This decision technically justified the position that the earl has taken, and it applies to the estates of Mrs. Lewis also, so that the commissioners cannot go any farther in their work of restoring the evicted tenants upon those two properties. As soon as the decision was rendered a bill was introduced in parliament confiscating the entire Clanricarde estates. It is not expected to pass, but was intended to advertise the situation and create public opinion. The government, however, took the matter promptly in hand, and the Earl of Crewe introduced a bill authorizing the estates commissioners to take by force, after the usual legal proceedings, any occupied land they may think necessary and proper for the restoration of evicted tenants, provided they can obtain the consent of the occupant. This act was passed, and notice was immediately given in the _Dublin Gazette_ that the estates commissioners intend, under the Evicted Tenants Act, to acquire compulsorily upwards of eighteen hundred acres of land on the estate of Lord Clanricarde in County Galway. This means that the owner of the property is to have nothing to say about the matter, but a _bona fide_ tenant, who in good faith is occupying a farm from which his predecessor has been evicted, cannot be ejected without his consent. We are familiar with the methods of "persuasion" that have been used for years by the United Irish League and other patriotic organizations, and it is entirely probable that they will prove sufficient in all cases that will arise under this new provision. Therefore, as soon as the proposed act is passed, the tenants upon the Clanricarde estates will be looking for trouble. The Earl of Clanricarde cannot expect to live a great while longer. He is already an infirm old man and his heir, Lord Sligo of Westport, a nephew, is almost as old as he. Lord Sligo is one of the largest land holders in Ireland. He owns 114,000 acres in the north, which is mostly grazing land, and his tenants are miserably poor, living in squalid hovels scattered over the estate. He does nothing for them, and exacts the last halfpenny of his rent. His heir, who will soon come into both the Clanricarde and Sligo estates, is his son, Lord Henry Ulick Browne, of whom very little is known. He is fifty-eight years of age and lives at Westport Castle, Westport, Ireland. As he has had the management of much of his father's property for many years, it is generally believed that he is responsible for the harsh policy that has been followed toward the tenants, and that they can expect no better treatment when he becomes their lawful lord.