come to examine the matter. Many of
them pay three or four pounds a year only. What reduction on that sum
would do them any real good?"

A land agent of Donegal showed me one page of a rent book, that I
might bear witness to indisputable facts. There were twenty-one
annual rents on the page, and eleven of them were under two
pounds--most of them, in fact, were under thirty shillings. One man
held thirty-three acres for thirty-three shillings per annum. He had
paid no rent for two years. Another estate in Donegal has two thousand
tenants for a total rent of L2,800. The agent has to look after all
these "farmers"--to conciliate, threaten, soother, bully, beg, pray,
promise, cajole, hunt, treat, fight, curse, and comether the whole two
thousand a whole year for, and in consideration of, the princely sum
of a hundred and forty pounds. Many of the farmers have the privilege
of selling turf enough to clear the rent several times over, and of
course every man can shoot at the agent as much as he chooses, his
sport in this direction being only limited by his supply of
ammunition. Of late their powder has given out. Could not something be
done for these deserving men?

A superior Home Ruler, one of those honest visionaries sometimes met
in Ireland, said:--"For my own part, I confess that I aspire to
complete independence. Then, and not till then, would the two
countries be friendly. We in Ulster are ten times more patriotic than
Irishmen elsewhere, for it is in Ulster that we have been most deeply
wronged. The Hamiltons of Abercorn planted the country round here with
Scotch settlers, and various agencies between 1688 and 1715 are said
to have brought over more than fifty thousand Scottish families to
Ulster, which was already populated to its utmost extent. The Irish
were dispossessed, kicked out, and they have been out ever since. The
Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel took flight to save their heads, and six
counties were declared confiscated--Londonderry, Donegal, Tyrone,
Fermanagh, Cavan, and Armagh. These were all 'planted' with English
and Scotch colonists. The land was given to certain favourites by the
English Government, which at that time was the stronger, and has
remained so ever since When we ask for our own again you cry out
'Robbery, robbery!' _We_ are the people to say 'Stop thief!' You say
the owners of the land rebelled, and their property was rightly
confiscated. We say they had a right to rebel, and that rebelli