The examiner., 1886-03-13

Of the tree otsknowledge. Not understand
 ing this, believe that friut was good and that perfect happiness will never be reached until the entire fruit of that tree has been plucked and eaten. Numberless ages will be recorded O. the calendar of time, ere that work will be accomplished. True it is that
 .tHope springs eternal in the human breast,
 Man never is, but always to be blest.''
 Rocky Hill, Conn. H.
 GLADSTONE AND THE IRISH BISHOPS.
 The following is the text of the letter ad- dressed to Mr.. Gladstone by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, acting on
 behalf of the Bishops of Ireland:
 s'Sir: Your letter to Lord De Vesci,
 which was published in the Dublin news papers, has been under the consideration of large and representative body of Irish
 Catholic Bishops assembled here to-day on
 important ecclesiastical business. The prelates so assembled substantially repre- sent the whole Irish episcopacy. At the request of their lordships beg to lay be- fore you, in response to your expressed de- sire, the views they entertain regarding the wants and wishes of the Irish people.
 There are, as you observe, three great Irish questions demanding the immediate government, the settlement of the land question, and social order.
 ssFirst, as regards self-government, or home rule. It is our firm and conscientious conviction, based, as we believe, on the fullest, most varied, and, at the same time, most reliable information, that it alone can satisfy the wants, the wishes, as well as the legitimate aspirations of the Irish people. Those wishes and aspirations have been expressed with unmistakeable Clearness by constituencies of the four provinces of Ireland at the recent elections. We venture tAremind you that immediately before those elections you had appealed to the people of this country to speak out their mind on this great question, and that in doing so you clearly laid down the lines within which you believed it to be ques- tion of practical politics. We regard the issue of the elections as the answer given by the Irish people to that appeal. We are fully satisfied that the demand for home rule thus put forward in no way marked out by you. Its concession cannot trench either on the supremacy of the Grown or on the unity of the empire, nor can it interfere with the maintenance of all the authority of Parliament necessary for the consolidation of the unity This being so, we feel convinced with you that the granting Of home rule within those limits will be not source of danger but means of averting it, as furnishing new guarantee for increased cohesion, happi- ness, and strength.
 GAS regards the settlement of the land question, we have no hesitation whatever in stating that in our opinion it now im- peratively calls for final solution, and that this cannot be better affected than by some such measures that which certain English journalists and statesmen have re- gently advocated-that is, the purchase up by Government of the landlord interest in the soil, and the reletting of the latter to tenant farmers at figure very considerably below the present judicial rents. In ad- dressing one of the foremost fnanciers, as well as one of the most enlightened state into the details of this weighty and no doubt complicated project, but ere perfect ly satisfied to leave them to your own sense of what is due to the equitable claims of existing landlords on the one hand, and Of the future tenants of Ireland on the other. We desire, however, to have it perfectly understood that the Irish people do not aim at the confscation of any species of property, but only ask for fair play as between man and man, or what has been well described as the right to live and thrive in their native land.
 s'Third, as regards social order,' we shall confine our remarks to two aspects of the case: public outrages-namely, what is called personal intimidation, or, as you contracts-and personal liberty of action. It is our deliberate opinion that no just cause of complaint on either head will, or indeed can, exist after the settlement of the land question on the basis just indi- cated, or on any other basis which supposes the utter efacement of that system of landlordism which has so long and so existed in Ireland. In point of fact, every disturbance of social order that has occurred for years among our people has arisen from the sense of wrong enter tained by large majority of the occupiers of the soil, owing to the remorseless exac- tion of needy or extrayagant landlords. | Even now the peace of the country is l seriously imperilled by the fact that very many landlords, as if making final but | fruitless effort to collect impossible rents, l have entered on an ill-considered course of l eviction against their unfortunate tenants, We would therefore earnestly and most l