A Practical View of the Irish Land Question 



419 



was the removal of theii\duties and burdens 

 under the long lease system that pro- 

 duced absenteeism, middlemen, and the 

 numerous interests and complicity under 

 which Ireland is labouring at this day. 

 Agricultural produce varies more in price 

 perhaps than any other ; readjustment of 

 rent, or a balancing of the proportion of rent 

 to the value of the produce of the acre would 

 be the amount that in equity the landlord 

 ought to receive, and the tenant ought to pay. 

 Put land on a low rent upon long leases, and 

 you have immediately a number of interests 

 created until it reaches its full value. The 

 long lease wipes out all a landlord's respon- 

 sibility, and the system which grows up under 

 it is for every one to plunder the fee as much 

 as they can. Again, if you have a long lease, 

 Avith too high a rental, the uttermost farthing 

 is screwed out of the acre, and the farm 

 abandoned in poverty as soon as it ceases to 

 yield an existence over expenses. This 

 clearly must always be so, and hence I argue 

 that (?(rr^jVw/.-r/ re-adjustment is necessary for 

 both interests. Some are disposed to look on 

 the fee as a fixed idea, and that over and 

 above this the fluctuations are for the occupier. 

 I am in favour of the opposite notion; a more 

 easy transfer, and a more commercial spirit 

 in reference to land, with less of feudalism 

 and imaginary ancestral right. One of the 

 great causes of the heart-burnings to be 

 found here, arises from the possession of 

 valuable interests under long leases. These 

 interests may have been enjoyed by a family 

 for generations, may have been of their own 

 -creating, and may be foolishly reckoned upon 

 as permanent ; a life drops, the term expires, 

 and all they have in the world is transferred 

 to their landlord. It is difficult then to 

 make them believe that anything short of ab- 

 solute robbery has taken place. Others again 

 have interests through the progress in the 

 times ; proximity to a railway, or a flourish- 

 ing town or any of the many external causes 

 which affect the value of land. Here the 

 occupier may have created nothing, but it 

 would not be easy to convince him upon the 

 fall of the lease, that the landlord might 

 fairly put the increased value into his own 



pocket. If the dealings in land v^-ere 

 characterised by the same spirit as in 

 commerce, and the limited occupier made his 

 outlay upon a fair calculation of repayment 

 during his term, he ought to be satisfied with 

 the result ; but if his term does not admit of 

 that full profit being obtained, he must blame 

 himself for his want of calculation and his 

 too great faith in humanity. Does any one 

 conceive for a moment that the Marquis of 

 Westminster, if at the end he takes possession 

 under his building leases, robs every one who 

 ever placed a house upon his estate ? The 

 same may be said of improvements under long 

 leases here. Many middlemen, previous to 

 1846, with long leases, laid out large sums in 

 buildings and other improvements who, when 

 the famine came, were unable to fulfil the 

 conditions of their leases, and had therefore 

 to abandon their farms and improvements 

 before they had reaped the benefits they had 

 fairly calculated on. Such cases, and they 

 are numerous, are cases of great hardship, 

 and arise from too great confidence in 

 security, and from not making provision for 

 unforeseen contingencies. Leases for lives, 

 sometimes with years, and sometimes without, 

 are very common, and afford an extraordi- 

 nary instance of how the spirit of gambling or 

 uncertainty is preferred to a more defined 

 system. One of the most important acts in 

 a tenant farmer's life, that upon which the 

 profit to be derived from the outlay of his 

 capital and very existence depends, is, we 

 find, governed by the most precarious of all 

 tenures — that of human life. Leases of this 

 nature are to be condemned, and whatever 

 other terms leases may contain, let the tenure, 

 at all events, be clearly defined. It has been 

 so often asserted that our Irish tenants have 

 no leases, and are only the abject vassals of 

 their landlord, depending upon their obedi- 

 ence to his fancies and whims, and subject to 

 ejectment at every six months, that I have 

 been astonished that a statement which is 

 so easy to disprove, and upon. which exact 

 information could be obtained so readily, 

 has not been brought to book by those 

 interested in the Land Question. Here again 

 I would point to the value of the records 



