Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/172

Rh agricultural earnings with hand-loom weaving, and by a general alleviation of the pressure upon the land, I need not describe. These and many other considerations of the sort are too patent to need suggestion. It will be sufficient for me to record my profound conviction—a conviction which, perhaps, may be shared by some of my readers—that had Ireland only been allowed to develope the other innumerable resources at her command, as she has developed the single industry in which she was permitted to embark, the equilibrium between the land and the population dependent upon the land would never have been disturbed, nor would the relations between landlord and tenant have become a subject of anxiety.

I will not pursue this portion of the inquiry further. Feeling convinced that our best chance of dealing with the difficulties of Ireland is to arrive at a correct appreciation of their origin, I have done my best to detail the facts which prove that it is unjust to refer them wholly or to any extraordinary degree to the influence of the owners of landed property in Ireland, while I have indicated a succession of circumstances amply sufficient to account for them. If my language has betrayed too warm a sympathy with the class of which I am a member, the groundlessness of the accusations with which it has been assailed must plead my excuse. No such instinctive partiality has extended to the disposition of my facts or the array of my arguments. If I seem to