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 of Oxford (1882—1909), and for thirteen years Principal 
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 IRISH GRIEVANCES SHORTLY STATED. 
 
11522 
 
 IRISH GRIEVANCES 
 
 SHORTLY STATED. 
 
 Cc 
 
 JAMES COTTER MORISON, M.A. Oxon. 
 
 "It- I were an Irishman I would bn a rebel. " — Reported words of 
 Sir John Moore. 
 
 "When, popular discontents have been very prevalent, it may well 
 be affirmed and supported that there lias been generally something 
 found amiss in the constitution or in the conduct of the Government. 
 The people have no interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is 
 their error, not their crime. But with the governing part of the State 
 it is far otherwise : they certainlv may act ill by design as well as by 
 mistake." Burke's Thnvyhts on the finite of the Present Discontents. 
 
 
 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, & DYER. 
 
 1868. 
 

 LONDON : 
 
 It. CLAY, MIX, AND TAYLOR, PRINTER'S 
 
 [1RKAD STHEKT HILL. 
 
 O'NEILL LIBRARY 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE 0CTO8,9 » 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 The writer of the following pages feels that he 
 cannot allow the ridicule which frequently attaches 
 to a palinode to deter him from remarking that 
 the sentiments here expressed are in many respects 
 opposed to the tenor of an article he wrote in the 
 January number of the Fortnightly Review. That 
 article was the too hasty expression of a set 
 of opinions that sprang, in great measure, from 
 national prejudice, from an inadequate knowledge 
 — which he may perhaps also qualify as national — 
 of the actual grievances of Ireland, and from in- 
 sufficient meditation on their causes past and 
 present. A visit to Ireland, extending over several 
 weeks, and devoted to the exclusive study of 
 Ireland and her history, has wrought in the 
 writer's mind a grave change of convictions. He 
 
 B 
 
2 To the Header. 
 
 deems it at least fairly presumable, that opinions 
 which are the result of conscientious and pains- 
 taking inquiry are more likely to be correct than 
 those which he formerly held (and which he 
 observes many of his countrymen still hold) with 
 little inquiry or none. This perhaps reasonable 
 presumption has induced him to write the follow- 
 ing pamphlet and submit it to the candour of 
 the public. 
 

 
 IRISH GRIEVANCES 
 
 SHORTLY STATED. 
 
 The dangerous but still the only working phase 
 which our policy now ever assumes with regard to 
 questions of first-rate importance, "that something 
 must be done," appears to have been reached in 
 reference to Ireland. Most slowly, most reluct- 
 antly, English public opinion has been brought to 
 perceive that Ireland is far from being that prospe- 
 rous improving country which it was so agree- 
 able to think her. An heroic resistance was made 
 before the pleasing hallucination was allowed to 
 vanish. Even yet it has not vanished universally. 
 With many persons, even yet, an object of para- 
 mount necessity is " not to attach too much import- 
 ance to Fenianism and Irish disaffection," and it is 
 suggested, by a process of reasoning not very clear, 
 
 b 2 
 
4 Irish Grievances shortly stated. 
 
 that not facts but their recognition is likely to 
 prove dangerous to the State. However, this lan- 
 guage is now acknowledged to be held in obedience 
 to the primary duty of not alarming the public 
 mind — a heinous offence, apparently, when com- 
 mitted. Short of doing anything so wicked as 
 alarming the public mind, most speakers and 
 writers now admit that the state of matters in 
 Ireland is very grave indeed. It is no longer 
 asserted, as it lately was — with amazing vehemence 
 if the fact were so — that " Fenianism has nothing 
 in it." But, on the contrary, it is confessed that a 
 more subtle, insidious, and far-reaching danger has 
 seldom threatened the country. Public opinion, 
 although of course not alarmed, is thoroughly 
 excited. Mysterious and wearisome as Irish ques- 
 tions have long been voted to be, it is felt that they 
 must resolutely be faced once more. An Irish ses- 
 sion has begun in the House of Commons, and the 
 habitual apathy of Englishmen to Ireland and her 
 affairs is replaced by emotions of a very different 
 character. 
 
 For indeed it has come to this: that we, the great 
 exemplars and almost the inventors of civil and 
 religious liberty, as we flattered ourselves, are re- 
 duced to holding an integral portion of our empire 
 in subjection to our authority solely by menus of 
 
Irish Grievances shortly slated. 5 
 
 military force. We, who have preached consti- 
 tutional government to every creature in season and 
 out of season, are forced to deprive six millions of 
 our fellow-citizens of its privileges and safeguards. 
 There are, doubtless, many among us who regard 
 Irish disaffection simply as an intolerable and 
 never-ending nuisance : but there are many likewise 
 — and their number, it may be hoped, is growing — 
 who regard it also as an intolerable disgrace. The 
 question which many Englishmen now ask them- 
 selves is not only, Are we able, but, Ought we to 
 be willing to hold Ireland solely by means of our 
 superior strength '? For, in spite of sneers to the 
 contrary, England has a conscience whose dictates 
 she will obey if you can only touch it : a slow pro- 
 cess, no doubt, but one which has been successfully 
 achieved more than once. Did we not go without 
 sugar to our tea, rather than encourage slavery after 
 we had become convinced of its wickedness ; and 
 did we not commercially ruin our West Indian 
 possessions, besides keeping up a chronic risk of war 
 with Spain and America, for the same object ? The 
 English conscience, with reference to Ireland, is 
 dull because it is unenlightened ; Irish grievances 
 are not redressed, because they are not realized or 
 even believed in. Differences of race and of reli- 
 gion, a calamitous succession of injuries given and 
 
(i Irish Grievances shortly stated. 
 
 received, crimes which were our fault, and accidents 
 which were no one's fault, have all contributed to 
 make Englishmen ignorant of, and indifferent to, 
 Ireland. It is true this rather explains than excuses 
 their misconduct, but it is only fair to remember 
 that ignorance rather than malice has been the 
 cause of the long: toleration of Ireland's wrongs. 
 If, after recent revelations, England allows the old 
 state of things to continue, she will not escape the 
 reprobation of the civilized world. 
 
 Irish agitation has long been a by-word of re- 
 proach with large classes in this country, as some- 
 thing incurably perverse, factious, and unreasonable. 
 Admitting for a moment that it has not seldom 
 been all this, it is forgotten that antagonistic to it 
 there has been, not an agitation, but a ceaseless 
 action, a stedfast pressure of another kind, and 
 from another source, which deserves even less com- 
 plimentary epithets. While the fiery eloquence of 
 O'Connell alarmed and disgusted Englishmen, who 
 wanted only routine, peace, and good markets, a far 
 more subtle, constant, and efficacious influence was 
 at work to close their minds against every rational 
 plea or grievance coming from Ireland. The 
 Clergy of the Established Church, and the English 
 proprietary of the country, by the very conditions 
 of their existence, were, in a manner, compelled 
 
Irish Grievances shortly stated. 7 
 
 to misinform and mislead English public opinion 
 as to the real state of matters in Ireland. To 
 keep the conscience of England cold or even 
 hostile to Ireland — the real Ireland; Catholic, 
 Celtic Ireland — was an essential pre-requisite to 
 enable them to retain their position of ascendancy 
 and power. How much self-seeking entered into 
 O'Connell's agitation it may be difficult to decide ; 
 there can be no question as to the motives of 
 the Ascendancy party, who for years commanded 
 the press and the ear of the middle and upper 
 classes here. It was pointed out to England, 
 with insinuating flattery, that her interest and 
 her duty alike demanded that she should support 
 them in their position of power and supre- 
 macy, that to listen to their accusers for a moment 
 would be an act of folly and wickedness com- 
 bined. England is great, we are told, by reason 
 of her pure reformed faith, and of the glorious con- 
 stitution which it is her happiness to possess. Are 
 these precious, inestimable privileges to be risked or 
 thrown away in deference to new-fangled notions of 
 abstract justice to Ireland ? Is England to put a 
 slight on the Bible and Gospel truth for the sake of 
 conciliating idolatrous Romanists ? Is she to under- 
 mine the time-honoured customs and associations 
 which have grown round her system of landed 
 
8 Irish Grievances shortly stated. 
 
 tenure, by countenancing revolutionary schemes in 
 Ireland? It is the thin end of the wedge which is 
 thus being speciously inserted, and it will rend 
 England after having rent Ireland. When you once 
 begin doing what people call justice, there is no 
 knowing where it will stop. It will be much better 
 to leave Ireland alone. This language is even yet 
 heard. 
 
 As regards Fenianism, it is the extreme stage of 
 Irish discontent, — Irish disaffection to England grown 
 into hatred and fury. It results from a multitude 
 of causes. To say that any one thing is its cause 
 would be erroneous, to hope that the removal of 
 any one thing will dispel it is unreasonable. Let no 
 one expect a sudden and magical diminution in the 
 fierceness of Fenianism by reason of the decision of 
 the House of Commons in favour of Mr. Gladstone's 
 Resolutions. On the contrary, it is likely that 
 vigorous Fenians will be irritated by such wisdom 
 in their opponents. They will like the English 
 Government none the better for competing with 
 them for Irish loyalty and good-will. They know 
 well they would not have a chance if the English 
 Government honestly and heartily engaged in that 
 competition. But, on the other hand — and this is 
 a contingency to be feared — if we forthwith resume 
 our wonted apathy and ignorance of Ireland and 
 
Irish Grievances shortly stated. 
 
 her wrongs, if we consider that, having with 
 heroic courage knocked over one of the weakest- 
 shams that ever imposed upon mankind, we have 
 discharged our debt to justice, then Fenians will 
 rejoice, and head-centres be right glad. Then shall 
 we have evidence of the futility, not indeed of 
 doing justice to Ireland, but of continuing to support 
 injustice. 
 
 I have not considered it incumbent on me to be 
 profuse in offering remedies for Ireland's disorders. 
 I consider it more important just at present to 
 convince the English people that such disorders 
 exist. I make no doubt whatever that when there 
 is a unanimous will to satisfy Ireland a way will 
 be found. But it is quite useless to prescribe 
 medicines while half the physicians deny that 
 anything ails the patient. Mr. Lowe never heard 
 of a verified Irish grievance, and noble lord after 
 noble lord declares that the country never was 
 so settled, so improving, " slowly but steadily im- 
 proving," as at this moment. While such opinions 
 can be expressed, the object with reformers must 
 be not to multiply schemes and panaceas, but to 
 bring about a conviction in the public mind that 
 a state of things exists in Ireland which urgently 
 calls not only for remedies of some sort, but for 
 our most determined resolution to discover them. 
 
10 Irish Grievances shortly stated. 
 
 Irish grievances arise in connexion with the- 
 
 (1) Church Establishment, 
 
 (2) Land Tenure, 
 
 (3) Wounded Nationality. 
 
 Of these I shall treat in the above order. 
 
I.— THE CHURCH. 
 
 The long indictment of the Irish Church need not 
 happily be repeated here. Reason, argument, statis- 
 tics, ridicule, have long ago done their best and 
 their worst upon that marvellous institution. Its 
 continuance unto these days is a very pregnant and 
 sobering fact, warning us how little power justice 
 and truth have among men if unassisted by the 
 stronger allies of interest and passion. On looking 
 at it one thinks of the cynical saying that the 
 very theorems of Euclid would be disputed if it 
 were worth anybody's while to dispute them. It is 
 so unjust, and at the same time so futile, that it is 
 not easy to rid the mind of the conviction that it 
 could never have been intended for anything but an 
 elaborate and cruel practical joke. One, however, 
 which has cost us dear. As the Dean of Cork 1 says, 
 the world is weary of the subject, but not, perhaps, 
 
 1 See article in the Contemporary Review for the month of March, 
 perhaps the ablest defence that has appeared of the Irish Church 
 Establishment ; — if there can be degrees in — nullity. 
 
12 The Church. 
 
 exactly for the reason which he supposes. We are 
 weary of seeing the slain killed ; we are weary of 
 the lists and tabular statements of parishes contain- 
 ing " no Anglicans ;" of others containing " under 
 twenty Anglicans,' 7 of others under fifty, and so 
 forth. It is our good fortune at this moment to be 
 saved from the degradation of demonstrating over 
 and over again the iniquity of injustice. A rapid 
 and spontaneous ripening of public opinion has 
 taken place on this topic, and declared with unmis- 
 takeable emphasis that the injustice shall no longer 
 exist. It must be admitted that English opinion 
 shirked the subject as long as it could. Everybody 
 felt that the re-opening of it would be nearly certain 
 to plunge the world into a cauldron of heated con- 
 troversy, to expose every one to a devastating inva- 
 sion of fanatics opposed to Romish error, of fanatics 
 of the loaves and fishes side of the question, as repre- 
 sented in comfortable bishoprics and rich sinecures. 
 Sober and thoughtful men shuddered and winced at 
 the prospect. After all, who could hope that reason 
 and justice would meet with a success in the future 
 which they had ludicrously failed to attain in the 
 past \ Nothing could be added to the unanswerable 
 arguments of Sydney Smith, Hallam, Macaulay, or, 
 for the matter of that, of Lord Lytton and of Mr. 
 Disraeli. "What is the good of proving that black is 
 
The Church. 13 
 
 black if people cannot see it for themselves 1 " The 
 eye sees only what the eye brings means of seeing." 
 It is well perhaps that the public eye was trained 
 to discriminate blackness from other shades in other 
 directions than that of the Irish Church — to practise 
 itself in tracing the lines of elementary justice in 
 admiring foreign rebels against ecclesiastical oppres- 
 sion. However, no one could tell how far this 
 training or any other had gone to enable the popular 
 mind to take a fresh unbiassed view of the subject 
 again. Above all, no one could tell how far the 
 manifest spread among the cultivated classes of a 
 secular tone of thought had imperceptibly honey- 
 combed the old ramparts and bastions of Protestant 
 orthodoxy. And now we see that it had gone 
 further than could have been expected, that for the 
 first time in our modern history the old No Popery 
 appeal has been made in vain. It must be admitted 
 that under the smooth surface of the last thirty 
 years reflection has not been idle — an encouraging 
 fact amid much which is discouraging. 
 
 As regards the so-called arguments in support 
 of the Irish Church, they cannot be answered be- 
 cause they do not exist. This is one of the few 
 cases, if it be not, as I believe, the only case having 
 to do with the complicated phenomena of society 
 and politics, in which all the arguments are really 
 
14 The Church. 
 
 as well as apparently on one side. Experience gene- 
 rally warns us to be on our guard against such cases. 
 Too clear a case is always more or less suspected. 
 Tt can hardly be doubted that the unparalleled in- 
 justice of the Irish Church has benefited that 
 institution through the impulse which prompts 
 men to disbelieve that all the reason and argument 
 can belong to one party in a dispute. And this im- 
 pression is never removed till we read the apologies 
 of the Establishment. The most scrupulously cau- 
 tious and sober attacks upon it always wear such 
 an incredible air of exaggeration, amounting almost 
 to caricature, that our judgment and impartiality 
 are disturbed and uneasy. But if any one wants to 
 make up his mind once for all on the subject, he has 
 only got to read a few charges by Irish bishops, or 
 pamphlets penned by Irish archdeacons. The real 
 use of attacks now on the Establishment is to 
 provoke those invaluable replies which at last have 
 convinced Englishmen, in spite of themselves, that 
 for once nothing is to be said on the other side. 
 Nothing else could have done it, not Smith's wit 
 and ridicule, not Macaulay's invective : none but 
 inmates of the stronghold could have so revealed 
 its weakness. 
 
 As a regular defence is impossible, recourse is 
 had to diversions. When Englishmen dwell on the 
 
The Church. 15 
 
 injustice of the Establishment, they are bidden to 
 reflect on the perils they would incur by abolishing 
 it. When they ask what is the use of pastors with- 
 out flocks, of sheepfolds without sheep, they are told 
 to consider the danger of countenancing a rival set 
 of pastors whose flocks are multitudinous and whose 
 pens are full. We are further told that whatever 
 abstract justice may seem to demand, it is neither 
 safe nor just to execute it. The Protestant garrison 
 in Ireland embraces, we are assured, the only loyal 
 subjects England retains in Ireland ; it would be at 
 once a folly and a crime to alienate these our only 
 friends, to degrade and injure them, the only allies 
 we possess against hostile Papists and rebels. It is 
 premature and sanguine to hope that this, the great 
 Protestant bulwark argument, has lost all power 
 because it is less triumphant than of yore. Doubt- 
 less it cannot carry matters with the high hand it 
 once did, but it is still capable of much mischief, 
 and is on every account worthy of attention. 
 
 When it is said that it is impolitic and unjust 
 to alienate and injure friends for the doubtful pro- 
 spect of conciliating foes, it is clear that the whole 
 question turns upon who those friends are, and 
 what are the conditions of their friendship. What 
 is it we are expected to do to keep them friends ? 
 Is it consistent with conscience, with reason ? It is 
 
16 The Church. 
 
 certain that friendship may be offered on terms 
 which no honest man or nation can accept. " You 
 stick to me and I will stick to you," is a bargain 
 which may be proposed to further objects the most 
 infamous. There are friends and friends, and some 
 are of a character from whom wise men pray to 
 be delivered. No one need have any difficulty in 
 finding friends, troops of friends, if no stipulations 
 are to be made as regards the terms of their friend- 
 ship. The question now is, What does the friendship 
 of Irish Episcopalians cost us, not only in money, 
 but in self-respect, in justice, and in a clear con- 
 science ? And is their friendship or loyalty — if 
 it can only be had for the buying — worth its cost ? 
 Is it not offered at a price outrageously too dear ? 
 Can it help us towards peace and unity, or any one 
 of the objects of good government ? Three hundred 
 years of disaffection and disunion give a sufficient 
 answer to the question. 
 
 Then, as regards the bulwark of Protestantism, 
 those amongst us who care about that can have 
 no difficulty in forming a judgment. This precious 
 bulwark is a wall of sand which every tide throws 
 down and washes away. The simple Protestant 
 public in this country has been over and over again 
 assured that the bulwark was in first-rate order ; 
 that it was repelling its foes with victorious success; 
 
The Church. 17 
 
 that a little more sand would make it perfect and 
 inexpugnable. Now positively for the last time 
 was the Keformation going to prevail ; now was 
 Romish error about to fall prostrate before the 
 advance of Gospel truth. The cruel census of 1861 
 dissipated those beautiful visions beyond hope. 
 " After more than a quarter of a century of mis- 
 sionary labours within this district (the Dioceses of 
 Tuam, Killala, and Achonry), the Anglicans have 
 to show an absolute decrease of numbers from 
 21,765 in 1834, to 17,157 in 1861, or 4,608 in- 
 dividuals, being more than one fourth of their 
 present total strength in their united dioceses." l 
 
 1 Freeman's Journal Church Commission, 12th Report. Few are 
 aware of the enormous sums annually devoted to the conversion of 
 the Roman Catholics of Ireland, especially iu the West. This 
 money is disbursed by various Missionary Societies, which collect 
 their funds chiefly from England and Scotland, and dispose of 
 sums greater, it is computed, than the ordinary diocesan revenue of 
 the sees in which they operate. One society alone enjoys an income 
 averaging £24,000 per annum, and it is probable that since 1849 
 it has expended upwards of a quarter of a million sterling in this 
 district. It is reasonable to suppose that the subscribers of these 
 large sums would expect some return for their money. They were 
 assured by several most exalted dignitaries of the Church that nothing 
 could be more satisfactory. The Bishop of Winchester, in 1859, 
 eighteen months before the Census, declared that he had seen " the 
 churches crowded ; meetings thronged to overflowing ; and late comers, 
 who could find no room, swarming like bees all round the building/' 
 Canon Wordsworth told them that " hundreds of thousands were 
 flocking to the services of the Church."' Archdeacon Stopford said 
 that "ten thousands of Roman Catholics have openly cast off the 
 religion of Rome, and are now amongst the most earnest and attentive 
 
 C 
 
18 The Church. 
 
 Or the unexceptionable testimony of Dr. Magee, 
 Dean of Cork, may be cited as to the probable 
 effects of abolishing the Establishment. " The result 
 would be," he says, " the handing over the half of 
 Ireland to the absolute mastery of the most Ultra- 
 montane priesthood in Europe ; the drying up of 
 the Anglican Church into Ulster and a few of the 
 larger towns of the other provinces." 1 If this 
 opinion be correct — and there is every reason to 
 suppose that the writer has both the opportunity 
 of knowing and the wish to speak the truth- — ■ 
 it certainly implies that the second Reformation 
 is still a long way off, and that the bulwark 
 hitherto has not done much for the money spent 
 
 members of the Church of England and Ireland." The Census showed 
 that in the Diocese of Tuam the whole Anglican population was 45'3 
 less than the number of converts represented to have left Rome. Two 
 of the four Connemara parishes have declined in the Anglican popula- 
 tion 55 per cent, in ten years, while the three united Dioceses of Tuam, 
 Killala, and Achcnry have exhibited the decrease mentioned in the 
 text. 
 
 Both religions lost during the famine and the subsequent emigra- 
 tion, — the Catholics far more than the Protestants, as belouging 
 mostly to the poorest class. The Anglicans also were reinforced by 
 purchasers of land in the Encumbered Estates Court, and, last but not 
 least, by the large staff of imported missionaries. Consequently the 
 Protestants are now 3"37 per cent, of the whole population, whereas in 
 1834 they were 2'95, an apparent relative increase which must not 
 mislead. They are, after all, 4,608 less in number now than they were 
 then. See the above-cited Freeman's Journal Church Commission, 
 12th Report. 
 
 1 Contemporary Review, March 1868. 
 
The Church, 
 
 19 
 
 upon it. 1 As far as statistics can elucidate such 
 a point, they certainly go to prove that the Dean 
 is right. In the Diocese of Cloyne there is a 
 benefice named Nathlash, of which the net in- 
 come is 207/. The gentleman who receives this 
 sum yearly does so for giving ghostly comfort and 
 advice to one Anglican parishioner. Nothing can 
 seem more probable than, supposing the Establish- 
 ment to be abolished, the Anglican Church, as far 
 as this living is concerned, would dry up "either 
 into Ulster " or elsewhere ; but it defies conception 
 to see where would be the loss. Is it not dried up 
 already ? One would like, at the cost of any 
 
 1 Few persons have an idea of the sums thus expended merely on 
 the material fabrics of the Establishment. Between 1834 and 1865 
 the following sums were devoted to the following purposes in the 
 united Dioceses of Tuam, Killala, and Achonry : — 
 
 NO. OF CHURCHES. 
 
 HOW DEALT WITH. COST. 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 70 
 
 Built. 
 
 Rebuilt, 
 
 Completed. 
 
 Repaired. 
 
 Total 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 4,419 18 6 
 
 9,549 19 8 
 
 3,581 19 
 
 41,592 15 1 
 
 £59,144 12 3 
 
 It should be added that the Bishop and his clergy cost £27,756 
 a year, and that £10,187 was expended on the Bishop's palace in 
 fifteen years. And these vast sums are spent for the dissemination of 
 opinions which are not only condemned by the immense majority of 
 Christians as heretical, but which clash in a growing discord with all 
 the progressive tendencies of modern philosophy. 
 
 e ml 
 
20 The Church. 
 
 reasonable effort, to enter into the frame of mind 
 which can contemplate such a contingency with 
 horror and dismay. No one would wish the worthy 
 and solitary Anglican in Nathlash to fall into evil 
 ways, to forget his Protestant Bible, or to lose his 
 orthodox abhorrence of Popish error; but is not 
 his preservation from these dangers purchased at a 
 perfectly monstrous cost, not only in money, but in 
 national dignity and common sense ? No one ques- 
 tions the importance of his or of anybody's spiritual 
 welfare, but does it require that the State should 
 step forward, in all its majesty, to endow and 
 establish a Church for him, and for him alone, in 
 order to further it ? For it must be remembered 
 that, although he is solitary in his religion, he is by 
 no means solitary otherwise : in the parish of Nath- 
 lash he has 1,576 fellow-parishioners ; but these 
 the State entirely ignores. Its eagle eye can see 
 him, and him only ; its bountiful care can take 
 thought only of him. Must he lose all relioion 
 if his spiritual pastor be withdrawn ? would Pro- 
 testantism receive an indelible wound if he did ? 
 Taking for granted that he is a loyal and attached 
 friend of England by reason of the favour she 
 shows him, would his enmity, if that favour were 
 withheld, be a blow from which England could not 
 be expected to recover ? What would he do when 
 
The Church, 21 
 
 we had outraged his feelings by abolishing the 
 State Church which he has hitherto enjoyed ? 
 "Would he declare war against us, or turn Fenian ? 
 It seems probable that, if the doctrines of Christianity 
 have entered into the teaching given him by the 
 nation for nothing, he Avill quietly read his Bib]e 
 and say his prayers at home, without any violent 
 anger at a great act of justice. 
 
 Again, we are threatened with another calamity 
 if the State Church be abolished. The landed 
 Protestant gentry, we are told, will leave the 
 country at once under such a condition of things. 
 " Such legislation," says the Dean of Cork, in solemn 
 warning, " such legislation " (the abolition of the 
 Establishment) " will surely bring with it its own 
 Nemesis. It is not difficult to see even already 
 of what kind that will be, in Ireland first, and next 
 in England. In Ireland its results would be the 
 rapid absorption by the Church of Rome of the 
 poor and scattered Protestants of the South and 
 West " (such as our friend at Nathlash for 
 instance) ; " the departure, in consequence, of the 
 Protestant country gentry, whose isolated position 
 would then have become intolerable, and even 
 dangerous." There is something very gloomy and 
 sad in such a prospect, and all the more so that 
 no one could have guessed there was any danger 
 
22 The Church. 
 
 of its being realized. Imagine squires, broad-acred 
 and broad-chested hunters of the fox, and pursuers 
 of diverse kinds of small game, sitting down weary 
 and sick at heart by reason of the fall of their 
 beloved Church. Mirth and revelry and spon- 
 taneous joy would die away in Castle Rackrent 
 when the spiritual welfare of its inmates was no 
 longer paid for and looked after by the State. 
 But, worse still, " their isolated position, become 
 intolerable, and even dangerous," would force them 
 into the frightful course of " departing " from 
 Ireland. This reflection is positively harrowing. 
 It makes one think of the Babylonish Captivity, 
 the exiles of Siberia, and a series of melancholy 
 occurrences. Painful as it may be, we shall have 
 to endure their " departure." They will go, one 
 may presume, into exile upon the banks of the 
 Thames and the Seine, by whose waters they 
 will weep less for themselves than for their un- 
 happy native land. Then also, we may suppose, 
 Irish absenteeism would become a reality instead 
 of the fiction it has hitherto been. 
 
 I do not pretend that other pleas are not urged 
 in defence of the Establishment. Some insist that 
 it deserves support as it teaches the " truth as it 
 is in Jesus," which it is the duty of the State to 
 further by all available means. Others urge that 
 
The Church. 23 
 
 they have got their revenues, and that they mean 
 to keep them if they can — a good downright prac- 
 tical view of the subject. Others tell us that the 
 State can give, but cannot take away. It refreshes 
 one's faith in the progress of the human mind to 
 observe that the bulk of the public has grown deaf 
 to the charm of these arguments, charm they never 
 so wisely. It is to be hoped that the nation will 
 proceed calmly but sternly to a great act of long- 
 deferred justice, perfectly regardless, as Mr. Carlyle 
 expresses it, of the screamings and lamentations of 
 doleful creatures. At the same time too much must 
 not be expected from one act of justice, when many 
 are due. Disappointment must not be felt if an 
 instalment does not produce the effects which 
 commonly result from paying the full sum. In a 
 word, it must not be supposed that doing what 
 is right in one direction will exonerate us from 
 doing the same in others, which are equally urgent. 
 We must not forget that settling the Church ques- 
 tion is only a preliminary to settling the more vital 
 one concerning the land. 
 
TL— THE LAND. 
 
 The remarkable consensus of opinion which has 
 been manifested with regard to the inauguration of 
 religious equality in Ireland is strikingly absent 
 with reference to the far deeper and more vital 
 question of the Tenure of Land in that country. 
 Theologians and ecclesiastics have, so to speak, had 
 their day ; they can look to little beyond fair and 
 equal justice, while any favouritism toAvards them 
 on the part of the State is becoming daily more 
 and more discredited. But landlordism is still a 
 mighty power, upon which thousands cast reverent 
 eyes. A bishop lamenting over his invaded privi- 
 leges is not unfrequently more ridiculed than 
 condoled with. But a landlord protesting, however 
 unnecessarily, against interference with the sacred 
 right of property, is still felt to be a solemn object, 
 suggestive of grave and anxious meditation. Many 
 new ideas will have to be acquired, and many old 
 ones laid aside, before a. clearness with reference to 
 the Land question at all equal to that which we 
 
The Land. 25 
 
 have seen concerning the Established Church is 
 likely to be generally attained. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the confusion and obscurity 
 in which the whole subject is involved, and, so to 
 speak, all but buried. So anxious is each disputant 
 to have his say, that no one thinks of taking heed 
 of what is said by his neighbour. It is a fierce con- 
 flict waged in the night. The adversaries do not 
 even use the same language. When one speaks of 
 improvements and the welfare of the country, he 
 means something very different from what an oppo- 
 nent means who uses the same words. To join false 
 •issues is all but universal ; to assert vehemently 
 what was never denied, to demonstrate elaborately 
 what has never been called in question, is a sort of 
 rule of the game in this controversy. There is not 
 even anything like agreement as to what are the 
 ends and objects of the strife. While one set of 
 disputants tells us that the Land question in Ireland 
 is precisely the most urgent and important which 
 can possibly be entertained, another set tells us with 
 equal confidence that there is no Land question at 
 all, and the whole affair is a bubble blown up by 
 interested agitators. Perhaps the best mode of 
 commencing this inquiry will be to ascertain these 
 points first. Is there a Land question ? and, if so, 
 In what does it consist ? 
 
26 The Land. 
 
 Is there a Land Question ? It is evident that 
 this question may be answered in twenty ways, 
 according to the bias and position of the respondent. 
 If, before the abolition of the slave-trade, a planter 
 had been asked whether there was a Nigger Ques- 
 tion, in the sense of the abolitionist, he would have 
 answered that decidedly there was not. That is 
 to say, he would not have denied that slavery 
 existed ; he would have denied that it was a 
 thing to be complained of. In a similar spirit the 
 landlords of the present day deny that there is a 
 Land question in Ireland. They do not, of course, 
 deny that dissatisfaction or rather "agitation" 
 exists ; they deny that it has any meaning or reason 
 in it. " What," asked Lord Clanricarde recently in 
 the House of Lords, " what was the condition of 
 Ireland now ? There never was a time when it was 
 less necessary to take extraordinary and novel action 
 upon this subject than at present. The condition of 
 neither landlords nor tenants presented any extra- 
 ordinary difficulty." And his lordship proceeds to 
 throw the blame of the attention which has been 
 directed to the subject upon the judges. Further 
 on he said: "There was no occasion for a revolution. 
 This year rents had been easily collected and most 
 cheerfully paid in Ireland. Profits had been made 
 by the farmers, and this year the landlords had had 
 
The Land. 27 
 
 less trouble than perhaps at any former period." 
 (Times, Feb. 25, 1868.) And Lord Dufferin holds 
 language which points to the same conclusion. He 
 declares that fixity of tenure would not materially 
 have impeded the exodus after the potato famine, 
 which must mean that Irish holders would have 
 been as unsettled and as uncomfortable with fixity 
 of tenure as they have been without it. 1 Lord Eosse 
 says: "At present things are steadily improving." 
 And an " Irish Peer," who has written a noteworthy 
 pamphlet on the "Irish Difficulty," says, that if 
 they are only preserved from " an agrarian law, 
 subverting the foundations of all landed property " 
 — and the compulsory granting of leases he would 
 consider to be such a subversion — "Irish agricul- 
 ture will soon become assimilated to that of Eng- 
 land." 2 Now all these utterances obviously mean 
 only this, that the Irish proprietors are, on the 
 whole, satisfied with the actual state of things. 
 The fact is not surprising, and has never been called 
 in question. People generally are content with 
 what they deliberately and intentionally bring 
 about. 
 
 Fortunately the condition and progress of a 
 
 1 "Irish Emigration and Tenure of Land in Ireland." "Willis and 
 Sotheran, 1867. 
 
 2 "The Irish Difficulty,'' by an Irish Peer. p. 60. Hodges and 
 Smith, Dublin. 
 
28 The Land. 
 
 country are not now a matter of guess-work and 
 individual opinion. However satisfactory the tenure 
 of land in Ireland may be to the landlords, we are 
 not reduced to abiding by their estimate. Whether 
 things are steadily improving or not from Lord 
 Rosse's point of view, from an economical point of 
 view they are doing precisely the reverse. Without 
 reference to the vexed questions between proprietors 
 and occupiers, without an allusion to tenant-right or 
 landlord- wrong, Ireland is a far less productive 
 country than it was formerly, even during the years 
 which it is the fashion to look back upon with 
 horror, viz. those preceding and following the 
 famine. A few statistics taken from Thorn's Al- 
 manack, which are based on returns made to Par- 
 liament, and, I believe, of unimpeached accuracy, 
 are here indispensable. We find that — 
 
 In 1847 the number of acres under wheat was 
 743,871. In 1866 it was 299,190. 
 
 In 1847 the number of acres under oats was 
 2,200,870. In 1866 it was 1,699,695. 
 
 In 1847 the number of acres under barley was 
 345,070. In 1866 it was 160,314. 
 
 In 1847 the number of acres under beans was 
 23,768. In 1850 it was 62,590. But in 1866 it 
 had fallen to 14,804. 
 
The Laud. 29 
 
 Or take the estimated produce : — 
 
 In 1847 the wheat crop amounted to 2,926,733 
 quarters. In 1866 it had fallen to 805,710. 
 
 The oats had fallen from 11,521,606 to 7,284,835 
 quarters within the same period. 
 
 The barley, here, and rye had fallen from 1,716,139 
 to 685,717 quarters. 
 
 Taken altogether the corn crops in 1847 were 
 spread over 3,813,579 acres. In 1866 they had 
 shrunk to 2,173,433. 
 
 It must be admitted that these are startling 
 figures. They indicate an extraordinary diminu- 
 tion of production during the most productive 
 era the world has ever known. It looks odd to 
 be told, hi the presence of such facts, that things 
 are steadily improving. It is requisite to add that 
 there is a set-off against this decrease in the increase 
 under the heads of meadow and clover, live-stock, 
 flax, and potatoes. But even the meadow and clover 
 last year were not as productive by upwards of 
 300,000 tons as they were in 1860; the cattle are 
 not as numerous now by 100,000 head as they 
 were in 1859; while the immense development of 
 the flax culture and industry was a temporary and 
 artificial growth stimulated bv the dearth of cotton 
 during the American Civil War. 1 
 
 1 Thorn's Almanack for 1868. Statistics, pp. 779, 785. I append, 
 
30 The Laud. 
 
 It thus appears that economically at least there is 
 a very serious Land question in Ireland. 
 
 And if we regard the matter socially and poli- 
 tically it is not better, but worse. Discontent and 
 
 on Mr. Butt's authority, the following evidence of decrease in Irish 
 manufactures : — 
 
 " In 1800 there were engaged in the woollen manufacture 91 master 
 manufacturers ; in 1840 these were reduced to 12; in 1864 to 8. 
 
 "In 1800 the hands employed were 4,038; in 1841 these were 
 reduced to 682. 
 
 " In 1800 there were in the town of Roscrea in Tipperary 900 per- 
 sons supported by the woollen factories ; at present there are none. 
 
 "In 1800 the manufacture of flannel in the county of Wicklow 
 employed 1,000 looms ; at present in all that county there is not 1. 
 
 " In 1800 there were 30 master wool-combers in Dublin ; in 1835 
 they were reduced to 5. 
 
 "In 1800, in Kilkenny, a blanket manufactory existed which gave 
 employment to 3,000 operatives ; in 1841 these were reduced to 925. 
 
 " In 1800 there were 1,491 persons employed in the city of Dublin 
 in stuff' serge manufacture ; in 1834 they were reduced to 131. 
 
 "In 1800, 720 operatives were employed in the carpet manufacture 
 under 13 masters ; in 1841 there was but 1 carpet maker." — The Irish 
 People and the Irish Land, by Isaac Butt. 
 
 We may add to these figures the following, taken from the " States- 
 man's Year Book for 1868 :" — 
 
 All Ireland has 9 cotton factories ; Lanark alone in Scotland has 
 83 cotton factories. 
 
 2,734 Irishmen are engaged in manufacturing cotton; 41,273 Scotch- 
 men are occupied with the same business. 
 
 But this last fact admits of another comparison. In all the factories 
 of all Ireland, the male and female hands employed number 37,872. 
 Thus the cotton factories alone of Scotland exceed in the number of 
 their operatives the total of the factories of Ireland by upwards of 
 3,000 hands. 
 
 Or compare the cotton trade of Scotland with the linen trade of 
 
 Ireland ; 
 
 Scotland has 138 cotton factories. 
 
 Ireland has 100 flax factories. 
 
The Land. 31 
 
 disaffection towards the established order of things 
 have notoriously reached an alarming pitch in that 
 country. To say that the farmers are not the 
 Fenians is futile. The Fenians are the fighting 
 division of Irish disaffection. The English army 
 at Waterloo was not the English nation, but it 
 represented the English nation ; the Fenians are 
 not the Irish nation, but they represent the large 
 element in it which is hostile and fierce against 
 English rule. 1 Their ranks are recruited from many 
 classes, the farmer class included, but their moral 
 strength and capital consist in the sympathy and 
 
 Yet flax is Ireland's specialty, and the population of Ireland is very 
 nearly double that of Scotland. 
 
 To conclude this long note : — 
 
 In January 1846 there were 19,883 fishing-vessels, employing 
 93,073 men and boys ; in 1866 the numbers respectively were 9,444 
 vessels and 40,663 men and boys ; thus making a decrease of 10,439 
 vessels, and 52,410 men and boys, engaged in that occupation in 21 
 years. 
 
 1 This fact is persistently denied by the upper class in Ireland, 
 and their advocates in the English press. But the following 
 testimony from Mr. Marcus Keane may probably be considered 
 sufficient to outweigh a good deal of contrary evidence. Mr. Keane is, 
 as he says, land agent of several large estates — among others of that 
 of the Marquis of Conyngham — and a land proprietor himself. He 
 says : " The strength of Fenianism lies in the sympathy which it 
 receives from a large majority of the tenant class. As a mere con- 
 spiracy Fenianism is not very formidable, but as a principle pervading 
 the Irish nation — active in the minds of multitudes who never thought 
 of becoming avowed Fenians — I look upon it as more serious than 
 I can easily find words to express." — Letter addressed to Col. Van- 
 deleur, M.P., on the Irish Land Question, by Marcus Keane s 
 
32 The Land. 
 
 encouragement they receive from nearly all who are 
 not landlords and clergymen of the Established 
 Church. Nothing is easier than to say that this 
 disaffection is unreasonable, perverse, and wicked. 
 Persons against whom such complaints are made 
 always consider disaffection perverse, from the 
 Kaiser on his throne to the fish-wife skinning 
 the eels and cursing them for not being quiet. The 
 charge is that the position of the Irish tenantry has 
 gradually become absolutely intolerable, that the 
 people are leaving the country rather than endure 
 it any longer, and that they carry away with them 
 hearts swelling with the most savage animosity 
 against the laws and the country which in their 
 minds are the cause of their sufferings. 
 
 In what does the Land Question consist ? 
 I wish, with as little of hypothesis or of disputable 
 matter as possible, to answer this question by a 
 statement of such facts as are admitted by all, or 
 nearly all, parties. The interpretation of these facts 
 will come afterwards. 
 
 (l) The great mass of the Irish tenantry have no 
 better title to their holdings than the will of their 
 landlords. 1 
 
 1 This paragraph and the next are taken literally from the last-eitcd 
 letter of Mr. M. Keane ; it would be impossible to adduce weightier 
 authority. 
 
The Land. 38 
 
 (2) The rentals of Ireland are steadily following 
 the improvements of the tenants. Some landlords 
 suffer a considerable margin to exist between the 
 actual value and the rent paid, while others lose 
 no opportunity of forcing the rents to the highest 
 amount that circumstances permit, 
 
 (o) This state of things is one absolutely and 
 entirely new. The granting of leases was the 
 general custom in the last century, and continued 
 for some time into this. 
 
 (4) The agriculturists of Ireland never had such 
 a feeble and precarious hold upon the land they 
 cultivate as they have now. It appears certain that 
 this precariousness of tenure has no parallel or equal 
 in the world. It is peculiar to Ireland, and new 
 even there. 
 
 (5) It is, however, an object which the all but 
 unanimous efforts of the landlords are directed 
 to bring about, It is an object which they 
 avowedly pursue both for their own interests and 
 the interests, as they allege, of agricultural im- 
 provement. 
 
 (6) They have by their persevering and combined 
 efforts brought this precariousness of tenure very 
 nearly to a degree of completeness. 
 
 (7) Their control over their tenants is practically 
 absolute. They can and do enact bye-laws on their 
 
 i) 
 
34 The Land. 
 
 estates which place the tenant for practical purposes 
 in a state of serfdom. By their rules marriage has 
 been known to be forbidden without the licence of 
 the agent ; while one of the most general of these 
 bye-laws is that which forbids the harbouring of 
 any, except the tenant's immediate family, in his 
 house. 1 
 
 (8) These powers are exercised by means of a 
 summary ejectment code which is unknown to the 
 English law, and gives extraordinary facilities of 
 ejectment to the Irish landlord. 
 
 (9) And these powers, conferred by the law, are 
 increased by skill in the management of estates. A 
 tenancy from year to year is reduced to an actual 
 
 1 " I could tell of another estate on which the landlord's agent has 
 laid down the rule that under no circumstances shall two families 
 be permitted to live in the same house." " An aged widow invited her 
 daughter, who had lost her husband, to take share of her house. 
 For this crime, although occupying a respectable position, the 
 mother of a Roman Catholic priest, she is actually evicted from 
 a farm where she had lived for nearly fifty years." — Plea for the 
 Celtic Race, p. 27, by Isaac Butt. Mr. Butt vouches for this on his 
 own personal knowledge. 
 
 " The tenancy is determinable by a month's notice or the death of 
 the tenant, and further, according to some of their rules and conditions, 
 the tenant cannot marry or procure the marriage of his son or daughter 
 without the landlord's or the agent's permission. Moreover, he cannot 
 entertain, even for a night, not merely the stranger who asks his 
 hospitality, but even his nearest relative and friend." Quoted by Mr. 
 Butt, loco citato, from an address delivered before the Legal and 
 Historical Society, by their president, Mr. C. Molloy. The story of 
 the "homeless boy," which illustrates the same system, is too long for 
 a note, and is placed in Appendix A. 
 
The Laud. 35 
 
 tenancy at will by the contrivance of an annual 
 notice to quit, or by an agreement binding the 
 tenant under a heavy penalty to give up possession 
 whenever he is asked. 1 It is stated that a receipt 
 for rent on some estates is never given without 
 a printed notice to emit on the back of it. 2 
 
 1 I take this statement from Mr. Butt, who it may be presumed 
 knows the law on this matter (" The Irish People and the Irish 
 Land," p. 244). 
 
 Mr. Thos. de Moleyns, Q.C., in his work. " The Landowner's and 
 Agent's Practical Guide," remarks : — " The Sheriff may execute any 
 habere or civil bill decree for possession, without removing any under- 
 tenant or occupier who shall at the time of such execution sign with 
 his name or mark an attornment or acknowledgment of title according 
 to forms Nos. 6 or 7 in the Schedule A." (This is the pith of the form 
 referred to : We, whose names are hereunder subscribed, hereby acknow- 
 ledge that we respectively occupy the lands by the licence and at the will 
 of the said A. B. . . . and that we will when required by the scviel A. B 
 deliver up to the said A. B. the possession of the said lands, &c. &c.) 
 •' The 71st Section of the Landlord and Tenant Act now regulates the 
 conditions, which appear to be rather arbitrary, of redemption in both 
 Courts. The Court is to hear the application and give such relief in a 
 summary way as a Court of Equity might have formerly done, and 
 may award restitution to the tenant or refuse his application. It is 
 thus left to the discretion of the Judge or Chairman to impose such 
 terms as he may think reasonable."' 
 
 2 I have been told this by most respectable persons who knew 
 it to be a fact. Lord Dufferin says : " To serve an ejectment is 
 very often the only way of inducing a dilatory tenant to pay up 
 an arrear of rent ; in which case it bears the same relation to an 
 eviction as a lawyer's letter to an action at law. On my own estate, 
 dozens of ejectments have been served for one eviction that has taken 
 place, and the more indulgent the landlord, the more disposed will 
 some of his tenants be to wait for this proof of his patience being 
 exhausted," — an observation which testifies to a peculiar state of 
 things, and hardly agrees with the very good understanding which 
 Lord Dufferin declares elsewhere to exist between landlords and 
 their tenants. 
 
 D 2 
 
3G The Land. 
 
 (10) It is not pretended that good landlords do 
 not exist, who take an enlarged view of their duties, 
 and display a wise generosity in their dealings with 
 their tenants ; but it is an accepted principle in 
 politics not to trust the public welfare to the excep- 
 tional virtue of individuals. Injustice, oppression, 
 and bad government could not exist if this were safe 
 to do. Even in the crucial case of slavery it is 
 unquestionable that good masters were to be found 
 whose conscience was a law unto themselves. The 
 Southern planters were not all Legrees ; far from 
 it. But the system admitted of Legrees, and was 
 condemned by all good men in consequence. Land- 
 lordism in Ireland presents on a diminished scale a 
 parallel condition of things. One wicked unscru- 
 pulous landlord can work a mischief which ten good 
 ones would not suffice to counteract, even if there 
 were always ten good ones to neutralize one bad 
 one, which would be a rather extravagant supposi- 
 tion. The system gives powers which, human nature 
 being what it is, are sure to be abused by a certain 
 number at any given moment ; and, as no one who 
 lives under it can have any guarantee that he will 
 not be subject to one of them, the uneasiness and 
 distrust are universal. 
 
 Such in rude outline are the chief heads of tenant- 
 wrong in Ireland. It must, I think, be admitted 
 
The Land. 37 
 
 that, however such a state of affairs is to be explained, 
 or however it has been brought to pass, it is one 
 suggestive of grave and even of anxious thought. 
 Everybody can judge for himself whether uncer- 
 tainty, hopeless insecurity concerning the future, is 
 not one of the most painful and paralysing senti- 
 ments which can afflict the mind. In this case it is 
 a sentiment which is shared by the great bulk of 
 those who live by labour — by those who are employed 
 upon the chief industry of the country. Any dimi- 
 nution of enterprise or of production appears pos- 
 sible or probable under such a system. To live 
 always under the favour or caprice of an agent or 
 landlord, who can terminate your trade and industry 
 whenever he thinks fit, can lead but to one result, 
 — the sullen discontent and apathy of the persons 
 so situated. 
 
 We now come to the interpretation to be put 
 upon these facts by the advocates of the landlords 
 and tenants respectively. 
 
 The former, after they have referred to the lofty 
 argument of their right to do as they like with 
 their own, plead that they have been driven into 
 adopting the present system by considerations of 
 public duty no less than of private interest. 
 Nothing less stern than the measures they now 
 adopt can save Ireland from becoming a pauper 
 
38 The Land. 
 
 warren, as it was before the famine. Leases in- 
 variably lead to subletting and subdividing of 
 farms ; subdivision again leads to the ruin of agri- 
 culture. Irish tenants cannot be trusted with 
 leases. 1 The only use they put one to is first to 
 ruin themselves, and then their landlord. Page 
 after page of Lord Dufferin's work on the land 
 tenure of Ireland is devoted to prove this point 
 by means of extracts from the Report of the Devon 
 Commission. A land agent, who has written a 
 clever pamphlet in answer to Mr. Butt's " Plea for 
 the Celtic Race," declares that the tenants will 
 invariably neglect the most elementary principles 
 of farming. The landlord's agent is ceaselessly 
 active in keeping them up to their work. It is 
 not too much to say that something like idiocy is 
 charged against the agriculturists of Ireland by the 
 owners of the soil. 2 They will not or cannot cul- 
 
 1 To prove this thesis is the practical object of Lord Dufferin's book, 
 " Irish Emigration and the Tenure of Land in Ireland." It is 
 difficult to get a clear conception of what Lord Dufferin really thinks 
 on this question of leases. He frequently admits that leases are 
 highly important, even necessary, to good agriculture. At the same 
 time he argues strenuously to prove that it is mere madness to give 
 Irish tenants leases ; that "security of tenure, instead of stimulating 
 the industry of the occupier, too often acts as a premium on idleness, 
 and the difficulties of preventing the subdivision and subletting of 
 leased lands are almost insurmountable." — Irish Emigration, p. 266. 
 
 * " Few who have not tried it can have any idea of the difficulty 
 of getting the ordinary tenants to maintain improvements made by 
 the landlord without any expense to the tenant, and solely for his 
 
The Land 39 
 
 tivate the land in a proper manner, and they will 
 subdivide it to a degree which renders good farming 
 impossible. Hence the policy of not granting leases. 
 They are thus held well in hand. Their sins of 
 omission and commission are swiftly discovered and 
 corrected ; and if with all this care they will not 
 mend, the facilities for ejectment afford the landlord 
 a ready means of replacing them by more docile 
 subjects. Agricultural improvement demands that 
 the landlord should be armed with these powers. 
 " One of the landlord's most important duties," 
 says Lord Dufferin, "is that of insuring the con- 
 summate cultivation of his estate." To effect this 
 end, it is frequently his stern but inevitable duty 
 to improve the actual cultivators off the face of it. 
 The prosperity of Ireland demands that the con- 
 solidation of small farms now going on shall be 
 continued, and this can be accomplished only by 
 an elimination of the still superfluous population, 
 
 benefit. For instance, I do not think of a single case of a water- 
 course deepened by a landlord (generally at a considerable ex- 
 pense), that I have not to inspect it continually to endeavour to 
 induce them to keep it clear, by perhaps a couple of hours' work in 
 clearing of weeds or deposit, from the effect of which the whole benefit 
 is neutralized, and very often finding them literally dammed across by 
 an embankment or large stones, for the purpose of making an easy 
 way of crossing to the other side. The real fact being that the 
 majority of small farmers and cottiers require to be watched and 
 coaxed like children, to do what they admit to be for their own good." 
 — A Demurrer to Mr. Butt's Pica, p. 37, by an Trish Land Agent. 
 
40 The Land. 
 
 who, as there is no other industry to receive them, 
 will have to emigrate, to their own immense ad- 
 vantage, and of those who remain behind, what- 
 ever interested agitators may say to exacerbate 
 their minds at an inevitable necessity. 
 
 This defence of the policy of the landlords — ■ 
 which, I hope, I shall not be accused of under- 
 stating — is well worthy of consideration. In the 
 first place, no impartial inquirer will deny that in 
 many of the allegations there is much truth. It 
 still remains to be seen how far it is to the point. 
 It might all be true, and yet not in the least 
 excuse the present policy of the landlords. For 
 what is the gist of the charge against the tenants 1 
 Is it not that they are shiftless, improvident, and 
 idle when they can be ? In other words, that they 
 lack those qualities of energetic independence which 
 are the strength of states ? And what is the remedy 1 
 What is the principle adopted to meet this condition 
 of things \ The answer is, that the principle is that 
 of the pedant who declared he would never go into 
 the water again till he had learned to swim. The 
 Irish tenant is improvident ; he shall, therefore, 
 have no opportunity of exercising forecast and 
 prudence. His readiness to undergo prolonged 
 exertion is not always as prompt as it might be ; 
 therefore the inducement to endure sustained 
 
The Land. 11 
 
 labour, the sweet rewards of continued toil con- 
 tained in the certainty of reaping when he has 
 sown, of enjoying the fruits when he has planted 
 the seed, are to he withheld from him. These 
 inducements are for thrifty Scotchmen and English- 
 men, not for careless improvident Irishmen. 
 
 Suppose, for argument's sake, that the Irish 
 tenant has all the demerits and defects which the 
 literary landlords, who are now attacking him, lay 
 to his charge. What is the inference ? Is it not 
 this, that he, like all of us, wants improving ? that 
 neither his intellect, nor conscience, nor energy, are 
 what it is highly desirable they should be ? If he 
 lacks thrift and industry and intelligence, how are 
 these virtues to be imparted to him ? By treating 
 him like a child or a serf, or by treating him like 
 a free man ? Let it be admitted that, coming as he 
 does of a race which has been debilitated and 
 crushed for ages, he does by no means fly with an 
 irrepressible alacrity to avail himself of every oppor- 
 tunity that offers to push his remote and permanent 
 interests ; let it be granted that Lord Dufferin's 
 report is true, and that if a tract of land strikes 
 you as very ill-cultivated, you generally find that 
 it is let on lease. It would be strange if such were 
 not the case. Irish tenants have faults peculiar to 
 them as a class, as other classes have. To suppose 
 
12 The Land. 
 
 that any individual among them will instantly free 
 himself from those faults the moment circumstances 
 begin to permit him to do so, — to expect that he 
 will at once show far-sighted wisdom the moment 
 the narrowest opportunity offers, — is to suppose that 
 he is endowed with qualities almost superhuman. He 
 lives by the hypothesis in the midst of a thriftless, 
 apathetic population. Most of his neighbours have 
 no inducement to be anything else but apathetic. 
 He gets or inherits a lease, and wonder is forthwith 
 expressed that all the habits which have been culti- 
 vated in him and his ancestors, and are general 
 among his compeers, do not drop from him like a 
 garment the moment, were he all-wise, they should 
 so fall. Is the prompt seizure and employment of 
 opportunities so universal a characteristic of human 
 nature, that we have reason to marvel at its absence 
 in the Irish tenant ? Do lawyers invariably expand 
 into statesmen the moment they get into Parlia- 
 ment ? Do martinets become as a rule great 
 generals the instant they assume great commands ? 
 Nothing can be more absurd than the whole argu- 
 ment. The fact is, that Irish tenants are not 
 thrifty, far-sighted, energetic, like Scotch, Swiss, or 
 Belgian farmers ; and the reason of that fact is, 
 that there is nothing in their position to make them 
 so, but much to make them the. reverse. When 
 
The Land. ll 
 
 such men do get, under a lease, a chance of dis- 
 playing virtues they never had the opportunity ol 
 using or acquiring before, is that conclusive against 
 them ? It is the peculiar iniquity of the present 
 system of things that it appears to mark inde- 
 pendence and self-help as odious vices which must 
 at all risks be suppressed. When a man is fined 
 for energy, it is not wonderful if he becomes 
 slothful. 1 When a man does not know where he 
 will be in a year's time — whether he will be left 
 unmolested on his farm, or a wandering outcast— it 
 is no marvel that deep-laid plans for the future are 
 not often in his thoughts. He literally would be 
 a fool to harbour them. He may be the most 
 thrifty and enterprising of mortals, but the fatal 
 want of security utterly forbids him to develop 
 those qualities. The system sweeps over the land, 
 mowing down the high and the low to the same 
 level. Apathy, sullenness, and incompetence are 
 seen to be as useful and fashionable as their con- 
 traries. A bad and feeble tone is the result 
 throughout the class. We all know how a college, 
 a regiment, a public office, a constituency may 
 
 1 One of the most distinguished of the scientific men of Ireland 
 recently told me the following anecdote : — Seeing a farmer whom 
 he knew to be not without means clad in the most shabby and 
 tattered garments, he asked him the reason. " Sure," said the other, 
 " the last new coat cost me 2s. 6d. an acre more rent." 
 
ii The Land. 
 
 acquire a depreciated morale, which will defy all 
 attempts at improvement from within, and the 
 presence of public opinion from without, for years. 
 The present condition of the House of Lords offers 
 a parallel which is worthy of consideration. What 
 is the complaint daily waxing louder against that 
 assembly ? That it does nothing ; that it will not 
 do what it still could ; that it is listless and 
 apathetic to a degree that renders the development 
 of a statesman within it all but an impossibility. 
 Every superior man iii it has been trained in 
 " another place." Why is this ? Because the 
 rewards of political energy and toil have departed 
 from the House of Lords. The Lords were ener- 
 getic enough when they had something to gain or 
 lose by their energy. The Irish tenants, when they 
 get to America or the Colonies, are also energetic 
 when it is worth their while. Now, they have no 
 more inducement to be zealous agriculturists than 
 the Lords have to be zealous debaters. 
 
 But all through this discussion I have been pro- 
 ceeding on a supposition which I said was only 
 admitted provisionally and for the sake of argument. 
 It is quite certain that, even under the present 
 system, many tenants improve — " they must im- 
 prove/' as Mr. Marcus Keane says, " in order to 
 live comfortably. " The large sums also deposited 
 
The Land 45 
 
 in the savings-banks show that they are thrifty and 
 provident. And this takes place all the time that 
 the working bees are constantly despoiled of their 
 honey as fast as it is made ; and if they are not 
 actually despoiled, they have no security that in 
 a near future they will not be, as the good landlord 
 under whom they happen to live may die or sell 
 his property, and thus expose them to an un- 
 scrupulous successor. ' 
 
 1 The following appeal was heard at the last Spring Assizes at 
 Mayo before Mr. Justice Keogh : — 
 
 The Law Life Assurance Company v. M'Girr. 
 " This was an appeal from a decree in ejectment obtained by the 
 company in the court "below. It appeared that the defendant in the 
 year 1852 took a farm, being a portion of the extensive estates of the 
 company in this county, at a rent of 44/., the Ordnance valuation being 
 40/. When his first lease was at an end, the company raised the rent 
 to 54/., and the defendant was willing to pay this rent if the company 
 would consent to build the necessary fences on the land ; and this 
 not having been done, the defendant, for the purpose of bringing the 
 matter before the Board of Directors, served their land agent with 
 a notice of surrender. This had the desired effect, and a sum of 
 between 70/. and 90/. was expended in fencing, and a percentage for 
 this outlay added to his rent. He then signed a three years' lease, 
 which having expired, he continued a tenant from year to year ; and 
 as the land was only partially fenced, he asked the company either 
 to complete the fencing, or, if they gave him the land at a fair rent, 
 he would expend 200/. in fencing and draining. The offer was not 
 acceded to, and to induce the company to move in the matter the 
 defendant again served a notice of surrender. This, however, had a 
 contrary effect, for, on the expiration of the notice of surrender, the 
 Law Life Company brought an ejectment and obtained a decree. His 
 lordship, in giving judgment, said he was bound to affirm the decree 
 with costs ; but it was another of the many instances of the way in 
 which property was managed in this country. Here was a great 
 
46 The Land. 
 
 When a large and influential body of men arc 
 seen pursuing with remarkable unanimity a par- 
 ticular line of conduct, which leads to general and 
 important results, it is reasonable to conclude that 
 they are actuated thereto by strong and adequate 
 motives. It is also probable, from well-known 
 potency of class selfishness, that these motives are 
 not of a kind which would allow of an undisguised 
 publicity. To cloak such unpresentable motives 
 under the pretence of a generous solicitude for the 
 common good is an expedient which experience 
 
 English company resident in London, having extensive estates in this 
 county and in the county of Galway, and whose system, it appeared, 
 was to let their lands to tenants from year to year. In this case they 
 had a tenant who it was admitted was a man with means, who had 
 always paid his rent up to last Novemher ; and when last December 
 he was served with his ejectment, he was also served with a civil bill 
 for the November rent, and which he at once paid. It was plain from 
 the correspondence in the case that the defendant was a person of 
 intelligence and education. He, by his letters, asks this great company 
 to do that which every English landlord does — to fence the farm, or 
 to put him in a position to expend his own money in doing so, and 
 their answer to that is an ejectment. Could such a thing as this 
 happen with a resident landlord, with whom the tenant could have 
 a personal interview 1 but dealing with this company, it was highly 
 improbable that any of their tenants would ever see a landlord in the 
 flesh, as this great corporation were not resident here, never came 
 here, or discharged those duties which the owners of property owed 
 it to the country to discharge. He, however, sat there to administer 
 the law, and he should affirm the decree, not only with the costs 
 incident to it, but with the additional sum of 10s. 6d. demanded by 
 the company as the travelling expenses of their own bailiffs, who came 
 to prove the case." 
 See also Appendix B. 
 
The Laud. 47 
 
 tolls us is not seldom resorted to. In this case of 
 the land tenure of Ireland we have seen that an 
 elevated and patriotic regard for the welfare of agri- 
 culture and the nation at large is pleaded in defence 
 of the policy pursued. The evidence should be very 
 strong on this point, inasmuch as the presumption 
 would certainly lie the other way, — would irresistibly 
 lead to the conclusion that a very unscrupulous 
 class interest was being followed. A system which 
 satisfies only 8,000 individuals of a population 
 considerably over five millions, which drives these 
 millions into a state of chronic anger or despair, 
 requires very ample and conclusive vindication to 
 get it accepted by impartial men. Lord Dufferin 
 indeed asserts that nothing but a solemn conviction 
 of its importance to the public welfare induces him 
 and others of his class to adopt it. It is highly 
 necessary that this position should be examined. 
 
 The argument stated shortly is this. Good hus- 
 bandry is impossible with the condition of things 
 which, till recently, existed in Ireland. Irish ten- 
 ants, when left to themselves, and indulged with 
 leases, produced results which culminated in the 
 great famine, execrable agriculture, and a pauper 
 population. To prevent a recurrence of such a 
 calamity, say the landlords, is now our determined 
 intention. Noble, disinterested fcelino-s actuate us 
 
48 The Land. 
 
 in this course. Competition, it is well known, sends 
 up rents. We are traders in land, and we at least 
 should not have reason to complain of the multitude 
 of our customers. 1 We have no objection to la 
 petite culture which grew up under the old system 
 of leases, as it was found peculiarly advantageous 
 to landlords. We now object to it, simply because 
 we conscientiously believe it is a bad system. 2 It 
 is true, a considerable emigration is necessary for 
 the completion of our plans. But that is an evil 
 or a good to which all mankind at one period or 
 another have been exposed. Indeed, we do not 
 wish for emigration ourselves. We should be glad 
 if the people would turn to other employment. 
 We do not necessarily say that they need go away 
 from Ireland, but they certainly shall go away from 
 our farms. Agricultural improvement demands that. 
 Two men on an English farm do as much work as 
 four men do on an Irish farm. Ireland is in one of 
 those transitional states which are always full of 
 pain. A change is taking place in Irish agriculture 
 which " resembles the revolution which overturned 
 the manufacturing system of England on the intro- 
 duction of the power-loom." We are not to be 
 compelled to retain an unprofitable or exploded 
 
 1 Lord Dufterin, " Irish Emigration," p. 24. 
 
 2 Lord Dufferin, answer to Mr. Mill, p. 23. 
 
The Land, 49 
 
 system of husbandry, and it is wicked to revile us 
 because we are doing the best thing for the country 
 and the people. 1 
 
 Now the first point in this argument to be 
 noticed is, that the word "improvement" is used 
 ambiguously. It is a word which, like liberty, is 
 susceptible of varying definitions. Improving the 
 husbandry of Ireland does not necessarily bring 
 along with it improvement in the condition of 
 the husbandmen of Ireland. If, in consequence of 
 improved husbandry, one out o:':' every two hus- 
 bandmen is to be thrown out of employment, it is 
 clear that great misery must be the result. It is all 
 very well to say thai the unemployed man can do 
 something else : practically, he cannot ; he must 
 either starve or emigrate. " So much the better for 
 him," say the landlords. And this might be ad- 
 mitted, if the remaining husbandman left behind 
 were at once placed in < settled position of content 
 and comfort in consecpience. But we know he is 
 not. We know he is placed in a position of greater 
 insecurity and discomfort than ever he was before. 
 We know that he has not a fraction of a guarantee 
 
 o 
 
 that he will not have, at a few months' notice, to 
 follow his brother into exile. Now to tell us that 
 scientific agriculture is going to thrive on this 
 
 1 "Irish Emigration," p. 197. 
 E 
 
50 The Land. 
 
 condition of things becoming general is simply to 
 mistake the means for the end — to declare that men 
 were made for farming, not that farming was in- 
 vented for the sake of men. What does good farm- 
 ing exist for, if it be not to produce an increased 
 supply of food for more men ? Increased production 
 is, no doubt, an excellent thing, but in our zealous 
 pursuit of it we are not permitted to forget the 
 human agencies by which it is brought about. All 
 capitalists, whether manufacturers, landowners, or 
 slave-owners, are dreadfully prone to overlook this 
 important truth. But it is an oversight which the 
 conscience of mankind is growing yearly less dis- 
 posed to allow. If the condition of the producers 
 is not to count at all, there is no valid argument 
 against slavery in plantations. But the tendency is 
 to insist that production shall not go on at the cost 
 of sacrificing the producer. This principle is at the 
 root of all the disputes and difficulties in the great 
 debate between capital and labour. The slaves in 
 Jamaica were far more productive before emanci- 
 pation than they are now. But the conscieuce of 
 England said and says, That may be, but we will 
 not stand slavery all the same. And, nauseous as 
 the principle may be to the fruges consumere nati 
 of all orders, it is quite certain to prevail. 1 
 
 1 It is quite unnecessary to point out that the pretext of improved 
 
The Land. 51 
 
 But further, although the economizing of labour 
 by means of improved methods and machinery 
 often tells heavily on the contemporary artisans 
 who are displaced by the change, yet in the long- 
 run their class does not suffer, but much the reverse. 
 The power-loom was doubtless a blow to the hand- 
 weavers, but the consequent expansion of the cotton 
 business compensated the operative class a hundred- 
 fold. Lord Dufferin is fond of comparing land- 
 owners to traders; they are traders in land, he says. 
 Can he promise agricultural class compensation of 
 increased employment similar to what the Lanca- 
 shire millowners have been able to offer ? Will the 
 land trade expand in Ireland as the cotton trade 
 did in Blackburn, Preston, and Manchester ? He 
 proposes to make it not only stationary but retro- 
 grade, so far as concerns the number of hands 
 employed. And Lord Olanricarde recently in the 
 House of Lords held language of similar import. 
 Speaking of Belgian agriculture with the contempt 
 it appears to deserve, in his opinion, he asked his 
 audience : " In passing through Belgium, did their 
 lordships see steam ploughs and steam thrashing- 
 machines on the farms? No! But they saw women 
 labouring in the fields, and doing work which in 
 
 agriculture and increased production is merely a pretext, and has no 
 foundation in fact. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 The Land. 
 
 this country was clone by machinery." {Times, Feb. 
 25, 1868.) It is clear that in the eyes of these 
 noblemen the most objectionable sight in a land- 
 scape are I lie human beings who till the land of it. 
 Beduce \ hem as much as possible, and it will be 
 well with you : replace them by steam machinery, 
 and it will be better still. The unattainable but 
 ravishing ideal of this system would be to get the 
 land cultivated by one colossal steam-engine, tended 
 by a company of stokers. "Consummate cultiva- 
 tion" would then be obtained, without the need of 
 an agrarian class, who are now a necessary evil, but 
 who also are often troublesome and in the way. As 
 the world was made for landowners and rich people, 
 such an arrangement would lead to everything that 
 could be desired. It is possible, on the other hand, 
 that this beatific vision may not prove so fascinating 
 to the " masses." At any rate, if the landlords are 
 really bent on becoming manufacturers, and nothing 
 else, of corn, meat, and grain crops, let the fact be 
 known, and let us have as speedily as possible legis- 
 lation which will do for the labourers and tenants 
 what the "Factory Acts" have done for the ope- 
 ratives. 
 
 But we have not yet done justice to the mag- 
 nanimous and conscientious motives which lead 
 landlords to withhold leases. 
 
The Land. 53 
 
 The truth of the matter is this : the famine gave 
 che landlords such a fright, that they have not yet 
 recovered from it. Partly by their own apathy and 
 carelessness, partly by their grasping at the nearest 
 means to increase their political influence, and 
 partly by the operation of other causes, the tenantry 
 of Ireland before the year 1846 were mostly 
 paupers. Even before that fatal year the danger 
 was sighted. " The evil (of pauper tenants) grows 
 to an extent that threatens the annihilation of the 
 landlord's income," said the Devon Commissioners. 
 Then came the famine, which, while it killed or 
 exiled the tenants, gave also a heavy blow to the 
 landlords. The shock sobered them at once. They 
 perceived that laissez /aire may be carried too far. 
 They resolved that nothing of the kind should ever 
 occur again. I do not suppose that they ever 
 dreamed that any other course was open to them 
 than the one they took, and it may be admitted 
 that it did not exceed the ordinary measure of class- 
 selfishness when left to itself. They evicted the 
 pauper tenants, and made their successors tenants- 
 at-will. It is not necessary to deny the public 
 spirit and unselfishness of such a policy, but it is 
 necessary to remark that it exactly coincided with 
 their pecuniary interests, their privileges, and their 
 pride. First of all, tenants became more completely 
 
54 The Land. 
 
 exposed to coercion than ever before ; the increased 
 power over them was often useful at election times. 
 But secondly, "an evil which threatened the anni- 
 hilation of the landlord's income " was removed a 
 good way off, if not utterly destroyed. Pauper 
 warrens were not permitted to form again. This 
 precaution was doubly necessary, in consequence of 
 the new Poor-law which had been introduced a 
 short time previously. Indeed, a small episode in 
 the history of that important measure is worthy of 
 being recalled, as it is highly illustrative of land- 
 lord legislation. In the plan of the original framers 
 of the Bill the principle of Union chargeability had 
 formed an important feature ; the system which, 
 three years ago, after a protracted conflict, triumphed 
 in England, was to have been established, in the 
 first instance, in Ireland. But such a scheme in no 
 wise suited the landlords, who, under the lead of 
 the Duke of Wellington, succeeded in " localizing; 
 the charge upon the electoral divisions," thus 
 introducing " a quasi- settlement as between the 
 different divisions approximating to settlement as 
 between parishes in England." l The clearing of 
 estates thus became a matter of first importance 
 with landlords. Hence the terrible tale of evictions 
 which followed the famine years : — 
 
 1 " History of the Irish Poor-law," p. 288, by Sir George Nicholls. 
 
The Land. 55 
 
 In 1849 the evicted were 72,065 persons. 
 
 1850 „ 74,171 
 
 „ 1851 „ 43,449 
 
 „ 1852 „ 32,160 
 
 When it is borne in mind that relief is left to the 
 discretion of the guardians, and not compulsory, it 
 becomes manifest what a stimulating motive the 
 proprietors had in diminishing the population on 
 their estates to the utmost. Such a regard to its 
 own interest is no disgrace to any class, but it is 
 hardly fair to make out that it springs from a mag- 
 nanimous unselfishness ; to declare that " it is 
 resistance to an obvious temptation " which dis- 
 courages leasing and subletting. 1 
 
 1 " What did this law of electoral division rating do 1 It gave 
 a premium and an encouragement, even before the famine, for 
 depopulation on every estate. When the famine came, and we had 
 staring us in the face rates from 8s. to 14s. in the pound, landlords and 
 farmers had a fearful dread of labourers coming into or near their 
 farms. If they came into their farms, they were looked upon as if 
 they were wild beasts. . . . The poor were driven into the towns, 
 estates were cleared, and notices to quit were served. If that did not 
 answer, the houses were levelled." — Quoted by Mr. Butt, p. 123, from 
 a speech of Serjeant Barry in the House of Commons. I adduce this 
 passage because it alludes to a fact which no doubt is quite true, and 
 often used in argument to combat any change in the actual state of 
 things — the fact, viz. that the labourers are often as harshly treated 
 by the farmers as the latter are by the landlords, and that the labourers 
 are as much entitled to the consideration of Parliament as the tenants. 
 Beyond question they are, and they ought to have it. But one thing 
 at a time. Because we cannot render complete justice at once, that 
 is no reason why that part of it which it is within our power to afford 
 
56 The Land. 
 
 It is indeed evident that the proprietors of 
 Ireland dream of a future more fascinating to land- 
 lord imagination than anything which exists even 
 in that paradise of landlords, England. They are 
 far from wanting a wretched tenantry, but then the 
 last thing they want is an independent tenantry of 
 rich large farmers, who might easily grow restive. 1 
 Moderate-sized farms, let without lease, tilled by 
 men who could fairly get along, but who could be 
 squeezed periodically, as circumstances permitted : 
 this is the vision that transports their souls. A 
 pleasant progressive rise in rents, with " hands 
 untied " and full liberty to do as they like with 
 their own, is the fascinating prospect. No doubt 
 Lord Dufferin speaks the truth when he says he 
 does not want the people to emigrate. He says he 
 would like them to turn to other employment, and 
 if capital, and manufactures, and skill would come 
 from heaven, nothing could be more desirable. The 
 great pity is, that capital won't come. 
 
 And why will not capital come ? The shallow 
 answer is always ready, Because agitation frightens 
 
 should be withheld. But this is not the first time that justice to any 
 lias been denounced because logically it should lead to justice to all. 
 
 1 " I am by no means disposed to consider the English system 
 of large farms applicable to Ireland. On the contrary, I believe 
 we shall eventually settle down to an average size of farm, as 
 exceptionably suitable as is the gauge of our railways." — Lord 
 Dufferin, p. 192. 
 
The Land. 57 
 
 it away. Supposing it .did frighten English and 
 other capital away, why does not Ireland, like other 
 countries, develop capital of her own % Besides, 
 during four-fifths of the last century there was no 
 more agitation in Ireland than there was in Pom- 
 peii, but English capital was just as loth to go there 
 then as it is now, The fact is, there is no more 
 inducement for capital to go to Ireland than there is 
 for it to go to Salisbury Plain. English capital has 
 gone to Ireland for the only two investments which 
 were open to it, railways and land. Do people 
 suppose that rich Englishmen will go and start 
 manufactories in Ireland merely for the novelty of 
 the thing ? Adam Smith's third book of the "Wealth 
 of Nations " has apparently been written in vain, 
 The great economist devoted four chapters to this 
 interesting topic, the growth of capital, or, as he 
 called, the progress of opulence. He said, to quote 
 a few sentences from his luminous survey — " As 
 subsistence is in the nature of things prior to con- 
 veniency and luxury, so the industry which procures 
 the former must be necessarily prior to that which 
 ministers to the latter. The cultivation and im- 
 provement of the country, therefore, which affords 
 subsistence, must necessarily be prior to the increase 
 of the town, which furnishes only the means of con- 
 veniency and luxury. It is the surplus produce of 
 
58 The Land. 
 
 the country only, or what is over and above the 
 maintenance of the cultivators, that constitutes the 
 subsistence of the town, which can therefore increase 
 only with the increase of this surplus produce. . . . 
 Neither their employment" — that of the inhabitants 
 of towns — "nor subsistence therefore can augment, 
 but in proportion to the augmentation of the de- 
 mand from the country for finished work, and this 
 demand can augment only in proportion to the ex- 
 tension of improvement and cultivation." 1 Nothing 
 can be clearer ; if the towns have no customers, or 
 only such as are abjectly poor, they cannot thrive. 
 And further : as in the nature of things " subsistence 
 is prior to coirveniency and luxury," if wealth does 
 not increase in the country it can, broadly speaking, 
 increase nowhere. Manufactures to be worth any- 
 thing must be indigenous to the soil, must grow out 
 of the accumulation of small savings, which in time 
 demand on the spot remunerative investment. And 
 this is just what cannot take place in Ireland. Hear 
 what Mr. Marcus Keane says : — " Trade manufac- 
 tures and industrial occupations require local accu- 
 mulation of surplus capital in order to the prospe- 
 rity ; and such accumulations are hindered by the 
 general want of security of tenure. Society at large 
 is therefore deeply interested in the protection of the 
 
 1 " Wealth of Nations," book iii. cap. 1. 
 
The Land. 59 
 
 tenant class." l I would respectfully invite Lord 
 Dufferin's attention to this passage the next time he 
 feels disposed to lament over the absence of manu- 
 factures from Ireland. Mr. Keane says want of 
 security of tenure prevents the accumulation of local 
 capital, and prevents it by making rents rise 'pari 
 passu with improvements, and then confiscating the 
 improvements. In fact the landlords act as a waste 
 pipe, which drains off the surplus capital, which both 
 the great economist and the practical man alike 
 declare to be the indispensable commencement of a 
 manufacturing system. It is well to bear these facts 
 in mind when we are told, as we are constantly, 
 that what Ireland wants is peace, and a " develop- 
 ment of her resources." 
 
 It thus appears that we may legitimately come 
 to the following conclusions in reference to this 
 question of the present tenure of land in Ireland : — 
 
 (1) That insecurity of tenure is a result which 
 the landlords of Ireland advisedly and carefully 
 seek to bring about. 
 
 (2) That, whatever other motives may actuate 
 them, a very distinct class interest is preserved and 
 gratified by their present policy. 
 
 (3) That that policy, while it places them in a 
 position of extreme ascendency and power, is one 
 
 1 " Letter to Colonel Vandeleur," p. 5. 
 
60 The Land. 
 
 which, at the same time, prevents the accumulation 
 of capital, and keeps the country in that state of 
 chronic poverty which at all times has been the 
 bane of Ireland. 
 
 We now come to the paramount right and duty 
 of the State to intervene in such a case as that of 
 Ireland. 
 
 We are met at once with outcries at the iniquity 
 of spoliation, confiscation, revolutionary interference 
 with the rights of property. It may be well to 
 cursorily examine how far these alarming exclama- 
 tions are founded on any principle which gratifies 
 the perpetual non possumus of the landlords. 
 
 Property is an institution which not only has 
 many defenders, but one which has abundant 
 grounds for defence on its own merits. That the 
 great majority of men will not work unless they 
 are permitted to enjoy the fruits of their work is 
 a proposition which cannot be contested. The ques- 
 tion is, how far does this principle go to establish 
 the extreme rights of property in land which are 
 now claimed. It is quite certain no man made the 
 land, although it is equally certain that some man 
 or men made it fertile or fit for production. That 
 man or those men have an indefeasible claim to 
 the fertility and production thence ensuing. I am 
 not at all sure about that, says Lord Dufferin ; in 
 
The Zand. 61 
 
 fact I consider Mr. Mill's theory on this point 
 thoroughly unsound. That land is mine, you will 
 observe ; and if it suits me to let it to certain 
 persons of the lower classes on terms which we 
 both agree upon, what right has the State to meddle 
 with me, and dictate the conditions of the contract 
 I am willing or able to make ? " Hiring- land is 
 like hiring a ship. The farmer embarks his capital 
 in another man's field much in the same way as 
 the trader embarks his merchandise in another 
 man's ship. We must not deny the striking 
 analogy between the two cases on the ground that 
 the ship is a manufactured article, but the earth is 
 the gift of God. The land I have bought is pro- 
 bably itself as much a manufactured article as the 
 ship, and the iron or wood of which the ship is 
 built is as much the gift of God as the land. The 
 amount of hire paid for the use of the ship or for 
 the use of the land will be determined by com- 
 petition. If ships are Lew and land scarce, freight 
 and rent will rise, and the advantage o* the bargain 
 will remain with the owner of the ship and the 
 possessor of the field. An impartial observer may 
 think that the arrangements are unfavourable to 
 -the two interests affected by it, — commerce in the 
 one case, farming in the other; but inasmuch as 
 each was a voluntary contract between persons who 
 
02 The Land. 
 
 must be supposed capable of managing their own 
 affairs, any legislative interference to amend the 
 bargain might occasion greater mischief. And here 
 is the conclusion, — if the foregoing illustration be 
 apposite, it follows that the tenant's interest on the 
 farm he hires is quite as limited in its character as 
 the trader's interest in the ship he charters." l 
 
 Considering the character and position of the 
 writer, it must be admitted that this mode of 
 reasoning is very remarkable. It is difficult to 
 decide whether one shall wonder most at the ex- 
 traordinary want of precision of thought, or at the 
 absence of all statesmanlike grasp of a complex 
 social problem. " Ships few and land scarce." It 
 is really hard to understand how any cultivated 
 mind could be imposed upon by such a spurious 
 analogy. When land is scarce, can it be increased 
 in quantity? When ships are scarce and are 
 wanted, can they not be increased in any quantity 
 as long as the demand exists ? If traders wanted 
 ships as sorely as Irishmen want land, how long 
 does Lord Dufferin suppose they would be without 
 them? And then "the wood and iron the gifts of 
 God." Of course in one sense everything is the 
 gift of God. But human industry causes their 
 appearance in the market, and human industry 
 
 1 I give in Appendix C Lord Dufferin's argument in extenso. 
 
The Land. 63 
 
 will supply them, at present at least, and for a 
 good while to come, just in proportion as they are 
 wanted. 
 
 Lord Dufferm thinks that the monopolist of 
 a coal mine and the monopolist of a county stand 
 on the same footing. Just let him imagine himself 
 as wanting most urgently both coals and land, and 
 further let him imagine how he would deal with the 
 respective monopolists of the two commodities. He 
 would find the coal merchant perfectly ready to do 
 business with him, and to sell him coals as cheaply 
 as circumstances will admit, as he, the trader, knows 
 quite well the cheaper he sells the more he will sell. 
 Will the monopolist in land receive him in the 
 same manner \ Will he not clearly give him to 
 understand that he can and means to do what he 
 likes with his own ? Will he not peremptorily 
 show him the conditions on which he intends to 
 transact the matter, and politely tell him if he 
 does not like it he may leave it % In a word, when 
 coal merchants give their customers notice to quit, 
 and tell them they may emigrate for all they care, 
 then, and not till then, will Lord Dufferin's parallel 
 hold good. It is surely passing strange that these 
 elementary considerations in economics should have 
 been overlooked by one of the most respectable and 
 distinguished members of our hereditary senate. 
 
64 The Land. 
 
 What must be the views and opinions of those 
 members of it who are neither distinguished nor 
 respectable ? 
 
 Lord Duflerin distinctly hints at the end of his 
 pamphlet that he has quite demolished Mr. Mill, 
 and this opinion was shared by certain organs of 
 the press. The Times, indeed, made a pointed and 
 delicate conrparison, and alluded to the waste of 
 time o. smashing a butterfly on the wheel, Mr. 
 Mill being the butterfly, and Lord Duflerin the 
 giant who performed the feat. It was an admirable 
 simile, which it is to be hoped the world will not 
 willingly let die. It is quite unnecessary now to 
 interpose in behalf of the smashed butterfly, parti- 
 cularly as the more discerning have quite made up 
 their minds as to who ought in this controversy to 
 be called the butterfly, and who the giant. 
 
 Ad regards Mr. Mill's pamphlet, the essential part 
 of ii L simply irrefragable. The State is the 
 landlord. 
 
 In this dispute between landlord and tenant the 
 State has clearly a right to say, " I acknowledge no 
 rights in either of vou but such, as are subservient 
 to the general well-being o" \vhich I am guardian. 
 I wish the comfort and happiness of both, but 
 neither must make demands and insist upon rights 
 which, however clear and desirable they may appear 
 
The Land. 65 
 
 to you, are distinctly, from the central point of view 
 which I occupy, anti-social. As regards this land, 
 you are and shall be nothing but my tenants, or 
 rather servants. It neither coincides with my 
 interests nor notions of duty that either of you 
 should be wronged or made miserable. Your pro- 
 sperity and contentment are what I especially seek 
 to secure. Neither shall work the wretchedness of 
 the other. How I shall carry this determination 
 into effect is matter for consideration. Mr. Mill 
 suggests that I should take all the land into my 
 management, and do justice to the husbandmen 
 directly myself. With the profoundest regard for 
 one of the most illustrious of my citizens, I think 
 that great difficulties might be found in working 
 such a scheme. I should have to cover the country 
 with an army of employes, and it is not certain that 
 I could, if I would, be always a beneficent landlord 
 under those conditions. But that is no reason why 
 I should not insist that these persons shall be fairly 
 and honestly treated. I also mean to do justice to 
 the landlord. But their class must, as a preliminary, 
 give up all notions that they have a right to say, 
 VEtat, cest moi" 
 
 It appears to the present writer that the landlord, 
 with an interest in the prosperity of the land, and 
 yet without such paramount powers as to enable 
 
 F 
 
66 The Land. 
 
 him to pay attention to no interests but his own, is 
 the most convenient person to bridge over the 
 chasm between the public, personified in the State, 
 and the actual cultivator of the soil. 
 
 This will be done by empowering the solvent 
 tenant to exact from his landlord the protection 
 of a lease of say not less than thirty years ; by 
 making compensation for occupation right a statut- 
 able right ; by making it the landlord's interest to 
 renew the tenant's lease at some fixed period, say 
 ten years, before the expiration of such lease ; by 
 enacting that the landlord who should refuse thus 
 to renew a lease should pay all rates and taxes for 
 the last ten years of the unexpired term ; also, that 
 he shall allow the legal compensation for occupation 
 right by a pro rata deduction from each of the 
 last ten years' rent. A measure embodying these 
 or similar provisions would put an end to the 
 present cruel insecurity, and enable industry and 
 thrift to reap their just reward. 1 
 
 The practical aim of legislation on this matter 
 should clearly be to make success or failure in 
 agricultural pursuits the manifest result of the 
 agriculturist's own merits or defects. If a farmer is 
 a fool who cannot learn his business, it is no one's 
 
 i The.se suggestions are taken almost literally from the admirable 
 pamphlet of Mr. Marcus Keane already referred to. 
 
The Laud. 07 
 
 interest to keep him on his farm ; it is the public 
 interest that he should be thrust out of his farm, 
 and that a worthier man should take his place. 
 On the other hand, the good and improving farmer 
 should be protected by walls of adamant from 
 coercion, injustice, or harshness. To say that this 
 is beyond the power of legislation is to say that 
 politics are an impossibility. The good farmer is 
 entitled to every consideration as a faithful soldier 
 in the social army. Not only does he do his duty, 
 but by his example he helps others to do their 
 duty. That such a man should be liable to be 
 robbed of his earnings in the improvements and the 
 capital he has invested in the land, that he should 
 be liable to the odious injustice of being deprived 
 of the post he so worthily fills, is little short of 
 barbarous. The system under which such a thing 
 could occur is nothing less than an organization for 
 disseminating a social blight throughout the coun- 
 try. It stifles industry, energy, and thrift, in their 
 very cradle ; it expunges them from the list of 
 publicly useful virtues. 1 
 
 No class can be a healthy and permanently useful 
 member of the body politic in which energy and 
 intelligence do not meet with their proper reward, 
 and incompetency and sloth their proper chastise- 
 
 1 See Appendix D. 
 F 2 
 
68 The Land. 
 
 ment. All the community suffers when a grounded 
 discontent pervades any large branch of industry. 
 A " devil's dust " is in such circumstances always 
 mixed with the work they do, and the commodity 
 they produce. 
 
 Great calamities and hardships can be borne 
 stoically, if not cheerfully, both by individuals and 
 classes, when it is distinctly seen that no human 
 agency is to blame for them. Earthquakes and tor- 
 nadoes cause no resentment, frightful as may be 
 their devastations. A cotton famine can reduce 
 four millions of operatives to pauperism and short 
 commons, and the visitation shall be heroically 
 endured when it is clear that no human power 
 could have prevented the catastrophe. But maltreat 
 men by laws and arrangements which only exist 
 because you choose to make them, and then the 
 fiercest passions in the human heart declare war 
 against you. Persist in them after remonstrance 
 and fair warning, then prepare for the day of wrath 
 and vengeance which is surely coming. 
 
TIL— THE NATION. 
 
 It thus appears that Ireland suffers under two 
 great oppressive grievances : the Established Church 
 aucl the Tenure of Land. That is to say, that the 
 people of that country are injured both spiritually 
 and materially — in their religious susceptibilities 
 and in their pockets. 
 
 But owing to the conditions, especially to the 
 insularity, of the country, these grievances are not 
 merely the grievances of classes, of sections of the 
 community, but of the commuuity itself, — of the 
 Nation, in short. 
 
 And these grievances further have been inflicted 
 upon the Irish nation by another nation. The alien 
 Church which casts scorn on the religion of the 
 people was imported into the country, was placed 
 in a position of power and honour with the avowed 
 object of coercing and insulting it. The alien pro- 
 prietary which holds the land was endowed with 
 that land with the express understanding that the 
 original owners and inhabitants should be carefully 
 
70 The Nation. 
 
 expelled from it. 1 And both these things were done, 
 not by a powerful unscrupulous class in the country 
 itself, but by a foreign power which, by reason of 
 
 1 The attempt of the English Government to exterminate the native 
 Irish in the reign of Elizabeth has lately had justice done to it by 
 Mr. Froude, in his 10th vol. chap. 24. " The English nation," he says, 
 "was shuddering over the atrocities of the Duke of Alva. The children 
 in the nurseries were being inflamed to patriotic rage and madness by 
 the tales of Spanish tyranny. Yet Alva's bloody sword never touched 
 the young, the defenceless, or those whose sex even dogs can recognise 
 and respect. Sir Peter Carew had been seen murdering women and 
 children, and babies that had scarcely left the breast. But Sir Peter 
 Carew was not called to answer for his conduct, and remained in favour 
 with the deputy. Gilbert, who was left in command at Kilmalock, was 
 
 illustrating yet more signally the same tendency He regarded 
 
 himself as dealing rather with savage beasts than with human beings, 
 and when he tracked them to their dens he strangled the cubs, and 
 rooted out the entire broods." Mr. Froude adds that this method of 
 treatment had the disadvantage that it must be carried out to the last 
 extremity, or it ought not to be tried at all, and there were obvious 
 difficulties in the way of doing it thoroughly. 
 
 Therefore the next effort on the part of the English to rid them- 
 selves of the Irish took the form of transplanting. James I. did this 
 for Ulster, and was very successful. Cromwell tried to continue his 
 work in Leinster and Munster, and failed in comparison. Those who 
 wish to obtain a clear notion of what literally without any exaggeration 
 is one of the most awful chapters in human annals, should read the 
 " Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland," by Mr. John Prendergast. 
 " Connaught was selected for the habitation of all the Irish nation by 
 reason of its being surrounded by the sea and the Shannon all but ten 
 miles, and the whole easily made into one by a line of forts. To further 
 secure the imprisonment of the nation, and to cut them off from relief 
 by sea, a belt of four miles wide, commencing one mile west of Sligo, 
 and so winding along the sea-coast and the Shannon, was reserved by 
 the Act (27th Septeml cr. 3 653) from being let out to the Irish, and 
 
 was to be given to the soldiery to plant There they were to 
 
 dwell without entering a walled town, or coming within five miles of 
 some on pain of death. All were to remove thither by the 1st of May, 
 ]fin4, at latest, under pain of being put to death by sentence of a court 
 
The Nation. 71 
 
 differences of race, language, and religion, was 
 animated towards it with the intensest forms of 
 hatred and cruelty. 
 
 of military officers if found after that date on the English side of the 
 Shannon." — Cromvellian Settlement of Ireland, pp. 29, 30. This 
 transplanting work, as it was called, gave a good deal of trouble to 
 Cromwell's officers, who declared : " It is the nature of this people to 
 be rebellious, and they have been so much the more disposed to it, 
 having been highly exasperated by the transplanting work." — Ibid. p. 50. 
 They flinched not, however. 
 
 " I have only to acquaint you that the time prescribed for the trans- 
 planting of the Irish proprietors, and those that have been in arms 
 and abettors of the rebellion, being near at hand, the officers are 
 resolved to fill the gaols and seize them, by which this bloody people 
 will know that they (the officers) are not degenerated from English 
 principles. Though I presume we shall be very tender of hanging, 
 except leading men, yet we shall make no scruple of sending them to 
 the West Indies, where they will serve for planters." — Ibid. p. 52. 
 Still hanging had to be resorted to, and more than one was hanged 
 with placards back and front, " For not transplanting." 
 
 But the adventurers themselves soon found it to their interest not 
 to push the transplanting too far ; and " as the impossibility of getting 
 English tenants grew more evident, and the urgent want of tillage 
 increased, the officers in Limerick, Cork, Kerry, and other counties gave 
 general orders, giving dispensation from the necessity of planting with 
 English tenants, and liberty to take Irish, provided they were not pro- 
 prietors or swordsmen On the 1st of June, 1655, the Commis- 
 sioners for the Affairs of Ireland, Fleetwood Lord Deputy, one of them, 
 being then at Limerick, discovered this fraud, and issued a peremptory 
 order, revoking all former dispensations for English proprietors to plant 
 with Irish tenants, and then enjoined upon the Governor of Limerick 
 and all other officers the removing of the proprietors thus sheltered 
 and their families into Connaught, on or before that day three weeks." 
 Still many of the English officers connived at the breaking of this 
 order, and drew down upon themselves this severe rebuke from 
 Fleetwood : " I do hereby order and declare that if any officer or sol- 
 dier under my command shall offend by neglect of his duty in searching 
 for and apprehending all such persons as, by the declaration of 30th 
 November, are to transplant themselves into Connaught, or by enter- 
 
72 The Nation. 
 
 Hence Ireland complains, not only of this or that 
 grievance or injustice, but of a grand synthesis of 
 grievances which sums them all up, which gives 
 an additional weight to each by throwiug it into 
 the grand total which figures under the head of 
 national wrongs. 
 
 I well know the impatience which even an 
 allusion to this subject excites in England. The 
 notion of Irish nationality is regarded as partly 
 wicked, and partly insane. " What do the Irish 
 want V it is asked ; "why cannot they let by-gones 
 be by-gones ? We all know they were badly 
 treated once ; but that is all over now, and occurred 
 long ago. Why cannot they accept thankfully 
 and proudly the magnificent privileges of British 
 citizenship now offered them ? The whole agitation 
 is dishonest and unreal." 
 
 It would be hardly worth while to remind the 
 Englishmen who hold this view, with what scorn 
 they treat similar language in the mouth of a 
 Bourbou or a Hapsburg, or even of a North Ame- 
 
 taining them as tenants on his land, as servants under him, he shall 
 be punished by the articles of war as negligent of his duty, according 
 to the merit of such his neglect." — Cromivellian Settlement of Ire- 
 land, pp. 131-33. Again the territory commonly called " the five 
 counties " was ordered to be wholly cleared of Irish Papists by the 1st 
 of May, 1655, on pain of being taken as spies, and proceeded with 
 before a court martial. But difficulties supervened in carrying out this 
 scheme. 
 
The Nation, 73 
 
 rican Kepublican, or how effusely their sympathy 
 is given to the all and sundry of rebels, provided 
 they are not their subjects. The important thing- 
 is to convince them of the very substantial reasons 
 which lead the Irish to take so very different a 
 view of their connexion with England from that 
 which they do themselves. 
 
 Two preliminary remarks are here to be made. 
 (1) That conquest, so far from being an exception in 
 the history of States, is, on the contrary, the rule. 
 As Guizot has said, " L'origine de tous les gouverne- 
 ments, c'est la force." The fact that Ireland was 
 conquered by England is no peculiarity. England, 
 France, Spain, Italy were all conquered, and have 
 all got over their conquest. 
 
 (2) Nations have long memories, and their 
 memories are long in proportion to their endow- 
 ments and cultivation. The English people live in 
 their past as much as any people. Happily for 
 them it is a past in which they can, for the most 
 part, feel a just pride. Crecy, Poitiers, and Agin- 
 court are names which still occasionally send a 
 thrill through most men whose limbs were made in 
 England. The triumph over the Spanish Armada 
 has not lost a particle of lustre after nearly three 
 centuries in English eyes. The heroes who have 
 spread the fame of England, whether on sea or 
 
74 The Nation. 
 
 land, or in arts or in science, are "familiar in 
 our mouths as household words." There is a cer- 
 tain class of by-gones which we should be the last 
 to let fade away. 
 
 And now let us see how these two remarks apply 
 to the special case of Ireland. 
 
 Why should Ireland be for ever lamenting her 
 conquest, when we see it is- the common fate of 
 nations sooner or later ? The answer is, that the 
 conquest of Ireland was a vulgar event enough ; it 
 is the state of things that has supervened on 
 that conquest which is grave and almost without 
 parallel. France took Alsace and Strasbourg with 
 every circumstance of treachery and cruelty only 
 a few years before William and his generals com- 
 pleted the final subduing of Ireland. Yet Alsace 
 is a contented French province, and Ireland is in 
 chronic insurrection. Strasbourg is as loyal to 
 France as any town in the Empire ; Cork, and 
 even Dublin, are filled with men whose one idea 
 is how to break loose from and injure England. 
 The explanation of the difference is, that in the 
 one case the wounds of conquest have been allowed 
 to heal, while in the other they have been kept open 
 and bleeding. 
 
 It is not because Ireland was conquered two 
 centuries ago that she is bitter, moody, and 
 
The Nation. 75 
 
 wretched now ; but because the sharp and cruel 
 effects of that conquest are cutting and maiming 
 her still, — because her daily experience rehearses 
 for her not the act of conquest, but the division 
 of the spoil which followed it. It would, no doubt, 
 require a very rose-coloured present to obliterate 
 from her memory her terrible past. But her pre- 
 sent, instead of being rose-coloured, is as gloomy as 
 in these modern humane days it well can be. She 
 certainly is not scourged, and shot, and hanged as 
 formerly ; but, mutatis mutandis, things are not 
 so very different with her from what they were 
 in the last or in the seventeenth century. Her 
 people were then told they might go to "hell or 
 Conn aught;" they are now told they may go, if 
 they will be so good, to America. Fire and sword 
 were the weapons of those days ; evictions and 
 doctrines about the sacred rights of property are 
 the weapons of ours. The means, no doubt, are 
 very different, but the object is precisely the 
 same. 
 
 What did the conquest do to Ireland ? It gave 
 her churches and their endowments to an alien 
 clergy ; it gave her land to an alien proprietary. 
 And what does the actual policy do but jealously 
 continue and confirm the state of matters esta- 
 blished by the conquest ? The battle of the Boyue 
 
76 The Nation. 
 
 seems an historical event, antiquated enough to 
 Englishmen. But events still occur in Ireland 
 which bring back in all their vividness the results 
 it produced. There is a well-known case in the 
 north of Ireland at this moment, in which the 
 proprietor has deliberately turned a large tract of 
 country to waste sooner than come to terms with 
 his tenants. Thus the present forms one web with 
 the past. And who always appears to the Irish 
 mind in the character of a fell sister, spinning this 
 abhorred thread of wretchedness ? Who supports 
 the landlords % Who supports, or at least it happily 
 may soon be asked, Who has hitherto supported 
 the Church 1 Who covers the country with a 
 powerful army ? Who crowds the prisons with 
 political prisoners ? ' The humiliating answer is 
 
 1 Few persons in England realize the perfectly frightful insecurity 
 of personal liberty in Ireland at the present moment. In spite of all 
 the honeyed talk as to the moderation with which the exceptional 
 powers given to the Irish Executive are used, it remains a fact that 
 people are almost daily and nightly quietly kidnapped and carried off 
 to prison on mere suspicion, and are kept there without trial or even 
 accusation for periods sometimes amounting to two years, and then 
 discharged without even the pretence of a crime being alleged against 
 them. Lately the lettre de cachet system, as it is justly called in 
 Ireland, has been developed into almost a complete likeness to its 
 great original under Louis XV. The plan is now adopted of concealing 
 the names of the captives. 
 
 " During the past few days a large number of arrests on charges of 
 complicity in the Fenian conspiracy, and under the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, have been made in Dublin by the detective police. 
 In every instance the utmost secrecy was observed hy the authorities, and 
 
The Nation. 77 
 
 that England does ; and that — saving a little 
 harshness the less in details — the policy is iden- 
 tical with that which has obtained for centuries. 
 
 it was only by the complaints of the relatives and friends of the pri- 
 soners that the facts became known. Amongst those arrested was the 
 brother of one of the Fenian prisoners, who died in prison whilst under- 
 going a term of imprisonment inflicted on him at one of the recent 
 commissions for an alleged connexion with Fenianism. We doubt the 
 wisdom of the course observed by the authorities in preserving such 
 mystery as to the facts of these arrests." — Freeman. 
 
 " We understand that the detective officers have recently arrested a 
 number of persons on warrants signed by the Lord Lieutenant, under 
 the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. The authorities are extremely 
 reticent icith reference to these arrests, and we have not been able to learn 
 the names of any of the persons taken into custody. It is said, however, 
 that one is the brother of a Fenian prisoner who died in prison a 
 short time ago." — Express. 
 
 " Merely by indirect means have we been made aware of the arrests 
 that have taken place in the city of the past fortnight. Though in 
 some cases the evidence was strong against the parties, in others that 
 suspicion only justified the arrests, the detectives were particularly 
 reticent as to the exact details, and it could be found out only with 
 difficulty that captures had been effected. In one case it has been ascer- 
 tained that the brother of one already undergoing imprisonment has 
 been sent to jail." — Irish Times. 
 
 " It is stated that several persons have been arrested within the last 
 month in this city, under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, for com- 
 plicity in the Fenian conspiracy, by the detective police. Unusual 
 official reticence has been of late observed by the authorities, and we 
 have been unable to obtain the names of those arrested through the usual 
 channel of information. Doubtless the authorities have good reason 
 for their unusual secrecy in reference to their prisoners. The brother 
 of a man who lately died while in custody on a charge of Fenianism 
 is said to be amongst those arrested." — Saunders News Letter. 
 
 It should also be remembered that the nominal imprisonment which 
 Messrs. Sullivan and Pigott are undergoing is really penal servitude. 
 Their confinement is solitary for twenty-two hours out of the twenty- 
 four. They have not the use of either pen, ink. and paper, nor of 
 books. They may not receive, not answer letters. The most trifling 
 
78 The Nation. 
 
 That policy is the coercion of Ireland at the 
 pleasure, and for the supposed benefit, of England. 
 People must have a strange conception of human 
 nature in general, and of Irish nature in particular, 
 if they wonder that bitter national antipathy is 
 the result of such a policy. It argues a singular 
 dulness of imagination not to be able to realize the 
 intense national spirit of antagonism and hatred 
 which must be evoked by perpetual thwarting, com- 
 pression and oppression. An Irishman, looking up 
 the vista of his country's history, sees one recurring 
 fact always prominent, always crushing him and 
 his country as with the weight of mountains. From 
 the all but mythic twilight of the Middle Ages 
 down to the year of grace 1868, the same great 
 shadow is thrown across his land from the same 
 great object. Under this shadow he has cowered 
 and shuddered for ages, it has ever filled his horizon, 
 and been 
 
 " A looming bastion fringed with fire," 
 
 with fire which could descend and burn him and his 
 like flax. 1 And because he dreads the fire, because 
 
 infringement of prison rules (such as the most trivial remark to an- 
 other prisoner) is punished by a bread and water diet, and the black 
 hole. 
 
 1 The bland way in which Englishmen agree to think no more about 
 the atrocities they have committed in Ireland would be quite amusing 
 
The Nation. 79 
 
 his mind is still full of horror and agony at the 
 terrible heat of it, he is disaffected — he has not that 
 proper spirit of loyalty which Englishmen admire. 
 
 The misfortune is that this condition of Irish 
 feeling is most imperfectly realized and appreciated 
 in this country. It is still the real or supposed 
 interest, or at least the object, of many in this 
 country, to represent the prevalent sentiments of 
 Irishmen as something very different from this ; to 
 assert that all this emigration and noisy disaffection 
 means nothing after all, that the people are sound 
 and loyal at heart ; and the desired moral follows 
 of course : " Don't meddle, don't interfere, let well 
 alone ; for your life don't listen to any ' tampering ' 
 with the rights of property ; and as for a national 
 spirit, treat it with the contempt such an absurd 
 figment deserves." This advice has been followed 
 too long, and has already cost far too dear. To 
 those who know Ireland and her history its in- 
 
 were it in connexion with any less terrible subject. Every school-girl 
 taught to shudder at the wickedness of the French Revolutionists, 
 ind the crimes of the Reign of Terror are carefully instilled into the 
 youthful mind to impress it with a due abhorrence of republicans, and 
 the excesses they by nature are sure to be guilty of. The Reign of 
 Terror which a chaste and pious George III. and a heaven -born 
 minister suffered to exist in Ireland, is conveniently forgotten. 
 Robespierre and St. Just are held up as monsters ; but Lieutenant 
 Helpenstall and Judkin Fitzgerald, wretches compared with whom the 
 French Conventionists were almost humanitarians, are not even men- 
 tioned. 
 
80 The Nation. 
 
 sidious malice is plain enough ; but it can hardly 
 be expected that the busy and not over-studious 
 British people will so readily detect the fallacy of 
 the specious counsel. The counsel, being inter- 
 preted, means shortly this : " Take no notice of the 
 real Ireland, Catholic, Celtic Ireland ; think only 
 of the sham Ireland, the exotic Ireland we have 
 planted there, the Ireland of Protestantism and 
 landlords." The result is that the mind of the 
 English nation is never brought into contact with 
 the facts of the political problem which it vitally 
 concerns the English nation to solve. Hence flow 
 the most lamentable delusions, the most ill-founded 
 hopes, followed by fierce gusts of disappointment. 
 While the hallucination lasts that Irish disaffection 
 arises from a foreign element let loose upon us 
 by the disbanding of the American armies, that 
 artful agitators who play upon the passions of an 
 excitable people are the source of our trouble, 
 truly remedial measures for Ireland are impossible, 
 simply because the gigantic proportions of the task 
 before us are not even suspected. The first neces- 
 sity for Englishmen is to get thoroughly and 
 solemnly convinced that large numbers of Irishmen 
 hate them and their country with the bitterest 
 hatred that it is possible to conceive ; and the 
 next is to admit that Englishmen have done very 
 
The Nation. 81 
 
 much to deserve that hatred. 1 It will not do, in 
 the old silly ostrich fashion, to ignore or despise this 
 hatred ; a fact, indeed, of daily increasing difficulty. 
 The hatred is one of the conditions of the problem 
 with which we have to deal. As we cannot sink 
 Ireland in the sea, and are determined to keep her 
 to ourselves, it is clear that remedial measures, very 
 different from any yet propounded, are required to 
 make a United Kingdom a reality instead of a 
 constitutional fiction. As Mr. Mill says, our diffi- 
 culty is a difficulty of understanding, of seeing the 
 facts as they are. And yet our recent experience 
 encourages us to make any effort to overcome this 
 difficulty. After three centuries of blindness our 
 eyes have been opened to the iniquity of the 
 Established Church. And already the good fruit is 
 beginning to grow in Ireland. In time we may 
 
 1 Within the last few weeks all this is at an end. Not only Irish 
 disaffection but Irish grievances have been suddenly, and as if by 
 magic, removed by the simple method of driving the Prince and 
 Princess of Wales round and about Dublin, and by their appearance at 
 the Punchestown races. If this is really the fact, what are we to 
 think of a Government which did not avail itself of so easy a remedy 
 for rebellion and disaffection before ? It was not Lord Strathnairn 
 and an army, but the Heir Apparent and a carriage and four, that 
 ought to have been sent to Ireland. It is difficult to maintain one's 
 gravity over such a delusion— if, indeed, it is a delusion wdiich deludes 
 anybody. Why did not the special correspondent of the Times at once 
 restore to the Royal Family their anciently supposed power of cure by 
 touching for the evil ? or why not make the Prince heal all the halt 
 and the blind in the Dublin hospitals with a wave of his finger? 
 Moral miracles quite as great are ascribed to him. 
 
82 The Nation. 
 
 see the other iniquities. We have seen the wrong 
 of ecclesiastical ascendency ; let it be hoped we 
 shall soon see the wrong of lay — that is, of landlord 
 ascendency, and generally of English and British 
 Parliament ascendency. 
 
 As regards the native schemes of separate legisla- 
 tures, Irish Republic, and what not, I confess that 
 to me, they appear truly to bear the character ol 
 cegri somnia, the sick dreams of poor Ireland half 
 delirious through English coldness and oppression. 
 I do not recommend that the dreams of delirium 
 should be gratified, but that its cause should be 
 removed. Whatever may prove the ultimately wise 
 method to do this, I am sure the obsolete cruelties 
 once practised on the insane will effect no good. 
 Strait waistcoat, scourging, and starving, as curative 
 means are lono- out of date. We had better have 
 
 o 
 
 a care, or we may drive the semi-delirium into 
 .settled madness. As we see, symptoms of homicidal 
 mania are already not wanting. 
 
 The first requisite, then, for the real pacification 
 of Ireland, with all deference I would say, is a new 
 heart and a new mind on the part of England 
 towards her, a new conviction of her sad case, and 
 of our still sadder responsibility for it. A first-rate 
 remedial measure would be a compulsory study of 
 Irish history by every Englishman who could read. 
 
The Nation. 83 
 
 Englishmen would then see what they have done, 
 or rather suffered to be done, in their name, and 
 more adequately realize how much they have now 
 to undo. 
 
 When the national conscience is once fairly 
 aroused on this subject, the English public, will 
 find itself in a new world. The patronising. way in 
 which England, the wrong-doer, now so frequently 
 and magnanimously offers to condone and forget the 
 past, will, it may be hoped, be laid aside. Especially 
 may a change be expected in the tone of allusions 
 to, and estimates of, the Union. One of the most 
 nefarious transactions in human history, and now 
 proved calamitous in its effects, will probably cease 
 to be regarded as a venerable covenant with which 
 it is impious to meddle. What changes or additions 
 will be made to the terms of union, it is the business 
 of practical statesmen to consider. An autumn ses- 
 sion of the Irish representatives in Dublin, invested 
 with considerable powers of local government, is 
 one scheme, and veil worth considering. An occa- 
 sional session of the Imperial Parliament in Ireland 
 — say once in three years — is another, and the 
 suo-o'estion of a thinker who knows Ireland as few 
 
 uu 
 
 do, Mr. Goldwin Smith ; who would also substitute 
 for a single central assembly in Dublin for the 
 whole of Ireland four provincial councils in the 
 
 G 2 
 
84 The Nation. 
 
 four provinces. The time for discussing these pro- 
 posals has unhappily not yet arrived ; but the first 
 stirrings of statesmanship among us will inevitably 
 bring them rapidly to the front. We cannot con- 
 tinue in the present unendurable rule of imbecile 
 routine ; a ceaseless proclamation of our own poli- 
 tical incompetence has ceased to impose on Ireland, 
 and cannot much longer impose on ourselves. It 
 rests with the energetic, intelligent, and unselfish 
 portion of the English nation very earnestly to see 
 to it that the republic receive no further detriment. 
 Whether a great and crushing Nemesis is destined 
 to overtake this nation in consequence of her treat- 
 ment of Ireland is what the future only can dis- 
 close. Nothing but the blindness of stupidity can 
 refuse to see that perils of an unprecedented order 
 are threatening us. Thoy may burst upon our 
 heads amid the not over-sorrowful spectators of 
 the civilized world. They may pass over and leave 
 us to our old ways. We are strong, tenacious, and 
 rich. We can still do much evil. Other countries 
 are slow even to attempt the punishment of such 
 imperial wrong-doers. The poor Irish must and 
 do sec that they are weak as rushes before us. 
 Frenchmen, Americans, Eussians have all got their 
 hands full enouo-h of troubles to leave us alone 
 without pressing necessity of interference. That 
 
The Nation. 
 
 85 
 
 necessity may never arrive. We are in a position 
 neither to fear God nor to regard man, if we choose 
 to avail ourselves of it. But no ! not yet will a 
 patriotic Englishman think such an awful future 
 destined for his country. Righteous men there still 
 are among us, great and numerous as are our sins. 
 Not yet can we believe that the countrymen of 
 Hampden, of Milton, and Sydney are all unworthy 
 of their sires. Even yet may this nation be touched 
 by the Ithuriel spear of conscience, and burn with 
 a holy ardour to do what is lawful and right. 
 We will hope in the virtue and valour of the 
 coming time, of a new era, of that future which 
 shall be all the brighter that the past was base. 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Appendix A. referred to at P. 34. 
 
 On the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne, in Kerry, an 
 order of this nature had been issued. I will not attempt to 
 weaken the effect of the narrative of i( >S. G. 0." by any para- 
 phrase : — 
 
 " On the estate of the Marquis of Lansdowne there lived, 
 a few niunths ago, a man and his wife, Michael and Judith 
 Donoghue ; they lived in the house of one Casey. An order 
 had gone forth on the estate (a common order in Ireland) that 
 no tenant is to admit any lodger into his house. This was 
 a general order. It appears, however, that sometimes special 
 orders are given, having regard to particular individuals. The 
 Donoghues had a nephew, one Denis Shea. This boy had no 
 father living. He had lived with a grandmother who had been 
 turned out of her holding for harbouring him. Denis Shea 
 was twelve years old — a child of decidedly dishonest habits. 
 Orders were given by the driver of this estate that this child 
 should not be harboured upon it. This young Cain, thus 
 branded and prosecuted, being a thief — he had stolen a shilling, 
 a hen, and done many other such crimes as a neglected twelve- 
 year-old famishing child will do — wandered about. One night 
 he came to his aunt Donoghue, who lodged with Casey. He 
 had the hen with him. 
 
 "Casey told his lodgers not to 'allow him in the house,' as 
 the agent's drivers had given orders about it. The woman, the 
 
88 Appendix. 
 
 child's aunt, took up a pike or pitchfork and struck him down 
 with it ; the child was crying at the time. The man Donoghue, 
 his uncle, with a cord tied the child's hands behind his hack. 
 The poor child after a while crawls or staggers to the door of 
 one Sullivan, and tried to get in there. The maid of Sullivan 
 called to Donoghue to take him away. This he did ; hut he 
 afterwards returned, with his hands still tied behind his back. 
 Donoghue had already beaten him severely. The child seeks 
 refuge in other cabins, but is pursued by his character — he was 
 so bad a boy, the fear of the agent and the driver — all were 
 forbidden to shelter him. He is brought back by some neigh- 
 bours, in the night, to Casey's, where his uncle and aunt lived. 
 The said neighbours tried to force the sinking child in upon his 
 relations. There is a struggle at the door. The child was 
 heard asking some one to put him upright. In the morning 
 there is blood upon the threshold. The child is stiff dead — a 
 corpse with its arms tied ; around it every mark of a last fearful 
 struggle for shelter — food — the common rights of humanity. 
 
 " The Donoghues were tried at the late Kerry Assizes. It 
 was, morally, a clear case of murder; but it was 'said, or 
 believed, that these Donoghues acted not in malice to the child, 
 but under a sort of sense of self-preservation ; that they felt to 
 admit him was to become wanderers themselves. They were 
 indicted for manslaughter, and found guilty." 
 
 Appendix B, referred to at P. 46. 
 
 The actual position of the tenant in Ireland with regard to 
 compensation for improvements : — 
 
 " In Ireland, when a lease is likely to fall in and a new one 
 is not agreed upon, or when a tenant is improvident, the land is 
 run out — that is, the pasture land is mown and the arable land 
 is cropped till nothing more can be got out of it. Supposing 
 you were entering on a farm of this description, as I did on one 
 I purchased twelve years ago, you must either buy manure, or 
 hay, corn, linseed-cake, &c, to feed cattle and sheep, in order to 
 
Appendix. 89 
 
 make it : for two or three years, according to the nature of the 
 land and your own knowledge of farming, you would actually 
 sustain a loss ; as your land came round you would have to 
 consider whether it would pay you Letter to be a grazier, laying 
 all your farm gradually down in grass, or whether you would 
 farm on the four-course system, growing cereals, green crops, 
 clover, &c. If you did the latter, there woidd always he a con- 
 siderable portion of your land which had been manured the 
 previous year, or the year before that ; and if you were a judi- 
 cious manager, and cultivated your land as you ought, your farm 
 would be worth from ten shillings to a pound an acre more than 
 when you got it ; and without reckoning good-will at all, the 
 unexhausted manure in the land should be worth several pounds 
 an acre. Xow, under the head of permanent improvements, 
 you would not be entitled to sixpence if you were ejected. In 
 some counties in England you would be liberally paid, but at 
 present in Ireland nothing is allowed, which I think accounts 
 for a great deal of bad husbandry. But supposing you turned 
 the greater portion of your farm into grass, and after feeding 
 sheep and young cattle found your land so improved that it 
 would fatten good-sized beasts, you would have spent many 
 years in arriving at such a pitch of perfection, and expended 
 a great deal of money in top-dressing, &c. : you would at least 
 have doubled the value of your farm, as I have in several 
 instances doubled the value of land I have purchased. Well, 
 when you had done this, if you were ejected, you would not be 
 entitled to anything, under any law past or projected ; your 
 landlord would take the farm, which you had received in an 
 exhausted state, and which you had rendered fertile and profit- 
 able, and would either keep it in his own hands, or let it for 
 perhaps two pounds an acre more than you paid or than any 
 one would give when you took it, and you would have to go 
 elsewhere. Can any one wonder that Irish tenants will not be 
 satisfied with an Act which would allow injustice of this kind 
 to be perpetrated!" — A Saxons Remedy for Irish Discontent, 
 p. ?>o~, one of the very best books yet written on the subject, 
 by a practical and candid thinker who is evidently master of it. 
 
00 Appendix. 
 
 Appendix C, referred to at P. 02. 
 
 "A tenant, on the other hand, is a person who does not 
 possess land, but who hires the use of it. He embarks his 
 capital in another man's field, much in the same way as a trader 
 embarks his merchandise in another man's ship. Experience 
 teaches him that by expending a certain amount of labour and 
 capital in the cultivation of the soil he is able, within a limited 
 period, to get back from it, not only the original capital he had 
 expended, but also a profitable rate of interest upon that capital. 
 "What rate that interest may reach will depend on his own skill 
 and discretion, just as the trader's profits will depend on the 
 judgment with which he sorts his cargo or selects his port. In 
 either case, the amount of hire paid for the use of the ship or 
 for the use of the land will be determined by competition, and 
 will affect the balance of gain or loss on both transactions. If 
 ships are few and land is scarce, freight and rent will rise, and 
 the rise of each will in a great measure be regulated by the dis- 
 proportion of ships to goods and of farmers to farms. But the 
 rate of freight or the amount of rent are not the only circum- 
 stances which will affect the profits of either speculator. In the 
 case of the trader, all will depend on his goods being landed at 
 the port he intended, whilst the most promising expectations of 
 the agriculturist may be ruined unless he retain possession of 
 the land he occupies for a definite period. A clear understand- 
 ing, therefore, ought to exist in both cases between the parties 
 interested, as to the course of the ship and the duration of the 
 tenancy. The shipowner may want to send his vessel to one 
 port and the trader his goods to another, just as the proprietor 
 of an estate may wish to let his land for one term and the 
 tenant to hire it for another. The definitive arrangement will 
 depend upon the respective necessities of the contracting parties 
 and the balance of competition. On the previous supposition 
 that ships are few and land scarce, the advantage of the bargain 
 will remain with the owner of the ship and the possessor of the 
 field ; the one consenting to call at the desired port, unforeseen 
 contingencies permitting — the other agreeing to let his land on 
 
Appendix. 91 
 
 such, conditions as may be most suitable to his ulterior views. 
 Both arrangements may be thought by the impartial observer 
 unfavourable to the two interests affected hy it — the one to 
 commerce, the other to agriculture ; but, inasmuch as each was 
 a voluntary contract between persons who must be supposed 
 capable of managing their own affairs, any legislative interference 
 to amend the bargain might occasion greater mischief. For 
 instance, a law requiring the ship to call at certain ports, or the 
 landlord to let his land for what he might consider a longer 
 term than was desirable, would be a grievance to both shipowner 
 and landowner ; they would probably protect themselves either 
 by refusing to carry the goods and to let the field, or by raising 
 the rate of their freight and rent. This result would suit 
 neither merchant nor farmer. Parliament might again intervene, 
 and not only lay down the plan of the voyage and the duration 
 of the tenure, but might impose a specified scale of freights and 
 rents, and declare the shipowner incapable of freighting his own 
 ship and the landlord of tilling his own land. But so violent 
 an interference with the rights of property would be unjust, 
 impracticable, and obviously productive of greater evils than 
 those it was intended to remedy. 
 
 '•If the foregoing illustration lie apposite, it follows that the 
 tenant's interest in the farm he hires is quite as limited in its 
 character as the trader's interest in the ship he charters. The 
 voyage concluded, the lease expired, both ship and field revert 
 to their respective owners. 
 
 "It is hardly reasonable to deny the analogy on the ground 
 that the ship is a manufactured article, but the earth is the gift 
 of God. The land I have bought is probably itself as much 
 a manufactured article as the ship, and the iron or wood of 
 which the ship is built is as much the gift of God as the land : 
 the labour or enterprise by which the land has been rendered 
 valuable is as clearly represented by the money I gave for it as 
 the industry and ingenuity exercised on its construction is 
 represented by the price the owner has paid for the ship. It is 
 true, the country of which my estate is part belongs to the 
 nation, and consequently my property in that estate is over- 
 
92 Appendix. 
 
 ridden by the imperial rights of the commonwealth. But this 
 fact cannot invest the individual who may happen to hire my 
 land, when once his tenancy is terminated, either by lapse of time 
 or by the violation of his contract, with any peculiar rights in 
 excess of those which may be inherent to the community at 
 large." — Irish Emu/ration and the Tenure of Land in Ireland, 
 by Lord Dufferin, pp. 184 — 187. 
 
 Appendix D, referred to at P. 67. 
 
 " Perhaps the landlord party will try to get rid of my propo- 
 sition, or any similar one, by saying they will consent to an Act 
 that shall give the tenant compensation for permanent improve- 
 ments, by which, of course, they mean drainage, farm-buildings, 
 &c. Now a measure of this kind woidd only be a palliative. 
 Of course it would be accepted ; but agitation would recom- 
 mence, for Irish tenants would not be satisfied. Allowances for 
 improvements mean allowances when the tenant is ejected ; and 
 every Englishman who reads this may rest assured that the 
 great body of the Irish tenantry, Protestant and Catholic, will 
 not rest contented as long as they are liable to be put. out of 
 their holdings for any cause except the non-payment of rent 
 and neglect of the usual covenants necessary for the maintenance 
 of the property in good condition." — A Saxon s Remedy for 
 Irish Discontent. 
 
 tOTSDOS : B. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOJt, POINTERS. 
 

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