1881.] on the Land Systems of England and of Ireland. 573 



relation between landlord and tenant, but place the regulation of it in 

 the bands of a Court, and virtually abolish freedom of contract. There 

 is no rashness in predicting that, under such circumstances, the rela- 

 tion will bo found intolerable, and that in the end the same result 

 at which Stein and Ilardenberg deliberately aimed will be produced by 

 the very opposite process. Either by the aid of facilities provided in 

 the Bill itself, or by private agreements, Irish landlords will part 

 with their estates in large numbers, and Irish tenants will be the 

 nominal purchasers. Whether, having purchased, they will cultivate 

 the laud themselves, or convert themselves into squireens, whether 

 they will keep out of the hands of money-lenders, and whether money- 

 lenders may not become the worst of landlords, and whether those who 

 chance to be without land just now will tamely acquiesce in their 

 exclusion from the privileged caste of irremovable tenants — these 

 are questions into which I must not wander. What is certain is 

 that, come what may, the experiment of peasant ownership or 

 farmer ownership will be tried in Ireland as it has never been tried 

 before. 



It may be said, with too much reason, that Irish tenants as a class 

 have never yet exhibited the far-sighted industry which has become 

 traditional and hereditary among French or Belgian peasants, and upon 

 which peasant ownership in France or Belgium depends for its success. 

 It may be said, on the other hand, that Irish tenants are already 

 their own masters for most purposes, and that the civilising influence 

 of country gentlemen with their families is already little felt in the 

 great majority of Irish parishes. The transition from landlordism to 

 farmer proprietorship would, therefore, be far gentler, and attended 

 by much less of social change, in Ireland than in England. Nor must 

 it be forgotten that French peasants, as described by Arthur Young a 

 hundred years ago, did not cliifer widely from small Irish farmers in 

 the present day. The " magic of property " has assuredly worked 

 miracles in making them what they now are, and the magic of pro- 

 perty is likely to be more potent in Ireland than in France, because it 

 would place the new proprietor entirely above the influence of those 

 agitators who now trade upon his wrongs, real or imaginary, and 

 would give him a direct interest in the maintenance of law and 

 order. 



And thus it may come to pass that under the operation of different 

 causes — some of them natural and some artificial, some in themselves 

 pernicious, and some beneficent — the Irish land system may gravitate 

 in the same direction as the English land system, and assume a more 

 democratic aspect. Considering the history and national character of 

 the Irish people, we are not warranted in forecasting with confidence 

 the result of such a development. The utmost that we can aflirm is 

 that it affords a better prospect of a stable equilibrium in Ireland than 

 the modern English form of rural economy. There is a fine passage 

 in Edmund Spenser's 'View of Ireland,' written in the reign of Qneen 

 Elizabeth, where he supposes one of two friends to suggest various 



Vol. IX. (No. 73.) 2 r 



