However, the Act was passed; and if Gladstone really imagined that
it would satisfy the Nationalist party he must have been grievously
disappointed. During 1881, 4,439 agrarian outrages were recorded. The
Government declared the Land League to be illegal, and lodged some of
the leaders in gaol. Thereupon Ford, carrying out the plan laid down
by Lalor in 1848, issued his famous "No Rent" proclamation. It was not
generally acted upon; but his party continued active, and in May 1882
Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke (the Chief and Under Secretary)
were murdered in the Phoenix Park. This led to the passing of the
Crimes Prevention Act, by which the detectives were enabled to secure
evidence against the conspirators, many of whom (as is usual in Irish
history) turned Queen's evidence. The Act was worked with firmness;
and outrages, which had numbered 2,507 during the first half of 1882,
fell to 836 in the latter half, to 834 in 1883, and to 774 in 1884.

In the autumn of 1885, Gladstone, expecting to return to power at
the ensuing election, besought the electors to give him a majority
independent of the Irish vote. In this he failed; and thereupon took
place the "Great Surrender." He suddenly discovered that everything
he had said and done up to that time had been wrong; that boycotting,
under the name of "exclusive dealing," was perfectly justifiable;
that the refusal to pay rent was just the same as a strike of workmen
(ignoring the obvious facts that when workmen strike they cease both
to give their labour and to receive pay, whereas the gist of the "No
Rent" movement was that tenants, whilst ceasing to pay, should retain
possession of the farms they have hired; and that a strike arises from
a dispute between employers and employed--usually about rates of pay
or length of hours; whereas Ford's edict that no rent was to be paid
was issued not in consequence of anything that individual landlords