the action of the Revolution in Ireland; but we are not certain that the efficacy of their action would be increased, if they were to confront their people in the new character of pensioners of the State. Nor do we believe that there is any desire on the part of the Catholic hierarchy and clergy for any adjustment of their relations with the State, that should precede that large revision of the laws regulating the tenure of land, which they universally feel to be absolutely necessary as the primary condition of the pacification of the country.

On this subject, it is remarkable to observe that English opinion is fast travelling far in advance of the largest demands ever made on behalf of the tenantry in the most sanguine moments of the agitation of the Tenant League. The League never urged the purchase of the properties of absentee landlords by the State, and their sale at easy rates to the occupying tenants--a course, which, if commenced on absentee properties, must inevitably be extended to all others. For it would be impossible to maintain a system of rack-rented estates covered by tenants at will alongside of these numerous colonies of independent peasant proprietors. An idea, which appears to find favour among an advanced and very influential school of political writers, and which is infinitely more simple, complete, and just, is the application to Ireland of the law of permanent settlement, introduced in Bengal by Lord Cornwallis. Another plan proposed is the summary conversion of all the Irish tenures into copyhold. And there seems to be very little doubt that if the Irish farmers were with anything like unanimity to demand such a settlement and show their determination to enforce it by all legal means, English opinion, which is tolerant even of the excesses of Sheffield Trades Unions, might be glad to find this great difficulty brought to a crisis, such that the imperial authority must effect a permanent solution of a question, which has been too long the plaything of party to the damage of the State. But while we regard such alternatives, and contemplate the whole dismal conditions and prospects of Ireland at present, how wonderful seems the blindness of the Governments, and the obstinacy of the landlords, who refused in 1852 the good and moderate arrangement proposed by Mr. Sharman Crawford and the Tenant League! Who can doubt, if that measure had been enacted then, how very different the state of the country, how very much better the position of the landlords even, would now be! An immense tenant right property would already have been created throughout Ireland. Millions money hoarded at low rates in the banks, or carried away to America or Australia, would have been productively sunk in

of

the soil. Emigration would doubtless have gone on, but the emigrant would not have carried away with him the peculiar bitterness, of which Fenianism is the product-he would have left the old homestead in Munster not less secure under the sanction of the law than that which he proposed to found amid the woods of Illinois. Ireland to his memory would wear the aspect, not of unrewarded labour and servile dependence, of base politics and state neglect, but of a homely happiness and a modest prosperity, pleasant to dwell upon amid the restless movement and stern materialism of American life.

He

With the experience of these fifteen years-and no one has had ampler opportunities of observation-it is marvellous to find so accomplished and so high-minded a nobleman as Lord Dufferin devoting himself to the task of defending the Irish landlords as, perhaps, all things considered, the greatest benefactors of their country, and declaring that there is hardly any necessity for further legislation, or at least for any very large or liberal legislation, on this subject. To any concession on the point of tenure Lord Dufferin is absolutely averse. believes that the tenantry don't even wish to have leaseswhich may be true of Ulster, where the tenant-right of the province provides an indefinite fixity of tenure, and which may be true also in some parts of the South, where the rules of certain estates, giving arbitrary powers to the agent, are embodied in them. But surely, the one great grievance of the Irish tenantry, as a class, is that they are tenants-at-will. Surely there can be no doubt that if they were all polled on the point, their demand would be a fixed tenure at a fixed rent. It may be impolitic, it may be impossible, to concede the demand, but assuredly there is evidence of a very general feeling in its favour; and we trust it is not necessary in these days to argue, as if de novo, that the great evil of the Irish tenant's state is its insecurity, that the exercise of their industry is insecure, that their possession of what property they have is insecure; that, unlike every other agricultural race on the surface of the globe, they are not authentically rooted in their own soil, but are only permitted such partial use and access to it as may suit the caprice and interest of a class, the majority of which is hostile to them on account of their religion and on account of their race.

Lord Dufferin, though averse to any legislation on the subject of tenure that would interfere with the existing freedom of contract, has no objection to the alteration of that presumption of law which has hitherto enabled the Irish landlords throughout three of the four provinces to confiscate the property of the tenantry. "Instead," he says, "of attempt

ing to regulate the relation of the two parties, by the ambiguous provisions of a fictitious lease" (why an Irish landlord must necessarily make a fictitious lease will perhaps puzzle Lord Dufferin's English readers; and the phrase certainly seems to us an involuntary condemnation of his general argument), "it would be simpler to reverse the existing presumption of the law, that whatever is affixed to the soil belongs to the landlord, and to declare instead that any bona fide improvement executed by a tenant, outside of a written contract, is the property of the tenant, for which, on surrendering possession of the farm, whether of his own accord or under compulsion, he shall be entitled to receive compensation from his landlord to the amount of the additional value annually accruing from it, to be assessed by arbitration or recovered by a court of law."

This is substantially the main principle of the bill introThe bill of the present duced by the late Government. Government proposes instead to lend the money of the State for the purpose of enabling the tenantry to establish a new class of property, with or without the consent of the landlord. In either case, it seems to us the old theory of landed property is proposed to be set aside. What greater objection in principle can there be to forcing the landlord to grant a lease at a fixed rent than there would be in forcing him to recognize a class of property created on his estate without his consent, whether with or without Government money? We regretted at the time that the bill of the late Government was not permitted to pass by the Irish Tories. We regret now that the bill of the present Government will not be permitted to pass by the Irish Liberals. This is a question, Parliament may feel well assured, in which the longer legislation is delayed, the worse for the landlords; and it needs little foresight to calculate that the next serious proposal to deal with this question will go as far beyond anything yet laid on the table of Parliament as the Reform Bill of the present year is in advance of the Reform Bill of 1859, or even the Reform Bill of 1865.

It is too probable, however, that no legislation will take place on the subject during the present Parliament; and it is not agreeable to contemplate the state in which Ireland may possibly be, by the time the writs are issued for the Reformed Parliament in 1869, if Fenian intrigues are to have two years' further full play without any beneficial intervention on the part of the legislature. If any other country in such circumstances were to be spoken of, it might be predicted that it would be ripe for revolution by that time. One revolution Ireland will pro

bably be ripe for, after another such session as the present-a revolution, not to be regretted, in the character of its Parlia mentary representatives. Exceptions there are, names which it would be idle or impertinent to suggest-but assuredly the general character of the Irish representation at present is its imbecility and servility. It may be doubted whether it has been so unequal to its responsibilities and opportunities at any time since the Union. There is a sort of indolent good-nature and a certain humourous charity in the general public opinion of the Irish nation on such matters; but when they are really roused, they react very rapidly and very ruthlessly against "humbug." It may be remembered as a case in point, what a clean sweep they made in 1852 of the old Conciliation Hall Members of Parliament. We strongly suspect that the effect of an Irish Reform Bill will be to make the similar operation which must take place in 1859 only very much more clean and complete.

May it please thee, oh most glorious S. Peter, to offer in my name this vow to the Divine Founder of the Church, from whom came down in thee and thy successors all the prerogatives of the supreme Pontificate and supreme Magisterium; and obtain for me to be henceforth so devoted to thy Chair, and so docile to the authority of thy successors, that by my constant firmness in the faith, I may partake in the sovereign blessing of never erring in the path of salvation."

The writer says, indeed, that he has no authority to assign any particular formula; and he presently adds: "It will appear to more than one person that the object and matter of the vow are too restricted; since duty and devotion towards the Holy See extend much further. But treating as we are of a vow, the above, for a time at least, may appear sufficient."

Considering the authority possessed by the Civiltà, there would seem to be no slight probability that this new devotion has received some kind of official sanction. Such a circumstance cannot but suggest the warmest hope that the Church is now actually on her way to a formal condemnation of Gallicanism. God grant we may live to see so blessed a consummation.

As we have been speaking in this notice of Roman matters, we will take the opportunity to place before our readers an address of the Pope in reply to the