Lastly, Mr. Gladstone asserts that Rossendale is being in- vited
"to the systematic support of a Tory Government which founds its chief claim to favour on its having done more than any other Tory Government to alienate the Irish from the British people, and to dishonour the names of law and order by making them a pretext for trampling on liberty, for pro- moting the interests of the landed class, and for undermining the Union, while professing to maintain it." We should like to see Mr. Gladstone's instances of "trampling upon liberty." Is this his description of the pressure put upon the Parnellite voters by the Anti-Parnellite Pirty P Or does he refer to the action of the police in preventing the Irish factions tearing each other in pieces? Does he, again, call the Land Act of 1887, which allowed even leaseholders of ninety-nine years to get their contracts broken and new rents fixed, which still further reduced the judicial rents, and which in small holdings prac- tically took away the power of eviction for non-payment of rent, " promoting the interests of the landlord " P The " distant quarter "—St. Raphael—from which Mr. Gladstone says he writes, has not added to his clearness of vision.
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