The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-08-27 00:00:00

DEMONSTRATION IN DUBLIN.

A great political demonstration took place on Tues-
day evening at the Rotunda in Dublin, when the
Round Room of thee famous building, as well as the
Concert Room and the Pillar Room, was packed with
an orderly crowd, who had collected to register a
protest against the proclamation of the National
League as a dangerous anociation. The meeting had
been called by unsigned placards posted all over the
city, and the extent to which the requisition was re-
sponded to was remarkable. All classes of the com-
munity were represented, and many ladies were
among the audience. The Lord Mayor, Mr. T. D.
Sullivan, M.P.' was in the chair, and with him, as
representing the Irish parliamentary party, were Mr.
John Dillon, M.P., Mr. Wm. O'Brien, M.P.' Mr. T.
Harrington, M.P., Secretary of the National League,
Dr. J. E. Kenny, M.P., Father Eugene Sheehy, Mr.
Jacob Bright, M.P., Mr. H. P. Cobb, M.P., Mr. R. B.
Haldane, M.P., Mr: Fenwick, M.P., and other mem-
bers of Parliament, Mr. T. A. Dickson, and Professor
Gelbraith. A band was stationed in the gallery of the
Round Room, and amid a tremendous round of cheer-
ing struck up the air of "God save Ireland," follow-
ing up this popular chorus with "The Wearing of
the Green," and other national airs, which were re-
ceived with unbounded enthusiasm. Cheers were
given for Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone, and groans
for the Tory Government.
The Lord Mayor, in opening the proceedings, said
that so great had been the mass of people assembled
there that evening to send up a note of defiance to the
Castle, and to show that they were not intimidated
by the Government proclamation—(loud groans)—
come what might from that quarter, that they had
had to arrange that there should be two or three
other meetings. They had on that platform English
friends—(loud and continued cheers)—English mem-
bers of Parliament who, on the floor of the House of
Commons, were fighting the battle of Ireland, whose
hearts were as warm and whose spirits were as bold
and brave in the cause of Ireland as any amongst
them—(cheers)—and he would ask his hearers to give
them a quiet and patient hearing. (Cheers.) The
Irish members despised and defied the proclamation
of the Government. The League had been proclaimed
as a dangerous association. (Groans, and cries of
"It's a lie.") As their forefathers had treated the
penal lews so would they treat the proclamation.
Come what might the National League would
accomplish what it was intended to accomplish—the
freedom of the Irish people. (Cheers.)
Mr. T. Harrington, secretary of the National
League, then read a letter from the Archbishop of
Dublin, who expressed his best wishes for the un-
qualified success of the meeting and his sympathy
with the efforts of the Irish people to give effect to
their wishes to obtain a grant of those forms of con-
stitutional self-government enjoyed by the English
people.
Telegoms of sympathy were received from Mr.
HerbertlGladstone, M.P., Mr. 0. E. Schwann, M.P.,
Mr. H. Broadhurst, M.P., Mr. T. Ellis, M.P., Mr.
Sale-Hayne, M.P., Mr. Robeet Wallace, M.P., and
others.
Professor Galbraith, Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, described the action of the Government as a
total invasion of civil liberty, and as one which should
be viewed with sorrow and alarm. He moved" That
this meeting of the citizens of Dublin denounces in
the face of the civilised world the proclamation of
the Irish National League as an unscrupulous attempt
to drive the Irish people from the path of peaceful
and constitutional struggle for their rights, and to
disarm them of the organisation which suppressed
crime and outrage, and wakened the English
democracy to sympathy with the sufferings aed the
aspirations of the Irish people, and that we are deter-
mined never to submit to so great an outrage upon
our constitutional liberty." (Cheers.)
Mr. Vincent Sculley, a Tipperary landlord, sup-
ported the resolution as a late convert to the Home
Rule movement. He had protested against the last
coercion law because he thought it was runjust, and
had resigned his post as a magistrate in consequence
when the present Coercion Act was passed. He com-
pleted his conversion by joining the National League.
(Cheers.)
Mr. Jacob Bright, M.P., who was received with loud
cheers, said he had come there that night to express his
sympathy n ith them and their cause. The recent
coercive legislation had placed the country in a most
humiliating position, and he was confident the Irish
people would act in such a manner as not to be
humiliated by it. They were no longer weak; they
were now strong enough to know how to be calm and
self-restrained in this impending struggle' which might
be a serious one for all they knew. He had confiden
in their wisdom. If disorder arose let it spring from
the Government, and not from themselves. In their
opposition to the Government he would advise them to
apply passive resistance. This was a power which had
destroyed more powerful Governments than the
eresent. He had come there to protest against
ii justice to Ireland—(cheers)—and he believed the
hour of their deliverance was at hand. (Renewed
cheers.)
Mr. Cobb, M.P. who followed, said that, as an
English Radical, and the soa and grandson and the
father of English Radicals, he had intended visiting
Ireland at a later period of this year, but directly he
beard that the Government had proclaimed the
National League, he felt it was time, not for words,
but for action—(cheers)—and that there should be a
closer alliance between the English Radicals and the
In h Nationalists. (Cheers.) He (Mr. Cobb) was
there to ask the Irish people to forgive the Govern-
ment of England for their past misgovernment of
Ireland, and he would ask them to trust and hope
in Mr. Gladstone and the English Radical party for
the achievement of all their hopes. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. R. B. Haldane, as a Scottish member of Par-
liament, assured the meeting of the earnest sympathy
of the Scottish people with the people of Ireland in
their present hour of oppression. The time had been
when Scotland had been ground down by oppres-
sion not less tyrannical and galling than that
which the Irish people suffered. He congratu-
lated the Irish people now upon the position
at which they bad arrived. They bad laid
the foundation of what before many months, perhaps
before many weeks, had gone by, would prove to be a
lasting victory. (Cheers.) What they had not yet
got, but what they would get at last, were those quiet
and moderate people who did not vote with the Irish
people at the last election, who did not then under-
stand what the Irish people wanted, but who, when
they saw the National Government oppressed by
coercion, would oast aside their verdict and place
themselves on the side of the Irish people. (Load
cheers.) Let them maintain a calm and resolute
demeanour, and Uie the most temperate and moderate
language, and be most fair in their dealings. They
should not take the part of the tenant against the
landlord, except when it was made necessary by the
dictates of justice. (Cheers.) Let tbem go forward
peacefully, resolutely, and firmly, and they would
make a sweep, bag and baggage, of the monstrous
system of government which existed in Ireland. (Re-
newed cheers.)
Mr. Fenwick having spoken,
Mr. John Dillon, M.P., addressed the meeting, and
I said his English friends who had addressed them
l would tell the people of England that they saw in
that Rotunda an assembly of the mass of the citizens
I of Dublin, and that they learned that the public of
that city condemned the proclamation of the League.
At last the Tory Government had plucked up courage
Ito proclaim the National League. They said in the
' proclamation that it was a "dangerous association."
He was very proud to see that they thought 110. They
I had done their little best to make it a dangerous
association, and if they had succeeded in doing FO
they had simply succeeded in doing their duty to the
people of Ireland. They were told by the Tory press
of England that the struggle which was now being
entered upon was a life and death szuggle between
the National League on the one side and Unionist
Government of Ireland on the other. They had never
courted that struggle; they did not attack the
Government; they were simply defending the people.
(Cheers.) Since this struggle had been forced upon
them they welcomed it, and if it was to be a life and
death struggle between the National League and the
Government for supremacy in the country, then he
would say that they went into it with light hearts.
(Renewed cheers.) He hoped that it was a struggle
out of which one party or the other would come a
dead man. He wished for nothing better than that
it should bo a struggle for existence. What was the
indictment against the National League founded
upon? They did not attempt to say that the League
encouraged crime. On the contrary, they had ad-
mitted that the League suppressed crime, and had
even put great pressure on the people in order to keep
within the law. The Government saw the people
kept within the law, but then they thought that was
what made the League all the more dangerous. If
I the operations of the League in the past could be
I correctly described by intimidation, then he said that
he intended to practise and preach the same doctrine
over and over again. (Cheers.) If there were any
man in Ireland base enough to back down, and turn
his back on the fight, he pledged himself that he would
, denounce him from public platforms by name, and
let that man be who be might, his life would
I not be a happy one in Ireland, or scrolls the
seas. He said that with the intention of carrying it
out, and without fear of any interpretation put upon
it by Tory newspapers. They knew what he meant,
and they also knew that there was no man in Ireland
who bad gone further or done more to restrain the
people from acts of violence—(hear, hear)—and he
declared that, without violence, without illegality, and
without immorality of action, they could punish the
man who proved himself to be a traitor or an enemy
of the people, and punish him they would in spite of
all proclamations. (Cheers.)
Mr. O'Brien said that no Irishman would be worth
his salt who did not trample the proclamation of the
Government under foot. He, however, counselled the
Irish people to exercise calmness in the struggle for
freedom.
Mr. Harrington' M.P., Dr. Kenny, M.P., and others
addressed the meeting.
The resolution was passed, and the meeting, after
a vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor, then dispersed in
an orderly fashion, the crowds escorting the English
visitors to their hotel, singing and cheering through-
out the principal thoroughfares.

EPITAPH for a Boatman—Life le oar.
AN old miser, haying listened to & powerful dip
course on charity, said: That sermon so strongly
proves the necessity of almsgiving that I've almost a
mind to beg.