IRELAND
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IRELAND
the most effective. His party, nominal Home Rulers,
were mostly place-hunters, and except the Intermedi-
ate Education Act of 1878 there were no legislative
results. Mr. Butt died m 1879, and for a brief period
the Home Rule leader was Mr. Shaw; but after the
general election of 1880 Mr. Shaw was deposed, and a
younger and more vigorous leader was appointed in
the person of Charles Stewart Parnell. There had been
a serious failure of the potato crop in 1877 and 1878,
but in 1879 there was only half the average yield.
The landlords unable to get their rents began to evict,
and it seemed as it the horrors of 1847 were to be re-
newed. Large relief funds were collected and dis-
bursed by the Duchess of Marlborough, the viceroy's
wife, and by the Lord Mayor of Dublin; and Mr. Par-
nell went to America in the last days of 1879 and ap-
pealed in person to the friends of Ireland. He was
accompanied by Mr. John Dillon, son of Mr. Dillon,
the reljel of 1848. Within two months they addressed
meetings in sixty-two cities, bringing back with them
to Ireland £40,000 ($200,000). Nor would Mr. Parnell
have come back in March but that the Tory premier.
Lord Beaconsfieid, had dissolved Parliament. Ap-
pealing to the country on an anti-Irish cry, his answer
came in a crushing defeat, and in the return of Mr.
Gladstone to power with a strong Liberal majority.
Of the Home Rulers returned many were mere Whigs,
but a sufficient number favoured an active policy to
depose Mr. Shaw and put Mr. Parnell in his place.
In 1879 the Tories had followed up the Intermediate Act by the Royal University Act, which left the Queen's Colleges and Trinity College untouched, but set up the Royal University, a mere examining board. But they would do nothing to restrain the landlords and nothing effective to relieve Irish distress. Better was expected from the new Liberal Govermnent which included, besides Mr. Gladstone, such men as Bright, Chamberlain, and Forster, the latter appointed chief secretary for Ireland. Yet the Liberals were slow to move, and not until evictions had swelled to thousands did they introduce the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. It was thrown out in the Lords and not reintro- duced. But the Irish peasants were in no humour to acquiesce in their own destruction and already a great land agitation was shaking Ireland from sea to sea. Begun in Mayo by Mr. Michael Davitt, the son of a Mayo peasant, and favoured by the prevailing distress and by the heartlessness of the landlords, it rapidly spread. Mr. Parnell soon joined it, and in October, 1879, the Land League was formed, its declared object being to protect tenants from eviction and to substi- tute peasant proprietary for the existing system of landlordism. Extending to America, many branches were formed there and large subscriptions sent home. In November, 1879, an abortive prosecution of Mr. Davitt and others only strengthened the League. In the new year a Mayo land agent, Captain Boycott, roused the ire of his tenants by issuing processes and threatening evictions; in consequence no servant would remain with him, no labourer would work for him, no shopkeeper would deal with him, no neighbour would speak to him. This system of ostracism be- came known as boycotting, and was freely used by the League against landlords, agents, and grabbers, with the result that they were compelled to make terms with the people. Government was unable to aid the boycotted, and before the end of 1880 the law of the League had supplanted the law of the land.
These events changed Mr. Forster into a coercionist. He prosecuted Mr. Parnell and thirteen others in No- vember, 1880, but failed to convict them. Then he asked for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Mr. Gladstone reluctantly acquiesced, and early in 1881, after a fierce struggle with the Irish members, the measure pas.sed. In a short time nearly two hundred persons were in jail without trial. Mr. Gladstone next passed a comprehensive Land Act,
setting up courts to fix rents, and giving increased
facilities to tenants to purchase their holdings. But
the Irish meml>ers, angered because of the Coercion
Act. received the Land Act without gratitude; and
Mr. Parnell advised the tenants not to rush to the land
courts, but rather go there with a limited number of
test cases. Mr. Gladstone retorted by imprisoning
Mr. Parnell and liis principal lieutenants. For the
next few months terror reigned supreme. Mr. Forster
filled the jails, broke up meetings, suppressed news-
papers, and yet succeeded so ill in pacifying the coun-
try that he felt compelled to ask for more drastic
coercion. Mr. Gladstone, however, had had enough
of coercion, and in May, 1SS2, Lord Cowper, the vice-
roy, and Mr. Forster were relieved of office, and Mr.
Parnell and his colleagues were set free; and by an
arrangement often called the Kilmainham Treaty an
Arrears' Bill was to be introduced, while Parnell, on his
side, was to curb the agitation and gradually re-estab-
lish the reign of law.
On the evening of May these happy changes were fatally marred by the murder in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, of the under-secretary, Mr. Burke, and of the new chief secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish. The assassins, entirely unconnected with the Land League, belonged to a secret society called the Invincibles. Mr. Parnell was stunned, the Irish cause grievously injured, and in England there was a cry of rage. A new Coercion Act was passed and vigorously enforced, and during the remainder of Gladstone's Parliament between the Irish and the Liberals there was bitter enmity. But meanwhile Parnell's power increased. In place of the suppressed Land League the National League was established, and spread over the United Kingdom and America. Mr. Parnell, while opposing Mr. Dillon's project of a renewed land agitation and Mr. Davitt's scheme of land nationalization, was aided by the Fenians; and though English intrigue suc- ceeded in obtaining a papal rescript condemning a tes- timonial that was being raised for him, its only effect was to increase the subscriptions. Being friendly with the Tories, he joined with them to defeat Mr. Gladstone in 1885, and for a brief period Lord Salis- bury was premier. He governed without coercion, and passed the Ashbourne Act, which advanced £5,000,000 to Irish tenants for the purchase of their holdings. In return, Mr. Parnell advised the Irish electors in Great Britain to vote for the Tories at the general election in October, 1885. But the Liberals were given a majority over the Tories, though not sufficient to form a government without the Irish. On the understanding that Home Rule was to be conceded, Liberals and Irish coalesced, the Tories were turned out, and Gladstone became premier and brought in his Home Rule Bill of 1886, setting up an Irish Parliament with an executive depenilent on it. Deserted by a large section of his followers under Bright, Chamber- lain, and Hartington, he was defeated, and going to the country was seriously defeated at the polls. In August Lord Salisbury was again in office at the head of the Tories and Liberal Unionists, and in overwhelm' ing strength.
The rejection of Mr. Parnell's Bill of 1886 providing for the admission of leaseholders to the benefits of the Land Act of ISSl, and for a revision of judicial rents to meet the recent heavy fall in prices, led to the start- ing of the Plan of ('ampaign by Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien. The tenant was to offer his landlord a fair rent; and if it was refused he banked the money and fought the landlord, and was assisted by his fellow tenants throughout the land. The Plan was not ap- proved of by Mr. Parnell, and it had the unfortunate effect of placing the perpetual Coercion Act of 1887 on the Statute Book. But it caused the Government to pass the very measure they had so lately rejected, and it compelled many of the poorer landlords to make terms with the tenants. While on the one hand the
