Mr. Yorke's use of the second rule yesterday week to
get up a discussion on the so-called Treaty of Kilmainham was, in our opinion, a gross abuse of the terms of the rule. He asked leave to move the adjournment of the House, for the purpose of dis- cussing " a definite matter of urgent public importance," the fact being, as every one knew, that it was an indefinite matter, of no public importance at all, and as much the opposite of " urgent " as anything could be. Nevertheless, the Opposition stood up in a body to demand the adjournment, and the discus- sion came off with the only conceivable result,—i.e., none at all except a waste of an hour and a half or more of the time of the House. As there never was any Kilmainham Treaty, or any- thing of that nature, the House might just as well have de- manded an adjournment to discuss, as a " definite matter of urgent public importance," " the hunting of the Snark."
