Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 36, 27 December 1889, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National paper?.)

THERE is jast one passage ia the speech of the brave Mr. Balfour in Manchester too amus'ng to be pi*sed over in Bileoce. He complains bitterly that the English deputations did not geek their information from the officials on whom he biaaself relies for his Irish facts. " I have given instructions," he said, " .hat every magistrate, that every policeman, and that every man under my control shall do all he can U> give information to any of these gentlemen who desire it. Do they ever seek information from that qmrteri Niver " (lau^bter). Curious this. Oar English visitors would have got such unique and valuable and impartial information from men of the type of Rowdy Removable Roche or perjared Constable Garvey, or from Colonel Turncoat Turner, to whom the brave Balfour himself was indebted for the important discovery that the " League was a thing of the pas'-." We cannot onrselveß account for our English visitors' neglect 'o drink from this open well of unadulterated truth, except perhaps that the fate of Mr. Blunt and Mr. Conybeare made them somewhat shy of the bra\e Mr. Balfour's police and Removables.

While some of the unfortunate Gwaedore peasants ara away in Maryborough awaiting their fate tbe authorities are taking a nuan and spiteful advantage of their absence by renewing the eviction campaign on tbe Olphert estate. On Wednesday, October 23, 150 riflemen nvircned on the village of Falcarragh, and commune :d the devil's work by » jectine several inhabitants from their humble homes. The marauding soldics afterwards swooped down on Ardsmore, where, assisted by the usual squad of pohcernei and bailiffs, they besieged tbe house of a wilow named Coll. When tbe door bad been broken in, Mrs. Coll, who refuel to leave, was rudely suzed by two policemen and hustled out of the premises, " Sbe then sat down," says the report, •' oo the little f '.me by tho side of the boreen, wherenpon four or five policeman laid hold of her, and literally dragged her, old and feeble aa she was, over the rough muddy pissage that led to the couutry road 1 ' One of the wiiow s comp inions in the house, Bridget Couaghan, had her bead split open with she blow of a crowbar weilded by an Emergency ruffian. Sbe ani several others were arrested, although the Emergencyman wnom th± identified as her assailant was allowed to continue his diabolical work unmolested. Several other evictions were subsequently carried out. Sjene9 such as t^ese cast a lurid light on tbe loathsomeness and brutality of Balfourism.

Tbe publication of Sir Charles Russell's award reminds us of wha' might be if Mr, Balfour did not stimulate and encourage the Bmith-Barrys in their vindictive war against the tenants. His decree settles the struggle on the Vandeleur estate, and peace reigns there, that is, not the peace of devastation, but the peace of justice and mutual good-will. The terms of the decree are briefly these : One year's rent is accepted in lieu of all arrears due up to the 28th of March, 1887. a reduction of 20 per cent, being given to the nonjudicial tenants. A reduction of 32} per cent, on tbe old rent and an allowance of half the county cess is decreed all round. The landlord is to pay compensation for the destruction of crops and the damage done to buildings by the eviction of the tenants, and Mr. P. Considine, civil engineer, Kilrush, is appointed judge of the amount. The right of free tale is reseived to the tenants E >eh party is to bear its own costs. These terms mean substantial victory, and the manner of their concession obliterates all ill-feeling arising out of the unfortunate dispute. Tbe whole incident is eloquent of the good results to justice and order that would have follDwed the establishment of an impartial court of arbitration for the settlement of the question of such arrears as accrued on the rents cut down by the Parl amant in 1887. Lord H irtington and Mr. Chamberlain acknowledged thy necessity for such a court ; but though the former boasts that Ireland has only to prove the existence of a grievance in order to have it remedied, Colonel Vandeleur's estate is the only one on which the principles which would secure justice to all interests involved have, despite the obstruction of tho Government's ngents, been put in operation. The happy results there, by their contrast witti the miserable condition of things at Falcarragh and Woodf ord, are tbe best proof of the curse that overhangs us in the reign of Balf ourism. A pleasant picture of landlordism — a rare picture, unhappily, in these times of strife — is afforded us in the brief and simple relation of the visit of Miss E. Skeffington Thompson to her estate in county Tyrone. Were all owners of the soil of Mws Thompson's mind, there would be no land question in Ireland to settle. A trae type of that sentiment which inspired ihi action of the Irish Volunteers in her own northern county a hundred years ago, ehe combines with a love of the ancient iaea in Ireland a love for those institutions which the Volunteers aimed at securing as safeguards for their freedom. She is a Protestant Home Ruler in the highest sense of the designation. Her name is so well known in connection with every national object for the past decade or more that it is superfluous to recapitulate her many patriotic acts. In her charming novel, " M"oy O'Brien," she has presented an ideal Irish lady ; and this ideal it seems to be her aim to realise in her own person by word and act. During her soujoum on her northern estate, sbe, besides voluntarily abating her tenants' rents by eight shillings in the pound, feasted them royally, and supplied funds for the supply of instruments for a band for the young men of the locality. Her harvest -home was an idyllic picture of happiness and mutual affection — an oasis in the sea of selfish attack and defeasive reprisal which thjse who love the ways of peace will eagerly welcome.

The Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland is at present like the king in a p«atomim n , with as much real power and as mucti ser o'is riutv. His business is amusement. Some little time a?o, the Daily Express, enumerating Lord Zetland's qualifications for th« posr, declared he " was very rich, and an ardent patron of the turf " When our new Lord Lieutenant the other day, in Yorkshire, declared that " he would endeavour to discharge the duties of his post in a manner

which, ha trusted, would be conducive to the welfare and prosperity of Ireland," be waa t-ilkiag unalulteratal nonsense, and he mast have known it. The " duties of bis post " are to attend race meetings (for the most pan in Eaglani), to sign proclatn.tnns, to get photographed in various attitude*, and draw the handsome salary attached to his urnaaaaatal p >siti>u. fae nj iju of nia pronnting the weltare and prosperity of Ireland is as fantastic as tue ambition of the oyster of theuusery fl'ory to drive an omnibus. L)rd Zetland has made Littie Lord Oas'lereaga hi* moJel, aud to that level he will not find it difficult to attaiu. Any horse- jockey ia the service of either of those distinguished patrons of the turf could fill the position with equal dignity and success, and, we have no doubt;, draw the salary attached with equal punctuality. The pretty little schema of the Most Vile the Marquis of Olanricarde to seizj on tbe priest's house and caapal at WooJford, as well hs the buts erectei fir the shelter of his evicted victims, has ignomimonsly fallen through. He has been scouted with coats out of court. Tne main object of the ingenious device was, of course, to insult and h*ra<>B the newly-appointed parish priest, Father Oostello, as Father Coen hai been insulted aud harassed by the exterminator to the hour of bis death, as a punishment for his sympathy tor the unhappy temnta. It would be each a glorious victory for law and order to turn the chapel into a police barrack, to fl.il the pre bvtary with emerge icy inea. Tha crowning triumph would b j to ab am aa injunction against tne priest comnaiadin? him to pull down the huts toat bheltered his famishing parishioners, anl to lodge him ia gaol ia default of compensation. Bat the whole notable scheme has crumbled to pieces, anl the Most Vile will have the pleasure of paying the law costs incurred by the blundering malignity of hid hirelings. It is Borne small comfort that the iasirunuuta he emp'oys— Messrs. Tener, Ryder, Whelan, and Graham are as stupid as tney are brutal.

Le Temps, one of the most influential of French journals, draws an instructive parallel between Bismarck and Balfour, from which we learn that the Irou Chancellor has taken a leaf or two out uf the back of the Irish Chief Secretary. If imitation be toe best kiud of flattery then, indeed, Balfour the Brave ou^ht to feel as proud as any Florentine Kuight of the Golden Spur wdo came homj in triumph from the armed arena, for Bismarck uaa paid him the compliment of assimilatiug his Irish Crimes Act for German purposes. A new coercion measure directed against the Suculiscs his just bjen iatroduced into the Reichstag, whicb, unlike previous measures of tho kind is to become a permanent fixture on the statute book. Since 1878 Bismarck has proposed and hid carried several Coercion Bills of a temporary character with a view of stemming toe Socialistic tide. They all, however, not only failed in their purpose, but helped on tho cause which they were supposed to suppress, for tbe number of the Socialist deputies in the Keicht-tig now is four times larger than ia 1878. Bismarck, therefore, seeing his master in Balfour, made a deep study of the Crimes Act, and has now adopted its principles. The German autocrat has, in fact, become the pupil of the Cromwelliaa pigmy who assumes to rule tbe roast in Ireland. He has endorsed 41 r. Balfour's pet idea that tyrants can only hold their own by the suspicion of a people's rights and liberties in. secula seoulorun. Tbe Iron Cuaacellor, however, will soon find out wuat an egregious fool be has made of himself in taking his lessons from such an exploded nonentity as Balfour. " Permanent coercion will end in Germany as it is ending in Ireland — in the defeat and discomfiture of the coercionists themselves. One difference exists between the Irish Coercion Act and the German Coercion Act. The latter establishes a court of appeal Verb sap.

Mr. John Morley recently addressed a great meeting in Bristol, under tha auspies of the local Liberal Club. Alluding to Mr. Balf jar's recent a mouncement thai the most sanguine expectations ia regard to Ireland were fulfilled, ilr. Morley caustically observed thu the Chief Secretary had indeed succeeded in locking up some twenty-two Irish representatives, some twice or thrice, without trial by jury, for offences which were for the moat part newly created by the Coercion Act. Such was the sum total of the success, of Mr. Bilfour's saaguine anticipa ions. Was it an evidence of the latter's success, asked Mr. Morley, that the late Lord-Lieutenant should have recently said that it was utterly impossible to dream of ever governing Ireland except by extraordinary pasterj? Were the Government prepared to ccntinue this system of perpetuity? That mia, continued the speaker, was desperately mistaken wno fancied that the working people of England, with their simple, honest ideas and with power ia their hands, would ever assent to the proposition thai one of the three kingdoms was to ba perpetually governed by tbis exceptional law. Fhe Government, continued Mr. Morley, said they had a remedial policy, but the moment they touch a remedial policy their difficulties begin. Toe Chief Secretary wanted to drain two rivers — the Barm and the Suir — and he thought ne would thereby drain the discontent of Ireland. There nad been plenty of Irish drainage schemes before, and Mr. Balfour would create rive soured aud discontented men to declare that these schemes did them no good, lor every man who admitted that he grot aay benefit out of the drainage. The; Chief Secretary had said be wished to give higher university education to Catholics. He (Mr. Morley) said nothing on the merits of the scheme, but he awaited with respectful and sympathetic interest the project by which the Chief Secretary proposed to perform that admitted duty and obligation. Then the Government must look forward next session or the session afterwards to a measure for the extension cf local Government in Ireland. They were pledged to it up to the hilt, and could not avoid it. But it was folly merely to expend the powers ot the narrow organisation of local government in Ireland. Wnat Ireland wanted was a strong Government, and it, could only have a s r rong cential G jvernment on one condition — that it had a uational Govjrnm.jnt. Then there waa the burning question of the land, about which the liberal dissentients fli^senteJ from each other very mucb, and on that problem the Unionist camp was complete chaos.

The usual fortnightly meeting of the Central Branch of the Irish National League was held on Tuesday, October 22, in Dublin, and.

wm presided over by Mr. T. P. Gill, if. P. Mr. T. Harrington, having acknowledged the receipt of £300 from the country districts as well as £2000 from Australia during the past fortnight, the chairman referred io scathing terms to the jury-packing in Maryborough ; for, he said, it was a system which assumed that because a man was a Catholic he was incapable of Riving a jaat verdict- according to his conscience, while it also assumed that because a man was a Protestant be was ready at tbe bidding of tbe Grown to do any dirty work that was mapped out fox him. Dr. Kenny, M.P., controverted a statement of the Melbourne Argvt to the effect that the expenditure 'of tbe League on behalf of evicted tenants fell far below the receipts. Tbe idea put forward by the Argv* was, he said, that while their delegates were obtaining large sums of money in Australia for evicted teiunts, they were only diibbling out very small sums out of all proportion with the rate at which the money was subscribed. The grants i ef erred to, he continued, were simply the grants that were made by the National League to the ordinary class of evicted tenants, of which the landlords had given a plentiful supply during the last six or seven years. Bat, owing to the action of tbe landlords throughout the country, a totally new class of evicted tenants was created — those who entered into tbe combination of the Plan of Campaign. They knew tbat the Evicted Tenants' Fund wbich had been collected in Australia was a separate and special fund for the relief, and solely for the relief, of tenants evicted under tbe Plan of Campaign and other cognate movements, such as that which the Smith-Barry Syndicate had forced on tbe county Tipperary. For that, and for that only, wm a single penny of this money spent. When Mr. Dillon said that the funds expanded on evicted farms were from £1600 to £1700 per month, he rather underrated the amount, for be (Dr. Kenny) could state that the grants from this fund amounted to over £2000 a month. That accounted for how tbe money went. Dr. Kenny concluded an admirable speech by thanking tbe Australians and Irish Australians for the generous sympathy they accorded to lbs evicted tenants wh > had fought and suffered in tbe Inn 1 war which w<*s now going on throughout the coun ry. Mr. Harrington refuted in an tqually masterly fashion tbe misrepresentations of the Argut—n journal, by-tbe-bye, which has long been notorious for its slanders on Ireland and liibbmsn.