The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1890. PARNELLISM AND CRIME.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2014, 1 March 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1890. PARNELLISM AND CRIME.

The Unionist party are issuing a pamphlet censuring The Times for having published “ Farnellism and Crime,” and Mr W. S, Caine, one of its leaders, has written a letter stating that Mr Parnell has come out of the enquiry virtually unscathed. He is horrified at the' conduct of The Times in publishing the libels oh such flimsy evidence. So we are told by cable, and from this we may reasonably conclude that when their bitterest enemies are acting in this manner the Parnellites have come out of the ordeal with clean hands. The action of the Unionists contrasts strangely 1 with the cry that 40 of the Parnellites should be expelled from the House. This was the cry raised by the Conservative Press when the report of the Commissioners was made public. The object, of course, was to try to make the unthinking believe that the charges had been proved, but evidently this does not suit the Unionists. They have undertaken to publish a pamphlet embodying their own views on the subject, not because they wish to exonerate the Parnellites, but because they are anxious to disavow all responsibility for such a dishonorable transaction. They know full well that the matter will exercise great influence on the next election; they are afraid that the public will want to know how they can reconcile with Liberal professions the countenancing of such scandalous proceedings, and they want to take time by the forelock and explain their part in it in advance. It is evident from this that the report has created a sensation, otherwise the Unionists would not have gone to this trouble concerning it. The history of the whole affair is so interesting that we may be pardoned for recapitulating it. At the election of 1886 Mr Gladstone said that there was no middle course between Home Rule and Coercion, but the Consorvatives held that there was, and that Ireland could be governed by the ordinary law of the land. On the strength of these professions the Conservatives came into power, and certainly made an honest effort to curry out their promises. Per several months they tried their best to induce landlords to treat their tenants leniently, and they stopped evictions for a time. The country was consequently very quiet, but the landlords became very angry. They held a meeting, and a deputation of them waited on Lord Salisbury and told him that if that was the way he was going to treat them they would turn Home Rulers. This placed Lord Salisbury in an awkward fix. He has no supporters in Ireland except the landlords, and he had to choose between losing them and helping them to evict their tenants. He chose the latter course, Lord Randolph Churchill resigned, and Sir Eedvers Buller, who was trying to settle disputes between landlord and tenant in Ireland, was removed from office. The position now became very complex. Lord Salisbury had promised to govern Ireland without coercion, but he found that so long as the National League existed evictions could not be carried on by the means of ordinary law. Coercion, therefore, became absolutely necessary to destroy the National League, but the country was very quiet, owing to evictions having for a time been suspended, and some excuse was necessary to get Parliament to pass the measure. It was then that The Times came to Lord Salisbury’s assistance by publishing a series of articles entitled “ Parnellism and Crime.” In the first of these articles The Times said : “ We charge that the Land League chiefs based their movement on a scheme of assassination, carefully calculated and coolly applied. Murderers provided their funds, tnuruererv. shaved their inmost councils muiv,., : haw gone forth from the ' •-eague office to set their bloody work Loot, an ’ have presently returned to j com-uR the constitutional leaders | (me--.mg v,r Par el I and his friends). ' assassins guarded this infernal and enforced the high degrees oi the !

secret conclave within by the bullet and the knife. Of tbat conclave to-day three members sit in the Im-

perial Parliament, four are fugitives from the law.” This was a fearful

indictment, but it passed unnoticed until the day on which the Coercion Bill was to have passed through Par-

liament, and on that morning the famous “fac-simile” letter,implicating Mr Parnell in the Phoenix Park mur-

der, was published. This created a fearful sensation, and the Coercion Bill passed at once. Subsequently several other letters were produced", and Mr Parnell asked Parliament to

set up a Committee to enquire into the charges made against him. It has been the rule from time immemorial that when any charge has been made against a member of Parliament a Committee of members has to in-

vestigate it. This rule was never before deviated from, but instead of treating Mr Parnell in the usual way a Commission of three judges was appointed. One of these, Judge Smith, is an Irish landlord, another, Judge Day, had made a most violent attack on the Parnellites while investigating the Orange riots in Belfast, and the third, Sir James Hannen, was known as very anti-Irish. The

three judges were Tories, and their appointment was resisted vehemently by Mr . Gladstone, Mr Morley; Sir William Harcourt, and all the Liberal party. They got power to inquire into everything and anything, and they exercised it unsparingly. During' the trial all the police officers and magistrates of Ireland, as well as State papers, were placed at the'disposal of the Times; the AttorneyGeneral conducted the case on its

behalf, and whea it broke down, through the exposure of the Pigott forgeries, the judges became so unfair that Mr Parnell and his legal advisers left the court. Now this is the history of the whole affair, and it appears to us plain that it was all a deep laid conspiracy entered into by the Government and the Times to ruin Mr

Parnell and destroy all chances of Ireland getting Home Rule. This is certainly the foulest crime in modern history, yet such are the tactics the

aristocracy of England resort to in order to retain pewer in their own

hands. The scheme was well laid and skilfully worked out, and only for the accident that enabled Mr Labouchero and Mr Parnell to expose the Pigott

forgeries it would have succeeded. It, however, happened very fortunately for the Parnellitea and Home Bale. The scheme miscarried, the Parnellites

have come through the ordeal unscathed, the nation is disgusted, and the net result will be that Ireland will get Home Eule immediately after next election. It will be seen from this that the Irish landlords were at the bottom of it all. Lord Salisbury’s Government were treating the Irish tenants well until the landlord deputation waited upon him.. They forced him to change, and in all probability it was then and there the whole plot was hatched. _ Theie is sufficient evideuce to justify this conclusion. The Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union is the Landlord’s Association ; Mr

Houston was secretary of it, and it was Mr Houston who supplied the Times with the articles on Parnellism and Crime. The Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union also refused to submit its books to the commissieners for examination. Thus the case appears to have developed step by step from the meeting of Lord Salisbury and the landlozda. It would appear as if Lord Salisbury said.- “ We can’t get a Coercion Act passed. The countrv is very quiet.” '"he landlords replied: “We will provide an excuse for it,” and they did by setting their secretary to work. At any rate there can be no doubt but that they were at the bottom of it, but they over-reached themselves, and it will result in their own destruction. '