in Parliament which you conferred upon me a month ago is now vacant. I need not tell you how greatly I value your good opinion, and how much I hope that in again becoming a member of the Government I have in no degree forfeited it. In one of my speeches during the week before the last election, I told you that in the month of April we should have a new Parliament, in the month of May a new Government, and that by the month of June it would be seen that the nation had accepted and adopted a new policy. I hope and believe the change we have witnessed will tend to the honour of the Crown and to the welfare of the people. Whether in office or out of it, I shall endeavour to serve you faithfully.'

The two Ministers were re-elected for Birmingham on the 7th of May, without opposition.

CHAPTER XVI.

PUBLIC QUESTIONS-1880-81.

Mr. Bright on the Pacification of Ireland.-Speech at Birmingham.-Scheme for the Reform of the Irish Land Laws.-Mr. Bright on the Rise of Nonconformity. The Session of 1880.-Mr. Bradlaugh and the Oath.-Mr. Gladstone proposes the appointment of a Select Committee.-Appeal by Mr. Bright.-A Committee appointed.-Its Decision. Further Debates in the House.-Eloquent Speech by Mr. Bright.-Arrest and Release of Mr. Bradlaugh.-Further History of this Legislative Difficulty.-Mr. Bright on Capital Punishment.-On the Representation of Minorities.He is elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University.-Mr. Bright at Birmingham.-Address on Irish Affairs.-The House of Lords and the Compensation for Disturbance Bill.-Necessity for a good Land Reform.Corresponding with Lord Carnarvon. Mr. Bright on International Arbitration.-Address from French Liberals on the Transvaal WarFree Trade and Reciprocity.-Letters from Mr. Bright.-Local Option in the House of Commons.-Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Resolution carried.-Irish Questions in the Session of 1881.-The Coercion Bill.-Speech of Mr. Bright. The Land League Agitation.-Mr. Gladstone introduces the Land Bill.-Mr. Bright at the Fishmongers' Banquet.-Observations on the Land Bill.-Debate on the Condition of the Agricultural Labourers in Ireland. Mr. Bright's Views on the Question.-Second Reading of the Land Bill.-Mr. Bright's Speech.-Ministers at the Mansion House.-The Land Bill passes the Lords and becomes Law.

ONE of the greatest objects to which Mr. Bright has devoted himself during his long political career has been, as we have had abundant occasion for seeing, the pacification of Ireland. Early in 1880, he once more exhibited his earnestness on this question. On the 24th of January the members for Birmingham met their constituents in the Town Hall, and on the motion of Mr. J. S. Wright, seconded by Mr. Alderman Collings, a vote of renewed confidence was passed in them.

Mr. Bright's speech in reply was almost entirely devoted to the Irish question. After remarking what England had been doing abroad, while she had neglected her own people near home, he said that fourteen years ago, when speaking in Dublin, he had quoted a question put in the Parliament of Kilkenny, How comes it to pass that the King is never the richer for Ireland? The question originally put five hundred years ago, and repeated fourteen years ago, still pressed for an answer. This he found in the condition of the land question in Ireland, a condition differing from anything in any other

country in the world. It was true that the laws in Ireland with regard to the land were as nearly as possible the same as in England. But evil laws might work much more mischief in one country and under one state of things than the same laws would in another country with another state of things. Great industries had grown up in England to correct the evil of the feudal system of land; and in these industries the people, divorced from the land by reason of the feudal laws, had found a fresh resource. In Ireland there were something over twenty millions of acres of land, and 292 persons owned nearly onethird. The whole of the proprietors in Ireland were ten or twelve thousand in number, while the tenant farmers were 600,000. There were therefore nearly three millions of people who were mostly tenants at will, liable to have their rents raised and to be ejected at the will of the landlord. Of these landlords a very large proportion were absentees, who spent their rents in London or Paris, or elsewhere out of Ireland.

Mr. Bright asked whether there was any remedy for the state of things which existed in Ireland. Two had been offered from Ireland: one proposed fixity of tenure with terms to be settled by a third party acting between landlord and tenant; while by the other fixity of tenure was secured by means of a permanently settled rent which the landlord was to receive, and there his connection with the land was to end, the tenant remaining for ever, or as long as this rent was paid, in the position of absolute owner. These schemes he dismissed as being inconsistent with sound principles. He himself was against sudden and heroic remedies. But, the right hon. gentleman continued, two things he would do:

First of all, I would absolutely stop, by withdrawing all encouragement, the formation of great estates. I would say that when a man owning land died without a will, his land should be subject to exactly the same rule of division which is now applied to personal property. Well, then I would put an end to the system of entail, by which it would be rendered impossible to tie up land, through the man who lies quietly in the churchyard not having had the power of determining for long after he was dead the ownership of the estate which he himself had possessed. I would so legislate that every present generation should be the absolute owners of the land, and the next generation should be the absolute owners; but neither this nor the next should be able to

dictate to future generations who should own it. I would have the compulsory registration of all landed property, so that it would be easy, at the expense of only a few shillings or pounds, to transfer a farm or an estate from one to another by an absolutely legal and definite sale. These are things that are done elsewhere, and they ought to be done here just as easily if you would only lay hold of the landed proprietor, and lay hold of the lawyer. They tell me that this is a very difficult thing to do; but it has been done elsewhere, and it must be done here. Nay, more, if you and others like you will speak out, it shall be done here.'

Mr. Bright's second proposal he described as a mode by which the occupying tenantry, in thousands and thousands of cases, might in a very short time be made, not occupying tenants, but occupying landowners-positive owners of their farms. He admitted that the purchase clauses of Mr. Gladstone's Land Act of 1870 had been, with few exceptions, a failure; and gave the reasons for this. After passing an eulogium upon the labours of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre as a member of the Committee appointed by the House of Commons, of which Mr. Bright himself was one, the right hon. gentleman said that that Committee found it was necessary to change the Act of 1870-to establish instead of the Landed Estates Court a separate, independent, and powerful Commission for the purpose of doing this great work amongst the tenantry of Ireland. The proposition was, that if any man wished to buy a farm which his landlord or anybody else was disposed to sell, the Treasury would find a certain portion of the money-it might be two-thirds or three-fourths. The transaction being completed, the farmer goes on paying his rent to the Commission, which is the interest on the money that he has borrowed from them; and after thirty-five years he has paid all the interest and all the principal of the advance made by the Treasury, and the farm becomes his own as long as he chooses to keep it. Now, I want the Government-the Parliament -to pass a law which shall compel the London Companies, for example, who are the owners of great estates in the county of Londonderry, to sell their estates under an Act of this kind. I want, also, that the Commission to be appointed should have the power of taking over absolutely any estate offered them for sale which they might think a desirable estate, so that, having it in possession, as the Church Commission had their lands in possession, they might hand it over to various tenants who were willing to buy it. I don't want a Commission to go there and sit down with good salaries to do nothing. They should have a suitable staff; they should have a good lawyer on it, and men thoroughly acquainted with the condition of the land and the people in Ireland; and they should advertise and let all the Irish tenantry know that the Imperial Government has sent them to Dublin, not for the purpose of opening an office and giving salaries-establishing a new system of patronage-but that they should go there and hold out a helping hand to every honest, industrious tenant in Ireland who wishes to possess his farm; and that wherever his landlord was willing to help he would find them willing to give him a transfer.'

Mr. Bright said he believed if his plan were carried out they

would find many of the Irish proprietors, now living in England, would regard it as a great good to their country. Many of these noblemen and gentlemen had no interest whatever but in the prosperous condition of Ireland, and they would be willing to aid in the transfer of estates to the tenantry, and to accept the fair and just compensation which the Government would offer to them. The right hon. gentleman thus concluded his address:

At present, what the Irishman wants upon his farm more than all else is to get rid of suspicion; to get rid of the fear of injury, of uncertainty as to his tenure; to have infused into his mind the opposite feelings of confidence and of hope. (Cheers.) If you would give to all Irish tenants that confidence and hope, every year would see them advancing in a better cultivation and a more prosperous condition. Does anybody say that hope is nothing and of no avail in the affairs of men? I might quote from the poet who has-what shall I say?-created almost an immortality for our language. He speaks of hope. He says

"White-handed Hope,

Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings."

(Loud Cheers.) Bring this hope into the Irish farmer's family, and into his household, and it will have an influence as complete, as blessed, and as homeruling as it will have in the mansions of the rich or the palaces of the great. (Cheers.) So far as I have seen Irishmen in their own country and in this, they are as open to good and kind treatment as any other people. They have been the victims of untoward circumstances, which all your histories describe. We-our forefathers-have subjugated them and maltreated them. We suffer in reputation; they suffer in their lives through the misdoings of the past. Let us now not be weary of the attempt to bring about a reformation in that country, which I believe would quell the suspicion, and quell the discontent, and banish the disloyalty which we all lament in Ireland. As to the present distress, I hope that the duty of the Government will not be neglected. I hope they have not spent so much in endeavouring to civilize Zulus and Afghans that they are not able to do something for their poor people nearer home. (Hear, hear.) I hope, Sir, the Government, in dealing with the Irish question, will deal with it frankly, and openly, and generously; and that they, as they are now under the pressure of the present distress, will open their hands to relieve the suffering people of the West,-that they will open their hearts, and their intellects too, to the further and the greater question of what shall be done for Ireland in the future.' (Applause.)

In the course of a brief second speech, Mr. Bright further remarked on the Irish question: We are coming, I presume, by all the indications and by the fact of a constitutional rule, which certain people cannot escape from-we are coming to the time of a general election. If Toryism were a good thing, Ireland would be in a prosperous condition; for there has not been a country in Europe, there has not been a population of this kingdom which has been for so long a period under the principles which Toryism is supposed to love, as Ireland itself.

It