THE BOYCOTTING OF MRS. CONNELL.
PERHAPS the most discouraging feature of modern Parliamentary life is the callousness with which, in the House of Commons, official statements of fact are specifically denied, and then, when in a few days the denials are proved worthless, are abandoned as if no particular discredit attached to such abandonment. In days not so very long ago, when a Member flatly contradicted a Minister who was making a state- ment to the House for the accuracy of which his honour and reputation were pledged, he did so with a sense of full respon- sibility, and with the knowledge that a complete justification of his denials would be required at his hands. Nowadays, however, a Member who wishes to damage his opponent's case contradicts with absolute recklessness and with perfect impunity. In the recent debates there have been two notable instances of this practice,—Mr. O'Brien's denial as to his charges against Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Parnell's as to the boycotting of Mrs. Connell. Mr. O'Brien explicitly denied Mr. Balfour's charge that be (Mr. O'Brien) had in United Ireland accused Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan of being engaged in a conspiracy " to shield men guilty of horrible and unnameable offences ;" and yet a day or two after, the actual passages were disinterred from United Ireland, in which Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan were mentioned in connection with certain notorious persons, and were described as " conniving at their crimes." Could anything be more painful than the fact that the com- plete collapse of such a denial is regarded with little or no indignation ? Into the circumstances of Mr. Parnell's contra- diction as regards the boycotting of Mrs. Connell, we propose to enter at length. The case is a typical one, and may perhaps bring home to our readers the weight of disgrace which the House of Commons incurs when such recklessness is tolerated by a minority which is only a hundred less than half the House, and which contains such men as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley.
On February 10th, Mr. Balfour quoted in his speech on the Address, the case of a certain Mrs. Connell who had been boycotted in a particularly cruel and rigid manner. These were the facts as stated by him. An old woman, Hannah Connell, of Miltown Malbay, County Clare, eighty years of age, and half-palsied, was the mother of a man who had taken. an evicted farm. For her son's crime she has been so rigidly and so persistently boycotted as to be brought to the point of starvation. "She lay three days on her bed at Christmas- time dying of starvation," and was only saved by the help afforded her by a certain Mrs. Moroney. Ultimately Hannah Connell came to the police-office, and swore " that having been refused provisions, she went to the barracks, because she was in dread of the people." Before going to the police- office, she had entered the shop of one of the men afterwards prosecuted on her complaint, and asked for bread, which she was refused. Protected by two police- men, she again tried to buy bread at four shops, and was again in every case refused. " She asked for sixpennyworth of bread, a pound of sugar, and an ounce of tea ; she was refused everything." In the course of Hannah Connell's statement, it further appeared that at one time she could buy provisions from a man named Flannagan, but that he had at last refused to supply her, on the ground that the people said she was boycotted. This is, shortly, the drift of the evidence which, when produced and sworn to in a Court of Law, caused four of the shopkeepers of Miltown Malbay to be convicted and sentenced to three months' imprison- ment for conspiracy to boycott. To these facts, as stated by Mr. Balfour, Mr. Parnell gave a vehement and specific denial. Hannah Connell, he asserted on the written evidence of Mr. Redmond, who defended the shopkeepers, was only a little over fifty, and not palsied, but active and strong. She had lived on the charity of the people whom she after- wards prosecuted, till Mrs. Moroney took her under her wing. " In order to get up the prosecutions," Mr. Parnell went on, "Mrs. Moroney one day sent this woman Connell into the town, over a mile off, to buy bread which she (Mrs. Connell) was in the habit of getting from Mrs. Moroney's shop. Mrs. Connell offered no money at any shop where she asked for provisions. She was refused, but the shopkeepers said that she had never bought bread in their shops in her life. She told Mr. Redmond she was starving, but, in point of fact, she had plenty of potatoes in her house, and she had all she wanted from Mrs. Moroney. She was a disreputable woman, and in one of the cases she came more than half-drunk up to the table." Mr. Parnell having thus dwelt on Mrs. Connell's private character, went on to describe Mrs. Moroney in the usual language which is reserved for landlords, and related how, after evicting some of her tenants, she was boycotted. Mrs. Moroney then set up a shop and hotel of her own, to supply her wants and those of the emergency-men in her employ. Mr. Parnell continued :—" At the same time when she sent out Mrs. Connell to these shops to get up a case of con- spiracy to boycott, against the shopkeepers, she also sent out two of her old servants,—M'Keown and Kelly. They went to shops to which they had never been before, in order, as Kelly admitted on oath, to make up a prosecution under the Crimes Act. Kelly further admitted on oath in Court that they knew they would be refused,—they had not money to pay for one of the things they asked for." Such was the specific denial which, for a time, staggered the House by its apparent genuineness. If it was true—and Mr. Parnell had made his statements on the authority of an eye- witness who knew the facts—then the effect of Mr. Balfour's typical instance was swept away. The denial, in fact, held the field, and the Solicitor-General for Ireland could, on the spur of the moment, only remind the House that as the persons convicted had been condemned to three months' imprisonment, they might appeal ; and at the appeal, the whole evidence could be reviewed by a competent tribunal. It will be seen that Mr. Parnell's denial contained certain definite specific statements, which were :—(1), That Hannah Connell was not an old woman of eighty, but only a little over fifty ; (2), that she was not palsied, but active and strong ; (3), that she was disreputable ; (4), that she was drunk in the witness-box ; (5), that she had potatoes in her house while she was supposed to be starving ; (6), that she had formerly lived upon the charity of the shopkeepers ; (7), that she had never bought bread in their shops in her life ; (8), that Mrs. Moroney sent her to buy bread in order " to get up a prosecution ;" (9), that Mrs. Connell offered no money when she asked for pro- visions ; (10), that Mrs. Moroney's servants went to shops that they had never been to before, in order to get up a prosecution, and that they had no money to pay for what they demanded. It is true that if these allegations are looked into very carefully, it may be seen that they are not altogether satisfactory. In the first place, there is no actual denial that Mrs. Connell was boycotted,—there is only the implied allega- tion that she could have managed to live notwithstanding. In the second place, there are the contradictory assertions that Mrs. Connell had lived on the charity of the shopkeepers, and yet that she had never bought bread in their shops in her life,—a material contradiction, unless we can believe that the small shopkeepers of Clare practise charity not as small country shopkeepers everywhere else, by selling food to the poor and not pressing for the money, but in some other way which does not make the recipient of charity a purchaser. Still, granted these difficulties, if Mr. Parnell's main allegations were all true, Mr. Balfour's case, as stated to the House, broke down completely.
Fortunately for the sake of truth, the testimony of an independent witness can be brought forward to decide between the official and the Parnellite versions of the fact.
Dr. Bonynge, the Rector of Miltown Malbay, writing to the Times of February 20th, substantially corroborates Mr.
Balfour's statement in its most important particulars. Dr.
Bonynge, who says he knows Mrs. Connell personally, and who was in Court during the trial, declares that she is not active and strong, but a " poor old helpless creature ;" that she is not a person of disreputable character ; that she was not drunk when she gave her evidence ; that she could not be only "a little over fifty," as her son, who was a sailor in the Fleet at the time of the Crimean War (1855-56), and was then described as eighteen, is now fifty. It will be seen that these statements, which no one has attempted to deny, knock the bottom out of the most serious of Mr. Parnell's allegations. Let us take, however, from among those that remain one which is especially specific,—i.e., the statement that while Mrs. Connell was supposed to be starving, she had plenty of potatoes in her house. What are the facts, as stated by Dr. Bonynge ?—" There is no doubt that Hannah Connell was for days ill in bed from want of such food as she could use. True, she had potatoes—poor food for a sick old woman—but not one drop of milk to moisten them ; so vigorous was the boycotting, that even the friendly aid that ventured out under cover of the darkness of the night to bring her a little milk was watched and stopped by the boycotters ; and were it not for the timely but very inadequate help of a loyalist living about two miles distant, Hannah Connell and her son would have been in a miserable plight." If we go beyond this testimony, and take that of Mrs. Moroney, it will be still more apparent how utterly worthless was Mr. Parnell's denial. The cause of Mrs. Connell's boycotting is shown to have been particularly small. Indeed, so light was her offence against the unwritten law of the League, that one is surprised to find that even that vigilant body did not condone it. Connell, the son, was sub-tenant to a man who was evicted for non-payment of rent. Connell was told, however, that he might continue to hold his old plot of land, paying his rent in future direct. For this, he and his were cruelly boycotted. He was thus not a "land-grabber," or the payer of rent on an estate where the " Plan of Campaign " was in operation. He had merely the misfortune to suffer a change of landlords. Next, Mrs. Moroney declares that she never sent Mrs. Connell to the town to buy food, as alleged by Mr. Parnell, or even had any communication with her on the subject. Mrs. Moroney, indeed, was not aware of Mrs. Connell's attempts to get served until she had made her second visit accompanied by the police. The statement that Mrs. Connell and her son were in the habit of dealing at Mrs. Moroney's stores till they wanted to get up a prosecution is next disposed of. They never dealt at Mrs. Moroney's stores till after they were boy- cotted. Then, too, they could not have been in the habit of getting bread there, as none is sold by Mrs. Moroney. Into the answers to the charges made against Mrs. Moroney by Mr. Parnell, we do not propose to enter. We desire only to quote Mrs. Moroney where she may be considered an independent witness,—i.e., in the case of Mrs. Connell. We may add, however, that Mrs. Moroney gives a direct denial to the allega- tion that she sent her messengers to purchase goods without money, or that they were merely sent to get up a prosecution, as asserted by Mr. Parnell.
It will thus be seen that the whole of Mr. Parnell's case falls flat to the ground. With sinister indifference, neither Mr. Parnell nor his followers, nor any of the prints which support the Home-rule cause, have taken the trouble to attempt to vindicate the truth of his denial. The edifice of misrepre- sentation and calumny built by Mr. Parnell was only required to stand for one night. Having served its purpose, the creator is not foolish enough to risk anything to make it appear to hold together longer. Mr. Parnell, however, has now plenty of English admirers and followers who, however mistaken, are kindly, honourable, English gentlemen. Surely if they have followed the case of Mrs. Connell, they must feel some com- punction. We do not expect them to be angry with the
Parnellites because Mrs. Connell is cruelly boycotted. They have each their own piece of sophistry to excuse that—either boycotting is a great force which must be viewed "with sombre acquiescence," if regret, as working out a good purpose, or else its very severity is an argument for despairing surrender—and are not likely to be affected by such stories. What we do expect, however, is that they should feel some shame, express some indignation at Mr. Parnell publicly branding, as disreputable and a drunkard, the poor old helpless woman, whose only fault it was to be the mother of a son unlucky enough to change his landlord. Because, owing to the exigencies of the debate, it was necessary to get the sympathy of the House of Commons away from Mrs. Connell and to create a prejudice against her, is Mr. Parnell to be allowed to speak of her in a way which, were she a rich woman instead of a poor peasant, would set every tongue in the land talking of his slanders and his injustice ?
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