In the debate of Tuesday on the third reading of
the Arrears Bill, Lord Salisbury made a most extraordinary and, as we think, for his own policy, a most suicidal admission "There is no doubt," he said, "that an offer of 10s. in the pound will have the effect of effacing a vast amount of arrears all over Ireland ; there is no doubt that it will remove to a great extent the grievance you indicate. Even if it were true that it would lea,ve.a small residue which it did not remove, I should say that it would be very much to your wisdom to take uine.tenths of a loaf, rather thmehave no bread. But I do not believe that such a residue exists." 'En other words, he is prepared to throw Ireland into confusion, and. to declare war upon the House of Commons, for the sake of defending the rights of the land- lords in relation to claims in the existence of which, for all practical purposes, he has absolutely no belief at all. The Government declare their profound conviction that the social war between landlords and tenants cannot be healed by an optional measure; Lord Salisbury, on the other band, thinks that an optional measure will cover precisely the same ground as a. compulsory measure,—that there is nothing to choose between them, so far as regards the real effect, though the optional form reserves a certain number of abstract rights which have no concrete existence. Is that really a matter for which he thinks it decent to challenge the Government and the House of Commons to mortal combat, at a moment of peculiar difficulty to the Executive, both at home and abroad P If he does, the country will think him at best a Tory Quixote, and will remark that no Quixote can ever be a true Conservative.
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