strife in Ireland, and Mr. Balfour's unworthy retort to Mr. Redmond's
deduction from every precedent in the history of the struggle for the
land, that it was an incitement to lawlessness, was a mere partisan
retort to an avowal of a danger which every unbiassed observer must see
arises from the betrayal by the House of Lords of a confidence in a
final settlement which was formerly encouraged by a Conservative Govern
merit.

One of the weapons used by the Orangemen in their attack on this Bill
was to be found in their repeated insinuations as to the unfitness of
the Estates Commissioners to exercise dispassionately the functions
which would be demanded of them. In this the Unionists were hoist with
their own petard, for the necessity recognised by the Government for
placing the Estates Commissioners in a position other than that of mere
Executive officers, by giving them a judicial tenure independent of
ministerial pressure or party influences, was strongly shown by the
incident of the Moore-Bailey correspondence of last session, which
should provide food for reflection on the part of those who imagine that
intimidation is to be found in Ireland in use only on the National side.
Mr. Moore, the most active of the Orangemen, asked in a supplementary
question whether it was not a fact that the delay in the Estates
Commissioners' Office was due to Mr. Commissioner Bailey's continued
presence in London. These visits, it should be noted, were paid to
London by Mr. Bailey in the discharge of his official duties for the
purpose of consultations with the Government in connection with the
Evicted Tenants Bill. On reading in the papers Mr. Moore's question
implying negligence to his duties on his part, Mr. Bailey wrote to Mr.
Moore the following letter, marked private:--

"UNIVERSITY CLUB,