114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



whole land of which his little plot constitutes a part. Under 

 the fuedal system, as you know, the homes of the people 

 were owned by a comparatively few feudal lords. They 

 constituted the governing class, and the landless many were 

 dependent upon them. The effect of any such system 

 always is, that while the few are blessed with abundance, 

 the great majority of the people are poor and dependent. 

 We have an illustration of the effect of the absence of home 

 ownership in Ireland, that land to which the attention of this 

 country has been largely attracted for so many years. The 

 homes of Ireland are, as a rule, owned by men who do not 

 live in them. They are owned by absentee landlords. The 

 tenant farmers have no vested interest in the farms they 

 occupy. The landlords have no interest in the tenants, 

 except to squeeze out of them the greatest possible amount 

 of money in the shape of rent. The tenant has no induce- 

 ment to improve the farm he occupies, for the moment he 

 increases its value, that moment up goes his rent. The 

 wealth of the country is constantly drained to support a 

 class of people who spend their incomes elsewhere. The 

 hard earnings of the industrious many go to support in 

 luxury the idle and useless few. Prosperity can never 

 exist under such conditions. A state of things lil^e that is 

 not calculated to promote the growth of patriotism or to 

 develop a respect for law. Roman history, to which our 

 friend alluded, also furnishes an illustration upon this point. 

 When the Roman farms were many in number and small in 

 extent, and were cultivated by their owners, the Roman 

 republic was prosperous and powerful, and its people were 

 patriotic. But there came a change, and with it the decline 

 of Rome began. The homes of the people were monopo- 

 lized by the nobles, and the farmers, no longer interested in 

 the ownership of the soil, lost their love of country and 

 became unpatriotic, indifferent and degraded. Gibbon says 

 that the lands of Italy, which had been originally divided 

 among the families of free and indigent proprietors, were 

 insensibly purchased or usurped by the avarice of the nobles ; 

 that in the age which preceded the fall of the republic there 

 were not more than two thousand citizens of Rome who pos- 

 sessed any independent subsistence ; and he adds, that when 



