In the irregular discussion of Wednesday which arose on Sir
H. D. Wolff's moving the adjournment of the House, in order to press his criticisms on our Egyptian policy, Mr. Parnell took occasion to comment on the growing number of Irish evictions, which Mr. Trevelyan, in a very remarkable statement, admitted to be positively " appalling." " In the first quarter of this year, the number was serious; last month, it was most formidable; in the first week of this month, it was something very like appalling." " In many instances, the police and the magistrates described the evictions as cases of hardship.' " He deeply regretted there were landlords who did not " adopt the attitude of the Honourable Member for Carrickfergus " [Mr. Greer, a Con- servative Member, who had, nevertheless, as he himself informed the House, given specific directions to his agent in Ireland that
no pressure was to be put on his tenants till the Arrears Bill was passed, and that they were to be deprived of no advantage they might derive from it], "and who, at a time when the Executive was grappling with a situation of extreme difficulty, asserted their rights in a cruel and unpatriotic manner." This is so very serious a statement, coming as it does from the Irish Minister, that we must say it seems to us to justify extreme urgency in the taking up of the Arrears Bill, and even an effort to pass it simultaneously with the Prevention of Crime Bill. Mr. Trevelyan's statement seems to us, indeed, to prove that the Arrears Bill has even more right to be called a " Preven- tion of Crime" Bill, than the " Prevention of Crime " Bill itself.
