" It is bringing one's case before a higher tribunal when
one feels he has not got justice in the court below. 3. Whether it is or
is not the fact, that the landlord by living at home and spending his
fortune amongst his people adds to the aggregate wealth of the nation,
it is certain that his doing so is a partial and immediate good to the
locality in which he resides. Often does the Irish peasant point to the
decayed village, and the crumbling mansion, as evidences that the owner
of the soil is an Absentee. 4. There is a special reason given by at
least one English writer, why Irish landlords ought to be resident, and
thus endeavour to gain the confidence of their tenants; and that is,
because nine-tenths of the Irish estates have been confiscated from the
native owners, and are held by men who differ from their tenants in
country and religion; and their non-residence, and consequent want of
sympathy with the people, perpetuates in the minds of those people the
bitter traditions of rapine and conquest; so that, instead of feeling
they are the tenants of kind, considerate landlords, they are apt to
regard themselves, in some sort, as the despised slaves of conquerors,
who, if they do not still look upon them as "Irish enemies," do not
certainly entertain for them the feelings which ought to find a place
in the breasts of landlords who look upon their tenants as something
more than mere rent producers.
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