Purchase Act, 1891, should be amended by a Bill
providing (1) That the existing Land Commission shall be
strengthened in order to form a Court to which either Landlords
or Tenants shall have the right to apply for an order of the
Court placing them under the provisions of the Act of 1891, or
such extension of that Act as may hereafter be made. (2) It
should be the duty of the Court to inquire into the relations of
landlord and tenant, the condition of the estate and of the
tenants, and such other circumstances as may in the wisdom of the
Court seem necessary. (3) If the Court decides to issue an order,
the parties shall at once be placed in the same position as if
they had entered into a mutual agreement under the Land Purchase
Act, 1891; but it shall be the duty of the Court to fix the
number of years' purchase; and it shall have power either to
restrict or to enlarge the number of holdings over which its
order shall take effect.

This is offered as the mere germ of a suggestion. I am familiar with
the arguments that may be brought against it. For the most part they
can be urged with equal effect against the whole system of
interference with that freedom of contract which prevails in England
and Scotland, but which, as I have pointed out, has already been
destroyed in Ireland. What I claim is that there _must_ be a means of
defeating such a conspiracy to make the law inoperative as that
practised--to the grave detriment of Irish tenants' interests--by the
omnipresent agencies of the National League, ever since the Unionist
party set itself to solve the agrarian sources of Irish discontent.

Birmingham, August 14th.

No. 61.--CLERICAL DOMINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Those who play at bowls must expect rubbers. The Roman priesthood of
Ireland having assumed the manipulation of Irish politics, have laid
themselves open to mundane criticism. Said Mr. Gladstone:--"It is the
peculiarity of Roman theology that by thrusting itself into the
temporal domain, it naturally, and even necessarily, comes to be a
frequent theme of political discussion." Priestly pretensions to
authority are without limit. The Catholic clergy of Ireland claim the
right to coerce the laity in political matters, themselves remaining
exempt from public criticism. They also claim to be exempt from civil
jurisdiction, and to have the right of overruling the law of the land,
with ever