

IRELAND, 1840-1880. 115 



little labour at miserable wages. They cultivate only 

 as much land as their own sons can work. The rest 

 lies in grass. An old and infirm man is alone paid. 



A friend who has seen what I have done asked 

 me lately, " Would the plan you have followed answer 

 in Connaught on estates subdivided into from seven 

 to twenty acres?" I answered, I do not know 

 Connaught, but I think there is no other practical 

 plan that it is possible to follow, and in time it would 

 answer. 



Let any one soberly consider what it is possible 

 to do with a bad tenant of seven to twenty acres of 

 land (whether he is bad from drink, or idleness, or 

 poverty, or any other fault or misfortune) except to 

 take his land away, and give it to his neighbour, who 

 is doing better, and to whom it will be a means of 

 doing better still ? 



What is it possible for a half -ruined tenant 

 (which these men in debt really are) to do on a patch 

 of inferior bog, and rock, and mountain, without 

 potatoes ? Even in good years he can only just keep 

 his head above water. And in bad years he either 

 gets more in debt, or has to get relief somewhere to 

 keep him alive. Even in our better district nearly 

 all the small tenants were half-ruined by the famine 

 of 1847, and got thoroughly in debk I have watched 

 them ever since. They have never recovered their 

 position in the days of potatoes. When a few good 

 years came they did fairly, and were better off; but 



