Mr. Arthur Arnold, M.P. for Salford, made his first speech
in the House of Commons on Friday week, in the form of a very sharp attack on the Government for their ineffectual scheme of relief in Ireland. Mr. Arnold asked for the forbear- ance of the House in addressing it for the first time, but no one ever needed that forbearance less. His aplomb was as perfect as if he had been a Member of Parliament for twenty years. He attacked the method adopted of lending to the land- lords at so low a rate of interest as 1 per cent., calling it a scheme of relief for distressed landlords. Ho attacked the whole plan as inefficient, and the schedule of the loans applied for as the most loose and unbusinesslike he had ever seen. He contrasted the methods of relief with those of the relief offered to the Lancashire people during the cotton-famine, greatly to the disadvantage of the former ; he denounced the circular directing that persons employed on the public relief works should be paid at a rate below the ordinary rate of wages; and he called the whole relief measure a scheme of class legislation.
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