Mr. W. H. Gladstone is suffering a good deal from
the =- comfortable results of his father's severe denunciations of the policy of eviction. On the Hawarden estate he has been exercising, apparently in a very temperate and humane spirit, the right of every landlord to get rid of tenants who will not pay a fair and moderate rent. It is not only right to get rid of such tenants, it is a duty ; and Mr. W. H. Gladstone, in his administration of the Hawarden estate, has seen that this was his duty. But, of course, those who see that in various cases where the same duty has been recognised in Ireland by land- lords as good as Mr. W. H. Gladstone,—Mr. Brooke, for instance,—the League has struck at them with its " Plan of Campaign," while the English Gladstonians have vehemently denounced the trial and punishment of those who hounded on reluctant tenants to a breach of contract, very naturally hold up Mr. W. H. Gladstone's conduct to the world, and ask why he is not to be censured if Mr. Brooke is to be censured, and why Mr. Brooke is not to be acquitted and held in honour, if Mr. W. H. Gladstone is to be acquitted and held in honour. And, of course, no reply is possible.
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