Lord Beaconsfield has clearly infuriated the Irish Members. Mr. Shaw,
the leader of the Home-rulers, and the most moderate man among them, asserts that no Ministry within his memory has done less for the content of Ireland, and declares that the Premier has misrepresented Home-rule, and sent his party forth " with a lie in their right hand." The Government has been reactionary on the land-tenure, and he calls on Irishmen to postpone every question to this, and to put out this Govern- ment. The advanced Home-rulers are even stronger, the Home- rule Confederation having put out a manifesto in which it calls the Premier's letter" a declaration of war upon " Ireland ; asserts that he has appealed to the worst prejudices and passions ; de- clares that every effort for Ireland has been crushed " by the brute strength of an insolent and unscrupulous Tory majority ;" denounces Lord Beaconsfield as " proclaiming civil war against the Irish people," because they are a minority ; and calls on all Irishmen "to vote against Benjamin Disraeli, as the mortal enemy of your country and your race,"—who "first crept into public life by begging the favour of the Irish Liberator." Let every Irishman oppose the " common enemy of the peace and concord of Ireland and Great Britain." The Irish are probably more irritated by the Premier's language at the opening of Par- liament than by his letter ; but that they are irritated to fury, is clear.
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