The third reading of the Irish Land Bill was carried
in the House of Commons on Friday week, by a majority of 206 (220 to 14), the minority consisting of a few irreconcilable Tories, like Lord Elcho, amongst whom we note, with surprise and regret, Sir Henry Holland. The debate was remarkable only for one of Lord Randolph Churchill's crows of defiance, for which he was promptly set down by Mr. G. Russell, M.P. for Aylesbury, who, in a very amusing speech, compared Sir Stafford Northcote's parental anxieties to those of Eli, who, by injudicious indulgence of his children in early youth, had fostered in Hophni and Phinehas a dis- obedience which was afterwards ineradicable ; and he described Lord R. Churchill as having a taste for light comedy and farce, which he acted generally to the pit and the gallery, but in a manner to stamp him as a first-rate actor of third- rate parts. Mr. R. Power subsequently created something of a " scene," by warmly denying to the Government any credit for the Irish Land Bill, which he ascribed entirely to the Land League ; and further accusing the Government, on the authority, as he declared, of Mr. Litton, of having refused to receive any of the Irish independent Members in a deputa- tion,—a charge which, of course, turned out to be wholly groundless, both Lord R. Grosvenor and Mr. Gladstone de- claring that no such orders or suggestions as were imputed to them had ever passed their lips, or, indeed, been brought in any way before their minds. On the division, a group of the most bitter of the Irish Party walked out of the House, but no Irish- man voted against the Land Bill.
