As many of the houses are valueless to the landlord, they aid the purpose of eviction better than superior dwellings would. They can be pulled down over the heads of the occupiers without loss to the owners. That was very often done during the famine. In the village of Balinglass, Galway County, sixty houses were pulled down in order to be rid of the occupants, who were unable to pay rent, the only one left standing being that of a man and woman, who were ill of the fever; and this afflicted couple were informed that if they did not leave the place in fifteen days 'the house would be tumbled on top of them.' The dishomed people had to sleep under walls and in ditches, and not a few perished through hunger and starvation. As an evidence that the destruction of houses is a convenience for the sake of ejectment, it may be noticed that the number of peasant cabins, which, in 1841, was 491,278, in 1851 had fallen to 135,589. In Connaught, where famine, pestilence, and eviction raged most severely, the number of cabins fell from 126,346 in 1841 to 31,586 in 1851.

Fifthly, the most unsatisfactory thing, and one which is at the very root of the whole evil, is the tenure on which, as a rule, these houses and lands are held. Since the famine there has been an improvement in the size of the holdings, but not much in the security of the tenure. Tenancy at will continues to be the rule, and permanency the exception. There are 77.2 per cent. or nearly three-fourths of the whole number of holdings on such insecurity. There is what is called the Ulster tenant-right. It provides that, while a man is honest, industrious, and temperate, and pays his rent, he shall have the right of staying on his holding, and shall not be turned off at the mere whim of the landlord. It provides, further, that when he is turned off he shall be paid for the unexhausted value of the improvements he has made; and he can also arrange for a sum to be paid him by the incoming tenant for the goodwill of the farm. These laws, which have been established in the province of Ulster, have greatly diminished incendiary fires, and mobs, and riots; and, with certain improvements which can be made in them, they ought to be extended over the whole green surface of Ireland. Statistics show that Ulster stands first in the quality of its house accommodation, highest in the scale of education, and richest in the capital of its live stock. These are unquestionable evidences of comparative prosperity. They are not attributable to any superiority of climate or soil; to some degree they are owing to difference of race and habits of thought, but, in the main, they are due to a system of tenure which secures to the tenant full repayment for improvement when, for any cause, he has to quit his farm.

The best mode of security is that of a lease for a term of years, both parties being free at the end of the lease. That has the sanction of custom in most civilised countries; and it has done more to develop the capabilities of the soil in Great Britain and advance the wages of labour than has any other system. It would solve many difficulties if it could be generally introduced in Ireland; but its adoption depends upon the joint will of landlord and tenant. In the ninety years ending with 1870 rent in Ireland had only doubled, while in England and Scotland, where there is more security of tenure, it has tripled and even sex-tripled. As is shown by the Income Tax assessors, there has been, until the last year or two, a gradual progress in the actual rental in this country, while Ireland continues to be left behind. An Irish member of Parliament, who has landed property in three Irish counties, said to John Bright that any measure which would give security of tenure to the farmer would add ten years' purchase to the value of landed property.

The relations between landlord and tenant are nowhere so unsatisfactory as they are in Ireland. The rule is for the tenant to execute. at his own cost all the permanent improvements on his farm, and also to hold his farm without any written contract with his landlord. In the absence of such contract, it is assumed that the tenancy is terminable yearly. Buildings and other improvements on land, by whomsoever effected, instantly become the property of the landlord, and on eviction no compensation can be claimed. The tendency, of course, is to hinder improvements and prevent the highest development of agriculture. Such system has many injurious consequences. In proper culture a man must plough deeply, clean thoroughly, and manure richly with his green crop, not for that crop alone, but for the corn and grass crops which are to follow; in fact, for his whole rotation, which may extend over from six to eight years, according to the soil, climate, and system of management. If he is suddenly evicted after that expenditure is made, and before he has reaped its benefit in the subsequent crops, he is simply robbed by law. When he has reason to apprehend that his course of management may be thus cut short, his only remedy is to stint his expenditure and starve the land. Thus the land, the landlord, and the tenantry are all in a worse condition, and the tenant in the worst of all. In England no man enters upon a tillage farm with the expectation that he is actually to occupy for a single year only. But in Ireland men seem to go in at haphazard, trusting, too, perhaps, to the good nature of the landlord, or, without much forethought about it, doing as their fathers have done before them. Much vexation and anxiety is often very recklessly inflicted

on Irish tenants by agents giving them notice to quit for some frivolous cause, not seriously meant to be acted upon.

Thus there are 500,000 tenants living for the most part in a condition of continual insecurity. The rent may be raised half-a-crown an acre this year and half-a-crown the next. If a farm passes from a father to a son, or from a widow to a son, or from a farmer to his brother, it is the occasion of an advance of rent. The tenant becomes irritable beyond endurance. He sees the end to which he is being driven. He cannot live upon the farm, and may find himself homeless in his own country. There being little but the land to depend upon, those who cannot get land must starve or go out of the country. The men who hold the land hold the homes and the lives of the people. Hence there is a fiercer competition for land than is the case in our own country, and the landlord and his agents have more opportunities to obtain an increase of rent. The amount exacted per acre, as a rule, is not excessive, if the land were well farmed and the tenantry had security and an adequate capital. But on such a system the tenants will not cultivate the land to the best of their knowledge, or according to the best of their capital, knowing that improvements would lead to an increase of rent or a notice to quit. An extensive and intelligent farmer in this country, who had been over to Ireland and passed through some of the discontented and suffering districts, said to Mr. Bright- The land is soaking, the cultivation is slovenly, and the farms do not produce more than half what ought to be obtained from them; and as to insecurity, a man hardly dare put on a good new coat for fear it should be discovered and looked upon as a sign that he could pay a little more rent.'

Herein we think lie the causes of Irish troubles. It is for some only of these causes that statesmen can ever find a remedy. They may possibly settle the Land Question, and settle it for ever. It should be our hope and prayer that they may. Many difficulties are in the way. The landed interest, especially in the Upper House, is very great. Numbers are always so blinded with selfishness as to be unable to see what is really for their own good. There is an occasion for all pious people to pray that our rulers may be Divinely guided. The question at issue is a burning one. It is a source of chronic discontent and disaffection, and will continue to be so if patchwork remedies be applied. It is the chief thing which maintains the antagonism of the Irish representatives in the British Parliament and almost blocks the wheels of the legislative machine. The solution of the Irish Land Question is therefore most urgent. It is important not only to every Irishman but to every British subject that it should be settled on a sound and

permanent basis, by discovering the true principles of land tenure and acting upon them.

That which future historians will characterise as The Famous Land Bill' of 1881, and which will help to perpetuate the memory of Mr. Gladstone as the greatest English statesman of the nineteenth century, has struggled its way slowly but triumphantly through the House of Commons. Not for the last half century has Parliament been engaged in dealing with any measure which could compare in its importance as a constructive piece of law-making with this. When we think of the circumstances which have surrounded it, the conditions under which it has been debated, the opposition and obstruction it has had to contend with, we may fairly come to the conclusion that the work imposed upon its promoters has been greater than ever before undertaken by any minister of the crown. The Bill itself is a most elaborate and remarkable measure, startling alike in its boldness and ingenuity. It goes far away from the beaten track of modern legislation. The high and dry notions of that system of political economy which has generally obtained have been rudely cast aside. Cherished theories are torn to shreds to meet the necessities of hard facts. The very basis of the Bill is the recognition of the truth that the present state of things in Ireland is intolerable; that something must be done, no matter at what cost, to establish peace there between the owners and the occupiers of the soil, and to give to all classes a chance of prospering in the land in which their lot has been cast. The first care of the authors of the measure is evidently to produce a scheme which shall be really efficient; whilst, side by side with this care, there runs through every provision of the scheme, like a golden thread, the resolve to do injustice to none, whether they be landlords or tenants. It has required an enormous amount of ingenuity-yea, positive genius, on the part of the authors, to meet the double difficulty with which they were confronted-to afford effectual help to one class without acting unjustly towards the other. Many wondered what would become of this great measure in the Upper House. Every one was asking, What will the Lords do with this Bill, to which so much time and talent have been devoted?' They have not been able either to reject the Bill or to mutilate it as they did the Land Bill of 1870, which was deprived of its most salient points, and rendered comparatively useless, but have had to pass it on substantially unaltered to receive the seal of the sovereign, and to be numbered in the Acts of Victoria's reign; and, with the blessings of Him who came to bring peace on earth and goodwill towards men, we cannot doubt results.

JOSEPH WOOD.

6

VI.-SALVATION.

6

In the closing chapter of his admirable little book on the Study of Words, Dr. Trench points out that we must often deal with words as the gold and silver currency of the realm is dealt with. Words, like coins, are apt, through use and custom, to have their significance worn away, to lose not only their clear brightness and well-defined sharpness of outline, but much of their weight and intrinsic value,' and it is necessary, periodically, to recall them, re-mint them, and issue them afresh, bright and sharp, weighty and full as at first.' We propose to put the word which heads this paper through just such a process. And certainly, so far as we can judge, there is no word in common use among religious people which is more in need of this office of rehabilitation. If use and custom have eroded the superscription of any word-coin in common circulation, that word-coin is 'Salvation.' In the course of the centuries since it was first minted it has suffered almost every sort of indignity. It has been stained, and clipped, and perforated, until it is difficult to make out what was the original image it bore, or what the device which was first stamped on its surface. Let us cast it into the crucible once more, and submit it, if possible, to the pressure of its original mould or matrix, so that we may learn -what is so important to be known-what was its primary similitude and significance. Or, forsaking our metaphor, let it be our business to find out, as far as we can, what is the real essential nature of Salvation, what we ought to mean when we use the term 'Salvation,' what is the inner thought-meaning which should invariably be associated with that much-used and, I fear, also much-abused word.

If any apology or explanation be needed for asking our readers to study with us the meaning of a word or expression which everybody thinks he understands well enough for himself, we find that apology not only in the intrinsic importance of the subject-that is beyond question-but in those considerations we have already presented in the form of metaphor, as well as in other and stronger ones closely connected with them. The term has suffered adulteration and debasement unquestionably, but something worse even than that has happened. Men, for the most part, have been largely unconscious of that deterioration; the effacement of the original image has been so gradual that it has been almost imperceptible; the time-worn coin has not