28 MAY 1892, Page 1

The Opposition sustained a smashing defeat on Tuesday. They hoped

that the second reading of the Irish Local Government Bill would be carried by only a small majority, and Mr. Gladstone made a great effort to prove it to be a failure. In a speech full of his old energy, he denounced the Bill as a fraud, in which the Government had seemed to concede local liberties, but had borrowed every restrictive clause from the English and Scotch Bills, and made them worse. He especially objected to the right of appeal to a Joint Committee, which he described as a committee of landlords—is it a crime, then, to own Hawarden P—and to the power, confided to two Judges, of abolishing a Council on the suit of twenty taxpayers, if it is guilty of that "undefined" offence, "oppression." The measure was, he considered, an effort to fulfil in form but evade in reality the pledges of the Government, and even regarded in that light, was the "refuse of political legislation." The speech was considered a splendid one by Gladstonians ; but, as we have pointed out elsewhere, it bad this radical defect, that it soothed dis- contented Tories into voting for the Bill. They dread the weakness, not the strength, of Irish "guarantees." When the division was taken, therefore, the second reading was carried by 339 to 247, a majority of 92, in the fullest House of the Session. The Gladstonians were aghast, apprehending, justly we think, that the electors would recognise in such a vote both the strength and the determination of the Unionists.