THE CONSERVATIVE MINISTRY AND MR PARNELL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2202, 19 August 1886, Page 3

THE CONSERVATIVE MINISTRY A ND MR PARNELL.

At a meeting of Liberals and Conservative.s in favour of the maintenance of the Legislative Union between England and Ireland, heW on Tuesday, June A w

Manchester, in connection with Mr Houldsworth's candidature for North-West Manchester, the following letter was read troin Lord Salisbury, dated Hatfield-house, June 28, and addressed to Mr J. VV. Maclure, the Conservative candidate for tho Stretford Division of South-East Lancashire :— "Mr Parnell's assertions are a string of baseless fabrications. It is false that Mr Parnell has reason to believe that it the Conservatives got into power after the general election they would have given him a statutory Legislature. No one belonging to the Government or connected with it gave him any intimation of the kind. It is false that I was only too anxious to be convinced in favour of a Legislature for Ireland, or that 1 ever showed the slighest leaning towards such an opinion. It is false that 4 Lord Carnavon urged such concession on the Cabinet,' and consequently false that it was not refused by the Cabinet until the polls went against us. It is false that Lord Carnavon urged his views in favour of a statutory Legislature on the Cabmot for six months, and consequently false that he urged them without being opposed in the Cabinet to any extent. It is false that after the result of the polls was known 'the Cabinet swerved round in opposition to the' project for a statutory Legislature,' for they never had been the slightest inclination towards it. I need not tell you that the story of the Land Purchase Bill having been parsed indefeience to a wish expressed at his interview of the Ist of August is made simply impossible by the fact that it had already passed the House of Loids, and the Government were publicly pledged to it. The Government re-olved upon it a* noon n% they came into office, a month before the date Mr Parnell s]>eaks of it." The subjoined letter from Lord Carnavon has been received by Mr Walter Money, F.S.A., of Newbury, a leading member of the Conservative party in South Beiks, in reply to a communication regretting that his lordship's honest desire to acquire information on both sides of the liish question should have been made the subject of an unjust criticism by his political adversaries, and expressing the belief that, while willing that the subject should have full and impartial consideration, he was quite sensible of his position as a responsible Minister of the Crown, and of the honour and integrity of the Empire : — " I am much obliged to you for your letter of yesterday. It is pleasant to me to know that I have the confidence of my friends and neighbours in a controversy where my name has been freely used. I have already explained briefly, but clearly, what I did and what I did not do ; I have nothing to add to or withdraw from that explanation, and though I appreciate the exigences of an election cry, I do not feel called on to embark upon an interminable conflict of recriminations and replies, of statements and counter-statements. lam quite content to leave myself to the judgment of those who havo known we well for many years both in public and in private life.