suppose half the population of Ireland are cultivators of the soil; but unfortunately they are what are called tenants at will. The owners for generations past, with sundry exceptions which need not be mentioned, have done nothing for the cultivation of the soil. They have let the land at a given rent, and twice a year at least they have received the rent; and that is the chief part of the duty they have performed as regards their land. On the other hand, the tenants have done very little compared with what they might have done, though quite as much as could be expected from people who had no security for anything they might do. Thus the industry, the fortune, the home, the life itself of the cultivating population have been at the mercy of the owner of the land and of his agents who had the management of his property. And there is another point -the owners are not the same people as the occupiers. I think that Mr. Huxley, who is a great authority, denies altogether and I have no wish to dispute what he saysthat there is any difference of race between the people of Ireland and the people of England. I hope that is true. I have always been of opinion that if there were any difference of race, the difference of condition arises ten thousand times more from a difference of treatment, from a difference of politics and law, than from any difference of race. the occupiers and owners mostly differ very much also in religion; and although there is no reason why a Protestant landowner and a Catholic tenant, or a Catholic landowner and a Protestant tenant, might not be the best friends, yet, when we have had a perpetual war for two hundred years in Ireland on this very question of Protestantism and Catholicism, you may be quite sure that that has done something to poison the relations between the owner and the occupier of the soil. Then this proprietary right in Ireland has its origin mainly in confiscation, and has been created and was only to be justified by conquest. And in addition to the original evil, the proprietors had not sense enough to see that that evil was sufficient for them, but they added to it a hundred years of the most odious cruelty and persecution during the existence of the penal laws. Therefore the original grievance was made ten times more bitter than it would otherwise have been by the persistent folly of the proprietary class, working as they did through But 1869.] SPEECH OF MR. BRIGHT. 381 a corrupt parliament in Ireland, and also through the governing power in Great Britain. 'Now in Ireland, as I daresay most of you know, land is not only the great industry, but, with some exceptions in the north of Ireland, it is almost the only industry of the country, and there has been an excessive competition for it; and the struggle for life and the means of living has placed the occupier almost at the mercy of the proprietor of the soil. Thus we have gone on through suspicion and hatred and wrong, and a social war has been waged in some parts of the bitterest and most painful character; and at last parliament is called in, not merely to give any kind of right or justice to the tenants themselves, but it may be to secure the interests and the property of the proprietors of the land. I do not know myself whether, if I were an Irishman, I should be more anxious for legislation as a tenant than I should be for legislation as a landlord. I think it absolutely necessary for the united kingdom that we should, if possible, put an end to the reign of discord in Ireland, and take away from us the disgrace of maintaining order by an armed force of police and military, I suppose seldom falling lower than 30,000 men. I consider this Irish landquestion one of the greatest and most difficult that was ever considered by an administrator, or that ever was submitted to a parliament. 'My views on it have been explained in this hall in past times; and it will not be necessary, nor would it be right, for me to go into any details with regard to it, when probably before the end of next month, whatever propositions the government may submit to the House of Commons will be fully and freely explained to all the people of the three kingdoms. But if I might say a word to people who are apt to criticise very much everything which a government does-I do not ask them to approve beforehand, but I ask them merely to give to the propositions, whatsoever they may be, that same solemn and conscientious consideration which I believe these propositions have received, and will receive, from the members of the government. This is not a question for party. I have no objection to as much party as you like when the time is fitting for it; but under the present condition of Ireland, I should say that a party fight was an unpatriotic fight. I say that it is not a question for class and party contest; it is a question for conscientious patriotism; and every man should consider it as though the prosperity, the peace, and the unity of the empire depended on its wise solution. I have often spoken upon this Irish question here and elsewhere. I blamed the leaders of parties in the House of Commons three years ago. Four years ago nearly, when the habeas-corpus act was suspended -I think in 1866-I blamed Mr. Gladstone, then the leader in the House of Commons of the ministry of Lord Russell; I blamed Mr. Disraeli, leading the opposition, because they did not, in some way or other, bring before the House propositions which should settle in some way what is understood to be the Irish question. But I knew then that it could not be dealt with fairly by an unreformed parliament. I laboured, as you know, much for reform; for I had great faith in a wider franchise and a freer representation. The Irish difficulty was to me one of that complicated and gigantic character that could never be dealt with by a class; it seemed to me to demand the will, and the sense of justice, and the power, which dwell only in a nation, for properly disposing of it. And now, when to a large extent the nation is called in; when every householder in every borough has a vote for his representative in parliament, I feel—it may be that I am over-sanguine-that great results are to follow from our legislation with regard to this great question. The imperial parliament can do just as much by way of legislation for Ireland, with its hundred Irish members, as an independent Irish monarchy or an Irish republic could do, or as could be done for Ireland if Ireland were one of the states of the great confederation of the West.' (A voice: 'No.') 'Some gentleman doubts that. I am not saying that it has done it or will do it; but I say that the imperial parliament, with a hundred honest representatives for Ireland on its benches, can do all this. What have we done? In conjunction with her representatives, we have already given to Ireland free churches and free schools, and I hope that before long we shall give them free land and a free vote. Ireland, as you well know, is not the most wealthy island in the world; but we can buy from her all she wishes to sell at a higher price than any other nation can give, and we can sell her all she wishes to buy at a lower price than 1869.] INCREASE OF PAUPERISM. 383 any other nation. We may fail; but I hope not. Good efforts, and honest efforts, often succeed. We propose, then, a new conquest of Ireland, without confiscation and without blood, with only the holy weapon of a frank and generous justice, which is everywhere potent to bring together nations that have been long separated by oppression and neglect. Now from this new policy we hope for great changes in Ireland,-not that Ireland is to be made a paradise, but that Ireland shall be greatly improved. It may be probably it is, or will seem like-the language of great exaggeration, if I quote the lines of Pope in one of the most exquisite poems in our language: "Then crime shall cease and ancient fraud shall fail, Peace o'er the realm her olive-wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend." I say that this may appear the language of great exaggeration; but if we are able to suppress conspiracy; if we are able to banish agrarian crime; if we can unbar the prisondoors; if we can reduce all excess of military force; if we can make Ireland as tranquil as England and Scotland now are, then at least, I think, we may have done something to justify the wisdom and the statesmanship of our time.' While the condition-of-Ireland question was thus at last receiving a full and enlightened attention, the conditionof-England question was demanding it no less imperatively. That pauperism, which the new poor-law seemed for the moment to have mastered, had for some time past been growing up again; and at the beginning of this year its increase in all parts of the kingdom, and especially in London, had become so portentous as to demand the careful and immediate attention of the government and the legislature. Returns made to the House of Commons, giving a comparative statement of the number of paupers of all classes (except lunatic paupers in asylums, and vagrants) in receipt of relief on the last day in each week,' showed that the number of persons in receipt of relief in England and Wales, from the first week in November, 1868, to the corresponding week in November, 1869, had risen from 6 In 936,680 to 955,483. This increase was entirely in the number of out-door paupers, that of in-door paupers having slightly diminished, and was still going on. other words, about five per cent. of the population of England was dependent upon the compulsory contributions of the rest; and there was good reason to fear that the proportion would soon become larger. Such a state of things demanded an investigation of its causes, and an endeavour to remove them. One remedy was obvious enough, and had often been strongly pressed-the remedy of emigration. It would transfer that labour which could not find employment in England to colonies in which it was greatly needed. But there was a serious difficulty in the way of the application of this remedy. Many of those who were reduced by the want of employment to the condition of paupers were accustomed to a kind of labour not required in the colonies. A Manchester weaver or spinner, for instance, would be a very helpless and useless being in the backwoods of Canada, or in the sheep-walks and gold-diggings of Australia; and it would be more for the interest of all parties concerned that he should wait at home for better times, than that he should be deported to a colony where he would be as helpless and dependent as in the mother country. The second session of the newly-reformed parliament was opened on the 10th of February, by commission. The royal message announced that a proposal would be made to the legislature to amend the laws relating to the occupation and acquisition of land in Ireland, in a manner adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the country, and calculated to bring about improved relations between the classes concerned in Irish agriculture, which collectively constituted the great bulk of the nation. The message also intimated that a bill had been prepared for the enlargement, on a comprehensive scale, of the means of national education. Two such measures must necessarily occupy a large share of the time devoted to legislation; nevertheless the message announced that other measures of great importance would be introduced by the government: bills for the improvement of the constitution and procedure of the superior tribunals both of original and appellate jurisdiction; for the settlement of the question of religious tests in the |