On other matters Mr. Parnell seems to have made some
highly imaginative assumptions,—especially that Lord Salis- bury, in his recent speech at Liverpool, expressed the in- tention neither to resign nor dissolve if defeated on an important English measure. We read Lord Salisbury's speech carefully, and maintain that he never either said or intimated anything of the kind, but that he gave this as a reason why the Government ought to be very careful in the measures they might bring forward, and the attitude they might assume on other issues, that either a resignation or a dissolution at such a crisis as the present might be fatal to the Unionist cause. Mr. Parnell, of course, said that the reduction of Irish rents
recently made by the Land Commissioners was less than half what was needed, and that the fifteen years' period before a new revision ought to be reduced to five, or seven at most. Mr. Parnell further congratulated Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Arthur O'Connor on the success of their American mission. Considering how openly they co-operated with notable Fenians and dynamiters, this official recognition of their services by Mr. Parnell ought not to be forgotten.
