THE TENANTS' DEFENCE ASSOCIATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 36, 27 December 1889, Page 7

THE TENANTS' DEFENCE ASSOCIATION.

(The Nation, November 2V Ok Thursday week " The Irish Tenants' Defence Association " became a reality At the meeting of the Irish Parliamentary Party, held on that day in the Mansion House, the association was formally established the government electe 1, and preparations made to put the moeramme of action before the country. Ssvei county conventions were arranged f jr-namely, Tipperary, Cork, Louth, Wexfard, Kilkenny, Roscommon, and Kerry. Presidents were appointed for each and' a deputation of the party selected to a tend tne TiDperarv Convention The whole proceedings area fulfilment of Mr. O'Brien's promise to the Tipperary tenants, that the fight against the landlord connpirators was to be a national one, and that every member ot the Irish Party would have his place and his duty in the army of national defence. On Monday the first of the conventions came off 10 Tburles under the patron»ge of the patriotic and courageous Archbishop of the South and the presidency of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Tipperary gave a gallant lead ; the Lord Mayor vindicated the necessity, the reasonableness, and the purposeof the Association ; and its principles were accepted by as representative a gathering of Irishmen as ever assembled in Ireland. By a most fortunate and striking coincidence the day of the Tburles Convention was the day on which arrived in Ireland the full report of the Convention of the National League ia Melbourne, held on the 17th September, a Convention at which met nearly four hundred representative delegates from seventy-six districts of Victoria, and which placed on record, in advance of its actual foundation, the following vote of approval of the new Association : «Xhat through their representatives here assembled, the IrishAustralians gladly subscribe to the principles and aims of the Irish Tenants' Defence Association, believing that only by a combination of a national character, on an equitable and wide basis, can the nefarious tactics of the Irish landlords, in secret league with a Coercionist Government, be effectively foiled." Thus side by side in our columns to-day appear the reports of two gre%t meetings of Irishmen, •peaking with a voice representative of hundreds of thousands of their fellow-countrymen, and giving expression, though separated by thousands of leagues of ocean, to the same resolute determination to free the unholy conspiracy of the landlords and the Government, and to cave from persecution and ruin the unselfish ani courageous tenants whofoueht the battle of justice in Ireland when justice was trampled on by theWestmin-ter Parliament, and who won the battle for every tenant in Ireland except themselves. We rejoice at this evidence that Irishmen all ove r tne world are rising to the greatness of their duty and the crisis that is upon them. la striking language Mr. Dillon pointed out to his audience the magnitude of that crisis. "People," he said, -'-have arrived at the conclusion that we are now at the supreme crisis of the history of onr natioD, and the fate of future generations of the men and women who will be born in the old land will depend to a great extent oi the action taken in the next few years. With that opiaion I am thoroughly in accord. There never has been bo critical a period as the next tbree years will be." The truth of Mr. Dillon's words is undeniable. The immediate future is crowded with fateful issues. for every interest, every life, every soul in Ireland. Their determination is the determination cf Irish liberty or slavery ; and their determination depends upon whether the instruments of the alien tyranny, working in combination and conspiracy with a vindictive class, can accomplish those blighting, and mean, and sordid ends which Mr. Sexton described in his eloquent speech at Thurles If through the oppression and persecution of the peoDle Mr. Balfour can help bis class, the oppression and persecution will be maintained. If alien law can be shown to be operative in Ireland even when it permits and sanctions such outrage as Woodford and Falcarragh have been the scene of, then will its sway be proved to be supreme for every purpose in Ireland, even if its framers so willed, for the extermination of the ancient Irish race and name. The passion of gTeed and the passion of bate have been the breath of the detestable class rule that has been maintained in this land in the natn- of England. Let them be cheated and defeated and the animating spirit of the abominable Castle rule will take flight. We believe Irish strength, resource and courage is able to defeat the purposr the giganuc conspiracy that has polluted government, prostitu uthonty debased and degraded law for the vilest aims of a class duaflemned hy its his'ory and condemned by its present work. If Ireland at home and abroad do as Tipperary and Melbourne have done, our belief will be verified Withoutcalling on one sympathiser outside the limits of the Irish nation, the work could be done. But there is splendid earnest already that Kogliahmen will vindicate their country against the aspersions put upon it by toose who presume to execute Clanncarde's outrages and to protect Olpfcert's incendiarism in its name. Resolute as is the temper in which the work is being undertaken, courageous as is every man enrolled in the ass jciation, its objects are not extreme. It aims to supplement the law. Its first object ia to secure that the burthen of liability which the Land Act of 18S7 failed to remove from certain Irish tenants shall not be used to enchain them in a perpetual servitude, and prevent them from reaching the comparative free-iorn ordained by the law to the mass of the tenants. The benefits it will aim to secure are not the benefits decreed by any unauthorised tribunal. Tney are the benefits which, if all obstructions were removed, would be conferred by the principles accepted not only by the majority of the people of Ireland and their representatives, but also by the majority of the people of Great Britain. Every case of landlord oppression will be resisted on tie distinct understanding that impartial arbitration will be accepted if offered. This wise provision will effectually stop the cry of injustice. The association will take account not merely of tenants wLo have been evicted for irrears that accrued in a rent which Parliament reduced, but also of those who are being terrorised by the threat of eviction'into a purchase of their farms at a price that must inevitably re»ult in injury to Irish credit and loss to the British Treasury. It will wttch the operations of the Ashbourne Act, and thus will do a real service, not merely to Ireland, but Great Britain, There cannot

b 3 a doubt that under that Act the tenants' improvements all over Ireland ar« being confiscated, for there is no provision in tlie Act for their protection, and the prices being paid for farms are as high aa the prices paid tor estates in the Land Courts before the tenant's improvements became hia property by law. This is happening simply through the terrorism which landlords are able to inspire in tenants whom they have at their mercy. The as-"oeiition will give the tenants a me of the scunty necessary to enable them to make something like a free and fair contract. Ihese are most commendable aims. The association, though founded to fight the landlord* syndicate first, has not lmi'ated the vmdicuveness of that body. Its bißia is what the Irish-A'istralians d-scriba it to be— eqauab'e ; and its objects are commendable and fur. Taey have already commanded the adhesion of the who'e Irish race