Page BARONBTS, THE ORDER 01*. By ]uR1sPER1Tz/s .. 25 C0MMIss1oN, THE SPEcIAL, Tm: REPORT or 'run. By CONTEMPT Or COURT. By HORAcE NELSON :— II. Contempts by Publication 207 Cmmzs AND PUNISHMENTS. By ALEXANDER ROBERTSON!- The Pan-A merican Congress . 76 Private International Law 78, 165, 340 The Castioni Extradition Case 162 The Behring Sea Question .. 162, 335 The Blockade Question in Chili 164 FOREIGN MARITIME LAws: III. SPAIN. By F. \V. RAIKES 43,143,233, 316 Page The Allotments Act and Agricultural Labourer 80 Earl Grey on State of Ireland .. 82 “ Incorporated” Law Reporting 169 Armed Vessels not Commissioned by State or Recognised Belligerent 174. Representative Government in Western Australia 17 5 Naturalisation in Australian Colonies : Chang Quark 253 Kant and Metaphysical Principles of Yurisprudence 2 5 5 Executors of Landlords under Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883... 342 REVIEWS :— Edition) .. 257 (3rd Edition) . 85 GUTHRIE SMITH, Law of Damages (2nd Edition) 176 HOLGATE, Winchester Commoners, I836-go 344 Hunson, Law of Building and Engineering Contracts 258 Edition) 257 PORTER AND CRAIES, Law of Insurance (2nd Edition) 87 Rights to Administration in Rhyme... 86 Rivista di D'iritto Pubblico, Edited by C. ALBIcINI 183 RUMSEY, Way to Prove a Will 86 QUARTERLY DIGEST 01-' ALL REPORTED CASES. By C. H. THE LAW MAGAZINE AND REVIEW. No. CCLXXVIIl.—NOVEMBER, 1890. I.—THE REPORT OF THE SPECIAL I SHALL glance at the Report of the Special Com mission from a point of view differing, in a certain measure, from that taken by most of its critics. That document, indeed, even without comment, forms a terrible judgment on the worst conspiracy against the State, Property, and Social order, which has been hatched since the French Revolution; and the impudent falsehood that it amounts to a verdict of “not guilty” on the Parnellite faction, though meant to deceive, will deceive nobody. But the weighty pronouncement of the Three judges, from the nature of the case, has not been a complete review of the acts and the character of the “ rebel party,” as john Bright called it, and of its auxiliaries at home and abroad ; and it'hecessarily falls short of the damning censure which impartial History will pronounce hereafter. The “ charges and allegations” made by The Times, to which the enquiry was strictly confined, did not nearly embrace the whole subject; the incriminated persons,*''' on whom alone the Commissioners could deliver a verdict, were but a small part of the Parnellite following: the accusers were compelled to establish their case by proofs circumscribed by our law of evidence; the accused were not required to disprove anything; and the trial was conducted t upon the principles of our Criminal Procedure, the most favourable, to persons on their defence, of any in Europe. These limitations, doubtless, were fitting and just; but if they do not detract from the value of the Report,—a most able ]udicial utterance,—they have inevitably made it an imperfect record of the striking disclosures comprised in it: it speaks the truth, but not the whole truth, on the Parnellite movement, and all that belongs to it. I purpose to examine this great judgment, in its general, as well as its legal aspects, and to consider what might have been found in it had its authors possessed more ample liberty to search and survey the field of enquiry; and I shall try to point out its true significance, as it is illustrated by a mass of evidence, which must be taken into account in History. 5 Mr. Michael Davitt is the only exception. 1* Except that the accused were permitted to appear as witnesses and to give evidence on their own behalf. The Special Commission, as is well known, rose out of Pamellism and Crime, and other writings in The Times. The object of those papers was to lay bare the nature and incidents of the conspiracy which had spread like a plague through three-fourths of Ireland, and to concentrate the attention of a listless public on the atrocities and the wickedness connected with it. For this purpose the articles dwelt on the incendiary speeches of Parnellite chiefs, and on the terrible outbreak of agrarian outrage, which was the direct result of Land League teaching; they shewed how the Fenian Press of America disseminated, through Land League agency, and preached to the excitable Irish masses, the evangel of wholesale murder and arson, and of devastating our cities by fire in revenge ; they noticed all that seemed ambiguous in Mr. Parnell’s conduct, with reference to the events of the 6th of May; they commented on the significance of the unquestionable fact that prominent men of the Parnellite party fled from justice when the detestable authors of the tragedy in the Phoenix Park were found out; they proved that the confederacies of |
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