'The division between the Healyite and the McCarthyite sections of
the Anti-Parnellite party is proceeding in a very lively fashion. Mr. Justin McCarthy has rebuked Mr. Healy severely, though vaguely, in a letter addressed "to the Irish people," published in the Freeman's Journal, and Mr. Healy has promptly replied in a letter addressed to Mr. McCarthy personally, beginning "My dear Justin," and reminding him rather uncomfortably that he gave up his seat to Mr. McCarthy in 1892 in a manner that showed his thorough loyalty to his leader. He denies in the boldest manner that the facts on which he grounded his accusation as to the Tyrone transaction can be invalidated, and he de- clares that the pledge which he took was not to follow the lead of any one man, but to abide by the deliberate decision of the Irish party, whatever that decision may be. Till that decision is taken, he says, he feels perfectly at liberty to large his own view on his fellow-countrymen; and it is clear that he has no fear at all of being drummed out of the party, nor does Mr. Justin McCarthy's language suggest that he has any hope of drumming Mr. Healy out. It seems a very pretty quarrel. The Irish party evidently resembles some of those organisations which are capable of reproducing themselves by spontaneous division. Many of these organisations are both gaily coloured and symmetrical, and yet armed with a very irritating sting. Parnellite Nationalism is perhaps the most brightly parti-coloured, while Anti-Parnellite Healyisin seems to bear the most irritating sting.
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