IRISH AGRARIAN TENURE. 75 



eviction so expensive a proceeding that no 

 landlord would undertake it. He endeavoured 

 indirectly to check the raising of rents by 

 securing to the tenant who refused to consent to 

 it the value of his improvements on giving up 

 his holding. Moreover, he hoped, not only to 

 diminish the number of evictions but also to 

 promote the practice on the part of the land- 

 owners of giving longer leases. 



But this Act, too, including the " Bright 

 clauses," was a failure. Between the years 

 1871-1880 out of 6,163 applications for com- 

 pensation only 1,808 were granted. The sum 

 total of the compensations paid amounted to 

 ;f 147,304, of which more than half (^^82,543) 

 came to Ulster.^ The average sum paid in com- 

 pensation was £"]"] ; but an evicted Irish tenant 

 could not live on ^^77, since besides his farm 

 he knew but one source of income — to put his 

 money at interest in a bank.^ But apart from 

 its technical defects what really impaired the 

 efficacy of the Act was the economic situation 

 at the time. The prices of the most important 

 of Irish agricultural products rose steadily till 

 1878 ; and this fact supplied the preliminary 

 condition under which a rise in rent takes place. 

 The farmer preferred to pay the increased rent 

 rather than be evicted, and pocket the compen- 

 sation. The rent-roll of the landlord rose and 



' " Irish Landlord," pp. 510-512. 

 ^O'Brien, "Parliamentary History," p. 124. 



