I cannot suppose the

I say there is no such chance now. right honorable gentleman, in refusing me the ten minutes which. I crave, had not in his eye the design of practically preventing my denial of this unblushing calumny having that effect upon public opinion which it would otherwise have had if it had been spoken at a reasonable hour of the night.

It appears that, in addition to the passage of this Coercion Act, the dice are to be loaded-that your great organs of public opinion in this country are to be permitted to pay miserable creatures for the purpose of producing these calumnies. Who will be safe in such circumstances and under such conditions? I do not envy the right honorable gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, this first commencement of suppression of defence—this first commencement of calumny and of forgery which has been made by his supporters.

We have heard of the misdeeds of Mr. Ford, the editor of the "Irish World," but Mr. Ford never did anything half so bad as this.

[Mr. A. J. Balfour.-I do not wish to interrupt the honorable member; but as he makes these accusations, I should like to explain that I intervened between the honorable gentleman and the House simply because I understood that it had been arranged that I should follow the right honorable member for Midlothian, and that the honorable member would follow me. No hint reached me that he was going to confine himself to an explanation of, or deal at all with, the accusation in the "Times" to which he has referred. No hint of that kind reached me, and I conceive that the honorable member might have risen, had he wished, at any time earlier in the evening.]

I was asked officially, at an early hour in the evening, whether I would speak after the right honorable member for Midlothian, and I replied that I would, and that I only

intended to say a few words in reference to this calumny. I think I ought to have been given the opportunity which I desired.

Now, sir, when I first heard of this precious concoction—I heard of it before I saw it, because I do not take in or even read the “ Times ” usually—when I heard that a letter of this description, bearing my signature, had been published in the "Times," I supposed that some autograph of mine had fallen into the hands of some person for whom it had not been intended, and that it had been made use of in this way.

I supposed that some blank sheet containing my signature, such as many members who are asked for their signature frequently send-I supposed that such a blank sheet had fallen into hands for which it had not been intended, and that it had been misused in this fashion, or that something of that kind had happened.

But when I saw what purported to be my signature, I saw plainly that it was an audacious and unblushing fabrication. Why, sir, many members of this House have seen my signature, and if they will compare it with what purports to be my signature in the "Times" of this morning, they will see that there are only two letters in the whole name which bear any resemblance to letters in my own signature as I write it.

I cannot understand how the conductors of a responsible, and what used to be a respectable, journal, could have been so hoodwinked, so hoaxed, so bamboozled, and that is the most charitable interpretation which I can place on it, as to publish such a production as that as my signature.

My writing—its whole character-is entirely different. I unfortunately write a very cramped hand; my letters huddle into each other, and I write with very great difficulty and slowness. It is, in fact, a labor and a toil to me to write

anything at all. But the signature in question is written by a ready penman, who has evidently covered as many leagues of letter-paper in his life as I have yards.

Of course, this is not the time, as I have said, to enter into full details and minutiæ as to comparisons of handwriting; but if the House could see my signature, and the forged, the fabricated signature, they would see that, except as regards two letters, the whole signature bears no resemblance to mine.

The same remark applies to the letter. The letter does not purport to be in my handwriting. We are not informed who has written it. It is not alleged even that it was written by anybody who was ever associated with me. The name of this anonymous letter-writer is not mentioned. I do not know who he can be. The writing is strange to me. I think I should insult myself if I said-I think, however, that I perhaps ought to say it, in order that my denial may be full and complete that I certainly never heard of the letter.

I never directed such a letter to be written. I never saw such a letter before I saw it in the "Times" this morning. The subject-matter of the letter is preposterous on the surface. The phraseology of it is absurd-as absurd as any phraseology that could be attributed to me could possibly be. In every part of it, it bears absolute and irrefutable evidence of want of genuineness and want of authenticity.

Politics are come to a pretty pass in this country when a leader of a party of eighty-six members has to stand up, at ten minutes past one, in the House of Commons, in order to 'defend himself from an anonymous fabrication, such as that which is contained in the "Times" of this morning. I have always held, with regard to the late Mr. Forster, that his treatment of his political prisoners was a humane treatment, and

a fair treatment; and I think for that reason alone, if for no other, he should have been shielded from such an attempt as was made on his life by the Invincible Association.

I never had the slightest notion in the world that the life of the late Mr. Forster was in danger, or that any conspiracy was on foot against him, or any other official in Ireland or elsewhere. I had no more notion than an unborn child that there was such a conspiracy as that of the Invincibles in existence, and no one was more surprised, more thunderstruck, and more astonished than I was when that bolt from the blue fell upon us in the Phoenix Park murders.

I know not in what direction to look for this calamity. It is no exaggeration to say that if I had been in the park that day I would gladly have stood between Lord Frederick Cavendish and the daggers of the assassins, and, for the matter of that, between their daggers and Mr. Burke too.

Now, sir, I leave this subject. I have suffered more than any other man from that terrible deed in the Phoenix Park, and the Irish nation has suffered more than any other nation through it.

I go for a moment to the noble Marquis the member for Rossendale [the Marquis of Hartington]. The noble Marquis made a rather curious complaint of me. He said that, having denied point-blank a charge that had against me and the National League during the general election last year, he was rather surprised that I did not again refer to the matter in the House of Commons.

been made by him

Well, I was rather surprised that the noble Marquis made a charge which he advanced without a particle of truth. He advanced that charge again to-night without a particle of proof, and I deny that charge, as I denied it before, in pointblank terms.

I said it was absolutely untrue to say that the Irish National League or the Parliamentary Party had ever had any communication whatever, direct or indirect, with a Fenian organization in America or this country. I further said that I did not know who the leaders of the Fenian organization in this country or America were.

I say that still. But the noble Marquis says he knows who they are, at least he tells us that Mr. Alexander Sullivan-I believe that was the name mentioned-was president of the Clan-na-Gael, or Fenian organization. When I asked him how he obtained his knowledge, he said that he obtained it from information he received as a member of her Majesty's Government.

That may be. But I am not in possession of the information with regard to the Clan-na-Gael which is possessed by the members of the present, or of the late Government. The Clan-na-Gael is a secret organization; it is an oath-bound organization; it gives no information with regard to its members to persons who are not members. I presume that the Government, if they obtained their information with regard to Alexander Sullivan, obtained it through their secret agents in America, through means which are not open to me in any capacity as a private person or a public politician.

It is no answer to me to say that because the noble Marquis, a member of the late Government, with all the information obtainable by the wealth and resource of that Government at his disposal, believes Alexander Sullivan was a member and the leader of the Clan-na-Gael, or any secret organization in America.

I have never had any dealings with him, or anyone else, either in Ireland or America, in respect to the doings or pro ceedings of any secret society whatsoever.