IRISH AFFAIRS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 310, 11 June 1889, Page 2

IRISH AFFAIRS.

MR GLADSTONE AND THE PRIESTS.

i THE G.O.M. STRETCHING THE "LONG BOW.” A SAMPLE OF TORY CANT. London, June 8. Mr Gladstone, speaking at Weymouth, praised the Irish priesthood for their efforts in the direction of preventing crime. Speaking at Southampton Mr Gladstone expressed the opinion that if a general election was to take place at the present time hia party would return to power with a majority of 100. In the course of a speech at a meeting of the Primrose League Lord Harris, the chairman of the Grand Council, expressed a hope that a lecturer would shortly make a tour of the Australian colonies in the interests of the Unionist party in order to furnish an antidote to the poison disseminated by Sir T. Esmond and Messrs J. Dillon and J. Deasey, the Irish delegates.

In Auckland and elsewhere the approaching visit of the Irish delegates has led to much discussion of the Irish question. Among others that have written letters on the subject are Archdeacon Maunseil and Mr Goldie, to whom a writer signing himself " Loyal Ulster ” replies Sir,—Archdeacon Maunseil and Mr Goldie are one in regard to the question of the Home rule for Ireland. They both admit that a change in the style of Government might be for the benefit of that unhappy country, I take that to be the gist of their letters. If the Irish people could prove to the Archdeacon that they were capable of governing themselves, he would be prepared to listen to the demand for Homejßule. Well, it is necessary to draw the attention of the Ven. Archdeacon to the report of the Royal Commission of 1836 on the Brehon Laws, which proves that, from the vary earliest Agee, the Irish people had a code of laws which has called forth the admiration of legislators and savants of our own timl. And, in Grattan’s Parliament have we not evidence sufficient to prove beyond cavil that the people of Ireland alone are capable of passing laws that will causa peace and prosperity to reign throughout the country 7 Manufactures, trade, and commerce developed to a greater extent in ten years under the Irish Parliament than it had done for the previous hundred years of English rule, The Venerable Archdeacon and Mr Goldie know all this, but they are Tories at heart, and their sympathies are not with Ireland, They cannot deny that a change in the form of Government is necessary for the welfare of the Irish people, but they have not got sufficient courage to fall in with Mr Gladstone's scheme for restoring peace and happiness to that misgoverned country. But the times are changing, and they should change with them. The outrages that have taken place in Ireland during the long struggle for justice, are deplored and denounced by all good people, and the Ven. Archdeacon is acting in a Christian spirit when he inveighs against those diabolical practices. Only recently a poor family was evioted on the estate (near Belfast) of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and they had to take refuge in the poorhouse, while Hia Excellency's agent had the tenant's house blown up by dynamite. The Poorlaw Board of Guardians denounced the outrage, and said it was full time that they had joined the Home Rule League. In other parts of Ireland the people have been hunted from their homes in thousands, and the kerosene torch applied to their roof treea by those rapacious landlords because the tenants refused to pay impossible rents to keep up the gambung hells to which those titled blackguards resort. It is no wonder then that a Christian minister like the Ven. Archdeacon Maunseil should raise his voice and draw attention to those outrages, which are calling to Heaven for vengeauce. It is worthy of the man and the occasion.