THE WESTMEATH ELECTION,

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 966, 31 August 1871, Page 2

THE WESTMEATH ELECTION,

Mullingah, Saturday,' June, If. The nomination fop the vacancy in the, representation of this county, oaused by .the death of Mr Pollard-IJrquhairt, took place here to-day. The Courthouse was... filled by a large crowd of country people; who had "the green" conapiously displayed, and greeted Mr P. J. Smyth and his friends withloud cheers Mr P. J. gmyth was supported by Captain. King Harman and the priests of the diocese. The High. < Sheriff, the Hon. George C. Moyston, presided. . , The writ having been read by the Sab Sheriff, ; Mr Moyston asked whether the electors had a candidate to propose 1 The Rev. Luke Barton, P.P., Castta town, Geoghegan, who was received witli cheers, Bpoke as follows :-r-The death of y. Mr Pollard-Urquhart, who was, he be^ F Heved, an estimable private gentleman, and an excellent, landlord, had left a va- * ■■ cancy in what was called the representation of their county in a foreign Parliament, where laws were manufactured to rule this country. They had, therefore, an opportunity of exercising some little of / those constitutional privileges which <V ought to belong to a free people. They • could elect by their suffrages a man in whom they thought fit to place confidence, and who should speak in their name, demanding justice from that foreign Parliament (cheers). He had heard it asked what was the use of sending members to the British Parliament? Their country 1" was apathetic, she was dead, at least she -, was in terror. He was not one of thos§ ■ to resort to unconstitutional means Jo assert their rights and redress their wrongs. He believed they should send to Parliament honest men to speak put the heart and soul of their dear old country, to re? present her wants and her wishes— men who would not be slaves, seeking alone to * subserve their own interests, but who : would speak the voice of the people, and : face to face, as man to mau with the, British Ministers, manfully assert the ! rights. of the country (applauses). H0. ..'., their country was not dead, she was 110$ in torpor, she had fought with her enemy

for 700 years. Again and again, she had fftHen bleeeUjjg to" the dust, ]but her mighty soul, with indestructible vitality} again and again proclaimed to the world ithat she was alive and vigorous (cheers). War> had not quenched the spirit of their race/ famine had not made dogs of the people* of the land. When 50Cf,000 of their fellowcountrymen lay dead in their premature graves: and when 200,000 more were;, banished in '47, their country was nc}t then dead, and if she were not then dead neither was she so now. There seemed, to be in the present time an awakening of nation ; the minds of Catholics, Protestants, and Presbyterians seemed to be alive to this fact— that they had a common country (applause): Intelligence was spreading abroad, and men were debating^ on the rights and wrongs of their country. Knowledge was power, and, union was strength ; and with the union of the Irish race it was impossible that Ireland could not be freed (hear, hear). It was said that the priests and people, were divided. The priests and people should never be divided. He was but one unit of the priests of Ireland, and no matter whether , a man differs from him in religion or not,; his religion taught him to love that man ; and there were men of the Presbyterian creed and of the, Protestant faith he loved dearly, because they loved Ireland (hear, hear). They should believe to death the tenets of their, own religion, but they : should not hate other men because they were as firm in theirs. The spirit of union was spreading over the land, and the "day was not far distant when the Orangemen of the North and the Catholics of the South would shake hands /over the. Boyne, and banish for ever the recollection of past years (cheers). Might, that happy consummation take place in their own day ! Ireland was indestructi- . ble, and they should try and render her people free and independent. They should have resource to means -by 'Which', they could make her free, which they could do by constitutional means. If their reasons for proclaiming their rights and wrongs to the sense* of the : world would not do, they had seen in the history of their country, and in the conduct of the British Parliament towards Ireland, that England might deem it her interest to grant their demand (cheers). What was it that opened the schools in Ireland? England feared the spread of those principles that prevailed on the Continent and which she thought might endanger the stability ,o| the British throne. What gave 'Ireland free trade and an independent Parliament, but the attitude of the Volunteers of '82, when they rose up in theirstrength and made England read their demands in the light of 200,000 bayonets (loud cheers).:! What led to Catholic Emancipation f Prudential fears moved England to. grant it. What brought about Religious Equality and the Land Act, such as they had it ? „ Terror infused into the" heart of the British Minister by that dreadful explosion at Clerken well (cheers). Such things would happen, and if England, not for the sake of justice, grant 'their demand, she might do so from motives of prudence (hear, hear). . They should send men to -Parliament like John Martin, who loved Ireland dearly, and who would speak; out manfully in their najne to the -British Minister. Referring to the proceedings of the Westmeath Committee, he complained of the manner in which, the county had been condemned unheard, its people being treated as an aggregate of murderers and assassins, seeking the lives of their fellow-^men. After paying a high compliment to the merits t and, abilities \ of' Mr Smyth, the rev. gentleman concluded by proposing hj|m as, s$ j fit and proper person to reprelient bne county in Parliament (loud cheers). „,.,, -, ; . . . . ;•:•■.- /■ ■ ..■ Mr'Gibney, a trader residing in Mullingar, seconded, the motion. ., ; ; ; ' The High Sheriff then inquired if any other elector .-had ■? any candidate to propose, and there being no response he declared Mr Smyth duly elected.

The announcement was received with the most enthusiastic applause. Mr Patrick James Smyth on coming forward was received with loud applause. He said :. Mr Jiigh Sheriff and gentlemen, proposed by Father Luke Barton, and seconded by Mr Gibney, recommended to yog- by -your bisb,op, supported by your noble bishop, supported by your clergy, your devoted clergy, and accepted by the people — the whole people, without distinction of race or oxeed, I hurl from this snot the defiance of Westmeath (loud applause), I came'amongst you the nominee of no individual, of no party or faction, or clique — (that is so) — my sole recommendation,- my principles,- which are yours, and whatever of character I may have won by twenty-five years of devoted service in your cause (cheers). The Minister challenged you to give your answer. — A Voice— Well, he is answered now (hear, hear, and laughter).— Mr Smyth — And here it is. You Belect as yonr representative, not the millionare and the aristocrat, Sir John Ennis (loud cheers). — A Voice— We don't want him (great cheering).— Mr Smyth— Not the territorial landlord, honorable gentleman though he be— Mr James Arthur Dease— but one of yourselves, a man of the people, almost the last survivor of a band of patriots (applause). And you do this of yourselves and by yourselves— no extraneous force has been used— no outside pressure has been brought to bear fcpon yon. It is your own, your spontaneous act, the act of an insulted and outraged people. (Cheers.) I charge the Minister that this Coercion Bill has been concocted, not with the view of suppressing crime and and outrage, but of facilitating the work of depopulation of this country. A Voice — He cannot do it. Mr Smyth. — If it were not so, how comes it that this bill is introduced and passed into law at a time when- oriine and outrage had almost disappeared from the face of the country 1 You have already read, I hope, the letter of your bishop, addressed to my Lord Hartington, Chibf Secretary for Ireland, and the letter which his lordship addressed to the Editor of the Express newspaper j bat I hold in my hand an official return of indictable offences known to the police from 1863 to to 1870, and what is it? tale j This is an official return, recoHeoi, relating to West-; meath. The offences in the former year amounted to 214, and in the latter, 1870, #to 74. A Voice-rA, great decrease. (Cheers.) A second Voice— They seem to suffer if they don't keep up to the mark. (Cheers aud laughter.) Mr Syroth — The object of this measure I assert is the depopulation "of the~ country [ hear, hear]. Tbg exterminator preceded the coerciomst, but the aim and object, of both is one an d the same— the depopulation of our country, [hoar, hear]. This

election will be to both a gentle intimation that their hand must be stayed here and elsewhere [cheers]. I say in my address thit I will oppose, the Government of Mr Gladstone [cheers]. A Voice— Miore power to you. Mir Smyth—l will do so, not in a spirit of faction, but in. a spirit: of independence .of #very Jactibn ,(^ear, hear); 1 approve of the

Church Act. I approve of the Land Act, notwithstanding its defects; but the Minister himself informed us that at the very time those measures were being proposed, and passed into law, they were wrung from Mm by men who were being tortured in prison, and subsequently liberated, only to be exiled (groans and hissed). It is, perhaps, not generally known, and it should be borne in mind, that there still pine in British pruons opine thirty or forty of our countrymen who were tried by martial law, and convicted by unconstitutional tribunals of political offence. There are some half dozen insane*- others have been sacrificed, but there are still that number confined in British prisons. A "Voice— We will get them out yet Ccheers). Mr Smyth— The principle preeminently on which I mean to fight the battle— if battle there be and I am ready for it — is that of self-government for Ireland. (Loud applause.) I demand the regeneration and re-acknowledgment of the ancient constitution of this kingdom — the constitution founded in 1511 , declared in 1641 and 1689, and enforced from 1782 to 1800— the constitution of Grattau and the Volunteers based on the dogma "that no person has a right to make laws for Ireland except the king, lords and commons of Ireland." (Cheers.) The first jurists of this country hold that that constitution still lives. (Hear, liear.) The Union has overlaid and endangered that constitution, but it has not extinguished it. (Loud Applause.) It 0 still lives on despite the Union ; there _, still lives that one grand virtue — the virtue of patriotism, the sentiment of nationality, which, with all the chicanery of her laws and all the might of her aTmies, England could never uproot from the Irish breast. (Hear, hear./ Imperilled by- its holy influence, many of our brave forefathers prdudly ascended the scaffold and with their life's blood bore testimony to the faith which God hadjtamped upon their heMts, and the scriptures of which were theVuins tipon their country's soil. (Hear, hear.) Even now, at the present hour, despite coercion, the Bpirit of nationality lives and burns in the land as bright as when the Four Masters, penning the chronicles of thier ancient country, wrote down the- line, " Let every man have his own country" — < (cheers^as bright as when Hugh O'Neill dashed to the. earth his English coronet, . .and unfurled at Clbntibret the banner of an Irish chieftain— as bright as when the Dublin Volunteers, with the ducal Geraldine at their head, declared that , they would not obey nor give operation to any laws Bave only those enacted by the King, the Lords and the Commons of Ireland." (Great applause.) As bright as when the , immortal Grattan, upon the eve .of the disastrous Union, declared that in .-the defence of "the liberties of his country he would lay the shattered remains of. his constitution upon the floor of the Irish- House of Coinnidns. (Great cheering). I stand before yon as the representative of- these sentiments. (Hear,, hear.) In the course of my canvass within the last week I Jiave, traversed this magnificent county! from, end to end, and everywhere I have been received with CDurtesy, with kindness, and with hospitality. I feel overwhelmed by a sense of the responsibility resting on me ; but I will. endeavor to do my iduty. (Hear, hear.) 1 will be guided above and by the advice of your best and truest guides,, the clergy. If I errj reprove me ; if Ido wrong, condemn me, and bid me to resign into your hands the trust which yon have this day reposed in me. (Loud and prolonged applause). '. After the lapse of a few minutes, Mr Smyth again camo.forward,'and proposed, a vote of thanks to the High Sheriff for his dignified aud impartial conduct in the chair (applause).