Parnellites under Mr. Healy, but the attitude of the larger section owning the leadership of Mr. Dillon was uncertain. Its chief was preoccupied, among other things, with the interests of the United Irish League. That organisation was started in the congested districts of the west in 1897 by Mr. W. O'Brien, for the ostensible object of securing the augmentation of peasants' holdings by the division among them of large grass farms, and generally as a means of affording a basis of militant union among the Nationalists of the country districts. In the course of 1899 it made appreciable progress, its propaganda being pushed, and obtaining a considerable amount of clerical support, in several counties to the south and east of those of Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim in which lay its chief strength. Its methods, though they had not borne fruit in actual outrage, were often distinctly intimidating. Resolutions passed at public meetings "inviting" by name large grass farmers to give up their farms by a certain date for the benefit of the neighbouring peasantry recalled the old land league days, and were suggestive of more than the force of argument or moral suasion. Mr. Redmond and Mr. Healy had held entirely aloof from this movement and its leading supporters, including Mr. Dillon and Mr. Davitt, looked with misgiving upon any amalgamation in which those politicians bore prominent parts.
The Irish landlords, on their side, were by no means satisfied with the treatment which they received at the hands of the Government in 1899. On April 27 the Irish Lord Chancellor (Lord Ashbourne) explained at some length in the House of Lords the changes of procedure which the Land Commission had introduced, in deference to the recommendations of the Fry Commission. They embraced such points as the better instruction of the assistant commissioners with regard to legal decisions pronounced by the Land Commission and by the Court of Appeal, and regulating the cases coming before the sub-commissions; the more satisfactory inspection of drains; and the revived practice of communicating the valuer's report. He took a very cheerful view of the working of these and other changes. As to the recommendation, on which the Fry Commission had laid so much stress, of an improvement in the tenure of the assistant commissioners, Lord Ashbourne said that it would be practically impossible to make them all permanent officials, the work varying so enormously. But they had all been practically given a tenure of three years, that was until March 31, 1902. Also, a system of examinations had been instituted, which would insure that persons obtaining these appointments had the necessary qualifications, and the old system of associating two lay assistant commissioners with each legal assistant commissioner would be returned to. Lord Ashbourne also gave figures showing that the land purchase system was working vigorously. These declarations seemed to hold out a certain, though doubtless
