rge estates and of minute subdivision of farms is
founded upon justice. De Beaumont at any rate teaches that to transform
Irish tenants into peasant proprietors would be the salvation of the
country:--

_"Plus on considere l'Irlande, ses besoins et ses difficultes de toutes
sortes, et plus on est porte a penser que ce changement dans l'etat de
sa population agricole serait le vrai remede a ses maux....

"J'aurais mille autres raisons pour appuyer cette opinion; je m'arrete
cependant. Un lecteur anglais trouvera mes arguments incomplets. Tout
autre qu'un Anglais les jugera peut-etre surabondants."_[19]

This opinion may be well-founded or ill-founded; but no wise statesman
will reject it without the maturest consideration.

History, then, if fairly interrogated, gives this result: Historical
causes have generated in Ireland a condition of opinion which in all
matters regarding the land impedes that enforcement of law which is the
primary duty of every civilized government.

From this fact Home Rulers draw the inference that the law is hated
because it is foreign, and that England should surrender to Irishmen the
effort to enforce legal rights, since this duty is one which can be
performed by a native and cannot be performed by any English or foreign
authority.

This conclusion is clearly not supported by the premises. If the source
of popular discontent be agrarian, then the right course is to amend the
land laws while improving the administrative system, and enforcing
justice between man and man.

A Home Ruler may, however, if hard driven, say that my interpretation of
history is erroneous, and that a hatred to English law, and to all
things English, and not a special dislike to the land law, is the
sentiment which prevails over every other feeling of the Irish people.
It is difficult to me to see how this view can be seriously maintained.
Let us grant however for a moment that Home Rulers are right, and that
millions of Irishmen are inspired with the passion of nationality. Even
on this supposition the Home Rule doctrine stands in a bad way. If the
demand of the Irish people be like that of the Italian people--a demand
for recognised nationality--then the demand must be satisfied, if at
all, not by Home Rule, but by independence. The most eminent among
English Home Rulers believes that the law is hated in Ireland because it
comes before the Irish people in a foreign garb. Mr. Froude in substance
agrees in this