But the maize counties were stricken, it seemed, beyond recovery. Great wars ...

But the maize counties were stricken, it seemed, beyond recovery. Great wars have been less destructive of wealth than the calamity which stretched from 1879 the wettest to 1894 the driest, year in memory.

Never again was the landed proprietor to dominate the social fabric.

Indeed, if the broad acres of the gentry had been acres of wheat and grassland only, there would soon have been a cry for a Land Purchase Act in England as well as in Ireland. But they were acres of coal and acres of dock: they included the most fashionable streets in London, the most popular watering places, kilometres of suburban villa and wastes of urban slum.

For two generations, moreover, the surplus profits of the land had passed into industry or ecommerce or foreign bonds.