agitation or the formation of the Land League. It is, however, only right to say that the land question had been a 'hobby' of the 'Irish World's' almost from the birth of that paper. And it is but equally true to mention that twenty years before the appearance of this paper, there was a Tenant League in Ireland; while so far back as 1848, there appeared in Gavan Duffy's 'Nation' articles as strong in condemnation of Irish landlordism as any that have ever been printed in the 'Irish World.'

The very same reasons which appealed to the Irish people of America for a support of the Land League movement, influenced the editor and the proprietor of the 'Irish World.' The League attacked Irish landlordism. It proposed to abolish the system which had levelled the homes of tens of thousands who had then to look for shelter and opportunities to live beyond the Atlantic. The memory of the Crowbar brigade lived in the minds of expatriated American citizens, even when freer and happier surroundings might tend to obliterate the recollection of other adjuncts to Castle rule than landlordism; and a paper like the 'Irish World,' ably edited by the son of an evicted Galway peasant, would be no organ of Irish-American opinion, if it did not reflect the views and sentiments which every Irish exile has held of Irish landlordism. It therefore warmly espoused the movement of the Land League; but so likewise did every other organ of Irish-American opinion, save the paper owned and edited by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. The Boston Pilot,' the 'Buffalo Catholic Times,' the 'New York Weekly Union,' the 'IrishAmerican' of New York, the 'Monitor' of San Francisco, the 'Daily Post' of Montreal, and other journals whose names I cannot recall, were all enthusiastically helping the League, propagating its principles and appealing to their readers for financial support to the movement as well as the 'Irish World,' The 'Irish World,' therefore, while undoubtedly the strongest and most influential of the Irish journals supporting the League in America, was not the only one, as the Times' has sought to make out before this tribunal.

Some extracts have been read by counsel for the 'Times' from copies of the Irish World' to prove that its policy was one of extreme violence during its advocacy of the Land League movement. I will trespass a little upon the time of the Court in read

ing a few more which will show that the paper deprecated assassination, and endorsed the language of those who strove to keep the organisation of the League free from the charge of illegal or unconstitutional methods. My selections, few in number, will be from papers coming in matter of date within the ruling given by your Lordship on the question of the admissibility of the Irish World' as evidence.

In the 'Irish World' of April 16, 1881, page 1, there is a long historical editorial about the Skirmishing Fund. I will only give two extracts :—

'Now some of you gentlemen over there, in the London Parliament, may pounce upon this and try to use it against Parnell and the Land League. You have already shown yourselves capable of such tricks. But Parnell and the Land League are in nowise responsible for this Skirmishing idea.'

The President.-What was that idea?

Mr. M. Davitt.-This is giving a history, my Lord, of the Skirmishing idea.

The President.-It seemed to refer to something which had gone before.

Mr. M. Davitt.—Yes, it is a long leading article, from which quotations have been read, I think, by the 'Times,' giving a history of the part which the 'Irish World' played in this Skirmishing Fund idea, which I have partly explained to your Lordships this morning in my observations.

'Furthermore, the "Irish World" does not now advocate skirmishing. It does not advise physical warfare on any plan. The "Irish World "sincerely desires "Peace on earth." War, however, may yet become necessary in the settlement of this Irish question. Almost everything depends upon England herself. May God inspire her with a sense of justice.'

Then the article goes on down two or three columns, and it winds up as follows

:

'We had tried to keep both sides out of the newspapers; and failing in the effort, our confidence, not in the patriotism, but in the good sense, of the chiefs of the Irish movement got a chill,'

Those chiefs of the Irish movement refer to the Skirmishing Fund trustees, not to the Land League

'And we took no further interest in, nor did we offer any more encouragement to the Skirmishing Fund.'

Another article preceding that in matter of time, I find under the date of August 14, 1880, page 4. It is headed 'Landlord Lies' :

6

One of the favourite arguments of the land thieves against the Irish land agitation is that it is inciting the people to acts of violence. The changes are constantly rung on the charge with the intention of giving the world to understand that the object of the Land League is to inaugurate a reign of terror. Lord Oranmore and other "honourable " and "right honourable" land thieves never tire of narrating in the House of Lords stories of "outrages" that they directly trace to the land agitation, They are constantly proclaiming that the bonds of society are being loosened by the doctrines propagated by the land agitators, which, translated into plain English, means that landlordism is in danger of being destroyed.

'How much foundation in fact there is for the outrage stories told by those in the landlord interest is shown by the reports of the judges' charges to the grand juries that have been summoned for the business of the Summer assizes.

According to the Irish papers just at hand, 21 of these addresses have been delivered in 21 different places. With remarkable unanimity they bear testimony to the absence of anything like crime of any kind. This is not only a complete refutation of the charges of the land thieves, but it is also proof of the good work that is being done by the land agitators.

'Under their instruction the Irish people are taking broader views of the causes that produce the misery that they are made the victims of. They have been taught to look beyond the landlord, and to see not in him, but in the system that upholds him, the source of all their sufferings. They have learned that to shoot a landlord is but removing one tyrant to make room for another, and that the most sensible way of proceeding is to concentrate their energies upon an effort to uproot an institution that gives one man the power of life and death over so many of his fellow creatures,'

Well, my Lords, in this same line I will quote another article from this paper of December 11, 1880, the same year. It is headed :

'Sentence of Starvation.

'So far as deprecating assassination is concerned, that is well enough. No true Christian or friend of Ireland can afford to justify one crime by offering another. But so far from making the unnatural demise of two or three of these cruel monsters a cover for their iniquities, radical thinkers should be all the more bent upon exposing the crimes which can induce otherwise peaceable men to take upon their brows the brand of Cain.

'It is, moreover, cowardly and unbecoming in men of culture to hold the agitators who expose these crimes responsible for the results. Garrison, who, at the time of his most violent denunciations of chattel slavery, was an advocate of peace and non-resistance, always answered the charge of inciting assassination, by quietly asking slavery to bury its own dead. The old doctrine of "constructive treason," which formerly held a gag over the mouth of every reformer of England, was long since struck with death. It is doubtful whether the far more ridiculous doctrine of constructive assassination can be brought to life.'

Then, again, on February 12, 1881, page 4, there is an article, from which I will only read a short extract. It is headed—

'Fenian Plots.

'The Irish land agitators have declared over and over again that they have no quarrel with Englishmen; that, in fact, they are fighting the battle of the disinherited Englishman as well as their own, and look to the English democracy to support their Irish brothers in their struggle against landlordism. Things were getting too uncomfortable for the English landlords. They saw that the war would be soon carried into Africa.'

Which, my Lords, does not mean, as was once said in this Court, that we were carrying assistance to the Boers; it means, figuratively speaking, that we were to preach Land League doctrines here in Great Britain.

One more article in this connection. In the Irish World' of June 25, 1881, page 4, there is another article, headed

'The War in Ireland,' and I will quote from the concluding part

of it :'Never before in the history of Ireland was there a more sincere desire shown by the Irish people to obtain their rights by keeping within the lines of constitutional agitation than was displayed at the beginning, and all through the present agitation until the passage of the Coercion Act, when the English Government, trampling under foot all forms of decency, sought to stifle the voice of Ireland by methods worthy of Eastern despotism.

'If the discussion of a purely economical question has led Ireland to the verge of civil war, the English Government has itself to blame for this.

'Davitt, Brennan, and other Land League leaders who are now in prison, did their best to have the land agitation conducted without bloodshed or violence of any kind, and if they had been let alone they would have succeeded. But at the instigation of the landlords, Gladstone and his Cabinet undertook to stifle discussion.'

Then lower down the article this sentiment appears:

'A sort of guerilla warfare is at this moment being carried on in many parts of Ireland. Let anyone compare the present condition of affairs with that existing at the time of Davitt's arrest, and then tell us whether landlordism has profited much by seeking to obtain its object through brute force.'

Well, my Lords, extracts similar in tone to these could be multiplied from the files of the 'Irish World' which cover the Land League period; but I think those which I have read to your Lordships will prove that if Transatlantic' could in a few numbers of this paper rave like a madman about the feasibility of burning London, the editor could likewise frequently repudiate the use of violence and outrage in the Land League battle of land reform.

I come now to a very important part of what is called the 'American story.' That is with reference to the support given to Land League funds by the 'Irish World.'

What the 'Irish World' has said of Irish landlordism and English Government would never have troubled the political conscience of the 'Times' had the Land League not received through the 'Irish World' large sums of money. This is the