Page:Peasant proprietary in Ireland; a rejoinder.djvu/24

 contentment in Ireland you must do your best to bring the ownership of the land again into single hands.' And side by side with that weighty and significant statement may well be placed the opinion of Mr. Parnell who said, speaking at Limerick in the April of 1880, 'I have long abandoned the principle of fixity of tenure at periodic revaluation of tenants' holdings. There must be as in France, as in Prussia, as in Belgium, established a peasant proprietary by aid of the State.' Events and the trial of another method have strangely and in a short time approved the wisdom of that declaration, and what was six year ago regarded as a reform savouring of communism, is to-day the policy of every man who thinks out the Irish social problem. Peasant proprietary is now a question of bargain and a matter of detail, and the difficulty seems to be how best and quickest to bring about so desirable a settlement. How wonderfully is Mr. Parnell justified in this change of public opinion! for it was for such a solution he from the first fought and spoke with characteristic consistency and courage.