THE COMMISSION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 12, 12 July 1889, Page 27

THE COMMISSION.

(United Ireland, May 18.) The Commission is played out. It has turned into what your Irish Chipf Justice is fond of calling "a legal dissenation." The little cock-pit of a court in which the perform ance ia enacted is no more than half full now, as a rule, and tickets which would fetch five guineas a-piece at the climax of the Pigott exposure can be had for the asking. True enough, the evidence fur the defence is an absolute and overwhelming refutation of the " Forger's " charges ; but where iB the use of refutation where there 18 nothing left to refute ? No great leader that ever lived and worked ia troublous times could have come so completely clear as Mr. Parnell has done from protrac.ed cross-examination^ The cross-examination was formidable rather from its volume than its acuteness. The whole resources of the Government, the myriad eye* and ears and tongues and hands of officials and police were handed over to the " Forger." Pimps, spies, informers, perjurers, and forgers were marshalled against him in hideous array. Every incident in his careeT for the last tea years was subjected to microscopic scrutiny. Every ward he wrote or spoke, or that was written or spoken to him ; every word that the humblest of his colleagues wrote or spoke was " set in a note to cast into his teeth." His most private documents were requisitioned and produced, and from the unexampled ordeal he comes out without a single speck on character or career. Even thnt poor crumb of comfort over which the Coercionists gloated, " that he might once ia a heated debate on a Coercion Act have made " an exaggerated statement to mislead the House of Commons, was suddenly snatched from them by the lucid explanation which showed that the " attempt to mislead " was not in the speech' of the Irish Leader, but in the garbled extract of the Attorney-General. Never in a great case wa9 a meaner trick tried than that which the Attorney-General attempted to play, with the approval, conscious or unconscious, of the President, at the close of Mr, Parnell's cross-examination. From a bundle of some hundred cheques Fib3ter read out the names of half-a-dozen which had a suspicious sound. Then ha stopped, and the President (let ug hope unconsciously) aided him iv the attempt to burk the explanation of the Irish Leader. It is no wonder thi* Sir Charles Russell's honest indignation provoked him fjr a moment & v yond the strict limit of professional etiquette. The great Irish lawyer, in spite of court and counsel, exposed the device and gave the Irish leader an opportunity of proving that the names which the Attorney- General read with malicious purpose were amongst hundreds of the suspects whose sustenance was frovided for in ordinary routine during the Coercion Act of Mr. Forster. One little incident m-iy be adverted to as showing the tricks to which the " Forger's" counse 1 find it necessary to resort. Mr. Parnell was cross-examined in portentous tones by Fibster as to a cheque to Byrne. Tnere was a dead silence in court. Visions of Frank Byrne and the story of the knives in Palace Chamber floated before the mind's eye of the spectators. The rustle of paper was heard as Mr. Parnell, with all eyes on mm, placidly turned over the blocks of his cheque-book. Then th*t calm voice sounded clear and cold in the hushed court, with a touch of irony in its tones, "Yes, 1 ' be said, "I have looked that cheque up It is a cheque for £5 to Laurence Bryne, Esq., dated F^'brmry 2, 1884. It was my subscriptio?i to tJic Wicidow Harriers." Thereupon the court dissolved in laughter and Fibster became absorbed in his brief. The evidence of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, given without a touch of partisanship, was more convincing than the most eloquent oration.— Clsar, candid, and keen, every sen^enc 3 cut like a sword through tha sophistries in which cross examining cou isel sought to entangle him. The Most Roy. Dr. M'Cormack was on the same lines. He gave a most pathetic story of the nrsery that pressed upon the people of his far Western diocese of Achonry, and th famine that threatened close (it hand. A multitude of parish priests and curates followed. They were unanimous concerning the danger of extermination by famine and eviction that threatened the people in '79 and '80 — a calamity which the League sprang into existence to avert, and, by the blessing of God, did avert. They bore conclusive testimony that the League was throughout the sturdy, and in the icsult the successful, opponent and putter down of violence and outrage. But throwing water on a drowned rat is not an interesting process, no matter how copious the deluge. It is impossible to waken enthusiasm in the flogging of a dtart horse. For all practical purposes, and whatever may be the decision of the Commission, the vile calumnies of the (> Forger " are dead. Tbe evidence of the witnesses is conclusive in proving the League's antagonism to crime. On these points they were not cross-examined at all. TL question has suddenly become one, not of crime and outrage, but of the resistance to rackrents and boycotting rack-rentera and exterminators. To listen to the style of questions one would almost fancy himself translated into a Coercion Court or a rent office of the old days. A famine of the Irish people is matter for jest and laughter in no wise justifying eelf-protective combination of the tenants. It did not matter if they starved so long as they paid. From this charge of treating the sufferings of the famished poor with flippant levity we grieve to bay the court itself is not altogether exerr pt. We give the following passage, without note or comment, from the report of the Daily Express. It speaks for itself : " Father O'Connell, President of the Roman Catholic College at Tuam, was called to rebut the evidence of Mre. Blake respecting the occurrence^ on her esta'e at Letterfrack, be having been curate at Tuliy, in the neighbourhood, from 1878 to 1882. He described Mrs. Blake's tenants as miserably housed, mostly in houses of only one room each, which the family had to share with auy cattle they possessed. They were, he said, in a condition of chronic misery and wretchedness. Their food was of the coarsest kind, potatoes, sometimes with milk, Indian meal, and boilel seaweed. Meat was a luxury some might have on Christmas Day, and some, perhaps, once or twice a month.

" The President (with a smile) remarked to Mr. Lockwood, who was examining the witness, that he must jail medical evidence if he

wished to convince him that it was any hardship to a man that he did not get meat, if he got plenty of other food." I Since the princes of the blood-royal in France laughed at the sufferings of the people, who were dying for lack of bread, and asked " Why the fools didn't eat cake," we have had nothing like this. Rumour has it that the President's own jaded appetite refuses the coaser nutriment of meat, that with dainty dishes of fish and vegetables, exquisitely cooked, and rich wines, he manages to support life toleiably enough ; therefore, a mud cabin, a scanty meal, daily, of wet potatoes, boiled seaweed, or Indian meal, is too good for those wretched peasants, always provided the rent is paid. The President cannot restrain a smile of amused surprise that any man in his senses should look upon such things as a grievance. The "Forger's" counsel and Commission seem even to be getting over their extreme horror of violence and outrage, as it is conclusively proved that the League condemned and opposed them. This is the way Sir Henry James conducts his cross-examination, when the question of a brutal attempt at murder is involved : " Was Patrick Gavan shot in Garna on Bth April? Oh no, he was here at the Commission (laughter).

" Sir Henry James (smilingly) — Do I understand that in youT neighbourhood you always kill your bird when you shoot him ? (Laughter)

" Mr Lockwood {sotto voce) — Well, I think if we had spoken of an outrage in that fashion we would have been deservedly rebuked for it. "Sir Henry James protested against the observation."

And the President, being appealed to, expressed his entire approval of the " little joke." All the horror of the " Forger " and its advocates is now reserved for boycotting land-gabbers. With blood-curdling solemnity a passage in a speech was quoted (we regret the author for the moment escapes our memory), in which the landgrabber is compared to a greedy strange pig 'hat sticks his long nose into tbe pot of potatoes and devours tbe food of the children, while tbe good woman of the house lays the pot-stick vigorously on his ribs, and the meeting is exhorted to try the effect of the moral pot-stick on the land-grabber. The court and counsel that could not refrain from smiling at the pathetic description of the abject misery of the Connemara peasants and that thought the wanton shooting at a man the subject-matter for " a pretty little joke," assumed a hypocritical horror atthis terrible apologue of of the boycotted land-grabber That is what it has come to now. All the foul charges of the " Forger" have melted into thiu air. The suggestion of inciting to violence is practically abandoned. All efforts are devoted to proving that the League countenanced the boycotting of land-grabbers and exterminators. They may spare themselves the task. We venture on this point to anticipate the verdict of the Coercion-created Commission. Boycotting, or organised public opinion, was the weapon that the League substituted for violence, moonlighting, and assassination. We deny that Christian cianty forbade it. We go further and assert that Christian charity enjoined it. It is a question of degree. Better that one despicable land-grabber or exterminator should be subjected to privationß than that a thousand helpless tenants, me.), women and children should be hurled out on the roadside. Despite the foul libels that have been written and spoken, boycotting has never touched the torder-line of inhumanity. There is no law, human or divine, thateDJoins the plundered and oppressed people to encourage their plunderers and oppressors by civility and supplies. The League was clear of violence as the League's accusers are black with perjury and forgeiy. So much the Commission ha 3in effect established. What remains to bu discussed / Boj catting, forfooth 1 Crime was charged. That charge \\a-> put to the test and shattered to atoms. But lei it once for all be clearly understood that the Irish nation or the Irish leaders had not thought of pleismg the coercionists or the coercion-en ate i Commission in the turm of the agitation by which their people arc to be preserved and their freedom achieved.