In the House of Lords on Wednesday Lord Midleton moved
that Mr. John Fitzgibbon should be removed from the Con- gested Districts Board. The facts of the case are very simple. Mr. Fitzgibbon was appointed to the Board by Mr. Birrell, in spite of the fact that he was a violent Nationalist partisan, who claimed to have introduced cattle-driving into Roscommon. and boasted that they would force the ranchers off the plains of Roscommon. Nor did he change his tune after his appoint- ment to the Board, which, as the purchasing authority in seven counties, can set in motion the machinery for compulsory ex- propriation established by Mr. Birrell's Act. Last December he made a speech at Williamstown attacking a landlord, for which he was reproved by Mr. Birrell, and promised to be more careful in future. But within a few weeks be made another speech in which the Chief Secretary declared that he was "as bad as ever." The Minieterialists who spoke on Wednesday admitted that his utterances had been extremely improper and quite indefensible, but, on the ground that what Lord Lansdowne truly described as his "scandalously improper appointment" will come up for recommendation in three years' time, Lord Crewe announced that they would give hint another chance. It has doubtless appealed to Mr. Birrell's magnanimity that it was Mr. Fitzgibbon who, in the palmy days of cattle-driving, appealed to the cattle-drivers to give Mr. Birrell a chance. Meantime the motion was carried by 95 to 36, or a majority of 59.
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