76 The Landed Interest. 



to the principle of local administration in each 



county by representatives of every interest at 



a county board. 



Non- In Ireland the relation between landlord 



residence 



of land- and tenant is altogether different from that of 



owners 



produced England and Scotland. Previous to the famine 



system of 



middle- ^f 1846, the great landowners were non-resident, 



men in 



Ireland, ^^^ ^^ \2iX\<\ was Still in a great measure in the 



and Its con- 



sequent hands of middle-men on leases for lives, with 

 evds. 



leave to subdivide and sublet for the same time. 

 These men had no permanent interest in the 

 property; their business was to make an income 

 out of it at the least cost, and their intermediate 

 position severed the otherwise natural connection 

 between landlord and tenant. The famine of 

 1846 prostrated the class of middle-men entirely, 

 and brought the landowner and the real tenants 

 face to face. But the hold which the latter had 

 been permitted to obtain led them to consider 

 the landowner very much as only the holder 

 of the first charge on the land ; and they were 

 in the habit of selling and buying their farms 

 among themselves subject to this charge, a 

 course which, as a matter of practice, was tacitly 



