On Monday, Mr. Justin McCarthy brought forward his amendment to
the Address requesting the Queen to refuse the aid of the police, constabulary, and military to the evictions of Irish tenants, pending the production of remedial land measures. Mr. Gladstone immediately rose, and, in a speech pointing out that in the old days O'Connell was contented with a debate of three nights on the Address, while seven nights and part of an eighth bad then already been consumed in discussing almost exclusively the Irish part of the Address, drew attention to the utterly unconstitutional prayer of Mr. McCarthy's amendment, which proposed to insult the Throne by requesting that the aid of the Executive should be denied, on the demand of one House of Parliament alone, to a particular class of her Majesty's subjects, when appealing to the law of the land. If Mr. McCarthy desired to hasten the production of remedial measures, he could not do worse than delay thus, beyond all precedent, the preliminaries of legislation. Mr. Gladstone referred with emphasis to the angry feeling which this excessive absorption of time by the Irish party was creating in the country, and pressed on the House the expediency of bringing the debate on the Address to a speedy conclusion.
