In yesterday's Times Mr. Shaw-Lefevre repudiates the charge brought against
him by Mr. Balfour that be went about in Ireland making promises to the Irish tenants on behalf of the Gladstonians, whenever they should come into power. Doubtless he made no promises, but if we are not greatly mistaken, he certainly ventured on a predic- tion of what would happen within a short time of the re- storation of Mr. Gladstone to power, which the Irish tenants were quite sure to accept as almost an equivalent to a pro- mise. He regards Mr. Balfour's willingness to accede to Clause 16 of the Purchase Act of 1891 as a virtual assent to the policy of Mr. Morley's Evicted Tenants' Commission. It was certainly nothing of the kind. It involved no interference on behalf of any evicted tenant to whom the landlord himself was not willing to sell his former holding. This is a very dif- ferent matter indeed, from appointing a Commission to smooth the way for the reinstatement of all evicted tenants in the privileges which they had themselves voluntarily aban- doned in the hope of winning them back by fraudulent and illegal means.
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