read to the House Mr. Moore's reply, and Mr. Russell thereupon read the
second of the letters given above, upon which Mr. Balfour, regardless of
his own share in the partial suppression of the Wyndham-MacDonnell
_dossier_ a few years before, demanded the production of the whole
correspondence. This was done on July 26th, when Mr. Moore read the
letters in the order given above. In his personal explanation he
represented it as an extremely suspicious circumstance that Mr. Bailey
had been seen in the Lobby in conversation with the Nationalists. "That
may be legitimate," he said, "but I think it very undesirable," and in
the very next breath he confessed that another of the Commissioners was
a particular and personal friend of his own, to whom he would have shown
the first letter from Mr. Bailey if it had not been marked private.

The comment of the _Times_--in which Mr. Moore as a rule finds an active
admirer of his political methods--is interesting:--

"Mr. Bailey is a public servant entrusted with certain quasi-judicial
functions. That a member of Parliament, whatever may be his opinions of
the conduct of such an official, should inform him that he had been
appointed 'to see fair play' between his colleagues, and that he had not
seen it, and should couple this charge with a promise to press for an
inquiry into the working of the department whenever there should be a
change of Government, is indefensible."

The whole incident is worthy of attention as showing the atmosphere of
suspicious hostility with which the Orange faction in Ireland surrounds
every act even of Civil Servants and Executive Officers who are not as
active supporters of the ascendancy as they would wish.

Of further legislation dealing with the laws of tenure, the Town Tenants