Mr. Courtney spoke in the Drill Hall at Peterborough on
Wednesday, in favour of Dr. Purvis, the Unionist candidate for the city, and put strongly and effectively the reasons for supporting a Unionist. We very much regret, however, to observe the welcome he gave to Mr. Morley's Bill for re- instating the evicted tenants in Ireland, and his apparently complete failure to understand how grievous an outrage it
would be upon the new tenants if the Bill passes in its present shape. He remarked that none of the new tenants are to be turned out if they wish to stay ; but he ignored altogether the means by which the expression of a wish to stay will be rendered almost as dangerous as dodging the fire of a file of soldiers. And he remarked that no landlord was to be forced to reinstate a tenant disagreeable to him, without considering that it might be still more disagreeable to him to be fired at from behind a hedge for objecting to his reinstate- ment. As we have argued at length elsewhere, it is monstrous to throw on those who are simply standing on their legal rights, the onus of publishing to all the world their objection to the drift of a popular demand. Mr. Courtney shows him- self quite out of touch with the agrarian temper of the dis- turbed districts in Ireland in this part of his speech.
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