The comment of the Times—­in which Mr. Moore as a rule finds an active admirer of his political methods—­is interesting:—­

“Mr. Bailey is a public servant entrusted with certain quasi-judicial functions.  That a member of Parliament, whatever may be his opinions of the conduct of such an official, should inform him that he had been appointed ‘to see fair play’ between his colleagues, and that he had not seen it, and should couple this charge with a promise to press for an inquiry into the working of the department whenever there should be a change of Government, is indefensible.”

The whole incident is worthy of attention as showing the atmosphere of suspicious hostility with which the Orange faction in Ireland surrounds every act even of Civil Servants and Executive Officers who are not as active supporters of the ascendancy as they would wish.

Of further legislation dealing with the laws of tenure, the Town Tenants Act of 1906, which Mr. Balfour denounced as highway robbery, gives tenants in towns compensation for disturbance so as to prevent a landlord making a vexatious use of his rights.  An attempt was made by the House of Lords to limit the compensation so paid to one year’s rent, but the rejection of the amendment by the House of Commons was acquiesced in, and no such limitation exists in the Act.

With regard to the question of the agricultural labourers, the fact that the last Census Report discloses that there are in Ireland nearly 10,000 “houses” with one room and one window apiece, wretched cabins inhabited by about 40,000 people, the peat smoke from the fire in which escapes through a hole in the thatch, gives some idea of the miserable conditions existing in parts of the West of Ireland.  Of the quarter of a million of cottages in the second class of the Census—­those, that is, with from one to four doors and windows—­a large number also no doubt are quite unfit for habitation, and do much in the way of leading to the asylum or to emigration.  It is to secure the replacement of these by cheap sanitary and comfortable cottages that the Labourers’ Acts, ever since the first of the series introduced by the Irish Party in 1883, have been passed.  By them Boards of Guardians, and by the Local Government Act, Rural District Councils, may build such cottages.  In 1905, 18,000 cottages had been built under existing Acts, and they are let to tenants at rents of from 10d. to 1s. a week, but the difficulty had always been to effect the improvements sufficiently rapidly owing to the costly and elaborate procedure which involved an appeal to the Privy Council and a heavy burden on the rates of a poverty-stricken community.  The Act of 1906 has simplified procedure by replacing the appeal to the Privy Council by an appeal to the Local Government Board, and that it was needful is seen from the fact that under Wyndham’s Act only 25 cottages were built.  It is hoped thereby to circumvent the apathy of District Councils, and their