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We

that, of course, should depend upon
the circumstances of the farmer and
of the country. It is a subject which
falls more within the province of our
cotemporary, "The Agricultural and
It
Industrial Journal," than of ours.
should be sufficient to repay fully the
outlay of the tenant on the land.
England, wherever leases are given,
seven or fourteen years is the usual
period. This would be altogether too
short for Ireland. In Scotland, where
no farmer holds but on lease, nine-
teen years is the usual term.
cannot forbear quoting the following
passage on this subject, from a recent
number of that excellent publication,
Chambers' Edinburgh Journal. When
will we see such apublication emanat-
It would be in the
ing from Ireland?
hands of every farmer in the country
who could read, in a twelvemonth, if
his attention were but called to it, and
if he were not preoccupied by the vile
stimulants of political excitement, with
which he is so industriously sup-
plied:-

"No Scotch farmer starting with a
new lease, grudges that he has to pay
a somewhat higher rent than formerly.
This may seem paradoxical; and yet
A
there is nothing unreasonable in it.
lease for nineteen years is understood
to clear all scores. For the first few
years, nearly all is paying out; for the
latter years, nearly all is coming in-
the cost of working the land being much
more than covered by the large crops
which are produced. It is very inte-
resting to observe the patience with
which a Scotch farmer will wait for
returns. For years, you will see him
with his men toiling to eradicate huge
stones from the ground, blasting rocks,
digging open ditches, draining with tiles,
levelling rude heaps, ploughing, liming,
and otherwise improving the farm.

At

first the crops are poor; then they begin to look a little better; about the eighth or ninth year they are abundant. Now comes the period of repayment. Ten years of heavy crops, with little outgoings, set all to rights. At the end of the nineteenth year the land does not owe the farmer a penny. Such, in usual circumstances being the case, the farmer has no pretension to consider the land as his, or to say, 'I have a claim for making the property what it is.' True, he made a garden out of a wilderness; but he has been more than paid for it. If he has been a sagacious farmer, and not engaged to pay too high

367

a rent, the land and he are quits. When the lease refers to land already improved, the nature of the tenure is not altered: the lessee in such instances runs less risk, and has less toil than on a highly improvable farin; but he pays rent in proportion, and looks alone to the fourteen or nineteen years' possession for a redemption of all outlays."

We give this extract merely in confirmation of our view of the manner, and, as it occurs to us, the only manner in which the tenant can be amply secured in its investment, without any collision or conflict of interest with the landlord. We by no means advocate, in its full extent, the spirit of the Scotch system. We would be sorry to see the relation of landlord and tenant, in this country, reduced to the cold, commercial calculation which is here described. We believe that there exist moral elements of a much higher kind in that relation, which it is allimportant should be developed to the uttermost; and that in the connexion of landlord and tenant, there is presented a field for the exercise of numberless duties, charities, and amenities, which should never be cast aside. It is in their full, free, and uncontrolled exercise, when the proprietors of the soil shall be placed in a position to fulfil them, and when the intelligence, independence, and good feeling of the tenantry, will enable them to resist all incentives to sedition and to crime, that we see the greatest hope for the country.

Few things would, perhaps, more promote the social improvement of the country, than to introduce the practice of selling estates in small lots, as might readily be done in sales under the courts, and thus laying the foundation for a small proprietary of the middle class, who would thereby be enlisted, by their interest and their sympathies, in the cause of order and conservatism. Such a change should, of course, be effected gradually. It is not to be expected that the men who now sit five months of the year idle, with their field undrained before their door, and their gates swinging off their hinges, would all at once, by the mere ownership of a small parcel of land, exhibit the industry and intelligence which has made the peasant proprietary of Lombardy, Switzerland, and the Low Countries so prosperous. Agri

cultural knowledge must first be diffused, and then a habit of industry; and both can be accomplished, and can only be accomplished, through the landlords of Ireland. It is for them, by the judicious management of their own estates; by employing qualified agriculturists; by imposing conditions of management in their leases, whereever the good feeling subsisting between them and their tenantry will allow of it (it is the universal practice in the Lothians, and in the best cultivated counties of England); by agricultural schools and premiums; by liberal wages, and giving their people an opportunity and encouragement to better their condition, to disseminate these qualities. The desire of bettering their condition will spread among the people as the power of doing so is afforded them. "The power of bettering themselves by the public works," says Sir John MacNeill," has created the strongest desire for improvement. It

is visible in their cottages; they have attempted and succeeded in making them better and more comfortable; they are better clothed themselves, and their children are better clothed. There is nothing like listlessness or carelessness: an Irishman is the most active fellow possible, if remunerated for his work; there is no idleness among them, if they can turn their work to a fair remuneration." If concurrently with the growth of this spirit, which, we again repeat, it is for the landlords of Ireland, and for them alone, to deve lop, the opportunity be presented, by the sale of small properties, of forming a race of yeomen in Ireland, we would have in such a body, a stedfast foundation for social improvement, and a sure barrier against anarchy and revolution. There is no security for good conduct like having something to lose. "Pay that boy something, that I may be able to fine him," was the exclamation of an irritated manager towards the elder Kean, when he was a supernumerary at the theatre. The principle applies universally.

One great difficulty in writing on Irish affairs, or Irish interests, consists in this, that the evils of Ireland, social, moral, physical, and political, are so various and so complex, that no one article, or no one volume, can ever embrace them all, much less illustrate the full extent of their perni

cious influence. But it is impossible to let our attention rest, even for a moment, on the miseries of the country, without being arrested by that which is its chief curse-absenteeism. The importance which we have attached to the efficient discharge of the duties of proprietorship-the rank in which we have placed those "imperfect obligations" of which Dr. Longfield has spoken-the conviction which we have expressed that it is through the landlords of Ireland alone that the country can be saved, and the extent to which we have gone in advocating legal measures for putting the proprietors of the soil in a position to discharge those duties-duties upon the faith of which the soil itself is entrusted to them by the state-will prepare our readers to expect that we will advocate with all the zeal which our humble opportunities offer, any wellconsidered measure, which may either enforce the residence of those proprietors, or appropriate a certain amount of their income to compensate to some extent for the wrongs which is occasioned by their absence. We will revert to this subject again, when, by taking it singly, we will be enabled to give it the attention which it demands. The estates of many of these absentees was conferred on the express condition of residence. So long ago as the reign of Richard the Second, a law was passed enacting "that all manner of persons whatsoever, who have any lands or tenements, offices or other living, ecclesiastical or temporal, within Ireland, shall reside or dwell on the same." In the reign of Henry the Eighth, the estates of absentee proprietors were declared to be forfeited, and the properties of the Duke of Norfolk and other absentees were seized by the crown, and conferred on persons who undertook to reside on them. In the reign of James the First, all the properties of absentees were vested in the crown. Taxes on absentees have frequently been imposed, and at this moment the income-tax of 7d. in the pound is imposed on absentee Irish fundhold. ers. There are but two difficulties in the consideration-first, as to the measure which would be most efficient ; and secondly, as to the class of persons who are to be regarded as absentees-whether a person having an estate in Tipperary, and residing in Tyrone, or one having

an estate in Kilkenny and residing in Shropshire, is to be considered as an absentee; or whether the term should be limited to those persons who, without any claim of property in any other part of the kingdom, choose, for purposes of comfort or enjoyment, to live away from their properties. It is impossible to deny that many absentee estates as that of Lord Lansdowne, Lord Devon, Lord Stanley, and many others, are well managed; and we cannot shut our eyes to the many and great advantages which are derived from the identification of interest with the various parts of the kingdom which the possession of large estates in both naturally gives rise to. Perhaps the mode by which the evils of non-residence could best be obviated, and at the same time the advantages of a common feeling between the proprie tors of English and Irish estates preserved, would be by a measure authorizing, or obliging, if necessary, the English proprietors to cut off the entail of their Irish estates in favour of their second or other son; but such a measure would need great consideration, and it is altogether impossible for us to discuss it now. We will take an early opportunity of resuming the subject.

And here we would have brought this article to a close, except for an article which we lately observed in an eminent English journal-the Morning Chronicle. That article, after forcibly commenting on the miseries of the country-miseries which, it stated, were now likely to be fearfully aggravated by the prospect of another famine (which may God in his mercy avert, but to the likelihood of which we dare not shut our eyes)-went on to propose a comprehensive scheme of emigration, as a remedy for our evils: —“ We can imagine,” the writer said, "but one method of solving this fearful problem-namely, by promoting the emigration of a sufficient number of the Irish labouring population, to enable the remainder to earn an honest livelihood at home."

Now, it is right that all men, both English and Irish, should know that such emigration is impracticable. Let

us hear what Sir Robert Kane says upon this subject-we quote from an article by him, on the size of farms, in the "Agricultural and Industrial Journal" for July:

"It is a very reasonable estimate to allow that five pounds per head will land them in the new world, and we will put the more remote colonies out of the question then what are they to do when there? You must recollect that other countries will not let you inundate them with Irish paupers for your own convenience; they must have some way of subsisting until they find work and can provide for themselves; that will take five pounds more; for you must not drown them, or starve them, or let them die of fever bred in confined ship-holds, under the name of emigration. There is, therefore, required for any emigration that is not an inhumanity and a crime, ten pounds sterling per head; and for the number which your large farm-system requires you to remove you must pay thirty-three millions sterling. Practically impossible not only from want of money, but from want of ships also. One-tenth of that emigration would double the price of passage. The thing simply becomes physically impossible.

"Emigration is excellent for clearing a particular locality. The promotion of wild Irish girls to the dignity of Australian matronhood is excellent and truly moral; the emigration of the pauper children whose parents died during the last two frightful years, is also a good and a wise step; but for removing the surplus population of Ireland, it is only preserved from being a failure by the utter impossibility of its being even tried."

And, in confirmation of this view, we have also the authority of Mr. Pim, in his excellent book which we review

ed in our last number:

"But those who look to emigration as a means of relieving the labour market of its surplus, must anticipate its being conducted on a very extensive scale, as in this way alone can it effect any sensible diminution of the present pressure. It would require at least a million of persons to be sent away. How is it possible to transport such a number at once? or to provide them with the

* 3,300,000, as Sir R. Kane calculates. There were upwards of 3,000,000 persons employed on public works last summer.

370

Irish Proprietorship.

means of subsistence, when they have: reached the port of debarkation? At the legal rate of three passengers for: every five tons, it would require more than three thousand vessels of five hundred tons each. But suppose this diffi culty over, and the whole number landed safely in Canada, how great is the responsibility which it entails on the government, that this multitude of people may be supported, and placed in some way of maintaining themselves by honest industry! It is evidently impracticable to act on so extensive a scale. But suppose them to be removed by degrees, say one-tenth, or 100,000 every year. Will such emigration have any perceptible effect? It has generally been estimated that the population increases at the rate of one and one-half per cent. annually. correct, the amount of annual increase If this estimate be in Ireland would be about 120,000, and, therefore, the population would still go on increasing in spite of this emigration.

annum. ..

"The cost of such an emigration would be enormous. The estimate for cost of passage given in the Digest of Evidence' above referred to, is £30 for each family, or £6 for each individual; say, in all, £6,000,000, or £600,000 per Would not the £16,000,000 or £20,000,000, which might be required to carry out an effective system of emigration, prove much more useful if laid out at home? If facilities be afforded, by which this amount may be expended in the various works which, in many parts of Ireland, are requisite, before the

[Sept. 1848.

ground can be properly cultivated, willit not, in fact, afford the means of support at home to this million of people, either by direct employment, or by its indirect effects?"

Emigration, then, cannot solve the problem, for it is impracticable. Encouragement of the priests will but strengthen and embolden them in the exercise of their seditious influence. Tenant-right, enforced by law, will foster and keep alive a rankling, neverending irritation between landlord and tenant, which must effectually bar the development of all the mutually beneficial influences of that relation. The evils of Ireland can only be remedied by a steady discharge of their duties by the proprietors of the soil. We believe that the measures which we have proposed would give to the country a proprietary who would be in a position to discharge their duties, and would raise many a prostrate estate, with its neglected cultivation and its beggared tenantry, to the rank and condition of those more favoured estates, whose fortune it is to be the property of an unencumbered resident landlord. It is in the full confidence that these measures would produce this result that we most earnestly recommend their adoption.

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PYTHONIC AND DEMONIAC POSSESSIONS IN INDIA AND JUDEA. PART II.

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JAMES MCGLASHAN, 21 D'OLIER-STREET.

WM. S. ORR, AND CO. 147 STRAND LONDON.

SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

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