The best news from Ireland this week is the statement
of Mr. Justice Fitzgerald that in Munster, where agrarian crime has been so prevalent that, as he says, it threatens the existence of society, no farmers have been reported as implicated in the crimes. The worst news is that the tenantry on the Downshire estates, the Drogheda estates, and other estates in Wicklow and Kildare, have declared their resolution to pay no rent until the suspects are released. The effect of this threat is greatly enhanced by the fact that the Downshire estates are notori- ously among the lowest-rented in the country, and that it has been made either under coercion or from political motives. The former is believed to be the case, but we do not see how immense evictions can be avoided, if the landlords choose to claim the assistance of the law. The farmers could put the terrorism down, if they liked to combine to do it. The landlords, however, will scarcely evict whole bodies of tenants, as their incomes would be destroyed. The Government, it is stated, have authorised the employment of 1,000 fresh con-
and the payment of heavy rewards for revelations of intended crime ; but terror seems in Ireland to demoralise as well as paralyse those to whom it is applied. The Law has no assistance whatever, either from juries, witnesses, or opinion.
