no THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



landlord's interest over all Ireland by a sum of 

 £i'S rnillions. The income of the tenant re- 

 mained, so far as one can see, the same as 

 before. The standard of comfort has every- 

 where risen, bank deposits have increased, one 

 never hears of abandoned farms. ^ 



The sales of the tenants' interest in their 

 farms — the so-called "tenant-right" — have in 

 general shown no fall corresponding to the fall 

 in prices. In many cases the capital value of 

 the tenant's interest has risen. It often happens 

 that this rise stands in inverse proportion to the 

 movements of the rent ; so that we are led to 

 suspect that the capital value of the rent-reduc- 

 tions caused by the fall in prices has not 

 disappeared, but has been transferred from 

 landlord to tenant. In any case the height of 

 the prices for tenant-right, even where they 

 have fallen, shows that the depreciation of the 

 tenant's capital stands in no relation to that 

 which has to be written off from the landlord's. 

 In many places, especially in the West, the 

 price of tenant-right goes to a dizzy height. 

 While the value of the landlord's interest did 

 not commonly go to more than i8 to 20 years' 

 purchase of the rent, that of the tenant-right 

 moved, e.g. in Gweedore, between 60 and 428 

 years' purchase.- In the many thousands of 

 cases which were brought before the Fry Com- 



^ Fry Commission, pp. 26, 28. 

 • lb., App. C, p. 269. 



I 



