Mr. John Morley has been speaking at Bristol this week.
His principal speech was made at the Colston Hall on Tuesday.
After dwelling on the trials at Maryborough for offences against the law in the Gweedore riot (to many of which the accused thought it prudent to plead guilty), and making a great grievance of the fact that a special jury was empanelled to try them, Mr. Morley asked how the Government could for very shame propose to extend the local liberties of Ireland as they had promised to do, at the very time when they were suspending the Guardians of the Poor in the Cork Union on the ground that they have refused to administer the existing law. Referring to the proposed Land-purchase measure, he also pressed the question how the poor peasants in the West, who could not make a living even if they had their petty holdings rent-free, are to be compelled to migrate or emigrate by a Government which has no hold over the sympathies of Ireland, and which will be resisted by the local priesthood instead of supported by them. We should be inclined to reply that any Government, Home-rule or otherwise, which touched the emigration problem would meet with a vehement resistance from the priesthood, a resistance only to be overcome by getting at the individual peasants who want to go, and enabling them to go, whether the priests like it or not; and that this is much more likely to be done successfully by such a Govern- ment as Mr. Balfour's, than by any Government which Mr. Parnell could form. For Mr. Parnell dare not offend the priests, while Mr. Balfour cannot offend them more than they- are offended already.
