Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/174

Rh the change will be made—not because a century ago Irish Bishops were sometimes lax and individual clergymen inefficient, but because it has been always required by justice and is now recommended by expediency. By a parity of reasoning it would be as great an outrage to visit with penal legislation the recent purchaser of a property in the Encumbered Estates Court because fifty years ago the grandfather of the former proprietor created 40s freeholders (a tenure of which Mr. Butt, I observe, speaks almost with approval) and took the best rent, as it would be to load the woollen manufacturers of Lancashire with the responsibility of Ireland's misfortunes because the particular industry in which they are interested owes more than any other its present prosperity to the cruel policy towards Ireland inaugurated by their predecessors.