Chamberlain made what the House appeared to regard as a happy point by quoting from an article written by Mr. Morley the following passage: "On the other hand, if great social disorder has spread over a country from whatever cause, every Government, exactly because it is a Government, is bound to do its utmost to restore order temporarily, even while it is removing the more permanent causes which have made disorder natural and justifiable." The debate was concluded on the 25th, or, more correctly, on the 26th, for the House held a protracted sitting, and numerous speeches were made on both sides of the House. On a division the motion was carried by 349 votes to 260.

On March 28 Mr. Balfour moved for leave to introduce the Criminal Law Amendment (Ireland) Bill. Referring to objections urged against the measure in the debate on the motion for precedence, he reminded the Opposition that they refused to touch judicial rents in 1885 or 1886. He contended that were such a measure of relief as that to which the Opposition would give the first place carried out to its fullest extent it would do little to diminish evictions, and it would do nothing whatever to prevent such occurrences as the Glenbeigh evictions, and the events which had occurred on Lord Clanricarde's property. There was an amendment on the paper in the name of Mr. Parnell, which asked the House, before proceeding to consider the present measure, to make further investigation into the state of Ireland. 'I am afraid," Mr. Balfour said, "that the House is already but too well acquainted with the state of Ireland, and if anybody entertained doubts as to the condition of that country surely it is not the honourable member for Cork and his friends. They, at all events, if no other members of this House, should know to what an unhappy state that country is reduced. They should know the condition of Ireland as an artificer recognises his own handiwork." Since 1845, the year in which statistics of agrarian crime were first collected, there had been only seven years in which the present melancholy list of crimes had been exceeded. "At the present moment," said Mr. Balfour, "498 persons in Munster, 175 in Connaught, 221 in Leinster, and 23 in Ulster are under special police protection. The number of policemen required to carry out the special police protection is 770, and some idea of the additional cost thrown on the ratepayers of the country by the condition of Ireland may be indicated by the fact that each of these policemen costs on an average 70l., and that the total cost therefore for extra police required to give the necessary protection to individuals amounts to no less a sum than 55,000l. a year." The Government had to prove two things before asking the House to assent to the Bill. They had first to prove that the law was not enforced over a large and important part of Ireland, and they had to show, secondly, that the vacuum left by the absence of the ordinary law was filled up by law which was not that of the Crown and of Parliament.

In dealing with the first proposition, Mr. Balfour specially directed attention to the west and south-west of Ireland, the counties of Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Kerry, and Cork-an area of about one-third of the whole of Ireland-and he proceeded to read extracts from the charges of Irish judges delivered at the assizes in those counties. Among these Mr. Justice Lawson had said in Mayo that according to the reports made to him the present state of things "approached as near to rebellion against the authority of the country as anything short of civil war could be." In a charge by Mr. Justice Murphy to the grand jury of Galway the following passage occurred: "If this return of offences manifested or indicated the condition of your county, there would be presented to me the opportunity of congratulating you. However, I regret to say, from the returns made to me by the Inspector of the Crown and the officers of the county, it appears that any conclusion derived from the list presented for your investigation would be wholly incorrect. They report to me that there is a complete paralysis of law, that it is unable to protect many of the inhabitants in the exercise of their most ordinary rights, and that lawlessness is perfectly triumphant." Mr. Justice O'Brien had said in Clare that the common rule of obedience necessary in every civilised State had been "abrogated and replaced by an influence fatal to industry, fatal to prosperity, fatal to every interest connected with the welfare of the community." Strong observations on the prevalence of agrarian crime and of acts of personal violence were also made in other judicial charges delivered in the counties of Limerick and Kerry, and from which the Chief Secretary quoted. These, he said, were testimonies not of partisans or of politicians; they were public statements made by judges of the land in the exercise of their duty. In the counties mentioned the number of offences reported since the previous summer assizes amounted to 755. The number for which there was no clue to the offenders was 536. The number of cases in which the injured persons declined to swear any information was 422.

Mr. Balfour went on to allude to the intimidation practised on juries, in consequence of which verdicts were given in opposition to the evidence and in disregard of the directions of the judges. In one such instance, after a verdict of "not guilty" had been returned, Mr. Justice Murphy addressed these words to the jury: "Gentlemen, your verdict is contrary to the evidence. It is your privilege to disregard the evidence and your oaths." Mr. Balfour mentioned an instance of a man of seventy who claimed exemption from service on juries, but afterwards said he would rather be on the panel, "for it might > give him an opportunity of serving a friend." In another case Some respectable jurors had begged the officer to include them in the list of jurors to stand by. The officer refused, but said that if they did not come up to be balloted for he would not fine them.

The men confessed, however, that they dare not take advantage of this offer, because they had been canvassed and must appear. The terrorism thus practised was supported by a section of the Irish press, some of the papers publishing the names of jurymen who had given verdicts one way, and holding them up to public reprobation. United Ireland, while admitting that such a system was "not liberty," added that "it is the way of winning it." Speaking of the National League, Mr. Balfour said: "It was represented by the right hon. member for Newcastle as an innocent trade union, which existed for the sole purpose of protecting weak tenants against strong landlords. If that were its object not a single man in this House would have a word to say against it. . . . I do not deny that there are men connected with that League in Ireland who have at heart simply and solely the good of the tenant; but in the tangled web of Irish politics there are very few white threads. It may be that some members of the National League have only in view this object; but we cannot forget that the League leans in part upon those dark secret societies which work by dynamite and the dagger, whose object is anarchy, and whose means are assassination."

Mr. Balfour quoted passages from speeches by Irish members delivered in various parts of Ireland. Among them was the following from a speech by the member for East Galway: This is not a question between small reductions and large reductions. It is not a question of what a man is able to pay at present prices, and it is not a question of sympathy for good landlords or bad landlords. . . . The great, mighty question is whether the lands of Ireland shall belong to the people of Ireland, or whether they shall belong to the enemies of the people. I am not going to indulge in a no-rent manifesto. But we put a programme before you that will lead to that result-that will first take one slice, then take a second slice, and we will keep slicing at it till nothing remains."

Another Irish member, in a public speech, had advised his hearers "never to lie calmly under the British yoke, never to relax their efforts until they had the green flag free in their own country." Mr. Balfour argued that the extracts which he had read showed that the leaders of the National League intentionally mixed up "a policy of terrorising the individual with that of the disruption of the Constitution." He then referred to the subject of boycotting, giving particulars of a number of cases in which that practice had been resorted to, and implicating the National League.

On a day named there were 836 boycotted persons in Ireland. One consequence of the system had been the loss to any tenant who elected to leave his holding of the value of his tenant-right. The Land Act of 1881 gave to every tenant in Ireland, out of Ulster, a right of sale in his holding-a goodwill which would amount in the south of Ireland to something between fifteen and

twenty years' purchase of the rent. "But the value of that tenant-right has been absolutely destroyed by the National League. . . . Nobody dares buy it; it is useless to the man who has it to sell; and it is useless to the landlord on whose hands it is thrown." Recapitulating some of the points of his speech, the Chief Secretary said he thought he had shown that crime was uncontrolled and unpunished in parts of Ireland, and that in other parts of the country which were more satisfactory as regarded the open commission of crime the system of secret terrorism reigned absolutely undisturbed. In proving those facts he contended that he had made out an adequate case for the Bill that was proposed. He then proceeded to enumerate the aims and provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Dillon replied in a speech of considerable length. He predicted that the Bill, which he said contained all the more severe provisions of the 86 Coercion Acts that had preceded it, would never pass into law. He did not deny that there was "some crime in Ireland," but the only thing that the Chief Secretary had succeeded in proving was that he knew nothing about the condition of that country. Referring to Mr. Justice Lawson's declaration as to the condition of Mayo, Mr. Dillon remarked that he was proud to say-as representing a division of the county-that he had succeeded in paralysing the law in one respect the exaction of unjust rents. As to outrages and robbery and crimes of violence, he asserted that they were wholly absent. He justified the acts of the National League, ridiculed the instances of boycotting mentioned by Mr. Balfour, and said that the speeches of Irish members from which passages had been quoted were all, with the exception of a single sentence in one of them, absolutely and entirely innocent. Mr. Dillon concluded by declaring that if the Bill passed he would continue to carry on the Plan of Campaign, and he did not care whether the Government tried him in Dublin or at the Old Bailey. The debate was resumed on the 29th by Mr. Gladstone. He complained of the meagreness of the information furnished by Mr. Balfour, who had referred to no parliamentary papers and given the House no means of testing his allegations. He was himself prepared with some statistics, which showed that there had been no very large change in regard to crime between 1884 and 1885. There had undoubtedly been an increase of threatening letters-from 423 to 512. He also had the figures from 1885 to 1886, for which period the crimes reported by the constabulary were divided into threatening letters on the one side and cases other than threatening letters on the other. "Now, with respect to threatening letters," Mr. Gladstone said, "they are a social inconvenience and a social mischief, but it would be ridiculous to speak of them in connection with such a question as the legislative restraint of the liberties of the people." In 1885 there were 432 threatening letters; in 1886 the number was 507.

The

cases reported in 1885, other than threatening letters, were 512; those reported in 1886 were 518. The Chief Secretary had quoted from the charges of Irish judges, but the passages given were not founded upon judicial facts; they were passages soaring into the region of speculation. If he relied on the opinions of the judges, why did not he give the judge's charge at Tipperary? That charge was totally contrary in effect to the apparent bearings of the charges quoted. The Chief Secretary produced some anonymous evidence, which he (Mr. Gladstone) declined to accept. He mentioned a case of horrible outrage on a girl, where her hair had been removed and pitch had been poured upon her head. "It was a very bad and abominable outrage indeed. The right hon. gentleman "-Mr. Gladstone proceeded to say-" speaking in perfect simplicity, appeared to think that the removing of the hair and the pouring of pitch upon the head was a Nationalist invention. [This observation was received with Irish cheers and laughter.] If he turns to his Irish history he will find it was an invention of the governors of Ireland." On the subject of boycotting Mr. Gladstone remarked that in 1885 there were 879 boycotted persons-the present number being 836-but in 1885, "a month before the general election," the Government did not consider there was a case for any change of the law. As to intimidation, that, said Mr. Gladstone, "is a word which requires sifting and scrutinising before you can judge what value attaches to it." "This intimidation which is said to be rampant . . . is an intimidation which is generally separated from outrage. And this is the last ground on which the Government base this extraordinary demand for what they describe as an extreme measure. We have, therefore, this extraordinary state of things, that a demand is now made upon the reformed House of Commons-to do what? In my opinion to commit one of the most formidable breaches of trust that any popular assembly can perpetrate."

Coming to the provisions of the Bill, Mr. Gladstone said he would refer to two points only. The first was, that Irish trials in certain cases should be held in London, as to which he observed: "I did not believe I should live to see the day when a proposal so insulting, so exasperating, so utterly in contrast with the whole lesson which Irish history teaches, would have been submitted to a British House of Commons." The other point was the absence of provision for duration, a feature which Mr. Gladstone said made his blood run cold. He dwelt on the responsibility which English members would incur if they supported the proposals of the Government; he claimed for the Opposition that their support of the national cause in Ireland had diminished outrages; and he declared that in revising the Bill and in serving the cause of Ireland they were "still more essentially and effectually serving the cause of Britain and its world-wide empire."