The
engrossing subject of Parliamentary Reform prevented either this bill,
or one of a similar character brought in by Lord Derby's Government,
from being carried through. They never got beyond the second reading.
Meanwhile the signs of Irish disaffection had become much more decided;
the demand for complete separation between the two countries had assumed
a menacing aspect, and there were few who did not feel that if there was
still any chance of reconciling Ireland to the British connection, it
could only be by the adoption of much more thorough reforms in the
territorial and social relations of the country, than had yet been
contemplated. The time seemed to me to have come when it would be useful
to speak out my whole mind; and the result was my pamphlet _England and
Ireland_, which was written in the winter of 1867, and published shortly
before the commencement of the session of 1868. The leading features of
the pamphlet were, on the one hand, an argument to show the
undesirableness, for Ireland as well as England, of separation between
the countries, and on the other, a proposal for settling the land
question by giving to the existing tenants a permanent tenure, at a
fixed rent, to be assessed after due inquiry by the State.
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