1881.J TTon. G. C. Brodrick on the Land Systems of Ewjland, dr. 559 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May G, 1881. 



William Watkiss Lloyd, Esq. Manager, in the Chair. 



Toe Hon. George C. Brodrick, M.A. B.C.L. 



WARDEN OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD. 



The Land Si/stems of England and of Ireland. 



I HAVE undertaken to address you to-night on the land-systems of 

 England and of Ireland, that is, on the distinctive and typical features 

 which characterise them among the land systems of the world. Such 

 a study is especially interesting at the present moment, when radical 

 changes in the Irish land system are actually under the consideration 

 of Parliament, and the English laud-system itself may be said to be 

 on its trial. But the rules of this Institution do not i)ermit me to 

 discuss English or Irish land questions in the political or controversial 

 sense. We are mainly concerned to-night with the past and present 

 aspects of the English and Irish land systems ; the future develop- 

 ment of those land systems rests with the Legislature, and the mem- 

 bers of this Institution have little reason to envy their responsibility. 

 I. The land systems of England and of Ireland have a common 

 historical origin. Modern researches have shown that in both 

 countries the earliest form of agrarian constitution was a tribal 

 settlement, or village community, representing a clan or grouj) of 

 kindred families. It is needless here to dwell uj^on the peculiar and 

 minute rules which governed the division and cultivation of land in 

 this primitive society, which are still preserved in the so-called 

 " Brehon Laws " of Ireland. What is important to note is that it 

 left no room for that threefold division of burdens and profits 

 between landlords, tenant-farmers, and farm-labourers, which is the 

 special mark of the English rural economy. Every freeman was, in 

 theory, his own landlord, his own farmer, and his own labourer, and, 

 except serfs or slaves, there were very few persons who did not form 

 members of the landed democracy, as it might be properly called. 

 But the landowners of that day were not peasant proprietors, for 

 though each was entitled to a lot of his own, he could not be sure of 

 holding the same piece of ground two years together ; and there were 

 few, if any, separate enclosures for cattle. By slow degrees, however, 

 the princiide of individual ownership asserted itself. The chief, or 

 strongest member, of a clan would obtain larger allotments than 

 others, and at last get them severed from the common fields ; at the 

 same time he would claim the lion's share of the waste, and at last 

 came to treat it as his own property, only subject to rights of 



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