In 1880 the Liberal party returned to power after the General Election, and 1881 witnessed the passage through Parliament of two important Irish measures.  The first of these was a Protection of Life and Property Bill brought in in January by Mr. Forster, then Chief Secretary of Ireland.  As was to be expected, this was vehemently opposed by the Nationalist members, who retarded it by every means in their power, one famous sitting of the House on this occasion lasting for forty-two hours, from five o’clock on the Monday afternoon to nine o’clock on the Wednesday following, and then only being brought to an end by the authority of the Speaker.  By March, however, the Bill passed, and in the following month, April 7th, a new Irish Land Act was brought forward by Mr. Gladstone, and was passed after much opposition the following autumn.

The full scope and purport of this Act it is far beyond the limits of these few remaining pages to enter upon.  Although, to some extent an outcome of the Act of 1870, it cannot in strictness be called a mere development or completion of it, being in many respects based upon entirely new principles.  The most salient of these are what are known as the “three Fs,” namely—­Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent, to be decided by a Land Court, and Free Sale.  As regards the last two, it has been pointed out with some force that the one practically does away with the other, the only person benefited being the immediate occupier, at whose departure that fierce competitive desire for the land which is the real root of the whole difficulty being allowed freer play than ever.  With regard to the first, its effect may be briefly stated as that of reducing the owner to the position of a rent charger or annuitant upon what had before been his own estate, thereby depriving him—­even where want of means did not effectually do so—­of all desire to expend capital upon what had henceforth ceased to be his property, and over the management of which he had almost wholly lost control.  That this is a change of a very large and sweeping character it is needless to say.  Henceforward ownership of land in Ireland is no longer ownership in the ordinary sense of the word.  It is an ownership of two persons instead of one, and a divided ownership, even where two people work together harmoniously, is as most of us are aware, a very difficult relationship to maintain, and is apt to be followed sooner or later by the effacements of the rights of one or the other.  How these diverging rights are finally to be adjusted is at this moment the problem of problems in Ireland, and still imperatively awaits solution.

In October of the same year, 1881, Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, and other principal members of the Land League, were arrested by order of the Government, and lodged in Kilmainhan gaol, an event announced the same evening by Mr. Gladstone at the Guildhall banquet.  The following May the Liberal Government resolved however, rather suddenly, to reverse their previous policy, and the Irish leaders were set at liberty.  About the same time Lord Cowper and Mr. Forster, the Lord-Lieutenant and Chief Secretary, resigned, and were replaced by Lord Spencer and Lord Frederick Cavendish, who arrived in Ireland avowedly upon a mission of conciliation.