MR. MORLEY'S TASK IN IRELAND

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 102

MR. MORLEY'S TASK IN IRELAND

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thick as blackberries that the legal proceedings which the landlords pretermitted so long as the fate of the Coercion Government was in doubt are being rigorously threatened now when the tenants have a tenfold claim to consideration. If the evictions which were proceeding merrily last month have been to some extent checked, it is simply because landlord zeal has overreached itself, and has both put the tenantry upon their guard against temptations to disturbance, and startled the British public with a discovery of the true character of Mr. Balfour's eviction policy. Mr. Balfour had managed to soothe the British elector into the belief that actual evictions were decreasing to vanishing-point. We warned all concerned in vain that eviction-notices under the seventh clause of the Act of 1887 were accumulating at the rate of five thousand a year, and that it would depend upon the landlords' convenience at what date all the five thousands might be, without further ceremony, cast upon the roadside. The British elector now realises to his horror that the result of Mr. Balfour's silent system is, that there are at least twenty thousand, and probably thirty thousand, Irish farmers who are no longer tenants, but only caretakers, and who, upon a magistrate's order, might be left homeless and landless at seven days' notice.

The landlord zealots who brought us face to face with such a contingency have unconsciously helped to keep the public peace. The average Briton is no more in the humour to stand thousands of eviction scenes than the average Irishman wants to make the Home Rule Government of Ireland a turbulent one. Accordingly there have been symptoms of a more moderate spirit among the diplomatic section of the landlords. The nobleman who owns the country for many miles around where I write—who … continue reading »

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