24 AUGUST 1878, Page 15

SMALL LANDOWNERS IN IRELAND.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Murrough O'Brien, in the Spectator of the 17th inst., quotes me as saying that the condition of the Irish tenant-farmers is little better than slavery. If I ever said so, it must have been before the Land Act of 1870. He might as well quote a state- ment about the condition of the Russian peasantry before the abolition of serfage.

As for the gratitude of those farmers whom the operation of the Church Act has transformed into small owners, I do not believe that men in Ireland, or in any other country, feel much gr.ititude to an impersonal and invisible agency, like the Govern-