THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM ON THE COMING REFORM BILL.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 156, 19 April 1859, Page 3

THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM ON THE COMING REFORM BILL.

The Freeman's Journal publishes a long letter from the Archbishop of Tuam to the Earl of Derby, calling his lordship's attention to the claims of Catholic Ireland in the drawing up of the forthcoming Reform Bill. After warning him of the fate which befel Lord Palmerston's administration, from the levity with which that nobleman treated interests which were dear to large bodies of his country men, the Archbishop reminds the Earl of his eloquent denunciations against the anomaly and injustice of the Protestant establishment in Ireland. "If this state of things," he observes, "was then a crying evil, it remains so still, demanding the serious attention of every minister who, instead of delusive palliatives, is anxious to establish justice and peace in the country." The Archbishop next touches on the question of Catholic Education, and tire necessity of " expanding its free action to the ample dimensions of the Church', which is emphatically the Church, of the People." He refers to the Protestant Church in Ireland as " a political garrison more than an efficient expounder of any religious creed," to the Q,ueen's colleges as a manifest and notorious failure, and to the national system of education as having been " twisted from the harmless thing it first seemed," and as having become an object of deep aversion to the Irish people. But the evil felt most acutely, he says, is the inability of the tenant class to exercise the franchise in accordance with their convictions without incurring the landlord's vengeance, and the only remedy is the ballot, without which any extension of suffrage would be only an increase of the evil. " The other .questions^1' he says, " which might be called the statistical mechanism of reform, I leave entirety to those able men who are practised in such interesting details , at. the same time, were I to discuss these questions, it would not be difficult to show that, with the exception, perhaps, of Tipperary and Cork, there are no other English shires or Irish counties so unfairly curtailed in their representation as Mayo and Gal way, over a large portion of which this diocese extends. Still, having seen the goneral dishonesty with which Irish, members have discharged their duties, especially since the betrayal of their trust in 1852, 1 attach little importance to the extension or abridgement of the number of our representatives, compared to their qualities, well aware that fifty men of talent, with the integrity, the industry, and the devotednes3 of Bright—not to speak of his eloquence, which would be valueless without the other ingredients—would achieve more benefit for Ireland, and through Ireland for the empire at large, in one session of Parliament, than would two hundred members, were they to prove such traitors as several of our representatives during the longest parliamentary career." Transplanting- Apparatus.—The following is a description of a transplanting apparatus, supplied by a correspondent to the Farm and Garden, an Adelaide journal:—About two years ago I constructed a little machine for moving small gums, pines, seedling orange3 y &c, and have found it very useful for that purpose when the ground is not too dry, stiff, or stony. The cost is small as any one can make it, and to enable them to do so I will describe it as well as I can. Get a piece of four-inch galvanised iron pipe, clean and smooth, about nine inches in length ; bend a piece of hoop iron to form two cars or handles, and rivet it round one end of the cylinder, leaving the ears to project horizontally; then cut out a circular piece of sheet-iron 3^ iuch diameter, out of this cut a triangular piece to give room for the stem of the plant; fasten this to the ends of two pieces of batten two feet long with a cross-piece at the other ends, and you have what I call a piston. To use it, place the cylinder over the plant (which in gums or pines should not be over, eight inches high), force it down as far as it will go with moderate pressure, draw it up, and you have the plant with a firm roll of earth round the roots; then dig a hole where you wish to plant, place it in at the proper depth, the cylinder with the plant iv it, fill in the earth round it, then take the piston, and placing the cross-piece against the breast and the opposite end round the plant, draw up the cylinder and the job is done. To move a number of plants any distance, force them into a box or boxes to hold when close together sixteen or twenty, fill in the interstices with a little earth ; they can be taken up again and planted as before dacribed. I moved some gums in' January last, soon after they were out of the ground, by placing the cylinder over them and filling it with,water. I also filled the.,hole with water before planting, and shaded them with piedes.i)f paling, and did not loose one, •