Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 4, 17 May 1889, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.)

On Friday evening, alarch. 8, in the House of Commons, the Irish members succeeded in completiug the chain of evidence which proves the complicity of the Government with the Times. It will be remembered that the charge was made long since, that members of the .fcloy.il Irish Constabulary, and other officials of the Irish Office, were engaged in the service of the Times in connection with the Commission. Mr. Balfour quibbled in his usual style, and the truth could not be forced from him. But when the scene of operations was transferred to England, the protecting shield of Mr. Balfour's talent for equivocation was withdrawn, and the modus operandi became plain. Head-Constable Preston is one of the coistabulary officers kept constantly in London in the service of the Times since the opening of the Commission, his salary, of course, being provided by the Irish people. His unsolicited visits to a prisoner named Tracy, at Millbank, came to the knowledge of the Irish members, and they sought information from Mr. Balfour as to whom be was acting for. Mr. Balfour roundly declared his ignor inca, and stated his belief that be wa» acting in his own capacity. But on Friday, the interesting fact was elicited from Mr. Mathews — wbo, although a lawyer, is not by any means Mr. Balfour's equal at lying-fence— that the application for permission to visit Millbank came from Mr. Soames. So it is established low that the Irish police, though in the pay of the Irish people, are in the tervice of the " Forger." The magisterial investigation into the circumstances of the murder ot Inspector Martin, began on Thursday, March 7, at Letterkenny. The conduct of the police during the preliminary stage, has been such as to justify the anxiety of the public in connection with the trial. On Thursday ihe prisoners were paraded before the police witnesses for identification, and the witnesses compared notes as the accused passed into the court. Thia proceeding was so scandalous that it was condemned even by Removable Hamilton. In his crossexamination of the policemeu on Friday, Dr. Houston elicited the information that on the preceding evening, a statement of the evidence had been read out for them by an officer. These incidents are sufficiently indicative of the spirit with which the police have entered upon tbe making of the case. If the Crown lawyers transfer the venue to Fermanagh, as they did in the trial of the Falcarragh prisoners, and pack the jury as well and truly as in that instance, their success in the pursuit of Father McFaddcn's life is assured.

The Liberal Federation of Ely held a conference, week eading March 9, in that town under the presidency of Sir Walter Foster. — This conference was followed in the evening by a public meeting in the Corn Exchange, at which Sir William Harcourt addressed a very large and enthusiastic concourse of people on the Irish question. Law and order, said the right hon. baronet, would be established in Ireland, but not under coercion. The Irish people, he continued, had survived Cromwell, and they would survive Balfour. Now that the letters attributed to Mr. Parnell had been proved forgeries, the Commission might drag on as a matter of antiquarian research. Sir William expressed himself thoroughly satisfied with the present promising outlook of things from a Home Rule pMnt of view.

Sir Charles Russell was among the prominent public men who spoke at the Hackney Reform Club on Monday evening, Marca 11. Speaking of the Iris*! party, the boo. baronet said that the Irish Pa rliameut preceded England by twenty-five yeus in striving for Catholic Emancipation. Thatwasafarltamentexclusively Protestant — not merely composed solely tf Protestant members, but elected solely by Proti stant votes. According to the then state of Irish representation, Ireland spoke with a divided vo'ce ; but when Ireland had a free choice of popularly electing its representatives, then Ireland no longer spoke with a divided voice. Wneti out of one hundred popularly elected representatives eighty-five were returned to the Imperial Parliament spenki-g the same language, it became impossible for any constitu 1 ion.il Minister to disregaid the cry which it sent forth. No Government, he maintained, could long exist if it had not got behind it the moral sanction and support of the people whom it governed ; for never let it be forgotten that there was one article of faith at the bottom of the whole Liberal and Uadical creed, and that was that kingships, republics, and any other form of government were not created for the sake of kings— they were not created for the sake of the Government — and that the true relation of the Executive to the people was not the condi'ion of master and servant, but that the Executive were, or ought to be, in a normal condition of things, accountable! to the people whom they governed. The meeting of the Eighty Club on Friday, March 8, was one of those events that Bometimes close a long political development fittingly and somewhat dramatically. Earl Spencer was the guest of the evening. Mr. Piirnell was one of the invited visitors, and the proceedings weie opened by the meeting of those two men whose lives have h»d such influence, from opposite directions, on the latter-day history of Ireland. Mr. Parnell's greeting to Enrl Speucir w*s an act in which he might well be taken as representing the whole Irisb nation. Lord Spencer's administration ot Irish affairs was criticised unsparingly a.d fought UDflincbingly by the Iristt people. But the bitterness of the criticism and the unhesitating character of the resistance were largely due to the fact thit the people and the leaders telt that the policy of coercion was getting its last honest trial, and that if it failed in Earl Spencer's hands, and under the conditions then and now exisi ing, it fdile 1 for ever. The great-mindedness of his subsequent action has not been lobt on the people of Ireland, aa<i th^y endoisa every word spoken by their leadcis in iecogniti>u of Lord Soencer's magnanimity,

L.rd Spencer made the reasons fjr his conversion to Home Rule perfectly plain in the portion ot his speech where he recapitulate 1 his experiences of livlmd. The Act of Union had failed because ( f three things ; firs', the non-fuifwment oi the promise* wt ich were made at its passing ; second, unjust legislation ; aad third, ill-consi-dertd legislation. The demnn lof Irclau 1 is, hedec'ared, jus ifi:d by

history ; and not only by the history of old times, bnt by tfae history of recent date. He was not ashamed to say that he had changed his opinions with regard to the Irish question, and to acknowledge that he was formerly wrong. He was wrong for one thing in believing that the men who spoke in Ireland's name were noisy agitators ; bat the general election of 1886 had convinced him of his error there, an error he was beginning dimly to perceive even before that event. Mr. Gladstone's Bills, he declared, were|not dead. Their grand principles lived, and would yet vivify an Act of Parliament. Biron Dowse opened the assizes at Tralee on Monday, March 11, and delivered a fierce political diatribe on boycotting and on the destiny of the money saved from the landlords. He s?ems to have been anxious to console the coercionists for the sneer which he aimed at the expect mt heir of his lordship's dignity — Mr. Peter O'Brien— in a speech at Limerick. We regret that pressure of business compelled the Baron, who is generally witty and original, to unearth an old SDeech of Mr. T. W. Russell for the occasion. Really, though the house of Dowse has lately taken to chumming with Liberal Unionists of that temper, we did not imagine it would so soon have to borrow its ideas. But so it is. And the Baron has revived the stale, old contentions of the Unionist platforms that murder is the sanction of boycotting, and that if rents are reduced it is only to swell the whisky account. The Baion made great use of figures in his speech ; but in figures is his judgment writ. When Mr. Balfour made aphis statistics of boycotting, the highest total from the province of Leinster was supplied by the County Kilkenny, which equalled any county in Ireland in its criminal love of the social remedy for land-grabbing. But there has not been a single murder in Kilkenny during the whole period since the Land League was started there. The Baron's deduction is from the increase of one hundred and four cases in the police statistics ; but whether they were Emergencymen, Times' witnesses, corner-boys, or farmers wbo had their rents reduced, the statistics did n)t show, nor did the dispenser of justice inquire. Perhaps it would have spoiled his harangue, and the Baron never spoils either a joke or a harangue by a too close adherence to the truth. We wonder if Cullinane, the notorious Balfouriau factotum, ia still playing his devilish tricks in the County Clare, or have the Removables themselves got up a little crime in order to afford them an opportunity of sending innocent Nationalists to ga )1 and expounding moral maxims on the political situation from the bench? Whether it be Cullinane or his superiors in the hierarchy, it is certain that an active attempt is being now made to give the County Clare a bad name. It is, for instance, announced from Limerick that Mr. Creagh, a landlord, residing near Quin, County Clare, was driving with his sister to church on last Sunday, when he was fired at and badly wounded, while his aster was shot in the face. Strange to say, no arrests have as yat been made. The police are too busy with the " suppressed leaguers " toh*ve any time for the prevention or detection of real crime.

Sir William Harcourt made an exceedingly good point when he said that since the last general election some sixty-seven vacancies took place in the House of Commons, out of which ten seats changed political hands, with the result that of these ten the Liberal party won nino and lost only one. Sixty-£even seats being exactly onetenth of the Hous3 of Commons, and ten times nioe being ninety, ninety seits mean one hundred and eighty votes iv a division, " and when," said the hon. baronet, " we have to get ten times nine votes, which is one hundred and eighty on a division, where will her Majesty's Government be? ' The election of Kennington, according to the speaker, like the battle of Gravelotte, only precedes the disaster of Sedau. " We must give the Government party no rest," he added ; '• we must give them no quarter." Having alluded to the ignominuus conspiracy existing between the Government and the Times, proved by the assistance rendered the latter journal by policemen and other officials, Sir William said that the Liberal party would no longer allow the Cabinet to skulk behind a majority— a majority which, he justly observed, has been obtained upon false promises, false representations, ana broken pledges. "We will," be continued, "drag them before the nation's tribunal." Later on, in acknowledging several addresses, the orator said that there should be no means wanting to precipitate the final issue which wilt allow the people of England to pronounce the fate of a Coercion Government. Sir Wiliiam's speech wag couched ia the happiest terms, and was much reli-hed by the audience, particularly the passage in which he compared the Liberal Unionists to the petcy potentates of the old German Confederation, ninety-nine out of a hundred of whom were colonels or captains, and only one a lull private. Apart from its sa ient humour, Sir William's utterance hid a ring of enthusiastic hope in it which proves that the chiefs of the Liberal party are more than conscious of the fact that victory is at last alighting on the Home Rule banner.

Sir George Trevelyan, in addressing a Radical meeting at Islington, pointed out tliat though the diminution of the Government majority was caus3d mainly by the bye-elections, everyone wbo knew what electioneering was was aware that Liberal triumphs were gamel almost always amidst the heat and sxcitement of a general election, and that it was bye-elections that ordinarily went against them. Sir Gejrge, in his remarks on thi turn of the tide in London, was very nappy and effective. Referring to Glasgow he said he did not believe that at the next general election it would return a Bingle supporter of the present Government. The hon. baronet, in coac.usion, denied Lord Salisbury's assertion that the agrarian question was at the bottom of Home Rule — contending, and with justice, that the national feeling in Ireland was as strong in the towns as it waß in the country, aad th.it, if the agrarian question ware to be disposed of by Mr. Balfour, the feeling for Home tiule would be as strong aa ever, for it iested up n the desire of Irishmen to take part iv the government of iheir country. Mr. Chamberlain's Liberal Unionist supporters are throwing up the sponge at last, and are trying to build themselves a bridge whereby they may >-eturn to the Liberal fold. At a meetiug -if that body on Tuesday, March 12, in West B.rminghaoi, a resolution was unanimously adopted in favour of immediate legislation for Ireland on Uu land question and local government. This is the first sign of

the approaching disruption of the Unionist party —a. disruption which is being undoubtedly caused by the Times' forgeries and the connivance of the Government with the villany uf Pnntinghouse Square. At the meeting referred to a letter was read from Mr. Chamberlain, in which we find the following passage, which, we dare say, will be read by the Tories with ominous interest: — • I think tha time has come when the Government ebou'd glva proof of its readiness to propose a substitute for Mr. Gladstone's rejected Bills, and I pointed out in my speech on the Ad ires* that there wis already a general concensus of opinion ia favour of a large and final measure of land r-urchase, which, by making the majority of the tenants owners of the land they cultivate, would remove tho cause of land agitation, which has produced so much misery and discontent in Ireland during long generations. If this step were successfully taken, as I believe it might and should with the assent of all parties, the difficulty in the way of large and liberal measures of local government would be invnensely lessened, ani I am sanguine that here also an agreement might be arrived at which would satisfy reasonable and moderate men on all sides. I must, however, impress upon you tbe fact that the land question should ba first dealt with, both because it is mote urgent and more importaut in itself, and also because it is the neceesary preliminary to any form of local government. lam glad that the council of the Western division has spontaneously taken up discussion on the question. Although the leaders of the Unionist and Gladstonian parties have hitherto failed to come to any agreement, 1 still hope that the rank and file may be successful."

The pietist Mr. Townsend Trench's malice is not yet fully expended on the tenants of his Excellency the Viceroy of India, who refused to accept the decree* of the estate office as the definition of their rights. He is now about to try whether he cannot drive his victims from the temporary homesteids erected for them on some land in the possession of the parish prie9t. The Bishop of the diocese of Eildare and Leighlin haß been served with with a writ of ejectment. It may be that the evictor will find the law on his side in this further development of his persecution of the men who defeated him ; but even so, public opinion and public resources will defeat the injustice of tbe law. Mr. Townaend's new move is a confession of defeat so far. He h9B now been two years plotting to intimidate or seduce the Lujgacurran tenants out of their loyal combination with one another, He has not made any impression. Nor will he. His latest move, whether successful or not, will profit him as much as his seductive offers and his previous threats.

Another pressman ha 9 been sentenced to imprisonment because be refused to surrender bis right of publication. Hitherto pressmen have been imprisoned for publishing the reports of " suppressed " branches : now a musty old statute has been furbished anew which Rives Mr. Balfour a grip on the publishers of reports of ordinary meTtings Mr. P. J. Conlan, the editor of our sturdy contemporary, the Carlow Nationalist, wag on Monday, sentenced to two months' imprisonment because he refused to give bail for his good conduct. He was held to bail for having in the ordinary course published a report of a meeting of the Luggacurr^n brancn of tha National League. The attempt of the coercionists to silence and subjue the Luggacurren men at the present moment shows how closely the evictors and the coercionists work together. Mr, Conlan has been pros > cuted just as Mr. Trench issued his eviction writs:

Tbe barony of Shelbume, in the county of Wexford, a district ruled in the name of the Nation il League by the veteran Canon Doyle of Ramsgrange, was one of the very first h mouved by a proclamation under the existing infamous Coercion Co le. For publishing the reporisof the branches of the Le»gne within it, the editor of the Nation was irapnsoued. AyeT and a half haveelaps;d since his Excellency Lord Londonderry signed what was to have been the death-warrant of the League in the district A year and a half of police espionage and Removables' luffiinism, and now the news comes that the evictors and the rent-robbers are complaining to the Castle of its remissnesa and utter inefficiency in checkiog the hateful power of the League. A new spurt of ilm Castle gaig is now premised in the attempt to supprees the unsuppreHsible. The men of Shelburoe may be pioud of the honour which they have earned. We may premise for them that the new attack will be turned with the same ease as the old. Meanwhile, the incident is eloquent on brave Mr. Ba lfoiir's " success.' 1

Tins Hurley is back in tbe Castle which be defended so sturdily against tr.e evictors. He would not budge from his guard over his farm and homestead since the bruttlity of the Uw ej» j ctel him. His courage and his patient watch have hvl their leward. Neirly two years and a half have passed, and the evictor bai at last struck under. So Tim takeß possession of bis old home at a rent little more than a half of the former rent, and the landlord i-* obliged to satisfy the greedy and capacious maw of the lawyers himself, and do without arrears as well as without the two and a half years' rent that would havebeendu'tohimhad he not played the high-handed but treacherous game of evictor. Long life to Tim and his like ; at the present hour in Ireland there is no defeitnig courage like his. La>t ng grit is all tbat is required to be<u down the evictor. By the way, will Tim's farm figure in Mr. Balfour's next table of statistic-! as an evicted farm for which a tenant h.is baea l\,und ? It is nut uuii'iel^ .

We have no', it stems, beard the last of the doing« o f Mr. Richar 1 Pigott. Thanks to the po'ine.i queries of Mr. T. M. Healy in the House of (J'unraon on Tuesday, March 19, the Hjrae Secretary w,is forced to admi thai John Dalv, the alleged dynamitard, wa<« visi ci by the wily D cklast December. 1' was not witnout much difficulty that Mr. He^ly fuiced the admission from the Right Hon. Mr. Mat hews, who, however, attempted to minimise its lrapntinoe by miking the strange, an! to our mind altogether impio'iable statemenr, that it was at Daly's express vv s i tho visit in question was made to • 'liatham by I'igott. It remains, however, a fact tint Richard, while b-'ing in the pay of the Times, was allowed by th<i prison authorities to see Daly— a privilege winch, oue may add, proves tLe connivanre of the Tory Cabinet with Mr. Soames in bolstering up a most flagitious Case. What, it may be a-ked, was the object of the Government aad

tho Times in bringing about this visit of Pigoti'a to the prisoner ? It is evident that the savoury emissary of Printing-house square and Downing street attempted to induce John Daly to come into the witness-box in order to commit perjury by " incriminating " Mr. Parnell and his party, and that the inducement held ont to the captive was either bis immediate release or the shortening of the term of incarceration to which he had been condemned. Like Nally, Mullet and others, Daly must have spurned such an ignominious offer. It it well that the general public should see how. in convict prisons, as well as outside their precints, the Times and Government have failed to hit on even the teast tangible evidence of an untainted character against the Irish Parliamentary party.