Kenealy and Mr. Whalley, were the sole supporters of the motion. And so the bubble burst.

Yet, reduced to impotence on his main subject, once again the doughty member for Stoke attempted to acquire the honour of popular notoriety as a legislator, by introducing on June 15th a Bill for the establishment of Triennial Parliaments. His motion for leave being met by a count-out, he renewed it two days later, when the requisite number of members being present, he made a speech commenting on "the shallow, miserable, and ignorant statesmen of the present time;" gave an epitome of English Parliamentary history from the earliest periods, explained many interesting features of the National Debt, made remarks upon our standing army, and was proceeding "at large," when the Speaker reminded him that his observations were not confined so closely as was needful to the subject of his measure. Dr. Kenealy still went on to comment on the extraordinary progress of the National Debt; touched upon the statesmanship of Sir Robert Walpole; and finally declared that, whatever opinions might be formed by the wicked, the ignorant, or the malevolent, he (Dr. Kenealy) had as keen a sense of honour as any man living. At last, at 10 minutes past three o'clock the House divided, and rejected the Bill by 68 votes to 11.

One great cause which tended to obstruct the progress of general Parliamentary business this year was the length to which the debates on the Irish Coercion Act were carried. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the Secretary for Ireland, introduced on the 1st of March the Government measure, which instead of being as much of a concession for the sake of cultivating popularity as rumour had foreshadowed it to be, turned out to be in the main a continuance of the repressive Acts already in force. The chief mitigations proposed were, that the Lord Lieutenant should no longer be empowered to imprison persons in proclaimed districts who might be found abroad at night, nor summarily to suppress seditious and treasonable newspapers. In describing the new measure Sir Michael Hicks-Beach dealt first with the unlawful possession of arms. Although he did not attach too much weight to Mr. Mitchel's election, it must be remembered that he was elected as an enemy to England. Moreover, though emigration had decreased, an immigration of American-Irish had set in, and the use of arms at party processions had not fallen off. For these and other reasons, the Government asked for a renewal for five years of the restrictions on the use of arms contained in the Peace Preservation Act with modifications, but these powers would be administered leniently, and with a view to their gradual relaxation. They would also retain the clauses of the Act relating to absconding witnesses, to the employment of extra police charged on the disturbed districts, and to the power of grand juries to compensate injured persons. The Government did not ask for a continuance of the power to suppress seditious papers, although if

this relaxation was abused they would be prepared to come to Parliament again. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach touched next on the Protection of Life and Property Act, which is confined to Westmeath and the adjoining districts. Only 14 persons, he said, had been arrested under this Act, and nobody had been in custody under it since June last. Nevertheless, the Government was in possession of information that the Riband conspiracy was still in existence, and was only kept down by the existence of this stringent Act. The magistrates and police authorities were strongly against sweeping away these powers, and Sir Michael went as far as to say that murder was kept in abeyance by them. The Government therefore asked for a continuance of this Act for two years, and also for a renewal of the Unlawful Oaths Act. These renewed powers the Government, he said, would exercise in a spirit of gradual relaxation, with the hope that the next time a proposal was made to the House on the subject it would be to put Ireland on the same footing as the other two kingdoms.

Lord Hartington made a generous defence of the Government measure, and showed himself, people said, even more ministerial than the Ministerialists. "I do not think," he observed, after alluding to the Tipperary election and to the survivance of Fenianism at all events in England and America, where funds were still being raised for the purchase of arms, "that the Government are asking for excessive powers when they ask that means shall be taken to prevent unlicensed persons from being in possession of arms, or, in other words, when they ask that arms shall not be openly taken to Ireland to be stored there and used whenever circumstances may favour the outbreak of insurrection. As to party disturbances, I rejoice to think that within the last few years they have very greatly decreased, and I have reason to hope that they may very soon become almost entirely things of the past. Still, I must agree with my right hon. friend that as long as there exists, especially in the North of Ireland, a tendency on the part of Protestants and Roman Catholics on certain occasions to come into collision, it is not an unreasonable precaution on the part of the Government to secure that arms should not be promiscuously in the hands of persons who are likely to make an improper use of them. Well, the most important branch of the necessity for legislation of this kind is the prevalence or continuance-if such be the case-of agrarian crimes. As far as the case may be proved by figures, it appears from the statement of the right hon. gentleman that the condition of Ireland as regards agrarian crime is scarcely altered from what it has been within the last few years. In 1872 the number of agrarian outrages reported by the constabulary was 256, in 1873 it was 254, and in 1874, though it had undergone a slight diminution, it was still 213. That shows, practically, that, taking the test of figures, the state of things remains much as it was during the last two years under the late Government. But I agree with the right hon.

C

[1875. gentleman that the case cannot be entirely proved by figures. This is one of those cases in which the Government is possessed of information which we cannot have, and the right hon. gentleman has certainly brought forward some strong statements proving that in Westmeath, and I believe also in other parts of the country, Ribbonism still exists, and agrarian crime likewise exists. The smallness of the number of outrages certainly does not prove that agrarian crime has ceased. It may be due to the efficiency of the constabulary or the police, or to the exceptional legislation which is in force. What the House wants to know, and what I understand from the statement of the right hon. gentleman to be the opinion of the Government, is that there still certainly does exist in Ireland a certain amount of crime that proves the existence either of secret societies, which seek by violence to impose a law of their own on the subject, or, in the absence of such secret societies, which shows a disposition on the part of large bodies of the people to substitute a law of their own, a law not recognised by the State, for the law of the land. Comparisons are often made between the amounts of crime in England and in Ireland; but the peculiarity of crime in Ireland is this,-in England crime is an attack on the part of an individual on other individuals; but, in Ireland, it is an attack by society, or by a large part of society, upon individuals. It is the same in whatever shape it may show itself, whether the victim be the landlord who is using the rights over his property which the law gives him; whether it be the tenant who, having been lawfully inducted into his farm, is endeavouring honestly to make his living there; whether it be the employer of labour who chooses to exercise some discretion in the choice of the persons whom he employs; or whether it be the labourer himself who wishes to take his labour to the best market. You find that the spirit of agrarianism interferes in every one of these cases, and seeks to impose a law of its own, a traditional law, perhaps, but one which has never been sanctioned by the State, and which is in actual opposition to the law of the State. Well, as long as any crime exists in Ireland which shows the prevalence of such a state of feeling on the part of any considerable section of the people, I, for one, confess I do not think it would be safe altogether to abandon this exceptional legislation. So much as to the necessity which exists for the continuation of this code. Let me remind hon. members from Ireland who are about to oppose this measure, that exceptional legislation of this nature is not a new thing and is not peculiar to the English Parliament. The Irish Parliament itself first set the example of exceptional legislation. Nay, more, it did not deal with the question in the same wise spirit as the English Parliament did; but it enacted penalties of a much severer and harsher character. The Whiteboy Act, the Insurrection Act, and the Act for the Suppression of Rebellion were passed by the Irish Parliament."

Then after reviewing the various Coercion Acts which had

been passed from time to time, he continued:-" The House ought to be reminded that the condition of Ireland has in this, as in other respects, enormously improved within the last 30 or 40 years; and when the facts are considered, it will be seen that it is far from a hopeless struggle in which we are engaged. Perhaps I may be allowed to refer for one minute to the statements made in 1833 by Earl Grey, when it was his painful duty to introduce the Coercion Bill. Earl Grey said, Between the 1st of January 1830 and the end of December 1832 the number of homicides was 242; of robberies, 1,179; of burglaries, 401; of burnings, 568; of houghing cattle, 290; of serious assaults, 161; of riots, 203; of illegal rescues, 353; of illegal notices, 2,094; of illegal meetings, 427; of injuries to property, 796; of attacks on houses, 723; of firing, with intent to kill, 328; of robbery of arms, 117; of administering unlawful oaths, 263; of resistance to legal process, 8; of turning up land, 20; of resistance to tithes, 50; taking forcible possession, 2; making altogether a total of 9,002 crimes of a description connected with and growing out of the disturbed state of the country.'-[3 Hansard, xv. 733.] Compare this with the statement that last year the number of agrarian crimes in Ireland was 213, and every one must allow that it is surely a great improvement, which ought to be borne in mind. In 1847 Sir George Grey gave, with reference to the six months ending October of that year, the following figures :-Homicides, 96; attempts on life by firing at the person, 126; robberies of arms, 530; firing into dwellings, 116. In one month of that year the number of homicides was 19; cases of firing at the person, 32; firing into dwellings, 26; robberies of arms, 118; total, 195-or very nearly as much crime in one month as there was in the whole of last year."

The Second Reading of the Bill passed by a large majority264 against 69—on the 23rd of March, after two nights' debate, chiefly confined to the party of the Home Rulers, and closed by Mr. Disraeli. Lord Robert Montagu moved an amendment, condemning exceptional legislation for Ireland. Necessity, as he showed by quotations from Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone, and several Irish Secretaries, was the only justification of such laws, and no necessity had been shown. On the contrary, as he argued, by a comparison of the criminal statistics of the three kingdoms and by numerous stories of violence cut from the newspapers, coercive laws were more needed for England and Scotland than for Ireland. If they were unnecessary, they must be unjust. In briefly reviewing the clauses of the Bill, Lord Robert called particular attention to one clause which permitted the release of persons if it were expedient before conviction, and asserted that the Westmeath landlords had memorialised the Government for the release of Riband leaders-especially one Captain Duffybecause by paying them well they could get early information and protection in their evictions. This statement drew from Sir

M. Hicks-Beach the declaration that he had made inquiries and no such memorial had been presented. Mr. R. Plunkett maintained that in the present condition of Ireland these exceptional laws were indispensable, and not a single loyal and peaceable subject of Her Majesty would be harmed by them. By quotations from the report of the Westmeath Committee, and by instances from his own personal experience, he showed it was not the landlords so much as the lower classes who had to dread the Riband conspiracy, and that the well-known heads of it vanished as soon as the Westmeath Bill was brought in. Mr. O. Lewis opposed the Bill because, among other things, it was opposed to the principles of the British Constitution. It was only required by the Irish gentry, who had always opposed every measure which was for the benefit of the Irish people. In Mr. Lewis's opinion, coercive legislation reduced Ireland to the condition of France before the Revolution, Kilmainham being substituted for the Bastille, and a "Lord Lieutenant's warrant " for a lettre de cachet. He was also understood to institute a comparison between Spain under the Inquisition and Ireland under the coercive régime. The O'Conor Don exhorted his fellow-members not to forget that a considerable advance in the direction of relaxation was made in the present Bill. Had it, indeed, only restored the state of things which existed in 1870, he should have felt some difficulty in opposing it, but he objected strongly to the arms clauses, and the power of fining a district in which a crime had been committed. At the same time he hoped that nothing would occur in Ireland which would interrupt the gradual disappearance of these laws. Mr. Roebuck maintained that since the Reform Act the British Parliament and the British people had sought every opportunity of doing justice to Ireland, and he attributed it entirely to the language of the Irish members that these coercion laws were still in existence. Until they gave up the wild talk about separation and Home Rule, exceptional legislation could not be dispensed with.

Mr. Sullivan said it was quite true that the code which it was now proposed to enact was less severe in some respects than the one which in a few months would expire; but he maintained that they were now discussing the enactment of a new law, and not the modification of an existing one. The Bill ought to be judged by what it contained within its four corners, and not by comparison with Acts which would be dead in a few months. There was just one answer to opponents of the Bill that ought to have been made, if it could have been made, but which had not been made because it could not. If it was true, as it was asserted by hon. gentlemen who defended the Bill, that it would only affect the guilty and the criminal, and not the innocent and law-abiding citizen, why not adopt the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and deal alike for the three parts of the kingdom with the same classes of offences, wherever they