The Parnell Commission’s Report.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 440, 12 April 1890, Page 3

The Parnell Commission’s Report.

London, February 23. Lloyd's Weekly, a Unionist organ, gives a very fair summing up of the report of the Commission. It says ;— Late on Thursday night the long-expected Beport of the Special Oommission was issued to Parliament, and since then partisans have been declaring that the result of the long and costly inquiry is a triumph to their side. The Daily News truly says tbat it *■ amounts to a practical acquittal of the Irish members on the charges of personal complicity with crime.” The Times contends that the enquiry exposes “ a parasitic growth—based on terrorism, operating through outrage, and so deeply implicated with criminality that it was not in the power, even if in the desire of the leaders to place any effectual check on crime.” Everything is made to torn on the meaning with which the word “ crime ” is invested. A large number of the Parnellite

members—and some English members also—make a boast of belonging to the proscribed Land League, and of supporting the Plan of Campaign. With one party this is treason, with the other it is a brilliant display of patriotism. The vehement and hysteric accusations brought against the Irish members by the Times two years ago, have not been supported. The letters on which they relied are admitted to be forged—though the unhandsome spirit of controversy leads the Times to speak of them as “ withdrawn.” Much 6! the biker ttitowe ffai, io iki qm of Uw three

learned and patient Commissioners, similarly tinged wish exaggeration, and in no case has pen*nal complicity with outrage been established. Excited orators have produced excited audiences ; but, though no money or labour was spared in gathering evidence, it was impossible to bring any specific act home to any of the Irish leaders. They are shown not to be so black as they wore painted; and, perhaps, if the colour had not been so thickly bespattered, the public would not now feel the tendency to reaction. A number of the Irish members have openly declared their desire to establish the ultimate independence of Ireland; and they have used the Land League organisation for this purpose. But we did not need an enquiry of a hundred and twenty-eight days to tell us what we already knew. Similarly, many supported a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling the English landlords from Ireland. This, however, had been a matter of open boasting, as had been their dissemination of periervidly written newspapers advocationg their cause. But it is found that they did not directly incite persons to crime other than intimidation; and the charge “ that when they denounced certain crimes in public they afterwards led their supporters to believe that such denunciation was not sincere,” is not established. The judges expressly acquit Mr Parnell and his colleagues of insincerity in their denunciation of the Phcenix-park murders. Those charged with or convicted of agrarian crime have been defended and comforted, and their families relieved; and assistance, cooperation, and subscriptions have been accepted from the Clan-na-gael and other bodies approving the use of dynamite. In connection with this it is found that Mr Davitt, “ a convicted Fenian,” was in close and intimate association with the party of violence, and mainly instrumental in bringing about an alliance between them and the American Home Rule party. Mr Parnell is acquitted on all the charges brought against him personally. The Report leaves the public very much in the position it was in before the inquiry commenced, except that the letters have been proved false and fraudulent. Nearly every other finding was already arrived at by all ordinary observers of intelligence. Acts which the Commissioners, the law, and a large majority of the public consider criminal, if not treasonable, are on the other aide of the Channel called praiseworthy. It is for this reason that the methods and objects of the Irish party are repugnant to the ordinary English citizen, and until a uniform point of sight is established, our difficulties will continue. In the meanwhile both sides are welcome to congratulate themselves on their “ victory ” in a conflict brought about by partisan exaggeration.