We often wonder whether Mr. Gladstone considers it his duty
to follow carefully the Irish speeches of the Parnellite Party. He said, in his speech last week at Derby, of the Parnellites :— "As they have obtained greater power, their moderation has been conspicuous. As they now command an overwhelming majority, so all ground of suspicion for a desire to destroy the landed property of Ireland, to break up the obligations which bind the occupier to the owner, and bind the debtor to the creditor, have disappeared." We never read a statement seriously made by any man with more amazement. And we observe that it has excited the same amazement in the mind of Mr. Wilson, the High Sheriff of County Longford, who sends to yesterday's Times this passage from Mr. Healy's speech at Longford, delivered on Sunday fortnight, as reported in the Longford Gazette of October 15th, by way of illustration :—" When I see the big houses empty, and untenanted, and rotting, I say to myself, 'Glory be to God that I have lived to see this day.' " Again, Mr. Healy said in the same speech —"I would tell Lord Granard's tenants that in dealing with the unjust landlords, I would feel no more compunction in seeking my own rights than I would in driving a rat out of a haystack." Is not Mr. Healy a Parnellite leader par excellence,—indeed, a far more energetic leader than Mr. Parnell? And is this the moderation he has learned from success ? Mr. Gladstone is losing his grasp of the facts on which he theorises.
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