SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY AND MR. PARNELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 34, 29 May 1891, Page 25

SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY AND MR. PARNELL.

SIB Charles Gavan Duffy lives in the sunshine at Nice (says a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette). The " blue and yellow weather " of Australia has unfitted him for tbe low skies and persistent rains of Ireland. Were it otherwise, Dublin wjuld be hU chosea home. Perhaps he will bj there when we have our Parliament in Collegegreen ! A homely sentence haunted me as I listened to him—" He talks like a book," but a book with a warm, beating heart, and a very interesting book to b jot 1 Of tbe Irish courtesy and geniality of bis manner I despair of giving any notion. But his words, as I set them down, are his very own. This I can vouch for. I aaked Sir Charles if he bad any objection to state his views on tbe present condition of Ireland. He said— '*' There ib little ase in doing so. It is too late, or too early. There is a crisis in every controversy whau the original cause of quarrel is altogether forgotten, and men fight for their own will, or their particular party, without much regard to the merits of the case in dispute ; and I think things have reached this point at present." " Would you rather say nothing ?" — "No ; as you have taken the trouble to ask my opinions, there is no leason for concealing them ; bat remember that I can speak for no one but myself. lam like ' the hurler on the ditch ' in the Irish proverb, ' who sees more of the game than the players ' — merely a looker-on, but one as deeply interested in the issue as any man of the Irish race. " "Is this popular enthusiasm about Mr. Parnjll fictitious or real, Sir Charles ?" — " I believe that for the most part it is quite real. For a dozen years, and down to the Leinster Hall meeting, his colleagues and tbe journals of the Irish party painted Mr. Parnell as a statesman who transcended O'Connell in intellect and Emmet in enthusiasm ; and the impression they produecl, however exaggerated and illfonnded, cannot speedily be effaced. The majority, indeed, so far from effacing it have, in my opinion, never laid before Ireland anything like an impeachment upon which a popular audience, there or anywhere else in tbe world, could be expected to turn from a popular leader. After the Leinster Hall meeting, it was impossible for them to insist npon his moral offences (which they bad condoned) ; and they have presented no other motive for his removal which could cot be easily distorted iato the promptings of English dictation. It is this fear of English dictation which bas induced men and women of high personal character and a large number of men holding representative offices to proclaim themselves of his party. In their address to the Irish peop c, after their final vote, the liish party declared that they were ready, had Mr. Parnell consented to retire fir a time, to keep tte leadership vacant, to allow him to nominate the committee of management during his absence, aad, in gco 1 time, to kill the traditional fatted calf to welcome his return. Mr. Stxton re-stated this design at the first meeting of tbo Irish Federation. How can any one wonder that a multitude of people concludes that if Mr. Parcell were worthy of being brought back in triumph in 1891 it was a moie dignified anJ convenient course to retain him in power in 1890?" "Do jou think the Irith party ought to retain him /"—•' Far from it, 1 think he himself bas done what perhaps no one else could have do:.e — he has made h;s return to powtr odious to men of honour. If after the ierdict in the Divorce Court he had voluntarily retired, and shown some sense of his unhappy poaition, tbe inevitable reaction would have 6et in afitr a time, and probably no one wonld have objtcted to his return. After repentance and penance a sin may be forgiven ; but frcm the date of the verdict down to the present day Mr Paruell has committed a series of the moat prodigious blunders. Every step was a step from bad to worse. He instated on piesiding at his own trial, and, by straining the law and practice of Parliament, prevented the question his colleagues were astembKd to consider bciog ever put to the meeting. He talked cons' antly of Parliamentary practice; but he must have known that Parliamentary practice rigorously requires tbat a member whose conduct is under coLsideration fchall retire during the debate. Imbeci'e paitisats were delighted with the vigour and diplomacy he displayed in preventing a division (even scoffing Unionists applauded bis robust will at,d tkilful strategy \) ; but how maDy liish Nationaifts said to themselves with heavy hearts, 'Here is a man who, when he has a personal inttrebt at stake, cannot be trusted to act fairly or ppeak tru'y 1 Would he not, in a position of national responsibility, betray the ccnfideLce of the nation?" " Ihe Kilkenny election," continued Sir Charles, " was blurred by the same want of fur dealing. No one could b ame him for appealing >o a coast it utney wlen ihe opportunity offered. He had already nominate! a caLdilate. lie had invited Sir John Pope Hennessy, who was a successful member of Parliament twenty

years ago, and who has since over and over again risked his position as Governor to defend native races in his colony against a conspiracy of officials as arrogant and selfish as the cabil which rules in Dublin Castle. After the verdict Sir John decide Ito go with the majority, and Mr Parnell was entitled to set up a candidate against him. But would an upright gentlemen straightway denounce tbe man whom he had a few weeks before invilel to return to public life as an ' office* seeker ' and a tuft-hunter 1 Aod everything he has done Bince has been of a piece with this. What vile taste, what blundering policy, to abuse his late colleagues I For ten years he had the absolute selection of members, and if he gave us ' gutter sparrows ' and so forth, what a conclusive reason that fact supplies against trusting him with such a task again 1 " " His friends of to-day mu«t feel ugly apprehensions, I fancy, when they note the manner in which he deals with his friends of yesterday. His speeches are filled with reproaches of Mr Gladstone for refusing tbe control of the police and the land question to an Irish Parliament. Men who hold the same opinion as he professes to hold on these points are scandalised at reading these reproaches from the muth of a man who told the Edinburgh Corporation, nearly a year before the Hawarden conversation, tbat he contemplated a Parliament not having tbe control of the police — a man, too, who proposed one of the worst settlements of the land question ever heard within the walls of Parliament. The Irish Party, of which he was chairmao, and the Land League, of which he was president, were pledged to a scheme for turning the tenant-farmers into proprietors ; but Mr Parnell, without (as I am assured) the slightest consultation with his colleagues, proposed to abandon the idea of making the tenants proprietor : and in lieu of this he suggested the advance of twenty -seven millions sterling as a perpetual loan to the land owners, on condition of their making a reduction of rent to be paid for at the rate of twenty years' purchase in a country where they obtained less tban seventeen years' purchase from the Land Court, leaving them tenants for ever. His proposal was a echeme to benefit embarrassed landlords, and would have left the Irish difficulty just where it fonnd it. An unfriendly critic described Mr Balfour's proposal to borrow £33,000,000 from the Imperial Treasury in order to turn peasants proprietors, an ' robbing Peter to pay Panl ;' but Mr. Parnell'B proposal to borrow £27,000,000 from (he same source without turning a single peasant into a proprietor, may be described as robbing Peter and not paying Paul. "Look, again, at his claiming the chairmanship] down to this day, after a decisive vote of the pariy that eltcted him. Lord Salisbury might as reasonably insist, on retaining office after the House of Commons bad withdrawn its confidence from him. If Mr. Parnell were Prime Minister in an Irish Parliament, would he defy tbe vote of the majoii'y and insist on lemaining Prime Minister for ever because a minority still adhered to him 1 And if not, why not ?—? — since this is ihe principle he applies to the Irish party. His last achievement— handing over a private letter of the Irish Primate to be used against him in publ.c C/ntroverfy— is a complete test of character, Tbe mode in which he treated confidential communications wiih Lord Carnavoa, Mr. Gladstone, and the Primate are, in my opinion, conclusive reasons again&t ever again trusting him in a position of power and confidence." " Ate not tLese laches the result of temporary anger and disappointment 1 " '• No ; it is impossible to believe that a man changis hid character, judgment, and capacity in a moment; Is it not more reasonable to conclude that wo never knew the man until now ? A myth grew up around the silent Dictator, as fabulous as lha legend of Boulanger or Louis Bonaparte. If he was dumb, it was not that he was barren, we were assured, but that he was bupreme'y prudent ; if he was idle and inactive, it was Lecausa he preferred to work thiough agents ; and he became inaccessible and invisible, not to drink the cup of Circe, but to keep his mini habitually fixtd on profound strategy? Never had a, men colleagues who lens themselves more cheerfully to these assumptions They effaced them-elves before him. Whatever wa3 done by the Irish party was systematically done in tbe name of its chief, even when he was fchiiking his du'i 3 and evading all communication with colleague? 1 . He wes bleeseu .in! applauded in lieland for woik in which, as it now appears, he s^m^times had as little fchare as in ihe labours of Hercules. And in England opponents vitd wiih friends in exaggerating bis leputation. Tue truth seems to be ihr.t Mr. Paintll was a Parliamentary leader of strong will and remark ble art, and that he w»s no bing else. He established a discipline that was more strict and severe than was ever seen in a Legislature btf jre ; a party of foui-score-and-six voted like one mm. Even in Lis absence the system woikid lika an automatic machine. He more than once adopted a new departure without consulting a single colleague ; and though there was dissatisfaction there was nevtr a syllable of open dissen 1 . What we have seen of late enables one to judge how largely the silence and submusion sprang from public motives; for the members showed themselves in Commitea Uoom No. 15 abuud.i.tly able to viudica'.e their personal independtLCJ. But I fear they often gave to tLeir chief what properly belonged tg tLeir country, and robbed the party of dignity and

authority in the eyes of the world. Mr. Parnell may say to his late colleagues, as Tony Lumpkin said to his mother : " Bcod I all the parish says you spoiled me, and now you must take the consequence.' 1 I wished to know if Sir Charles thought the cry of •' English dictation " had kindled the flame in Ireland. He said : " That cry, and the notion of a meagre and unsatisfactory Home Rule Bill, which Mr. Parnell'B account of the Hawarden conversation has excited, account for the bulk of those who joined him on public grounds. 1 English dictation ' I regard as an altogether false issue. Mr. Gladstone, who was commander-in-chief of the allied forces, recognised the serious danger of being beaten at the general election, and r stated immediately (as he was bound to do) the danger, and the j remedy. Tin a puzzle to me how any man with a head on his shoulders — and not a pumpkin or a potato — fails to see that Mr. Gladstone had a plain duty, and performed it in a simple and downright manner. But the other fear I cannot regard as futile. Bather than accept such a Bill as Mr. Parnell affirms Mr. Gladstone meditated, I would relinquish the hope of present settlement, and bequeath the cause to another generation." (Sir Charles spoke of a postponement of the national hopes with a pathetic quiver of the lips— the good patriot I) " With a bad Home Rule Constitution," he continued, " Ireland would be bitterly discontented ; and because we could not re ish sawdust, we should be represented to the world as a people whom nothing could satisfy. A good and sufficient Bill, or none at all, would be my choice." To the suggestion that Mr. Gladstone had made explanations on the points in dispute, Sir Charles replied : " He has ; on the points Mr. Parnell raised. But these are by no means the points of greatest importance. We want to know whether there ate to be two Chambers or one ? With a single Chamber it would be impossible to protect minorities. And, on this question of minorities, nothing satisfactory has been yet said. In Switzerland the same difficulty has been successfully encountered. Lucerne, Fribonrg, and Ticiao are as Catholic as Gorki and Berne, Bale, and Geneva as Protestant as Belfast ; but means have been found to harmonise these difficulties What is to be done to rectify the gross fiscal injustice ; and so forth ? I am very loath to criticise the venerable statesman who has taken the burden of our cause on his shoulders, and who has wrought suia marvellous change in English opinion ; but it is surely plain enough that, if he had printed his revised Home Rule scheme, Ireland could not be kindled into a flame by successful misreprerentation of his intentions." " If it were printed, would it not be certain to be assailed ani misrepresented by his enemies ? " was an obvious rejoinder. "No doubt," Sir Charles answered ; " but this is a risk every great proposal has to run. If it be not published, we run the more serious risk, of losing many elections for want of it." "But Mr. Gladstone, Sir Charles, has promised to propose no measure which does not Batisfy the people of Ireland." — " Yes ; but, in the name of common sense, how is their contentment to be ascertained nnless the plan ba printei and circulated ? Mr. Parnell probably caricatured Mr. Gladstone's method of dealing with him ; but the report leaves unpleasant apprehensions behind. Say, is the consent of the Irish people to ba ascertained by raading to Mr. Justin M'Carthy certain propositions from a paper of which he does not get a copy 1 Or by sending him the intended Bill a day or two before it is laid upon the table of the House, with the option of taking or leaving it ? The motives for printing the plan seem to me overwhelmingly greater than th.3 reasons agiinst domg tnis." Sir Charles's answer to the qucs' ion whether the disturbance in Ireland prevents the possibility of the people granting or sanctioning a scheme for themselves (to be submitted to their English sympathisers) was, "For the moment, yes; but this is the method every people obtaining frae institutions have employed. The largest State and the smallest colony have alike framed their own Constitution in the first instance. But we are to have a new garment ; and if it is to be made by a foreign tailor, without tryinsj it on the intended wearer, don't you think there is a serioui danger of a misfiV ? After a time, national unanimity will hi practically restored in. Ireland~ that is to say, there will be a manifest majority, which is generally the nearest approach you caa get to unanimity in any country. Then we may have recourse to this method with much more success than would have been possible any time in the last decade, for tbe people will be alive and on the ahrt. It is not improbable, I think, that the historian of the twentieth century may regard all that seems calamitous to us just now as an unrecognised blessing. If our national unanimity has been somewaat rudely disturbed, it was, in truth, a iiomewhat servile unanimity— an unanimity attained by a whole nation yeilding up its conicience ani judgement to the capricious guardianship of one man I A people are ill-prapared for exercising the fundamental rights of freemen by relinquishing them, one by one, to a master. At the meetings in Committee Room No. 15, where members maintained their individual opinions in language which, on the whole, was manly and temperate, they looked more honest, capable, and dignified, more worthy to be the representatives of a

nation, than when, with marvellous unanimity, they "cried ditto to Mr. Burke." The Kilkenny election, with all its turbulent and aggressive episodes, was a better discipline for liberty than the dumb acquiescence of Gal way. But Ireland is now thoroughly awakened ( and, when the first gusts of paesion have passed away, the people will be readier than they have been for many a day to do their individual duty. Instead of waiting till the oracle speaks, or till the sky falls, they will regain, one may hope, the self-reliance which is the backbone of a nation, but wnich has almost disappeared from the national character for a dozen years." " And what signs, Sir Charles, are there at present of this decisive majority? "I am confident Mr. Parnell will disappear sooner or later. He is fighting a purely personal battle, and, as the greatest success he could attaia would only ruin the National cause for a time his name, in the end, will surely be classed with those of Castlereagh and Keogh. And a thorough defeat at the hustings would leave him a position not worth retaining. His popularity, after all, is nothing compared to the enthusiasm awake aed in this great country by Boulanger. Less than three years ago he had the command of the greatest constituencies of France ; and, eveu after his decline began he won fifty seats at the general election. He had inexhaustible' funds for political purposes— one lady contributing several millions of francs. The date when he would be President of the Republic was counted by weeks ; his coronation as Emperor by months ; but two or three decisive facts awakened the P enoh paople to his character and designs, and we all know where •le bray' General ' is recreating himself now!"