The main provision of the Redistribution Act, as it was called,
was to take the right of electing members from all towns with a population
under 15,000, and to merge them in the country districts in which they
were situated.
In home affairs the Irish question has, during many years, claimed more
attention than any other. For some time there had been a great fall in the
prices of agricultural produce, and consequently the farmers in Ireland
had a difficulty in finding the money to pay their rents. Then followed
evictions, which the peasantry resisted by violence. Parliament passed
several measures, partly to give relief to the peasantry under the hard
times which had fallen upon them, partly with a view to making the law
stronger for the suppression of outrages. As these laws did not always
meet the approval of the Irish and their leaders in parliament, scenes of
violence frequently occurred. The worst act in the unhappy struggle--the
murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and of Mr Burke, in the Phoenix Park,
Dublin, in 1882--was the work of a secret society, and received the
condemnation of the Irish leaders. For many years there had been growing
in Ireland a party which demanded Home Rule--that is, that Ireland should
manage her domestic affairs by a parliament of her own at Dublin. At the
general election in 1885, 86 members out of 103 returned for Ireland were
in favour of Home Rule.
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