for a short period of time, 'fair rents' that had been already fixed; and it contained other enactments wholly in the interest of the occupier of the Irish soil. Regarded as a whole, something was to be said for the measure, on the principles of the legislation of 1881; but the liberation of the middleman from the payment of a debt has been attended with grave wrong, and was an ominous precedent leading to others of the kind. The new law was, of course, another inroad on the rights of the Irish landlord, another innovation made against his interests; it has certainly strengthened his claim to compensation for the loss of his property, acknowledged by Mr. Gladstone to be unquestionable, should it be reasonably made out. For the rest, the National League made a boast that the Act had been wrung by its efforts from a foreign Parliament; the Act certainly, like that of 1881, was a concession, derogating from the rights of a powerless class, in the hope of weakening a conspiracy against the State, by detaching from it large classes supported by it, and handing over to these what had belonged to the Irish landed gentry.[82] The Land Act of 1887, it has been alleged, was the principal cause that disorder in Ireland was suppressed, and that comparative peace was restored. The measure may have had effects in this direction; but these assuredly were not great; the number of leaseholders was not large; the reductions made in 'fair rents' were temporary and small. In truth, as agrarian war, stirred up by the Land League, did not diminish when the Act of 1881 was passed, but was brought to an end by what is called coercion, the agrarian war, stirred up by the National League, was quelled, not by the Act of 1887, but by resolute government, assisted by a repressive measure infinitely less stringent than that of 1882, and, in some degree, I have said, by Rome. It is worse than unwise to ignore plain facts; grave outbreaks of disorder and crime in Ireland can only be put down by severe means, and invariably have been put down by these; that 'force is no remedy' is mere false sentiment. The violence, nay, the power, of the National League decreased rapidly and greatly after about 1889; the conspiracy seemed well-nigh to have dwindled away. This was partly because Parnell, negotiating with Mr. Gladstone, in the hope of obtaining Home Rule, discouraged agitation of every kind in Ireland, and in order to hoodwink the English people, and to bring about the 'Union of Hearts,' represented, with his followers, that Ireland was at perfect peace, and only awaited 'self-government' to be completely happy. But infinitely the most potent reason was that the fall of Parnell almost broke up the League; his creatures split into angry factions, exasperated against each other by furious discord; as the result the organisation of the League was shattered; the peasantry and the Catholic priesthood fell away from it. At