THE IRISH LAND QUESTION. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
STR,—It would be a mere absurdity to assert that the negroes are still slaves. Unhappily, notwithstanding Mr. Murphy's strange assertion in the Spectator of the 15th inst., it is not a like absurdity, but a positive truth, to assert, as I did, that the great majority of tenant-farmers in three provinces of Ireland are still tenants-at-will. The Land Act of 1871 did indeed
impose a fine on eviction, but only after arbitrary eviction,—
that is, after a process nearly as much dreaded by the Irish small farmers as hanging. Even this fine imposes very little restraint. It is too well known that, owing to the greed for land, which is the natural consequence of its being almost the- sole industry of Ireland, others were ready to pay more for possession than the legal compensation. I have not the statistics by me at the present, but I believe I am correct in stating that notices to quit were as numerous since the Aot of 1871 as within the same number of years before it came into operation. Any one who lives among the people in the south knows well that, in spite of the good intention of those who passed that Act, a sense of insecurity still reigns among them, paralysing their energies and provoking discontent. The will of the landowner is still the law to the tenant. I could quote many instances within my own limited experience of rents raised, against the tenants' loud remonstrances, till they reach twice and often three times the ordnance valuation of the farms..
Where this can be done arbitrarily—and it can be done wherever there is tenancy-at-will in this country—agitation is not, as Mr. Murphy would have it, a mere amusement, but a stern necessity.
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