So, again, in relation to the verdicts of Coroners' juries,
Mr. Balfour said that, so far as he could judge, Mr. Gladstone
was very angry with him for pouring contempt upon Irish Coroners' juries when thay had convicted the innocent, but had no objection to himself pouring contempt upon a Coroner's jury if it acquitted the innocent. He dealt with the case of Dunne's eviction, and showed Mr. Gladstone's inaccuracy in regard to it; he accused Mr. Gladstone of confounding the Crimes Act of 1882, under which, when the Lord-Lieutenant proclaimed a meeting as unlawful, there was no appeal to the Courts, with the Crimes Act of 1887, under which the appeal remains, and said that Mr. Gladstone had assailed him for what he had not done, but what Mr. Gladstone's own Irish Secretary had done. " Can anything equal the unblushing impudence of this pro- ceeding ? And as if ordinary oratorical artifice were not enough to rise to the height of this great theme, Mr. Glad- stone actually brings in the name of the Almighty, in order- to emphasise his horror at the deprivation of rights to which Irishmen have been subjected, not by me, but by him." With a little more magnanimity, Mr. Balfour, masterly as his speeches are, would be a vast deal more impressive,—at least, to those who most need to be impressed.
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