ART. X.-1. Letters on the Land Question of Ireland. By the Special Commissioner of the Times.' 1869.

2. The Irish Land. By George Campbell. 1869.

3. The Irish Land Question. By James Caird. 1869. 4. Studies of the Land and Tenantry of Ireland.

son, M.P. 1869.

By D. Samuel

5. Land Culture and Land Tenure in Ireland. By Peter Maclagan, M.P.

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HE state of Ireland is grave, sad, and shameful in no ordinary measure; and it grows graver and sadder every day. Most of the old symptoms have reappeared without any fresh cause, and some have reappeared in an aggravated form. Ireland is once again the reproach to us among nations. Its historic agitations, its chronic misery, its incurable disaffection, are pointed at with mingled scorn and exultation as proofs that Great Britain, though she can fight and trade, cannot rule. We get the credit at once of oppression and of incapacity. If the grievances of the people are real, it is said, we ought to know how to redress them; if the disaffection is unwarranted, we ought to know how to put it down. In any case our neighbours think the Imperial Government of the most civilised and self-satisfied country in Europe ought to be able to protect life and to preserve peace. It abnegates the first functions of the State when it does neither, but stands calmly by while the first is daily sacrificed and the last daily broken. We think so too.

Two distinct, organised, open agitations are now convulsing the country from end to end, the one political, the other socialthe one directed against Government, the other against property. Neither of them think it necessary to mask their full designs or to throw any disguising drapery around their language. The first insists on separation, independence, and a republic, demanding indemnity for rebellion in the past, and proclaiming rebellion as its future means and its early intention. Self-Government, Ireland for the Irish,' emancipation from the hated rule of England, the country to be wrested by force from its foreign foe, such are the watchwords on its banners. Its convicted leaders, now for the most part luckily in gaol, are to be given up to it for the avowed purpose of reassuming their leadership. In a word, the insurrection which was suppressed a year or two ago is proclaimed afresh to-day. The other agitation is headed by a very different set of men, and is of a far more practical and formidable character. It has some sanity in its objects, and some real mischiefs and wrongs as its groundwork

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and excuse. But, like its colleague, it demands nothing less than a social revolution, a wholesale transfer of property from one class to another-a measure which even its advocates admit to be justly designated as 'confiscation,'-the abolition of landlordism,' in a word. Both these two aims are preached and recommended at public meetings, not merely by obscure lunatics, but by reverend priests, Queen's Counsel, even country gentlemen, respectively, and have widely circulated newspapers, not only to advocate their projects, but to point out and particularise the means, however lawless, violent and criminal, by which those projects can be furthered.

Meanwhile, following the invariable course in Ireland, these two distinct movements are not only assailing each other, but are each dividing into separate lines of agitation. As in the days of Repeal the moral force' and the physical force' men quarrelled and broke each others' heads under the respective leadership of O'Connell and Smith O'Brien, so now the 'Amnesty Committee are disturbing the meetings of the Amnesty Association,' putting their more timid co-operators to flight, denouncing the sham of petitioning a hostile Government, and insisting on immediate action. Both join, with yet greater zest, in dispersing tenant-right assemblies, in scouting' fixity of tenure' as a half measure and a red-herring drawn across the true scent, and in declaring that the tenant-leaguers shall do nothing till the imprisoned Fenians are liberated. The most tried and faithful advocates of popular rights, the most zealous defenders of seditious malefactors, are hooted and pelted at the poll, and ignominiously discarded in favour of convicted felons. No one else can now come up to the mark. The daring forlorn hope of yesterday has become the timid reactionary already. unhappy 'tenant-leaguers,' again, who only wanted to make every man secure for ever in his holding, and to transfer the virtual ownership of the soil from the landlords to the farmers, and to evict 5000 proprietors in favour of 500,000 tenants, have been attacked from another quarter, have had the mask rudely torn from their faces, and found their narrow schemes and selfish purposes exposed and denounced by the million or so of labourers who were to have been left out in the cold; and who now absolutely refuse to allow the most respected noblemen and occupiers of the most advanced opinions even to be heard at meetings called by themselves, and reasonably enough cry out,

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* The meeting referred to was held at Dundalk, November 29, under the presidency of the tolerably advanced' Lord Bellew. The following passage from the Express' report will convey the nature of the dialogue:

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out, 'First give the labourers an acre of ground and a free cottage, and then we'll talk about the tenant-farmers.' Meanwhile, amid all this sedition and these cross-fires of popular violence and excitement, the authorities, assailed in front and in flank, look on tranquilly and make no sign.

In the mean time, too, while some are preaching rebellion, and others confiscation, and none are interfered with, individual Irishmen have gone further and are quietly in their own way reducing theory to practice. While law is denounced as oppression, government as a cruelty, and property as a theft, every man who thinks he has a grievance against his neighbour is redressing it according to his own rude conception of justice. Assassination has become literally the law of the land;—and no wonder, when it meets with the same absolute impunity as sedition. Thirty unpunished agrarian murders within two years testify that we speak without exaggeration. A change, too, and a very notable one, has come over the spirit of even this dream. Formerly, agrarian outrages were commited by some rule, irregular enough, but still pretty well understood. Á landlord or agent was rarely

shot unless he had violated some Ribbon edict and had been formally condemned by an organised Ribbon Lodge. Now each man judges his own cause and executes his own decree. Gentlemen are assassinated not only for evicting a tenant, but for dismissing

The Rev. Mr. Kearns (dejectedly).-Do listen just to one word. (Cries of "No, no.") Who wrote the letter to have the lives of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien spared? Lord Bellew. (Loud cheers.) Lord Bellew (triumphantly).—Will you hear me now? ("No, no," and a voice-"This is a meeting to oppose that.") The Rev. Mr. Kearns (authoritatively).-Hear Lord Bellew now-Lord Bellew who wrote the letter for the martyred men. (Cries of "No," and "Sit down.") Mr. Goodman.-Let us have unconditional amnesty first-a labourers' Bill afterwards, and then we will talk about a Tenant-right Bill. (A voice-"We won't hear any one speak." Another-"Let them all go to," and sensation.) How many hundreds of them (labourers) have been sent wandering through the land? (Hear.) What subsistence can a man get on five bob a day? (Cheers.) The Rev. Mr. Kearns (as if by way of farewell).-You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, boys. A Voice.-I am not ashamed of myself, Father. (Cheers). Release the prisoners, and we will assist you to get tenant-right. Mr. Goodman.-No, no. We want a labourers' measure first, in preference to a farmers' measure. (Hear.) Mr. Callan at this point invited Mr. Goodman to join his party on the bench, and having done so, Lord Bellew remarked in a confidential_tone-We are not going to hold the meeting; it is all over. Mr. Goodman.-I know it is over. Lord Bellew (amid great uproar, the multitude having become rather jealous at seeing one of their chiefs in such close communication with the opposition party).-Then tell the people that. Tell them that we are not hostile to them. Mr. Goodman (patronizingly).—I respect you as an Irishman to the heart's core, my Lord, but— Mr. Callan.-Get us a hearing, then; we are going to speak about the political prisoners. Mr. Goodman.—It is impossible, Sir. It could not be done.'

'At length all attempts to obtain a hearing were abandoned in despair, and the gentlemen retired, while the crowd amused themselves by singing the Fenian song, "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching." They then quietly dispersed, satisfied at the success of their exertions.'

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an insubordinate or incapable servant, for refusing to certify to false accounts, for outbidding competitors in the price of eggs, for giving offence in almost any fashion to fiery and vindictive natures, sometimes even for resembling an objectionable party. Jurymen are hunted like mad dogs for merely being supposed favourable to the conviction of a deliberate murderer, and victims appearing in court mutilated, with yet unhealed wounds, are assailed with yells and execrations for simply identifying their assassin. Terrorism prevails, spreads its shadow over countless households, and grows wider and more imperious day by day. Proprietors are hampered in their most equitable and necessary operations, and do everything at the hazard of their lives; while the dishonest farmer, the turbulent ruffian, the ignorant and wretched cottier, each feels that the law, which has no shield for his landlord, has no sword for him—no grasp that will reach him -no eye that can detect him, Magistrates, police, and rulers alike look on, careless, paralysed, or helpless.

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The following letter from an unusually qualified observer will supersede the necessity of any description on our part:

'SIR,-In your leading article on the letter which you did me the honour to publish on the 9th inst., you remark that my narrative of the state of society in Meath needs to be supplemented by facts with a view to the fuller satisfaction of readers at a distance. Unfortunately this is only too easy. Six weeks ago twentyfour magistrates met in Kells and unanimously signed a memorial to the LordLieutenant, from which the following is an extract:

"Within the last twelve months one farmer has been murdered. Three magistrates have been shot at, one in open day. In the attempt to murder them two ladies have been wounded-one seriously-and the coachman of one magistrate has been killed. The steward of another gentleman has been twice fired at, and, on the first occasion, severely injured. Several magistrates have received threatening letters. In none of these cases, owing to the undisguised sympathy of the population with the criminals, does there seem any prospect of the vindication of the law. The avowed object of the Ribbon Lodges in this neighbourhood is to wrest from the Legislature what they call tenant-right by landlord assassination. The small farmer or labourer who is not a member of a Ribbon lodge is looked upon with suspicion and dislike. Many well-disposed persons are tempted to join the society in order to get possession of their pass-words as a protection from insult and violence."

'I should state that the outrages referred to in this extract all occurred within a few miles of the town of Kells. Most of the magistrates who signed the memorial either reside or have property in the locality. In my letter I only specified one of these attempts at murder, that of shooting at a steward for complaining of a herd, because it afforded the most striking proof of the trivial grounds for which death is inflicted by the new Ribbon code. The Daily News' objects "that the evidence on which the crime and the motive are connected is not produced." There was no other assignable motive. No labourer had been dismissed-not even the herd, but he anticipated dismissal in consequence of the steward's complaints of him to his master. Moreover, there was sufficient circumstantial evidence connecting

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But in order to form a correct and adequate picture of the state of affairs, it is necessary to particularise a little; and, as we do not wish to overload our pages, we shall make but a very few quotations. They, however, shall be characteristic and conclusive. And, first, let us take a specimen or two of what is said and received with vehement applause at public meetings, where (be it observed) the most frequent and violent speakers are always Catholic priests, who were to have been pacified and attached to the side of Government and order by the grand

the herd's son with the attempt, to induce the magistrates to commit him. He now stands out on heavy bail to take his trial at the next assizes. Since the memorial of the Kells magistrates was sent to the Lord-Lieutenant a landlord has received a threatening letter for dismissing a gardener, whom the writer ordered him to take back on pain of death. This letter so terrified this gentleman's wife that he has been obliged to remove with her to Dublin. One of the most popular landlords in Meath has been in the habit for many years of letting a portion of his demesne by auction, for grazing purposes only. This year his auctioneer received a threatening letter on the morning of the auction, telling him to prepare for death if he proceeded with the sale; for though, if an exception to the rule that grass lands were no longer to be let by the year could be allowed in any case. it would be in favour of the landlord in question, the society had determined that there could be no exception at all. The land was put up to auction, nevertheless. The bidding was tame compared with that of former years, though the bidders of course knew nothing of the threatening letter; but the different lots were disposed of to three tenants. Two of them have been ordered by some armed men they met on the road to throw up their lots, and they have done so, forfeiting their deposits.

A Meath landlord told me yesterday that a man who had been in the habit of taking grass land from him every year had informed him that the Ribbonmen had ordered him not to take any this year. He intended, however, to do so, provided the landlord kept his proposal secret. He should not want to stock the land till spring, and before then he hoped that the Habeas Corpus Act would be suspended. "This morning I saw a threatening letter, received yesterday by a Protestant farmer who lives within four miles of me, who had a dispute with his neighbour— a Roman Catholic-about a pass which the Protestant refused to let him have through his land. It was as follows: "John,-If you do not quit your contrarness before this day week I will blow out your brains-if you had all the Plece in Virginia. So I give you this to take Notice to keep your tongue quite." Here follows the figure of a coffin. You seem to attach blame to the Meath magistrates because they know the public-houses in which these crimes are hatched, and yet fail to trace them home. But it is the impossibility of getting evidence in the present state of the public mind that would convince an Irish jury which renders a resort to extra-constitutional measures a moral obligation on Government. This is not so necessary for the protection of the landlords, who can in a great measure take care of themselves, as for the Roman Catholic farmers and labourers who have not yet joined the ranks of Ribbonism, and who are, therefore, looked upon and ook upon themselves as literally outlaws, for they are out of the pale of the only law that can protect them, the Ribbon code.

'I believe that for this dreadful state of things a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act would be the simplest, most efficacious, and most merciful remedy. Once armed with this power the Government would have but little occasion to exercise it. The knowledge that they had it, and were prepared to use it in case of Ribbonism breaking out in any district would go far to check its outbreak. In most places the leading Ribbonmen are well known to the police, and they are aware that they are known.-I am, &c.,

'A MEATH MAGISTRATE.' sacrifice