ever.’ No part of this defence is probably
more true than that which connects the drunkenness
of the Irish people with their misery. Drunkenness
is, generally speaking, the vice of despair; and it
springs from the despair of the Irish peasant as rankly
as from that of his English fellow. The sums
of money which have lately been transmitted by Irish
emigrants to their friends in Ireland seem a conclusive
answer to much loose denunciation of the national
character, both in a moral and an industrial point
of view.... There seems no good reason for believing
that the Irish Kelts are averse to labour, provided
they be placed, as people of all races require to
be placed, for two or three generations in circumstances
favourable to industry."[38] He shows that the Irish
have not been so placed. “Still more does
justice require that allowance should be made on historical
grounds for the failings of the Irish people.
If they are wanting in industry, in regard for the
rights of property, in reverence for the law, history
furnishes a full explanation of their defects, without
supposing in them any inherent depravity, or even
any inherent weakness. They have never had the
advantage of the training through which other nations
have passed in their gradual rise from barbarism to
civilization. The progress of the Irish people
was arrested at almost a primitive stage, and a series
of calamities, following close upon each other, have
prevented it from ever fairly resuming its course.
The pressure of overwhelming misery has now been reduced;
government has become mild and just; the civilizing
agency of education has been introduced; the upper
classes are rapidly returning to their duty, and the
natural effect is at once seen in the improved character
of the people. Statesmen are bound to be well
acquainted with the historical sources of the evil
with which they have to deal, especially when those
evils are of such a nature as, at first aspect, to
imply depravity in a nation. There are still speakers
and writers who seem to think that the Irish are incurably
vicious, because the accumulated effects of so many
centuries cannot be removed at once by a wave of the
legislator’s wand. Some still believe, or
affect to believe, that the very air of the island
is destructive of the characters and understandings
of all who breathe it."[39]
Elsewhere he adds, referring to the land system:
“How many centuries of a widely different training
have the English people gone through in order to acquire
their boasted love of law."[40]
Of the “training” through which the Irish
went, he says—
“The existing settlement of land in Ireland,
whether dating from the confiscations of the Stuarts,
or from those of Cromwell, rests on a proscription
three or four times as long as that on which the settlement
of land rests over a considerable part of France.
It may, therefore, be considered as placed upon discussion
in the estimation of all sane men; and, this being
the case, it is safe to observe that no inherent want
of respect for property is shown by the Irish people
if a proprietorship which had its origin within historical
memory in flagrant wrong is less sacred in their eyes
than it would be if it had its origin in immemorial
right."[41]