The later hours of Thursday evening were taken up in
the -Commons in the discussion of a motion by Mr. Mitchell Henry, declaring it the "duty of Parliament, on the earliest opportunity, to consider, in a wise and conciliatory spirit, the national demands which the Irish people have repeatedly raised." The motion was declared by Mr. Plunket to be "hideously inopportune," but as that was the precise reason why it was brought forward, the Home- rulers persisted in discussing it till the House adjourned. There was no novelty in the speeches made, except, indeed, an assertion that Lord Beaconsfield had released the Fenian prisoners because a cloud had arisen in the East, and the whole debate was visibly unreal. It is to be noted that it was to have been raised by Mr. Butt, but when the time arrived, Mr. Butt was " indisposed,"— as Mr. Henry said, from overwork, but more probably from worry at the conduct of his mutinous troops.
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