176 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



oppressed and down-trodden class ; talks of landlords 

 rolling in wealth, and tries to excite every prejudice 

 and ill-feeling that the Land League habitually relies 

 on, because, having made a bad bargain in buying 

 Tenant-right, his landlord does not save him from 

 the consequent loss. 



Well may Mr. A. M. Sullivan, the Home Eule 

 M.P., suggest, as he does, that the price of Tenant- 

 right shall be fixed by arbitration as well as the rent. 

 I wonder how the tenants who have Tenant-right to 

 sell will like that proposal. It is a blessed foretaste 

 of the wise principles on which Ireland will be 

 governed under Home Eule. Why should not every- 

 thing be decided by arbitration ? prices of corn and 

 meat, e.g. As one wrote lately, why should tenants 

 get a great boon in price, and buyers of bread and 

 meat pay as long a price as ever ? 



To any one who can read between the lines, 

 both Mr. Sullivan's letter and Mr. Tuke's pam- 

 phlet are more than instructive. The Land Act 

 makes Tenant-right legally binding in all parts of 

 Ireland as much as in Ulster, wherever like customs 

 exist. There are many estates in other parts, of 

 which Lord Portsmouth in Wexford is a leading 

 example, on which the custom of Tenant-right has 

 been allowed to grow up. Whenever this has 

 happened with the consent of landlord and tenant, 

 no one has a right to say anything against it. If it 

 is unsound in principle, it must be left to cure itself 



