Gladstone has discredited himself terribly. His whole Irish policy has suffered shipwreck. He has to drop Forster and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Cowper-Temple (whose stepfather is Palmerston), and must say a pater peccavi[A]: The Irish M.P.s[B] have been set free, the Coercion Bill has not been extended, the back rents of the farmers are to be partly cancelled and partly taken over by the state against fair amortisation. On the other hand the Tories have already reached the stage where they want to save whatever can still be saved: before the farmers take the land they should redeem the rents with the aid of the state, according to the Prussian model, so that the landowners may get at least something! The Irish are teaching our leisurely John Bull to get a move on. That s what comes from shooting! 
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1882. Ireland