About Ireland

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￡41 0 0

e employed, who valued within a few shillings of the Government valuation, and in the face of this evidence the decisions of the A

this remarkab

t they were dispensed 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 the Chief Commissioners are again engaged in framing new rules with regard to appeals. One would think that at the end of eight years they would have had their rules complete, and that an alteration every three months during that period ought to have brought them to perfection. How long is this farce to continue? These are serious complaints against a public body intrusted with the administration of justice. They do not deserve to be lightly

Lieutenant-Col

or Lord

gency Offic

o persecution of the other, and an Irish landlord is for the moment the favourite cock-shy for aggressive legislation. But, as I have said before, prejudice dies hard, and sentimental pity is often only prejudice in a satin cloak. The Irish peasant is still assumed to be a helpless victim, the Irish landlord a ruffianly tyrant; and a state of things as obsolete as the Ogham language itself still rouses active

overty to prosperity in Ireland, the scheme being parallel to Mr

ny plan for bettering the physical condition of our people is open to the objection that as soon as they seem a little 'comfortable' the landlord would raise the rent in many a case; but perhaps i

to which the Pall Mall Gazette gives sanction and circulation. That part of the American press which is under the influence or control of the Irish Home Rulers still goes on talking of the oppression to which the Irish tenant is subjected, just as the speeches of the Agitators (vide the astounding lies, as well as the appalling nonsense talked, when Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld were made citizens of Dublin, and it was asserted that the Government turned tail and fled before these "delegates") teem with analogous assertions 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 tenant can be evicted except for non-payment of one year's rent; that rent can be settled by the courts, and if he has signed an agreement for an excessive payment, his agr

rent judicially fixed, and that the existence of arrears of rent creates no statutory obstacl

er whenever he desires to leave; and that, if he be evicted, he has the right either to redeem within six months, or to sell

irected to vary the rents fixed by the Land Court during the years 1881 to 1885, in accorda

ldings, and reclamation of waste land. He may, it is true, be evicted on title after judgment obtained against 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

hether on title or not, the Court can stay process, if satisfied that his difficu

he Government at 4 per cent., by the help of which he may change his rent into an annuity, the amount of the an

reland when the exodus is more complete than it is even now, and when the villages and rural districts are left solely to peasant proprietors and a celibate clergy? The Romish Church has never been famous for teaching those things which make for intellectual enlightenment and social improvement. The difference between the Protestant north and the rest of Roman Catholic Ireland, as between the Protestant and Romish cantons in Switzerland; is a truism almost proverbial. And without the little leaven of such influence as the better educated and more enlightened gentry may possess, the Irish peasant will be ev

mers live like pigs and with their pigs, and the stone house is no better kept than the mud cabin-the forty-acre field no better tilled than the miserable little potato patch. Had the farming been better, there would never have been the poverty, the discontent, the agitation by which Ireland had been tortured and convulsed. Had the men been more industrious, the women cleaner and mo

the square yard-it is the common mother of all men. We can do without everything else, from lace to marble-from statues to carriages-but food we must have; and the holders of land all the world over are really and rightfully trustees for the race. The Irish peasant has no more right to neglect the possibilities of produce than had William Rufus, or his modern representative in Scotland, to evic

s of Etna, the peasants raise a handful of grain on the top of a rock no bigger than a lady's work-table. In Ireland the cultivated portion of a holding is often no bigger relatively than that work-table on an acre of waste. Will the tiller, now the owner and no longer only the leaseholder, go back from his evil ways of thriftlessness and neglect, and instead of being content to live just above the line of starvation, will he educate himself up to those artificial wants which only industry can supply? Will the women learn to love cleanliness, to regard their men's rags and their children's dirt as their own dishonour, and to understand that womanhood has its share of duties in social and domestic life? Will the sense of beauty grow with the sense

rusting to Hercules in the clouds rather than to its own brawny shoulders-this squalor continues and is not dependent on poverty. Time alone will show whether changed agrarian conditions will alter it. So far as his power goes, the priest does nothing to touch it. The Church uses up its influence for everything but the practical purposes of work-a-day-life. It teaches obediences to its ordinances, but not civic virtues. It encourages boys and girls to marry at an age when they neither understand the responsibilities of life nor can support a family; but in its regard for the Sacrament

other way. All the bitter hatred poured out against England, against Protestants, against the law and its administrators, will cease so soon as Catholics come to the place of power and the supremacy of England is at an end. The Church which burned Giordano Bruno and is affronted because his memory has been honoured-which placed the Quirinale under the ban of the lesser excommunication, and withstood the national impulse towards freedom and unity as represented by Garibaldi-the Church which has ever been on the side of intolerance and tyranny will su

seeking peace and ensuing it, we might perchance be like the dog who let fall that piece of meat from between his teeth-losing the substance for shadow. We do better, all thi

rotestant bullies and tyrants sent up petitions to forbid the iniquity of Catholic trade rivalry. What was then would be now-changing the venue and putting the Catholics where the Protestants used to be. We do not believe that the "principle of Nationality" is the working power of this desire for Home Rule, as Mr. Stansfeld asserts-unless indeed the principle of Nationality can be stretched so as to cover the self-ag

c contrition for having violated their resolution to hold out with the other tenants; secondly, not to pay the next half-year's rent, due on the 10th of December, but to in future act with the general body of the tenantry; and thirdly, to pay each a pecuniary sum, to be halved between the Ponsonby tenants and the Smith-Barry Tipperary tenantry in the fight which is to come on." Surely no humiliation was ever great

rought their inherited principles of commercial honesty and manly fidelity to an engagement to bear on these irate Campaigners, and have reminded them that the very core of Liberalism is the right of each man to unrestricted action, provided he does not hurt his neighbour? But Home Rulers are essentially one-sided in their estimate of tyranny, and things change their names according to the side on which they are ranged. To boycott a man, to

e sought to be taken by wealthy ten

infernal explosive machine had been found in a cottage at Woodford, in Ir

s found vacant, door not locked, but open, and used as a shelter for cattle. Finding it locked now, X. detached the lock, pushed the door open, and he and I and others went inside. The house was empty, but a pile of stones was heaped up in the doorway, some of them had been displaced by the door when opened, and the top of a box 6 in. square was seen embedded in a barrel containing 25 lbs. of 'excellent gunpowder,' a bottle full of sulphuric acid, and other explosives, as well as a number of detonators, and the blade of a kni

s, a considerable part of them arable land. He had ten sub-tenants, was reported to make ￡500 per annum from mill and farm, and though he had removed part of his stock, there were still cattle on the land on the day of eviction enough to cover two

uphold a state of things which strikes at the root of all law, all commercial honesty-blinded as they are by the glamour of a generous, unreal, and unwo

onger in sentiments he could not realise-in measures grounded on the necessities of good government, and not like so many epiphytes with their roots in the air. Let Lord Spencer bring to this test his late utterances. He goes in now for Home Rule, and the right of Ireland to appoint her own police and judges. He is out of the wood and can hallo; but where would he have been if the Irish had appointed their police

dirt and disorder of domestic life; want of all communal life or amusement, save in heated politics and drink; bogs here, unthrift there, small holdings everywhere-all these things help to complicate a question which passion has already made too difficult for even the most radical kind of statesmanship to adjust. All the panaceas hitherto tried have been found ineffectual. The repeal of Catholic disabilities, the establishment of national schools, the disestablishment of the Protestant Church, the Maynooth grant, the various Land Acts-all have done but little towards the settlement of the question, whic

ies of England; or the breaking out of civil war in Ireland and its reconquest by England. The alternative scheme of federation is for the moment unworkable. But to hand over the whole conduct of Irish affairs to the Roman Catholic majority would be one of those ineffaceable political crimes the greatness of which would be equalled only by the magnitude of its mistake. The language of the indigenous Home Rulers and their Transatlantic sympathisers-as well as the things they have done

are more backward than the Scotch or English, which I venture to

its of their own industry, have done all that they could to degrade their manhood. That is why they are backward. (Cheers.) Will anybody deny that the Irish landlords are op

which have lowered the prices of all farm produce all over Europe caused the same depreciation in the value of land in Germany or France, for insta

m is due to the action of a very few unjust persons, now mostly dead, but whose names are well known to any one who really knows Ireland, as I venture to maintain Mr. Morley does not? The principal actors in the drama could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And M

nial of these charges. Well, I deny them most emphatically, and am quite willing to abide by the verdict of the respectable tenants. I throw ba

a few months or a few weeks, and goes about the few disturbed districts and listens to all the tales told him by cardrivers and those very clever people who delight in gulling the Saxon, and goes back to England, full of all sorts of horrors and crimes alleged to have been perpetrated by landlord

ontrol or the just estimate of proportions. To spite their opponents they will ruin themselves and their friends, as they have done scores of times, and are doing now in Tipperary. History holds up its hands in horror at the French Terror-was that worse than the system of murder and boycotting and outrage and terrorism in the disturbed districts in Ireland? And would it be a right thing for England to give the supreme power to these masked Couthons and Robespierres and Marats, that they might extend their operations into the now peaceable north, and reproduce in Ulster the tragedies of the south and west? Mr. Parnell puts aside the tyrannous part of the business, and cleverly

these brave words which is b

TOR OF THE

think I may add or in England either-was more prosperous three months ago than Tipperary. The centre of a rich and prosperous part of the country, surrounded by splendid land, it had an enormous trade in butter and all agricultural produce, and a large m

dictating to the landlord what his conduct shall be elsewhere, all his tenants, farmers and shopkeepers alike, shall demand a reduction of 25 per cent, on their own rents. As to the farmers' reduction I will say nothing; if they wished it, they could go into the Land Court, and if rented too high could get a reduction, retrospectively from the day their application was lodged. The reduction, however, that the shopkeepers were advised-nay, ordered-to ask for must have surprised them more than their landlord. Many of them, at their existing rents, had piled up considerable fortunes in a few years; others had enlarged their premises, doubled their business, and thriven in every way; nevertheless, they had to obey. The landlord naturally refused to be dictated to by his tenants in matters not affecting them; he also refused to reduce the rents of men who in a few years had made fortunes, and some of whom were commonly reputed to be worth thousands. Legal procee

be allowed in a free country to carry on their trade. Ruin faced them both ways. After having the ban of boycotting taken off them, with eviction not far distant, most of them held clearance sales, at tremendous sacrifices, so as to be prepared for moving. One man is reputed to have got rid of seven thousand pounds' worth of go

enemies, but refuses to allow peaceably-inclined people to remain neutral. A case like this should not be one of Party politics, but should be looked

your obedi

EDERIS AD

embe

and the following letter is again a proof of personal tyranny and poli

ITOR OF TH

nd, unvarnished tale that he delivers throws more light upon Ireland than any amount of the windy rhetoric

ll tenants must prepare to give up their farms by allowing themselves to be evicted. They are clearing off everything, and because I refuse to do this, and forfeit my ￡1,000, I am boycotted in the most deter

bour of mine, an Englishman, is undergoing the same treatment, and we alone. We are the only Protestant tenants on the Cashel estat

ar the above narrative is consistent with the opinions expressed by Mr. Parnell and others as to the liberty and toleratio

bedient

BAGW

l, Decem

important

of Fishery and other technical training places, the piers and harbours on the Irish Coast, the system of light railways, and the draining of rivers and reclamation of waste lands, are all supported out of the Imperial Exchequer. The Board of Works alone has been the medium of lending almost five millions of money on easy terms under the Land Improvement Acts in the country. Nor have the agricultural interests been neglected. For erecting farmhouses alone over ￡700,000 has been given, while immense sums have been spent in working the Land Acts. For drainage over two millions

oning of Mr. Parnell is the illustration. How about the djinn crying inside the sealed jar, and the fate o

and working capacity. In any case it is a one-sided thing, leaving out of court Ulster, the integrity of the Empire, and the obligations of historic continuity. It is a cry that has been echoed by violence and murder, by outrage and ruin, and that has in it one overwhelming element of weakness-exaggeration. It is the cry at its best of enthusiasts whose ideas of human life and governmental potentialities are too generous for every-day practice-at its worst but another word for self. For the men who raise it and hound on these poor dupes to their own destruction are men who would be rulers of the country in their own persons, or members of a Gladstonian mi

TNO

A

on is a man whose word not his bitterest enemi

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and weak coerc

rous coerc

rous coerc

B

ith men of all classes and of all political and religious views, says in his Ireland under Coercion: "An Irish gentleman from St. Louis brought over a considerable sum of money for the relief of distress in the north-west of Ireland, but was

C

sed a guaranteed rental of ￡600 a year, subject to ￡300 annuity, as well as other charges, head rent, &c., &c. Now the Government may have been said to have pledged its honour to him, speaking by the mouth 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 the purchaser, years after, and reduce the ￡600 to ￡500 without reducing the charges also in due proportion, or giving back one-sixth of the purchase money. Mr. Gladstone and his party say the land was rented too

D

rom the Freeman's Journal. Will Mr. Spencer when exhibiting his photos, state the facts ab

veral of the demolished houses in the townland of Drumnatinny. Mr. Spencer intends, on his return to England, to bring home to the mi

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er dreamed of revising rents paid under leases. Mr. Gladstone began by breaking these leases when held for a certain term defined by him. But we cannot stop there now. If another Land Bill is to be brought in by the present Government it must, to really and finally settle matters, break all leases. If it stops short of this the trouble will crop up again. If a man now with a thirty-nine years' lease can go into the La

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tholic peasants are. In the time of Charles I. an Act was passed to prevent the Iris

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station, and commercial travellers had to leave their samples at the station. Many of the cattle and pigs purchased at the fair were driven by road to Kingscourt, where there is a station of the Midland Great Western Company, a local National League branch having published a resolution recommending all goods to be sent and received

IN COUNTY

UE'S BLA

tter merchants, grain and hay merchants, brokers, and farmers being specially enjoined to refrain from any dealings with them, the farmers being told that they "must carefully avoid" the sale of m

th, is one of the most disgraceful attacks on Mr. Balfour ever made by journalism. It reads like a filthy outpour of a