a scheme for transferring labourers from “congested” to thinly-peopled districts. In August a Bill was passed setting apart a portion of the Irish Church surplus to promote the building of fishing harbours. A useful Irish Registration Bill was rejected by the Peers, but Mr. T. P. O’Connor contrived to pass a Bill enabling Rural Sanitary Authorities to borrow money from the Government for the construction of labourers’ cottages. It cannot, however, be said that the Irish Members were grateful for these measures. They still pursued their favourite policy of exasperation, and their alliance with the Tories led to a more systematic and daring use of obstruction than had ever been seen in the House of Commons. At first Sir Stafford Northcote seemed unwilling to countenance obstructive tactics; but Lord Randolph Churchill’s bitter attacks on his leadership in the _Times_ (April 2), and the impatience of the Tory Party, forced the hesitating hand of their leader in the Commons. The evil assumed such serious dimensions that Mr. Bright denounced at Birmingham, in terms of indignant eloquence,[185] “the men who now afflict the House, and who from night to night insult the majesty of the British people.” Thus it came to pass, as the _Times_ said in its review of the Session, that “the main part of the legislation of the year, with the exception of one or two Bills, was huddled together, and hustled through in both Houses during the month of August, amidst an ever-dwindling attendance of Members.” There was only one Bill which was not obstructed--the Explosives Act; in fact, it was passed in a panic. The events that led to its production were somewhat startling. On the night of the 15th of March an attempt was made to blow up the Local Government Board Offices in Whitehall by dynamite, and about the same time a similar outrage was perpetrated on the offices of the _Times_ in Printing House Square. Guards of soldiers and police were immediately posted at all places likely to be attacked, and the connection of these crimes with the seizures of dynamite which were from time to time made by the police in provincial towns, and the arrest of eight conspirators engaged in the “dynamite war” at Liverpool in March, could scarcely be doubted. On the 9th of April Sir William Harcourt’s Explosives Act was therefore carried through both Houses after an unavailing protest from Lord Salisbury, who complained that the Peers were taken by surprise.[186] After the Bill had become law packages of dynamite were seized at Leicester and Cupar-Fife; four men were condemned at Liverpool as dynamitards; several arrests were made at Glasgow; and on the 30th of October there were two explosions in the tunnel of the Metropolitan Railway--between Westminster and Charing Cross, and between Praed Street and Edgware Road. [Illustration: THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, KENSINGTON.]