Pray understand," said Father Keller, "that I do not say all landlords stand at all where Mr.Ponsonby has been put by his agent, for that is not the case; but the action of many landlords in the county Cork in sustaining Mr.Ponsonby, whose estate is and has been as badly rack-rented an estate as can be found, is, in my judgment, most unwise, and threatening to the peace and happiness of Ireland."[9] I asked whether, in his opinion, it would be possible for the Ponsonby tenants to live and prosper here on this estate, could they become peasant proprietors of it under Lord Ashbourne's Act, provided they increased in numbers, as in that event might be expected.

This he thought very doubtful so far as a few of the tenants are concerned.
"Would you seek a remedy, then," I asked, "in emigration ?" "No, not in emigration," he replied, "but in migration." I begged him to explain the difference.
"What I mean," he said, "is, that the people should migrate, not out of Ireland, but from those parts of Ireland which cannot support them into parts of Ireland which can support them.

There is room in Meath, for example, for the people of many congested districts." "You would, then, turn the great cattle farms of Meath," I said, "into peasant holdings ?" "Certainly." "But would not that involve the expropriation of many people now established in Meath, and the disturbance or destruction of a great cattle industry for which Ireland has especial advantages ?" To this Father Keller replied that he did not wish to see Ireland exporting her cattle, any more than to see Ireland exporting her sons and daughters.

"I mean," he said, quite earnestly, "when they are forced to export them to pay exorbitant rents, and thus deprive themselves of their capital or of a fair share of the comforts of life.

I should be glad to see the Irish people sufficient to themselves by the domestic exchange of their own industries and products." At the same time he begged me to understand that he had no wish to see this development attended by any estrangement or hostile feeling between Ireland and Great Britain.