MR CHILDERS IN IRELAND.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2408, 4 December 1880, Page 2

MR CHILDERS IN IRELAND.

SECOND EDITION

“ Fix us in tlie soil at fair roots, and we will willingly pay them ; and yon will at the same time fix ns in loyalty to onr Sovereign and in obedience to the laws of this realm.” These are the concluding words of the address presented to Mr Childers by the parish priest of Donegal and the other inhabitants of the district. The Secretary for War delivered a very sympathetic as well as sensible reply, lie averred that his mission combined instruction with amusement, and that he was gathering data for future legislation. Though Mr Childers’ visit is of a very quiet and unpretentious character, it marks a great stride in the advance of Irish public opinion as represented in the Cabinet. Lord Palmerston was often in Donegal, both when Minister and in a comparatively piivate station, but none of his visits to the house which he owned on the borderland of Ulster and Connaught partook of the spirit of the present statesman’s tour. Lord Palmerston came simply to seek rest and retirement from the world of politics and legislation. Mr Childers comes professedly to be instructed, with the view of laying the fruits of his observation and experience before his colleagues of the Cabinet. Up to this his journey has resulted in satisfaction at the peace prevailing between tha different sections in a county of the province where religious bickerings assume the most aggravated forms. Mr Childers has passed through the district marked with the blood of Lord Leitrim, and almost at the very scene of the tragedy and he compliments the people upon their simplicity, their peacefulness, and their virtues, natural and acquired. As we pointed out upon Mr Childers’ advent, that which lie has done and what he will see are the most tolling commentaries upon the blind and furious hate of those who cried out for troops and pronounced a Peace Preservation Act the panacea for Ireland. —“Freeman.”