bly use the term as denoting an excessive
rent, an impossible rent--a rent, which is, as it were, extorted by
means of the Rack. The term is purely legal, and denotes a rent paid
by ALL yearly tenants, whether their rent, as a whole, be high or low.
The lowest-rented yearly tenant in the country is paying Rack-rent.
The whole case for the farmers has been obscured and a false issue
raised by the constant use of this term, to which a new meaning has
been given. Another common term is found in the word Head-rent, of
which Gladstonians know no more than of Rack-rent. When Head-rent
comes to be discussed in England we shall have Home Rulers explaining
that the term refers to decapitation of tenants for non-payment of
Rack-rent. This explanation will not present any appreciable departure
from their usual vein. An English Home Ruler who supports Mr.
Gladstone "because his father did," and who first landed in Ireland
yesterday, said, "I do not approve of ascendency. Hang the rights of
property! Give me the rights of intellect. Let us have equality.
Treat the Irish fairly, even generously. They should have equal rights
with Englishmen. Why keep them down by force of bayonets? Live and let
live, that's what I say. Equal laws and equal rights for all."

That is the usual patter of the self-satisfied Separatist, who, having
delivered himself, looks around him with an air which seems to
say--"What a fine fellow I am, how generous, fair, disinterested. Have
I not a noble soul? Did you ever see such magnanimity? Can anybody say
anything against such sentiments? Thank heaven that I am not as other
men, nor even as this Unionist." He is plausible, but no more. The mob
which applauds the hero and hisses the villain of a melodrama pats him
on the back, while he looks upward with his hand on his heart and a
heaven-is-my-home expression in his eye. Put him under the
microscope--he needs it, and you will see him as he is. The platitudes
in which he lives, and moves, and has his being have no foundation in
fact. His talk is grand, but it lacks substance. It is magnificent,
but it is not sense. Listen to what a statesman has said:--

"I have looked in vain for the setting forth of any practical scheme
of policy which the Imperial Parliament is not equal to deal with, and
which it refuses to deal with, and which is to be brought about by
Home Rule."

"There is nothing Ireland has asked, and which this country and this
Parliament has refused