still weak and small compared to that of England and Scotland; but it had been growing in wealth and power; and this, to some extent, had had a good effect on a community still mainly dependent on the land. The material and even the social progress of Ireland, since the Famine, had thus been marked; it had been more decided than it has been, at any period, except, possibly, that from 1782 to 1800. Her land system, too, had become better in important parts; but in many respects it remained vicious; some of its vices had been aggravated, or were more sensibly felt. The hope that the land would pass generally into the hands of large farmers, able to develop its resources, had not been realised, or had been realised only to a relatively trivial extent; it was still held in the main by a peasantry of small occupiers of the soil, though the consolidation of farms had gone on over extensive areas, especially over wide tracts of pasturage, in the eastern, midland, and western counties, and this, in some instances, through a process of harsh eviction. The profound divisions of race and faith, the distinctive feature in the organic structure of the whole community, were at least as visible as ever in the land system; from causes I have pointed out before, they had, not improbably, been widened; this tended to increase the old dissension in landed relations, and the long-standing separation between the landed classes. Middleman tenures, with their mischievous effects, had, since the Famine, well-nigh disappeared; but the new landlord had largely replaced the middleman; absenteeism remained what it had been; and though absentee estates, as a rule, were under good agents, there was too much of that 'absenteeism of the heart,' condemned by Tocqueville as a grave social danger. The purchasers under the Encumbered Estates Acts, with some honourable exceptions, no doubt, were too often oppressive landlords; the old landlords, as a class, had, certainly, done much for their estates, but they had lost their political and largely their social influence; partly owing to apprehensions as regards tenant right, partly to the assurances of statesmen that their position was safe, they had become perhaps more exacting in their dealings with their dependents; in the existing situation, they more and more resembled a weak caste, controlled by the central Government, and isolated amidst a community, to a great extent, not friendly. All this tended to produce a want of stability and insecurity in the land system, which was ominous of social strife and trouble; but the most active element of disturbance was to be certainly found in the contact with the rebellious movement which Ireland had lately witnessed. Fenianism had been scotched, but by no means slain; and though the peasantry had held aloof from it, Fenian emissaries were going through the country, appealing to the passions and the greed of the occupiers of