me than an
emphatic adhesion: but the land question was by no means in so advanced
a position; the superstitions of landlordism had up to that time been
little challenged, especially in Parliament, and the backward state of
the question, so far as concerned the Parliamentary mind, was evidenced
by the extremely mild measure brought in by Lord Russell's government in
1866, which nevertheless could not be carried. On that bill I delivered
one of my most careful speeches, in which I attempted to lay down some
of the principles of the subject, in a manner calculated less to
stimulate friends, than to conciliate and convince opponents. The
engrossing subject of Parliamentary Reform prevented either this bill,
or one of a similar character brought in by Lord Derby's Government,
from being carried through. They never got beyond the second reading.
Meanwhile the signs of Irish disaffection had become much more decided;
the demand for complete separation between the two countries had assumed
a menacing aspect, and there were few who did not feel that if there was
still any chance of reconciling Ireland to the British connection, it
could only be by the adoption of much more thorough reforms in the
territorial and social relations of the country, than had yet been
contemplated. The time seemed to me to have come when it would be useful
to speak out my whole mind; and the result was my pamphlet _England and
Ireland_, which was written in the winter of 1867, and published shortly
before the commencement of the session of 1868. The leading features of
the pamphlet were, on the one hand, an argument to show the
undesirableness, for Ireland as well as England, of separation between
the countries, and on the other, a proposal for settling the land
question by giving to the existing tenants a permanent tenure, at a
fixed rent, to be assessed after due inquiry by the State.

The pamphlet was not popular, except in Ireland, as I did not expect it
to be. But, if no measure short of that which I proposed would do full
justice to Ireland, or afford a prospect of conciliating the mass of the
Irish people, the duty of proposing it was imperative; while if, on the
other hand, there was any intermediate course which had a claim to a
trial, I well knew that to propose something which would be called
extreme, was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more
moderate experiment. It is most improbable that a measure conceding so
much to the