The Seanad will recollect that on 16th August last the Minister for Finance invited the Seanad to adjourn the consideration of the Land Bill until after the Recess. He said:—
"With regard to the Land Bill, it is not the intention of the Government to ask the Seanad to deal with it in this part of the Session, and it will not be taken until the reassembly after the Recess."
It will be within the recollection of members of the House that the Seanad insisted on taking the Land Bill, and decided not to defer it until after the Recess. I think, in the light of that fact, of which the Minister, who made use of this language last Sunday, must be cognisant, it is extraordinary that he should have made such an accusation against this House, the accusation of holding up the Land Bill. I do not want to labour this, or to speak on it at unnecessary length, but in making my protest I do want to say this: that I hope this House, in the decisions it arrives at on this and the other amendments to the Bill, will not be influenced in the slightest degree by any blustering threats of that kind—that it will arrive at a decision on all matters that come before it on the merits, and be influenced by no other consideration whatever.