which more information would be welcomed by the inquisitive portion of the public. The spectacle of Lords Salisbury and Granville sit ting side by side on the front Opposition Bench, with a pleasant smile on their faces instead of the angry look which they wore during the former night of the debate, was gladly hailed as a signal that a truce had been proclaimed between the two Houses-a truce with which, it may be said, as was remarked of the Peace of Amiens, every one is pleased and of which no one is proud. But who was the magician by whose intervention the storm was allayed? Was it Lord Cairns with his mellifluent voice? or Lord Granville, the gentlest and mildest of leaders? or the wise Speaker, by whose counsel it was that the House of Commons adjourned over Saturday to allow time for calm thought;-for if "la nuit porte conseil," certainly Sunday, and forty-eight hours amid the groves of Mentmore, is a wonderful soother of the nervous system. Or did Sir Henry Ponsonby's activity promote the "entente cordiale"? Who can say? All we know is that on Monday evening, to their great surprise, the Peers who crowded the gallery expecting to listen to a furious denunciation of the House of Lords, heard themselves mentioned in mild and gentle accents, and found that Mr. Gladstone approached the question no longer in the spirit of a Dictator but in that of a constitutional Minister. So it was in a hopeful disposition that a large number of Peers assembled in Arlington Street at two o'clock on Tuesday, and there was a feeling of universal satisfaction when their great chief rubbed off all the war-paint, buried the hatchet, and expressed his expressed his opinion that as the Premier had conceded so much, he was prepared to advise an unconditional accept

ance of the Bill as amended. Other Peers addressed the meeting, and the Marquis of Waterford expressed his gratitude to the noble leaders, to whose bold and gallant front it was owing that some meed of justice had now been meted to the landlords. It cannot be doubted that many present had privately represented their views to the leaders, that this was not the occasion to come into conflict with the Commons- - the state of Ireland, as worked up between the Government proffers and the Land League demands, was far too critical.

The Lords may well congratulate themselves on the result. They have shown that they know when to resist and when to yield; that it is their function not so much to resist as to improve measures when these are sent up to them. Lord Carlingford frankly admitted how much this measure had benefited by the Lords' amendments. The preliminary meetings of Peers, too, have proved to be of great use in averting a crisis. Those who were doubtful of the expediency of the course proposed by the leaders, did not speak out. This, however, is not to be regretted now, as it would have chilled the language of opposition. And it was Lord Salisbury's determined expression that gave Mr. Gladstone subject of thought. The Liberal organs have had their ingenuity sorely tried in dealing with the Premier's concessions. When they wish to abuse the Lords, the Ministerial journals declare that the criminal obstinacy of the Upper House has marred what would otherwise have been a perfect Bill. When they wish to apologise for the Premier, they tell us that his concessions amount to next to nothing. They cannot, then, attack the Lords as they did in 1870 for rendering the Bill inefficient by their amend

ments. The House of Lords never stood higher in the opinion of the country than at the present time. And not even the attacks which come from the quarters nearest to itself will detract from the deep conviction of the value of a House placed above popular passion, with which the Peers' discussion of the Land Bill has filled the public mind at the present moment. Such assaults upon the House of Peers as that directed recently by the Marquis of Blandford in the columns of a contemporary magazine, have too small an air of sincerity to carry weight with them, and only make readers regret that the descendant of so eminent a statesman as the great Marlborough should present in his own person a stronger confirmation than he has put forward with his pen of the popular objection to the House of Lords, that hereditary legislators do not necessarily transmit their wisdom to their representatives.

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The chief point of interest now connected with the Land Bill is the temper in which it will be received by the Irish people, and the effect which it will produce upon political disaffection and agrarian crime. As yet the condition of that country has given no satisfactory response to the Liberal message of peace;" nor has the party of agitation signified their intention of accepting the Act as an equivalent for their demands of a Land Revolution. That they will do their best to render the law unworkable, to push a civil war against the landlord by means of the unfavourable clauses of the Bill, and to prolong the agrarian agitation by swamping the Court with cases, may very safely be predicted. Should, however, a general withdrawal of support on the part of those who directly benefit by the Bill take place, Mr. Parnell and his

In

friends have sufficient ingenuity to change the venue, and find another popular cry with which to inflame the passions of the country. the Land Act, agitation has scored a success over the law and constitution of Great Britain, as well as over the sound principles of political economy; and it would be folly to

suppose that men SO bent upon promoting dissension between the two countries as are Mr. Parnell and his friends, will not seek to follow up their present triumph by future victories of a similar kind. There is a danger, too, that the impatient character of the Premier will induce him to proclaim the Irish millennium before sufficient evidence of the arrival of that happy event is forthcoming. The Irish have received their message of peace; and it is in keeping with Mr. Gladstone's temperament that he should forthwith act upon the assumption that the message has been listened to. The Coercion Act, never too firmly enforced by the present Government, has presented appearances during the last few months of being still more laxly applied to the disorders of the country, as if the Government were determined to seize the earliest opportunity of clearing the field for the fresh operations of the Land League, and the Fenian skirmishers whom the American citizens so benevolently supply with pocketmoney. The Parnellites are already preparing to rouse the Irish masses on the question of coercion during the recess, and it is not difficult to foresee that, amid the hubbub that will be raised, the voice of Mr. Gladstone's "message of peace" will be heard only inside the Land Court.

We take our leave of the Land Act with the painful feeling that the time of Parliament has been

wasted, and the business of the country disorganised, for a measure which is at best but a Ministerial idea; which affords no grounds of confidence in the present, and presents little element of hope for the future; that is destined to cripple and embitter the only influential class in Ireland, upon whose loyalty and co-operation the Crown has been at all times able to depend; and which is decidedly the most substantial encouragement that the Home Rulers have received in their resolution to persevere for the disruption of the Union. But above all, we look with the gravest apprehensions to the effect which the sanction of a novel and dangerous method of dealing with property in land may produce in the other parts of the United Kingdom. The recognition that the principle of "earth-hunger" is a legitimate feeling, which the State is bound to gratify as soon as it is forcibly expressed, affords a temptation that has a wider application than to Ireland. The depressed condition

of the British agriculturist, and the difficulties to which he is exposed by our present tariff policy, naturally tend to unsettle the contentment with which he has hitherto in most instances viewed the system of British land tenure; and he would be less than human if he did not envy the Irish cultivator a portion of the beneficence of which the State has just made the latter the recipient. The abortive attempts which the Land League have made to excite the agricultural classes in this country show that we are still some distance from an "earth-hunger" outcry, but it is from no fault of the present Government in not holding out a bait to agricultural cupidity. The presence of the Irish Land Act on the Statute Book certainly marks an epoch in the breaking up of the good relations that have subsisted between landlord and tenant, and gives the signal for a warfare of classes the results of which no one in the present generation can with certainty foretell.

Ir may be doubted whether a brighter, more prosperous, and specially a more orderly colony than Britannula was ever settled by British colonists. But it had its period of separation from the mother country, though never of rebellion,-like its elder sister New Zealand. Indeed, in that respect, it simply followed the lead given her by the Australias, which, when they set up for themselves, did so with the full co-operation of England. There was, no doubt, a special cause with us which did not exist in Australia, and which was only, in part, understood by the British Government when we Britannulists were allowed to stand by ourselves. The great doctrine of a "Fixed Period" was received by them at first with ridicule, and then with dismay; but it was undoubtedly the strong faith which we of Britannula had in that doctrine which induced our separation. Nothing could have been more successful than our efforts to live alone dur

VOL. CXXX.-NO. DCCXCII.

ing the thirty years that we remained our own masters. We repudiated no debt, as have done some of our neighbours; and no attempts have been made towards communism, -as has been the case with others. We have been laborious, contented, and prosperous; and if we have been reabsorbed by the mother country, in accordance with what I cannot but call the pusillanimous conduct of certain of our elder Britannulists, it has not been from any failure on the part of the island, but from the opposition with which the Fixed Period has been regarded.

I think I must begin my story by explaining in moderate language a few of the manifest advantages which would attend the adoption of the Fixed Period in all countries. As far as the law went it was adopted in Britannula. adoption was the first thing discussed by our young assembly, when we found ourselves alone; and though there were disputes

2 D

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on the subject, in none of them was opposition made to the system. I myself, at the age of thirty, had been elected Speaker of that Parliament. But I was, nevertheless, able to discuss the merits of the bills in committee, and I did So with some enthusiasm. Thirty years have passed since, and my "period" is drawing nigh. But I am still as energetic as ever, and as assured that the doctrine will ultimately prevail over the face of the civilised world, though I will acknowledge that men are not as yet ripe for it.

The Fixed Period has been so far discussed as to make it almost unnecessary for me to explain its tenets, though its advantages may require a few words of argument in a world that is at present dead to its charms. It consists altogether of the abolition of the miseries, weakness, and fainéant imbecility of old age, by the prearranged ceasing to live of those who would otherwise become old. Need I explain to the inhabitants of England, for whom I chiefly write, how extreme are those sufferings, and how great the costliness of that old age which is unable in any degree to supply its own wants? Such old age should not, we Britannulists maintain, be allowed to be. This should be prevented, in the interests both of the young and of those who do become old when obliged to linger on after their "period" of work is over. Two mistakes have been made by mankind in reference to their own race, first, in allowing the world to be burdened with the continued maintenance of those whose cares should have been made to cease, and whose troubles should be at an end. Does not the Psalmist say the same?" If by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

yet is their strength labour and sorrow." And the second, in requiring those who remain to live a useless and painful life. Both these errors have come from an illjudged and a thoughtless tenderness,- -a tenderness to the young in not calling upon them to provide for the decent and comfortable departure of their progenitors; and a tenderness to the old lest the man, when uninstructed and unconscious of good and evil, should be unwilling to leave the world for which he is not fitted. But such tenderness is no better than unpardonable weakness. Statistics have told us that the sufficient sustenance of an old man is more costly than the feeding of a young one,— as is also the care, nourishment, and education of the as yet unprofitable child. Statistics also have told us that the unprofitable young and the no less unprofitable old form a third of the population. Let the reader think of the burden with which the labour of the world is thus saddled. To these are to be added all who because of illness cannot work, and because of idleness will not. How are a people to thrive when so weighted? And for what good? As for the children, they are clearly necessary. They have to be nourished in order that they may do good work as their time shall come. But for whose good

are the old and effete to be maintained amid all these troubles and miseries? Had there been any one in our Parliament capable of showing that they could reasonably desire it, the bill would not have been passed. Though to me the politicoeconomical view of the subject was always very strong, the relief to be brought to the aged was the one argument to which no reply could be given.

It was put forward by some who