Mr. Gibson, formerly the Tories' Attorney-General for Ire- land, made
a very moderate speech at Bristol on Monday, in criticism on the Liberal policy for Ireland. (He referred, by the way, to the assassination of Wheeler as if it were an agra- rian assassination, and might almost as well have assumed that the murder of Mr. Anstie, at St. Alban's, was an agrarian murder.) He reproached the Government for not renewing the Peace Preservation Act,—which the late Government showed no sort of intention to renew, and which, if re- newed in any shape, certainly in the shape in which it was last• in force, would have had about as much effect in extinguishing the Land League as a boy's squirt would have in extinguishing a. great London fire. But Mr. Gibson was very courteous and moderate in his criticism. He knows the difficulty of the situation, and he does not feel sorry, we dare say,. that the Tories are out of it. But he cannot help suggesting that the policy of the present Government is weak, though he has nothing to suggest, except the renewal of the totally in- applicable Peace Preservation Act,—that is, a mere empty flourish of a stick in the air.
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