Mr. Gathorne Hardy asked Mr. Gladstone in the House on.
Tuesday whether he intended to propose any legislative measure to remedy the evils reported by the Westmeath Committee, to- which Mr. Gladstone made the rather curious reply,—a reply which in its insouciance reminds us more of Lord John Russell,— " that it certainly was not in his power, or in that of his col- leagues, at the present moment to pay that degree of attention to the- report to which it was entitled," though he quite agreed in "what. appeared to be the animus of the question put to him, that it was not desirable that any time should be lost in relation to a matter of this description," Why, it is notorious that all the evidence contained in the report has been before the Cabinet for months back, and that attention to it ought to have been given long ago. We have remarked in another column on the strange inconsistencies of the Government in relation to this Westmeath Committee, and on the lesson of the by no means new type of evidence once more presented to the public.
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