360 



GKEAT BRITAIN AND IEELAND. 



sale of intoxicating liquors in Ireland dur- 

 ing a part of Sunday should be amended so as 

 to apply to the whole of that day. The ma- 

 jority in favor of this resolution, or against 

 the Government, was 57. 



The bill known as the "Permissive Prohibi- 

 tory Bill," the object of which is to give to 

 local authorities a discretionary power to pro- 

 hibit the sale of intoxicating liquors within 

 their districts, and which has been much 

 favored by a portion of the temperance re- 

 formers, was defeated in the House of Com- 

 mons, June 14th, by a vote of 299 to 81. In 

 the House of Lords, June 30th, the Archbishop 

 of Canterbury moved for the appointment of a 

 select committee to inquire into the prevalence 

 of habits of intemperance and into the manner 

 in which those habits had been affected by 

 recent legislation and other causes. He was 

 prompted, he said, to bring forward the sub- 

 ject by a memorial from 8,000 clergymen of 

 the Established Church, calling upon the Epis- 

 copal Bench to draw the attention of their 

 lordships to it, with a view of ascertaining 

 whether a remedy could not be found for the 

 evil. The committee was ordered. In the 

 House of Commons, July 6th, Mr. Cross, in 

 reply to a question, said that the Government 

 were fully alive to the importance of the in- 

 quiry ordered by the Lords. 



On the 30th of June, Mr. Butt offered in 

 the House of Commons a resolution calling for 

 the appointment of a select committee, to in- 

 quire and report upon the nature, the extent, 

 and the grounds of the demand made by a 

 large proportion of the Irish people for the 

 restoration to Ireland of an Irish Parliament, 

 with power to control the internal affairs of 

 that country. In the debate on this reso- 

 lution, Mr. J. P. Smyth, who had proposed to 

 move an amandment declaring that the Irish 

 people preferred the repeal of the Union to 

 home-rule, but was precluded from moving it 

 by the rules of the House, made a forcible 

 speech against home-rule. He opposed the 

 proposition of Mr. Butt as a vain and illusory 

 expedient for the removal of Irish grievances, 

 and described his scheme of federation as 

 nothing more than the creation of a vestry 

 which the Irish people would reject with in- 

 dignation. For his own part, he would not be 

 satisfied with anything less than a separate 

 and independent Parliament and government, 

 united to the rest of the empire only by the 

 crown. The discussion was continued by Mr. 

 O'Connor Power, Captain Nolan, Mr. Kirk, 

 Mr. E. Power, Mr. Jacob Bright, and others, 

 in favor of the motion, and Mr. Kavanagh and 

 Sir F. Wilmot, against it. Sir M. Hicks Beach 

 continued the discussion against the resolution 

 with an argument showing that the principle 

 of federation adopted in Canada was inappli- 

 cable to Ireland, and closed with the declara- 

 tion that the seventy-six years of the Union 

 had brought with them a great advance in 

 prosperity, and some day those vho supported 



this motion would be glad that the Govern- 

 ment had rejected a scheme to reduce Ireland 

 to the rank of a province from that of a com- 

 ponent and governing part of the first empire 

 in the world. The motion of Mr. Butt was 

 rejected, by 291 votes to 61. On the 1st day 

 of August Mr. O'Connor Power moved a res- 

 olution, "that in the opinion of the House 

 the time has come when her Majesty's gra- 

 cious pardon may be extended to the prisoners, 

 whether convicted before the civil tribunals or 

 by courts-martial, who are and have been for 

 many years undergoing punishment for of- 

 fenses arising out of insurrectionary move- 

 ments connected with Ireland." The reso- 

 lution was supported by several members, 

 among them Mr. Jacob Bright, and was op- 

 posed by Mr. Hardy, Home Secretary at the 

 time the murders in Manchester took place, 

 the Solicitor-General for Ireland, and Mr. 

 Cross, who all showed that the prisoners had 

 in view by the resolution were not held for 

 political offenses, but on criminal charges. 

 Mr. Power offered to withdraw his resolution, 

 but a division was insisted upon. The reso- 

 lution was lost, by 117 votes to 51. A bill 

 was passed with reference to the Irish peer- 

 age, the effect of which will be to put an end 

 to the further creation of Irish peers. 



A bill was passed amending the law relat- 

 ing to cruelty to animals, the object of which 

 is to regulate the practice of vivisection. It 

 provides that the person wishing to practise 

 vivisection must have a' license, and that the 

 place where he performs his experiments must 

 be registered and open to inspection. The 

 animals must previously be rendered insensible 

 by chloroform or some other anaesthetic, curare 

 alone being excepted ; and the act prevents 

 cats, dogs, asses, horses, and mules, being made 

 the subject of experiment, except under cer- 

 tain conditions, when a special license is re- 

 quired. 



On the 3d of March Mr. Osborn Morgan of- 

 fered, in the House of Commons, a resolution 

 to the effect that the parish churchyards of 

 England and Wales having been, by the com- 

 mon law of England, appropriated to the use 

 of the entire body of the parishioners, it is 

 just and right, while making proper provision 

 for the maintenance of order and decency, to 

 permit interments in such churchyards either 

 without any burial services, or with burial 

 services other than those of the Church of 

 England, and performed by persons other than 

 ministers of that church. The resolution ex- 

 cited an active debate, and was defeated by a 

 majority of 31 votes. A resolution of similar 

 purport was moved by Earl Granville in the 

 House of Lords, May 15th, and was rejected 

 by a vote of 148 to 56. A bill was introduced 

 in the House of Lords proposing the establish- 

 ment of burial boards, to be elected by the 

 parishioners, and asserting a control over bur- 

 ials of dissenters in churchyards, "in order 

 to prevent the occurrence of any unseemly 



