IRELAND OR PARNELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 19, 6 February 1891, Page 19

IRELAND OR PARNELL.

{United Ireland t December 6.)

T9S cloud* have lifted. The path of duty is clear at laat. No m>,n who keeps his head cool and his heart pnre can miss it Let partisans attempt to disguise it as they may, " Ireland or Parnell " is now the issue on which Irishmen are to decide. Last week we wrote : " Thera is but one sentiment that could possibly overmaster the fidelity of the Irish Party to their great leader— fidelity to their great cause. He haß a strong claim on them ; Ireland has a stronger on him and them. If Home Rule is to be still helped by his leadership he will stay ; if Home Rule is to be hart he will go." Since then all things hare proved— for Ireland's sake, Mr. Parnell must go. The Irish delegates, in whose whole-hearted devotion to Ireland no sane man doubts, have said so. Dillon ani O'Brien base their judgment on Parnell's own word* in bis deplorable manifesto. Of the anguish with which their judgment was given against the chief whom they served so long and with such matchless fidelity no man who knows them need be told. The Irish party, by a majority of forty-four (excluding the Irish delegates) to twenty.nine, a majority in which is every leader of prominence, every man who has helped to make the Irish Party the power it was in the House of Commons declares he must go. It was the Irish Party that elected him ; it is for them to depose him. The Episcopacy of lieland— the patriotic Archbishops of Dublin and Cashel at their head— declare Parnell must go if the party is to retain the confijence of the biehops or the priests. Home Rule is impossible while he remains. Never again can he lead a united party. The truest and most trusted, the most gifted of his followers, have declared for Ireland against his leadership. The priests and bishops follow emphatically in the same line. Shorn of their united support, what hope is there of success ? Mr. Parnell, and all who advocate hia leadership, after these emphatic pronouncements, are responsible for the perpetuation of discord. Ireland will desire to deal as gently as may be with the man to whom she owed so much in former years, but who now— oh, tbat it should be co— seems bent on wrecking her hopes and happiness for a generation to save himself from the consequences of his own transgressions. The Irish party, on whom Mr. Parnell now flinga such cruel aspersions, have shown to him a tenderness and fidelity without parallel in history. Those who were behind the scenes know well that for the last fire years he has virtually abdicated the position of leadership which he now struggles so desperately to retain. In the terrible fight against coercion he took no part. When the fi^ht was hottest he was absent. When the counsel and direction of a leader were most needed he mysteriously disappeared, why and whi'her is now unhappily made plain to the world. While his followers struggled in the good cause he went on his own way unheeding. His bare assent to the Tenants' Defence Associat.on which rescued the tenants from destruction, was all he vouchsafed. He made not a single effort by act or word to forward it When the mission to America was resolved on in Dublin he was not found eg jal to the exertion of a personal attendance at the Convention of the party. For tne five long years that coercion raged he scarcely once so much as set foot in the country which is now called udot to luin itself for his sake, Through all that trying time his follu-vers, wao bore the heat of the day and the buiden thereof, kept his name before the country, and freely yielded to him the fame ot their own achievements. It is on that self-devotion he now relies. At last, in the open day, amid the jeers of his enemies ami the <*ntf and cumiliation of his friends, the sad secret was laid bare of his strange apathy and mysterious disappearance when hid country most needed his service?. Even then the party clung to him with desperate fidelity. I hey forgave his repeated assurances that he would come with untarnished honour through the ordeal. They forgave the foul smirca which his transgression cast en the fMr fame of the nation-the purest in the world— whica had honoured him as its cho,en leader They forgave and strove to forget tba lamen able incident of the Galway election— lamentable in the light of recent revelations. Mr. Parnell alone knew the character of the man O Shea, and their mutual ielations, when he gave him ps representative to the people of Galway, who confidently trusted their honour in his hands-a sacred trus —/a Leader ot the Irish race. All this the Irish Party was prepared to condone in consideration of former services. They carried their fidelity to the bnuk of folly, to the very verge of crime, when ihev unanimously re-eltcted him their leader. But whea it was made quite plain that fidelity to Paroell meant treason to Inland the best and truest and bravest of his former followers drew the line there. The hour of his unaoiruous election was for him a noble opportunity misapplied. He should hive remembered the terrible danger which his own acts had brought upon the sacred cause of wnich he was the chosen champion. He should have known (none b-tter) that with him as leader Home Rule was impossible. Hi 3 resignation would have cleared the way for tha great victory which, after seven centuries of struggling, was almost within the country's grasp The impending disaster wasof his creation and surdy it was not. lemauding much that be should make some slight sacrifice to a/crt it But he refused to yield his place to save his country. He chose rather to plunge her into fratricidal stnte, of which no mm may see th* end even at the risk that his fall should be made memorable by her rum' liiere is but one hope now that the struggle shall be short an i the victory decisive. The lesson must be quickly and plainly taught, that ?0 Tm b PerSUnalUy Can * )erumtod l 0 obdtru ct the path of Ire-