the indifference too often shown to the interests of the wage-earning class, when whole neighbourhoods are swept out of their place to benefit the community without proper provision for the housing of the inhabitants elsewhere; the impossibility of obtaining real consideration for the needs of the masses in the matter of recreation, fresh air, and pure water, especially where vested interests are involved; the general inclination to consider the ratepayer first and the benefit of the population afterwards; these and other like points are now being talked over by men who have experienced the evils of the present system, and are making ready by fair means to put an end to them. Granting that the English people are not democratic in the Continental sense, admitting that they do respect their 'natural leaders,' and are ready to follow them politically and socially in orderly fashion, this presupposes that the upper classes are ready to lead, not for the selfish advantage of their own insignificant section, but for the benefit of that class which, as has been well said, is really the nation. The opportunity, and it is a glorious one, is now. We have shown the world how to combine social progress with the widest and soundest political freedom; we, as a nation, have laid the foundation of that great trinity of liberty-freedom of speech, freedom of trade, and freedom of religion-which will remain the title of England to honour and to reverence when all other smaller deeds are forgotten in the mists of antiquity. It remains for us too to lead the way with safety in that great social reorganisation which is the work of the immediate future to secure for all the same happiness and enjoyment of life which now belong to few.

When poverty and injustice rankle, there we, too, find the most subversionary ideas have free play under our rule. What can be more discreditable than the condition of Ireland? A long period of economical and political misdoing has produced its almost inevitable result-a result which we view, as a nation, with mingled feelings of anger and disgust. What we deplore is an agrarian strike aggravated by rattening and intimidation in their most atrocious form. A large proportion of the tenantry have some of their own free will, and many, in consequence of pressure, entered into a combination against the payment of what they consider excessive rents. This is nothing less than a social revolution, and the horrible murders and outrages on cattle by which it is accompanied ought not to distract attention for a moment from the original disease which has led to this climax. But no sooner does a real difficulty arise in applying the ordinary law of the country with vigour and effect than straightway a cry is raised for a suspension of the first guarantee of all liberty, and Parliamentary lynch law is proclaimed on the housetops as the highest statesmanship. Suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and run them all in --such is the political teaching of our very moderate men. That the landlords, whose rights of property' are thus set at nought, should

call out to the majority of their fellow-subjects to secure for them, no matter how, that to which by the law as it stands they are entitled, is natural enough; but only the fact that for months past men have been engaged in examining the fundamental conditions of all civilised society, and are somewhat embarrassed by their investigations, can account for this desperate haste to recur to old despotic methods. The least that can be said on the other side is that, in order to calm dangerous dissatisfaction with existing laws, we must override some of the cherished theories of ordinary political economy. Thus, in the face of dangerous agitation, we, like others, find that the only sound means of maintaining order is by a combination of legal but almost revolutionary change with more or less pronounced despotism. The dangerous communism of the Fenians, who represent the extreme left wing of the Irish party, is as completely destructive of present arrangements as the purest socialism of Paris or Berlin. It is useless to shut our eyes to the facts, unpleasant as they may be. In stirring times the only safe policy is to recognise that what may have been wisdom yesterday becomes the height of folly to-day. If only the plain speaking about Ireland, which is now to be heard all round, had been in fashion a few years ago, we should not have to make up our minds to something not far short of a measure for compensated expropriation of landlords.

In England the land question has hitherto scarcely been entered upon. Economical causes are working a silent revolution, which will be far more complete than perhaps any of us have as yet fully understood. The longer an attempt at settlement is delayed, however, the greater way will be made among the agricultural labourers by those who are anxious to bring about a change at least as great as that which settled the French villeins in the possession of their holdings. Ideas move fast, and though tenant farmers may not reason to their own case from what is going on in Ireland, will anybody guarantee that this is so with all who are concerned with the land?

Fortunately we need but ordinary care and sagacity to pass through a period which might prove dangerous with benefit to ourselves. The English tendency is to build up from the bottom, to improve the conditions of life below. There has been much neglect, but it may be remedied. Meantime, we are at least not creating enemies to society by deliberate enactment, and then arming them so that they may be able to overthrow the whole structure. Our emigration is in the main beneficial to us. It affords a safe and honourable outlet for those adventurous spirits who might otherwise turn their energies into a dangerous channel. They go forth to America and our colonies, and those who succeed form on their return a progressive and yet in the best sense a conservative body at home. With us, therefore, the revolution involved in the change of the

political centre of gravity may be peacefully worked out. What has occurred and what may occur again in America is, however, worth brief consideration. There, with endless land to fall back upon close at hand-which we, however much our land system may be modified, could never boast-the same agitation which threatens the Continent has burst out into actual violence. The riots in Pittsburg and Baltimore are almost forgotten in this country, but the action then taken by the masses of the large towns was most significant. Thoughtful Americans are well aware that the outbreak was in the last degree dangerous, and that it might be renewed at a favourable moment. But for the resolute action of one or two private capitalists, the matter would have gone much further than it did. In any case hatred of the capitalist class is growing up among a certain section of the community, and Socialist ideas are promulgated in St. Louis and Chicago as well as in Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and New York. Even the Western farmers, who are the closest hands at a bargain, and assuredly have no avowed communistic views in regard to property in general, are not by any means disinclined to deal with railroads and all land but their own in a decidedly communistic fashion. If amid the favourable conditions for general prosperity to be found in America, these ideas can take root and spread, this is in itself good evidence that there exists at the present time a decided tendency towards attempting a new solution of social difficulties. Experiments in practical Communism, such as those of the Mormons, the Shakers, the Memnonites, and others are merely interesting as experiments. They are trifling matters when compared with an agitation like that in California, or a rising which at one moment bid fair to put the whole railroad system of the Eastern States at the mercy of a furious mob.

Thus whichever way we look, whether to the Continent of Europe or to newly-settled countries, we see plainly that the principle of State management, which is practical enough within certain limits, is making way at the same time that notions which extend to dealing with all property for the benefit of the mass, and not for the individual, are gaining strength and coherence. The former system may be peacefully and perhaps beneficially worked out; the latter must involve anarchy and bloodshed in the beginning, and can scarcely under any conditions we can at present imagine prove successful in the end. Yet at a period such as ours anything may be tried. One of the features of the time is the prevailing incredulity among the educated of all civilised communities. Religious sanctions

The facilities recently offered for saving, and the investment of small sums in Consols, tend of course to knit the thrifty of all classes closer to the existing form of society, or at any rate to render its modification, if ever it should prove admissible, less dangerous to the public peace.

VOL. IX.-No. 47.

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are shaken in every country, political institutions are themselves in a state of fusion-for who shall say that Parliamentary government has proved fully successful?—the growing knowledge and power of the masses leads them to consider more and more seriously the strange inequalities of our existing arrangements, the spread of ideas from one centre to another is so rapid as almost to defy calculation. Can it, then, be said that we are safe for any length of time from the shock of one of those convulsions which may change the whole social prospect? Those who condemn democracy, who look askance at the determination to give political power to every class in order that all may be able to insist upon their share in the general advancement, are but rendering more probable the overturn they dread. The old days of aristocracy and class privileges are passing away fast; we have to consider now how to deal with the growing democratic influence, so that we may benefit by the experience of others. This can only be done by a steady determination at the outset to satisfy the needs and gratify the reasonable ambition of all.

H. M. HYNDMAN.

THE HISTORICAL CLAIMS OF TENANT RIGHT.

No one who appreciates the difficulties of the task which lies before the Government in Ireland would wish to add needlessly to the flood of literature already overwhelming the subject.

But after the remarkable statements of Mr. Froude and Lord Sherbrooke it may be useful to place before the public succinctly the main facts in the economic history of the Irish peasant tenants. This is the best way, I think, to prove beyond a doubt that there is a very real and practical difference between these peasant tenants and ordinary tenant farmers of the English type. Until it is clearly understood wherein, historically and economically, this difference lies, it is impossible to understand even what laws of political economy apply to the case. For the laws of political economy are not mere empirical rules fitting at random all possible cases; they are the necessary result of the interaction of two chief factors, viz.: Physical external conditions and the constitution of human nature, and so must vary with local variations in the two factors, and the historical circumstances under which they are thrown together.

What, then, is the Economic History of Irish Peasant Tenures? To begin with, peasant tenures are well-known in history. They exist, or have existed, in nearly every country in Europe. Historically and economically they seem to have arisen out of a primitive action of the law of division of labour before the birth of capital.

The two all-controlling economic necessities of primitive society have everywhere been defence and food-war and agriculture. Hence arose everywhere the division of society in its early tribal form into two classes-military and agricultural. And as the former were, from the nature of the case, everywhere the stronger, and the latter the weaker class, it was but natural that History, when first disclosing the actual condition of things in European nations, should almost everywhere discover the peasantry to be in practical serfdom to the other class who had assumed the overlordship of the land.

Again, as bees everywhere live in hives and make hexagonal cells, so peasants' land everywhere seems to have been at first held in common, under rules supported by custom, and securing the easy division of its occupancy from time to time among them. The