JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND. 187 



settlement, he is not left there to starve as 

 we in England practically invite the English 

 small holder to do. Immediately, a loan from 

 the Credit Bank is granted him at 2J or 3 per 

 cent, the security for which, even in the Wild 

 West of Ireland, being taken on two personal 

 securities, is indicative that finance based on 

 the character of the untutored Irish peasant 

 is regarded as a greater gilt- edge security 

 than real property. 



The payment for his new thirty-acre hold- 

 ing, including the cost of his cottage, covers 

 a term of sixty-six years at 3j per cent interest, 

 which amounts to an annual payment on the 

 average of £17 or £18 a year. That is, he 

 buys a house and thirty acres by the annual 

 payment of a sum less than half the English 

 small holder pays for rent. 



Of course the land is very poor ; indeed 

 many an English small holder would scorn 

 to till land covered with stones so large 

 and plentiful that, as Mr. George Birmmg- 

 ham says in one of his novels, " It looks as 

 though when the Creator was riddling out 

 the earth over Europe He used to empty 

 out the sieve over Connaught." These stones 

 account for the long, narrow spades with which 



