put in
motion to protect the land tiller from the land-owner. Yet the _Pall
Mall Gazette_ is not ashamed to lend itself to this lie on the chance
of catching a few fluttering minds and nailing them to the mast of
Home Rule on the false supposition that this means justice to the
oppressed tenant and wholesome restraint of the brutal proprietor.
Professor Mahaffy, in a long letter to the _New York Independent,_
speaks of the same kind of thing still going on in America--this
bolstering up a delusion by statements as far removed from the truth
as that of "B.O'N.'s," to which the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gives sanction
and circulation. That part of the American press which is under the
influence or control of the Irish Home Rulers still goes on talking of
the oppression to which the Irish tenant is subjected, just as the
speeches of the Agitators (_vide_ the astounding lies, as well as the
appalling nonsense talked, when Lady Sandhurst and Mr. Stansfeld were
made citizens of Dublin, and it was asserted that the Government
turned tail and fled before these "delegates") teem with analogous
assertions wherein not so much as one grain of truth is to be found.
Let it be again repeated in answer to all these falsehoods:--No tenant
can be evicted except for non-payment of one year's rent; that rent
can be settled by the courts, and if he has signed an agreement for an
excessive payment, his agreement can be broken; and he must be
compensated for all the improvements he has made or will swear that he
has made. Also, he can borrow money from the Government at the lowest
possible interest, and become the owner of his farm for less yearly
payment than his former rent. He, the Irish tenant, is the most
protected, the most favoured of all leaseholders in Europe or America,
but the old cries are raised, the old watch-words are repeated, just
as if nothing had been done since the days when he was as badly off as
the Egyptian fellah, and was, in truth, between the devil and the deep
sea. Let me repeat the legal and actual condition of things as
summarized by Mr. Montagu Crackanthorpe, Q.C. These six propositions
ought to be learned by heart before anyone allows himself to talk of
Home Rule or the Irish question:--

1. That every yearly tenant of agricultural land valued at less than
L50 a year can have his rent judicially fixed, and that the existence
of arrears of rent creates no statutory obstacle whatever, nor any
difficulty in procedure,