an unthreshed condition and in the form of wheat sheaves with a large admixture of tares, to the general storehouse of knowledge. For practical purposes it was of no value save from a negative point of view; it was of no use save to show in rather a vague way that the case of Wales is entirely distinct from that of Ireland or of the crofting areas of Scotland. This is a matter of some importance, because it is clear from the fact that three revolutionary Acts, contradicting and nullifying one another in some measure, have been passed in connection with Irish Land Tenure within the last thirtyfive years, and that the Crofters Acts have also been in active operation for some little time, that there is a large body of British citizens, more or less adequately represented in Parliament, who think that special circumstances may justify legislation contrary to economic principle, reactionary in tendency and confiscatory in spirit. For our part we venture to hold the contrary opinion and to believe that, great as are the present evils which have arisen from the Irish Land Acts, they are not to be compared with those which must inevitably follow from attempts to tinker at and improve. a system which is bound to produce increasing evils, since it is an attempt to defy those laws governing human action which are, as sound economists know, essentially laws of nature. But it is idle to pretend to ignore the existence of persons, some of them earnest men and thoughtful, who hold in complete sincerity an absolutely different theory. Prudence and generalship, therefore, dictate that, without surrendering for a moment the impregnable fortress of principle, we should meet our opponents first on their own ground.
Is there any similarity between the peaceful story of the advance of civilisation in Wales and the troubled history of Ireland? A glance at the annals of that unfortunate island makes the answer to that question apparent at once. Almost from the beginning of authentic history up to the