The MacDonnell Letters

New Zealand Tablet, 8 November 1906, Page 9

The MacDonnell Letters

A long-drawn controversy has "been for some time seething' and bubbling all over the .British Isles'-, in connection with the appointment of Sir Antony. MacDonnell as "Under-Sec re tary for Ireland. The discussion has boiled over the boundaries of the Home Lands, and little spirts of it have trickled through the cables into New Zealand. Those -not behind the scenes are sorely puzzled by the fact that an Irish Under-Secretary should have been placed in a position of independence - - x of Prime Ministers, Chief Secretaries, and political parties. Sir Antony's marked Irish sympathies • made him from the first the object of the special execration of the Ulster Orange Members of Parliament, who, if the opportunity offered, would cheerfully kick him south of the Tropic of Capricorn. There has been a 'general feeling that King Edward was the prime mover in Sir Antony's appointment. And it is commonly surmised that the mysterious reluctance to publish the correspondence in connection with -the affair is due to a natural desire to keep the royal name out of the verbal melee that is whirling and eddying around Sir Antony's position. The ' Glasgow Observer ' quotes from the London -correspondent of the ' Daily Dispatch ' the following paragraph which (it says) ' simply expresses publicly . what everyone has * been saying in private on the subject- since '-the contention began' : ' I have it on the .highest^authority that the difficulty in' producing the much-talked-of letters does not rise from any objection, on the-,_pavt of Sir Antony MacDonnell .pr of Mr. Wyndham, .but that all the statesmen interested are concerned in keeping the name of the Sovereign out. of the affair. Sir Antony was not anxious to be appointed Under-Secre-tary. The Governorship of Bombay was at- his disposal. The Irish appointment was only accepted by . him at .the earnest request of ' his Sovereign and under conditions which precluded the possibility of being thrown over by the politicians.'