NEWS OF THE WEEK
AS the prospect of the harvest brightens, the prospect of Irish tranquillity, which ought to improvewith it, and whichwould improve with it, but for the machinations of such politicians as Mr. Dillon, M.P., darkens. At a meeting in Kildare, held on Sunday, under the auspices of the Land League, Mr. Leahy, M.P., in the chair, Mr. Dillon made a most mischievous and dis- creditable speech, of which the evil results will not be few. He exhorted the farmers of Ireland not to lay any of their griev- ances before the Land Commission, speaking of its various mem- bers with a scorn which ought to rebound upon himself. Then he went on :—" The country should be so well organised that every farmer should belong to a branch of the Land League, and the young farmers should be prepared to march to the meetings, and in proper order, too. And when they had that organisation perfected, let the word go out that no farm from which any man had been evicted should be touched or used for human purposes until its rightful owner was put back upon the soil. In the county of Mayo, where the organisation was now pretty strong, they had many farms lying idle, from which landlords could draw no rent, because they had evicted tenants from them; nor, if the landlords put cattle on them, would the cattle prosper very much. They must teach the landlords that if they evicted tenants, they would not be the
richer, but the poorer The people should be invited to join the Land League, and if any one refused to do so, his neighbours would know that he had turned his back upon the
people When they should have enrolled 300,000 mem- bers of the League, if the landlords should persist in refusing the moderate demands of the people, they would give out the word to the people of Ireland to strike against rent altogether, and pay no more until justice was done to them. With 300,000 Irishmen enrolled as members of the Laud League, all the armies of England would not levy rent in this country. And then they would ask harder terms from the landlords."
