gs 



fary alms-giving is now converted into a tax on landed property 

 for the relief of destitution. By reference to Captain Kennedy's 

 pamphlet, ' Instruct, Employ, don't Hang them,' it will be seen 

 that a result of the present law with regard to Dispensaries has 

 been, that none have been established in cases where absen- 

 teeism prevails, the law having been founded on the principle 

 of not levying a county tax for their support, unless where 

 voluntary subscriptions are received. 



Persons acquainted with Estate management doubt whether 

 the unfettered management of Irish farmers, free from the re- 

 strictions as to exhaustive cropping usual in Great Britain, has 

 led to their advantage. Out of such restrictive conditions, which 

 primarily secure the owner of the land against deterioration of 

 his property, the admirable system, legal in England by custom, 

 and known under the name of ' Tenant Right,' has grown up. It 

 secures compensation to the occupier for the improvements he 

 may effect, whether permanent or exhaustible. Adam Smith, 

 alluding to the security given in England to the tenant, writes; 

 ' There is, I believe, nowhere in Europe, except in England, any 

 instance of the tenant building upon the land of which he had 

 no lease, and trusting that the honour of his landlord would take 

 no advantage of so important an improvement. Those laws and 

 customs, so favourable to the yeomanry, have perhaps contri- 

 buted more to the present grandeur of England, than all their 

 boasted regulations of commerce taken together.' 



The recent Act, which deprives landlords of the power of 

 distraining growing crops, has been found to be productive of 

 great frauds, giving a facility to dishonest tenants to cut and 

 carry off their crops by night, while it is in effect productive of 

 no benefit to the honest man, whose growing crops are still, 

 nevertheless, liable to be seized by any creditor acting under a 

 decree of the courts. This enactment is made peculiar to Ireland, 

 denying that power to owners of the soil of this country which 

 is still permitted to those of England. 



An ancient Roman writer observes, that a landlord should be 

 more rigorous in demanding good cultivation of his land than 

 in exacting rent. Neither custom nor law enable a reasonable 

 power to be exerted in Ireland in the former respect.* The 

 owner of land is often only a ' rent-lord.' 



* Much light has been thrown on the question, vexed as it is in Ireland, of the 

 Relation of Landlord and Tenant, by the recent publication of Professor Han- 

 cock's valuable lectures, under the title of 'Impediments to the Prosperity of Ireland.' 

 The reader's attention is particularly requested to the 10th, 24th, and 25th 

 chapters of that work. At the same time that a tribute of praise is offered to it, 

 the author, whose labours have been so importantly directed in search of truth, 

 will assuredly permit the following remarks: in the seventh chapter an analogy 

 between land and certain commodities leather, cotton, and tea, (which are 

 articles of trade,) is assumed; but which does not exist, because the same per* 



