The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1883-02-24 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

FORSTER & MR. PARNELL.  RARELY has a man to his face been spoken of in the way which Mr. Forster spoke of Mr. Parnell, on Thursday, in the House of Commons. The late Irish Secretary directly endeavoured to associate the member for Cork with the authors of the villanies which have brought Ireland to such a terrible pass. Having entered into minute details to prove his case, he said: " I simply repeat again what the charge is against him, probably a more serious charge was never made by one member of the house against another member of the house, not that he himself directly planned or perpetrated outrages and murders, but that he connived at them." " It's a lie," yelled Mr. O'Kelly, who, persisting in his interruptions, was named and expelled the house. Mr. Foster, continuing, said; "I daresay the hon. member:would say I am quoting general sentences of attempts to discourage assassination; but let me show the house in what language these attempts to discourage assassination were clothed. Very early in the agitation, before the coercion act was passed—long before the hon, member was sent to Kilmainham—there was a terrible murder in Kilkenny. The hon. member had an opportunity to use his influence to prevent murder —an opportunity of imitating the example of O'Connell by showing that he would not gain advantage by crime. Speaking at the place where the murder occurred, he said, " I wish to refer to a sad occurrence which took place lately— the shooting or attempted shooting of a land agent in this neighbourhood. I wish to point out that recourse to such measures of procedure is entirely unnecessrry." (Ironical cheers.) This was the way in which the hon. member for Cork denounced murder. This was the way the hon. member for Cavan discouraged assassinations at Castleisland in October, before the passing of the protection act. "There is," said the member for Cavan, " another question which has been raised very much lately—a Laud Leaguer is unfairly charged with shooting a landlord. It is no part of the duty of the Land League to recommend the shooting of landlords." (Ironical cheers.) There was another speech in the same month, in which it was said—" We do not recommend the shooting of landlords; that is an extreme measure, which when such a thing takes place is blazoned forth in all the English newspapers, and prejudice is excited in the English mind against the Irish people." (Iziughter.) But the hon. member (Mr. Parnell) had his substitute for murder. Boycotting was to make murder unnecessary. No wonder that such an agitttizocn as this has been followed by the first is. tical assassination that has disgraced our annals for hundreds of years. (,:heers.) There is ablioreuce of it in England and Scotland, and I felt that until there was an expression of regret and repentance for having set on foot such an agitation as this I would hold no communication or conference with the member for Cork. (Loud Opposition cheers.) I said there was abhorence in England and Scotland. There is abhorence, too, in Ireland. (Cheers.) Not so much as there ought to be, because of the success of the efforts of the hon. member and his friends to demoralise the Irish people by temptation and terror, but they are beginning to find out toe meaning. There are many grounds for discouragement in the state of Ireland. It is not for any man who has been connected with the government to deny it or to be too sanguine. We had delusions. They have disappeared. But there are two grounds for hope and encourairement. One is that the Irish Government ha e now the power to uphold the law and the will to use it—(cheers)—aud the other is that the member for Cork and his fellow-chiefs in this so-ealled agitation have been found out, and the hideous cruelty and wickedness of this agitation has been unveiled, unmasked, and exposed. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)