MAIL ITEMS.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3785, 14 February 1881, Page 2

MAIL ITEMS.

Lord Dufferin's conferences with the English Ministers have been quite as much on Irish affairs as on foreign politics. Few men have studied the Land Question in Ireland as thoroughly as the statesman whose nomination as Ambassador at St. Petersburg was most happy at the particular moment, but whose continued absence from the sphere of English politics is a loss to the country.—" Atlas " in the World.

John Bright, the orator—whose use of pure Saxon, by the bye, is marvellous— once unconsciously converted a political opponent by the suaviter in ntodo, as contradistinguished from his usual qualitity, the fortiter in re. As the right hon. gentlemen is perhaps unnware of the circumstance himself, he will be grateful to me for telling him of it. He was riding on horseback at Llahdudno, and came to a gate, near which stood a gentleman, who though recognising the horseman, did:n6t show, any readiness to unlatch it. Addressing him in a manner almost courtly, the" apostle of Kadicalism asked that favour at his hands ; and the stranger, surprised into compliance, was still further pleased when the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, waiting uatil the pedestrian had reclosed the gate, leisurely walked his animal along, and continued an agreaable conversation, in which everything local, but nothing national was discussed. On the two separating something like complimentary expression were exchanged; and at the last general election John Bright had no more effective, but unobtrusive, supporter than the stranger whose political animosity he had disarmed by politeness and sociability. This I learn from a letter witten by the man himself.—" Atlas " in The World.

Lord Dufferin has published a letter in which he strongly condems " The Three Fs' system.—fair rents, free sales, and fixity of tenure —pointing oufe that the sale of tenants' interest has a tendency to saddle the holdings perpetually with double rent, and he says the system, if granted, would only further encourage a new set of agitators to endeavour to dispossess the landlords of the remaining vestiges of their rights. Lord Dufferin favours a system copied from that adopted at the enfranchisement of Russian serfs, namely the buying up of a large portion of the land in Ireland, and the conversion of rents into land charges, payable to the State. For the chronically povertystriken districts of the Westj^he recommends a great system of State, aided emigration to Manitoba, and the north-west of Canada, to be worked with the co-operation of the Dominion Government. He points out that as the Catholic church is supremo in these parts, the clergy of Ireland will not oppose emigration thither as they do to the United States. The Times remarks that Lord Dufferin's suggestions, although interesting, do not forecast the Land Bill, as the Government will not make grants fron the exchequer, or pledge the credit of the country. -