The Lords have rejected the Irish Compensation for Dis- turbance
Bill, by a majority of between 5 and 6 to 1. There voted for it 51 Peers, and against it 282,—majority, 231. This was partly due, no doubt, to the reports of the Irish harvest, which, especially as regards potatoes, is said to be one of splendid promise, the new and better sorts of seed potatoes having taken very kindly to the Irish soil. These reports diminished greatly the fears for the peace of Ireland which a fourth bad harvest would have stimulated to a very high point, and set a good many Peers at liberty to obey instincts which otherwise they might have thought it prudent to suppress. It is stated that while fifty-one Liberal Peers voted for the Govern- ment, no less than sixty-three Liberal Peers—including such deserters as Lord Sherbrooke and Lord Brabourne—voted with the Conservatives against the Government; so that on the Liberal vote alone the Bill was thrown out. The truth is, that on a question affecting rent, the House of Lords is about as impar- tial a tribunal as a House of Manufacturers would be on a question affecting the wages of their own artisans. Lord Derby warned them of this, and of the distrust with which they ought to regard their own judgment on such a subject,—but the warn- ing probably rather increased the relish with which they flung the Bill out.
