,o TENANTRY. 



given, would have improved it, Ireland had long ago been s. 

 garden. It remains to enquire, whether the landlord's fecurity 

 is a full recompence for fo much mifchief. 



But here it is proper to obferve, that though the interme- 

 diate man is generally better fecurity than the little occupier j 

 yet it is not from thence to be concluded, as I have often 

 heard it, that the latter is beyond all comparifon beneath 

 him in this refpeft : the contrary is often the cafe ; and I 

 have known the faft, that the landlord, difappointed of his 

 rent, has drove (diftrained) the undertenants for it at a time 

 when they had actually paid it to the middle man. If the 

 profit rent is fpent, as it very generally is in claret and hounds, 

 the notion of good fecurity will prove vifionary, as many a 

 landlord in Ireland has found it : feveral very confiderable 

 ones have affured me, that the little occupiers were the bejl 

 pay they had on their eftates ; and the intermediate gentlemen 

 tenants by much the *worft. 



By the minutes of the journey it appears, that a very confi- 

 derable part of the kingdom, and the inoft enlightened land- 

 lords in it, have difcarded this injurious fyftem, and let their 

 farms to none but the occupying tenantry } their experience 

 has proved, that, the apprehenfion of a want of fecurity was 

 merely ideal, finding their rents much better paid than ever. 

 At the laft extremity, it is the occupier's ftock which is the 

 teal fecurity of the landlord. It is that he diftrains, and finds 

 abundantly more valuable than the laced hat, hounds and pif- 

 tols of the gentleman jobber, from whom he is more likely in 

 fuch a cafe to receive a meffage, than a remittance. 



And here let me obferve, that a defence of intermediate te- 

 nants has been founded upon the circumftance of leflening the 

 remittance of abfenfee rents ; the profit of the middle man was 

 (pent in Ireland ; whereas upon his difmiflion the whole is re- 

 mitted to England. I admit this to be an evil, but it appears 

 to be in no degree proportioned to the mifchiefs I have dwelt 

 on. It is always to be remembered, that in the arrangement 

 of landed property, the produce is the great objel ; the fyftem 

 of letting, which encourages moft the occupying tenant, will 

 always be the moft advantageous to the community. I think I 

 have proved that the middle man opprefles the cottar, incom- 

 parably more than the principal landlord ; to the one he is 

 ufually tenant at will, or at leaft under fhort terms, but under 

 the other has the nioft advantageous tenure. This fingle 

 point, that the perfon moft favoured is in one inftance an idle 

 burthen, and in the other the induftrious occupier, fufficiently 

 decides the fuperiority. To look therefore at the rent, after 

 it is paid, is to put the queftion on a wrong iffue ; the payment 

 of that rent, by means of ample products, arifing from animated 

 induftry, is the only point deferving attention ; and I had ra- 

 ther the whole of it fhould go to the antipodes, than exadt it 

 in a manner that lhall cramp that induttry, and leflen thofe 

 produces. 



When 



