IRELAND.
The heads of the Repeal and Confederate Associations are busy in the interchange of communications on the proposed formation of the new League. Mr. John O'Connell and some of the Roman Catholic Bishops hang back, and oppose the dissolution of the Repeal Association. Other men of note and weight press for the junction; which seems to be of un- certain event. The Confederates are all willing to join; as they assume that the Repealers are those who will have moved if the junction be effected.
The Irish Confederation met on Wednesday to hear explanations on the progress of the scheme of union. The attendance was remarkably great: Mr. Dillon presided, and gave a history of the negotiations which had passed. First, however, some talk in this style, apropos to the amount of monies received and spent— He might safely assert, that for every pound they had received, the enemies of Ireland had been put to an expense of 1,000/. The Confederation had made the Monarchof England feel somewhat insecure on her throise; it had been mainly instrumental in driving the British Government to bring into Parliament a bill to secure more permanently the Crown and Government of England; and it had cost Lord Clarendon not a few sleepless nights. He might also add, that it had planted in that country a principle of great value,—namely, that every man in Ireland had a right to have a weapon; • and that when a British Minister told the people of Ireland that he would resist their will by force, and rule this country by force in their despite, they had a right to tell him that he should not do so.
* * At one of the conferences, Mr. John O'Connell was asked whether, in case the League was formed, he would permit the members of the Confederation to call on the people to arm; and he said he had no objection: but at the subse- quent conference he stated that he could not abide by what he had formerly pledged himself to; and that he now viewed with apprehension the movement that was rapidly progressing for the purpose of arming the people; and that, should the members of the League be called on to arm, he would feel it his duty to protest against it. (Repeated hisses.) Mr. O'Connell's retractation had been strongly protested against by his col- leagues; but he persisted; and at the last conference, which was held only the night before, he brought down a series of resolutions, that amounted in substance to the old peace resolutions of Conciliation Hall, and stated that he could not consent to be a member of any association which would not place those resolutions on its books. (Ilisses.) Under these circumstances the Confederate delegates told him that all understanding between him as an individual and the Confedera- tion was at an end. Mr. Dillon could not satisfy himself of the causes of this re- tnactation on the part of Mr. O'Connell; but that gentleman had himself as- signed as the reasons of his conduct a leading article in the last number of the Aalion, and a letter of Mr. Smith O'Brien in the same number. Mr. Dillon then asked the meeting, whether the union was to take place ? (" Yes, yes! "from all sides.) He himself also said yes, and he moved the adjournment of the Con- federation sine die, in order that the union might be facilitated and hastened. If they now, because Mr. John O'Connell shrunk away from them, refrained from entering into this League, then he would say they were stultified before the whole world. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. Daffy supplied further details.
When Mr. O'Connell proposed his resolutions, all his Repeal associates voted against him. On being outvoted, he said—" We have appealed to the country, at my consent and with my concurrence; and the country has pronounced against me. You, as the Irish League, must go on; but as for me, I have certain con- scientioas scruples, sooner than forego which, I have made up my mind to retire into private life. (The whole Confederate audience rose and cheered vehemently far several minutes, on the anouncement of Mr. O'Connell's retirement from public life.) But Mr. O'Connell desired that at the next meeting of the Repeal Association, Mr. Galway should propose its indefinite adjournment, in order that the League should at once take its place. Mr. O'Connell said that since it was ont of his power to help the League, he would at least not be an impediment in Ste way.
The Connell of the Confederates was authorized to take steps for com- pleting the union.
The Nation declares that the organization of the Clehajappding with
effectual though noiseless rapidity. Dublin alone has formed forty-nine, with an average of 300 members each.
Mr. Holmes has resigned his benchership, because the Benchers of' Queen's Inn persevere in refusing to admit Dr. Gray and Mr. Dunne to the bar of Dublin, on political grounds.
Father Kenyon writes to the Limerick Reporter to deny that he has re- tired from political strife-
" I have not retired from political strife; and I believe that no honest Irishman, who is master of his own actions, ought to retire from it till his country is de- livered from her plagues. The plagues of Ireland, furthermore, I believe to con- sist principally in two calamities,—her subjection to a cruel and greedy Govern- ment of foreigners; and the prevalence within her own borders of a system of trickery and treachery, of tyranny and tergiversation, unexampled in all past his- tory, and known at present throughout the world as balmy O'Connellism." If the struggle can be finished, in some eight months, he will continue in it: but if at the end of so long a time—" Foreign sway and native humbug shall continue to flourish on this devoted soil—if English law, and Indian meal, and fever-sheds remain to us, in lien of human food, decent habitations, and national freedom— if dignitaries of the Church blow hot and cold within a space of three days (like the Bishop of Meath), as a matter of course, and after the fashion of the country, without exciting the least surprise in one—and if the independent national jour- nalists (like the Freeman) deliberately declare that the whole thing is settled according as such dignitaries blow—if project still succeeds project like the ever- lasting motion of the tide—if dreams are still marketable, and the cant of union continue to be as highly prized as the possession of virtue—above all, if John O'Connell be still encouraged by a weekly stipend and letters from the highest quarters to rattle his father's bones for our amusement—if we go on renewing his bills upon our gullibility, and lend him our ears as often and as long as he may need them—then I, for my part, will abandon politics, and occupy my future leisure in cynical writings and amassing coins."
The accounts from nearly every county in Ireland are sanguine in their expectations of an abundant harvest both of grain and of potatoes: potatoes have been planted in extraordinary breadth last year. More land is under tilth in Ireland, and the tilth better, this year, than has ever been known.
Another set of reports from Lord Clarendon's Practical Instructors in Agriculture have appeared. They describe a great advance of agricultural knowledge and practice among the general population; but give most barbarous facts from particular districts. For example, Mr. T. W. Boggs, the Instructor stationed at Carrick-on-Shannon, says- " I have been endeavouring to ascertain the quantity of tillage land in this splendid county of Roscommon, and we think it is in the proportion of about five acres tilled for forty-five acres unfilled or lying idle. Great parts of these rich and beautiful plains are covered with weeds and rushes: the people are wandering about, seeking for foreign food (Indian meal) for breaking stones— their families starving; and that beautiful land, that ought to support them all, and many more, is lying idle, like themselves, and useless."
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