The Potteries Examiner : — 1873-06-07 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

GOODWIN.  ELECTION MATTERS. To the Editor of the "Potteries Examiner."  Sol,—We are now approaching towards another general election. It therefore behoves us to look around and see if our present members of the House of Commons have fulfilled their promises made to ns prior to their being elected as our representatives. When Mr. Melly was elected in opposition to C. M. Campbell, Esq., he, to a great extent, carried that election, by adopting the war cry of "Vote for Melly, and Justice to Ireland." lam almost sure that large bill, which was so extensively posted in the borough, was the main secret of his success on that occasion, together with the almost undivided support he received from the Irishmen of this borough. Now, sir, lam of opinion that Mr. Melly would not have given that promise without knowing full well that Ireland was in a chronic state of discontent, through the effects of bad laws, carried out in an arbitrary spirit by bad magistrates and other bad men, in charge of her destinies as a dependency of this country. Hundreds of years bad she been bled by the basest tricks, 'and robbed of her liberty by the basest of men. Mr. Gladstone saw this, and, to a great exteat, set about preparing to help her in her deep trouble. Midnight visions of Penh.. in Ireland and England were ugly qualms of conscience, and soon began to operate on the day visions of our rulers, and hence arose the new party cry of "Justice to Ireland." Aye, as a Home Enlist, I say that cry has been uttered but to pacify, with the deliberate intention of deceiving those that responded to it. The victims who were seized and dragged to prison for daring to raise their voice and arm in defiance of despotism and its accompanying horrors, were consigned to loathsome prisons, to mingle with the dregs of society, to linger out a miserable existence until death should delivar them from a military despotism. Could not powerful, so-called Christian England, have seen her way to net as America did. She, instead of destroying the patriots who led the rebels of the South against the Nortoern armies, defeated their ends and forgave them when her rights were established, and why not England have done the same with the Irish patriots? One of these patriots was a man of the name of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rosen, tried at a special commis. sion of oyer and terminer, held at Dublin, on the 27th day of November, 1865, and sentenced to penal servitude for life, for daring to deliver his native country from British rule.  "Who is he ?" some one may ask. Echo answers not a thief, for he never stole—not a murderer, for he was no coward—not a vagabond, for he was an upright, honest man—nor a blackguard, for he was too much of a gentleman to condescend to use the low grammar of a Billingsgate denizen. No! he was none of these, but he was one of Ireland's true patriots; a scholar, a warrior, and an editor of unewspaper, that fought for Ireland's liberly, but in vain. On Thursday, the 10th of February, 1870, this socalled people's: Parliament threw to the winds their promises by which they attained power, by viz., "Justice to Ireland," for the following reason, which is that Jeremiah O'Donovan Rosso, had been returned as a knight, or Member of Parliament, of the shire for the county of Tipperary by the electors thereof. But what did their Irish friends in Parliament do F It forbade an Irish patriot to conic out of prison and enter Parliament to fight for the rights of his country, by a majority of 301 ayes against 8 noes. Our borough members voted for him to stay and be confined in a felon's cell until death shall relieve him of his burden. What a cruel mockery were those large placards at Burslem, headed "Vote for Melly, and Justice for Ireland," but, Irishmen and Home Rulers, will you do so now?  Yours very truly,.  '