Dublin Notes.
(From the National papers.)
Thk reception given to the English delegates, who have come over to see Ireland and investigate matters for themselves, was in every respect worthy of the great cause which they represent. On Tuesday evening, September 3, the Leinßter Hall was crowded to its utmost capacity, and the greatest enthusiasm was displayed throughout the interesting proceedings. The Lord Mayor, M.P., presided at the great meeting which was held to receive the visitors. Several members of the Irish party were in attendance, as well as a large number of clergymen and representative men of every cr^ed and profession — all manifesting the greatest desire to do honour to those who have bo patriotically devoted their time and their talents to the advancement of our country's cause in England. As the Lord Mayor very ju9tly remarked, in his eloquent address, ihe occasion was an important one in the history of their movement. Boino of the visitors were strangers to Ireland, but none of them were strangers to the hearts of our people. They were friends to the cause whicb they held most dear, and that friendship had been tried by the test of honest service. Two good effects would, in the words of the Lord Mayor, result from the visit— it would cbeer and discipline the people of Ireland, and confirm and stimulate their friends in the justice of the Irish cause. We are sure that the reception the visitors will receive throughout the country will be creditable to all parties.
The addresses delivered by the Chairman (the Lord Mayor, M.P.), Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., and the Rev. Mr. M'Cutcheon.of Kenmare, welcoming the visitors, were Bpirited and practical. Mr. Sexton, M.P., in his felicitous speech, said that the visitors wonld learn more during a montb of tneir stay in Ireland than they would learn at the other side of the Channel during a lifetime. In Ireland the political platform was only one degree removed from the prison, and the prison often, in the case of a political prisoner, was but one step removed from the grave. But this, they were convinced, would not continue. The Liberal party were looked to by the Irish people to put an end to that system and make Ireland a free country. To Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., fell the pleasant duty of welcoming the visitors, who recognised in their visit a proof of the extent and reality of English sympathy and aid in the National struggle. In his address Mr. Sullivan made sympathetic references to Mr. Conybeare. at present Buffering for the cause in Derry — who would be gratefully remembered by the Irish race— and also to the imprisonment of Mr. William O'Brien, whose sufferings at present in Galway Gaol are of the gravest nature. The Rev. Mr. McCutcheon, the Protestant rector of Kenmare, in seconding the resolution of welcome, said the deputations would be everywhere in Ireland most cordially received. There was one thing certain now, and that was that religious animosity had ceased in this country since the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. The resolution was carried without a single dissentient voice.
The Rev. Mr. Berry, the Independent minister from Wolverhampton, who accompanies tbe English deputation, performed a great oratorical feat. He was the last of all the speakers, and the audience, which had been gathered for nearly four hours, three of which bad been spent in listening to speeches, was beginning to show signs of an anxiety to disperse. But Mr Berry had only spoken a couple of sentences when the drooping attention was aroused, and boou the enthusiasm of the meeting reached as high a pitch as at the opening. When the speaker interjected an apology for detaining the audience there were loud cues of "Go on." Mr. Berry has a fine voice, a fine oratorical presence, and good substance. On the death of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher he was offered the vacant pulpit. Another priest hunt has betn started in the County Cork. The quarry this time is the Rev. Jeremiah O'Dwyer, the popular and patriotic curate of Castlelyons. He is charged with conspiring " with other persons whose names are unknown, unlawfully to induce certain persons whose names are unknown not to deal with or purchase pigs from one Robert Brown." The charge is sufficiently vague to remove all hesitancy from the minds of the Removables, and next Monday will probably see one other pastor sent t>> herd with criminals. Meanwhile, one Robert Brown has got a cheap advertisement for his pigs and cattle. He will never want customers again when Father O'Dwyer is immured in Cork Gaol for his B*ke. All the pig buyers wbo frequent the neighbourhood of Fermoy will be sure to be on the look-out for those particular grunters. They Will be ready, of course, to pay fancy prices for the boycjtted pork. Some Radicals are speaking very strongly against the concession to Irish ideas in the matter of education. They seem to contend that because Nonconformist Liberals have supported Home Rule, Irish Roman Catholics should at once become Nonconformist Liberals. The principle of their objection is utterly inconsistent with tne Home Rule principle, and even with the principle enunciated by Mr. Gladstone in ieference to Hcotch and Welsh Disestablishment. Mr. Gladstone declared, witu the approval of the whole Liberal party, that his own action in regard to Disestablishment in those countries was guided altogether by the indication of Scotch and Welsh National opinion on tue questions. Scotland and Wales are allowed to decide for themselves whether they want *n Established Church or not ; and that is the Liberal policy on the matter. But, according to Borne Radicals, Ireland is not to be allowed to decide under what system of education tier children sball be reared. This is altogether inconsistent, and, indeed, a little intolerant.
The contrabt between the policy of conciliation and the policy of coercion was never exhibited moie cieaily aa to results than in the difference between the deputure of the M irqun of Lonionderry on Friday, August 30, and the 1 istoric sc ne when Lord Aberdeen left our shores. The Castle managers had se ected their day fur its special advantages. It was Friday in horse show wcuk, wheu all the snobocracy of Ireland was in. town. The hour selected was just when, the magnificent stable boys would be free to cheer the depart-
ing patron of the ring. Nevertheless the whole plan missed fire. Here and there knots of the rural porteges of the rent offices gathered and cheered ; but the storm of groans and hisses which passed all down West! and row from the immense crowd gathered thera, was the last Hound bis Excellency heard as be left the streets of Dublin. Of course nobody turned up at the Castle but the Orange rack, and they in spiirse numbers. The Corporation of Belfast sent a deputation, and the Corpora 1 ion of Londonderry paid the postage on a sheet of foolscap wbich told his hxcellency bow they admired him. Bat not one representative of the other Ireland, which Mr. Balfour boasts he has conquered and captured, put in an appearance. The teaching of the incident was too patent even for the densest mind to miss it. The meanness of Mr. Balfour is as conspicuous as his effort to keep up the appearance of contemptuous defiance of public opinion. It chines prominently forth once more in his present treatment of Mr. William O'Brien. His attempt to escape public indignation at the treatment of his most unselfish political opponent by conceding Mr. O'Brien privileges when the public attention is riveted on his conduct by agitation, and at the same time to preserve the fiction of consistency, would be ludicrous it it did r.ot lead to variations in tbe treatment of his prisoner that make his confinement particularly cruel. In answer to Mr. Sexton last week he said the concessions to Mr. O'Brien while imprisioned in Galway Gaol were made on the recommendations of the medical officers, and that if they found it necessary similar concessions would be made on tbe present occasion. Mr. O'Brien has lost no time in contradicting this statement. He declares it to be a lie that the concessions were made for medical reasons. They were pressed on him by the representative of the Prisons Board, and it is now manifest that it was a mere conciliation to public opinion. In consequence of Mr. Balfour's misrepresentation, Mr. O'Brien absolutely refuses to accept any concession or see any other representatives of Mr. Balfour and his associates. His decision causes grave anxiety to his friends ; and for our part we do not think it wise. He will not escape Mr. Balfour's slanders by so doing ; whether he will or not, he ought to be indifferent to them .
If there is one thing more thai; another that holds Mr. Balfour up to ridicule and exposes the folly of his ways, it is the great honour which the Coercion Act " criminals ' receive on their release from prison. What must be more stinging to our brave Chief Secretary is the fact that it is not alone Irish and English members of Parliament who are admired by the people, and cheered and honoured, by them on entering and leaving gaol, but the humble worker in the ranks who stands by his persecuted neighbour. Another " criminal," Mr. Patrick Bellew, received a great ovation on Saturday, Augast 31, at Drogbeda on his release from Dundalk Gaol after undergoing a month's imprisonment for raising his voice against the plantation of the Masseraene estate. At Drogneda station Mr. Bellew was met by the Bey. Henry M'Kee, P.P., and the leadinsr men of the town, who gave him a very hearty welcome. A procession was formed, headed by one of the local bands, which, amidst repeated cheers, escorted Mr. Bellew to his father's residence outside the town. This is how Mr. Balfour is answered when he seeks to degrade one of the people.
We have had another instance of the value of arbitration as a means of settling disputes between landlord and tenant. A few days ago a dispute of long standing between a landlord and his tenants in the neighbourhood of New Ross was settled by arbitration under remarkable circumstances. A reduction of twenty-five per cent, was demanded some time ago by the tenants on the estate of Mr. Stephensod, Bally mooney, County Kilkenny, which the landlord allowed them to pay up to March, when he required them to pay at the full valuation. The tenants refused to do this, and forthwith writs were issued. When the tvictions were pending the parish priest of Mullinivat interfered and requested the landlord to leave the matter to arbitration. This being agreed to, none other than a,' criminal "in the recent conspiracy tnils at Shelburne, Mr Joha Cummins, of Ballyhack, was chosen as arbitrator. The decision arrived at by Mr. (Jummina was that the tenants pay one year's rent at a reduction of 20 per cent, under the valuation, and as certain legal expenses had bet n incurred the landlord should defray the greater portion, twothirds of the costs to be borne in equal proportion by the fail number of tenants. This was agreed to by all parties. It may be mentioned that Mr. Cummins was one of those charged at Arthurstown recently with conspiracy to defraud Colonel Tottenham of his rents, and the fact of his having been selected as arbitrator, with the consent of landlord and tenants, and successfully settling a long-standing dispute, ought to make the advisers of Mr. Balfour think twice before marking out their criminals. Mr. Arthur O'Connor did a real service by calling public attention to the different principles that govern the conduct of the English police towards the people and those which regulate the action of the Irish police when they have to deal with crowds. Justice Stephen was hooted through the streets of Liverpool for having, as tre mob though', unduly pressed the evidence againßt the adulteress, ilaybrick, on her trial for murder. The woman, for whom certain admirers had provided a bouquet of flowers in anticipation of her acquittal, was subsequently cheered to the tcho as she was carried away to the condemned cell. It was with difficulty that the crowd was prevented from storming the judge's carriage. This is the story the truth of which, on a question from Mr. O'Connor, Mr. Mathews witnessed. But Mr. Mathews was able to give no information on the further query whether the police, who were in great force on the occasion, batoned, or bayoneted, or shot the people. The contrast deserves ts be hel 1 up. Compare the immunity enjoyed by the crowd which cheered the adulteress who had been condemned as a murderess, and who groaned one of her Majesty's judges, with the outrageous and murderous asiaults on the peiple at Cork and Oharleville who had tlio hardihood to cheer a representative of the people for the noble iulfilment of what he and they regard a^ a n^bls duty. In the con- . last we have expresse 1 for us the difference betwee i government by one's own couutrymeu aad government by alien 3. The Liverpool police are not raiders of a hostile garrison. Sir Richard Webster seems to be one of the evil genii of the present Government, After his collapse at the Foregeries Court now
cornea his collapse in the House of Commons. Of course, in each of these falls he baa dragged down the Government with him into the mire and mad. The Tithes Bill was the cause of the latest disaster that has overtaken him. Ii was on the whole a very thorny measure, for nearly all the Liberal Unionists and a gooi sprinkling of Tories representing agricultural constituencies objected to one of the leading clanseß, according to which in the caee of the recovery of tithes it was the occupier and not the owner who was to be proceeded against. Despite the risk that should be run by the Government, Sir Richard insisted on forcing the measure so far ; but he at last had to give way by accepting an amendment of tha Opposition substituting in the cause the word " owner " for occupier. Sir William Hircourtcou■idersd this such an importan' concession to the opponents of the measure that he begged to report progress in view of the importance of having an opporcuaity of considering same uew clauses that had been proposed. Old Morality entertaining no objection to this proposal, it was accepted by the House. This collapse is sure to damage the prestige of the Tory Ctbinet. I'ae Tones of the old school, the squireens, and their lairly large following are pro cesi ing might and main that they and other landlords are being handed over to the tender mercies of the sans culottes by a Government that accepts such an amendment. Evea tbe Standard fiuJs fault with its patrons over the step they have takan. It holds that as a means of conciliating a certain number of agricultural members who have given pledges to their constituents the policy of the Government may be intelligible, but on broad grounds it seems to be a great mistake. ' ' It mast be owned," it adds, " that the Conservative party have Borne raasoa to complain of the coarse whica the Government have pursued,"
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 27, 25 October 1889, Page 21
Word Count
2,566Dublin Notes. New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 27, 25 October 1889, Page 21
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