said, he desired to place himself right, not only with the House and the Government, but with the public, on a point which he would not be justified in overlooking. "When he moved the adjournment of the debate on Friday night, it was with the distinct understanding that if the House had been prepared to go to a division on the Amendment he would not have pressed his Motion, but would have concurred in a division of the House being obtained at once. Up to the present time no Member sitting in that part of the House (the Upper Opposition Benches) representing an Irish constituency had expressed any opinion on the Motion of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He could not help thinking it would be a very serious matter, in default of any other Conservative Representative from Ireland not addressing the House, if he did not state plainly, yet with diffidence, his own opinion, and that of his constituents, on this important proposal. He should have postponed his observations to the second reading, or to a later stage, but for one or two speeches delivered in the course of the debate. He thought the public must congratulate themselves, and those who wished well to the Government might also congratulate themselves, as well as those who wished well to law and order, upon three or four observations which fell from, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) in the course of his able speech on Thursday last. The right hon. Gentleman told the House, in the first instance, that all the Coercion Acts passed against Ireland during his long Parliamentary life were justified by the circumstances of the case at the time—["No!"]—although he accompanied that statement by the remark that he individually opposed almost every one of them because they were not accompanied by proper remedial measures. A further remark of the right hon. Gentleman was that he believed this measure, if passed, would be a measure of repression to the few and of mercy to the many. Another observation of the right hon. Gentleman was of the greatest importance—namely, that, speaking from his own personal experience and as one of the leading Ministers of the Crown, the communications which he received from all classes and denominations in Ireland with reference to the present relations of the people to law and order had furnished most abundant testimony to the necessity for this Bill. Those observations, coming from a Gentleman whose history and conduct in reference to Ireland and Irish Coercion Bills were so remarkable, were a matter of the gravest moment, and such as hon. Members had a right to congratulate themselves upon. He (Mr. Lewis) would now pass to the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere)—a speech so bold and daring that it would be misunderstood by the country if no attempt were made to refute some portions of it. It would not be forgotten by the House that one observation of the hon. Member which delighted so much hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway was that they were justified, not only in using, but in misusing or abusing, all the Forms of the House in opposing the introduction of this Bill. He (Mr. Lewis) was happy to notice, as a set off to that statement, a declaration by the Prime Minister that night, not only that he desired and would use every laudable exertion to obtain the opinion of the House for the introduction of the Bill, but that he intended to push forward the second reading of the Bill at as early a moment as possible. The argument of the hon. Member for Northampton was based on the false assumption that the Government on the one hand, and the supporters of the Bill sitting on the Opposition side on the other hand, based their support of the Bill on Returns which were inaccurate and utterly unreliable. They had endeavoured to boil down the Return until the only real essence it contained was that it recorded the reception of a large number of threatening letters, which were of no importance whatever. But what was the history of this Return? It had not been presented for the first time. It was a Return which had been made regularly for years, for the purpose of informing the Government and the country of the state of crime in Ireland besides agrarian crime, which, unfortunately, in Ireland had long been perennial. If the Government had cooked the Return and thrown out all cases which did not answer their purpose, they would have been open to the very charge of improperly treating the evidence on which they asked the House in some respects to proceed. What were the different classes of evidence on which the Government were proceeding, and not merely the Government, but the Opposition in the House in England and throughout Ireland? And let him say this—However much it might be the fashion for hon. Gentlemen who sat on that side of the House on the Benches below the Gangway to speak of themselves as the Representatives of Ireland, they were not the only Representatives of Ireland. There were vast masses, hundreds of thousands of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland at least as loyal, at least as reputable, and whose opinions were at least as worthy of consideration—nay, more so than were theirs. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding subjects of the Queen in the country from which he had been sent as an humble Representative, he declared that they were looking with expectation, which he might say was almost breathless, to hear the action of the House upon this most important measure. It was easy to see why all classes of the community were to be found amongst the supporters of the Land League. They should presently see by what ways the numbers were swollen from day to day. As representing now for the third time, after vigorous contests, the constituency of Londonderry, he spoke for the majority of that constituency when he said that they thanked the Government and thanked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland for his manly and straightforward speech when he introduced this Bill to the notice of the House. He supported the Bill heartily and strenuously, not merely upon the evidence contained within the four corners of this Blue Book, but upon the evidence furnished by the public Press of England and Ireland, and irrespective of Party; also upon the Charges of Her Majesty's Judges—Fitzgerald, Barry, and Dowse—but that was not all. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had been inundated with letters communicating the necessity for special legislation. Was there any hon. Member sitting on that side of the House, and who had any communication with Ireland, who had not the same kind of evidence accumulating in his possession? They had no experience of Boycotting in Londonderry; but within a few miles of it, in the county of Donegal, it was impossible for a man to buy or to sell unless he produced the green Land League ticket, which showed that he was pure in his creed. Do not let it be supposed that this agitation was merely to prevent the landlord getting his rent, for in some parts of Ireland it was impossible to enforce processes for debt, and hundreds of thousands of people had become almost paralyzed through fear. It was not to be wondered at that they had now in England Irish refugees as well as foreign refugees. There was no doubt, too, that, directly and indirectly, the trade of Ireland had been injured, and, in fact, her whole social system disorganized. The law of the land had disappeared, and the Land League had set up Courts which usurped authority to summon persons before them for having exercised their legal rights. The hon. Member for Northampton had spoken of those Courts as administering a sort of rude justice; and he afterwards described them as Courts of Appeal, in which they found the plaintiff, the witnesses, the Judge, the jury, the sheriff, and the executioner—all combined together against the unfortunate wight who happened to be dragged before them. That system of superseding the law of the land, not only by physical resistance, but by supplanting the Courts of the Queen by the Courts of the Land League, was a thing unprecedented in the annals of Irish disturbance. To illustrate what was going on in the country, he would quote a few cases from the published Returns. An unoccupied house on the property of Lord Listowel was maliciously set on fire and half consumed, because possession of it had been taken from a poor insane tenant, on whom Lord Listowel benevolently settled an annuity. That showed what treatment, under that beneficent Land League, might be expected even by a landlord who was kind and charitable. Another case occurred in September, when an armed party broke into a tenant's house at night, dragged him out of bed, and split his ear with a knife, because he had supported his landlord in some litigation in which he had been engaged. The hon. Member for Northampton had said the other night that it was an idiosyncrasy of the Irish—a part of their national character—to maim or hough cattle, and quoted Dean Swift in support of his allegation.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon, I never said anything of the kind.

said, he repudiated, as an Englishman sent into Parliament by an Irish constituency, any such reflection on the character of the people of Ireland. It was not the Irish nation who were responsible for these outrages. It was the demagogues and the agitators, with the spirit of the murderer, without the murderer's boldness. He considered that in speeches which had been previously made the Re-turns the Government had presented had been most unfairly quoted; and he denied that it was wrong for the Government to ask for exceptional measures in view of the information they had produced. There was one case in which a caretaker at Kilbury House was attacked at night, placed on his knees, had an oath administered to him to the effect that he would leave the place, and then threatened that if ever again seen there he would be shot. He was then turned off the land and left in the public road. The fact of such a thing occurring in Tipperary should certainly have such weight with the House that they would not heed the fact of one offence being made into two in a few instances recorded in the Returns. What was wanted was that substantial justice be meted out to Ireland, so that all law-abiding subjects would be safe in protecting their own personal property. Another case happened in the county of Galway. About half-past 1 in the morning, the door of a Mr. Costello was forced in by a party of about 20 men, who dragged him out of bed and made him swear that he would not fence a field of grazing land formerly in common use; they then drew a wool card down his hip, lacerating the flesh. What would the country say if, with this evidence and all they had behind, the Government overlooked the condition of the country? Why, when people were sent for trial, witnesses who had sworn one thing before the magistrates knew nothing when called upon again at the Sessions and Assizes. The House and the country in this state of affairs would have had something to say to the Government if they had not brought in this Bill. Another case which he would mention was one in which a number of men went to the house of a man named Murphy at 3 in the morning, fired shots, and warned him against giving remembrance money to the parish priest. A threatening notice was posted on the man's door to the same effect. This priest was opposed to the Land League, and he was to have no remembrance money. What became, then, of the statement that the priests supported the Land League? In this system of terrorism the priests did not escape; in fact, according to the statements of an hon. Member, they dared not resist the Land League. In spite of their sacred character and conditions of life, the priests themselves were not their own masters, but had been subjected to this disgraceful and degrading tyranny. But the male sex was not the only one threatened. A woman in County Galway, in May last, was made to swear that she would give up a farm which she had taken and would not appeal to the Sessions for compensation in reference to an incendiary fire on her out-buildings. He thought he should be insulting the intelligence of the House and the intelligence of the country if he proceeded at greater length to state what was to be found in the Blue Book. They had the authority of the Chief Secretary for Ireland that beyond the statements made there was something behind; and although the Conservatives had been twitted with a desire for Coercion Bills, he thought this assurance should be sufficient to justify the Party in supporting the Government. As loyal subjects they should assist the Government heartily in any measure for the protection of life and property which they felt it their duty to propose to the House. The hon. Member for Northampton seemed to be very playful about threatening letters in Ireland. They were different things from threatening letters in London, where there were plenty of barracks, plenty of police, and a loyal population. The hon. Member for Northampton also spoke of the Irish magistracy. They all knew English Radicals desired to get rid of the unpaid magistrates; but the hon. Member, in dealing with Ireland, asked, what could they expect from the paid magistrates in the administration of the law? Who were these magistrates? The Conservative Party, since the year 1832, had been so few times in Office that they had few opportunities of appointing magistrates. The bulk, therefore, of the existing magistrates had been appointed by Liberal Governments. But what did the hon. Gentleman know about Ireland? When he heard a whole class of officials in Ireland, whose duties were of a most serious character, upon the discharge of which the lives, liberty, and happiness of millions of persons depended, brought into ridicule and contempt, without a single fact to support such charges, he was, indeed, astonished. Considering the great experience of the hon. Member, his knowledge and ability, he thought the hon. Member was incurring a great responsibility by so treating those who were engaged in the administration of the law. Why did the hon. Member speak of magistrates and policemen as "the camp of the enemy?" The enemy of whom? Of those who committed crime? Of course they were. Long might it be so. Yet the Government, according to the hon. Member, ought not to receive information from magistrates and policemen because they were "the camp of the enemy." Where were the administrators of the law to come from? He had no doubt, if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could find good reason for distrusting the existing magistracy and police, he would have no hesitation in turning them out. Then he had accused the Government of receiving information from "spies and informers." If it had been a Conservative Government which was in power such language might have been expected. But something better might have been expected from a Liberal, even though he sat below the Gangway, and for the borough of Northampton. But he did not believe the Chief Secretary would act at all on the information of spies and informers. Of course, if it was meant that information was received in secret, the charge was true. But how could it be otherwise? In the present state of things in Ireland no man would dare to give public information to the Government. Then the hon. Member had given a long disquisition on the Habeas Corpus Act. Of course, no one in that House knew anything about the nature and history of that Act except the hon. Member. There were no trained minds in that Assembly, em- bracing learned and experienced lawyers, who were capable of dealing with such a subject except the hon. Member. Yet, sacred as that venerable law was, the hon. Member was willing to sacrifice it in order to keep the Liberal Party in Office. The rights of 5,500,000 people were the minor, the Liberal Party the major consideration with the hon. Member. But the animus of the hon. Member's speech, was but too clear. The hon. Member's aim was the disintegration of the Empire. Each locality, said the hon. Member, ought to be supreme in its own limits. The hon. Member did not seem to care into how small fragments the Empire was disintegrated. He would not object to some applications of that principle if the locality were confined to itself, and if— e. g., the doctrine were applied to the borough of Northampton. There could be no doubt, as was stated in a letter in The Daily News a few weeks ago, that the state of business in Ireland had been seriously interfered with. He represented a portion of the community who were satisfied with the laws of the country; and he entreated the Government not to take one step which would have the effect of handing them over to the tender mercies of the wicked, which were known to be cruel. He agreed with the Chief Secretary that one of the chief results of the measure for the protection of life and property would be its effect on the conduct of those who were amenable to its provisions. The mere prospect of the introduction of the Bill had produced a great diminution in all classes of agrarian offences. The measure would cause hope to revive in the minds of those who were now living in a state of dependence upon the will of men who were the adversaries of the law. Those who had been so oppressed would, when the Bill was passed, be able to congratulate themselves on the fact that they had been brought within its cover and shadow. He did not, however, believe that either this Bill or the Land Bill which was to follow would bring about a permanent state of order in Ireland. The fact was that the relations between landlord and tenant had arrived at such a pitch that something more must be done than what he believed it was intended to propose. He believed if a system could be devised of assisting the tenants to become the owners of their estates at a fair and reasonable sum, it would be the only remedy by which order and contentment could be restored; and he was glad to say that the views which he held were concurred in by a gentleman of whose Toryism there could be no doubt, Sir Frederick Heygate, formerly Member for the County of Londonderry. He was satisfied a scheme might be formulated in which, there would be no substantial risk of loss to the funds of the country, and without any compulsion put upon either landlord or tenant, by which a large number of tenants would become owners of their estates. No doubt this Bill would sooner or later pass into law; and in spite of what might be said in certain newspapers to the contrary, he had no fear that Her Majesty's Government, having put their hands to the plough, would turn back, and that the measure would not be frittered away to the demands of those to whom no concessions ought to be made after the conduct they had displayed. But when the Bill passed it would be necessary that it should be administered with a prudent as well as a firm hand.

said, he did not intend to enter into a discussion of the land scheme; and, therefore, he would not refer at length to the remarks of the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Charles Lewis). Indeed, he (Mr. Russell) wished the Government land measure was before the House, so that he might discuss it. Neither would he discuss the criticisms made by the hon. Member on the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). The hon. Member for Londonderry, at least, deserved the compliment that he was consistent, as was shown by his attitude in relation to the assimilation of the Irish franchise; and if it was possible to make this Coercion Bill stronger than it was, the hon. Member would, no doubt, be amongst its most staunch and earnest supporters. The hon. Member had done the argument of the hon. Member for Northampton some injustice. That hon. Gentleman did not deny—he (Mr. Russell) did not deny—that there had been a serious amount of crime shown to exist in Ireland during the last two years. But the question was—was it of such a character and of such an extent as to justify the suspension of the liberties of the people? He would not trouble fee House by following the details of the half-dozen cases of crime referred to by the hon. Member for Londonderry. When the hon. Member spoke of cattle-houghing, he (Mr. Russell) had nothing to say to excuse a crime so offensive, and, to one's sense of humanity, so revolting; but upon the question of turning cultivated land into grazing land, he must say that it was pointed out by Bishop Berkeley, more than 100 years ago, that the taking of cultivated land for grazing purposes was offensive to the people of Ireland. It had come, unhappily, to be regarded by a certain portion of the Irish people to be expressive of revenge on the part of the landlord. The hon. Member for Londonderry took, it appeared to him (Mr. Russell), the Catholic priesthood of Ireland under his protection—a grave office for the hon. Member to assume. It was the first time the hon. Member had tried to play that rocircle. He (Mr. Russell) thought he knew more about their feelings than the hon. Member, and he affirmed distinctly that the great majority of the priests and Bishops of Ireland sympathized with the legitimate aims, legitimate exertions, and the legitimate objects of the Land League. And if there were to any great extent bodies of priests and Bishops who had not taken, part in the League's proceedings, it was not for want of sympathy—it was not because they did not believe the tenants needed some such organization for their defence, but because they well knew that there was inevitably attendant on every popular excitement, in every popular movement, when great national passions and prejudices were aroused, the danger of disorder, and the fear of going beyond legal bounds. He should now address himself to the Question before the House, and he should address his observations to hon. Members from a sense of duty, and with due regard to the responsibility attaching to his utterances. He begged that hon. Members on both sides of the House, who were impatient for the passage of the Bill, and who were, he was willing to believe, sincere in their opinion that its passage was a matter of pressing urgency, would give him credit for sincerity, when he said he believed that the measure would be injurious to the best and permanent interests of Ireland. He should oppose it, without resorting to Obstruction; and he would resist it, guiding his resistance by the laws of honour, and decency, and of reason. The measure of resistance to a Bill, and the justification for resistance, must depend upon individual judgment as to the injurious character of the Bill. The noblest utterances to be found in the record of the Commons' debates were to be found coming from men in small minorities standing up against a popular Minister and a powerful Party, to defend the Constitutional rights which had been won by the exertions of centuries. The Parliamentary precedents were sound and good in that respect. He would not trouble the House by referring to the long-continued, often-renewed, battle between the Prime Minister and the late Sir Richard Bethell on the Divorce Bill, when the Prime Minister made a most protracted resistance to that measure, and rightly, because he (the Prime Minister) believed it to be injurious to morality and to society. Students of Parliamentary history would know how Lord Clarendon told them in his history of how he—being then Mr. Hyde—in the Parliament of 1641, after the execution of Strafford, resisted the passing of the Bill for the extirpation of the Episcopacy. A powerful Party behind the Ministry brought in the Bill, and every attempt was made to gag its opponents; but for 21 nights he resisted the passing of the Bill, and, in the end, the Parliament of 1641 was obliged to relinquish it, and the Episcopacy was suffered to live. It would be ungenerous to have any show of impatience in the passing of the present measure, although he was willing to admit that right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench might have had their tempers sorely tried. No yielding to impatience on their part was justified, and no attempt ought to be made to curtail the fair liberties of hon. Members resisting coercive legislation for their country. How stood the precedents touching similar measures. In 1843, although it was but an Arms Act, the House was engaged in its discussion for 17 nights; and amongst the names of those who figured against it, he found those of Cobden, Macaulay, Roebuck, and Villiers. The following year, when the Bill was passed, Lord John Russell felt himself justified in saying that the Government of Ireland essentially differed from the Government of England, "for," said the noble Lord—

"The Government of Ireland is a Government by force. The Government of England is a Government of represented opinion."

In 1846, the Protection of Life Bill, after passing the House of Lords, was opposed in the House of Commons by such men as Bright, Romilly, and Villiers. In 1848, the Liberals being then in power, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; and he found a speech made by the Earl of Beacons-field, then Mr. Disraeli, worth noticing now. The speech was important, because it marked the limitations of the cases in which, in his opinion, it was right there should be a suspension of the Constitutional liberties of a country. 1848 was the year of the insurrectionary movement, called the "Young Ireland" movement, and Mr. Disraeli said—

"If I believed that the evils which now exist in Ireland were springing from political or social evils which ought to be met by redress, I would look with jealousy and distrust upon this proposition."

In 1866, when a Coercion Bill was introduced, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) made a speech which did more to raise and to encourage in the mind of the Irish people the hope that they might look to this Parliament for justice and redress than volumes of statutes. Had they not tried coercion long enough? Fifty-seven coercion measures in 80 years, and with what result? Had they succeeded in winning over the people to their side; on the contrary, had not each of those Acts left behind it its own sad history of individual injustice and individual wrong; and did they not, in their sum total, form a record which had painfully impressed itself on the mind of the Irish people, and made them distrust the goodwill of Parliament towards them? It was said the Ministers meant well. He (Mr. Russell) did not doubt it; but individual Members of the House were bound, if in their consciences they disapproved of the policy of Ministers, to vote against them. Each man in the House of Commons was, in his individual capacity, the guardian of liberties he was sent there to protect. There were two propositions before the House—Ought coercive legislation to pass at all, or ought remedial legislation to have precedence? He believed that there ought to be no coer- cive legislation, for, when actively applied, the ordinary law was quite sufficient to cope with the difficulties now existing in Ireland. Furthermore, for the evils which did exist coercion was no remedy. The Chief Secretary for Ireland now asked leave to introduce a Bill which would enable any person to be arrested upon the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant on suspicion of having committed any of the offences specified in the Act which a person might have committed or might commit. The import was grave, for it meant that upon secret information, and, notwithstanding what the hon. Member for Londonderry said, upon the information, it might be, of spies and informers—for such a policy as the present always gave birth to a crop of these—that upon such secret information, and without magisterial inquiry, without such aid as a solicitor or a counsel could give, without publicity, without jury, and without Judge, men could be imprisoned for 18 months. All those safeguards of individual liberties, which had been gained by painful and serious sacrifice, were with one stroke of the pen of a Liberal statesman to be wiped away. They had been told that the Lord Lieutenant and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would administer the law mercifully. That might be; but what guarantee had they that the Government had fixity of tenure, or that the Chief Secretary for Ireland might not, after having signalized his statesmanship in Ireland by this unhappy Bill, desire to pass to an office less laborious and more dignified? Again, it was said that only criminals would be arrested, and that the honest and virtuous man need not fear. What despot was there that would not say the same? What measure, however tyrannical, might not be defended on similar grounds? The Chief Secretary for Ireland, when he asked the House to assent to the introduction of the Bill, said he did not do so upon rumour or upon newspaper reports; but he presented it to the House upon official information. Now, he (Mr. Russell) considered the right hon. Gentleman was an unjustly and unfairly abused man. He believed the right hon. Gentleman went to Ireland desiring and believing that he would be able to propound a statesmanlike policy for the benefit of Ireland. He had hoped that after his Chief Secretaryship a true Hibernia pacata might be written. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had failed, and one reason was that he was isolated from the popular opinion of Ireland more than any other man. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes; for if one of the hon. Members opposite who represented popular constituencies were seen walking into the Castle Yard to consult him, no matter what the subject, the character of that hon. Member would be irretrievably ruined. But, although the right hon. Gentleman was shut out from popular opinion, he had daily poured in upon him official Reports from all parts of the country. He (Mr. Russell) was not going to say that those Reports were fabricated or made by men who were knowingly dishonest; but he did say that those Reports came principally from stipendiaries, who must reflect the opinion of the classes of society among which they lived. He therefore held that on this question, which was really a fight between the landed class on the one hand, and the tenant class on the other, the statement of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) was justified—namely, that the evidence for the coercion measure came from the opposite camp. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had said that he found from these Reports lawlessness increasing to such an extent that the ordinary law was not sufficient to cope with; and then, his judgment for the time reeling, he entered upon a mistaken course of policy. But when had lawlessness increased, and what were the magistrates doing? To their neglect or want of activity months ago he (Mr. Russell) largely attributed the existing state of things. The magistrates in Ireland might fairly be described as, in the main, landlords, because the Lords Lieutenant in counties were all great landowners, and nearly all the appointments of magistrates were made on the nomination of the Lords Lieutenant; and the magistracy of Ireland had a great deal to forgive the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The first thing was the Compensation for Disturbance Bill; another thing was the indignant speech prompted by a generous mind after the rejection of the Bill; and the third and most important thing was the manful attempt to govern Ireland without exceptional laws. While he (Mr. Russell) did not charge the magistracy of Ireland with wilful criminal neglect of duty, he did charge them with supineness in the discharge of that duty. If the same activity had been shown at the commencement of the agitation as was shown now, any lawlessness which had occurred would never have got to its present head. The magistrates, in short, were not sorry to show that their predictions, that the country could not be governed without exceptional laws, were well founded. There had been much talk about "Boycotting" in that House. He (Mr. Russell) said that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was the first victim of Boycotting, and that on the part of many landlords in Ireland. But more. The course of legislation for Ireland—the ease with which they, upon small provocation, obtained an Act of Coercion, had demoralized, to some extent, not only the people, but the magistracy of Ireland; and instead of exerting themselves with determination and firmness, and being willing to take each upon themselves their share of responsibility and, if need be, odium, for seeing that order was preserved in their neighbourhood, they had been induced by a sad history of evil legislation of that kind to look to the Government and to Dublin Castle for protection. He asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, was it not true that he had found in many parts of Ireland a proneness on the part of the magistrates to shift the responsibility which ought to be theirs to the Government—a feeling that they could come to Parliament when any difficulty occurred, with the certainty of getting coercive measures; and so they relaxed their efforts under the ordinary law? With regard to the figures in the Returns, he would not suggest that there had been unfair manipulation, he was sure there had not; but, for the purpose for which they were presented, there was a great deal that might properly have been left out; much that threw no light on the condition of the country; but which, totted up, made an imposing sum total. He ventured to say that, on the Returns, the masterly speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had never been answered. He (Mr. Russell) had read both the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Prime Minister, and neither of these made an attempt to answer it. He admitted that the statistics disclosed a serious amount of crime; but neither the amount, or its circumstances, made a case strong enough for the suspension of the liberties of the country. The Prime Minister, in his last speech, somewhat shifted the ground, for he said the Government founded their proposal on the failure of the administration of justice. He had also said that crime had increased in the last quarter, when distress was less and evictions fewest. But why was crime greater at the end of the last quarter? He (Mr. Russell) was speaking what he knew when he said that, although he thought the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was a small measure, yet it was looked to by the people of Ireland less for what it gave than for the feeling it evinced. Nevertheless, it would have kept up their hopefulness in the Government, and they would still have looked to Parliament and to Constitutional means to help them. It was not until that Bill was thrown out in the Lords that they began to look seriously to their own organization. By the end of the year, when October began, it was not till then the harvest was gathered, in many cases the seed of which was supplied by the hands of charity, and it was at that time that the pressure was put on a people barely escaped from famine, and, with its marks still upon them, to pay rent which should leave their children destitute. In some instances, in his opinion, the holding of the harvest, as it was called, was a justifiable act. He denied that it was any moral wrong, if a man was starving, or if his children were starving, he denied that it was any moral wrong for him, in his necessity, to put his hand into a baker's shop and steal a loaf. No doubt it was a crime in law; but morality would not condemn it. He feared hon. Members little knew that, in many instances, in Ireland it was but a narrow span which separated the people from actual want of the barest needs of life. The Prime Minister went on to say that crime "dogged" the steps of the Land League. His expression was, that wherever the Land League went, there crime resulted. That seemed to him (Mr. Russell) very bad reasoning. Was not the true answer to that, that the Land League meetings were held not in order to create disturbance, but were held in places already disturbed. The Land League meetings were held in the places in which some supposed unjust and arbitrary proceedings against tenants were threat- ened or were being carried out; and, therefore, it was hardly correct to say the disturbance was due to the action of the League. But the Prime Minister in his speech said he founded his case mainly on the failure of justice in Ireland. That was the point on which the right hon. Gentleman relied. Now, how did that stand? They had got a serious catalogue of 2,000 odd agrarian offences, big and little, which were admitted not to be of the most serious class—that was to say, not homicidal, but still serious and grave. Of those about 1,000 were threatening letters. He did not make light of threatening letters; it was a contemptible and odious offence, and, unhappily, not unfrequent in Ireland, and, he might add, not unfrequent in England. When he (Mr. Russell) recently had occasion to publish some matter, which he deemed would be of public interest, he received half-a-dozen threatening letters; and there was a distinction between these and those that were sent through the post in Ireland; for those he received, instead of being vulgar epistles, sent by illiterate persons, were forwarded by educated persons, who ought to have known better, and were, therefore, rendered the more offensive, especially as they had been sent openly through the post. No doubt, such offences were serious. The Prime Minister had laid great stress on the fact that, excluding threatening letters, in respect of over 1,000 offences only 200 persons were charged, or, as it was called, "made amenable;" and that out of the 200 persons charged, only 83 had been convicted. What was the main characteristic of these offences? Were they not chiefly of a secret nature—visitings by night and intimidations by persons with blackened faces, firearms discharged into and over houses for the purpose of creating fear? In the great majority of these instances, no person could be definitely named as the person who had committed the offence. In some of the cases the person who suffered would not disclose the names of the offenders. Then as to the proportion of convictions. If they took the same class of crime in England, or a class of crime which, for this purpose, was nearly analogous—namely, burglarious entries,&c.—the percentages of convictions would probably be very little higher in proportion to the arrests in England than it was in Ireland. It was clear, in such cases, the difficulties of identification were great, and, therefore, of securing convictions great. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have instituted a comparison with reference to the convictions in a special category of crime such as this, instead of convictions in every class of crime. Then the right hon. Gentleman, after having produced his figures, made the explanation that it was terrorism which made the number of convictions so small, as people would not come forward. But he (Mr. Russell) would like to ask, in all seriousness, was it not sympathy which protected the offenders, so far as they were protected, and not terrorism? Would that he could believe it was true, as had been said by an hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) on the other side of the House, that 90 per cent of the people of Ireland were opposed to the wrongdoers, and had no sympathy with the offences. He (Mr. Russell) wished he could think so; but, unfortunately, he could not. They regarded these offences, unhappily, as a kind of rough protective agency to themselves. To illustrate that, he would cite an instance of what was said to him by a man, apparently of some intelligence, in the South of Ireland. Speaking of the Government expected land measures, this man said—

"I am told that Mr. Gladstone is a very good man; but what can he do against a House full of landlords? No, sir; the men in Tipperary did more for themselves in a short time than Parliament ever did. When I was a boy a few of their landlords got badly hurt—God help them!—and now they tell me there's no better landlords in Ireland than in Tipperary."

He (Mr. Russell) deplored that such sentiments should exist; but they did exist, and could not be ignored. Thousands of men of this class, owing to the government of Ireland in the past, looked to other agencies for amelioration and redress than to that House. Then, the Chief Secretary for Ireland had said the Bill was aimed at the village blackguard. He (Mr. Russell) must say that he thought the right hon. Gentleman had been quite misunderstood by certain Members who accused him of including priests among the village blackguards. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman had no such intention. He (Mr. Russell) did not at all doubt that there were village ruffians; but there must also be village Hampdens—

"Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast

The little tyrants of his field withstood."

He should like to say something of the only Land League branch of which he could give that House the history. It was the Land League branch which was formed in the town of Dundalk. The initial meeting was presided over by a Catholic priest, and its members included gentlemen belonging to the two public bodies of the town—the Town Commissioners and the Harbour Commissioners—and several of the most respected, prominent, and trustworthy persons of Dundalk. Indeed, it was to the advantage of society that such men should be connected with the League. It was a guarantee against the lawlessness that undoubtedly had marked the conduct of some who acted in the name of the Land League. He contended that no case had been made out for that coercive measure, especially now, when they found that on the inspiration and under the direction of the Chief Secretary for Ireland the magistrates were acting with activity, and the law was taking its regular course. In one of the leading papers, under the heading of Anarchy in Ireland, a series of events were described which might occur in any country in almost a normal state. What had been done in Tralee showed that the ordinary law was strong enough. As to the number of persons under police surveillance, no sufficient explanation had been forthcoming. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) had referred to the case of a noble Relative of his. They must all be aware that he meant Lord Ardilaun, though he did not name him. Lord Ardilaun, while walking in County Galway, had been told that it was not safe for him; and if he had not been respected by all those among whom he lived, and if he had not also been a man of moral and physical courage, he would have been surrounded by policemen. As to the remedial measures, he agreed that while the Land League had done much good, it had, in some respects, done evil. It had had a demoralizing effect on the minds of some people; and its general advices as to rent and as to holding the harvest were, he feared, turned by dishonest persons to dishonest uses. But these were the consequences which followed all large movements. It was im- possible, when they once set in force a great national movement, such as that undoubtedly was, appealing to the passions and interests of a large number of people, to carry it on without at times overstepping legal metes and bounds and without acts of violence. Take the Corn Law agitation, and, above all, the Reform agitation prior to 1832. Molesworth's account of that time would show any hon. Member how much crime and lawlessness followed in the train of that movement. It might be said for the Land League that, assuming the Government of the country were anxious to bring in a good Land Bill for Ireland as the only means of pacifying Ireland, they had to be thankful to the Land League for making it possible for them to do so. It should be remembered that the agitation of the Land League had more to do with the ripening of public opinion on both sides of that House on the question than anything that could be pointed to. The arguments adduced in support of the course taken by the Government was that 10 per cent of the population, the village ruffians, were terrorizing over the honest people of the country. Were they to suspend the Constitutional safeguards of 90 per cent of the people, who were honest and respectable members of society, because the "village ruffians," as they had been described, terrorized over them? It was absurd to say it could be necessary, and, if not necessary, it was unjustifiable to do so. The Prime Minister said that the men who would be hit by his Bill would never be reconciled by remedial legislation; and, therefore, it was useless to introduce it as a preventive of disorder. Perhaps the Prime Minister was right; but if those men went unpunished at present, they went unpunished, to a great extent at least, because of the sympathy of the masses of the people with them; and if, by remedial legislation, they took away the sympathy of the masses from the few criminals, they would put the agrarian crime which they could not now put down upon the same footing as social crime which was reprobated in Ireland as well as in England. Before he concluded he wished to say a few words about the remarkable speech delivered on Thursday night by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, his admiration, nay, his veneration, for whom dated many years back. It was now a long time since he (Mr. Russell) first heard the right hon. Gentleman in Belfast, when he accepted the hospitality of its citizens; and he (Mr. Russell) had since said publicly and privately, that he believed the noble utterances of the right hon. Gentleman then, and since, upon the subject of Ireland did more to encourage among the Irish people a healthy feeling of hopefulness towards Parliament than any Act ever passed by the Legislature. That speech had caused him great pain and disappointment. The right hon. Gentleman told them, although he believed he never voted for any measure of coercion or oppression for Ireland, yet, in many of the cases of Irish Coercion Bills, he either voted against them or abstained from voting, not because he did not think those measures might not have been called for by the necessities of the time, but because they were not accompanied by remedial legislation. Upon that argument, he thought he was entitled now to claim the right hon. Gentleman's support to the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons). The right hon. Gentleman, in effect, said this—"I have not voted for your coercive measures, because you did not accompany them with remedial legislation—in other words, because your coercive measures are called for by reason of a state of things which I believe is owing to the unjust or bad state of the law, and which I believe would be removed by a just and good state of law."Well, admitted that the state of Ireland was bad, and that an organization existed there which had something to do with the development of crime, that organization had been called into existence by the unjust state of the land system and the circumstances of the country. Why, therefore, did not remedial legislation precede coercive measures? The right hon. Gentleman answered that, because there would be remedial legislation, he supported this Bill. But how did he know that there was to be remedial legislation? He was a Cabinet Minister, and might possess information of which the House knew nothing as to intentions of Government; but how did he know, when the Cabinet brought in their Land Bill, if they had agreed upon one, that it would pass through the House? Remedial legislation, he (Mr. Russell) supposed, meant in the mind of the Chancellor of the Duchy thorough and complete remedial legislation. And could the right hon. Gentleman satisfy them that, if the Bill passed through that House, it was certain to pass in its original form through the House of Lords, and that what was a fair and goodly measure when it left them would not come back maimed and mutilated? And if those were not reasonable suggestions to make, he (Mr. Russell) again asked, why, on the arguments of the Chancellor of the Duchy, not give precedence to remedial legislation? The right hon. Gentleman, in addressing a meeting in 1867, said—

"One thing, at any rate, I may be allowed to say—that I entirely disagree with those who, when any crisis or trouble arrives, say that you must first of all preserve order, you must first of all put down disloyalty and disobedience to the law. You must first of all assert the supremacy of the Government; and then, and not till then, consider the grievances that are complained of."

The right hon. Gentleman disagreed with that view then; and if he had not changed his opinion he (Mr. Russell) had a right now to claim his support for the Amendment. In 1868, the right hon. Gentleman made use of these words—he hoped he had not recanted—

"If there be a people on the face of the earth, whose hearts are accessible to justice, it is the Irish people."

If the right hon. Gentleman had not changed that opinion, he (Mr. Russell) was entitled again to ask him why he was a party to giving precedence to coercive over remedial legislation? He appealed again to the Government to leave this time-dishonoured instrument of weak statesmanship alone. He (Mr. Russell) had spoken from a sense of duty. He had spoken with a sense of responsibility; and he had tried, and he believed successfully, to be unswayed by unreasonable popular prejudice, but to give that just effect which he was bound to give to popular opinion in Ireland. If that Bill was persisted in it might be delayed, but it would certainly be carried, and carried by a large majority; for it was a sad fact that, while the passage of remedial legislation for Ireland through that House was difficult, the passage of coercive legislation was easy; but when the Bill became law, would it have won the people to order? Would it have gained respect for the law which the sense of the people rejected as unjust and oppressive? Nay, would not its operation turn men who might be properly styled criminals, if treated as criminals under a just and Constitutional law, to turn those who might come under the operation of this unconstitutional legislation into martyrs, and thus increase the contempt of the people for the law of the land? He did not know whether the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) desired a continuance and extension of his popular power; but if he did they had secured it to him, when they might, by going straight to the work of remedial legislation, have struck from his hand and broken the sceptre which they said he wielded. He (Mr. Russell) desired to say, with all the earnestness of which he was capable, that the Government, by the course they were taking, would, he believed, deprive their remedial measures, when they came, of half their healing efficacy, and throw back for many years the growth of kindly feelings between the nations.

said, he would not have risen to address the House after the eloquent speech just delivered, but that he believed that a great responsibility rested upon them as Irish Members, connected, as they were, with the great movement which had aroused the fire so long smouldering in the hearts of the Irish people. They had striven to reanimate the spirit of independence in Ireland, and now they were brought face to face with a merciless despotism, which silenced their voice and suspended their action in what they considered to be their duty, by having recourse to that power which had been so often denounced by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His answer to the speech of the hon. Member for Londonderry—a man who professed to represent Irish feeling and an Irish constituency—was the answer he gave to the hon. Member for Northampton—What did he know about Ireland? It was with feelings of pain he listened to the eloquent defence of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster of the position which he now occupied in connection with this Coercion Bill. Referring to the comparison instituted between the Anti-Corn Law League and the Land League, the right hon. Gentleman said the Anti-Corn Law League never in one single instance was supported by a course of violence or outrage. He (Mr. Metge) said, in the main, neither was the Land League supported by violence and outrage. Some irresponsible members of the Land League might have used unwise expressions, which they all strongly condemned; but to say that the practical and responsible leaders of the movement had supported violence or outrage, and incited the people to violence and outrage, was a base and unfounded calumny. How came it that England's only remedy for Ireland on all occasions was coercion? The Land League had many sins; but were it not for the operations of the Land League during the past year they would have heard as little about the coming Land Bill as they would have heard of all previous Land Bills, the history of which was so painful. The Prime Minister seemed to him to have used the figures he quoted most unjustly. He told the House that in Ireland for every 33 cases of outrage they were only able to obtain one conviction, and that the perpetrators of the other 32 walked about with impunity. No one knew better than the Prime Minister that out of those 33 cases there were 17 cases of threatening letters, which it was impossible to come at, numbers of those letters emanating from one and the same individual. The right hon. Gentleman had also said that none could be arrested under the Bill except upon reasonable suspicion. But under the provisions of the Westmeath Act, without accusation or any information as to the cause, Mr. Casey was kept in prison for three years. His case was brought under the notice of the House by Mr. Butt in 1874, and there was not even the shadow of a suspicion against him. Such were the arbitrary acts which would be put in the power of the magistrates. As a magistrate himself, he was actuated only by kindly feeling towards his brother magistrates; but all the landlords in his own county of Meath owed him a grudge they could not get over; and if this Bill were passed, what was to prevent those men from informing the Lord Lieutenant that he was inciting the people to outrage, and thus secure his imprisonment? He was sorry to say that arguments on the part of the Irish Members were in that House of no avail. Had he not seen Irish Members night after night addressing empty Benches, as he was at present, and sleepy statesmen? Had he not seen argument heaped upon argument and proof upon proof, and what had been the avail? Their arguments had not been listened to. He asked Liberal Members to pause before they gave their consent to coercion. The action of the Irish Members was a protest which this country would in the end support. They were standing up for the Constitutional rights of the people, which had been fought for not only on the floor of the House, but on the battle field. Coercion was needed by the landlords to enforce eviction. That was the secret of the whole matter. He knew there were numbers of good landlords in lreland; but even these men could not shake off class interest and prejudice, or separate themselves from those whose only hope was in this coercion policy. The landlords now saw that another power was rising in the land; they believed in that power, they believed and trembled. No matter what coercive legislation was passed, revenge would have its victim; and, therefore, he opposed legislation which would increase outrage in Ireland. The Westmeath Act had been cited to show how effectual the coercion now proposed would be. But the circumstances were entirely different. In the case of the Westmeath Act they were dealing with a limited area and scanty population; they were now dealing with a nation. He gave the Chief Secretary for Ireland credit for endeavouring to do his best for Ireland; but he knew nothing whatever of the country. All that he knew about Ireland had been derived, not from the people of Ireland, but from the chief butler, chief baker, and chief cook of Dublin Castle. The Irish people believed in their organization, and not in rebellion. Disaffected persons, of course, existed, and possibly their numbers had lately increased; but that was due to the manner in which Ireland had been treated by England. Disaffection would certainly not disappear before a Coercion Bill, but would rather be strengthened and intensified. It was useless to disguise the fact that England had never been friendly to Ireland; otherwise, if Ireland had hitherto had just laws, a measure of coercion would have been less keenly opposed. But, in point of fact, the record of Irish grievances had been the same, or nearly the same, for many years, and most of them still remained unredressed. The pages of Hansard showed a melancholy list of abortive reforms and rejected Land Bills. Nor would the measure now before the House be more fortunate in its results. Last year they had been foolish enough to believe in a Liberal Government, and the Chief Secretary had flooded the country with troops and the Courts with prosecutions. As the Government themselves said, it was doubtless their first duty to protect life and property; but the Bill would protect only the landlords, and would leave the 500,000 tenants to their fate. Such was the Coercion Bill, and he much regretted that the Government had thought coercion necessary. It came to this—that after 700 years British rule in Ireland had to be supported by force, and an unconquered people could be dealt with only by means of exceptionally severe measures.

said, as profession had been the order of the day, he might say he loved coercion as little as any man. He had worked hard with hon. Members opposite in endeavouring to obtain justice; and he, therefore, hoped they would bear with him while he stated why he felt compelled to support the Government in their present proposals. He did not think it necessary to refer to the long list of statistics; but this he must say—that, so far as he had heard, no one had denied that instances of terrorism, and outrage existed considerably more in number than any hon. Member opposite would venture to justify. He had always entertained the deepest sympathy with Ireland in its distress, and earnestly desired to see its grievances redressed; but it was admitted on all hands that there now existed in that country an amount of terrorism and of outrage which no true lover of liberty could justify or view with indifference. He had come to the House at the beginning of the Session with a strong predisposition in favour of remedial legislation and against any measure of coercion, if it could be avoided; but what had since happened had forced him unwillingly to the conclusion that a case had been made out for granting the Executive Government some exceptional powers. That had been, in great part, brought about by the conduct of those who had undertaken the defence of Ireland up to the present moment; for they had palliated, excused, sometimes defended, and never sufficiently disowned and discountenanced, the lawless proceedings which, made the will of the Land League law. Hon. Gentlemen below the opposite Gangway were pursuing a course which tended to light up afresh the old animosities between Englishmen and Irishmen, which it had been hoped were fast dying out. That, he maintained, was a proceeding inimical to the true interests of Ireland herself, as well as dangerous to the security of the Empire. Let them think what it tended to. If they relied on "Boycotting" to aid their political struggle, to what persecution did they not expose the many thousands of loyal, peaceful, laborious Irishmen employed in the service of the State, in commerce, or in humble labour in this country and the Colonies, by the natural indignation which was being aroused? Painful sacrifice to unoffending men. If there existed in England a system of terrorism analogous to that which at present prevailed in Ireland, and if its victims dared not invoke the aid of the law, then, strong Radical and lover of liberty though he was, he should be ready to invest the Executive Government for a time with the requisite powers to repress such an intolerable state of things. The life and liberty of loyal and honest people in Ireland were now so seriously threatened that the sooner the House granted the powers now asked for by Ministers the better; and then they might proceed to the consideration of those remedial measures which it was to be hoped would give the long-wished-for succour and relief.

observed, that hon. Members talked as if Ireland was being brought to the Bar of that House and being tried as an incorrigible offender. Who was it that put her on her trial? The Representatives of the virtuous British nation. Were their hands so clean that they could afford to throw stones at Ireland? The whole case made by the Government went upon this statement—that Ireland was not worse in the matter of social crime than England was, but that she excelled in a special class of crime; that Ireland and England both sinned, but that Ireland's sins were not the same as England's sins, and therefore Ireland must be coerced. It was hard upon Ireland that she must assimilate her offending to the offending of England. If he must choose, he would rather have the crime of Ireland than the crime of England. The crime of Ireland sprang from bad agrarian laws, and if those laws were amended the crime they produced would cease. He did not see an equally easy way of getting rid of the crime of England. He did not regard the threatening letters as being any indication of crime, many of them being concocted; therefore, was it fair or right or proper to deal with this important subject as the Government statisticians had been dealing with it? In the system of double, aye, and even treble entry, he considered the Return to be utterly discreditable. They had had references made to the demolition of the homes of the peasantry. Well, Ireland knew something about the unroofing of the homes of the peasants. He thought the House would care very little for the six-and-eight-penny emotion of the hon. Member for the people of Ireland. The hon. Member had referred to the Catholic clergy, and he had presumed to say that the Irish clergy were intimidated. Let it be clearly understood that the Catholic clergy of Ireland could not be intimidated, and the statements with regard to them were base calumnies. If the palms of the Catholic clergy itched for money, if their consciences could be bought, they knew where the gold was ready for them. It was not in Ireland that such things were bought. The reason why the clergy of Ireland joined in the movement was because they felt this useful and much calumniated Land League was a beneficent movement for the political safety of the Irish people. It was said there was a reign of terror in Ireland, and that a gloom had spread over the land. He had seen the terrorists go throughout the length of Ireland, and he never saw any demonstration in their regard but one of love and affection. He was present at the Ennis meeting to which the Prime Minister referred; and he saw every window occupied, handkerchiefs waved, and the carriages were full of flowers, thrown by the ladies of Ennis. No doubt, that was a reception which some Members of the Treasury Bench would like very much to receive. Similarly, on the termination of the State Trials in Dublin, there were rejoicings from end to end of Ireland. At Athenry there was great joy, followed by illuminations. There were everywhere bonfires and rejoicing. He might refer to Irish newspapers in proof of that statement, for they contained accounts of such demon- strations at Fermoy, Kilmanagh, Tuam, Dundalk, Kilkenny, and many other places. The only people who were adverse to such celebrations were those who would, if they could, undo the Land Act of 1870, and even the Church Act. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in his speech a few nights ago, had told an anecdote of the late John Martin. That revered patriot had told the right hon. Gentleman that he was his enemy. The truth of that remark had been signally proved. The right hon. Gentleman had also said that there was no comparison between the action of the Land League and that of the Corn Law League. It was true, as the right hon. Gentleman had said, that there was much excitement in both countries during the time. The right hon. Gentleman had further said that the Corn Law League was not responsible for outrages, neither was the Land League responsible for the various reprehensible acts which had occurred in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman added that the Corn Law League told the people to come to Parliament for redress. That was true; but they had not to appeal to a Parliament outside of their own country, as was the case with Ireland at the present time. The English people were told to look for redress to their own Parliament, not one sitting in Paris or Berlin. History confirmed and justified the feeling with which the Irish people had and still regarded the English Parliament. If the Irish people had a Parliament of their own they could look to it for redress of their grievances. They were now to have a Coercion Bill, one of the many imposed on their country. The continuity of these Acts was well kept up in Ireland. The present one, however, was more severe than usual, and was to last to September, 1882, that would be within a few days of the century of Irish Independence. In November, 1782, the Declaration of Irish Independence was carried in the Irish Parliament, and then came a golden era of peace, joy, prosperity, and happiness for the Irish people. ["Oh, oh!"] History testified to it, and he never yet heard a man deny it. It was an admitted fact that between the Declaration of Irish Independence and the Act of Union Ireland throve and prospered as never did any other country.

reminded the hon. Member that he was travelling beyond the Question before the House.

apologized, and, in conclusion, pointed out that they had neither material force nor numerical strength to resist the humiliation sought to be imposed on the Irish people. If it was thrust upon them, he could assure the Government that it would be remembered, and would form another item in the long list of grievances in the account between the two nations, and which yet had to be settled.

said, that, in the endeavour of the Home Rule Members to prevent the measures of Her Majesty's Government from making progress, the Speaker had been constantly obliged to recall their attention to the question that was actually before the House; and he (Mr. Newdegate) had observed, whenever these hon. Members departed from the question immediately before the House, it was always in one direction—a direction which indicated that their opposition to the proposals of Ministers was based upon ulterior political considerations. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) said that he did not expect the Parliament of England would ever pass measures that would be satisfactory to his adherents in Ireland. Such a statement as that gave to the present debate a peculiar character. It showed that the present measures of the Government were not opposed on their merits, but because ulterior views and objects were constantly being propounded by hon. Members who opposed these measures. These ulterior designs were manifest at the close of the last Session, and were equally manifest now. No one could have heard the speech of the hon. Member for Westmeath without coming to the conclusion that he had no confidence that the House of Commons, as at present constituted, would do justice to the people of Ireland. This showed what the House had to deal with in relation to the movement now going on in Ireland. The fact was that it was a movement for separating Ireland from the rest of the Kingdom—at all events for legislative purposes. He (Mr. Newdegate) was old enough to remember the agitation for Repeal of the Union; and why was that resisted? Not from hostility to the Irish people, but because English and Scotch Members were of opinion that it was essential to the safety of England and Scotland that the Union with Ireland should be maintained.

rose to Order, and wished to know if the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was right in alluding to the Union?

recalled the hon. Member to the Question immediately before the House.

said, departures from Order had been so frequent in the course of those debates that it was not easy to remain in Order. Everyone who spoke was liable to fall into the same error. Sitting in that House, and listening to the speeches from the Benches below the left Gangway, it seemed to him impossible for a man to draw any other inference from them than that which he had done. He wished, however, to call attention to what took place in that House in the year 1846, when he himself voted against a similar Bill to that which was now before the House, in company with the late Lord George Bentinck and the present Lord Beacons-field. He was then induced to believe that the pleas then advanced, as they were now by certain Irish Members, would be verified; and with the permission of the House he would read a Question which, in 1846, was put by the late Mr. O'Connell to the late Sir Robert Peel. On the 25th of May, 1846, Mr. O'Connell said—

"He believed he was quite accurate in stating that the amount of crime recently reported from Ireland was considerably diminished, and he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet and of the House to the fact. He attributed it mainly to the attention paid by Government to relieve the wants of the people in various localities, as well as to the amount of private subscriptions in other situations. The peasantry of Ireland were duly sensible of the kindness and sympathy thus evinced, and to this cause he attributed a considerable diminution of crime. The conduct of Government in relieving the wants of the people had tended to diminish crime, and he believed had done more than could have been accomplished by a severe execution of the laws."—[3 Hansard, lxxxvi. 1203.]

This was the reply of the late Sir Robert Peel—

"Sir Robert Peel was much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman for so handsomely doing justice, on the present as on a former occasion, to the efforts of Government. He would not now enter into any argument as to the cause of the decrease of crime in Ireland; the hon. and learned Gentleman attributed it to the attention of Government to the wants of the sufferers, but others might perhaps find a different cause in the promulgation of the fact that the Protection of Life Bill had passed with he almost unanimous consent of the House of Lords."—[ Ibid. ]

These arguments adduced by Mr. O'Connell and others had some influence with him (Mr. Newdegate). At that time he was one of those who believed that the Repeal of the Corn Laws would deeply injure Ireland; and the diminution of cereal cultivation in Ireland by 1,500,000 acres since that period had but confirmed that opinion. What was the result of his joining the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Liberal Party in voting against the Protection of Life and Property Bill in 1846? Why, that crime continued and increased until, in the autumn of 1847, Parliament was specially summoned to deal with the question of outrage; and he had the humiliation of having to reverse the vote which he had previously given in company with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Bright) and the Whig-Radical Party of that day. They walked through the Lobby like penitents, as though enveloped in white sheets with tapers in their hands. The right hon. Gentleman, he dared say, had not forgotten that circumstance. The right hon. Gentleman had repented, and so had he? (Mr. Newdegate). In tendering to the Government his support of the measures they asked leave to introduce, he was acting solely on his own convictions, on the result of personal experience, and because when a responsible Ministry of the Crown, and especially when the Leader of the Liberal Party, who had so often opposed coercive measures, found it necessary to introduce measures of a coercive character, he thought that no man of sound sense, no true Englishman, would be justified in withholding his support. The situation was manifest—it was illustrated by the conduct of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), who refused the permission to Her Majesty's Ministers, which was commonly accorded to every private Member, to introduce a Bill. He was sorry to hear the hon. and learned Member following in the track of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). As representing one of the divisions of a Midland county, and not an unimportant division, the Borough of Northampton appeared to him (Mr. Newdegate) a revolutionary oasis in the Midland counties, and that not a very happy oasis. That borough seemed remarkable for opposition to the general sense of the large populations in its vicinity, no less than to the sense of their agricultural neighbours, and its Representatives had gone far to rouse the English nation's feeling on this subject. While hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway from Ireland had used such expressions as that the English garrison ought no longer to be allowed in Ireland, they had applied that language to the landlords of Ireland; and he had to tell those hon. Members that, quite irrespective of the qualities of the Irish landlords, the people of the centre of England were determined that the English garrison should not be removed from Ireland. But to revert to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk, what were the characteristics of the era to which the hon. and learned Member looked for precedents to justify the persevering Obstruction with which the proposal before the House was met? He looked to the period about 1640–41, and cited the Lord Clarendon of that day as having joined in a persevering Obstruction, But was not that a period the history of which conveyed a warning? There was an irreconcilable faction in the House of Commons of that day. Unhappily, the Court faction, of which Lord Clarendon, though distinguished as he was by his ability, had been the creature, contributed to make the House of Commons feel, by his persevering Obstruction, that its very existence as an authority was in danger; and he (Mr. Newdegate) believed that, if this system of Obstruction was persevered in, they would have to go back to the precedents of that period in order to meet the present mischief. Was not that a period which was fraught with warning? An attack was then made by the sympathizers with Strafford upon the Parliament, which afterwards resulted in that Parliament setting aside the authority of the Crown and declaring itself in permanence. And what happened in Ireland in 1641, after Strafford was beheaded? The Roman Catholic sympathizers with Strafford committed a massacre. ["No, no!"] He said "Yes." They had stained the annals of Ireland with blood, and imprinted a lesson on the minds of Englishmen and Scotchmen, and of all Protestants, that could never be effaced. He asked hon. Members, then, to reflect upon the precedents on which they were acting in the obstructive tactics they were now adopting. Were they not, unconsciously it might be, placing the House in a position in which it must feel the necessity of defending its independence and efficiency? He was sure that hon. Members did not intend to raise this issue, for, whatever the justice of their case in minor matters, that greater consideration—the maintenance of the authority of that House and of Parliament—must supersede all minor considerations, and render their advocacy of minor matters inferior in importance in the estimation of the House to the great object of maintaining the authority of Parliament. He was unwilling to detain the House further. He had been unwilling, indeed, to take part in a debate which he considered had already lasted far too long for the credit of Parliament. But he was one of those who were of opinion that they would have to revert to the precedents of the 17th century, in order to redeem the character of the House. In conclusion, therefore, he thanked Her Majesty's Ministers for the firmness with which they were discharging their duty; and he hoped that, should this obstructive course, based on such evil precedent, be persisted in against the independence of the House, the Government would take into their consideration whether the House ought not to adopt some measures similar to those which were adopted at the period to which he had referred, in order to vindicate its independence and efficiency.

said, he rose principally to reply to the references, chiefly by innuendo, that had been made in the debate to liken the agitation they were now discussing to the conduct and progress of trades unionism. In the first place, he defied anyone to show where trades unionism in its corporate capacity had been associated in any way with crime or systematic offence. When there were crimes and outrages prevalent through labour agitations in the United Kingdom, it was at a time when trades unionism was under repressive laws, and when those who ventured to connect themselves with it were obliged to hide their books and other necessary matters in gardens and secret places. But, since they had emerged from these repressive measures, he defied any hon. Member to show a single instance in which they had tried to incite to a breach of the laws, however unequal, however unjust they were to trades unionists. He regretted to hear, when the Prime Minister was speaking the other evening, the word "Broadhead" uttered by some hon. Member, with the object, no doubt, of casting a slur on trades unions; but, so far as the sad event in their history to which reference was thus made was concerned, he would merely observe that it was a remnant of the spirit which prevailed among the people while they continued to be under the operation of repressive laws, and that it was the trades unionists of England who first asked for an investigation of the crimes which had been committed at Sheffield, Mr. George Odger, Mr. Allen, and Mr. Applegarth, being among those who had been sent down to inquire into the truth of the allegations which had been made. They it was who had encouraged the employers to demand the Royal Commission which met in 1860, 1867, and 1868, and proved to the world that trades unionism had no share in the crimes which had been laid to its charge. There was one other subject connected with trade matters to which reference had been made in the House during the last week or two, and that was the conduct of the miners in Lancashire and the adjacent counties. ["Question!"] What had called forth the excitement and indignation of the miners of that part of the country? He was not going to defend violence, he was not going to apologize for it; but, in the case to which he was referring, he would ask the attention of hon. Gentlemen to its cause. Parliament, in its wisdom, passed last Session a measure for the protection of the lives and limbs of those men; but those who employed them were now trying their utmost to force the men, by coercive measures, to contract themselves out of that beneficent Act. That was the cause of the excitement in Lancashire, and when any class sought to evade the law of Parliament, those upon whom they were imposing this evasion were justified, he thought, in resisting it by every legal and Constitutional means in their power. With reference, however, to the main question before the House, he felt that he was only uttering the sentiments of many hon. Members on that side of the House (the Liberal) when he described the position in which they found themselves as a most painful one, a position in which they never expected to be placed, and a position which presented extreme difficulty as to the way by which they could extricate themselves from it. Hon. Members opposite from Ireland called upon those in his quarter of the House to support them in their policy of opposition to a certain measure. With regard to that opposition he believed that there was hardly a heart in that locality which was not with it; but, unfortunately, this was an occasion when hearts would be in one Lobby and heads in another. [ Laughter. ] Some hon. Gentlemen smiled at his description; but it accurately conveyed the feelings by which many were possessed. If the hon. Gentlemen from Ireland had come forward with a well-defined policy and aim, then that would have been another matter for consideration altogether; but the House had nothing of the kind before it, and hon. Members were asked to go into the Lobby of opposition without knowing where that opposition must ultimately end. On the other hand, they were invited by a Government, of which it could, at least, be said that it contained men whose lives had been chiefly associated with justice to Ireland, according to their time and opportunity. He desired to recall the fact that, in the last Liberal Government before the present, the youth of their existence was given up, not for the purpose of redressing the wrongs of England and Scotland; but it was devoted, and ungrudgingly devoted, to the redress of a wrong which then existed in Ireland. What did they find the same men doing in the first Session of the present Parliament? Did they not find them showing their confidence in the good sense of the Irish people by not seeking to re-impose an Act which had been held over the heads of the Irish people by the Conservative Government? And did they not devote their time, energy, and influence to the promotion of a Bill which, had it passed, would at least have done a great deal of good to the people of Ireland? And, again, the present Session was marked by the promise of men whose words had never been proved false by the people of England. They had commenced the Session pledged to the highest degree that they would do justice towards Ireland; and he asked whether they, who had watched those grey-haired statesmen from their boyhood to the present day, had ever found them guiding the people on the wrong side of liberty or justice? As to the Land Bill which the Government had promised—which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Bright) had said would be a worthy monument to hon. Gentlemen who sat around him—he would ask that it should be of such a nature that it would dispose of this question of Ireland, so far as the Land Laws were concerned, for the next quarter of a century at least. The people of Ireland had been ever open, he said, to good counsel and advice; but during the last six or seven years what attempts had been made to lead them into paths of law and reason? Nothing at all. During the last six years no practical attempt whatever had been made to deal with the wrongs of the long-suffering people of Ireland. The House would be perfectly justified in giving the Government an opportunity of dealing thoroughly with the Land Question. Relying upon statesmen who had never yet failed, he confidently for this occasion placed faith in their promises of justice; and, therefore, he should unquestionably support the measure for the introduction of which leave had been asked. When, however, the Bill was actually before the House, he should certainly support those who sought to amend it, especially in regard to its retrospective effects; and he should do his best to make the measure as light as possible, and to help to redress the wrongs from which Ireland had so long suffered.

, knowing the probable end of the debate, would appeal to the fair play of the House, while there was yet a calm moment in which the better reason of hon. Members might find utterance, in order to put on record his own position in this cruel emergency. This was a sorrowful and a sad combat. There were hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House who would support the Government, though with genuine regret. They were the friends of Ireland. He did not doubt it, and could say so more freely now than, perhaps, in some future stages of the struggle in which he and his Friends were engaged to defend the liberties of their countrymen. He blamed the Land League much in this—that during the past four months they had confined all their efforts to one side of the Channel, and had taken no thought of the duty of informing honest and well-disposed English opinion on this side of the Channel. He had seen growing daily in this country the storm before which the Ministry had quivered and gone down, and the members of the Land League did not realize the danger to their cause or the peril to the Ministry that was being created by the manufacture of a false public opinion by clamour and by untruth sent across the Irish Channel to prejudice the minds of honest Englishmen. The landlords of Ireland formed a Committee in Dublin, and instead of carrying on their campaign in Ireland, where their alleged facts would be tested, they commenced a campaign of pamphleteering in England. His friends, however, had allowed judgment to go by default in England; and what was the result? The Press of London, open to the landocracy of Ireland, was filled with letter on letter. There was not a terrified landlord in Ireland—terrified by conscience within—who did not write misstatements in the English Press; and the effect had been that Members, such as the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), were prepared to lay down their love of justice out of resentment of the alleged misconduct of the Land League. It was alleged that there had been six agrarian murders during the last 12 months. Two of them, he was persuaded, were no more agrarian than the Harley Street mystery; but, whether there were six or four agrarian murders, they were too many for him, and neither here nor in Ireland should a syllable fall from him to palliate those crimes. The Government, however, anticipated agrarian crimes, and accordingly they brought in a remedial measure. The House of Lords spurned that measure, and the Government capitulated. If they believed in the necessity for that measure, could they be surprised that agrarian disorder broke out? The Government knew the root and source of crime, and they knew that if they would but stop the cruel origin of this agrarian crime there would be no need of a Coercion Bill. If the water-tap of a man's house was pouring a flood into his rooms destructive to his furniture, and he endeavoured to sweep it up, would you not cry out—"You fool, first stop up the tap and then drain out the water?" That was exactly what they were doing here—they were endeavouring to deal with the flood of agrarian outrage without stopping the sources of its supply. As a matter of Constitutional liberty, it was a vicious practice to resort to a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act for mere police purposes—for the purpose of dealing with ordinary crime. In the old and noble theory of their Constitution, all writers upon their liberties declared that there were two, and only two, great emergencies which had been held to justify Government in suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, which were imminence of foreign invasion or domestic insurrection. It was reserved for a Liberal Government—a strong Liberal Government—returned in 1868 by the votes of Irishmen in a large degree, to propose a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act for ordinary crime. He knew there were men who thought that, provided they had a vigilant public opinion in Ireland, it did not matter if the Habeas Corpus Act were altogether suspended in Ireland. He knew there were some who would hail that sentiment as, again, there were those who told them they might altogether do away with trial by jury, as that none but the criminal classes would have reason to fear the change, and that a Judge could try a case better than a jury, where the obstinacy of one man might lead to a miscarriage of justice. Just so; but in the same way it might be said that a Council of 60 or 70 Members appointed by the Queen could do all the Business of the country better and in shorter time—of course, with less talk—than the two Houses of Parliament could. All these proposals, fatal as they were to public liberty, would find hon. Members in that House to support them; and he must confess he was the other night surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster say there was no harm in a despotism if those who wielded it were kindly disposed. A doctrine like that might be agreeable to a Metternich or a Bourbon; but when the right hon. Gentleman used it to stab liberty one might well cry out, " Et tu Brute. " That, however, was a doctrine not always held by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. On referring to Hansard, he found that when the Habeas Corpus Act was about to be suspended in 1866, at a time when genuine peril of domestic insurrection menaced the authority of the Crown, the Minister who proposed the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was able to put upon the table a copy of the letter of the chief conspirator, announcing that the flag of the Irish Republic would float in the Irish skies that year. If ever there was an emergency which might have justified a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, it was in 1866; and yet what did the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster say of the proposal to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act under the terrible circumstances of 1866? He said—

"The Secretary of State, on the part of the Government, of which he is a Member, has called us together on an unusual day, and at an unusual hour, to consider a proposition of the greatest magnitude, and which, we are informed, is one of extreme emergency. If it be so I hope it will not be understood that we are here merely to carry out the behests of the Administration. … It is now more than 22 years since I was first permitted to take my seat in this House. During that time I have on many occasions, with great favour, been allowed to address it; but I declare that during the whole of that period I have never risen to speak here under so strong a feeling, as a Member of this House, of shame and humiliation, as that by which I feel myself oppressed at this moment."—[3 Hansard, clxxxi. 686–7.]

The right hon. Gentleman was ashamed and humiliated at being asked to vote for a Coercion Bill, and even refused to do so, though armed insurrection was menacing the Queen's authority in Ireland; and yet he came there that evening to advocate the suspension of the liberties of the people of Ireland without one-tenth of the same provocation. The right hon. Gentleman might say there was a difference between the two occasions. He might say this was accompanied by remedial legislation, and that was not. How did he know that this Bill would be accompanied by remedial legislation? The Bill they were now passing every Tory in the House would heartily aid them in carrying through, and the House of Lords would receive it with open arms and pass it in one hour if they let them; but they well knew that any measure of remedial legislation, even if it passed that House, would be rejected in the Upper Chamber. The reformed Parliament of 1833 passed a Coercion Bill, on the promise that it was to be followed by a remedial measure; but the promise was not kept. What justification was there for the violence which hon. Members were now doing to their feelings rather than their consciences? Was it the Returns of crime? He denied entirely the Constitutional propriety or wisdom of dealing with these police matters by a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. At the time of the Reform agitation the King of England was hooted in, the streets, and ducal palaces were burnt; but the Habeas Corpus Act was not suspended. Nottingham Castle, which then belonged to the Duke of Newcastle, was burnt to the ground, and from the hill on which it stood could be seen the blazing homes of several landed proprietors. But even Lord Eldon shrank from attempting to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. It was said that the crimes in Ireland were exceptional—they were agrarian. But if a particular crime arose from a particular system of law, the Government, knowing the source of the evil, should first of all deal with the cause. The majority of the crimes in Ireland were undetected. How was the non-detection of crime of a particular class to be a justification for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act? That measure had not been proposed for England when it was said that there was a vast amount of undetected infanticide; nor, again, when there was an outbreak of ferocious brutality. So one measure was applied on the Irish side of the Channel and another on the English. But how would the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act facilitate the discovery of crime, enable the police to see round their corners, or discover who fired a shot in their absence? The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in the course of his speech the other night, said that the authorities in Ireland knew perfectly well who the persons were who were guilty of agrarian offences. If this was so, why did not the Irish Executive proceed under the forms of the ordinary law, which they could easily do? That this course was not adopted was, perhaps, due to the fact that the law of the land had not as yet enabled the Government to do its will against the people of Ireland. They had instituted proceedings in the highest Common Law Court in Ireland against certain persons, and those proceedings had broken down in Court, the promoters having since put into the hands of the Prime Minister for quotation in that House passages in the speech of another gentleman, which they chose to ascribe to the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). He did not, of course, suggest for a moment that the right hon. Gentleman was conscious of the fact that he was putting the words of another speaker into the mouth of his hon. Friend; but he could not refrain from remarking on the fact, as showing how the Prime Minister had been misled by those who, more than, anyone else, wished to coerce the Irish people. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] As far as the prosecution of the Land League leaders was concerned, he wished the House to remember that the Crown prosecutors withdrew one of the counts of the indictment when they found that it was possible for the tenants to call evidence which would put their case in all its fulness and fairness before the Parliament and the people of England. There were 342 tenant farmers brought up from the 32 counties as witnesses; but the Solicitor General and his chief fled the field; they withdrew that count and sealed their lips in order to stifle the cry of the Irish tenantry from reaching the Parliament of England. The Land Leaguers were accused of using incendiary language. Strong language had been used. But 50 or 60 years hence, when the Correspondence of the Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary came to be published, it would be found that they had used stronger language than ever was used on any Land League platform. In an exactly similar state of things as existed to-day, Lord Chesterfield, who was twice Viceroy of Ireland, and knew the state of Ireland well, used these words—

"I see that you are in fear again of your Whiteboys, and have destroyed a good many of them; but I believe that if the military force had killed half as many landlords it would have contributed more efficiently to restore quiet."

There were before the minds of the English people two Land Leagues—a Land League of fiction, which aroused their anger and prejudices, and a Land League of fact. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said 20 years ago that if Ireland were removed far enough from England the landlords would be exterminated by the tenantry. That was not the language of the Land League. And who, he asked, were those who were terrified and alarmed in Ireland? Was it the banking classes? He appealed to the statement recently made by the Chairman of the National Bank; he appealed to the Chairman of the Munster Bank, who sat opposite, in support of his assertion that in all England there were no banks safer or sounder than were the Irish banks? Well, was it the mercantile community? Only a few days since 120 commercial travellers, representatives of English houses, met in Dublin, and declared that the interests of their employers were safe and secure, and that debts were honestly and promptly paid. Were the professional classes scared? No. Were the clergy alarmed? No. Then he had to fall back on the largest class, and he took the 600,000 tenant farmers. Were they, he asked, the victims of disorganization? He fearlessly asserted that they were not. Well, then, was it the manufacturing class that was scared? Was it the shipping interest? Certainly not. The story of Her Majesty's Government, in fact, melted down to this—that of one class, numbering about 10,000, probably 2,000 were said to be in a state of alarm, while not a quarter of the 2,000 had any genuine cause of alarm. And yet the 500 counted for more in English social circles than did the 5,000,000 of Irish people beside. The reason was this—they were intermarried with the leading families of England; they had their representatives in English drawing-rooms, sisters-in-law, and cousins, and that small class was heard in England, while the great nation outside was unheard. His recent visit to Ireland had proved to him that the outrages recorded in the London Press were, in a great measure, without foundation. Out of a list of 22 cases which he had personally investigated, 14 he found had already been contradicted; but the stories had done their work. He knew, however, that time would bring a vindication and a justification to his country. The present was a moment of heavy trial for the Irish people; and for himself he could say that, while he was capable of making an effort, this Bill, the object of which was to fetter the liberty of his countrymen, would be resisted inch by inch. If the Government succeeded in suppressing the open Land League agitation, he knew who would come to the front in Ireland. That League had stood between the landlords and the tenantry during the past winter. The skies of Ireland would have been reddened by conflagrations during the past winter but for the Land League agitation, and he might go to the length of saying that he knew it had arrested the hand of the assassin. He knew it had arrested crime. Had it not been for the Land League, instead of six murders there would have been, as in 1848–9, 60 during the past winter. On the track of a great movement like that land agitation, just as on the track of a great army, there would be miserable camp-followers whose excesses would do much to stain the banners that went before. But no commander in the field and no political leaders could be held responsible for the acts of such persons. If the leaders of the League were arrested, and its organization put down, the landlords of Ireland would spring upon the wretched peasantry and take a terrible revenge for the terrors of the past 12 months, and the wreck of many a homestead would lead to increased outrage and crime. Another danger, almost as grievous, which he foresaw, was that the spirit of peace and reconciliation which had been growing up between the two countries, and which he and others on those Benches had of late years done their best to foster, would be wrecked by this message of war from the Treasury Bench. It would be the worst day's work for Ireland, and for England too, that had ever been brought about by the worst Tory Government since the days of Lord Castlereagh. The future was with the majority. As for the bull Irish Members—a handful—hey would be taunted with Obstruction; but that would not deter them from resisting coercion for their country, as English Members would resist it for their own. He recalled the words spoken by the Commons of England in a moment of terrible peril, when they were resisting even more powerful oppressors—

"The prerogatives of Princes may easily, and do daily, grow; but the liberties of the people are at an everlasting stand. They may be by good Providence and care preserved; but, once lost, they are never recovered, save by struggle and sacrifice on the part of the nation."