16 JANUARY 1909, Page 3

Itr. T. M. Healy, M.P., has written a characteristic letter

to the Rev. P. Finegan. After stating his readiness to sign a memorial protesting against the "importation of distant undesirables " into County Louth at the public expense, lir- Healy regretfully expresses the opinion that, if the Ilew Land Bill becomes law, land purchase will be brought to a standstill. "No landlord who has refused to sell Under Mr. Wyndham's Act is likely to be tempted by Mr. ,}31rrell's. It would mean getting four or five years' purchase 'ass for his estates and much less favourable conditions • l'hose who bought under the 1903 Act can now chuckle, atld those who did not may gnash their teeth for comfort, landing the millennium foretold by Mr. Sexton. The 1,)roof of the pudding is in the eating. The disappointed +1111)es will doubtless shortly be told that if they would only L'Ice to cattle-driving the purse-strings of the Treasury will 7 loosed and the price of bog stock will then rise on the irndon market. Well, supposing a score of planters were :1,111Ped on your parish, would the combined wisdom of all the P"teemou that ever emerged from Princes Street [the head- cleuarters of the Freeman's Journal] suggest that to drive their (:ws would bring your parishioners nearer to the ownership their holdings ? Who drives fat oxen should himself be s., sat,' but if Mr. Birrell's Bill be the measure of the worth of attlEsdriving it has proved the leanest policy for the Irish 41414ers that has ever been devised." We commend Mr.

Healy's letter to the attention of his colleague, Mr. Gwynn,— a communication from whom we publish in our correspondence columns.