the two most crying national scandals of the western “congests” and the homeless evicted tenants.  No doubt there were many good and well-meaning men in the Party, and out of it, who thought this Bill should have been accepted as “an instalment of justice.”  But there are times when to be moderate is to be criminally weak, and this was one of them.  It is as certain as anything in life or politics can be that if the Bill of 1902 had been accepted, the Irish tenants would be still going gaily on under the old rent-paying conditions.  The United Irish League was still in the first blush of its pristine vigour, and when the delegates of the National Directory came up from the country to Dublin they soon showed the mettle they were made of.  They wanted no paltry compromises, and it was then and there decided to enter upon a virile campaign against rack-renters, grazing monopolists and land-grabbers such as would convince the Government in a single winter how grossly they had under-estimated the requirements of the country.

Some of the older men of the Party were pessimistic about the new campaign.  Messrs Dillon, Davitt and T.P.  O’Connor wrote a letter to Mr O’Brien remonstrating with him, in a tone of gentle courtesy, on the extreme character of his speeches and actions.  But Mr O’Brien was not to be deflected from his purpose by any friendly pipings of this kind.  The country was with him.  The country was roused to a pitch of passionate resistance to the Wyndham Bill, and the Government, seeing which way the wind blew, and realising that the time for half-measures was past, withdrew their precious Purchase Bill.  Then followed a fierce conflict along the old lines.  The Government sought to suppress the popular agitation by the usual antiquated methods.  Proclamation followed proclamation, until two-thirds of the Irish counties, and the cities of Dublin, Cork and Limerick, were proclaimed under the Coercion Act and the ordinary tribunals of justice abolished.  Public meetings were suppressed.  The leaders of the people were thrown into prison:  at one time no less than ten members of Parliament were in jail.  The country was seething with turmoil and discontent and there was no knowing where the matter would end.  The landlords, feeling the necessity for counter-action of some kind, organised a Land Trust of L100,000 to prosecute Messrs Redmond, Davitt, Dillon and O’Brien for conspiracy.  The United Irish League replied by starting a Defence Fund and arranging that Messrs Redmond, Davitt and Dillon should go to the United States to make an appeal in its support.  All the elements of social convulsion were gathering their strength, when an unknown country gentleman wrote a letter to the Irish newspapers dated 2nd September 1902, in the following terms:—­