The Land-War In Ireland (1870) | Page 7

instinctive distrust
between them, the peace and prosperity of the country depend so much
on their coming to terms and putting an end to their long-standing feud,
that it is still more imperatively necessary than in the Church question,

that a third party, independent, impartial, and authoritative, should
intervene and heal the breach.
There was one phrase constantly ringing in the ears of the Devon
Commissioners, and now, after nearly a generation has passed away, it
is ringing in the ears of the nation louder than ever--'the want of tenure.'
All the evidence went to show that the want of security paralysed
industry and impeded social progress. It seems strange that any
evidence should be thought necesary to prove that a man will not sow if
he does not hope to reap, and that he will not build houses for strangers
to enjoy. This would be taken as an axiom anywhere out of Ireland. Of
all the people in Europe, the Irish have suffered most from the
oppression of those who, from age to age, had power in the country.
Whoever fought or conquered, they were always the victims; and it is a
singular fact that their sufferings are scarcely ever noticed by the
contemporary annalists, even when those annalists were ecclesiastics.
The extent to which they were slaughtered in the perpetual wars
between the native chiefs, and in the wars between those chiefs and the
English, is something awful to contemplate, not to speak of the
wholesale destruction of life by the famines which those wars entailed.
On several occasions the Celtic race seemed very nearly extinct. The
penal code, with all its malign influence, had one good effect. It
subdued to a great extent the fighting propensities of the people, and
fused the clans into one nation, purified by suffering. Since that time, in
spite of occasional visitations of calamity, they have been steadily
rising in the social scale, and they are now better off than ever they
were in their whole history. When we review the stages by which they
have risen, we cannot but feel at times grieved and indignant at the
opportunities for tranquillising and enriching the country which were
lost through the ignorance, apathy, bigotry, and selfishness of the
legislature. There was no end of commissions and select committees to
inquire into the condition of the agricultural population, whenever
Parliament was roused by the prevalence of agrarian outrages. They
reported, and there the matter ended. There were always insuperable
difficulties when the natives were to be put in a better position.
Between 1810 and 1814, for example, a commission reported four
times on the condition of the Irish bogs. They expressed their entire

conviction of the practicability of cultivating with profit an immense
extent of land lying waste. In 1819, in 1823, in 1826, and in 1830,
select committees inquired into and reported on drainage, reclamation
of bogs and marshes, on roads, fisheries, emigration, and other schemes
for giving employment to the redundant population that had been
encouraged to increase and multiply in the most reckless manner, while
'war prices' were obtained for agricultural produce, and the votes of the
forty-shilling freeholders were wanted by the landlords. When, by the
Emancipation Act in 1829, the forty-shilling franchise was abolished,
the peasant lost his political value. After the war, when the price of
corn fell very low, and, consequently, tillage gave place to grazing,
labourers became to the middleman an encumbrance and a nuisance
that must be cleared off the land, just as weeds are plucked up and
flung out to wither on the highway. Then came Lord Devon's Land
Commission, which inquired on the eve of the potato failure and the
great famine. The Irish population was now at its highest
figure--between eight and nine millions. Yet, though there had been
three bad seasons, it was clearly proved at that time that by measures
which a wise and willing legislature would have promptly passed, the
whole surplus population could have been profitably employed.
In this great land controversy, on which side lies the truth? Is it the
fault of the people, or the fault of the law, that the country is but half
cultivated, while the best of the peasantry are emigrating with hostile
feelings and purposes of vengeance towards England? As to the
landlords, as a class, they use their powers with as much moderation
and mercy as any other class of men in any country ever used power so
vast and so little restrained. The best and most indulgent landlords, the
most genial and generous, are unquestionably the old nobility, the
descendants of the Normans and Saxons, those very conquerors of
whom we have heard so much. The worst, the most harsh and exacting,
are those who have purchased under the Landed Estates
Court--strangers