212 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



few men have a genius for the cultivation of land. 

 It is to these men that land-hunger is a real hardship. 

 The excessive wealth of the country does raise the 

 price of land to an artificial and perhaps undue value, 

 which loans on easy terms to small buyers would in 

 some degree remedy. 



It will be said a bank like this, to enable tenants 

 and others to buy land for themselves, is the proper 

 work of private persons, especially of the patriotic 

 and benevolent class, who in Ireland profess such 

 anxiety to help the tenants. No doubt this is true. 

 O'Connell founded a large bank, which has thriven for 

 over forty years, and holds many millions on deposit 

 at 1 per cent. Another patriotic Home Kule M.P. 

 has also founded a successful bank, which also holds 

 a great sum on deposit at 1 per cent, and which pays 

 a dividend usually of 10 per cent. It is clear these 

 banks could lend to farmers the money they hold at 

 1 per cent, at a moderate rate for making purchases 

 of their farms, and at no risk. No more useful or 

 good national object could be imagined. 



But, alas, these patriotic banks can also lend the 

 money, for which they pay 1 per cent, on small bills 

 to the same farming class at the satisfactory interest 

 of 8 per cent, and the temptation to do this is irre- 

 sistible. So these virtuous M.P.'s pocket their 10 

 per cent dividends, and join in the cry to rob the 

 landowners, to enable their farming customers to go 

 deeper in debt, and give better security. 



