Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 37, 3 January 1890, Page 21

Dublin Notes .

(From the National papers.)

Thkbß is something especially invigorating in the Coercionist howl of delight and triumph at their escape at Brighton. There could be no more emphatic confession from the mouths of the enemy that, in the memorable language of the great leader, which has grown on our lips familiar as household words — " the flowing tide is with us, the ebbing tide is with them," and they know it. The Uoerciontsts have lost all hope of winning Home Rule seats. They have even lost all hope of retaining their strongholds by the old majority. It was taken for granted on all hands, said one influential coercion organ, that there would be an enormous reduction of our strength in Brighton. Why taken for granted, unless their cause is losing everywhere, and mast lose? Brighton was a typical Coercion iit constituency, almost exclusively Tory and Whig. It was eminently a constituency of the classes. It was the last seat in Great Britain that the Liberals had a hope of winning. It was not so much the colossal majority against them, though 4,414, the majority of the Coercionist candidate, Sir W. Marriott, who headed the poll in 1886, over the Liberal, Mr. W. Hall, was a figure, one would think, to intimidate the most audacious. It is true that in scarcely another constituency could the Coercionisis boast of so overwhelming a majority. But the Liberal contest was rendered still more hopeless by the class of the constituency, where toadyism and prejudice and ignorance had entrenched themselves securely behind the barrier of tmug respectability, from which it was impossible for sentiment or argument to dislodge them. Two distinguished "criminals" were, during the past week, liberated from Mr. Balfour's places of entertainment— Dr. Tanner, M.P., and Father McCarthy, of Kilmeen. Dr. Tannei was out in the nick of time for the meeting of the Convention, and received an enenthusiaßtic greeting from his colleagues and the warm-hearted Tipperary people. Father McCarthy ww liberated a few days previously, and was the object of a great ovation. The welcome-home of Dr. Tanner in Coik was a public event not soon to be forgotten.

An esteemed correspondent gives us an illustration of the manner in which a naturally-benevolent and well-intended man may suffer in reputation through having hia business transacted for him by another instead of doing it himself. It is the old story of landlord and agent. The landlord in question is Sir Charles Coote ; the agent (newly-appointed), Mr. Turpin, solicitor, of Maryborough. Through causes which are matters of history, this estate has suffered like most others in Ireland fur the past ten years, and arrears have, as a consequence, accumulated. The tenants have striven manfully and honestly to meet their obligations ; but the only encouragement they get from the new agent is in injectmtnt notices and piles of law costs ■uperadded. Even tenants who have paid two years' rent within the twelvemonth ending last June have got ejectment processes for the present quarter sessions. The cattle of one of the tenants who lately paid a year's rent have been driven off and sold by the sheriff, and after this the tenant was processed for the balance of rent still claimed. Hitherto, Sir Charles Coote and his tenantry had pulled well together, our informant states. He and his new agent should bear in mind the wisdom of the ancient adage about spurring a willing horse.

We are glad that the Liberal leaders have thought it worth while to expose the insolent pretence, on the utter falsehood of which we have so of len commented in these columns, that Coercion bas Succeeded in Ireland. They have pricked the full-blown bladder of Mr. Balfoui's vapourings, which being a thing filled entirely with >»md collapses at the fiist touch of truth. Lord Spencer, than whom there is no more competent spokesman on the subject, proclaims the absolute and inevitable failure of Coercion. Mr. Gladstone ridicules the Coercionist pretensions to success with trenchant power — " They boast," he said, at Southport, " of the wonderful success which they have had in what they call picifying Irelani. One of the most remarkable features of this Government has been the great indisposition to be brought to book— a singular inclination to dwell upen general official assurances which nobody can test, not altogether unlike the Turkish contradictions to which I referred some little time ago (cheers). To my astonishment, instead of sustaining and supporting by something in the nature of an unequivocal proof this bold and blustering assumption of success in Ireland, we are required to take their words for it. And when we know that Irishmen are more determined at this moment than ever they were before to continue their etruggie until it reaches the day of success, the Government rtquire us in the face of this state of facts to accept their aesurance that everything is going well in Ireland— in their sense of the term, and that if we will only give to Ireland the one great iudispensable blesei ig of peipetual coercion (laughter), peace and happiness will reign iv ihat once unfortunate country " (cheers). Mr. Gladstone proved that the Coercionists have made the so called administiation of the law in Ireland not successful, but detestable — detestable not in Ireland merely, but in England as well. He illustrated his argument by the startling incident that occurred the other day in the Guildhall Common Council in the heart of London, when, oa the entrance of Mr. Morton, M.P., the Home Bule victor of the Peterborough election, " a gentleman called out for throe cheers for the Plan of Campaign, and the whole audience rose to their feet and enthusiastically and vociferously cheered for the Plan of Campaign." Iv Ireland each cheer would have cost three months' imjpnsooment, as Mr. Conybeare learned to his cost.

We cannot refrain from repeating here Mr. Gladstone's cogent -vindication of the Plan of Campaign, which the Most Rev. Dr. O'Dwyer declares to have become within the limit of his own diocese, and after the issue of the Rescript in the " Forger," the eighth deadly ein, more deadly than the other seven put toeether. This is bow tLe greatest of living Biatesmen, the intimate friend of Cardinal Manning, a man whose character is as high in morals as in politics, -speaks upon the subject :— " The Plan of Campaign is an extra legal

and perhaps, in strictness, an illegal instrument, of doing what trie Government ought to have done in 1886 (hear, hear, and cheers), but which they obstinately and persistently refused to do, which the Government postponed to 1887, knowing that the Irish people could not get through the winter without relief, and thereby they drove the people into this s%d necessity of inventing the Plan.of Campaign, for it is a sad necessity, gentlemen (hear, hear), to call on anyone to deviate by one hair's breadth from the line and the law of public order. But that necessity sometimes exists, and I have always said in the House of Commons and elsewhere the true authors of the Plan of Campaign the persons to whom the whole responsibility belong, are the Government themselves, and the majority that supported them in Parliament." Saving the lives and homes of the Irish people, when Parliament refused to do its duty — saving them by "extra legal" means when legal me ma failed ; this is the view of Mr. Gladstone, to the crime of which the Plan of Campaign mast plead guilty. The Tenant i' Defence League declares that the men who have done this good work shall not, while gratitude has a place in Irish hearts, be made ihe victims of thi savage revenge of the savage tyranny they have defeated.

Judas Chamberlain has pet his foot in it this time. His malignity against Mr. Gladstone has betrayed him into a vila charge, in which others than Mr. Gladstone are included, and will have a word to say to their calumniator later on. After the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, Judas declares—'* There began a time — a policy shall I say I—of1 — of persuasion, of blandishment, and treaty and threat, and even of bribery. Mr. Gladstone," he oontinuas, "is now very indignant. His soul is filled with horror at the iniquities of the blackguard Pitt, who actually employed corruption in order to secure the Union ; but what does he say then, of an administration which employed corruption in order to destroy the Union, and what does he say to the men who now owe their titles and their social distinction to the fact that they voted against their convictions upon the second reading of that Bill ?" This is all very well, so far as Mr. Gladstone is concerned. Judas knows that he can rest secure on that contemptuous toleration of the great leader which he has tried so often. Mr. Gladstone is not likely to stoop from his high position to notice the calumny of Judas Chamberlain. But there are others than Mr. Gladstone involved in this disgraceful charge. Judas, in his reckless mendacity, forgot how few there were to share this terrible insufc amongst them. The number of titles created by Mr. Gladstone in his brief Home Bule administration was exceptionally small. Three peerages and three baronetcies, we believe, exhaust the list. The six gentlemen so honoured can be trusted to make emphatic reply to the infamous charge of bribery and corruption, distinctly alleging that " they owe their titles to the fact that they voted against their convictions on the second reading of the Home Bule Bill." This charge must be made good by proof or it will overwhelm the fonl-tongued calumniator who makes ic.

It is incredible that two days after Mr. Judas Chamberlain had publicly charged Mr. Gladstone with wholesale bribery and corruption he should be profuse in his professions of respect and admiration for the great leader whom be had betrayed and reviled. Bather, it would have been incredible of any man but himself. " A short time ago " — quoth Judas the other day, addressing a meeting at Bodmin — "a few months ago — in Bodmin you wera honoured with a visit from the greatest of them all (hear, hear). Yes, from a man whom I admire quite as much as you do, and who, I do not Lesitate to say, even now in his eightieth year, stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries both ia regard to his ability and his political experience, and in regard to his surprising and astonishing energy" and activity (hear, hear). The other day Sir William Harcourt said I was personally opposed to Mr. Gladstone. No, gentlemen, I yield to no one in my admiration for the greatest of Liberal leaders." "The greatest of Liberal leaders," whom he had just denounced for bribery and corruption. Yet there is a kind of consistency in all this— a justification of the keen public instinct which has decided by what title Mr. Chamberlain shall be beat known to posterity. It is written that his prototype, Judas, kisßed his Master after he had betrayed Him.

The Tenants' Defence League is an accomplished fact. Let the gallant men who have stood co bravely in the forefront of the tenants' struggle for the last few years, and won such victories for the tenants of Ireland, take this news to heart. The most sanguine were surprised by the wealth of earnestness and enthusiasm displayed at the first Convention at Tipperary. It was only of moderation that even the slightest impatience was displayed. The first dissenting murmur heard in that great hall, filled with the representatives of the farmers of the premier county, was at the inadequacy of the rate— threepence in the pound — with which it was proposed they should tax themselves to the relief of their fighting and suffering brethren on the Campaign estates. The Tenants' Defence League baa got a momentum at Tipperary that will carry it along the whole of its successful career.

The police have at last given up the work of persecuting Mr. MacNamara of Ennis, so far as his publican's license is concerned. Last Monday, at the Ennis Quarter Sessions there was no opposition on their part to his application for renewal of his certificate, although he has continued to perpetrate the terrible offence for which he was deprived of it a year ago from that day to this — the offence, namely, of selling United Ireland. Mr. MacNamara's application was put to a vote, when 15 magistrates voted in his favour, and 10 contra.

It is little wonder that the man who can wink at the barbarities of the Bashi-Bazouks in Crete should patronise the commission of atrocities hardly les9 shocking in Ireland. Under the protection of the Queen's troops the peasants' houses in Donegal are being battered down and Bet ablaze, and all who dare to resist — even a woman — are being brutally assaulted by the vile canaille known as emergencymen. While the perish priest of Gweedoreand the devoted peasantry weie being tried far away in Maryborough before packed juries, the evictors were engaged in another unholy crusade in Falcarragh and Drumantinny. Many families were thrown out of their homes destroyed. Four women made a determined stand in one of the hovels ; and when the emeigencymen at last burst in, one of them

split open the head of a girl with a crowbar. Not the slightest attempt has been made by the police, up to the present, to bring the to justice. After the tenants had been cleared out, the agent \ot Olphert, a man named Hewson, from Dromahair set out at the nead of a paraffin brigade, and set fire to the houses. This act of vandalism was performed under police protection. Lately the benevoleaoe of the Massereene family found expression in a very characteristic way. Oriel Temple was the s:;ene of a feast got up by Lady Massereene and her friends to the children of the " planters " on the estate. No thought of sympathy with the children who had been turned out after paying the Massereene family their rack-rents for years seems to have found a place in this philanthropic lady'B mind ; her generosity seems to be tempered by a partisanship which has its root in sordid self-interest. The strange notions of charity displayed in the proceedings struck many people ; and amongst others a patriotic Irish lady who resides in London. It seemed odd to her womanly heart that it was the children who had no need of a feast who were feasted, while those who were poor and hungry were left out in the cold. To rectify the anomaly the good lady at once set to work. Making a beginning, herself and her sister, she soon collected a little fund sufficient to provide a treat for the little ones about Collon and Monasterboice who have sad experience of the charity of the Massereene people, and this, with decorations for the banquet-hall worked by herself and her sister, she forwarded to the Drogheda Independent, to be placed in tne proper hands and utilised as she desired. The feast took place in Monasterboice, the good parish priest of which, Father M'Kee, kindly placed his yet unconsecrated chapel at the disposal of the committee for the purpose. It was quite an event. A company of two hundred, composed of the evicted children and their friends, made up the company, and Father McKee, the Mayor of Drogheda, Air. John Dromgoole, and the manager of the Independent supplied the oratorical wants of the occasion. The entertainment was most heartily enjoyed by all. While it was in progress the presence of a big squad of armed policemen cutside the building gave token of the horrible chagrin and impotent malice which the counter-demonstration had aroused in the breasts of the people over in Oriel Temple. It is hard to understand what the Coercionists can hope for. To rational and observant men an overwhelming Home Rule majority at the next general election seem 9an absolute certainty. The coercion cry was that Home Rule was sprung on the constituencies, and that they were nearly carried away by the first rush before they had got time to realise its horrors. If this were so, every day should improve the Coercioniet position. The most audacious amongst them do not pretend their position has improved. Tne constituencies have had lots of time since to make themselves acquainted with Home Rule, and the more they know of it the less they fear it and the more they like it. Even the Uoercioaists confess, nowhere more emphatically than by their exultation at their Brighton essape, that the tide has turned strongly against them. What, then, do they hope for? Let us assume the signs of the times and the augury of the by-elec-tions are all fallacious and that the Liberals are returned only by a small majority 1 Let us even go a step further and pass from the region of the possible to the absura, and assume that the Coerciom'sts succeed in retaining a nominal majority. What then ? In any possible event, the savageries of coercion and eviction must cease with the general election. A Coercion Government is impossible without a big majority la the House ef Command to back up Coercion and cloture pxposuro. Wheu Cjercion ceises Home Eule arrives. They are now confessedly the only two alternatives in the Government of Ireland. The General Elec ion will reduce the two alternatives to one.

Mr. Gladstone indulged in no figure of speech the o*-her day at Southport when he declared that if the mee'ing he addressed was held a hundred miles west cv the other side of the Irish Cnannel it would be broken up by the btt jns an t bayonets uf the police. The speech delivered by ihi veteran aud venerable statesman himself would earn him sis mouths' imprisonment bef jre any Coercion Court in Ireland. Even Lord Salisbury, at .Newport in 1885, when he was fawning un the Irian vote, hardly delivered a more logical and conclusive defence of bo.'co.tio^. By bo> cutting we mean precisely what Mr. Gladstone understands by exclusive dealing. Boycotting, properly understood, excludes the idea or intimidation. We bonow and adopt Lord Salisbury "s famous definition at Newport, where he declared tbat boycotting was outside the scope of criminal law or criminal Ugislauou. Tue Pnme Minister then dfrfiae i boycotting as " the act by which the great majority of the community resolve to do a number of things nhu/i are in themselvts legal, and only illegal if the intention be illegal,'' 1 There is no hint of intimidation here. Nor can there be auy reasonab'e suggestion that the " intention " with which the ''actions legal in themselves " are done — to discountenance eviction and laud-grabbing (.he corollary of eviction) taints them with illegality. Air. ULids^on? does not approve of exclusive dealing a u a rule. Nu more do we ; no more do Irish Nationalists. In toe healthy state of the body politic such measures, if legal, are unadvisabli . We do not give a man in perfect health quinine for his breakfast, diuner, aad supper. But there are times when quinine is more useful and nec<.ssaiy than food.

Without further preface we may put bffjre our readers that piseage in Mr. Gladstone's spe-ch wtm-n the Diily Uxjirtss, accurate tur once, describes as "<t defence of boycotting,'" ioigeuuisj ihe difficulty of persuading an iccreou ou* worki toat a practice wlicq is justified in Knglar.d by the greatest tUte-jOiAu ot the century is properly tuipresscd in Ire.an i by 'iivaqe Cv rc-.ou : — "Every Englishman may daal with whooi ho pleases, may refuse to deal wth whom he pltasee, may take land or hire la.id, or refuse to take land or hire land, may sell goods to you in his sh^p, or miy request yen to leave the shop as le is not dispo^'d to sell go~ds to you at all, may work for \ou or may refuse to work for you. Iheseare the rights ot Knghshoiui in lespect to exclusive dealing; they are not tbe rights of Ir.shrutn, TLe Irishman has not the ri^ht of exclusive deahug. What happens is this. Wheiever there is a popular sense of oppression, and 1 am happy to say it is not universal in Ire-

land, but in some districts in Ireland there w a great sense of oppression on the part of particular landlords, whose names I do not wish to recall, and whenever that happens a strong popular feeling is created in the whole community. Tne tenants feel for one another, the labourers feel for the tenants, and the shopkeepers *lso feel for the tenants ; and the police come down to support the action of the landlord, and the policeman goea to boy something, not because he wants it, but to see whether the man will Bell it or not, and the man objecting altogether to what goes on, uaes his legal right, and refuses to sell to the policeman. He goes to another and another shop, and the same thing happens, because in proportion as the Irish people have been oppressed, the trodden-down have learned the secret of cohesion among themselves. And then these shopkeepers are brought up before the resident magistrate, and the magistrate decides that the threa men are conspiring together, and that ia called a conspiracy (laughter). And this law forbids such a conspiracy to compel people to refuse to deal or to induce people to refuse to deal. Now, I say that every Englishman has a right to refuse to deal, and be has a right to persuade all hi 9 neighbours, if he can do so, to do the same." We have given the passage in full, for it illustrates in the clearest way the difference between the law and the practice of it in the two countries. It is the very charter of peaceful combination. It will be seen that the description of this horrible crime of refusing to deal with a land-grabber or a policeman, which makes the hair of a Bemovable stand on end with virtuoas horror, as he adds an indignant homily on morality to his sentence of six months' imprisonment, is received with " laughter" by the English Liberal audience, to whom the suggestion of its criminality seems a thing almost too comical for credence.