The House of Lords had a discussion on Tuesday night
on the subject of Mr. Trevelyan's statement concerning the cruel and unpatriotic evictions going on in Ireland, a statement which Mr. Trevelyan has explained as meaning—nay, he refers to the words actually used by him, as not only having meant, but having expressly said—that evictions pressed at the present moment, to deprive Irish tenants of the advan- tages of the Arrears Bill, were cruel and unpatriotic to the Executive Government, as greatly increasing its difficul- ties in the present crisis. This statement was sharply criticised in the House of Lords on Tuesday, Lord Salisbury and Lord Dunraven taking virtually the side of the land- lords, whose difficulties, Lord Salisbury said, Mr. Trevelyan's words had done much to increase. Perhaps so, but the ques- tion is, whose difficulties just now best deserve our sympathy, —the difficulties of the wretched evicted tenants who are being- turned out of house and home in thousands, just in order that the landlords may escape the effects of the Arrears Bill, or the difficulties of the landlords who are evicting them ? The Con- servative Member for Carrickfergus, who is surely not a preju- diced judge, declared himself in the same sense as Mr. Trevelyan, and even more strongly. Lord Salisbury's sympathies, how- ever, always run with the land.
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