from times far beyond the reach of authentic history, the clans and tribes of the Celtic people occupied certain districts with which their names are still associated, and that the land was inalienably theirs.  Rent or tribute they paid, indeed, to their princes, and if they failed the chiefs came with armed followers and helped themselves, driving away cows, sheep, and horses sufficient to meet their demand, or more if they were unscrupulous, which was ‘distress’ with a vengeance.  But the eviction of the people even for non-payment of rent, and putting other people in their place, were things never heard of among the Irish under their own rulers.  The chief had his own mensal lands, as well as his tribute, and these he might forfeit.  But as the clansmen could not control his acts, they could never see the justice of being punished for his misdeeds by the confiscation of their lands, and driven from the homes of their ancestors often made doubly sacred by religious associations.

History, moreover, teaches them that, as a matter of fact, the government in the reign of James I.—­and James himself in repeated proclamations—­assured the people who occupied the lands of O’Neill and O’Donnell at the time of their flight that they would be protected in all their rights if they remained quiet and loyal, which they did.  Yet they were nearly all removed to make way for the English and Scotch settlers.

Thus, historical investigators have been digging around the foundations of Irish landlordism.  They declare that those foundations were cemented with blood, and they point to the many wounds still open from which that blood issued so profusely.  The facts of the conquest and confiscation were hinted at by the Devon Commissioners as accounting for the peculiar difficulties of the Irish land question, and writers on it timidly allude to ‘the historic past’ as originating influences still powerful in alienating landlords and tenants, and fostering mutual distrust between them.  But the time for evasion and timidity has passed.  We must now honestly and courageously face the stern realities of this case.  Among these realities is a firm conviction in the minds of many landlords that they are in no sense trustees for the community, but that they have an absolute power over their estates—­that they can, if they like, strip the land clean of its human clothing, and clothe it with sheep or cattle instead, or lay it bare and desolate, let it lapse into a wilderness, or sow it with salt.  That is in reality the terrific power secured to them by the present land code, to be executed through the Queen’s writ and by the Queen’s troops—­a power which could not stand a day if England did not sustain it by overwhelming military force.