IRELAND'S ENEMIES.
(To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECEAT011.."] SIE,—A state of terrorism without historic parallel now obtains in Ireland. While Irish rebels, priestly and lay, write freely in the English Press and offer every day or two some fresh falsehood for English consumption, no loyal Irishman dare commit a corrective letter to the post lest the rebel " censor " (who now exists in most of the post offices in Ireland) destroys it. Or if it be identifiable with its author, he will pass it ou to the headquarters, where raids are planned, whether in- cendiary or murderous, according to the measure of the state- ments contained in the letter. The climax is fast approaching, for so weakened is the law in Ireland that priests are here and there throwing off the mask and making it plain that they aim at nothing less than the complete expulsion of loyalist and Protestant from Ireland. Two cases have recently come at first hand to the writer's knowledge. The first, of a priest who, in conversation with a loyal Protestant, warningly informed him that it was written, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin," and that the " sin" against which Ireland would have to " resist unto blood " was the sin of submission to British dominion! The second was a case of the grossest intimidation on the part of a priest against a lady who sought his assistance. I may not mention the appalling utterances made by this fierce cleric lest trouble fall upon my friend, but he gave her plain warning that soon every Protestant would be driven out of the country.
It is this deplorable weakening of the arm of the law that has let loose those chained-up passions which are in nature iden- tical with those that resulted in the slaughter of " St. Bar- tholomew." These upholders of a long tradition of intolerance ignore the patent truth that if the restraint of British authority is removed from Ireland an anti-clerical party will very shortly dominate them, numbering their days, during which a far fiercer feud will rage between "Clerical" and " Republican " than exists at present between the two combined and what remains of British rule. Is it not possible to con- vince our British Press, which wavers and halts between two opinions, that rulers are meant to rule and that no people need the strong hand of authority more urgently than the Irish? Mr. J. McVeagh writes without fear of the least reprisal, likening the Irish policeman to a tyrant! Professor Stockley likens the murderers of the noble Colonel Smyth to a William Tell slaying a Gessler! while Bishop Cohalan is em- boldened to state brazenly in an English paper, now lamentably fallen from its once high estate, " The late Lord Mayor of Cork was murdered by the police." All this and much more in England. Note the contrast in Ireland. On August 28th there appeared in the Cork Constitution a letter from one of the most generous and broad-hearted Southern loyalists, Mr. Joseph Pike, D.L., of Duraland, co. Cork, in which he die- sociated himself from the resolution of the Deputy-Lieutenants of the county in favour of Dominion Home Rule. Within 24 hours a Sinn FeM gang of 50 brave "Republican" "soldiers" had burnt Mr. Pike's beautiful residence to the ground, with all the treasures it contained. Comment is needless. No such quack nostrums as Sir Horace Plunkett's "Dominion Home Rule" can cure Ireland's complaint. The disease is "lawless- ness," and for that the law, dealing firmly and persistently, is the only remedy.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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