Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 38, 10 January 1890, Page 9

Dublin Notes .

(From tbe National papers.)

Light is thrown on the manner in which this landlord ideal is realised by the history of a MitcheUtiwn eviction which took place on Saturday, November 2. The evicted tenant was Mr. JdtneiJ. Greene. He was evicted for considerable arreirs of rent. Previous to his eviction nfgotiitions for a settlement had taken place. The demand of the lan 1 lord waa that the tenant should purchase at an exorbitant price, which should recoup the landlord f >r the arrears at the expense of the taxpayer. The tenant off -red to b>yat a fair price irrespective of tbe question of arrears. Toe answer to his <ff«r was eviction. Tbe case shows how the Ashboutne Act which is panegyrised by the landlords works. The attention of Great Britain should be diiected towards it, as it shows the little plot that Mr. Goschen's Irish friends are executing.

The Liberal party in England hare won almost all along tbe line in the English municipal election?. The total party gains are reported to be as follows :— 122 for the Liberals, 62 for the Conservatives, and 3 for the Liberal Unioni3t9, thus giving a tolerable fair indication of how the current of British public opinion is flowing just now. The Gladstonian successes in Birmingham prove beyona all doubt that Chamberlainism is getting played out in its citadel. Mr. Joseph Chamberlan up to last Saturday looked on that city as a lord of the soil looked on hi* close borough in " the good old times " when few had votes, and those who had the votes were never loth to sell them. Birmingham was, in facf, the happy hunting ground of the Chamberlain family, including its enterprising valet, Jesse Collings. Now, however, it appears that the great manufacturing centre has grown weary of Mr. J iseph and all his works and p >mp9. His son, the Marcellus of the Liberal Unionism of the future— bless the mark 1 — has be<n defeated in his candidature for a seat in the Corporation. This is all the more surpri-ingas Mr. Austen Chamberlain is, according to the Pall Mall Gazette, an image in miniature of bis notorious sire, having the family eye-glass, tbe famly orchid, the family wave of the hair, ihe family assurance, snd a first-chss set of the family opinions. The Birm'n?ham Times adds that the son and heir Las also got the family noee. Yet, >lthoughbe was a true chip of the old block, he has be=;n flung pi ileasly into nether darkne-s by an humb c follower of Mr, Gladstone's. This is assuredly an instructive Bi«n of the times. The Liberal U i >nist Party never caught a Beriouß bold of the English people Tne only constituency where it could be said to pceße=s any power and influence worth speaking of was Birmingham. Birmingham itself now sems to have turned its back on tbe renegades who abandoned Mr. Gladstone. A local Tory organ, blurting out the truth, says that the heart has gone out of the party, and that for all practical purposes it is in a demoralise i and deplorable condition, like a house divided against itself. On Tuesday, Bail Spencer and John Morley were present at the annual dinner of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Liberal Club. Lord Spencer speaking on the occasion, drew Mr. Goschen very effectively over the coals for some loose statements he recently made bearing on the statistics of the bye-elections. Mr. Goschen, said his lordship, had been going into the statistics of the bye-elections, and had proved that the Conservatives had polled more votes than the G aditonians. He would not go into Mr. Goschen's figures. What the Liberal party bad to consider were the practical results of the bye-elections, and those bye-elections meant in a division that Mr. G adstone's followers would have f iur more votes. Ri ferring to the coqlush n prevailing at Birmingham, Earl Spencer thought that the Liberal-Uaionists and Conservatives of that city were noi a happ\ f m ly. la conclusion, his lordship observed that the Liberal par y had many ref )iras bef >r them, but the question of Ireland must b* settle 1 riist. an I he felt confident that when a general election came the voice cf tue people would ring loud and clear in favour of Home Hue.

Mr. Molloy, M.P., speaking at a meeting in Sheffieli on Wednesday night, made an announcement which will not be found very palatable either by Mr. Houston or his employer. The Irish party, said the hon. gentleman, now hold in their possession docum ntary evidence which will prove the complicity of the Government officials in its conspiracy against Mr. Parnell and his colleagues. "We have." he continued, " in our possession the private diary of Pigott, and have gathered evidence which, when it is made public, will create a sensation throughout the country — a sensation that will put that of the Commission far out of sight." Mr. Molloy coucluded by declaring that the Government would be unable to pass any legislation next session till the Irish party had made this exposure. Mr. John Morley is an indefatigable champion of Irish autonomy. Twice this week he raised his voice in vindication of Home Rule Speaking at a Liberal demonstration at Middlesboro' on Wednesday, November 6, he said that he and his friends were told that they did not answer the arguments of their opponents, but he did not see any arguments to answer. One of the " arguments," for instance, is that the Imperial Parliament is able to carry out all tbe improvements that were rtquired in Irelnnd. What co isolation, he asked, would it be to those whom he whs addressing if all the material improvemtnts that were required in the great county of York wer« to be carried out with an absolute indifference to the wishes of every Yorkshire mi»n ? Another line of argument was that if the Imperial Parliament were given up,and a National Parliament was given to Ireland, it would be absolutely necessary to go on and give her all the rights of a separate nationality. Th*t argument was, said Mr. Morley, partly a misrepresentation, and partly a prophecy. It was a misrepref entation, because neither in the Home Kule Hill of 1886, nor in any exposition of the policy on which it was founded, was it proposed to give up the Imperial Parliament. In regard to the other portion of the argument, he would point out that a policy could not be refuted . All this argumentation, he continued, turned, firstly, upon pride bad, fßlse, inhuman pride ; and, secondly, upon a most unworldly fear. He, for one, did not desire to see a subject Ireland. He wanted

to see Irelani in equal friendship with England as Scotland wal. Furthermore, he conteased he did not unierstmd tnose alarms at the pride of nationality, why was it, he very justly asked, that an Irish* man alono was not to be allowed to love his native land ?

£7,915,678 has been applied for under the Ashbourne Act. Proposals of purchase amrunting to £5,281,383 have already been sanctioned. Purchases involving loans to the amount of £4,629,654 have been complete 1. The original five millions have, therefore, been absorbed, and an additional million practically expended out of thft new five. There, therefore, remains £4,000,000 for the working of the Act, and applications for half that amount are being entertained. By the end of tbe ye.tr there will remain only about £2,000,000 at the disposal of tbe Commiesio'iers. Something will havo to be done, therefore, if the operations under tha Act aie to ba continued. Anticipating Lord Salisbury's speech at the Guildhall on Saturday, the Times of that day taid : — "A Land Purchase Bill f ir Ireland and a Tithes Bill lor England are two measures of the first magnitude which may be confidently expected to occupy a prominent position in the Government programme. To construct a schema of land purchase which should entirely satisfy Irish landlords without involving considerable risks to the British taxpayers is a task which would baffle Mr. Balfour's ingenuity. Happily, the task actually before him is somewhat less formidable, since the people of this country will expect Irish landlords to be content with guarantees of the reasonable bat far from absolute kind upon which the vast majority of mankind have to rely foi the security of their interests. The responsibility of the British taxpayer may not wholly disippear,but we may confi lently expect that it will be made remote. We may also assume that the scope of the measure will be limited by discarding the idea of universal and compulscry expropriation. There is no necessity whatever to contemplate anything bo sweeping, nor could any such operation be carried out without a social dislocation of a perilous kind." Tne condemnation of the principle of the Aahbouroe Act ig there complete. Is the passage inspired? or is it merely a guess ? Lord Salisbury made no sign.

Mr. Balfour, has, however, in a letter to Mr. Macartney, M.P., rather discountenanced the suggestion that the Government is meditating any large Land Purchase scheme. He says, referring to ihe deductions drawn by the LonioD Press from Mr. George Wyndham's Dover speech :— ''l believe Mr. George Wyndham stated nothing in his speech at Dover which could at all justify the fanciful conclusions built on it by certain portions of the London Press, nor am I aware that anything has ever been said by my colleagues or by binosjlf •vhich gives tne slightest jistifi;atiou for th» extravagant anticipati ns which have been so confii.ntly nude wi.h regard to the chaiactcr of any further proposals for facilitating land purchase which it miy be our duty to proiuce, anl those who build on the accmacy of those unauthorised forecasts are, I fear, doomed to disappointment." In fact the gigantic scheme th»t was supposed to be in the air will prove to be a very pretty affair. This looks, the declaration of the Times notwithstanding, as if we were to hava another ped iling extension of the Ashbourne Act. The problem of the Irish Land Qaestioa is growing too big after all for the Cromwell* Parnell combination of a Chief Secretary. Tne question is not ripe. So we are neither to have a settlement of the Land Question nor a settlement of the U uversity Question. Wnat thea is the Government going 'o do? The constructive policy is to ba a tame affair, and Mr. Chamberlain's twopenny-halfpenny manual is not the political handbook of the Unionist Cabinet.

Kilken iy gave ia its a Jhe?ion to the Tenants' Dafence Association oa last Tueqiay, when a ouventionof the county delegates met in the Tnolsel of ihe City of the Confederation. Tne members of the Irish party present on the occasion were Messrs. J J. Clancy, P. A, C ance, P. J. Po»ver, Mulhallem, Marutn.anl Dr. Tanner. Mr. Clancy, M.P., who was vote>i to th^ chair, in the cour-e of an able sp ech observed that the tenants of Ireland should joia the new rnovam9nt on the grounds of gratirule and sell-iuterest — gratitude to their co ljagufs on the Ponsonby and oth^r estates f >r the action thay had taki n, and self-iati're-t laismjch a the lan llord conspiracy has not been formed for wreiki ig vengeance on the Poasonby tenants aloae, and if it succeeds in ruining them the r- j st of the teuants of Ireland had better clearly understand that its operations may at any moment be extended c sewhere. For ihese reasJDs Mr. Clancy appealed to the people of Kilkenny to coma valiantly to the front and take up the gauntlet flung down by Smith-Barry and his syndicate. Letters of apology were receive 1 fr»m Dr. Brownrigg, Bishop of Os3ory ; Mr, Quinn, M.P. ; and Mr, Daniel Brophy, an Irish Australian, at present on a visit in this country. Rev. Father Halloran, Administrator, moved a resulution pledg nj Kilkenny to support the objec s and aims of the Tenants 1 Defence Association — a motion which was seconded by Alderman Coyle the Mayor, and spoken to by Dr. Tanner, M.P., who warned the people to be careful hiw they availed of the Ashbourne Act, and to remember that good prices would never coma Hgain. Mr. Marum instanced the fact that while in 1841, the inhabitants of X lkenny numbered 202,000, tbe aumber at the last census was enly 91,287.

Tne Roscommon Convention, which took place last Wednesday , was the first as yet held in the province of Connaught. The Irish patty was represented by Messrs. J. E. Redmond, Jamas O'Kelly, Daniel Crilly, Luke Hayden, and Dr. Commins. Mr. J E. Redmond who was voted to the chair, delivered a powerful address, in which he dwelt particularly on the fact that landlordism has for many years swept like a plague the province of Connaught. It was, therefore, on that account all the more incumbent on Connaught to gird up its loin« and take its stand against a system which has almost been its ruin. Ihe movement of the Tenants' Defence Association, said Mr. Kedmond, has already brought consternation and dismay into the ranks of lrelands enemies. The landlords of Ireland thought, in their folly and in their cowardice of heart, that because the combination of tenants under the plan of Campaign bad been declared to be illegal by certain legal tribunals, that the tenants en these estates would be left to be evicted by the landlords. This movement, however, meaning, as it does, the rallying ol the entire

Irish race, has practically checkmated the landlords of Ireland. A Mi.luiion pledging the support of Roscommon to the Tenants' Defence Association was proposed by the Very Rev. Dr. Phillips, P.P., V.0., who in the course of some interesting remark*, said thit be was present at tbat Convention in order to express his profound faith in the future success of the movement. He was satisfied that tbe retult would be not f nly to ctllect sufficient funds for tbofe purposes, but it would thow too, that the landlord cruelty, ins'ead of weakening, would strengthen the National hopes and aspiratioi s of the couatry. Mr. Janus O'Kelly, M.t\, in supporting the resolution, said that they saw thai day a promise thm the prietta of the c->unty would lead them, and wi h thit uniou ot priests a id people Roscummon would take a frtnt place in the strusjglti. Mr. Dmiel Unlly, M.P , in an eloquent epeecu, txpreesed hi* pliahure at being present at ihe Convent iou as one of tbe rrpnsen'atives 01 Cinnaugh*. He thought tbat tbey could promisj their chairman, in response to his appeal, tbat the men of Connaught would do of good work in this movement M the men of any other part of Ireland. Dr. Oommins and Mr. Lake flayden also addressed the Convention in able speeches.