1881.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1079, 20 May 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

1881.

(From the London Times,)

The yoar 1881, ; tlioiigh not distinguished by wars or revolutionary changes of tho first magnitude, presents a record of nioinorable and important events in almost every country in the world; At home tlie Irish difficulty has grown to tho most formidable proportions, British ngri6aUure, already sorely smitten, has had to bear tho keen'disappointment of another unfavorable harvest, Franco lias beon drawn into the perilous labyrinth of tho Tunisian expedition, while in her domestic politics the Republio has lost inuoh of the charnctortfor moderation which made.her, in j Thiers' phrase, tho Government that ' divides the least.' 1. In Germany, as in Franco, and also in Holland, in Belgium, in Spain; in - Hungary, and .in Bulgaria, public opiuion has been.-agitated -by general olectiops | political ifeuds have been embittered and tho dominance of Pritice Bismarck threatened. Though the different countries of Europo have had their internal troubles, tho international relations of tho great Powers have been more tranquil and easy thanatany time since the battlo of Sadow*. Diplomacy, indoed, has heen.at work upon its Penelope's web, a task which often turns out to be revolutionary rather than conservative, But hitherto .there has been no serious movement of national jealousies j tho status quo hat been preserved in Europe, and there is no greater reason at present to oxpect a disturbance of the peace than has been at any period during tho lifetime of this generation, The activity of Russia has been paralysed by the shock of the Czar's murder, which, in truth, has warned all civilized nations of the violent and destructive impulses that slumber under tho superficial inanities of Socialism. The New World, happily free from theseanxioties, has been saddened by tho assassination of President Garfield, a crime, howover,- which had no political bearing, The Kopublics of South America are still in their chronic state of conflict and uusettlement, Turning to the east, we. can rejoice, at any rate, that the peaco has been preserved. Even in Soutli Africa a painful and discreditable chapter of history has been closed, and wo must hope that tho sacrifices which this country has mado will purchase deliverance from further embarrassments and responsibilities. Upon the whole, the year that is closing leaves us with fow pressing reasons for alarm, and with somo ground for hoping that not only this country, but the civilised world, has ontered once.more upon an aera of prosperity and reposo. Tho President of tho Board of Trade, in his speech at the Carpenters' Hall a few weeks ago, was, able to appeal to the official returns of his department as showing that " tho enormous volume of our trade continues to toll on in ever-increasing and swelling flood." The rovival of commercial prosperity has quickened speculation, and at no time, within the past five-and-thirty years, havo projectors and promoters beon so busy. Their efforts have been seconded by the high prices which Consols and all other forms of sound investment havo reached and kept. Tiio disastrous weather of the preceding year had depressed not only tho agricultural interest, but tho entire trade of the kingdom, and postponed the commercial and industrial revival confidently and eagerly looked for towards the end of 1880. The vicissitudes of our changeable climate have been rarely more trying. Sevore frost, dense fogs, and heavy snowfalls—that of the 18th of January being without parallel in recent years—were followed by repeated and violent storms. Afterwards came a period of settled though bleak weather, with a prevailing dry east wind, not unfavorable to spring farming operations, It bocame at length possible to clean the fiolds, and tho comparatively backward crops wcro quickened in July by a fierce and almost tropical sun, which encouraged the liopo of aii.carly and abundant yield. Butan unprecedented downpour of rain in August covered this fair prospect with the deepest gloom. The harvest was almost ruined in many parts of the country, nnd though the long-continued wet weather was not unfavorable to the growth pi grass and green crops, the loss of the anticipated yield of corn was not:adequately counterbalanced byothor advantages, The remainder of the year was chiefly remarkablo for a succession of galos and storms of well-nigh unexampled severity, which - not only did much damage to shipping, hut once more covered tho low-lyiug lands in this couutry with floods, The adverse climatic influences of tho year bore hard upon the agricultural interest, already severely tried by tho bad seasons of 1879 and 1880. Many farmers had to leave their holdings broken mcu, and those who remained to struggle on, hoping for better times, were generally unable to meet their obligations in full. Large remissions of rent were freely granted by the majority of landlords, though the unexpected falling away of incomo pressed cruelly on families of middle rank. In the prevailing discontent it- was natural that the sufferers should turn eagerly towards promises of relief, however vague and shadowy. Tho revival of. protectionism under a thin disguise had been carried far even before the disappointment about tho harvest. It was stimulated by tho delay in the recovery of business and by tho avowed rejection of free trade on the Continent and in America The negotiations for the renewal of tho French Commercial Treaty dragged their slow length along without result, .and many British manufacturing -interests were agitated by the fear of .being " sacrificed." In this excitement, the cry of "fair trade "was loudly raised, No exact and generally accepted definition of "fair trade" was put forth, but the notion that, without tho odium of naked protection, it would be possible,to keep out foreign competition, at .least until foreign nations admitted our goods on reasonable terms, seemed likely to find favor, among, somo of the in-, dustrial as well as the agricultural classes, A few seats were lost by the Liberals during tho session, the contests for which-were thought to bo influenced by the " fair-trade" cry. The Coventry and Preston elections, especially, gave hope to the "fair traders," nnd a National Fair Trade. League was founded, in which Mr. Ecroyd, tho Conservative nwmber for Preston, took a leading part. No,prominent politicians, however, identified themselves with the movement, and , the difficulty of framing a plan which would at once 'satisfy farmers and manufacturers soon became apparent,, Fair trade was laughed out of Parliament, , and would, perhaps, have fallen at once info oblivion if the harvest had pot been disappointing. In the.autumn the. catch-word was used effectively, at somo.byelections, particularly'in North. Durhan and North Lincolnsjiire. Mr. Lowtber, indeed, who won the latter seat, did not quibble with "fair trade at all," but declared boldly l in favor of protecting British agriculture, For a while it appeared as if the Conservative leaders wero placed,in doubt by the evidence of popular feeling; Lord Salisbury pronounced for;#-" war of tariffs," should it appear necessary, and even Sir Stafford Northcoto used ambiguous language on moro than one occasion. But the effervescence subsided; cautions Conservatives hastened to declare that they had no desire to tamper with the free trade system, and wished only, as evory one must wish, to have its benefits extended all over the world. Little has of late been heard of the" fair trade" movement, and at jno recent election have candidates been

tempted to rest theipclaims upon their readi--uesa to support disguised protection. It is to ! be regretted that the proof thus given of the loyalty of our people to free trade has, as yet, 1 had no visible effect on the opinion of foreign countries. The treaty negotiations • with Franco are to bo . again renewed, with the hope of getting a fair compromise accepted j but, in spito of M. Gambetta'a free. trade views, French Protectionism is still poworful and obstinate. In the United States the drift of political events is plainly away from, and not towards, tlio romoval of duties on imports.

iThe ■domestic politics of the year have been moulded and colorod throughout by the predominant 'influence of the Irish.qucstion, At tho boginning of the yoar tho opening of Parliament a month before tho usual time had beon arranged, and the critical situation of affairs .'was no longer denied, even by ex-' trome Radicals. The character of the" reign of terror" established in Ireland by the Land League wis powerfully exhibited in the speeohes made by Mr, Forster in the House of Commons when moving for the'introduction of the Coercion Bills,-while tho extracts from the speeohes, and writings of the leading Land Leaguers readat the trial of Mr, Parnell and his associates in Dublin for conspiracy, to prevent the paymepts of rents showed clearly by whit audaciously perverse teaching the' • Irish peasantry had been,demoralised. This trial terminated,.as : had been generally auti-. cipated, in a disagreement of tho jury. The proceedings of tho Land Leaguo wero for a time obscured by the vieiasitudes of the Parliamentary- struggle; in the first place over ■ the' Coercion Bills, : and afterwards, over the Land Bill. It is unnecessary here to entor at length into theso and other questions included in the Parliamentary history of the session of 1881, We may* howover, remark that the scope and oven the direction of Mr, Gladstone's promised Land Bill remained in doubt almost down- to. the timo of its introduction. The report of Lord Bessborough's commission had, .indeed, established some points upon .which thero was an approach to genoral agreement among Liberals, and no determined spirit of opposition among Tories, It was recognised, that cases,of rack-renting in Ireland were few, and stress was mainly specially laid on the contention that what was ueeded was "socurity," Tho prevention of future increases of rent rather than an attack upon existing exorbitant rents was set forth as the principal object, The Commissioners roported that whero rents had remained undisturbed for twenty years they might be accepted as "fair" in the absonco of any peculiar circumstances, Tho discussions upon the Land Bill turned in the first iustanco upon the samo points. It was argued that the "fair rent" clauso.as originally framed would compel the Land Court toreduco rents generally throughout Ireland, by cutting the tenant's interest out of the value of tho fee-slmplo, but this interpretation was repudiated by tho Government, and tho settlement was left to the discretion of the Court. The Court was acknowledged to bo tho turning-point of tho legislative Bchcirie, but until after the Land Act became law, publio attention was not directed to tho important part played by the Sub-Commis-sioners, The -jurisdiction at first intended to be given to the County Court Judges was transferred to these officials, whose appointments were not,communicated to.Parliament, It is not, therefore, surprising that the Parliamentary debates on the Land Bill and the controversies outside during tho same phase of the question appear irrelevant when compared with tho present aspects of the Irish agrarian difficulty. So far, however, as tho reception of tho bill in Ireland was concerned,, its drift and details were of littlo consequenco.Thepartyofagitationweredetermined not to acquiesce in any settlement, and they labored hard to convinco the people that more was to be gained by adhering,to the Laud League thau by accepting tho utmost that Parliament could give. The Introduction of the Coercion Bills had for a time checked outrage, but the Land League organisation was perfected, the tenants generally refused to pay rent, and the landlords, despairing of obtaining either money or land by process of. law, wero for the most part content to wait till the promise of a plenteous harvest was realised. This was the case.in Ireland-though not in Groat Britain—and, in that, the legitimate profits of Irish farming during 1850 and 1881, while the peoplo "held the harvest," and refused, in,large numbers, to pay rent, exceeded those of the most prosperous times within the moinory of living men, But the violence of the agrarian agitators did not abate; they seized upon the Coercion Act, at first put in force with the utmost leniency and consideration by Mr. Forster, as a pretext for new incitements to resistance, and for redoubled insults addressed to the Government and the English people. Under this malign iniluenco tho improvement which was the immediate effect of the introduction of the Coercion Bill gave place to a serious recrudescence of agrarian crime, precisely at the moment when the Ministry and tho Liberal party wero straining every nerve to do what tliey belioved to be full and final justice to the claims of tho Irish tenantry. The executive had refrained as long as possible from using its powers against any of the Parliamentary representatives of tho Irish people, but at last Mr. Dillon's outrageous language at Clonmel made his arrest absolutely necessary, He called upon tho tenantry forcibly to resist the execution of legal process for the assertion of the landlords' rights, and to punish, by social excommunication, any persons either setting tho law in motion or acquiescing in the land: lords' claims, Other important arrests followed—though Mr. Dillon was subsequently released on the ground of failing health—and a certain measure of caution was thenceforward to be observed, at least down to the close of the session, in the publio utterances of the Land League chiefs. When, hpweyer,tho Land Bill had become law, the League: and those whose power and position were dependent on the League had to deal with the opinion of the Irish - Americans. It became evident that without the pecuniary aid of the Irish in the United States, the organisation of tho League must soon collapse. No doubt could be entertained that tho Irish Americans would be seriously displeased if, as tho result of all their contributionsandagitations r ' thoy saw the tenantry in Ireland generally accepting the Land .Act as a settlement, or even acquiescing in it as an instalment of their due. Tho bulk of the moderate Home Rulers, and even many identified with the.extreme section, had declared in favor of the act, and Mr. Parnell himself hesitated for a time. He was plainly afraid to pronounce against the act decisively,- lest he should find that the majority of the tenants had made up their minds not to go along with him, and he was deterred from approving it, even with ' qualifications, as well by his personal antipathy to a rival polioy, practically in posses, sion of the field, as by his enforced depend' ence upon Irish-American support, Throughout the year the most prominent Land Leaguers .had shown a determination to provide a second-string for their bow; they had laid increasing stress on the political aspect of the agitation, on-its value as a step towards the separation of Ireland from England, and on its success in completing the ruin of the "English garrison." But the ferocious temper displayed by the Irish in the United States exacted a more practical

and immediate tribute than the revival of the Nationalist. war-ories. i- The., abominable "polioy of dynamite" ,\Yas -proclaimed in America by O'Donovan Rosea/and somenewspapers recognised i- as 1 .the. organs of .the Land League, beyond ,the.-Atlantic. .The boast that the explosion which, destroyed Her Majesty's ship Doterol was the work of Irish-Amcrioan disciples of O'Donovan Rossa and his confedoratos had probably no-founda-tion. in fact, but attempts were mado to injiiro the Liverpool Town. Hall, the Salford Barracks,, and tiio.Mausion Houso in London, ■ which could only be explained as .imperfect and experimental applications of the " dynamito.gospol." The discovery of "infornal machines" liko.those used in the Bremerliavon atrocity on board some of the oceangoing steamers was still more startling, and In several places in England and Scotland concealed stores of arms .and other evidences of an extensive Fenian conspiracy were brought to light, As directed against the ■lmperial Government those movements of Irish dissatisfaction were | not really formidable, but they showed what the forces were wbiph impelled Mr. Parnell to keep up the Land Leaguo agitation after the Land Act 'had. become law. The close of the .session was followed, by renewed and aggravated reports of agrarian outrage in Irolaiicl, ,aud though tho Ulster tenantry seemed ready toaccept the act, tho appeals of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy and other well-khown "popular politicians" not of the Land Loaguo type were openly treated with contompt ,in other parts of-the country. A vacancy created in the county of Tyrone by Mr. Litton's appointment as a member of the Land Commission gavo Mr, Parnell an opportunity of declaring war upon tho Land Act; and of announcing .the intention of- the Land League to invado and conquor Ulster. The.attempt wasnot successful. : Mr. Parnell's candidate had at no. time, any chance of election, but he did

not even succeed in detaching so many votes from tho Liberal party as to give the Conservatives a majority. The tenant-farmers, it was plain, voted,'irrespective of creed or party, on the side of the Land Act. During this campaign, Mr. Parnell distinctly formulated his new doctrine, designed to reduce the land Act to an absurdity, that justice required the reduction of the total rental of Ireland from seventeen millions sterling annually to between two and three millions, or to the " prairie value" of tho land-that is, tho amount it might be supposed to have been worth in its original unreclaimed stato, This impossible standard of" fair rent" was set before the people in order that any reductions of rent, however large, by the Land Courts might be received with disappointment, It was from this point of view that the policy of the Land League was dcelnred at a "National Convention" held in Dublin in September; the tenantry were warned not to rush into the Courts, but to await the decisions on " test cases" which Mr. Healy and others were engaged in working up, Mr. Parnell took care to explain, for the benefit of his American allies, that in the opinion of tho League tho decisions of the Courts would be unsatisfactory, while he sedulously impressed upon the Irish followers the necessity of adhering to the principle of "prairie value," and confidently promised that tho Leaguo would secure for them the practical recognition of that principle and the speedy destruction of" landlordism." At tho same time he menaced the farmers with a " laborers' movement," Some slight efforts wero made to withstand the spread of this, "gospel of public plunder," as Mr, Gladstone' emphatically named it at Leeds; tho Roman Catholic Bishops, in particular, joined, with ono or two exceptions, in the Maynooth declaration in favor of the Land Act, but without avail. Public opinion in Ireland was cither cowed or intoxicated by the daring . 190

; proposals of the. Leaguo, and as the time aty i ! rived whenthe Land-Act l.tq come into j ! operation-it became more and,more doiibtful I ■whether its working would not be paralysed,; .if events were, allowed totake .their,course, : by an organised, and determined opposition. : 'Tho., Prime .Minister, during, his ..visits to, i Leeds in tho.first week of October, had used . , language which could bear only ono meaning, i Tho question, lio &ud, had,come to beaimply ■ . this; " whether law or'lawlessness must rule - in Ireland the Irish people must not be deprived of-the. means of, taking ad vantage .of; the Land Act"by/force or.fear of force. Ho : .warned the party of disorder .that ''there-! : sources . of., ciyilisation-i were, not .yet« , hausted," A few Mays later, Mr] Gladstone,; speaking, at the Guildhall, ( amid enthusiastio i cheers, was able to announce that the long-. delayed blow had fallen, Mr. Parnell was! ■ arrested in Dublin under, the Coercion Act;: and , his arrest was followed by .{Hose of Mr, : ! Sexton, Mr.-Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, find other ■ prominent leaders of the agitation., The warnings of tho Government had boon met at, first with,derision and defiance, and the earlier arrests' were.furiously.denounced; but the energy and persistence of .the Government soon began to'make an impression, . and the remaining organisers of tha agitation ; i bethought them of securing their personal; : safety, A Parthian 'shot„w.as fired,,in,the! : issue,of a manifesto, purporting to ,be signed, not only by the "suspects" in Kilmainliam, ■ but also, by Davitt, .a. convict in Portland ; prison, which adjured tho tenantry to pay no; rent whatever until the Government. had , : done penance for its tyranny and released the ■ victims of British despotism., This.open in-, citcment to defiance of legal authority and, repudiation of, legal right was instantly met j by tho Irish Executive in a resolute spirit., On tho 20th, October a proclamation was ; issued,- declaring; tho Leaguo, to bo '"an; illegal and criminal association, intent on de-.

staying the obligation of contracts. and subverting law," and announcing that its operations would thenceforward bo forcibly suppressed, and those taking, part in them held responsible. (To be continued,)