The wonder, however, is not that such a policy should have been dreamed of. Similar plans of warfare have more than once been drawn out in the council chamber of parties. The wonder is that this one should have been deemed practicable by the farmers of Ireland; that it should have been unanimously accepted by them; and, what is more, put at once into effect. Another wonder is that it should have been found _lawful_, on the best legal authority, and that it should have remained unopposed by the “Four Courts” and “the Castle.” The greatest wonder of all is that it should have enlisted the warm and public support not only of the lower ranks of the clergy all over the island, but of the Episcopate itself; not only of the Episcopate but of the Pope, since neither his special envoy in Ireland nor his Holiness personally in any encyclical letter, have spoken one word in condemnation of the “Plan of Campaign.” It has been in operation now for over one year; it has spread as far as the leaders of the League have deemed it expedient, for thus far they seem to have used it only moderately. “We did not desire,” they say, “and we do not desire now that the ‘Plan of Campaign’ should be adopted anywhere, except where the tenants have a just and moderate and unimpeachable case.” But, none the less, it hangs as a formidable threat over the heads of the doomed landlords. At a moment’s notice it may be extended to the whole island, as it has been already to some hundred estates in twenty-two counties. An idea of the state of affairs may be gathered from the account given by the _Freeman’s Journal_ (December 3, 1886) of the scene witnessed on Lord de Freyne’s property in county Sligo. His tenants asked for an abatement of 20 per cent., and, being refused, they decided to adopt the “Plan of Campaign.”