After the Coercion Bill had passed, Mr. Dillon carried on a passionate agitation against the Government in Ireland, and Mr. Forster retaliated by imprisoning him and several other Land Leaguers as “suspects” in May. Mr. Finigan was sent down to Coventry, where an election was taking place, to canvass the constituency on behalf of the Tory candidate, Mr. Eaton, a tangible expression of gratitude for the occasional sympathy that had been extended to the Parnellites by Lord Randolph Churchill, and some other Conservatives during the Coercion debates. There was a lull in the storm, however, during which the Peers censured the Government for refusing to occupy Candahar. A vote of the House of Commons on the 25th of March reversed this censure, for the House rejected by 336 to 216 a motion of Mr. Stanhope’s, blaming the Government for withdrawing from Candahar “at the present time.” When the Tories refused to commit themselves to the proposition that it was the duty of the Government to hold Candahar permanently, and merely demanded its occupation “at the present time,” their attack assumed the complexion of a party demonstration. If England were to leave Candahar at all the sooner she left it the better, for the longer her troops stayed the more difficult it would be to establish the native government of Abdurrahman in the Province. The Army Discipline Bill, abolishing flogging, passed through the House of Commons without much opposition from the Tories, and was read a third time by the House of Lords on the 7th of April. The Budget was introduced by Mr. Gladstone on the 4th of April, and on an estimated expenditure of £84,705,000, and an estimated revenue of £85,900,000, he showed a probable surplus of £1,195,000. This was reduced by £100,000, consumed in paying off a loan for building barracks. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, reduced the Income Tax to 5d. in the pound, and converted the deficit thereby incurred of £275,000, into a surplus of £295,000, by levying an uniform surtax of 4d. a gallon on foreign spirits, in accordance with the test of standard strength applied to wines, and by minor changes in the Probate, Legacy, and Succession Duties. The most important part of his statement was that, during the past year, the National Debt had been reduced by £7,000,000. He also foreshadowed a great scheme for the extinction of £60,000,000 of debt, by the conversion of one-third of the short annuities terminating in 1885 into long annuities terminating in 1906. As this would make Consols scarce, it would put up their price, and enable him or his successor, in the course of ten years, to reduce the interest on the National Debt. [Illustration: GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN.]