THE LAND QUESTION. 57 



improved in quality in the past fifteen years ; yet it 

 is very rare to find rents raised more than 20 or 

 25 per cent, and on a majority of farms they have 

 not been raised at all. Finally, the complaint most 

 often heard from farmers is that there are no farms to 

 let ; a pretty sure proof that, somehow, tenants are 

 seldom turned out. It is admitted that in this county 

 the practice of tenants selling the goodwill of their 

 farms does not exist. This means that County Cork 

 landlords have not been in the habit of making in- 

 coming tenants pay up the arrears of those who 

 failed. They have had the sense to see that to clean 

 out an incoming tenant of his capital is the worst 

 thing possible both for him and themselves, because 

 it necessarily cripples him in stocking and manuring 

 and doing well in his farm, and often ties a log of 

 debt about his neck that is his ruin. It is believed 

 that this is one cause of the peaceableness of the 

 county. It is hard for an honest man who hires a 

 farm from the owner, paying only the rent he agreed 

 for, to fancy it is in any sense his own. And if a 

 rogue hires it, he knows at bottom, as well as the 

 other, that he has no right in it but what he agreed 

 for. Thus indefinite ideas of right have been pre- 

 vented. I think these facts, for they are facts, show 

 that the Times' correspondent has not given the whole 

 case, even when he is not otherwise incorrect. 



But in truth he is often far from correct. He is 

 wholly wanting in that which is the best part of a 



