On Thursday, Mr. Parnell asked the First Lord of the
Treasury whether the Government would appoint "a Select Committee, with power to send for persons, papers, and records, and to examine witnesses on oath, and report as to the authen- ticity of the letters affecting Members of that House read by the Attorney-General at the trial O'Donnell v. Walter and another." Mr. W. H. Smith replied in the negative, the Government adhering to its opinion that a Committee of the House is quite unfit for the investigation to be submitted to it; but he said that the Government would not object "to propose to Parliament to pass an Act to appoint a Commission which should conaist wholly or mainly of Judges, with full powers, as in the casg of other statutable Commissions, to inquire into the allegations and charges made against Members of Parlia- ment by the defendants in the recent action of O'Donnell v. Walter." At the same time, the Government thought that the proper course for Mr. Parnell was to appeal to a Court of Justice. Mr. Parnell asked to see the terms of the proposal on paper before giving any answer ; and Mr. Gladstone inti- mated that as so much depended on the exact scope of the inquiry, that was the right course. The offer seems to us an act of the most exceptional deference to Mr. Parnell and his colleagues, who have no exceptional claim that we know of, on the British Government. Only as an act of deference to the House of Commons, and as one of special consideration to Ireland, can it pass muster at all.
Previous page
