unable to pay their rents. This Bill was pressed through the House of
Commons with the utmost difficulty, and at an expenditure of time which
damaged the other work of the session, though the House continued to sit
into September. The Executive Government declared it to be necessary, in
order not only to relieve the misery of the people, but to secure the
tranquillity of the country. Nevertheless, the whole Tory party, and a
considerable section of the Liberal party, opposed it in the interests
of the Irish landlords, and of economic principles in general,
principles which (as commonly understood in England) it certainly
trenched on. When it reached the House of Lords it was contemptuously
rejected, and the unhappy Irish Secretary left to face as he best might
the cries of a wretched peasantry and the rising tide of outrage. What
was even more remarkable, was the coolness with which the Liberal party
took the defeat of a Bill their leaders had pronounced absolutely
needed. Had it been an English Bill of the same consequence to England
as it was to Ireland, the country would have been up in arms against the
House of Lords, demanding the reform or the abolition of a Chamber which
dared to disregard the will of the people. But nothing of the kind
happened. It was only an Irish measure. We relieved ourselves by a few
strong words, and the matter dropped.

It was in this session that the Liberal party first learnt what sort of
a spirit was burning in the hearts of Irish members. There had been
obstruction in the last years of the previous Parliament, but, as the
Tories were in power, they had to bear the brunt of it. Now that a
Liberal Ministry reigned, it fell on the Liberals. At first it incensed
us. Full of our own good intentions towards Ireland, we thought it
contrary to nature that Irish members should worry us, their friends, as
they had worried Tories, their hereditary enemies. Presently we came to
understand how matters stood. The Irish members made little difference