THE FAMINE AND EXODUS. 383 



sources. Accordingly, the English Government decided 

 upon ordering a general liquidation. 



This measure, the best of all that had been proposed, 

 has this advantage, that, without violating the principle 

 of property, it admits of the desired results being at- 

 tained. Those proprietors who are such only in name, 

 will disappear, and, in their stead, real proprietors will 

 come, who will be able to make advances. This change of 

 owners, moreover, affords an opportunity for doing away 

 with entails; of dividing the too large estates ; of sweep- 

 ing away that chaos of contradictory rights which always 

 accumulates round real property under mortgage ; and 

 takes from Irish property part of the odious associations 

 connected with it, by breaking the chain of its traditions : 

 valuable and positive advantages purchased, no doubt, 

 by the disagreeable means of a forced liquidation, but 

 which ought in the end to save Irish property, by remov- 

 ing from it its exceptional character. M. Gustave de 

 Beaumont, a great authority in Irish matters, pointed out 

 from the first the necessity of this change. 



In consequence, an act was passed by Parliament, in 

 1849, appointing a Royal Commission, consisting of three 

 members, for the sale of encumbered estates. The powers 

 of this Commission were at first conferred for only three 

 years; but they have been extended first for one year, 

 and are about to be extended again. These powers con- 

 sist in ordering properties burdened with debt to be sold 

 by auction, upon the simple petition of a creditor, or of the 

 proprietor himself, and that in the most summary way 

 the purchaser receiving what is called a parliamentary 

 title that is to say, one that is perfectly legal and indis- 

 putable, conferring an absolute right to the property, called 

 in English fee simple. Those who formerly had claims 



