Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/204

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they had increased by their labour the value of the property in some instances 700 per cent, had the alternative given them of either having the rents at once raised to the full value of the improvements or of being turned adrift to wander about as vagabonds on the face of the earth, and carry with them to America an exile's sorrows and an outlaw's hate—for though it may be shown to be in accordance with the form of law, it was a robbery of the most cruel nature—a robbery that took advantage of the best qualities of its victims to make those very qualities the instruments of their destruction—the disgrace of this frightful robbery, I say, must fall not on the head landlords who, in such cases, only followed the law of human nature, but on those who coming forward to make laws to redress the law of human nature produced the English law of landlord and tenant, which had its foundation in the system of government introduced into England by the man who displayed the same spirit of unrelenting cruelty when he enclosed the New Forest, and when he reduced the northern counties of England to a desert. It is not creditable to any government calling itself a Christian and civilized government to allow such a law to remain on the English Statute Book. If an equitable allowance