92 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



and its execution a fortnight afterwards, no less than 

 five or six decrees for debts were executed upon the 

 stock he had, and it is known there are more still to 

 come. The occupation of a farm by a ruined tenant 

 is a loss to all, especially to himself and the public. 

 Stopping ejectments could cure nothing. It would 

 leave the evil and its cause untouched. When will 

 men learn that a pauper is a pauper and nothing else, 

 whether he is a tenant or not ? and so long as he is 

 a pauper, he can only act as such. It would make a 

 change above words in Ireland, if men could only 

 learn to know a fact when they see it before their 

 eyes. 



The Home Eule party have come to think it the 

 most hopeful plan that tenants, with the help of loans 

 from the Government, should buy the fee-simple of 

 their own farms whenever the estate is for sale, and 

 so become peasant proprietors. 



If moderation and judgment are used in the num- 

 ber and quality of such peasant purchasers, no objec- 

 tion can be made to this plan. A good tenant will 

 make a good peasant proprietor, and a bad tenant the 

 reverse. The plan must be carried out gradually, and 

 the purchaser find lond fide a substantial part of the 

 purchase-money. Some such plan, by the help of 

 Land banks, would probably do good in England and 

 Scotland too, as it is believed to do in Prussia. The 

 change of tenure will not make a bad tenant, who is 

 in debt, into a good solvent peasant proprietor. The 



