GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM OF. 



395 



Irish bishops held a theological conference re- 

 garding the interpretation of the rescript, and 

 refrained from promulgating it till they had 

 learned from the Pope whether the condemna- 

 tion was to be understood as conditional, lim- 

 ited by the reasons given by Cardinal Monaco 

 for the prohibition of the Plan of Campaign. 

 The answer came that it was absolute. 



A meeting of Irish members of Parliament 

 to protest against the Papal rescript was fol- 

 lowed on May 20 by a popular assemblage in 

 Hyde Park, London, which numbered 6,000. 

 Similar demonstrations took place all over Ire- 

 land. The Bishop of Limerick, Dr. O'Dwyer, 

 was the only prelate who gave full effect to 

 the Papal admonition in a pastoral letter, and 

 vigorously denounced the agitation that was 

 carried on by Roman Catholics against their 

 Holy Father, the Pope. In his and some other 

 dioceses the parish priests refrained from tak- 

 ing an open part in the meetings, yet even 

 then they sent letters of regret expressive of 

 sympathy. The feeling of the subordinate 

 clergy was so rebellious that a schism was 

 feared if the Vatican adhered to the position 

 it had taken. The branches of the league and 

 public boards throughout the country pro- 

 tested against the intervention of the Pope, 

 a council of laymen that met in Dublin con- 

 demned the decree, and even bishops showed 

 opposition and explained away its plain intent. 

 The Pope listened to the remonstrances of the 

 Irish hierarchy and the arguments of Arch- 

 bishop Walsh, who visited Rome, and, with- 

 out retracting his theological position regard- 

 ing property rights and the binding force of 

 contracts, while declaring his Condemnation of 

 boycotting and the Plan of Campaign to be 

 unqualified and final, he was satisfied to see 

 his decree become what the Irish politicians 

 threatened to make it, a dead letter, and sent 

 explanations which modified its application. 

 At a meeting of the archbishops and bishops 

 that was held at Conliffe College on May 30 

 resolutions were unanimously adopted declar- 

 ing that the decree was intended to affect the 

 domain of morals alone, and saying that assur- 

 ances had just been received from the Pope 

 displaying deep and paternal interest in the 

 temporal welfare of the country, and showing 

 that, so far from intending to injure the Na- 

 tional movement, it was his intention to re- 

 move things that he feared might in the long 

 run prove obstacles to its advancement. The 

 resolutions conveyed a warning to the people 

 against the use of hasty or irreverent language 

 with reference to the Sovereign Pontiff or the 

 sacred congregations, and a reminder to the 

 leaders of the National movement that the 

 Roman Pontiff has an inalienable and divine 

 right to speak with authority on questions ap- 

 pertaining to faith and morals, which was ac- 

 companied with an expression of lasting grati- 

 tude to the Nationalist leaders for their serv- 

 ices to religion and morality. This, the first 

 formal acceptance by the prelates of the Pon- 



tificial injunction, beginning with the depre- 

 catory announcement that it was given "in 

 obedience to the commands of the Hoh 

 was praistd by the Nationalist press for its 

 " eloquent silence " in making no mention of 

 the Plan of Campaign or boycotting. 



At a general meeting of the archbishops and 

 bishops, held in the College of Maynooth on 

 June 27 and 28, the following statement was 

 adopted : (1) The demand of the agricultural 

 tenants in the matter of rent is in substance 

 for the establishment of an impartial public 

 tribunal to adjudicate between landlord and 

 tenant. They do not claim the right to fix 

 the rent themselves, but object to its being 

 determined by the arbitrary will of the land- 

 lord. (2) The principle that tenants should be 

 protected by law against exorbitant rents and 

 eviction has been recognized by the British 

 Parliament in the land act of 1881 and subse- 

 quent statutes, to) The tenants ask the effect- 

 ive application of this principle and the re- 

 moval of obstacles that have been allowed to 

 remain, even where the right to have a fair 

 rent fixed has been conferred by act of Parlia- 

 ment. (4) The most serious of these obstacles 

 is the accumulation of arrears from exorbitant 

 rents, which the courts have no power to re- 

 duce. The heavy indebtedness of tenants puts 

 it in the power of harsh landlords to use the 

 threat of eviction as a means of keeping back 

 their tenants from applying to the Land Com- 

 mission to have their rents adjusted. (5) Thou- 

 sands of tenants have been deprived of the 

 right of recourse to the courts and their legal 

 status as tenants by having had notices of evic- 

 tion served upon them. (G) No difficulty ex- 

 ists in providing a remedy. There is already 

 an act in operation in Scotland applicable to 

 arrears, under which rents have been judicially 

 reduced 30 per cent, and arrears no less than 

 61 per cent., but Parliament has refused to ex- 

 tend the operation of the act to Ireland. (7) 

 Unless Parliament at once applies some effect- 

 ive measure for the protection of Irish tenants 

 from oppressive exactions and arbitrary evic- 

 tion, consequences disastrous to public order 

 and to the safety of the people must ensue. 



Archbishop Walsh, in an address to the dean 

 and chapter of his cioc-ese in the early part of 

 July, described the results of his interviews 

 with Pope Leo, whom he had fully informed 

 of the claims and aspirations of the Irish in re- 

 gard both to national autonomy and the re- 

 dress of agrarian grievances, and said that the 

 people of Ireland may count on the entire sym- 

 pathy of the Vatican on every legitimate ef- 

 fort/ and that the foolish fiction that recent 

 legislation has done justice to the people or to 

 the tenants finds no footing there. The Pope, 

 in July, addressed an encyclical letter to the 

 Irish bishops, in which he condemned the con- 

 duct of the men who put themselves forward 

 to upset his authority and the duties of religion. 

 The priests absented themselves from public 

 meetings in behalf of the Plan of Campaign 



