The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-31 00:00:00

THE IRISH LAND BILL.

The Times has no doubt that Mr. Gladstone was per-
fectly justified when he said that, if the landlords of Ire.
land were consulted on the course to be pursued with
reference to the Irish Land Bill, their cry would be " Pass
the Bill." The bill as it is, he declared, does so little
violence to the feelings of the landowners of Ireland that
they desire to have it passed, and the Government cannot
consent to allow its principle to be in any degree attenu-
ated. We rejoice at the resolution. It is, indeed, an
occasion for declaring that there is a limit to the
indulgence to be accorded to conscientious unintelligence.
The bill goes to the House of Lords, and will be
passed by them without substantial alteration. There are
some provisionsfin it which must be amended, and others
which will doubtless be expunged. but they are for the
most part in the nature of additions, which have been
hastily made to the original scheme, and are capable of
being removed without injury to it. The main principles
of the measure are few and untalterable. The circum-
stances of Ireland compel an intervention of the
Stat to protect the tenant 'from the conse-
quences -of his own improvidence. If this be recorg-
iakked„ the essence of the bill is conceded ; if it be
not raognised, no necessity- for any bill whatever is
proved. Ireland is at present under the system of free
edutragt,.ws.t,h what consequences we see. It has become
00*.kra.4113)' 140,re apparent that the Irish people are not
eLupi,liiied to possess this amount of liberty, and the bill
accepts the confession, and provides a remedy for the
evils it acknowledges. What the Government has pro-
posed is that the coercive restriction upon freedom of
contract shall endure for 20 years, and " thereafter until
Parliament "shall otherwise determine ;" but, though
this in itself gives us little hope of terminating a condition
in itself so undesirable, we may cherish the belief that the
influences which have improved the state of Ireland—
with certain vicissitudes, indeed, but still as a whole con-
tinuously and progressively during the last twenty years
—will remain in operation, so that before another period
of twenty years shall have elapsed the fetters imposed by
the Act will have dropped off by natural disuse.
The Standard says that the House of Commons has
completed the most important work of the session in
having read the Irish Land Bill a third time. The
language of Mr. Gladstone in regard to possible amend-
ments in the Upper House was not of an encouraging
nature. His tone was not like that of Mr. Maguire,
actually threatening, but it was decidedly dictatorial,
peremptory, and somewhat offensive. Indeed, he went
as near as parliamentary decency would allow to an
actual declaration that no amendment of importance
would be accepted at the hands of the Upper House.
It is for the leaders of that House to con-
sider how they will deal with a measure sent up
to them in such a spirit, and accompanied by such a
warning. Of one thing we are quite certain—that the
tendency of such language as Mr. Gladstone addressed to
an assembly of English gentlemen, so far as it has any in-
fluence at all, is not to discourage but to excite re-
sistance, that it rouses, not merely the passions but the
dignity and self-respect of those who are so admonished
against an insolent dictation ; and if a collision between
the Houses should unhappily occur, and if the bill should
thus belost,events which, till Mondaynight, we considered
as lying outside the bounds of political probability— the
'thief if not the only source of that calamity will be the
imperious temper and the overweening and overbearing
spirit of the First Minister of Crown.