The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-04-03
THE LONDON TINES COLLAPSE.

When the London Times produced
the Parnell letter in facsimile IN
March. 1887, we said Of it, among
other things, that 'it would prob
ably turn out to be a clumsy forgery
like the Morey letter, and that its
appearance was made doubly suspi-
c1ous by the fact that it appeared on
the very day on which a division
was expected on the second reading
of the Coercion Bill" This has
proved to have been a tolerably cor
rect forecast. 1t now appears from
the evidence of Mr. Macdonald, the
manager of the Times, that the res0-
luton to print the facsimile was
taken very suddenly-that is, it was
determined on a Saturday to print it
on a Monday, and on Monday it APP
peared, and a division on the second
reading-a crucial stage-Of the Co
ercion Bill was expected to take
place, and did take place, on that
very night, April Is, 1887.
It further appears that when this
facsimile was printed, for the pur
pose of influencing the House Of
Commons on a measure of extraOrdl
nary severity directed against one
portion of the United Kingdom, Mr..
Macdonald, the manager, knew
nothing of the origin Of the letter,
except what Mr.. Houston told him,
and Mr.. Houston, who supplied it,
knew nothing except what Mr.. Pigott
had told him, and Mr.. Pigott was
we'll known to be what we calm this
country a dead beat" Of nearly
twenty years standing. This re-
markable step, too, had been pre-
coded by a formal announcement
that Mr. ParnelPs denial of the auth
enticity of the letter imputing to
him completely with assassins, would
not have the slightest weight, and
that nothing would induce the edl
tor of the Times to say who gave
him the letters, because, if he did,
this person would surely be muir
dered. We believe this was the first
case on record in which person of
good social standing land not a
! blackmailer) produced letter inju-
rious to another mans character,
| and absolutely refused to state all
| his reasons for believing it to be
genuine. OF course, in case OF
this kind, the history Of the letter Is
al important. To withhold this
history, while treating or using the
letter as authenticated, would IN
private life be considered Infamous.
! The fact that so many honorable
! and high-minded Englishmen were
| led by their hatred of the Irish
party to acquiesce in the Times
view of its obligations, is perhaps as
striking an argument in favor OF
! home rule as the whole controversy
has produced. It illustrates that
state Of the English mind on Irish
| questions which has made Irish his
tory such dismal tale.
The denOuement Of the tragi-
comedy which has since last Novem-
Der been dragging its slow length
along before the Parnell Commits
sion, came on Tuesday, in London,
when Sir Charles Russell announced
on the opening of the court that
PigOtt had confessed the forgery of
the letters and had fled. He added,
moreover, that he was prepared to
prove that Pigott had been forging
signatures to a greater or less extent
since 1878, and that he had invested
the money he got from the Times
some thousands of pOunds-in an
Observation-Disclosures business. A war
rant has accordingly been issued for
Ds1-o+4F- orI OF fhyC 20
the Acknowledgement is in doubt
whether he will proceed any further
with the case. We do not need to
point out the probable effect Of all
this on the fortunes of the London
Times. The pecuniary loss, present
and prospective, to that journal is of
course enormous; the loss of conf
dence and influence is simply meal
culable and certainly irremediable.
In the hands of different men the
paper might recover, but in those of
its present managers it seems hope
less.
What is of most importance in the
affair is it's bearing on the fortunes
of the present Ministry and on the
Irish question. 1t is safe to say that
any other Ministry which has held
Office since the passage of the Re
form Bill, would have resigned at
once under blow of this kind, be-
cause the present Ministry has done
everything it could to identify its
fortunes with those of the Times in
the pursuit of Parnell and his fol
lowers. The Times has been fur
nished with all the official documents
it needed, with the assistance and
testimony of all the police and
magistrates and Of the saIaried Gov
eminent spies like lie Caron, or
Beach, and though last. not least,
with the services of the Attorney
General as counsel. The powers Of
the court, too, were defined in the
Act Of Parliament which created 1t,
in spite Of the protests of the Lib
erals, in such a way, to suit the
Times -that is, the field Of inquiry
was made so large, vague, and in
defnite-that the framing of issues
would be impossible, and judges
would be unable to shut out any
evidence on the ground Of irrelev-
ancy. Accordingly every crime and
outrage committed in anv county of