"In conclusion, I must say, from all accounts and my own observation, that the state of our fellow-countrymen in the parts I have named is worse than that of any people in the world, let alone Europe. I believe that these people are made as we are, that they are patient beyond belief, loyal, but, at the same time, broken-spirited and desperate, living on the verge of starvation in places in which we would not keep our cattle. "The Bulgarians, Anatolians, Chinese, and Indians are better off than many of them are. The priests alone have any sympathy with their sufferings, and naturally alone have a hold over them. In these days, in common justice, if we endow a Protestant University, why should we not endow a Catholic University in a Catholic country? Is it not as difficult to get a £5 note from a Protestant as from a Catholic or Jew? Read the letters of ---- and of ----, and tell me if you see in them any particle of kind feeling towards the tenantry; and if you have any doubts about this, investigate the manner in which the Relief Fund was administered, and in which the sums of money for improvements of estates by landlords were expended. "In 1833 England gave freedom to the West Indian slaves at a cost of twenty millions--worth now thirty millions. This money left the country. England got nothing for it. By an expenditure of eighty millions she may free her own people. She would have the hold over the land, and she would cure a cancer. I am not well off, but I would offer ---- or his agent £1000, if either of them would live one week in one of these poor devil's places, and feed as these people do. Our comic prints do an infinity of harm by their caricatures--firstly, the caricatures are not true, for the crime in Ireland is not greater than that in England; and, secondly, they exasperate the people on both sides of the Channel, and they do no good. "It is ill to laugh and scoff at a question which affects our existence." This heroic mode of dealing with an old and very complicated difficulty scarcely came within the range of practical achievement. The Irish question is not to be solved by any such simple cut-and-dried procedure. It will take time, sympathy, and good-will. When the English people have eradicated their opinion that the Irish are an inferior race, and when the Irish realise that the old prejudice has vanished, the root-difficulty will be removed. At least Gordon deserves the credit of having seen that much from his brief observation on the spot, and his plea for them as "patient beyond belief and loyal," may eventually carry conviction to the hearts of the more powerful and prosperous kingdom.