II. ON TAKING PROPOSALS FOR LAND BY OPEN 

 COMPETITION. 



Iii the south and west of Ireland the usual mode of deter- 

 mining the rent of a vacant farm was to take proposals for 

 it, and on all estates under the Court of Chancery it is 

 still the mode recognised by law. 



This practice is not without some plausible recommen- 

 dations. 



Theoretically it seems alike favourable to both landlord 

 and tenant: to the former as the best means of procuring 

 him the highest market value for his land ; to the latter as 

 the best preventive against being overrated. 



Practically, however, it has not wrought well. Exces- 

 sive competition has induced speculative persons without 

 sufficient capital to offer prices for land which they are 

 unable to pay; and it is to be feared, in many instances, 

 never intended to pay. Such persons have readily entered 

 into possession, hoping that the difficulty of enforcing pay- 

 ment might lead to a future reduction of the proposed rent. 



It has also tended to the deterioration of land : persons 

 who have offered too much for land, being tempted to 

 overcrop it, and eventually to throw it up to the landlord 

 in an exhausted state, much less valuable than it was 

 before it was offered for competition. 



It has sometimes failed in procuring even a fair rent. 

 The influence of a former tenant in disturbed districts has 

 prevented persons from proposing for land who might 

 otherwise have been anxious to do so, but who feared to 

 expose themselves to agrarian outrage. 



It never could be justly resorted to in any district where 

 tenants, in addition to the payment of rent, have been ac- 

 customed at their own cost to fence, drain, and make other 

 improvements; the value of which, whether made by them- 

 selves, or purchased, or inherited, has been, by the recog- 

 nised usage of the country, considered property, and a fair 

 subject of bargain and sale. JS T ow, to set land so circum- 



B 2 



