TENANT-RIGHT QUESTION. 29 



fixity of tenure which they otherwise would not 

 enjoy. The fallacy of this view of the question 

 will readily be perceived from the fact that the 

 tenant-right is a separate document from and 

 posterior to the lease. The lease alone can 

 grant possession or maintain the tenant in his 

 holding. It may contain a conventional irritancy 

 at the option of the landlord, stipulating that if 

 the tenant shall fall one full year's rent in 

 arrears, his lease, and hence his tenant-right, 

 shall be null and void without any procedure at 

 law, forfeiting all right to payment for improve- 

 ments, and that the irritancy shall not be 

 purgeable. The subject which the tenant-right 

 pretends to convey may be given as security 

 for rent, which in practice is established as the 

 rule ; but this landlords are not bound to accept. 

 In many cases, it is only of value because an 

 Ulster tenant will give value for it ; its intrinsic 

 value, if called in question, tenants would often 

 have difficulty in proving. If, for instance, we 

 suppose again that the Tipperary landlord shall 

 let a farm to a tenant, and that the houses on 

 the farm at his entry shall be valued at 10/., 

 that the tenant pulls down those houses and 

 rebuilds new ones at a cost of 607. ; it is very 



