The debate on the Evicted Tenants Bill was continued yesterday
week in the House of Commons. The most signifi- cant speeches being those of Mr. Harrington and Mr. W. Redmond, Parnellitee, and that of Mr. W. O'Brien, Anti-Par- nellite, from all of which it is painfully obvious that both sections of the Irish party are discontented with this Bill of Mr. Morley's, and agree in thinking that it can only be accepted as a step towards the measure which they desire, but cannot as yet enforce. They accept it pro Canto, but do not in the least expect it to effect that healing of the sore for which, in Mr. Morley's language, it is intended. On Monday the debate was resumed by Mr. Chamberlain in a most brilliant and masterly speech, in which he showed how contemptuously the Irish Daily Independent, the Parnellite journal, has spoken of this Bill as legalising the position of those " brigands," the " landgTabbers " of Ireland. Mr. Chamberlain declared that the policy of the Government is adapted to make the future payment of rent in Ireland a mere act of courtesy on the part of the tenant which the landlord has no right at all to demand. Mr. Morley had said that hardly any of the landlOrds were both enlightened and humane ; but could Mr. Morley main- tain that almost all the tenants of Ireland were enlightened, and that almost all the agitators were humane? In a most impressive passage, Mr. Chamberlain warned Parliament that it was making itself the largest landlord in Ireland, and yet that in the very act of doing so, it was trying to teach the tenant that if he refused to pay his rent, the man who came in to supersede him after his default would be reckoned a, mere "legalised brigand" for paying his rent according to his contract. A more massive and brilliant piece of political argument has hardly been uttered in the House of Commons for many years.
