Lord C ranville introduced the Bill, in a speech of
great ability, on Monday night, showing that 1,800 families would be turned absolutely out of their holdings in the course of the present year, while only 406 families were so evicted in 1877 ; that 100, 150, and 200 men were constantly needed to protect the serving of an ejectment process; that in instances of which he gave specimens, though without names, very great hardship had been inflicted, and the peasants deprived of their legal protection against eviction, to the great advantage of their landlord, only in consequence of the pressure of the times , that some of the ejected families were suffering from fever caused by insufficient nourishment when ejected ; and that the landlords were by no means burdened with the whole cost of thin measure of relief, since seed potatoes had been distributed to many of their tenants at the cost of the State, to the landlords' great advantage, and a million and a quarter had been .lent at a nominal rate to the landlords themselves. Lord Grey moved the rejection of the measure in a feeble speech, insisting that a crowded population barely earning their living in prosperous years ought not to be artificially kept on the land, when they ought to emigrate (as if driving them out of their holdings without compensation in a
time of extreme distress were the way to help them to emigrate), and declaring that the more resistance there had been to the execution of the law, the less the people deserved to be protected by exceptional measures.
