As the condition of Ireland continues to be the burning question in Home polities, so much go that Mr. Glad-atone arks on the subject.are the only portion of his speech at the Guild. hall telegraphed to us by Renter's Company, we make no apology for returning to it. The shocking murder of Lord Mountmorres had just before Into mails left accentuated Buglish interest in the question, and the news. papers are fall of accounts of Land League meetings and suggestions for the cure of Ireland's disorders. Mr.
Parnell, who at one time seemed capable of better things, has descended to the level of the popular agitator. His tirades now contain nothing more than that the iniquitous system of landlords is to be abolished; and when, as happens at every meeting, the shot-gun is suggested by his audience as the randiest instrament for the abolition of the order, he merely offers some half-hearted words of dissuasion, The only wonder hat the landlords have not by this time formed a league in self-defence to abolish the agitators, To the literature of the subject a most valuable addition has lately been made in the shape of a series of letters on Irish affairs addressed by M. do Molinari to the Journal des Débats. The author is a Belgian economist, who has devoted much of his time to questions connected with agriculture and industry; and coming from a little country distinguished for its proficiency in both directions, his letters have a prime facie authority which is confirmed by their contents. Travelling in Ireland this summer for the very purpose of forming an independent opinion on that country's difficulties, he offers her in his letters the inestimable advantage of seeing herself as others see her. He is not biased by any preconceived opinions of the excellence of the English Government in Ireland or the necessity and equity of the Land League; he is an educated and competent observer doing his best to gather all the facts of the case and deduce the best possible opinions from his observations. His remarks therefore are of great value to all who wish to penetrate the sorrows of Ireland as deeply as they can, although they may not contain the last words that can be said-on the subject; and it is interesting to compare them with the views of Professor Leone Levi, to which we drew attention some short time since.
M. de Molinari does not deny that Ireland suffers. She Iabours under one of the worst forms of poverty—agrarian pauperism. Two-fifths of the occupiers of the soil, representing one million souls, have scarcely the means of living in a good year, and come within a measurable distance of atarvation in a bad year. Bat this disease in Ireland is aggravated by the doctors. They have gathered together from all quarters, doctors political, socialistic, philanthropic, revolutionary and Parlin mentary, wildly disputing and seeking to try upon the country the virtue of their several panacens. Ofthese panncens one of the most mischievous is Home Rale. England will never, enn never, consent to a Repeal of the Union; and if by avy accident Ireland could become independent, her taxation would be at lerist doubled, for fally half of the money now spent on her by the United Government is provided by England and Scotland. There is little reason to believe that were she allowed ber own Parliament, she would be avy gainer by the ch for while all Government institutions in Ireland leave nothing to be desired, her municipal arrangements, which are in her own hands, are slipshod and defective everywhere. The independence of Ireland would be certainly followed by a bitter contest between the North and South the North, whioh contains the capital and the industry of the country, would gain the mastery, Protestant ascendancy would be re-established, and the Catholic South would come once more to England begging to be relieved from its chains, M. de Molinari describes at length the programme of the Land League. He holds that the agitators are truly guilty of the blood of the victims of agrarian outrage; it is they who pass judgment on the landlords, and they cannot wash their hands of the blood if the people they have excited execute their judgments according to their accustomed barbarous method:
And should the Land League succeed in "stopping the payment of rents, the tenants will gain nothing, The good tenants can already make a living out of the land, and good tenants are too rare and too valuable toa landlord to be harshly treated. The bad tenants who muddle along on wretched little strips of land with processes as old as the days of the Pharaohs would merely have a trifle more to spend in whiskey if they had no rent to provide, The abolition of landlords means the withdrawal fom the country of more than half ite capital; and the soil requires all the capital of landlords and tenants alike for two or three generations.
de Molinari proceeds to attack the Ulster custom. It enables the out. going tenant to sell his goodwill to his successer, but this very bonus to the tenant who leaves handicaps the in-comer during his whole tenancy, He pays in fact two rents, one to the landlord, while the other is the interest on the sum he has paid to his pre. decesser. Tf the prosperity of the North of Ireland were duc to this custom, Donegal, where also it prevails, would not be one of the most miserable districts in Ireland. Peasant proprietor. ship is equally unsuited to a people who have never learnt the thrifty ways of the French and Belgian agriculturists; and to make the Government the great proprietor would substitute for the present a landlord who could never remit his rents, and would ten times intensify the lntred which the Irishmen is taught to feel for the Saxon oppressor. Whnt is wanted is to lot Nature alone, Lot the petty farmers, who are uow on the verge of starvation, emigrateorbecomelabourers, This process is going on now; year by year the average size of farms in Ireland is being enlarged, avd with larger farms come more soieutifio ways of farming, and gradually lessening danger of famine. But to allow Nature to take her own course does not suit the political professors who grow famous on their country's misfortunes, and our author states it as his final conclusion, that Ireland suffers not only from her maladies, but also from her doctors.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.