It was at last admitted that there was a crisis in Ireland to be dealt with, and Mr. Forster therefore introduced a short Bill, which so far amended the Act of 1870 as to make disturbance for non-payment of rent, where the tenant was too poor to pay, a case for compensation. The Bill passed through the House of Commons after violent recriminatory debates, in the course of which Mr. Gladstone declared that in the distressed districts eviction was “very near to a sentence of death.”[164] The measure was promptly rejected by the House of Lords. Ministers acquiesced in this rebuff, and from that moment they lost their hold over rural Ireland. They had publicly declared that 15,000 persons were to be evicted that year, in circumstances which rendered eviction tantamount to a sentence of death. They had publicly admitted that it was wicked to extort rack rents from these persons by threats of eviction, and that, unless they were protected from the rapacity of their landlords, the peace of Ireland would be imperilled. And then they permitted the Peers to reject the protective Bill, which Mr. Forster had pressed forward as necessary for the preservation of tranquillity! Either the Government was wrong in introducing the Bill, or it was wrong to remain responsible for the peace of Ireland after the Bill had been rejected. All that Mr. Forster did in this crisis was to promise a new Land Bill next year, and appoint a Commission to inquire into Irish distress. Rural Ireland had by this time been completely organised into a Land League by Mr. Michael Davitt, and this Land League was really a gigantic trades-union, to promote a strike against rack rents. Incidentally, its organisation was also used to further the Home Rule cause. The leaders of the League advised the people to resist eviction, and Mr. John Dillon used words to which Sir W. Barttelot called attention in the House of Commons on the 17th of August, that seemed to advise a general strike against rent. Acrimonious debates followed day after day, in the course of which the hostility between the Parnellites and the Ministry deepened with every turn. Mr. Parnell’s cynical argument that as Ministers could not, because of a Parliamentary defeat, carry the Disturbance Bill, which they admitted was essential for the good government of Ireland, they ought, as men of honour, to free Ireland from the mischievous interference of the Imperial Parliament, seemed to cut Mr. Forster to the quick. At last, in Committee of Supply on the 26th of August, it was clear that an organised attempt to coerce the Government by obstruction was to be made. On the motion for going into Supply, Lord Randolph Churchill raised an irrelevant and discursive debate on the Irish policy of the Government, which had already been under bitter discussion for the best part of a fortnight. This set the Parnellites and the Ministerialists by the ears, and consumed a great part of the sitting.