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New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 431, 15 July 1881, Page 9

The one prominent fact before the eyes of the Irish people is coercion. Flying columns of military and police scour the country to assist at evictions and awe a people driven to the verge of desperation. Meanwhile the prospects of the Land Bill grow more cloudy every day. It will doubtless pass the House of Commons by an overwhelming majority, but is threatened with the fate of its predecessor, the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, in the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury, the New Conservative leader in the Upper House, has already indicated the line of his opposition, and it is quite characteristic of him. He takes a bold tone that will find manyechoes in certain important sections of English society. It would bebetter, he says, that the House of Lords should cease to exist than, that its functions should be merely to conform to the decisions of the House of Commons. That sounds very well, of course, and is an. answer to Mr. Gladstone's recent warning to the Upper House ; bat, unfortunately for Lord Salisbury, the conviction is deepening m the public mind of England that the seat of English legislature is the House of Commons, where sit the men sent by the people to represent their interests, and not the accidents of fortune or of caste. Lord Salisbury hinted furthermore that there were cases when the Commons were mistaken as to the opinions of their constituents. Possibly; but over a hundred majority for any measure may generally he taken to represent the consensus of public opinion. — Catholic Meoierv.