Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/85

Rh but of existence. His lands lay around him a poisonous waste of vegetable decay, while 25s. in the pound of poor-rate was daily eating up the fee-simple of his estate. Self-interest, duty, common sense, all dictated the same course,—the enlargement of boundaries, the redistribution of farms, and the introduction of a scientific agriculture, at whatever cost of sentiment or of individual suffering. Even so, the struggle too frequently proved unsuccessful, and the subsequent obliteration of nearly an entire third of the landlords of Ireland, while it associates them so conspicuously with the misfortunes of their tenants, may be accepted in atonement of whatever share they may have had in conniving at those remoter causes which aggravated the general calamity.