people, and rather amusingly berates the British
allies of his Parnellite associates for their failure to develop any
striking and sensational resistance to the administration of law in
Ireland. I have printed in this edition[2] an instructive account,
furnished to me by Mr. Tener, of some recent evictions on the
Clanricarde property in Galway, which shows how hard it is for the most
determined "agitators" to keep the Irish tenants up to that high concert
pitch of resistance to the law which alone would meet the wishes of the
true agrarian leaders; and how comparatively easy it is for a just and
resolute man, armed with the power of the law resolutely enforced, to
break up an illegal combination even in some of the most disturbed
regions of Ireland.[3] While this is encouraging to the friends of law
and order in Ireland, it must not be forgotten that it involves also a
certain peril for them. The more successfully the law is enforced in
Ireland, the greater perhaps is the danger that the British
constituencies, upon which, of course, the administrators of the law
depend for their authority, may lose sight and sense of the
Revolutionary forces at work there. History shows that this has more
than once happened in the past. Englishmen and Scotchmen will be better
able than I am to judge how far it is unlikely that it should happen
again in the future.

As to one matter of great moment--the effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act--a
correspondent sends me a statement, which I reproduce here, as it gives
a very satisfactory account of the automatic financial machinery upon
which that Act must depend for success:--

"Out of L90,630 of instalments due last May, less than L4000 is
unpaid at the present moment, on transactions extending over three
years with all classes of tenants. The total amount which accrued,
due to the Land Commission in respect of instalments since the
passing of the Act to the 1st November 1887, was L50,910. Of this
there is only now unpaid L731, 17s. 9d. There accrued a further
amount to the 1st May 1888 of L39,720, in respect of which only
L4071, 16s. 11d. is now unpaid, making in all only L4803, 14s. 8d.
unpaid, out of a total sum of L90,630 due up to last gale day, some
of which by this time has been paid off."

This would seem to be worth considering in connection with the objection
made to any serious extension of Lord Ashbourne's Act by Mr. Chamberlain
in his extr