Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 12, 12 July 1889, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.) As we anticipated from the first, the miserable charge against Father M'Fadden for murder is falling to pieces of its own rottenness. Pettier tin Packer is looking about for some loophool through which ho may slip out of the infamy in which Lc has involved the Guvernment and himself. He has no rcruple in packing juries to hang innocent peasants, but bis heart fails him when it comes to packing juries to hang innocent priests. It was noticed that Father in'Fadden's name was not amongut the number cf those whom Pether picked out for trial for the murder of Mr. Martin before a special and specially packed jury of landlords and land agents cf Maryborough. The Daily Chronielt, a strorjg Coercion organ, gives a hint of what ig to happeu later on. "It is rumoured," it says, "that the Government will abandon the capital indictment against Father M'Faddeu, and find some minor charge to try him on."

Truly our brave Balfour is " a man of infinite jest and most excellent fancy." His latest device, as revealed to the worH in the report of Dr. Moorhead, is to turn the several Members of Parliament, whom he has in prison in Tullamore out from the boarded into paved cellß, and make them stand for twenty-two hours at a stretch ou the cola naked si ones until they are frozen to the marrow of their bones. The fact that one of his victims has contracted rheumatism, and has to peich on tue top of the priton stool to avoid the freezing stones, ought to make materials for some most excellent fooling at the next bacquet of the admirers of the magnanimous Balfour.

Sir James Sawyer, the president of thg Birmingham Conservative Association, has followed up the resignation of the vice-president, Mr. Rowlands, with his own. He gives the ground for his resignation with an uncomplimentary bluntness which Judas Chamberlain will appreciate. " 1 find myself," he writeß, '■ unable to hold office in our Association because I could not again trust the Liberal Unionist party in Birmingham." This looks lively for the Liberal Coercioniets bt the next election in Birmingham.

The quiet and pretty lit.le town of Queenßtown has been made the victim of the lie circumstantial. Some imaginative correspondent of the Belfast Evening Telegraph, the organ of the Orange democracy in the Northern capital, sent to that paper, week ending May 11, a purely fictitious story respecting an attack on a Protestant tract shop. Not a scintilla of foundation existed for the vile calumny. Last Sunday, in the Queenstown Cathedral, the Rev. Father Barry, Administrator, adverted to the report and characterised it as a foul slander upon a peaceable and orderly community, where the best state of feeln g has always existed between the people of the various creeds located there. If there be any decency in the Belfast Evening Telegraph— and we hope, for tho sake of Irish journalism, that it does not tollow the example of the Times — it will at ouce make the amende to tbe slandered people of Queenstown.

Evictions everywhere ! In a single column of the Freeman of May 13, five eviction campaigns are announced. Wholesale evictions are in prospect or progress on the Olphert estate in Donegal ; wholesale evictions on the Kenmare estate in Killarney ; wholesale evictions on the Marquis of Drogheda estate in Kildare ; wholesale evictions on tbe Lansdowne estate in Luggao.urran ; and wholesale evictions on the Ryan estate in Tipperary. Behind them all, tbe mo3t vile the Marquis of Clanricarde only waits until the brave Balfour can screw his courage to the sticking-point to lend the forces of tbe Crown for a war of extermination, more widespread and ferocious than anything known even in the famine. Even thus the peace «nd prosperity of Ireland is promoted under this beneficent administration.

In each one cf the=e evictions tbe battering-ram, which the beneficent Balfour has so popularised, is being threatened or employed. The good example of Mr. Olpheit is to be followed on a splendid scale by his Leighbours. Futher M'Fadden telegraphs to the Sta?' an eloquent denunciation of the evictions which are impending in the neighbouring estate of Glashercoo :— " Fifty families," he writes, "are lo be cleared out, and the house?, it is announced, will be burned. It is the most poverty-stricken spot in Ireland. The condition cf tho people and other ciicumstancLS make these evictions tbe most painful aud heartrending yet on n cord. The people are at this moment dependant on charity for subsistence. Whatever seed they have put, down has been supplied by chanty. The claim cf the landlord cannot by paid, aud all the power on earth could not extract it out ot tbe place. The evictions can benefit no peißon, and the land is worth less to the landlords without the tenants. To drive those famishinp people out on the bleak bog and the roaifiide is cruel and heartless — aye, it is savage and inhuman. Let Krg'isbmen, Liberals and Tories, come and see the evictions at Glasliercoo, and the evil of landlordism will burn into tl etr hearts." Father M'Falden forgets the company of Mr. T. W. Russell's promotion, which is to guarantee the evicior a handsome yearly income— to pay him by the number of homes be ruins, as men are paid ir< Australia by the number of rabbit-skins they have got t > show. If Mr. Olphert is to get £1,500 a year for evicting, there is no reason why his neighbour, Mr. Sweeney, should not turn an honest penny by the same devil's work.

Beyond all doubt this sudden and awful revival of evictions is a purely political phenomenon — the most disgraceful, perhip<», that has ever diegiaced politics. It ia the last card of the Coercionists. The Plan of Campaign, in the teeth cf Coercion, was pulling down rackrents and forcing a reasonable settlement on the estates of the mott ruthless evictors. Triumph followed triumph with startling rapitlity. The success of thr Plan could no longer be covered over with lies. There was no use in declaring that it had boplessly broken down on such and feuch an estate, wteu the news came a coupln of days later of the evictoi's complete surrender to the Plan. The Coercions Government determined by one last effort, per fas aut tufas, to crush out the Plan of Campaign. This is what tbe concentrated siorm of tjvictlon on the Camj'a'^ncd estates means. It is a vast conspiracy,

in which the Government is the prime mover. The motive is not to belp the rack-renters, but to save the Government. Mr. P. O'Brien and Father Boyle are hunting Mr.T. W- Russell from one lie to another through his mendacious account of the Olphert evictions, which, as Sir Wm. Harcourt declared, was read with disgust by all men in whoee nature humanity bad any parr. The malignant fictitn of Emergencyman Russell that relief had beeu restricted to the Catholic teuants is shattered to pieces by overwhelming evidence. Father Boyle caps the exposure by a challenge to the lying Emergency man to submit the question in dispute to any arbitrators he ehoses, even to tbe Removables of the district, lie farther offers to hand over to iiny charity that may be named £20 from his Bcanty ii-come if it be found ("to quote the priest's own words) that I, or Mr. O'Brien, M.P., or any Euglish or Irish Member of Parliamant, Mr. Russell excepted, or any local lay or cleric introduced, either directly or indirectly, the question of religion in the distribution of relief, or even if he can prove that any of the above-named assisted me, either directly or indirectly, in that distribution." He declares the insinuation was both mean and cowardly, and " I now challenge its author to vindicate it." It would seem from thiß that Mr. Russell had not attended for nothing as a poor scholar in the school of Balfour the Mendacious. Like other poor scholars, he hopes to make his fortune by his learning. The libel actions that have been commenced against him by Mr. O'Brien, M.P., may disturb his calculations. All the desperation of a beaten man is visible in the move of our able and brave Chief Secretary. When all things else fail in Ireland tbe brand of religious discord was flung ; and, as a rule, the malign expedient was successful. But history is not going to repeat itself this time, it is not rash to predict. The majority of the people of Ireland have proved in many incontrovertible ways that they are not bigoted ; it takes two sides at any time to make a quarrel. Hence Mr. Balfour's sinister attempt, on week ending May 11, when addressing a select party of Nonconformist Unionists, is doomed to ignominious failure. His Philo3opherehip attempted to Bhow that it was religious bigotry which prompted \Jatholic priests throughout Ireland in joiniug the National League, and illustrated his argument by the case at Youghal, wherein some shopkeepers who would not comply with popular Bentiment regarding Mr. O'Brien's prison treatment are said to have been boycotted. These shopkeepers are said to be Protestants ; but, supposing for a moment that there is an atom of truth in the story, what argument, from the religious point of view, can be founded on it ? Mr. Balfour did not choose to tell his listeners what he might have told them that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the persons who are boycotted in Ireland for taking evicted farms, aidiag the evictors, and co on, are Catholics. Where, then, does the question of sectarian hcstility come in 1 Not a whisper of it has been heard anywhere. His desperate device is, therefore, no more serviceable than the proverbial straw to the drowning man. It will uot do even iv England. The very men whom he was addressing do not believe a word of it. Asa rule, the Nonconformists have stood up nobly for justice to Ireland in this great crisis. The vast bulk of their body has again and again pronounced in the most unmistakable tones against Balfourism and all its works and pomps. In the couree of his empoisoned address, Mr. Balf«ur scoffed at the idea that there were any Irish Protestants in favour of Home Rule. As well might Home Rulers say there is no such personage in political life aB our truth-loving Chief Secretary. It is a fact which has escaped his observation that tbe Home Mule movement owes its origin to Protestants, and was at the outset exclusively confined to Frotastants. The present leader of the movement, he seems to forget, beloDgs to the Protestant Church in Ireland, and he is not alone in the party in that respect, by any means. Mr. Abraham, Mr. Finkerton, Mr. Jordan, Mr. Mac Donald, Dr. Tanner, Mr. Dickson these are all members of the same communion A cuuple of nights after his great truth was given to the world, there was a tine meeting of the Protestant Home Rule Association in Dublio, where a very respectable negative was given to his bold but not original proposition. It was a Protestant clergyman who gave the retort courteous to his daring assertion that "in Ireland the boycotters were invariably Ruman Catholics, and tie boycotted invanably Protestants. Ihe Rev. Mr. M'Cutcheon, Rector ot Kenmare, gave a neat answer :— " If boycotting be to causd suffering and produce loss on account of political opinion, tien tho Iribh Uoionists have learned the art, and they practieeit with a skill and pertinacity which are unknown to their adversaries The cbairman would know the facts as well as he did of one Presbyterian clergyman who, becauee he held opinions in favour of Home Rule, was obliged to Furrender his charge and retire from office. They knew, too, of a student of Trinity college, who bore off the highest honours, and who wts in the Weeleyan ministry, and who, a few weeks ago, was driven off a committee because he loved the Irish cauße. He knew a case of the rector of a parish in Ireland, who, though he had the support of the multitude of his own people, was bo boycotted by those outside the limits of bis parish that he was, to his knowledge, obliged to discharge every servant in his employment, aud to call upon the affectionate fidelity of his children to discharge those menial duties to which they were not accustomed." He might have added that the beßt boycotted man in Ireland by his co-religionists was the chairman of the meeting, the Rev. Professor Galbraith. A Youghal correspondent infoims us that there is no foundation for either of Mr. Balfours two statements regarding the boycotting at Youghal. Those shopkeepers who have incurred the displeasure of the townspeople belong to the Catholic faith as well as the Proteßtant. That is an answer to lie No. 1. Mr. Balfour further stated that, owing to the effects of the boycotting, an important factory in the town, which employed a hundred hands, had been obliged to dismiss forty of them, Oar correspondent tolls us tbat there is no factory in Youghal which employed that number of hands. The cne factory that comes nearest to the description— the factory referred to evidently - only employed about fifty hands, and of this number about thirty are children or youths. Five or six men were dismissed recently, and these, our correspondent tells us, were all Catholics— a fact which, taken in connection with tho story about boycotting, spenks volumes, but not for Mr. Balfour's side. The Youghal Nation-

alists are not guided in whatever action they take by any sectarian motives. That they emphatica'ly declare ; and wa implicitly believe them.