AN EVIL SUMMING UP.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 32, 29 November 1889, Page 17

AN EVIL SUMMING UP.

The proceedings before the Parnell Commission have come to an end — a premature end, if we may judge by the regret of Sir Jambs Hannen that more evidence was not brought before him and his fellow-Commissioners. The only pity is that Mr. Parnell's contempt for the whole thing did not persuade him to throw the Commission, and all its works and pomps, to the winds months ago. We are to have a report from the Commissioners early next year, but it will be all labour in vaiu. Who cares what this report may be ? Who will attach the least importance to it ? Every man has already made up his mind about the nature, effect, and motives of this precious Commission, which has done more to discount party and Parliamentary government than anything that has ever happened since England got a Constitution. No doubt Sir Henry James, in an impassioned address just before the close of the Commission, declared that the charges against Mr. Parnell had been proved. But no one is ignorant that this was the bounce of an advocate who was paid to say it, and did so because he had to make believe he had rendered some service to his employers for the thousands ot pounds they had paid him. But the public are not fools ; they have read the report of the proceedings before the Commission, and have long ago formed their own opinion ; and we entertain no doubt that the vast majority of men coincide with vs — who, too, have read the Times reports of the Commission from beginning to end — that not only have not the charges against Mr. Parhell and the Irish Members been proved, but that, on the contrary, the Times has been proved to have been a slanderer and patron of foigery, and the continuation of the proceedings of the Commission by the Times and its allies — which it is clear the Government are-— is simply infamous.