15 NOVEMBER 1873, Page 2

The minority of the Commissioners of Irish National Educa- tion,

those who favour Mr. 02Keeffe, have made and published a protest against the action of the Board, which assumes that the majority ought not to have embarked " in inquiries and investigations into matters some of them plainly resulting from the action of the Board itself, and inconsistent with affording to Mr. O'Keeffe the benefit of the new rule,"— a protest which, if it means anything, means that Mr. ,O'Keeffe should have been appointed, whether fit or unfit, under a rule which expressly declared that the Commisrioners were not bound to appoint an unfit manager. In point of fact, the majority based. their refusal care- fully on circumstances affecting Mr. O'Keeffe'a-fitness which cannot in any way be regarded as "resulting from the action of the Board itself,"—and of this the minority are so conscious, that they have to admit that it was only " some " of these matters which can by any stretch of interpretation be so regarded. Lord Monok's resolution based the refusal to appoint Mr, O'Keeffe (1) on the ground that Mr. O'Keeffe had affixed the Rev. Mr. Martin's signature without his knowledge or authority to an official return, —surely not a result of the Board's action ; (2) on Mr. O'Keeffe's having dismissed a meritorious trustee of twenty-seven years' standing because he took his paschal communion at the Cathe- dral, and not at his chapel,—surely not a result of the action of the Commissioners ; (3), on the coarse and violent language used by Mr. O'Keeffe in his dealings with the Commissioners, which may perhaps be attributed by some to the action of the Commissioners as its occasion, but implies a violent temper as its cause ; (4), on his violence to a head inspector, whom he turned out of the schools with insult,—surely not due to the past action of the Commissioners.; (5), on the effect of the suspension in diminish- ing his fitness as a manager,—which had no possible con- nection with the action of the Commissioners ; (6), on the unanimous protest of the town authorities of Callan against his reappointment,—certainlir not due to the past action of the Corniniagioners ; and (7) on the unanimous protest of the Callan School Committee by whom Mr. O'Keefe had been originally nominated,—certainly no result of the past action of the Com- missioners. To impugn the action of the majority, it will clearly be necessary to assert that the new rule was made for the purpose of restoring Mr. O'Keeffe, and not for the purpose of improving the, regulations of the Board.