The members of the various branches of the National Radical
Union at Birmingham were invited to a garden-party at Highbnry on Saturday last, and were there addressed by Mr. Chamberlain, who made a gallant defence of the Irish Crimes Act, declaring that its passing has not given, in his belief, " one-moment's appre- hension to any loyal subject of the Queen, or to any Irishman who did not either himself desire to carry out acts of outrage or dis- order, or who was not willing to see them carried out by others." He thought the Government had made an error in policy in proclaiming the National League, though he thought so only apparently because he bad been assured by an Irish landlord that in his part of the country the League was falling into dis- credit and the farmers refusing to pay their subscriptions to it, and that this landlord believed that the proclamation of the League by the Government under the Crimes Act would revive its influence. We are afraid that Mr. Chamberlain's informant was acting on experience of a very limited character.
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