Widnes Examiner. — 1888-08-04 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

SEXTON. who regarded the amendment as unnecessary, there followed the HOME SECRETARY, who denied that the primary object of the bill was either to condemn members of Parliament or to enable them to clear themselves. The object of the measure was that a cloud of accusation and suspicion might be dispersed or crystallised into a certainty. Thus early in the resumed discussion the Chairman's intervention -was called for owing to interruptions by Irish members, who charged the Home Secretary with making unjustifiable insinuations.— When this incident, which happily was of short duration, had:been disposed of, Mr. MArrunws's admissions as to the scope of the Commission were seriously taken up on the Opposition side of the House as furnishing at last an indication of the cottrse which the inquiry was to follow ; and, adopting this view of the case, first Sir %William Harcourt and then Sir Lyon Playfair and Mr. J. Redmond accused the Government of having completely gone back upon their original position so as to make the charges against members a matter subservient to an investigation of the :doings of political associations. --After something very like a wrangle between Sir W. Harcourt and Mr. A. J. Balfour over the conduct ,of the Attorney - General in dragging Mr. Gladstone's name into the O'Donnell trial, Mr. J. REDMOND gave an account of the treatment he had met with from the "Times" hi the matter of his attitude after the Phcenix Park murders. This story was subsequently referred to by Mr. J. MORLEY as, if true, loading the journal mentioned and its conductors with the "deepest infamy."—Mr. GLADSTONE spoke of the leader of the House having made a covenant of the most solemn character which had been entirely, and absolutely changed. Speaking of the notorious letter,involved in the case, he-said he might—after the disposition shown to cast it into the shade—without extravagance call it a forged document. The original issue as put forward in the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury ha 0 been surreptitiously and entirely shifted, and the original charges, if they appeared at all, did so now only as portions of a great mass of evidence involving the whole constitution of Ireland and the whole history of agrarian crime and the Land League. In addition to a reference by the Attorney General to Mr. Gladstone's conclusion as to the letter being-entirely unjustified, the HOME SECRETARY and Mr. A. J. BAusoun both strenuously denied that there had been any change of front on the part of the C t, the latter gentleman also complaining of what he termed "the amazing deliverance" by the leader of the Opposition ,of a judicial opinion on a matter with which the Commisrion would have to deal.-2-Mr. T. HEALY, after reverting to the insinuations thrown out previously in the deb& as to the collusion of the Government with the " Times " in the preparation of the bill, twitted the former with having more desire to make a political business of the Commission than to get at the truth. A long and recriminatory discussion followed, ending in the rejection of the amendment by a majority of 47. The House then resumed, after which the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, in the absence of Mr. W. H. Smith, gave notice of a motion to suspend the twelve o'clock rule on Thursday, and to put an end to the debate upon it at one o'clock. The House adjourned at six o'clock.