MR PARNELL SKETCHED.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3847, 29 April 1881, Page 1

MR PARNELL SKETCHED.

"An Old" Hand," who is also an old friend to Ireland, thus describes, in the Liverpool Daily Post, Mr Parnell's speech in introducing the amendment to the Address in the House of Commons :-rThe astute and wary young leader of social revolt at last got his opportunity and spoke, for three quarters of an hour only, from the place usually affected by Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr Arthur Balfour. His spare frame was habited with his usual plain indifference to effect, but his clear cut, closely cropped head was significant to those who knew him of the refined and subtle jesuistry which he has been the first to bring into Irish hnmanitarian politics. Mr ParnelVs speech was afterwards described by Mr Gibson as one of the most adroit ever delivered in the House, and it deserved thetribute: The House was not very full," but the right people were present. Mr Gladstone lost not a word. Mr Porster listened like a fox. Mr Bright flushed with interest, and in some places I could not help thinking with sympathy. The blind Postmaster-General came down from his usual place at the upper corner of the Treasury Bench, and sat upon the middle, leaning forward upon his Btick to catch every word of the cool, audacious, remorseless statement of the powerful Land League chief. And spite of the array against Parnell, it was a speech of power, in which, the tyranny, if it is tyranny —the -organisation whether, it is tyranny or not—of the great agrarian revolt was made personally perceptible and incarnate. Speakers said afterwards that Parnell did not speak as he speaks out of the House. Who does P But did he blench, or falter, or mitigate the meaning of his movement? Not he. .He literally sent the steel of his icy, satiric voice into ■■ the very marrow of the landlords, treating them cooly as a class to be dealt .with as natural enemies of the people; told the House that "this caste" and their abbetors, if any, among the people would be made by the organisation to obey j . the unwritten law of public opinion.; and, though he deprecated . outrage,' and claimed to have minimised it, he avowed that in a country trained as Ireland had been there could never be any improvement if those who sought to improve it were to shrink from the possibility or even the certainty of outrages arising out-of agitation. I don't think it would be possible to exaggerate the peculiar effect of this speech of the Irish leader. Its skill was perfect, but it is not* as it were conspicuous. It was all the more absolute because the secret of the skill was severe simplicity and clear sincerity unaided by any sort of visible artifice or any rhetorical expedient except that of saying in the fewest words exactly what would stab and perplex the greatest number of enemies all around. No one who beard the speech will ever get out of his blood t lie exciting chill, so to speak, of its tone ef destiny, nor will any listener forgetthe freezing scorn of the calm passage, in which the speaker made ridiculous the prosecution or even the publication of . threatening letters. Possibly the reports of the speech may not convey to the full these impressions, which to some extent are made by Mr Parnell's voice and "man* ncr, which from sheer quite insistency are very potent; but lam sure I interpret aright the feeling of every- susceptible ■ auditor, irrespective of politics.