THE EVICTIONS IN IRELAND.
WE must say that the facts disclosed by Mr. Trevelyan on Wednesday, in relation to the Evictions in Ireland, seem to us to render it the absolute duty of the Government to press on their Arrears Bill with all the power at their com- mand. We can all understand why they are so anxious to get the medicine swallowed before they administer the nutritive food which is to follow, and we have no doubt that they believe it to be possible to get the two Bills faster through the House by placing the Arrears Bill last, than they could by postponing the Prevention of Crime Bill. But, after all, political strategy of that kind is a small matter, when the issue at stake is so tremendous as Mr. Trevelyan shows it to be. It is essential that crime should be checked, but it is even more essential that wholesale incentives to crime should not be multiplied ; and considering that the House of Commons have not yet discussed the clause in their Prevention of Crime Bill, empowering arbitrary arrests after night- fall—which will certainly give rise to considerable opposition —nor the clauses empowering the Government to seize Irish newspapers—which cannot pass without strenuous resist- ance—we look with positive dismay on the prospect of allow- ing these "cruel and unpatriotic" evictions—to use Mr. Trevelyan's own language—to multiply, while the Committee is engaged in wrangling over matters of such profoundly secondary interest. If the Government really mean to get their Prevention of Crime Bill out of the way be- fore proceeding with this fearfully urgent Arrears Bill, they are absolutely bound to remove all the superfluous difficulties of the former Bill, by sacrificing at once those objectionable minor provisions to which the soundest English Liberals object at least as much as the Irish party. If the Government would come down and say that, under the pressing circum- stances, they would so lop the later clauses of the Pre- vention of Crime Bill as to remove all the more substan- tial objections, they would probably be permitted to get the one job off their hands,—and it might be done, under such circumstances, in a couple of hours,—before setting themselves to their most pressing task. But with the Irish Secretary speak- ing of the "appalling " number of the evictions, and denomi- nating not a few of these evictions "cruel and unpatriotic," it must be obvious that the most efficient of all modes of pre- venting crime is, for the moment, to prevent these " cruel and unpatriotic " acts, which are certain to breed crime. Mr. Gladstone told the House on Thursday that the evictions had now reached the frightful number of about twenty daily, or 120 a week, though a certain deduction might be made for those families reinstated as " caretakers." That means, of course, that from 500 to 600 human beings are being turned into the world every week, with the exceptions referred to ; so that evictions are proceeding at a rate which, if continued, would unhouse between twenty and thirty thou- sand persons in a single year. So far as we can make out, that seems to be an under-estimate, and the official authority assures us that a considerable number of these evictions are cruel,—determined on, no doubt, on purpose to exclude the families evicted from the benefits of the Arrears Bill. Such a condition of things is certainly, as Mr. Trevelyan says," appal- ling ;" but, if appalling, it is much more than appalling, and imposes a very heavy responsibility on the Government for the arrest of these rapidly multiplying evictions with as much energy as they exhibit in endeavouring to punish the crimes to which they lead. Why should a " Preven- tion of Crime " Bill take precedence of what may well be called a " Prevention of the Causes of Crime " Bill ? The latter seems to us even more urgent than the former. If, indeed, the Government will clear the decks of all the lumber which is likely to hamper their progress in the con- sideration of the Bill now in Committee, so as to get it out of the way in a very short time, well and good. In that case, it may really be the most expeditious method to finish what they are about before pressing on the Arrears Bill. But if not, if they are really going to debate the objectionable provisions for arresting everybody found taking a walk at night, even though no substantial circumstances of suspicion can be urged against them ; if they are really going to debate the Press clauses as they stand at present, then we say that they are doing very wrong in postponing the Arrears Bill to such discus- sions. The question, and the only question for the moment, seems to us this,—how beat to prevent cruelty and crime in Ireland, either landlord cruelty or peasant cruelty, either land- lord incitements to crime or peasant yieldings to those incite- ments. Now, whatever may be said with plausibility, this, at least, cannot be said with plausibility,—that it is of more importance to the peace of Ireland that the Irish Con- stabulary should receive the power to arrest everybody found out at night, or that the Irish Government should have the power of seizing the Nation, or the Irishman, or the Freeman's Journal, when it chooses, than that Irish landlords should be hindered from inflicting " cruel and unpatriotic" evictions. if the Government are not prepared to remove all grounds of reasonable delay in the Prevention of Crime Bill, they are bound to postpone the Bill itself in favour of the Arrears Bill, for it is certain that the Arrears Bill will prevent more of direct incitement to crime than the former Bill will prevent of crime. The official admission that near a hundred people are being made homeless every day, and a considerable number of them by 'acts admitted to be "cruel and un- patriotic," is equivalent to an admission that no pains should be spared by the Government to impede the perpetration of these cruel and unpatriotic acts, or at least to remove the motive for them. This can be done by pressing on the Arrears Bill, and can be done in no other way. Mr. Gladstone him- self declares that the Government has at present no power to prevent these evictions, and that its only means of doing so is to remove some of the motive for them by passing the Arrears Bill. Should it not, then, strain every nerve to pass that Bill I If by freely amending its over-stringent pro- posals in the Prevention of Crime Bill, it can get rid of that huge obstacle to the passage of the other and now more press- ing Bill, well and good. Every right-minded man will be glad to see the experiment of the new judicial machinery tried in Ireland, so long as it can be put in motion without wasting more Parliamentary time. But if that is not to be, then it is obvious that the Prevention of Crime Bill itself should be shunted to make way for a measure still more urgent, because still more likely to prevent both temptation to crime and crime. Every Liberal ought to join in calling upon the Govern- ment to proceed at once with the only Bill which is at all likely to prevent the rapid multiplication of those " cruel and unpatriotic" actions against which on Wednesday Mr. Trevelyan so courageously bore his witness.
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