In Ireland the plundering and even extermination of the tenant 
farmer and his family by the landlord is called the property right, 
whereas the desperate farmer’s revolt against his ruthless ex- 
ecutioner is called an agrarian outrage. These acGRrariaN OUTRAGES, * 
which are actually very few in number but are multiplied and 
exaggerated out of all proportion by the kaleidoscope of the 
English press in accordance with orders received, have, as you will 
know, provided the excuse for reviving the regime of white terror 
in Ireland. On the other hand, this regime of terror makes it 
possible for the landowners to redouble their oppression with 
impunity. 

I have already mentioned that the Land Bill consolidates 
landlordism under the pretext of giving aid to the tenant farmers. 
Nevertheless, in order to pull the wool over people’s eyes and 
clear his conscience, Gladstone was compelled to grant this new 
lease of life to landlord despotism subject to certain legal 
formalities. It should suffice to say that in the future, as in the past, 
the landlord’s word will become law if he succeeds in imposing on 
his Tenants at wit.” the most fantastic rents which are impossible to 
pay or, in the case of land tenure agreements, makes his farmers 
sign contracts which will bind them to voluntary slavery. 

And how the landlords are rejoicing! A Dublin newspaper, the 
Freeman, publishes a letter from Father P. Lavelle,“ the author of 
The Irish Landlord since the Revolution, in which he says: 

journal, March 29, 1870.— Ed. 

“IT have seen piles of letters addressed to tenants by their landlord, the brave 
captain, and ‘absentee’ living in England, warning them that from now on their 
rents are to be raised by 25%. This is equivalent to an eviction notice! And this 
from a man who does nothing for the land except live off its produce!” 

The Irishman on the other hand publishes the new tenure 
agreements dictated by Lord Dufferin,” the member of Gladstone’s 
Cabinet who inspired the Land Bill and introduced the Coercion 
Bill in the House of Lords. Add the rapacious shrewdness of an 
expert moneylender and the despicable chicanery of the advocate 
to feudal insolence and you will have a rough idea of the new land 
tenure agreements invented by the noble Dufferin. 

It is now easy to see that the rule of terror has arrived just in 
time to introduce the rule of the Land Bill! Let us suppose, for 
example, that in a certain Irish county the farmers refuse either to 
allow a 25% rent increase or to sign Dufferin’s land tenure 
agreements! The county’s landlords will then get their valets or 
the police to send them anonymous threatening letters, as they 
have in the past. This also counts as an “agrarian outrage’. The 
landlords inform the Viceroy, Lord Spencer, accordingly. Lord 
Spencer then declares that the district is subject to the provisions 
of the Coercion Act which is then applied by the same landlords, 
in their capacity as magistrates, against their own tenants! 

Journalists who are imprudent enough to protest will not only 
be prosecuted for sedition, but their printing presses will be 
confiscated without the semblance of legal proceedings! 

It should, perhaps, now be obvious why the head of your 
executive” congratulated Gladstone on the improvements which he 
had introduced in Ireland, and why Gladstone returned the 
compliment by congratulating your executive on its constitutional 
concessions. “A Roland for an Olivier‘ those of your readers 
who know Shakespeare will say. But others who are more versed 
in the Moniteur than in Shakespeare will remember the letter sent 
by the head of your executive to the late Lord Palmerston 
containing the words “Let us not act like knaves!” 

Now [I shall return to the question of political prisoners, not 
without good cause. 

The publication of Rossa’s first letter in the Marseillaise“ 
produced a great effect in England—the result is to be an 
enquiry. 

The following dispatch was printed by all the newspapers in the 
United States: 

“The Marseillaise says that O’Donovan Rossa was stripped naked once a day and 
examined, that he was starved, that he was locked in a dark cell, that he was 
harnessed to a cart, and that the death of his fellow prisoners was caused by the 
cold to which they were exposed.” 

The Irishmans New York correspondent says: 

“The Rochefort Marseillaise has placed the suffering of the Fenian prisoners 
before the eyes of the American people. We owe a debt of gratitude to the 

Rossa’s letter has also been published by the German press.‘ 

From now onwards the English government will no longer be 
able to commit its outrages in silence. Mr. Gladstone will gain 
nothing from his attempt to silence the Irish press. Each journalist 
imprisoned in Ireland will be replaced by a hundred journalists in 
France, Germany and America. 

What can Mr. Gladstone’s narrow-minded, out-of-date policies 
do against the international spirit of the nineteenth century? 

b “The Irishman in New York”, The Irishman, No. 40, April 2, 1870.— Ed. 
© Der Volksstaat, No. 22, March 16, 1870.— Ed.