want to know what is the proposal of the Government for quieting that country?" Even were the promised Bill not to trench, as he was willing to believe it would not, on the rights of property or the established principles of political economy, the mass of the Irish people would not be satisfied. And what security was there that the law would be more observed in Ireland, after the measure had passed, than before? The sad truth was that there was no country in Europe in which property and life were not more secure than in Ireland at the present moment. Lord Cairns then referred at some length to the case of Mr. Madden of Leitrim (who had been dismissed from the Deputy Lieutenancy and the Commission of the Peace for protesting against being called upon to serve as High Sheriff of the County under a Government of whose policy he disapproved), as an instance of the manner in which the Executive employed the means at its command for the prevention of outrage," a case in which, he said, they had "left undone that which they ought to have done, and done that which they ought not to have done." With this case he contrasted a speech delivered by the Lord Lieutenant of the same County (Leitrim), in which he had spoken of Vinegar Hill as "classic ground, teeming with the associations of the past and the aspirations of the present, within view of that historic hill where your fathers, lashed into armed resistance by the injustice of the times, made their last gallant stand." Yet no steps had been taken against the Lord Lieutenant (the Earl of Granard). "Sic vos non vobis," added Lord Cairns. "It is the old story of the chief butler and the chief baker: the chief baker is hung, while the chief butler is patted on the back and promoted."

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Earl Granville gracefully expressed his gratification at finding Lord Cairns again occupying the position of leader of the Conservative party in the Upper House, and defended the absence of allusions in the Queen's Speech to the colonies and to the distress at home, saying of the first topic, that "to bring in merely commonplace sentiments because certain persons, absolutely without foundation, have declared that her Majesty has been advised to separate herself from her colonies, would be unworthy of any English Minister"-of the second, that though undoubtedly great distress existed in Lancashire and in portions of London, there was a symptom that a turn was being taken, and that better things might be expected. Turning to the subject of Ireland, Lord Granville congratulated Lord Cairns upon the possession of certain qualities of an Opposition chief which some critics had denied to him, "lightness and airiness;" and, while admitting that in his general discussion of the state of crime and outrage in Ireland there was nothing which he (Lord Granville) was in a position to contradict, Lord Granville defended the Government from his charges against them. "With regard to the crimes and outrages," he said, "and the difficulty of punishing them, I am not here to deny or to diminish in the slightest degree their enormity. But it certainly does appear to me inconceivable, in such a state of things as we are referring

to, the leader of the Opposition should have a remedy for the evils which he deplores, and yet should abstain from mentioning what that remedy is. Does the noble and learned lord forget the great difficulty which there is in procuring the necessary evidence to enable the Government to deal effectually with the outrages to which he has called our attention to-night? If he is aware of any means by which that evidence can be produced, and if he knows how these crimes can be repressed, it would, I think, be but patriotic in him to give Her Majesty's Government some hint, either privately or in public, as to the means by which an object so desirable could be accomplished. . . . I do not wish to enter into recrimination in these matters, but I do say it is not fair to weaken the Government in Ireland by these violent accusations, and entirely shut your eyes to the difficulties that took place before we came into power.' Lord Granville then briefly described the steps that the Government had taken, and avoiding as much as possible the language of recrimination, concluded by gratefully accepting the declaration of the Opposition Leader that their Lordships would disregard party feeling in dealing with the subjects of the Tenure of Land in Ireland. Earl Grey, the Duke of Marlborough, and Lord Monck were the only other speakers.

In the House of Commons, after the Address had been moved and seconded, giving an opportunity to Captain Egerton to express his "satisfaction to know that the probability of war would in future be much diminished, and that wars would be much less frequent than they had hitherto been ;" and to Sir Charles Dilke to add that "for many years we had not seen the world so entirely at rest," and that "there was no nation in Europe. which would venture now to act in opposition to the opinion of a majority of the Powers,”—Mr. Disraeli rose. He waived for the occasion any discussion of the general programme of the speech, and said that he was only induced to address the House at all by the passages that referred to the condition of Ireland, which he described "as neither accurate nor altogether adequate." He accepted with ironical satisfaction the Government's authoritative statement that it had "employed freely the means at its command for the prevention of outrage," though the popular impression was " rather the contrary;" complained of the ambiguity of the language of the speech, which he interpreted as meaning that the adoption of measures for the protection of life and property in Ireland was contingent" upon the passing of the Government Land Bill; and entered into an elaborate examination of the causes which had led to the recent extension of agrarian outrages in Ireland. The old causes which had been assigned in former times-maladministration of justice, Protestant ascendancy, a seditious priesthood, organized agitation, and foreign influence-no longer existed. There remained a sixth and final cause to be noticed. "The tenure of land," said Mr. Disraeli, " is also now mentioned as the cause of the

ontent and dissatisfaction of Ireland; but the tenure of land in

Ireland is the same as it was at the Union, except that it has been modified in some degree, and always to the advantage of the occupier. . . . The truth seems this-the Irish people have misinterpreted the policy of the Government. They have considered that the Government meant to do something different from that which I assume, and shall always believe, it is the intention of the Government to do. But I want to know this, Were the Irish people justified in the erroneous interpretation which they put on the avowed policy of the Government; and if they fell into the dangerous error of misinterpreting that policy, did the Government take all the steps, or any of the steps, that were necessary to remove that false impression and to guide the mind of the Irish people to a right conception of the state of affairs and a due appreciation of the intentions of the Government?" Mr. Disraeli proceeded to argue that the occupiers and peasantry had assumed that the Government meant something which they never did mean, and no steps had been taken to undeceive them. This hallucination had occurred on two questions-the amnesty to the Fenian prisoners, and fixity of tenure (i.e. " the transfer of one man's property to another,") for both of which the Government candidates for Irish boroughs had repeatedly declared. On the first question, the speaker recalled to the House the "remarkable and dramatic scene" that had taken place at their last re-assembling, when the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin presented themselves at the bar, with a petition for an amnesty for the Fenian prisoners, in asking for which "they believed that they were supporting the Government." ("I have received some Irish deputations in my time," said Mr. Disraeli, " and I thought I saw at the Bar some faces that I recollected.") "But what happened? No doubt there is no more difficult question for the Minister of a constitutional State to decide than that of granting an amnesty to political offenders, who are in a very different position, in regard both to the merits of their conduct and to the comparative sufferings they endure, from the political prisoners who by squads and battalions are immured in dungeons in countries where no constitutional rights are in existence. But as a general principle, though I do not say it is one from which you should never deviate, an amnesty, if there is to be one, should be complete. Now what was the conduct of her Majesty's Government? They decided upon a partial amnesty. Now let us see what were the inevitable consequences. The effect of releasing three men, who had incurred the severest penalty of the law, and whose sentence of death had been already commuted to imprisonment, was that others who had a brother, a son, or a sweetheart, perhaps, in prison, naturally complained that those whose conduct had incurred the penalty of death should be released, while those whose crimes were not so great should still be detained in prison. On the part of the Government it was urged that they must exercise some discretion, and that, in considering the case of these prisoners, they determined to free those in whose harm

lessness they were pretty confident and secure, and that none were let out but those who could do the State no injury. Well, now, was that the fact? Look at the next three men who were let out. They were three men who had incurred long terms of imprisonment, from twelve to fifteen years, men of decided opinions and violent conduct, not one of whom had ever given the slightest sign of penitence. One was an able writer. He emerged from his cell and immediately wrote a leading article against the Government, calling upon his fellow-countrymen to commence their efforts to free themselves from the slavery under which they had so long laboured. Another of them-and that is a mysterious case, which may by and by be brought under the consideration of Parliament-went to a banquet, and made use of his liberty to excite Irishmen (they say he was not an Irishman himself) to violence, and he told them that the sabre was the only solution of their sufferings. Well, then, I say the great body of the Roman Catholics of Ireland who had relatives in prison naturally felt indignant. They regarded this partial amnesty as a most ill-considered act. These people who before were unhappy in the fate of their relatives, who no doubt felt that they were unfortunate, and that they did not deserve their doom, began now to smart under a great sense of injustice. They said, 'You have let out men-some sentenced to death, others to long periods of imprisonment-who immediately use the liberty you have given them to excite hostility against the Crown and to create sedition in the country; but our relatives are still immured, who have not been convicted of offences so heinous or incurred sentences so heavy. Well, what happened? The feeling for the Fenian. prisoners, which was at first got up rather to assist the Government than not, became a great national sentiment. The people naturally thought that with the destruction of the Protestant Church the offences of these men ought to be condoned. is the reason why you have such a strong feeling among the Irish people on behalf of the Fenians, and that is the real cause why you have had all this terrible excitement in Ireland, and why you have been called upon to do an act which would be a blow to all government, namely, without security and on no intelligible plea, suddenly to open the gates of all the prisons of the country and free men who were condemned by the solemn verdict of juries and after trials, the justice and impartiality of which have certainly never been impugned, even by the Fenians themselves."

That

Turning to the second question-fixity of tenure-Mr. Disraeli said that the Irish people had reasoned in this way, "The Irish Church is abolished; the Bishops and Rectors are deprived of their property. The next grievance, according to the same high authority, is the land. Is it not a natural consequence that, if you settle the question of the Irish Church by depriving the Bishops and Rectors of their property, you will settle the question of the land by depriving the landlords of their property?' I do not say that this is the policy of the Government: I do not say that we thought that

was the policy of the Government: but I say that it is not an unnatural inference of the Irish people. I say, in the next place, that it was the actual inference of the Irish people." The speaker argued that the speeches of Lord Granard and Sir John Gray, who had said to his hearers, "We must be firm: we are sure to get what we want, if we are firm: but nothing must satisfy you except fixity of tenure," had encouraged this delusion, which the Government had done nothing to remove, in spite of Lord Stanley's impressive warning of the previous April, to which Mr. Disraeli referred as "clear, firm, temperate, and wise." Sir William Verner, if Mr. Disraeli's memory served him, had been deprived of some of the honours he possessed for toasting the "Battle of the Diamond" at an obscure local dinner. Was this "more outrageous, more incendiary, than the allusion of the Queen's representative to the glories of Vinegar Hill'?" Then the delusion of the Irish people had been further encouraged by the elections of Longford and Tipperary, on which the Leader of the Opposition thus commented:-"If any thing can elicit opinion, it is an election. Her Majesty was advised to elevate an hon. member of this House (Colonel Greville-Nugent) to the peerage. If blood and large estate qualify for that great post, I think her Majesty was wisely advised; nor, sir, as far as I am concerned, do I object at all to see the son of that noble Lord (Captain, GrevilleNugent) his successor in this House. But he could not come into Parliament without expressing the opinions which he came to support-namely, that he was in favour of a complete amnesty for the Fenian prisoners, and for fixity of tenure in respect to Irish land. Of course her Majesty's Government

are not re

sponsible for the opinions of independent Members of Parliament; but as the hon. Member for Longford is not a very old man, the poor people of Ireland may be pardoned for thinking that he would not be offended if some good advice had been given him by men in authority. It would not be unnatural if they said, Depend upon it, he would not pledge himself to the emancipation of the Fenians and to fixity of tenure (which is the transferring of one man's property to another) unless he knew what he was about. They made his father a Peer, and he is here to say the right thing." That was the Longford Election, and I think the circumstances to which I have referred were calculated to much mislead the minds of the people. All this time, while the minds of the people were so much misled, and such a degree of excitement was added to that which had existed on the subject of the Fenian prisoners, deeds of outrage, crime, and of infinite turbulence were perpetrated simultaneously, and I believe as a necessary consequence of that misleading of the public mind. But there was another election, a very interesting election, which has been already alluded to to-night. What happened at that election? There was a gentleman who occupied a post of trust and confidence in the late Whig Administration, of which the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Gladstone) was the organ in this House. If there be any post which more than another requires