Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 47, 14 March 1890, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.)

DAT after day the enthusiastic resolutions passed by almost every representative body in ihe coantry prove how hotly the heart of the Irish party resents the last foul blow struck at their beloved leader, and how keenly they realise the great truth that his enemies are their enemies, and that the unparalleled persecution with which he ia assailed is persecution earned by services to his country beyond price and beyond compare in all her history. These resolutions are the answer, if answer were needed, to tbe suggestion that the Irish people glory less in Mr. Parnell and in his leaderihip, that their eratitude is colder for his lllastnoos life of service to their causa, or that they hold him less securely in their heart of hearts because the calumniators of their race have sought to make him the victim of a fruh assassin stab.

•• The people were quiet. They were dispersed with batons, and after that stones were thrown at the police." This morceau is worth preserving. It is from the evidence of Head -constable Power in the prosecution of a number of respectable inhabitants of Bantry lass Friday for " unlawful assembly " on the occasion of tbe anniversary of the Manchester Martyrs. It is a complete compendium of the Balfour method of government. Your object is to get up a liot, to create "crime" where no crime exists, so as as to provide occupation and a reason for existence for your elaborate machinery of Coercion, yonr police, your Removables, your gaolers. How do you proceed 1 You eally forth with your police into the street, or towards a graveyard where the people are sayipg a rosary for the repose of the dead, or playing a band to welcome some beloved leader to liberty. What follows is described ia the accurate language of Head-constable Power :— Stage I. — You find the people quiet. Stage ll.— You disperse them with batons. Stage Hl.— After that stones are thrown at the police. The trick is then done— the " crime "is committed, Head-constable Power produces his note-book, enters down a batch of names any names be pleases— and issues summonses wholesale. The Removables and gaolers do the rest.

The speech from the chair by his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin lent special importance to the recent congress of the National Schoolteachers. His Grace adds new light to every subject he touches. There is no reform of importance to Irishman which has not enlisted his earnest advocacy ; and his absolute mastery of the minutest and most recondite detail of such a vast variety of subjects is indeed marvellous. We cannot hope to follow his Grace at length through his admirable discussion of the numerous grievances, heavy and burdensome, under which the Irish National school-teachers labour and the simplicity of the remedies that mignt be applied. We will only touch briefly on his masterly analysis of the salaries of the Irish National schoolmasters. He exploded the baseless calumny on which the Daily Express sought to justify the injustice with which the Irish National Schoolteachers are treated by a pretence that the standard of education is higher in England than in Ireland. His Grace proved conclusively that the standard was far lower in England, but that, on tbe other hand, the average salary of the Fnglish teacher was at least fifty per cent, in advance of the Irish.

Here, surely, is an object lesson of the advantages of Home Rule, which ingenuity cannot evade nor audacity deny. Tbe National Scoool- teachers have year after year applied to the Impjrial Parliiment for redress of the grievances under wbich they labour. Chief Secretary after Chief Secretary has confessed the justice of their claims, but there the matter ended. For many weary, waiting years they have endured in full tne a?ony which the poet so eloquently inscribed from his own experience — " What hell it is in Bueing long to bide, To lose good days that might be batter spent, To waste long uigata in pensive discontent — To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow "

No wonder, in despair of justice from the Imperial Parliament or the Irish Executive, they have turned North and South aline to the Irish representatives for redress. " Law and order," as they are preached in Ireland, got another very nasty back fall from Judge Waters on Friday, January 3. A policeman named Constable Driscoll vindica ed law and order in what Pether the Packer would call " his ÜBual manner "in Waterford on the 23rd November last, the anniversary of the execution of the Manchester Martyrs. Two young lads, named respectively Patrick Browne and James Walsh, members of the Wolfe Tone Band, sued Coostable James Driscoll for having broken into the bandroom where they were practising and assaulted ttem. Mr. Thornton, tbe solicitor for the accueed, made a somewhat curious defence ; but one, we are bound to coafess, in complete accordance with the spirit and practical administration of the Coercion Act. Mr. Thornton, we read, " held that as the city was proclaimed on the night ia qaestion the police were perfectly justified in entering this bandroom and acting as they had done." The late Chief Justice, now Lord Morris, once declared that " even if a man was coming home drunk from a fair that did not constitute such an equity against him, d'ye observe, that anyone that met him on hia way nome would be legally entitled to beat him. 1 ' But Mr. Thornton reverses that decision. He ho ds that a Coercion Act proclamation constitutes such an equity agiinst the inhabitants of a city that the police are thereby entitled to break, into their premises and baton ihem at their own sweet will. We have already commented admiringly on thu steady, effective and absolutely crimeless boycotiing of the Great Northern Railway at Oarrickmacros9, Co. Monaghau. The correspondence directed to the" Forger " and published in the Freeman by Mr. ThomdS Fhe.an, J.P., chiet victim of landlord intolerance in the district, induces Us to renew that comment, The " Forger " wbb ill-advised as usual, from

its own point of view, when it brought this matter prominently for* ward in England. The more it is investigated the more creditable it appears to the Nationalists, and the more disgraceful to tbe rackrenter and bis party. We have seldom read a more powerful or convincing letter than Mr. Phelan's. Tne copy of the correspondence between the landlord, Mr. Shirley, ani himself, which h«i also forwards to the " Forger " for publication, gives the finishing touch to such a picture of cruelty and greed and wanton vindictiveaess, as can scarcely be matched even in the portrait gallery of Irish rack-renters. Mr, Phelan's letter is an answer to a lengthy communication, inspired plainly by the andlord or his agent, but nominally emanating from the "Forger's" correspondent, on the circumstances of the boycotting of the Northern Railway Company by the people of Oaniokmacross. One of the emergency men pet lambs of Olanricarde named Nil an has been pretty lively of lata at Loughr«a. Without aiy provocation, except what drink supplied, be attempted to snooc dowa two Nationalists with a revolver, for which he did not even go through the formality of procuring a license. Ha further distinguished himself by assaulting and, as she alleges, attempting to murder his wife, who sought refuge from his violeacein the workhouse. Ha is to be brought before the Removables on a charge of attempted murder forthwith, but we much fear the trial will be a farce. The authorities cannot afford to dispense with the services of such a well-doserving pillar of the law on the estate of the Marquis of Clanricarde.

Mr. Balfour is taking his revenge, and taking it characteristically, for that wonderful demonstration of love, the welcome back to liberty which th) Irish people accorded to his enemy, William O'Brien, on hia release from prison. Probably in the whole coarse of his miserable regime there has been nothing meaner, more cowardly, or more unutterably petty and spiteful, than the prosecutions be is now instituting all over Ireland against the people who took part in those rejoicings. What took place on that occasion will long be remembered. William O'Brien was welcomed from gaol like a conquerer. Every town and hamlet in the land waß illuminated that night. — Lights gleamed from every window. Tar-barrels and bonfires blazed at the cross-roads and on the mountain sides. It was an extraordinary and spontaneous outpouring of a people's devotion and admiration. No doubt it was all v<rp galling to Mr. Balfour, who seems to look upon Mr. William O'Brien as his arch-enemy. Bat for that very reason one would think he should ba the more careful to conceal his feelings, and to bear the triumph of his enemy with an assumption, at least, of dignified equanimity. That, it appears, weuld be thinking too highly of Mr. Balfour. Those who held the very poorest opinion of him could hardly have believed him capable of wnat he i" now doing — punishing, by every means his petty ingenuity can devise, the people who ventured to rejoice at William O'Brien's release.

How to constitute this into a punishable offence might seem difficult to the uninitiated — for one of the remarkable features of this demon, etration was the absolute good order that prevailed everywhere from end to end of Ireland. But a job of that kind is no difficulty when you have a Coercion Act. Mr. Balfour makes it an offence to light a bonfire or a tar-barrel at all. (We wonder how many prosecutions would be instituted if the tar-barrels were lit in honour of Mr. Balfour I) He makes it an offence to cheer William O'Brien's name or to groan his own. By this means he can send to gaol as many as he pleases. By this means sons of respectable merchants and farmers, whom the ! police admit to have been " well-conducted " on the occasion (as young Lillis and his companions were admitted to have bean by Serge ant Care ir when brought before Removable Keogh at Kilruah), old women who hel i ed to keep the bonfires »light,and troops of the people of the humbler ranks are consigned to plank beds and skilly and punished iD even crueller ways( as we shall presently show) simply because on tbe night of William O'Brien's release they testified that Mr. Balfour's "criminal ' instead of being degraded by his treatment, was dearer to their love , and higher in their estimation than ever. Since Mr. Balfour has thus made it a crime to welcome William O'Brien from gaol, we invite him to be consistent, and to show some courage, if he has any of that quality, at the same time. Let him strike at higher game than the poor bandsmen and bonfire-lighters. Why does ha not prosecute the first and chief offender of all upou that occasioa — :ue Bishop of Galway, who sent his carnage to the very gaol gate to bear the <( criminal " in triumph through the streets of Galway to his palace 7 Mr. Stephen Ronan out-Heroded Herod by the insolent blackguardism of his cross-examination of Father Kennedy, of Meelin, at Cork. Mr. Ronan 's appointment as prosecutor to the Winter Assizes was wrung by persistent entreaties from Pether the Packer before his promotion au Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Mr. Ronan is just like Pether aB a mouse is like a rat, and i» nervously anxious to walk on the same dirty road to promotion, though we should fancy the post of a Removable Magistrate is the limit of his wildest hopes. His touting, fawning, and corruption have earned him an alliterative nickname amongst his fellowa of the Bar more appropriate than polite. A most interesting narrative of his esc*pades was lately in private circulation under the suggestive title of " Rooney the Rotten ; or, the tail of a Castb mouse." This miserable little creature pelted his sale insolence at Father Kennedy from the cover of his placa at the Bar, because he had the audacity to appear as a witness fjr certain prisoners whom the prosecution had marked out for conviction, and, above all, because he conclusively cleared the National League of all participation in the offences. Mr. Ronan, it goes without saying, is a professing Cawtholic. No man but a Cistle Cawtholic would or could be so insolent to a Catholic priest. He made most offensive insinuations against Father Kennedy, on tne ground that he had been in prison. But Father Kennedy was not the man to submit to such insolence without retort. He turned sternly on on his insolent interlocutor, and succeeded in extorting f iom him something as near an apology as the nature of the creature would allow. Father Kennedy having firmly denied that he had been guilty of any moral offence, Mr Ronan knuckled under and conf.-ssed. "It was a charge not involving any ordinary crime. It was Meelin defyirg the British Government— holding meetings of the League. I don't mean the slightest suggestion against you, Father