Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 4, 23 May 1890, Page 29

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.)

We have to thank Mr. Gladstone for rendering considerable service to the cause of Home Rule by his revelations with regard to the difficulty of getting Irish reforms though the British Parliament. He asserted once, and challenged the denial of the Liberal Unionist leaders, that under the present system, with its pressure of various businesses and interests on the central Government, the interests of Ireland were of necessity, and apart from all ill will, neglected. In the debate on the Parnell Commission he asserted that the Land Act of 1881 would never have been passed if it were not for the Land League agitation. This evidence of the inherent badness of the present legislative system is invaluable.

Progress undoubted is recorded on the face of the twelfth annual report of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish language. Since last year there have been added to the Irish-teaching teachers of the National Board fourteen, and to tin Irish teaching schools fourteen, scattered through the counties of Mayo, Waterford, Donegal, Kerry and Cork, the counties where the best work can be done in that direction. The pupils who passed in Irish in the National schools have increased from 443 to 512 ; only twelve passed in 1881, and only 161 in 1885. A proposal to have a Professor of Irish added to the staff of the Catholic Training School has been warmly recommended^ to the governors by the principal of St.Patrick's, Drumcondra.

According to the Star, the pilling of Mr. Flanagan the other day must have been a greater blow to that gentleman than appeared as first sight. Most people, we dare say, were under the impression that Mr. Flanagan had just been put up for election, and had bten then incontinently black-balled. But that is not the true state of the case. In the Athenaeum the average time a man has to wait for election is 16 years ; if you are put up at an early period of the year it is possible you may come to the door of paradise in 15 years and a half. It was just 16 years since Mr. Flanagan's name bad first appeared as a candidate for admission ; and it was the malign turn of fortune that brought him up foi election just at the moment when the world was fresh under the impression of the Pigott forgeries. Sixteen years' apprenticeship lost in half a day — the Nemesis was pretty heavy. Mr. Enox recalls nn incident in the history of Cavan which proves that the tolerance exhibited in the selection of him as member by a convention where Catholics were in a great majority, is ne new growth in that county, iflven in the dark days when Ulster was harried into fierce rebellion against confiscation and proscription , the Protestant Bishop of Cavan was beloved and respected by the Catholics of that day. When he died he was followed to hig grave by the Catholics of his diocese and by Irish soldiers who paid him military honours. John Mitchel's commendation of him is borrowed from a Catholic priest who stood by the open grave and was heard exclaiming : "0 sit anima meaoum Bedello.'' Ttris reminiscence v/as happy on the occasion, and Bhows that this latest addition to the ranks of active Protestant Nationalists has his convictions rooted in the safe and stable ground of the history of Irish Protestant patriotism. Stoke is another victory, and once more shows up the weakness of the Liberal Unionists. The Home Rule majority is 1,231 69 higher than at the hst election. It was confidently asserted that the Home Rule majority would be pulled down, as the Unionist candidate was a gentleman of considerable local influence among the Methodist body. But despite these expectations the majority has been increased. The prophets of the decrease have since been shouting in pretended jubilation over the fact that the "as in 1885 " formula does not apply to the result. That is true. The Liberal majority of that year was 1,990. Tbere are thus 659 Liberals missing. Where have they gone? Some say they were absent on account of the miaeis' strike, preparations for which were completed on the day of the poll. One thing is certain at all events — they have not all gone over to the enemy. Tories and Liberal Unionists together polled only 126 more than the Tory vote in 1885. That is the strength of Liberal Unionism in Stoke — a midland constituency where riartington and Chamberlain should be names to conjure with. If that be the extent of the defection all round it will be easy to console us. But it is not even that. Witness S amford.

On Tuesday, March 24, the contest in Ayr Burghs will take place. The prospects are against us; In the first place, the constituency was won under such circumstances as are quite consistent with the theory of accidental ill-luck to the Unionists. A majority of something like 1,200 against Home Rule was changed into a majority of 63 in its favour. It is quite possible that the Coercionists relied too much on the strength of their majoiity, and that a hundred or so were caught napping. In that case their muster wouid recover the seat to them. In the second place, the Home Rule candidate on tha last occasion was a local man, the Coercionist a Btranger.

The Dublin correspondent of the Times exudes gall even on the ' day fatal to venom in Ireland, Writing on St. Patrick's Day, he said — "The anniversary of St. Patrick's Day was celebrated to-day in a manner suitable to the genius of the country, religion and revelry being at> hoppily blended as limpid water with the ' mountain dew.' In the early morning pious devotees attended early services in honour of the patron saint, and in the evening ' drowned the Shamrock ' with

equal fervour. Some ardent patriots anticipated this latter ceremony, or had some full rehearsals of it before the crowning function of the day." The meaning of this is plain, and it needs no comment beyond the statement of the fact that the Police Court charge-sheet showed no increase whatever of cases of drunkenness as a consequence of the celebration of the day. Dublin was singularly free from drunkenness on the festival, and the lie was most unlucky in the moment of its incubation.

The fact that it was worth invention should prove to Irishmen that it is worth their while making some sacrifice to have soon slanders made patent to all the world. Archbishop Croke's summons to the Gaels puts the new crusade against intemperance in the proper light before the country — as a movement not only religious bat patriotic, and commendably not only on the high ground of religious purpose, but on the lower ground of worldly prudence as well. What its political value would be if carried to success the slanderer of the Times sufficiently proves. A sober Ireland would mean not only an Ireland free, but an Ireland invulnerable to the slanderer. Thare is every sign that the ideal will be realised.

Baron Dowse, if he had the choosing of the moment of his own death, would, we are sure, have elected not to pass out of the world with a eulogy of Cecil Roche and a denunciation of Mr . Gladstone upon his lips. He was better than the Tralee harangue represents him to have been. For the past year or more, for some reason or another-let us charitably suppose that it was because of failing health — he swerved from his old impartiality, and yielded to the bad example of the Irish Bench in turning the justice seat into a political platform. But even when his mistakes were grossest it was remembered of him that be was once a stont foe of Protestant ascendency, that he shook the bold of the Orange lodges on the constituency for which the Vicechairman of the Home Rule party now sits, that he helped the Liberals of the seventies to lop a few branches from the upas tree, that he more than once gave ua a specimen of pure justice, and that in his bright intellect and hit racy humour he was Iri-ih of the Irish.

Many stories are in circulation about that humour of his. Perhaps the best are those which a writer in the Daily Newt tells. " The last of the Irish Barons," as the writer calls him, had a Parliamentary reputation that is not yet dead. He once encountered the present Lord Chief Justice of England in a battle over a principle that has neither been killed nor applied in legislation sinee — the principle of Women's Suffrage. Sir John Coleridge, as he then waa, asserted, in his defence of the principle, that the greatest judges he knew possessed qualities of mind which he regarded as peculiarly feminine. "My honoured and learned friend," retorted the member for Derry, " appears to think that because some judges are old women, all old women ought to be judges." The public will watch with great anxiety the farther development of the inquest on Michael Cleary — a Tipperary man who died after bis release from Clonmel Gaol. The evidence already given, if not rebutted, will cause the case to be classed with that of John Maadeville and the Falcarragh men who came forth from Derry Gaol to die I According to the medical evidence given poor Oleary was suffering from phthisis in September last. He was sent to gaol in November, and put upon the plank-bed and to hard labour. He was a month in prison before he saw the prison doctor, and during the whole of that time hiß stomach was unable to retain the prison food. At the end of the month he saw the doctor and was removed to the infirmary, whence he was discharged after three weeks' treatment as perfectly cured. A week after this perfect cure he came out of prison and was examined mediclly and found to be in a dying condition. He lived only six weeks, and the docror who saw hits novr swears that, in bis opinion, death was accelerated by want of proper treatment between the 14th September and tha 11th of January. The inquest stands adjourned till the 31st of March ; and these statements are so grave as to fix public interest upon it. Unless the first day's testimony is disproved Balfourism will be credited with another victim.

The ruffianism of the Executive having been foiled at Olongorey, the authorities are persecuting those who exhibited sympathy with their victims. On Thursday, March 13, a number of men were summoned to Newbridge Petty Sessions to answer a charge of " indecent and riotous behaviour." The indecency and the riot consisted in cheering the men whom the police had illegally arrested. As to indecency, it was all on the side of the police and the magistracy, and the only riot was their unwarranted interference with the people at Clongorey and Newbridge. Colonel Forbes, the magistrate who presided, has, however, no squeamishness about doing the work which he was set up to do, and he fiaed the people wno had the hardihood to cheer.

What a striking commentary on the theory that the system of boycotting requires the sanction of murder is afforded by the proceedings at the Waterford assizes. Peter the Packer was the presiding judge, and the calendar was an absolute blank. He was presented with a pair of white gloves : but notwithstanding the clean record, notwithstanding the total absence of what he terms " the crueller and coarser type of crime," he refused to congratulate the grand jury on the condition of the county. Why? On accouLt of the widespread prevalence of boycotting. Waterford is oue of the outlets for the export of agricultural produce. But the machinery of export is absolutely and universally denied to land-grabbers and exterminators. Tbere is "an organised attempt to boycott the sale of cattle," and the attempt is only too successful. H a nce the tairs of Peter fall fast on the unstained kids with which the Sheriff presented him. Here we have an answer to the assertions of the Commission report, Boycotting is a complete success in Waterford ; and instead of depending on crime for its virtue, it has absolutely obliterated crime. May the success of the system continue, and may Peter have to bemoan it wherever he goes.

Mr. Morley's speech at Stepney is refreshing after the Attorney's chatter by which the Pigottists defended themselves in the House of Commons. His outspoken tribute to Mr. Parnell. Mr. Davitt, and the Irish nation will advanct the movement of conciliation. His summation of the ten years of Pigottry by which Mr. Parnell hti been has been pursued ought to make Englishmen pause. "It is tea

or eleven years,*' he said, "since this movement was set on foot. What has Mr. Parnell gone through during these years ? In the winter of 1880 Mr. Parnell was dragged through a trial in a criminal court in Dublin. In 1881 he was thrown into prison, and kept there many months without trial. In the beginning of 1883 he was held up to public execration amidst the fraatic excitement of the House of Commons by the attack made upon him, made in good faith, no doubt, by Mr. Forster, which, in its only precise and important parIticular, has been found by the three judges to have been an unfounded .and unjust attack. In 1887 he was openly charged with being an accessory before the fact in the Phoenix Park murders, and by forged letters the same journal which made the charge fastened on him direct complicity with that crime after its perpetration. In 1888 the Tory Government, eagerly aided [and abetted by the Liberal Coercionists , devised and manufactured a brand-new tribunal without precedent in our history, under the spurious pretence of giving a chance of freeing himself, but really and truly wi'h the confident expectation in their hearts that he and and his friends would have these charges proved against them up to the hilt. Heavily loaded with pecuniary charges, he is harassed by the severest anxieties, the whole force of the Government is brought against him and his friends. He is acquitted of every direct and personal charge, and then at the end of all a majority of the House of Commons refuses to put on record that false charges were brought against him, ref cues to state that these charges were based on calumny and forgery, refuses to express its regret that these false and hateful charges had been brought, and refuses to express its satisfaction .bat these false and calumnious charges have been exposed." This, as Mr. Morley shows, iB nothing new in the history of English dealings with Irish leaders. But the time has come for a change.