in 1870 was considerably less than it had been forty
years previously, and higher prices were paid for the fee-simple of land
than were offered in any other part of Ireland. But Mr. Gladstone's
'remedial manoeuvres' changed the country and the people.

Demoralising bribes to the Irish nation frittered away the proceeds of
the plunder of the Irish Church. A notable instance was a million under
the Arrears Act, the principle of which was that no honest tenant who
had paid his rent could derive any benefit from it, but that any
drunkard or squanderer who had not paid his rent might have it paid for
him by the Government on swearing that he was unable to pay.

Here is an instance that occurred on an estate under my management.

A tenant, whose yearly rent was L48, had one year's rent paid by
Government and another year's rent given up by his landlord, on his
swearing that the selling value of his farm was _nil_; ten weeks
afterwards he served me with a notice, as required by the statute, that
he had sold the interest of the farm for L670.

Again, there was a tenant who swore that he had expended L513, 14s. 6d.
in permanent improvements, and that after this expenditure the fair
letting value of the farm was only L17, though the original rent was
L26, 4s.

How could I blame an ignorant peasantry for making false statements,
when laws were framed by the leaders of public opinion in England which
released the Irish tenants from every moral obligation, and made their
assumed responsibilities and agreements a dead letter; while orators,
living on the wages of patriotism, were allowed to preach sedition and
plunder to an excitable people? The result was that the work of
demoralisation made rapid progress, perjury became a joke, assassination
was merely 'removal,' and men who had been brutally murdered were said
to have met with an accident.

I have already shown how apt a prophet Mr. Gladstone was in his forecast
in the House of Commons in 1870, and one more quotation adds testimony
to his inspiration--though from what direction it came I will not linger
to inquire:--

'Compulsory valuation and fixity of tenure would bring about total
demoralisation and a Saturnalia of crime.'

Exactly.

Mr. Laing, formerly M.P. for Orkney, in a magazine article defended the
'Plan of Campaign' as an innocent attempt to defend the weak against the
strong, and as having been adopted only on estates where rents were too
high, in fact, as