The city is the
centre of an extensive agricultural region, famous, according to an
ancient ditty, for "fire without smoke, air without fog, water without
mud, and land without bog"; but of late it has been undeniably
declining. For this there are many reasons. The railways and the
parcel-post diminish its importance as a local emporium. The almost
complete disappearance of the woollen manufacture, the agricultural
depression which has made the banks and wholesale houses "come down"
upon the small dealers, and the "agitation," bankrupting or exiling the
local gentry, have all conspired to the same result.

From Abbeyleix station we walked back to the house through the park
under trees beautifully silvered with the snow. At dinner the party was
joined by several residents of the county. One of them gave me his views
of the working of the "Plan of Campaign." It is a plan, he maintains,
not of defence as against unjust and exacting landlords, but of offence
against "landlordism," not really promoted, as it appears to be, in the
interest of the tenants to whose cupidity it appeals, but worked from
Dublin as a battering engine against law and order in Ireland. Every
case in which it is applied needs, he thinks, to be looked into on its
own merits. It will then be found precisely why this or that spot has
bees selected by the League for attack. At Luggacurren, for instance,
the "Plan of Campaign" has been imposed upon the tenants because the
property belongs to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who happens to be
Governor-General of Canada, so that to attack him is to attack the
Government. The rents of the Lansdowne property at Luggacurren, this
gentleman offers to prove to me, are not and never have been excessive;
and Lord Lansdowne has expended very large sums on improving the
property, and for the benefit of the tenants. Two of the largest
tenants having got into difficulties through reckless racing and other
forms of extravagance found it convenient to invite the league into
Luggacurren, and compel other tenants in less embarrassed circumstances
to sacrifice their holdings by refusing to pay rents which they knew to
be fair, and were abundantly able and eager to pay. At Mitchelstown the
"Plan of Campaign" was aimed again, not at the Countess of Kingston, the
owner, but at the Disestablished Protestant Church of Ireland, the
trustees of which hold a mortgage of a quarter of a million sterling on
the estates. On the Clanricarde p