The Committee stage of the " Members of Parliament Charges
and Allegations " Bill has been even more prolific in discreditable scenes than the stage of second reading. First there was a warm debate on the number of Commissioners, which Mr. Sexton wanted to increase to five ; while Mr. Parnell apparently complained that no judicial-minded layman had been associated with the Judges. When this amendment had been defeated by 233 to 195, a much fiercer attack was made on Mr. Justice Day's name. Mr. John Morley, who had received from Mr. Adams, a Belfast barrister of Nationalist views who sat with Mr. Justice Day on the Belfast Riots Commission, a thoroughgoing denunciation of Mr. Justice Day, read to the House this gentleman's description of Mr. Justice Day as " a man of the seventeenth century, in his views a Catholic as strong as Torquemada, a Tory of the highflyer and Nonjuror type," who "nightly railed against Parnell and his friends ; he regards them as infidels and Reds who have led astray the Catholic population. He abhors their utterances and acts, and believes them guilty of any crime."
