“Seldom has a session of Parliament begun under more critical circumstances. The abnormal condition of Ireland and the question of what remedy should be sought for it have deeply divided and embittered public opinion. Not only has the law been rendered powerless and order disturbed (both of them things almost superstitiously sacred in England), but the sensitive nerve of property has been rudely touched. The opposition have clamored for coercion, but while they have persisted in this it is clear that a change has been gradually going on in their opinion as to how great concessions would be needful. It seems now to be granted on all sides that the Irish people have wrongs to be redressed and just claims for rights to be granted. I think that the government have at least gained so much by the expectant and humane policy which they have persevered in under very great difficulties, and in spite of a criticism the more harassing as it seemed to have some foundation in principles hitherto supposed to be self-evident. “Added to this was the fact (at least I believe it to be a fact) that there was a division of opinion in the Cabinet itself. This probably led to the one mistake in policy that has been made by the prosecution of Mr. Parnell and some of his associates--a mistake, because, in the exceedingly improbable contingency of the jury agreeing to convict, the belief will be universal in Ireland that they have been packed, and the government will have a dozen martyrs on its hands of whom it would be at a loss how to dispose,--a half-ludicrous position which could not fail to involve a loss of prestige. “There can be no doubt that Mr. Parnell was unpleasantly surprised by the land league, and has been compelled to identify himself with a movement having other and more comprehensive (perhaps more desperate) aims than that which he originated. So far as can be judged, a great deal of the agitation in Ireland is factitious, and large numbers of persons have been driven by timidity to profess a sympathy with it which they do not feel. This, of course, strengthens the probability of its being possible to allay it by generally acceptable measures of reform. I am sure that the reasonable leaders or representatives of Irish opinion see the folly of expecting that England would ever peaceably consent to the independence of Ireland; that they do not themselves desire it; and that they would be content with a thorough reform of the land laws and a certain amount of local self-government. Both of these measures, you will observe, are suggested in the speech from the throne. You will readily divine that one of the great difficulties with which the ministry has had to struggle has been the presentiment that a change in the conditions of land tenure in Ireland will be followed by something similar, certainly by an agitation for something similar, on this aide the Irish channel.