before the Land Act of 1881, namely, the Act for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church, and the Act of 1870 for the amendment of the system of land tenure in Ireland. It will be convenient to give a separate treatment in this place to Mr. Bright's addresses upon Irish questions during the years above mentioned.

At the commencement of the year 1866, Ireland, from her unhappily disturbed condition, occupied a prominent position in the public eye. The Fenian conspiracy, which in the preceding year had occasioned much disquietude, still occupied the full attention of the Irish Executive. Frequent arrests and seizures of arms were made, and great alarm was felt in certain districts by the loyal portion of the community. The Government, unable to suppress disaffection by ordinary means, were driven on the assembling of Parliament to propose the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. As the measure was very urgent, the two Houses met on Saturday, the 17th of February, for the purpose of carrying the necessary bill through its various stages, in order that it might come into operation on the following Monday, the 19th.

Sir George Grey introduced the measure in the House of Commons, citing facts which had come to the knowledge of the Executive in its justification. He read extracts from articles in the Irish papers, and from documents seized by the police, showing that the object of the conspirators was to wrest

Ireland from the British Crown, and that men, arms, and money were to be supplied from America for that purpose. Irish-American emissaries were dispersed throughout the country, swearing in members, endeavouring to seduce the troops from their allegiance, and holding out false hopes of material assistance from the United States Government. The Lord Lieutenant (Lord Wodehouse) had reported that the disaffection of the population in certain counties, such as Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, and Dublin, was alarming, and every day it was spreading more and more throughout the country.

Mr. Bright, following Mr. Disraeli, expressed the shame and humiliation which he felt at being called on for a second time in a Parliamentary career of twenty-two years to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. Yet he did not believe that the Secretary of State had overstated his case for the purpose of inducing the House to consent to his proposition. He believed that if the majority of the people of Ireland, counted fairly out, had their will, and if they had the power, they would unmoor the island from its fastenings in the deep, and move it at least two thousand miles to the west. And he believed, further, that if by conspiracy, or insurrection, or by that open agitation to which alone he ever would give any favour or consent, they could shake off the authority, he would not say of the English Crown, but of the Imperial Parliament, they would gladly do so.

Few statesmen have spoken so generously of the

Irish people as Mr. Bright, and he now went on to say: An hon. member from Ireland a few nights ago referred to the character of the Irish people. He said, and I believe it is true, that there is no other Christian nation with which we are acquainted amongst whom crime of the ordinary character, as we reckon it in this country, is so rare as it is amongst his countrymen. He might have said, also, that there is no people-whatever they may be at home-more industrious than his countrymen in every other country but their own. He might have said more; that they are a people of a cheerful and joyous temperament. He might have said more than this; that they are singularly grateful for kindnesses shown to them, and that of all the people of our race they are filled with the strongest sentiment of veneration. And yet, with such materials and with such a people, after centuries of government-after sixty-five years of government by this House-you have them embittered against your rule, and anxious only to throw off the authority of the Crown and Queen of these realms.' There was chronic insurrection in Ireland, and the causes of this he traced to the unjust legislation of the Imperial Parliament, which, since the Union, had passed many Coercion Bills, but only three really good measures for Ireland-the Catholic Emancipation Act, under the danger of civil war; the Poor Relief Act; and the Encumbered Estates Act, under the pressure of a terrible famine.

That there had been improved administration Mr. Bright admitted, but he denied that there had been any statesmanship shown in dealing with the Irish question, and he doubted whether any of the Ministers in his time had comprehended it. This he attributed in a large measure to the system of parties; and in the following eloquent passage he called upon Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli to suspend their contests for office, and to combine in an effort to ascertain the causes of Irish discontent and to apply a remedy:

'I put the question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is the only man of this Government whom I have heard of late years who has spoken as if he comprehended this question, and he made a speech in the last session of Parliament which was not without its influence both in England and in Ireland. I should like to ask him whether this Irish question is above the stature of himself and of his colleagues. If it be, I ask them to come down from the high places which they occupy, and try to learn the art of legislation and government before they practise it. I myself believe, if we could divest ourselves of the feelings engendered by party strife, we might come to some better result. Take the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is there in any legislative assembly in the world a man, as the world judges, of more transcendent capacity? I will say even, is there a man with a more honest wish to do good to the country in which he occupies so conspicuous a place? (Cheers.)

'Take the right hon. gentleman opposite, the leader of the Opposition is there in any legislative assembly in the world, at this moment, a man leading an Opposition of more genius for his position, who has given proof in every way but one in which proof can be given that he is competent to the highest duties of the highest offices of the State? Well, but these men-great men whom we on this side and you on that side, to a large extent, admire and follow-fight for office, and the result is they sit alternately, one on this side and one on that. But suppose it were possible for these men, with their intellects, with their far-reaching vision, to examine this question thoroughly, and to say for once, whether this leads to office and to the miserable notoriety that men call fame which springs from office, or not, "If it be possible, we will act with loyalty to the Sovereign and justice to the people; and if it be possible, we will make Ireland a strength and not a weakness to the British Empire." It

is from this fighting with party, and for party, and for the gains which party gives, that there is so little result from the great intellect of such men as these. (Cheers.) Like the captive Samson of old

"They grind in brazen fetters, under task,

With their Heaven-gifted strength;"

and the country and the world gain little by those faculties which God has given them for the blessing of the country and the world.'

Mr. Bright asked how it was that these eminent statesmen and their colleagues had not succeeded in making the Irish as loyal to the Crown as the English. He and those who thought with him had been charged by members in that House, and by writers in the press, with dislike to the institutions and even disloyalty to the dynasty which ruled in England. There can be nothing more offensive, nothing more unjust, nothing more utterly false. We who ask Parliament, in dealing with Ireland, to deal with it upon the unchangeable principles of justice, are the friends of the people, and the really loyal advisers and supporters of the throne.' The hon. gentleman next pointed out that the fact of Fenianism having to some extent a foreign origin aggravated the present difficulty, and he asked why Englishmen and Scotchmen, when they emigrated, did not, like Irishmen, carry with them an inveterate hatred to the Government and institutions of the land of their birth. He declared that it was not in human nature to live content under such institutions as existed in Ireland, and when this insurrection was suppressed there would still remain the seeds of another crop of disaffection. He believed there was