Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/83

Rh a point is conclusive. He was the first and most important witness summoned before Mr. Maguire's committee. His professional position, his experience, the peculiar nature of his duties, his well-known calmness and impartiality, and above all his manifest sympathy with the cause of the tenant, invest his evidence on matters of fact with an authority that cannot be gainsaid. And it stands to reason that matters should have fallen out as Judge Longfield has described. What inducements had the poor people to stay? Their staff of life had withered in their hands and could not be replaced. A plough could hardly have turned in