EFFECT OF LAND ACT. 81 



years' compensation for capricious eviction, or else 

 the security of a tliirty-one years' lease ; compensa- 

 tion for all permanent improvements, and for unex- 

 hausted manures. The truth is, the facts are proving, 

 what many asserted before the Land Act, that the 

 faults of the Irish tenants themselves, and not the 

 circumstances in which they are placed, are th^ cause 

 of their being what they are. There are some good 

 tenants, no doubt, but they are comparatively few, 

 and the number of those who have made considerable 

 permanent improvements is very few indeed. The 

 reason the Courts cannot give, in many cases, larger 

 compensation is, that when it comes to the proof, the 

 permanent improvements are not there. These ex- 

 aggerated claims are put in in the hope of raising a 

 prejudice on behalf of the tenant, on the principle 

 that where there is so much cry there must be some 

 wool. After the Land Act passed I went to every 

 tenant on an estate of 4000 acres, and took down in 

 writing his statement of what permanent improve- 

 ments he had made, and their cost. I wrote down 

 strictly his own statement, even when I knew it was 

 untrue, in that case adding my own comment sepa- 

 rately. It is a greatly improved estate, much before 

 its neighbours, and the tenants are nearly all well-to- 

 do, and do not owe a shilling of arrears. Yet there 

 were only two or three cases in which the cost of the 

 improvements, as stated by the tenant himself, ex- 

 ceeded one year's rent, and these two or three were 



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