1.  In case a landlord ejected a rent-paying tenant, he was to pay him
   damages, and allow him a fair sum for whatever improvement he had
   made.
2.  It secured a ready means of arbitration between landlord and
   tenant, and if a tenant failed to pay an exorbitant rate he could
   not be hastily or unjustly driven from his farm.
3.  It made it possible for the tenant to borrow a certain sum from the
   government for the purpose of purchasing the land in case the owner
   was willing to sell.

604.  Distress in Ireland; the Land League (1879).

The friends of the new Irish land law hoped it would be found satisfactory; but the potato crop again failed in Ireland (1876-1879), and the country seemed threatened with another great famine (S593).  Thousands who could not get the means to pay even a moderate rent were now forced to leave their cabins and seek shelter in the bogs, with the prospect of dying there of starvation.

The wrected condition of the people led an number of influential Irishmen to for a Land League (1879).  This organization sought to abolish the entire landlord system in Ireland and to secure legislation which should eventually give the Irish peasantry possession of the soil they cultivated.

In time the League grew to have a membership of several hundred thousand persons, extending over the greater part of Ireland.  Finding it difficult to get parliamentary help for their grievances, the League resolved to try a different kind of tactics.  Its members refused to work for, buy from, sell to, or have any intercourse with landlords, or their agents, who extorted exhorbitant rent, ejected tenants unable to pay, or took possession of land from which tenants had been unjustly driven.  This process of social excommunication was first tried on an English agent, or overseer, named Boycott, and soon became famous under the name of “boycotting.”

As the struggle went on, many of the suffering poor became desperate.  Farm buildings belonging to landlords and their agents were burned, many of their cattle were horribly mutilated, and a number of the agents shot.  At the same time the cry rose of “No Rent, Death to the Landlords!” Hundreds of Irish tenants now refused to pay anything for the use of the land they cultivated, and attacked those who did.

Eventually the lawlessness of the country compelled the Government to take severe measures.  It suppressed the Land League (1881), which was believed to be responsible for the refusal to pay rent, and for the accompanying outrages; but it could not extinguish the feeling which gave rise to that organization, and the angry discontent soon burst forth more violently than ever.

605.  The Second Irish Land Act (1881); Fenian and Communist Outrages.

Mr. Gladstone (S603) now succeeded in carrying through a second Irish Land Law (1881) (S603), which he hoped might be more effective in relieving the Irish peasants than the first had been.  This measure was familiarly known as the “Three F’s,”—­meaning Fair rent, Fixity of tenure, and Free sale.  By the provisions of this act the tenant could appeal to a board of land commissioners appointed to fix the rate of his rent in case the demands made by the landlord seemed to him excessive.