Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-03

EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY
 GABRTNGTDE SR GSp.s N0. 400 Stmee Street, Courier RuiIdfnGs
 soHR E. oARRrssroE,
 EDwAEDT. cA7RIxaroS, JOHN B.. cAnRxHaxoR, sa
 Saturday Morning, Jan. 3. 1880.
 MIR. AND HIS MISSION.
 MT. Charles Stewart Parnell, the celebrated
 terday. He comes to this country to present
 the cause of distressed Ireland and to solicit
 aid for those sadly in need of it. In Ireland i the system of land tenure and other hindrances
 to the prosperity of the peasantry make it hard for them to live even in comparatively good times, and when the times are not good distress comes quickly and is widespread The immediate causes of the present condition of things there are the wet season, which brought general failure of the crops the sudden and pinching competition forced upon the grazisrs by the large importation tof American cattle into England, which seems to have brought ruinous losses upon Irish farmers; the over crowded condition of some parts of the island and the dsterioration of the potato, of which only about one-fourth the usual quantity was produced. In consequence of these misfor
 tunes great and general suffering exists among the inhabitants of 8 large part of Ireland. The poorer people are already short of food, and l their supplies will soon be exhausted. | In a short speech yesterday Hon. John B. Dillon, who accompanies MT. Parnell, said that the chief object of their visit to the United States is not to collect money to relieve the Irish people. He estimates that 25O, 900 people will be without food for four or five months, | and does not expect that the two or three millions required to feed that number can be collected here. Moreover, he ethinks it calam- 1 ity that the government is bound to deal with. Therefore, while they will be most happy to l receive any money that may be contributed to relieve the distress that prevails, he announces that the great object they have in coming here is to procure sympathy and assistance of pub- lie opinion and also funds to carry on the agi- tation at the present progressing in Ireland, in the hope that such pressure will be brought to bear on the British Government as to prevent distress ''by bringingto an end that oppression which has made Ireland @ miserable exception among the civilized nations of the earth and to break down what now seems to be the cepted order of things, namely, that every fifteen or twenty years we must make an appeal to the charity of other nations" It would have been better, we think, for MT. Parnen and his companion to come here hay ing as their chief object to procure relief for their starving countrymen rather than to fan the flame of agitation, but the fact that they did not should not influence the charitable against helping those who need it so much. What the plans of the agitators for the amelioration of the condition of Ireland are is we'll told by Canon O'Hagan in an interview printed yes terday. They are-besides immediate relief for the famine districts of rents, fxity of tenure, and for the Government to do what it can to create peasant proprietary. Of the latter plan the Canon says:
 The English Government justified the con- fiscation of the landed property of the Irish and their introduction of the feudal system on the grounds that they held the Gltun, 0oza- i7auna-that they were doing it for the public good, in the same way as they would insist on running railroad through your estate for the public service. Now, MT. Parnell does not mean for moment to have the Government fall back on the prerogative of alum dons5- nam, and restore to the people estates and landed properties that have passed through the hands of families who have in the aggre- gate taken out probably twenty different titles. Such 8 doctrine would be absurd, | worse than absurd, downright revolutionary. His idea, on the contrary, is practical and sensible. In the Encountered Estates Court, at Dublin, large estates are yearly put up for sale and sold far below their value. Gould not Government subsidy be set apart to purchase them at the auction sale at reason able price? Then let the estate be divided up into small farms of from twenty to hun dred acres, these farms appraised and dis posed of to farmers, for yearly rent that will pay the interest on the Government in- vestment and at the same time an annual in stallment of the whole, until in few years years the Government is repaid interest and capital, and the tenant or purchaser becomes the real proprietor of the farm. This is merely the introduction of the principle But there are in Ireland, besides estates that could be so purchased, say from four to five millions of acres of waste aRd wild lands that could be bought for mere song and expert mented upon. The system of purchasing property and so establishing proprietorship for farmer tenants is at present in full opera ton on the quondam Established Church lands and is doing we'll"
 MT. Parnel is 33 years old, unmarried, and was educated at Harrow School and at Mag dalen College, Cambridge. He comes of a family distinguished for worth and ability. His mother is the daughter of Admiral Stew art, sOld Ironsides," who commanded the United States frigate Constitution in the war of 1912. He is a member of Parliament, not @ very wealthy man, and is at present proba- bly, the most popular man in Ireland, where is worshipped by the masses. He has been thus described by recent writer
 Mr. Parnen is the reverse in appearance to one's ideal of an Irish political demagogue. Young, tall, siender-and self-possessed in his manner-he looks, what indeed he is acknowl- edged to be even by the most virulent of his critics, perfect gentleman. He is not by any means gifted with the elequence of a Demosthenes or the accomplishments of Cicero. He lacks the brilliant poetic fancy that lent such charm to the magnificent ora tions of Richard Labor Shell and, later on, to the lofty and eloquent utterances of Thom- as Francis Meagher. Still less is he possessed of the marvellous intellectual attainments of O'Conneli. On the contrary, he is, at least to the superficial observer, cold and passionless But he is resoluteness personifed. He is one who will both dare and do. He does not, in language of magniloquent hyperbole, dwell on the past misgovernment of Ireland. He has taken to heart the lesson of Longfellow, that it is the duty of man to tact in the living present. rather than indulge in useless and empty denunciations of the irrevocable past. From the time he rises to speak until he sits down he arrests your whole attention. You see at glance that he is no mere trading politician. He is not one of those who would swim with the popular tide for a time, but sell their patriotism" on