IRELAND.

It was not to be expected that the Treasury minute of the 1st December would please the Young Irelanders; and accordingly, we find the Nation sees nothing in the contemplated measures but further degradation. Happily, however, there are symptoms elsewhere of common sense and prompt exertion to carry out the intentions of the Government. The Westmeath landlords take the lead in this wise determination. At a meet- ing on the 23d December, over which Sir Richard Levinge presided, mea- sures were taken for immediately commencing drainage works under the minute.

At an extraordinary Presentment Sessions, held the same day at Newry, resolutions were agreed to declaratory of an intention to adopt the Treasury minute, and appointing a Committee to communicate immediately with the Treasury on the subject.

At another Presentment Sessions, in Roscommon, Mr. Fitzstephen French, M.P., announced that his brother, Lord de Freyne, is about tc undertake the drainage and reclamation of waste lands to the extent of 150,0001.

The proprietors also, under the pressure of the immense unproductive expenditure, seem now disposed to avail themselves in good earnest of the provisions of the Summary Drainage Act. The only landlords who hat; hitherto made the necessary arrangements under this act for draining their estates are the Earl of Devon, Mr. Waller of Fiume, Mr. Storey of Kyle Park, Colonel Burton of Pettigo, Mr. Hamilton of St. Ernan's, and Mr Wynne of Hazlewood: to these may now be added, the Earl of Arran, the Marquis of Ely, Mr. Leslie, M.P., and some others, who have applied fo, the necessary advances.

Under the pressure of the increasing disorganization, and a growing conviction that it is really the intention of Government to enforce the repayment of advances from the Treasury, the landlords appear to be slowl3 but steadily awakening to a consciousness of the necessity for action.

A meeting of the landed proprietors of the county of Cork was held et the 22d December, at Lloyd's Hotel, in the city of Cork— Mr. Horace Townsend, the chairman, observed, that the present meeting womb show that the gentlemen of the county wereprepared to come forward at th anticipated meeting in Dublin. He also remarked, that the county of Cork although suffering from destitution, had exhibited an entire absence of blocdsher' Mr. Croker referred to the " awful" prospects of the coming year. " Thu was no symptom of agricultural labour in the county. Where thirty or fort carts were employed last year in drawing lime for the land from the kilns nea Mallow, there was not a single one similarly employed this year." There was deeper cause for not tilling the land than the present distress. The middl farmers had all sold their oorn, and were now making large deposits in the differ ent banks. These men had discharged their labourers. He thought that th object of the Government was to get hold of the landlords' properties. Thom proprietors who were doing their duty were crushed, and more absenteeism we sought to be made by forcing them to sell their estates. The present was a nation.' calamity, and should be remedied by the national parse. He recommended requisition to the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, (the Earl of Bandon,) to cot vene a meeting of the county as soon after the 1st of January as possible. Captain Burry having suggested, on political grounds, that the requisitio should be to the High Sheriff rather than to the Lord-Lieutenant, Mr. Smith I Ballinatray said, "Oh, there are no politics now; they have quite evaporated.* Mr. Croker called attention to a proposed society for the mite of th Social Condition of Ireland." It was concocted by a Dissenting minister I Mallow, named Gibson, with the concurrence of Mr. Ponlett Scrope. The plat as he understood, was to establish the ancient poor-law of Queen Elizabeth. Le them set their faces against this association in every possible way.. The requisition to the Lord-Lieutenant of Cork was agreeci'to;—an$ committee of gentlemen appointed to prepare resolutions.

A statement which has been going the round of the papers, that the/ has been a wholesale foreclosure of mortgages on the part of the creditor of the Irish landlords, is contradicted. It is alleged that the number present proceedings in Chancery with this object is not larger than ordinar2 A committee appointed by a meeting of landlords, at Cork, has adopte a series of resolutions which deserve notice. The committee declares tb Labour-rate Act inadequate to the necessities of the labouring populatior approves of compulsory taxation for the relief of the poor; but deprecate its being charged exclusively upon land: it ought also to be charged upo income, whether arising from industry, from professional avocations, c from vested capital; or if charged exclusively on land, the landowners an occupiers ought to have the benefit of the expenditure in the shape labour.

The Kilkenny Board of Guardians continuing, despite the repeated in junctions of the Poor-law Commissioners, to grant out-door relief, the have been apprized that the sums thus expended will be disallowed in tb accounts, and that the Guardians will be held individually responsible.

A meeting was held at Belfast on Christmas eve, to memorialize th Government to suspend the use of grain in the distilleries and breweries the United Kingdom, as a means of economizing the available supply food. This very large measure was supported by Mr. Sharman Crawford and resolutions having been agreed to, a deputation was appointed to wa on the Irish Government.

The rapidly-augmenting starvation, disease, and death, at Skibbereln Castlebar, and other places, this week, furnish Mr. Ponlett Scrope, in h letter to Lord John Russell, with an argument for insisting on the lam diate allowance of out-door relief to the infirm poor. The machinery already there; the only thing wanting is the needful funds. There is "s awful amount of culpability attaching somewhere."

In his sixth epistle to the landed proprietors of Ireland, Mr. Smit O'Brien deals with public works and public instruction. His letter little better than a series of complaints at what has not been done for In land in this, that, and other description of public works. He conside

that assistance of this kind " ought to be spontaneously afforded by the Government."

Mr. More O'Ferrall's letter, which has had so much weight with the Government, has been published. It is remarkable for its practical bearing, and for the forcible language in which its views are set forth.

The destitution still advances, and "deaths by starvation " is a standing head in the newspapers. It is remarked as one of the strongest evidences of intense suffering, that emigration is still in progress from Sligo, even at this inclement season.

A Relief Commissary, named Inglis, has arrived at Skibbereen. The object of his mission he keeps secret; but it is believed that he is about establishing soup-kitchens, having the command of funds raised by private subscriptions by the Lord-Lieutenant and the officers and ladies of his Excellency's Court.—Cork Constitution.

We learn that J. L. W. Naper, Esq., of Loughorew, has converted his kennel-yard into a soup-kitchen, and is now killing his fine herd of deer, which have been the pride and ornament of his family for a century of years, to provide food for the hungry people.—Meath Herald.

In a &renter to the Officers of Works of the East Division of Galway, Major Ainslie, the Government Inspecting-officer, complains indignantly, that such persons as " land-surveyors with twelve acres, land-stewards, schoolmasters, farmers holding from ten to twenty Irish acres, in great nudibers, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors, weavers, hucksters, shoe- makers, servant-boys, &e.," are intruded, by the corrupt influence of friends on the Relief Committee, into the lists of labourers furnished to his office. He adds, that "the grave discrepancies which a comparison'of the Poor- law valuation-books with the different rolls presented to me has disclosed, leads to the supposition that the labourers in undoubted destitution have to some extent been excluded in favour of their more influential rivals." It even appears that those employed to take down the names of applicants Mane sold the favour.

Mr. Coffey, a pay-clerk employed by the Board of Works, was stopped on Tuesday by five armed men, at Flower Hill, between Loughrea and Portumna. They came out of a plantation by the road-side, and took from him a sum of 7401., with which he was proceeding to pay persons employed on the public works. A report had reached Loughrea, that a large assemblage of people from the county of Tipperary, amounting, it was thought, to five hun- dred men, crossed the Shannon on Tuesday, at Portumna, for the purpose of plundering the mills and corn-stores in that town: but the report is doubted.

The Times publishes a letter from "Inquirer," dated from Clare Castle, confidently affirming that the charge made against some soldiers of the Seventy-third depte, of having stood by to see Mr. Hennessy murdered, is "most unfounded."

The Carlow Sentinel mentions a transaction in Carlow, which, if true beats " Peter Flanigan " hollow. It speaks of a sale of forty or fifty stand of arms, in the previous week, as an insignificant affair when compared with an " operation " in the same line just concluded. A speculator, Thomas M'Grade, proposed to sell by auction 500 single and double guns, 1,000 pairs of pistols, with 500,000 percussion-caps. In order to obtain the use of the Assembly-rooms for the sale, he bargained with the pro- prietor for the room as an auctioneer of cutlery-wares. The rooms having been engaged, M'Grade issued a document headed with the Royal arms, and printed to imitate a Government proclamation; the word "street," in one line consisting of " Castle Street, Dublin," being ingeniously printed so small as to be nearly invisible. The placard runs thus— "Whereas many evil-disposed persons avail themselves of the present scarcity of food as a pretext to commit acts of violence against property, and otherwise disturbing the peace of the country,—His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant is pleased to grant all her Majesty's peaceable and loyal subjects, without distinc- tion, the power to have and to keep any description of fire-arms for the protec- tion of the public peace, and likewise their own homes and property, without any re- striction whatever, except an invoice or certificate of the person from whom the arms are purchased. Thomas M'Grade is privileged by his Excellency, and fully empowered by the Hon. the Board of Excise, to offer for sale by auction to the peaceable inhabitants of this town, at the Assembly-rooms, Dublin Street, five hundred double and single barrelled guns of various sorts, and 1,000 pair of pistols, warranted all double Tower proof, 500,000 percussion-caps, a large quan- tity of powder-flasks, shot-bags and belts, wash-rods, turn-screws, and nipple- wrenches, &c. Sale to commence on Wednesday the 23d instant. THOMAS M'Ga&DB, Licensed Auctioneer.

" CASTLE street, DUBLIN.

" N.B. The auctioneer's invoice is all the licence required by the purchaser for keeping arms."

The sale was not allowed to take place in the Assembly-rooms; but the guns were sold at other rooms in Dublin Street; where, says the account—

"so . . . crowded was the meeting—so anxious were the peasantry to secure arms—the competition for guns, pistols, powder, and percussioa-caps was so great—that the auctioneer had some difficulty in providing a supply for the de- mand; guns and pistols being purchased the moment they were put up to auction. In fact, the country-people, who crowded the town, marched off all armed; and the novelty of the sale was such, and so urgent the demand, that during the days of sale the room was crowded by this class, the bidding being momentarily and the supply incessant." There is the usual contradictory statement, however, insisting on the limited extent of the purchases. The Drogheda Argus explains a recent accoupt of a sale of arms in that town to be a foul calumny. The state- ment, which appeared in the Drogheda Conservative, was, that two cart- loads of fire-arms were sold by auction at a fair on the 17th December; when, such was the avidity with which they were sought, that men with scarcely a coat to their backs became purchasers-

" The whole quantity of arms exposed for sale," says the Argue " was con- tained in a box which could be lifted by one man. It was certainly placed on a cart, upon which the auctioneer stood as a platform; but the entire number sold did not exceed four pieces, of which the purchasers were small farmers; certainly not one was bought by any person of the pan p& class. The sales made by the respectable hard-ware merchants of Drogheda(three of whom out of four are Con- servatives) have been to those who have property to defend, and to respectable persons for sporting purposes."

There was a thin attendance at Conciliation Hall on Monday. Mr. Cecil Lawless this time occupied the chair; and as it is necessary for chairmen in that hall to say something about Repeal, he observed that " if a Parliament were sitting in College Green, the ports would

be opened, and they would not be told that the Irish should starve lest the English might suffer in their trade." Mr. O'Connell spoke the average number of words. The only novelty was an increase of ten millions in the contemplated advance from Eng- land: his plan was to insist upon the English Government's raising a loan of 30,000,0001., or 40,000,0001., as an increase to the National Debt, to ransack the world for food at any price. There was then the usual railing against Mr. Smith O'Brien for his " obstinacy"; Mr. O'Connell calling to mind how the O'Brien had been laughed at by the House of Commons for his pertinacity in going to gaol A petition was subsequently brought forward, for presentation to the Legislature. It set forth the existing distress, and prayed that the Navigation-laws be forthwith suspended, in order that such vessels of her Majesty's Navy as may be necessary may be made " available to the mercantile interest"; and that &Vats for selling food at reduced prices may be formed.

The-rent was 571.

Mr. John Augustus O'Neill has offered himself as a candidate for the representation of Mallow, as a Repealer, but not, it would seem, as a nominee of the Repeal Association. His address betrays great soreness at having been passed over in previous elections. " As to Repeal, if the doors of the House of Commons be recklessly thrown open by Repeal hands to men who never condescend to darken the portals of the Repeal Association, then is our watchword but 'a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.' I had intended to have expended some money in a contest; but, on re- flection, I will not bey my way into Parliament. • • • Nor would it be very creditable to my brother Repealers to oblige a man to whom the Association during several years passed so many. votes of thanks, and so many of these moved by Mr. O'Connell in his most eulogistic language, to purchase his seat by an ex- pensive battle, when they bestow seats on others who never uttered a word in the defence of Ireland. * • * Judging by what I have seen, I think that the man who comes last will be first chosen, and that there is some charm in defer- ring a declaration in favour of Ireland's rights until the writs are about to be is- sued for a new election. My services are now so old that they are forgotten. Were they of four weeks, instead of four years date, I should have that descrip- tion of support which would insure my return: as it is, I have not the slightest expectation." -In parting, he says a word to the electors of Dungarvan, in favour of Mr. Meagher (the Young Ireland knight of the sword) as an opponent to Mr. SheiL The Government have sent Mr. Joseph Nelson, Q. C., to Belfast, to conduct an investigation into the malepractices in framing the Jury panels for the county. It appears that the Sheriff's Bailiff, Mr. Hugh Deolin, and the keeper of a low public-house named Hill, had been in the habit of arranging between themselves what names should be put on the list; and it was proved that parties wanting a favourable jury had obtained their wish by applying to Hill at his public-house. The inquiry was adjourned until after the ensuing Quarter-sessions.