90 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



application for a transfer of title is referred to 

 the local Land Board, which examines closely 

 into the equity of the transaction, and safe- 

 guards the new settler's, as well as the State's, 

 interests. The system is not ideal — no land 

 method yet designed is — but it provides some 

 measure of precaution. 



Apart from the absence of a check on transfer 

 of title in the case of the subsidized small- 

 holder, the Irish system is open to criticism, as 

 all such wide systems must be, that in making 

 conditions too easy there is encouragement to 

 the thriftless, the feckless, the idle to become 

 small-holders. Their failure is certain in time ; 

 and since the Government has undertaken, in 

 a sense, responsibility for their success in life, 

 a further effort must be made on their behalf, 

 and perhaps this effort will involve another 

 general subsidy. Recognizing fully that to get 

 a successful small settler on the land is a national 

 benefit worth paying for, I have yet grave 

 misgivings as to the wisdom of the Irish Land 

 Purchase system — doubts as to whether it has 

 killed for ever the evils of rack-renting ; doubts 

 as to whether the taxpayer, with the generous 



