IRISH AFFAIRS.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7777, 3 February 1891, Page 5

IRISH AFFAIRS.

(Per San Francisco Mail at Auckland.) : LONDON, January 13. A despatch from Limerick, on Ja&aary 11th, says:—Folly 20,000 persons assembled here to-day to greet Mr Farnell, thousands coming from all the adjoining Counties. Hβ made a lons speech ana declared that Mr Gladstone caused the present trouble by his mandatory letter. Referring to Mr Gladstone's denial of the accuracy of his statements regarding the Interview at Hawarden, Mr Parnell read a letter he had written to Mr Rhodes, the Premier of Cape Colony, a warm friend of Home Rule, only three moncha after the interview, making the same assertions. Another important fact yet unrevealed Mr Parnell said he would now publish. Twenty-four hours before issuing his manifesto he saw Mr McCarthy, to whom he told what he intended to do, and gave an outline of the statement he was preparing to issue as a manifesto. Mr McCarthy, he had reason to know, placed his intentions before Mr Gladstone. (Hisses). Mr McCarthy also communicated to him Mr Gladstone's observation up3n the outline of the manifesto, and there was no reference whatever then made by Mr Gladstone against the manifesto on the ground of a oreach of confidence. (Cries of "Hear, hear.") Touching the present position of the land question. Mx Parnell thought the action of the Liberals towards the Land Bill proposed by the Government showed that the Liberals had not a genuine policy. The leaders of the Liberal party, in order to conciliate the Radical section, had abandoned the idea of peasantry proprietorship and land purchase, and in order to conciliate the Whigs refused to entertain proposals for the reduction of rents by means of an amendment of the Land Act of 1881, by conferring upon the future Irish Parliament power to deal with the question. It was therefore perfectly useless for the Liberals to talk about Home Rule at all, because Home Rule so restricted would be a sham. Whatever might be the motives of the Irish members who opposed him, it was certain that they were not in a position to sit in judgment on him, or pretend to express an opinion of the country. Mr Parnell said he could not forecast the result of the present negotiations without a breach of confidence. He thought, however, Mr O'Brien would not object to his saying that so far the negotiations had resulted in an agreement, and that they fully recognised that the future steps are to be taken by other men, on whom very great responsibility will rest, if Mr O'Brien and himself were not able to resume the negotiations with the assured hope of success. (Cheers.) As soon as the future of the Irish Question was secured, he would cheerfully retire from the leadership of the Irish party. The future would vindicate him fully. The Dublin Freeman's Journal of January 9th publishes along letter from Miss Anna Parnell, as sister ol Mr C. S. Parnell. The paper says that she is one of the most remarkable women of the time, that she maintained the struggle against coercion in 1881 and 1882, after the Land League had been suppressed and the leaders imprisoned. Iα the letter she says she has no opinion as to which side is right, but suggests if the Home Rule Association was revived on a national independent basis, it would protect and prevent the interests of the country from suffering through the conflict. She rather sharply scorns the Irish Parliamentary members who seceded from her brother. She says that they did not cay why Mr Gladstone is judged only by the last six years of his life. What is there to hinder him and the Liberals from repeating after the next election what they did after 1880 ? " They do not tell us," she says, "Why the Conservatives may not give us Home Rule, they do not explain if the Radical hatred is extinct: why brutalßalf our is where he is ; why the British Party, whether liberal or conservative, always receives a mandate to persecute Ireland; nor why, when the Liberals are out of office, they are the only body entitled to the respect of the British race." Mr Gladstone in a letter to Mr Furness, the Liberal candidate for Hartlepool, says:—" The Irish Parliamentary party vindicated itself by putting an end to the leadership of Mr Parnell, and has left us prepared to pursue as heretofore, our duty in denouncing the unequal laws and obvious system of coercion adopted by the Government as a permanent law. The Liberal gains of seats in the Commons, constantly repeated during the lasc four years, mean much more than success, they mean that the party has declined, that a union has for the first, time been effected between British and Irish, and shows that the people aim to close the controversy our opponents seek to indefinitely prolong. The people of Ireland have put their trust in the people of Great Britain to deliver them from bad law, made worse by a harsh and insulting administration. It rests on each constituency, as occasion offers, for us to show our sister nation that her confidence is not in vain."