Bad as have been the effects of monometallism in England, they have been far worse in Ireland; and dark as is the future of the former, it is light itself compared with that evidently in store for the latter.  Those familiar with Irish affairs know that after a long agitation several acts have been passed to enlarge the rights of tenants and to secure them a larger share of what they produce.  The Act of 1881 reduced the rents and fixed the amount to be paid at a specific annual sum in money for a long term of years; and the subsequent Ashbourne Act (so called from Lord Ashbourne, who introduced it) gave tenants a chance to buy and pay for lands in fixed yearly installments for forty-nine years.  The intent was to create a peasant ownership somewhat like that of France.  It was the end of a long fight, and was supposed to be a great victory and the inauguration of a very great reform.

Scarcely, however, was the great victory won and the great reform inaugurated when it became evident that, owing to the demonetization of silver and increased purchasing power of gold, the tenants were, in reality, bound to much heavier payments than before.  Whatever may have been the intent, the tenant, who bound himself to pay a fixed annual sum as rent for a long term of years, found himself bound to deliver a much larger share of produce; and the purchaser under the Ashbourne Act found that what looked so easy in figures soon became impossible in fact, as the prices of his produce fell so rapidly that each successive payment became more oppressive until it finally became impossible.  Thus it looks now as if by the appreciation of gold all that was gained for the tenant is more than lost, and that in the future his condition may be worse than in the worst days of rack-renting.  In recent years this has become plain to those who have the good of Ireland at heart; they have taken the alarm, and are outspoken on the threatening evils.  Among these is the Most Reverend Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin.  In a recent interview he says, referring to the rise in the value of gold: 

“All this is indisputable; it is now fully in the public view; yet not even an attempt is being made in Parliament, or even out of it, to bring about an equitable readjustment of the conditions which are proving so disastrous in other nations, conditions too that are imposed under the provisions of statutes enacted as measures of protection for the tenants.  The Irish Land Acts of 1881, 1885, and 1891 have, nevertheless—­as a result of the increased and increasing value of our present unbalanced and consequently untrustworthy monetary standard of value—­become fruitful sources of difficulty, and may very soon become fruitful sources of disaster, to those for whose benefit they were intended.”

Again, referring to the importance of some remedy, possibly that which bimetallism might provide, he says: