to saying that a fine for an assault is not
intended to prevent side who rose to the level of the occasion. In assaults, but only to punish assaults when they have been coin- his eloquent peroration he laid down a principle milted. He forgets entirely that in all civil affairs nothing which is absolutely fatal, not only to this Bill, but tends so much to prevent a transaction as a certainty that it will to every Bill of the kind, Lord Mayo's included, to every be costly. We, like Sir John Gray, contend that fixity is the Bill which does anything but enforce a contract. " My objec- true cure for Irish agrarian grievances ; but we defend it not tion to your new system is that it is not the best, anti, what as a right, which it is not, but as a mode of settlement which is more, you know it is not the best. For here you are in it would be expedient for the State to ordain, even if it in- England arrived at the highest pitch of civilization, you claim volved compensation to the landlords ; and our belief in that for yourselves that you are models to the world, you hold out settlement does not blind us to the fact that the Government your social relations to the admiration and envy of Europe, Bill effects all that can be effected without such compensation, and you insist that the relations between landlord and tenant unless indeed Irish landlords should awake to the fact that in your country shall be on the footing of contract. What fixity with reversion of rents is their interest, that it would have you been doing ? You have been working ever since double their revenues, and restore to them their natural Latimer told the landlords who put out the tenants that the leadership of the people. In a Parliamentary point of view, Divine vengeance would come upon them for it,—you have Sir John Gray's opposition is of minor importance, for it is been working, I say, to make landlord and tenant not outweighed by the adhesion of The O'Donoghue, a typical ascertain their rights by litigation, but have them established "Milesian " gentleman, of Mr. Maguire, the fanatically Irish on the solid basis of contract, so that every landlord Member for Cork, and above all, of Mr. G. II. Moore, for in England knows for what he contracts, and every twenty years the unswerving advocate of tenant-right, and tenant in England knows for what he has to answer. thirteen years ago author of a Bill which was accepted I say you have got the best system, and I believe it to be the by the tenant farmers of Ireland, who now gave his best because I believe that Englishmen, having set their hearty support to the Bill as one which, with certain hearts on the best system, would be content with nothing amendments, would help to secure the one object " which less. What do I ask for my country ? I ask the right to would regenerate industry, revive enterprise, and above all, rise to the same level as yourselves. I demand that you will win back the fancy, the manhood, and the fire of the race to not lay down a rule of this kind and say, This is good the only nation which had a right to command the energies of enough for Ireland. The Irish people differ from the Eng- the Irish people." Mr. Moore's outspoken support will do lish. There is a positive incapacity in the Irish landlord to more to excite the confidence of Irishmen in the Bill than any deal with his tenants by contract, and in the Irish tenant to amount of legal speeches, the more because, considering the take care of himself by contract. The Scotch and English special position he occupies, the prospect which opened before are able to do it. Therefore the true system shall be reserved him of being almost an O'Connell if he demanded more, it as a privilegiwn for them, but the Irish shall not be able to must have been dictated by a most upright and disinterested contract because we shall put a clause in an Act of Parlia- desire for the welfare of his countrymen. ment to prevent it.' " It is not the Tenant-Right League which is to be feared, It cannot be denied that Dr. Ball goes to the root of the it is that Tory instinct which, powerless in the Com- matter. If his theory is right, clearly the Bill is all wrong, mons, is so powerful in the Lords as almost to lead for its very principle, its first datum, is that free contract for the Peers to resist the national will, The Tory speeches, it land will not suit Ireland ; but then why does he vote for a is true, with the exception of Dr. Ball's, have not been strong Bill he deems at once so bad and so insulting ? The truth is in argument,—his would be unanswerable, were it only true,— that at heart the Tory landholders dislike the Bill, that they for the speakers are harassed by their hopelessness, but want what they arc pleased to call "free contract," that is, the they reveal a strong under-current of dislike to the main pro- right to sell an article of the first necessity of which they visions of the Bill. Mr. Henley, for instance, objected to have a monopoly on their own terms, and but for their hope- everything in it of any value. He thought the purchasing lessness they would resist it. The Lords will not be hope-
clauses would fall dead ; he thought the " disturbance " less, at least not hopeless of a majority, and we take the Tory clauses unjust, for, as he remarked with holy horror, "sup- tone in the Lower House to be symptomatic of a danger that pose a tenant killed foxes ;" and he thought the compensation in the Upper no effort will be spared to weaken the Bill in clauses both unjust and injurious,—unjust, because the better Committee, to eliminate, or at least soften down, every clause
the landlord the more would the tenant claim for being which tends to diminish the right of an owner of the soil to turned out,—injurious, because most landlords would buy out do what he will with his own, even if his will is to push the their tenantry, and so be quit both of them and the Bill inhabitants into the sea. There is, we fear, a long and together. Yet if these three principles are bad, what becomes of dangerous voyage for this Bill yet, through a channel swarm- the Bill ? Mr. Henley, at all events, ought to vote for its instant ing with torpedoes. dismissal. Then Mr. Ward Hunt, admitting the importance and, indeed, necessity of a land measure, disputed every prin- ciple of the Bill. The presumption of law that improvements THE EDUCATION LEAGUE AND THE GOVERNMENT. were made by the landlord ought not to be disturbed. Com- '4R. FORSTER'S Bill is to be met by an amendment from pensation for mere eviction, or damages for the loss of the good- ill the supporters of the League on its second reading,
will were not just. The thirty-one years' lease was " a con- and the amendment will, of course, single out the treatment tract extorted from the landlord," a mode of depriving him of of the religious difficulty as the blot in the Bill. Mr. Dixon,
his property. "As to Ulster Tenant-Right, it produced an the Member for Birmingham, and founder of the League, is armed peace, costly to the landlord, costly to the tenant," and to move, " That this House is of opinion that no measure for the operation of the Bill on poor estates would be to establish the elementary education of the people can afford a perma- the Ulster custom. And finally, the Bill would give rise to nent and satisfactory settlement of this question, which leaves endless litigation, and Ireland would be in the position of a cow the important question of religious instruction to be deter- leaders not only pompously proclaim a " vain vision," but the with the landlord holding her horns, and the tenant pulling followers tumultuously cheer it as if they had heard a revela- her tail, while the lawyer ran away with the milk. If all tion, and beheld a sign. those objections do not make a bad Bill, what does make one and Mr. Hunt, like Mr. Henley, would, had he ven- tured, have resisted the Bill. Colonel Wilson-Patten de- THE PROGRESS OF THE LAND BILL. dared he should vote for it, yet he denounced the Bill as
THE debate on the Land Bill has, up to Friday morning, one which " nothing but urgency could justify," and its main
been one of intolerable dulness. There is no heart in provisions as " stigmas " upon the Irish nation, upon Irish the resistance and little eloquence in the appreciation, those landlords, upon Irish tenants, and as prohibiting free who resist being without hope, and those who appreciate being contract, while Mr. Hardy, though he would not oppose hampered by a fancied necessity of defending some point of the second reading, held that no sufficient case for such detail. The great guns do not fire till the close of the debate, a Bill had been made out. He wanted contract to be too late for our columns, but it is clear that the only strong free ; he wanted the Ulster custom abolished, instead of resistance to be expected is from the Tories, and that is import- perpetuated ; he wanted estates under the Encumbered ant only as prefiguring the possible course of the Peers. Sir Estates' Act exempted from the law ; he wanted leases for 19 John Gray fought hard for fixity, and declared that the Bill instead of 31 years. In short, he wanted everything but the was not intended to prevent eviction, but to give compensa- Bill, which ho was nevertheless not going to oppose. tion after eviction had been accomplished, which is equivalent And finally, there is Dr. Ball, the only man on his to saying that a fine for an assault is not intended to prevent side who rose to the level of the occasion. In assaults, but only to punish assaults when they have been coin- his eloquent peroration he laid down a principle milted. He forgets entirely that in all civil affairs nothing which is absolutely fatal, not only to this Bill, but tends so much to prevent a transaction as a certainty that it will to every Bill of the kind, Lord Mayo's included, to every be costly. We, like Sir John Gray, contend that fixity is the Bill which does anything but enforce a contract. " My objec- true cure for Irish agrarian grievances ; but we defend it not tion to your new system is that it is not the best, anti, what as a right, which it is not, but as a mode of settlement which is more, you know it is not the best. For here you are in it would be expedient for the State to ordain, even if it in- England arrived at the highest pitch of civilization, you claim volved compensation to the landlords ; and our belief in that for yourselves that you are models to the world, you hold out settlement does not blind us to the fact that the Government your social relations to the admiration and envy of Europe, Bill effects all that can be effected without such compensation, and you insist that the relations between landlord and tenant unless indeed Irish landlords should awake to the fact that in your country shall be on the footing of contract. What fixity with reversion of rents is their interest, that it would have you been doing ? You have been working ever since double their revenues, and restore to them their natural Latimer told the landlords who put out the tenants that the leadership of the people. In a Parliamentary point of view, Divine vengeance would come upon them for it,—you have Sir John Gray's opposition is of minor importance, for it is been working, I say, to make landlord and tenant not outweighed by the adhesion of The O'Donoghue, a typical ascertain their rights by litigation, but have them established "Milesian " gentleman, of Mr. Maguire, the fanatically Irish on the solid basis of contract, so that every landlord Member for Cork, and above all, of Mr. G. II. Moore, for in England knows for what he contracts, and every twenty years the unswerving advocate of tenant-right, and tenant in England knows for what he has to answer. thirteen years ago author of a Bill which was accepted I say you have got the best system, and I believe it to be the by the tenant farmers of Ireland, who now gave his best because I believe that Englishmen, having set their hearty support to the Bill as one which, with certain hearts on the best system, would be content with nothing amendments, would help to secure the one object " which less. What do I ask for my country ? I ask the right to would regenerate industry, revive enterprise, and above all, rise to the same level as yourselves. I demand that you will win back the fancy, the manhood, and the fire of the race to not lay down a rule of this kind and say, This is good the only nation which had a right to command the energies of enough for Ireland. The Irish people differ from the Eng- the Irish people." Mr. Moore's outspoken support will do lish. There is a positive incapacity in the Irish landlord to more to excite the confidence of Irishmen in the Bill than any deal with his tenants by contract, and in the Irish tenant to amount of legal speeches, the more because, considering the take care of himself by contract. The Scotch and English special position he occupies, the prospect which opened before are able to do it. Therefore the true system shall be reserved him of being almost an O'Connell if he demanded more, it as a privilegiwn for them, but the Irish shall not be able to must have been dictated by a most upright and disinterested contract because we shall put a clause in an Act of Parlia-
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