Mr. Parnell has established a Labour League, the object of
which is to be to win for the Isiah labourers advantages propor- tionate to those gained for the Irish farmers. The labourer is to have his plot of ground and his decent cottage. And all this, if we understand Mr. Parnell's programme rightly, is to be obtained out of the landlords' rents. That will be as it may be. But we cannot quite understand why. Mr. Parnell is so very
anxious to show that land in Ireland ought to be worth little or nothing to any one who does not farm it himself. A man who buys a bad investment by mistake for a good one, must bear the con- sequences ; and this, no doubt, is the case with many owners of land in Ireland. But why there should be any special iniquity attached to owning land which you do not cultivate and do get a rent for, any more than to owning Cnnsols with the invest- ment of which as capital you have bad nothing to do, and yet of which you draw the interest without any scruple, we cannot, for the life of us, understand. We suppose it is only policy which makes Mr. Parnell speak of landlords as persons who ought to have their income taken from them, so long as there is anybody else connected with the land who wants it. But it is not a mode of talking that can approve itself to him as a man of business and intelligence. If I spend £1,000 judiciously in Irish land, I have just as much right to expect a reasonable interest for it, as I have if I spend the same sum in Bank-of- Ireland shares. But no one who hears Mr. Parnell speak of the Irish landlords would ever guess as much.
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