The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-04-02 00:00:00

In the HOUSE OF LORDS, March 29, the Royal
Assent was given by commission to the Consolidated
Fund (No. 1 Bill.

RAILWAY RATES.

In Committee on the Railway and Canal Traffic Bill,
the Earl of Jersey proposed an amendment to the
'second clause to provide that the third Railway Cosa.
missioner should be one of her Majesty's judges. The
amendment was supported by Lord Herschel!, but was
opposed by Lord Stanley of Preston and the Lord
Chancellor, who pointed out that if carried it would
necessitate the appointment of a new judge. .The
Marquis of Salisbury also opposed the amendment on
the ground of expense, but declined to carry his
objection to a division. The amendment was there.
upon agreed to, but a further proposal by Lord Grim.
thorpe to allow an appeal from the decision of the
Commissioners upon questions of fact was negatived
on a division by 20 to 18.

TRIC ARMY.

On reaching the 24th Clause the House resumed, and
the Army (Annual) Bill having been read a third time,
their lordships rose at eight o'clock.

THE GOVERNMENT IRISH BILL.
In the HOUSE OP COMMONS, the adjourned debate
on the motion for leave to introduce the Criminal Law
, Amendment (Ireland) Bill was resumed by Mr. Glad-
stone, who remarked that all their fair visions of liberal
and conciliatory measures with which the present
Government entered office eight months since had
vanished, and that, with the exception of a future
Land Bill, from which was excluded the chief recom-
mendation of Lord Cowper's Commission, there
stood nothing before the House but the figure of
Coercion, bare, gaunt, and bald. He intended to
oppose the motion for the introduction of the Bill,
and to support Mr. Parnell's amendment, because the
allegations upon which the Government proposals were
founded were absolutely insufficient and did not cover
the ground upon which on all former occasions Parlia-
ment had been asked to pass measures in abridgement
of public liberty; and because the measure, instead of
being a palliative, could do nothing but aggravate the
worst disorders of Ireland. All the official information
which the House had invariably required had on this
occasion been withheld from it. He found that, so far
from there having been the great iacrease of crime
in Ireland of which the Chief Secretary had spoken,
the cases of agrarian crime, exclusive of threatening
letters, reported in 1886 numbered only six more
than in 1885, while there was an actual diminution
in the caeca of boycotting. If, as was alleged,
intimidati n was rampant throughout the country, it
was a fact that this intimidation was generally de.
tached from crime and outrage. In his opinion it
would be one of the grossest breaches; of trust that a
representative assembly csuld commit to relax the
conditions upon which alone it had been its rule to
sanction increased stringency of the criminal law
against a particular portion of her 141Aesty's subjects.
No case had been made out for such a demand, while
on the other band it was candidly admitted by the
Government that their proposals were of an cxtreme
nature. While claiming for both English and Irish
members tbe fullest opportunities for considering and
examining the provisions of the Government Bill, he
could not refrain from characterising as most wound•
ing, insulting, and exasperating to the feelings of the
Irish people the proposal to transfer the trials of Irish
prisoners to this country. He did not be-
lieve any scheme could have been devised more
likely to aggravate every evil that existed in Ireland,
or to stimulate feelings of national hatred between the
two countries. The permanent character of the mea—
sure, he declared, made his blood run cold. It was the