WHAT WILL DO GOOD IN IRELAND. 207 



disinterested witness, and one used to the consider- 

 ation of sncli questions, and an authority upon them, 

 deserve the most earnest attention. 



My own feeling is very favourable to peasant 

 proprietors, whenever men can be found who have 

 the qualities that will enable them to succeed in 

 such a position. As a practical farmer, I know that 

 unless a man has the habits that M, de Molinari 

 speaks of — industry and skill — he can never do well 

 m a farm, either as a tenant or proprietor. In the 

 County Cork there are a great number of tenants 

 with long leases, that put them substantially in the 

 position of proprietors. On one side, joining me, 

 there is a property let to all the tenants for 2000 

 years. It is very improvable, wet and stony, only 

 wanting labour to make it good useful land. On the 

 other side a tenant has a lease for 100 years, and a 

 splendid tract of wet land, with a capital slope down 

 to the river. He has never made one drain in it, 

 though to drain it would pay him twentyfold, and 

 he could have borrowed money at 1 per cent last 

 winter from the Government to do it. He and the 

 tenants for 2000 years, who also did nothing l)ut 

 work under 1 per cent loans, are not half as well 

 off as my tenants, nor their farms as productive. 



These are some of the difiiculties in the way of 

 Peasant Proprietorship. 



I think it is certain that it is only by carefully 

 selecting fit buyers, that selling land to tenants will 



