After that threatening speech it was no wonder that the
Anti-Parnellitee did not dare to hold out any hope of a voluntary arrangement, nor that Mr. William O'Brien, last Tuesday, broke out into the most violent language against Irish landlords, deliberately intended, we should suppose, to prevent the offer of a compromise which some of their own party might have been otherwise inclined to accept. Mr. T. W. Russell, who, in his otherwise excellent speech, seems to us to have delivered a very unreasonable attack on Mr. Broderick's moderate, and, indeed, almost conciliatory lan- guage, perhaps because he wished to be sharply distinguished from the Irish landlords, pleaded in vain for a voluntary measure, and when even Mr. Dillon took up the question of compromise in a serious spirit, and spoke as if he wished to undo all the mischief that Mr. William O'Brien had done, it was, we suppose, too late. At all events Mr. Morley thought so and said so, though he tried to throw all the blame on the Opposition. Mr. Balfour did not speak, so perhaps he too thought it too late, and when the third reading was passed by a majority of 32 (199 to 167), the Bill went up to the Lords much as a condemned Anarchist goes up to the guillotine.
