Irish pluck, asked to be allowed to serve both sentences. The request was not unnaturally refused, Wilson must have known where the arms were going. He was an Englishman and should have been as loyal to his country as Davitt to his own. But note the difference in the sentences! If Wilson was a traitor to England his crime was greater than that of Davitt. If not, he should have been acquitted. When Davitt emerged from prison there were various conjectures as to his future course of action. Of course,

he rejoined the Fenians, but his object now was the conjunction of all bodies, Fenian and Home Ruler in a struggle to assert that the land of Ireland belonged to the Irish people. Landlordism should go for ever.

"But," said the extremist group, "make the farmers secure and they will throw over the National Movement altogether." "No!" said Davitt, and time has proved him right. The farmers of Ireland, fortunately, under better conditions, have not grown selfish. They were selfish only when they were fighting for their lives. In 1878 Davitt sailed for America where his mother now resided. He took up the Irish problem with the leaders of the advanced party. John Devoy, the Fenian leader, agreed with his policy, while Kickham and the great majority of the leaders opposed what had come to be called "the new departure." Finally, however, individual officers of the advanced organisation were left free to use their discretion. Devoy and Davitt came to Ireland, they met Parnell, who characteristically came to no terms, neither praised nor dispraised the revolutionary movement, but asked to be let alone to see what he could get out of the parliamentary machine, while admitting that the advanced party had a right to try out their own devices.

During the years '76-'79 the distress of the Irish tenantry touched the line of famine. The rents were not reduced. The landlord demanded payment for land which the land never earned. England's Parliament would do nothing to remedy matters. Every motion in that direction was rejected with scorn. Between 1870 and 1876 fourteen attempts to amend the Land Laws failed. What wonder that the Irish people got restive. By 1876 their patience was giving out. That year a land agent was shot at in County Cork. The shot, unfortunately, hit his driver. Joe Biggar afterwards remarked that he disapproved of shooting at landlords because innocent people were sometimes shot by accident. In 1878 Lord Leitrim, whose reputation for rack-renting-and worse was notorious, was shot in Donegal. Donegal men were jealous of their women's honour. His slayers were never dis

covered, though the whole population was supposed to know who they were.

Rack-renting, however, went on, even for land that was literally the product of the tenant's labour. The evicted tenant who made his home on a strip of waste bog was rented, when with the sweat of his bones, he had converted it into land so called.

Mayo was one of the worst counties in respect of rack-rent and evictions. In Mayo, therefore, it was proper that the first organised assault on landlordism should be made. One Walter Burke bought a small estate, doubled the rent and put a fine of half a year's rent on the tenants. The terms were: pay or quit. Mr. Burke died, and his executor was the Reverend Canon Burke. The exaction of the last farthing of rent and arrears from the unfortunate tenants was insisted on. This was the case with which Michael Davitt chose to open his campaign. A great public meeting was held at Irishtown, organised by P. W. Nally and other Mayo men, and addressed by Thomas Brennan of Dublin, O'Con nor Power, John Ferguson of Glasgow and others.

The keynote of the speech was "the land for the people." The speakers in advocating peasant proprietary broke away notably from the more moderate land policy of Butt, "the three F's," viz.: Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rents, and Free Sale. A land revolution was in progress. The meeting was unprecedented. Seven thousand people were present; five hundred men on horseback acted as the bodyguard of the speakers. An immediate sequel was that the rents were reduced by twenty-five per cent. The Land Act of 1881 reduced them by a further forty per cent. What must they have been before 1879!

Here

Parnell was, naturally, interested in this new movement. was a purely social revolution independent of parliamentary effort. He foresaw great risks. If he identified himself with the new agitation certain things would happen for which he would be held responsible. Butt had already warned him against the dangers latent in widespread organisations. He decided, however, to take the risk. He agreed to speak at a meeting in Westport. The risk was even greater than he had foreseen. The meeting-and the movement generally-were condemned by no less a man than John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam, whose patriotism and public spirit none dared question. Parnell was not abashed. He had promised to attend and attend he would. That personal pride, which had such a part in his making and his undoing, sustained him. He attended. He spoke a few memorable sentences in his own pecu. liarly lucid style.

"A fair rent is a rent the tenant can pay according to the times, but in bad times a tenant cannot be expected to pay as much as he did in good times. . . . If such rents are insisted on . . . what must we do in order to induce the landlords to see the position? You must show them that you intend to hold a firm grip of your homesteads and lands. . That phrase stuck. "Hold a firm grip of your homesteads" became a rallying cry. Mayo was ablaze. The year 1879 vitalised the tenants. The crop of 1879 was 2 failure. Parnell's declaration was translated into "No Rent." Meeting succeeded meeting. There was a particularly successful one at Milltown, County Galway. The speeches were fairly violent. A question in regard to them was asked in the London House of Commons. Mr. James Lowther, then Tory Chief Secretary for Ireland, replied. He was inclined to be facetious. This is part of his reply: "One of the resolutions proposed at the meeting was moved by a clerk in a commercial house in Dublin (Mr. Brennan), and seconded by a person who was described as a discharged school-master (Mr. M. O'Sullivan). Another resolution was moved by a convict at large on ticket-of-leave (Mr. Davitt), (loud laughter and cheers), and the same resolution was seconded by a person who was stated to be the representative of a local newspaper." (Mr. James Daly.)

That was the spirit in which the English Government of the day regarded the land agitation in Ireland. The insinuation is obvious. The farmers were not in the movement at all: the whole thing was the work of landless agitators, criminals, and journalists. Mr. Lowther's jibes soon came home to roost. The "National Land League" was established at Castlebar. The imminent danger of famine supplied the movement with momentum. Two American journals, the Irish World edited by Patrick Ford, and the Boston Pilot edited by John Boyle O'Reilly, enlisted American sympathy and financial support. John Devoy granted aid from what was known as the "skirmishing fund," a collection in aid of revolutionary action against England, but Davitt paid all the money back when it had served its purpose.

Parnell finally agreed to recognise the "National Land League," and to become its president. Mr. Davitt, A. J. Kettle and Thomas Brennan were appointed honorary secretaries. Mr. Biggar, Patrick Egan and W. H. Sullivan were appointed treasurers. Parnell entered into no compact. He did not interfere in the plans of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, neither did he give himself away. He had espoused Parliamentarianism and was determined to see

what could be got out of it. Any outside help was all to the good. On Sunday, November 2nd, a great meeting was held at Gurteen, County Sligo. Davitt was there and John Dillon, Mr. Daly of Castlebar, Mr. Killeen, a Belfast Barrister, and others. There was also a Government reporter. Davitt, Daly, and Killeen were immediately lodged in Sligo jail. Parnell at once got active. He organised a great meeting of protest for the Rotunda, Dublin. He went down himself to Balla in the County Mayo, and addressed a great meeting there in connection with a threatened eviction, and was certainly as seditious as the others. Meanwhile, Davitt and his companions were returned for trial in Sligo.

CHAPTER LXXIII

THE LAND STRUGGLE BEGINS

DAVITT and his compatriots were duly arraigned in Sligo. The trial was a prolonged political meeting, with brass bands, fiery speeches, processions, and every manner of demonstration. The traversers were ordered to attend the Assizes in Carrick-on Shannon. They turned up the day before their trial and held a public meeting at which they repeated all the language for which they were indicted. The trials were removed to Dublin, and subsequently dropped. For the moment the League had won.

Parnell and Dillon, having postponed their visit for the trials, set sail for America from Cove on the 27th December, 1879. They had a fine reception everywhere, and Parnell had the unusual distinction of addressing Congress, and delivered a cogent and striking address. Meanwhile relief money was coming from America and from other sources. The landlords ignored the distress. They wanted their rents, whether the land earned them or not. The League was just as determined. No process-server could travel without drawing a crowd; evicted families were a charge on the funds of the League; if a farm was evicted nobody dared to take it; if anybody did he was unfit for social intercourse; finally the League decided to defend cases in the English courts, thus piling expense on the landlord.

The first big battle with the process-server occurred at Carraroe, County Galway, on January 1st, 1880. The processes for the forthcoming sessions should be served before January 6th. The parties affected and their neighbours had made up their minds that they should not. Carraroe is in the heart of South Connemara where from any point of vantage nothing but moor and granite strikes the eye. Cuan an Fhir Mhoir (Great Man's Bay) divides this region into a number of islands now joined by the road, the creeks being so narrow that it is only gradually the traveller becomes aware of the fact that he is crossing from island to island. Not a tree or shrub relieves the desolation which is emphasised by the gaunt telegraph poles along the white winding road which links up the islands. As might be expected, the bulk of the populacemostly the descendants of people who in former days took refuge