A WANTON CONVICTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 30, 16 November 1888, Page 7

A WANTON CONVICTION.

(Dublin Freeman , Sept. 22.) Mr William Redmond, M. P., was sentenced on Friday to threa months' imprisonment, and the Removables, generous in their generation, added that there should Qe no hard labour. We should like to know if there is a cmntry outside Mr. Balfour'a bailiwick where the two words which Mr Redmond used would be held to constitute a criminal offence, or where the circumstances under which they were uttered would not be felt to establish their justification. If ever there was an eviction carried out in wantoa disregard of common justice and common humanity, it was the short and sharp campaign at Ooolroe. The tenants were sued for a rackren*. They were driven into the Plan of Campaign in sheer desperation. They adopted every means to avoid eviction, and they made an offer to the landlord, which was not only sustained by the local clergy, but which, on the day of the evictions, Mr. Cansidine, the Removable, publicly declared to be a fair offer and one which the landlord ought to have accepted. It was not a case of the tenants refusing to pay any lent. It was a case in which the tenants made every effort in their power to come to an amicable settlement, and fairly and honestly offered the landlord every sixpence they could afford. If they resisted with desperate and reckless courage the enforcement of the sheriff's decree, it was not until they had tried every expedient to coma te a friendly understanding with the landlord. It was for crying out to these men, when attack 3d by a gang of evicting janissaries, wrea their houses were beiag tumbled on their hauls, " bravo, Wexford,'' that Mr. Redmond tms been seat to herd with tie etimmals of Wexford County Gaol until Christmas Eve The piosecutiug counsel acknowledged that Mr. Redmond was labjuring under great excitement at the time,and Mr. Removable Considine admitted on oath that Mr. Bedmond addressed himself to him as the person ia authority with the view of having batons rather tuan bayonets use 1 against the tenant?, so that there should be uo bloodshed. A man would require to be made of stone to witne^i uninjveU the Coolroe struggle. What Mr. Redmond did most men who huve a heart would hive done. He is himse/f a Wexford man. and coming upon the sceue at Ooo'roe wnen th : unequal struggle was raging at its fkreebt, when a hmidfal of his county men, unarmed as they weiv, drovr: back again aud again bailiffs and police with their batons and battering-rams, it would in iced havj bjeu surprising if he haii withheld some word of piaise. To huld Mr. Rodmoud responsible for tue resistance with which the officers of the law were tuec is atr »vesiy of jusuce. It was admutci in tbe prosecution that he did not reach tue pUc a until an hour aud a-half atter the proceedings had begun. He had no more influem c over (he defenders <»t iLe houses than ne had over the machinery of tue batteriug-r.im. If by any s retch of imagination he could have b->en regarded aa an active ageut in the mat c ,asa person seriously obstructing the police m the execuliou of tneir duty, would be not have been promptly placed under arrept, or, at le\st, removed from trie scene of disorder ? To stiout '' Bravo, boys ; I am prou I of you ; give it to them," was a technical offence ; but as regards its effect upon thosj tJ wnom it waa addressed, Mr. Redmond might just as well have called out'" Mesjpotauaia' or any other equ .lly password. Mr. Redmond might have appealed l.oin the decision ot toe Removables. H« has i"lee ci, however, to go to jail. It is a resolve characterise of his pluck. While an appeal might have rasul ci in diminishing hid punishment— au unlikely contingency now-»-(1<»y8 we admit — he has choseu to abide by the Removables' decision. In this he has furnished another striking objjci-lesson in the progress cf t&e Coercion Act in Ireland. Mi. Keumond, a prisoner tor three months, for having sh -uted his joy at, the guccessf ul rtrsisiance of two or tnrse men pitted against an army of eviccois, is an inactive illustrative bitof Coercion Act in operation.