Lord Londonderry was received with honour at Belfast on Tuesday
in the Ulster Hall, and in making his acknow- ledgments, after describing the great wealth and prosperity of Belfast, he said that the people of Belfast attributed that wealth and prosperity to the Union, and he did not see why the rest of Ireland should not flourish as well as the North under the same Government and Constitution which had fostered Belfast into such opulence. He maintained that the Unionists of the North of Ireland had a much greater stake in the wealth of the country than the majority who looked upon them as a miserable minority. He pointed out how different is Mr. Parnell's attitude when addressing English audiences from that of his colleagues in Ireland, where Mr. Justin MacCarthy has actually been boycotted for imitating Mr. Parnell's English mood. Further, he exposed the false- hood of the charge that some Irish editors had been punished for publishing mere items of news, the truth being that in none of these prosecutions had the defence been set up that the statements for which the editors were prosecuted were simple items of news, and that in none of them had there been any disavowal of the intention to incite to boycotting and intimidation. In many of these cases, indeed, the pretended news was false news,—reports of meetings which never took place, and of resolutions which were never passed,—the only object of the report being to give notice to those who were willing to boycott and intimidate, of the victims whom they ought to select. In short, the ex-Lord-Lieutenant's speech was a most lucid, moderate, and valuable criticism on the present condition of the great Irish controversy.
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