Mr. James Tuke, who has done such great services, year
after year, to the poorest inhabitants of the poorest part of Ireland, sends a very interesting letter to last Saturday's Times on the condition of Donegal, and on the attitude of the tenants of Donegal towards the "Plan of Campaign." He does not think that the payment of rent has much to do with the distress in Donegal, which is mainly due to overcrowding and the extreme subdivision of the holdings; nor does he think that the tenants have any peional feeling against their landlords, though they allow themselves to be moved about like the pawns on a chessboard by the authors of the "Plan of Campaign," and express themselves very strongly against "Landlordism," whatever that may mean (which Mr. Tuke tells us that he has not ascertained). So far as Mr. Tuke could judge, the views of the tenants about "Landlordism" are of the socialistic type. But though they suffer themselves to be played off by the leaders of "the Plan," the Donegal tenants have no strong personal dislike to pay their individual rents to their individual landlords. They are inoculated with an idea, not actuated by a sense of personal injustice.
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