It is rumoured, though not yet on sufficient authority, that
the Ministry intend to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. They fear lest the impunity with which treason is disseminated in several counties may tempt the ignorant field-hands to an outbreak, and so involve bloodshed, or increase still further the tendency to agrarian crime. It is for them to judge of a necessity they will be most reluctant to accept, and in either policy they will be sustained by all Liberals who, with the Church abolished and a tenure bill on the anvil, feel their consciences quite clear to repress disorder. It must be noted, as we have elsewhere explained, that the Fenians have found new and powerful allies in the labourers, who, at Dun- dalk, broke up a tenant-right meeting with a cry for a cottage and an acre for every field-hand. Their request, which the Times pro- nounces ridiculous, is beginning, we perceive, to be embodied in the Tenant-Right meetings, and we do not understand them to ask for the acre rent free. That they could not have, but an acre at the usual rent is given by many English landlords. The object of the Fenians is clearly to keep up agitation, which, with the tenantry contented, might die away.
