CHAPTER IX. THE LAND QUESTION AND ITS SETTLEMENT The just and
reasonable demand for a day to debate the administration was
unaccountably avoided by the Government, whose reply was that a
day would be granted if the demand came from the official
Liberal Opposition. The Nationalists could not submit to this
degradation of their independent position in Parliament, and
when they attempted to secure their end by a motion for the
adjournment of the House they found that two Irish Unionists had
"blocked" them by placing on the Order Paper certain omnibus
resolutions on the state of Ireland. Since the days of
Parnellite obstruction such scenes were not witnessed as those
that followed. The Party defied all rules of law and order,
worried the Government by all sort of lawless interruptions and
irrelevant questions, flagrantly flouted the authority of the
chair and, finally, after a week of Parliamentary anarchy, it
was determined that even more extreme courses would be adopted
unless the constitutional right of Irelan