TRUTH ON THE SITUATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 19, 6 February 1891, Page 27

TRUTH ON THE SITUATION.

All is well that ends well. I was afraid during last week (ending Deoember 6), that Mr. ParneU's tricWs. tactics, and devices, would, if he were given time, succeed in breaking up the majority against him or in fogging the real issue. Brutus, I remembered, did not let Cseaar occupy the Chairman's seat in the Senate, nor permit Mark Antony to move obstructive amendments But the Irish Members were light. They gave Mr. Parnell full rope, but kept their grip upon it, and when the right moment came they acted boldly and decisively. Their position was an embarrassing one. Mr. Parnell was the man accused, and he occupied the bench instead of the dock. He tried by every meane to convert a personal into a po'itical issue, and, when this failed, he insulted his opponents, in order to be able to say that he himself had been insulted, and, therefore, had withdrawn from the meeting with his immediate following. In pursuance of thesa tactics, he stuck at no means, and he was as false to every notion of honour as he had previously been to morals. The Irish, however, knew that if defeated at the meeting he would appeal to the Irish nation, and they wished to deprive him of every plea and excuse for doing so. They were aware that tho nation had created a fetish, and that the ignorant and the unruly must be convinced, that their idol is a false one before they gave up worshipping it. Mr. Parnell'B contention that he is still the leader of the Irish Farty is childish. The majority of the Party may depose their Chairman. The majority of the Party deposed him. Whether the vote was taken by aye or nay in one room, or whether it was taken by the majority and the minority going into two separate rooms, is obviously a mere mechanical question of detail. It is difficult for an Englishman to realise the regard felt for Mr. Parnell by his followers, and the sacrifice of feeling made by those who went against him. He was to them the embodiment of their country, and they had for yearn revered him as something more than human. I have sometimes wondered at their deferential mode of treating him, for he was cold and reticent towards them, and he seemed to me the last man to inspire enthusiasm for himself in the warm-hearted and genial Irish. The members of his party have been sneered at as wanting in independence. Of this they can hardly be accused now. Confronted with the necessity of choosing between their leader and their country, they acted as men and patriotß. Imn sorry for Mr. Pstrnell. Admit all his faults : that he forced, for his private ends, Captain O'shea on an Irish constituency : that he was false to honour in violating the confidence thai Mr. Gladstone had reposed in him ; that he gave an untruthful account of his interview with Mr. Gladstone ; and that he prostituted his position as Chairman of the Party in order to hinder a vote being taken on a matter personal to him. Still I am sorry for him. He bad one of the greatest positions ever attained by Parliamentary chiefs. He was, in truth, the uncrowned Kiog of Ireland. Milliots of Irishmen, in all parts of the globe, listened to his words as thoogh they were the law anl the gospel. And now I Yes, I would give much — politics apart —had all this not occurred I confess that when the divorce suit was decided, I h^ped that the English Liberals would accept the view that the political relations between them and the Irish Nationalists were in the nature of an alliance, and that the private faults of the Irish leader were no more concern of theirs, so far as regarded the alliance, than the private faults of a Pinne Minister in Australia or in Canada. Thip, I contend, is the logical outcome of the doctrine of Home Rule. Unfortunately, however, people aie not logical, and when Mr. Parnell perceived that— rightly or wrongly — Home Bule was lo t if he did not retire, h° would ha\e been wise had he withdrawn from the Irish leadership. Time is a gre-.t hea'er, and who knows what would have happened in a year or so ? As matt n r«i now stand, I doubt if he will ever again be Irish !e 'der, for he has heaped fault on fault, and he h. 8 offended not only the Eng'isb, but the leading Irish partisaos of Home Rule, past all hope of reconciliation. Sd outrageously has he offended them, and so utterly wrong has been his course, that it is a chaiity to suppose that he has temporarily lost his head. I respect those who s'ood by him, though I think that truy were in the wrong. But, if so, it was a generous error. Now that he is deposed by a majority of the Party, it will be worse than a crime, it will te a faulr ( for them to aid him in any endeavour to split up the Party in Ireland. If they aid him, he in&y do much injury. But be will eventually have to succumb. + ***■■+ My good Irish friends, do you want Home Rule ? If so, can you tell me how you are to get it except by securing a majority in its favour in the Imperial Parliament ? This you would have had if Mr. Pamell had not teen declared guilty in the Divorce Court. The majority of the English Liberals, lightly or wrorgly, decline to fight for Home Rule so long as he remains Irish Leader, beciuseof this verdict. Huw without them can you pet a majority for Home Rule ? But in Ireland the hierarchy, the principal lieutenants of Mr. Parnell, and some at least of the e'ecttr=, demand Mr. Pamelas retirement. The result is that the Irish Nati< nalit-ts are split up. Does this strengthen the cause ot Home Rule? If Mr. Parre 1 had not qualified himself for the Divorce Court rune of this would have happened. If even row he were to withdraw, we should all again be a happy family. Whose, then, the fault 1 Isitjouis? Is it outs ? No! The fault is Mr ParneU's, and it n ally is montlrous that you should hbtt him in declinn g io pay the penalty. , \ 'ifck.lo alter the issue Mr. Parnell has asserted that Air. Gladstone is a base deceiver, and that he wishes to give you a sham Horn eHule. Do y(U really believe that Mr. Gladstone broke with a section of his Party in England who objected to Homa Rule in order to deceive you? Why shou'd he have done this ? Was his Bill of 1880 a sham ? If so, why did Mr. Pamell accept it? Was Mr. Parnell lying when he said that this measure was a solution of the long dispute between England and Ireland / If so, who was the deceiver ? WheD, six months after the Harwarden so-called revelations, be lauded Mr.

Gladstone to the skies for what he was prepared to do for Ireland, was Mr. Parnell alao lying ? If not, what was he doing, if really he considered that theee revelations proved that Mr. Gladstone wa9 a deceiver? You pass as an intelligent people. Ask yourselves whether it was Mr. Gladstone's revelations at Hawarden, or Mr. Gladstone's letter to Mr. Morley, that led Mr. Parnell, a year after the revelation?, to denounce him, and to call on you to distrust him. If yon really allow yourselves to be befooled by the transparent tricka of a man who puts his personal ambition above his country, so be it. We who have fought for your country, and pat aside all our domestic reforms for the sake of your country, can only wonder and deplore.