7 FEBRUARY 1880, Page 2

Mr. Sullivan, in speaking at Liverpool on Tuesday, made some

very startling assertions respecting the intrigues of the Conservatives with the Home-rule party, which he reiterated in a formal letter to the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday last, and further supported by a letter to yesterday's Times. Be said that certain Conservatives in 1870 gave the Irish party the invitation to enter on the Home-rule agitation ; next, that the Conservatives supplied the money for the election of O'Donovan Rona, the only avowed Fenian, and for the election of others of the earliest Rome-rulers; next, that

distinguished Home-rulers were singled out for honours, as in the case of Mr. King Harman's appointment as Lord-Lieutenant of Roscommon ; lastly, that the Home-rulers had been led to believe that certain Conservative statesmen meditated "dish- ing the Whigs," by offering Ireland a royal residence and a domestic legislature. Lord Sandon, of course, received by telegraph from Colonel Taylor and Mr. Hart Dyke a positive contradiction of these statements ; but Mr. Sullivan had not spoken by name of either Colonel Taylor or Mr. Hart Dyke. Nevertheless, it appears somewhat strange that Colonel Taylor was so ignorant on this matter as his denial implies.