ii8 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



prejudices of the English, but also from under the 

 Irish agrarian Socialists, represented by ]\Iichael 

 Davitt, who wished to link on the new system of 

 land-tenure to early Celtic institutions. For a 

 moment, the ideas of Henry George stood, as 

 watchwords of a policy directed against peasant 

 proprietorship, in the foreground of public in- 

 terest. The politico-economic realism of Parnell's 

 mind repressed them at the time ; the success of 

 land-purchase in Ireland makes their revival for 

 the next few decades improbable.^ 



It might be objected on the other side that the 

 peasant owners already created are not typical of 

 the class. The greater number of the holdings 

 investigated by Bailey (10,076 out of 14,813) 

 were situated in Ulster where rather exceptional 

 conditions prevailed. Only the tenants of the 

 wealthiest or of the most encumbered landlords 

 have, as yet, been made owners. The former 

 class have bought under excellent conditions; the 

 latter have never had the duties of a landlord 

 fulfilled towards them, so that they are economi- 

 cally strengthened by his abolition. At the 

 bottom of this argument lies the not unjustified 

 view that many of the Irish tenantry are not 

 fitted to be owners, and that the number of such 

 is greater than present experience would lead us 



^ One might draw an interesting parallel between those Irish 

 Nationalists who champion the communal clan-system of the 

 Celts, as the ideal system of land tenure, and the Russian 

 Sklavophils or Pan Slavs, who have idealized the Mir. 



