egard to Ireland his theory was that the land should
be taken from the present proprietors, and divided among the peasants
who tilled it. When asked what should be done with the present
owners, he was quite ready with his answer: "Let them be paid for the
property by the State!" He would have no man injured to the extent
of a shilling. When asked where the State was to get the money, he
declared that that was a mere detail. States did get money. As for
the landlords themselves, with the money in their pockets, let them
emigrate to the United States, if they were in want of something
to do. As to the division of the land,--that he said would settle
itself. One man would have ten acres, and another fifty; but that
would be fair, because one man had been used to pay for ten, and
another to pay for fifty. As for the men who got no land in the
scramble he could see no injustice. The man who chanced to have been
a tenant for the last twelve months, must take the benefit of his
position. No doubt such man could sell his land immediately after he
got it, because Freedom of Sale was one of the points of his charter.
He could see the injustice of giving the land at a rent fixed by
the State, because the State has no right to interfere in ordinary
contracts between man and man. But if the land was to be given up
without any rent, then he could see no injustice. Thus, and thus
only, could Ireland be made to return to the beauty and the grace of
her original simplicity.

But on the wrongs arising from the want of Home Rule he was
warmer even than on those which the land question had produced.
"Why should Ireland be governed by a British Parliament, a
British Lord-Lieutenant, a British Chief-Secretary, a British
Commander-in-Chief, and trodden under foot by a British soldiery?
Why should Scotland be so governed, why should Wales, why should
Yorkshire?" Mr. Jones would reply, "Repeal the Unions; restore
the Heptarchy!" Mr. O'Mahony had but a confused idea of what the
Heptarchy had been. But he was sure that it would be for the benefit
of Ireland, that Irish knives should be made of Irish steel. "As
undoubtedly would have been the case if the question of protection
were to be left to an Irish Parliament to settle," said Mr. Jones.
"Heaven help the man who would want to cut his mutton. His best
chance would be that he would soon have no mutton to cut."

So the dispute was carried on with much warmth on one side, and with
many argumen