OUR IRISH LETTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 1, 1 January 1903, Page 9

OUR IRISH LETTER.

(From our own correspondent.) Dublin, November, 1902. There is a most unbrotherly split in the Orange ranks in Belfast. Hitherto the Orangemen of the North consisted of just two classes : the workingnien, -who really knew nothing of what it was they followed and wfcat it was they fought for and against. They took ,i, il OOra nge, ge Oath as the y. took the unchristian teachings of their leaders, unquestioningly * and without thinking for themselves. They did not see their Catholic neighbors living according to the shocking code of life they are supposed, by the rank and file of Orangemen, to follow ; quite the contrary, but still the Orange leader and the Orange preacher told the workingman that Catholics were a horror a nd a danger in the land, and their followers, by way of showing what superior Christians they themselves were, hated their Catholic neighbors with their whole hearts, their whole souls, and their whole minds, because they had been taught t o do so by those whose interest it was to teach such doctrines. These leaders were, for the most part, aristocrats or clergymen whose advancement in life or tenure of power in this country depended upon having these uneducated fanatics at their back. They were far worse, fan more unchristian than their followers, because they Were of a class who should be at least sufficiently educated to know that they deliberately taught calumnies in order to keep up the dissensions between Catholics and Protestants upon which their power depended. These Orange leaders have, therefore, been the direct and deliberate cause of all the disunion, ill-will, rioting 1 , and even murders that have for so long been sources of much misery in this Christian land However, the democratic spirit of the times has worked its way into the Orange Lodges ; tho aristocrat who by the Orange vote won his seat in Parliament or on those local Boards which put local power and prestige into his hands, now finds himself confronted by the demon he unwittingly raised ; the once humble spouter who did the ugliest part of the work for his patron now finds that some of this same prestige would be very sweet to him, and in consequence we have the democrat Orangeman suddenly aspiring to leadership and seizing upon the seat in Parliament, while the once great, all-powerful grandmaster looks on, aghast, he himself nowhere and nobody, nay, he himself publicly insulted while the new luminaries fight for supremacy and tear each other's reputations in the choice style of the Belfast street orator, compared to which the celebrated encounter of O'Connell and Biddy Monarty was nowhere. The Grand Master, Colonel Saunderson, has been publicly called a liar by the eloquent new street-preaching MP , and there is general confusion and consternation Tho now MP. Mr Sloan, has all the pert, cutting quickness of tongue of his cla^s in the North of Ireland and flouts his opponents and a rival street-preacher called Trew in fine style. No one seems exactly to know or care what the battle is about the one certainty is that the Lodges are divided on all topics save hatred of Catholics ; on that subiect tho cry is still : ' There are three millions and a quarter of Catholics waiting to cut the throats of the Orangemen ' What a bloodthirsty lot we must be to be sure Meanwhile poor Colonel Saunderson. a high and mighty aristocrat, who for many years past has pandered to the tastes of the Lodges by blatant denunciations of Papistry, now finds himself vainly striving to uphold his supremacy as aristocratic Grand Master and Patron, while democracy plainly tells him it is its turn now and ungratefully jeers him with the reminder that he is a political turncoat, the Colonel having at one time been an ardent friend and follower of Gladstone, then having changed front and become so bitter an opponent that he even vented his hatred by decorating the walls of his boat-builder's workshop with malicious caricatures of the G O.M. This workshop is a favorite spot with Colonel Saunderson, who amuses himself in his leisure hours boatbuilding at his residence on the shores of our beautiful Lough Erne. Bot now — why, things are almost worse than if the three millions and a quarter of bloodthirsty Papists were let loose on the Belfast Lodges. The Land Question. Great public interest has been aroused by a movement on the part of a number of Iri&h landowners, Lord Mayo and Lord Dunraven at their head, who, convinced of the necessity for seriously facing the agrarian question, have proposed to hold a conference and treat fairly and amicably with the representatives of the Irish farmers on the subject of compulsory sale of the tillage and grazing portions of estates to the tenants thereon. These landlords have at last been moved to adopt this wise course by the hard facts of the times. Even in England, the circumstances of the past 25 years have wrought such a change that few farmers, if any, can now make an economic rent out of land. Free trade, and the consequent flooding of the home markets with beef, mutton, corn flour, fresh and preserved fruits and vee-etables, wool, etc , all raised in countries where the actual conditions of tho land tenure and of climate enable products to be exported at prices impossible to compete with in these lands, have so pulled down the

prices of home produce that it is proved that even gentry holding fee simple estates cannot make farming pay. It follows, then, that the peasantry, having no incomes from any other source than agriculture, cannot pay high rents out of the produce of their farms ; they could just barely manage, with strict thrift and hard work, to pay off the comparatively small rent the loan of the purchase money would leave on them for the next 49 years or so, their industry sweetened by the knowledge by 1 hat, so long as they manage to pay the yearly instalments, they could not be evicted, and * that their children and their children's children would have homes free from all but the State taxes. However, we have a certain class of noblemen amongst us who are fighting tooth and nail agauibl an equitable settlement, men who have vast wealth derived from other sources than their tenantiy , Loid Londonderry, for instance has large colleries in England and lime quarries in Ireland ; he can, if necessary live luxurouslv upon the wealth derived from these and count upon his large Irish estates simply for the power and prestige they bring him— though he does not forego the rents either. Lord Ardilaun is a new creation out of Guinness, the wealthy brewer ; he has vast i iches in his brewery shares, but derhes his main glory fi om csi.it c, and tenantry he has purchased in various parts of ihis country, and a harder landlord scarcely exists for poor Catholic peasants. Lord Barrymore is the well-known Mr. Smith-Barry, to whom evictions were, once upon a time, apples and nuts ; he received a long-coveted title this year, and consequently is nobler and grander than those whose titles date from the Conquest. By the way he owns nearly all the town of Tipperary, and there is many an old Tipperary man alive in New Zealand who could toll a queer story as to how Lord Barrymore's father came by the old shambles of that town. ' These, and many such men, are strenuously opposing and will not join the landlords who have to live by their estates and who are willing and anxious to meet the representatives of the tenantry and arrange for an equitable sale of their farms to the latter. Thus the land war is kept up. Our Chief Secretary. Lord Edward, Fitzgerald's grand-nephew, who declared lately in public that this question could not be settled by any English Parliament, but must be a matter arranged between the Irish landowners and tho tenants themselves, has, against his wiser judgment, fallen in with Lord Londonderry and his followers, and has proclaimed several counties in Ireland and the city of Dublin, notwithstanding the fact that never, in her history for the past 800 years has Ireland been so crimeless. As a matter of fact, the statistics of the Law Courts show that there is such an absence of criminals to be dealt with at assizes that the holding of such courts is almost a farce, a state of things no other country in the world can boast of However, we are proclaimed rebels for ' doing nothing at all,' as the schoolboy said, and if we do but look crooked or smile a hunibuVo-mg sort of a smile (as a policeman once nai\ely pave m a Coercion Court as the reason for prosecuting a number of young country girls) any policeman can take us all up and bring us before a peculiar kind of magistrate called a ' Removable,' the latter can settle our business and of! with our heads ! without reference to trial lv uiry or any such constitutional nonsense It's leallv \or funnexcept for Iho victims All this is to try and stave of! the day which must come, the day when the tenant farmer can by no possibility meet his rent and taxes (the latter are mounting up hv leaps and bounds), and the landlords must sell to save themselves fi om tho General rum awaiting those who are depending on their rents for an income There are many painful sides to the present struggle , ono is especially so for the Irish Catho-' lie peasantry. Tt is rumored that Lord?: Londonderry, Ardilaun, Barrvmore, etc., will do their utmost to hold out against compulsory sale until as many as possible of the Irish Catholics shall have, been forced into emigration by bad times, poverty, and despair of obtaining justice Then, it is said, once more an English and Scotch Protestant settlement is to be attempted, or, at least such are thought to be the secret plans of the Ascendancy party. A Hum or. A whisper has gone abroad that tho King is not In fa\or of the present harsh regime ; that he contemplates a visit to Ireland next year and wishes to be a popular guest : that, with this end in view, he summoned the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to a conference this week and that some friendly change may be looked for before long. A Morality Play. For a considerable time many of our theatres have, I regret to say, been following the general decadence in the tone of the plays produced, and, in spite of \ cry strong remonstrances from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, too many of the public continue to support these questionable and often immoral performances It was a rtliof last to have a total chance of scene provided for us by what is known as the Elizabethan Stage Company, who presented an old-world morality play, written some 400 years ago by a Catholic priest, a historian and theologian, who lived at Iciest in Holland^.during the latter half of tho 15th century. His* name was Peter Dorland and he is known as "a writer under the appellation of Peter of Diest. Tho play was staged in a quaintly simple stylo : a representation of <in open-air theatre, with little or no furniture, the centre an open temple to which a flight of steps led up, a curtained niche, and two opened doorways on either hand: no side wings, no scene shifting, no modern theatrical effects. The characters entered by th« open doorways or

came in simply in front of the audience and mounted the steps, all as one can fancy on a mediaeval stage. The greater part of the dialogue is spoken in a sort of monotone or chant, very slow and solemn and peculiarly impressive, as was, indeed, the whole manner of conducting the play, for the artists, whose names were not given, seemed to lnue thoroughly studied and entered into the solemn spirit in which these religious representations were formerly carried out. Since I saw the wonderful Oberammergau Passion Play, I have seen nothing that impressed me like this morality play styled 'Everyman,' because it is the story of every man 'embodied in one principal chai actor, to whom is given this all-exclu-sive name, and appeals to the hearts of every being who recognise more or Jess of his own destiny in tho impressive scenes. M. B.