18 FEBRUARY 1888, Page 3

Mr. Finlay replied to Mr. O'Brien in a manly but

unre- markable speech ; and no great speech was made till the Attorney- General rose, later in the evening, and remarked, with some irony, that Sir George Trevelyan had expressed the greatest contempt for the reduction of crime effected in 1887 by what he neverthe- less described as " the union of hearts," as compared with what he himself effected by a Crimes Act in 1882, when there was no pretence of any "union of hearts" at all. Sir R. Webster quoted the violent denunciation of all so-called "land-grabbers " by the Parnellites, and challenged Mr. Morley to say whether he, as a statesman, agreed in this national policy of making lepers of men willing to take land from which others have been evicted. But Mr. Morley, though he replied to the Attorney- General on the points on which he was able to make an effective reply, sedulously avoided this question. He preferred rather to quote the evidence of the success of the Irish National League in raising subscriptions and in winning converts to the "Plan of Campaign," though, of course, he guarded himself against being supposed to approve it. The truth is, he is pleased by its success without choosing to say that he wishes it to succeed. Is that manly or statesmanlike ?