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Tlic Country Gcntlcviaiis Magazine 



apart from the consideration of money capital. 

 That there can be no economy in labour is 

 not true under the small system. The labour 

 from want of connexion with mechanical 

 appliances and continuity of system is badly 

 invested, and, in point of production to cost, 

 bears no comparison with our modern notions. 

 If the small holders, under 30 acres, were 

 converted into labourers, and their holdings 

 into farms of 300 acres each, it would be 

 found that with the aid of capital and 

 machinery the same number of hands would 

 be more than sufficient to cultivate and re- 

 claim the whole, and that in a few years, 

 when the permanent improvements would 

 be effected, there would be an excess 

 of population. There is at the present 

 time a dearth of labour, and many agri- 

 cultural works are in consequence sus- 

 pended, not so much from a deficiency of 

 population, as the absence of economic distri- 

 bution and a steadier industry. The small 

 holder necessarily contracts habits of indolence 

 from want of full occupation, and is too proud 

 to work outside his farm. Thus his labour 

 is a loss to the community from inertness and 

 bad application. Between the two classes of 

 tenants we have now considered, there is a 

 large body who hold from 30 to 150 acres 

 of land ; these men are generally most in- 

 terested in the land question ; they have no 

 intention of leaving the country, and are not 

 sufficiently informed to see the folly of the 

 notions set afloat by demagogues seeking to 

 obtain their support ; their ideas upon tenant- 

 right stop at nothing short of confiscation; 

 they live in hope that some day or 

 other the land will be their own, and that 

 if things do not go quite so far they will be 

 able to make their own terms Avith the land- 

 lords, and obtain from them payment for every- 

 thing they ever did upon their farms. I doubt 

 Avhether any prospective measure will satisfy 

 them. Circumstanced as their farms gene- 

 rally are, without leases, the land in an impo- 

 verished and unimproved condition, from fear 

 of a rise of rent, ?.nd themselves with a for- 

 lorn exterior, in the hope that appearances 

 may excite compassion and extract relief, the 

 only remedy would be some measure which 



would create confidence, and make them 

 apply their energies and capital to the soil. 

 Many of them have a good deal of money 

 either in the heel of a stocking, stuck in the 

 thatch, or in the savings' banks, which only 

 comes to light when the interest in some ad- 

 tional acre is to be purchased, or some mem- 

 ber of the family married. A few of this 

 class have long leases, but whether it is from 

 ignorance or indolence, or a feeling on 

 their part that they are effecting a good which 

 would not be wholly theirs, they undertake 

 no improvements. In practice, the security 

 of a lease does not create that spirit of enter- 

 prize and development which it ought, even 

 where, apart from reclamation, good tillage 

 might be expected, and where capital in- 

 vested under this security would make an 

 ample return, and could readily be realized 

 at any time during the term. There may be 

 ample labour in the tenants' families to drain 

 and effect every requisite improvement, with 

 the certainty of a fair and equitable allowance 

 from the landlord, and yet no improvements 

 are attempted. The sons of farmers will not 

 lower themselves to the drudgery of common 

 labour ; and when parents, anxious that some 

 of the slack season should be occupied in 

 reclamation, urge their boys to work, America 

 is threatened, and rather than lose the 

 youngster, any notion of developing the re- 

 sources of his farm is abandoned. 



From what has been said throughout my 

 remarks, it is easy to perceive that up to 1846, 

 labourers, that is, persons wholly dependent 

 upon labour for their support, were not nume- 

 rous ; every one had his potato garden, a few 

 sheep, or a pig, and paid his rent and any 

 calls he had beyond it by so many service 

 days at seed time, or harvest. Systematic 

 Monday morning to Saturday night work was 

 hardly known amongst them. The pay was 

 small, and the work done generally less ; an 

 easy mode of life with some discomfort being 

 preferred to the more industrious one with its 

 attendant independence and abundance. The 

 Irishman has always at command a good 

 share of philosophy; he sees nothing en- 

 nobling in labour, and conceives that his 

 position at the head of creation entitles him 



