THE RADICAL RUSH.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR,"]
SIR,—As you have done me the honour to 'call attention to my article in the National Review, may I be allowed to say a word in answer to the three questions you propound ? First, as to- Ireland. Why, you ask, are not small farmers contented and conservative in Ireland In Ireland, I should say, the system has not been allowed fair play. The " immortale odium et nunquam sanabile vulnus " engendered by differences of race and religion, and kept at fever-heat by a vast political and ecclesiastical organisation with ulterior objects to attain, is quite sufficient to prevent the Irish peasantry from affording any fair test of the social value of the plan which I suggest for England. Secondly, you ask, why should small farmers be conservative ? Because people who have got what they want generally are. Professional politicians, reformers, and philo- sophers take up with particular theories which they endeavour to realise by working with a political party. But the great body of the public do not do this. They have no theories to realise, and are, as a rule, opposed to organic changes when they have nothing to get by them. The small farmer, and the agricultural labourer expecting to be a small farmer, would be no exception. My contention is that he would be perfectly satisfied with his lot, and would do nothing calculated to derange a social system under which he found himself independent. If it is said he would still be discontented till he got the freehold, I can only say that my own experience of the English peasantry does not lead me to that belief; and, more than that, there is plenty of land to be bought without taking it away from those who, do not wish to part with it. Your third question raises the real difficulty,—Where is the money to come from which would be necessary for the subdivision of holdings on any large scale I have referred to this difficulty in my article, I acknowledge its gravity, Still, I must nay, it does seem to me, considering all that is at stake, an extraordinary thing that so wealthy a body as, in spite of agricultural depression, the British aristocracy still are, should be unable to raise the necessary funds.—I am, Sir, &a., THE WRITER OF THE ARTICLE.
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