THE TWO "CRIMINALS."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 17, 23 January 1891, Page 29

THE TWO " CRIMINALS."

{Irish World, November 29.)

THKBEare two mea now in the United States as visitors wto, wheretver they go, are received by the whole people with extraordinary manifestations of re>pect aud honour. In every town they visit thty are met and welcomed enthusiastically, not aerely by vast masiea of the inhabitauta, but by the high pub.ic officials aud leading citiz ns. Governors of Sta c*, members of Legislatures, mayors ot ciuee, professional and business men gather around them and take prominent and active part in demonstrations of esteem and regard. The two men who are thus honoured wherever tb«y appear in America are two Irishmen, who, if they were at the present moment to set foot on their own native land, would be promptly seiz-d by policemen and put into gaol as criminals and kent trere for six montns. Here is a etrange state of things which would seem to require explanation. Why do American citizens, including high Govern-ment-gfScials, honour men who in their own couutry h-ve beeu " foi^JpT guilty "of crime and sentenced to th prison men t ? Are American citizens so regardless of law as to pay tributes of respect to those who violate it ? By law in Ireland John Dillon and William O'Brien are sentenced convicts-they are •' fugitives from justice." Why then, do Americans welcome and applaud them ? There can be but one answer to this question. It is because Americans do not be leve those men to be criminals, do not believe the law wtnch condemned them 10 be a just law. So far from regardmg John Dillon and William O'Brien as vile law-breakers and

outlaws, Americans regard them as honest men and true patriots, and the law under which such men are made convicts Americans regard as a law of tyrants and oppressors, a law which has no moral sanction or moral force, aod, therefore, deaerviug only the contempt of free men. In America law is respec ed by all good citizens because it is the expression of the people's will, made by the people for the people. In America the executors and adminis'rators of law. from the chief magistrate of the nation to the common policeman, are respected and honoured because they are chosen by the people themselves, and are the guardians of the people's lives and properties and rights. The ministers of the law in America are not the hirelings and tools of tyrants ; they do not insult the people and the people's representatives. They are, in fact, themselves representatives of the people aod in performance of their duties are doing the people's work. In Ireland it is all quite different. Law there is on one side and popular sympathy on the other— law and its administrators are hated by the people because they are known to be the people's enemies. Law in Ireland has plundered and oppressed and banished millions of the Irish race. Hence it is that it is no stigma on a man's reputation to be condemned by that law ; hence it is that John Dillon and Wil iam O'Brien instead of being dishonoured by conviction and sentence in the Tipperary court, are the more endeared to their conntrymen and the more respected by lovers of liberty and justice all the world over.