land question to settle. Almost every nation in Europe has done for
itself what England is now palled upon to do for Ireland. In fact,
it is a necessary process in the transition from feudalism to
constitutional self-government. Feudalism gave the land to a few whom
it made princes and lords, having forcibly taken it from the many,
whom it made subjects and serfs. The land is the natural basis of
society. The Normans made it the artificial basis of a class. Society
in nearly every other country has reverted back to its original
foundations, and so remains firm and strong without dangerous rents or
fissures. No doubt, the operation is difficult and critical. But what
has been done once may be done again; and as it was England that kept
Irish society so long rocking on its smaller end, it is her duty
now to lend all her strength to help to seat it on its own broad
foundations. Giving up the Viceroy's dreams that the glorious mission
of Ireland was to be a kitchen garden, a dairy, a larder for England,
we must come frankly to the conclusion that the national life of the
Irish people, without distinction of creed or party, increases
in vigour with their intelligence, and is now invincible. Let the
imperial legislature put an end for ever to such an unnatural state of
things--thus only can they secure the harmonious working and cordial
Union of the two nations united together in one State--thus only can
they insure for the landlords themselves all the power and all
the influence that can be retained by them in consistency with the
industrial rights and political freedom of the cultivators of the
soil. These now complain of their abject dependence, and hopeless
bondage, under grinding injustice. They are alleged to be full of
discontent, which must grow with the intelligence and manhood of the
people who writhe under the system. Their advocates affirm that their
discontent must increase in volume and angry force every year, and
that, owing to the connection of Ireland with the United States,