The most remarkable feature of the present agitation is that there is nothing in the condition of the people to account for it. There has been no new grievance, and no fresh or aggravated pressure of an old one. There has been no succession of bad seasons, no famine prices, no prices of the necessaries of life even distressingly high, no commercial crisis or dulness as with us. There have been no great clearances,' as on former occasions, to arouse anger and despair. Evictions have never been so rare. The farmers, the specially agitating class, have never, on the whole, been so well off; have never paid their rents so easily or so closely, have seldom if ever had so much money in the banks.* Labourers, usually the most suffering body, have found their wages rising year by year, till they are now double what they formerly were in money, and measured by the cost of living, at least 30 per cent. higher. An ordinary rural labourer is now, all things fairly calculated, better off in most parts of Ireland than in many districts in the South of England. Everywhere, and for a long series of years, a marked improvement can be traced in all the surest and clearest symptoms of a people's material well-being-the increased consumption of excisable articles included. Let us mention a few illustrative facts which can neither be doubted nor disputed—facts of which the details and proofs may be found in the best authority'Thom's Official Irish Statistics':—First, the entire acreage under crops has increased in proportion to the population not less than forty per cent., while the value of the aggregate crops increasing at the same time. The produce per head-the divisable amount of food—is, therefore, far greater than it was (to say nothing of the large quantities of Indian meal consumed); and it is not denied that the people are much better fed than formerly. Secondly, the live stock of farmers and cottiers has increased, and is still increasing largely, both in number and value. In the course of the last twenty years the number of cattle has risen fifty per cent., and that of sheep and pigs one hundred per cent.; while the prices have risen variously from ten per cent. to forty. Thirdly, the deposits in Joint-Stock Banks have risen in the same period from six millions to nineteen, or a three-fold is attempt to introduce the Protestant creed has made the people Ultramontanes, while English tenure has made the most agricultural of all countries the chosen home of every agrarian crime.' The mere rumour of a Coercion Bill being in contemplation early last month had an instantaneous, though transient, effect in quieting the agitation and moderating the language of the agitators. * The prosperity of this class, the entire class of all who can properly be called farmers, all above the very small holders, made a great impression on Mr. Maclagan, a most competent observer. The profits made and the sums saved evidently astonished him. (See especially, pp. 34-36.) increase; increase; the amount of Irish Railway Stock ascertained to be held by Irishmen, or at least by residents in Ireland, has increased six-fold; while the amount of property passing under probate has just doubled. Fourthly, the number of paupers is only one-third what it was in 1851 (four years after the famine), and emigration has been steadily decreasing since 1863, and the numbers leaving the country now are 40,000 fewer than in that year. Finally, the people are far better housed than they used to be. The percentage of families living in houses of the first and second class, and in those of the third and fourth respectively-the fourth classbeing mere mud cabins with one room, and the third being larger and roomier, but still built of mud-was as follows:— It is scarcely possible to have a better test, or a more encouraging picture of an advance in the social condition of the poor. In the face of these facts it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the revival of the Fenian sedition, and the sudden and extravagant dimensions assumed by the far more formidable agitation for 'fixity of tenure,' must be traced exclusively to two sources-the first, the surrender of the Established Church last Session, and the not wholly unwarranted conviction of the Irish that the surrender was, proximately at least, to be attributed to the Fenian outbreak of the previous year; and, next, to the inconceivably incautious language of Mr. Gladstone in declaring his determination to destroy that branch of 'Protestant ascendancy' which was rooted in the land as effectually as that which was based upon the Church, and to 'govern Ireland according to Irish ideas,' -and to the further belief that, as he was now in power, a sufficient degree of 'pressure from without' alone was needed to compel him and enable him to keep his word, and realise the hopes he had held out. We say this in no party spirit; for we deplore the rashness and égarements of so eminent and earnest a statesman; but we really cannot see what other explanation of current phenomena can be put forth.* Even *To those who, like ourselves, incline to the belief that most of the prevalent agitation is factitious-the product, that is, of artificial and extraneous provocation, applied to chronic discontent, and choosing a favourable moment-we recommend the following remarks of a dispassionate observer, who has lately spent Even the two chief pleas on which the tenant-right agitation, now developed into a demand for 'fixity of tenure,' was originally based, lose much of their validity and cogency when carefully investigated. It was urged that, as in Ireland all 'improvements—that is, all outlay for building, draining, fencing, and reclaiming was habitually made by the tenant, and not, as in England and Scotland, by the landlord, it was unjust to apply to the sister-country those land-laws which with us render all those improvements legally the property of the owner of the soil, and which enable the owner at his pleasure to dispossess the farmer before he has had time to reap the benefit of the labour and capital he has expended on his holding. Granting the premiss, the argument in the eye of justice was irresistible. It was further represented that 'capricious evictions'-that is to say, orders to quit without reason, whereby not only was a harmless and honestly paying tenant turned out from the holding, which he and his had occupied for years and generations, and on which he had probably conferred much of its productive value, but was reduced to utter ruin and starvation-were not only always theoretically possible, but were so common in fact and so cruel in their operation, as to be intolerable to every sentiment of equity and mercy, and to be condemned by humanity and policy alike. This argument for granting some adequate security to the unoffending tenant was, like the other, unanswerable, provided the facts of the case were stated correctly, fully, and without exaggeration. And both assertions were so habitually made, so seldom examined or controverted, and so apparently confirmed by occasional cases spent two months in Ireland in order to satisfy himself as to the true facts of the case: 'I made a point of trying to discover the opinions of the tenants on the question which was being then so much agitated. On the estates of considerate landlords I found the tenants comparatively indifferent on the question as regards themselves, but for the sake of those who were not under such good landlords, they would like some law giving security against their being capriciously turned out of their farms. On other estates they wanted something and expected to get something, but what that something was they could not say. On pressing them with questions, I could gather their opinions to be-security against being capriciously evicted, compensation for unexhausted improvements, and no frequent raising of rents. Very few demanded fixity of tenure, and those few said that no tenant should be turned out of his farm so long as he paid his rent. From the larger tenants, who resemble those in this country in education and intelligence, I heard no unreasonable demands. They thought that greater security should be given to them in the occupancy of their farms. As the permanent improvements could be much more easily effected by the landlords on the large than the small farms, I see less difficulty in the settling of the question, as they could get leases of limited extent. The tenants in Limerick and Tipperary are those who are loudest in their demands for fixity of tenure. I am not surprised at this, for, with such low rents as are paid for the grazing lands there, and fixity of tenure, I should infinitely prefer being a tenant to being a landlord.-Land Culture and Land Tenure, by Peter Maclagan, M.P. Vol. 128.-No. 255. T made made public from time to time, that it is only recently their accuracy has been called in question. A couple of generations ago-perhaps even to a later date-a very considerable proportion of the landlords in Ireland, especially the poorer sort, reckless, easy-going, selfish, though passively kind-hearted men, were somewhat careless of their rights, and utterly so as to their duties. Partly from indifference, partly from ignorant want of foresight, partly possibly and occasionally in order to multiply votes, far oftener because as population increased rents rose, they had fallen into the habit of allowing their tenants to do pretty much as they liked, and of doing nothing for them. They suffered them to subdivide their holdings, and run up mud cabins and countless fences as they pleased; to half-drain and half-cultivate a piece of bog, or to clear a few acres of stony mountain land, and take a crop of potatoes off it, then to build a hovel of the stones they had gathered, roof it with turf, and call the place a reclaimed farm, and the class of phenomena just mentioned 'improvements.' A moderate rent was then asked and paid, and both parties were gainers for a time. Then with the first failure of the staple crop came the awful, wide-spread, sweeping calamity we all remember, and a new era was forced upon the country. The better sort of landlords were awakened to a sense of their folly and their criminal neglect, and hundreds of the poorer and worse sort were cleared away almost as effectually as the peasants. The Encumbered Estates Act hastened and facilitated the process. Large tracts of land, by the emigration of the wretched cottiers or their death, came back into the hands of the proprietors; and they found them-selves both able, and, in a measure, compelled to deal with it in a different fashion than formerly. Holdings were consolidated, a better system of farming and letting was introduced, draining on a great scale and with some degree of scientific method was begun, and scores of miserable farm-buildings were pulled down to make way for one or two of a size and character more suitable to the altered occupancy. For the last five-and-twenty years the increasing practice, especially on all the larger properties, has been for the landlord, and not the tenant, to undertake all the larger and more permanent outlay, either wholly or in conjunction with his tenant. Sometimes he does everything, charging the tenant four per cent. upon the outlay as an addition to his rent. Sometimes, when building is in question, the landlord finds the timber and slates, and the tenant the labour, which usually consists merely in the manipulation of mud and stones at his leisure hours. In draining the landlord finds the tiles, and the tenant lays them when he has nothing else to do. In re claimingTM claiming heath soil the landlord supplies the lime, which involves two-thirds of the cost of the operation; and so on. Of course it is not possible to state with confidence or accuracy the aggregate amount spent in recent years, or now being spent annually, by Irish proprietors in permanent and remunerative improvements on their several estates; but no one who visits Ireland can doubt that it is enormous, and we may glean many facts which give some idea, and even measure, of the truth. Thus Lord Derby, if we remember right, stated in the House of Lords, that for forty-five years he had never drawn a shilling from his extensive Irish property, having steadily applied his rents to the improvement of his tenants' farms, and the condition of the labourers. The Devon Commission more than twenty years ago reported that even then the practice of landlords erecting the farm-buildings had begun. Lord Dufferin, again, in his book, tells us that he, still a comparatively young man, had spent upwards of 30,0007. in improvements executed by himself, besides 10,0007. more in buying up his tenants' improvements, and that nearly every other landlord in the neighbourhood had done the same. One of the very largest English noble proprietors, with a rental from his Irish property of 44,000l., spends regularly upwards of 80007. in bonâ fide improvements, or one-fifth; in another case we are acquainted with a still larger proportion, nearly one-fourth, is annually so expended; in a third, the owner, whose rental may average about 20,000l. a year, has in the last fifteen years spent 87,000l. in the same manner. Mr. Trench, in his evidence before Lord Clanricarde's Committee, gave detailed accounts of four different estates under his management, situated in different parts of the country, of which the aggregate rentals amounted to 54,000l., and where the sums annually expended in improvements averaged upwards of 9000l., or upwards of onesixth. Another instance has just been forwarded to us, where a nobleman, holding considerable estates both in England and in Ireland, expends yearly on his English property ten per cent., and on his Irish property thirteen per cent., of the gross rental. Lastly, we know that during the period of which we speak the Government loans expended under the Land Improvements Act,' by various other landlords, have reached the sum of 2,060,000l.—an amount which those best informed believe may be safely trebled by that of private expenditure of the same character; so that we shall probably not be beyond the truth in estimating the total sums expended by Irish landlords at 6,000,000l. or 7,000,000%. in the last quarter of a century. Now, have English landowners spent as large an amount as this on an equal area? Or is there the least reason to believe that during the same period the tenants |