THE IRISH CRISIS—MR GRAY’S CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1038, 2 December 1882, Page 3

THE IRISH CRISIS—MR GRAY’S CASE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —There is no paucity in the expression of influential and representative opinion regarding the Land League, and the whole state of Irish Affairs. The Press, Brisish and Iriih, has discussed those matters from opposite standpoints, both from the tenants' and landlords' side. The Land League itself, and the so-called Property Defence Association, have each their own organs, and, besides, we have countless publications all essaying to discuss the Irish Question, and the complicated issues involved in this burning controversy. It is not my intention to enter upon all the salient points connected with the Irish crisis, but merely to notice briefly a few of the moßt prominent and recent occurrences. I will therefore take up the Land League first. Sir, if there be one fact connected with the present agitation in Ireland on which it might be presumed that all sensible men are agreed, it is that this movement is essentially a social and not a religious movement. Such an assertion scarcely requires proof. A glance at the speeches of the Leaders of the Land League and of the opposite party is sufficient, evidence of their opinions. The words " Socialistic " and " Communistic " have been ! applied to some of the demands formulated on the land question by extreme agitators. Such demands have ever been stigmatized as distinctly irreligious by those who assert that any attempt even by the Crown itself to to legislate between landlord and tenant amounts to unjustifiable confiscation. Even here in New Zealand, at such a great distance from the heat of strife, the same doct-ine has b-en most rgidly and staunchly adveated. But until very lately no one had ventured to ■ affirm that the exiirpatiou of Protestantism,

or tlm i.riumph uf what people call Ultra montauism, was involved in the nnees of the Land T .cague. It is true that the majority of those who ha-'H suffered fro-n non-paym<-nt of rents ha.p;a t.o be Protestants, because the erditer p >rtion o* the land of liehind is h.ild by those who are aliens in race and in f lith to the majority of the papulation, but it cannot be denied that many Catholics have also suffered, as, for instance, Lord Kenroare, MrLangdale, and others, and that well known Catholic names will bo found among the stiuncheat advocates of repressive measures. Aa regards the Land League itself, its President, as is well known, is a Protestant, who does not conceal his opinion that tho Catholic clergy have up to this time had too much influence in Irish politic*. Associated with Mr Parneil are such men as tho Rov. Messrs Rylefct and Cotter,(Proto»taat Rector, County Limerick), Mr John Eugerson, of Glasgow, whom no person knowing him as intimately as I do would acciue of Catholic tendencies, , whilo the very birth phce and cradle of the Land League, the County Mayo, is represented in Parliament by the Rev. Is.'.ac Neilson, a Prcsbyfceriau Min Mer. Not only so, but tho two foremost Catholic spokesmen of the League, Messrs Dillon and Davit t, have availed themselves of every public occasioi of declaring that it ia their wish to unite and Catholics together in the grand etrugglo for tho objects in new, arid that some of the worst enemies of the national cause are Catholic landowners in the Sjuth and West of Ireland. Have not proclamations been issued from time to time to the tenant farmers of Ulster urging them, as their interests were identical, to make common cause with their Catholic fellow-countrymen) in the South, and Mr Dillon was received with so much enthusiasm at mix-'d monster meetings of both Protestants and Catholics in the Counties of Monachal!, Down, Antrim and Derry, that he boasti of having given at last the death blow to sectarian animositi-.s and to political divisions caused by divergencies in religion. Whatever e'sa may be urged (and much certainly has been unfairly and uivjivily urged against the Land League even in the colonies), it cannot bo charged with attempting to gain popularity by idenfying iti interests with thote of the Catholic majority, or of inflaming the minds of its followers with tirades agiinst the religious views of the majority of the Protestant landowning class. Here it uviy not bo inappropriate for me to allude to the very substantial aid and generous sympathy which the Irish Laud League has extended to the evicted tenants in the Nor Mi of Scotland who are fighting the same battle as their kindred in Ireland. The crisis in Ireland is grave enough without the Executive of the Country importing into it elements of confusion and religious discordance in deling with, and packing, June?, selected to try the momentous issues involved in trials at the present time in Ireland. This conduct is causing much alarm, and making thoughtful peoplu fear a new danger by the importation of religious ani mosities at this pirticular movement. The striking out, at the instance of tho Crown, of twelve, eighteen, and twenty jurymen in succession from the lis f ;s of those qualified to serve, for no other reason but on account of their religion, is creating a most painful impression in the minds of many, even of the-n who have very little or no sympathy with the programme of the Land League. Some of the Catholics who have been told to stand asid* in the trial with which Mr Gray got involved are men of the highest position and most unblemished reputation. This system of jury packing in Ireland by the Irish Executive, I say it without fear of contradiction, has been the most fruitful source of jealousy and hatred for centuries in Ireland. In short I know of no other malpractice of British rule that has more effectually revived religious hate and discord. I don't dispute that the Crown has legally the right to strike out whom it thinks proper, or to eliminate names on any principle it chooses, but in the case of Hynes the election was conducted on a most invidious scale, and out of all fair proportion to the number of Catholics. This course of procedure is now nothing new to the Irish people. They have got so accustomed to jury packing by the Crown that they have come to regard it as a perscriptive right—sortetbing inalienable to the soil. No matter what the learned English jurist Judge Denham affirmed when he pronounced trial by jury in Ireland to be only " a mockery, a delusion,and a snaro," still the Irish regard I it as -wonderful condescension on the part of the British Government to grant a trial at all to them. They think that they should be treated as Mr Gray was treated—not granted a hearing at all, but imprisoned and fined ri"-ht off. For the thousandth and one-time the grave responsibility, the odium, of exciting religious discord and of exciting class against class in Ireland lies at the door of the Irish Executive. Yes, sir, too much has I already been done for the impression ever to be effaced that those who are acting in this jury-packing system have deliberately reopened the religious question in Ireland, and have thrown themselves exclusively on Protestant support—thereby wantonly insulting the great Catholic population of Ireland. For exposing in his journal these great outrages and insults that have been given to Catholic Ireland—for publishing the gross and glaring scandals committed by a jury getting drunk, playing at billiards, and cards, and otherwise conducting themselves in a most riotous and disorderly manner in a public house, and more especially having free intercourse with the public, whilst they were supposed to be secluded deliberating upon the life or death of their fellow man—for exposing such inhuman and disgusting conduct, Mr Gray, without even a trial or one word being heard in defence, was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment and mulcted in a weighty fine—though lam sorry that Lawson did not make it twenty times the amount, as it would have given the Irish nation a fitting opportunity to prove their gratitude to, and just"appreciation of, MiGray. But I forgot they would have had a j

grand spreo at the castle on the head of it or perhaps it would have been converted into' blood-money to bring up informers. Bcgorra, sir, a fome paying game that same is in Ireland at the present time (as Pat would say). Supposing such notorious misconduct on the part of a"jury in Wellington, Dunedin, or Ohristchurch and that the editor of a Christchurch, Dunedin, or Wellington paper had the moral courage to denounce it in his journals I ask you, sir, is there any high minded man in the country, no matter to what class or creed he belongs, would say that lie exceeded his duty as a public journalist ? The judicial slaughter of Hynes has b?cn consummated, Mr Gray has been released,and the British Press, without exception, has spoken out vigorously, condemning Judge Lawson's unwise bigotry and prejudice. Public opinion has reversed the sentence, and-the curtain drops withjdishonor on Judge Lawson whilst the upright journalist is lionsed and immortalised in the Press of i Europe and by the great Senate House of Britain, whilst his intigrity and other manly virtues will be for ever combined in the memory and hearts of 'his faithful follow countrymen. More honour will be paid a hundred years to come (Cometa, Volente) to the journalist who fearlessly denounced each gross outrage upun humanity than to the Judge who passed the sentence —for the Irish never forget. I ask who is the Irishman ihat would not rather have the fame and bo remembered—As Robert Emmett than Lord Norbury who condemed him; as John Mitchell, Wm Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, than old purple Brunswieker, Barn Lcfroy, who sentenced them to be hung, drawn and quartered—l would.—l am etc.

A Eae Downee, Timaru, Nov. 28th 1882.