wn industry, have
done all that they could to degrade their manhood. That is why they
are backward. (Cheers.) Will anybody deny that the Irish landlords are
open to this great accusation and indictment? If anybody here is
inclined to deny it, let him look at the reductions in rent that have
been made since 1881 in the Land Court.'

"Well, have not rents in England and Scotland been reduced quite as
much, nay, more, than Irish rents since 1881? And have not the
economic causes which have lowered the prices of all farm produce all
over Europe caused the same depreciation in the value of land in
Germany or France, for instance, in the same ratio as in Ireland? And
has not the importation of dead meat from America, Australia, or New
Zealand had something to do with it?

"These facts are well known. But to return to the Irish landlords.
Does not every one who is resident in Ireland, and therefore
conversant with the state of affairs there for the last twenty or
thirty years, know that the discontent and uprising against the land
system is due to the action of a very few unjust persons, now mostly
dead, but whose names are well known to any one who really knows
Ireland, as I venture to maintain Mr. Morley does not? The principal
actors in the drama could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And
Mr. Morley, _ex uno disce omnes_, accuses the whole of the Irish
proprietors of these cruel and unjust practices which we should scorn
to be guilty of. And he is an ex-Cabinet Minister, and late Chief
Secretary for Ireland for a few months, and a very popular one he was!

"He says, again: 'Public opinion would have checked the Irish
landlords in their infatuated policy towards their tenants,' &c. He
challenges denial of these charges. Well, I deny them most
emphatically, and am quite willing to abide by the verdict of the
respectable tenants. I throw back in his face the accusation that the
Irish landlords as a body have rack-rented or plundered their tenants
or confiscated their improvements.

"Far be it from me to taunt the Irish population. No, they have been
tempted very sorely by prospects being held out to them of getting the
land for nothing, and, all things considered, it is wonderful how they
have behaved. But Mr. Morley is like many another politician who comes
to Ireland for a few months or a few weeks, and goes about the few
disturbed districts and listens to all the tales told him by
cardrivers and those very clever