ian troubles and the unsettlement that
attended them there has been a notable decline in the consumption of
alcohol. To reverse an old saying: "Ireland sober is Ireland free"--it
may be said that "Ireland free (of landlordism) is Ireland sober." And
then the happiness of being the master of one's own homestead! No race
in the world clings so lovingly to the soil as the Irish. We have the
clan feeling of a personal love and affection for the spot of earth
where we were born, and when the shadows of evening begin to fall
athwart our lives, do we not wish to lay ourselves down in that
hallowed spot where the bones of our forefathers mingle with the dust
of ages? Truly we love the land of our birth--every stone of it, every
blade of grass that grows in it, its lakes, its valleys, and its
streams, each mountain that in rugged grandeur stands sentinel over
it, each rivulet that whispers its beautiful story to us--and because
we would yet own it for our very own, we grudge not the sacrifices
that its final deliverance demands, for it will be all the dearer in
that its liberty was dearly purchased with the tears and the blood of
our best!

The settlement of the Evicted Tenants Question was another of the
vital issues salved from the wreckage. There were from eight to ten
thousand evicted tenants--"the wounded soldiers of the Land War" as
they were termed--to whom the Irish Party and the National
Organisation were pledged by every tie of honour that could bind all
but the basest. The Land Conference Report made an equitable
settlement of the Evicted Tenants problem an essential portion of
their treaty of peace. But the revival of an evil spirit amongst the
worst landlords and the interpretations of hostile law officers
reduced the Evicted Tenants clause in the Act of 1903 almost to a
nullity. In this extremity the Cork evicted tenants requested the Land
Conference to reassemble and specify in precise language the
settlement which they regarded as essential. All the representatives
of the landlords and of the tenants on the Conference accepted the
invitation, with the single exception of Mr Redmond. Eventually,
despite these and other discouragements, the Conference met in Dublin
in October 1906, sat for three days, and agreed upon lines of
settlement which were given effect to in legislation by Mr Bryce the
following year. True, the restoration of these unhappy men did not
proceed as rapidly as their sacrifices or interests dem