The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1884. Dynamite

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 74, 3 June 1884, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1884. Dynamite

The use of dynamite as a means towards obtaining certain political concessions by tbe wholesale destruction of life and property is now looked upon, by a certain class of persons in Europe, as perfectly fair and legitimate. On Friday last outrages of a more serious description than any yet attempted — at least in England — were perpetrated in the very heart of London. Every facility seemed to have been given to the conspirators for the execution of their plot, and there is a grim irony in the fact that Scotland Yard, the centre of the police organisation of the metropolis, should have been one of the places partially blown up. From the fact that the whole of the catastrophes were arranged to eventuate at about the same time in the night, is proof positive that a large number of persons must have been engaged in the adventure. It speaks badly for the efficiency of the police system, which allows such crimes to be concocted and successfully carried out, and of the Government which allows such a system. The best friends of Mr Gladstone have been, since the inauguration of the Egyptian fiasco, gradually forced into the opinion that he is becoming old and senile, and consequently unfit any longer to be at the head of the Government of such a mighty empire. No reasoning man can doubt but that the wretched mismanagement of the affairs of Ireland by past Governments has been the cause of endless crimes against individuals as well as the State — crimes which, by firmness on the one hand and judicious concessions on the other, would have been averted and a thousand evils prevented, the very existence of which are unknown to us* in the Colonies and are only partially indicated by hideous outrages like the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and Mr Burke, in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and the dynamite outrages, now under consideration, in London. Yet for the men who are guilty of these crimes we have no sympathy. They should, when arrested, be given a fair judicial trial and hanged without mercy. At the best, they are cowardly scoundrels, for immediately after the commission of a crime they are all too ready to rush to the authorities to act as informers, and thus while saving their own skins, earn a few pounds in blood money by the betrayal of their comrades in crime. The only dread they appear to have is that of assassination when applied to .themselves. The amount of prejudice and bad feeling ; which will be excited against the unfortunate Irish in London by the recent events must lead to crimes of retaliaj tion, by which many innocent persons will be made to suffer for the guilty.