Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-03-14
THE LAND LEAGUE.

tOg6Luer IOr 6V6r pIlCptc duu PSoPiO'
THE LAND LEAGUE.
It's Practical Workings-What Has Alreody
Been Accomplished.
[New York Sun.
The advocates of coercion have predicted
that the land league will be broken up under
the pressure brought to bear on its members
by the Forster act Its friends retort that If ii
were dissolved tomorrow 1t could point to
larger benefits accrued to the Irish people than
have been conferred by any analogous associa.
ton This is q good time to sum up what
NAV fairly enough be credited to the con-
federacy of which Mr.. Davitt has been the
organizer and Mr. Parnell the chief spokes-
man.
Let us first inquire upon what evidence the
perpetratiOn of agrarian outrages on vast
scale has been imputed to the land league. Ii
under the somewhat vague charges that "the
law is constantly and everywhere violated, %
and that ssthe queens writs do not run in
three-fourths OF Ireland" we are simply to
understand that landlords have of late been
unable to evict for non-payment OF rent, and
that writ of ejectment, even when served,
has proved useless, because nobody would
take the farm of an evicted tenant, there is no
doubt whatever the accusations are well found
ed. If however, the term agrarian outrages is
meant to comprehend offenses against the
person-and it Is just this implication which
gives the term its sting-then is must be
owned that Mr.. Forster has not produced the
facts and figures requisite to demonstrate the
state of anarchy and violence which at previ.
Gus epochs has been held to justify coercion.
It is said, indeed, that the cases of criminal
assault reported represent but small proper
ton Of those committed; but in 1883, 1s46 and
1870, the same assertion was made to justify the
extraordinary powers demanded by the gov
ernment. We may compare, therefore, the
criminal statistics of such years with those
forthcoming in relation to the present crisis.
As to one crime, moreover, that of homicide,
itcannot be denied that every case of man
slaughter at all events has been reported, and
the reader will be astonished to find how rela.
lively clean in this respect has been the crimi'
nal record of Ireland during the ascendency OF
the land league.
In 1888 there were reported in Ireland up
ward of $500 crimes against the person, In,
number uf offenses against the person was
1,023, and there were 176 murders. In 1859
there were 147 homicides, and in 1870 al
though we do not find the number Of muir
ders stated, the total of crimes classed as
'agrarian outrages" was 1929. On the other
hand, IN 1879, the year of the famine, when
parts of Ireland were almost destitute OF food,
and the year when the land leagues opera.
tions became widespread and active, just 977
agrarian crimes were reported by the Irish
copstabulary. The returns for 1880 are not
yetaccessible, but during five months OF the
year only 1877 offenses were registered In the
four most distressed counties. WHAT'S most sur
prising, in view of the current notion touching
the imminent peril in which the lives of land
lords are placed, not ten homicides have been
committed in all Ireland within the past
twelvemonth which can in any way be con-
nected with agrarian troubles. In word, If
murders growing out Of the relations between
landlord and tenant during the last thirty
years, we find that it exceeds many times the
quota of such offenses perpetrated in 1880,
when the land league seems to have given the
law to the greater part of Ireland.
The comparative infrequency of violent
crimes during the last two years is directly
attributable to the infrequency of evictions,
the two phenomena being inseparably related
Lord John Russell in 1916, and again by Mr..
Gladstone in 1870. This brings us to the
great achievement of the land league, to ap-
preciate which we must recall the problem
which it had TO solve at the beginning OF
1879. in that year the potato crop, which in
1876 had exceeded 4,150,O0 tons, fell short Of
], ,115,OOO TONS These figures threatened
a famine more appalling than any
the h Starvation pesnaea epoch Of 1ae4s % They sgni
fed not only great misery in many counties,
but that in certain districts the tenants would
be absolutely deprived of food. The first step
of the land league was to raise fund for the
immediate relief of the famished -peasantry,
their movement in this direction being long
anterior to the subscriptions started by the
Duchess of Marlborough and Others Their
next proceeding was an organized attempt to
1Set which, at sse the 0'ddsS date Of Vl'1S the ast
famine, the Irish landlords had i'm
mensely aggravated the sufferings of their
sick and starving tenants. 1t should, indeed,
never be forgotten that in the year 1876 not
less than 100000 persons, who, having moth
ing to eat, were of course unable to pay rent,
were thrust out into the ditch to die. VIII
it be said that the present generation at land
lords is more merciful? It was Mr.. Glad
stone himself who pointed out during the
last session of parliament, while advocating
his compensation for disturbance bill, that
the bad harvests had been followed by a
deplorable increase in the number of eject
ments. HeSapprehended that as many as
Is, 600 evictions might take place in 1880; and
who doubts that but for the Land league
this quota would have been vastly eXceeded!
As it was, the process of ejectment was al
most everywhere arrested by the impossible
ity of obtaining new tenant. And where
we hear of few ejectments, there, as we are
told by Whig and Liberal statesmen will
find but few temptations to agrarian crime.
This, then, is what the land league may
claim to have accomplished. Thanks to its
efforts, the worst harvest known in Ireland
for more than thirty years brought with it no
widespread and incurable disasters. Instead
of the 300, 900 deaths which were credited to
starvation and pestilence in the single year of
1647, not one case of death has
been traced directly and indubitably to
eieher cause since January L, 1879. Instead of
800, 1000 evictions in single twelvemonth, the
ejectment of tenants had come to be very sell
dom attempted for some months before the
recent passage of the coercion bill. Instead
of the 176 homicides committed in 1646, less
than ten cases of manslaughter in the year
1880 were in any wise associated with agra
rian disorders. This would seem to be
recorder which the land league need not fear
the Judgment of the future. 1t must also be
acknowledge to have forced the land question
on the anxious attention of Great Britain, and
to have extorted from the present ministry q