90 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



afterwards. In this way the Land Act is a real 

 hindrance to improvement, a grievous one to those 

 who had not got their estates in order before it 

 passed. Instead of its being possible to improve a 

 neglected estate in ten or twelve years (as it was when 

 my work was done), a much longer time and greater 

 loss of money are unavoidable. Fewer landlords, 

 therefore, are willing or able to undertake its im- 

 provement. In this respect the Act is wholly hurt- 

 ful, with no gain to set against the loss, except that 

 of enabling bad tenants to hang on some years longer, 

 whilst more thoroughly ruining themselves. The 

 Act was a makeshift resting on no sound principle. 

 It has stopped a small evil at the cost of hindering 

 all improving landlords from doing good, and retard- 

 ing the improvement of the country. 



But the most curious evil the Act has caused has 

 been by the greater facilities for debt it has given the 

 tenants. As by the Act a tenant cannot now be 

 turned out of his farm without large compensation, 

 except for non-payment of rent, he is by so much a 

 safer debtor to banks and usurers and shopkeepers. 

 One of the most discouraging features of Irish 

 character is indifference to debt. It is almost as bad 

 in one class as in another. So long as money can be 

 borrowed anyhow to go on with, everybody seems to 

 think all is right. Whatever the cause, it is certain 

 that the extent to which people of all sorts, from the 

 labourer upwards, go in debt, is ruinous. . Debt of 



