The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1887. STATE OF IRELAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1564, 5 April 1887, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, APRIL 6, 1887. STATE OF IRELAND.

In the newe by the San Francisco mail received yesterday the following telegram appears

" General Buller gave evidence before the Oowper Land Commission in rsgard to the condition of things in Ireland, on March 9th. Hie testimony was in effect that there is not much law in the country, and what there is seems entirely on the side of the rich. The rents, he declares, have been entirely too high, and it is the pressure of high rents according to prices of agricultural produce that causes the trouble, and there ought to be a stay of evictions wherrfver equity demanded it.”

It might bo as well that wo ahou'd understand the full meaning of this. It means that there is no law in Ireland except what is on the side of the rich—that is, that the rich have power to crash the poor, while the poor have no redress. In Egypt, Turkey, or Russia, where despotism runs rampant, things could not be worse than they are in Ireland under the rule of the Conservative Government of Lord Salisbury, supported by the Hartington-Chsmber-lain section of English Liberals. General Sir Redvers' Boiler is evidently an honest Englishman who is disgusted with the part he has to play in Ireland. He was sent to Ireland ostensibly to suppress crime, but it has since been made apparent that the reel object in view was to suppress landlord rapacity. He did vary little.to suppress crime, . for there was no crime to suppress, but be worked hard to make landlords act justly towards their tenants. In consequence of this interference with the landlords’ liberties ho was bounded down by the landlord press and the most rabid of the Conservative mi-mbers ; Lord Randolh Churchill, who originated the idea of sending him on such a mission bad to resign, and the idea o 1 suppressing landlord rascality bad to be abandoned. The Under-Secretary for Ireland, Sir Robert Hamilton, who was also favoring the poor tenantry of Ireland, was removed, and the coast was thus completely cleared for the landlords te set as they desired. The Plan of Campaign was then adopted by the Irish people under the guidance of John Dillon. The Plan of Campaign works in this way ; The tenants go to the landlord in a body, tell him the produce of ths land has fallen in value 50 per cent, that they cannot pay the usual rent, and ask him for a reduction of 20 per cent. If the landlord accepts their offer, matters are immediately settled amicably ; if not, the tenants pay some trustworthy person the rent, less 30 per cent, and give notice to the landlord that be can have it any moment he likes. For being concerned in this John Dillon has been tried and acquitted, and the Coercion Bill now before the House is not to put down crime, bat to pat down the Plan ot Campaign. Mr Dillon has done nothing except what General Sir Redvers Buller tried to do. Sir Redvers Buller did all he could to suppress the rapacity of the landlords. Amongst the first things he had to deal with after having gone to Ireland was the Glenbeigh Estate in the County Kerry. According to a speech delivered in Parliament by Mr Parnell, the original owner and the mortgagees of this estate had been at loggerheads for the last five years. Both parties had served notices on the tenants not to pay any rent until it was decided who was entitled to receive them* and consequently when the dispute was settled in last August the tenants found themselves owing five years’ rent. Under the Land Act of 1881 rents had been reduced throughout Ireland by the Land Court, but the rents of these poor tenants of Glenbeigh continued to accnmnlate at the original high rate. In September writs were served on the tenants for the five years’ rent, and in October judgment was given for the amounts claimed, and costs, which amounted to a sum equal to two and a-half years’ rent, The tenants could not pay, and General Bailer made an attempt to mediate between them and their landlord. He went to England specially to see the landlord —a Mr Merrick Head—and made other efforts to secure fair play to the tenants. The following letter addressed by him to the agents, Messrs Darley and Roe, will show what he did,.:— Gihtlsubn,—l regret to have to inform you that I have done my bed. in tbii oeie, and that the tenants persist in asierting that they are unable to pay one year’s rent and coete. Your letter hae been road to them, and their reply wae, “ The houses must come down, we cannot pay it.” The bishop bag, I am certain, exerted all hie influence to obtain the settlement you asked for, but has failed, and he believes, and I am bound to say that personally I agree with him, that it is impossible for them to pay the sum demanded. Most of the tenants are deeply in debt to the shopkeepers in Killorglin, and several of them have not paid back the amount they borrowed from the bank for, they say, the lest payment they made. Anyhow, it is certain they are paying interest to the bank. The seventy tenants against whom decree* have been obtained have undertaken to pay one gale’s rent and costs, if you will accept that. Thie promise was made to Mr Quilter, ie confirmed by him, and was repeated to me by twelve spokesmen whom he brought here to-day. I have told them that it was impossible you could accept it, but I earnestly hope you will. There may be, and perhaps there are, a few rogues among them—say five or six—who could pay more, but I do believe that the offer represents in respect of the majority of them a somewhat larger sum than they are actually in a position to pay, and which can only be paid out of credit hoped for elsewhere. In my opinion the great number of the tenants are nearer famine than payment of rent. I relieve that if you will accept the gala and costs, and allow the tenants a receipt to May, 1686, and let them have their rents adjusted

by the Land Court or a vsluntor, you will get more money for your client and cause him less expense than any course you can adopt, and will, at the same time, bring an almost lost estate into a workable condition. lam tery averse to ask anyone to depart from a position taken up after due consideration, but Mr Head’s letter to you of the 25 h instant, a copy of which he sent to me, leads me to hope that yon may aecept the offer now made, and I can only say that if it was my estate I should be glad to take it. Father Quilter promised that after these seventy tenants were settled with be would do his best with the others.—Yours faithfully, (Signed) Ridtbm Buiui,

This letter had not the effect of settling the matter, and the tenants were evicted wholesale, their houses were burned down, end about 100 families put out cm the road side. The news created a great sensation in England, and some English Members of Parliament paid a visit to the scene of the evictions. One of them—-Mr C. A, V. Oonybeare—spoke of the evictions as follows They had met, first, to protest against the inhuman scoundrel who had been burning the houses of Glenbeigh (groans) • and, secondly, to denounce a Government of incendiaries and petroleum who had m defiance, as he maintained, of the constitutional law of Geat Britain, ventured to identify themselves with those cut-throat villains. (Cheers). They had—and Sir Michael flicksBeach’s telegram proved it—they had ordered the constables to stand by, not merely to defend the sheriff in the execution of a law whbh was a disgrace to any civilised country, but to stand by to protect that fellow Roe (groans), whose name, he hoped, might be handed down by the curses of the people of Great Britain and Ireland to the/execration of all posterity. (Cheers). The Government had ordered the police to stand by and protect this villain with his brigade of crowbar men, consisting of the dregs and scum of the population—men who had served their time in the jails of this ooun'ry, and these were the men who were let loose upon a moral, an honest, an industrious, and a wholly inoffensive population—who are sent amongst them with the paraffin oil, the mutches, and the crowbar, to hunt out these inoffensive people, and to exterminate families like the Quirkes, who were hundreds of years planted on their native soil before the dishonorable landlord of <he place came upon the scene at all. (Groans). Why was there such excitement all over the civilised world about the Glenbeigh evictions, for evictions in this country were no unusual occurrence ? It was not merely that Roe had ventured to apply the torch and the crowbar. These things had been done before, But it was because there had been upon the scene a body of men, including English Radicals, and the press of this country and of Great Britain, as well as their own trusted leaders. (Cheers). And this band of men fighting in their behalf had .aused such a shed of light, to bei cast over the whole of the desolute vallsv of Glenbeigh that the whole civilised world’* attention bad been brought to bear upon it, and the evil deeds of the landlord faction and their minions had at last been dragged into the light of day. Why was he, and why was Mr Pry and the other members of Parliament theie? Their idea was that they might be of some service to the people, and he hoped* they bad been (cheers) in endeavoring to see fair play between the myrmidons of the law and their unfortunate friends. (Hear, hear). He went on to show bow the landlord newspapers purposely invented lies to show the tenants np at a disadvantage, and continued : He would only add to that, that if in England these things ware to happen, and he was a tenant whose/ house was to be torn down in that manner, be would take care, indeed, to have some weapon ready to brain the sooundrel. (Loud and prolonged cheering). The English were noi so law-abiding as the Irish were, for the latter had patiently submitted to these wrongs for generations, and their spirit in some parts hud been crushed out of them by the long oppression they had undergone. (Hear, hear). He hoped that the time was soon coming when, not indeed by violence, but by the constitutional action of meu like themselves in Parliament, they might be able to free the people, ones and for all, from the curse of this hideous criminal oppression. In the early part of the century, when men were hung for stealing a few shillings, the law was so bad that jurymen violated their oaths, and would not bring in verdicts of guilty against the people against whom the offence was established on the clearest evidence. He said that that was a good precedent for them. (Hear, hear). He would wish to see men with sufficient pluok, like the bailiffs of Lord Dillon, who, perhaps under the fear of the consequences, refused to serve writs; or like the sheriff of the county Clare, who bad resigned bis position, perhaps because he had a wholesome dread of the bullets whioh be recollected last time were flying about his ears. In England juries had refused to convict, and men with humane feelings would refuse to carry out a hw so hideously cruel. If that were done, they would soon find that the bad law which they were denouncing could not be put into force. He (Mr Conybeare) was prepared to say and speak bis mind on all occasions as fully us he did in England, and he would , omit no opportunity that, presented itself to him of getting this detestable law done away with for ever, and saving them and their children from further persecution. (Loud cheers).

This coming from on English member of Parliament ought to have some weight, but it would appear that it has not, as the (Tovemraeot, instead of giving the poor people some relief, are engaged in passing the most awful Coercion Act that was ever thought of.