The cause of this poverty lies in the existing social conditions, especially in competition here found in the form of the subdivision of the soil.  Much effort has been spent in finding other causes.  It has been asserted that the relation of the tenant to the landlord who lets his estate in large lots to tenants, who again have their sub-tenants, and sub-sub-tenants, in turn, so that often ten middlemen come between the landlord and the actual cultivator—­it has been asserted that the shameful law which gives the landlord the right of expropriating the cultivator who may have paid his rent duly, if the first tenant fails to pay the landlord, that this law is to blame for all this poverty.  But all this determines only the form in which the poverty manifests itself.  Make the small tenant a landowner himself and what follows?  The majority could not live upon their holdings even if they had no rent to pay, and any slight improvement which might take place would be lost again in a few years in consequence of the rapid increase of population.  The children would then live to grow up under the improved conditions who now die in consequence of poverty in early childhood.  From another side comes the assertion that the shameless oppression inflicted by the English is the cause of the trouble.  It is the cause of the somewhat earlier appearance of this poverty, but not of the poverty itself.  Or the blame is laid on the Protestant Church forced upon a Catholic nation; but divide among the Irish what the Church takes from them, and it does not reach six shillings a head.  Besides, tithes are a tax upon landed property, not upon the tenant, though he may nominally pay them; now, since the Commutation Bill of 1838, the landlord pays the tithes directly and reckons so much higher rent, so that the tenant is none the better off.  And in the same way a hundred other causes of this poverty are brought forward, all proving as little as these.  This poverty is the result of our social conditions; apart from these, causes may be found for the manner in which it manifests itself, but not for the fact of its existence.  That poverty manifests itself in Ireland thus and not otherwise, is owing to the character of the people, and to their historical development.  The Irish are a people related in their whole character to the Latin nations, to the French, and especially to the Italians.  The bad features of their character we have already had depicted by Carlyle.  Let us now hear an Irishman, who at least comes nearer to the truth than Carlyle, with his prejudice in favour of the Teutonic character:  {273}

“They are restless, yet indolent, clever and indiscreet, stormy, impatient, and improvident; brave by instinct, generous without much reflection, quick to revenge and forgive insults, to make and to renounce friendships, gifted with genius prodigally, sparingly with judgment.”

With the Irish, feeling and passion predominate; reason