Mr. Plunket, the ablest of the Irish Tories, delivered a
speech on the Irish situation in Chelsea on Tuesday. It was a very able speech. as free from the temper which distinguishes Irish Tory speeches as from the bombast which Irish Reds mistake for rhetoric. We have dwelt elsewhere on its main point, that Mr. Gladstone's policy has deepened the antagonism between England and Ireland, and need here only mention the charge, made at great length, that Mr. Gladstone has been wantonly unjust to the Irish landlords and middle-class. He had charged them, says Mr. Plunket, with want of spirit, or even cowardice ; whereas the landlords had held a dozen large public meetings, and had organised the Defence Committees, which so greatly impeded the success of the Land League. The middle-class, it was trues did not act ; but it was feeble and scattered, and dependent on the tenantry, and like the Catholic Church and the Liberal Irish Press, it was overborne. We can- not agree with Mr. Plunket that the landlords behaved well. They fought for their rents, but we do not see that they foeght equally bard against disorder, or prosecuted ill-doers with the vigour that would have been shown in England. At the same time, we do not attribute cowardice to them. We think rather that they believed the libels of the Tory speakers, that they suspected the Government of conniv- ance with the Leaguers, and that they felt crushed between two millstones, —the Castle and the mob. They were utterly mistaken, as they know now ; and had they, as magistrates, acted more resolutely, they would have found out the mistake at once.
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