DISCOURAGEMENT OF CON-ACRE. 139 



ship when that neighbour has it in his power to 

 demand a new valuation, by which to increase the 

 improver's proportion of the rate, and diminish his own. 

 The period at which such renewed valuation could be 

 demanded, should probably be extended; — say to twenty- 

 one years. 



The way being thus opened for the influx of capital, 

 and its secure investment in the land, and the safety 

 of the redundant population being also provided for, 

 measures should be taken to guard against the undue 

 increase of population, and the possible recurrence of a 

 second calamity. Nothing has contributed so much to^ 

 the entire dependence on the potato, and the consequent 

 increase of a miserable, half-fed, naked population, as the 

 system of con- acre labour. No truck-system is com- 

 parable with this. It encourages a tenant without means 

 to offer an exorbitant rent for land, which he pays by 

 exacting one still more oppressive from his labourer. 

 Its two-fold action is to raise rents, and depress wages, 

 by over-competition. Enormous rents are exacted for 

 the patches of potato ground, which are paid by the 

 very lowest scale of nominal wages. It compels an 

 entire reliance on the potato, inasmuch as the labourer 

 can get potatoes only for his food, no money-wages being 

 ever paid. It encourages the landlord to expect a high 

 rent for his land, without demanding from him in return 

 any outlay for its permanent improvement.^ * 



* " A social condition where each family, or nearly each individual, has his 

 field, which furnishes his immediate nutriment, without any necessity for 

 marketing, without the assistance of the miller or the baker, without occa- 

 sion to demand assistance from his neighbours — that society is deficient in the 

 elements most necessary to the progress of its civilisation." — M. De Jonnes. 

 Industrial Resources of Ireland, by Sir Robert Kane. 



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