IRISH AGRARIAN TENURE. 71 



minded landlords bought out their tenants from 

 their holdings.^ 



An enactment of the year i860 attempted to 

 counteract the division of ownership by regarding 

 the relations between tenant and landlord as 

 pure matters of contract. In a further enactment 

 it was sought to protect the tenant's interest by 

 laying it down that improvements made with 

 the consent of the landlord should give the 

 tenant a right to compensation.^ Both Acts 

 were failures, since a simplification of the law 

 only led to a strengthening of the position of the 

 landlords. The number of evictions increased. 

 The following table gives the figures for 1866 

 and previous years : — 



These evictions were largely necessary in the 

 general interests of cultivation, for the enlarge- 

 ment of the holdings was urgently called for ; 

 but they always led to a great embitterment 

 among the people, from which sprang agrarian 



' Lord Dufiferin, p. 233. 



- Richey, pp. 47 et seq. ; Bryce, " Two Centuries of Irish 

 History," pp. 458-9 ; Barry O'Brien, " Parliamentary History 

 of the Irish Land Question," pp. 103, et seq. 113, 115; 

 W. Neilson Hancock, "Two Reports for the Irish Government 

 on the History of the Landlord and Tenant Question in 

 Ireland." 



® '* Irish Landlord," p. 522. 



