LAND LEAGUE. One of the leagues found ed at different times in Ireland to improve the condition of the tenant. In the winter of 1879-80 the agrarian distress caused by par tial failure of the crops during the preceding year assumed the proportions of a famine. The peasants were unable to pay rents. and wholesale evictions followed, with consequent resistance and conflicts with the police. At this time Sliehael Davitt conceived the plan of forming an organization of tenant farmers to further the tenants' interests. Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Party, approved of the plan, and on the 21st of October, 1879, the Land League was organized in Dublin. with Parnell as president and Davitt as one of the three secre taries. The object of the League was to raise money for the relief of the distressed Irish peasantry. and to furnish them with legal counsel in resisting the landlords. It advocated the peasant proprietorship of the soil as a remedy for tire existing evils. The League grew in Ireland and was very effective in preventing evic tions and reducing rents. Its agitation. however, was incendiary in character, and disturbances became more frequent. To relieve the distress, Gladstone in 1880 secured the passage of a bill providing for the temporary suspension of evic tions, but the Lords by an overwhelming majority rejected the measure. This action on the part of the Lords increased the outrages in Ireland. Although the most radical leaders of the Land League. especially Michael Davitt. deprecated the
use of force, they were unable to prevent it. Cattle were frequently mutilated, and murders of land lords occurred in different parts of the country. Rents were often withdrawn altogether. In No vember, 1880, the Government charged Parnell and his associate leaders with piracy. but failed to convict them. In order to meet the lawless ness, and at the same time to remedy agrarian distress, Forster, the Irish Secretary, introduced coercion bills, which were to be followed by a land act. These bills were passed amid un paralleled scenes of disorder on the part of the Irish members, and the famous Land Act of 1881 became a law. (See IRI)H LAND LAWS.) The League was not satisfied with the concessions made, and in the next convention. held at Dublin in the following September, it was decided, on the advice of Parnell, to continue the agitation and resistance until the new law had been tested in the courts. The Government thereupon de cided to suppress the League. Parnell, Davitt, and the other leaders were arrested and im prisoned. They replied by the famous No Rent Manifesto, exhorting the Irish people to pay no rent while their leaders were in prison. This caused the Government to declare the suppression of the League by the decree of October 18, 1881. The reforms which the Land League hoped to institute were taken up and in part effected by the Irish National League under Parnell's leader ship.