Tuesday's papers contained the correspondence which has passed between Mr.
F. E. Smith and Mr. John Redmond. Mr. F. E. Smith, speaking at Glasgow on October 12th, accused Mr. Redmond of speaking with two voices—one in America and one in Great Britain—on the subject of Home Rule, a charge which Mr. Redmond indignantly denied. To this denial Mr. F. E. Smith replied in a letter containing a number of quotations from Mr. Redmond's speeches from 1895 to 1910. Mr. Redmond rejoined by declaring that these isolated passages, detached from their context, should be read in the light of his innumerable declarations in America and Great Britain as to the limits of Ireland's demand. Even if he desired to do so he had not the means at his disposal of verify- ing quotations, some of them sixteen years old; but he declared that there was not a syllable of truth in the passage f rom a speech of November 10th, 1910, in which Parnell is quoted as saying, " Let us get this [an Irish Parliament for Irish affairs subject to the Irish people] first and then demand more." Mr. F. E. Smith in his surrejoinder observes that with one solitary exception Mr. Redmond does not challenge the accuracy of the quotations in which he vehemently and repeatedly advocated separation from England ; maintains that his (Mr. Redmond's) line of defence is an admission of duplicity ; and points out that the passage in the speech of November 10th, 1910, is quoted verbatim from the Irish World, and is in complete consonance with the views expressed by Mr. Redmond and Parnell on other occasions.
Previous page
