Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 23, 4 October 1895, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From Contemporaries.') 818 Henry Campbell-Bannkbman is reported to have said recently that " unfortunately the Irish people have been in the habit of expecting the Government tv do everything for them." The Irish people want the Government of England to do one thing for them— to leave them quite alone and to themsel ves. Rev Nicholas Rafferty is just now the subject of high admiration in Tipperary. Father Bbfferty was the master of ceremonies at the celebration of Archbishop Croke's Jubilee, and it is tbe merest justice to him to state that to bis admirable arrangement, to bis great ' diplomatic tact, and to bis power of organisation, uniting at once the abilities of an Ambassador and of a General of Division, was due the smoothness with which eveiy section of the day's programme was worked out. There was no hitch, and no delay, and no awkwardness. Father Rafferty is a born leader of men. In North Tyrone, which has been won to the Nationalist side now for tbe first time, Sergeant Hemphill has bad a notable gain. The victory is all the more noteworthy when we reckon that the district is not only tbe seat of the house of Abercorn, but is permeated by the backward prlitical influence usually to be found in Ireland where a powerful landlord does not nse his power to the utmost in grinding his tenans, but treats them with jost Buch casual forbearance as ensures continued servience. Mr Sam Woods, one of the best and truest friends of Ireland in the last Parliament, says that " some Catholics voted against him on the education question, although his pledges on that matter were aa satisfactory as those of his opponent." Exactly. Some people who are thorough Tories and enemies of Ireland made tbe education question an excuse for voting; against Home Rula. The dodge ia an old one. "We are not politicanp," they say, but with a Home Ruler and a Tory both sound on the education question, they are sure to support tbe Tory. But tbe great bulk of tbe Catholic body are not such hypocrites. Sir Henry Irving's manager came to be associated with the fortunes of the great actor in this wise : — Sir Henry, when on a visit to Dublin, was invited to a supper party, and during the course of the evening was induced to recite in his thrilling way, " The dream of Eugene Aram." One of his auditors, a young man with a brilliant reputation at Trinity College, was so affected by the tragedian's delivery that he burst into tears. Henry Irving asked the young man to call on him the next morning, and then and there made him an offer, which was accepted to the mutual advantage of both. Tbe young man was Mr Staker. It is not generally known that Mr Stoker is a near relative of Mr Frankfort Moore, the novelist, Ray Bernard J. Hayrien, writing in the Boston Pilot, claims for his namesake, Mr L. P, Hayden, the recent Parnellite representative for South Roscommon, and the remaining eight Parnellites in the late Parliament, the honour of having tha Cromwell Statue project rejected. It is quite true that Mr L. P. Hayden moved a resolution by which the project was defeated ; it is quite true also that his eight fellow-factionists supported him in his opposition, but it is not the whole truth. The whole truth is tnat the Irish Party opposed the erection of the statue. Mr Redmond and his |followers had been opposing the Government in everything during all tbe Session, and their opposition on this point would have counted jast as little as on any othtr matter previously but for tha fact that the united Party — Mr McCarthy aud his seventy-two f )llowers— set their faces against th« very ill-conceived andinjadicioua proposal of the Government. Most of the papers talk of Lord Oadogan, tha new Lord-Lieu-tenant of Irelaad, as if he were of purely English descent. As a matter of fact, Lord Cado^an's two most distinguished ancestors were Irishmen born and bred, although it must be admitted that neither was of the Celtic stock, but is to be reckoned among the Castle gang. The first Earl was — as is well known — Marlborough's right-hand m*n in all his campaigns, and rode by hia side in each of his great series of victories — Blenheim, Ramilie«, Oudcnarde, and Malplaquet. Tne General, who is described as a tjpical " burly Irishman," w is the son of a Dublin barrister, and grandson of William Oadogan, M.P. for Monaghan in the Irish Parliament. The family were of Weldh extraction. The respectable membora of the community of Derry of all shades of thought deeply rejrettdd to hear that some members of the London street Unionist mob in passing the Convent of the Nistera of Mercy after tha declaration of the poll and return of Mr Vesey Knox as M.P. for the city, h id smashed some windows, and wnat was Something more serious, it was found that a loaded cartridge bad been cast through one of the parma and fell into the reception-room. The cartridge is aNo 12 Ely, centre-fire. The violence with which it was thrown is indicated by th 9 brass flange being sharply indented where it came in coutact with the [{lass. Fortunately it did not explode, Tbe news of the outrage got through. the town on Saturday and great excitement prevailed amongst the mass of tbe Catholic

people. The cartridge wu handed to Detective Mnrr j. Hit Lord, ship, Bishop O'Doherty, and others called at the Convent later in the day. Every influence was need with the people to keep them quiet, and with the best possible results, it having been conveyed to them that every investigation that thejlaw could grant would be made in tbe matter. Monsignor Kelly, Rector of the Irish College at Borne, who was entrusted with the reply of the Pope to the Maynooth centenary address, is a gifted priest, who passed many years as an active missionary when he belonged to a society of priests engaged in giving missions and retraats. He is a total abstainer, and when it is said tnat he lived as a total abstainer in a wine-growing country a great deal is said. Tbe Irish College itself has excellent vineyards on the hills above classic Tivoli, tbe Tibur of the Romans. Mgr Kelly is a strict disciplinarian, and has reorganised the discipline of the Irish Oollege, the venerable alma mater of Cardinals Moran and Cullen» and of so many other saintly and distinguished Irishmen. Australia, or, rather, Oceanica is still in a way a spiritual dependency of Ireland, so Mgr Kelly is the representative in Borne of its Hierarchy, os well as that of the Irish Hierarchy, transacting all their work at Propa^ ganda. Derry City is Nationalist once more. Mr Knox's victory is altogether a great one, and the conditions under which it was gained render it all the more remarkable. We are told that every voter literally with life in him was brought to the poll, some in carriages, some in bath chairs, and one— a Nationalist — ten minutes before the close, in a bed. A Unionist working-man executed a rather smart manoeuvre. A warrant for his arrest to undergo two months' imprisonment for wife beating had been out against him for a week. He was in hiding until polling day, when, huddled in clothing, and wearing a false beard, he was carried in as an invalid and voted. Mr Knox called the attention of the police to the circumstance, bat before the warrant could be got the voter had disappeared. On the Monday previous, fourteen magistrates sat on the bench and returned a Nationalist voter for trial for criminal assault, but were equally divided on the question of bail. The man who was on remand, wai returned to gaol, and his vote was lost. In addition to all this, it ia to be remembered that Mr Knox was only about ten days before the constituency altogether. Truly, the once famous " walls " have fallen before tbe trumpet of the advancing army of the nation. The London Echo which has for some years been one of the most temperate and thoughtful of the London Unionist papers, strikes a discordant note in tbe chorus of Unionist self congratulation. In. stead of throwing up its cap with the rest, the Echo remarks :— " Tbe late Government was upset for other and different reasons than its Home Bale proclivities. It was overturned principally for its LocU Option Bill, its Welsh Disestablishment Bill, and for its hostility to the legislative power of the House of Lords. Home Rule was discussed during the present election struggle but little in comparison to other questions. But the battle was fought nominally under the Uaionißt fUg, as if the Union and the Empire were in danger. The battk-cry was misleading and largely dishonest. The great brewers, disillers, and dukes, and rich people who subscribed so largely, anJ who, on the Burface and unier the surfare, made such va^t and elaborate preparations for tha General Election, thought little of natiunal unity, because national unity was not in danger j but they thought very much of their own privileged interests. While marching in a solid phalanx under th 9 Uaionist banner, they were fighting for their own hand. It is because deception — systematic deception — was imported into the contest that we have not followed the bent of a party drum. Victories won by illegitimate means cannot in the long run be beneficial to ths nation. The Echo is as Uaionist as ever, but it is not going? to surrender to party wbat was meant for mankind. Mr Swift MacNeill, M.P., writing to the Daily Nervs, Bays that the Tory clamour for reducing Irish representation was foreseen by Isaac But', wh", epeakicg at the Home Rule Conference in Dublin in 1873 on the depopulation of Ireland by landlordism, said that thia very depopulation would afterwards be made the pretext for disfranchisement. 80 it has come to piss. Another correspondent, writing in the Daily Chronicle, shows that small constituencies are not an Irish monopoly. Falmontb, Wbitebaven, and Stpfford average about 3000 voters each, whilst the three Irish constituencies where the elections took place tbe same day — Armagh, Cavan, and Cork — have an averßge of 10,000 electors. In connection with this matter it is worth while pointing out that the number of Home Rule votes cast in the present contest amounts, so far, to about 2,370.000, while tbe Conservative and Unionist vote is little more than 2,400,000. The accident of chance has thus given a majority of 152 members out of a pieponderance that is lesa than 40,000 in the aggregate. There are two or three points in the Irish elections that call for emphasis in the eyeß of the people of Great Britain, Tory or Liberal. One is that to which attention has betn directed in influential quarters during the week, viz— the Unionists, to adopt the words of the writer, " have failed so ridiculously that ev-n in the heyday of their vast majority their own organs are beginning to note that the

electoral constancy of the sis'tr island is a fact that cannot be ignored." •' Parnellite and anti-Parrellite, Healyite and ■ays the same wiiter, " may rage acd rail a;;d, what is more to the point, may split tbe Nationalist vote In towns and counties ; but the Unionist fares none the batter. Even in a division of Armagh, Lord Salisbury cannot poll much more than half the Nationalist vote, and in South Down the anti-Parnelhte increases bis majority ; while in North Dublin, where a Parnellite stands against a Tory, tbe majority is almost exactly two to coe. These are not benighted Southern or Western constituencies. If we go farther afield, one of the most recent polls is the contest in the Queen's County, where Mr Crean polled nearly six times tbe Tory vote." Another point, more in detail, is that County Derry would have followed North Tyrone and Derry City, yielding at least one Home Bule representative, but for the base trickery of a certain Mr Harrison who, having wooed the farmers on tbe Land Question against Mr John Atkinson for months before tbe Dissolution, retired at the request of Mr T. W. Russell to make way for the Tory AttorneyGeneral. This Mr Harrison is a barrister of the Castle back order, and no doubt he was anxious to be bought off by some definite promise from tbe Government. Dr Houston, the Home Bule candidate, was placed at a great disadvantage by the manoeuvres of the place-hunting fraternity, and it is creditable that in all the circumstances he reduced the Unionist majority by 1000 It is clear, we think, that North Derry farmers are sick of the tomfoolery of the Harrison tribe, and npxt t;me we expect they will give their true friends a chance of pressing forward their cause.