Mr. Gladstone's speech began with a repudiation of the notion
that even if his Government had proclaimed meetings under the Common Law, which he did not admit, this was any defence in the present case. "if we tampered with the law, so mach the worse, and so much the more necessary it is that the practice of the Executive should be brought back to the law." Mr. Balfour had not chosen to meet a speech "made up in great part of citations from the highest legal authorities," bnt had relied upon the action of former Governments, as if such action could have made legal what was illegal. In the ease of the Ennis meeting, Mr. Balfour had not shown that there was any good reason to prohibit the meeting. Mr. Gladstone, leaving the subject of the Ennis meeting, criticised the action of the police at Mitchelstown. Mr. Balfour should have "these things searched and probed to the very bottom," and till he had done so should not have committed himself to a defence of the police. As it was, he had "identified himself with every one of these proceedings," and so "bad done all he could to bias a judicial inquiry." Mr. Gladstone, having discussed the details of the riot as told in the Standard, and expressed his opinion that the police were to blame, ended by declaring that the policy of the present Government was aimed "at the liberty of the Press, at the liberty of the subject, and at the liberty of public meeting." The debate, which was enlivened by a powerful speech from Lord Randolph Churchill, defending the action of
the police as prima-facie justifiable, was concluded by a motion for the adjournment of the House, which was defeated by a majority of 141, the numbers being,—for the Government, 228; and for the Opposition, 87.
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