I venture to say that this is a miserable and a humiliating picture to
draw of this country. Bear in mind that I am not speaking of Poland
suffering under the conquest of Russia. There is a gentleman, now a
candidate for an Irish county, who is very great upon the wrongs of
Poland; but I have found him always in the House of Commons taking sides
with that great party which has systematically supported the wrongs of
Ireland. I am not speaking of Hungary, or of Venice as she was under the
rule of Austria, or of the Greeks under the dominion of the Turk; but I
am speaking of Ireland--part of the United Kingdom--part of that which
boasts itself to be the most civilized and the most Christian nation in
the world. I took the liberty recently, at a meeting in Glasgow, to say
that I believed it was impossible for a class to govern a great nation
wisely and justly. Now, in Ireland there has been a field in which all
the principles of the Tory party have had their complete experiment and
development. You have had the country gentleman in all his power. You
have had any number of Acts of Parliament which the ancient Parliament
of Ireland or the Parliament of the United Kingdom could give him. You
have had the Established Church supported by the law, even to the
extent, not many years ago, of collecting its revenues by the aid of
military force. In point of fact, I believe it would be impossible to
imagine a state of things in which the Tory party should have a more
entire and complete opportunity for their trial than they have had
within the limits of this island. And yet what has happened? This,
surely: that the kingdom has been continually weakened, that the harmony
of the empire has been disturbed, and that the mischief has not been
confined to the United Kingdom, but has spread to the colonies....

I am told--you can answer it if I am wrong--that it is not common in
Ireland now to give leases to tenants, especially to Catholic tenants.