The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-22 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, FRIDAY MORNING.
TILE LANDLORD DEMONSTRATION.
The Evening Post announces that a reeking of
the Provisional Committee was held yesterday at
the Rotunda to decide whether to hold or abandon
the meeting announced for the 27th. The Post—
and 'probably with some truth—says there was a
division in the camp, but in the end the " coercion"
party prevailed, and the demonstration is to be an
accomplished fact. These further revelations are
made by the old organ of the Irish Whigs :
"It appears that the meeting, although an-
nounced-to be a general assemblage of landowners,
witlioat exception, ig to be a packed meeting. All
the arrangements have been made for this purpose,
and the price fixed for platform tickets is 55., and the
body of the room 2s.,—the tickets to be given only
on application to the committee. We understand
that some hesitation was shown before giving a
ticket to an Irish M.P., well known to hold
liberal opinions. Under these circumstances, it
would be well for the Liberal party and the mode-
rate section of the landlords to consider whether
they should not, like Mr. Tuite, of Sonna, and Mr,
Bernal Osborne, altogether refrain from attending
But, in that event, and perhaps in any' event, a
counter-meeting ought to be held without delay." ,
One of the most popular among the Irish nobility,
Viscount Monck, who held office in the late
Ministry, writes the following able reply to the
Downshire circular convening the meeting :
" Charlesville, Enniskerry, Jan. 19.
" Gentleinen,—l have the honour to acknowledge
the receipt of your circular, inviting me to attend
a meeting in Dublin of the nobility, gentry, and
others interested in the peace and prosperity of Ire-
land,' with an accompanying paper, containing
matters proposed to be submitted' to the intended
meeting.
" Assuming that the contents of this paper indi-
cate the policy with those who convene the pro-
posed meeting mean to recommend for its adoption,
the 'only answer I can give to your invitation is to
say,' that if I accept it, I must attend for the pur-
pose of protesting in the strongest manner against
what seems to me the unfounded and injurious im-
pression whichyour whole proceeding is calculated
to cons cy of the present state of the country.
" Judging from the extraordinary step of calling
a meeting of all those interested in the peace and
prosperity' of the country to deliberate 'ne quid
detrinitnti respublica capita,' as well as from the
contents of your paper, a stranger might imagine
that at the present time agrarian crime is rampant
and unpunished in Ireland, life and property en-
tirely insecure, and that we are living amid all the
horrors of a reign of terror.
" This statement of the present aspect of Irish
affairs would provoke a smile on the part of those
acquainted with the real facts of the case, if the
expression of such views by a body like that which
you profess to represent, were not calculated to be
of most serious injury to the best interests of the
country, by misleading those who have not the
opportunity of personally investigating the matter
for themselves.
" But, perhaps, my finpressions are as much too
cheerful as yours are too gloomy. Let us turn
from impressions to facts. It is but a few months
since it was the duty of almost every judge engaged
in the administration of criminal law in Ireland to
congratulate the authorities with whom they were
brought in contact in the course of their circuits on
the general peace and good order which prevailed
through the land. It is only a few days since Mr.
Sergeant Howley—one who never dealt very
gently with the state of Tipperary when the
country was really disturbed—took occasion to
felicitate that quondam focus of Irish agrarian out-
rage on the almost entire absence of crime, and
particularly of anything indicating the existence
of secret societies. Supported by such facts as
these, I must maintain that there is no ground for
such a wholesale indictment of the condition of
Ireland as that implied in your paper, and that it
is one which is most unjust to the people of Ire-
land to put forward.
" The foundation of your statement is a declara-
tion that 'impunity has, for many years, attended
the most atrocious agrarian crimes in this country.'
Now, this is one of those allegations which from
constant repetition has come to be accepted by most
persons as a truth ; but I venture, on the other
side, to assort, and any one may satisfy himself of
the trut h of the matter by an analysis of the police
returns, that as large a proportion of agrarian
crimes is prosecuted to conviction as of any other
class of offences committed among us.
"That general impunity, or anythingapproaching
to generatimpunity, has ever attended such crimes
in Ireland,: it notoriously contrary to fact. This
class of offences has been unhappily, in former
times, too prevalent in Ireland; but a careful re-
ference to the statistics of the country will convince
any unprejudiced person that impunity has been as
all times the exception, not the rule, and that the
proportion of cases in which justice has failed from
the misconduct of jurors is very small indeed.
Within the last lbw years crime of all kinds has
rapidly declined in Ireland, and agrarian offences
have been no exception in this respect. Therehave
been, no doubt, from time to time, isolated cases of
this class of crime, but they have not generally
escaped punishment. I may mention the murder
of Mr. Ellis, in the county Tipperary, as a remark-
abl. instance of what I assert. I contend, therefore,
that there is nothing in the present state of crime
in Ireland which justifies you in calling upon Par-
liament to abrogate the first principle of trial by
jury 'the right, namely, of every man to be tried
•by his peers; or which warrants you in holding
forth your country to the world as a place where
crime is unpunished, and life and property insecure.
" Your second declaration is with reference to
the recent revival of Riband societies and other
illegal combinations.' I know not what evidence
on this point you are prepared to lay before the
meeting. My information on the subject is con-
fined to what has reached me, in common with the
rest of the public, through the newspapers, and the
conclusion I have arrived at is, that there is at
the present moment a temporary fermentation
amongthe discontented classes of the country, which
ought not to escape the observation of the authori-
ties, and should be dealt with by them with a firm
hand, but which, as regards any results that it is
capable of achieving, may be treated with the most
complete contempt.
, There is in almost all countries a portion of
the people which, either from natural temperament
or other causes, is disaffected to the Government
and desirous of change ; and that sucha class—
rapidly, however, diminishing both in numbers and
in moral and intellectual weight—exists in Ireland,
no one can deny. The power of that class in Ire-
land- was tried in 1848, under eircumstances
most
favourable to its development, and theevents of
that year, as it appears to me, justify Irish politi-
cians in excluding Irish rebellion from the cate-
gory of possible events. But 'all the information
which I have been able to glean from the news-
papers shoWs that political revolution, not agra-
rian outrage, is the end aimed at by the •
societies, the members of which have been latelyse
arrested by the orders of the Government ; and, as
I have already endeavoured to show that for such
purposes they are entirely powerless, I think
they
may be safely left to the ordinary operation of the
law, and that your case, in favour of unconstitu-
tionally stringent measures for Ireland, halts as
much ween it rests on the presumed increase of
secret societies as when it seeks to maintain itself
on the imaginary impunity of agrarian crime.
" I have thus endeavoured, by showing the base-
lessness of the ground on which you have sought
my concurrence, to explain why I cannot join with
you in asking the Legislature, at a time when the
country is peaceful. and prosperous beyond all
former esnmple, to take away the constitutional
rights of the people.
" Wit la respect to the remainder of your paper
there are some suggestions which. appear to me
little bet ter than truisms; those, for instance, with
reference to the appointment and qualifications of
stipendiary and county magistrates, and which, I
think, can have been introduced only for the purpose
of raisins. the inference that those intrusted with the
administration of public patronage in one case, and
the Lord Lieutenants of counties in the other, have
not perfirmed their respective duties. As lam not
prepared to endorse such a charge I must decline
to accede to this part of
your paper also. The ad-
ministration of the constabulary force I am quite
satisfied to leave in the hands of the Executive
Government, and, I trust, should the necessity arise,
we may in the middle of the
meansninettcoernth .century.be
able to (It:vise some betterthe repression
of murder than would be afibrded by a recurrence
to the c:iiinsy expedients of our
past S a x obi
been
ancestors.
" Irelsnd has for some yearsmaking
• enormov..; strides in the direction of ordeeni
and pro: perity. For the first time in her.' history
all class, s of her inhabitants are convinced by Prne
tical exrrience that they have an equal interest in
maintaining the laws, in supporting the exitin,*
order of things, and in advancing the material
prosperity of their country. I think any man, or
body of men, will incur a very great responsibility
who, under such circumstances, takes any step
which is calculated to suggest the idea that the
nobility and gentry' of Ireland have any interests
inconsistent with these of the great mass of the
people, or that they seek for their own caste any
privileges incompatible with the enjoyment by all
classes of their fellow-countrymen of the rights and