Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 28, 4 November 1887, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.)

The Government having proclaimed the meeting summoned for Ballycoree on Sunday, September 4, and prohibited all well-disposed people from attending any meeting there or thereabouts, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, M.P. ; Mr. John Dillon, M.P. ; Mr. William O'Brien, M.f. ; Hon. P. Stanhope, M.P. ; Mr. J. R. Cox, M.P., with twenty thousand of the inhabitants of Clare, Galway, and Limerick, massed themselves in Ennis on the appointed day. Infantry, calvary, and the dark-coated members of the R.I<J. were there too to carry out the orders received from the Castle and prevent the dangerous assembly from being constituted, The vari i costumes of the troops added a needed bit of colour to the scene, but that was all. While they were gallantly defending the dykes around the Ballycoree racecourse against an invader that never turned up, the twenty thousand inarched out of Ennis with bands playing and colours flying until they got room to deploy themselves. Then they elected their chairman, proposed their resolutions of allegiance to the " dangerous " National League, and of gratitude to the English democracy and their renowned leader, listened to words ot acknowledgment and encouragement from Mr. Stanhope, of defiance from Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Brien, and the Lord Mayor ; and when the Castle troops made their appeaiance quietly allowed them to pass through aad manoeuvre, continuing their meeting until the menace of force came. Then, on the order of Mr. O'Brien, they reformed their procession, and marched back into Ennis with her Majesty's troops bringing up the rear. It was like the old days again — the days of the " monster meetings," that the present generation only read about or heard about at the grandsire'3 knee — when, on the Jinnis coach-road, as brave a gathering of the manhood and womanhood of Claie as ever assembled asserted the right of free speech against one more Coercion Government. It was a monster meeting if ever there was one. Strapping young farmers' sous on horseback, making a dashing mounted lifeguard for the leaders aud distinguished visitors ; an endless procession of low-backed cars, trundling like a peaceful artillery, laden with mothers and wives and daughters ; and hosts and myrmid^ t s (to use a word now on the " Index " of the House of Commons; on foot, blackening the roads and fields and fences — filty thousand men and women if there was a soul, with bands playing, flags flymg, and eyes flashing with the fire of an undying enthusiasm I And there, cuggered and huddle i the Coercionist army on the top of the hill, with " Shame in the sight of their face, And fear in the ihews of their hand." It was one of those dramatic spectacles which pourtray like a sublime tableau the whole story of Ireland's indomitable hope, and strength, and courage, and of her enemies' brutal malice and impotency. With what object did Mr. Balfour issue his despotic order? If it was for the satisfaction of shutting out the Nationalists from one particular field and obliging them to betake themselves off to a neighbouring one, our only objection is that the achievement wt>s not worth the rihk of a massacre. If the proclamation was issued, as it was in the House of Commons detended, on the ground that it was dangerous to the public peace that the Nationalists of Clare should be allowed to atsemble in their thousands and to go home strengthened in the doctrines of the National League, then there is not a small boy in Clare who does not know that the proclamation was torn to flitters before the face of Mr. Balfour's flying cjlumn. The people assembled from near and far with their bands and colours, and marched in open procession through the town to a rendezvous publicly announced by placard the previous day ; the resolutions were submitted, and Mr. Stanhope spoke, without the slightest molestation, although there was an outlying paity of police within earshot all the time ; Mr. Dillon delivered one of the most fervid speeches ever heard — a speech which occupies nearly a solid column in the same issue of the Times in which the editor announces that no meeting was permitted ; Mr. O'Br'oa commenced to speak, went through, and finished, while the column was actually halted a few yards off ; the Lord Mayor ftfcf Dublin followed him, after which the procession leisurely re-formed, singing, band-playing, and wild with delight, once more traversed the streets of Ennis, amidst scenes of enthusiasm of which every cabin in Clare will catch the contagion. If that is Mr. Balfour's idea of killing off the effect of a demonstration which, but for his interposition, might have been a common place affair enough, it is not we who need deny him the illusion. It is the perfect good temper of the people that enrages these Unionists. If they could only get the people to pay their simulacrum of a Government the homage o* an assault on one of their dragoons, they would be more tban satisfied. A little blood, even if shed in a street-brawl by one of its agents, would make the thing look like a Government. Poor Government I it has ceased to be serious. Jt has still its paraphernalia of bayonets and batons ; but of what avail are they among a people who are so rebelliously contemptible that they will not come to get their heads broken 1 To see those dangerous Englishmen and Irishmen go down in defiance of the prohibition of her Majesty's Council in Ireland and pass all their dangerous and unlawful resolutions, is bad enough ; but to behold an assembly of Irishmen so determinedly peaceful, that though twen'\ thousand were present it did not produce a single case for the po>i onrts is enough to drive the "'authorities " into despair. Once more the action of the police calls for some public attention. This force continues to do such work in Ireland , and in Buch a way as no other body of a simiiar kind could be got to do, we believe, in any country pretending to civilisation. According to their wont, the police in Enuis followed about the streets the musical bands which had come to the town, and it is stated tnat a couple of drunken persons threw some stones at them. Instead of arresting the offenders, as they should have done, these privileged bullies ferociously attacked

the crowd, and, as usual, a considerable proportion of those whom they levelled with their batons were children and feeble persons. One little boy was injured so badly on the head by a stroke from a truncheon that his life is in danger, and seven or eight other heads came in for hurts more or less serious. Another squad of the same force behaved in a similar disgraceful way in Ballinasloe, on the occasion of the removal of a prisoner to Gal way gaol. There was a large crowd, and they exhibited their feelings towards the Marquis of Clanricarde, over whose seizure of the goods of two Ballinasloe shopkeepers the arrest had been made, by shouting and cheering for the " Plan of Campaign." The police on returning were hooted, and this seems to have had a savagely exasperating effect upon their temper. Oae of them struck a young lad named Ward, son of Mr. Lewis Ward, builder, a fearful blow on the head ; and the victim was borne home to his parents in a pool of blood. It is said that the ruffian who did this can be identified, and that he will be proceeded against in some way. So far as punishment is concerned, there is little use in endeavouring to put murderously-disposed policemen within the grasp of justice, as the late case of poor Hanlon only too convincingly shows. But at all events it is some service to show up the perpetrators, that they may receive the condemnation of an un vindicated public. Mi. Stanhope met a thousand of his constituents from Wedneabury, at his residence near Wombourne, at a picnic on Thursday afternoon, September 8, and in a speech full of manly feeling and cordiality detailed his impressions of Irishmen, the Ennis meeting, and the nature of the struggle now going on in Ireland. He showed the identity which exists between the objects of the Irish tenants and those for which the English democracy are struggling, and the necessity for the Irish people to carry on the agitation peaceably and wiihia the law ; and bis condemnation of the brutality of the Irish policemen — specimens of which he had had ocular proof — must have suggested to the listeners the extreme difficulty of doing this in face of their monstrous provocation. Furthermore, he bore generous testimony to the complete absence of intolerance on the part of Irish Catholics, and their unqualified desire to allow the fullest fair play to their Protestant fellow-countrymen in the settlement of the National question. The speech wound up with a very significant warning against the dangers of what he happily termed ♦' Bcamping the Irish job " — in other words, giving a niggardly and ungenerous measure of Home Rule. The whole speech is one which stamps the speaker as being one of the broadest-minded Liberals of the day. It ia amusing to watch the exsrtions of the anti-Irish organs to convince themselves that the authority of Mr. Balfour's proclamation was victoriously asserted at Ennia. They assist themselves by throwing a haze around the whereabouts of the Hill of Ballycoree. The Hill of Ballycoree is an elevation in the northern environs of Ennis ; the place where the Nationalists actually met is within a quarter of a mile of the town on the opposite side. The sum and substance of what happened was this : — The police and military undauntedly held the hill, while the Nationalidts' bands were playing, banners flying, and speakers delivering themselves, in the hollow. It was as if hussars and riflemen were to be massed in Trafalgar-square to suppress a demonstration there "or in the neighborhood," while the demonstration was in full blast in Hyde Park. And how does Mr. Balfour feel ? Does he feel like a governor ? Does the motor muscle of Irish Government respond to his nervous action ? " Obedience," said Burke, " makes a Government." Is Mr. Bdlfour at the head of a Government, then 1 We cannot but think he feels the ludicrous position in which he is placed. It is at length beyond the power of a Castle official to prevent free speech in Ireland, That much has been accomplished, anyhow. We have advanced very far beyond the point O'Connell reached. Ballycoree might have been, our Clontarf, but we have long since weathered the point in our course at which such an event might have occurred. Let a share of the credit be given to the Englishmen who, true to their traditions r have made it impossible for the Castle safely to crush out in blood the attempts cf the people to assert their rights. One result of the great assemblage which trampled on Mr. Balfour's illegal proclamation will probably be that the Government will proclaim no more meetings. At any rate, if they do, they will be greater foole even than we take them for, and it is not the National League or the Irish people will have to complain in that case. A Government cannot long hold out against the force of ridicule and contempt which allows itself to be exhibited in such a plight as the proclaimers of the Clare meeting stood in last Sunday. To publish the intention of suppressing a lawful public meeting was an ontrage to begin with. It was illegal : the common law gives them no power to suppress such a meeting, and they obtained no such power under their Coercion Act. It was a threat against the public peace ; its only effect could be to exasperate a population who, it was admitted by the Government, would otherwise have met and dispersed in. perfect order. This was bad enough. But to proclaim the meeting and then to stand foolishly and impotently by while the meeting was being held in multiplied proportions a couple of hundred yards off was to crown brutality with idiocy. The quick perception and marvellous self-control of the people utterly foiled and outwitted the Government, while at ihe same time it was these qualities alone that averted a bloody catastrophe. It was the case over again of the cowardly assassin Government, without tne courage of its criminal intentions, " willing to wound, but afraid to strike," fingering its firearms but ia terror of using them. This time their terror has a double inspiration, the marshalled might of the Irish people in front, and in the rear tli<* awakened public opinion of England. It is hardly likely, wo .-... . that after Sunday's experience they will challenge the Ennis test a i-uu . If they do, we shall know it is because they have been struck -WtL that madness with which the gods, according to the proverb, aillicu those whom they wish to destroy, for nothing could better suit the book of the Irish people at the present moment than a series of pro« claimed meetings on the Ballycoree paa ru all over the country, It is not often that one gets ajrefutation so com i>lete and crushing as that which Mr. Mulhall administered to Mr. Buitour. Mr. Mulhall is one of the most eminent statisticians living,and proved his eminence a short time ago by giving so distinguished a ligurist as Mr, Giffin, tk

somewhat heavy fall upon his own favourite ground. During the discussion in Parliament on the Coercion Bill, Mr. Giadstoue delivered a particularly powerful indictment against landlordism, and in support of his case cued Mr. Mulartil'sstatistics of evictions, showing that there had been over thr«e millions of persons evicted in Ireland during the present reign. Mr. Gladstone argued that it was little wonder that the Irish people were disaffected. Up jumps Mr. Balfour as soon as the great old Liberal cuefciin sat down, and in what appeared to be a very ingenious and telling point told the House that the bases of Mr. Mulbaa's figures were rotten, that he had baaed his conclusions upon premises which were wrong, .ndthat therefore the returns which Mr. Gladstone had quoted so effjctivel.y were absolutely worthless. Mr. Mulhall, the Chief Secretary said, had taken returns giving the number of persons evicted, and wrongfully assuming that these persons were families multiplied the total by five. There thequesdon remained, for Mr, Mulhall was out of the country and no one but himself knew if that had really been the ground of his estimate.

A communication all the way from Buenos Ayres appeared in the Times on Tuesday, S-^pteoab er 6. It was signed by Mr. Mulhall and with, no more emotional rhetoric than if he were calculating the number of gallons of whiskey consumed in Scotland in the year he reduced to a pulp the flowing fallacies of \lr. Balfouc I have seaa no table cf persons evicted, says Mr. Mulhall,, but 1 have before me one which I copied in the British Museum showing the number of evictions since 1848 and of persons reinstated as caretakers. The caretakers, he says, represent families, and if each caretaker represents a family of five persons, we shall find that tha number of caretakers, according to Mr. Balfour's argument, is greater than that of persons evicted. In other words, that there hare b?en really no evictions since 1849 to the present. Mr. B.ilfour hardly wanted to prove so. much as that. Where now are the clever young orators of the I.L.P.U wbo so glibly trotted out the " crushing reply " with which' Mr Balfour met the hoiry old Fabricator of HawardeD . We venture to gay that there is not a creature of the tribe who will have the courage or the honesty to do Mr. Mulhall tne simple justice of admitting their blunder. Also with regard to the National League the police have begun to show some activity in the pursuit of promotion." At various branch meetings they have put in an appearance in the style of Paul Pry, with a hope-I-don't-mtrude attempt at apology. Frum the different ways in which they acted there is strong reason to suspect that no precise orders have been issued, hence that their attempted interference with the League is more a matter of private enterprise than State obligation. One bold sergeant appears at the meeting of the Knocknagoschel branch, and asks modestly for the names of those present : and in retreating on a mandate from those insi le, blurts out a parting warning, " I tell ye, ye are acting illegally," just as if the intimation had more weight coming from his mouth than from the oracles of Dublin Castle. Another turns up at Manorhamilton, and states, in answer to inquiries for his authority, that he is acting " on instructions." At a couple of other branches members of the force put in an appearance, but retired with apologies wuen told that the pleasure of their society was not desiderated. The right of these hired baton men to come into the rooms of the League should never be admitted because it doesn't exist. The Government are helping Lord Clanricarde to his plunder in Loughrea. The Sheriff and the Bankruptcy Court having failed to extract the spoil, Lord;Clanricarde has pitched the courts overboard, and goes in for the rough-and ready ancient method of distraint. His Emergencymen are now in possession of the business houses of two of his Loughrea tenants, upon whom ihey descended without any warning. The novelty of the plan helped its success ; but now that the people are acquainted with this lat< j sc system of legalised robbery they will be*bletotake proper bteps to defeat it. Meanwhile is this not a glorious work for this Government that professes itself so anxious to prevent landlord extortion ? Its true mission would not be revealed without those telling flashes of light from the scenes of landlord atrocities.

Mr. Boyd, of Middleton Park, Castletown-Geoghegan, is notorious all + Le world over for his merciless and Dume/ous eviccious. Waole j^rishes have suffered at his hands, and the baronies of Moycasbel f&d Fertullagh to-day could cuise the power ihat enabled him to < depopulate iheir fertile plains. At preseut, however, eviction is not hia game, su he shamelebsly presumes to prevent the Nationalises of his district from boating fcr business or for pleasure on the Brosna river. The first be picks out for prosecution is Owen Keena, of Castletown-Geoghfgan, the man who first raised the banner of the League in his parish, and whom Foister tried to crush. But the people of Westmeath will stand by .their fellow-Nationalist, we have no doubt. It is extraordinary how easily some people can perform the opera' ion of standing in their own light. The editor of the Londonderry Standard is a very able man, evidently ; and one of the sanest of Unionists. But he seeems never fully to have developed his convictions and tenets. He has an article in his issue of Monday, September 5, from which he would like to draw the conclusion that if the land question were settled we would not require Home Rule. And yet in the very same article there occurs the following remarkable sentence : — It can hardly be expected that people who have never set foot in Ireland, and know nothing about it except that it is an island on the west coast of Britain, can legislate intelligently for the removal of our grievances." We always regarded that proposition as one of the heiesies con iemned by the Unionists ; and certainly it is impossible to reconcile it with the conclusion that we do not want Home Rule. We shall not be surprised if some Londonderry Presbyterians o'raw quite a uifferent conclusion from their instructor's premises.

It is something of a relief to find a landlord whose conception of his duty to his tenants is not limited to the regular receipt of hin reuts. The present Earl of Meath is not a very advanced Liberal, nor is he anything at all of an Irish Nationalist ; but he has some

ideas as to social wants and necessities, which he do.-i not confine to the reviews. Recently we noticed a work of his — " Social Arrows " —a feature of which was the insistence with which his lordship d welt on the deterioration wrought in humanity by congregation in the city slums. He pointed out the need of open spaces and public gymnasiums. Since the appearance of the book he has come into h s inheritance : and we are glad to see that his sym jathy with the poor of the city dens is not altogether theoretical. He has opened an 1 furnished two playgrounds for children wiihin his property at Oooml j. Thar is ■ good work, for which the people of the district will be properly grateful. An extension and deepening of his lordship's philanthropic spirit, and a revision according to hia notions of the idea of landlord duty, would do something to brighten up the future of his class. There has bden no attempt so far to apply the Coercion Act to the purpose for which its authors pretended to require it. No person has been charged with crime under its provisions. The only use tbat has yet been made of it has been to punish, poor t aants and their friends for striving to retain their little homes, and to summon politicians for addressing public meetings. It was, of course, wellknown that it was with this object the Tories sought coercive powers, but as an evidence of the reliance to be placed on Tory protestations, it is well to bear it mind how signally conflicting are their profession! and their practices.

The Yorkshire Tory attempt to boycott Lord Raadolph at Whitby is dictated less by resentment for what he has done than by terror for what he may do. Half a dozen Tory peers, we learn, have refused to preside at his meeting, and a dozen Tory members have refused to attend. There is an awful rumour abroad that Lord Randolph has reverted to his former faith on the subject of Home Rule. It will ba remembered he described the election at Spalding »s an " electrical event." There has been a great deal of political electricity going on since, and it has exercised a remarkable effect on his little lordsuip's constitution. He has now discovered that he was always opposed to coercion. He prints triumphantly to his first speech on the opening of Parliament, in which he denounced the Tines for its advocacy o' the old method of rasping with the reins and ploughing with the spurs the spirited Irish steed which had already thrown so many riders into the ditch. With that convenient memory which is his greatest gift, he forgets that he made a diametrically opposite speech a couple of months afterwards. There is a story going the round of the London clubs of a dialogue between himself and a very distinguished Radical-Unionist while the wonderful series of Home Bale victories were in full swing. " There can be no doubt now, Chamberlain," said the little party of one — no one— " that the country is going straight for Home Rule."' " The country," retorted the otaer, angrily "is going to the devil." " That may be," said the versatile Tory-Democrat-Unionist-Home-Ruler, zealously twisting his monstacae ; " that may be, but I always make it a rule to go witn the country." The conversation was overheard by a Liberal- Unionist, whose sense of humour overcame his loyalty to his party, and compelled him. to give the story to the public.

A significant incident took place recently at Middlewich. That district, which is within Mr. Brunntr's renowned constituency, happens to be blest with thejpossession of a parson whose ideas on things political harmonise better with the Gospel message of peace and charity than do those of many of his fellow-labourers, Rev. Francis Winton, M.A., has earned the regard of those exiled Irishmen who live round Middlewich by his fearless championship of the cause of the old land. Iv the recent election he rendered valuable help to the Gladstonian candidate ; and the Irishmen of Middlewich testified their gratituda by presenting him recently with an address, in which they expressed their appreciation of his action. The address had been inscribed and illuminated in Dublin, and the deputation that presented it was accompanied by Father Gregan, the Catholic curate of the district. Altogether the incident was unique and most gratifying. It will not be lost on those who are on the watch for signs that herald the coming peace. Mr. F. W. Maude, the late secretary of the Liberal Unionist faction, made a complete statement at the Liberal and Radical demonstration in the Alexandra Palace, London, of the cause* of hia secession. He has come over to the Gladstonian party, convinced by a close observance of public events that the " policy of the combination which calls itself the Unionist party is dangerously retrograde in its nature, and inconsistent with the pledges given at the general election," and he concurs with Sir George Trevelyan regarding Mr. Gladstone's concessions. He contended that no reason now exists why Radical Unionists should not renew their allegiance to the Liberal party. The concluding portion of Mr. Maude's statement is likely to be heard of again. 'The time is come for plain speaking and nailing our colours to the mast. I should not oehere to-day if I did not believe that the lenders of the National League were prepared to accept as a final settlement the generous measure of Home Rule that the Liberal party is willing to help them to attain. Under these circumstances, why should they not be made jointly responsible with the leaders of the Liberal party for the formulation of the details of the new Home Rule scheme ? Nothing would do more to clear the issue to be fought out next Session and to rally to oar standard every citizen with a spark of democratic feeling than the conviction that the Irish policy we were fighting for would never be repudiated as the work of Saxon statesmen, and was as freely accepted as a final settlement by the representatives of the Irish people as by the Liberal party. Let the next Home Rule Bcheme be presented as an ultimatum to Parliament and the country on the joint responsibility of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell."

There is one novel point in Mr. Maude's confessions, if we may call them so without offence which will be gratefully noted in Ireland and which contains a good deal of encouragement for the Irish people. In the; enumeration of reasons that have weighed wi; h him he stated " that the change wrought in the attitude of Irish Nationalists towards the people ot Great Britain by the generous proposals of Mr. Gladstone wis such as tv eucouruge Liberals to entrust them with the responsibility of administering the affairs of Ireland through more

constitutional machinery loan the branches of th* National League. He could not pioicsa 10 uoiu tae same opinion on the Irish question that he did a year ago. lie was not ashamed to confess that the generous teachiug of ihe English democracy, its desire for friendship with the democracy of the dister Isle, and the way in which that desire for friendship was being reciprocated, has greatly influenced his opinion of what was possible and what was desirable." This is the fiist recoid made of the educative effect of the results already attained by Mr. Gladstone's proposals. It shows how completely barren of result has been the campaign of slander, f hat campaign has been defeated by the promptness of Ireland's response to the concessions of the British statesman ; and to the temporarily unsuccessful effort of the British democracy. Mr. Maude registers by this acknowledgment the help which the cause has received from the magnificent self-restraint, determination, and spirit of conciliation stiown by the Irish people. It will be an encouragement to the people to persevere on their old lines, now that they kDOW that the lessons of their action in the present hour ace not lost, but that they are potent factors of enlighteument.