The " message of peace" to Ireland, which it was
rumoured that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was to deliver last Monday, was perhaps rather amiable than otherwise, but tame, decidedly tame, as an evangel. The Irish Secretary proposes to give up a few very minute provisions for order in Ireland, but the only one of any importance, that authorising the summary seizure and sup- pression of newspapers, he proposes to ask for again at once, if the liberty accorded should be abused. The right of warning newspapers had only been used five times, and no newspaper had been seized under the powers given by the Act. Sir Michael Beach asks for a renewal of the restric- tions on the use of arms for five years, and he also retains the provision which empowers the police to arrest absconding wit- nesses, and which authorises the Government to employ extra po- lice, and to charge the extra police on the disturbed districts. The Life and Property Act—confined to Westmeath and its neigh- bourhood—is also to be continued for two years, though only fourteen persons have been arrested under it, and none since last June,—fifty magistrates of the county having agreed that the Riband conspiracy is as much alive as ever, and only in a state of suspended animation in consequence of the Act ; and the Unlawful Oaths Act is to be continued for two years likewise. Lord Hartington of course sustained the Government in pro- posing to continue any exceptional laws they thought needful for the peace of Ireland on their own responsibility, and the debate closed with a few ineffectual protests from Irish Members, —Lord Robert Montague (M.P. for Westmeath) threatening England with vaticinations of a day when England should need the help of Ireland, and should not get it. That is possible, cer- tainly. But should we get it if we repealed the various Coercion laws in Ireland altogether? Or should we be less likely than ever to get it then ?
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