Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 9, 16 December 1892, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(Weekly Freeman, October 22.)

Ik tbe North of Ireland, we understand, the impression prevails that the Evicted Tenants' Commission will only inquire into the case of the Campaign estates. It is hard to see how this idea has got abroad, as nothing could have been clearer than Mr Morley 's letter to Mr M'Oarthy, which Btated explicitly that the case of all tenants evicted since 1879, who had not emigrated, would be open to investigation by tbe Commissioners. We therefore trust this intimation will lead our friends in isolated cases of hardship to prepare a scientific and systematic presentation of facts for the Commissioners.

We are now in a position to confirm as absolute the rumour sent ns recently by our Cork correspondent as to the withdrawal of Oolocel Tnrner from that city. He has, we understand, been dismissed by Mr Morley. So far as employment in Ireland is concerned, at least, Mr Morley 's action will cause a scare amongst officials pro* minent in carrying out the wore of Mr Balfour, and will give great satisfaction to the public of all classes except in the offices of the •victors. Colonel Turner has ceased technically to hold the position of Resident Magistrate, which, it is understood, would have made bis removal somewhat difficult, having secured the appointment of Divisional Commissioner, which, though paid a higher salary, is not protected by statute, but was recently invented by Mr Balfonr.

The Lord Lieutenant has received deputations at tbe Oastle from the Royal College of Physicians and tbe Royal Dublin Society. Replying to tbe address of the latter body, his Excellency expressed regret at the death of Father Davis. He thanked the deputation for having abstained in their address from any allusion to matters of a controversial or party character, and said he was particularly glad of this because it gave him an opportunity of emphaaing the fact that there was a very wide area of public usefulness in which all Irishmen and those who were responsible for the government of Ireland may mtet in hopes of doing something for the (food of the country. He

nifioent. But its tactioal advantage may be donated. If Mr Morley condescends to answer and expose every stupid and brutal lie that men like Colonel Saundenon and Mr Arnold Forster invent or retail he will be left very little tin»e for his other avocations. It may be, however, that he merely means to nail down a couple of their bass calumnies as a Warning, and he certainly has done so effectually.

The columns ol the Standard bear testimony to the seriousness of the crisis. It states that the number of notices to quit given this Michaelmas by tenants of farms in Kent is far in excess of any for* mer year. In many instances the landlords have offered to make most substantial reductions in rent in order to indnoe tbeir tenants to remain in their holdings, but even in these cases the notices will be adhered to. The ground for leaving given by the majority of agrienlturists is that they have lost all their capital. In the North of England alto the situation has alarmed agriculturists. We print elsewhere the summary of. a paper read at a meeting of the Chester Farmers' Club, by Mr O. W. Dutton, on the cause and remedies for agricultural depression. Mr Dutton estimates the fall in prices of tbe past twenty years— a drop in the return for wheat of £4 10s an acre ; ia oati of £2 an acre ; in barley of £3 ; beans, £2 5s ; potatoes, £9 ; milk, 3d per gallon ; butter, 2d per Ib ; cbeeße, 6s, 10s, and 15s per cwt, Stan stock has fallen 25 to 60 per cent. Meantime rates, taxes, and the cost of labour increased, and the landlord in tbe North of England has allowed the farmer to bear the loss practically alone. No wonder that it is being discovered there is an English land qnestion as well a 9 an Irish land question, and that in the former as well as the latter it is a question of rent and tenure. Under all the oirenmstaoces, the attempt of the Unionists to get up indignation against Mr Morley for daring to find tenants for the empty estates of Irish landlords is bound to appear hugely ridiculous to the British public

On Tuesday the fortnightly meeting of the Redmondite League was held. Mr John Redmond, M.P., said there were two subjects he wished to a Hade to. The first was the qnestion of the Paris Fandi, The most recent insults hurled at them ia connection; with that matter were those hurled at them yesterday by Mr Dillon at Tern pieman* when he stated that the offer made by tbe party with which he (Mr

report o! the visits paid by special permiieion of the Home Seoretary to ten of the treason-felony prisoners who were convicted for offences In connection with the dynamite conspiracies. The visitors were— Mr J. Sheridan (secretary of the association), Mr Armstrong (vicepresident), and the father of one of the prisoners, Dalton. The time for the interviews was extended, half an hour being given instead of the usual 20 minutes. The prisoners were— J. O. Gilbert, convicted of treason-felony in London in 1885 ; M'Evitt, Flanagan, Dalton, convicted at Liverpool in 1883 on charges of manufacturing and carrying dynamite 5 M'Oollogh, Devany, M'Oann, and M'Dermott who were sentenced at the Edinburgh Assizes 1883 in connection with an attempted explosion at the Glasgow Gas Works, and John Duff, who was convioted as a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood at Warwick in 1885, 00 a charge of manslaughter, the victim being a former political associate. When the visits were paid the delegates were received with the utmost courtesy by the prison officials, and the prisoners were permitted to receive without interference the tallest information as to the political condition of Ireland. Some of them had a slight knowledge of the position of affairs between the sections of the Irish party, derived from letters from outside friends, and all of them desired their thanks to be conveyed to the supporters of the Amnesty movement. The prisoner Duff is reported to be insane, and while being interviewed, declared that be was M'Guinness, whose family had been for generations head of the detective department at Scotland Yard, and that he was at present head of the department himself, and as such was known all over the world. Tbe prisoner Devany is also regarded as insane, and M'Oann, who is 67 years of age, appeared to be completely broken down. Dalton suffers from rheumatism and the prisoner Gilbert has received neither visit nor letter since his incarceration. All the convicts expresssed gratification on learning that Mr Gladstone has been restored to power on an Irish polioy, and hoped that the advent of Home Bule would be signalised by their release, but most of them considered the case of the B^cted Tenants as the more immediately important;

was very distinctly of opinion that allusions to matters which involved issues of an acute party conflict may very properly and reasonably be omitted from addresses presented to Lord Lieutenants on their arrival in Ireland as representatives of the Queen .

There are fifty decrees of ejectment pending against tenants on the estate of tbe Countess of Bintry, in the Glengariffe and Castletownbere districts. In addition to these proceedings one hundred and twenty processes for the recovery of arrears have been served on the tenants. Besides this one hundred and ninety processes have been returned uaserved, and further attempts will be made to effect service. Borne of the arrears now sued for have bung on since the famine years, tbe sums which accrued since that time being brought forward in the books each year since. There are several evicted farms lying idle on the property. The district, which is well-known to the tourists, is tbe most desolate in Ireland. This is the first attempt to recover the arrears which have hung on in this estate for the last half century. Some seizures by distress have been made within the past few months, and tbe agent has publicly stated that he will insist on the immediate payment of all the arrears up to September.

Mr Morley inflicts on Mr Arnold Forster a chastisement which he is not likely to forget. Mr Arnold Forster gives currency to the statement of an anonymous liar who writes that Mr Morley has endangered his life and the lives of his wife and children by withdrawing the two constables who protected him. Mr Morley demands the name of this unfortunate victim, and Mr Arnold Forster refuses to disclose it, thus confessing that he has been made the convenient and willing tool of a cowardly calumniator. Mr Morley's reply is effective. Every sentence stings with a lash. He has solid reason for supposing that the anonymous liar who vents his falsehoods through tbe lips of Mr Arnold Forster is a gentleman whose police protection was diminished, not by the present, bnt by tbe former Government. Mr Morley 'c letter might make even Mr Arnold Forster aßhamed of himself. He writes :— " This exposure will, perhaps, serve to put the public on their guard as to future statements made by you in the controversy in which you have unfortnnately chosen to take a dsplorafbly venomous part, peculiarly your own." All this is mag-

Redmond) *as associated was not a bonafide one, but a pretended one. He (Mr Redmond) would not indulge in any recriminations* bnt be should say, on his own part, and on the part of those who were associated with him, that the offer was not a pretended one, bnt was a sincere and a real offer. Having referred to tbe nature of the negotiations which had already taken place, he explained that the appoinment of the Evicted Tenants' Commission, which, in his opinion, could not oome to the help of the evicted tenants for at least a year, had the effect of iaduciag himself and his followers to reconsider their position in the matter. They did reoonsider it and made up their minds to make proposals which would satisfy the desires of the Irish party. These proposals were contained in the resolution passed in the Convention at the Rotunda ; and then they had the resolution in reply from the Irish party published on Saturday last, both of which he now read. He wished it were poesible to publish these resolutions in parallel columns in every newspaper in the land, He confessed he did not know what was the meaning of the answer that had been givea to tbe Rotunda resolution, and he now asked Mr Dillon publicly why be did not enlighten them as to the meaning of it. It was to be presumed it was not the resolution of a fool— that it wbb carefully drawn, and if so it appeared to him to be drawn for the deliberate purpose of creating confusion, and creating an opportunity for evading the offar which had been made by his (Mr Redmond's) colleagues. The latter demanded that the money should be spent on the tenan's by a joint committee. There object was to make sure that none of it would be devoted to political purposes Did Mr Dillon's resolution provide for that 1 Ha did not think it did. If Mr Dillon and his friends intended to make such a provision, why did they not say so ? Neither did Mr Dillon's resolution make it clear by whom the Paris Funds were to be disbursed when they were released, either in respect to tbe charges on them or the balance which would be left, and he (Mr Redmond) had therefore to ask did Mr Dillon and his friends agree that these funds should be disbursed by a joint committee ?

A Daily Chronicle correspondent writes -.—Last evening (October 17) tbe delegates of tbe London Irish Political Prisoners' Amnesty Association met the committee of the Association and presented their