THE 



COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 



NOVEMBER 1868 



A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE IRISH LAND QUESTION. 



IN FIVE CHAPTERS. 



Fixity of Tenure, cte. 



UCH stress has been laid by the 

 Irish party upon emigration as 

 afifording an undoubted proof of 

 misgovernment. The fact of large 

 masses abandoning their country in search of 

 labour, while within the country there are large 

 tracts of land unimproved and undeveloped, 

 does appear enigmatical, but, as already stated, 

 the circumstances of the last twenty years 

 demanded a change in the number and habits 

 of the people, and what has been the result ? 

 Do we find land unoccupied ? Do we find in- 

 creased pauperism or increased crime ? No. 

 The change that has been brought about is, 

 that we miss the once half-fed, ill clad 

 peasant — the mass of struggling humanity who 

 were hardly in a position to keep body and 

 soul together ; and we have now an enlarged 

 sphere of action for those who remain. Two 

 men are not now looking to reap the one 

 blade of corn, but the one is able by the aid 

 of appliances to effect, secure, and enjoy that 

 which heretofore he could never have accom- 

 plished. No longer, then, requiring assist- 

 ance in the production, I do not see how he 

 would be benefited in having an additional 

 mouth to aid him in the consumption. Apart 

 from this, America has inducements to off"er 

 to men of every country, who do not occupy 

 an established position at home, boundless 



VOL. I. 



acres of maiden fertility, with a freedom of 

 thought and action, and, in some parts, im- 

 munity from the heavy taxation which the 

 luxuries and habits of an old country must 

 necessarily impose. In the free atmosphere 

 of the republic, too, such as have disliked the 

 restraint imposed by their clergy in secular 

 as well as religious matters, have an addi- 

 tional inducement for emigration. Here an 

 independent course would be met by per- 

 secution, and the number of channels 

 through which it would be made to flow 

 would drown any one who attempted to stem 

 the torrents of priestly influence thus set in 

 motion. Perhaps the soundest reason for 

 stating that one of Ireland's grievances is 

 emigration, is a pecuniary one. If we con- 

 sider for a moment that population is with 

 the priesthood synonymous with power, influ- 

 ence, and money, it is not to be wondered at 

 that emigration with them finds no favour — 

 how could it be otherwise ? The 80,000 per- 

 sons leaving our shores annually represent at 

 least as many half-crowns, or a reduction in 

 the church revenue of ^^i 0,000 — ^in itself a 

 very substantial reason for the outcry that 

 has been raised against the movement by the 

 professed friends of the people, who are not 

 slow to perceive that in the diminished num- 

 ber at home a spirit of thought and inde- 

 pendence is springing up that has been wafted 

 across from the shores of the Atlantic. There 

 was a time when the agitation upon Tenant 



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