Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1887 — FOREIGN. [ARTICLE]

FOREIGN.

The Irish difficulty is thus referred to by the Queen: Thecondition of Ireland still requires your anxiOTfe attention. Grave crimes in that country have happily been rarer in the last few months than during the similar period of the preceding year, but the relations between the owners and ocoupiers of the land which in the early antumn exhibited signs of improvement, ha\e since been seriously disturbed in some districts by organized attempts to incite the latter class to combine against the fulfillment of their legal obligations. The efforts of the Government to cope with this evil have been seriously impeded by the difficulties incident to the method at present prescribed by statute for dealing with such offenses. Your early attention will be called to proposals for the reform of legal procedure which seem necessary to secure prompt and efficient administration ot the criminal law. Bills for the improvement of local government in England and Scotland will belaid before you. Should the circumstances render it possible they will be followed by a measure dealing with the same subject in Ireland. Germany lias arranged for the erection of barracks at various points along the French frontier.. Minister Phelps and Premier Salisbury bad a conference, in London, at the latter’s request, to discuss the fisheries dispute. The conference was cordial on both sides. A London dispatch says: The subject of the dispute in regard to the Canadian fisheries was brought up in the House of Commons. Sir James. Ferguson, Parliamentary Secretary of the Foreign Office, in answer to inquiries, said that the Government had been conferring with the Government of the Unit 'd States on the question. The Canadian fisheries, he said, were very valuable, and the Government had followed the policy concerning them which had been adopted by the preceding governments, and would maintain the rights of the colonists, with every desire to conciliate the United States. The Government was unable at present to narrate the whole course of the negotiations with the United States, but could state that a dispatch had been received which was of a pacific character, and afforded material grounds for hope of a final settlement of the dispute. At a court reception in Berlin, Emperor W iliam remarked that seventy-two thousand men of the reserves would immediately be called out for drill with the repeating rifle. It is stated by Henri Rochfort that seven nihilists were recently hanged in the prison at Odessa, ten others are being tried at Wijna for killing a Colonel, and 200 more were lately sent to Siberia. The British Ministry is said to miss Lord Randolph Churchill severely in the House of Commons. The Tories were able to make a fair show with him on the front bench, but the Ministry is in a bad way. The Liberals consequently feel jubilant over a prospective return to power. It is openly claimed that the Ministry will not last through February. The defeat of Mr. Goshen at Liverpool is making the Liberals feel good. The National Zeitung (Berlin) says it sees that France is preparing for immediate war. The Germans need not discuss the truth of the assertions that France is only defending herself against possible assault. The Mulhausen papers announce the purchase of large school buildings at Zillisheim, near Colmar, for barracks for the German troops. Re-enforcements have arrived at Dieuze, Hagenau, and other frontier posts A Belfast cablegram states that some soldiers of the West Surrey regiment insulted a number of Catholic civilians. The latter retaliated by throwing stones. Over 100 persons were arrested by the police, and the troops were called out to restore quiet The rioting was renewed the following day, when the police and the public exchanged shots. persons are said to have been injured. William O’Brien, speaking at Bodyke, County Limerick, said that if Irishmen could meet the police man to man and rifle to rifle in the open field he for one would promptly abandon speakiug, and the next speech the destroyers of the people’s homes would hear would be from the mouths of the people’s guns. Lord Dunsandle offered to reduce the rents of his Galway tenants 25 per cent, and to reinstate the evicted, which is a great victory for the tenants. I