In his speech, Mr. Morley said that the political power
of the Irish landlords was gone ; that their moral power, if they ever had any, was gone ; their social power was gone ; their material power was gone ; anti that in the most distressed parts of Ireland, the landlords are now nothing but a body of men mighty for evil and powerless for good. He then diverged to the criticisms made on his speech at St. Helens, and said, in answer to the statement that the conduct, or misconduct, of the police was not a political matter, and should have been dealt with, if necessary, by an action against the police, that it was idle to talk of a wretched Tipperary peasant bringing such an action and carrying up an appeal to the House of Lords. No doubt it is ; but why cannot the National League do it for him, instead of lavishing its money on evicted tenants who never wished to be evicted, and who would have paid their reduced rents gladly if the League would but have let them alone? Mr. John Morley maintains that a Coercionist Government, if it is to be tolerable, needs very much more
than the ordinary personal superintendence by its chiefs ; and that, he intimates, is what makes Mr. Balfour's absence in Scotland so culpable, when he ought to have himself examined the question who should be the sitting Magistrates to hear the Tipperary charges. And Mr. Morley illustrated his attack by praising the late Mr. Forster's sedulous devotion to- his Irish administration. But surely Mr. Forster, earnest and conscientious as he was, was far more violently hated and far more furiously attacked than ever Mr. Balfour has been. We are not sure that the Irish do not prefer those rulers who, whatever they are, do not seem to be over-anxious as to their decisions.
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