MR PARNELL'S ARREST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6190, 10 December 1881, Page 2 (Supplement)

MR PARNELL'S ARREST.

(European Mail.)

Sinco the present Government acceded to* power in the spring of laat year none of their nets has been so generally popular as the arrest of Mr Parneli. Conservative and Liberal leaders join with the Press of both parties in aconimon approval of the course which Ministers have adopted towards the President of the* Land League. No other choice was left open to theinj unless, indeed, it waa to submit to the* claims of the League, and suffer the aubatitution of lawlessness for law. The nation had grown impatient of Mr Parneli long beforo the Government had put him in prison. It was frequently noted that obscure and insignificant individuals, mere tools of disaffection, were taken away from their private avocations and. their families, to be locked up in gaol, while tho leader who had egged them on to sedition was allowed to go at large. Within the walls of Parliament Mr Parneli has intimated more* than once that he did not counsel ail appeal tophysical force, for tlie simple reason that Irish Nationalists, Fenians, and Land Leaguers combined wero no match for British bayonets. This was as much as to say that ho would have preferred armed rebellion to any other form of protest against authority; but, failing that, he advised a stolid, porsistent, and obstinate defiance of law. It has been contended that the Government might have arrested Mr Parneli at any time since the passing of the Coercion Act. They would, however, have acted unwisely in taking advantage of their opportunity while the Land Bill remained under discussion. There was, however, no reason why Mr Parneli should not have been arrested simultaneously with the passing of tlie Land Act and the publication of his programme declaring that tlie work of the League waa not complete, and that a fresh agitation must bo commenced with tlie object of preventing tho Act from obtaining a fair trial.