CRIMELESS IRELAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 2 September 1907, Page 2

CRIMELESS IRELAND.

> To the Editor, t -gi,. —We have had an unusual amount of disquieting news cabled to the cols | ony during the past couple of months ' 'in reference to Irish affairs. Persons n I who do not read the Home papers and I have no means of supplementing or correcting the information gleaned from j the cablegrams, might readily imaginei that crime and lawlessness were ram-l pant throughout the greater part of the Emerald Isle. Therefore in the interests of truth and justice- kindly permit me to bring under the notice of 'your readers irrefragable evidence—eviIdence sufficiently cogent to convince the Jnost sceptical—that in most parts if .the country serious crime is unmown. The testimony I am going to idduce to substantiate this assertion is if the most undisputable, unimpeaehiblc character—the testimony of the Supreme Court judges in their addresses o the Grand Juries at the Assizes held n Julv. In Fermanagh, Lord Justice fitzgibbon, a judge of high standing, m opening the Court, siid he ventured! 0 believe that there was a consider- 1 We proportion of the cduntry which md little or no legal history to be reorded at Assizes. Perhaps, he added, hat proportion, large and important as t was, did not receive as much public ttcntion, or occupy as much space in he newspapers as did the less orderly nd prosperous parts of Ireland. Mr 'ustice GJbson, in his address to the Jrand Jury at Limerick,-said there was mly one small case to be considered. ?hat was the smallest record of crime hat lie (His Lordship) recollected from he time he first came as Judge of Assize to that County, nineteen years go. Mr Justice Kenny, addressing the 3rand Jury at Monaghan Assizes, «aid t was his pleasing duty to inform thejn hat they had no criminal business to lispose of at-those Assizes. It was, irima facie, a very satisfactory state if things. The statistics handed to him >v the County Inspector showed that iinee the last Assizes there had been 1 decrease in the number of cases of [runkenness to the extent of between .hi'co and four hundred. As to the gen>ral condition of the County,the County Inspector told him it was in an orderly md peaceable condition. That was all /ery gratifying, and he begged to conjratulate tiiem. The High Sheriff then rfesented His Lordship with a pair of .vhite gloves. His Lordship expressed lis pleasure of being tho recipient of ivhite gloves, which wero symbolical of the absence of serious crime in the bounty. His Lordship humorously re'erred to the fact that ho had been ivitliin an ace of getting white gloves it Trim, County Meath, but a trivial iase had been sent, forward a few days before.

I Those who would know the truth 'about Ireland should not take their | views from the Unionist press and. i Unionist members of Parliament, most |of whom seem to vie with one another lin trying to blacken the character of their country before the world. Better take a glance at the records of crime-j lessness of lite Assizes, and tho complimentary remarks of many of tho judges. If there are offences of an agrarian character in a few places there must be •rrjcvancoe at tlic lmclc of them. Lot the Government remove tho grievances and then the order and peace prevailing in most parts will become general. If the harsh treatment ' meted out to the evicted tenants by tile House of Lords bears its legitimate fruit, then I say, with Mr Birrell, that that august jbotly should bo held responsible, not the people,, the victims of their selfish and bungling legislation.—l am, etc., JAMES McKENNA.