The situation was not brought into being by any deliberate or definite action on the part of individuals. It developed of itself in the mysterious unravellings of events. First came Mr. Butt with his organised party of constitutional Home Rulers, then Parnell with his band of fighting obstructives, then Michael Davitt with his schemes of ‘agrarian agitation,’ and finally the failure of the potato and the cruel severity of the winter of 1879. Economic well-being often takes the heart out of racial animosities. The cause of nationality may excite the educated revolutionist; but the pinch of famine is required before the humble tiller of the soil can be enlisted in his thousands. A political movement to be dangerous must find its substance in social evil. It was the combination of agrarian with national aspirations and the gathering together of all their several forces in one determined hand that imparted sinister and terrible a complexion to Ireland in 1880. Scarcity and poverty supplied the impulse, and misery brought forth her progeny of outrage. All this formidable movement had already become defined and was rapidly developing when the change of Government occurred. The elections in Ireland had returned sixty pledged Home Rulers to the House of Commons, and a majority of these elected Mr. Parnell as their leader. Mr. Forster, the new Chief Secretary, found many causes for anxiety in the accounts which were given him at the Castle. The sufferings of the winter of 1879 had roused a spirit of violent discontent among the people. The numerous tenant defence societies had been formed by Michael Davitt into the one great organisation of the Land League. Mr. Parnell, after some hesitation, had thrown in his lot whole-heartedly with the agrarian agitation. In his speeches at Westport and Limerick he had urged the farmers to keep ‘a firm grip on their homesteads’ and not to allow themselves to be dispossessed. One thousand and ninety-eight evictions, or more than double the number of 1877, had been carried out, amid scenes of riot and misery, in 1879. A furious animosity against the landlords convulsed the tenantry; and the Fenian and Parliamentary leaders openly declared their intention of using the driving power of the land movement as the means by which national independence was to be achieved.