The Government have determined to give a salary to the
Irish Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr. King-Harman, who has rendered great assistance to Mr. Balfour, and who is to have a salary provided for him by the suppression of one of the three members of the Irish Local Government Board, who are paid £1,200 a year each. In Committee, on Friday week, the financial resolution on which a Bill for this purpose will be founded was, contrary to usage, bitterly resisted, not only by the Parnellites, but by Mr. Morley and Sir William Harcourt, and even by the Liberal Unionist, Mr. T. W. Russell, who declared that the appointment would be regarded as a declaration of war against the Irish tenant-farmers, as it would reinforce the landlord interest in the Government of Ireland, which he regarded as already too potent. But perhaps it might be urged in reply, that whatever the interest of the landlords in the Government of Ireland may be, experience shows that it is an interest which always goes to the wall. The Parnellite outburst of wrath was, of course, excessively violent, Mr. Healy, in a very ferocious speech, declaring that, in the language of Moore, Mr. King- Harman had "run through all the moods of a liar, and was master of all," a remark which does not appear to have been stopped by the Chairman of Committees. Sorely Mr. Courtney cannot have caught the drift of the quotation. The original appointment of Mr. King-Harman is, in our opinion, the worst mistake which the Government has made; but since the mistake was made, the scurrilous way in which he has been attacked reconciles us to the resolve of the Government to pay him fairly for his services, which are not inconsiderable.
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