On Friday week, the House of Commons devoted an all-
night sitting to the Committee stage of the Army (Annual) Bill, the report not being agreed to till 5 o'clock on the Saturday morning. The small knot of Unionists who kept the House up have been greatly blamed for Obstruction, but not quite fairly. The fact seems to have been that party feeling rose very high, and that the Irish Members interrupted the Conservative speakers so repeatedly, and in so insulting a. manner, that the latter determined to be revenged. But even if the Unionists had not had as their excuse what O'Connell used to call the "beastly bellowings " of their opponents, they would have been justified in protesting against treating the Bill as a mere formal measure. The Government had inserted into the Bill some most important modifications of the Court-Martial system. For example, a commanding officer was to have his power of summary imprisonment raised from seven to twenty-one days. Mr. St. John Brodrick, in a letter to the Times of Monday, declare that had Mr. Hanbury's plea, that in the interest of the private soldier these changes ought to be properly dis- cussed, been temperately met by the Government, there would have been no disorderly scene, and no all-night sitting. "The Secretary for War volunteered no explanations, and each Opposition speaker was harassed by the noisy interruptions which have disgraced certain Members of the Irish Party daring the present Session, and which pass wholly unrebuked by the leaders of the Government." At the same time, we regret the incident, as it gives colour to the absurd cry of Obstruction. Unless Parliament has ceased to be a, delibera- tive assembly, there has been no real Obstruction this Session.
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