CURIOSITIES OF POLITICS.
THE EVIL EYE ON THE LANDLORD.
It is the belief of many of us that political changes, once proposed, are sure to come about, provided only that they are sufficiently attractive to occupy the public mind for a lengthened period. Given a project that can take an enduring hold of the national fancy, and its being established is simply a question of time. The belief undoubtedly is supported by the outcome in 1832 of the agitation for reform, and by the repeal of the Corn Laws, which crowned the strenuous efforts of the League in 1846. But we should remember that agitations which ultimately succeed are more likely to make an impression on, and to be remembered by, the student of history, than those which end in nothing. The Chartist demand for annual Parliaments is little thought of, while the Catholic Emancipation – a much older story – is a political landmark.
These remarks have been suggested by reflection on the covetous glance which the confiscatory portion of our population are at this time casting on the land. Timorous people say that the spoilers have marked it for plunder, and will leave no stone unturned till they get it. Others, less panic-stricken for the moment, think that the danger may not be immediate, but that after opinion shall have had time to ripen, the land will be as surely doomed as the Irish Church or the close boroughs. Such are the predictions which many anxious persons are it this moment making, as they glance back at the early phases of those notable changes which are now epochs in our history. Perhaps if they were to go a little deeper into their subject, – if they were to contemplate the results not only of the efforts of such men as Brougham, O'Connell, or Cobden, but of those also who failed to make so deep a mark, – they might be less persuaded of the coming change. Lord George Gordon in the last century, Feargus O'Connor and Smith O'Brien in this, all represented and directed movements which appeared to be very popular, and likely to influence legislation; but they all met with failure and overthrow. Who is to warrant us that the excitement against the landlords may not die out as "No Popery" did, instead of establishing itself in our system like Free Trade?
If we look a little into the records of the past, we shall find that the rancour against owners of land is not altogether a new thing: it is but a modified form of an enmity which has been largely fomented against property continuously during the last hundred years. For some reason or other, it has not been the policy, or the caprice, of the confiscatory movement to turn an eye of desire upon the land until now; the fundholder and the capitalist had their turns first. In the early years of this nineteenth century, to rob the fundholder was a very favourite idea in some quarters. The chief part of the revenue, wrung from an overworked and necessitous population, was applied to meeting the claims of various creditors of the State. Only get rid of this charge, which used to be some
