strength. Let us now proceed to the consideration of a second. factor in the problem of the Irish situation at the present hour. What is the general position of the Irish party? And how is it affected by the change in the rules of the House of Commons? I may say at once, and in the most distinct terms, that these rules -in so far as it is allowable to pronounce any opinion on laws that have not as yet been brought into full operation-are effectual against Irish obstruction. To this should be added the statement that obstruction has largely helped to get for Ireland many of the great reforms of the last few years; and it would, therefore, be vain and childish to deny that an important parliamentary weapon is finally and regularly removed from the hands of the Irish parliamentarians. But in saying this I have used the words "finally and regularly," and these words suggest a most important qualification in considering the change in the Irish parliamentary position. For, as a matter of fact, obstruction had been disposed of before the introduction of the new rules at all. Obstruction would live as long-and no longer-as the House of Commons respected its own laws and traditions. These laws and traditions once broken with, obstruction could be easily put down. The first great obstructive fight against coercion by the Irish members was terminated by the speaker's coup d'état. The principle laid down by Sir Henry Brand was, that the occurrence of a grave parliamentary crisis justified him in closing the debate at a certain point arbitrarily, of his own motion, and without any consultation, much less vote of the House. The action of Dr. Lyon Playfair, the chairman of committees in the present year, carried the power of the chair to a still more advanced point. He suspended, it will be remembered, a number of the Irish members together, although some of them were absent and in bed at the time of the suspension, and although the greater number of them had distinguished themselves rather by their reticence than by their activity in opposing the coercion bill. The grounds of this extraordinary decision were, that the different members were acting together, and therefore responsible for each other's conduct; and the chairman further held that, though members might not be guilty of any one act that could be called obstructive, yet it might become obstructive by a series of acts extending over a number of nights. There may have been serious misgivings with regard to these acts of high-handed authority by the speaker and the chairman of committees, and the action of the latter was freely criticised in private at the time, and since has been openly condemned; but when the opinion of Parliament came to be taken, immediately after both, the one coup d'état and the other, the chair was supported by the House of Commons. These two judgments thus confirmed became, therefore, the law of

Parliament; and what did the law of Parliament then come to, so far as the Irish members were concerned? First, that the speaker could, in case of emergency, establish a clôture on the Irish members at such moment as he thought fit; and secondly, that the speaker or chairman of committees could suspend the Irish members en masse whenever their hostility to any particular measure extended over a longer number of nights than seemed convenient to the ministerial mind. Whether the members were present or absent, silent or garrulous, did not matter; if there was evidence of combination-and as the members form a party and act together as a party, there is always "evidence of combination "-if there was evidence of combination, they could all be held accountable for the actions of the others. The new rules, it will be known, surround the exercise of authority with limitations from which these authoritative decisions had left the chair free. The speaker can now call for the clôture, but his demand must be supported by a majority of the House; and while the power of suspension is left to the chair, it must be done individually, unless when a number of men in a body join in some act of disregard to the authority of the chair, such, for instance, as refusing in a body to enter the division lobbies, as was done on the night of the arrest of Mr. Davitt. In other words, constructive obstruction-the new offence created by Dr. Lyon Playfair-is entirely done away with.

These considerations are sufficient to show that obstruction had been met, and to a large extent beaten, before the introduction of the new rules; and in connection with this feature of the situation there is one other fact which deserves to be taken into serious account. Obstruction, as a protest against a particular measure, has been made unnecessary by the government for a considerable period to come. The last coercion act was passed for the space of three years. For three years to come the Irish members have no call upon them to offer fierce and prolonged opposition to any measure of the existing administration, and, therefore, for that space of time obstruction ceases to have one of its main uses. There are two other points which can be counted on in drawing up the favorable side in the estimate of the effect which the new rules will produce on the fortunes of the Irish party. The adoption of the clôture introduces a novel and in many respects by no means a pleasant feature into the parliamentary struggles of English parties. Up to the present hour, fierce as these struggles have been, they have been distinguished from those of some other lands by their general freedom from personal rancor or partisan fury. The fiercest of opponents in public were often the best of friends in private; toleration for differences of opinion was an axiom not merely of Parliament, but of the political life of all

England; and there was altogether that geniality of temper in politics which is, in their better moods, one of the best characteristics of Englishmen in most of their relations in life. But the forcible suppression of speech by one party of another is a measure that must produce bitterness of feeling, and its force will be increased by the fact that this novel rule in Parliament comes at the same time as the introduction of the caucus, the "machine," and other strange implements of party warfare. It is safe, I think, to make the inference from these facts that the virus of rigid and relentless partisanship has for the first time entered into the blood of the English parties, and their loss is our gain; when they are divided, we have some chance; when they are united, we are undone. This may put one of the many excellent reasons for that vote against the two-thirds clôture proposed by the Tories, which has exposed Mr. Parnell and his followers to so much senseless or dishonest attacks. The second point by which the position of the Irish party is rather improved by the change of the rules is in the matter of adjournment. Every session of the house, as the majority of the readers of this REVIEW well know, is opened with a series of questions to ministers; and if any member was dissatisfied with the answer which he received, he had the right to at once move the adjournment of the House, and to force a discussion on any subject which, in his opinion, demanded immediate attention. This was a potent weapon; but its employment caused so much dissatisfaction and disapproval in the House that the good expected by raising a question in such a form was often very questionable. This power is now taken away from the individual member, but it is given to forty members to force a debate on any point which they declare to be a matter of "urgent public importance." The effect of such a rule is to make legal and regular a practice which was formerly irregular and inconvenient. Mr. Parnell has already made good use of the new privilege by forcing a discussion on the working of the Arrears Act; and it is probable that in future sessions he will be able, under this rule, to have an Irish debate on any night he may deem advisable. This is a very important gain.

When all these things, however, have been said, the fact still remains that the Irish party has not the same control as formerly over the business arrangements of the House of Commons, and cannot bring the potent pressure which the knowledge of the existence of such a power enables it to exercise over the action of the ministers. There are means in the new rules for meeting any and every form of obstruction which a weak party could adopt. The individual member can be silenced under the rule which permits the speaker to put an end to "tedious and irrelevant" speak

ing, while members obstructing in a body can have their mouths closed by the clôture. Motions for adjournment used formerly to supply food for a dilatory debate of hours; for under a motion, for adjournment there was practically no topic the introduction of which could be prevented as being disorderly. Under the new rules speeches on a motion for adjournment must be confined strictly to that point. The call for a division, if declared by the speaker to be obstructive, can be prevented, and finally there remains untouched, except in the matter of "constructive obstruction," the old power of the chair to suspend any member who is guilty of "wilful and persistent obstruction." It is hard to discover any form of obstruction which a small body like the Irish party could resort to with impunity under rules so stringent and so wide-embracing. This, then, brings us to our conclusion on the second point of our inquiry. We have found, under the first head, that we had to deal with a strong government; and now, under the second head of our inquiry, we are driven to the conclusion that the strong government has, under the new rules, a vastly increased control over the business of the House of Commons; not only is the arm of the enemy more potent, but he has guns of longer range, and swords of sharper blade.

And now, advancing to the third branch of our inquiry, we must ask ourselves, what is the position of the government in Ireland? Everybody in America knows that a coercion act of great stringency was passed in the present year, but probably few Americans realize -from the circumstances of their own country it would be impossible they could realize-how complete, how scrutinizing, how-so to speak-ubiquitous is the operation of this last message of peace to Ireland. There is scarcely an act of individual or of social, and there is no act of political, life, with which some provision of this measure does not interfere; it is, in fact, not a coercion act, but a full, complete, and exhaustive code of coercion. Under its pro

visions the Lord Lieutenant can (1) suppress any organization, (2) prohibit any public meeting, and (3) suppress any newspaper. The clause dealing with journals has certain limitations, but these amount to little, and the statement that a journal can be suppressed is practically true. The inhabitants of any city—even of the capital -can be made liable to imprisonment if found outside their own homes at any time in the interval between an hour after sunset and sunrise. It is hard to know what words can be used on a platform which will not make the speaker liable to six months' imprisonment with hard labor. For under the intimidation clause of the act any words are illegal which are calculated to prevent the performance of a legal, or induce the performance of an illegal act, or which are calculated to injure any person in his business or calling.

This clause is framed with such intentional vagueness that no proof is required of any individual having been intimidated or in any way interfered with; it is sufficient that the words so employed should be calculated to intimidate some person or persons unknown and undiscoverable, and the sole judges of the probable consequence of the words employed are two stipendiary magistrates, servants and protégés of the Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant can pour any number of police into any district, and can impose on any locality-large and small-it may be a townland, or a parish, or a portion of a townland or a parish, down to a few houses, or a certain number of farms-a ruinous police or blood tax. Finally, trial by jury for any offence, whether political or criminal, has been, either entirely abolished or been maintained in a form that is but a mockery of the name. As was seen in the trials of Francis Hynes and the two Walshes, a prisoner may be brought before an Orange judge and an exclusively Orange jury—prepared to convict, guilty or not guilty; the court of justice may be degraded to a level lower than that of a Ribbon Lodge; and a journalist who protests, no matter how true his charges, or high his position, is liable to a length of imprisonment, and an amount of fining, limited only by the caprice of a ferociously partisan judge. Such a mode of legal procedure would be infamous if employed against even a murderer-for the murderer is, under the laws of every civilized land, presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty, and, under the word and spirit of the British constitution, is entitled to be tried by his peers; but it must be remembered that exactly the same kind of justice could be meted out to the man charged with a political offence. The imagination will not easily conceive of a political act of an Irish Nationalist which cannot be caught in the wide net of the law of treason, or treason felony, or sedition, or some other of the many phrases by which is designated hostility to English domination in Ireland. And one need not pause to

think what would be the character of the trial of Mr. Parnell or any other Irishman of strong opinions, with Mr. Lawson as judge, a parcel of Dublin Orange shopkeepers for jurors, and the ready evidence of that political brood of informers whose perjured oaths are one of the bulwarks of British civilization in Ireland.

Such, then, is the position, and such are the powers of the government; and now, what of the Irish people themselves? Everybody is agreed that there has been something like a lull in Ireland for some months past, and assuredly nobody can wonder that a period of exhaustion should follow the fierce and terrible struggle of the last three years. It argues absolute ignorance, or absolute blindness, to hold that a whole people can always be kept in the same state of high terror and frenzied excitement. Ireland is—so far as I can judge