570 lion. George C. Brodrick [May G, 



only to find their own potato crops destroyed by the blight, was 

 among the main causes of the late agrarian agitation in Ireland. The 

 leaders of the Land League seized eagerly upon it, and the crusade 

 against rent, first preached in the wilds of Conuemara, rapidly spread 

 over all Ireland. 



In picturing to ourselves the lot of these cottiers it is material to 

 observe that, as the poor-law is more strictly administered in Ire- 

 land, they do not enjoy the same privilege of receiving outdoor relief 

 as in most English counties. Now, although a " liberal " system of 

 outdoor relief is a very doubtful boon to labourers, since it tends to 

 pauperise them and reduce the rate of wages, the refusal of outdoor 

 relief is specially hard to bear where regular wages are not always to 

 be procured. The old English poor-law was virtually a comj)ensa- 

 tion for those changes which had depressed the English peasant of 

 the Middle Ages into a mere day-labourer. But for the poor-law, 

 socialistic ideas would have propagated themselves long ago in the 

 rural districts of England ; and in Ireland, where poor-law relief is 

 only given to able-bodied men in the workhouse, such ideas have 

 actually propagated themselves with fearful rapidity. For the 

 evicted cottier in Ireland can seldom find work in towns ; his only 

 resource, except the workhouse, is emigration — which he considers 

 banishment — to England or the United States. 



IV. We have now passed in review, however briefly, the distinctive 

 and typical features of the English and Irish land systems. I have 

 said that we are not specially concerned with their future develop- 

 ment, but I cannot forbear to add a few words on the conditions 

 which must govern it, and the general course which it may be 

 expected to follow. 



Speaking first of England, I desire to express my earnest con- 

 viction that no reforms of the English land system are likely to be 

 permanent or beneficial which are not in harmony with the organic 

 and apparently indestructible elements of our national character. 

 The new rural economy of England must, above all, be essentially 

 and thoroughly English. It cannot be modelled upon that of France, 

 or Germany, or Russia, or Switzerland, or Italy, or Belgium, or the 

 United States. On the other hand, we must beware, once more, of 

 imagining that all the distinctive features of the English land system 

 must needs be the spontaneous growth of the national character and 

 history. We know, on the contrary, that in Saxon times the agrarian 

 constitution of England was essentially democratic ; that in Norman 

 times ecclesiastics rather than barons were the pioneers of agricultural 

 improvement, and the models of territorial benevolence ; that in the 

 England of Elizabeth, and for two centuries after the Reformation, 

 the lesser gentry and yeomanry were the bone and sinew of the 

 landed interest; that the dependent condition of English labourers 

 dates from the ]ioor-law, and that of English farmers from a far 

 more recent period ; that, in fact, the English land systena is not an 

 indigenous product of the soil, but an artificial creation of feudal 



