6 DECEMBER 1879, Page 3

Archbishop McCabe, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, has spoken out

plainly, in a pastoral read in the Dublin churches last Sunday, as to the tendency of the present land :agitation. After referring to the great distress in many parts of Ireland, he proceeds ;--" Unfortunately, men proclaiming their sympathy for the people in their deep distress are going through the country, disseminating doctrines which, pushed to their logical conclusion, will strike at the root of the good-faith and mutual confidence which are the foundations of social life." And Archbishop McCabe uses Ms authority to exhort his clergy in manly terms against concessions to this dangerous spirit, which, as he justly says, must sooner or later be fatal to the prosperity of Ireland, and so " recoil " on the heads of those who to-day may seem to be gainers by its adoption. Indeed, Catholic priests who do not openly rebuke the new crusade are in much more danger of lapsing into Socialism, than of gaining their flocks to the Church by so dangerous a concession to a popular movement.