JOHN STUART MILL ON IRELAND.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 299, 23 October 1873, Page 8

JOHN STUART MILL ON IRELAND.

• The late John Stuart Mill said, in closing the famous chapter of his work on Political Economy, in describing the condition of the country at tlie time, pasture replacing tillage, and the exodus in full flow: — "■ Those who think that the land of a country exists for- the sake of a few thousand landowners, nnd that as long as rents are paid society and Government hare- fulfilled their functions, may see in this consummation a happy end to Irish difficulties. But this is not a time, nor is the human mind now in a condition, in which such insolent pretem ions can be maintained. The land of Ireland — the land of every country — belongs, to the people of that country. The individuals called landowners have no vight in. morality or justice to anything but cherent or compensation for its saleable value. With record to the land itself, the paramount consideration is by what mode of appropriation and cultivation it can be made most useful to the collective body of the inhabitants. To the owners of the rent it may be very convenient that the bulk of the inhabitants, despairing af justice in the country where they and their ancestors have lived and suffered, should seek on another continent that property in land which is. denied to them at home. But the Legislature of the Empire ought to regard with other eyes the forced expatriation of millions of people. When the inhabitants of a country quit the country en ma»s& because its Government will not make it a place fit for them to live in, tlie Government is judged and' condemned.. There is no necessity for depriving the landlords of one farthing of the pecuniary value of their legal rights, but justice requires that the actual- cultivators should be enabled to become in Irelaud — twhat they will become in> America — proprietarst «f ti#