228 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



idea by vehement but untrue assertion : the eject- 

 ment of one of these bad tenants is spoken of as 

 cruelty and wrong. Let it be considered what it is 

 to have in a farm a lazy, drinking, even if not 

 drunken, man, ignorant, without capital or know- 

 ledge of farming, and his land much exhausted. 

 How is it possible a country can improve when 

 much of the land is thus held ? There is no diffi- 

 culty with any one else but these. No landlord who 

 is not an idiot ever quarrels with a good tenant. 

 These bad tenants are the men for whom Mr. Forster's 

 Disturbance Bill was made, and who would have 

 prayed for his soul if he had carried it. 



I have three bad tenants, all drunken; two of them 

 have no four-footed animals on their farms, one holding 

 forty-seven acres, at 5s. 9d.per acre : what is it possible 

 to do with such men when they cease to pay rent ? 



When such men are turned out there is plenty 

 of work for them, if they will do it, in spite of Mr. 

 Gladstone's wholly untrue statement, that evictions 

 are the same as death-warrants, and, under the obliga- 

 tion to work, their children grow up into useful labour- 

 ing people. In what part of the earth can men be at 

 once idle and prosperous ? On what principle should 

 the land, these men have failed in, not be given to 

 good tenants, who will farm it better, and benefit the 

 country and themselves by so farming it ? This is 

 the common-sense course which has succeeded with 

 me and with all others having improving estates. 



