The House of Commons' Committee on the conduct of the
Irish Board of Education in relation to Father O'Keeffe and the Callan schools has had one day's sitting, at which the testimony of Mr. Keenan,—one of the Board,—was heard, after which the Committee adjourned till after the Whitsuntide recess. The Dublin Evening Mail put out a cock-and-bull story about "the collapse" of the investigation, and the evasion of the inquiry by the Commissioners, a story entirely without real foundation of any sort. Mr. Keenan was examined throughout the whole of Mon- day, and it was the Committee's own doing, not any lameness on the witness's part, which led to the adjournment over the recess. His examination proved that not only were the precedents of the Committee strictly in accordance with the action in Father O'Keeffe's case, but that the rules on which that case has been determined have been followed in it with greater strictness than in the earlier cases settled by the Board in the days of Arch- bishop Whately, when the rules were but imperfectly observed, and the action of the Board was more high-handed than it is now. The Conservatives may condemn the uniform policy of the Board, but they will hardly succeed in proving the slightest deviation from strict precedent.
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