ABOUT IRELAND

BY

_E. LYNN LINTON. _

LONDON:METHUEN & CO. , 18, BURY STREET, W. C. 

1890. 

EXPLANATORY. 

I am conscious that I ought to make some kind of apology for rushinginto print on a subject which I do not half know. But I do know just alittle more than I did when I was an ardent Home Ruler, influenced bythe seductive charm of sentiment and abstract principle only; and Ithink that perhaps the process by which my own blindness has beencouched may help to clear the vision of others who see as I did. Allof us lay-folk are obliged to follow the leaders of those schools inpolitics, science, or religion, to which our temperament and mentalidiosyncracies affiliate us. Life is not long enough for us to examinefrom the beginning upwards all the questions in which we areinterested; and it is only by chance that we find ourselves set faceto face with the first principles and elemental facts of a cause towhich, perhaps, as blind and believing followers of our leaders, wehave committed ourselves with the ardour of conviction and theintemperance of ignorance. In this matter of Ireland I believed in theaccusations of brutality, injustice, and general insolence of tyrannyfrom modern landlords to existing tenants, so constantly made by theHome Rulers and their organs; and, shocking though the undeniablecrimes committed by the Campaigners were, they seemed to me the tragicresults of that kind of despair which seizes on men who, goaded tomadness by oppression, are reduced to masked murder as their solemeans of defence--and as, after all, but a sadly natural retaliation. I knew nothing really of Lord Ashbourne's Act; and what I thought Iknew was, that it was more a blind than honest legislation, and did novital good. I thought that Home Rule would set all things straight, and that the National Sentiment was one which ought to find practicalexpression. I rejoiced over every election that took away one seatfrom the Unionists and added another vote to the Home Rulers; and Ishut my eyes to the dismemberment of our glorious Empire and thecertainty of civil war in Ireland, should the Home Rule demanded bythe Parnellites and advocated by the Gladstonians become anaccomplished fact. In a word I committed the mistakes inevitable toall who take feeling and conviction rather than fact and knowledge fortheir guides. 

Then I went to Ireland; and the scales fell from my eyes. I saw formyself; heard facts I had never known before; and was consequentlyenlightened as to the true meaning of the agitation and the realcondition of the people in their relation to politics, theirlandlords, and the Plan of Campaign. 

The outcome of this visit was two papers which were written for the_New Review_--with the editor of whom, however, I stood somewhat inthe position of Balaam with Balak, when, called on to curse theIsraelites, he was forced by a superior power to bless them. So I withthe Unionists. The first paper was sent and passed, but it was delayedby editorial difficulties through the critical months of thebye-elections. When published in the December number, owing to theexigencies of space, the backbone--namely the extracts from the LandActs, now included in this re-publication--was taken out of it, and myown unsupported statements alone were left. I was sorry for this, asit cut the ground from under my feet and left me in the position ofone of those mere impressionists who have already sufficientlydarkened counsel and obscured the truth of things. As the sameeditorial difficulties and exigencies of space would doubtless delaythe second paper, like the first, I resolved, by the courteouspermission of the editor, to enlarge and publish both in a pamphletfor which I alone should be responsible, and which would bind noeditor to even the semblance of endorsement. 

I, only half-enlightened, write, as has been said, for the whollyblind and ignorantly ardent who, as I did, accept sentiment for factand feeling for demonstration; who do not look at the solid legalbasis on which the present Government is dealing with the Irishquestion; who believe all that the Home Rulers say, and nothing thatthe Unionists demonstrate. I want them to study the plain andindisputable facts of legislation as I have done, when I think theymust come to the same conclusions as those which have forcedthemselves on my own mind--namely, that the Home Rule desired by theParnellites is not only a delusive impossibility, but is also hightreason against the integrity of the Empire, and would be a basesurrender of our obligations to the Irish Loyalists; that, whateverthe landlords were, they are now more sinned against than sinning;and that in the orderly operation of the Land Acts now in force, withthe stern repression of outrages[A] and punishment of crimes, forwhich peaceable folk are so largely indebted to Mr. Balfour, lies thetrue pacification of this distressed and troubled country. 

E. LYNN LINTON. 

ABOUT IRELAND. 

I. 

Nothing dies so hard as prejudice, unless it be sentiment. Indeed, prejudice and sentiment are but different manifestations of the sameprinciple by which men pronounce on things according to individualfeeling, independent of facts and free from the restraint of positiveknowledge. And on nothing in modern times has so much sentiment beenlavished as on the Irish question; nowhere has so much passionatelygenerous, but at the same time so much absolutely ignorant, partisanship been displayed as by English sympathisers with the Irishpeasant. This is scarcely to be wondered at. The picture of a gallantnation ground under the heel of an iron despotism--of an industriousand virtuous peasantry rackrented, despoiled, brutalised, and scarceable to live by their labour that they may supply the vicious wants ofoppressive landlords--of unarmed men, together with women and littlechildren, ruthlessly bludgeoned by a brutal police, or shot by abloodthirsty soldiery for no greater offence than verbal protestsagainst illegal evictions--of a handful of ardent patriots ready toundergo imprisonment and contumely in their struggle against one ofthe strongest nations in the world for only so much political freedomas is granted to-day by despots themselves--such a picture as this iscalculated to excite the sympathies of all generous souls. And it hasdone so in England, where "Home Rule" and "Justice to Ireland" havebecome the rallying cries of one section of the Liberal party, to thedisruption and political suicide of the whole body; and where the lessknowledge imported into the question the more fervid the advocacy andthe louder the demand. 

It is worth while to state quite quietly and quite plainly how thingsstand at this present moment. There is no need for hysterics on theone side or the other; and to amend one's views by the testimony offacts is not a dishonest turning of one's coat--if confession of thatamendment is a little like the white sheet and lighted taper of apenitent. Things are, or they are not. If they are, as will be setdown, the inference is plain to anyone not hopelessly blinded bypreconceived prejudice. If they are not, let them be authoritativelycontradicted on the basis of fact, not sentiment--demonstration, notassertion. In any case it is a gain to obtain material for a truerjudgment than heretofore, and thus to be rid of certain mental filmsby which colours are blurred and perspective is distorted. 

No one wishes to palliate the crimes of which England has been guiltyin Ireland. Her hand has been heavy, her whip one of braidedscorpions, her rule emphatically of blood and iron. But all this is ofthe past, and the pendulum, not only of public feeling but of legalenactment, threatens to swing too far on the other side. What has beendone cannot be undone, but it will not be repeated. We shall neversend over another Cromwell nor yet another Castlereagh; and there isas little good to be got from chafing over past wrongs as there is inlamenting past glories. Malachi and his collar of gold--the ancientkings who led forth the Red Branch Knights--State persecution of theCatholics--rack-rents and unjust evictions, are all alike swept awayinto the limbo of things dead and done with. What Ireland has to dealwith now are the enactments and facts of the day, and to shake off theincubus of retrospection, as a strong man awaking would get rid of anightmare. 

Nowhere in Europe, nor yet in the United States, are tenant-farmers sowell protected by law as in Ireland; nor is it the fault of England ifthe Acts passed for their benefit have been rendered ineffectual bythe agitators who have preferred fighting to orderly development. Solong ago as 1860 a Bill was passed providing that no tenant should beevicted for non-payment of rent unless one year's rent in arrear. (Landlord and Tenant Act, 1860, sec. 52. ) Even then, when evicted, hecould recover possession within six months by payment of the amountdue; when the landlord had to pay him the amount of any profit he hadmade out of the lands in the interim. The landlord had to pay half thepoor rate of the Government Valuation if a holding was £4 or upward, and all the poor rate if it was under £4. By the Act of 1870 "a yearlytenant disturbed in his holding by the act of the landlord, for causesother than non-payment of rent, and the Government Valuation of whoseholding does not exceed £100 per annum, must be paid by his landlordnot only full compensation for all improvements made by himself or hispredecessors, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, andreclamation of waste lands, but also as compensation for disturbance, a sum of money which may amount to seven years' rent. " (Land Act of1870, secs. 1, 2, and 3. ) Under the Act of 1881 the landlord's powerof disturbance was practically abolished--but I think I have readsomewhere that even of late years, and with the ballot, certainlandlords in England have threatened their tenants with "disturbance"without compensation if their votes were not given to the rightcolour--while in Ireland, even when evicted for non-payment of rent, ayearly tenant must be paid by his landlord "compensation for allimprovements, such as unexhausted manures, permanent buildings, andreclamation of waste land. " (Sec. 4. ) And when his rent does notexceed £15 he must be paid in addition "a sum of money which mayamount to seven years' rent if the court decides that the rent isexorbitant. " (Secs. 3 and 9. ) (_a_) Until the contrary is proved, theimprovements are presumed to have been made by the tenants. (Sec. 5. )(_b_) The tenant can make his claim for compensation immediately onnotice to quit being served, and cannot be evicted until thecompensation is paid. (Secs. 16 and 21. ) A yearly tenant whenvoluntarily surrendering his farm must either be paid by the landlord(_a_) compensation for all his improvements, or (_b_) be permitted tosell his improvements to an incoming tenant. (Sec. 4. ) In all newtenancies the landlord must pay half the county or Grand Jury Cess ifthe valuation is £4 or upward and the whole of the same Cess if thevalue does not exceed £4. (Secs. 65 and 66. ) Thus we have under theLand Act of 1870 (i) Full payment for all improvements; (2)Compensation for disturbance. 

The famous Land Act of 1881 gave three additional privileges, (1)Fixity of tenure, by which the tenant remains in possession of theland for ever, subject to periodic revision of the rent. (Land Act, 1881, sec. 8. ) If the tenant has not had a fair rent fixed, and hislandlord proceeds to evict him for non-payment of rent, he can applyto the court to fix the fair rent, and meantime the evictionproceedings will be restrained by the court. (Sec. 13. ) (2) Fair rent, by which any yearly tenant may apply to the Land Commission Court (thejudges of which were appointed under Mr. Gladstone's Administration)to fix the fair rent of his holding. The application is referred tothree persons, one of whom is a lawyer, and the other two inspect andvalue the farm. _This rent can never again_ be raised by the landlord. (Sec. 8. ) (3) Free sale, by which every yearly tenant may, whether hehas had a fair rent fixed or not, sell his tenancy to the highestbidder whenever he desires to leave. (Sec. 1. ) (_a_) There is nopractical limit to the price he may sell for, and twenty times theamount of the annual rent has frequently been obtained in everyprovince of Ireland. (_b_) Even if a tenant be evicted, he has theright either to redeem at any time within three months, _or to sellhis tenancy within the same period to a purchaser who can likewiseredeem_ and thus acquire all the privileges of a tenant. (Sec. 13. )

Even more important than this is the Land Purchase Act of 1885, commonly called Lord Ashbourne's Act, by which the whole land inIreland is potentially put into the hands of the farmers, and of theworking of which much will have to be said before these papers end. This Act, in its sections 2, 3, and 4, sets forth this position, briefly stated: If a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and arrangeswith his landlord as to terms, he can change his position from that ofa perpetual rent-payer into that of the payer of an annuity, terminable at the end of forty-nine years--the Government supplyinghim with the entire purchase-money, to be repaid during thoseforty-nine years at 4 per cent. This annual payment of £4 for every£100 borrowed covers both principal and interest. Thus, if a tenant, already paying a statutory rent of £50, agrees to buy from hislandlord at twenty years' purchase (or £1, 000) the Government willlend him the money, his rent will at once cease, and he will not pay£50, but £40, yearly for forty-nine years, and then become the ownerof his holding, free of rent. It is hardly necessary to point outthat, as these forty-nine years of payment roll by, the interest ofthe tenant in his holding increases rapidly in value. (Land PurchaseAct, 1885, secs. 2, 3, and 4. )

Under the Land Act of 1887, the tenants received the following stillgreater and always one-sided privileges, (i) By this Act leases areallowed to be broken by the tenant, but not by the landlord. Allleaseholders whose leases would expire within ninety-nine years afterthe passing of the Act have the option of going into court and gettingtheir contracts broken and a judicial rent fixed. No equivalent poweris given to the landlords. (Land Act of 1887, secs, 1 and 2. ) (2) TheAct varies rent already judicially fixed for fifteen years by theLand Courts in the years 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, and 1885. (Sec. 29. )(3) It stays evictions, and allows rent to be paid by instalments. Inthe case of tenants whose valuation does not exceed £50, the courtbefore which proceedings are being taken for the recovery of _any_debt due by the tenant is empowered to stay his eviction, and may givehim liberty to pay his creditors by instalments, and can extend thetime for such payment as it thinks proper. (Land Act of 1887, sec. 30. )

By these extracts, which do not exhaust the whole of the privilegesgranted to the Irish tenant, it may be seen how exceptionally he hasbeen favoured. Nowhere else has such wholesale interference with theobligations of contract, such lavish protection of the tenant, suchpractical persecution of the landlord been as yet demanded by theone-half of the nation; nor, if demanded, would such partiality havebeen conceded by the other half. Yet, in the face of these variousActs, and all they embody, provide for, and deny, our hystericaljournal _par excellence_ is not ashamed to publish a wild letter fromone of those ramping political women who screech like peacocks beforerain, setting forth how Ireland could be redeemed by the manufactureof blackberry jam, were it not for the infamous landlords who would atonce raise the rent on those tenants who, by industry, had improvedtheir condition. And a Dublin paper asserts that anything will befiction which demonstrates that "Ireland is not the home ofrackrenters, brutal batonmen, and heartless evictors"; while politicalagitation is still being carried on by any means that come handiest, and the eviction of tenants who owe five or six years' rent, and willnot pay even one to clear off old scores, is treated as an act ofbrutality for which no quarter should be given. If we were to transferthe whole method of procedure to our own lands and houses in England, perhaps the thing would wear a different aspect from that which itwears now, when surrounded by a halo of false sentiment and convenientforgetfulness. 

The total want of honesty, of desire for the right thing in thisno-rent agitation, is exemplified by the following fact:--When ColonelVandeleur's tenants--owing several years' rent, refused to payanything, and joined the Plan of Campaign, arbitration was suggested, and Sir Charles Russell was accepted by the landlord as arbitrator. Asevery one knows, Sir Charles is an Irishman, a Catholic, and the"tenants' friend. " His award was, as might have been expected, mostliberal towards them. Here is the result:--"We learn that thenon-fulfilment by a number of the tenants of the terms of the awardmade by Sir C. Russell is likely to lead to serious difficulties. Theyrefuse to carry out the undertaking which was given on their behalf, having so much bettered the instruction given to them that they insistupon holding a grip of the rent, and not yielding to even the adviceof their friends. About thirty of them have not paid the year's rent, which all the Plan of Campaign tenants were to have paid when theaward was made known to them. This is the most conspicuous instance inwhich arbitration has been tried, and the result is not encouraging, although landlords have been denounced for not at once accepting itinstead of seeking to enforce their legal rights by the tribunalappointed by the Legislature. "

With a legal machinery of relief so comprehensive and so favourable tothe tenant, it would seem that the Plan of Campaign, with its crueland murderous accompaniments, was scarcely needed. If anyone wasaggrieved, the courts were open to him; and we have only to read thelist of reduced rents to see how those courts protected the tenant andbore heavily on the landlord. Also, it would seem to persons ofordinary morality that it would have been more manly and more honestto pay the rents due to the proprietor than to cast the money into thechest of the Plan of Campaign--that _boite à Pierrette_ which, likethe sieve of the Danaïdes, can never be filled. The Home Ruleagitators have known how to make it appear that they, and they alone, stand between the people and oppression. They have ignored all thisorderly legal machinery; and their English sympathisers have notremembered it. Nor have those English sympathisers considered thesignificant fact that this agitation is literally the bread of life tothose who have created and still maintain it. Many of the Home RuleIrish Members of Parliament have risen from the lowest ranks ofsociety--from the barefooted peasantry, where their nearest relationsare still to be found--into the outward condition of gentlemen livingin comparative affluence. It is not being uncharitable, nor goingbehind motives, to ask, _Cui bono?_ For whose advantage is a certainmovement carried on?--especially for whose advantage is this anti-rentmovement in Ireland? For the good of the tenants who, under thepressure put on them by those whom they have agreed to follow, refuseto pay even a fraction of rent hitherto paid to the full, and who are, in consequence, evicted from their farms and deprived of their meansof subsistence?--or is it for the good of a handful of men who live byand on the agitation they created and still keep up? Do the leaders ofany movement whatsoever give a thought to the individual livessacrificed to the success of the cause? As little as the generalregrets the individuals of the rank and file in the battalions hehurls against the enemy. The ruined homes and blighted lives of thethousands who have listened, believed, been coerced to their owndespair, have been no more than the numbers of the rank and file tothe general who hoped to gain the day by his battalions. [B] The goodin this no-rent movement is reaped by the agitators alone; and forthem alone have the chestnuts been pulled out of the fire. Furthermore, whose hands among the prominent leaders are free from thereflected stain of blood-money? These leaders have counselled a courseof action which has been marked all along the line by outrage andmurder; and they have lived well and amassed wealth by the course theyhave counselled. 

From proletariats in their own persons they have become men ofsubstance and property. These assertions are facts to which names andamounts can be given; and that question, _Cui bono_? answers itself. The inference to be drawn is too grave to be set aside; and to plead"charitable judgment" is to plead imbecility. 

The plain and simple truth is--the protective legislation that was sosorely needed for the peasantry is fast degenerating into injusticeand oppression against the landlords. Thousands of the smallerlandowners have been absolutely beggared; the larger holders have beenas ruthlessly ruined. For, while the rents were lowered, the chargeson the land, made on the larger basis, were kept to their same value;and the fate of the landlord was sealed. Between the hammer and theanvil as he was and is placed, his times have not been pleasant. Families who have bought their estates on the faith of Governmentsales and Government contracts, and families who have owned theirs forcenturies and lived on them, winter and summer--who have been neitherabsentees nor rack-renters, but have been friendly, hospitable, open-handed after their kind, always ready to give comforts andmedicine to the sick and a good-natured measure of relief to the hardpressed--they have now been brought to the ground; and between our ownfluid and unstable legislation and the reckless cruelty of the Plan ofCampaign their destruction has been complete. Wherever one goes onefinds great houses shut up or let for a few summer months to strangerswho care nothing for the place and less than nothing for the people. One cannot call this a gain, look at it as one will. Nor do thetenantry themselves feel it to be a gain. Get their confidence and youwill find that they all regret the loss of their own--those jovial, frank, and kindly proprietors who did the best they knew, thoughperhaps, judged by present scientific knowledge that best was not verygood, but who at least knew more than themselves. Carrying the thinghome to England, we should scarcely say that our country places wouldbe the better for the exodus of all the educated and refined andwell-to-do families, with the peasantry and an unmarried clergymanleft sole masters of the situation. 

In the desire of Parliament to do justice to the Irish peasant, whosecondition did once so loudly demand amelioration, justice to thelandlord has gone by the board. For we cannot call it justice to makehim alone suffer. His rents have been reduced from 25 to 30 per cent. And over, but all the rent charges, mortgages, debts and dues havebeen retained at their full value. The scheme of reduction does notpass beyond the tiller of the soil, and the landlord is the soleloser. [C]

Beyond this he suffers from the want of finality in legislation. Nothing is left to prove itself, and the tinkering never ends. Afifteen years' bargain under the first Land Act is broken up under thenext as if Governmental pledges were lovers' vows. When, on the faithof those pledges, a landlord borrowed money from the Board of Worksfor the improvement of his estate, for stone cottages for histenantry, for fences, drainage, and the like, suddenly his income isstill further reduced; but the interest he has to pay for the loancontracted on the broader basis remains the same. Which is a kind ofthing on all fours with the plan of locking up a debtor so that hecannot work at his trade, while ordering him to pay so much weeklyfrom earnings which the law itself prevents his making. 

If the sum of misery remains constant in Ireland, its distribution haschanged hands. The small deposits in the savings-banks have increasedto an enormous extent, and in many places where the tenants have forsome years refused to pay their rents, but have still kept the land, the women have learned to dress. But the owners of the land--say thatthey are ladies with no man in the family--have wanted bread, and havebeen kept from starvation only by surreptitious supplies delivered inthe dead darkness of the night. These supplies have of necessity beenrare and scanty, for the most honest tenant dared not face thevengeance of the League by openly paying his just due. Did not Mr. Dillon, on August 23rd, 1887, say, "If there is a man in Ireland baseenough to back down, to turn his back on the fight now that Coercionhas passed, I pledge myself in the face of this meeting, that I willdenounce him from public platform by name, and I pledge myself to theGovernment that, let that man be whom he may, his life will not be ahappy one, either in Ireland or across the seas. " With such aformidable organisation as this, what individual would have thecourage to stand out for abstract justice to a landlord? It would havebeen, and it has been, standing out for his own destruction. Hence, for no fault, no rack-renting, have proprietors--and especiallyladies--been treated as mortal enemies by those whom they had alwaysbefriended--for no reason whatever but that it was an easy victory forthe Campaigners to obtain. Women, with never a man to defend them, could be more easily manipulated than if they were so many stalwartyoung fellows, handy in their turn with guns and revolvers, and manfor man a match even for Captain Moonlight. If these ladies dared toevict their non-paying tenants they would be either boycotted or"visited, " or perhaps both. Besides, who would venture to take thevacant land? And how could a couple of delicate ladies, say, till theground with their own hands? The old fable of the dog in the mangerholds good with these Campaigners. Those who will not pay preventothers who would; and the hated "landgrabber, " denounced from altarand platform alike, is simply an honest and industrious worker, whowould make his own living and the landlord's rent out of a bit of landwhich is lying idle and going to waste. 

All through the disturbed districts we come upon facts like this--uponthe ruin and humiliation of kindly and delicately-nurtured ladies, ofwhich the English public knows nothing; and while it hystericallypities the poor down-trodden peasant and goes in for Home Rule as thepanacea, the wife of a tenant owing five years' rent and refusing topay one, dresses in costly attire--and the lady proprietor knowspenury and hunger; not to speak of the agonies of personal terrorendured for months at a stretch. Let us, who live in a well-orderedcountry, realize for a moment the mental condition of those who dwellin the shadow of assassination--women to whom every unusual noise isas the sentence of death, and whose days are days of trembling, andtheir nights of anguish for the fear of death that encompasses them. Is this according to the law of elemental justice? Are our sympathiesto be confined wholly to one class, and are the sorrows and the wrongsdone to another not to count? Surely it is time for some of thesentimental fog in which so many of us have been living to bedispelled in favour of the light of truth!

Here is an instructive little bit on which we would do well toponder:--

A certain authority gives the following anecdote:--He says that he"has just had a long conversation with one of the leading Galwaymerchants. 'A farmer of this county, ' said he, 'told me yesterday thathe had let his meadowing at £8 an acre. I bought all his barley, andhe confessed that on this crop too he had made £8 an acre. Now thejudicial rent of this man's holding is 10s. The acre. He said, "I havenothing to complain of. "' This man was a tenant of Lord Clanricarde;one of those people who decline to pay a farthing in the way of rentto the lawful owner of the soil. The case we have cited may be anextreme one, but it is generally admitted by those who are acquaintedwith the facts, and who speak the truth that the rents on theClanricarde property, speaking generally, are low rents, and yet notonly is it impossible to collect these rents, but the agent whorepresents Lord Clanricarde, and whose only fault is that he tries todo his duty to his employer without unnecessary harshness to thetenantry, dare not go outside his house without an escort of police, and every time he leaves his house, he risks his life. Referring tothis agent, Mr. Tener, the correspondent says:--

"No one would think from looking at him that he literally carries hislife in his hand, and that if he were not guarded as closely as he ishe would be shot in twenty-four hours. He never goes outside the wallsof the Portumna demesne without an escort of seven policemen--twomounted men in front, two behind, and three upon his car. He, too, aswell as the driver, is armed, so the would-be assassins must reckonwith nine armed men. In the opinion of those who know theneighbourhood his escort is barely strong enough. He was fired at afew weeks ago, and the horse which he was driving shot dead. Thepolice who were with him on the car were rolled out upon the road, andbefore they could recover themselves and pursue the Moonlighters hadescaped. ' And this is supposed to be a civilised country, and is apart of the United Kingdom!

"Whereas it seems to us Lord Clanricarde is to blame is in not living, at any rate for some part of the year, upon his Irish property. Thisnobleman represents one of the most ancient families in Ireland. He isthe representative of the Clanricarde Burkes, who have been settledupon this property for 700 years. He draws, or rather drew, a verylarge income from it, and there can be little question that hispresence would encourage and sustain smaller proprietors who arefighting a losing battle in defence of their rights. These proprietorsmay fairly claim that the leading men of their order should stand bythem in the time of trial. Unfortunately, this assistance has not beeninvariably, or even as a rule, rendered by the great Irish landowners. It is, indeed, largely because they have failed in their duty that thepresent troubles have come upon Irish landlords as a body. If only inthe past the great landowners had lived in Ireland and spent at leasta portion of the incomes they derived from Ireland upon their estates, the present agitation against landlordism would never have reached thepoint at which it has arrived. The absence of the landlords, and inmany cases their refusal to recognise the legitimate claims of theirdistricts upon them, has made it possible for the agitators who havenow the ear of the people to bring about that severance of classes, and that embittered feeling of class against class, which is doingIreland more injury at the present time than all the rack-renters puttogether. "

Those who plead for the landlords who have been so cruelly robbed andruined are weak-voiced and reticent compared to the loudly cryingadvocates for the peasantry. English tourists run over for a fortnightto Ireland, talk to the jarvies, listen to the peasants themselves, forbear to go near any educated or responsible person with knowledgeof the facts and a character to lose, and accept as gospel everythingthey hear. There is no check and no verification. Pat and Tim and Mikegive their accounts of this and that, bedad! and tell their piteoustales of want and oppression. The English tourist swallows it allwhole as it comes to him, and writes his account to the sympatheticPress, which publishes as gospel stories which have not one word oftruth in them. In fact, the term "English tourist" has come to meanthe same as _gobemouche_ in France; and clever Pat knows well enoughthat there is not a fly in the whole region of fable which is toolarge for the brutal Saxon to swallow. Abject poverty without shoes toits feet, with only a few rags to cover its unwashed nakedness, and anunfurnished mud cabin shared with the pigs and poultry for its soledwelling-place--abject poverty begs a copper from "his honour" for thelove of God and the glory of the Blessed Virgin, telling meantime aheartrending story of privation and oppression. Abject poverty pointsto all the outward signs and circumstances of its woe; but it forgetsthe good stone house in which live the son and the son's wife--thedozen or more of cattle grazing free on the mountain side--that bit offertile land where the very weeds grow into beauty by theirluxuriance--and those quiet hundreds hidden away for the sole pleasureof hoarding. And the English tourist takes it all in, and blazes outinto wrath against the tyrannous landlord who has reduced an honestcitizen to this fearful state of misery; knowing nothing of the craftwhich is known to all the residents round about, and not willing tobelieve it were he even told. For the dramatic instinct is strong inhuman nature, and in these later days there is an ebullient surplusageof sympathy which only desires to find an object. Across the BristolChannel, the English tourist finds these objects ready-made to hishand; and the question is still further embroiled, and the light oftruth still more obscured, that a few impulsive, credulous, andnon-judicially-minded young people may find something whereon toexcite their emotions, and give vent to them in letters to thenewspapers when excited. 

Only the other day a young Irishman who has to do with the landquestion was mistaken for a brutal but credulous Saxon by the jarveywho had him in tow. Consequently, Pat plied his fancied victim withthe wildest stories of this man's wrongs and that lone widow'ssufferings. When he found out his mistake he laughed and said:"Begorra, I thought your honour was an English tourist!" And at acertain trial which took place in Cork, the judge put by some absurdstatement by saying, half-indignant, half amused: "Do you take me foran English tourist?" Nevertheless the race will continue so long asthere are excitable young persons of either sex whose capacity forswallowing flies is practically unlimited, and an hysterical Press towhich they can betake themselves. 

The following authoritative instance of this misplaced sympathy maysuffice. The _Westminster Review_ published a certain article on theOlphert estate, among other things. Those who have read it know itssensational character. At Cork the other day the priest concerned hadto confess on oath that only three of the Olphert tenants had receivedrelief. [D]

In the famous Luggacurren evictions the poor dispossessed dupes losttheir all at the bidding of the Campaigners, on the plea of inabilityto pay rents voluntarily offered by Lord Lansdowne to be reduced 20per cent. After these evictions the lands were let to the "LandCorporation, " which had some short time ago four hundred head ofcattle over and above the full rent paid honestly down; but the formerholders are living on charity doled out to them by the Campaigners, and in huts built for them by the Campaigners on the edge of the richand kindly land which once gave them home and sustenance. How bitterlythey curse the evil counsels which led to their destruction only theyand the few they dare trust know. Take, too, these two authoritativestories. They are of the things one blindly believes and ragesagainst--with what justice the dénouement of the sorry farce, bestshows:--

"The correspondents of the _Freeman's Journal_, in response to thecircular some time ago addressed to them continue to supply fictitiousand exaggerated statements of events alleged to have happened 'in thecountry, ' nearly every day some example is afforded. One of the latestis a pathetic tale of the 'suicide of a tenant. ' It represents thatAndrew Kelly, of Cloonlaugh, 'one of the three tenants against whomA. W. Sampey, J. P. , landlord, obtained ejectments, ' became dementedfrom the fear of eviction, and drowned himself in a bog hole inconsequence. The account is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Andrew Kelly was not a tenant of Mr. Sampey's, nor had he been for thelast five years. His son, it is true, is one of the tenants againstwhom a decree was obtained, but this did not apparently trouble thefather much, as he had been living away from his son for a long time, although he had come to see him a few days before he was drowned. There was no suspicion either of foul play or suicide, and thecoroner's jury returned no such verdict as that given in the_Freeman_. The veracious correspondent of that journal stated that thejury found that 'Andrew Kelly came by his death through drowning onthe 22nd October while suffering under temporary insanity broughtabout by fear of eviction. ' The following is the verdict which thecoroner's jury actually arrived at:--'We find that Andrew Kelly'sdeath was caused by suffocation; that he was found dead in thetownland of Clooncriur, on the 24th day of October, 1889. ' This is theway in which sensational news is manufactured for the purpose ofpromoting an anti-landlord crusade and prejudicing the owners ofproperty in the eyes of the country. "

"Speaking at Newmarch, near Barnsley, last month, Mr. Waddy drew aheartrending picture of the tyranny practised in Ireland, andillustrated his theme and moved his audience to the execration of Mr. Balfour by the artistic recital of a horrible tale. He declared that alittle child had been barbarously sentenced by resident magistrates toa month's imprisonment for throwing a stone at a policeman. Somehard-headed or hard-hearted Yorkshireman, however, would not believeMr. Waddy offhand, and challenged him to declare names, place, anddate. On the 15th of November, Mr. Waddy gave the followingparticulars in writing. He stated that the magistrates who had imposedthe brutal punishment were Mr. Hill and Colonel Bowlby, that the casewas tried at Keenagh on the 23rd of April, 1888, that the child's namewas Thomas Quin, aged nine, and that the charge was throwing stones atthe police. 

"The clue thus afforded has been followed up. It is grievous that cooland calculating investigation should spoil a pretty story, but here isthe truth. 

"On the 20th of April, before Colonel Stewart and Colonel Bowlby, resident magistrates, Thomas Quin, aged 19 years, was convicted ofusing intimidation towards William Nutley, in consequence of hishaving done an act which he had a legal right to do--viz. , to evict alabourer, Michael Fegan, of Clearis, who refused to work for him. Thomas Quin was sentenced to one month's imprisonment. 

"I am quite sure that Mr. Waddy will publicly acknowledge that heplayed upon the feelings of his hearers with a trumped-up tale of woe, but I wonder whether anything will teach the British political touristthat a great number of my countrymen unfortunately feel a genuinedelight in hoaxing them. 

"Your obedient servant, "AN IRISH LIBERAL. "

As for the assertion of poverty and inability to pay, so invariablymade to excuse defaulting tenants, I will give these two instances tothe contrary. 

"Writing on behalf of Mr. Balfour to Mr. E. Bannister, of Hyde, Cheshire, Mr. George Wyndham, M. P. , recounts a somewhat remarkablecircumstance in connection with the position and circumstances of atenant on Lord Kenmare's estate who declined to pay his rent on theplea of poverty:--'Irish Office, Nov. 28, 1889. Dear Sir, --In reply toyour letter of the 22nd inst. , I beg to inform you that I have madecareful inquiries into the case of Molloy, a tenant on Lord Kenmare'sestate. I find that so far from exaggerating the scope of thisincident, you somewhat understate the case. The full particulars wereas follow:--The estate bailiffs visited the house of Molloy, a tenantwho owed £30 rent and arrears. They seized his cows, and then calledat his home to ask him if he would redeem them by paying the debt. Molloy stated that he was willing to pay, but that he had only £7altogether. He handed seven notes to the bailiff, who found that oneof them was a £5 note, so that the amount was £11 instead of £7. Onbeing pressed to pay the balance he admitted that he had a smalldeposit of £20 in the bank, and produced a document which he said wasthe deposit receipt for this sum. On the bailiff examining thisreceipt he found it was for £100 and not for £20. On being informed ofhis mistake, Molloy took back the £100 receipt and produced another, which turned out to be for £40. A further search on his part led tothe production of the receipt for £20, with which and £10 in notes hepaid the rent. You will observe that this tenant, refusing to pay £30, and obliging his landlord to take steps against him, possessed at thetime £171, besides having stock on his land. --Yours faithfully, GEORGEWYNDHAM. '"

And I have it on the word of honour of one whose word is his bond, that certain defaulting tenants lately confessed to him that they hadin their pockets as much as the value of three years' rent for the twothey owed, but that they dared not, for their lives, pay it. Theywould if they dared, but they dared not. The plea of inability to paythe reduced scale of rent is for the most part simple moonshine; andthe terrorism imported into this question comes from the Campaigners, not from the landlords, nor yet from the police. If these paidpolitical agitators were silenced, and if the laws already passed weresuffered to work by themselves according to their intent, things wouldspeedily settle. But then the agitators would lose their means ofsubsistence, their social status, and their political importance. Asthings are these men are ruining the country they affect to defend;while the worst enemies of the peasant are those who call themselveshis friends, and the blind-eyed sympathisers who bewail the wrongs hedoes not suffer and the misery he himself might prevent. All thatIreland wants now is rest from political agitation, the orderlydevelopment of its resources;--and especially finality inlegislation;[E]--so that the one side may know to what it has totrust, and the other may be freed from those illusive dreams anddemoralising hopes which destroy the manlier efforts after self-helpin the present for that universal amelioration to be found in thecoming of the cocklicranes in the future. 

There is, however, a good work quietly going on which will touch theevil root of things in time, but not in the sense of the Home Rulersand Campaigners. This good work will render it unnecessary to followthe advice of that rough and ready politician who saw no way out ofthe wood save to "send to Hell for Oliver Cromwell"; also that of thefacetious Dove who winked as he offered his olive branch:--"Shure thebest way to pacify Oireland is for the Queen to marry Parnell. " A morepracticable method than either is silently making headway against theelements of disorder; and in spite of the upsetters and theiropposition the rough things will be made smooth, and, the troubledwaters will run clear, if only the Government of order may be allowedtime to do its beneficent work of repression and re-establishmentthoroughly and to the roots. 

II. 

In politics, as in nature, beneficent powers work quietly, whiledestructive agencies sweep across the world with noise and tumult. Thefruit tree grows in silence; the tempest which uproots it shakes theearth to its centre. The gradual evolution of society in thedevelopment of art, the softening of manners, the equalization ofjustice, the respect for law, the purity of morals, which are itsresults and correlatives, comes about as silently as the growth of thetree; but the wars which desolate nations, and the revolutions whichdestroy in a few months the work of many centuries, are as tumultuousas the tempest and as boisterous as the storm. 

In Ireland at the present moment this rule holds good with surprisingaccuracy. Where the tranquilizing effect of Lord Ashbourne's Actattracts but little attention outside its own immediate sphere, thePlan of Campaign has everywhere been accompanied with murder, boycotting, outrage, and the loud cries of those who, playing atbowls, have to put up with rubbers. Where men who have retained theirsense of manly honesty and commercial justice, buy their lands inpeace, without asking the world to witness the transaction--thosetenants who, having for years refused to pay a reduced rent or anyportion of arrears, are at last evicted from the land they do not careto hold as honest men should, make the political welkin ring withtheir complaints, and call on the nation at large to avenge theirwrongs. And the analogy holds good all through. The Irish tenantyearns to possess the land he farms. Lord Ashbourne's Act enables himto do this by the benign way of peace, fairness, and self-respect. ThePlan of Campaign, on the other hand, teaches him the destructivemethods of dishonesty and violence. The one is a legal, quiet, andequitable arrangement, without personal bitterness, without hystericalshrieking, without wrong-doing to any one. The other is an offenceagainst the common interests of society, and a breach of the lawaccompanied by crimes against humanity. The one is silent andbeneficent; the other noisy, uprooting, and malevolent. But as thepowers of growth and development are, in the long run, superior tothose of destruction--else all would have gone by the board agesago--the good done by Lord Ashbourne's Act will be a living force inthe national history when the evil wrought by the Plan of Campaign isdead and done with. 

By Lord Ashbourne's Act the Irish tenant can buy his farm at (anaverage of) seventeen years' purchase. He borrows the purchase moneyfrom the Government, paying it back on easy terms, so that inforty-nine years he becomes the absolute owner of the property--payingmeantime in interest and gradual diminution of the principal, lessthan the present rent. The landlord has about £68 for every £100 heused to have in rent. This Act is quietly revolutionizing Ireland, redeeming it from agrarian anarchy, and saving the farmer from himselfand his friends. Thousands and thousands of acres are being constantlysold in all parts of the country, and good prices are freely given forfarms whereof the turbulent and discontented tenants professedthemselves unable to pay the most moderate rents. Large holdings andsmall alike are bought as gladly as they are sold. Those who buy knowthe capabilities of the land when worked with a will; those who sellprefer a reduced certainty to the greater nominal value, which mightvanish altogether under the fiat of the Campaigners and the visits ofCaptain Moonlight. 

The Irish loyal papers, which no English Home Ruler ever sees--factsbeing so inimical to sentiment--these Irish papers are full of detailsrespecting these sales. On one estate thirty-seven farmers buy theirholdings at prices varying from £18 to £520, the average being £80. Onanother, six farms bring £5, 603, one fetching £2, 250. In the west, small farmers are buying where they can. In Sligo the MacDermott, Q. C. , has sold farms to forty-two of his tenants for £3, 096, theprices varying from £32 to £70 and £130; and the O'Connor Don has soldfarms in the same county to fifteen tenants for £1, 934. The number ofacres purchased under this Act for the three years ending August, 1888, are a trifle over 293, 556. 

The Government valuation is £171, 774, 000. The net rent is £190, 18112s. 9d. The purchase-money is £3, 350, 933. The average number ofyears' purchase is 17. 6. 

Perhaps the most important of all these sales are those on the Egmontestate in the very heart of one of the gravely-disturbed districts. The rent-roll of this estate was £16, 000 a year; and it was estimatedthat successive landlords had laid out about £250, 000 inimprovements--which was just the sum expected to be realized by thesales. All this land has passed into the hands of farmers who, fromagitators and No Renters have now become proprietors on their ownaccount, with a direct interest in maintaining law and order, and inopposing violence and disorder all round. Other important sales havebeen effected. A hundred and fifty tenants on the Drapers' estate incounty Derry have bought their farms from the London Company at atotal of £57, 980. These, with others (197 in all), reached a sum totalof purchase-money of £63, 305, as set forth in the _Dublin Gazette_, ofNovember 5th, 1889. 

Lord Spencer, whose political _volte face_ is one of the wonders ofthe hour, does not hesitate to say that this Act has not been asuccess. Can he give counter figures to those quoted above? And Mr. Michael Davitt does not approve of the sales in general and of thoseon the Egmont estates in especial, "He hates the Ashbourne Act worsethan he hates the idea of an endowed Roman Catholic University, whichis saying a great deal. He hates it because it renders impossible hisvisionary scheme of land nationalization, but more because it wrestsfrom his hands the weapons of Separatist rebellion. And what he openlysays, all the more cautious members of his party think. Everypurchaser under the Ashbourne Act is a soldier lost to the cause ofsedition. More than one of the ringleaders have indeed said thisformerly, but of late they have grown more reticent. The Parnellite, it has been said, is essentially an Opportunist. Mr. Davitt is hardlya Parnellite, but the real Parnellite items have discovered that theirseats in Parliament and their future hopes would be endangered, ifthey openly fell foul of the Act under which so many Irish tenants arebecoming freeholders. They do not bless the Act, but they leave italone. "

There is another misstatement that had better be frankly met. Theobjectors to the Land Courts say that the applicants are so many andthe process is so slow, it is almost useless and worse thanheartbreaking to apply for relief. One thing, however, must beremembered--during the interim of application and hearing, a tenantcannot be disturbed in his holding, and if he refuses to pay his rentthe landlord cannot evict him. The following correspondence isinstructive:--

 "Braintree, Nov. 14. 

 "Sir, --Will you be good enough to inform me whether the statement I give below is correct? It was made by an Irish lecturer (going about with magic-lantern views) for the purpose of showing how unjustly the Irish tenants are treated. The lecturer was Mr. J. O'Brady, and he was delivering the lecture at Braintree on Saturday, November 9:--'There are now 90, 000 cases awaiting the decision of the Land Courts to fix a "fair rent" on their holdings, and as only 15, 000 cases can be heard in one year, do you wonder at the tenants refusing to pay their present rent?'

 "Your faithful servant, "G. THORPE BARTRAM. "

 "The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M. P. "

 "Irish Office, Great Queen Street, Nov. 22. 

 "Dear Sir, --I have made special inquiry into the subject of your letter of the 14th inst. , and find that on the 31st of the last month the number of outstanding applications to have fair rents fixed was 44, 295, and that the number of cases disposed of in the months of July and August (the latest month for which the figures are made up) was 5, 380. You will see, therefore, that the arrear is less than one-half of the amount stated by the Separatist lecturer to whom you refer, and the rate of progression in disposing of it is considerably higher than that alleged by him. It may reasonably be hoped also (though the statistics are not yet available) that this rate has since been increased, as several additional Sub-Commissioners have been appointed to hear the cases. I would observe also that under the provisions of the Land Act, passed by the present Government in 1887, the tenant gets the benefit of the judicial rent from the date of his application, an advantage which he did not possess under Mr. Gladstone's Act. Such unavoidable delay as may occur, therefore, does not, under the existing law, involve the serious injury to the tenant implied by the lecturer. I enclose a printed paper, which will give you further information on this subject. In conclusion, I would point out that the suggestion that the agrarian trouble in Ireland arises from the difficulty experienced by the tenants in getting judicial rents fixed is not warranted by the facts. Take as illustrations the cases of two estates which have lately been prominently before the public--namely, the Ponsonby and the Olphert. In the former case the landlord is anxious, I believe, to get the tenants to go into Court, and offers to give retrospective effect to the decisions, though not bound by law to do so, but under the influence of the agitators the tenants refuse to go into Court. In the latter instance judicial rents have long since been fixed in the great majority of cases. 

 "Yours faithfully, "ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR. "

Together with this easy mode of purchase by which the quiet andindustrious are profiting, rents are reduced all over the country, though still the Home Rulers reiterate the old charge of"rack-renting, " as if such a thing were the rule. These unscrupulousmisstatements, indeed, make half the difficulties of the Irishquestion; for lies stick fast, where disclaimers, proofs, facts, andfigures, pass by like dry leaves on the wind. But for all the fact ofpast extortion the present reductions are not always a proof ofover-renting. What Mr. Buxton says has common sense on the face ofit:--

"Very serious reductions of rents are being made all through Irelandby the Land Sub-Commissioners, who are supposed to be in some extentguided by the appearance of the farms. Now it should be rememberedthat at the interview that took place in London on July 3rd, betweenMr. Smith-Barry and some of his tenants, in reference to thatgentleman's support of the evictions on the Ponsonby estate, one ofthe arguments for forgiveness of arrears was that when eviction wasthreatened 'the tenants gave up their industry, ' and 'how could theyget the rents out of the land when they were absolutely idle?' Toadmit such a plea for granting a reduction of rent is most dangerous. Tenants have but to neglect their land, get into arrears of rent, andclaim large reductions because their farms do not pay. An ignorant, orslovenly, or idle farmer, under such circumstances, is likely to havea lower rent fixed by the Sub-Commissioners than his more industriousneighbour, and thus a great injustice may be done to both the goodfarmer and the landlord, the--perhaps cunningly--idle farmer receivinga premium for neglecting his farm. A comparison of the judicial rentswith the former rents and the Poor Law valuation is truly startling, and must lead one to imagine that the system by which so much valuableproperty is dealt with is most unjust. "

Thus, the famous reductions in County Clare, where the abatementsgranted averaged over 30 per cent. , and in some cases exceeded 50 percent. , were not perhaps all a sign of the landlord's iniquity, butalso may be taken to show something of the tenant's indifference. Poverty is pitiable, truly, and it claims relief from all who believein the interdependence of a community; but poverty which comes fromidleness, unthrift, neglect, and which then falls on others torelieve--these others having to suffer for sins not their own--howabout that as a righteous obligation? Must I and my children gofoodless because my tenants will neither till the land they hold fromme, so as to make it yield their own livelihood and that profit overwhich is my inheritance, nor suffer others to do what they will not?If we are prepared to endorse the famous saying: "La propriété c'estle vol, " well and good. Meanwhile to spend all our sympathy on men whoreduce themselves and others to poverty by idleness and unthrift, seems rather a bad investment of emotion. The old-fashioned sayingabout workers and eaters had a different ring; and once on a timebirds who could sing, and would not, were somehow made. 

Co-incident with these conditions of no rent at all--reduction of rentall round--and the free purchase of land by those who yesterdayprofessed pauperism, is the startling fact that the increase in Bankdeposits for the half-year of 1889 was £89, 000--in Post Office SavingsBank deposits £244, 000--in Trustee Savings Banks, £16, 000. 

Mr. Mitchell Henry, writing to the _Times_, says:--"If any one willtell the exact truth as to Irish matters at this moment, he mustconfess that landlords are utterly powerless to coerce their tenants;that the pockets of the tenants themselves are full of money formerlypaid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely;that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that thebanks--savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks--arericher than they have ever been, whilst the consumption ofwhisky--that sure barometer of Irish prosperity--is increasing beyondall former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothedthan any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitationand long to be let alone; but they are a people of extraordinaryclannishness, and take an intellectual delight in intrigue, especiallywhere the Saxon is concerned. British simplicity is wonderful, and thevery people who have put on this cupboard love for Mr. Gladstone andhis lieutenants, whom they formerly abused beyond all decent licenseof abuse, laugh at them as soon as their backs are turned. "

These savings do not come from the landlords, so many of whom arehopelessly ruined by the combined action of our own legislature andthe Plan of Campaign. Of this ruin Colonel Lloyd has given a verygraphic account. Alluding to Mr. Balfour's answer in the House on the21st of June, to the question put by Mr. Macartney on Colonel Lloyd'sletter to the _Times_ (10th of June), the Colonel repeats hisassertions, or rather his accusations against the Court. Theseare:--"First, that the percentage of reductions now being given is thevery highest yet made, notwithstanding that prices of agriculturalproduce and cattle have considerably increased; secondly, that theSub-Commissioners have no fixed rule to guide them save one--viz. , that existing rents, be they high or low, must be cut down, althoughthey may not have been altered for half a century; thirdly that it wasreported the Commissioners had instructions to give all-roundreductions of 33 per cent. ; fourthly, that in the Land Court the mostskilled evidence of value is disregarded, as also the Poor Lawvaluation; fifthly, that the Sub-Commissioners assign no reasons fortheir decisions; and, sixthly, that the machinery of the Court isfaulty and unfair in the following instances:--_(a)_ If a landlordappeals and fails, he must pay costs, but if he appeals and succeedshe will not get costs; _(b)_ tenants' costs are taxed by the Courtbehind the landlord's back; _(c)_ their rules are constantly changingwithout any proper notice to the public; and _(d)_ appeals areaccumulating with no prospect of their being disposed of in anyreasonable time. "

Colonel Lloyd disposes of Mr. Balfour's denials to these statements, but at too great length to copy. It may be taken for granted here thatthey are disposed of, and that he proves up to the hilt his case ofcrying injustice to the landlords--as indeed every fair-minded personwho looks honestly into the question, must acknowledge. As one slightcorroboration of what he says he adduces the following instances:--

"The following judicial rents were fixed by theAssistant-Commissioners in the West of Ireland:--

 Poor Law JudicialTenants' Names. Old Rent. Valuation. Rent £ s. D. £ s. D. £ s. D. Tom Regan 9 9 10 12 0 0 5 15 0J. Manlon 9 2 6 11 10 0 5 15 0C. Kelly 9 12 10 11 5 0 6 0 0J. Kenny 4 11 4 6 5 0 2 15 0

 £32 16 6 £41 0 0 £20 5 0

"The landlord appealed, and the appeals were heard a few days ago bythe Chief Commissioners in Roscommon. Two skilled valuers wereemployed, who valued within a few shillings of the Governmentvaluation, and in the face of this evidence the decisions of theAssistant-Commissioners were confirmed. These are not by any meansisolated instances. In fact they are the rule in the Land Court. "

And he ends by this remarkable assertion:--

"The whole machinery of the Court must be remodelled if it is topossess the confidence of the public. As it is at present composed, itis too much subject to political influence and to the clamour of oneset of litigants to be independent. There are few of your readers, Ibelieve, who will not admit that it is a very alarming thing to finda Court so constituted having the control of millions. The onlyofficials ever connected with the Court in which there was any degreeof confidence were the Court valuers attached to the Appeal Court. They were men of independence and impartiality, but they weredispensed with in a vain attempt to satisfy Mr. Parnell. I see by Mr. Balfour's statement in the House of Commons on the 25th ult. That theChief Commissioners are again engaged in framing new rules with regardto appeals. One would think that at the end of eight years they wouldhave had their rules complete, and that an alteration every threemonths during that period ought to have brought them to perfection. How long is this farce to continue? These are serious complaintsagainst a public body intrusted with the administration of justice. They do not deserve to be lightly passed over, and I am confidentthat, even should it suit the convenience of the present Government tofollow the example of their predecessors and ignore them, the Englishpeople, with their strong sense of justice, will eventually insist onthe unfair treatment and glaring injustice and abuses complained ofbeing set right, and that those who have from political motives andinfluence been placed in honourable and responsible judicial positionsshall give place to impartial men, who will deal out even-handedjustice to the landlord as well as to the tenant. --I remain yourobedient servant, "JESSE LLOYD, Lieutenant-Colonel and J. P. , "Agent for Lord Rossmore. 

"Rossmore Agency Office, Monaghan. "

Here, then, is the reverse of the medal. Hitherto the outcry has beenall for the tenant, and I do not say for a moment that this outcry wasnot just. It was. The Irish peasant has had his wrongs, deep andshameful; but now justice has been done to him so amply that theoverflow has gone to the other side. It is time to look at things asthey are, and to let well alone. Justice to the one has broadened outinto persecution of the other, and an Irish landlord is for the momentthe favourite cock-shy for aggressive legislation. But, as I have saidbefore, prejudice dies hard, and sentimental pity is often onlyprejudice in a satin cloak. The Irish peasant is still assumed to be ahelpless victim, the Irish landlord a ruffianly tyrant; and a state ofthings as obsolete as the Ogham language itself still rouses activepassion as against a living wrong. I go back to that statement in the_Pall Matt Gazette, _ to which I have before alluded, as an instance ofthe way in which the very froth of prejudice and falsehood is whippedup into active poison by the short and easy way of imagination andassertion. It is a fair sample of all the rest; but these are thethings which find credit with those who do not know and do notenquire. 

Advocating the making of blackberry wine as the short cut from povertyto prosperity in Ireland, the scheme being parallel to Mr. Gladstone'sfamous remedy of jam, this sapient "B. O. N. " says:--

"The blackberry harvest would be over in the sunny Rhine countrybefore it began in Ireland. Why should not some practical native, goover from home and see how it is all done? I quite know that any planfor bettering the physical condition of our people is open to theobjection that as soon as they seem a little 'comfortable' thelandlord would raise the rent in many a case; but perhaps in a stilllarger number of cases he would now be afraid to do so. And I know, too, that even a blackberry wine industry will not be quite safe tillwe have Home Rule; but is not that coming fast?"

This mischievous little word is in the very teeth of the fact thatrents cannot be raised on any plea whatsoever--certainly not becausethe tenant makes himself better off by an industry other than hisfarming--and that the whole machinery of Government had been put inmotion to protect the land tiller from the land-owner. Yet the _PallMall Gazette_ is not ashamed to lend itself to this lie on the chanceof catching a few fluttering minds and nailing them to the mast ofHome Rule on the false supposition that this means justice to theoppressed tenant and wholesome restraint of the brutal proprietor. Professor Mahaffy, in a long letter to the _New York Independent, _speaks of the same kind of thing still going on in America--thisbolstering up a delusion by statements as far removed from the truthas that of "B. O'N. 's, " to which the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gives sanctionand circulation. That part of the American press which is under theinfluence or control of the Irish Home Rulers still goes on talking ofthe oppression to which the Irish tenant is subjected, just as thespeeches of the Agitators (_vide_ the astounding lies, as well as theappalling nonsense talked, when Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld weremade citizens of Dublin, and it was asserted that the Governmentturned tail and fled before these "delegates") teem with analogousassertions wherein not so much as one grain of truth is to be found. Let it be again repeated in answer to all these falsehoods:--No tenantcan be evicted except for non-payment of one year's rent; that rentcan be settled by the courts, and if he has signed an agreement for anexcessive payment, his agreement can be broken; and he must becompensated for all the improvements he has made or will swear that hehas made. Also, he can borrow money from the Government at the lowestpossible interest, and become the owner of his farm for less yearlypayment than his former rent. He, the Irish tenant, is the mostprotected, the most favoured of all leaseholders in Europe or America, but the old cries are raised, the old watch-words are repeated, justas if nothing had been done since the days when he was as badly off asthe Egyptian fellah, and was, in truth, between the devil and the deepsea. Let me repeat the legal and actual condition of things assummarized by Mr. Montagu Crackanthorpe, Q. C. These six propositionsought to be learned by heart before anyone allows himself to talk ofHome Rule or the Irish question:--

1. That every yearly tenant of agricultural land valued at less than£50 a year can have his rent judicially fixed, and that the existenceof arrears of rent creates no statutory obstacle whatever, nor anydifficulty in procedure, if he is desirous of availing himself of theActs. 

2. That every such agricultural tenant, whether he has had a fair rentfixed or not, may sell his tenancy to the highest bidder whenever hedesires to leave; and that, if he be evicted, he has the right eitherto redeem within six months, or to sell his tenancy within the sameperiod to a purchaser, who can likewise redeem, and thus acquire allthe privileges of the tenant. 

3. That in view of the fall in agricultural produce, the LandCommission is empowered and directed to vary the rents fixed by theLand Court during the years 1881 to 1885, in accordance with thedifference in prices of produce between those years and the years 1887to 1889. 

4. That no tenant in Ireland can be evicted by his landlord unless hisrent is twelve months in arrear, and that the yearly tenant who is soevicted must be paid full compensation for all improvements notalready compensated for by enjoyment, such, for instance, asunexhausted manure, permanent buildings, and reclamation of wasteland. He may, it is true, be evicted on title after judgment obtainedagainst him for his rent, and in that case his goods and interest(including his improvements) may be put up to auction by the Sheriff. This is a matter which seems to require amendment; but it is to beobserved that the same consequences would follow if the judgmentcreditor were a shopkeeper who had given the tenant credit or thelocal money-lender or gombeen man. A compulsory sale under thesecircumstances is not peculiar to landlordism, and it is a method towhich landlords seldom resort. 

5. That if a tenant falls into arrear for rent, and becomes liable toeviction, whether on title or not, the Court can stay process, ifsatisfied that his difficulty arises from no fault of his own, andcan give him time to pay by instalments. 

6. That if a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and comes to terms withhis landlord, he can borrow money from the Government at 4 per cent. , by the help of which he may change his rent into an annuity, theamount of the annuity being less than the rent, and the burden of theannuity altogether ceasing at the end of forty-nine years. 

The result by the way of this peasant proprietorship will be twofold. On the one side it will create a greater uniformity of comfort and alarger class of peaceable, self-respecting, law-abiding citizens. Onthe other it will lower the general standard by doing away with thatbetter class of resident gentry and capitalized landowners, who intheir way are guides, teachers and helps to the peasantry. The absenceof this better class of resident gentry is one of the misfortunes ofFrench agricultural life and the justification of M. Zola; theirpresence is one of the blessings of England. How will it be in Irelandwhen the exodus is more complete than it is even now, and when thevillages and rural districts are left solely to peasant proprietorsand a celibate clergy? The Romish Church has never been famous forteaching those things which make for intellectual enlightenment andsocial improvement. The difference between the Protestant north andthe rest of Roman Catholic Ireland, as between the Protestant andRomish cantons in Switzerland; is a truism almost proverbial. Andwithout the little leaven of such influence as the better educated andmore enlightened gentry may possess, the Irish peasant will be evenmore superstitious, more blinded by prejudice and ignorance than heis now. As it is, the old landlords are sincerely deplored, and thegood they did is as sincerely regretted. Those grand old hunting days, now things of the past, still linger in the memory of the men whoparticipated in the fun and had their full share of the crumbs--andthe times when a grand seigneur paid a hundred pounds a week in wagesalone seem something like glimpses into a railed and fenced off ElDorado, which the Plan of Campaign has closed for ever. So that thesunshine has its shadow, for all the good to be had from the light. 

It ought to be that peasant proprietorship will make the holder moreindustrious and a better farmer than he has been as tenant. Whether itwill or not remains to be seen. As things are--always excepting Ulsterand the North generally--farming could scarcely be more shameful inits neglect than it is--domestic life could scarcely be more squalid, more savage, more filthy. Even rich farmers live like pigs and withtheir pigs, and the stone house is no better kept than the mudcabin--the forty-acre field no better tilled than the miserable littlepotato patch. Had the farming been better, there would never have beenthe poverty, the discontent, the agitation by which Ireland had beentortured and convulsed. Had the men been more industrious, the womencleaner and more deft, the Plan of Campaign would have failed for wantof social nutriment, where now it has been so disastrously triumphant. Physical well-being is a great incentive to quiet living--productiveindustry checks political unrest. Those who have something to lose arecareful to keep it; and we may be sure that Captain Moonlight wouldnot risk his skin if he had a good coat to cover it. 

Also there is another aspect in which this land question may beviewed, and ought to be viewed--in reference to the manner in whichthe Irish farmer treats the property by which he lives:--that is theaspect of his duty to the community in his quality of producer for thecommunity. We must all come down to the land as the common property ofthe human race. Parcelled out as it may be--by the mile or the squareyard--it is the common mother of all men. We can do without everythingelse, from lace to marble--from statues to carriages--but food we musthave; and the holders of land all the world over are really andrightfully trustees for the race. The Irish peasant has no more rightto neglect the possibilities of produce than had William Rufus, or hismodern representative in Scotland, to evict villages for the making ofa deer forest. The principle of trusteeship in the land holds goodwith small holders and great alike; but imagine what would be theeffect of a law which required so much produce from a given area on anaverage for so long a period! The principle is of course conceded inthe rent, rates and taxes; but a direct application to produce wouldset the kingdom in a blaze. 

But in Ireland fields of thistles and acres of ragwort, with tallpurple spikes of loose strife everywhere, seem to be held as validcrops, fit for food and good at rent-paying. These are to be found atevery step from Dublin to Kerry, and the most unpractised eye can seethe waste and neglect and unnecessary squalor of both land andpeople. As an English farmer said, with indignation: "The land isbrutally treated. " So it is--idleness, unthrift, and bad farminggenerally, degrading it far below its possibilities and naturalstandard of production. Cross the Channel, and Wales looks like a trimgarden. Go over to France, and you find every yard of soil carefullytilled and cultivated. Even in comparatively ramshackle Sicily, amongthe old lava beds of Etna, the peasants raise a handful of grain onthe top of a rock no bigger than a lady's work-table. In Ireland thecultivated portion of a holding is often no bigger relatively thanthat work-table on an acre of waste. Will the tiller, now the ownerand no longer only the leaseholder, go back from his evil ways ofthriftlessness and neglect, and instead of being content to live justabove the line of starvation, will he educate himself up to thoseartificial wants which only industry can supply? Will the women learnto love cleanliness, to regard their men's rags and their children'sdirt as their own dishonour, and to understand that womanhood has itsshare of duties in social and domestic life? Will the sense of beautygrow with the sense of proprietorship, and the filth of the presentsurroundings be replaced by a flower garden before the cottage--acreeper against the wall--a few pots of more delicate blooms in thewindow? Will the taste for variety in garden produce be enlarged, andplots of peas, beans, carrots, artichokes, pot-herbs, and the like, beadded to the one monotonous potato-patch, with a few cabbages androots for the baste, and a strip of oats as the sole cereal attempted?Who knows? At present there is not a flower to be seen in the whole ofthe West, save those which a luxuriant Nature herself has sown andplanted; and the immediate surroundings of the substantial farm-house, like those of the mud cabin, are filth unmentionable, savage squalor, and bestial neglect. 

These things are signs of a mental and moral condition that goesdeeper than the manifestation. They do not show only want of the senseof beauty--want of the sense even of cleanliness; they show theabsence of all the civilizing influences--all the humanizingtendencies of modern society. By this want Ireland is made miserableand kept low in the scale of nations. Had the race beenself-respecting, sturdy, upright, stubbornly industrious, all thissavage neglect would have mended itself. Being what it is--excitable, imaginative, spasmodic, given over to ideas rather than to facts, andtrusting to Hercules in the clouds rather than to its own brawnyshoulders--this squalor continues and is not dependent on poverty. Time alone will show whether changed agrarian conditions will alterit. So far as his power goes, the priest does nothing to touch it. TheChurch uses up its influence for everything but the practical purposesof work-a-day-life. It teaches obediences to its ordinances, but notcivic virtues. It encourages boys and girls to marry at an age whenthey neither understand the responsibilities of life nor can support afamily; but in its regard for the Sacrament it forgets thepauperization of the nation. It enforces chastity, but it winks atmurder; it demands money for masses for the souls of the dead, but itleaves on one side the homes and bodies of the living; it breeds arace of paupers to drag the country lower and lower into the depths ofpoverty, and thinks it has done a meritorious work, and one thatcalls for praise because of the paucity of numbers in the percentageof illegitimate births. Thus in Ireland, where everything is setaskew, even morality has its drawbacks, and less individual virtuewould be a distinct national gain. 

The Home Rule enthusiasts say all that is wanted to remedy theseingrained defects is a Parliament; all that is wanted to make Irishmenperfect and Ireland a paradise is a Parliament chosen by the peopleand sitting in College Green. Human nature will then be changed, andthe lion and the lamb will lie down together. The Papist will love theProtestant, and the moral of the story about those two ScotchPresbyterian boys, whose presence at the Barrow House National Schoolso seriously disturbed both priest and people, is one that will readquite the other way. All the bitter hatred poured out against England, against Protestants, against the law and its administrators, willcease so soon as Catholics come to the place of power and thesupremacy of England is at an end. The Church which burned GiordanoBruno and is affronted because his memory has been honoured--whichplaced the Quirinale under the ban of the lesser excommunication, andwithstood the national impulse towards freedom and unity asrepresented by Garibaldi--the Church which has ever been on the sideof intolerance and tyranny will suddenly, in Ireland under Home Rule, become beneficent, just, and liberal, and heretics will no longer herdwith the goats but will take their place among the sheep. If, as Mr. Redmond says, it is the duty of Irishmen to make the Government ofEngland an impossibility, it will then be their pleasure to make heralliance both close and easy. Ulster and Kerry will march shoulder toshoulder, and Leaguers and Orangemen will form an unbroken phalanx oforderly and law-abiding citizens. In a word the old Dragon will bechained and the Millenium will come. 

The prospect seems too good to be true. Were we to follow after it andput the loyal Protestant minority into the power of the anti-imperialCatholic majority in the hope of seeking peace and ensuing it, wemight perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat frombetween his teeth--losing the substance for shadow. We do better, allthings considered, with our present arrangements--trusting to theimperfect operations of human law rather than shooting Niagara for thechance of the clear stream at the bottom. 

The whirligig of Time has changed the relative positions of the twogreat parties in Ireland. Formerly it was the Catholics who desiredthe abolition of Home Rule, and the Protestants who held by theNational Parliament. That Parliament was exclusively Protestant, andthe powerful minority ground the helpless majority to the very ground. Catholics were persecuted from shore to shore, and all sorts andconditions of Protestant bullies and tyrants sent up petitions toforbid the iniquity of Catholic trade rivalry. What was then would benow--changing the venue and putting the Catholics where theProtestants used to be. We do not believe that the "principle ofNationality" is the working power of this desire for Home Rule, as Mr. Stansfeld asserts--unless indeed the principle of Nationality can bestretched so as to cover the self-aggrandizement of a party, thebitterness of religious hatred, and the tyranny of a cruel andcoercive combination. The grand and noble name of Nationality canscarcely be made so elastic as this. Respect for law lies at the veryheart of the principle, and the Irish Home Rulers are of all men themost conspicuous for their contempt of law and their bold infractionof the very elementary ordinances of civilized society. 

As for tyranny, no coercion established by Government--not even thatproclaimed by Mr. Gladstone--has been more stringent than the coercionexercised by the Plan of Campaign. What happened in Tipperary onlythe other day when certain rent-paying tenants, who had beenboycotted, did public penance in the following propositions? Theyoffered:--"Firstly, to come forward to the subsequent public meetingand express public contrition for having violated their resolution tohold out with the other tenants; secondly, not to pay the nexthalf-year's rent, due on the 10th of December, but to in future actwith the general body of the tenantry; and thirdly, to pay each apecuniary sum, to be halved between the Ponsonby tenants and theSmith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on. "Surely no humiliation was ever greater than this!--no decree of secretcouncil or pitiless Vehmgericht were ever more ruthlessly imposed, more servilely obeyed! Can we say that the Irish are fit to be calledfreemen, or able to exercise the real functions of Nationality, whenthey can suffer themselves to be hounded like sheep and rated likedogs for the exercise of their own judgment and the performance oftheir duties as honest men and good citizens?

If the mere presence in Ireland of Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfelddismayed Mr. Balfour and scattered his myrmidons as the forces of theEvil One fly before the advent of the angels, could they not have usedtheir semi-divine power for these humiliated rent-payers? Instead ofcomplacently listening to bunkum--which, if they had had any sense ofhumour would have made them laugh; any of modesty would have made themblush--could they not have brought their inherited principles ofcommercial honesty and manly fidelity to an engagement to bear onthese irate Campaigners, and have reminded them that the very core ofLiberalism is the right of each man to unrestricted action, providedhe does not hurt his neighbour? But Home Rulers are essentiallyone-sided in their estimate of tyranny, and things change their namesaccording to the side on which they are ranged. To boycott a man, tomutilate his cattle, [F] to commit outrages on his family, and finallyto murder him outright for paying his rent or taking an evicted farm, are all justifiable proceedings of righteous severity. But for alandlord to evict a tenant from the farm for which he will not pay thecovenanted rent--will not, but yet could, twice over--is a cowardly, abrutal, a damnable act, for which those slugs from behind a stone-wallare the well-deserved reward. 

Here is an instance of the vengeance sought to be taken by wealthytenants evicted for non-payment of rent. 

"Lord Clanricarde writes to the _Times_ to corroborate the statementthat an infernal explosive machine had been found in a cottage atWoodford, in Ireland. His lordship quotes as follows from the accountof an eye-witness:--

'When possession was taken of the sub-tenant's house, No. 1, there wasthe usual crowd crowding as close to our party as the police wouldallow; but it was remarked that on our approach to houses Nos. 2 and3, close together, and which concealed the infernal machine, the crowdkept well away out of hearing, while the Woodford leaders were on acar on the road, but out of danger like the others; but all well insight of any destruction that might befall the officers of the law. This house, No. 3, when last examined in June, was found vacant, doornot locked, but open, and used as a shelter for cattle. Finding itlocked now, X. Detached the lock, pushed the door open, and he and Iand others went inside. The house was empty, but a pile of stones washeaped up in the doorway, some of them had been displaced by the doorwhen opened, and the top of a box 6 in. Square was seen embedded in abarrel containing 25 lbs. Of 'excellent gunpowder, ' a bottle full ofsulphuric acid, and other explosives, as well as a number ofdetonators, and the blade of a knife (apparently) with a springattached by a coil of string to the door, the machine being soarranged as to be liable to explode in two ways. The expert whoexamined the machine said that had the sulphuric acid been liberated, as meant, all our party, twenty in all, must have been destroyed, asthere were enough explosives to destroy any living thing within 100yards. Neither on that day, nor on the 22nd (date of sale) did eitherthe tenant or the Woodford leaders--R. And K. --utter one word ofsurprise, much less of abhorrence!'

The tenant proceeded against (says Lord Clanricarde, owed four anda-half years' rent, at £47 8s. Per annum) much below the taxationvaluation of £67 19s. , for a mill, with the sole use of thewater-power, a valuable privilege, and 440 statute acres, aconsiderable part of them arable land. He had ten sub-tenants, wasreported to make £500 per annum from mill and farm, and though he hadremoved part of his stock, there were still cattle on the land on theday of eviction enough to cover two years' arrears. If he had paideven those two years on account he would have received an abatement, and saved his farm. The judge in Dublin who gave the decree againsthim, gave also costs against him to mark his sense of the tenant's badconduct. "

And to think that good, honest, noble-hearted, and sincere Englishmen, who in their own persons are law-abiding, just, honourable, andfaithful, should uphold a state of things which strikes at the root ofall law, all commercial honesty--blinded as they are by the glamour ofa generous, unreal, and unworkable sentiment! If only they would goover to Ireland to judge for themselves on the basis of facts, notfancies--and to be informed by truths not lies!

I know that we cannot all see alike, and that every shield has its twosides. In this matter, on the one side stand Earl Spencer, nowconverted to Home Rule, since his Viceroyalty; on the other is theexample of Mr. Forster, who went to Ireland an ardent Home Ruler andcame back as strong a Unionist. The Quaker became a fighting man, andthe idealist a practical man, believing in facts as he had seen themand no longer in sentiments he could not realise--in measures groundedon the necessities of good government, and not like so many epiphyteswith their roots in the air. Let Lord Spencer bring to this test hislate utterances. He goes in now for Home Rule, and the right ofIreland to appoint her own police and judges. He is out of the woodand can hallo; but where would he have been if the Irish had appointedtheir police when he was at the Castle?--with Lord Frederick and Mr. Burke! And if the judges were appointed by the Irish, we should have, in all probability, Mr. Tim Harrington, barrister-at-law, on thebench; and a few years ago Mr. Tim Harrington crumpled up the Queen'swrit and flung it out of the Court House window. And what power overthe fortunes of others can be given to men who boycott a railway forpolitical spite?[G]

So many things have conspired to make this Irish question aGordian-knot which no man can untie, and but few would dare to cut. The past extravagance of the landlords, absenteeism, rack-renting, injustice of all kinds; the past jealousy of England and herover-shadowing all native industries and productions; difference ofreligion, racial temperament, and the irreconcilable enmity of theconquered towards the conquerors; ignorance and idleness; the moralitywhich marries too early, when the land, which was just enough tosupport one family, is expected to keep three or four; want ofself-respect in the dirt and disorder of domestic life; want of allcommunal life or amusement, save in heated politics and drink; bogshere, unthrift there, small holdings everywhere--all these things helpto complicate a question which passion has already made too difficultfor even the most radical kind of statesmanship to adjust. All thepanaceas hitherto tried have been found ineffectual. The repeal ofCatholic disabilities, the establishment of national schools, thedisestablishment of the Protestant Church, the Maynooth grant, thevarious Land Acts--all have done but little towards the settlement ofthe question, which, like certain fabulous creatures, has increased instrength and the extensions of its demands by every concession made. The best chance yet offered seems to be in the quiet working of LordAshbourne's Act, by which the tenant becomes the owner and thelandlord is not despoiled. And certainly the crying need of the momentis legislative finality and political rest. Existing machinery issufficient for all the agrarian ameliorations demanded. To do muchmore would be to act like children who pluck up their seeds to see howthey are growing, leaving nothing sufficient time for development orreproduction. 

No one would deny such a measure of Home Rule to Ireland as shouldgive her the management of her own internal affairs, in the samemanner and degree as our County Councils are to manage ours. But thisis not the Home Rule demanded by the leaders of the party. That forwhich they have taken off their coats means the loss of the country asan integral part of the Empire; the oppression and practicalannihilation of the Protestant section; the opening of the Irishports to all the enemies of England; or the breaking out of civil warin Ireland and its reconquest by England. The alternative scheme offederation is for the moment unworkable. But to hand over the wholeconduct of Irish affairs to the Roman Catholic majority would be oneof those ineffaceable political crimes the greatness of which would beequalled only by the magnitude of its mistake. The language of theindigenous Home Rulers and their Transatlantic sympathisers--as wellas the things they have done and are still doing--ought to be warningssufficiently strong to prevent such an act of folly and wickedness onour part. Even our men--men of light and leading like Mr. JohnMorley--seem to lose their heads when they approach the Irish questionand to become as rabid in their accusations as the paid politicalagitators themselves. I will give these two short extracts, the onefrom Mr. Morley's speech at Glasgow, and the other from LordPowerscourt's temperate and rational commentary:--

"Mr. Morley says, " quotes Lord Powerscourt, "that the Irish people aremore backward than the Scotch or English, which I venture to doubt, atleast as regards intelligence, and gives as the reason:--

"'It is because the landlords, who have been their masters, haverack-rented them, have sunk them in poverty, have plundered their ownimprovements, have confiscated the fruits of their own industry, havedone all that they could to degrade their manhood. That is why theyare backward. (Cheers. ) Will anybody deny that the Irish landlords areopen to this great accusation and indictment? If anybody here isinclined to deny it, let him look at the reductions in rent that havebeen made since 1881 in the Land Court. '

"Well, have not rents in England and Scotland been reduced quite asmuch, nay, more, than Irish rents since 1881? And have not theeconomic causes which have lowered the prices of all farm produce allover Europe caused the same depreciation in the value of land inGermany or France, for instance, in the same ratio as in Ireland? Andhas not the importation of dead meat from America, Australia, or NewZealand had something to do with it?

"These facts are well known. But to return to the Irish landlords. Does not every one who is resident in Ireland, and thereforeconversant with the state of affairs there for the last twenty orthirty years, know that the discontent and uprising against the landsystem is due to the action of a very few unjust persons, now mostlydead, but whose names are well known to any one who really knowsIreland, as I venture to maintain Mr. Morley does not? The principalactors in the drama could be counted on the fingers of one hand. AndMr. Morley, _ex uno disce omnes_, accuses the whole of the Irishproprietors of these cruel and unjust practices which we should scornto be guilty of. And he is an ex-Cabinet Minister, and late ChiefSecretary for Ireland for a few months, and a very popular one he was!

"He says, again: 'Public opinion would have checked the Irishlandlords in their infatuated policy towards their tenants, ' &c. Hechallenges denial of these charges. Well, I deny them mostemphatically, and am quite willing to abide by the verdict of therespectable tenants. I throw back in his face the accusation that theIrish landlords as a body have rack-rented or plundered their tenantsor confiscated their improvements. 

"Far be it from me to taunt the Irish population. No, they have beentempted very sorely by prospects being held out to them of getting theland for nothing, and, all things considered, it is wonderful how theyhave behaved. But Mr. Morley is like many another politician who comesto Ireland for a few months or a few weeks, and goes about the fewdisturbed districts and listens to all the tales told him bycardrivers and those very clever people who delight in gulling theSaxon, and goes back to England, full of all sorts of horrors andcrimes alleged to have been perpetrated by landlords, and takes it allas gospel, making no allowance for the great intelligence andinventive genius of his informers, and says, 'Oh! I went to the place, and saw it all. ' And this he takes to represent the normal state ofthe whole of Ireland, and makes it a justification of the Plan ofCampaign!"

Take too the Irish Home Rule press, and read the floods of abuse--somespreading out into absolute obscenity--published by the principalpapers day after day against all their political opponents, and we canjudge of the temper with which the Irish Home Rulers would administeraffairs. Of their statesmanlike provision--of their patriotism andcare for the well-being of the country at large--the local war nowruining Tipperary is the negative proof--the damnatory evidence thatthey are utterly unfit for practical power. Governed by hystericalpassion, by mad hatred and the desire for revenge, not one of themodern leaders, save Mr. Parnell, shows the faintest trace of politicself-control or the just estimate of proportions. To spite theiropponents they will ruin themselves and their friends, as they havedone scores of times, and are doing now in Tipperary. History holds upits hands in horror at the French Terror--was that worse than thesystem of murder and boycotting and outrage and terrorism in thedisturbed districts in Ireland? And would it be a right thing forEngland to give the supreme power to these masked Couthons andRobespierres and Marats, that they might extend their operations intothe now peaceable north, and reproduce in Ulster the tragedies of thesouth and west? Mr. Parnell puts aside the tyrannous part of thebusiness, and cleverly throws the whole weight of his argument atNottingham into the passionless economic scales. All that theNationalist party desires, he says, "is to be allowed to develope theresources of their own country at their own expense, " "without anyharm to you (English), without any diminution of your resources, without any risk to your credit, or call upon you, " all to be done "atour own expense and out of our own resources. " Yet Mr. Parnell inanother breath describes Ireland as "a Lazarus by the wayside"--acountry "where unfortunately there is no manufacturing industry. " "Exnihilo nihil fit, " was a lesson we all learned in our school days. Mr. Parnell has evidently forgotten his. 

I will give a commentary on these brave words which is better put thanI could put it. 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD. "

"Sir, --People in England, whatever political party they belong to, should glance at what is now going on in the town of Tipperary beforefinally making up their minds to hand over Ireland body and soul tothe National League. No country town in Ireland--I think I may add orin England either--was more prosperous three months ago thanTipperary. The centre of a rich and prosperous part of the country, surrounded by splendid land, it had an enormous trade in butter andall agricultural produce, and a large monthly pig and cattle fair washeld there. It possessed (I use the past tense advisedly) a number ofexcellent shops, doing a splendid business, and to the eyes of thosewho could look back a few years it was making rapid progress inprosperity every year. 

"All is changed now. Many of the shops are closed and deserted, otherswill follow their example shortly; the butter market has been removedfrom the town, the cattle fairs have fallen to half their former size. One sees shopkeepers, but a short time back doing capital business, walking about idle in the streets, with their shops closed; armedpolicemen at every corner are necessary to prevent a savage rabblefrom committing outrages, and many people avoid going near the town atall. All this is the result of William O'Brien's speech in Tipperaryand the subsequent action of the National League. The town and wholeneighbourhood were perfectly quiet till one day Mr. O'Brien descendson it like an evil spirit, and tells the shopkeepers and surroundingfarmers that they are to dictate to their landlords how to act in acase not affecting them at all. For fear, however, of not sufficientlyarousing them for the cause of others, he suggests that, in additionto dictating to the landlord what his conduct shall be elsewhere, allhis tenants, farmers and shopkeepers alike, shall demand a reductionof 25 per cent, on their own rents. As to the farmers' reduction Iwill say nothing; if they wished it, they could go into the LandCourt, and if rented too high could get a reduction, retrospectivelyfrom the day their application was lodged. The reduction, however, that the shopkeepers were advised--nay, ordered--to ask for must havesurprised them more than their landlord. Many of them, at theirexisting rents, had piled up considerable fortunes in a few years;others had enlarged their premises, doubled their business, andthriven in every way; nevertheless, they had to obey. The landlordnaturally refused to be dictated to by his tenants in matters notaffecting them; he also refused to reduce the rents of men who in afew years had made fortunes, and some of whom were commonly reputed tobe worth thousands. Legal proceedings were then commenced, and thetenants' interests were put up to auction. Some of the most thrivingshopkeepers declined to let their tenancies, out of which they haddone so well, be sold; others, in fear of personal violence andoutrage, not unusual results of disobeying the League, did allow themto be knocked down for nominal sums to the landlord's representative. Let lovers of liberty and fair-play watch what followed. All theshopkeepers who bought in their interests were rigorously boycotted;men who had had a large weekly turnover now saw their shops absolutelydeserted. Plate-glass windows that would not have shamed RegentStreet, were smashed to atoms by hired ruffians of the League, andthe shopkeepers themselves and their families had to be protectedfrom the mob by armed police, placed round their houses night and day. All this because they desired to keep their flourishing businesses, instead of sacrificing them in a quarrel not their own. 

"Let us follow still further what happened. The shopkeepers, findingtheir trade quite gone, for it was almost worth a person's life to gointo their shops, watched as they were by paid spies, had tocapitulate to the League. An abject apology and a promise to letthemselves be evicted next time were the price they had to pay to beallowed in a free country to carry on their trade. Ruin faced themboth ways. After having the ban of boycotting taken off them, witheviction not far distant, most of them held clearance sales, attremendous sacrifices, so as to be prepared for moving. One man isreputed to have got rid of seven thousand pounds' worth of goods underthese circumstances. Of the other division, who allowed their placesto be sold, most of them are now evicted. Dozens of shop assistants, needlewomen, and others connected with the trade of a thriving town, are thrown out of employment, and a peaceful neighbourhood has beenchanged into a scene of bloodshed and violence. 

"I appeal to the English people not to encourage or support a vilesystem of intimidation and violence, a system which not only pursuesand ruins its enemies, but refuses to allow peaceably-inclined peopleto remain neutral. A case like this should not be one of Partypolitics, but should be looked upon as the cause of all who wish topursue their lawful vocations peaceably against those who wish totyrannise by terror over the community at large. 

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "FOEDI FOEDERIS ADVERSARIUS. "

"December 12. "

My private letters strengthen and confirm every word of this account;and the following letter is again a proof of personal tyranny andpolitical malevolence not reassuring as qualities in the governingpower:--

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'TIMES. '

"Sir, --I have received a letter from my friend Mr. Edward Phillips, ofThurlesbeg House, Cashel, and the round, unvarnished tale that hedelivers throws more light upon Ireland than any amount of the windyrhetoric which is so plentifully displayed on Parnellite andGladstonian platforms. Mr. Phillips writes as follows:--

"'I hold 270 acres from Mr. Smith-Barry at a rent of £340 under leaseand tenant-right, which, with my improvements, I valued at £1, 000. TheLand League have decided, thinking to hurt Mr. Smith-Barry, that alltenants must prepare to give up their farms by allowing themselves tobe evicted. They are clearing off everything, and because I refuse todo this, and forfeit my £1, 000, I am boycotted in the most determinedmanner. I am refused the commonest necessaries of life, even medicine, and have to get all from a distance. Blacksmiths, &c. , refuse towork, and labourers have notice to leave, but have not yet done so. 

"'Heretofore people were boycotted for taking farms; I am boycottedfor not giving up mine, which I have held for 25 years. A neighbour ofmine, an Englishman, is undergoing the same treatment, and we alone. We are the only Protestant tenants on the Cashel estate. The remainderof the tenants, about 30, are clearing everything off their land, andsay they will allow themselves to be evicted. '

"I think this requires no comment. Public opinion is the bestprotection against tyranny, and your readers can judge how far theabove narrative is consistent with the opinions expressed by Mr. Parnell and others as to the liberty and toleration which will beaccorded to the loyal minority when the Land-National League becomesthe undisputed Government of Ireland. 

"Your obedient servant, "R. BAGWELL. "

"Clonmell, December 27th. "

Again an important extract:--

"This is Mr. Parnell's language at Nottingham, but would he venture touse the same arguments in this country? Would he enumerate clearly toan Irish audience the countless advantages they derive from Imperialfunds and Imperial credit, and tell them that the first step to HomeRule is the sacrifice of all these advantages? Our great system ofnational education is provided out of Imperial funds to the extent ofabout a million a year; so are the various institutions for theencouragement of science and art which adorn Dublin and our otherlarge towns. The Baltimore School of Fishery and other technicaltraining places, the piers and harbours on the Irish Coast, the systemof light railways, and the draining of rivers and reclamation of wastelands, are all supported out of the Imperial Exchequer. The Board ofWorks alone has been the medium of lending almost five millions ofmoney on easy terms under the Land Improvement Acts in the country. Nor have the agricultural interests been neglected. For erectingfarmhouses alone over £700, 000 has been given, while immense sums havebeen spent in working the Land Acts. For drainage over two millionshave been lent, and a sum of over one million has been remitted fromthe debt. A debt of eight and a-half millions appears in the lastreturn as outstanding from the Board of Irish Public Works, besidesthree millions and a-half from the corresponding board in England. Infact, there is not a project enumerated by Mr. Parnell as necessary, under a new _régime_, to promote the 'Nationality of Ireland, ' whichis not at present being helped on by the funds or the credit of the'alien Government. ' All these national advantages the supporter of ashadowy Home Rule bids us give up. "

If ever there was a case of the spider and the fly in human affairsthis mild and perfectly equitable reasoning of Mr. Parnell is theillustration. How about the djinn crying inside the sealed jar, andthe fate of the credulous fisherman who obeys that voice and breaksthe seal which Solomon the Wise set against him?

In writing this pamphlet I have not cared for graces of literary styleor dramatic strength of composition; and I have largely supportedmyself by quotations as a proof that I am not a mere impressionist, but have a solid back-ground and a firm foothold for all that I havesaid. Judged by these extracts it would seem that, outside the rightof full communal self-government, the cry for Home Rule is eitherinterested and fictitious--or when sincere--save in certain splendidexceptions, of whom Mr. Laing is the honoured chief, and the only HomeRuler who makes me doubt the rightness of my own conversion--it is amere sentimental impulse shorn of practical power and workingcapacity. In any case it is a one-sided thing, leaving out of courtUlster, the integrity of the Empire, and the obligations of historiccontinuity. It is a cry that has been echoed by violence and murder, by outrage and ruin, and that has in it one overwhelming element ofweakness--exaggeration. It is the cry at its best of enthusiasts whoseideas of human life and governmental potentialities are too generousfor every-day practice--at its worst but another word for self. Forthe men who raise it and hound on these poor dupes to their owndestruction are men who would be rulers of the country in their ownpersons, or members of a Gladstonian ministry, were the Home Ruleparty to come to the front. With neither section does the strength, the glory, the integrity, and the continuance of the Empire count;and the honour of England, like the true well-being of Ireland, isthe last thing thought of by either party. The motto of the one is:"_Fiat justitia ruat caelum_"--of the other: "_Après moi le déluge. _"The one abjures the necessities of statesmanship, the other theself-restraints of patriotism. Surely the good, wholesome, workingprinciples of sound government lie with neither, but rather with thesteady continuance of things as they are--modified as occasion arisesand the needs of the case demand. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Lord Hartington's statistics--and Lord Hartington is aman whose word not his bitterest enemies have dared to question or todoubt--are these:

1880 (No coercion) 2, 585 agrarian crimes. 1881 (Partial and weak coercion) 4, 439 " "1883 (Vigorous coercion) 834 " "1888 (Vigorous coercion) 660 " "

]

[Footnote B: Mr. Hurlbert, a Roman Catholic, an American, and apersonal friend of Mr. Davitt--all which circumstances give a specialweight to his testimony, now borne after frequent and lengthened andrecent visits to Ireland, and after close converse with men of allclasses and of all political and religious views, says in his _Irelandunder Coercion_: "An Irish gentleman from St. Louis brought over aconsiderable sum of money for the relief of distress in the north-westof Ireland, but was induced to entrust it to the League, on theexpress ground that, the more people were made to feel the pinch ofthe existing order of things, the better it would be for therevolutionary movement. "--_The Irish Question_, I. , 193. By Dr. Bryce. ]

[Footnote C: Some time after the Great Famine, the Government broughtin an Act called the Encumbered Estates Act. A judge was appointed toact as auctioneer. The income of the estate was set out in scheduleform, and a man purchased that income by competition in open court. Hegot with his purchase what was supposed to be the best title thenknown, commonly called "A Parliamentary title. " If he wanted to sellagain, that was enough. Many years after the bargain was made by thecourt, Mr. Gladstone dropped in and upset it. A friend of mindpurchased a guaranteed rental of £600 a year, subject to £300 annuity, as well as other charges, head rent, &c. , &c. Now the Government mayhave been said to have pledged its honour to him, speaking by themouth of a judge in open court, that it was selling him £600 a year. Surely it was a distinct breach of faith to swoop down on thepurchaser, years after, and reduce the £600 to £500 without reducingthe charges also in due proportion, or giving back one-sixth of thepurchase money. Mr. Gladstone and his party say the land was rentedtoo high. Does that (if true) get over the dishonesty of selling for£600 a year what was really worth only 500? Such a transaction as thatbetween man and man would be actionable as a fraud. But this excuse isnot true, for when any tenant wants to sell his tenant-right he gets alarge price for it, far larger than the normal proportion to his rent. When a nation sanctions such absolute dishonesty as this on the partof its Prime Minister, it is not surprising that the shrewd Irishpeasant profits by the lesson and improves the example. ]

[Footnote D: The following in reference to the Olphert estateevictions under the Plan of Campaign is from the _Freeman's Journal_. Will Mr. Spencer when exhibiting his photos, state the facts aboutthis case--which reason and common-sense show to be altogether in thelandlord's favour?

"Mr. Spencer, Trowbridge, England, arrived in Falcarragh to-day, visited the scenes of the late evictions, and took photographs ofseveral of the demolished houses in the townland of Drumnatinny. Mr. Spencer intends, on his return to England, to bring home to the mindsof the English people by a series of illustrative lectures, the miseryand hardships to which the Irish peasantry are subjected. "]

[Footnote E: On this question of further legislation I will quote partof a letter from a correspondent which shows the views of a singularlyable, impartial, and fair-minded Irishman. "The breaking of leases wasanother risky thing to do, for it shook all faith in the sovereigntyof the law and the finality of its _dicta_. Till Mr. Gladstone madehimself the champion of the tenants and the oppressor of thelandlords, Parliament never dreamed of revising rents paid underleases. Mr. Gladstone began by breaking these leases when held for acertain term defined by him. But we cannot stop there now. If anotherLand Bill is to be brought in by the present Government it must, toreally and finally settle matters, _break all leases_. If it stopsshort of this the trouble will crop up again. If a man now with athirty-nine years' lease can go into the Land Court, the man with alease of a hundred years, or a hundred and fifty, or two hundred, should not be shut out. This point cannot be put too strongly to thisGovernment. If the thing is to be done let it be done thoroughly, andlet every man who holds a lease--no matter for what term--go into theLand Court, and also purchase under Lord Ashbourne's Act. LordAshbourne's Act is the real cure if made to apply all round. "]

[Footnote F: The Irish have always been cruel to animals. It is acurious fact that most Roman Catholic peasants are. In the time ofCharles I. An Act was passed to prevent the Irish farmers fromploughing by their oxens' tails. Even now they pluck their geesealive. ]

[Footnote G: The boycott against the Great Northern Railway linebetween Carrickmacross and Dundalk is now in full swing. It was begunat Friday's fair in the former town, intimation having been given toall dealers in cattle and pigs that not an animal was to leave by theGreat Northern line. Not a hackney car was permitted to attend therailway station, and commercial travellers had to leave their samplesat the station. Many of the cattle and pigs purchased at the fair weredriven by road to Kingscourt, where there is a station of the MidlandGreat Western Company, a local National League branch having publisheda resolution recommending all goods to be sent and received _viâ_Kingscourt. It has also been resolved to do no business withcommercial travellers from Belfast, or other parts of the North ofIreland, whose goods had been carried over the Great Northern system. Travellers from Scotland, England, and Dublin are only to be dealtwith under guarantees that they do not use the Great Northern line. 

BOYCOTTING IN COUNTY WATERFORD. 

THE LEAGUE'S BLACK LIST. 

There has been issued by the National League in the county Waterford a"list of objectionable persons, with whom it is expected that no trueman will have any dealings whatever"--cattle dealers, buttermerchants, grain and hay merchants, brokers, and farmers beingspecially enjoined to refrain from any dealings with them, the farmersbeing told that they "must carefully avoid" the sale of milk or stockto agents of objectionable persons, and evicted tenants that they"must deem it their strict and imperative duty to follow to themarkets all stock and produce reared upon their farms. "

Look, too, at the abuse poured out on all the Government leaders andofficials. In the _Freeman's Journal_, of December 5th, is one of themost disgraceful attacks on Mr. Balfour ever made by journalism. Itreads like a filthy outpour of a Yahoo rather than the utterance of asane and responsible man. Are these the minds to govern a great andhonest country?]