WHAT WILL DO GOOD IN IRELAND. 209 



I would only sell to those who were fit to buy. 

 It would be a positive benefit in Ireland to have the 

 distinction between good and bad farmers drawn 

 thus definitely. To those who could not buy, or 

 were not fit to do so, let thirty-one years' leases at 

 the true value be given, which nine times, out of ten 

 would be more than their former rent. And if 

 within three or five years they still did not come in 

 and buy, I would sell the land, subject to these 

 leases, to the best bidder. In this way there would 

 be no loss to the Government, because the higher 

 rents would make the fee even of residues of this 

 kind sell better. There would be no injustice nor 

 even hardship to any one, landlord or tenant, whilst 

 those who were fit would become proprietors. 



Let any one read in Mr. Tuke's pamphlet his 

 account of the peasant proprietors he saw, who had 

 bought under the Church Act. It is clear that of 

 those he saw, whoever were thriving tenants throve 

 as proprietors, whilst bad tenants went to the wall 

 as proprietors, thus proving my statement. Pro- 

 fessor Baldwin gave an account to the Duke of 

 Kichmond's Commission of what he saw on another 

 estate, bought under the Church Act by the tenants. 

 Before the Act passed they had been a very fairly 

 thriving body of tenants. Ten years after, he found 

 them nearly all pauper proprietors. Common sense 

 suggests, as I have said, that the habits of Irish 

 peasants are not changed by their ceasing to be 



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