LORD SPENCER AND MR. O'BRIEN.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I have read with the utmost pain your remarks on Mr. O'Brien's replies in cross-examination at the Cork Assizes. Had these remarks been made by an unbelieving cynic, they would have been natural enough. Coming from a Christian and a man of heart, they are amazing. Mr. O'Brien has done what few indeed of us have the courage to do. He has humbled himself to confess before the world a great sin, and to offer to the man whom formerly he traduced an unreserved apology. And this, not under pressure of necessity of poli- tical capital to be made or danger to be. avoided, but, on the contrary, at the risk of drawing down upon himself the con- tempt of the many to whom the confession of a fault, not the fault itself, is the degrading thing.
" Is there not a cause " for Mr. O'Brien's repentance P Or does the repentance of an Irish Nationalist appear a thing incredible to you ? What you slightingly describe as a mere " change in the political attitude " of Lord Spencer, is in fact a change from a convinced policy of iron repression, to a con- vinced policy of trust in the Irish people. Let this be, if you please, the wildest delusion. It is, at all events, a change of policy which throughout the length and breadth of Ireland has turned despair into hope, curses into blessings, hatred into love. That you, Sir, should look upon all this as a mere "shifting of the political kaleidoscope," is a mournful thing.
[Our correspondent does not see that Mr. O'Brien, in acting towards Mr. Balfour now precisely as he acted towards Lord Spencer some years ago, proves, without the smallest opening for a doubt, that his repentance is political and not moral.— ED. Spectator.]
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