Sir Charles Gavan Duffy writes an excellent letter from Paris
to yesterday's Times on the subject of the Chairman of Commit- tees and his coup d'e'tat, though he insists more on the injustice of Mr. McCarthy's suspension than on any other. No doubt, the circumstances of Mr. McCarthy's suspension were odd, for Mr. McCarthy, as Mr. Playfair admitted, remonstrated privately against the inclusion of his name in the list, and was told at first by Mr. Playfair that it was not so included, though he afterwards discovered it there; and even then Mr. Playfair, by the apologetic tone which he took in relation to it, virtually ad- mitted. that lie was dealing out very hard measure indeed to Mr. McCarthy, just as he admitted that he had dealt out very hard measure indeed to Mr. O'Donnell. And to our thinking, he dealt out hardest measure of all to poor Mr. Marum. We are confident that Sir C. Gavan Duffy is on per-
fectly firm ground, when he says If it be permissible to take a rule framed for individual cases, and suddenly apply it, with- out notice or warning, to a batch of cases, to include in this batch Members who were not present and others who had con- fessedly given no offence, and that the officer setting this ex- ample of arbitrary authority is to be sheltered from criticism, I see no security for liberty of speech or action, in the case of Members who are so unfortunate as to forfeit the sympathy of the majority."
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