The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-11-08
IMMINENT PERIL IN IRELAND.
FAMINE ABOUT TO STALK IN THE
ISLE OF SORROW.

The Prospect Represented as the
Most Appalling During the Present
GeneratiOn-POtnto ROtting ia
the FieIds-The Government Doing
Nothing to Guard Against suffer-
ing and StarvatiOn-A London
story on the Mckinley Election
Bribery SaIisbury's Coming
Speech.
London Nov. 1.-THE everlasting Irish
question is coming up in an acute form,
through the old and too familiar occur
renee of an Irish famine. The Bishop of
Raphoe in a recent appeal for subscrip-
tons in aid of the Irish party fund, spoke
Of the bleak prospects before the agricul-
tural population as operating against the
fund. The bishop hardly seems to have
realized how desperate the situation
| is. The correspondent of the Man
chester Guardian, one of the most
trustworthy and least sensational papers
in England. declares that no such appall-
ing prospect has presented itself during
the present generation. Concurring reports
show that the prologed and continuous
rains of the autumn have ruined the crops
from north to south.
The rich lower lands have been flooded
fer weeks at time when the harvest
ought to have been proceeding. Stacked
corn and hay stacks have been submerg-
ed and potatoes are rotting in the fields.
In the poorer hill lands the small farmer
and cotter 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 fam
inc and disease among them.
AS usual the government is doing moth
ing The Irish secretarys tour in the
west and northwest occurred before the
bad weather set in and at 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 apprised their landlords
agents that no rent can be paid this year
because no rent has been earned. But
the landlords have entered into COM
| bnation for wholesale pressure on the ten
ants. Using their utmost privileges un-
der the land act, they are applying for
| ejectment DEGREES 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 sets in the demand
for relief will be clamorous. The govern
ment will be compelled to intervene be-
fore parliament opens, or face an accu-
sation of reckless indifference to suffer-
ing such as ought to overwhelm any Eng
lish ministry. With this famine impend-
ing combined with the revelations of the
foreign 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 dis
content assumes 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, un-
der the caption: "a Curious Allegation"
publishes a letter from an American, who
declares that the true inwardness of the
defeat of Mr. Bryan was the use of
money to turn the farmers vote of the
central west. The writer states that the
insurance companies 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, IL Mr..
Mckinley should be elected, five years
extension of the mortgages at a low rate
of interest This plan succeeded, and Mr..
Bryan, who otherwise would have been
elected, was defeated. Continuing, the
American says that the loss of interest
to the companies would be great, but they
expect to sell here a mass of deprecated
securities on the boom from which Lon
don is beneftting.
Lord Salisbury, in his speech at the
Guild hall on Monday, on the occasion of
10.
mayor of London, win 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 published in
Truth, and then confirmed by the Daily
Graphic, 1t does not require any political
acumen to see that no reference Will be
made to the evacuation of Cyprus. 1t is
highly probable, however, that Lord Sails
bury will, in his speech, attack the porte
as des stroying the value of the Anglo
Turkish convention of 1873, under which
Cyprus was turned over to the British
for administrative purposes.
The negotiations for the holding of q
conference Of the powers on the Turkish
question progress on the lines before men,
toned in this cable correspondence; that is
TO say, the proposals Hldue ny LOro odils-
bury that the clauses of the treaty of Paris
giving the porte power to refuse the pass
age of the Dardaneles to warships shall
be rescinded that the administration of
the Turkish provinces shall be under the
supervision Of the European powers, and
that the consideration by any conference
of these proposals shall not include any
reference to the British occupation of
Egypt.
judging from the best information OBJ
tainable 1t is believed that the cars in
nuence has brought about an arrange
ment Of Anglo-French differences regard
ing Egypt. This implies prolongation of
the British occupation of Egypt, with a
free hand to extend 1t to the whole of the
Upper Nile.