,
besides, come to understand the importance of their own position as
members of civil society. Had the landlords of Ireland paid attention
to these and other matters that directly involve their own welfare and
independence, as well as those of their neglected tenantry, they would
not be, as they now are, a class of men, some absolutely bankrupt, and
more on the very eve of it; and all this, to use a commercial phrase
painfully appropriate,--because they neglect their business.

Who, until lately, ever heard of an Irish landlord having made the
subject of property, or the principles upon which it ought to be
administered, his study? By this we do not mean to say that they did not
occasionally bestow a thought upon their own interests; but, in doing
so, they were guided by erroneous principles that led them to place
these interests in antagonism with those of the people. They forgot
that poverty is the most fertile source of population, and that in every
neglected and ill-regulated state of society, they invariably reproduce
each other; but the landlords kept the people poor, and now they
are surprised, forsooth, at their poverty and the existence of a
superabundant population.

"We know," said they, "that the people are poor; but we know also that,
by subsisting merely upon the potato, and excluding better food and a
higher state of comfort, of course the more is left for the landlord."
This in general was their principle--and its consequences are now upon
themselves.

This, however, is a subject on which it is not our intention to
expatiate here. What we say is, that, in all the relations of civil
life, Her people were shamefully and criminally neglected. They were
left without education, permitted to remain ignorant of the arts of
life, and of that industrial knowledge on which, or rather on the
application of which, all public prosperity is based.

And yet, although the people have great errors, without which no people
so long neglected can ever be found, and, although they have been for
centuries familiarized with suffering, yet it is absolute dread of
poverty that drives them from their native soil; They understand,
in fact, the progress of pauperism too well, and are willing to seek
fortune in any clime, rather than abide its approach to themselves--an
approach which they know is in their case inevitable and certain. For
instance, the very class of our countrymen that constitutes the great
bulk of our emigran