IRELAND, 1840-1880. 91 



course at last produces its certain fruit. And whilst 

 being ruined, the debtor and his family are kept in 

 chronic misery. Some of us, for many years past, 

 have protested that this almost universal state of 

 debt is one great evil to the country. The banks are 

 greatly to blame for lending to men they know to be 

 insolvent, provided they can get security. The pinch 

 of the past year has revealed what neither friends 

 nor opponents of the Land Act foresaw numbers of 

 tenants have borrowed on the strength of the better 

 security the Act gave them, and as in a tight year 

 banks and all lenders have to draw in for their own 

 safety, these men are in trouble in consequence. 

 The money has been spent unproductively. I need 

 not say what is the result. 



By the Land Act Parliament tried to give pro- 

 tection to tenants against the landlords, and it has 

 produced ill effects in another direction worse than 

 those it was meant to cure. To prevent a very few 

 capricious evictions it has 1 greatly increased the faci- 

 lities for debt, and will surely ruin great numbers for 

 one it saves from capricious eviction. Debt slips on, 

 little felt in better years except by the renewal of 

 bills, a tight year like the present comes, and the 

 man is ruined. Some of our wise M.P.'s have talked 

 of a bill to hinder ejectments for non-payment of rent 

 . for twelve months. But what good is it possible for 

 a ruined man to do in a farm ? I ejected one tenant 

 last winter ; and between the time I got the decree 



