I 
British Agriculture. 307 — 41 
men on leases for lives, with leave to subdivide and sublet for Ireland, and its 
the same time. These men had no permanent interest in the «>nsoquent 
, . , . , ^ . ^ . , evils, 
property ; their business was to make an income out ot it at tlie 
least cost, and their intermediate position severed the otherwise 
natural connection between landlord and tenant. The famine of 
184(5 prostrated the class of middle-men entirely, and brought the 
landowner and the real tenants face to face. But the hold which 
the latter had been permitted to obtain, led them to consider 
the landowner very much as only the holder of the first charge 
on the land ; and they were in the habit of selling and buying 
their farms among themselves subject to this charge, a course 
which, as a matter of practice, was tacitly accepted by the land- 
)wner. He had security for his rent in the money paid by 
in incoming tenant, who, for his safety, required the landowner's 
?onsent to the change of tenancy, and the landowner's agent 
hen received the " price " of the farm (for that was the term 
ised), and handed it over to the outgoing tenant, after de- 
lucting all arrears of rent. This suited the convenience of 
andowners the most of whom had no money to spend on 
mprovements, many of them non-resident and taking little 
merest in the country, and dealing with a numerous body of 
small tenants with whom they seldom came into personal con- 
act. In the north of Ireland this custom of sale became legally 
ecognised as tenant right. The want of it in other parts of 
Ireland produced an agitation which ultimately led to the Irish 
Land Act, under which legislative protection is given to cus- 
oms capable of proof. The custom of " selling " the farm, subject 
0 the approval of the landowner, by a tenant on yearly tenure, 
s rapidly gaining ground in Ireland ; and so firmly are the 
people imbued with this idea of their rights, that the clauses of 
he Irish Land Act, which enable the tenant, by the aid of a loan 
)f Government money, on very easy terms, to purchase the 
iroper ownership of his farm, are rarely acted upon, from 
he belief that the farm is already his, under the burden of a 
noderate rent-charge to his nominal landlord. Circumstances 
lave thus brought about a situation in which the landowner 
annot deal with the same freedom with his property as in 
J^ngland or Scotland, either in the selection of his tenants or in 
he fair readjustment of rent, and this has, in a great measure, 
risen naturally from the neglect of his proper duties as a land- 
ord in not himself executing those indispensable permanent 
mprovements, which the tenant was thus obliged to undertake, 
nd who in this way established for himself a claim to a co- 
•artnership in the soil itself. 
