y may have had with their landlord or his agent, they are
now, and always have been, quite able to pay their rents, and I need not
tell you that it is no longer in the power of a landlord or an agent to
say what these rents shall be."[10]

"Mr. Dillon in that speech of his at Woodford (I have it here as
published in _United Ireland_), you will see, openly advised, or rather
ordered, the tenants here to club their rents, or, in plain English, the
money due to their landlord, with the deliberate intent to confiscate to
their own use, or, in their own jargon, 'grab,' the money of any one of
their number who, after going into this dishonest combination, might
find it working badly and wish to get out of it. Here is his own
language:"--

I took the speech as reported in the _United Ireland_ of October 23rd,
1886, and therein found Mr. Dillon, M.P., using these words:--"If you
mean to fight really, you must put the money aside for two
reasons--first of all because you want the means to support the men who
are hit first; and, secondly, because you want to prohibit traitors
going behind your back. There is no way to deal with a traitor except to
get his money under lock and key, and if you find that he pays his rent,
and betrays the organisation, what will you do with him? I will tell you
what to do with him. _Close upon his money, and use it for the
organisation_. I have always opposed outrages. _This is a legal plan,
and it is ten times more effective_."

Not a word here as to the morality of the proceeding thus recommended;
but almost in the same breath in which he bade his ignorant hearers
regard his plan as "legal," Mr. Dillon said to them, "_this must be done
privately, and you must not inform the public where the money is
placed_!"

Why not, if the plan was "legal"? Mr. Dillon, I believe, is not a
lawyer, but he can hardly have deluded himself into thinking his plan of
campaign "legal" in the face of the particular pains taken by his
leader, Mr. Parnell, to disclaim all participation in any such plans. A
year before Mr. Dillon made this curious speech, Mr. Parnell, I
remember, on the 11th of October 1885, speaking at Kildare, declared
that he had "in no case during the last few years advised any
combination among tenants against even rack-rents," and insisted that
any combination of the sort which might exist should be regarded as an
"isolated" combination, "confined to the tenants of individual estates,
who, of the