Mr. Dillon made a fierce speech against the artificial and
tottering Government of Ireland," propped on bayonets;" and Sir W. Harcourt was, as usual, as skilful as he could be in ridiculing and making sport of all the opinions which a couple of years ago he was accustomed to lay down with all the authority of a Pope. He ridiculed the " bogey " of Parnellism as just on a par with the former " bogey " of Papal inflaence,—complimented Lord Randolph Churchill on having formed a "National" Party by the process of dividing his former party of four by two,—and predicted that the passing of the new Irish Crimes Act, and its administrative application in Ireland, would become the main instrument of converting the English people to Home- rule. Mr. Goschen, in a very spirited speech, maintained that if Home-rule were carried to-morrow, there would be the same necessity for this Bill,—if not a greater necessity,—unless we were to give up the minority in Ireland to wholesale injustice. He quoted Mr. Justice O'Brien's vivid picture of the social tyranny now prevailing, and of its disastrous effect on the con- dition of Ireland, and declared that in this, its battle for the first principles of civilised justice, the Government of this country is fighting for a greater cause than any with which it had hitherto identified itself. The third reading was carried by a majority of 87,-349 against 262,—in a House which, including the Speaker and the four tellers, numbered 616.
