Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 36, 24 June 1892, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

( Weekly Freeman, April 30) Speculation is still rife as to the probable date of the dissolution, and opinion seems to prevail in favour of June. If the dissolution were announced In June the elections would be got over within the

month of July. What will doubtless happen this year will be that

the oew Parliament will meet at Westminster some time in October Mot the swearing-in of members and the election of a Speaker and tbe Chairman of Committees. It will be tbtreupon prorogued, meeting for the dispatch of business at the usual time in February next year. A letter appears in the Daily News from Mr Jacob H. Reynolds, of Havelock Mart, New Zealand, which is a further assurance of tbe sympathy which the Home Rule movement commands in the colonies. Mr Reynolds speaks of the great interest which is felt in New Zealand in tbe coming general election at home. And be goes on :— 11 1 take it that Home Rale for Ireland is to be the rallying cry of the Oladstonian party. I believe, with few exceptions, that party has the hearty good wishes of colonists generally. We have seen the benefits of self-government : religious and political hatred is nnknown. all working alike for the common weal and mankind. . . . New Zealand knows the loyalty of its Irish subjects, their patriotism and their honour." Mr Reynolds adds that " the news that Balfour's Bill is a sham is just what might be expected,«nd does not surprise us out here." What will Colonel Saunderson and Mr T. W. Russell, and the other principal organisers of the great Loyalist Convention which is about to be held in the North, say to the article which appears in the Standard on the subject ? We were rather anxious than otherwise to see the gathering of the clans, for there is probably no better answer to the " Imperial race " argument, and the wealth and intelligence of Ulster, and all that rubbish, than the brag and bluster and Twelfth of July stage thunder of the Orange leaders. Bat here comes the Standard, which apparently has caught the humour of the situation, and in the gentlest and mildest manner possible tells Colonel Saunderson, Mr Rusaell, and the rest that if they love the Government they will be good enough not to make idiots of themselves. Tbe Daily Ne-m* says — The Duke of Devonshire's mind is, in the Platonic phrase, full of forgetfulness. He now charges Sir W. Har-

court, and by implication the Liberal party as a whole, with a con-

version to Home Rule in 1886 so rapid that it cannot be regarded as genuine. We have nothing to do with Sir W. Harcourt, who is responsible to the electors of Derby, and not to the Duke of Devonshire or to us ; but there is a much greater personage than Sir W. Harcourt involved in the charge which the Duke of Devonshire should have been the last to make. In the spring of 1886, when the events of Mr Gladstone's Administration were fresh in his mind Lord Hart-

ington, speaking at a dinner of the Eighty Club, declared that no one

who had followed Mr Gladstone's recent career, or had lately been associated with him in the management of public affairs, could feel honest surprise at his adoption of Home Rule. The .Duke of Devonshire has evidently forgotten all about this speech.

The determination of the Tories to fight every Irish seat has now

deprived the promoters of the " separate party " scheme of the one substantial argument behind it — that of economy, which could be urged in favour cf it. With a Tory in the field everywhere, it will be an advantage rather than otherwise if a Pledge-breaker comes forwark.as the Nationalists will only have to pay one-third instead of half the sheriff's expenses. It is fair, however, to Mr Redmond to say that he does not regally insist that men like Dr rleany should b<i returned for their present constituencies. He would be willing to box the compass and shuffla the cards, so that the more odious of the pledgebreaksrs should be shifted, so to speik, tnpartibus infidelinm. The scheme is co charming that it only needs one thing to make it work, viz, the sanction of the electors concerned. Professor F. Nicholas Crouch— the composer of " Kathleen Mavoorneen," and " Dermot Astore " — lives poor and alone in a Baltimore tenement, says the Star, in his eighty-fourth year, awaiting the summons, which cannot be much longer delayed. The composer of more than two thousand songs, tbe man who was twice summoned to play at the coronation of England's monarchs, a member of the Boyal Academy of Music, a fellow of the Society of Letters and Arts — he would be a pauper to-day but for the philanthropy of an IrishAmerican, Mr Jameß Marion Boche, a native of Kilkenny, and a living illustration of the maxim that " an Irishman carries his heart in his hand." Mr Roche, who is pay-master at the United Stttts Navy Yard at Pensacola, has settled upon the aged composer a small allowance which serves at least to keep the wolf from the door. But, like Walt Whitman, Crouch never made his genius pay, and the man who, a generation ago, was the centra of musical circles in London and Paris, and the friend of Douglas Jerrold, and Sheridan Knowles, is to all intents and purposes forgotten. Bradford is one of the constituencies which it is greatly to be feared will score a loss for the Liberal party at the next election owing to the appearance of a Labour candidate in the field in the person of

Mr Bon Tillett, in opposition to Mr Illingworth. The Labour vote ia East Bradford is very strong, and it ia only natural that a constituency consisting almost wholly of manufacturers should be deeply interested in the Labour question. For very many years the interests of the labouring population, both in the old borough of Bradford and the new constitoency, were supported by Mr Illingworth, himself a member of one of the largest manufacturing firms in the locality. Now, however, because he declined to vote for the Bight-Hours Bill in common with several of the Labour members, Mr Tillett has come forward to contest his seat. As Mr Tillett does not profess any allegiance to either of the great parties he cannot be accused of playing either of them false, but he would probably be found to admit that his affinities are more with the Liberals than the Tories. Now there are several manufacturing constituencies represented by Tory capitalists in Yorkshire and elsewhere, and it is a marvellous thing that Mr Tillett does not think that he would be doing a better day's work for labour if he ousted one of these Tories than in pursuing a line of policy which cannot result in a victory for himself, and at most can only eventuate in the return of a Tory for a Liberal constituency.

We have not seen the letter of the Duke of Devonshire to the Rural World in the columns of the Independent. How is this ? It is pitched so accurately in the familiar Factioniat key that it might be a speech by Dr Kenny at the National League, or an article in United Ireland. "In spite, writes the Duke, of all the efforts which have been made by tbe leaders of the Home Rule party, both in Bng. gland and in Ireland to convince Irish Protestants that they have nothing to fear, the events of the last few years have taught them a different lesson. The methods by which the resistance to Imperial law and government has been carried on ; the stiuggles of the Irish factions with each other, and the influence exerted by the Irish priesthood in those conflicts, have confirmed Irish Protestants more and more in the conviction that Home Rule would be to them not merely an unnecessary and mischievous Constitutional change, but a real danger to their liberties and interests and to the peace of their country." The anti-clerical alliance is now tripartite, The Unionists in England, the Orangemen in Ulster, and the Factionists in Dublin and elsewhere. The cry of «« No Priest in Politics "is natural in the mouth of gentlemen of the type of Colonel Saunderson and the Bey R. R. Kane ; it is good business for the Unionists, as the Duke of Devonshire's letter shows ; but bad does it sound ia the lips of an Irish Nationalist I

We have referred at some length to the successful experiments made recently by the Congested Districts Board in the waters around Arran Island. No spring mackerel fishing had ever been conducted in these waters by Irish boats before, and yet the experiment resulted in an unprecedented haul of mackerel, which were transmitted to tbe English markets, where they fetched splendid prices. The boats and nets were, of course supplied at the expense of the Congested Districts Board. Father Donohoe has for years tried to impress on the public the magnificent harvest of fish which was lost to the native fishermen of the district year after year owing to their want of proper vessels and gear. Other countries-Scotland and France, and even the Isle of Man-were not slow to take advantage of the endless resources of Galway Bay, a French vessel on one occasion taking as many as 28 000 spring mackerel in the course of two nights. Why should 'the islanders themselves not get the benefit of the riches which Providence has placed at their doors ? They are too poor to provide themselves with the necessary appliances for carrying on any successful fishiDg operations in the bay— it has taken public charity, time after time, to save them from the workhouse. But Father Donohoe now states that a sum of LIOOO will enab'e them to take full advantage of the bay. Already he has succeeded in obtaining LBOO, and he asks the public to subscribe the remaining L2OO. We are sure he will not appeal in vain for this small amount. It seems comparative affluence where chronic poverty has prevailed, and it will carry comfort to a population who, with natural advantages on all aides of them, have bad a hard and prolonged battle with all but absolute want. Father Donohoe expresses the simple truth when he says that never was a case more deserv ing of sympathy and substantial help put before the public.