MR. HARRINGTON'S REVELATIONS. (The Nation, March 8.)

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 2 May 1890, Page 13

MR. HARRINGTON'S REV ELATIONS . (The Nation, March 8.)

Mb. HARRINCtTON's revelations are sensational. The Pieottists are endeavouring to minimise their effect, but tbey cannot succeed. Mr . Soames'd telegrams prove too many tbi >ga that th^ public a c interested in knowing, and which have a direcc bearing on the bonn fides of the Times and its relations with the Government to be an ineligible quantity in the presant discussion. They throw curious light, toe, on some of the judicial findings. The first thing that appears from them is that Lord Salisbury d.d not hint the survival of his faith in the Pigott forgeries after Pigitt'd suicide without raißon. Af'er the Times had expressal its regret for having published the forgeries — the advocate hired for tbe occisioo, tbe chief law officar of the Crown, did not explain the reason for the regret — Mr. Sjames's agent tried to buy another perjurer to swear to their genuineness. On April sth of last year, after the pretended apology of Sir Richard Webster, Mr. Soames's agent was off jnng £10,000 to P. J. Sheridan to come across from America and " on tbe stand and otherwise prove the Parnell letter " I Was there ever anything more infamous? Hitherto, we have had no proof that the agents of tbe Times suborned perjury. The directors of that organ have ba«n represented as the dupes of men like Houston and Pigott. They were the victims of forgeries; and though they were " careful not to know," they wera not deliberately vicious in their provision of evidence. Mr. Harrington has exploded that theory of guileless innocence by proving that when they bad the evidences of the forgery thick around them, instead of acknowledging their criminal negligence they actually set to work to buy evidence to support the forgeries, We wonder was it the communication of their expectation to the judges that prevented the ad interim report 1

The second important fact brought out by these revelations is that the foreign agents of the Government were employed, just like the agents of the Castle and the Home Office, to help the Times. This is one of the telegrams :—" Ist April, '89, London. — To Johnstone, Gilsey -house, New York.— Hoare, British Consul, has authority to give you names of some informant like Major Le Caron. See him ; get all particulars, and induce one or two men to come over. Assistance will be sent you for Mill«n." So that the Foreign Office was turned into one of Mr. Soames's departments as well as the Lower Castle Yard. Tbe reference to Milieu brings out tbe third important fact. It is not so long since the Irish party were charged by the Tories with conspiring with this man as a notorious dynamitard tor criminal purposes. One of the allegations of the Times, and one of those to which the judges have lent most credence, is that the paity of which Millea is said to have been a conspicuous member is the ally and supporter of the Irish party. Yet he is the very man to whom the agent of the 'Mines betakes himself to organise evidence in older to crush Mr. Parnell. " With General D lily," runs one of the telegrams. Yet the Times knew that instead of being the ally ana supporter of the constitutional movement the General would be just the man to enlist in an effort to destroy it. Nevertheless, they offered a fortune to this very man to swear to the alliance which they knew very weil never had any existence 1 And the judges have believed them. So the journals of tbe Commons will record. Tdc telegrams have a curious bearing also on the present cry of the Pigottists. The Times i self started the cry that the mosi impoitant ot the charges from the political point of view have been proved. But Mr. Soames's efforts to procure, by he k or by crook, some evidence of the direct and deliberate association of the Irish leaders with crime and criminals express his valuation of what he had proved when the case against the Irish party had closed. He worked till the twelfth hour, offering thousands upon thousands for some evideneo that would ruin the party. Had that been accomplished already what need for the expenditure 1 We have here Mr. Soames'a verdict, and Mr. Buckle's verdict, and Mr. Walter's verdict, aad his old friend Mr. Smith's verdict on the value of the condemnation for boycotting. Messrs. Walters and Co. spelled ruin in that narrow condemnation. They are brazening it out dow. But the best retort upon their brass is to quote the piteous appeal of poor Mr. Soames when all his brief had been reeled off : " Induce one or two men to come over." Only one or two ! But they were not forthcoming, though sixty thousand pounds would have been given for them. Let Pir Michael Hicks-Beach and the men who clomb to the Treasury Bench in 1885 by the help of the Irish members n>w try to get the Times out of the ditch by basely black-guarding taeir former allies. We have the Timers own opinion here of the honesty and decency of every such effort.

Owiog to the immense diminution of common criminals in Ireland, not only has it become necessary to close five sixths of the bridewells, one-half cf the large local prisons, and to abolish Spike Island and Lusk, but the Government has left inoperative a scheme for erecting a public works prison for convicts — so great has been the recent decrease of such criminals. There has been a collapse of crime. If there be a prisoners' question at the present time in Ireland, do not these facts render it antecedently improbable that the question is concerned with criminals ?

The London correspondent of the Birmingham Post claims to ba informed on good authority that when Mi. Gladstone ceases to be the leader of the Liberals in the House of Commons, 8t William Harcourt will be his successor, if, indeed, he survive the " Grand Old Man. Says the correspondent: "Sir William Harcourt received a promise of the reversion during the stormy session of 1886, aad by his Parliamentary management since, and especially in connection with the Tithe Bill of 1889, has materially strengthened bis claim upon it. In this arrangement, I have authority for sating, Mr, John Morley cordially concurs ; and there does not exist any friction or jealousy between the two statesmen on the matter.