Mr. Parnell has recently dissuaded Irishmen from outrage, and his
party are following his example ; but it seems to be a bitter pill to some of them. Mr. T. E. Redmond, for example, on Tuesday declared, in a speech to the National League, that he was against breaches of law, but that the landlords were "commencing a campaign of evictions" which could not be met by an appeal to the landlords or the Government, but only by an appeal to the people to combine as under the old Land League. Mr. W. Redmond at the same meeting also observed that he would advise no one to place himself outside the law, but that " they could not make anything but a cold-blooded ruffian out of the average Irish landlord ;" that if the landlords evicted, they would lose their chance of fair terms ; and that the true example to follow was that of Father Neary at Mulli- navat, where, it will be remembered, the police were openly defied. So far as the Messrs. Redmond have influence, those sentences will hardly tend to promote submission to the law, more especially if, as Mr. W. Redmond says, ninety-nine per cent. of all farmers cannot pay their rent out of their farms. If ninety-nine in every hundred intend not to pay.rent, but to imitate the Mullinavat example, Ireland will be covered with petty insurrections, and the ordinary law will be almost power- less. Remembering how the priests have always failed to repress agrarian outrage, which they sincerely wished to stop, we have but slender confidence in the effect of the half-hearted utterances of the Parnellites.
Previous page
