On Wednesday, Mr. Sexton, speaking at the County of Cork
Convention, held to raise funds for the evicted tenants, declared that they (the Nationalists) declined to ask for the particulars of the Home-rule Bill, because "they remembered what fraudulent use was made of the particulars of Home-rule at the election of 1886. They knew that, if sophists and logic- choppers like Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Goschen got hold of a heap of undigested particulars, and distorted them and misrepresented them, the public mind would be bewildered and confused." That is a remarkable declaration. If free discussion of momentous political issues is to be con- sidered fraudulent, and all debate is to be put down as sophistry and logic-chopping, the Irish Parliament will be a curious assembly. Sit down, Sir, you are criticising a Government Bill !' will be, we mast presume from Mr. Sexton's speech, the retort applied to the Opposition. At the meeting at which Mr. Sexton spoke, Mr. James O'Connor was very nearly ejected because he attempted to answer an attack made upon him by name by Mr. William O'Brien. The inci- dent, taken in connection with Mr. Sexton's words, was in every way worthy of note.
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