Mr. Balfour, in his reply to Sir William Harcourt, did
not attempt to deal exhaustively with the question of law, but con- tented himself by showing that Mr. Gladstone's Administration had acted upon exactly the same view of the Common-Law power to suppress meetings which was now held by the present Government. Would it be believed that the Government of which Sir William Harcourt was a member suppressed no less than 130 meetings under the Common Law P Sir William Harcourt's own speeches could be quoted justifying the suppression of meetings suppressed in this very way. When special powers were taken in the Coercion Act of 1882 to proclaim meetings, they were taken avowedly not to give a new power of stopping meetings, but to improve the existing machinery. That this was so could be illustrated by the fact that even after the conferring of the special powers, Lord Spencer actually proclaimed a meeting not under them, but under the Common Law. The Government were justified in considering that a meeting to be held under such auspices as that at Ennis, and in such a part of Ireland as the County Clare, would be fraught with danger to the public peace. Mr. Balfour concluded by far the ablest speech he has yet made in the House, with a defence of the action of the police at the Mitchelstown riot, with which we have dealt elsewhere.
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