We must now honestly and courageously face the stern realities of this case.

Among these realities is a firm conviction in the minds of many landlords that they are in no sense trustees for the community, but that they have an absolute power over their estates--that they can, if they like, strip the land clean of its human clothing, and clothe it with sheep or cattle instead, or lay it bare and desolate, let it lapse into a wilderness, or sow it with salt.

That is in reality the terrific power secured to them by the present land code, to be executed through the Queen's writ and by the Queen's troops--a power which could not stand a day if England did not sustain it by overwhelming military force.
Another of the realities of the question is the no less inveterate conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute power of the landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the sword.

Right or wrong, they believe that the confiscations were the palpable violation of the natural rights of the people whom Providence placed in this country.

With bitter emphasis they assert that no set of men has any divine right to root a nation out of its own land.