146 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



British agriculture to a flourishing British agri- 

 culture. 



Investigating the landlord, I was much im- 

 pressed at the outset by the fact that in Ireland, 

 the typical home of the " bad landlord," there 

 is something of a disposition to mourn at the 

 funeral of his class. The landlord in Ireland 

 threatens now to become an extinct species. 

 The head of one will be one day, perhaps, shown 

 in Dublin Museum side by side with that of 

 the giant Irish elk. True, State help in Ireland 

 stops short, and only short, of providing the 

 tenant with ammunition for landlord-shooting. 

 (The desire for that has mostly passed away. 

 The essentially kind-hearted Irishman, who al- 

 ways thought and spoke of the landlord as 

 " his honour," even when out after him with 

 a gun, finds now an easier way of settling 

 agrarian grievances by buying him out.) Still, 

 the landlord, good and bad and indifferent, is 

 marked for extinction. Generally that is held 

 to be matter for congratulation by the Irish 

 people. But not altogether ; for there were, 

 and are, some good landlords, men fair to their 

 tenants, and living among them (in Ireland, 



