King Influenza has come to the help of the Land-purchase
Bill. The Members have a notion that there is something or other in the air of the House specially favourable to influenza microbes, and consequently want their Whitsuntide holiday to be as long as possible. Mr. W. H. Smith on Thursday there. fore assented to the general desire, provided the Bill got out of Committee, and by dint of a long sitting, some self- suppressions, and the postponement of some contentious matter to the Report stage, this has been accomplished. The remainder of the fighting will, it is believed, be over various
proposals intended to give little tenants an advantage in borrowing over big tenants, none of which Ulster likes. The Government, which also wants to be rid of the little tenants first, will probably hit on an acceptable compromise, and the " im- possible " Bill will pass, and pass in good time, too. It is sad to think that Mr. Bright will not see it. Mr. Balfour and his colleagues deserve every credit for placing statesmanship above caste-feeling, and for enormous labour over details ; but the central thought of the Bill, that tenant-proprietorship is in Ireland the only cure for the agrarian war, was Mr. Bright's. He, almost alone among Englishmen, saw that among pessimist peasants no tenure which allowed of eviction for rent would give the desired sense of permanent security.
