Mr. Parnell spoke at Limerick on Saturday, and has made,
indeed, a series of Irish speeches this week. He has returned more or loss to his old calm style, and maintains absolutely his contention as to the tenor of his interview with Mr. Glad- stone at Hawarden in 1889. By way of verification, he quoted a letter from himself to Mr. Rhodes, the Premier of the Cape. Colony, written about three months after that interview, in March, 1890, in which ho explicitly states that the reduction of the number of the Irish Members in the central Parliament for all purposes to 34 or 32 (he does not appear to remember whether it was 34 or 32) had been occupying the attention of the Liberal leaders, and that Mr. Gladstone had represented that he and his colleagues greatly preferred the retention of such a reduced number for all purposes, to the retention of the whole number for Imperial purposes only, and their ex- clusion for purposes that were not Imperial. He also tells Mr. Rhodes that he had represented to Mr. Gladstone that he could not assent to such a course till more explicit conditions with reference to the important questions of the Irish Constabulary and the Irish Judiciary had been arrived at. The letter certainly gives prima-facie evidence that the reduced Irish representation, and the bearing of that reduced representation on the powers claimed for the Irish Parliament and Government, had been discussed between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell; and this we do not understand Mr. Glad- stone to deny. He only denies; we believe, that either the previous settlement of the Land question at Westminster, or the concession to the Irish Parliament of the power to settle the Land question, was so discussed; and to that the allusion is so slight in the letter to Mr. Rhodes, that it may very well have been passed over.
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