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Show Exodus to America Will Be Cut in Half COG-HLAN BT?SCOE.. Secretory .af Town Tenants' League Will Do It, Says Its Chief, Coghlan Briscoe. Special Cable to The Tribune. DUBLIN", May 13. "Tho class that does not agitate goes to the wall!'' These words quoted by Coghlan Briscoe, the leader of the Town Tenants' league, the other day, may bo taken as the motto of this fighting band. And so far their fighting policy has not been barren of results, for if by nothing more than their own very Informing agitation, they havo dispelled the delusion that the landlord problem has been settled in Ireland. Thcs are now making arrangements for a convention conven-tion iu this city of the local town tenants' ten-ants' organizations in the four provinces, and hope there to display the national character of their agitation In a demand which neither the Irish Nationalist patty nor the British government can well afford af-ford to iguoro. They have a broad Initial measure to their credit already, the town tenants' act of 190(5. which partly admitted their claims and wholly proved their usefulness. useful-ness. They still claim, however, that the urban landlord In Ireland is allowed the same scopo for legalized plunder as his rural cousin enjoyed In the black days of eviction and famine. The act of 190G only relieved the lot of tenants paying their rent by the year, a relatively small and unharassed number of people. liJven this entering wedge, however. Mr. Balfour Bal-four called a "piece of highway rob-berv," rob-berv," though to tho leaguers it was very Insufficient indeed. Why shouldn't sheer honesty or mind, they contend, urge tho application of a principle thus doflnltely accepted to those classes who stand most in need of itV Agitation Has Been Effective. At present the Irish townsmen havo three grievances agalnsL the landlords insecure tenancy, high rents and the lack of facilities for purchase. All these concessions con-cessions have been made to tho peasantry owing almost entirely to persistent and violent agitation by the farmers of the Land league. The townsmen have been harder to unite, for urban poverty and squalor have been accepted aa among the lessor and more necessary evils of tho time. But men like Coghlan Briscoe have been forcing homo to the public conscience con-science the' close affinity of tho two agitations. Tho message of tho Town Tenants' league declares that it is no more fit and proper to have rack rents or unprovoked evictions or iron-clad leases in the town than in the country, Like their predecessors In tho Land league, Mr. Briscoe's followers aro not confining themselves to oratory. Dlrcct-lv Dlrcct-lv a case of eviction arises that can be fought on behalf of the tenant they take thefr coats off and fight II. Within the past three months alone over 510,000 hus been awarded as compensation to town tenants. Nothing but concerted lighting pluck of I he first water would have won this sum from the hitherto unmolested town landlords, but It Is only a small part of the whole. The total amount, according accord-ing to Mr. Brlacoo. that the Town Tenants' Ten-ants' league has savr to it.s clients pockets has boon qullo half a million dollars. ,, , Groat Change iu Ulster. 'I h" condition that first turned Mr. Briscoe's Bris-coe's attention to the need for a town movement of this character was, In Ulster Ul-ster particularly, the mlscrablo housing of the- working classes. Despite th;- fervid fer-vid religious bitterness of the bister farmers against anything savoring of a "Paplsh" Ireland, the Protestant farmers farm-ers of the north are now enjoying rural reforms thev at one time worked their blind utmost to "prevent. The Ulster townsmen of today are displaying a much more favorable spirit. Portadown, Lurgan, Deny and ccn Bolfast are becoming keenly aware of the need for co-operation with their compatriots compa-triots In the south against the common enemleB the slum-Jobber, the Jcrj-bullder Jcrj-bullder and tho unscrupulous landlord. And the Town TcnanLs league, as the mont handv Instrument at hand to express ex-press this 'common' sentiment, Is making favorable progress in Ulster. Here there seems to bo the embryo or a real town parly, one of those- new growths, which, under a home rule government, gov-ernment, will sweep aside artinclal divisions di-visions and render meaningless many of the old phrases about the oppression of a Protestant minority. ' . Finally, the Town Tenants League has this verv important bearing on America that It is the most hopeful of all the suggested checks on emigration. There were two facts which stood out from this year's Increase In tho Irish outflow. One was that well over three-rovu;ths of the voyagrB were destined for the united States, tho other that quit.- as large u proportion consisted of townsmen. W th a reduced scale of rents to suit tho (lo-: (lo-: predated Industrial values of present day Ireland, with an Inducemont for town i tenants to own their own holdings, with somo security of tenure at any rate, it is tho estimate of Coghlan Bnscoo that emigration to Amorica, would fall off. by hnlf. And from the American standpoint that would not he a bad thing, for then the Irishmen who went to America would go there more because thoy wanted to become Americans than because they wanted to go auywhero to get out of Ireland. |