SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY ON THE CRISIS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 26, 27 March 1891, Page 31

SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY ON THE CRISIS.

Canon Doyle has received the following letter from Sir Charles Garan Duffy: —

Nice Villa.l Marguerite, December 31.

My Deab Fbiesd, — I am in harmony with all you say about the crisis, and it is for that reason that I have maintained silence when everybody was proffering his opinion. If your telegram had been read at the Leinster Hall meeting, if the Freeman had not shamelessly suppressed your letter, there would have been timely warning to the people. And warning and guidance tn»y much wanted.

For myself, lam more angry at him for having betrayed the Iriih tenantry, to whom he owed so much, than for his social sins. It was base to propose in lieu of peasant proprietary a scheme reestablishing landlordism, and for five or six years his conduct has bf en of a piece with this.

The most serious risk the Land Purchase Bill runs of failing to be widely beneficent is in the administration. The present Commissioners are both Irish Catholics, appointed during the time of Lord Carnarvon's Irish Government. Lynch, who was promoted from another department, is an old official, and a Tory, but the other Commissioner, John George M'Carthy, I have known for forty years as a sound Nationalist, and a good Irishman. His decisions on questions which arose before the Board have generally been excellent, and th« measure has been, and would be safe in his hands. But in the Bill now before Parliament the Government take power to appoint a third Commissioner, and if it be a bad appointment the balance of authority will be on the wrong side. In the present state of confusion, I do not know whom I ought to ask to watch the measure in committee on this and other points. I will probably write a letter on the subject. — Believe me, my dear friend, always faithfully yours. C. Q. Duffy.