A NUT FOR THE ARGUS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 2 May 1890, Page 11

A NUT FOR THE ARGUS.

(From the Melbourne Advocate.')

In the report of the Judicial Commission the Unionist journals, the Arr/us included, have got a very unwelcome answer to one of the reflections they so viciously cast on Mr. Parnell. Our Tory contemporary, echoing the slander of its London correspondent, and so repeating another vile accusation of the Forger, charged Mr. Parnell with having attempted to deceive the House of Commons. In course of bis cross-examination that gentleman admitted that if he had stated in the House of Commons that " secret societies did not exist in Ireland " he must have made a grossly exaggerated statement, and must, in fact, have deliberately intended to mislead the House o£ Commons. On the re-asscmbhng of the Court, however, after he had had an opportunity of looking at Jfanxard, Mr. Parnell explained as follows :—": — " I fiod, upon ieference to my speech, that the representation tbat all secret societies had ceased to exitt in Ireland was neither within the scope nor drift of the argument of that bpeech nor of the passage in question. I was referring, I find, to the great t lbbun organisation that has been very strong in the history of Ireland, and which bad commenced to crumble away in 1872, at the commencement of good times, and the subsequent years, and which, at the date to which I was leferring, was practically non-existent. That was the secret society to which I was referring in my speech, and that was a fairly accurate representation of the state of existing affairs so far as I understood them." Long before the precise term of this explanation ha i reached the colony, or could have done so, we gave that portion cf his earlier speech on which the explanation rests, and showed that his reference must have bten confined to Ribbon societies. And that is the view taken of the case by the Commission, for in its report we find the following passage .—". — " Mr. Parnell, in the House of Commons on the 7th January, 1881, stated that secret societies had then ceased to exist in Ireland. Mr. Parnell was then alluding to secret societies other than that of the Fema" conspiracy, and in our judgment Mr. Parnell was accurate when he made that statement." Here from a tribunal prejudiced against him, is a complete vindication of the honourable gentleman, and a no less complete justification of what Mr. Dillon, in his letter to the Argux, said in defence oi his leader's character. Will the paper by wnom he was villiried now retract the slanaer ? Conscience demands that it should make that reparation ; and has it moral courage sufficient to overcome its reluctance ? This is a fine opportunity for showing itself in better colours, and will it eeize it to clear its character 1 We doubt it, but should be glad to find that in this particular instance we had been guilty of rash judgment. There is, it is said, honour among thieves, but among Umonist journals in dealing with Irisn questions there is no such thing as honour. With the weapons they use it could have no connection.

"~ We notice the names of some twenty or more Catholic Congressmen in the new Congressional Directory of the fifty-first CongreeH, and only one Catholic Senator, Hon. John A. Kenna, of Charleston, W. Va., who is one of the youngest members of that distinguished body,