IRELAND— ITS SOCIAL STATE. 131 



uo competition as to the rent to be paid to the kind- 

 lord, though the keenest competition is wished for as 

 to the money to be paid to the outgoing tenant for 

 his goodwill. 



But the right to hold farms for ever and ever, and 

 at rents fixed without any honest competition, is 

 not enough. Idleness or drink might still ruin a 

 good many. So the further claim is put in that if, 

 from any cause, whether non-payment of rent, or 

 having quite exhausted the farm, the tenant has to 

 leave it, he should still be allowed to sell his right of 

 occupancy to the highest bidder, and so, if times are 

 good, put a large sum m his pocket ; and whoever 

 buys such occupancy is to have a similar right of 

 selling it whenever he sees fit, without regard to the 

 landowner. 



Any one can see that this simply deprives the 

 landowner of part of his reversion and gives it to tlie 

 tenant. The owner may have spent a large sum on 

 improving the reversion, as I have done (£700 to £800 

 a year, for between thirty and forty years — equal to 

 £25,000). Again, on the faith of the law of the coun- 

 try, that honest right should prevail, he may have 

 trusted, as I did, that those who were to succeed him 

 should reap the profit of his outlay. It is to be taken 

 from him, and given to the present tenants, good and 

 bad alike, without repayment even of the money that 

 can be proved to have been spent upon it. If the 

 State has sufficient grounds for taking away the re- 



