Mr. Balfour dealt first with Mr. Gladstone's assertion that the
spirit of the Parnellite Party has wholly changed since his Government found it necessary to imprison Mr. Parnell, and to denounce him as marching through rapine to dis- integration. So far was this front being the truth, that the Nationalist newspapers day by day devote themselves to the question how the landlords, as a class, are to be driven out, and the "Plan of Campaign" was devised to strike a blow at all rent, as deadly as the " No-Rent " manifesto itself. Then Mr. Gladstone had admitted that there is such a thing as Irish crime, but excused it by saying that "the Irish people had received a desperate provocation." What is that desperate pro- vocation ? asked Mr. Balfour. Why, this,—that the law which now regulates the debt due from tenants to landlords, is infinitely and incomparably more favourable to the tenant in Ireland than "the law which regulates the relations between any set of debtors and any set of creditors in any country in the civilised world."
