Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 2, 9 May 1890, Page 25

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.)

v Un-Enolibh and vindictive "" — that, in two words, is the verdict of St. Pancras upon the Figottist campaign, whose promoters appealed to the first English constituency that offered with such effrontery and confidence. This contest is the most significant of almost all the bye-elections . It came when the game of calumniating the Irish representatives was tried out to its last act. The Commission was over ; the Report was issued ; the public mind was ripe. Mr. Balfour having failed in Ireland, this was the coercionists' last card. They played it with the desperation of a ruined gambler. They played it, and have lost.

Tbe sympathy which the struggle in Tipperary excites in England is exemplified by the subscription of £5 handed to Mr. William O'Brien by Mr. Coleridge, M.P. , son of the Lord Chief Justice of England. * Still more valuable is the emphatic letter that accompanied the subscription. Mr. Coleridge writes, referring to the great meeting which Mr. O'Brien and Canon Keller addressed in the Central Hall, London—" I had the privilege of hearing and seeing you lust night, and at the close I felt the want of a big money box at the door marked • For the Tipperary Fight,' for I am sure your words made us all long to contribute something there and then for those brave people. Any-way here ia my little trifle for the good cauee."

The meaning of the great battle in Tipperary is at last dawning on the people of England, and compels their admiration. They see a courage and an enthusiasm and self-devotion in toeir intensity absolutely startling in this selfish, every-uian-for-himseif nineteenth century of ours. Tbe people of Tipperary faced eviction, have patiently endured the confiscation of their homes and property, rather than a single coin of their hard-earned money should help the extermination of their poorer brethren on the Fonsonby estate. This was the spirit that set the roofa of Moscow ablaze over the heads of Napoleon's soldiers— that opened the dykes of Holland and swept the invaders from tbe free soil. The stubborn, straightforward pluoky Englishman ia just the man to appreciate this heroism when the facts are once in his head.

Tbe report of the Forgeries' Commission was the last straw which broke the back of the I.L.P.U. Association, Their amiable secretary, Houston, has, at length, been permitted to retire. They had kept him on after he had confessed to have incited and bribed the wretched Pigott to procure the forged letters. They had kept him on after he had confessed to destroying every scrap of evidence by which the forgeries might be detected. But when the Report of the Forgeries' Commission completely broke up the vile dirt-pie of " Parnellism and Crime," in which he had so large a figure, the I.L.P.U. thought it time for Pigott's accomplice to go. It was felt that his imprimatur would not add any additional credence to the interesting legends in the leaflets of the Association. They parted with mutual compliments, and Mr. Houston's fall is broken by a special vote of thanks for hia signal services to the cause. It is a pity that Pigott is not alive to share the compliment.

Nothing yet done in the name of Coercion has approached within measurable distance of the transactions of the past few weeks in and around the district of Clongorey. It is not British law, but tbe law of the buccaneer and tbe sea-rover. Tne house of a respectable woman has betn smashad in by policemen, without a warrant, and four score men have been arrested, handcuffed, and marched off to the lock-up ; inoffensive people have been set upon by hordes of armed and uniformed hirelings, and beatea and battered most mercilessly ; troops have been called out and the whole town of Newbridge given into their hands, su that persons going on their lawful business have been prevented from pursuing it ; acd tbe whole district subjected to a dragonnade utterly unparalleled in modern hißtory. All this has been done for no other reason than that Mr?. O'Kelly had, out of charity, volunteered to give Bhelter to the evicted Clongorey tenants, and for that purpose undertook some structural alteration in her farm buildings. The incident is absolutely unique in its lawlessness. Mr. Sexton, on Monday, moved the adjournment of the House of Commons in order to discuss the proceedings ; and the Government could only get a majority of 42 to back them out in a House of 350 members.

The Rev. Canon Keller had cheery newsfor the people of Youghal And tbe surrounding districts, who, with unanimous enthusiasm and affection, welcomed him home from bis crusade in England on behalf of the evicted and oppressed tenants on the Ponsonby estate. Canon Keller has found in England that racial hatred has disappeared. The people of England were profoundly moved by the details of the wrongs and miseries to which the unhappy tenantry on the Ponaonbj estate have been subjected : " Tbe end," he said, " could not be long delayed. They had, in truth, to wait jußt a little longer. Never before bad they Buch reason for hope as at the present time, because never before was the deßire manifest among Englishmen to restore to them their native legislation."' In very truth the wonderful success of Canon Keller's English mission is in itßelf the most cheery omen of the change of the times in England. The boundless enthusiasm with which he was everywhere received, the sympathy and admiration with which he was heard, Bhow that racial prejudices and religious bigotry have both well nigh disappeared in England. To realise the greatness of the change, we must try to imagine what would have betn the fate of the Catholic priest who set out to preach in England

a moral crusade on behalf of the Irish tenants and Home Rule, ten years ago. The Assizes have cnme on, and the judges are putting into prosaic language the good chorus, '• We've got no work to do." The card is practically a blank. There are white gloves in Weatmeath — white gloves in the county of the Special Westmeath Act ! The saturnine judge, O'Brien, to whom it fell to open the Commission for that county, could not help commenting with emphasis upon the fact. There seems to be a touch of the " Othello's occupation's gone " about the tone of his lordship's remarks over the historical circumstances. To Baron Dowae it fell to open the Commission for the county Clare ; and his facetious lordship found acope for the wit in his wig at the expense of the police. But, joke or no joke, the great fact remems that Coerced Ireland, with all the brutal provocation of Mr. Balfour's paid emissaries, ib at this moment the moat crimeless country in Christendom. Here ia something for the political student to moralise over.

One of the pretty fables started by the Coercionista recently relates to New Tlpperary. No doubt it served a useful purpose in amusing the gullible for a day or two, but its career was very brief. The fiction was that the builders of the Mart in Tipperary were running npthat edifice for Mr. Smith-Barry 'a use and benefit, rather than for the good of his evicted shopkeepers, inasmuch aa the ground upon which it is located had been bonght by that gentleman, and when the Mart waa finished it waa a question with him whether he should evict the occupants and take possession of their property. Here was a fine joke certainly for the Coercionists, and they must have chuckled over it hugely. But the Freeman t Journal has remoraely set down tbe pegs which made the music. It despatched a chief to find out the truth about the matter, and he reports that the whole story was a weak invention of the enemy. Mr. Smith- Barry has nothing to do with the ground on which the Mart stands, nor ia he likely to have. Since the denial appeared the matter has not been referred to by either the Daily Express or the Irish Times, both of which published the fable with elaborate circumstantiality.

Tbe reductlo adabmrdnm of League suppression was admirably displayed the other day at Cashel. The local branch of the League was " suppressed "—that is to say, a proclamation waa issued suppressing it. Otherwise, everything, of couree, remained exactly as it was before. The members of the League, who comprise the entire inhabitants of the district (except the police), did not vanish into thin air at the issue of the proclamation. They were all still there in the flesh, alive and kicking, though they were all, of coarse, " suppressed " in point of law. Thiß condition of things puzzled the local sergeant of police, as it might well puzzle> wiser head than his. Tha members of the League were members of the town council, and attended a municipal meeting at the Town Hall. Then arose the nice question of metaphysical criminality which puzzled the sergeant.. The meeting was a meeting of the Town Commissioners, therefore it wag legal. But it was attended by members of the " suppressed " branchea of the League, therefore it was illegal. The sergeant was a man of action, so he ended by forcibly breaking into the board room with an armed troop of police. Thence he was immediately and ignominioualy expelled in a greater condition of puzzledom than ever.

We had hoped to give a summary of Sir William Harcourt's slashing denunciation of the " Forger " and its confederates. It is impossible. Tbe hits are so many and so brilliant that it is quite out of the question even to attempt to concentrate them in a paragraph. There is, however, one touch for the sanctimonious Attorney-General which is too inimitable to be omitted :—": — " The Attorney-General," he said, " in his speech at Oxford, said he was extremely glad that Mr. Par o ell had been acquitted of the most serious charges (laughter). But small thanks to the Attorney -General. It is very much as if a man were to come up to you and discharge a pistol at your head, and, having missed you, to Bay ' Sir, I am extremjly glad that I have not taken your life, but I sincerely hope I have hit some of your friends in the legs' (loud laughter)." It was, indeed, hardly worth Sir Wietched Fibster's whilo to tell a lie which not one person in the wide world was Bimple enough to believe. Ho "glad," forsooth, that Mr. Parnell had been acquitted— he, the prime mover in tbe vile charges I Jhe very horsiest of the horse marines would reject such a tiansparent fable with scorn.

Lord Spencer, than whom is no man more competent to speak on Irißh affairs, has come ont strong on the Forgeries' report He pointß out with pardonable pride that it completely justifies his declaration which made the coercionists so furious at the time, that the Irish leader and party were in his belief, founded on ample official information, entirely free from crime or incitement to crime, in the ordinary meaning of the word. The political findings of the Commission Lord Spencer treats with indifference and contempt. — When will the baffled coercionists, blind with defeat, come to realise the tight place in which they are now I If they will still persist in reviling the Iriah leader and party as criminals and associates of criminals, they must include Lord Spencer and men like him in the same category. This is a little too much for their most credulous riu tips Now that our editor is safe out of the jurisdiction, out of the way of newspapers and letters, we venture to print the enclosed from " Toby's Essence of Parliament " in Punch, a journal, it must be remembered, more lavish of sneers than compliments for Ireland and the Irish :-— " Speeches all night in continued debate oa the address. Patnell has moved amendment arraigaingßalfour's administration in Ireland. William O'Brien, chancing to be out of prison, looks in and delivers fiery harangue in support of amendment. But yesterday, Balfour, his gaoler, ordered his food, not too much of it and not full variety ; fixed bis hours of going to bed and getting up. Now prison doors open by lapse of time ; O'Brien walks out through Weßtminster Hall into House of Commons; stands before Speaker on equal terms with his whilom gaoler, and scolds him magnificently. By-and-bye Balfour will piobibly hate hio turn again, and O Brien will be eating the bread and water of affliction. Meanwhile, storms at top of his voice, beatß the air with long, lean arm and clenched hand , and makes dumb doga of English members sad with musing on the

inequalities of fortune, which has given these Irishmen the gift of pointedly saying what they have at heart."

Many a true word is'spoken in jegt. This little paragraph admirably describes the situation. The brave Mr. Balfour dare not face Wm, O'Brien in debate on the floor of the House of Commons. He waits, as Punch says, for " his opportunity." He sets two of his Removables at fcim here in Ireland— Btaunch bloodhounds of the Rowdy Roche breed. He runs him into prison. He has his revenge then for the arguments which he could not answer, and the exposure under which he writhed in the House of Commons. Yet is there a bitter drop in the sweet cup of his vengeance. He dare not again have his indomitable opponent knocked down and stripped stark naked by brute force in his prison cell. He tried it once and found the public would not stand the performance a second time. The old fashion in Venice, modified to fit more modern times, suits the brave Mr. Balfour admirably, A gentleman in old Venice was not expected to run any risk ia getting rid of an opponent he had only to give a few gold pieces to a fellow who was handy with a dagger, and in some lonely place and on some dark night the matter was quietly arranged. Rowdy Roche makes an excellent " bravo " — a professional stabber. One horror sncceeds another so rapidly in the accursed system of Coercion in Ireland, that public indignation has not time to overtake them all. The murder of Michael Cleary in Tipperary seems to us amongst the blackest infamies of the system for which the brave Mr. Balfour is responsible. We say " murder " advisedly. Coercion is as responsible for the death of Michael Cleary as it is for the deathwounds of poor young Heffernan, who wag shot down by the police rifles in the streets. Michael Cleary was sentenced to two months' imprisonment by the Removables. His crime was that he was in the streets o* Tipperary, walking towards his own, house on the evening poor young Heffernan was shot. He entered the prison door a strong young man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. He was subjected to the usual treatment which Coercion prisoners have to endure. He left the gaol two months later the skeleton of his former self. Just a week after his release the poor young fellow took to his bed, which he never left alive. Sometimes one is tempted to smile at the ludicrous sentences of Removables — four months', five months', or six months' imprisonment for " winking at a boycotted pig," or indulging in " a humbugging sort of a smile." But let us remember what this imprisonment means. Let ua remember the fate of young Larkin, of heroic John Mandeville, and of poor Michael Cleary, of Tipperary, and all tendency to merriment is checked. Its place is taken by horror and loathing for the hirelings, brutal and corrupt, who do these things in the outraged name of justice and the heartless cynic who commands them.