Hardening
The Heart I Hold To Be One Of The Very Apparent Effects Of The Land
System.
Another evil is the encouragement of unutterable meanness; a meanness
that allows rich men to manage to extract under pressure gratuitous work
out of these poor people.
No one needs to be told that the Irish peasant
is worse fed, worse clothed, worse housed than any peasant in Europe,
yet gentlemen will take from these gratuitous work, and see so little to
be ashamed of in the transaction as to write about it over their own
signature, as Ernest Cochrane did in the columns of the _Witness_.
I have heard of miles of separating fence being made, in this way, of
walls being built and even of monuments being erected "in memoriam" in
the same way. I was told of a noble lord having brought a gentle
pressure to bear on his Irish tenants to cause them to subscribe over
and above their rents for the benefit of those who were suffering from
an accident in his English collieries.
I have wondered to hear gentlemen, and even clergymen, in Ireland
wishing that the people would rise in rebellion so that there might be
an opportunity of laying the cold steel to them and putting them down
effectually. I have also wondered at the refusal of the authorities to
have the riots in Limerick investigated; surely that does not look like
impartial justice. I have wondered again over the openly avowed purpose
of rooting the people out of the country.
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