well as to developing the resources of the thin, poor land which constitutes the bulk of the estate.'

Mr. Dun then tells us how middlemen have disappeared, how cottages have been built, how a railway has been brought into the neighbourhood, how the excessively small holdings have been reduced in number, and how by an enormous outlay on schools, hospitals, and useful charities, as well as by direct expenditure upon the farms themselves, a state of contentment and prosperity has been everywhere diffused. According to English notions the farms would still be considered small, for we find no fewer than 1,070 holdings under 20 acres, 351 at a rental between 201, and 501., 107 between 50l. and 1007., and 95 at a rental over 1007. The rents range from 2s. 6d. 'an acre for mountain land and bog, to 45s. for useful grass 'land near towns and villages.' In reading of the benefits which have been poured upon this property we are not surprised to find that

their

'Lord Fitzwilliam derives but small pecuniary advantages from his Irish estates. He does not appropriate 1 per cent. per annum from gross value. . . . 13,000l. was the total amount which passed to his private account in 1879. Nearly three-fourths of the gross rental is spent upon the property. The money returns are small, but the prosperity, peace, and progress spread through a wide area have. hitherto been large.'

Highest compliment of all, it is admitted by Mr. Parnell that the Fitzwilliam tenantry have refused to join the Land League.

Of course such estate management as this cannot but be exceptional; still the estates managed upon the English system are large, and the Government acted wisely in allowing the Rent Court to refuse to disturb what it could not possibly improve. To leave well alone, whenever he can do so, is the statesman's best policy. The good results achieved on these estates have been greatly due to those proprietary sentiments of which the Duke of Argyll writes. Great supervision has been exercised. According to Mr. Dun, no idler, drunkard, or evil-disposed man is allowed to remain in Lord Fitzwilliam's employment.' Should free sale under the Act be introduced on such estates as these? Should any tenant be able to make over his holding to any assignee for the best price that could be got for the same? This was the point involved in Mr. Heneage's amendment. In debate many speakers mistook the effect of the amendment, which it was declared forbade a tenant to sell his holding. Now all the amendment proposed was to prevent free sale accruing under the Bill. It thus relegated the tenant to his position at

common law, under which, as Mr. Gladstone has repeatedly insisted, he has the right of assignment, unless he has contracted with his landlord not to exercise it. The amendment did not take away the tenant's right of assignment, but it prevented a contract not to assign, made with such landlords as Lord Fitzwilliam and Lord Leconfield, from being treated as mere waste paper. In fact it would have enabled landlords of this sort to exercise some supervision in getting about them an industrious and improving tenantry. No wonder that while the Government majority upon the Land Bill usually ap proaches, and often exceeds, a hundred, it fell on this occasion to twenty-five.

6

We have considered this Bill, so far, with reference to the effects likely to be produced on the general welfare of the Irish people, rather than with reference to the special interests of particular classes. Much has been heard of confiscation of landlords' property, of robbery wrapped up,' and so on. For our part we do not expect it injuriously to affect the pecuniary interests of the landlord class. On the contrary, the right of free sale, which the tenantry will henceforth enjoy, will provide an additional security for the landlord's rent. The discussion of the Irish land question has brought out pretty clearly that, whatever may be the case here and there, the difficulties of the tenantry have not been due to general high-renting. When Mr. Parnell became aware that the landlord as well as the tenant was to be enabled to go to the court to fix a 'fair rent,' he declared in the House of Commons that this would lead to a general rise of rents--a remarkable admission, considering the quarter whence it came. Still the Bill does, it cannot be denied, greatly interfere with what have hitherto always been considered rights incident to landownership. If we are not much mistaken, there underlies the Free Sale and Rent Court portions of the Bill the principle, which time will more clearly bring out, that the occupier should own the land, that the landlord should only have certain money rights over it. In the earlier portions, as well as in those sections which more directly aim at establishing a farming proprietary, we see the same fundamental idea, namely, the union of ownership and occupation in the same hands. This is the great idea upon which the Government are endeavouring to build, and if it for the time trenches on the proprietary 'sentiment' of existing landlords, we must remember how weak in a multitude of cases that sentiment has been.

We are told that one-third of the landlords owning more than fifty acres are absentees from Ireland. Leases for lives and for very long terms of years have been frequently granted.

As a rule, all improvements have been left to the occupiers. Thus landlords have often been little more than recipients of rent even under the existing law, and if under the new one their rent is well secured to them, we do not know that they will have much ground to complain.

The immediate success of the measure will depend upon whether the Rent Courts can obtain the confidence of the public in the immensely difficult duties which they will have. to perform, and whether their decisions when given are firmly upheld by the power of the Executive. Its ultimate success depends upon the character of the Irish people and their power of looking to themselves to produce their own prosperity. There is every reason to hope that the boldness of the Government in endeavouring to build up a new system, rather than to patch up the old one, will in time be rewarded as it deserves by the growth of a happier condition of affairs than has yet been known in Ireland. The very small holdings undoubtedly require consolidation, and the overcrowding of population on the land must be diminished. When this has been done, and when a considerable class of farming proprietors has grown up, we hope we may be able to trust to the good sense of Irishmen, and the free action of natural forces' (about which Mr. Bright writes), to maintain and increase the agricultural prosperity of the country. We have in Ireland to deal with political as well as economical disorder, but we can hardly doubt that were the agricultural and social conditions of the country to become more settled, political discontent would rapidly diminish.

The Bill, still slowly struggling through Committee of the House of Commons, will shortly be subjected to the vigorous criticism of the Peers. That they will reject the measure we do not believe, but that they will introduce numerous modifications and additions to it is certain. Already the good effect of thorough discussion in Committee of the House of Commons is apparent. The Bill has been greatly simplified; and in accepting such amendments as the permission to landlord as well as tenant to apply to the court to fix a fair rent, and in the new treatment of fair rent' itself, the Government have shown a laudable readiness to meet with consideration and respect such suggestions as do not impair the efficiency of the Bill. This is not one of the cases where a cry of The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill,' can be allowed. On the contrary its details must be thoroughly canvassed, and changes freely made where they seem to be required. It is because the Government recognise this that we hope to see the measure finally pass into law. Before the Bill leaves the Com

mons, there are thorny points to be settled; we have seen that 'fair rent' has not yet been explained, and there are other matters which must cause difficulty, such as the exclusion of current leases from the operation of the Bill and the question of how arrears of rent are to be dealt with. There is the further question whether compensation ought to be given in respect of the injured rights of landlords; and, last of all, there is the allimportant subject of the constitution of the Laud Commission. On all or any of these questions discussions may arise which will endanger the Bill and the Ministry, unless a spirit of compromise should prevail. Were the present Bill thrown out, it is difficult to see how even the most ultra-Conservative Ministry could avoid legislation founded on the same lines. We believe most Irish landlords are themselves in favour of the Bill passing; and we can only hope that the temper of the Irish people, if the Bill does pass, will be such as to give the new land system a fair trial.

After all, the practical view of the question is this: Will this measure accomplish the two grand objects of restoring peace and the authority of law in Ireland, and will it essentially promote the prosperity of the Irish people? If we were well assured that these objects would be attained, we should not be inclined to lament even the sacrifice of our own principles to Irish ideas, and we should acquiesce in the application to Ire land by the Irish of doctrines entirely opposed to our own experience. The grievance of Ireland seems to be that she has not flourished under British legislation, and she demands a system of her own-a method of treatment of her own invention of a totally different character. This is a matter not of reason, but of faith. The leaders of opinion in Ireland profess to believe in remedies singularly opposed to the experience and the convictions of all other civilised countries. The Parlia ment of the United Kingdom replies, though with a large sacrifice of its own judgment, let these remedies be tried. They affect Great Britain only indirectly, and they are supposed to be what the great majority of the people of Ireland desire. This is the best apology to be made for an experiment in legis lation of so peculiar a character. Whatever our own opinion may be, we shall heartily rejoice if it is crowned with success in Ireland, and it ought at least to be accepted as a conclusive proof that the legislature of the United Kingdom will make any sacrifice to promote the welfare of the Irish people.

No. CCCXVI. will be published in October.

Subjects. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster. London: 1881.

WH HEN this volume was published, few probably anticipated that this, one of the most characteristic of Dean Stanley's works, was to be his last. It was known that for some years the shadow of a great sorrow had rested on his life, and that his grief, which scarcely became lighter with the lapse of time, had somewhat abated his bodily strength. But there was no apparent reason for thinking that the voice which for a long series of years had been heard whenever truth was to be vindicated or wrong exposed would in a few months be silent, or that the pen would soon fall from the hand which was never weary of working for the cause of righteousness. They who had followed him through every stage of his career with feelings of growing admiration and love indulged the hope that they might long be cheered by his fearless antagonism to all rigid narrowness and unjust intolerance. Others, who regarded the results of his work with mingled wonder and perplexity, were half afraid of the light which he might yet throw on questions of the deepest moment; and others, who were conscious that between his convictions and their own there lay an impassable gulf, looked forward with nervous impatience and alarm to the blows which he might yet deal on that which they called truth, but which he cast aside as falsehood. But neither these hopes nor these fears were to be realised. A short illness showed that his powers of resistance were not what they had been, and for the public generally the tidings of his death came with something of the startling suddenness

VOL. CLIV. NO. CCCXVI.

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