A CAUTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 3, 10 May 1889, Page 18

A CAUTION.

The cable agency has been busily engaged this week in preparing careful summaries of Mr. Parnell's evidence before the Commission to affect public opinion in the colonies. We must take with many reservations the summaries in question, warned as we have already been as to the trustworthiness of the reports thus forwarded to us. The reports, however, contain very little after all that is of a nature to affect the position of the Irish Nationalists. About the worst of them is to the effect that Mr. Parnell admitted he had deliberately tried to mislead the House of Commons in January, 1881, as to the existence of secret societies in Ireland, and made a grossly exaggerated statement, not founded on fact, for the purpose. But surely, even if the report gives us the correct version, which is doubtful, there is here but an ordinary Parliamentary trick, and one that seems strangely calculated to cause the " tremendous sensation " of which the cablegram speaks. What, for example, was such a device, taking it at its worst, in comparison with the publication of the forged letters by the Times to obtain the passage of the Coercion Act on lying and scandalous pretences ? Mr. PArNELL further admitted, we are told, that he had encouraged boycotting, advised the non-payment of rent — an evident fact, as he had issued the Manifesto — given Byrne a cheque for £100, not knowing at the time that the man w^s flying from justice, and failed to condemn outlages to the extent that would have been desirable — but this was probably unforeseen by him.

Mr. Parnell denied that he had ever been a member of a secret society, except the Foresters, that he had had any relations with the Fenians as such, that be had advocated freeing Ireland by force of arms as stated by the spy Le Caron ; or that he had known before Le Carqn testified to the fact that the Clan-na-Gael included assassination in their programme. On the whole, therefore, we do not see any reason for the latest cablegram that has reached us as we go to press, to the

effect that popular opinion is turning round in favour of the Times, and that the Tories are jubilant. The explanation would seem to be that the Tory Press are doing their best to make profit out of the situation at home, and that the cableagency is co-operating with them so far as the colonies are concerned. What, moreover, confirms us in this view of the case is the report of a speech delivered since Mr. Pabnell gave the evidence alluded to by Sir Charles Dilke, and in which the speaker declared himself in favour of Home Rule. Sir Charles, who is endeavouring to rehabilitate himself in public opinion, would never have ventured to do this if Mr. Parnell had made admissions vitally compromising the position of the Home Rule party.

Finally, we again warn our readers to place but a limited reliance on the messages of the cable agency, which has been all along consistent in its misrepresentations, and openly hostile to the Irish cause, and which, we may add, has now a double task to accomplish — in prejudicing the colonies against the Irish delegates, and marring the object of their tour.