to such a system administered by competent tyrants, but fortunately our tyrants are also fools. The men whom the proclamation was to have driven into a paroxysm of terror can scarcely persuade themselves to take it seriously. They regard it at most as a one-act burlesque, a thing to hold the boards for half an hour or so amid the careless laughter of the spectators, until the green curtain falls.

It is impossible to plumb the lowest depths of human imbecility, but we find it difficult to fancy that the manufacturers of this stage thunder could themselves, even for one moment, believe in its efficacy. We are no novices to real coercion here in Ireland ; coercion sternly and steadily administered by able and resolute coercionists with the whole might of English opinion at their back. We have seen it out with them to the bitter end, and have come stronger than ever from out of the contest. We were disorganised then, we are organised dow ; we were disunited then, we are united now. We were never before a thousandth parl so atrong ; our enemies were never a thousandth part so weak. Shall we who survived Cromwell and a hundred tyrants of the Cromwell type tremble before Mr. Balfour. It is true that Mr. Balfour's Coercion Act is the most savage yet passed. But the sharpest and heaviest weapon is harmless in the hands of a weakling and a coward.

Twenty-five bursee of the aggregate value of four hundred Pounds will be open in St. Patrick's College, Thurles, after the 6th September. These valuable prizes have been established by his Grace the Archbisbop of Cashel, who was generously seconded by his priests and people, for the benefit of Foreign Missions. Ireland, through good and ill, has been the nursery of missionaries, and she can claim that in all quarters of the world her children teach the truths of Catholicism. Intending candidates for the burses now offered should communicate with the President at St. Patrick's College.

This, above all, must be remembered. Mr. Balfour has a task before him from which even Cromwell might have shrunk in dismay. Mr. Balfour and his coronetted masters have got to coerce two free peoples. The might of England is no longer with the coercionists, but against them. The two democracies stand resolutely side by side facing the titled tyrants A roar of execration swelle \up to avenging heaven from half a million of throats at Hyde Park when the baleful policy was begun ; a protest not less significant marks the first mad attempt to enforce it. Ireland joined with Ei. • nd in the protest in Hyde Park ; England joined with Ireland in . ..^ ...oteatin the Rotundo.

On their own supporters on the Liberal Unionist side the action of the Government Beems to have had a somewhat staggering effect. The fact seems to be tuat no one was admitted to the secret that &uch a magnificent master-stroke was about to be delivered, hence the soreness which the slighted Liberal-Unionists could jnot to some extent helpjshowing. Mr. Chamberlain spoke at a garden party on Saturday iv his usual tricky and double-cunning way, and intimated his disapproval of the policy of immediately proclaiming the League, with an nebulous hint of an intention to go into tho division lobby against it.

Mr. T. W. Russell has cut clear adrift from the Liberal -Unionist camp. In a letter, equally honest, to the Times, the statesman of the temperance hotel gives his reasons for backing out of the alliance with the Government. He alleges disgust with their treacherous policy over the Land Bill, and endeavours to throw dust ia th c eyes of the Ulster farmers regarding hia own equally insincere conduct over the land question. But it is evident that Mr. Russell perceives the veering of the wind, and feels that the ship cannot very much longer keep afloat. The Morning Post endeavoures to meet one of Mr. Chamberlain's arguments against the inopportuneneaa of " proclaiming " the League — which was to the effect that under the " proclamation " of the whole oouotry under the Crimea Act there was already power to the magistrates to deal with specific caßes as they might arise. To this the aristocratic organ replies that Government must rely on the " broad moral effect " of such action, and not on any hole-and-corner dealings. The " broad moral effect !" "We thank thee, Jew, for teaching us that word," The first " broad moral effect " noticeable from the " proclamation " ia an immense accession in Ireland to the already stupendous League organisation — as will be Been from our reportß ; while in England about fifty Liberal members of Parliament have intimated their intention of joining the League. How does the Morning Post regard this sort of " broad moral effect ?"

Tuesday, August 23, night's meeting is unique in the history of the two countries. We have grown so accustomed to fight out our battles alone, we have grown £o used to regard all England as our foe, that our delight is scarcely greater than our surprise suddenly to find what is best and bravest in the English democracy fighting on our aide. The meeting in the Rotunda was surely the most encouraging that even that historic hall has ever seen. Irish representatives were there, the first citizens of Dublin were there, the solemn blessing and God-epead of one of the most patriotic prelates that ever sat in the chair of St. Laurence was not wanted to that historic gathering. But the distinctive feature of the scene was the forms of well-known English representatives moving through the crowd, mounting the platform, and, amid the storm of warm-hearted Iri3h cheers, pledging the English masses to stand side by side with their Irish brethren in this last struggle for Irish freedom. We rubbed our eyes as we listened to these speeches. It was no impassioned Irish orator, drunk with his country's wrongs, that flung those words of brave and manly defiance of Tory tyranny out to the applauding multitude. It was the tried and trusted representatives of the great English people with whom we have been at feud for several centuries— with whom our feud closes here.

The presence of Mr. Jacob Bright and hia colleagues in the Rotunda was only an earnest of what the Home Rule Liberals intend to do should the Government give ub the opportunity of educating the awakened English constituencies with the powerful object-lesson of another coericon regime. A meeting of these members to consider the best means of affording public moral support to the National League and the Irish party was announced for Thursday in the Conference room of the House of Commons, by a circular signed by some of the most respected names in the Liberal Party. Several members have already arranged for Irish meetings which they are going to attend . More will be prepared to attend as good lookers-on in the courts in which th« coercion stipend iaries will exercise their summary jurisdiction. Talk of the Union 1 Here is the first taste of a real union the English and the Irish peoples ever had, Irish representatives telling the story of Ireland to the English people and firing them with generous indignation. English representatives sustaining the Irish people in their last spell of oppression. It is a reconciliation worthy of the h' story of the countries with its ages of misunderstanding and wrong. What purblind fools they are who think it is in the power of man to delay the progress of a cause which moves thus sublimely along the way that tne finger of Providence has marked out like a track of light ? The lives of Grattan and Parnell reveal some striking coincidences of date and fact. Grattan was born in 1746 ; 0. S. Parnell in 1846. The ancestry of both were closely associated with Swift. The Grattans and Parnells had both judges in their families. Grattan entered the Irish Parliament in 1775, and Parnell took his seat in the English House of Commons in 1875. In 1779 was established that body led by Grattan, which enabled him to achieve Legislative Independence ; while in 1879 was founded that organisation of which 0. S. Parnell is the leader, and which bids fair to enable him, too, to regain Legislative Independence. The freedom of the city of Dublin was presented to Grattan, and exactly a century later the same compliment was conferred on Parnell. Both were Protestants. Grattan attached himself to the side of Fox, who visited Ireland in 1778 — Parnell to Gladstone, who visited Ireland in 1878. A golden tribute from a grateful people was presented to both. Grattan bought an estate in the Queen'i County — the stronghold of the Parnells, but chose his home in the County Wicklow, whither Charles Stewart Parnell's grandfather had migrated, and also fixed his residence— Grattan at Tinnehinch, Parnell at Avondale. In 1780 Henry Grattan 'a Declaration of Irish Rights was fiercely attacked by the Government, and so also was C. S. Parnell's programme in 1880, by means of a State Prosecution. Both were intended for the Bar in youth, but neither had a taste for the profession. A base effort waß made to implicate Grattan in the treasonable plots of his time, and failed ; the same remark applies to Charles Stewart Parnell. Proceedings of a lively character were beheld, the other dnw "t Rathcoole, County Cork. There a tenant named Tim O'Leuy ut*SQ£. be evicted by his landlord, Sir Geoige Oolhurst. Tim's preparau^ .-. for defence showed that he had mistaken his vocation, and that kfiS proper occupation, instead of farming, would be "guarding a leaguerod/ wall " or following out the science of Vauban in some way or othei , When the bailiffs, at seven o'clock in the morning, put in a a appearance, they found the house strongly barricaded. An iron mke was suspended over the door, to drop nicely on anyone who came in. A well, fifty feet deep, in the yard was covered over with rush.s, etc., so as to form a trap. Boiling tar and a copioas supply of stones were in possession of the occupants to salute the bailiffs. After five

houra' siege they broke 5 n the doors and got into the lower part of the house, which they found filled with bushes and stones. They could not get into tbe upper storey, and after some time got ladders and jpounted the roof. They made three openings in the roof, from which Flaey were repelled with mops soaked in boiling tar and showers of stones. One of the bailiffs narrowly escaped a fall from the roof. Matters reached such a pitch that the District-Inspector, who had a force of twenty police under his command, ordered his men to load and fire. They did not, how ever, adopt that extreme course. After a siege lasting over seven hours, the party had to leave without taking possession, the police not being able to effect any arrests. The secretary of the local branch of the National League was present, accompanied by a band and about 300 people, whose enthusiasm when they found the siege had to be abandoned was immense.

Whatever other motives the Government might hare had there waß one all-sufficient reason for the suppression of the National League. It was the logical consequence of the destruction of the Land Bill. That measure the Government formally destroyed when they accepted the Lords' amendment. As far as the great bulk of the tenants of Ireland are concerned, especially those who are most in need of relief, it may be looked upon as dead and buried, or rather as having never been born. The only substantially good thing in the Bill except the leaseholders' clause (as that originally etood— for that, too, has been vitiated by an amendment of Bergeant Maddens) was the equitable discretion it gave to the Commissioners in revising judicial rents. The Lords' amendment has struck that equitable discretion away at a blow and bound the Commissioners down to revise rents with regard only to tbe alteration of prices, and without any regard at all to thejextent of a man's crop. Perhaps, after Northwich itself, the most striking evidence of the complete extinction of " Toryine " in the constituencies is a little letter which|Mr. John Albert Bright has had the surprising frankness to make public. Mr. Bright issued a circular to the voters in his father's constituency of Rochdale saying that he was desirous of getting together Liberal-Unionists. " The response to my appeal to the Liberal -Unionists," Mr. Bright confesses, " has not come up to my expectations, many whom I kn.ow to be sucn not having sent me their names. This may arise from their dislike to take a public part in what is — locally at any rate — an unpopular cause. Be this as it may, their failure to reply makes it impossible for me to arrive at any estimate of their strength, and discourages me from taking any further steps in the matter." Comment would be unkind on this melancholy but candid confession from the constituency of John Bright himself.

An awful lesson on the majesty of the law was taught the citizens of Dublin on the very first application of the brand-new eternal Coercion Act. It was in Dublin that the new weapon was first tried, but in their hurry to use it tbe powers that be forgot all sense of the ludicrous. They seized upon a wretched case of alleged assault upon drunken bailiffs sent to capture a keg of batter as the first illustration of the state of savagery which the coercionists say exists in IrelaDd, but ere the prosecution came on they got so much ashamed of the case that they put in no appearance at the police court to follow it up. The struggle between Ihe O'Grady and his tenants has now entered upon a very acute phase. The ill-advised landlord has issued a circular again endeavouring to get tbe farmers to come into hib net on an all round abatement of 20 per cent., but with the important proviso that they pay in each case a year's rent and costs. His circular contains a number of incorrect statements which it is the intention of the tenants to meet with a public correction. There is an ad miseric*rdiam tone about the document which, under the circumstances, appears a little ludicrous. For four hundred years, says the man with the definite article, his people have lived among the tenantry, and never turned any of them out. The natural inference from this is that for four hundred years, or the greater part thereof, the serfs of The O'Gradys have starved and slaved themselves to pa., them rents which the suil did not earn. The O'Graly now says that he has said his last word on the subject, but we doubt it. Before he gets at the tenants' money, there will, unquestionably, be a few words more to say. Necessity is a cruel tasknuster, aud it ia very liksly, notwithstanding the indomitable resolution of this representative of generations tf rack-renters, to make him open his mouth again before the tenants' cry, " Hold, enough."

Recent events, we are told by an authoritative correspondent, have satisfied Mr. Chamberlain that an alliance with the Tones is hopeless, and that in the course of che recess the member for West Birmingham will treat ua to '■ a new developement of policy " which will include '' a considerable scheme of Home liule with the right of veto reserved for the Imperial Parliament." One almost feels inclined to exclaim ," Poor Jo 1" when one beholds these desperate wrigglings of a once so sleek rat in search of a way to get aboard ibe sound ship once more. The Tory ship beginning to founder. Jo wants to get aboard the Liberal baique again ; and to recommend him to her crew he is pre[ aring a new 6cht me of Home Rule which is to completely supplant thar of their own old skipper. If the Liberal crew don't staud along the bulwarks with belaying-pms, ready to cry " Paws off 1" when this lust of tbe rats climbs up the side, i.i will be a day's work they will repent. But, from all we know of the Liberal crew, that is their attiiude to Joseph at present.

A military correspondent throws out some hints worthy of attention. The permanent military garrison in Ireland, he points out, is, in round numbers, 25,000 men, and it is admitted on all sides that in time of war it would have to bu increased to 30,000 men, with a quasimilitary police force of 11,000 men, making in round numbers 40,000 men. The moral of this ip, that owiug to tie Unkm-for-ever policy there is an army of from 30,000 to 40,000 men, the elite of the service, locked up iv Ireland, and of no more rse, except as rent collectors' thau if they were piisoners iv a foreign c»rp. The whole of the British poßsess : ons abroad might be threatened ; England mignt be invaded, but she dare not draw a single battalion from Ireland. In Parliament the loss of a seat counts as two in a division. And so does this force locked up in Irelaud, excluding the police, count as a loss to us on the f<jld of battle of from 50,000 to 60,000 men. Such is the

ssrt of strength the Union gives England. And such is the secret why 9he cannot place 80,000 men on the field of battle. The Duke of Wellington had not at any time more than about 20,000 British troops in the Peninsular and 30,000 at Waterloo. England has a larger army (including the military police) at this moment in Ireland than that with which tbe Duke conquered the great Napoleon. Lord Gough had only about 15,000 men in the campaign at tbe Sutlej, of which about 10,000 were Sepoys, and 20,000, in the Punjab, including Sepoys, and of those some were detached to lay seige t j and capture Mooltan. Wilson took Delhi with about 6,000 men, mostly natives. Rose had only 3,500 or 4,500 men in his brilliant campaign in Central India. And Lord Clyde took Lucknow with about 20,000 men. It will be observed that England conquered India, Afghanistan, Burmah, China, Persia and Abyssinia, with a considerably less force than she maintains in Ireland to collect rents.

Terror sometimes steals the outward garb of courage. When a vessel is sinking the cowards, tbey say, leap overboard. They dare not wait their fate patiently. The condemned criminal often commits suicide in hia cell. So the Northwich election ssaled the doom of the Tory Government. The proclamation of the League precipitates their inevitable fate. It was a trick of sheer desperation. They withstood the mad clamour of the Orange faction while there was a shadow of a hope left. When hope abandoned them they took the fatal plunge. If Mr. Parnell himself were master of the Tory policy he could not have shaped it more directly for their own destruction. They were in a horrible dilemma when at last they got their Coeroion Act. Then for the first time they seemed to realise that there was no crime — that their own bogus statistics were all that they had got to suppress. They would be justly taunted, they felt, with cowardice if they failed to use their Coercion Act ; they would be justly reproached with tyranny if they usad it without cause. It was, as we have said, a terrible dilemma, and they certainly made the most of it. They managed to deserve the reproach of both cowardice and tyranny. They hesitated long enough to prove they were afraid ; they acted at last to prove they were utterly unscrupluous.

The ring of the merry crowbar, with the accompanying music of the screaming of out-turned women and children and the oaths of the scalded Emergency rabble, still wake the echoes in the South and West. As rack-renters cannot have the jingle of as many guineas as they require, they seem determined to have music of some kind at compensation. This week, ending August 27, the noble chieftain, O'Grady, commences crowbar operations against his happy tenantry \ and he will have the benefit of an unusual publicity as several of oar English visitors were expected, along with some Irish leaders, on the ground. At Ardagh County Limerick, a pious synodsman and philanthropist named Delmege has been showing what the true principles of Christianity are by turning men out of houses built with their own labour and money because they cannot pay what he chooses to demand. It is stated that the ancestors of the present tenants on Mr. Delmege 's lands at Ardagh paid but a gross sum of £10 yearly for them, while the present rental has by degrees been mounted up to forty times that figure. The excuse in many cases for this monstrous extortion is that money had to be borrowed for drainage and improvement purposes from the Board of Works. There was little or no resistance offered at the initial proceedings on Wednesday, when about half-a-dozen homesteads were cleared. This attitude waa adopted on the advice of Father Walsh, whose motive was to get the tenants allowed back as caretakers or effect a settlement.

Tje Government challenge to Mr. William O'Brien on the Mitchelstown evictions, cojies as opportunely as Sir Charles Lewis's challenge iv the House of Commons to Mr. Dillon on the calumnies of the Times. Once again the Lord hath delivered them into our hands. The one fear is that tbe Executive will run away from their challenge, as they ran away in the House of Commons, in Frenchpark, and in Lough rea, when they come to realise the peril of the situation. The Plan of Campaign has never had a fair trial yet, and the Attorney-General's — we beg pardon, Mr. Justice Holmes'— opinion of its legality still holds the field. It is true that King Edward the Third threw down his rusty gauntlet to Mr. Dillon on the legality of the PUn, but the antiquated champion was so shaken in the first course of the Queen's Bench that he shirked all further encounter. la otner words, Mr. Justice O'Brien denounced Mr. Dillon, and threitened him with all manners of pains and penalties under the ancient statute if he continued his advocacy of the Plan. Undisturbed by these threats, Mr. Dillon placidly pursued tha even tenor ot his way, and proved, despite the fierce fe-faw-fum of his partisan lordship, that law had no hold on his mission. The Executive dared not continue the prosecution they had commenced.

The Daily Express keeps goading on tha Government to goad on the country by a vigorous and widespread use of the coercion whip. Now that they have got the cat-o'-nine-tails in their hands it doesn't see why it should not be at once applied to the backs of all who dou'c, agree with the views of the Parliament street man. To enforce the Act vigorously it is the opinion of tbe , thoughtful editor, that the constaouLary force should be strengthened, but how this is to be done doesn't se^m very pliia. L'ne oaly w.y out of the puzzle, it appears to him, is to borrow a leaf out of the late lamented W. E. F orator's book. That stateman in a similar dilemma invoked the aid of the Marines. Mr. Patton would like the Marines here again to help to carry out the Coercion Act. We cannot see how this would help the Dally Express a bit. When these gentry were in Dublin before, they required a police force all to themselves to watch them, and furnished h good deal of work fur tha divisional magistrates in adjudicating upon the assault and petty larencies which formed the staple amusement of many of the interesting corps.

Mr. Carew, M.P., discharged anobvious public iluty by calling the attention of Parliament to the extraordinary fashi >a in which Mr. Traill, K.M., is alleged to administer the ordinary law. The charge against him is that ht does not scruple to exceed his jurisdiction ; to act up a court when b>; pleases ; to have an accused person summarily atiested and bi ought forthwith before him ; and when the prisoner claims the right to call witnesses for his defence, (he Major is said to,

use language more worthy of a moss-trooper than of a nineteenthcentury magistrate. Mr. Carew's question to the Chief Secretary, aa will be Been by a reference to our Parliamentary report, put the charges in plain language. Colonel Eing-Harman, who, as is usual 'when embarrassing matters have to be dealt with, acted as bottleholder for Mr. Balfour, was not at all so plain in his reply. He endeavoured to suggest that Major Traill was actuated by a desire to be lenient when he passed a sentence of three months' imprisonment as an alternative to giving bail upon a young lad whose offence was so trifling that it could be treated only as one of misbehaviour instead Of crime. As for the expression, " Witnesses be d— d," alleged to have been employed by the Major, Colonel Eing-Harman said that the allegation was denied. Mr. Sexton brought him face to face with the main question, whether the magistrate had exceeded his jurisdiction, and all that the deputy Chief-Secretary conld say was that he presumed the law officers considered he had not. The matter will not end at this point. It appears that this is not the first occasion on which Major Traill has adopted a procedure of his own, and it is certainly advisable that the public should know definitely what constitutes the " knowledge of the law," which is a statutory qualification of a Coercion Act magistrate. The grave accusations brought against Major Traill were pointed and emphasised by the inspired foolery of Mr. William Johnston, who gravely suggested that any magistrate in whose district no murder had been committed should have his services recognised by receiving permission to dispense with the forms of law and to do what he pleases.

What an admirable person is your typical aristocrat, and how much does he deserve of a grateful country ! Look at what Lord Annesley, for instance, has done, in the way of providing employment for perhaps some deserving person who looks after an artificial pond which he has on his property at Greenvale. The long-continued drought had made it a question whether this pond should proceed on its nseful course, or whether the large bleaching factory of the Messrs. Murland should continue to give work to a very large number of industrious operatives. With the true spirit of antique patriotism, Lord Annesley has decided that the pond must go on. Its conduits bring him the water which otherwise must go into the turbines or other aquary apparatus of the factory. Representations have been made to the noble pond-owner with the view of keeping the hundreds of hands employed in the factory at work But the Spartan courage of Lord Annesley prevails. Through his solicitor he has decided to hold on to the pond were the last drop in the well and all Ulster parching on the brink. Lord Annesley should assuredly have belonged to the suite of Marie Antoinette. A Governmental return has been prepared, intended evidently to serve as a flying buttress for the Coercion Act. It tables, by provinces and counties, the number of persons wholly or partially boycotted in Ireland, as well as the number of persons under police protection. By an ingenious process like that which makes supers in a pantomime appear at one time as members, say, of the Thundering Legion, and anon as the Demon Denizens of the Den of Despair, the " wholly boycotted " persons in one column are made to do duty in another as persons requiring police protection. But with all the ingenious duplicating, the whole number of persons entirely or partially boycotted in this island of nearly five million inhabitants is but 4,385. However, this is only an official return, It refers to merely overt cases, such as come within the cognisance of the zealous policeman. There is no means of obtaining statistics of the real boycotting — that which takes place over the dinner- tables of the survivors of shipwrecked landlordism and the orgies of the " Lodges." The Parliamentary Under- Secretary could tell a tale about that — if he chose.

Jubilee knighthoods were conferred upon eight gentlemen by the Lord Lieutenant, at the Viceregal Lodge, on Monday, August 22. The recipients were — Mr Howard Grubb, the celebrated telescope manufacturer ; Mr. Patrick Maxwell, President of the Incorporated Law Society; Mr. Robert Herron, J. P., Chairman Kinsgtown Commi9Bioners ; Alderman Cochrane, D.L ; Alderman Moyers, J P.: Mr. Thomas Lecky, Mayor of Londonderry ; Alderman Hasletr, Mayor of Belfast ; and Mr. Jas. Spaight, President of the Chamber of Commerce, Limerick. The newly-created Knights were entertained at luncheon by bis Excellency. The great and much-talked-of race between Conneff, the young Irish lad who has recently come before the public so prominently through his performances on the track, and E. C. Carter, the amateur long distance champion of America, came off at Ballsbridge on Saturday evening, August 20. It is no exaggeration to say that no recent sporting event aroused anything approaching the interest felt in Dublin, and far beyond, in this four-mile race. It will bs remembered that about three weeks ago Conner! defeated Carter in a two-mile race at Manchester. Carter was naturally dissatisfied with the result, wished to again enter the arana against the young Irishman and the result was that the editor of Sport arranged for the exciting event of Saturday, the winner to get a £20 gold medal, The sequel was that the Manchester achievement of Conneff was followed up by a still more glorious victory. Several thousand people witnessed the event, and when Conneff breasted the tape by about 15 yards ahead of the American champion there went up 1 viler cheers than were ever heard in connection with any kindred event.

How was Northwich won ? As surely as the sun shines at noon, the Irißh members who visited and spoke in the constitui. ncy are chiefly to be thanked for this magnificent Home Rule triumph There is something, of course, in the very flowing of the tide in t l c (ilad - stonian direction ; one conversion leads to many. A consi lerable effect was produced,too,in North wich by the stirring appeals of the workingmen repiesentatives in Parliament — Messrs. Broadhur3t, Fenwick, and Rowlands-to the working-men electors. Mr. Brunner,agtiin,vras an excellent candidate. But, beyond and above eveiything else in producing the result, was the influence exercised by thq Irish speakers who took part in this memorable contest. The service rendered by Mr John O'Connoi, and ilr. William Ab'ahatn, who nevot left the constituency from the commencement to the cud of the fi^ht, is simply incalculable ; nor would it be easy to (.xaggerate the effect

produced by the speeches delivered in the last stages oE the fight by Mr. Dillon, Mr. Sexton, and Mr. T. P; O'Connor. Mr. Mahony, Mr. O'Eelly, Mr. Clancy, Mr. Carew, and Mr. M' Car tan were the other Irish representatives who assisted in spreading the light, and, therefore, in rendering possible the triumph at last achieved. As we anticipated, the Lords could not keep their' hands off the amended Land Bill. What we did not anticipate was that it was the Lords themselves, through the very peer who had charge of the Bill in the Upper House, who would go in for spoiling all the frnit of their pain, and trouble, and humiliation. Lord Cadogan's amendment plays the very mischief with the only clause in the Bill worth a brass farthing to the tenant. The striking out wholesale of the clause exempting holders of landjnear villages and small towDS from the town park restrictions of the Act of '81 was a wanton piece of depredation. Forty-two amendments in all their lordships added to the Bill, every one of which was in favour of the landlord. The old Adam of that august assembly would have still further displayed himself, we understand, if at the last moment apprehensive friends of the Government did not prevail upon him to be satisfiedwith stabbing the measure in a vital part, and hacking and slicing it in fortyone other pieces. The first prosecution under the Jubilee Coercion Act has been tried, and failed, and the country is very much where it was before. The prosecution did not provoke any very widespread terror, nor baa its failure given rise to any widespread rejoicing amongst the community at large. Bernard Reynolds (grocer), his assistant, and some others were charged with ill-treating a Sheriff's bailiff who came to execute a civil Bill decree for eggs and butter, and the majesty of the Jubilee Coercion Act was invoked to bring the criminals to justice. The ordinary law was put out of court as quite incapable of tackling a job of this magnitude. We must confess that the police court practitioners did not seem by any means sufficiently impressed with the dignity of the legislation with which they were dealing. Mr. Moorehead (Mr. Coll declined to turn up at all on the occasion), Deputy Crown prosecutor, threw sheep's eyes at his old love the ordinary law. " However," he said, resignedly, " as we find this Act here, I suppose we may as well use it." Here, surely, is a dignified position for that imperatively -needed and powerful legislation which was to crush agitation in Ireland like a blind hazel reed. This majestic Bill, after occupying the House of Commons for a session, and having attained at last to the dignity of an interview with her Most Gracious Majesty, a few days afterwards, is found cadging round the Dublin Police Courts in search of a stray job. The magistrate, as we read his decision, dismissed the case, holding the bailifi deserved what he got, and the Jubilee Coercion Act left the Police Court without a stain on its character.

Mr. Chamberlain, attended of course by the faithful Jesse, and escorted|by Mn.T^W. Russell and Mr. Lea, is to give us an Ulster tour in the autumn ; a dazzling combination which must take poor Ulster's heart by storm, and rout her Nationalist wooer, horse, foot, and dragoons. This is its object. Ulster is to be won from her allegiance to Mr. Parnell, just as dear old Scotland was to have been won from her allegiance to the daft old man of Ha warden, who has the impudence to keep living so long and standing in the illustrious Joseph's light. We sincerely hope there will be no disappointment this time, and that the tour will come off for certain. If you ask the Liberals of Glasgow to what they attribute the doubling of the Gladstonian majority, a couple of weeks ago, they answer, " To the visit of Mr. Chamberlain in the spring. If he only " does " Ulster thoroughly, allows Jesse plenty of rope in his speeches, and follows it up afterwards by a series of letters to the candidates, we may, we think, without being over confident, count upon at least half of the now hopelessly Tory constituencies of the North coming round to the National banner. Come, Joseph I We shall say to thy expedition with all our hearts, " Vogue la galere." An extraordinary correspondence has passed between the Lnrgan magistrates and the Castle. A week before the July anniversaries the magistrates met in council and requisitioned a force of two hundred police and a proportionate number of officers to assist in preserving the peace. Past experience of the disorders attending the celebration of " The Twelfth " certainly justified the action of the magistrates. But the Castle ignored the representations of the local authorities, and the result was that the town was left practically at the mercy of the Orange party. Disturbances occurred, as might have been expected, and although there was no rioting of the dreadful character that disgraced previous years the mischief done was rather serious. Sir Redvers Buller, writing on behalf of the Lord Lieutenant, has refused to state specifically why no police were drafted into the town, beyond suggesting the economy of the course. He takes credit, too, for the fact that no very serious consequences resulted — a house only was wrecked and a few people beaten to the point of death by the Orangemen. Well, if economy be the cause of action of the Castle how are we to explain the fact that the police have not intervened to prosecute any of the Orange crowd for the disburbance of the Twelfth ? A number of private persons, Catholics, have sworn informations inculpating some of the assailants, but no action has been taken by the authorities. Are we to have a revival of the good old " Croppy lie down " style of government, and is thia the beginning of it 7 We confess to an hour's reading of the Coercion journals, at once interesting, amusing, and encouraging, the morning atter the thunderbolt had fallen at Northwich. We weiecmious, like Prince Harry in the play, to discover "what trick, wh\t device, what sta ting-hoe they could find to hide them from thid open and apparent ahame. ' Some hid their heads, like ostriches, in a hole, some stood up and brazened it out. The two " Timeses," — he big liarish in Londou and the little liarish in Westmoreland s rec —were the most amusing. The " Forger " declared — " The labourers ot Cheaiurc have voted for a popular local man, a large employer ot laoour, and a man who has very properly spent money in and upon thi- town he lives in." It omits to state that the aame electors rejected lins Mine popuL-.r man ami employer of labour, etc., in the genei.u .lection of 1886. Seduced by the calumnies of the Liberal Unionists, and that the

change can have no other meaning than that the electors are once again clothed in their sound senses. Just a brief glance at the figures is instructive. In 1885— Brunner (Liberal), 5,053 ; Verdin (Tory), 3,995 ; Liberal majority, 1,028. 188G —Verdin (U L.), 4,416 ; Brunner (G.L.), 3,758 ; Tory majority, 658. In 1887 Brunner increased bis biggest total by 89, while Ljrd Henry Grosvenor lowered the lowest Tory minority by 12. and the Liberal majority ran up to its highest level, 1,129. The moral is plain. In 1885 there were no Liberal- Unionists in the constituency; they had not then been invented. In 1886 they were a power in the land, and nude their power felt at the election. In 1887 they have disappeared. They have worse than disappeared ; they have grown to be a negative quality. Their subtraction has increased the Liberal majority of 1887 ; their addition has diminished the Tory minority of 1887. The question of local influence is out of the case. It is the same man that won in 1885, was beaten in 1886, and achieved a still more triumphant majority in 1887. Truly, the Gladstonian tide is rising. It has touched already a higher water lino than before the temporary ebb.

Did the police of Kanturk get a hint to improve upon Captain Plunkett's famous order of the day to " shoot them down if necessary"? Certainly, all the facts point to a deliberate intention on the part of Sergeant Horgan and his able coadjutor, Sergeant McMahon, Governmental stenographer, to provoke the people into such action as would give colourable excuse for a whiff of grapeshot. It is far and away the most monstrous piece of illegality that has been perpetrated within the four corners of this island since the days wben Insurrection Acts and Indemnity Acts allowed uniformed ruffians to do whatever they thought fit in the way of naked brutality. Father Collins had invited the people who accompanied Mr. Flynn, M.P., from the railway station to bold a meeting on his (Father CoDin's) private grounds. Yet Sergeant Horgan insisted on forcing his way into the place vi et armis. He had not the smallest shadow of an authority to show for his action, when challenged by Mr. Flynu. It was only by the exercise of the utmost coolness on the part of Father Collins and Mr. Flynn that a bloody collision was averted. At one point of the dispute the police reporter threatened both priest and people with his revolver. Englishmen, who are taught the doctrine that each man's house is his castle will hardly fail to realise the strain which is already being put upon the patience of the Irish people by the agents of the Tory Government when they read of this audacious attempt of the police to tempt them into violent courses. We make bold to say that had such an outrage been attempted on a peacetul English meeting the perpetrators would not have got 02, as they did in Kanturk on Saturday evening, with whole skins. But the game of the Irish people just now is not to play into the hands of those who may be regarded aa so many Sworn Tormenters.

Foreign attention is day by day growiDg to be more concentrated on Irish affairs. One cannot now take up any of the continental papers without finding some article commenting on how the Irish cause progresses. Prominent in a late issue of M. Henri Rochfort's paper, L'lntransiegant, is an account of the preparations which have been made at Mnchelstown by the tenants to resist eviction. Telling of the inscription displayed on one of the houses, " Evictors come on. No surrender," t tbe writer renders it, " Arrivez done, expulscurs 1 Nous refusons dt nous rendre." How easily the stirring watchwords fit themselves to the nervous French.

Ac our people are sorely in need of industrial employments beside the bare cultivation of the land, there is much to be said for at least the intention which underlies the motives of putting forward a practical proposal on the subject with regard to the waste lands in Oonnemara. Mr. Dermot O. C. Donnellaa deserves credit for this. Apropos •f the recommendations of the Koyal Commission on reafforesuug, this gentleman has started thb idea that Connemara, not to mention any other place in Ireland, is admirably suited to, or urgently in need of some timber plantation ; and he follows this up by propobing that osiera be planted therein with a view to developing a great basket-making trade by-and-bye. He is a man of experience and observation, it appears, on this question, and his idea has been warmly taken up. It has excited, naturally, much interest in Cromwell's refugium peccatorum, and a public meeting has been held to consider tbe matter, the proceedings of which give ground for hoping tnat there ib still some commercial enterprise in Galway. The Bill to facilitate the teaching of Technical Instruction, and now in course of progress through Parliament, appears to be framed on fair lines, and is sure to make the subject of technical teaching popular throughout the country. The Bill has been prepared by Sir Henry Hollaud, Sir W. H. Djke, and Mr. Jackson. The Bill enables Bchool boards and other local authorities to provide technical schools and fit them out with all the necessary appliances. The most important clause in the Bill is, that the pupils who are to receive technical instruction must have previously passed in the sixth Btandard or at an examination demanding equal proficiency. Tbe Science and Art Department are to be entrusted with the examinations, and the arrangement of the curriculum. All the subjects sanctioned by this Department can be taught in these schools. The Biii of course applies to Ireland also. The expenses incuned in the management of these schools are lo be defrayed out of the local rates. Wo trust the Commissioners of National Education will not be behind the educational authorities in England and Scotland, in giving impetus to the movem-nt, and taking every advantage of tbe wife provisions of the Bill wuen passed into law.