Birmingham state herald., 1896-11-08
IHE FAlR EMERALD 'ELE Again Threatened With Famine
 and Disease. FROM NORTH AND SOUTh
  Comes Reports of Prolonged and Continuous -Dowapours of Rain. THE LANDLORDS TO USE EMOTIONS And Crush the Unhappy Tenants Out of Existence-A Bit of American
 Political Scandal
 Exposed.
FROM NORTH AND SOUTh
THE LANDLORDS TO USE EMOTIONS

everlasting Irish question is coming up in an acute form, through the old and too familiar occurrence of an Irish famine. The Bishop of Raphoe, in a recent appeal for subscriptions in aid of the Irish party fund, spoke of the bleak prospects before the agricultural popula tion as operating against the fund. The bishop hardly seems to have realized how desperate the situation is. The correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, one of the most trustworthy and least sensational papers in England, declares that no such ap- palling prospect has presented itself dur ing the present generation. Concurring reports show that the prolonged and continuous rains of the autumn have ruined the crops from north to south. The rich lower lands have been flooded for weeks at a time when the harvest ought to have been proceeding. Stacked corn and hay stacks have been submurg- ed and potatoes are rotting in the fields In the poorer hill lands the small farmer and cotton population are again face to face with one of those failures of the po- tato crop which has too often brought the uttermost horrors of starvation and famine and disease among them.
 As usual the government is doing noth- ing. The Irish secretary's tour in the west and northwest occurred before the bad weather set in and al time when little could be predicted of the harvests. Since then he has obtained reports from official sources-from landlord sources which can only be described as mislead- ing. The farmers on many Of the large estates have appraised their landlord S agents that no rent can be paid this year because no rent has been earned. But the landlords have entered into a com bination for wholesale pressure on the tenants. Using their utmost privileges under the land act they are applying for ejectment decrees by the thousand and an eviction campaign such as has rarely ever been witnessed in Ireland is now in progress in many districts. As soon as the rigors of winter set in the demand for relief will be clamorous. The govern ment will be compelled to intervene be- fore parliament opens, or face an accusa- tion of reckless indifference to suffering such as ought to overwhelm any English ministry. With this famine impending, combined with the revela tions of the for eign relations commission showing how Ireland is annually bled of millions of money to the advantage of Great Britain it will be no wonder if Irish dscontent assumes a more active form than mere jabber over legislation for home rule. The leading weekly papers re-echo the opinions expressed by the daily papers on the election of Mckinley to the American presidency.
 The St James Budget. under the cap- tion "A Curious Allegation" publishes a letter from an American, who declares that the true inWardneSS of the defeat of MT. Bryan was the use of money to turn the farmer vote of the Central West The writer states that the insurance com- panies owning mortgages on farms in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and neighboring states directed their agents to see every farmer whose lands were mortgaged and to offer to them, if MT. Mckinley should be elected, a five years extension of the mortgages at a low rate of interest. This plan succeeded. and MT. Bryan, who oth- erwise would have been elected, was de- feated. Continuing, the American says that the loss of interest to the companies would be great but they expect to sell here a mass of Appreciated securities on the boom from which London is benefit ting.
 Lord Salisbury, in his speech at the Guild hall on Monday, on the occasion of banquet to be given by the new Lord Mayor of London, will not, according to the belief of the ministerialists, make any allusion to the abandonment by Great Britain of the Island of Cyprus. Indeed if the statement made yesterday by the officials of the foreign office be true that there is no foundation whatever for the report, which was first pub1ished in Truth and then confirmed by the Daily Graphic 1t does not require any political acamen tO see IHdI uO TeIere0ce Will De n1aue lO the evacuation of Cyprus. It is highly probable, however, that Lord Salisbury will In his speech attack the. porte as de- stroying the value of the Anglo-Turkish convention of 1878, under which Cyprus was turned over to the British for admin iStrative purposes.
 The negotiations for the holding of a conference of the powers on the Turk ish question progress on the lines before mentioned in the cable correspondence; that Is to say, the proposals made by Lord Salisbury that the clauses of the treaty of Paris giving the porte power to re- fuse the passage of the Dardanelles to warships shall be reseinded; that the ad- ministration of the Turkish provinces shall be under the supervision of the Eu- ropean powers and that the consideration by any conference on these proposals shall not include any reference to the British occupation of Egypt.
 Judging from the best information ob- tainable, it is believed that the Czars information has brought about an ar rangement of the Anglo-French differ ences regarding Egypt. This implies 0 prolongation of the British occupation of Egypt with free hand to extend it to IL