, 1881-01-15

10 reuucT IL pTdCtlCdlly HmpoSSiUIc vi GHo
landlords to gain the benefit of the law, so
far as it was in their favour. His object
was, he confessed, to get rid of the Irish
landlords on such terms as the Irish
people are at present disposed to grant
them. And if the landlords will not
accept those terms, then they would have
to 90 without any terms at all. These
@were his words 49," Let us take our stand
upon our lust rights,-the ownership of
the land for the people of Ireland. Let us
leave to the enemy the offer of compromise.
Let the first offer of compromise come
from them, for they are the beleaguered
and isolated garrison. / warn them that
if they waste too much time, and delay
too long to settle with the enemy who is
now at the gate, the day will soon come
when they will find that their power of
proposing s'sr obtaining any compromise
has been taken from them, and they will
bitterly lament that they have thrown
away their opportunity, when the people
of Ireland were still willing to allow them
to depart in peace, with such compensa-
ton for their interest as might seem fair"
And in another speech made the same day,
he explains that the landlords OF the Irish
grazing counties will no longer be allowed
to let out their land for the purposes OF
grazing. and will therefore be compelled,
if they are to get a profit by their land at
all, to let it out for agricultural purposes
to the people now crowded together on the
barren land of the West. This having
once been effected, of course tho next step
will be to appropriate the landlords, &C
cording to the programme which Mr..
Parnell had already laid down, with such
compensation, if any. as the Land League
may think fit to award. By these means
a great revolution is gradually to be car
Iied out, the end of which viii be to sub
divide Ireland among her peasantry. on
such terms as approve themselves TO the
leaders of the peasantry, without civil war,
$50 long as it suits them" to avoid civil
war, but not without all the results which
only civil war in NEST cases could be
expected to yield. With civil war or with.
out it, the landlords must go and must
30 on such terms as the Land League
think fit to dictate. That is the long and
the short of Mr.. PaTnelfS political
programme. :
The really formidable aspect of this
policy is not merely that it proposes to use
utterly INSCRIPTIONS means for an utterly
unscruuuIous end,-which is in itself bad
enough,-but that, if il were to succeed,
it would undermine in the Irish peasantry
the very conception Of law and justice, SO
far at least as concerns the interests of tho
great class on behalf of whom this revOlu-
ton is to be carried out. 1t starts from
the notion that the tenant.farmers are to
be the final judges of their W obliga.
tions; its method Of procedure involves a
complete terrorism over oil who dispute,
however justly, the judgments of the
tenant-farmer as to the extent of their
own obligations and it neither establishes
nor suggests any sort of authority to
which this vast class. conspiracy is to be
subject, for any purpose except that of
striking blows against " the enemy" as
Dir. Parnell gently terms all Irish land
lords. it is hardly possible to conceive a
more threatening situation than is pre-
sented to us by the prospect of a revOlu'
ton the very purpose of which is not only
to strike at the principle of au hority, but
to strike at it in the name OF a single great
class.interest, which is encouraged and
even entreated to ignore entirely the JUS
tice ofindividual cases in the course OF the
conflict; to withhold rents, however mode
rate; to punish evictions. however just;
and to exact tribute to the popular organ
i~zation, however reluctant and however
much condemned by the conscience of
the giver. Surprising such a revolution
to come to what its promoters would
cali O successful end. what should we
see Z We should see the great Irish
class of all. the peasautry OF a nation,
flushed by success in a movement the very
principle of whose strategy had consisted
In o;vino M nuartar IN those with whom