Mr. Courtney made an able and thoughtful, but rather menacing,
speech at Liskeard yesterday week, in relation chiefly to the Irish policy of the Government. On foreign policy, he supported them heartily. In relation to Afghan affairs, he urged an immediate evacuation of Candahar. And he maintained that the Cape Colonists should be left to the full responsibility of the needless war into which they had plunged, without our sanction or approval. But in respect to Irish affairs, he showed a disposition to be hostile to the Government. He thought the terrorism in Ireland ought to be put down. He thought the disarming sections of the Westmeath Act, and those giving the police power to prohibit nocturnal gatherings and to arrest persons lurking behind hedges, should have been re-enacted. On the other hand, he disapproved of the prosecutions for con- spiracy, and treated them as the enforcement of a law in Ireland which we had repealed for England,—in which he was certainly mistaken. The law punishing a conspiracy to encourage and bring about acts otherwise unlawful was never repealed for England, and is as valid as ever. On the Irish Land policy, Mr. Courtney was clear for what are called the "three F's,"— fair rent, fixity, and free sale ; but if he is really going to insist on coercion as a condition precedent of reform, he is prepared to render a salutary policy impossible from the very beginning.
