supported a numerous hierarchy by voluntary contributions—­that the Anglo-Norman parliament was bribed and coerced to abolish itself, forming a union of England with France, in which the English members were as one to six.  Imagine that in consequence of rebellions the land of England had been confiscated three or four times, after desolating wars and famines, so that all the native proprietors were expelled, and the land was parcelled out to French soldiers and adventurers on condition that the foreign ‘planters’ should assist in keeping down ‘the mere English’ by force of arms.  Imagine that the English, being crushed by a cruel penal code for a century, were allowed to reoccupy the soil as mere tenants-at-will, under the absolute power of their French landlords.  If all this be imagined by English legislators and English writers, they will be better able to understand the Irish land question, and to comprehend the nature of ‘Irish difficulties,’ as well as the justice of feeble, insincere, and baffled statesmen in casting the blame of Irish misery and disorder on the unruly and barbarous nature of Irishmen.  They will recollect that the aristocracy of Ireland are the high-spirited descendants of conquerors, with the instinct of conquest still in their blood.  The parliament which enacted the Irish land laws was a parliament composed almost exclusively of men of this dominant race.  They made all political power dependent on the ownership of land, thus creating for themselves a monopoly which it is not in human nature to surrender without a struggle.

The possession of this monopoly, however, fully accounts for two things—­the difficulty which the landlords feel in admitting the justice of the tenant’s claims for the legal recognition of the value which his labour has added to the soil, and the extreme repugnance with which they regard any legislation on the subject.  Besides, the want of sympathy with the people, of earnestness and courage in meeting the realities of the case, is conspicuous in all attempts of the kind during the last half-century.  Those attempts have been evasive, feeble, abortive—­concessions to the demand that something must be done, but so managed that nothing should be done to weaken the power of the eight thousand proprietors over the mass of the nation dependent on the land for their existence.  Hence has arisen a great amount of jealousy, distrust, and irritability in the landlord class towards the tenantry and their advocates.

The Irish race, to adopt Thierry’s language, are full of ’malignant envy’ towards the lords of the soil; not because they are rich, but because they have the people so completely in their power, so entirely at their mercy for all that man holds most dear.  The tenants feel bitterly when they think that they have no legal right to live on their native land.  They have read the history of our dreadful civil wars, famines, and confiscations.  They know that by the old law of Ireland, and by custom