16 JULY 1881, Page 2

The periodical fury into which the extreme Irish Party think

it essential to lash themselves against the Irish Secretary broke

out this week in its most violent form on Monday, on occasion of one of the irregular discussions concerning the motives which had induced Mr. Forster to order the arrest of Mr. J. O'Connor and Mr. Patrick J. Murphy, of Cork, for suspicion of treason- able practices ; Mr. Forster, as usual, declining to be led into any explanation of the special facts on which his order was grounded. Mr. T. O'Connor said that Mr. Forster was ruining Ireland, and that Mr. Gladstone's best message of peace to Ireland would be to insist on his resignation. Mr. Finigan called Mr. Forster the evil genius of the Liberal Party, and the creature of an Irish official staff in Dublin Castle as corrupt as that of the Sultan. Mr. Healy said that Mr. Forster was not merely unfit for his post, but an absolute failure, who ought to be removed as soon as possible to some sphere for which he was less unfit. Mr. Leamy called him a tool in the hands of the Orange Emergency Committee ; and Mr. Biggar wished to have him sent to India, or "a much warmer climate." Mr. Gladstone said that Mr. Forster was no more responsible for what was done in passing and administering the Coercion Act than the rest of the Government, and that there was no member of the Government to whom the credit of the Land Act was more due than to Mr. Forster. Mr. Forster, as usual, remained per. feetly unmoved; feeling, perhaps, not a little scorn for these artifi- cial savageries, and not a little consolation in the knowledge that in Ireland outrages are rapidly diminishing, both in number and in gravity. Mr. Forster's political stoicism has never been sur- passed, at least, within our memory.