The Parnell Commission Report issued on the 14th of February, and during the week covered by the newspapers Urought us by the Yungtsé, it was well studied, with the result that—as we mentioned when we got the telegraphic news of -every newspaper finds in it confirmation of its own opinions. An exhaustive collection of the Opinions of the Press" on the volume issued by the three judges would be most amusing, but we can only find room for brief reference to them. It is only fair to the Times, which has borne the burden and heat of the day, and is believed to have spent something' like £130,000 on its share of the struggle, to take it first We ask the public to decide whether the Report does not establish our general case, Tes true the Judges have decided that cer tain specific charges against Mr, Parnell were not proven or not true—viz,, that he was cognisant of the connection of Sheridan and Boyton with outrages when he recommended their services to the Government at the time of the Kilmainham ne; ations, & charge urged with great energy by Mr. Forster in the House of Common hat he was intimate with the leading Invincibles, and the money, which, it is admitted, he supplied to Byrne, vas sent to enable the latter to escape from justice." So, too, it is held to be not proven that the Parnellites, though subsisting on the Irish-American contributions, and having received for their Parliamentary Fund not less than £60,000 from the League in the United States while that istic controlled: by the Cla of the connect It is found, however, that Mr Davitt " was in close and intimate association with the of violence in America, and was mainly strumental in bringing about the alliance between that party and the Parnellite and Home Rule party." 'The charges founded on the letters produced by Pigott fell, of course, to the ground when those letters were withdrawn. But the points which the Judges consider to be established, and many of which are stated with much' greater force in the body of the Report than in the somewhat bald and jejtne language of the summing-up, cover the greater part of the ground of Par: nellism and Crime. So much pains have been spent by the Gladstonians during the last three years in throwing dust in the eyes of the country that there is still a good deal of confusion as to the effect and bearing of our charges and allegations against Mr. Parnell and his followers. We did not accuse these men of personal partic in crime. If we had done so our contention would have been, not that their alliance should be owned, but that they should stand in the dock and be tried under the criminal law. did say, and what we now repeat wi emphasis than ever, is that they were in no true sense a political party, representing the free movement of public opinion, but a para-sitio growth, like those plants which, seemingly possessing an independent existence, live on the roots of trees, drawing sustenance and strength from an organisation ori ting among the alien enemies of England, has upon terrorism, operating through outrage, and so deeply implicated with criminality, that it was not within the power, even if it were the desire, of the nominal leaders to Enngliah politicians should ally themselves, on lace any effectual check upon crime. That
some calculation of political gain, with a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.