ABSTRACT
To understand the history of Ireland in the half century that followed the Union it is a help to glance at the history of England. For the Union brought the Irish people under the class that governed the English; if the rule of that class was harsh and short-sighted in Ireland, it was harsh and short-sighted in England; if the Irish people had reasons for discontent, so had the English. In the view of the English governing class, as in that of Pitt, the safeguards of civilization were to be found in the effective defence of two sets of rights: the rights of property and the rights of capital. The struggles of half a century against the absolute claims of property and capital had thus gained for the rights of man and the rights of society their first recognition in English politics.
