The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1883. THE DYNAMITE SCARE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1167, 30 October 1883, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1883. THE DYNAMITE SCARE.

During the past week telegraphic communication with Europe was interrupted, and we heard nothing of what was going on in the Old World. It is really now, when communication is restored, that we can realise the blessing it is. Ilere is a specimen : London, Oct. 22.

It is reported that a plot has been discovered in Canada to destroy by dynamite the new Governor-General, the Marquis of Lansdowno. Ottawa, Oct. 22. Considerable alarm prevails at Quebec in consequence of fears that an attempt will be made on the life of the Marquis af Lansdowne, the new GovernorGeneral.

Oct. 25. The Marquis of Lansdowne arrived at Quebec to-day, and was received with great enthusiasm. There was no; foundation for the fears entertained that an attempt would be made on the life of His Excellency. It is wonderful the small amount of harm that has been done considering the quantity of dynamite that is in circulation just now, if we are to believe Reuter’s agent. There was an Inspectorof Nuisances in Masterton (Wellington), a few years ago, who, by an advertisement, offered to bet any man £SO that he could smell a nuisance two rafles off. Reuter’s agent can beat this. He can amell dynamite thousands of miles across the ocean, or at least he fancies that he does, for it was only fancy after all. Irishmen of course ought to have been the dynamiters, but they did not come to the scratch, and so there was no one blown up and the Marquis of Lansdowne is still alive and kicking. Why Irishmen should have such a down on Lord Lansdowne we cannot for the life of us understand. We just happen to know something about this nobleman. We were bom and reared within a few miles of his estate, and consequently >;cau speak with some knowledge of the subject. The late Marquis was certainly no great shakes, or at least his agent was not. AboutSOyears ago be evicted his tenants wholesale, and with Government money sent them to America penniless, where they died by the thousand of starvation and disease. So great was the mortality amongst them that they were thrown together into a grave in New York, and the place is called to this day

“ Lansdowne’s grave.” We could tell of n 0 many other cruelties which Mr W. S. „ Trench indulged in, but those days are gone. Mr John Townsend Trench succeeded bis father as agent for the young Marquis, and the tenants have, | comparatively speaking, nothing to complain of. During a part of.the year the young Marquis lives on his estate 'in Ireland, and certainly shows /much interest in his tenantry. He used to go about with the Marchioness

pr from cabin to cabin and from farm to farm, chock the ragged urchins unde r the chin, speak pleasantly to their mothers and talk farming to their fathers, and no one ever touched a hair of his head. He has also distinguished himself for his liberality towards Ireh*nhby his speeches in the House ot Hjords. He has even gone to the extent of advocating peasant proprietory —exactly what the Irish are asking for—and in fact has made himself on the whole very agreeable. Why, then, in the name of all that is good, Irishmen should prepare a' dynamite reception for him is a mystery to us. Had it been his predecessor, the Marquis of Lome, we should not have been dialf so much surprised, He went to America once and wrote a fearful book on the Irish in America. If the dynamiters had avenged that we should not feel surprised, but they did not. They allowed the Marquis of Lome to travel all over the country without an attempt being made on his life. We do not believe there is the least danger of the life of the Marquis of Lansdowne either. There is no reason whatsoever for thinking that there should, and we venture to think that Reuter’s agent is about the only man that feels any anxiety tor the salety of the Governor-General of Canada. The fact of the matter is there is no crime going at present, and as there is not it must be manufactured.

HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA,

Ouk cablegrams inform us that Messrs Chapman and Hall announce the publication of a history of Australia of which Mr Rusden is one of the authors. This Mr Rusden is the gentleman who recently

libelled the present Native Minister-the flop Mr Bryce and Now Zealand P'llitimw? ag a jyljolfl, Pe carried home with him a wonderful ‘yarn* of the oruel'y of colonists towards the Natives,

and roused up the virtuous indignation of the goody-goody people of Exeter Hall to fever height. What a man-to write a history—a miserable malicious libeller. Of all the politicians that have ever held the reins of Government in New Zealand the Hon John Bryce is the honestest, the most hardworking and the most unselfish, and yet he is depicted as a cruel unrelenting monster by this new-flledged historian. We can fancy what a history this will be. Colonists will, no doubt, be represented as the very acme of cruelty, and all the old maids of the mission societies will weep themselves to the verge of blindness out of pity for the sufferings of the ‘ noble savage.' What a prospect for us colonists that future generations shall be reading of ‘ the cruelties of the present day.’ We understood from a speech made by Mr Bryce in the House of Representatives last session tha*- he intended taking steps to prosecute this venomous libeller, but that he declined to use public money for that purpose. It appears to us that he ought to do so, because if these untruths are to be put forth >n the form of history for future irenerations to study, it is not merely a private, but a public matter. Such false statements ought not to be allowed to go abroad without an effort being made to show the world their untruthfulness.