As has so often happened in the affairs of Ireland, her real condition at this period was not understood; and the reform in her land system, which had become essential, was indefinitely delayed with disastrous results. Meanwhile, though things were serene on the surface, the inherent vices in Irish landed relations were not really changed, and, in some respects, were made worse. The Fenian troubles and outbreak of 1865-67 showed how much there was still peccant in the state of Ireland; Mr. Gladstone addressed himself, in 1870, to the task of effecting a reform in her land system. The measure he carried through Parliament was bold, and, in the main, statesmanlike; but it was injured by the predilection for English land tenure its author avowed, a general misconception of British statesmen; it was not without marked and even grave defects; and though unquestionably it did real good, it did not satisfy the tenant class--at least, the men who had become its leaders. In a few years the frightful period of the Land League had begun; a Reign of Terror prevailed in about a third part of Ireland, accompanied by far-spreading and atrocious crime. The movement was really a huge conspiracy, formed in America to overthrow British rule in Ireland; but Mr. Gladstone, now minister for the second time, resolved to deal with it only on its agrarian side; he wrought a complete revolution in the Irish land system, on principles wholly different from those of his measure of 1870. This legislation was prepared without reflection; it passed through Parliament when that assembly was almost in a state of panic; its author professed that his only object was to secure the occupier of the Irish soil in his legitimate rights; but the methods he adopted to attain this end have never been heard of in modern times, and have never been employed before in civilised lands. The principle of the mediæval statutes, which endeavoured to fix the price of bread, and the rate of wages, was extended to the Irish land system; rents were to be adjusted through the agency of the State, by tribunals to which no parallel can be found; tenants' improvements were declared exempted from rent; and a mode of land tenure, hitherto condemned by Mr. Gladstone, and known as the 'theory of the Three F's,' was applied to the great majority of Irish tenancies, in an exaggerated, crude, and dangerous form. This legislation, revolutionary and socialistic alike, has been given more ample scope in the last twenty years; it probably affects four-fifths of the rented lands in Ireland; it has fashioned the type of land tenure over nearly all the country. The successors of Mr. Gladstone, who, indeed, had boasted that it set the doctrines of Adam Smith at nought, were not blind to the evils it soon developed; but it is questionable if their attempts to mitigate these, and to place the Irish land system on a better basis, have not been at least as open to censure. With the ignorance of Irish land tenure common in British statesmen, they proclaimed, what assuredly was not the fact, that Mr. Gladstone had 'created a dual ownership' in the Irish land, and that, in order to get rid of this intolerable thing, it was necessary, in accord with English ideas, to bring Ireland, as far as possible, under 'single ownership,' and to make the occupiers of the Irish soil, to a large extent, its owners. The system of 'Land Purchase' in Ireland, begun in 1870, was freed from the limitations which made it safe and just, and widely enlarged under new conditions; Irish tenants were encouraged to acquire the fee in their holdings, by a process never contemplated before; instead of having to pay any part of the price, the State advanced them the whole purchase moneys, repayable by an annual charge much less than any true rent. About a tenth part of the tenant class of Ireland have become owners of their farms by these means; the transaction has been in no sense a 'purchase;' though given the name, it is really the exact opposite.