Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 3, 16 May 1890, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.) I» the Coercionists dreamed of making any serious impression on the Liberal majority at Stroke-on-Trent— and there was really some idea of the kind in their minds — th6y were doomed to disappointment. Mr. Leveson-Gower, the Liberal candidate, was returned by the splendid majority of 1,231. The gross poll shows an increase of something like 900 on each side over the figures of 1886 ; yet the Liberal vote was by no means an exhaustive one, as a large number of electors were called away to take part in a conference of miners just then being held in the district. The ridioulous personage known as the Tichborne Claimant did not stand as a candidate after all, for the good and sufficient reason that he could not lodge the necessary Bheriff 's expenses when the time for nomination came round . Mr. Herbert Gladstone has made a sensational disclosure. He was one of the guests at the Irish banquet in London on St. Patrick's Day, and in the course of his speech he vigorously denounced the Bystem of Government practised by Dublin Castle. He was a member of the Government when Mr. Forster was Chief Secretary, and daring hii period of office he paid a visit to Ireland and gained some inflight into the crooked ways of the Castle. He declares that one af its acts during the early days of the land agitation was to send out circulars to the police-officers throughout the country authorising them to offer rewards for information that would lead to convictions on account of outrages ; and this step he regarded as a wholesale temptation to get np false evidence.

The most delightful compliment to the absolute impartiality of the three judges, whom old friends Smith, Walters, and Fibster selected for the trial of their political opponents on a political indictment, is paid in a leader in the Liarish Times ;— " There is not," writes the lAarish Times gusher, " the scintilla of evidence to allow for the shadow of an idea that they acted otherwise than with the most absolute impartiality." Comment would spoil this. Such chaste and elegant compliment " needs not the foreign aid of argument, but is, when unadorned, adorned the most."

The Irish Attorney -General is coming on. The other night he indignantly challenged " the members opposite " to produce a single case in which a newspaper editor had been convicted for simply publishing a resolution of a suppressed branch of the League within the last year. Of course cases were forthcoming in any number. Mr. B. Harrington pointed ont that he had himaelf been convicted for merely publishing a report of a branch of the League, which was a condemnation of crime. Then the Attorney-General, tried to slip out of his challenge by a subterfuge that was worthy of his master, the brave Mr. Balfour himself. "No doubt," he said, " newspaper proprietors had been imprisoned for publishing reports of suppressed branches, but that was intimidation." " Roars of laughter," we read, greeted his ignominious retreat fiom the position he so boldly assumed.

Although the Government managed to work through the Forgeries' crisis, the signs and tokens of their demoralisation and decay are showing fast. They were visible in the count out on the debate, and they were plainer still on Thursday night, March 13, when on a question affecting the Volunteers they were badly beaten —their first considerable defeat since they took office. It was on a motion brought forward by Sir Edward Hamley, one of their own supporters, that the disaster took place. In a pretty full House something like half its maximum strength — the Ministry were overborne in their opposition by a majority of 32. Again, on the following night, they narrowly escaped defeat over a motion of S r George Trevelyan's to alter the time for the adjournment from August to July. Only by four votes then, in a pretty large House, could the Government hold their own — a number which on a question of greater importance, would be taken as a cause of resignation. The rumours and premonitions of diasolution are, along with those tangible symptoms disintegration, growing in volume and distinctness every day. It i» stated openly, and not denied, that steps have been taken by the Government to put theelectoral House in order,throughtheintrumentality of the local managers all over the country. Hence we may expect Borne active work in every centre at tha forthcoming Parliamentary revisions. Another token — small in its way, but a Btiaw showing how the wind blows— iß the secession of Mr. Caldwell, Liberal Unionist member for the St. Rollox division of Glasgow, from the party upon whose ticket he was made a legislator. Lord Randolph Churchill's revolt is already beginning to bear fruit.

Again on Tuesday night, March 18, the Government underwent defeat. This time it was a Scotch question over which they sustained a reverse. Mr. Buchanan moved a resolution for the purpose of placiDg in the hands of the County Councils in Scotland the protection of the public rights of way which, it seems, are being largely encroached upon by private owners in that country. This was opposed by the Lord Advocate on the part of the Government, but bis opposition was overborne by the vote. The Government supporters, who numbered only 97, were outvoted by 13. This little reverse affords a fresh proof of the waning influence of the Governmnt. The consciousness of this loss of strength is manifested in the step which Lord Salisbury has taken . He has summoned a general meeting of his party for a consultation at the Carlton Club. This is a proceeding which is only resorted to when questions of grave moment are to be submitted to Parliament, when it is desirable to ascertain previously the general view of the supporters of the Government on the main principles of proposed legislation ; or when a crisis has arrived in the afliairß of the party. It is not unwarrantable to ■bsume that a crisis has arisen in the aff lira of the Government when they find their own proper supporters voting against them, and their Liberal-Unionist allies also going into the Opposition lobbies, as they did largely on the two occasions when the Ministry were beaten. The word " dissolution " is now being heard pretty often, and the rumours of dissolution have taken definite shape. Some authorities have ventured to predict that an appeal to the country is ljkely to be

made after Easter. The constituencies have been already warned by the Government agents to have their respective candidates ready. These are omens which anyone can read. For as in Ireland, who have been waiting so wearily for them, they are omens full of hope. The long reign of brutality and calumny seems to be at length drawing towards an end.

Oavan County met in Convention on Tuesday, March 18, for the purpose of fulfilling a sad but imperative public obligation — that of choosing a successor to their late tried and trusted representative in Parliament. The man recommended by Mr. Parnell as most fit to take faithful Joe Biggar'a place is a young Northern Protestant, Mr. Vesey Enox. Nurtured in the lap of bigotry and intolerance, so to speak, Mr. Enox, as soon as he began to use his reasoning faculties, commenced to use them for himself ; and the result of his observations was the conviction that the majority of the Irish people were not what his own party represented tham to be, bat much more enlightened and fair-minded than they, and that their claim for Home Rule was a reasonable and legitimate one. Hence he became a Home Ruler — not in words only, but in deeds as well. He has given practical proofs of the sincerity of his convictions, and he is now the adopted candidate for Oavan. The Convention, which was a representative one, was unanimous in its ratification of the Irish leader's choioe. The address which Mr. Enox delivered in re turning thanks was one that deserves the earnest pernsal of every Ulstarman who is not a dead-head, as it contains some truths which no amount of Orange clap-trap can hide or minimise.

Even from his most truculent foes, the surprising ability of Lord Randolph Churchill's memorandum to Mr. Smith anent the Forgeries Commission, which he h»8 just published in the Morning Put, extorts a grudging admiration. Looking back to the period when the memorandum was written, it would almost ssem ac if the little great lord was inspired with the gift of prophesy when he wrote it. Everything has come through just as he foretold. The Home Rulers have good reason to rejoice that Lord Randolph's advice was overruled by the blundering Smith, the truculent Webster, and the treacherous Chamberlain, whose protestations have in no degree relieved him from the imputation of the illegitimate parentage of the Forgeries Commission. If the astute little lord had his way, the National party would have been robbed of their Bplendid triumph involved in the exposure of the forgery and calumny conspiracy, as embodied in Pigott's " Paroellism and Crime," and of the tremedous impetus that, as he foresaw, the exposure has undoubtedly given to Home Rule. At the very start he points out that the appointment of the Commission was " a recognition of the wisdom and justice of the accused persons in avoiding recurrence to the ordinary tribunals." In effect the Government justified the Nationalists, if justification was needed, in refusing the challenge of the " Forger " to try the case before a jury of Cocknty Coercionists with Piggott carefully suppressed, and in refusing the generous offer of the Coercion Government itself of the loan of the impartial Sir Wretched Fibster to conduct a prosecution against his friend and client, the " Forger." The Morning Pott is a staunch supporter of the Coercion Government ; but even the Morning Post feels constrained to confess its admiration of the ability of Lord Randolph's memorandum :—": — " It ventures to think that there will be a general consensus of opinion that it is a document which, considered with reference to the period at which it was composed, reflects no small measure of credit upon the foresight of its author. Events have, indeed, justified much that Lord R. Churchill predicted in that memorandum, and have gone far to prove that the public interests would have been been better served had the advice he then tendered privately to Ministers been acted upon. Considering the undeniable force of the destructive criticism applied to the Bill by Lord R. Churchill's memorandum, how far more profitable it would have been if its author had adopted another method of procedure. If we may fairly say all this was worth saying in private to Mr. Smith, it was surely worth saying to all the world from Lord R. Churchill's place in the House of Commons." Surely Lord Randolph may reasonably complain that the Coercionists and their organs are hard to please. If he offers them good advice in private they complain that it did not take the form of public opposition and overthrow to their ill-concerted measures. If, on the other hand, be ventures on public criticism he is assailed with storms of abuse as a selfish and self-seeking traitor, anxious only for the overthrow of tLe Government. Whatever Lord Randolph does is wrong in the eyes of the Coercion Ministers, who hate and fear him equally. With him they will have no peace nor war — " the one affrights, the other makes them proud." The fault of Lord Randolph is not that he has been too petulant, but that he has been too patient under such gross injustice. The wonder is not that he has revolted now, but that he did not revolt long ago.

The secession from their ranks of Mr. Caldwell, member for a division of Glasgow, is specially galling to the Liberal-Goercionists at the present crisis. It is not that Mr. Caldwell himself counts particularly one way or the other. But he ia the straw which shows the way the wind blows. Ever since Sir George Trevelyan came out of the camp of the enemy the tide of conversion in the House of Commons and in the country has flowed steadily in the same direction. The footsteps have pointed all one way. If multitudes of Liberal renegades do not follow the good example of Mr. Caldwell it is because they feel that in their persistent support of Coercion they have already sinned beyond redemption, and that their tardy death' bed repentance on the brink of a general election would not be accepted by their constituents. Mr. Vesey Knox has been adopted by the Oavan Convention on the suggestion of Mr. Parnell for the seat made vacant by the lamented death of Mr. Biggar. We may take it for granted that his return is certain. We fear there is no hope that any taunts can provoke the Coercioniatß to contest the seat with the certainty of ignominious defeat. The Irish bye-elections are sharp, hard facts to prick the swollen bladder of the brave Balfour's boasting of the success in bis Administration. Here, surely, is a teit more reliable than the bogus boycotting statistics of Colonel Turncoat Turner of the progress his Government has made in the country where he claims to be regarded

as a liberator and benefactor. Even in Oavan, in the heart of loyal Ulster, he dare not face the verdict of the ballot-box. He dare not giro the electors the chance to exprass in votes the measure of the hatred and contempt with which he is regarded. The election, which we ma; regard as an accomplished fact, of a strong Protestant like Mr. Knox, by a constituency mainly Catholic, is farther useful that it gives the lie, which cannot ba given too often or too emphatically, to Orange bigotry, which dares to impute its own intolerance to the Catholics of Ireland.

Baron Dowse died on Friday morning, March 14, quite suddenly and under circumstances of a very remarkable kind. He bad opened the Assizes at Tralee, and in doing bo delivered a speech to the Grand Jury such as one might have expected from Judge O'Brien or his namesake, the rewarded jury-packer. He had indulged in some rem%rks which seemed strangely out of place, and then launched into a warm eulogium on the beneficent results of Balfourian rule in the " Kingdom " of Kerry, and 6ome very absurd speculations about the state of the county when next he should visit it, as he hoped to do. The speech was so strange that it excited as much surprise as pain, but no one had any suspicion that it was an indication of anything abnormally wrong in either mind or boJy on the part of the speaker. Having concluded the day's judicial business, Baron Dowse retired to his lodgings, where he dined with the High Sheriff and some legal gentlemen, apparently in high spirits and fair health. Sut in the course of the night he took ill, and expired before medical aid was available. The strange speech is thus fully accounted for. Baron Dowse had been for a considerable time in poor health, and his language on the bench of late often excited wonder. But no one had the slightest suspicion of the treacherous malady which underlay his freakishly humorous vein. He was a kindly man, and ia his time a staunch and sturdy Liberal and friend of the Irish farmer. In his early days he had shown strong leanings towards the National sentiment. He defended the leading Fenian prisoners along with the late Isaac Butt, and he did so with rare power and courage, sweeping away by the force of his honest, though rugrged, eloquence the mists of odium which the envenomed tongues of their enemies — notably, Mr. Attorney-General (now Judge) Barry — had conjured up for their defamation. He, unlike most other Irish judges, climbed to the bench by no foal stairs, but by dint of sheer merit and upright character.

A distinguished Irishman of another order passed away on the same day. Father Meehan, the great Franciscan priest and scholar, patriot, poet, and preacher died at the Church of 88,, Michael and John, where he had laboared so modestly, yet ably, for many years, at the ripe old age of 78. As a scholar and an historian Father Meehan had few superiors or equalß. He has left literary monuments of his genius in the shape of " The History of the Irish Confederation," " The Flight of the Earls," "The Rise and Fall of the Franciscan Monasteries " — works which stand in the front rank of high scholastic achievements. Some of his poetical works, contributed to the Nation in the '48 days, will also be long remembered. As a cleric, Father Meehan was a splendid type of the Irish priestdevoted, zealous and tender to his flock in the highest sense ; as a preacher he had few equals in a country rich in its pulpit oratory. He has passed away full of years end honours, but his name and fame are Becure in the temple of Ireland's heart for many a generation.

The Forger publishes a panegyric on Baron Dowse, claiming him as a Coercionist. Almost every line is a calumny or an iasult to the dead Irishman. The last sentence is, however, fairly true, and, wittingly or unwittingly, we believe it pretty clearly expresses the real sentiments of the Forger. " A great Irishman," it writes, "has passed away. God grant triat many as great, and who as wisely shall love their country, may follow bim." We think we could easily gueis the names of the great Irishmen and honest lovers of their coantry whom the Forger thus heartily wishes God speed to the bourne from which no traveller returus."

With deep regret we notice the death of Father Meehan, who was one of the few links, daily becoming fewer, which bound the country to the memory of the men of '48. To those who had the high privilege of his friendship, it was, indeed, a rare pleasure to revisit again in his company those brave old days amongst the most brilliant, albeit the most mournful in Irish bißtory. In his animated reminiscences one almost enjoyed by deputy the delight of personal friendship of Meagher, Mitchel, and Davis, whose very names send the life-blood coursing swifter and warmer through the heart of every Irishman worthy of the name. A warm heart had Father Meehan, and a long loyal faith to his country and to her greatest men, whom he had known on terms of intimate friendship. If, at times his temper waa a bit uncertain, the failing was matter only for a kindly and indulgent smile amougst his many friends. May he rest in peace, his failings forgotten, and his keen intellect and warm heart alone remembered. It was worthy of the "Forger" that, in the column which the scribes of the Daily Express contribute, there should be found a vulgar sneer at the dead priest and his funeral obsequies. "The funerals of priests and publicans," writes the elegant Irish correspondent of the " Forger," " are always numerously attended in Ireland."

The Coercion Government gave yet another proof of the incompetence of the Imperial Parliament to deal with Irish questions by the rejection of the measure moved by Dr. Commins, M.P., and seconded by Mr. Webb, for the much-needed amendment of the Irish land laws. The Bill was of the most moderate kind. Its scope and objects may be briefly defined — To give effect to the Healy Clause, securing the tenant property in his own improvements ; to emancipate a certain class of leaseholaers who are still excluded from the benefits of all Land Acts ; and, finally, to facilitate and expedite the business of the land commission courts. So moderate was the Bill that that notable tenants' friend, Mr. T. W. Russell, J.P., felt constrained to lend it nominal support, having first clearly ascertained that it was sure to be rejected with a sweeping majority by the Government of which he is the most obedient Bervant when occasion requires. The fate of the Bill was the fate of all modest measures of Irish reform. To prove the absurdity of the notion of an Irish Parliament, the Coercionists are

perpetually clamouring to the Irish Party to apply to the Imperial Parliament for redress of Irish grievances. Now and again the Irish party take them at their word, and their measures of reform are summarily and contemptuously kicked oat. By-aad-bye, when thejpressure of agitation grows stronger, this Bill of Dr. Oommins', which the House of Commons rejected so contemptuously the other night, or a stronger one, will be quietly enrolled on the Statute-Book. It may well be hoped that an Irish Parliament will meanwhile relieve the Imperial Assembly of the Irish business, which only extreme pressure can induce it to perform. A very valuable illustration of the beneficial working of the Coercion Act was afforded the other night in the House of Commons in reply to a question of Mr. T. Healy, M.P., regarding the prison treatment of air. Slattery, president of " The South of Ireland Pig Buyers' Association." The Irish Attorney -General confessed that a letter from Mr. Slattery, intended for publication, in favour of the Cork, Fermoy, and Wexford Railway, had been stopped and confiscated by the governor of the gaol, where Mr. Slattery has taken up hia residence for six months under a lease from King Edward 111, A most important industrial and commercial enterprise is on foot, in which hundreds of thousands ar« involved. The districts art watching for a word from the man most competent to speak with authority on the subject. His opinion is deliberately and wantonly suppressed by the Government, not that he has been convicted of any crime, but that he has refused to confess himself a criminal by giving bail under Edward 111. Nor is this all. The suppression is proved to be, not in compliance with, bat in violation of all precedent. Mr. Davitt and Mr. Healy, when in prison under similar circumstances, were freely accorded by the Libaral Government (to wboat example Mr. Balfour is fond of appealing) the privalege of publishing letters on matters of public interest. One of theße letters ot Mr. Healy's Sir George Trevelyan poited with his own hand. Bat the regime of the brave Balfour is nothing if it is not vigorous. The suppression of Mr. Slattery's letter is a notable illustration of hit vigour — tremendous 1 awe-inspiring I We once heard " the height of impudence " defined as knocking a man down, and then borrowing bis cambric handkerchief to wipe the blood from the knuckleduster. But even this was surpassed by the conduct of the police authorities the other day at Newbridge. . Let us recall again the circumstances of the official outrageß in Olongorey. They must never be forgotton. Fifty or sixty workmen were arrested for being engaged, by direction of their employers, in the work of providing a temporary shelter for the evicted, a work which was not merely charitable, but strangely enough (for one never knows what the law forbids in this country) proved to be absolutely legal as well, even on the enforced confession of the Removables themselves. These workmen were subjected to the most brutal maltreatment. The foreman of the works had his wrist strained and two of his ribs broken ; the men were paraded in batches handcuffed through the streets of Newbridge ; they were lodged night after night in the stifling black-hole of the police barrack ; a large number of them were Bent to prison under our old friend, Edward 111. Their beloved priest, Father Kinsella, shared tneir fate. At last they were tried and their innocence clearly established, even before a Coercion Court. They were discharged, and the batch that were in prison, including the priest, were reluctantly but unconditionally released by the brave and resolute Mr. Balfour.

Now comes the s quel. One one would think that after this performance the police authorities would at last have the grace to be a little bit ashamed of themselves. Not at all. The other day they pummoned a number of the most respectable inhabitants of Newbridge for obstructing law and order by merely looking on at the lawless outrage of the police and testifying by their presence tbeir sympathy with its victims. These men, more fortunate than the chairman of the Town Commissioners and a number of others, had escaped having their heads broken by the baton charges which were the order of the day. But their horrible crime of sympathy with the victims of police brutality could not be suffered to go altogether unpunished. They were now fined fiv« shillings a piece all round by the Removables, despite the earnest protest of their solicitor, Mr. Stephen Brown, by whom they were most ably defended. Yet is there a kind of method in this apparent madness of the police and Removables. Thej are all liable, as they well know, to civil actions for their lawless violence in Clongorey. They fondly hope that these bogus petty sessions prosecutions will influence the verdict of the juries. So they will ; but hardly in the way they expect or desire.

The startling summons of Lord Salisbury to a general mteting of the party of Coercion gives further consistency to the rumours of dissolution which are everywhere in the air. Our article on the subject had been written before the announcement was made. It goes far to confirm the views we have there expressed. There is little doubt the Coercionists^are in a tight place, and it will need all their collective wisdom to find a way out of it. The defeat oq Tuesday night (the second within a week) has been an additional damper on their spirits. Instinctively they come together for consultation and comfort, though none can tell what is to be discus3ed or whence comfort can come. So the fowl flock together in the farmyard when the hawk is in the air. Dissolution is the hawk. Its shadow iB heavy and black upon the shrinking Ooercioniats.

The Holy See is making arrangements for the establishment of a regular hierarchy in Japan. The missions of Japan are governed at present by three Vicars-Apostolic, and the Church is making rapid progress in all parts of the Empire.

The New York Sun recalls the fact that the London] Times, in paying damages to Mr. Parnell the other day, was celebrating a centennial. Just a hundred years ago its publisher, Mr. Joan Walter, was sentenced to pay two fines of £100 each for libels on the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence. It coats fifty times as much to libel a commoner to-day as it did to slander a Prince a century ago ; but then it must be admitted that the Times is now fifty times as mean and false as it was in those days.