Sir Charles Russell followed with a personal attack on the
Attorney-General for his conduct of the Times' case. His grievance, apparently, was that the advice given by eminent Gladstonian Members to Mr. O'Donnell had not produced the effect they intended, but had rendered this Commission inevitable. The Solicitor-General replied briefly to him, and then Mr. T. P. O'Connor charged the Government with inventing this Commission to save the Times from the worst exposure which a journal ever endured, but he did not explain why, on his theory, that would not have been much better effected by leaving matters alone. Mr. T. P. O'Connor conceded Frank Byrne's guilt, at least for the sake of argu- ment, but what he denied was his own knowledge of that guilt; and he refused to let the Commission go into the history of the Land League, which, considering the responsi- bility of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues for the Land League, does not seem a candid course.
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