Mr. S. H. Butcher, M.P., in proposing a resolution pro-
testing against the encouragement given to cattle-driving by the Government, said it was not with them a question of dis- crediting a Government. What they wished was to make the lives of Irishmen and Irishwomen less miserable than they were in many parts of the country. " The issue and the question was this Was Mr. Birrell to be believed or were the Judges Mr. Birrell with his facile flow of party speech, or the Judges speaking with all the responsibility of office ? " Mr. Butcher alluded with fine scorn to the Chief Secretary's pitiable reason for disapproving of cattle-driving,—not because it was lawless, dishonest, demoralising, and often inhumanly cruel, but because it " threw great difficulties in his path," and interfered with his party plane. The whole of the Liberal Administration, especially under Mr. Birrell, was marked by this characteristic, that while professing to administer the Act of Union, the Government were doing all they could to undermine the Union. "That was what came of having a Home-rule policy without daring to bring forward a Home- rule measure." It will tax all the resources of Mr. Birrell's nonchalance to disregard so weighty an impeachment of his methods.
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