IRELAND, 1840-1880. 93 



worst misery in Ireland has been on a few small 

 estates, one of them belonging to the Crown, on which 

 the tenants were in fact proprietors, and allowed to 

 do just as they liked. There are plenty of long leases, 

 long enough to make the tenants substantially owners. 

 As I have already said, adjoining my property there 

 are a number of tenants with leases of 2000 years. 

 None of them show any improvement tending to 

 prove that small proprietors would do better than the 

 present tenants, but rather the other way. My ten- 

 ants are far better off than these men. 



No doubt the number of owners of land in Ireland 

 is too small. It will be no remedy for this to do hurt 

 in another direction. It is by great industry, skill, and 

 thrift alone that peasant proprietors thrive in other 

 countries. The class of small landowners in Belgium 

 and elsewhere work harder and live harder than any 

 other class in Europe ; and not only the men, but all 

 the rest of their families too, including women. They 

 have often, too, a skill in farming inherited from many 

 previous generations. The same lesson comes from 

 America. The owners of small farms there, which 

 they farm themselves, are many of them giving up the 

 business. The work is too hard, and other businesses 

 pay more money. It is not too much to say that the 

 Irish peasant is wanting in every quality needful for 

 success as a small landowner. It is seldom that he has 

 either skill or industry. He is clever enough, but he 

 has no backbone. When he succeeds as a tenant, it 



