Mr. Holmes, the Irish ex-Attorney-General of the Conserva- tive Government,
made a false move on Thursday night, in moving that the House were not willing to grant the Irish Supplies without having some information as to the Irish policy of the new Government. Mr. Holmes recited the well-known facts as to the supremacy of the National League in Ireland ; dwelt on the spirit elicited by the murder of Mr. Curtin, and the popular sympathy manifested for the moonlighter who was killed in the fray ; and generally insisted on the absolute neces- sity of putting down the National League at once with a strong hand. Mr. Gladstone, of course, replied triumphantly enough that all the main facts of Mr. Holmes's case, including the Curtin murder, were fully known to the late Government as early as November last, mid yet that they had not proposed a new measure even on the meeting of Parliament,—uay, that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had spoken as if the necessity for any measure of the kind referred to were then by no means proved. Mr. Gladstone declined to be entrapped into a premature declaration of his policy by so poor a feint as this. The con- dition of Ireland was slightly better than during the last months of the Conservative Government, and assuredly there was no cause for immediate hurry now, if there was none then.
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