From sensational rhetoric of this kind the House was glad
to pass into the atmosphere of Mr. Chamberlain's calm, moderate, and able speech. He insisted that if the Judges' findings on matter of fact were to be trusted, they included findings that were very unfavourable as well as findings favourable to the party assailed, and especially singled out the finding that at the same time that the Parnellites were carrying on a constitutional agitation, they were in close and intimate alliance with men who, by their published newspapers, declared that their object was to assassinate opponents and cause injury and ruin to the countrymen of those so-called constitutional leaders. Nothing of this kind could possibly be said either of the Anti-Corn-Law League or of any other con- stitutional agitation. Mr. Dillon had confessed as late as 1888 that he and his friends " never had the slightest success until we hit upon the dodge of making it too hot for the men who took their neighbours' land." And the Commissioners had found that this was just the policy which did actually breed crime.
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