Mr. Plunket made a speech at Leicester on Tuesday on
the condition of Ireland. He assured his audience that the news- paper reports were not exaggerations, that murder and arson were rife through the greater part of Ireland, that " he could not recall a time when the conscience of the Irish people was so demoralised, or the attitude of the lawless so fierce and defiant." He quoted from the charges of the Judges, and from the returns of outrage for November—which, however, he compared only with October—in proof of the statement, and declared that his worst fears about the Land Act were realised, and it was "likely to work even less good and greater evil, and a more immediate and wholesale ruin of the most needed classes in Ireland," than he had anticipated. As the Act can " ruin" only bad landlords, the inference is that Mr. Plunket holds bad landlords to be the most needed class in Ireland. He called upon Government to cast away the "degrading doctrines, the mumbling super- stitions" which restrained them from vigorous action. He denounced the Sub-Commissions as composed in every case of one briefless barrister and two laymen, usually farmers, who, "if their sympathies permitted them to decide for the land- lords," would run the danger of having their horses houghed and their ricks burned. There is not a particle of evidence for this insinuation that the Commissioners are terrorised, and it should not have come from a politician who, though an Irish- man and a Tory, endeavours usually to adhere to truth and common-sense.
Previous page
