On 16 December Karl Marx delivered a lecture in the German Workers’ Educational Association in London on the conditions in Ireland, which shows that all attempts which the English government made in earlier centuries to anglicise the Irish population were fruitless. The English who had immigrated up to the time of the Reformation, including the aristocrats, were turned into Irishmen by the Irish women, and their descendants fought against England. The cruelties of the warfare against the Irish under Queen Elizabeth, the destruction of crops, the removal of the population from one area to another in order to make room for English colonists, changed nothing in the matter. At that time, gentlemen and merchant adventurers received large tracts of land on condition of colonising them with Englishmen. By the time of Cromwell, the descendants of these colonists fought with the Irish against the English. Cromwell sold many of them as slaves to the West Indies. Under the Restoration, Ireland was favoured in many respects. Under William III, a class came to power that only wanted to make money, and in order to force the Irish to sell their raw produce to England at any price, the industry of Ireland was suppressed. With the help of the Protestant penal code, the new aristocrats obtained free play under Queen Anne. The Irish Parliament was an instrument of oppression. Whoever was a Catholic could hold no public office, could not be a landowner, could not make a will, could not receive an inheritance; being a Catholic bishop was high treason – all these were means to rob the Irish of their land; yet more than half of the English descendants in Ulster remained Catholic. The people were driven into the arms of the Catholic clergy, which thereby gained its power. All that the English government succeeded in doing was to plant an aristocracy in Ireland. The towns built by the English have become Irish. That is why there are so many English names among the Fenians.

At the time of the American War of Independence, the reins were slackened somewhat. Further concessions became necessary at the time of the French Revolution. Ireland rose so rapidly that its inhabitants threatened to outstrip the English. The English government drove them to rebellion and, through bribery, effected the Union. Through the Union, the reviving Irish industry received its death blow. Mitchel said on one occasion: all branches of Irish industry are destroyed, only the manufacture of coffins remains to us. To have land became a condition of existence; the great landowners leased their lands to speculators; it passed through four or five gradations of leases before it came to the peasant, whereby the prices became disproportionately high. The agricultural population lived on potatoes and water; wheat and meat were sent to England; the rent was consumed in London, Paris, and Florence. In 1836, £7,000,000 were sent abroad to absentee landowners. With the produce and the rent, the manure was also exported; the land became exhausted. Partial famine occurred frequently, but through the potato blight of 1846, a general famine ensued. A million people starved to death. The potato blight was a consequence of the exhaustion of the soil, a product of English rule.

Through the abolition of the Corn Laws, Ireland lost its monopoly of the English market; the old rents could no longer be paid. High meat prices and the bankruptcy of the remaining small landowners have contributed to the driving out of the small peasants and the conversion of their land into sheep pastures. Since 1860, over half a million acres of land have gone out of cultivation. The yield per acre has diminished: oats by 16 per cent, flax by 36 per cent, potatoes by 50 per cent. Now only oats are grown for the English market, and wheat is imported.

With the exhaustion of the soil, the population has deteriorated physically. The lame, the blind, the deaf-mutes, and the insane have absolutely increased, despite the declining population.

Over 1,100,000 people have been replaced by 9,600,000 sheep. In Europe, anything similar is unheard of. The Russians replace the transported Poles with Russians, not with sheep. Only among the Mongols in China was the question once deliberated of tearing down the towns to make room for sheep.

The Irish question is therefore not a simple nationality question, but a land and existence question. Downfall or revolution is the watchword; the Irish are all convinced that if anything is to be done, it must be done quickly. The English should demand separation and leave it to the Irish alone to solve the question of landed property. Everything else is useless. If this does not happen soon, Irish emigration will bring about a war with America. The domination of Ireland today is the collection of rents for the English aristocracy.