of the Land Laws was set on foot by Gavan Duffy, Frederick Lucas, George Henry Moore. Enough has never been made of the criminality of the English Parliament in neglecting all appeals to amend the Irish Land Laws. The very life of the country depended on a good system of Land Laws; and yet successive Governments turned a deaf ear to all appeals and remonstrances in behalf of the people.

In 1843, a Royal Commission—the Devon Commission-had been appointed to inquire into the whole subject. In 1845 the Commission reported, condemning the existing system, and urging the legislature to take steps for giving the tenant security of tenure. But nothing was done. Between 1845 and 1870 Bill after Bill was introduced for the purpose

of giving effect to the recommendations of the Devon Commission, and of regulating the relations between landlord and tenant in such a way as would secure the proper cultivation of the soil, and so save the people from chronic poverty, and the country from chronic outrage. But not one single measure of reform took its place on the Statute book. Nay, more, in 1860 a Bill was passed, which, ignoring the recommendation of the Devon Commission, made the position of the unfortunate tenant worse than it had been before; 15 and Lord Palmerston thought that he had disposed of the Irish Land Question for all time by the flippant remark, "that tenant right was landlord wrong." But while English ministers were sitting with folded arms, viewing the people of Ireland with contempt, and

scornfully rejecting the moderate appeals of constitutional agitators, a great Irish movement was going on underground. In 1858, the Fenian organisation-an organisation which aimed at the separation of Ireland from England-was founded by James Stephens and John O'Mahony. It grew rapidly in Ireland and in America. As Mr. Gladstone said, its root was in Ireland, its branches were in the United States.

In 1865, Fenianism burst like a bolt from the blue. Fenian leaders were arrested, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, troops were poured into the country, ships were sent to guard the coast, the Government were thrown into a state of alarm and panic. Let me give you the substance of a speech made by John Francis Maguire in the House of

Commons in 1868 to show that I do not

exaggerate.

Mr. Maguire, in moving a resolution on the state of Ireland, said the country presented the aspect of a nation on the eve of a great struggle. It was occupied by a powerful army "such as we might expect to see in Poland under Russian rule." Its cities and towns were strongly garrisoned, its barracks were filled to overflowing, and the detachments of horse and foot were quartered in districts where the face of a soldier had never been seen before. Even the police barracks had been converted into "semifortresses," with "stanchions, iron shutters, iron doors, and loop-holed masonry." Formidable fleets lay in the principal harbours, gun boats were to be found in the rivers and remote creeks, and swift

cruisers kept watch and ward round the coast. The jails were filled with political prisoners, and "constitutional liberty was on a par with that enjoyed by the subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, or the King of Abyssinia."

Well, the result of this state of things was that public attention in England, came at length to be riveted on Ireland, and the English State Church was disestablished, and the Land Act of 1870 passed. I say deliberately, that Ireland owes these two measures to the Fenian organisation, and I shall prove the statement up to the hilt.

First, if I may say so, I will give negative proof. When Mr. Gladstone introduced his famous Church resolution, in 1868, 100 out of 105 Irish members took part in the division. Well, how many do