On Wednesday, on the vote in Supply for the salary
of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Colonel Sauuderson called atten- tion to the case of Constable Anderson, and his persecution at the instigation of a village priest, with, as he alleged, the connivance of Sir Antony Macdonell, the Under-Secretary. The Nationalists hotly retorted that the Anderson case was an'Ulster fiction, and attacked Mr. Wyndham for reinstating Anderson after his dismissal. Mr. Wyndham loyally defended his Under-Secretary from the charges made against him, and declared that the responsibility for the Commission of Inquiry rested upon the Inspector-General of the Constabulary, Sir Neville Chamberlain, a Protestant and a Unionist, The mis- carriage of justice had been rectified as soon as it was dis- covered ; and though the parish priest undoubtedly sought Anderson's dismissal, there was no complicity in higher quarters. The matter must rest here ; but we confess that the whole affair has an ugly look. It is extremely unfortunate that so distinguished an official as Sir Antony Macdonell should have lost the confidence of Protestant Ireland, and it is even more unfortunate that so grave a wrong should only be righted by the interference of the Chief Secretary over the head of the Inspector-General of the Constabulary. It is bad for the discipline of the Constabulary, and worse for the confidence of law-abiding Irishmen in the machinery by which they are governed.
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