Lord Hartington's statement on Monday that the Bill for disarming
Ireland would be taken up at once, and urgency asked for it, but that this urgency measure would have to be interrupted for the purpose of taking certain votes in Supply, for which urgency at present would not be asked, and that no date could be at present fixed for the Irish Land Bill, was not a pleasant hearing for the Liberal Party. It is true that the House of Commons was previously committed to the urgency of the Disarming Bill; but it is also true, as everybody knows, that the Government were seriously thinking of postponing it, and that only Tory pressure on the one side, and Mr. Gladstone's acci- dent on the other, had induced thorn to abandon that intention. It is a very gloomy situation for the Liberals, this long post- ponement of all Liberal measures, and this ardent complaisance with which they are encouraged in their work by the Tory Opposition.
