Lord Granville in reply congratulated Lord Cairns on his return
to the leadership of the House, but denied the responsibility of Government for the state of Ireland, his real point, a Most important one, being this : the difficulty of repressing agrarian ' crime as now practised is not want of power, but want of evidence. Supposing that the Government had even demanded the terrible Act of 1833, under which agrarian crime was tried by Court- martial, they would have been no stronger, for even a court- martial must have evidence. [That is true, but suppose we take the evidence, as in France, of the persons accused. If they are innocent, they will say so ; if not, why should they not help to convict themselves?] As to Mr. Madden, he attacked Govern- ment itself, and not a particular Ministry, while as to Earl Granard, Lord Cairns should have waited till he was in his place to answer the accusation. On the whole, the speech, with the exception of the point about evidence, was rather weak. Earl Grey, who followed, asked for immediate coercion ; the Duke of Marlborough followed suit, arguing that the admission that coercion might be necessary by and by was an admission of its necessity now ; and Lord Monck, who closed the debate, smashed Earl Grey by quoting from a speech the Earl made iu 1816 protesting against coercion unless preceded by reform in the land laws. He, however, was in favour of an act to restrain the incendiary Press, i.e., of sitting upon the safety-valve. Is he going to abolish the post, and if not, how is he to stop the transmission of lithographed newspapers, ten times as dangerous as the printed ones ?
