In the House of Lords on Tuesday, a discussion was
taken on the second reading of the Arms Bill, which elicited some powerful speeches from Lord Northbrook, Lord Selborne, and the Duke of Argyll. Lord Northbrook showed that Lord Salis- bury's conduct last autumn in repudiating special measures for enforcing the law in Ireland was not by any means constitu- tionally so important as was supposed. The same thing had often been done before by Ministers who found it convenient to attract Irish votes,—in 1846, for example,—without that act of incon- sistency preventing the same Minister from asking at some future time for the powers he had declined. Lord Selborne made a very powerful speech in favour of protecting liberty, and declared that an intervention of the law which only puts down illegal coercion is essential to true liberty. And the Duke of Argyll quoted a threat actually addressed a few days ago by the Secre- tary of the National League in Ireland to the auctioneer of the Bankruptcy Court, declaring that if he let certain land which the Court had ordered him to let, his life would probably be in danger. That was not very appropriate to the discussion of an Arms Aot,—which hardly strengthens the law against in- timidation,—but it did affect the general question of the need in which Ireland stands of being protected against the irrecon- cileable party.
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