G$ ALARM OF TENANTS AT INCREASING RATES. 



case of a tenant, on whose farm I was to-day, and which 

 is now to be let. This man came to the country thir- 

 teen years ago, with not more than £100 of capital. 

 His landlord lent him £300, and with this he contrived 

 to stock and carry on a farm of 300 acres. He was 

 very skilful in the management of sheep-stock, and 

 introduced the best rams from England, with which he 

 improved his own stock, and then sold their produce at 

 high prices in the surrounding country. So well did 

 this succeed, that in a few years he repaid his landlord 

 the borrowed money, besides, at the same time, greatly 

 increasing the numbers and quality of his farm-stock. 

 The frightful increase of rates, with diminished prices of 

 produce, alarmed him : he found the capital which he 

 had accumulated by skill and industry slipping away ; 

 he could not get what he considered an adequate abate- 

 ment of rent from his landlord, though the increase in 

 his rates amounted to nearly a second rent ; so, availing 

 himself of the power of surrender, which is fortunately 

 a clause introduced into most Irish leases, he determined 

 to sell all off, and quit the country for New Zealand. 

 After paying all his debt, he has retired with a capital 

 of £1000, and his farm is abandoned to the landlord, 

 who is now anxious to get a solvent tenant at a lower 

 rent than, I am assured, this man would have gladly 

 paid, and remained in the country. But how much does 

 this single example teach ! First, that the soil yields a 

 grateful return to industry and skill \ second, that these 

 are marred by the impolicy of placing the pressure of 

 the rates exclusively on the tenant, (which is unhappily 

 the law in Ireland,) thereby driving out of the country 



