The Failure of Coercion.

AS for the failure of coercion, we will quote one or two more. A more honest man than John Bright never lived. And this is what he said of the first Coercion Act:-“I think the legislation of 1881 was unfortunately a great mistake, though I was myself a member of the Government concerned in it.” How many similar admissions should we have if all statesmen were as honest as Bright or as courageous as Gladstone! Let us quote another authority, an authority not as high, where statesmanship is concerned, as that of Gladstone or Bright, but one even more significant owing to the political creed and the high executive office held by the personage concerned. He had been looking through Coercion Acts, said Lord Carnarvon, who had become Lord Lieutenant of Ireland after the fall of the Gladstone Ministry in 1885, and had been astonished to find that ever since 1847, with some very short intervals hardly worth mentioning, Ireland had lived under exceptional and coercive legislation.