114 GKEAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND - MISCELLANEOUS 



of labour owing to the great fall in the population after the Famine, and the 

 introduction of Free Trade, made small farming less profitable than before, 

 and landlords started to clear their estates and consolidate the holdings. 

 This was accentuated by the Incumbered Estates Act of 1849, which gave in- 

 creased facilities for the sale of such estates, and introduced a new class 

 of Landlords whose only object was to get the best retiurn possible for their 

 money without any regard fen- the feelings or customs of the tenants, to 

 whom they were frequently entire strangers. The number of holdings 

 from I to 5 acres fell from 310,436 in 1841 to 85,469 in 1861, while those 

 above 30 acres increased from 48,625 to 157,833 in the same period. 



A series of bad harvests which preceded and followed the Act of i860 

 added to the misery of the Irish tenants, and they took the redress of their 

 grievances into their own hands. Agrarian outrages with all their demoralis- 

 ing influence on the people took place every day. Various efforts were 

 made to reform the Irish Land Code, but they were unsuccessful imtil 

 Mr. Gladstone introduced the Act of 1870, which began a new era in Irish 

 land legislation. 



§ I. The IRISH LAND ACT OF 187O. 



The Act of 1870 legalised the Ulster custom, i. e., the right of the ten- 

 ant to sell his interest in his holding ■ — ■ in other words to sell his goodwill; 

 it gave the tenant " compensation for the loss sustained by him by reason 

 of quitting his holding," when this was caused by the act of the landlord ; 

 and it also gave him compensation for improvements, and enacted that 

 "all improvements... shall until the contrary is proved be deemed to have 

 been made by the tenant or his predecessors," except, inter alia, where such 

 improvements were made 20 years or upwards before the passing of the 

 Act. I may add that it also authorised the Board of Works to advance 

 to a tenant for the purchase of his holding a sum not exceeding two-thirds 

 of the purchase money to be repaid in 35 years by an Annuity of 5 %. 



The Act of 1849 facilitating the sale and transfer of incumbered es- 

 tates, the Act of i860 altering the relation of landlord and tenant from tenure 

 to contract, and the Act of 1870 were the three attempts of the Liberal 

 Party to deal with the Irish land question since the disastrous days of the 

 Famine. Of these the latter Act is by far the most important. It inaugur- 

 ated a new era and meant the breakdown of the old tradition of the " laissez 

 faire" school. For the first time it was recognised that the great Whig 

 doctrine of the sacredness of contract was wholly inapplicable to Ireland, 

 where there was no such thing as free contract between landlord and ten- 

 ant (i). But itself the Act was not a success. The principal reason for this, 

 according to the Report of the Bessborough Commission, which was appointed 



(r) " Freedom of contract iu the case of the majority of Irish tenants large and small 

 docs not really exist. " (Report of Bessborongh Coimnission, 1881). 



