To the objection that without occasional violence the terrorism now existing would lose all its strength, that threats never carried out would become ridiculous, that when violence ceased, tenants as well as landlords would set the Land League law aside and, do as they pleased, it was replied that the great agrarian movement had passed through the period of terrorism as nations pass through the early stage of baronial rights, especially that of private war. The present condition of the anti-landlord party was not that of a revolt, but of a strike, which whether it was wise and according to the laws of political economy or not, was clearly lawful. There was no constitutional right in any one man to compel another to work for him, and a strike was therefore clearly permissible. It was nonsense to cry out against combination. It was the only possible method of the weak making good their case against the strong, and the landlords might combine, and welcome, if they thought it would do them any good. Nobody wanted to shoot them any more, for they were "Quite, quite down." The present strike was of an unprecedented character. Strikes of workpeople were sometimes met and defeated by combinations of masters, because the masters held the property and plant, and the men had nothing but their heads and hands, and perhaps a little money in savings banks. So the masters lasted the longest and won, except when their number included a large proportion of needy, speculative manufacturers, who durst not stop their mills, and thus became the indirect and unwilling allies of the artisan. But where the masters were few and wealthy, the artisans had no chance against them.
It was far otherwise with the Irish farmers and cottiers, who not only "held the harvest," or rather its monetary result, but held the land and were "not going to give it up." The people, the speaker opined, had really won the battle already, and it was for them to exercise the power they had suddenly become aware of wisely and mercifully. There was no further need for violence or threats of violence, but what was called the law should not be carried out until the claims of the Irish people were fully admitted by the English Government.
How then was this gigantic strike to be carried on without violence or threatening life or limb? Quite easily was the reply—by extending the process of "Boycotting." This is, it seems, the great constitutional weapon on which neither horse, foot, nor artillery can be brought to bear. Those who will not join the Jacquerie, and aid and abet those Irish analogues of Jacques Bonhomme, Mike and Thady and Tim, in their resistance to "landlordism" shall be "Boycotted"; and all those who refuse to join in "Boycotting" an offender shall be treated in the same way.
Already the stoutest hearted are yielding on every side to the dread of being "Boycotted," a doom which signifies simply that the victim must surrender or leave the country. It means that nobody will buy or sell with any member of the family which is declared "taboo"; that the farmer may drive his cattle and pigs to market, but will not find a purchaser; that he may reap his grain and pull his potatoes, but that not a soul in the country will buy them for fear of being "Boycotted" himself. It means that the baker will refuse him bread, and the butcher meat; that no draper who knows his wife by sight will sell her as much as a ribbon; that not a creature will buy her butter and eggs, chickens and turkeys, geese and ducks; that she will be unable to buy any article of food or luxury for her children, and that they will be "sent to Coventry" at school.
There is not an atom of exaggeration in anything here stated. It is not a fancy picture, but as genuine as that of Mr. Boycott himself; and there is no doubt that the taste for "Boycotting" is spreading rapidly, as my informant, who is heartily in favour of it, declares it is "clean within any law that could be made, let alone carried out." It is impossible to compel any community to have dealings with a person whom they dislike, and the anti-landlord party are determined to carry their point without, as appears on the notices served on farmers, "hurting one hair of their heads." "Isolation" has, in fact, been added to the number of the arts which soften manners and forbid them to be savage. It is the sprig of shillelagh in a velvet sheath.