the earlier year
of disturbance. But things were bad enough. (M22) In Galway they had a
policeman for every forty-seven adult males, and a soldier for every
ninety-seven. Yet dangerous terrorism was rampant. "During more than
thirty-seven years since I first entered a cabinet," Mr. Gladstone told
the Speaker (November 25), "I have hardly known so difficult a question of
administration, as that of the immediate duty of the government in the
present state of Ireland. The multitude of circumstances to be taken into
account must strike every observer. Among these stand the novelty of the
suspension of Habeas Corpus in a case of agrarian crime stimulated by a
public society, and the rather serious difficulty of obtaining it; but
more important than these is the grave doubt whether it would really reach
the great characteristic evil of the time, namely, the paralysis of most
important civil and proprietary rights, and whether the immediate proposal
of a remedy, probably ineffective and even in a coercive sense partial,
would not seriously damage the prospects of that arduous and comprehensive
task which without doubt we must undertake when parliament is summoned."
In view of considerations of this kind, the awkwardness of directing an
Act of parliament virtually against leaders who were at the moment the
object of indictment in the Irish law courts; difficulties of time; doubts
as to the case being really made out; doubts as to the efficacy of the
proposed remedy, Mr. Forster did not carry the cabinet, but agreed to
continue the experiment of the ordinary law. The experiment was no
success, and coercion accompanied by land reform became the urgent policy.

III

The opening of the session of 1881 at once brought obstruction into full
view. The Irish took up their position as a party of action. They spoke
incessantly; as Mr. Gladstone put it, "sometimes rising to the level of
mediocrity, and more often grovelling amidst mere trash in unbounded
profusion." Obstruction is obstruction all the world over. It was not
quite new at Westminster, but it was new on this scale. Closure proposals
sprang up like mushrooms. Liberal members with a historical bent ran
privately to the Speaker with ancient precedents of dictatorial powers
asserted by his official ancestors, and they exhorted him to revive them.

Mr. Forster brought in his bill. Its scope may be described in a sentence.
It practically enabled the viceroy to lock up anybod