Show THE WILFRED BLUNT AFFAIR I 1 IT is a question i to be decisively determined elsewhere and by others whether or ayot B ot the british govert goven ment made a great mistake by its pro proceedings eed through authorized and instructed agents at woodford ireland on sunday last in the sense that adling adding ad ling aggravation to aggravation is a blunder the woodford Wood tord affair must st nd out in bold characters as the most inexcusable of all the many blunders characterizing tory rule in the em erald Isle A meeting under the au aai apices of the british home rule bitle union had been called for the purpose of riving giving public expression to the indignity which the union and its supporters felt at recent measures of coercion more particularly the manner in which editor william obrien has been treated this meeting was bring boing held by englishmen it should he be remembered and one of the most c conspicuous n men on the public rolls of he british empire sir wilfred blunt i he be well known philanthropist was to be the presiding officer accompanied y his wife lie he was occupying a fobair n the platform when a magistrate appeared on the scene and forbade the proceedings As nothing illegal VW vas going on or contemplated the chair man could see no reason tor for obeying obey mg the oral order oven so imperiously and imperatively arid ad paid no attan tion to it troops of the line und and police w era then called in blunt was wag arrested and the place cleared ile he subsequently detore the magistrates positively refused to abnegate his natural right t to alp appear alar in public wherever he pleased in advocacy mcacy ot of whatever cause api pealed to dis ense cense of justice and hu j manity and tor for thus thua refusing ref ising was marched off to loughrea jail where he spent the night if it be true that whom the gods would destroy they first make mad we can ascertain the method in what cannot appear otherwise titan than madness in the tory lory government if it iss is not foredoomed fore doomed to a lonz ions continued it not perpetual retirement from power at a 0 very early period there is surely nothing iu m the signs ns of the times the extreme wins wing ot it the liberal party larty which is the spinal column of the horne home rule movement is made up largely of men who were formerly not antigoni ant agoni itic to it if not actual supporters of the me government mf nt these have from their fealty through the increased and steadily increasing tension of the cords corda with which liberty in ireland is bound and with defections in their ranks and among their constituents growing more numerous and more outspoken as irime advances advanced ad these maddened f tories rones plunge onward in tile the very course for pursuing whick at al althey they have incurred such opposition as culminated in animosity and this in secession Be beingman ingmen being taen of more than the average in p intelligence and lear learning niti 1 it t evou would I 1 d certain certainly I 1 y nave been tho ugar of the tories tones that they would w have hav e profited by such lessons as the elections all of them that have occurred this year going against them even iu in their stron strongholds strong holds but on tse contrary such each events event seem to have only emphasized their vindictiveness and caused them to determine upon adding fuel to the flames which are arc destined to be their political destruction A great deal of this mischief that is going on unchecked is the f fault a alt of the local focal and in many instances native magistracy ot of ireland these una underlings erlings take their cue from their superiors in london and having been given ku an inch of authority they predisposed are disposed to take an ell ou on every occasion where a display of it la is possible possible os sible there is a law a oad dad one gut but still a law against irish national league meetings in ireland but buc it iris is so general as to be nearly if sot not quite inoperative unless some judicial stipendiary pen diary of the crown gives it ic particular application and when the conservative serva tive cabal across the chann I 1 heared hear of any such proceedings norbit no difficult task since hince they are publicly cly announced the gentry formbly referred to are noticed to give it their particular attention which as a rule they are not at all unwilling or slow to do but this time the coterie colene wust rufusc have been overzealous over zealous tae law was waa intended to cruch the irish not to annoy the english as well and they should have been able to see ahr enough blinded by partisanship and the hope of reward though they are to have observed the spina as well a as the letter of their instructions and net have shown such unseemly haste in dispersing a partly english meeting 9 thou though egli held on irish 6 soil oil and ar arresting an englishman for presiding averit over it they might also profit by turning their atteA attention tion tor for a moment to a retrospective survey of the Mitchells mitchellstown town massacre and its results all of their henchmen who participated in that unwarranted un wan anted butchery being held for murder and that was a purely lush irish meeting besides if it be not yet too late perhaps it would save the tories tones something to treat the blunt arrest as though it had not happened to annoy him any further most moat of all to prosecute him hidu must certain certainly lv cause such an uprising as will set lh them lm aside peaceably buc further delay it is too near the twentieth century tor for the methods of the fifteenth to find favor at home or abroad |