-ii 
 
 •it
 
 LI B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N 1VE.RSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS
 
 SOME 
 
 EVIDE^^CE 
 
 ox THE 
 
 i[i^It imA mm$iim, 
 
 BV ' 
 
 GEORGE CLIVE, Esq. 
 
 " ^\ hat is it that any rational friend of freedom could expect that the 
 people of this country are not fully and amply in possession of; and 
 therefore, whfen those idle stories are told of six hundred year's oppressions 
 and rebellions, when this country was in a state of ignorance and barbarism, 
 which has long since passed away, they are utterly destitute of a fact to 
 rest upon.— They are a fraud upon feeling, and the pretext of the factious 
 and ambitious, working upon credulity and ignorance." 
 
 Lord Plunkki'. 
 
 HEREFORD : 
 J. Hull (late Head), Pl'rlisher and Bookskller, Hi.-.h Town, 
 
 1870.
 
 HEREFORD : 
 J. Hull (late Head), Printer and Bookbinder, High Town, 
 
 1870.
 
 SOME 
 
 EVIDENCE 
 
 ox THE 
 
 i„i 
 
 i[Ji5lt |at»l luwlion, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE CLIVE, Esq. 
 
 ^^ hat IS !t that any rational friend of freedom coulrl expect that th- 
 people of this country are not fully and amplv in possession of; and 
 therefore when those idle stories are told of six hundred year's oppressions 
 and rebellions, when this country was in a state of ignorance and ])arbarism 
 which has long since passed away, thev are utteriv destitute of a fact to 
 rest upon.— They are a fraud upon feeling, and the pretext of the factious 
 and ambitious, working upon credulity and ignorance." 
 
 Lord Plunket, 
 
 HEREFORD : 
 J. Hull (late Head), Publisher and Bookseller, Hi.;h Town, 
 
 1870,
 
 HEREFORD : 
 
 J. Hull (late Head), Printer and Bookbinder, High Town, 
 
 1870.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Through the kindness of its author, Mr. Hoskyns's 
 pamphlet reached me early in the autumn. 
 Agreeing- generally with his doctrine of '* Free 
 the Land," it appeared to me to be useless as 
 a remedy for the so-called evils of Ireland. As 
 to the condition of which country Mr. Hoskyns 
 seems to have been misled by the empty 
 declamation of Irish agitators. Bearing in mind 
 his advice " that to attempt to deal with the 
 difficulties of the Land question in Ireland, 
 without first ascertaining our own fitness for the 
 task, would be a course as certainly destined 
 to practical failure as it would be manifesdy 
 fraught with presumpdon." It occurred to me 
 that having more than 20 years experience of 
 Ireland, and being fairly conversant with the 
 reports of committees, and other sources of infor- 
 mation relating to the Land Question, the publica- 
 tion of my opinions would not lay me open to a 
 charge of presumption, and I was the more moved 
 thereto by the innumerable contributions to the
 
 IV 
 
 press from roving commissioners, correspondents, 
 tourists, Members of Parliament, and others, 
 following each other in rapid succession, but little 
 or very superficially acquainted with the problem 
 they proposed to solve, nevertheless, all swelling 
 the popular cry, and laying claim to special 
 information. Sticlta est Celementia cum tot iibique, 
 Vatibus occtirras, periturce parceve cha7^tce, F ur ther, 
 Mr. Hoskyns has committed himself to doctrines 
 as to the superior productiveness of small proper- 
 ties, which I think obsolete, and unsupported by 
 the authorities which he quotes. Being in the West 
 of Ireland when I received his pamphlet, I had 
 not the opportunity of consulting those authorities ; 
 some delay, therefore, necessarily occurred. In the 
 meantime the essay of Mr. Howard, M. P. for 
 Bedford, has appeared, to which I might safely 
 have left Mr. Hoskyns's opinions on this part of 
 the subject. I shall, however, briefly notice them 
 before concluding. It will be observed that I 
 have been more anxious to re-produce the opinions 
 (many of them buried in Blue Books) of gentle- 
 men whose experience is extensive and undoubted, 
 and whose lives have been devoted to the best 
 interest of Ireland, than to ventilate my own ; were 
 I, in all humility, to prefer a request to those in 
 power, it would be to keep the peace, and legislate 
 as little as possible. 
 

 
 
 The subject naturally divides itself into three 
 branches : — 
 
 1st. — The Actual Condition of Ireland. 
 
 2nd. — The Causes of that Condition. 
 
 3rd. — The Remedies. 
 As to the actual condition of Ireland, it is only 
 necessary to quote a speech of the present Lord 
 Lieutenant, Lord Spencer, on taking office. 
 
 Alluding to the prevalence, in 1 867, of treason- 
 able and seditious offences he said — 
 
 *' Now it is very satisfactory to find that there has been mate- 
 rial change for the better with regard to these offences. The 
 Criminal Returns, for the year 1868, have as yet not all been 
 sent in, but from 26 out of the s^ counties they have ; and I 
 find that, on comparing the Returns from 1867, from the same 
 places, with respect to treasonable and seditious offences, of 
 those which were not determined summarily, the aggregate was 
 32 in 1868, against 136 in 1867 ; while the Hke offences which 
 were summarily determined show 24 in 1868, against 158 in 
 1867. With respect to other criminal returns, taking the year 
 ending with 1867 (they have not been made up later) and 
 making allowance for the reduction of the population, I find the 
 diminution of serious crime in Ireland in the past year, as com- 
 pared with the first of the decade, is represented by a fall 
 from 107 to 82 in each 100,000 of the population.' 
 
 B
 
 Lord Spencer afterwards alluded to the Poor 
 Law and Bank Returns, as showing the great 
 improvement which was going on. He stated 
 that the Railroad Returns of traffic were equally 
 satisfactory, and " that the Emigration Return 
 showed a diminution of 19,000 persons." 
 
 This speech was made about a year ago. 
 Compare it with Dr. Hancocks's recent report. 
 He says : — 
 
 " From information on the subject collected by the police, 
 I may state that the number of agrarian outrages, specially 
 reported in 1868, was less than in any of the last twenty years, 
 except 1866 and 1867. The great increase in these outrages 
 has been in 1869, as indicated by the latest returns, which are 
 for the first half of the year. 169 agrarian outrages have been 
 reported during this period, which is double the number in the 
 same half-year of 1868, and four times that of 1866, and greater 
 than any year since 1855, except the years of pressure, 1862 
 and 1863." 
 
 Those who, like myself, have passed the greater 
 part of the latter half of 1869 in Ireland, well know 
 that that period will not yield to the former half. 
 Sedition and murder are rife. All hope of 
 detection appears to be abandoned. These crimes, 
 formerly confined to certain notorious districts, are 
 now extended all over the country. " Tumbling," 
 no longer reserved for the much reviled landlord, 
 (as recommended by a Christian divine) is resorted 
 to whenever any ruffian has a grudge against his 
 neighbour. Mr. Hunter, the station master at 
 Athlone ; the schoolmaster at Leitrim ; poor Welsh 
 the egg merchant ; Margaret MCormick, the 
 huckster, were not landlords. The following also 
 can hardly be called a landlord's case : — a poor 
 man owned some 40 acres of land which he had 
 let to several tenants, it being necessary for him to 
 reside elsewhere, for the purpose of earning his 
 livelihood. He returned, however, having earned 
 a small pension, in order to occupy some of the
 
 land, on an understanding with the tenants that he 
 would allow them one year and a half's rent, 
 and he was brutally murdered. It really 
 seems as if we were returninof to a state of 
 things in Ireland as quoted by Mr. Froude from 
 an ancient Irish MS., as follows : — " For every 
 murder they commit they do not so soon repent, 
 for whose blood they once shed they lightly 
 never cease killing all that name." Juries are 
 intimidated. (See the Solicitor GeneraVs speech 
 on moving to change the venne from Galzuay to 
 Dull tin in Barrett's case.) The judges are insulted ; 
 a convict is returned to Parliament ; tenants are 
 warned not to pay their rents ; Scotch and English 
 settlers, men of industry and capital, occupying 
 and improving farms not cleared for them by 
 avaricious landlords, but left vacant by the failure 
 of the potato,*" are everywhere thinking of leaving 
 the country, and at this moment many of them 
 have been warned to quit their farms at a fixed 
 date under pain of death. None of these men 
 have ever interfered with politics or with any 
 religious movement, and are personally popular 
 with the country people, but because the latter are 
 deluded with the idea that the Land occupied by 
 the settlers will be divided amongst small tenants if 
 they are got rid of, great attempts are being made 
 to drive them out of the country by threatening 
 letters and denunciations. Moreover, I believe 
 the constabulary have been set at defiance when 
 they went to collect the expense of police on the 
 district where Mr. Hunter was shot. A well- 
 informed correspondent from Mayo writes thus, 
 
 *The Rev. Michael Curley, P.P., in a recent letter to a newspaper, 
 says that the previous occupiers of these farms were exiled or murdered 
 by felonious landlords. No untruth more gross was ever penned. 'Imme- 
 diately after the famine, I, in the year 1850, not being then a landlord in 
 Mayo, travelled all over that county, and I can speak with perfect confi- 
 dence as to its absolute desolation, brought about by the failure of the 
 potato, aiid by that alone. The gigantic efforts made by England to 
 relieve the distress, and the active sympathy of individual Englishmen are 
 well known.
 
 under date of 22nd January, 1870 : ''The fact is 
 that the whole county is in the hands of a body far 
 worse than the Fenians, viz., the Ribbon Men. By 
 the murder of Hunter and Walsh, the attempted 
 murders of Miss Gardiner and Crotty, the latter 
 within four miles of Westport, by innumerable 
 outrages of all sorts, and by a constant series 
 of threatening letters, they have succeeded in 
 establishing a system of terrorism in Mayo which 
 I suspect has seldom or ever been surpassed in 
 any county in Ireland. It is sufficient now for a 
 man to be known to be a violent drunken ruffian, 
 and he may act with perfect impunity, Those 
 whom he sets upon, and mauls unmercifully, are 
 afraid to complain or give evidence against him. 
 No jury would dare to do its duty. We must have 
 an armed military force scattered about the country 
 in small bodies again." Another correspondent 
 writes under date 6th February.* A British 
 officer, the son of a recently ennobled father, 
 proclaims (on the Longford hustings) his support of 
 the present Government, and adds his purpose of 
 procuring the release of the foul Fenian conspirators 
 so often denounced by the members of that very 
 Government. A candidate for Mallow tells his 
 future constituents that he will do his utmost to 
 '' root the Irishmen in the soil, and to terminate the 
 landlord power of eviction." The most enthusiastic 
 agitator cannot maintain that there has been any 
 pressure on the resources of the agricultural popu- 
 lation during the year 1869, or that landlord oppres- 
 sion and evictions have been increased. On the 
 other hand it is notorious that there has been, on the 
 part of Government, much misplaced confidence 
 in those whose knowledge of Ireland is superficial 
 
 * Another correspondent writes under date of Feb. 6th — " It is just as 
 dangerous to discharge a lal:)Ourer or servant as to evict a tenant. It is 
 quite unsafe to be on the road after dark, anywhere, as you do not know 
 the moment you may get a stone. It is to be hoped the Government will 
 either suspend the habeas corpus or proclaim martial law."
 
 or Imperfect, and a lamentable want of that 
 decision and firmness by which alone those who 
 mislead and stimulate a credulous and excitable 
 people can be controlled. The roads In Mayo, 
 but a year ago as quiet as those in an English 
 county, are unsafe. Persons of respectability 
 are unable to leave their houses after dusk from 
 the fear of outrage. All this is wholly uncon- 
 nected with agrarian oppression of any kind, of 
 which I am not aware of any instance. In truth 
 these disturbers of the peace of the country are 
 the mere off-scourings of the population, stimu- 
 lated by the absurd cry of " Ireland for the Irish," 
 and unchecked either by the local authorities or 
 the Government, they carry on their system of 
 Intimidation, life and property becoming, from day 
 to day, more insecure. In the meantime, Mr. 
 Bright tells the good people of Birmingham of 
 the *' descent of white robed Innocence from 
 heaven, " to my mind the more appropriate quota- 
 tion would be " whilst bloody treason flourished 
 over us." 
 
 Judge Longfield is Judge of the Landed Estates 
 Court In Ireland ; no man has more knowledge 
 and experience, while every one, from the highest 
 British statesman down to the lowest agitator, will 
 admit that his testimony is unimpeachable. Let 
 us consider his opinions, as recently published by" 
 the Cobden Club. He says : — 
 
 " Never were the Irish farmers more prosperous than at the 
 present moment ; but, at the same time, they were never more 
 discontented. The reason of this is partly that they fear their 
 present prosperity is insecure, and partly that they hope to seize 
 on something more. Their wealth is as safe as that of any other 
 class, so far as it depends upon their capital or their skill and 
 industry', but it depends also upon the will of the landlords, so 
 far as it is a consequence of their holding land at less than the 
 competition value. They are too dependent upon their 
 landlords." —
 
 Besides, in many cases, the tenants hope, by agitation and 
 outrage, to acquire more than they at present possess ; they 
 have great poHtical power, and are able to reward the agitators 
 who inflame their passions or their cupidity ; they are taught 
 to beHeve that it is in their power to acquire the absolute owner- 
 ship of the land which they have hired for a limited period ; 
 their well-founded complaints are mixed up with the most un- 
 reasonable demands ; and by skilful sophistry, and metaphorical 
 language, they are almost led to believe that murder may be 
 justified when it is committed from motives of avarice or 
 revenge." 
 
 In the Poor Law Report, March 31st, 1868, 1 
 find the following : — 
 
 " It is satisfactory that the political disturbances of the last 
 two years have been attended with so little apparent increase of 
 distress, and by so little abatement, if any, of confidence in 
 farming enterprise. The researches of Dr. Smith and other 
 scientific authorities, have established the fact, that the Irish 
 farm labourer is better fed, and at far less cost, than his repre- 
 sentative in England." 
 
 " The clothing of the Irish peasantry is very superior now to 
 the clothing of the same class before the famine, and rags are 
 the exception, instead of being the rule. The small cost of food 
 and the greatly advanced rate of wages, give assurance of a sur- 
 plus, available for clothing and other necessaries, exclusive of 
 food." 
 
 " The best evidence of the improved condition of the Irish 
 peasantry, has been their comparative freedom from epidemic 
 diseases during the last 18 years." 
 
 " More than 400,000 of the worst class of cabins have dis- 
 appeared from the face of the country since 1841." 
 
 The people are better clothed, housed, and fed, 
 because the produce is divided among a much 
 smaller number of persons. 
 
 According to the Times Commissioner — 
 
 "During the last 25 years there has been great and general 
 improvement. Before 1846 two millions and a half were in a 
 state of abject wretchedness, in the actual condition of the 
 country, they were an incubus on it." 
 
 " The immense emigration that followed the famine finally got 
 rid of the redundant population, and legislation, culminating in 
 the Landed Estates Act, threw insolvent estates into the market 
 wholesale, and almost extinguished the evil of middle-men.
 
 "This revohition has improved the condition of the Irish 
 labourer, has freed the land from swarms of paupers, and has 
 attracted capital to the soil." 
 
 Causes. — The Right Hon. W. Lane Joynt, 
 who is thoroughly acquainted with Landed 
 Property, and appointed SoHcitor to the Treasury 
 by the present Government, speaking of his 
 friend Mr. Butt (who by the bye is a great 
 authority with Mr. Hoskyns) says in his evidence 
 before the House of Lords — " He has great 
 genius and power of mind in treating the subject ; 
 he fails only in practical knowledge of it." This 
 observation will apply to many among those who 
 have undertaken the task of enlightening the 
 British public on the condition of Ireland. Some 
 have never crossed the Channel. Others have 
 only paid a short temporary visit for the purpose 
 of " gaining information." No one that I am 
 aware of, except Lord Dufferin, is a resident and 
 employer of labour, or in possession of practical 
 knowledge. His opinion Is, I need not say, 
 most important, and his publications ought to be 
 on the table of every man who wishes to form 
 a correct opinion on the vital question now 
 before the nation. He is fortunately a Member 
 of the Government. May his advice have its 
 due weight. Mr. Bright himself, addressing his 
 constituents at Birmingham, speaks thus : — 
 
 Wherever the tenure of Land is reasonably secure, the people 
 are peaceable, orderly, and law-abiding. In Ulster, the chier 
 home of tenant-right, the tenants do not shoot each other, of 
 the land agents, or the landlords — in Tipperary they do. 
 
 Now had Mr. Bright ever seriously turned his 
 great powers of observation on the Irish question, 
 had he enjoyed leisure and opportunity to study 
 it on Irish ground, where alone it can be under- 
 stood, he would have discovered that the remedy 
 is not so simple as he seems to suppose, and 
 
 c
 
 8 
 
 that many other circumstances must be taken into 
 consideration in order to account for the difference 
 between Tipperary and Ulster. Even Mr. 
 George Campbell would have told him " that there 
 is a wide distinction between the careful Ulster 
 farmer and the wasteful man of the South, the 
 typical Irishman." He would also have known 
 that, in point of tranquillity and freedom from 
 crime, many parts of Tipperary may be com- 
 pared advantageously with counties in Ulster. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that, while the essays 
 that I have alluded to in the Preface abound in 
 instances of well-managed estates and contented 
 tenants, the name of the landlord or agent, and 
 the situation of the estate being given, the cases 
 of oppression reported are vaguely stated and 
 shrouded in mystery, and frequently no clue is to 
 be obtained by which they may be traced. I have 
 occasionally made application to the writers, and 
 have been answered that the name of the informant 
 could not be divulged, but that, if I could prove 
 a negative, I was very welcome to do so. Only 
 in two instances were the accusations specific 
 enough to render an enquiry possible, and both 
 proved to be grossly false. Thus Mr. Samuelson, 
 M.P. for Banbury, says, ^' the evictions were in 
 numberless instances those of solvent and in- 
 dustrious people who were displaced simply from 
 a determination to consolidate farms." When we 
 look for proof we find that near Tuam he met the 
 remaining tenant of a group of 1 7, and in Galway 
 a poor man, one of 12, evicted, who of course told 
 him that nearly all were solvent and had paid 
 their rents. He also tells us that except on the 
 estate of some large proprietors the tenant has 
 made every improvement, and this he proves by 
 a case of a ten acre farm in Westmeath, in which
 
 the improvements of the last tenant were estimated 
 at more than £2>^o, since shown by the agent 
 of the property to amount only to ^lo.*'" Let 
 us hear Judge Longfield on this point. He 
 says : '' It is true that if any man searches 
 for cases of grievances suffered by tenants he 
 will have plenty of stories told to him. Many 
 of them will be utterly false, and many of them 
 will have a slight foundation of truth distorted by 
 the most monstrous exaggerations. When names, 
 dates, and facts are not stated, it is impossible to 
 expose and detect the falsehood. One story is 
 good until another is told." A similar observation 
 may be made as to the evidence of the witnesses 
 before Committees of Lords and Commons. The 
 class which is in favour of leaving things as they 
 are, or of a very moderate measure, consists 
 generally of men of extensive experience, accurate 
 and precise as to facts and figures ; while those 
 who are for violent legislative interference, sixty 
 years leases, or fixity of tenure, deal largely in 
 sensational extravagance, rarely particularize any 
 case of oppressive eviction, and ultimately fall back 
 on the theoretical crrievance that the Irish tenant 
 is in the power of his landlord, and that, if the latter 
 seldom uses his power oppressively, he might do 
 so. Even the Times Correspondent, fair and 
 impartial as he evidently wishes to be, tells us that 
 
 * Mr. Samuelson has since stated Dr. Nulty, Roman Catholic Bishop of 
 Meath, to have been his authority for this story. The annual rent of the 
 farm was about ^lo per acre, and the compensation claimed by Dr. Nulty 
 was ;^5oo, being 50 years purchase of the fee— this is a good specimen of 
 tourist information. Mr. Samuelson seems to be remarkably unfortunate. 
 In another place he states that many complaints were made to him of the 
 conduct of the great London companies — complaints, by-the-bye, which 
 he does not seem to have endeavoured to verify. — This drew forth an 
 address to the agent to the Trustees of Wilson's Hospital, signed by the 
 tenants of the estate, in which they " deeply deplore the heartless 
 calumny put forward against him in Mr. Samuelson's statement, which, to 
 their full knowledge, is destitute of either truth or candour." This address 
 will be found in the Times of the 21st January, 1870.
 
 10 
 
 '•' the Irish tenant, although almost, cannot be quite 
 certain of not being evicted — if not by the existing 
 landlord —by the heir, or by a rapacious purchaser." 
 To the question whether this is not so in England, 
 the answer is that in Ireland, as a rule, the improve- 
 ments are made by the tenant, but in England by 
 the landlord, and that the possibility of the confis- 
 cation of these improvements is the real cause of 
 agitation and turbulence. Let us then enquire 
 whether the statement is true, as a rule, and 
 whether evictions, for the purpose of taking 
 advantage of such improvements, can be shown 
 to have taken place. 
 
 The Essayists to whom I have above alluded 
 appear to believe that, in Ireland, the landlord 
 makes no improvement, but that every thing is 
 done by the tenant, at the risk of having the im- 
 provements made by his labour and capital seized 
 by the landlord, or of his rent being raised. 
 
 As to this Judge Longfield says : — 
 
 "At no time was it a matter of every day occurrence for a 
 landlord to seize his tenants' improvements before he had 
 enjoyed them for a remunerative period. Cases of incon- 
 siderate and unjust hardships could never have been very 
 frequent, and are now exceedingly rare. The cases in which 
 landlords seized upon improvements made by their tenants, 
 without giving them compensation, are very few, and the land- 
 lords would suffer nothing by a law which made such injustice 
 impossible. I believe evictions of solvent tenants are more 
 rare in Ireland than in England." 
 
 And now, a word as to the improvements them- 
 selves. Of these there are several classes. 
 
 First — Thorough or Main Drainage. 
 Second — Making of Roads. 
 Third — Erection of suitable Buildings. 
 Fourth — Reclamation and Enclosure of Land. 
 
 Of these the three former, except in some 
 portions of the North, are seldom or never done
 
 ii 
 
 by the tenant. It is true a small tenant occasion- 
 ally puts up a hovel, or clears waste land of stones 
 which he uses as fences, but even in these cases 
 it will be found that a long and uninterrupted period 
 of occupation has followed, rarely if ever put an 
 end to by the landlord, unless in cases of hopeless 
 insolvency, or manifest deterioration of the land. 
 
 The TiiJies Commissioner, after distinguishing 
 between w^hat may be called capitalist tenants, 
 who have contracted with the landlord, and 
 peasant farmers, says that fifteen-sixteenths of 
 the occupiers of Ireland, holding nearly three- 
 fourths of the island, may be designated as peasant 
 farmers, and in the case of tenancies of this class, 
 the tenants have made the permanent improve- 
 ment ; a statement which I think will be found, if 
 not wholly erroneous, at least greatly exaggerated. 
 He proceeds to state that the claims of the tenant 
 in respect to such improvement are not protected 
 by the law, the harsh operation of which, however, 
 has been restrained by the humanity, good sense, 
 and forbearance of the landlord ; he admits also, 
 that, in numerous cases, no claim for improvement 
 can be fairly preferred ; that in some, real improve- 
 ments have never been made ; and that all must 
 be subject to limitations of time, and liable to 
 deductions in respect of injuries done by the 
 tenant to the Land, of diminution of rent, and 
 prolonged occupation. 
 
 I have never known a case where a tenant has 
 erected suitable buildings at his own expense. 
 Generally the landlord has supplied the slates and 
 timber, or has given other assistance such as a 
 contribution in money or a reduction of rent. 
 
 On the question of improvements Mr. W. S. 
 Trench, land agent, thus expresses himself in his 
 evidence before the House of Lords ? —
 
 T2 
 
 " The large improvements, like drainage, are better done by 
 the landlord. It is impossible to conceive a more utterly false 
 assertion than that frequently made, that the landlords of 
 Ireland do nothing, and that the tenants do all ; except where 
 misled by agitators, I have generally found the tenants upright, 
 reasonable, and fair, and, when able, most willing to join their 
 landlord in effecting permanent improvements." 
 
 "On the several estates under my management ^142,719 
 has been expended during the last seventeen years, the aggregate 
 rental of these estates being ^54,000 per annum." 
 
 " Evictions have been very few and rare. The most liberal 
 compensation was given to out-going tenants who became bank- 
 rupts, and could not pay their rents, even for fancied improve- 
 ments, where almost none had been effected ; while the large 
 sum expended on emigration, was given almost exclusively to 
 those who had taken refuge in the poor-houses, in the years 185 1 
 and 1852." 
 
 "Their holdings being so small as to be wholly unable to 
 support them without the potato, which had then failed." 
 
 " I know other cases to an extent exceeding what I have 
 stated." 
 
 " The above sums have been expended entirely out of the 
 landlords' pockets, I have gone over a great part of England 
 with the sole object of ascertaining the letting value of the 
 Land, and I have found, almost invariably, that what the 
 tenants paid for an Irish acre in Ireland they pay for an 
 English acre in England, the proportion being 5 to 8." 
 
 " I have never heard but of one case of an improving 
 tenant being evicted without compensation." 
 
 " The expectations of the tenants have been raised by 
 agitation, and by hopes that have been delusively held out to 
 them, to such a point that they would not now avail them- 
 selves of reasonable legislation." 
 
 Again, he says : — " The improvement of houses 
 in most cases that have come under my observa- 
 tion has been entirely done by the landlord, or 
 jointly by landlord and tenant." 
 
 Mr. J. Kincaid, who has fifty years' experience 
 as land agent over sixty estates in twenty-three 
 counties, and dealing with ten thousand tenants, 
 says, that since 1846 there have been very few 
 laro-e estates in which there have not been
 
 13 
 
 extensive improvements carried on under the 
 direction, and perhaps with the assistance of the 
 landlord. 
 
 Improvements by co-operation between landlord 
 and tenant have been extensively carried on in 
 Ireland on large properties, and it is quite untrue 
 that excessive rents are paid in Ireland in conse- 
 quence of competition for Land. Land is let much 
 higher in England. 
 
 Mr. O'Connor Curtin, who is a tenant farmer in 
 Limerick and Kerry, says, there are very few cases 
 where the object of the landlord in evicting has 
 been to take advantage of improvements. 
 
 Mr. M'Arthy, attorney and landowner in Cork, 
 says, '' My experience is that where a tenant pays 
 a fair rent in Ireland he is rarely disturbed." Irish 
 landlords, generally speaking, act very fairly by 
 their tenants. The intention of the Irish landlords 
 is to act kindly and honestly. I know them per- 
 sonally by a large experience, and it has always 
 been that they have been kindly and honourably 
 intentioned, and well-disposed towards the people. 
 Sometimes some of the difficulties have arisen 
 from over indulgence. 
 
 C. W. Hamilton, manager of estates in West- 
 meath and Kildare, says : — 
 
 " I visit many parts of Ireland and — except in a few cases 
 in each county worked up by professional agitators — the feeling 
 between landlord and tenant is satisfactory, and the strong 
 feeling among the Irish tenantry is that of confidence in their 
 landlords. I have never known a tenant turned out except for 
 non-payment of rent. After 1847 ^he only way that I saw for 
 improving the properties was by diminishing the number of 
 tenants ; but it has always been voluntary upon their part, 
 everything being done to make emigration comfortable. Emigra- 
 tion goes on, and is most desirable ; it has increased the price of 
 labour. In one case there were two leases, of half an acre of 
 land each, so pauperised by the middle-men that there was 
 constant illness and cliolera. I bought up the leases, and pro-
 
 vided other houses for the tenants, or gave them money ; all 
 went away with good will, and twenty-one houses were thrown 
 down " 
 
 " If I had given the people the Land they could not have 
 lived on it." 
 
 " The improvements are almost entirely made by the landlord. 
 When they are of a small class they are made by the landlord in 
 conjunction with the tenant. It is the greatest calumny possible 
 upon the landlords to say that the tenants make all the improve- 
 ments." 
 
 '* On one estate in Wicklow the annual cost for building farm 
 houses for the tenants has been for many years £7,000 a year. 
 On the Duke of Leinster's estates, during the last six years, the 
 expenditure on buildings alone has been £17,500. In number- 
 less instances where the money has come out of the tenant's 
 pocket the landlord has given compensation in the shape of re- 
 duced rents for 31 years. Rents are much higher both in 
 Scotland and England than in Ireland." 
 
 Lord Dufferin tells us that in eighteen years 
 he has expended ^10,000 in compensation for 
 improvements, and almost every other landlord in 
 his neighbourhood has done the same. His Lord- 
 ship agrees with Judge Longiield's opinion, that 
 much of the discontent now felt by the tenantry 
 has been engendered by the new proprietors, under 
 the Landed Estates Court, dealing with their 
 property in a more business-like manner than their 
 easy-going predecessors. 
 
 In the ten years before 1841, 630,000 persons 
 had emigrated. 
 
 In the purely agricultural districts the proportion 
 of Protestant and Catholic emigration has been 
 identical. 
 
 The proportion of persons affected by evictions 
 to persons permanently leaving Ireland has been, 
 including wives and families, as only five per cent. 
 
 In 1836, from a statement made on the authority 
 of Archbishops Wheatley and Murray, and Mr. 
 More O'Farrall, five persons were employed in the
 
 15 
 
 cultivation of the soil in Ireland as against two in 
 Great Britain, while the agricultural produce of 
 Great Britain was four times that of Ireland. 
 
 The people it is said were happy, but of what 
 sort was their happiness ? Upwards of forty-three 
 per cent, of the rural population were living in 
 cabins consisting but of a single room, and forty 
 per cent, more were but little better in comfort. 
 
 Is not the condition of the Irish emigrant in 
 America a great improvement upon this, and is 
 there any other possible mode of dealing with the 
 difficulty in a country, the natural and artificial 
 resources of which, whether as regards coals, 
 minerals, and staples of manufacture are found in 
 an inverse proportion to the density of the 
 population ? The career of an occupier of from ten 
 to twelve acres is something of this kind. He has 
 either run into debt or exhausted his stock of 
 ready money by the original purchase of his farm ; 
 he has probably a large family ; as his sons grow 
 up they do not like to go out as labourers, they 
 prefer assisting him in the cultivation of the farm. 
 He is not able to buy a sufficient number of cattle, 
 and the farm is not laro^e enough to enable him to 
 keep them w^ith advantage. He probably owes 
 much money to his neighbours ; and year by year 
 he gets a little in arrear to his landlord, so it goes 
 on from bad to worse until at last he wishes to give 
 up his farm. 
 
 In many instances one of the original causes of 
 the decline and ruin of the small farmer is the 
 enormous price which he paid for the farm. The 
 landlords in my neighbourhood never seek to 
 obtain a competition rent — they ask a valuation 
 rent. 
 
 He goes on to say : —
 
 i6 
 
 ** It cannot be wise for the Legislature to encourage a whole 
 
 population to depend for their support on an industry capably 
 only of supporting part of their number." 
 
 Mr. Caird, no mean authority, tells us that : — 
 
 " Without legal security, the in-coming tenant, relying on the 
 landlord, pays down one-fourth, one-third, or even one-half the 
 value of the fee simple, by money often borrowed at an ex- 
 orbitant rate of interest, leaving himself no adequate means of 
 profitable cultivation." 
 
 Lord Dufferln further proceeds to state : — 
 
 " In 1745 two portions of my property were let in perpetuity, 
 the one to six, the other to seven tenants. The original six 
 farms have become twenty-five, some of these are sublet, at 
 rents varying from 31s. ts 35s. per acre, whereas, I let similar 
 land at will at 25s. per acre ; on the other portion there are now 
 twenty-seven farms. Thus the average size of these farms left 
 to the control of a peasant proprietary has degenerated from 
 fifty to twelve acres, while the rents have risen 30 per cent, 
 above the price asked by the large leaseholder. The cultivation 
 is bad and the houses are dilapidated." 
 
 Colonel Adair gives a similar instance. " Were 
 all the Irish landlords abolished to-morrow, in the 
 course of a certain number of years a similar 
 operation would — with certain exceptions — take 
 place over the whole of Ireland." 
 
 Now let me give a sketch of my own experience : 
 several years ago two townlands, A and B, in 
 Tipperary, became vacant ; A, consisting of 3 20 1 rish 
 acres, rent ;^2 2i per annum, had been let to three 
 brothers who were evicted for non-payment of 
 rent — four years rent being due at the time of 
 eviction — fifty-eight occupants were found upon it, 
 it was re-let to seven of the same tenants for 
 £2^0 per annum. B had been let to one tenant 
 on a lease for lives, the last of which fell in 1852 ; 
 the rent had been £116; twenty occupants were 
 found upon it — it was re-let to fourteen of them 
 for ^ 1 50 per annum. 
 
 In both these cases the question was, what to do
 
 with the superabundant population which had 
 grown up, many of whom were paupers, existing 
 on a small patch of land on which they had been 
 allowed to settle. The larger occupiers were 
 clamorous for clearance, to which I — feeling that the 
 landlady was not at all to blame for the state of 
 things which had grown up during the lease — 
 would not agree. Ultimately the question was 
 settled by emigration, at her expense, with general 
 consent. 
 
 What would have been the result had there been 
 no superintending authority, possessed o^ capital, 
 anxious to do justice to the unfortunate occupants, 
 and to prevent the destruction of the property ? Are 
 not these men better in America than they would 
 have been if " rooted to the soil " in Tipperary ? 
 
 These cases were very common, and are still to 
 be found in Ireland, they are the consequence of 
 that very perpetuity which it is now sought to 
 restore, coupled with the habit of subdivision 
 and the want of an outlet for the increase of the 
 population. Emigration — that emigration which 
 it is the fashion among maudlin philanthropists 
 on this side of the channel, and interested agita- 
 tors on the other, to decry — is the only alternative. 
 
 The supervision of the landlord is the one 
 thing necessary for Ireland, through it improve- 
 ment and civilization have gone hand in hand 
 since the famine. 
 
 From the foregoing extracts it will be seen that I 
 differ widely from those who have recently ex- 
 patiated so largely on the woes of Ireland. I am 
 not here alluding to the trading agitators, or to 
 politicians of the school of Sir John Gray, Mr. 
 Butt, and Father Lavelle, &c., &c., who believe — 
 or affect to believe — that the Irish landlords are a
 
 i8 
 
 race of plunderers, oppressors, and exterminators ; 
 but I refer to the English gentlemen, beginning 
 with Mr. Hoskyns and ending with Mr. George 
 Campbell, who, either taking a great deal on trust, 
 or being satisfied with a cursory visit to Ireland, 
 have assumed that improvements generally are 
 made by the tenant, and that the fear of confisca- 
 tion, either from eviction or increase of rent, is 
 the cause of discontent and consequent agrarian 
 outrage. My experience extends only to two 
 counties in Ireland — Tipperary and Mayo — but I 
 can safely say that such is not the case in those 
 counties, either on my own property or that of my 
 relations and neighbours. 
 
 Mr. Hoskyns quotes, with approbation, the 
 opinion of Cavour, that Irish proprietors are a 
 " class of selfish land owners, alien to the land which 
 they own, and hostile to the population which they 
 rule." Mr. M'Combie, a Scotch tourist, asserts 
 that scarcely any of the money received by the 
 landlord as rent — whether resident or non-resident 
 — is applied to the improvement of the soil. 
 
 Mr. Campbell speaks of '' great lords who have 
 done little or nothing for the Land living in 
 luxury on the rents wrung from thousands of small 
 tenants," careless of the truth, so well known to 
 every one possessing experience of Ireland, that 
 absentees are notoriously not the least improving 
 landlords. '' The real truth is that the Irish small 
 tenant does not want to be paid for improvements 
 which scarcely ever exist. He does not want a 
 lease. He wants to be permanently fixed on the 
 soil. Practically he is never evicted unless for 
 non-payment of rent or for some grievous offence ; 
 there may be some exceptional cases, but they 
 are so few as to render legislation unjustifiable." 
 You cannot render the small minority of bad land-
 
 19 
 
 lords powerless for evil without also rendering the 
 great majority, consisting of good landlords, power- 
 less for good. 
 
 " The really popular landlord in Ireland is he who takes the 
 old rent, and leaves the tenant to himself. The Irish peasant 
 asserts a right not merely to occupy the land, but to deal with it 
 as he thinks fit. He marries early, and subdivides ten acres 
 among ten children. He dislikes improvement, and enforces, as 
 far as he can, a system which must end in misery and famine." 
 
 The whole power of the landlord is necessary 
 to restrain the system of sub-division and also sub- 
 letting at exorbitant rents. It cannot be denied 
 that the priesthood encourage small holdings and 
 discourao^e emio^ration ; it is their interest and that 
 of their church to do so. " Wherever you go in 
 Ireland," says Mr. Campbell, " the most constant 
 practical grievance is the excessive strictness of the 
 very best landlords in preventing the erection of 
 labourers' dwellings on the farmer's land, or even 
 the reception of any one in the farmers' houses." 
 What arbitrary tyranny — exclaims the English 
 reader — that the farmer should not be allowed to 
 erect cottages for his labourers ! But what are the 
 facts ? These labourers are members of the family 
 with whom the occupier seeks to divide a plot of 
 land already too small for its maintenance. I am 
 constantly receiving applications to allow such 
 division in favour of a son or daughter, and to give 
 permission to put up a cabin, or at all events to 
 suffer a second family to inhabit a house with 
 the tenant ; all of which I am obliged steadily to 
 refuse. Did I comply with these and similar re- 
 quests, I might doubtless become more popular, 
 and increase my rental. The peasantry has for- 
 gotten the consequences of the famine, which are 
 vividly present to my memory. When I went into 
 Mayo in 1850 with the object of inspecting the 
 estate which I purchased, I encountered what may, 
 without exaggeration, be called the famished and
 
 20 
 
 ragged remnant of a densely crowded population, 
 which, as long as the potato lasted, had continued to 
 exist, but which at once disappeared when It failed. 
 On one portion of Land — not much exceeding one 
 hundred acres — there had been fifty cabins, not one 
 of which was standing. Those tenants who had 
 been able to weather the storm were very unwilling 
 to take Land. Some of them stated that it would 
 be enough for them to pay the poor-rate, but rent 
 was out of the question. Ultimately arrangements 
 were made, no eviction took place, and prosperity 
 has been restored. In conjunction with an English 
 friend, the late Mr. T. J. Birch, great improvements 
 were planned and executed ; a great extent of land 
 was drained ; roads were made ; vacant tracts of 
 mountain were stocked with the most suitable 
 breeds of cattle and sheep ; all the labour which 
 could be obtained was employed, and although I 
 have no means of stating exactly the sum expended 
 in wages, I have no doubt that it much exceeds 
 ;^iooo per annum from 1852 to the present time. 
 Now it is becoming more difficult to obtain labour. 
 The younger members of families have emigrated 
 in great numbers, and the accounts of their progress 
 have been most satisfactory. Some of the smaller 
 tenants have shown an Inclination to follow the 
 example ; and then, forsooth, we are to be called 
 oppressors and exterminators by those whose 
 teaching has been the fertile source of assassination 
 and rebellion, and to be lectured by British tourists. 
 I do not mean to imply that Irish landlords generally 
 have been enabled to follow a similar course, but I 
 do assert most strongly that their proceedings 
 have not caused the outrages and the lawless 
 condition of the country, which — apart from some 
 traditional grievances long since abolished, and
 
 21 
 
 some natural causes uncontrollable by legislation* 
 — are due wholly to agitation, but if I am wrong let 
 proof of the misconduct be adduced. At present, 
 when proof is required, Ave are referred always to 
 the case of Mr. Scully. If the Irish landlord did 
 not exist he ought to be invented, for by his super- 
 intendence and judgment alone can the tendency 
 of the population to increase beyond the means of 
 subsistence be checked and controlled. 
 
 Remedies. — Five remedies have been suggested 
 as applicable to the existing state of things in 
 Ireland. 
 
 First : — Fixity of Tenure, with rents at a 
 valuation. 
 
 Second : — The encouragement of Leases or 
 Written Agreements — coupled, possibly, with the 
 Extension of Tenancies at Will. 
 
 Third : — The Extension of Ulster Tenant Risfht 
 to the whole country. 
 
 Fourth : — The Schemes for facilitatinof Transfer 
 of Land and modifying the Law of Entail, as 
 suggested by Mr. Hoskyns, and of assisting a 
 tenant willing to purchase from a landlord willing 
 to sell — as proposed by Mr. Bright. 
 
 Fifth : — Compensation for Improvements, to be 
 determined by a tribunal constitutes^ for the pur- 
 pose of doing justice between landlord and tenant, 
 and compelling the bad landlord to act as the good 
 one. 
 
 As to fixity of tenure, with rents at a valuation : 
 It is Lord Dufferin's opinion, and I fully agree 
 
 * Mr. De Laveleye, whose essay on the land system of Belgium and 
 Holland has been recently published by the Cobden Club, has a glimpse of 
 this truth. He asks — " How is it that the Fleming and the Irishman hold 
 sucli different points of view ? " I think it is partly due to the difference oi 
 race, and partly to circuiiijiances.
 
 22 
 
 with him, that fixity of tenure would be simply a 
 confiscation of a part of the Landlord's Property 
 for the benefit of the actual tenant, and of him, 
 alone ; a wrong to the one, without advantage to 
 the other ; and an injury to those who are neither 
 landlords or tenants. How can the State, says 
 he, undertake to regulate the letting value of Land 
 any more than the price of any other commodities, 
 and if the Legislature is to regulate this, why not, 
 also, the rate of wages and the hours of labour ? 
 
 *' To deprive the landlords of the power of re- 
 suming their land is to deprive them of part of 
 its value, and to substitute for persons of wealth, 
 education, and liberality, a set of small inefficient 
 landlords, with poor rack-rented tenants. When 
 the Land belongs to some one who has an interest 
 in seeing that the occupier does justice to it, 
 the community at large has a guarantee for good 
 cultivation. Where, even at this moment, we find 
 fixity of tenure in Ireland, the Land is occupied by 
 poor rack-rented tenants ; it leads directly to 
 starvation and pauperism." Besides, what is to be 
 the limit of fixity of tenure. 
 
 Mr. Bright tells us that a very poor man should 
 not have Land. All agree that a family cannot 
 exist in comfort under fifteen acreS; and then a 
 question arises whether they are to be acres worth 
 £2 or 2s. an acre. A large proportion of the 
 holdings of Ireland are still under fifteen acres,* 
 yet the vast numbers who attend tenant right 
 meetings are composed of this class — a class that 
 fixity of tenure must exclude. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell's opinion ought to carry some 
 weight. In 1843 he said, with reference to fixity 
 
 * In 1866 the holdings under five acres, akhough much decreased in 
 number, still amounted to 128,000. These from five to fifteen acres 
 amounted to upwards of 174,000.
 
 23 
 
 f 
 
 of tenure, that he had never heard of a more absurd 
 and unjust plan ; it was, in fact, creating a smaller 
 monopoly. " The advocates of fixity of tenure, "says 
 Mr. Caird, " forget the state of Ireland twenty years 
 ago. At that time tenants in the South and West 
 were flying from their farms, and, in the course of 
 a few years, four hundred thousand mud cabins 
 and their inhabitants disappeared. Good Land 
 and bad Land were alike abandoned. A recur- 
 rence of the potato disease would render fixity of 
 tenure of little value to the Irish farmer. Sub- 
 division and sub-leasing would recur, and the land- 
 lord being reduced to a mere rent charger, and 
 having no interest in the prosperity of the estate 
 and the well being of the tenantry, would have no 
 motive for expending capital on improvement." A 
 more effectual scheme for divorcing capital from 
 the Land, and the restoration of the system of 
 middle-men, with all the evils consequent upon 
 their existence, could not be devised — but as it is 
 impossible that any Government could adopt the 
 ideas of the agitators upon this subject it is useless 
 to enlarge further upon it. 
 
 Leases. — It is quite certain that the people in 
 the North of Ireland are contented with being 
 tenants at will. Lord Dufferin tells us that during 
 fifteen years he had only once been asked for a 
 lease, and that the tenant right of a farm without 
 a lease would sell at as high a price as that of a 
 farm with a lease. 
 
 Mr. Robert Russell, speaking for Donegal and 
 Meath,says that ''the tenants prefer holding without 
 leases." The Right Hon. Lane Joynt would give 
 no lease under twenty or twenty-five acres, " for a 
 farm under that cannot support a family. " 
 
 Mr. Brooke, Master in Chancery, who at one 
 time had the superintendence of estates in Ireland 
 the rentals of which amounted to about half a
 
 24 
 
 million annually, confirms the great unwillingness 
 of the tenantry to accept leases ; and adds '' that 
 one of the rules of the Lord Chancellor Brady was 
 to compel them to take leases in all cases where 
 the rent was more than ^5." He goes on to state 
 that, with all the efforts he had been able to make 
 to introduce written contracts, he had never been 
 able entirely to succeed, the tenants seemed so 
 attached to the holding from year to year. The 
 truth is there is no unwillingness on the part of 
 landlords to grant a lease where the farm is of an 
 adequate size and the tenant fit to receive it. 
 Frequently the tenant holds his Lands much below 
 their real value, and fears investigation. 
 
 Tenant Right. — Tenant right is merely an 
 unprofitable investment of capital paid by the in- 
 coming to the out-going tenant for quiet possession. 
 It represents the difference between the rent which 
 the larger landlords generally charge and the rent 
 which might be obtained by competition. It is 
 paid to one who can give no security for any period 
 of occupation. The in-coming tenant, relying on 
 the character of the landlord, pays a sum which 
 has been known to amount to one-half the fee-simple 
 value, with money often borrowed at an exorbitant 
 rate of interest. It has little or nothing to do with 
 payment for improvements, but is really a payment 
 for good will. The in-coming tenant's capital Is 
 absorbed in the payment — that which ought to be 
 employed in cultivation is expended on the pur- 
 chase — the land is purchased and also rented, and, 
 as Mr. Read, M P., a tenant farmer, told his con- 
 stituents in Norfolk, an extension of that tenant 
 right would be the most damaging thing that could 
 happen to agriculture. Mr. Caird, in speaking of 
 this custom In England, where it is somewhat of 
 the nature of compensation for unexhausted im- 
 provements, says that —
 
 " It embraces also large payments for imaginary improvements 
 and alleged operations, which, even if they had ever been per- 
 formed, would be more injurious than beneficial. The custonV 
 prevails in Surrey, Sussex, Lincoln, parts of Kent, Nottingham, 
 and the West Riding. In the Wealds of Surrey and Sussex, where 
 the custom is most stringent, I found the state of agriculture 
 extremely backward, the produce much below the average of 
 England, the tenants deeply embarrassed, and the landlords re- 
 ceiving their low rents irregularly ; in fact no man connected 
 with the Land thriving, except the appraisers, who were in con- 
 stant requisition to settle disputes. I found both farmers and 
 landlords complaining that the system led to much fraud, and 
 that an entering tenant was compelled by it to pay as much for 
 bad as for good fanning. The advance of so much capital over 
 and above the ordinary stock of the farm either requires tenants 
 of more than the means of ordinary farmers, or throws the Land 
 into the hands of men, who, having expended the larger portion 
 of their ready money in paying for their entry, are so hampered 
 during their tenancy as to be unable to do justice to their farms." 
 
 If this is the case in England, where the payment 
 is really one for unexhausted improvements, 
 manure, &c., what must it be in Ireland where it 
 is made for a different object ? And yet this is the 
 custom which Mr. Bright stamps with his approba- 
 tion, as being the cause why landlords are murdered 
 in Tipperary, and not in Ulster ! I must own, 
 therefore, that I agree with Mr. Robert Russell 
 (whom I have before quoted) in thinking that it . 
 would be very unfortunate for the South of Ireland 
 if such a system were introduced. 
 
 With Mr. Hoskyns's suggestion for the cor- 
 rection of entails, and the simplification of title 
 with the object of creating a freer trade in land, I 
 fully concur. As, however, in many instances of 
 sales under the Landed Estates Court, the new 
 purchasers will not be found as indulgent as the 
 old landlords. To Mr. Bright's scheme no one, 
 unless it may probably be the British taxpayer, 
 will object ; the landlord, certainly, will not. 
 Nevertheless, it is evident that many years must 
 elapse before any appreciable result can be pro- 
 duced by either.
 
 26 
 
 We now come to the commission or 
 tribunal scheme, which, in a great measure, I 
 believe, owes its existence to Mr. George 
 Campbell. By some, perhaps erroneously, he is 
 thought to have had a mission, at all events he 
 has the advantage over his fellow essayists, that 
 he has actually visited Ireland twice. He is a 
 gentleman of great Indian experience, and wishes 
 to invest the Irish tenant with certain rights, 
 which, as he alleges, have been recognised in 
 India under the State landlord, but which hitherto 
 have had no existence in British law. He is 
 extremely candid ; he " distrusts all schemes for 
 giving to one without taking from another, — for 
 satisfying the tenants without something the 
 landlords call confiscation. But a man who is 
 oppressed by two coats may feel all the lighter 
 and easier when he has been compelled to give 
 one to him who has none ; " and he playfully 
 adds — '' The popular custom in favour of the 
 tenant is supplemented by a custom of ' dropping ' 
 landlords." Still he thinks ''that a rigid law, 
 which should shut out the power of the landlord, 
 would tie the hands of good and improving 
 landlords, who have shown the way to 
 progress, by depriving them of power, and 
 making them more or less stipendiary." 
 Therefore, he proposes " the introduction of a 
 despotic power to restrain landlords from ejecting 
 tenants without sufficient ground!' What such 
 sufficient ground may, in Mr. Campbell's opinion, 
 be it is difficult to conjecture, for he says '' that 
 gross mis-cultivation on the part of the tenant, and 
 failure to support himself and educate his children, 
 should be considered a sufficient ground to justify 
 the landlord in" — what does the reader think ? 
 — '' buying him otct ! " The landlord is also to be 
 restrained from raising the rent " beyond what the 
 practice of tite neighbotcrhood and the general
 
 27 
 
 Increase of value shows to be a fair rent." Rather 
 difficult questions these. The Thnes Commissioner 
 also leans to a tribunal, but thinks it ought partly 
 to be composed of lawyers — a class whom Mr. 
 Campbell, with his views, naturally wishes to keep 
 at arm's length. But seriously, what tribunal 
 would be capable of deciding the complicated dis- 
 putes which would arise on the innumerable Irish 
 farms ? The deterioration of Land is not easily 
 established by evidence ; its symptoms are at first 
 slight, and It is not until the mischief is done that 
 detection can follow, while even then it may not be 
 possible to obtain proof. As Mr. Brooke ( quoted 
 above) tells us " the facility of obtaining evidence 
 In Ireland for almost every thing that is the object 
 of a tenant Is very great. Affidavits and testimony 
 on oath are got up with painful facility." 
 
 Again, on what principle is the commission or 
 tribunal to act ? Let us suppose a case : — The 
 tenant on an estate, purchased under the Landed 
 Estates Court, complains that he has notice to quit. 
 The landlord replies that he purchased the property 
 because he saw that it was wretchedly farmed, 
 while the Land; if properly treated, was valuable ; 
 that the Land was capable of producing eight 
 quarters of oats to the acre, instead of the four 
 quarters obtained with difficulty under the existing 
 wasteful and deteriorating management ; that he 
 had removed his capital from a lucrative business 
 in order to make this investment, and that he now 
 wishes to take the Land Into his own hands, to 
 drain, cultivate deeply, and manure — In short, to 
 make the most of his property. What can the 
 tribunal do 1 Is it to award fixity of tenure ; a long 
 lease, or compensation ? The two former would 
 only ensure further destruction of the Land ; for the 
 latter there is no ground whatever. The improve- 
 ment (If any) although valuable to the tenant would 
 probably be valueless or, perhaps, Injurious to the
 
 28 
 
 owner. Setting aside for the moment the injustice 
 of the proceeding, is it desirable, in a national point 
 of view, that the Court should decree that the old 
 scratching and scourging the soil should continue 
 for an indefinite period, because the occupier claims 
 a right to be " rooted to the soil ?" Nevertheless 
 it is likely that this commission or tribunal may 
 form part of the forthcoming Land Bill. 
 
 It is an easy way out of the difficulty, and may 
 well be accepted by the owners of property as 
 likely to produce neither good nor evil ; for each 
 case of improvement in the Land by the small 
 tenant there probably will be found ten of deterio- 
 ration. The balance when struck will incline much 
 against the tenant, and the number of capricious 
 evictions, or evictions for the purpose of consolida- 
 tion, will be found to be very small — that it should 
 satisfy the tenants after all the rash speeches which 
 have been made, and the absurd hopes which have 
 been excited, is improbable. 
 
 Part 2 — There are some points in Mr. Hoskyns's 
 pamphlet — " Land in England, Land in Ireland, 
 and Land in other Lands" — which induce me to wish 
 he had followed the example of the essayists I have 
 alluded to in a previous page, for even a hasty 
 tour in Ireland would have made it impossible that 
 he should have allowed his pen to run into such 
 rash generalizations as the following : — speaking 
 of '' our unhappy fellow subjects in the sister 
 kingdom," he says — 
 
 " There we have a whole country, milHons of acres, owned by 
 absentee landlords, whose face or presence the wretched culti- 
 vators of the soil have never seen or known." 
 
 And again he calls it — 
 " A world-wide waste, where all around is desolate aHke ; 
 where the social ties and influences that unite wealth and poverty 
 in the sacred bond of neighbourhood and sympathy are 
 altogether wanting ; where no socially educating example is ever 
 seen ; where, in a word, the blessings of dependence and of 
 independence seem alike denied."
 
 29 
 
 I feel that comment on these expressions would 
 be useless. Every one connected with Ireland, 
 whatever be his creed or politics, will know and 
 feel the extent of the exaggeration. 
 
 Again, he says, that the machinery doctrine of 
 *' most produce by least labour " is, as applied to 
 the soil, " the doctrine of starvation to the labourer 
 and dispossession to the small proprietor," and 
 this Mr. Leslie tells us in his Essay on the Agri- 
 culture of France, recently published by the 
 Cobden Club, '' is an important truth." 
 
 It is not my intention to take up the 
 cudgels on behalf of the most elementary truths 
 of political economy against the not very powerful 
 attacks of writers who, to use the expressive 
 language of an eminent French author,* appear to 
 be "tipsy with their own paradoxes." These may 
 be safely left to the common sense and common 
 practice of mankind. Whenever we tind men using 
 more force or labour of any kind than is necessary 
 to produce a given result, he may begin to inveigh 
 against " the doctrine of most produce by least 
 labour," whether it be employed in growing a 
 turnip or printing an essay. Mr. Leslie, with 
 marvellous inconsistency, uses it as an argument in 
 favour of small rural proprietors in France, " that 
 they have combined to introduce reaping and 
 mowing machines which the large farmer has not 
 long possessed." Why, if not to produce a greater 
 result with less labour ? Further on Mr. Hoskyns 
 says, " Were it necessary, in order to exhibit the 
 advantages of proprietary over tenant occupation, 
 I might crowd my pages with extracts ; " and then 
 follows a formidable list of authors. NoW; by 
 "advantages," I presume Mr. Hoskyns means not 
 merely the produce, but the general results — social, 
 political, and economical. Garden cultivation, we 
 
 * M. About, A. B.C. du travailleur---(grise.s de paradoxes).
 
 30 
 
 all know, may be made more productive than culti- 
 vation on a large scale, but only in consequence of 
 a much larger expenditure of labour. Doubtless 
 small properties will compare favourably with the 
 half-cultivated estates of Prussian noblemen and 
 Spanish grandees, but that does not prove the 
 case. Taking the general results into considera- 
 tion, it seems to me that his authors by no means 
 bear him out. On reading over his list, comprising 
 fifteen or sixteen names, I was forcibly reminded 
 of a scene which took place many years ago In the 
 Court of Common Pleas. A learned Serjeant, in 
 support of his argument, had quoted a prodigious 
 array of cases. When he had concluded, the 
 opposing Counsel remarked to the Court that by 
 far the larger portion of these cases proved nothing, 
 and that many of the remainder were fatal to the 
 case of his learned friend. The Judge (Tyndal, 
 C. J., I think) quietly observed, '' never mind, 
 
 Brother only wanted to air his case roll." 
 
 A few of Mr. Hoskyns's authors I have been 
 unable to procure ; many of the remainder ( their 
 works having been written early in the century 
 before the present system of agriculture had been 
 developed) have really no bearing on the question. 
 Mr. Caird does not, as far as I know, give any 
 opinion on the subject. Two only — Monsieur Passy 
 and Mr. de Laveleye — and these only partially, 
 support Mr. Hoskyns's view. From two others 
 (not the least important) Mr. Laing and Monsieur 
 Leonce de Lavergne, I will cite a few passages 
 that the reader may judge for himself. Mr. Laing 
 after stating some of the advantages of small 
 properties, thus sums up — 
 
 " This social state is not and cannot be progressive ; it may be 
 very happy and altogether in accordance with the spirit and 
 precepts of ancient philosophers, but it is a philosophy of 
 barbarism, not of civilization ; a social state of routine and 
 stagnation, not of activity and progress."
 
 31 
 
 " Although the Land itself is not divided and subdivided 
 the value of the land is, and the value of each share of the 
 children of the peasant proprietor becomes a debt or burthen 
 on the Land." 
 
 "The great evil of this universal indebtedness is, that the 
 actual cultivator although he may have the same extent of Land 
 as his predecessor, has not the same means to live. This is a 
 retrograde, not an advancing condition of the agricultural 
 population," 
 
 " The effect of this social state is prejudicial not only to con- 
 sumers but to producers." 
 
 " Each generation is worse off than the preceding one. The 
 owner is more and more burthened with debt in each generation, 
 can afford to buy less of the comforts and conveniences of life, 
 and consequently the home market for the products of the 
 useful arts, and the taste and habit of enjoying them, are 
 diminishing along with the means of the great mass of the 
 population to indulge in them." 
 
 " In almost every peasant proprietor's family there are one or 
 two young men, sons and heirs of the proprietor, whose labour 
 is not required for the cultivation. The Land is soon overstocked 
 with labour born upo?t it.^^ 
 
 Monsieur de Lavergne's authority is the highest 
 of all. He asserts, in his able work, that the 
 agriculture of England is the first in the world. 
 He proves that the acreable produce of the United 
 Kingdom is much superior to that of France (the 
 produce of England being double that of France), 
 and he adds that the English obtain from their 
 sheep, cattle, and pigs four times as much as the 
 French do in meat, milk, and wool. 
 
 He proceeds thus : — 
 
 " English tenant farmers possess on equal surfaces the same 
 revenue as our French proprietors. No one of them dreams of 
 becoming a proprietor — their condition is much better. In 
 order to have 3,000 francs of revenue as proprietor you must 
 have a capital of 100,000 francs. WTiile 30,000 francs capital 
 will suffice to produce an income of 3,000 francs to a tenant 
 armer. In England thirty persons cultivate 100 hectares, and 
 produce 200 francs by the hectare.* In France forty persons 
 fare necessary to pn duce 100 francs, and in Ireland, sixty persons. 
 Thanks to the economy of labour, which forms the basisofchsir 
 agricultural system, the English have been able to raise the rate 
 
 * A Hectare is two acres, one rod, thirty-five perches. 
 
 F
 
 32 
 
 of wages. For instance, enter the cottage of an English peasant, 
 and compare it with the abode of one of ours (although the 
 French peasant is often proprietor) he lives less well than the 
 English cottager — is worse clothed, worse lodged and worse fed." 
 
 " The great curse is the debt, that is the real evil of French 
 property." 
 
 " Our cultivators have not sufficient capital ; the small pro- 
 prietors in England have disappeared of their own accord, they 
 have turned themselves into tenants, because they perceived it 
 was more to their interests. A time will certainly come when 
 the small, and even the moderate sized proprietors of France will 
 understand that it is also to their advantage to abandon property 
 and devote themselves to cultivation. The capital invested in 
 the ownership of Land producing at most two or three per cent., 
 while that placed in cultivation ought to produce, at least, from 
 eight to ten per cent." 
 
 I had marked many other passages for extraction, 
 but the above will, I think, convince the reader that 
 Monsieur de Lavergne should not have been 
 quoted as an authority for the advantages of small 
 properties. 
 
 M. de Lavergne thus concludes his great work. 
 
 " To increase production without increasing 
 the population in proportion, is the great object 
 (le dermier mot) of economical science, and the 
 solution of the greatest social difficulties." 
 
 This is the process which has been going on in 
 Ireland of late years — let us beware how we 
 rashly disturb it, and yield to the efforts now 
 being made to return to the old system. 
 
 * Lavergne economic rurale de I'Angleterre TEcosse et I'lrlande. 
 Edit. 1863.
 
 33 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Mr. H. S. Thompson's work, which has appeared 
 since the foregoing sheets went to press, is by no 
 means to be classed with those of the authors 
 to whom I have alluded in this pamphlet. 
 His enquiries have been extensive, and his treat- 
 ment exhaustive. He has shown, clearly, the 
 immense and rapid increase of agricultural 
 prosperity in Ireland. He has effectually disposed 
 of many fallacies, and has clearly pointed out the 
 absurdities and evils of the proposed remedies. 
 Fixity of tenure, compulsory leases, tenant right, 
 and the commission scheme, have all received 
 from him their death blow. His book, neverthe- 
 less is, in my opinion, open to three observations. 
 First, in consequence, probably, of his not having 
 visited Ireland between 1839 and 1869, 
 he has failed to see how much the improvement 
 which has taken place since 1839, is due to the 
 diminution of population consequent on the faiiuit. 
 of the potato, and the action of the Landed Estates 
 Court. Second, he has not adverted to the great 
 mass of evidence obtained by Committees of Lords 
 and Commons during the last two or three years. 
 and he assumes the fact of tenants' improvements 
 as proved, and the power of the landlords to con- 
 fiscate them, as the chief causes of agrarian outrage. 
 If my experience and consideration of the evidence 
 are of any value, they lead me to the conclusion that 
 such improvements are very rare, and the attempts
 
 34 
 
 of landlords to avail themselves of them rarer still. 
 Wherever the relation of landlord and tenant 
 exists, power must rest with the former ; no sub- 
 stitute for it is possible ; its abuse may be checked 
 by compulsory compensation, which may well be 
 the subject of legislation, and may be easily 
 enforced by existing tribunals. One other remark 
 remains to be made. At the close of a work, in 
 which Mr. Thompson has clearly pointed out the 
 want of truth in '' hustings and platform speeches," 
 and has attributed the defective state of Irish 
 cultivation to its true causes, namely, " the habits 
 of the farmer" and ''dilatory and defective 
 farming," he proposes, as I understand him, 
 that every tenant paying less than ^^lo yearly, 
 good, bad, or indifferent, shall be entitled to claim 
 from the landlord a payment equal to five years' 
 rent. Those paying ^lo, but under ;^50, to five 
 years' notice or a year's rent. On what 
 principle the owner is thus to be mulcted of five 
 years' purchase of his property I have been unable 
 to see ; the plan seems to me to combine all the 
 evils of compulsory leases and tenant right, so 
 vigorously denounced by him. It is difficult to 
 imagine a scheme more calculated to deter pur- 
 chasers from investing their capital in Irish soil.
 
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