1-150-865 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

'The Bill-Sticker', 1881. The Liberal Prime Minister, Gladstone, is depicted as a billsticker, pasting up a huge poster with the words 'Irish Land Bill' over the top of existing bills concerning recent issues put before the House. This relates to Gladstone's proposal that the Irish Land Bill should be given priority above all other issues until it should be settled. After some debate, this proposal was agreed, although it had in fact already taken up so much of the available time that many other matters referred to in the Queen's Speech had already had to be dropped. One of the more contentious of the proposals in the Bill itself related to the implementation of fair rents in Ireland which would have to be assessed by a semi-judicial procedure. From Punch, or the London Charivari, July 16, 1881.