Excerpt from The Land Monopoly, Or Land, Taxation, and Pauperism: With a Chapter on Ireland: Its Discontent and RemedyA comparatively small number of men or families having, many of them by very questionable means, got possession of nearly all the land in the three kingdoms, the legislative and administrative powers fell into their hands, almost as a matter of course and the results of such powers are seen in the squalid misery, the wretched and ill-ventilated dwellings, the ignorance and the crimes of the people, the spasmodic paralysis of our national industries, the squandering of millions of wealth annually over unworthy objects or worthless persons, and the numerous costly and unjust wars into which the country has been so often plunged. In putting a period to all these evils, the tradesmen, manufacturers, and capitalists are as much interested as the labouring classes them selves.The evils ¿owing from this system have produced a state of discontent in Ireland, bordering on rebellion, and it would be absurd to expect that any people should for ever remain quiescent under the oppression and wrongs, both in Church and State, which they have had for many generations to endure. It was not until after hundreds of men had been shot, hanged, or starved to death, that the tithes exacted by an alien church were done away with by the passing of the Tithes Commutation Act, and then even the landholders who passed that Act, grasping as they have ever been.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.