At the banquet given to Lord Spencer yesterday week in
Westminster Palace Hotel, the accommodation was not at all equal to the demand for seats. About two hundred sat down to dinner ; but as many more from Ireland alone had, it is said, written to ask for tickets to do honour to Lord Spencer. Sir Charles Mike's and Mr. Chamberlain's names were not, how- ever, amongst those of the Liberals who had desired to do Lord Spencer this honour. Lord Hartington made an admirable speech in proposing the health of the guest of the day. "Under the Government of Lord Spencer," he said, "all men knew that, whether they were loyal or disloyal, crime, when detected and proved, would be sure of punishment. All men knew that verdicts found after due trial by impartial persons would not be set aside on account of any stories under the name of confes- sions, fresh evidence, or whatever it may be, which might be brought forward as a pretext for abandoning that which had been fairly, fully, and conclusively tried. I say that was the knowledge which all men had under the late Administration of Lord Spencer; but all that is greatly changed now. The vague declarations of the Government, the vague promises which have been made to reopen the consideration of cases that had been judicially and impartially settled, will do much to change this. They will do much to inspire a belief among a large portion of the Irish people that agrarian crime differs in some way from ordinary crime, resembling in some degree those political offences to which political amnesties may be extended, and for the reconsideration of which a change of Government may be looked to."
