Ireland would have been as wealthy and prosperous as the sister island. and not at the mercy of a potatoblight. We did what we could. we subscribed money. we laid a poorlaw on the land. lint it was tono purpose. The emigrants went away wit h rage in their hearts. and a looging hope of revenge hereafter with Americas help. [Cheers and applause.] But I could multiply testimony from distinguished sources. and of wellknown men. to the same effect. I shall content myself with quoting from one more source. Professor Blackie. the professor of Greek in Edinburgh University. who in the Cotemporary Review for this month writes as follows: Among the many acts of baseness branding the English character in their bluedering prtense of governing Ireland. not the least was the practice of confiscating the land. which. by brehon law. belonged to the people. and giving it not to honest resident cultivators. (which might have been a politic sort of theft.) but to cliques of greedy and grasping oligarchs. who did nothing for the country which they had appropriated but suck its blood in the name of rent. and sqoander its resources under the name of pleasure. and fashion. and courtliness in London. Now. we have been told by the landlord party as their defense of this system that the true cause of Irish poverty and discontent is the crowded state of that country. and the only remedy emigration. and I admit to the fullest extent that there are portions of Ireland which are too crowded. The barren hills of the west of Ireland. whither the people were driven from the fertile lauds after the famine. are too crowded. but the fertile portions of Ireland maintain scarcely any population at all. and remain as vast huntinggrounds for the pleasure of the landlord class. Before. thon. we talk of emigration as the cure for all the ills of Ireland. I should like to see a more natural distribution of the soil of that country. I should like to see the rich plains of Meath.
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emigrants emigration