SHABBY AND COWARDLY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 37, 4 January 1889, Page 17

SHABBY AND COWARDLY.

fROM the proceedings of the Parmbll Commission we learn that the effort of the Times and its coadjutors, the Government of England, is to hold Mr. Parnbll and his party responsible for any crime committed in Ireland by anyone who has ever been in any way connected with the Land League and the National League. This Commission is in reality trying the Irish party for conspiracy, that is, doing under the guise and with the facilities afforded by a Commission that which ought to have been done in the ordinary courts of law, but which the Government did not dare to do. If the Government really believed in a conspiracy of crime and had sufficient evidence to establish the existence of such a conspiracy, they should long ago have indicted the Irish party, but this they have shrunk from. It is clear, however, that the will was not wanting, it was the evidence that was lacking, and thus it has come to pass that, availing themselves of the cock-and-bull story of the Times, they have succeeded in getting a fishing commission under the presidency of the three English Judges to endeavour to find out evidence on which they may go to the constituencies of England and Scotland in the effort to raise a cloud of prejudice and misrepresentation in order to secure a vote adverse to justice to the Irish people. In this unworthy design they are abetted by the Angl'cans and Dissenters in Ireland, that is by the majority of them,to whom ascendancy and the humiliation of their political opponents are dearer than the prosperity of their country. These would prefer the gratification of their hatred •f the Irish Catholics to the well-be : ng of their countrymen, even to their own well-being as citizens, and would rather see the Irish Catholics in rags and starvation than their own ascendancy abated one jot. This is unworthy conduct, and Bo monstrously unjust that the honest English democracy will no longer tolerate the spectacle of a minority of Irishmen leaning on high Tory English influence trampling on the majority of their countrymen, simply and solely because they are Catholics and the lineal descendants of the old Irish race. This minority, although, indeed, born in the country, are not any more than their immigrant fathers of the country. They regard themselves in the light in which their fathers regarded themselves not bo muoh as Irish citizens as the English garrison, placed pn Irish soil for the sole purpose of maintaining the English

and Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, and in pursuance of this detestable purpose, they are willing to see the country steeped in misery, discontent, and poverty, rather than see it prosperous and contented under the sway of eqiality of laws and administration. Hence the addresses, and meetings, and doings of what is called the Northern province of which we have lately heard so muoh. Hence the open sympathy and advocacy of the tactics of the Times and the Salisbury Cabinet. Hence the condemnation of what these people style the lawlessness of the Parnell agitation and party, so ludicrously trumpeted forth by the very men, who almost in the same breath boast of their determination to spill the blood of their fellow-citizens, if the English Parliament will dare, to do them justice. All this is very absurd— absurd in iUelf and absurd because of the expectation of the intending rebels that their vapourings have the least chance of intimidating the English people, who cannot but duly appreciate the empty boasting and threats of the heroes of Belfast notoriety, wkose , bravery has always been in proportion to the support they knew {they had at their back, in the sympathy, connivance, and jnry- | packing of the English Government, as is evidenced by events jnot long passed, but very recent. The whole system of agiI tation as carried on by what is called the Unionist party in {eastern Ulster, and in the Commission Court in London, lis cowardly and discreditable under every point of view. It !is an appeal to religious prejudice, racial hatred, cupidity, in i a word to some of the worst and most shameful passions of i depraved human nature. The main charge, viz., the forged i letters, is steadily kept out of sight. This is really the only | charge that anyone now cares about, and this is just the {charge which theTiines and the Salisbury Attorney General are j postponing, will not on any account face. And, in order that something may turn up to prevent the investigation of this I infamy, time is wasted, money squandered, the public patience (outraged, the Commission Court made a vehicle of slander, iancient history rehearsed, and public men, whose able services are elsewhere demanded, kept to ignoble employment. Never, we venture to say, in the history of nations and parties 'has a greater scandal and nuisance been perpetrated than this ifishing Commission, presided over by three learned judges, ipaid by a long suffering public against its will to help the iTory party in England to prolong the agony of their disastrous rule in Ireland and of their incompetency in England. The English Democracy, we may rest assured, is treasuring up all this against the day of its wrath. But the Tories, backed Up by the Unionists with whom it is a life and death struggle, are able to defy public opinion for a season. What is to be the outcome of all this ? Time alone can tell. Meantime, it is the duty of Irishmen everywhere to support and encourage Mr. Parnell and his party in the terribly unequal fight into which they have been forced by a conspiracy of Irish landlords and English Tories. On this account we are glad to be able to publish in another column a short letter from Bishop Moran in which he sends us a contribution towards the Parnell Defence Fund, and hopes that his contribution will nut long stand alone.