346 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



by these very arguments, and that both have utterly failed. 

 About forty years ago the dreadful condition of the Irish 

 peasantry was imputed bo the prevalence of entailed and 

 encumbered estates the owners of which had no money to 

 spend on improvements, and a most radical measure was 

 passed by which all these estates were brought into the 

 market and sold to the highest bidder. But the result was 

 not as expected. Capital flowed into the country, but with 

 no benefit to any one but the capitalist. English manu- 

 facturers and speculators became owners of Irish land, and 

 sometimes laid out money on it ; but they were harder land- 

 lords than those whom they replaced ; they looked upon the 

 land they had bought merely as a means of making money, 

 and utterly ignored the equitable or customary rights of the 

 unhappy tenants. Irish distress was not in the least degree 

 ameliorated by this drastic measure from which so much 

 was expected, and it is now rarely spoken of, while legis- 

 lation on totally different lines has been found necessary. 

 The second example of the utter uselessness of pouring 

 capital into a country so long as the people are denied 

 any right to the use of land is afforded by Scotland. In 

 the early part of this century, the great demand for wool 

 made sheep-farming profitable, and many of the highland 

 landlords were persuaded that they could double their 

 incomes by establishing great sheep- farms on their vast 

 estates. They did so. Many thousands of valuable sheep 

 were introduced ; much money was spent in fencing and in 

 building new farmhouses for the lowland farmers, while 

 the rights of the hereditary dwellers on the soil were utterly 

 ignored, and, by a series of barbarous evictions, these poor 

 people were banished to the sea-shore, or forced to 

 emigrate. The result was, for a time, beneficial to the 

 landlords, who proclaimed the scheme a great success ; but 

 it was most disastrous to the people, who, ever since, have 

 been kept in a state of serf-like subjection and pauperism. 

 The present condition of the Highlands is a direct con- 

 sequence of the application of capital to the land by 

 landlords while the rights of the people were ignored ; 

 and the result of these two great experiments in Ireland 

 and Scotland should teach us that any similar experiment 



