In another speech, Lord Salisbury compared the difficulties of the
Government in getting its votes and measures through the House of Commons in the face of the Irish obstructionists, to what they would be in case it were their duty to put down smuggling, and that every time that a smuggler was seized, the Opposition made the House of Commons ring with denunciation. " Suppose that every time an officer of the Crown showed his zeal in the detection or punishment of smuggling, he should be the object of the most violent and most injurious calumnies which the spirit of party or faction could devise, do not you think that the difficulties of the Government in putting down smuggling under such circum- stances would be very serious P Every time there was a vicissitude,—which in English political life there will be,— every time there seemed to be some cloud threatening the existence of the Government, the spirit of the smugglers would revive, and they would say,' Here is a Government coming into office that is favourable to smuggling ; if we only hold on and defy the law, a good time will come when every- body shall smuggle as he likes." That is a happy illustra- tion, because there is in reality no moral superiority at all in the " Plan of Campaign " to ordinary smuggling. Indeed, we think a better case could be made out for the right of individuals to ignore financial statutes, than to ignore private contracts into which the contractors have freely entered to pay rent.
