Affairs in Ireland do not improve. On the one hand,
Orangemen are cheering the incendiary speeches of the Rev. Mr. Kane, who threatens that they will rise 200,000 strong, and settle Irish difficulties with lead ; and on the other hand, out- rages increase in intensity. Many landlords are now protected by the police, and on Saturday Lord Mountmorres was shot dead near Clonbur, in Galway. He was a very poor Peer, with a few tenants, only fifteen, it is said, and was obliged, after a for- bearance lasting, he says, in his letters, four years, to exact his
rent ; but he lived always among the people, and bore, according to the majority of witnesses, a high character. He, however, was a landlord ; he had recently evicted two tenants, and the tenantry, full of the idea that they are to have the land, could not bear the disappointment. He was shot as he returned from Clonbur to his house, and there is no reason- able doubt that the murder was committed to avenge the evictions. The crime has, probably, been a fatal one for the agitators. It has produced a panic among the landlords, Government is urged to pass coercion Bills, and though Mr. Forster keeps his head and recognises that no coercion Bill will prevent murder, English feeling is rising to a point that makes the course of Government most difficult.
