Page:An Ulsterman for Ireland.djvu/24

AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND so very uncivilised and savage that those who cultivated the soil, regularly delivered up the produce to others and died of hunger when they had reaped the harvest? Did you ever hear of Jacobinism that systematically denied the right of the poor man to hold the ground he tilled one hour longer than he is permitted to do it by somebody else? No. It needs the skill of educated legislators and a regular government to do that—it needs a "glorious Constitution in Church and State" to do it.

Let us see what Jacobinism and revolution specially mean. These things began in France sixty years ago, when the first French Revolution betel. France was then a poor, rack-rented, over-taxed country, somewhat as Ireland is now, only not half so miserable. And do you know what the Jacobins and anarchists did 1? Why, they abolished nobility, and landlordism, and church tithes, and rack-rents, and they gave the farmers of France the whole soil of France to cultivate for their own use and benefit. There was a good deal of trouble, to be sure, in their process, because the nobles and landlords made great resistance, as was very natural, and cried out piteously about "rights 0f property," and anarchy, infidelity, destruction of ancient families (as old-established gangs of robbers always call themselves), overthrow of time-honoured institutions, "throne and altar," "Church and State"—just as they would be sure to do here in the like case and asked foreign Powers to help them with money and arms to fasten their yoke more firmly than ever round the necks of their own people—just as the same tribe here 14