Jan.
Tue debate in the House of Lords on the second reading of the Home Rule for Ireland Bill was marked by some remarkable speeches. In 1893 Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was debated by the peers with even more vehemence than was shown on this occasion. That Bill was thrown out by a majority of 378. Out of a total roll call of 560, there was an attendance of 419 and only 41 peers were found bold enough to vote in its favour. The more recent Bill was carried by a majority of 89 and amongst those voting against it were some who opposed it, not because it offered too much to Ireland, but because it did not go far enough.. Even those who love the House of Lords least must confess that like Galileo's i does move and its friends will say that like the cosmos its movements are coordinared and dignified. Be that as it way the passage of the Bill shows that even those who are usually regarded as the most oonvative legislative body in the British Empire are anxious to do Iveland justice. And the fact that some peers were willing to go further than the Bill actually a proof that if, this re were accepted with a modicum of good will, whatever defects it has—and in so large a measure it is inevitable that there should be some blemishes—would be rectified when its administration revealed them. But in the present deplorable condition ut Ireland there is little hope that the bill wilk be given even the semblance of a trial. For the present the irreconcilables are in the saddle. Ruthless and cowardly murder and ferocious reprisals alternate like the ebb and flow of a ghastly tide. All Sinn Feiners are not assas-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.