TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE IRISH PROPERTY DEFENCE FUND.

WHETHER the Lord Mayor of London's effort to assist in the defence of property in Ireland is to do good or

harm, depends entirely on what the Committee formed for the purpose of raising and dispensing funds decide to do with those funds. It is perfectly clear that if they are not extremely careful in their procedure, they may do great harm and no good, and that any attempt to use the funds as a political engine would be in the highest degree pernicious. And when we speak of any attempt to use the funds as a political engine, we are not referring to party politics in the narrower sense. It is, no doubt, true that in rela- tion to the Irish land question, a great many Liberals feel and act like Tories ; while a great many Irish Conserva- tives,—especially when they are either Members of Parlia- ment, or hoping to become Members of Parliament,—feel and act like Liberals. Therefore, when we say that the attempt to use the funds called for by the Lord Mayor as a political engine would be most mischievous, we do not in the least mean to limit our remark to the party sense of the word " political," for the money might be used in a manner of which Sir S. Wilson, the late Conservative candidate for Londonderry County, would heartily approve, and yet not be politically misapplied ; or it might be used in such a manner as the Duke of Westminster, or Mr. Grenfell, and other Liberals who have subscribed to the Lord Mayor's Fund would approve, and yet be in the worst sense politically misapplied. What we mean to deprecate is not the use of the funds in a manner which many of the one party would approve and many of the other condemn, for this might accidentally happen, though there was no sound objection to the use made of them ; but their use so as to indicate to the Irish farmers that rich Englishmen wish to see the recent Land Act interpreted in a sense different from that which the Land Court is empowered to give to it,—that rich Englishmen are partisans in the Irish Land Question, and wish to do what they can to bias the work- ing of the Land Act, and to injure the prospects of the tenants under it. No worse use could be made of the funds than to administer them in such a fashion as that. The funds, large or small, that the Lord Mayor obtains had much better be thrown straight into the sea, than be so expended as to increase the Irish anger against England, and the deep belief that the English grudge Ireland every concession which she painfully wrings from a re- luctant Parliament. And there is very great danger,—more than danger, almost a certainty,—that if the Committee attempt to manipulate their funds themselves, this interpreta- tion will be put on their use of them, however intrinsically just that use might be. Knowing, as the Irish do know, that the great English landowners have been the chief subscribers ; knowing that the impelling motive has been not so much the regard for property, as the regard for the property of a particular class, of whom, as the Irish tenant-farmers believe, the tenants have been long the victims, every act of this Committee will be watched with jealous eyes and construed by prepossessed minds. And the Committee would, in fact, have the greatest possible difficulty in so using its money as to avoid mischief, even if there were not already the deepest prejudice in Ireland on the subject. Nothing could be more mischievous than to spend the money in aiding any evictions which have been brought about by rack-renting, or unjust or even merely hard landlords. Where such an hater- vention as this from outside takes place, it ought to be as clear as it should be in the case of a foreign intervention between two nations at war, that the intervention is grounded on ample

knowledge and strict justice. For England to send her surplus wealth to hasten an unjust exile of the miserable from their only shelter, or to bolster up the bankrupt revenue of a hard taskmaster, would indeed be to make bad worse. But if it be so difficult, as it certainly will be, for an English Committee to administer the funds justly from the English side of the water, it would be next to impossible for them to administer these funds without reproach. What- ever they do with them, they will get the discredit of meaning wrong, and of stimulating that bitter feeling between class and class which already amounts almost to civil war. For our own parts, we see no prospect of any good use of the funds by an English Committee at all. If the Lord Mayor's Com- mittee are wise, they will hand their funds over straight to the Property Defence Association in Ireland which has hitherto shown sufficient tact and prudence in its operations, an& which, as an Irish Committee, is at least free from any liability to the special imputations and suspicions attaching to every- thing of English origin. Doubtless, there are cases of the greatest hardship and of the grossest breach of faith, where help is urgently needed to protect the freedom, independence, and honesty of the right-minded Irish against the dictatorial violence of the Land League party. But an Irish Committee is far more fit to find out these cases of urgency than any English Committee, and to the Irish it should be left. We venture to assert that if the Lord Mayor's movement is to do any good,—and to be kept clear of the great mischief which it may easily do,—the safest plan by far will be to hand over what they collect at once to the Irish body which has so long been attempting the same work, and doing it with general approbation.

We see that one plea advanced for the new effort is the increasing magnitude of the outrages in Ireland, outrages which make the assertion of proprietary rights more diffi- cult than ever. That, if it were only true, would be a sound enough plea for any action tending to diminish the terror of these outrages ; but then, it is not true ; as compared even with the last year of Conservative Government, 1879, it is not true ; and as it is not true that these outrages are on the increase as compared even with the- period of Conservative self-satisfaction,—since they are, on the contrary, on the decrease, there is very great reason, indeed, to doubt the wisdom of applying any irritant to the Irish jealousy of England, or interfering with the normal action of the remedies which the State has applied. As compared with the last year of Conservative Government, the most serious of the outrages for the whole past year, calculated by the Echo of Wednesday on the same scale as those for last month (November),—and that is certainly overcalculating them,— are as follows :—

1879. 1881.

Murders ...

.•• 24 24 Manslaughters

• • 40

Firing at persons

• •• 41

84

Aggravated assaults ...

2311

84.

Assaults endangering life

• :•

77

72.

Killing and maiming cattle

• •• 125 180 Riots and affrays

• • •

• •• 50

868 444

That list excludes, no doubt, incendiary fires, firing into dwel- lings, and some other important headings of outrage, but even on these there will be found to be no great increase. There is, therefore, no case for applying any sort of remedy which may inflame the disease, instead of alleviating it. And no one can doubt that, in this case, the proposed remedy—at all events, if applied by the English Committee itself—may greatly inflame the disease. That England should be believed to be using her wealth to hasten the eviction of some of the most miserable of the Irish peasantry, or to counter- act the salutary provisions of the law so recently and so painfully extracted from the selfish fears of the English aristocracy, would be indeed a most serious aggravation of the worst symptoms of the evil. It is bad enough that even a good law should be viewed in Ireland with universal suspicion, because it comes from Westminster ; it would be still worse if, directly a good law is sent to Ireland from Westminster, it were understood that the English privileged class subscribed largely from their heavy purses to do what the Irish people would consider as an attempt to attenuate the effect of that law, or even to prevent its beneficial operation. And it is certain• that if the Lord Mayor's Committee themselves deal with the funds to be raised by England, this will be the interpretation put upon their action in Ireland, even if it be unjustly put; and that nothing clumsier or more mischievous could be done by well-meaning persons, than anything which led to such an impression as that. When people sacrifice their money in what they regard as a good cause, they are very apt to think that some special providence watches over their gold, and prevents. it from becoming the root of evil. No superstition could be more false. Many thousand pounds are given every year from good motives, which sow nothing but new misery ; and we strongly suspect that the Lord Mayor's new Fund will go to. swell those thousands of pounds, unless the Committee take; veryprompt measures, not only to secure its being well dis- pensed, but also to secure, what is quite as important, that its dispensation should be universally known in Ireland to be ordered by Irish local knowledge and Irish sympathies, and not dictated by English class-feeling.