Mr. Shaw is far more moderate. In his speech to
a meeting of his section of the Home-rulers, at Dublin, on Tuesday, he expressed the fullest confidence in the new Government, which, in particular, would settle the franchise question. As regards the land, Mr. Gladstone understood the wants of the Irish tenants; he had endeavoured to meet them before, and hewas now aware of the weakness of his own Act. Mr. Shaw thought, how- ever, that the very first step should be to hold public meetings in Ireland, at which sensible and practical men should express their views as to the land reform really required. The policy of his party as to the land was to secure by legal means the abolition of capricious eviction and unfair rents, and to establish a peasant-proprietary. Capricious eviction it is possible to stop, but that question of "unfair rents" involves the whole doctrine of Communism. Mr. Shaw, however, is a reasonable human being, with whom it is possible for statesmen to argue, and, if no better may be, to agree upon some working scompromise.
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