TENANT-RIGHT AND THE THREE F'S. 187 



petition, nor allow a son who succeeds to the farm to 

 be stripped bare of the capital needful to farm the 

 land for the gain of the rest of the family. 



Once Tenant-right is made compulsory by law, 

 there is an end of the landlord's power for good, though 

 men in Parliament often talk as if after landlords 

 have been fleeced at pleasure they are still to co- 

 operate, as it is called, in carrying out the measures 

 for their own injury. Some complain that landlords 

 do not thus co-operate in working the Land Act. It 

 would be just as reasonable to expect that a sheep 

 should co-operate with the shearer who clips it, or with 

 the butcher who cuts its throat. What is the use of 

 expecting that landlords will exert themselves, and 

 take trouble, and incur odium in regulating well an 

 estate, when they will gain nothing by its good 

 management, nor lose if it is badly managed ? Let it 

 be observed, too, that if the Tenant-right system was 

 made compulsory in the rest of Ireland, it is only the 

 present tenants who would gain anything. Their 

 successors would have to pay the utmost farthing of 

 the value of the land. It would put a great gift into 

 the pockets of existing tenants out of the landlord's 

 reversion, with great injury to the incoming tenant. 



It is overlooked, too, that even now there are 

 estates in the south on which though nominally the 

 tenants are allowed to sell their interest, a large fine 

 to the landlord, in spite of the Settlement, is besides 

 required to be paid. The Tenant-right dodges the 



