The root of English politics has been party government—­’where all are for a party, and none are for the State,’ to reverse Macaulay’s famous line.  Now the Irish vote of sixty was a solid asset, capable in many cases of weighing down one side of the political scale.  It was obvious that the votes would be unscrupulously given, and Mr. Gladstone bid higher than the Tories.  Literally the necessary parliamentary machinery for the government of the United Kingdom was clogged by the Nationalists, who brought obstruction to a fine art, and it was Mr. Gladstone who always gave in when the Irish outcry would have stimulated an honest man to avail himself of all loyal forces which law and the common weal provided.

Long before this the Irish political agitator had set himself to embitter the relations existing between landlord and tenant.  An Englishman goes into Parliament for various motives; an Irishman for his living.  If he did not outshout his neighbour, if he were not implicitly obedient to Mr. Parnell, if he did not arouse the worst passions of the worst people in his constituency, he was promptly dismissed.

To do them justice, the Irish members gave such an exhibition of blackguardism as has no parallel on earth, though it earned but the mildest rebuke from their obsequious ally, Mr. Gladstone.

In 1869, for example, before this balloting away of all that was creditable to Ireland, the relations between landlord and tenant were of the most kindly nature.  The leading landlords of Kerry generally represented the county in Parliament with uniform decency and occasional brilliance, while larger sums were borrowed and expended by the landlords under the Land Improvement Act than were spent in the same way in any other county.  I can prove that the principal landowner in Kerry—­Lord Kenmare—­expended a greater sum in ten years on his estates than he received out of them, though I cannot say he ever found out for himself that it was better to give than to receive.

For fifty years prior to what Mr. Gladstone was pleased to call his ‘remedial legislation,’ Kerry was unstained by agrarian crime; all things went on smoothly, and a number of railways were constructed with guaranteed capital, half of which was contributed by the landlords, although they received no benefit from the increased prices of farm produce caused by railway communication.  The Board of Works returns show that the money borrowed by Kerry landlords under the different Land Improvement Acts amounted to almost half a million, and yet the deductions made under the Land Act were greater in Kerry than in other counties.

Here is an instance from my own experience.

I purchased from the Government in 1879 an estate, the rental of which was L517, 2s. 4d.; it was considered so cheaply let that the majority of the tenants offered twenty-seven years’ purchase for their farms.  I borrowed from the Government and expended on drainage L1120, 14s. 11d.  Then the Commissioners under the Land Act reduced the rental to L495, 10s. 6d., and the Government which sold me the estate continued to compel me to pay interest on the amount borrowed, although by its own legislation I was deprived of any advantage resulting from the outlay.