are averse to
the colonization, and if the new and the old races do not amalgamate, a
settled feeling of aversion, more or less strong, is established on both
sides. The natives hate the colonist, because he has done them a
grievous injury by taking possession of their lands; the colonist hates
the natives, because they are in his way; and, if he be possessed of
"land hunger," they are an impediment to the gratification of his
desires. It should be observed that there is a wide difference between
colonization and conquest The Saxons conquered what we may presume to
have been the aboriginal inhabitants of England; the Normans conquered
the Saxon: the conquest in both cases was sufficiently complete to
amalgamate the races--the interest of the different nationalities became
one. The Norman lord scorned the Saxon churl quite as contemptuously as
he scorned the Irish Celt; but there was this very important
difference--the interests of the noble and the churl soon became one;
they worked for the prosperity of their common country. In Ireland, on
the contrary, the interests were opposite. The Norman noble hated the
Celt as a people whom he could not subdue, but desired most ardently to
dispossess; the Celt hated the invader as a man most naturally will hate
the individual who is just strong enough to keep a wound open by his
struggles, and not strong enough to end the suffering by killing the
victim.

The land question commenced when Strongbow set his foot on Irish soil;
the land question will remain a disgrace to England, and a source of
misery to Ireland, until the whole system inaugurated by Strongbow has
been reversed. "At the commencement of the connexion between England and
Ireland," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "the foundation was inevitably laid
for the fatal system of ascendency--a system under which the dominant
party were paid for their services in keeping down rebels by a monopoly
of power and emolument, and thereby strongly tempted to take care that
there should always be rebels to keep down." There is a fallacy or two
in this statement; but let it pass. The Irish were not rebels then,
certainly, for they were not under English dominion; but it is something
to find English writers expatiating on Irish wrongs; and if they would
only act as generously and as boldly as they speak, the Irish question
would receive an early and a most happy settlement.

For centuries Ireland was left to the mercy and the selfishness of