Mr. Chamberlain's speech was in the same vein. He met
the Tory attacks on the Land Act by showing how necessary it had been, and how gross was the injustice not unfrequently admitted by landlords, some of whom had reduced out of Court, by from 25 to 50 per cent., excessive rents which they had for a long course of years succeeded or failed in screwing out of their tenants, but in either case alike had held in terrorent over them. As for the independence which the American Irish were trying to extort, Mr. Chamberlain held it to be so fraught with disaster to Ireland, and so dangerous to the interests of England, that he would never willingly consent to it. The disturbers of the peace were not now the tenant-farmers, but a kind of brigandage sup- ported by American-Irish money, and not unlike the brigandage which it had been found so difficult to extirpate in Greece and Sicily. Last December showed a great improvement on the pre- vious December. Instead of 864 agrarian crimes, the number was reduced to 581; and after deducting threatening letters, the more serious offences had dwindled from 384 to 235. Mr. Cham- berlain was persuaded that the remedial policy adopted would triumph, and that the suspension of the ordinary law would before long become needless.
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