The debate on Thursday night was much more impressive. It
was opened by Mr. Bright, in one of the weightiest speeches which he has ever addressed to the House of Commons. He showed that the Government had protected the rights of small minorities by provisions far more scrupulous than any for which even the most fastidious of their critics clamoured, and that as for large minorities,—miuorities including the bulk of the Opposition,—they had never failed, and never could fail adequately, to protect their own right of exhaustive, and more than exhaustive, speech ; that for the Speaker of the House to ignore such large minorities was almost a physical impossi- bility, since they had repeatedly shown how theicould wreak their vengeance even on those of their own leaders of whose discretion they complained. And then, in a passage of great fire, which thrilled the whole House, Mr. Bright went on to point out that he neither asked nor expected the help of the little party which called itself the "Irish party," but which had asserted the right of declaring war on the Parliamentary institutions of the Empire, nay, even of conniving at conspira- cies directly treasonable, the object of which was to render the government of Ireland impossible, by degrading the great Parliament of which they were all Members.
