IRISH AGRARIAN TENURE. 79 



so obviously from the Irish national standpoint 

 that one cannot but wonder again and again at 

 the simplicity of' the English politicians who 

 with undiminished enthusiasm imagine that 

 every new Irish Land Bill is to prove a ' final 

 settlement.' 



The movement of the year 1878 was ulti- 

 mately organised as the Land League, founded 

 by Michael Davitt. It found its leader in 

 Charles Stewart Parnell.^ Its weapons were, 

 in Parliament obstruction, in Ireland a fierce 

 agitation. Agrarian agitation in Ireland had 

 hitherto been generally accompanied by agrarian 

 murders. The new movement did not favour 

 this form of political persuasion, not exactly 

 from sentiment, but because it had at its disposal 

 a better method — that of the boycott. No 

 landlord evicted any tenant in order to lose 

 money by the transaction ; the eviction took 

 place in order that the land might be leased on 

 better conditions to another and a solvent tenant. 

 Now every man who ventured to take the land 

 of an evicted tenant was boycotted at the 

 instance of the League, i.e., he was cut off from 

 all intercourse with his kind. The boycott was 

 extended even into the church, for the clergy 

 neither could nor would check it.^ The means 



^"Life of Michael Davitt," p. 215. 



^"Life ofParnell," I., pp. 236 efse(^. The term "boycott" 

 comes from the name of its first victim, a Captain Boycott in 

 Mayo, against whom this sentence of excommunication was 

 first directed. 



