TOPICS OF THE DAY.
IRELAND AND THE LAND LEAGUE.
IT is clear, from the reply of Mr. Gladstone on Thursday to Mr. Cowen, that the Government would be very glad if they were able to celebrate, as it were, the passing of the Land Bill, by releasing from prison all those who have been placed there as mere suspects under the Coercion Act of this year. We need hardly say how great a relief that would be to the whole Liberal Party, who have fretted under the necessity,—or what the Government at least considered the necessity,—of applying to Ireland such a coercion law as that, as painfully as they have joyfully lent themselves to the heal- ing policy which now seems within a "measurable distance" of successful achievement. At the same time, we, at least, should condemn the Government for letting loose all the stormy forces which are for the present confined in that not very uncomfort- able cave of the winds, Kilmainham Jail, without some tangible evidence that the lawless agitation to which Ireland has been so long a prey, would not be at once turned to the purpose of making the new Land Act futile and unworkable. The situation at present is this. We have all made an effort of a very unusual kind,—an effort involving both positive and negative sacrifices, sacrifices of prepossession and tradition, as well as sacrifices of social and political reforms urgently needed in England,—in order to do justice to the tenant- farmers of Ireland. We have considered it a policy of strict justice, and we have expended more effort than any party ever yet expended, on defeating furiously hostile prejudice, and on foiling some traitors even in the Irish camp, to do that justice. We do not for a moment claim any special credit for England in thus doing justice. It is, in our opinion, a mere instalment of a debt which we have all long owed to Ireland, for a course of misgovernment which could hardly have been possible but for the misunderstandings due to the thoroughly different genius and history of the two peoples. We quite admit that even after payment of this instalment of our debt, the Irish have much to forgive and forget which it is not easy to forgive and forget. Still, not by way of enforcing any recognition of what we have done,—for it is, as we freely admit, less than we have long owed,—but by way of giving effect to what we have done, by way of making this serious and costly political effort really effective, it is abso- lutely essential that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, should be fairly, fully, and freely applied ; that no attempt should be made to embarrass the working of the new law, as the working of the old law has been embarrassed by the machinations of the Land League. It is absolutely essential that the new Land Com- mission should wield a full authority in what it does, that the great alterations of tenure over which it is to preside should be effected without impediment,—in a word, that the Irish people should support and respect the new decisions ; for if they do not, it is simply impossible that either this or any other reform can gain a fair trial at their hands. Now, what we earnestly hope is, that all Irishmen, whether hitherto they have belonged to the Irish Land League or not, who really have the good of their country and the prosperity of the Irish farmers at heart, may unite to declare that the new system shall have a full and fair chance of settling the land controversies of the Irish people. We have tried to do justice, but justice is no justice, unless it be armed with full authority. Justice stumbling about amongst obstacles and pitfalls, in en- countering which it is deliberatly intended that she should lame herself for life, is not justice worthy of the name. We say that the first thing the Government has to do is to secure full and complete obedience to the new law which we have tried to make just, and to secure it at any cost whatever. If that cost is consistent with the liberation of Mr. Forster's suspects, no one will rejoice so much as we. We detested the Coercion Bill, and advised the Government against it. We do not believe that it was the right remedy, and we think experience has shown that it was not the right remedy. But such as it is, it has, no doubt, silenced a considerable number of influential agitators, and deprived them of their worst agents ; and as the mischief is done, we certainly should not wish to see the very moment which is most important of all for securing a free operation and full authority for the new system, chosen for the reanimation of those efforts. What- ever else happens, the new law must be enforced with the whole authority of the United Kingdom. If—as we cordially hope—the liberation, of the suspects can be made perfectly
consistent with the full enforcement of the new law, nothing could be more graceful or opportune. But that must depend., to a certain extent, on the attitude of Ireland and the attitude of the Land League. If Ireland is determined to accept the new law with an earnest desire to take advantage of it—and: this cannot possibly be without strictly obeying it—let Kilmain- ham and the other receptacles for the agitators open their doors at once ; they may go on with their Home-rule agita- tion, and no one will object ; for they will not, in that case, be able to paralyse the new land-tenure system, as they have effectually paralysed the old. What we do think of the most unspeakable importance is that Government should make every one feel that they will not permit such interference with the more just law as that which made the previous and unjust law a mere name, without anything of the power of law behind it. It was, of course, very hard to enforce rigidly a law which had been admitted by all rational persons to be sometimes in principle unjust, and often a source of very bitter hardship. But now that we have got rid of this stumbling-block, and substituted as just a law as we can substitute for that which was felt to be oppressive, we ought to lend that law all the advantage of the most absolute authority, and not permit another era of paralysis. We do not for a moment believe that under the new law a universal strike against rent is possible. But if Mr. Parnell's organisation is to persevere in the course for which apparently he was preparing, after his careful and elaborate outburst in the House on Monday, it may long delay the full enforcement of the new law, and, above all, disturb that attitude of popular acquiescence which is essential to its successful operation. We hold that any attempt to get up a new campaign against rents, as the new Court is to revise them, would be most pernicious to Ireland, and that it would not be possible to let loose the agitators, if that is to be the direction of their energies for the future. A new tenure law that carries no authority will hardly be better than the old. It is only by enforcing its authority with all the strength at the disposal of the Executive, that a fair chance for the new order of things can be obtained. Therefore, if the Government are wise, they will open the doors of Kilmain- ham Gaol only on reasonable evidence that there is to be no attempt to paralyse the State by withholding the "fair rent," as it was paralysed by the withholding of the rent which was not supposed to be fair. Let the agitators take up purely political subjects, if they will ; but to let them out of prison, if they are to go back to their old sphere of labour, and try to persuade the tenant-farmers to make the new tenures as im- potent as the old, would be to increase very needlessly and unjustifiably the embarrassments of a critical period.
Of course, it may happen,—we trust it will happen,—that the Irish farmers will understand so well all they gain by the new law, that no agitators will be able to divert them from taking full advantage of the new system. And in that case, of course, if the Government are absolutely sure of their own strength, the agitators might be allowed to do their worst. But if it is a reiponsible thing to shut up agitators on suspicion, it is also a re- sponsible thing to release them, without proof either that that suspicion was not justified, or that the danger is at an end. The transition from a bad system to a good, is a transi- tion of very great delicacy. There must have been many false hopes excited, as well as just hopes. There must be many who will think that they have not profited enough, if justice is to be done. And whatever the objection,—which we certainly do not undervalue,—to detaining in prison men on doubtful evidence of their criminality, there is a still greater objection to releasing them at the particular moment when the mischief they could do would be at its maximum. There- fore, while we most earnestly desire to see the prisons emptied of these suspects, as soon as ever the Land Bill becomes law, if that be possible, we should only wish to• see that course taken on pretty clear evidence that they can no longer do the mischief which they were immured to check, or some greater mischief still. With a just law in operation, we do wish to see it enforced with the utmost promptitude and vigour. Ireland has been long enough steeped in social anarchy. The reform she needed, once achieved, that anarchy ought to disappear. All intentional resistance to justice,—to the new justice worthy of the name,—should be dealt with in a manner to show that now at length the law is to be asserted, and that no Land League is to be suffered to stand and parley between the equity of the new system and the Irish people.
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