GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



369 



Michael Davitt, Thomas Brennan, John Dil- 

 lon, and Thomas Sexton ; and by Patrick Egan, 

 the treasurer, who had escaped to Paris. This 

 document declared that the Government had 

 forced a crisis while the land act was yet un- 

 tested, in order to strike down the u only power 

 which might extort any solid benefits for the 

 tenant-farmers of Ireland from that act." It 

 stated that the League was preparing to test 

 the land act, and also taking measures to se- 

 cure, in the event of the land act proving to 

 be " a mere paltry mitigation of the horrors of 

 landlordism, in order to fasten it the more se- 

 curely upon the necks of the people," that the 

 tenant-farmers should be able to fall back upon 

 the " magnificent organization which was crush- 

 ing landlordism out of existence." The mani- 

 festo goes on as follows : 



One constitutional weapon now remains in the 

 hands of the Irish National Land League. It is the 

 strongest, the swiftest, the most irresistible of all. 

 We hesitated to advise our fellow-countrymen to em- 

 ploy it, until the savage lawlessness of the English 

 Government provoked a crisis in which we must con- 

 sent to see the Irish tenant-farmers deprived of their 

 organization and laid once more prostrate at the feet 

 of the landlords, and every murmur of Irish opinion 

 suppressed with an armed hand, or appeal to our 

 countrymen to at once resort to the only means now 

 left in our power of bringing this false and brutal 

 Government to its senses. Fellow-countrymen, the 

 hour to try your souls and to redeem your pledges 

 has arrived. The Executive of the Irish National 

 Land League, forced to abandon the policy of testing 

 the land act, feels bound to advise the tenant-farmers 

 of Ireland from this time forth to pay no rents under 

 any circumstances to their landlords, until the Gov- 

 ernment relinquishes the existing system of terrorism 

 and restores the constitutional rights of the people. 

 Do not be daunted by the removal of your leaders. 

 Your fathers abolished tithes by the same methods 

 without any leaders at all, and with scarcely a shadow 

 o_f the magnificent organization that covers every por- 

 tion of Ireland to-day. Do not let yourselves be in- 

 timidated by threats of military violence. It is as 

 lawful to refuse to pay rents as it is to receive them. 

 Against the passive resistance of an entire population 

 military power has no weapons. Do not be wheedled 

 into compromise of any sort by the dread of eviction. 

 If you only act together in the spirit to which, within 

 the last two years, you have countless times pledged 

 your vows, they can no more evict a whole nation 

 than they can imprison them. The funds of the Na- 

 tional Land League will be poured out unstintedly for 

 the support of all who may endure eviction in the 

 course of the struggle. Our exiled brothers in Amer- 

 ica may be relied upon to contribute, if necessary, as 

 many millions of money as they have contributed 

 thousands to starve out landlordism, and bring Eng- 

 lish tyranny to its knees. You have only to show that 

 you are not unworthy of the boundless sacrifices in 

 your cause. No power on earth except faint-hearted- 

 ness on your own part can defeat you. Landlordism is 

 already staggering under the blows which you have 

 dealt it amid the applause of the world. One more 

 crowning struggle for your land, your homes, your 

 lives a struggle in which you have all the memories 

 of your race, all the hopes of your children, all the 

 sacrifices of your imprisoned brothers, all your crav- 

 ings for rent-enfranchised land, for happy homes, 

 and national freedom to inspire you one more heroic 

 effort to destroy landlordism at the very source and 

 fount of its existence, and the system which was and 

 is the curse of your race and of your existence will 

 have disappeared for ever. The world is watching to 

 see whether all your splendid hopes and noble cour- 

 VOL. xxi. 24 A 



age will crumble away at the first threat of a coward- 

 ly tyranny. You have to choose between throwing 

 yourselves upon the mercy of England and taking 

 your stand by the organization whicn has once before 

 proved too strong for English despotism. You have 

 to choose between all-powerful unity and impotent dis- 

 organization between the land for the landlords and 

 the land for the people. We can not doubt your choice. 

 Every tenant-farmer in Ireland is the standard-bearer 

 of the flag unfurled at Irishtown, and can bear it to a 

 glorious victory. Stand together in the face of the 

 brutal and cowardly enemies of your race. Pay no 

 rents under any pretext. Stand passively, firmly, 

 fearlessly by while the armies of England may be en- 

 gaged hi their hopeless struggle against a spirit which 

 their weapons can not touch. Act for yourselves, if 

 you are deprived of the counsels of those who have 

 shown you how to act. No power of legalized vio- 

 lence can extort one penny from your purses against 

 your will. If you are evicted you should not suffer. 

 The landlord who evicts will be a ruined pauper, and 

 the Government which supports him with its bayo- 

 nets will learn in a single winter how po_werless its 

 armed force is against the will of a united, deter- 

 mined, and self-reliant nation. 



A counter-proclamation was issued by the 

 Irish Executive, denouncing the League as an 

 unlawful assembly and criminal association, 

 and giving the assurance that all the powers 

 and resources of the Government would be 

 employed "to protect the Queen's subjects in 

 Ireland, in the free exercise of their lawful 

 rights and the peaceful pursuit of their lawful 

 callings and occupations, to enforce the fulfill- 

 ment of all lawful obligations, and to save the 

 process of the law and the execution of the 

 Queen's writs from hindrance or obstruc- 

 tion." 



The offices of the Land League were taken 

 possession of and closed by the Government on 

 October 21st. The Ladies' Land League, under 

 the presidency of Miss Anna Parnell, issued an 

 address calling upon the people to remain faith- 

 ful to the League, declaring that once more 

 " an alien Government, in the hope of stifling 

 the unconquerable resolve of the Irish race to 

 maintain a place on the soil allotted to it by 

 Providence, is prepared to confiscate the liber- 

 ties of an entire nation." They appealed for 

 aid for the prisoners, expressing the resolution 

 to do their part in the great struggle " of which 

 the issue will be the regeneration of Ireland." 

 A resolution was offered, at a meeting of the 

 Corporation of Dublin, to confer the freedom 

 of the city on Parnell and Dillon, as an expres- 

 sion of indignation at tlie course of the Gov- 

 ernment, and it was only lost by the casting 

 vote of the mayor. The " No rent " proclama- 

 tion elicited a letter from Archbishop Croke, 

 in which he advised the people not to reject 

 the benefits of the land act at the command 

 of their rash leaders ; he subsequently recom- 

 mended them to tender what they considered 

 a fair rent, and throw the responsibility on the 

 landlords of refusing this. The prisoners, after 

 a few days, declined to receive longer the fare 

 provided by the efforts of the ladies, declaring 

 that they would be content with ordinary 

 prison rations. In December prominent mem- 

 bers of the interdicted League, who were still 



