We have seen that after General Conway got this land, it was described by an English traveller as still uninhabited—­’all woods and moor.’  Who made it the garden of the north?  The British settlers and their descendants.  And why did they transform this wilderness into fruitful fields?  Because they had permanent tenures and fair rents.  The rental 150 years ago was 3,500 l. per annum.  Allow that money was three times as valuable then as it is now, and the rental would have been about 10,500 l.  It is now nearly six times that amount.  By what means was the revenue of the landlord increased?  Was it by any expenditure of his own?  Did any portion of the capital annually abstracted from the estate return to it, to fructify and increase its value?  Did the landlord drain the swamps, reclaim the moors, build the dwellings and farmhouses, make the fences, and plant the orchards?  He did nothing of the kind.  Nor was it agricultural industry alone that increased his revenue.  He owes much of the beauty, fertility, and richness of his estate to the linen manufacture, to those weavers to the cries of distress from whose famishing children a few years ago the most noble marquis resolutely turned a deaf ear.

But, passing from historical matters to the immediate purpose of our enquiry, let it suffice to remark that from Lisburn as a centre the linen trade in all its branches—­flax growing, scutching, spinning, weaving and bleaching—­spread over the whole of the Hertfort estate, giving profitable employment to the tenants, circulating money, enabling them to build and improve and work the estate into the rich and beautiful garden described by Mrs. Hall;—­all this work of improvement has been carried on, all or nearly all the costly investments on the land have been made, without leases and in dependence on tenant-right.  We have seen what efforts were made by landlord and agent to strengthen the faith of the tenants in this security.  We have seen also from the historical facts I have adduced the sort of people that constitute the population of the borough of Lisburn.  If ever there was a population that could be safely entrusted with the free exercise of the franchise it is the population of this town—­so enlightened, so loyal, so independent in means, such admirable producers of national wealth, so naturally attached to British connection.  Yet for generations Lisburn has been a pocket borough, and the nominee of the landlord, often a total stranger, was returned as a matter of course.  The marquis sent to his agent a conge d’elire, and that was as imperative as a similar order to a dean and chapter to elect a bishop.  In 1852 the gentleman whom the Lisburn electors were ordered to return was Mr. Inglis, the lord advocate of Scotland.  They, however, felt that the time was come when the borough should be opened, and they should be at liberty to exercise their constitutional rights.  A meeting of the inhabitants was therefore held, at which Mr. R. Smith was nominated as the popular