HAS FROUDE BEEN CONVERTED ?

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 273, 14 March 1889, Page 2

HAS FROUDE BEEN CONVERTED ?

The telegraph agents are having quite a literary picnic over Mr J. A. Froude, formerly one of the strongest and most bitter opponents of Home Bule for Ireland. One telegram stated that he had been converted to the Home Rule cause, but it is not expected nowadays that a cable message can be received on any important matter unless there is a contradiction the following day. Why such should be the case it is unnecessary to explain further than to state that it is a misfortune to which colonial readers have to submit. Of course in this last case there is the usual contradiction, but it is made in suoh a deceptive way that only those who study the question can understand it—“ Mr Froude denies that he favors the political separation of Ireland from the Empire.” Now the most effective argument of the Unionists has always been that Home Rule for Ireland actually means separation from England—that it means the disintegration of the Empire, and much sentiment has been introduced into the matter on this account, some going the length of asserting that if Home Rule principles were granted it would finally lead to a complete separation, and eventually to swords being drawn between Ireland and England as between two distinct and unfriendly nations. From his writings it is almost a certainty that Mr Froude still holds the view that Home Rule for Ireland means “political separation from England,” which is as much as to say that Mr Froude is no more a convert to Home Bute than is the Prime Minister himself. He may have given expression to views that would lead a Home Ruler to claim him as one of their number, but from the telegrams it appears to be nothing more than a tele graph agent’s trick, Certainly if after all that Mr Froude has said, he were now made aennvert to the other side, it would be a great victory for the Home Rule cause, and coming just after the disgraceful outcome of the Times Pae.iell Commission would be a very material factor in increasing the flow of the favorable tide whfoh now appears to have fully set in with regard to Home Rule for Ireland. Still those who have the Irish cause at heart would act sensibly if they regard the telegrams with suspicion until such time at any rate as there is an oppot tuility for having their accuracy tested,