When therefore the Prevention of Crime Bill of 1882 was brought in, some of us felt unable to support it, and specially bound to resist those of its provisions which related to trials without a jury, and to boycotting.  It was impossible, on the morrow of the Phoenix Park murders, to deny that some coercive measure might be needed; but we had so far lost faith in repression, and in the officials who were to administer it, as to desire to limit it to what was absolutely necessary, and we protested against enacting for Ireland a criminal code which was not to be applied to Great Britain.  Our resistance might have been more successful but for the manner in which the Nationalist members conducted their opposition.  When they began to obstruct—­not that under the circumstances we felt entitled to censure them for obstructing a Bill dealing so harshly with their countrymen—­we were obliged to desist, and our experience of the stormy scenes of the summer of 1882 deepened our sense of the passionate bitterness with which they regarded English members, scarcely making an exception in favour of those who were most disposed to sympathize with them.  Many and many a time when we listened to their fierce cries, we seemed to hear in them the battle-cries of the centuries of strife between Celt and Englishman from Athenry to Vinegar Hill; many a time we felt that this rage and mistrust were chiefly of England’s making; and yet not of England’s, but rather of the overmastering fate which had prolonged to our own days the hatreds and the methods of barbarous times: 

            hemeis d’ ouk aitioi esmen
    Alla Zeus kai Moira kai eerophoitis Herinus.

So much of the session as the Crime Bill had spared was consumed by the Arrears Bill, over which we had again a “crisis” with the House of Lords.  This was the third session that had been practically given up to Irishmen.  The freshness and force of the Parliament of 1880—­a Parliament full of zeal and ability—­had now been almost spent, yet few of the plans of domestic legislation spread before the constituencies of 1880 had been realized.  The Government had been anxious to legislate, their majority had been ready to support them, but Ireland had blocked the way; and now the only expedient for improving the procedure of the House was to summon Parliament in an extra autumn session.  Here was another cause for reflection.  England and Scotland were calling for measures promised years ago, but no time could be found to discuss them.  Nothing was done to reorganize local government, to reform the liquor laws, to improve secondary education, to deal with the housing of the poor, or a dozen other urgent questions, because we were busy with Ireland; and yet how little more loyal or contented did Ireland seem to be for all we had done.  We began to ask whether Home Rule might not be as much an English and Scotch question as an Irish question.  It was, at any rate, clear that to allow Ireland to manage her own affairs would open a prospect for England and Scotland to obtain time to attend to theirs.[3]