MR. PARNELL AND THE SPECTATOR.
[To THE EDITOE Or THE SPECSAEOL".1
SIR,—I am this week desiring my newsagent to cease sending me the Spectator, thus closing a continuous subscription of just a quarter of a century. Daring the first period of your dis- sentient career, your articles by their candour and courtesy were useful, and by contrast to the violence of the Times, which you so frequently rebuked, most refreshing. Latterly, however, you have illustrated the truth of Mr. Gladstone's " Grammar of Dissent," losing sight entirely of that all-sidedness which has been characteristic of the Spectator.
Thus, in your penultimate issue, you had no separate article on Mr. Parnell's alleged letter, but in a paragraph of an article you assume its genuineness, and imply that his indignant denial had no ring of sincerity about it. How carefully would you have examined this " letter " a year or two ago, pointing out the exceeding improbability that a man so cautious and reserved as Mr. Parnell should have ever put his hand to so compromising a document ! Why, only last autumn, after his illness, he refused to give countenance to the "Plan of Campaign." Then how unfair and ungenerous is your suggestion that he should be deemed guilty unless he brings an action against the Times! He is in weak, possibly in failing health ; he is the leader of a great party in a revolutionary crisis ; and you say that he must superadd to his other cares that of bringing an action against such a wealthy corporation as the Times, who will employ all the legal talent available, with the object of blackening his character. What leader in a revolution was ever entirely free from the imputation of having evil associates P Was George Washington so ? Mr. Lecky's chapters on the American revo- lution do not show that that movement was unaccompanied by acts of violence.
And then you say that this Bill is a mild one ! That a mild Bill which enables the Lord-Lieutenant to proclaim an Associa- tion, and which then empowers " two Resident Magistrates " to send politicians and newspaper writers to prison with hard labour, for acting in contravention of that proclamation. The Govern- ment by the same stroke of the legislative pen increase the dis- affection of Ireland, and then make all manifestations of that disaffection into so many " crimes." And this is mild I—I am, Sir, &c., Corsham, May 2nd. CHAALBs T. Maio. [Our correspondent misunderstands what we said. We have Inver had, and have never even pretended to have an opinion worth stating, as to whether the alleged letter is Mr. Parnell's Ar not. We have no means of forming a trustworthy opinion on the subject. But we have thought, and do think, that if Mr. Parnell does not prosecute, the world will have good reason to believe, not that he wrote the letter, but that he has done many things, as leader of the Irish Party, which would not bear judicial investigation in Court without great injury to himself. We did not accuse him of simulating indignation at the charge. We did think that his indignation against Mr. Balfour for in- sisting on his right to speak earlier in the debate was simulated, as we could not conceive a man of Mr. Parnell's capacity really holding such a course to be worse than any act of Patrick Ford's. We have been close observers of Mr. Parnell's political course for many years, and we confess that our impression of that course is very unfavourable, and not the least element in that unfavourable judgment has been Mr. Parnell's habit of allowing his subordinates to undertake a policy popular in Ireland, which he could stop in a moment if he pleased, and yet evading the responsibility of countenancing that course. Whatever may be the character of the new Crimes Bill, it is at least (in everything bat the limitation of time) far milder than Mr. Gladstone's of 1882—En. Spectator.]
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