m of abuse which a rotten and corrupt system
could lend itself to. To this the Local Government Act of 1898 put a
violent and abrupt end. The Grand Juries and the Presentment Sessions
were abolished. Elected Councils took their place. The franchise was
extended to embrace every householder and even a considerable body of
women. It was the exit of "the garrison" and the entrance of the
people--the triumph of the democratic principle and the end of
aristocratic power in local life.

Next to the grant of Home Rule there could not be a more remarkable
concession to popular right and feeling. Yet Mr Dillon had to find
fault with it because its provisions, to use his own words, included
"blackmail to the landlords" and arranged for "a flagitious waste of
public funds"--the foundation on which these charges rested being
that, following an unvarying tradition, the Unionist Government bribed
the landlords into acceptance of the Bill by relieving them of half
their payment for Poor Rate, whilst it gave a corresponding relief of
half the County Dues to the tenants. He also ventured the prediction,
easily falsified in the results, that the tenants' portion of the rate
relief would be transferred to the landlords in the shape of increased
rents. As a matter of fact, the second term judicial rents,
subsequently fixed, were down by an average of 22 per cent.

Mr Redmond, wiser than Mr Dillon, saw that the Bill had magnificent
possibilities; he welcomed it, and he promised that the influence of
his friends and himself would be directed to obtain for the principles
it contained a fair and successful working. But, with a surprising
lack of political acumen, he likewise expressed his determination to
preserve in the new councils the presence and power of the landlord
and _ex-officio_ element. This was, in the circumstances, with
the Land Question unsettled and landlordism still an insidious power,
a rather gratuitous surrender to the privileged classes.

Before the Local Government Act was sent on its heaven-born mission of
national amelioration another considerable happening had taken place:
the Financial Relations Commission appointed to inquire into the
financial relations between Ireland and Great Britain having tendered
its report in 1896. Financial experts had long contended that Ireland
was grievously overtaxed, and that there could be no just dealing
between the two countries until the amount of this overtaxation was
accurately