rom barbarism to civilization. The progress of the Irish people was
arrested at almost a primitive stage, and a series of calamities,
following close upon each other, have prevented it from ever fairly
resuming its course. The pressure of overwhelming misery has now been
reduced; government has become mild and just; the civilizing agency of
education has been introduced; the upper classes are rapidly returning
to their duty, and the natural effect is at once seen in the improved
character of the people. Statesmen are bound to be well acquainted with
the historical sources of the evil with which they have to deal,
especially when those evils are of such a nature as, at first aspect, to
imply depravity in a nation. There are still speakers and writers who
seem to think that the Irish are incurably vicious, because the
accumulated effects of so many centuries cannot be removed at once by a
wave of the legislator's wand. Some still believe, or affect to believe,
that the very air of the island is destructive of the characters and
understandings of all who breathe it."[39]

Elsewhere he adds, referring to the land system:

"How many centuries of a widely different training have the English
people gone through in order to acquire their boasted love of law."[40]

Of the "training" through which the Irish went, he says--

"The existing settlement of land in Ireland, whether dating from the
confiscations of the Stuarts, or from those of Cromwell, rests on a
proscription three or four times as long as that on which the settlement
of land rests over a considerable part of France. It may, therefore, be
considered as placed upon discussion in the estimation of all sane men;
and, this being the case, it is safe to observe that no inherent want of
respect for property is shown by the Irish people if a proprietorship
which had its origin within historical memory in flagrant wrong is less
sacred in their eyes than it would be if it had its origin in immemorial
right."[41]

The character which he gives of Irish landlordism deserves to be quoted:

"The Cromwellian landowners soon lost their religious character, while
they retained all the hardness of the fanatic and the feelings of
Puritan conquerors towards a conquered Catholic people. 'I have eaten
with them,' said one, 'drunk with them, fought with them; but I never
prayed with them.' Their descendants became, probably, the very worst
upper class with which a country was ever affl