On Wednesday, Sir W. Foster, the new Member for the
Ilkeston Division of Derbyshire, delivered a gesticulating speech, in which, speaking rather professionally, he likened the Bill to an opiate which was to be administered before the remedy, and said that the opiate would counteract the remedy. Sir Henry Holland, the Colonial Secretary, replied in one of his extremely moderate and reasonable speeches in favour of the Bill, showing how utterly baseless was Mr. Morley's charge that the Bill is one to put money into the landlords' pockets. The only other speech of much note was the witty and effective speech of the Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Robertson), in which he- charged the Opposition with having changed the venue from Parliament to Hyde Park. He added that the great moderation of those ex-Ministers' speeches which had followed the Hyde Park demonstration " seemed to indicate that the enterprise in the parks and in the country would share the fate of other not very promising speculations in being turned into a limited liability concern." A shrewd observer in the last century had said that he heard the loudest yelps for liberty coming from the drivers of Negroes, and the Solicitor-General for Scotland thought that this was very much the case now in Ireland.
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