"WHO AND WHAT IS MR PARNELL?

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4479, 14 May 1883, Page 2

"WHO AND WHAT IS MR PARNELL?

The Pall Mall Gazette in one of its leading articles says :—" Who and what is Mr Parnell," asks the Time* this morning, indignantly, "that he should at this moment invite the House to censure faithful and honoured servants of the State ? " Mr Paraell is. the duly elected representative of the City of Cork, who in that capacity is entitled to move any censure he pleases, subject, of-course, to the authority of the Speaker, upon any servants of the State, no matter how faithful and hououred they may be. He cannot be interfered with in discharging what he, rightly or wrongly, regards as his duty to his constituents without striking a blow at the fundamental principle of Parliamentary institutions. Apart from what the Times describes as the " technical," but what in reality is the legal and constitutional right of every member of tha House of Commoos, it would not be amiss if people, both in the House and out of it, would try and remember " who and what Mr Parnell is." Mr Parnell was elected simultaneously at the last general election by three of the largest constituencies in Ireland. At this moment there are hardly half a-- dozen constituencies in Ireland, outside Ulster, where, even with the present restricted franchise, a candidate opposed to Mr Parnell would have any chance of election. If a plebiscite were taken to-morrow of all the adult males in Ireland, Mr Parnell would head the poll by an enormous majority above all the men who now sits in the House of Com* mous. Mr Trevelyan has told us that the Irishmen who sympathise with

crime are a small minority.. The;,lrish" men who sympathise with Mr Bstut\\ are unquestionably "a large majorit^vvThis fact may be disheartening, it mtflf am cal* amitous; but that is a fact no^pne disputes. To demand, therefore, th^|Mr Parnell should be gagged is to de^je. '■ rhat the spokesman of the majority bf*-' -; Irishman should be gagged, and from that t is but a shorter step to the exclusion of Irish members altogether from the House of Commons. That also has been proposed in some quarters, and it would at least be more straightforward than to allow them to enter and then to deny them the exercise of tbeir rights. Fortunately, that blunder is one the mere proposal of which is sufficient to deter any sane man from attempting to put it in practice.