In the session of 1876 nine Bills dealing with land, education, rating, electoral reform, Parliamentary reform, judicial and municipal reform--all burning Irish questions--were introduced by the Irish party. Few were considered. All, except two of minor importance, were cast out. The claims of Ireland upon Parliament were real and urgent. The Chief Secretary pressed upon the Cabinet earnestly, but in vain, the necessity for land legislation. Neither the Parliamentary force nor time could be found. Mr. Butt introduced a Land Bill of his own--very tame by comparison with subsequent enactments. It was rejected by 290 votes to 56. Nearly thirty measures dealing with the land question alone, brought forward by Irish members between 1870 and 1880, perished in the wilderness. It should not be inferred that no Irish Bills were carried by the Government. Indeed, some of the measures passed during this Parliament are still the law on the matters to which they relate. But the Chief Secretary was the youngest member of the Cabinet, and the Irish Tories in the House, led by Mr. Kavanagh, being more numerous and even more powerful than in our own time, were able to make anyone who displayed a liking for change sensible of their severe displeasure. On one occasion indeed, when Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had extended Government support to the ‘Municipal Privileges Bill’ and to a Bill for assimilating the Irish municipal franchise to the English, they lost no time in sending a round-robin to the head of the Government requesting him to dismiss the delinquent Minister. Disraeli returned a suitable reply to this; but the Chief Secretary was forced to refuse the concessions he had desired to make. And although from year to year he succeeded in passing a series of Bills dealing with such subjects as Licensing, Public Health, Lunacy, Jury Qualifications, Prisons, County Courts, and Intermediate Education, he could not free Irish Parliamentary action from discredit in Irish eyes.