NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TN the House of Commons yesterday week, the consideration 1 of the Lords' amendments to the Land Bill gave rise to a serious hitch. Mr. Parnell made a vehement attack on the Lords' amendment requiring the Land Commissioners to abate the rents in each district in which judicial rents had been settled before1886, in proportion to the fall of prices. He maintained that this rule would not give nearly enough abatement in some districts, and too much in others. That probably is very true ; but as this clause embodies an essentially rough-and-ready method of alleviating a temporary difficulty, and it would be absolutely impossible to go into the conditions of each judicial rental settled before 1886 individually, the instruction to the Commissioners must neces- sarily lay down a palliative, and not a complete remedy. And it would be simply absurd to leave the Commissioners without definite instruction as to the principle on which they are to compute the abatements.
