Young men were brought up to do nothing.

Property was regarded as having no duties attached to it.

Men became rapacious, and determined to extract the uttermost farthing out of the land within their power, let the consequences to the people on that land be what they might.
We used to hear much of absentees.

It was not the absence of the absentees that did the damage, but the presence of those they left behind them on the soil.

The scourge of Ireland was the existence of a class who looked to be gentlemen living on their property, but who should have earned their bread by the work of their brain, or, failing that, by the sweat of their brow.