Centres of disturbance are being rapidly created throughout Ireland, owing to loss by tenants of legal interest in their holdings through sale or expiry of period of redemption. The formation of the new Landlord Corporation accompanied by a harsh administration of the Coercion Act will tend to encourage landlords to resist reasonable concessions.
He has placed new clauses on the notice paper for the Arrears Bill which will go far to meet these difficulties, and will do what he can to facilitate Supply and the passage of that Bill, also to prevent obstruction to other Government business.
These notes were submitted a second time to Mr. Gladstone, with the addition of the following paragraphs:—
This danger might be met by insertion of clauses in Arrears Bill having compulsory retrospective effect as far back as June, 1880, and making provision for payment of costs.
It is most desirable that Parliament should reassemble after short holiday to make whatever permanent amendments the Government think necessary in the Land Act.
On June 29th Mr. Gladstone wrote thanking me for my letter and returning "the enclosure."[[2]] Reference was made by him to the murders of Mr. Walter Bourke and Corporal Wallace in Galway; and though I have no doubt he did not suspect Parnell of the least shade of complicity, it was plain that he did not completely acquit the extremists of the Irish World.
The progress of the Crimes Bill was more hotly contested than ever in the committee stage, which extended over twenty-four sittings of the House. Clauses were fought word by word, sentence by sentence. The Bill was read a third time on July 8th, and was passed by the Lords four days later, receiving the Royal Assent on the following day. In less than a week 17 counties were proclaimed; and by the beginning of August 170 suspects were in custody.
On July 21st the Arrears Bill passed the Commons by 169 to 98. Lord Eversley (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) rightly observes that instead of appealing to justice Mr. Gladstone based his support of the Bill on expediency. For years tenants had been burdened with excessive rents on land which their efforts had raised from prairie value. The wiping out of the accumulated arrears of these unjust rents could hardly be termed a mere act of expediency.
On July 31st the Lords returned the Bill to the Commons cut to pieces. Certain minor concessions were made, and the Bill was sent back otherwise in its original form. When next it appeared in the Lords the Irish landlord peers revolted. The Bill promised them part payment of what they had looked upon as a bad debt; and so—not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of that bait of two years' rent—they supported the Bill, which was passed by the Lords on August 10th. On or about August 18th, when it became law, fifty suspects were released.
I had addressed an appeal to Mr. Gladstone against the death sentence passed upon a young Irishman on very doubtful evidence. On September 14th he wrote saying that he would certainly bring the appeal under the notice of Lord Spencer. I was in correspondence with Mr. Gladstone throughout November of this year.