The debates on Tuesday and Wednesday were chiefly remark- able
for the speeches of Lord Hartington,Mr. Blennerhassett, and Mr. Lefevre. Lord Hartington spoke of the outrages as brought about by a set of "miscreants " holding the threads of conspiracy in Ireland, and maintained—rather weakly—that because these outrages had increased with the subsidence of distress, and with the diminution of the number of evictions, they could not be due to either the fright of famine felt last spring, or the anger excited by the hard landlords. Has Lord Hartington never noticed. that a stone, once set rolling, does not need the con- tinued. application of the force which started it, to rush down hill P But on the character of the outrages, and the necessity of stopping them, Lord Hartington was very strong, stating the facts powerfully, and the moral urgency of the case still more so. On Wednesday, Mr. Blennerha,ssett's manly protest against the unpatriotic policy of the Land League, and equally manly appeal to the Government,—in the name of Irish land- lords,—to grant fixity of tenure, and root the Irish farmers in the soil, was very impressive ; while Mr. Lefevre's demonstra- tion that the immediate exodus of the Irish landlords would greatly impoverish Ireland, and his contrast between the tone of the League agitators at Irish meetings and their tone in that House, was the severest blow yet delivered against Mr. Parnell.
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