THE TULLAMORE PRISONERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 41, 3 February 1888, Page 13

THE TULLAMORE PRISONERS.

(The Nation, December 17.) While Mr. Balfour is trying to tickle the palates of cannie Scots with his sugared sophistries, his prisoners in Tullamore are manfully holding out against gaolers and other lacqueys, and shall do so to the end. Mr. Balfour, however, is evidently anxious to ply on the lash with greater vigour than heretofore. He does not think that as an autocrat we have as yet taken him at ail an sirieiix. If Cromwellian methods cannot be conveniently revived iv modern times they can, nevertheless, be aped or imitated. Although the horrors of a Paris Bastille can no longer be repeated, even in Ireland, Balfour has his Bastille in Tullamore, where he purposes punishing the contumacy of his chief Irish political opponents. In a few weeks this gaol will, we expect, be full to overflowing. The present contingent of its occupants will be increased by the Messrs. Harrington. Alderman Hooper, of Cork, will probably have the honour of imprisonment within its walls on Christmas Day. Mr. Cox, after his fishing tour on the Shannon, may put aside his rod and step of his own free will into the spider's chamber. Other members of Parliament as well as pressmen will, it is certain, be also summarily " judged " by stipendiaries and as summarily hustled through the prison gates. It does not say much for Mr. Balfour's sagac'ty if he fancies that the Tullamore Bastille packed from floor to roof with leading Irishmen will mean the ruin or annihilation of the Irish National cause. The Chief Secretary must either!-::. a read Irish history to no purpose or not read it at all if he assumes that any amount of perscution will ever tame the fiery spirit or damp the fearlesss ardour of the Irish race in their fight for legislative independence. If be could build a wall of the stoutest sheet-iron around the island, and if he made a dungeon of every Irish home, if he succeeded in wresting from us the last miserable shreds of liberty we possess ; if, in a word, he could even outcrom well Cromwell in his compaign of massacre and devastation, the soul of Irish nationality would still live beneath the ruins, a 9 the hidden volcano might live to-day beneath the jagged bouldera of the Appenines. The traditions and the aspirations that have outlived the fire and sword of Beven centuries can well afford to smile at the petty manacles and puerile persecutions of the present day. The land that refused t

trail its self-respect in the dust before the-aabre of~a~giant4i*4be past will not now cower before the brpken ferule of the most contemptible of pigmies. , ' ' '' < > We can look forward, therefore, with the utmost seU-oomplacfenoy to Mr. Balfour's future spurts of tyranny, for" we are strong and powerful in the justice/rf our cause.. We have on our side the public opinion of civilisation and humanity ; he has on bis the exploded shams and prejudices of the darker ages. We have with us the sympathies of great and learned nten beyorld the British isles, who have at one time or another proclaimed that Ireland has an imprescriptible right" to be the mistress of her own destinies. Mr. Balfour has with him the whining plaints of the shabby-genteel aristocracy ©f Ireland — a set of wretched landlords groaning piteously for their rackrents ; the craven chews of would-be official cut-throats ; the spleen and malice and invincible ignorance of Toryism, and the impotent shrieks of toadies, from the head clerk of the Castle to the meanest bum-bailiff in Connemara, who batten and fatten on place and pension. - • Between such opposing forces the issue of the contest can no longer be doubtful. The rising tide of democracy ia fiß sure to sweep away the lest ratios of feudalism- from- the. land ps the waves sweep away tiny caatles of sand on the seashore. And not only shall the last trace'of feudalism disappear, but with it will vanish the system on which feudalism depends for its very, existence. Legislative autonomy must be and^ shall become thi- imperious necessity of the immediate future. The pains and penalties; the persecutions and self-sacrifices, which our people are undergoing at pressnt, arj only the prices that they must pay for the boon-fyhicb shall be ultimately theirs. In no land, and in no clime, have the straggling masses won their independence, without passing through an ordeal of preparatory baptism in the shape of the direßt oppression. It may, moreover, be said that the race whose scions could not or would not bear hard knocks of this kind in vindication of their liberty, would prove itself altogether unworthy of it when attained. It would be superfluous to add, that the prisoners of Tullamore are being honoured and revered day after day by the public bodies of the country. Town Commissioners and Poor-Law Guardian Boards are passing voteß of sympathy with the captives. The Corporation of Dublin has once more signalised its abhorrence of Balfour and his conduct by conferring the freedom of the city on the Lord Mayor. "Remember Mitchelstown " is one of our passwords; "Remember Tullamore" onght to be another.