192 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



be better off, because he would have his 500 capital 

 to lay out in manure which would help to make the 

 rent. The 10s. per acre, therefore, is a clear reduction 

 out of the landlord's reversion. 



However it may be concealed, the future rent of 

 the farm is lessened, and in the long run must be 

 lessened accordingly, by these payments for Tenant- 

 right. The landowner loses whatever the tenant 

 gains. 



According to all principles of right, the State 

 cannot justly thus take away this reversion or 

 any part of it. If there is good cause for the 

 State taking away a man's property, it is bound 

 to pay the honest value for it. There is no escaping 

 this result, if right and justice are still to prevail 

 among us. I know of no way in which this duty 

 can be escaped. There is talk sometimes in Ireland 

 that by tenant-right the tenant gains, but the land- 

 lord does not lose. This is mere ignorance, the 

 ignorance of men who do not understand the business 

 of dealing with land. If the landowner knows how 

 to make his land pay by farming it himself (as at 

 least some of us do), the payment of tenant-right to 

 a broken tenant at once appears in its true light. I 

 have already shown that it is only the lowness of the 

 rent that enables ten or twenty years' purchase to be 

 given for tenant-right. 



We have further positive evidence now, such as 

 we never had before, of the value of land in Ireland. 



