242 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



profit to all. The ordinary loans, at a rate of interest 

 which causes no loss to Government, should be con- 

 tinued to landowners, as they have been for many 

 years past ; and for two or three years cheaper loans 

 at 2 or 2J per cent might be continued to farmers. 

 They will gain from draining thus done much more 

 than they would gain by any reduction of rent. 



Until the check of distress that has been felt all 

 over the kingdom from the bad crops of the two 

 seasons came on, Ireland was fast improving, and 

 had greatly advanced compared with the state it was 

 in at the Union, or any time since. It will do so 

 again from natural oauses, if only law and order 

 are enforced. The doubt that foolish speeches and 

 foolish acts of men in authority have raised, whether 

 the law and rights of property will be upheld, has 

 caused a hundred times more hardship to individuals, 

 and to the tenants themselves, than all the hard acts 

 of landlords in the same time, and has tended sorely 

 to retard improvement in the country. 



Mr. Froude truly says, " These words have raised 

 incendiarieS and assassins to the rank of patriots, 

 and encouraged them to go on with their work by 

 telling them that, if they were only violent and mis- 

 chievous enough, they would have their desires. 

 The one indispensable requirement in Ireland is 

 authority armed with power to make the law obeyed." 

 I cannot add a word to these weighty truths. 



Unjust measures, disregarding the rights of pro- 



