CHAPTER X.

THE QUESTION OF RACE.

Fusion of Races-Irish Nationality-The Scottish Highlanders-Welsh

Nationality.

"ALIENS in blood, language, and religion !" It

was an unfortunate phrase of Lord Lyndhurst, and we know what use was made of it by Sheil, and less scrupulous agitators. But what of this question of race? How far has it to do with the history, or how far is it answerable for the woes, of Ireland? Whatever influence race may have had in olden times, it certainly is a small element in the actual condition of the people. In regard to the upper classes and upper middle classes, it would be hard for any ethnologist to analyse the social blood of Irishmen. Phoenician, Spanish, Milesian, Celtic, Scandinavian, Norman, Anglo-Saxon, French, Scotch, there never was a greater fusion and confusion of race in any land. Lord Desart made a good point in criticising Mr. Froude's attacks on Irish landlords. "In the

desire to free the Irish peasant from the yoke of landlordism," says Mr. Froude, "I do not yield to the most irreconcileable Fenian." What," retorts

Lord Desart, "is this mysterious yoke? Is it the payment of rent? If so, then the yoke is worse in England, for rents in Ireland are allowed to be excessively low. If all property is robbery, and the land belongs to the tillers of the soil, a quite different line of argument is opened up, and rather a long one; but it has no particular reference to Ireland, her history, her land laws, or Fenianism. As property just at present does exist, it exists equally in Middlesex and in Leinster, though perhaps the Land Act has rather shaken people's faith in it over here. If the yoke is, that a majority of the landlords are Protestants,—but I need not discuss this, as Mr. Froude has elsewhere said that he approves the arrangement. There remains only that the landlords are not national, not thoroughly acclimatized; and although I do not believe that this has any weight with Mr. Froude, still it is so favourite a weapon of the lower class of agitators, that it is quite worth notice.

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Perhaps the majority of large landowners in the south of Ireland came over either in Elizabeth's or Cromwell's time. Of course they were English enough then, and perhaps they are English too much now; but I do not understand the principle on which they

could be deprived of their landlordism for this reason, unless, indeed, there be a hard-and-fast line drawn by some eminent natural history teller, which limits the power of nationalization. If a family which has been in Ireland since 1665 is not Irish, when is it to be? When will the representative of it be allowed to claim kindred with the people? In 1972 or 2072 ?"

The same repudiation of nationality for the higher classes in Ireland appears in an able book by Mr. John George MacCarthy, "A Plea for the Home Government of Ireland: "-" Saxons and Normans came over here in vast numbers and incessantly for centuries. After the longest strife in history they made good their ground, and effected a compromise with the Celtic population, in which the latter got the worst of the bargain. It may be doubtful whether the Celtic races were conquered; but there is no doubt that the in-coming races were not conquered. These were the conquerors, if any conquest there were. Their blood is in all our veins: both races have been fused long ago."

And again, "The Celtic, Saxon, and Norman races are in reality almost as much fused in Ireland as they are in Great Britain. They are inextricably mingled together in all social, commercial, and neighbourly relations throughout the country: nay, as we have