The firmness of the Government in insisting on the Lords'
amendments will, we hope and believe, be followed up by a proclamation of the National League in the manner anticipated by Colonel Saunderson in his speech at Ramsey on Wednesday. That is, they will probably proclaim the League under Clause 6, and under Clause 7 suppress, in any district, branches of the organisation where the action of the League is found to be detrimental to the public" peace, freedom of contract, and liberty of action. This is the most judi- cious way in which the anti-social operations of the League could be suppressed without interfering with its political action, which, so far as it proceeds by constitutional means, it is not desirable to hinder. The Pall Mall Gazette of yesterday declares that the Liberal leaders must now force on a dissolution at any cost ; but the Liberal leaders will probably think three times before deciding on a course of action that will set the whole country against them. What is the excuse for such a step P It is that in a Bill which is confessedly, and on the admission of the Parnellites themselves, a great boon to the Irish tenants, the Lords have been allowed to introduce two alterations which are believed by the Parnellite Party to diminish considerably that boon. And of these, the more important only embodies the assumption on which nine advocates of the Bill in every ten argued the measure while it was in the House of Commons. A more ridiculous notion than refusing the supplies,—and that is, we suppose, the only way to force a dis- solution,—because the House of Lords have made two very mild alterations in a Bill conferring vast benefits on the Irish tenant, we never heard of. It would ruin all the prospects of the Liberal leaders, and we are quite sure that they will not do that.
