Irish Ahsenteeis7n — Past and Present 



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more agreeable, more stirring, and, we must 

 add, more secure. In the early part of 

 George III.'s reign it was actually proposed 

 by the Government to counteract the force 

 of this gravitation eastward by levying a tax 

 of 2s. in the ^ on the net inconse of 

 all Irish landlords who should not reside half 

 the year in the island. No one would now 

 venture to revive such a proposal, and it is 

 more than doubtful whether the peasant 

 farmers on a property like that of Lord Fitz- 

 William or Lord Devon would gain by the 

 forced sale of it to a Dublin land-jobber, 

 equally non-resident, but far less generous and 

 indulgent. There is, in fact, no heroic or 

 5;ummary remedy for absenteeism, and though 

 Home Rule might induce some English 

 noblemen to sell their Irish estates, it could 

 not compel the new purchasers to reside upon 

 them, or to abstain from putting them, after 

 the manner of old Irish families, into the 

 Iiands of middlemen. The agrarian outrages 

 which have so long disgraced Westmeath, and 

 the political terrorism recently exercised by 

 priast-led mobs in Galway, exemplify the 



the causes which swell the number of pro 

 prietors " rarely or never resident in Ireland." 

 After the Galway election, a Roman Catholic 

 gentleman of antient Irish lineage, whose life 

 had been threatened, signified his intention of 

 leaving the county, and who can blame him 

 if he carries out his resolve? Yet his de- 

 parture will close one hospitable mansion, 

 and thereby render the neighbourhood less 

 attractive to others, besides involving a 

 direct loss of employment and custom. 

 Those who aspire to guide popular opinion 

 in Ireland will do well to reflect on such 

 considerations as these. Of course, it is pos- 

 sible that Ireland is destined to become a 

 community of small proprietors, with ro 

 l?nded aristocracy and few capitalist manu- 

 facturers. In that case, it will probably ex- 

 hibit the nearest approach yet realized to 

 what economists call " the stationary state." 

 In any other case, a resident gentry may be 

 of the utmost service in the social regenera- 

 tion of Ireland, and no Irishman deserves 

 well of his country who seeks to make the 

 position of a resident gentry less enviable. 



THE IRISH LAND ACT AND THE LORDS' COMMITTEE. 



THE tenant-farmers of Ulster are begin- 

 ning to express themselves in very 

 plain terms in reference to the Lords' Com- 

 mittee on the Land Act. At the quarter 

 sessions held lately for the Newtown ards 

 district of County Down, the grand jury pre- 

 sented an address to the chairman of the 

 county, Mr Robert Johnston, Q.C., in which, 

 iiaving referred to the able and impartial 

 manner in which he had administered the 

 law in relation to the Land Act, they said, 

 " We consider it necessary to give this ex- 

 ])ression of our confidence in the efficiency 

 of the tribunals under which the provisions 

 of this Act are carried out, especially at a 

 time when a Committee of the House of 

 Lords is engaged in holding an incpiiry on 

 the workincr of this Act of Parliament before 



it has been two years in operation. We 

 should learn with regret that any change was 

 contemplated in the working of an Act which 

 we consider one of the most important passed 

 for Ireland during many generations." His 

 worship, in concluding his reply, said he was 

 satisfied that when the Act came to be better 

 known, litigation would cease, and disputes 

 be settled out of court. 



A meeting of the Down Tenant-Farmers' 

 Union was held also in Dovvnpatrick, at 

 which resolutions were passed stating that 

 the Irish Land Act has been found to work 

 with great satisfaction during the year and 

 ten months in which it has been in operation, 

 and notwithstanding the number of judges 

 concerned in administering its provisions, the 

 decisions have been wonderfully uniform. The 



