THE VICEROY ON THE IMPROVEMENT IN IRELAND.
IT is impossible to doubt that when the Lord-Lieutenant claimed, as he did in his Belfast speech, that Ireland has immensely improved in the last year, he was fairly and accurately representing the actual facts. Not only is Ireland beginning to feel the revival of trade which has set in in England, not only has the harvest proved good. and prices begun to rise, but there is clear evidence that the fury of the moral disease from which Ireland has been suffering has begun to abate. It is now far more easy than it was to get evidence such as will enable the authorities to punish the perpetration of crime, and the whole temper of society, though still by no means completely satisfactory, in- clines to a healthier condition. The number of outrages has fallen off, as has also that of persons wholly and partially boycotted. More important than all, there is an unmistakable tendency among the farming class to endure no longer the dictation of the League in regard to what land may be hired. and what not, and to take up what are known, in the jargon of "the unwritten law," as evicted farms. No one of these signs alone would. perhaps justify us in accepting Lord Londonderry's conclusion that Ire- land is improving ; but if we take them all together, it certainly cannot be called rash to draw a somewhat sanguine deduction. The taking up of the derelict farms is, on the whole, the best sign of all, for it shows that in the conflict between the natural impulse which prompts the farmer to take land on advantageous terms, and the fear of the consequences, the commercial impulse is getting the better. In other words, the terror of the League is ceasing to maintain its influence, and is tending to become inoperative, just as the Unionists declared it would if met by a sufficient strengthening of the law of the land. Though we have no desire to deny for a moment that there are plenty of Nationalists who support the League and its doings from what they would consider patriotic motives, yet it must be admitted that the great bulk of the farmers do so from two principal reasons,—either from the notion that they will profit thereby, -or else from fear. The strengthening of the law, however, has, on the one hand, made it far more difficult for the League to convince the tenants that they will profit by obeying its behests ; and, on the other, has made them feel that obedience to regular judicial authority will be enforced, if not as savagely as is the code of the League, at any rate in a manner quite real and substantial.
Though Lord. Londonderry enumerated many striking and important instances in which Ireland is improving, he did not—perhaps from a desire not to appear to over-state his case—mention the strongest of all,—the practical failure of the "Plan of Campaign.' That the "Plan of Campaign" has been a failure, cannot, we think, be doubted. We have no desire to enter into the details of the particular cases in which the landlord has successfully resisted, or in which he has either been forced to give in or else has been obliged to have recourse to eviction and the con- sequent boycotting of his land. Such details are only of secondary importance. The fact that remains is that the "Plan of Campaign" was meant as a general attack upon the Irish landowners, but that, after having been tried on estates carefully selected as being specially suited for such an operation, all idea has been abandoned of continuing or extending it. Where it has been begun, it is, of course, carried forward, since abandon- ment would be too great a confession of weakness ; but the idea of pressing it upon new estates seems to have been entirely given up. The Irish Nationalists are, then, in this position they have at the present moment no general weapon of offence ready to their hands. It is essential, however, to Irish agrarian agitation that the leaders should be always able to keep something moving ; be always able to say to the tenants,—` If you will only adopt this or that new method. of operations, you will be able to get the land for nothing, and help Old Ireland.' Just now, the "Plan of Campaign" being virtually aban- doned, the difficulty is to find something to fill the gap,— a difficulty aggravated by the fact that the fiercer spirits, such as Mr. Davitt, complain that, in order to satisfy the public opinion of England, the Irish cause is being in- jured, and pretty dearly indicate that some very decided step ought at once to be taken in the agrarian conflict. Whether Irish ingenuity will be able to discover a form of attack which will at one and the same time satisfy Mr. Davitt, and. not wound. the moral susceptibilities of Mr. Gladstone's followers, remains to be seen. Until, however, it is found, it seems pretty certain that the Irish cause will not move forward. The agitators want a new political nostrum with which to amuse the people, and make them believe that if they will only adopt it, victory will be assured. That is the common-sense of the situa- tion. But while the agitators are searching for their nostrum, Ireland is making very considerable strides towards moral and physical convalescence.
It is just possible that the nostrum will not be found, and. that Ireland will steadily continue to improve. It may be, however, that something will be discovered which, for a time, will fan into a brighter flame the fires of dis- content and. anarchy. Still, even if this happens, we need not despair of the ultimate result. Patience,—that is all that is required. to meet the Irish difficulty. No doubt it is one of the hardest of political virtues which England is now called upon to exercise ; but, after all, the nation that continued. the great war with France till Europe was free from the curse of Napoleon, ought not to find. it difficult to hold on in Ireland. till the work of establishing the reign of law is accomplished. If the English people would con- sider what a short period has elapsed since the Union, and yet how much has been done in that time to improve the condition of Ireland, they need have no fear of the result. If only they will continue for another generation the firm and just government they have now established in Ireland, the revolutionary movement which has convulsed the island during the last six years will be looked back upon as nothing but an obscure episode in the history of the United Kingdom, valuable only to the philosopher as showing that nations, like individuals, are liable to be seized with occasional fits of uncontrollable mental lassitude and depression.
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