MR. PARNELL SKETCHED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VIII, Issue 415, 25 March 1881, Page 9

MR. PARNELL SKETCHED.

"An Old Hand," who is also an old friend to Ireland, thus describe, in the Liverpool Daily Post, Mr. PflrneU's speech in introducing the amendment to the address in the House of Commons : — The astute and wary young leader of social revolt at last got his opportunity and spoke, for three-qnarters of an hour only, from the place usually affected by Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Arthur Bfllfoiir. His spare frame was habited with his usual plain indifference to effect, but his clear-cut, closely cropped head was significant to tlose who knew him of the refined and subtle Jesuitry which he has been the first to bring into Irish humanitarian politics. Mr. Parnell's speech was afterwards described by Mr. Gibson as one of the most adroit ever delivered in the House, and it deserved the tribute. The House was not very full, but the right people were present. Mr. Gladstone lost not a word. Mr. Forster listened like a fox. Mr. Bright flushed with interest, and in some places I could not help thinking with sympathy. The blind Postmaster-General came down from his usual place at* the upper corner of the Treasury bench, and sat about the middle, leaning forward upon his stick to catch every word of the cool, audacious, remorseless statement of the powerful Land League chief. And spite of the array against Parnell, it was a speech of power, in which the tyranny, if it is tyranny — the organisation, whether it is tyranny or not — of the great agarian revolt was made personally perceptible and incarnate. Speakers said afterwards that Mr. Parnell did not speak as he speaks out of the House. Who does? But did he blench, or falter, or mitigate the meaning of his movement? Not he. He literally sent the steel of his icy, satiric voice into the very marrow of the landlords, treating them coolly as a class to be dealt with as natural enemies of the people ; told the House that ''this caste" and their abettors, if any, among the people would be made by the organisation to obey the unwritten law of public opinion ; and, though he deprecated outrage, and claimed to have minimised it, avowed that ia a country trained as Ireland had been there could never be any improvement if those who sought to improve it were to shrink from the possibility or even the certainty of outrages arising out of agitation. I don't th'nk it would be possible to exaggerate the peculiar effect of this speech of the Irish leader. Its skill was perfect, but it was not, as it were, conspicuous. It was all the more absolute because the secret of the skill was severe simplicity and clear sincerity, unaided by any sort of visible artifice or any rhetorical expedient except that of saying in the fewest words exactly what would stab and perplex the greatest number of enemies all around. No one who heard the speech will ever get out of his blood the exciting chill, so to speak, of its tone of destiny, nor will any listener forget the freezing scorn of the calm passage, in which the speaker made ridiculous the prosecution or even the publication of threatening letters. Possib'y the reports of the speech may not convey to the full these impressions, which to some extent are made by Mr. ParnelFs voice and manner, which from sheer quiet insistency are very potent ; but lam sure I interpret aright the feeling of every susceptible auditor, irrespective o>f politics.