ead of life to
those who have created and still maintain it. Many of the Home Rule
Irish Members of Parliament have risen from the lowest ranks of
society--from the barefooted peasantry, where their nearest relations
are still to be found--into the outward condition of gentlemen living
in comparative affluence. It is not being uncharitable, nor going
behind motives, to ask, _Cui bono?_ For whose advantage is a certain
movement carried on?--especially for whose advantage is this anti-rent
movement in Ireland? For the good of the tenants who, under the
pressure put on them by those whom they have agreed to follow, refuse
to pay even a fraction of rent hitherto paid to the full, and who are,
in consequence, evicted from their farms and deprived of their means
of subsistence?--or is it for the good of a handful of men who live by
and on the agitation they created and still keep up? Do the leaders of
any movement whatsoever give a thought to the individual lives
sacrificed to the success of the cause? As little as the general
regrets the individuals of the rank and file in the battalions he
hurls against the enemy. The ruined homes and blighted lives of the
thousands who have listened, believed, been coerced to their own
despair, have been no more than the numbers of the rank and file to
the general who hoped to gain the day by his battalions.[B] The good
in this no-rent movement is reaped by the agitators alone; and for
them alone have the chestnuts been pulled out of the fire.
Furthermore, whose hands among the prominent leaders are free from the
reflected stain of blood-money? These leaders have counselled a course
of action which has been marked all along the line by outrage and
murder; and they have lived well and amassed wealth by the course they
have counselled.

From proletariats in their own persons they have become men of
substance and property. These assertions are facts to which names and
amounts can be given; and that question, _Cui bono_? answers itself.
The inference to be drawn is too grave to be set aside; and to plead
"charitable judgment" is to plead imbecility.

The plain and simple truth is--the protective legislation that was so
sorely needed for the peasantry is fast degenerating into injustice
and oppression against the landlords. Thousands of the smaller
landowners have been absolutely beggared; the larger holders have been
as ruthlessly ruined. For, while the rents were lowered, the charges
on th