A further instance may be recounted of the manner in which the people of what is, after Spain, the most Catholic country in Europe, while submitting to the Pope implicitly in matters which are de fide, refused to take their cue in purely political matters from Rome.

The rejection of the Home Rule Bill and of the Land Bill of 1886, and the return of the Conservatives to power, led to a recrudescence of the land war, to which the hope of ameliorative legislation had temporarily put a truce.  The Plan of Campaign, which was then launched—­of which it has been said that no agrarian movement was ever so unstained by crime—­was of the following nature:—­The tenants of a locality were to form themselves into an association, each member of which was to proffer to the landlord or his agent a sum which was estimated by the general body as a fair rent for his holding.  These sums, if refused by the landlord, were pooled and divided by the association for the maintenance of those tenants who were evicted.

The wheels were set in motion in Rome to obtain a ruling from the Holy Office as to whether such action was justifiable or not.  Mgr.  Persico, the head of the Oriental rite in the Propaganda, who had had much experience of English speaking people in the East, was sent to Ireland in July, 1887, to investigate the question on the spot.  In April, 1888, a rescript was issued by the Holy Office to the bishops of Ireland condemning the Plan of Campaign and boycotting on the ground that they were contrary to both natural justice and Christian charity.  With the Decree was sent to the bishops a circular letter, signed by Cardinal Monaco, the Secretary of the Holy Office, which contained the following statement:—­“The justice of the decision will be readily seen by anyone who applies his mind to consider that a rent agreed upon by mutual consent cannot, without violation of a contract, be diminished at the mere will of a tenant, especially when there are tribunals appointed for settling such controversies and reducing unjust rents within the bounds of equity after taking into account the causes which diminish the value of the land....  Finally, it is contrary to justice and to charity to persecute by a social interdict those who are satisfied to pay rents agreed upon, or those who, in the exercise of their right, take vacant lands.”

The Tablet, the organ of English Catholicism, speaking of the decision, said that happily there was no suspicion of politics about it, and as to the letter of Cardinal Monaco la Valetta, it wrote—­“It adds certain reasons which perhaps may have led the Congregation to answer as they have done, but these constitute no part of the official reply.”  The next step in this episode should be well pondered by those who accuse the Irish of a blind Ultramontanism.  The bishops, with one exception, omitted to publish the rescript to their flocks, and the Archbishop of Cashel went so far as to send L50 to the funds of the