362 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



the sister isle, as she sometimes calls it ; but after all, in 

 attempting to incorporate this neighbouring country, 

 England only followed the same course that has been 

 pursued by other nations. Had the English entertained 

 a true fraternal feeling for the Irish, it would certainly 

 have been a fine example, though a solitary one, in times 

 when nations mutually sought each other's destruction. 

 Have we not seen in our own country, as we]l as else- 

 where, Catholics and Protestants unmercifully massacring 

 each other I Throughout history do we not find fire and 

 sword sweeping over whole kingdoms, in order to extin- 

 guish the smallest germ of a distinct nationality, and to 

 mould their ruins into vast empires ? Have any of the 

 great nations (unites nationales) been formed otherwise 1 

 Does not that perpetual misunderstanding still exist, 

 which causes contests between men and classes and 

 nations ; and is not the fact of being born upon opposite 

 sides of a river sufficient excuse for people tearing each 

 other to pieces \ Looking at it in this way, England's 

 fault was in not having done enough, since the assimilation 

 was not complete. Be this as it may, the state of open 

 warfare which for ages was the normal condition of 

 Ireland in its relations with England, only too well 

 accounts for the contrast we are about to notice in the 

 rural economy of the two islands. 



The first result is the state of property. Most of the 

 Irish properties were originally confiscations, from whence 

 arose that evil which, although not confined to Ireland, 

 being found to a certain extent everywhere, took a wider 

 extension there, namely absenteeism. 



The English invaders always looked upon Ireland as a 

 foreign and hostile country, which was good to possess, 

 but where they would rather not establish themselves. 

 As early as the thirteenth century, this feeling was ap- 



