On Thursday night there was a curious scene in the
House of Commons, in which nearly everybody except Lord Hartington put himself in the wrong. Mr. Lowther put himself in the wrong by the flippancy and bad tone of his answer to Mr. O'Connor Power about the recent land meeting in Mayo; Mr. O'Connor Power put himself in the wrong, by using his bare right to move the adjournment of the House, in order to reply to Mr. Lowther's answer; the Speaker even put himself in the wrong, by allowing Mr. Newdegate and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to speak—the latter at some length—on the conse- quences of Mr. O'Connor Power's disastrous precedent, while Mr. O'Connor Power was, by his own ruling, in possession of the House; Mr. Newdegate was wrong, in interrupting Mr. O'Connor Power to appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was wrong, in responding to the appeal. The truth is that Mr. Lowther has been irritating the Irish Members for a very long time ; that he was excessively irritating on Thursday to Mr. O'Connor Power; and that Mr. O'Connor Power used a right intended only for extreme cases in a case that was not at all extreme. Still, technically, he was in his right, and if, as is quite true, he were morally in the wrong, the remedy for that was in a distinct motion, with fair notice given. But the Government is a government of feeble fuss, and governments of feeble fuss make unscrupulous opponents.
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