THE DISPENSING POWER.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR')
Ste.,—In your article on the Dillon prosecution, there is a- notable confusion. The point is not whether the Government would have been justified in putting private pressure on land- lords, to induce them to make redactions of rent. No one dis- putes that. The question is whether the Government were justified in the exercise of a dispensing power with regard to putting the law into execution. It is quite certain that Chief Baron Palles considers that the Executive have thus acted, and that in doing so they have been guilty of illegality. Surely you will admit that illegality committed by a Government affords a precedent for illegality committed by a National League. The influence of that League, whether legal or illegal, is not always exercised for evil. You are quite justified, no doubt, in quoting an instance in which, if the facts be truly stated, a good landlord has been attacked by the League. Yet you have the candour to admit that there are bad landlords, though you give your readers no information about some doings of theirs which are pretty notorious.
Impartial persons might think that this week's evictions in Kerry are at least as important as the experiments upon the endurance of hunger by dogs, on which, quite properly, you this week comment. Experiments have been made on the- capacity of mud hovels for being burnt amidst the snow and rains of winter, and on the capacity of human beings for en- during cold and hunger,—which are, to say the least, entitled to- a few words of comment. What would have been the upshot of the Kerry evictions if Mr. Harrington, M.P., had not been, present to allay the excitement P—I am, Sir, &c.,
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