Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-01
FOREIGN REVIEW.
ENGLAND.

ENGLAND.
The year Just closed has been one of constantly
increasing difficulty and danger for this country and
its end appears to have brought sensibly nearer
several most important changes in its future. The
accession of the Liberal Party to power occurred at
time peculiarly trying for the victors. The for
eign policy of the Tories had in many respects
proved calamitous, but the disastrous character of
it had not then been fully demonstrated that it
was impossible for the responsible ministers to
shift the blame to their successors The fact was
that the Tories had laid the train and prepared the
mine, and that the Liberals came into power just in
time to sustain the full force of the explosion In
All hanistan in South Africa in the Bosphorus, the
new Ministry found themselves tied up to lines Of
action which they never would have originated
themselves, yet which they could not then renounce
without imperiling the honor OF the country. But
these were not the most serious difficulties of the
situation. The Irish land question may lie said to
have been forced into prominence by the Liberal
victory, while the question of American COM
petition rapidly creating English land CUES
ton of the very first magnitude. That the Irish
agitation largely due to the success of the
their own the Land League would have recognized
the futility of vigorous action at that time, for
they would have understood that the Tories
were in no way under obligations to allow any lati-
tude to such movement. But was different with
Mr. Gladstone's government That statesman had
already identified himself with the cause of Irish
reform by dise5tabishing the Irish Church. He
had also been active in urging reform OF the land
system and he was therefore committed in favor Of
the general course which the Land League was de-
termined on. Such government could not deal
with the League from hostile standpoint. 1t
pledged to assist Irish land REFORM and how could
it resent disapprove Irish agitation for that
reform? In fact the situation in Ireland during the
past year has closely resembed the opening of the
French Revolution of 1879. The worst oppression
of the French occurred under Louis XIV, but it
not then that they revolted Louis XVI. was
in fact clement and Just monarch, anxious for
reforms OF all kinds, and eager to carry them out
He, like Nr. Gladstone, was in sympathy with his
people; and SO they rose and slew him. The Tory
Government was not friendly to Irish reforms, but
there was danger OF Irish revolt while it lasted.
The Liberal Government is known to be friendly to
Irish reforms, ard the probability is that it will owe
its downfall TO the excuses Of those for whom it
willing to risk so much. But what renders the
Irish situation so formidable is not anything the
League can do in defiance Of the Government.
Everybody knows that the latter can bring
them to dead halt whenever it chooses
to do so, and that all talk of armed
instruction or military aid from outside is the
widest nonsense. The really dangerous circum-
stance is the reaconary effect OF this Irish agita
ton upon the land question in England. Nor
could that reaction have been possible or of conse
quence had not American competition during the
past year compelled the English agriculturists
to realize that their occupation is passing from
them. The truth is that the rapid extension of the
cereal OF the Western States of North America
is revolutonizng not only the markets. but the pro
ductive relations of all Europe England it is
becoming recognized iii the clearest manner that
this IS moi. temporary change, moreover, but that
II rust be expected to continue and increase, and
that consequently some definite policy viii have to
be struck out to meet the Lew condition OF things.
1t is of course not to be supposed that great and
enormously wealthy country like Great Britain can
be crippled by any change of the kind, but it is not
much distress, and it is by no means unlikely that
it may lead to such revolution in the structure of
English society as could have been brought about
in other way for centuries. The first fact demon
strated by this American competition is that farming
in England can no longer be conducted in the old
way. Men cannot afford any longer to pay high
rents for farming land. Tenant farming in fact
must be abandoned, and either the landlords
must work their own land in large farms,
or subdivide and sell it to those who will.
This necessity strikes at the very root Of that
landed interest which for three centuries has
been regarded one of the pillars OF the State. 1t
undermlnes the foundations of the aristocracy, by
destroying the lalue of land for merely social pur
poses and by forcing into the field class of purely
commercial cultivators. We CANNOT here follow the
subject any further, but it is evident that it is full
of complications, and that it promises to effect
more radical changes than have occurred for five
hundred years. In fact there is scarcely anything
short OF the substitution of republic for u mon
arcby which the competition OF the Western States
of America in the wheat and cattle trade may not
bring England to within the next half century. The
Irish land question therefore seriously increases the
irritation and alarm which the grim facts of the
business situation have confronted the English land
lords with. They will make desperate fight under
the circumstances not the less desperate because
they may feel their to be hopeless. They may
force on an Irish rebellion, and aggravate the hor
rors of its suppression by their stubbornness But
the logic OF events is evidently against the
survival OF landed aristocracy in either England
or Ireland, and the inevitable pressure of that for
eign competition which it is impossible to resent or
to encounter must, it would seem, compel the
whilom rulers of Great Britain to accept their des-
tiny instead Of vanly struggling to stem torrent
which neither they nor the masses nor the instru-
ments of democratic progress themselves, can affect
in any way.