MR. PARNELL'S NEW POSITION.
T"general result of the struggle among Irish Extremists, which ended for the hour in the meeting of Tuesday in Dublin, is, we think, sufficiently clear. Mr. Parnell's Anglo- American tenacity and self-control have once more beaten Irish ardour and mutability, and he resumes his seat master of his party, though with diminished influence, a weaker pro- gramme, and the loss of the active section of his American supporters. We hardly understand why his friends and Mr. Davitt's friends take such a quantity of trouble, and indulge in such ecstasies of invention, to conceal the fact that there exists a schism in the ranks of the Extremists. Reds always have quarrelled, and are on the Continent quarrelling now ; but they are a force, for all that, and Ireland is not the less troublesome because there has always been a party in the island whose weapon is Revolt, and a party whose weapon 'is Worry. The " Worrits," if we may use a vulgarism which exactly describes them, have won this time ; but to say they have won unopposed, or without an effort, is palpable nonsense. It is on the very face of the discussion of Tuesday, in the Irish National Conference, that the party of Revolt, headed by Mr. Devitt, backed as the Irish World acknowledges by the Ameri- cans, and possessed with the idea that the "people of Ireland" are the Irish, and not the Irish farmers, were entirely disconten- ted with Mr. Parnell's proposals. They wanted and proposed to "claim the land," ultimately, no doubt, with a view to its nationalisation, and to a considerable distribution of it among the labourers—note that, for there is trouble in the air on that side, and rick-burning, too—and they wanted the popular Parlia- ment of Ireland, the Forty-eight, hereafter to be known as the "Executive Council," to be elected by the people. Mr. Parnell did not want either of those things. He wanted to carry the farmers who have votes, and whose object is copyhold, whether under the form of copyhold, or of freehold mortgaged for sixty years ; and he wanted to control the Council, and not to be dictated to by a popular Parliament, with a broader mandate than his own. He almost admitted this in so many words, when he cried "Hear, hear I "to Mr. T. P. O'Connor's furious, and for his purpose excessively indiscreet, speech, which either meant that the Parliamentary party must rule the popular party, or had no meaning at all. Mr. Parnell, therefore, supported the motion that of the forty-eight Members, sixteen should be nomi- nated by the "Parliamentary Party," that is, by himself, and only the remaining thirty-two should be elected by the counties. The effect of that is, that so long as he can control his followers in the House, which is easy, and nine counties, which is not diffi- cult—because the North, so far as it is for movement, is for his ideas, and not Mr. Davitt's—he will remain dictator of the Executive Council. That this is his intention follows from his acts, even if Mr. T. P. O'Connor had not uttered the follow- ing unmistakeable words. Mr. Devitt had moved that all members of the Council be elected, whereupon Mr. T. P. O'Connor uttered the following most significant speech :— "Of course, Members of Parliament would be eligible for election;
but the statement remained that all the members of the Council, according to Mr. Devitt's resolution, would be elected. That would not be fair to the Parliamentary party, who had fought the battle and borne the brunt of the national movement, and of the work which had been accomplished. He, for one, would not undertake to carry out a programme in the preparation of which they had neither con- sultation nor responsibility. Of course, it was said that Members of Parliament could be elected by the constituencies ; but it was well known that they would be absent the greater portion of the year in London, attending to their Parliamentary duties, and meanwhile the work of slander and intrigue would be going on at home." (Cries of "Oh, oh !" hisses, cheers, and confusion.) "The proposition of Mr. Devitt east suspicion on the Parliamentary party."
Mr. Davitt's proposal was withdrawn, "to avoid divisions," and Mr. Parnell has, therefore, triumphed ; but it has been at the price of a certain discontent in Parliament, visible in Mr. F. IL O'Donnell's letter stating that he shall not favour " con- ciliation," of an increased chance that a new leader may arise and carry away half the hosts of heaven ; and of another change, which will ultimately tell very heavily. The labourers and artisans of Ireland will be taught to regard Mr. Parnell as the mouthpiece of the farmers alone, and he will be left with only the tenants behind, him.
"So much the better," say most of our contemporaries, "for the Extremists of Ireland, when divided, cease to be formidable to England." We doubt that greatly, believing that in every revolution it is the ultra party which temporarily wins ; that the rough work is, in fact, left to the Terrorists, who first slip on the incline from energy to crime, and are then put down by the aroused conscience of mankind. But granting that it is true, it does not improve the immediate situation. The Parliamen- tary difficulty is as important as the Irish difficulty, and our fear is that Mr. Parnell, triumphing only after a contest, afraid of seeing his authority sapped, and conscious that his programme is rather sensible than strong, will feel it need- ful, in order to defend himself, to keep up incessant war in Parliament. His programme, if read a little within the lines, is not dangerous. It means copyhold for the farmers, Elective County Councils with considerable powers, and Boards of Irish Education and Public Works, to be elected by those Councils.
Those proposals, whether wise or foolish, are practicable, and open to debate ; but Mr. Parnell, in fear of the Irreconcilables, may think it necessary to press them now, at once, and by his usual means. The English and Scotch Members will not bear that. They must insist on some legislation for Great Britain, or they will lose their seats, the Constituencies being much more angry at the paralysis of Parliament than is usually suspected ; and if Mr. Parnell will not give way—will, that is, obstruct, rather than accept any assurances as to the future—the inevitable struggle, which all Englishmen have been anxious to avoid, will commence at once. Mr. Parnelli may, of course, be wiser than we fear, having in him a trace of that aristocratic fibre of mind which gives tenacity and hardness to political thought ; but, in that case, he will have to face a succession of rivals eager to clutch away his sceptre. IIss probably recognises by this time that in every party such as his there are ten pretenders for every King, and that it is always a humble servant who, in the end, gives the coup dt grace in the back. The dread of those stabs has hitherto, in all Revolutions, induced leaders to go much farther in violence than their own inner judgment approved, and Mr. Parnell. is only a leader in a Revolution.
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