“It has always appeared to me a desperate measure for the British Government to make an irrevocable alliance with a small party in Ireland (which party has derived all its consequence from, and is, in fact, entirely dependent upon the British Government), and to wage eternal war against the Papists.” The “desperate measure” which Cornwallis deplored, the British Government adopted. In 1802, Lord Redesdale, the Irish Lord Chancellor of the day, wrote: “The Catholics must have no more political power”; and he added: “I have said that this country must be kept for some time as a garrison country—I meant a Protestant garrison.” The policy enunciated by Lord Redesdale was the policy enforced by the English statesmen of the Union. I think it is Lord Acton who says somewhere that nothing stimulates the sentiment of nationality so much as the presence of a foreign ruler. The Irish people saw the hand of the foreign ruler everywhere, and national hatred was naturally intensified and perpetuated. Besides the question of Catholic emancipation—the question of political freedom—there were many other questions calling for the immediate attention of Parliament. There was the church question, the tithe question, the question of the education of the people, and the eternal land question. The very existence of these questions was ignored by English statesmen. Land was the staple industry of Ireland; yet it was worked under conditions which were fatal to the peace and prosperity of the country. What were the conditions? The landlord let the land—perhaps a strip of bog, barren, wild, dreary. The tenant reclaimed the bog; built, fenced, drained, did all that had to be done. When the tenant had done these things, had made the land tenantable, the rent was raised. He could not pay the increased rental—he had spent himself on the land; he needed time to recoup himself for his outlay and labour. He got no time: when he failed to pay, he was evicted—flung on the roadside, to starve, to die. He took refuge in an Agrarian Secret Society, told the story of his wrong, and prayed for vengeance on the man whom he called a tyrant, and an oppressor. Too often his prayer was heard, and vengeance was wreaked on the landlord, or agent, and sometimes on both.