THE IRISH LAND BILL.
[To MI EDITOR OF TER SPEOTITOlt."]
Snt,—Your article on "The Great Danger of the Situation" gives in a few words the exact facts of the case.
The twenty-second clause of the Land Bill practically con- fiscates the landlords' property, and that without any compensa- tion, as it makes the collection of rents entirely to depend on the County-Court Judge ; and how is he to know P How can he judge whether the tenant is in a position to pay or not P As a class, an English tenant will pay what he can ; an Irish tenant will only pay what he must. "Punic faith" but faintly expresses the way in which the present Government have thrown over those who had a stake in the country—especially the purchasers under the Incumbered Estates Act—in order to make terms with a Jacobite Club.
The Conservatives imagine that by throwing overboard the "loyal minority," they will settle the country. Time will tell,— a few months, perhaps only a few weeks, and we shall see. The Parnellites attacked the land as a means to an end. Had the landowners joined them seven years ago, the movement would have ceased to be agrarian, and assumed another form.
I can assure you, Sir, that landowners are now considering whether it would not be far more to their own interest to throw in their lot with the Nationalist Party and keep the little left them, than trust any longer to the faith of British promises. Had Lord Salisbury followed Wolsey's advice to Cromwell,
how different it would have been 1— "Be just, and fear not Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, 0 Salisbury, Thou fall'at a blessed martyr."
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