IRELAND. OBSERVATIONS ON THE PEOPLE, THE LAND, AND THE LAW, IV 1 851 ; WIT El ESPECIAL DEFERENCE TO THE POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESULTS OF PKF. INCUMBERED ESTATES COURT. “ Experience hath shown that Property best answers the purposes of civil life, especially in commercial countries, when its transfer and circulation are totally free and unrestrained.”— Blackstone's Commentaries. 18 th Edition,' 8vo, vol. ii. p. 287. 'STfjirti lEtsttion, CONTAINING SEVERAL USEFUL STATISTICAL TABLES, AND MUCH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. DUBLIN : HODGES AND SMITH, GRAFTON-STREET, BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., stationers’ hall court. 1852. Price Two Shillings; by Post, Two Shillings and Six Pence. THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of James Collins, Drumcendra, Ire1and. Purchased, 1918, OBSERVATIONS &c. &c. V I IRELAND OBSERVATIONS THE PEOPLE, THE LAND, AND THE LAW, IN 1851 ; WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESULTS OK THE INCUMBERED ESTATES COURT. “ Experience hath shown that Property best answers the purposes of civil life, especially in commercial countries, when its transfer and circulation are totally free and unrestrained.”— Blackstone’s Commentaries. 18 th Edition, 8 vo, vol. ii. p. 287. lEtittfon, CONTAINING SEVERAL USEFUL STATISTICAL TABLES, AND MUCH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. DUBLIN: HODGES AND SMITH, GRAFTON-STREET, BOOKSELLERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., STATIONERS’ HALL COURT. 1852 . DUBLIN : ^Prfntctt at tf)£ (Stnfocrstti? ^prcss, BY M. H. GILT. I3FF8 33o- S\5 PREFACE TO the third edition. *1 The Author begs to observe that, in connecting the Incumbered Estates Court with the subject of the ge¬ neral improvement of Ireland, he considered the establishment of that jurisdiction, as the first ground fairly broken in the liberation of Agriculture from injurious legal restrictions. He has written, too, under the strong impression, that Ireland exhibits unmistakeable signs of social re¬ generation, and that the time approaches when the physical resources of the country shall be developed, and moulded to their diversified uses by educated intellects and industrious hands. Dublin, February 10, 1852. to 3141 > • ■ • ■ . ■ i . PREFACE TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITION. The circumstance of the Author’s property being for sale in the Incumbered Estates market first attracted his attention to the policy and practice of the Court. Peculiar opportunities have since occurred of access to information on subjects long familiar to his experi¬ ence ; and, in the intervals of business, he has endea¬ voured to make the best use of them. The facts and statistics adduced in the following pages are earnestly pressed on the consideration of land-owners, farmers, and capitalists in the British islands, and especially of those Irish emigrants who have accumulated wealth abroad, and seek a cheap and desirable investment in the land of their nativity. Dublin, November 6^, 1851. * * . ERRATA. Page 23, lines 9, 10, for “ of the owner in reversion,” read “ by the owner of the reversion.” ,, 66, line 4 from bottom, for “ Purchasers" read “ Purchases .” ,, 76, line 5, for “ reported” read “ repeated.” OBSERVATIONS, &c. &c. The history of nations, like the biography of genius, pre¬ sents occasional epochs at which the old life dies out, and the race starts anew under the impulse of extern causes, awakened by fresh motives of action, and cheered by novel aspirations. The fateful year that ushered in the nineteenth century rose upon the horoscope of Ireland in mingled gloom and sunshine ; and in mingled gloom and sunshine has the event¬ ful half-century hastened to its fearful and disastrous close, bearing with its fleeting years into the realms of the past the equally evanescent characters of a vacillating and mis¬ chievous policy, inaugurated upon the foundation of inter¬ national and religious antipathies, and recklessly conducted in the face of obstacles, which rendered ultimate success a moral impossibility. The splendid bubble of insular independence had scarcely burst, when a series of dreadful calamities, unprecedented in severity and extent, afflicted the sore-smitten land. Since then our country has deeply suffered—must suffer still more—from the effects of those evils, which Provi¬ dence, in its inscrutable wisdom, has sent upon the people. B 0 2 Division of the Subject. Nevertheless, educational progress, now beginning to tell upon the present generation (the second since the Legisla¬ tive Union), combined with the vast commercial and poli¬ tical changes of the last few years, is steadily, though slowly, developing those moral energies and that industrial training, which form the only secure basis for the growth of national prosperity and rational freedom. Agriculture, the greatest of all our manufactures, is assuming, under the economic hand of science, a new phasis more adapted to our soil and climate; and the land itself, through the in¬ strumentality of the Incumbered Estates Court, is being gradually emancipated from barren ownership, and trans¬ ferred to the productive possession of enterprising capitalists and practical farmers. We hope to bring our readers with us, in the endeavour to demonstrate, that the errors of the past are vanishing, and that the leading year of the half- century presents promises and proofs of a new era of progress. We now proceed to the consideration of the present as¬ pects and probable results of some of those great questions that affect the social and agricultural condition of Ireland; reviewing, in succession, the policy, practice, and results of the Incumbered Estates Court; the tenure and taxation of land ; the proofs of incipient prosperity (depending chiefly on the evidence contained in the authentic Reports of the Board of Works and of the Poor Law Commission); the subject of emigration; and, lastly, the reclaimage of waste lands. In the course of our observations, we propose to point out plainly the evils of existing habits and systems, as affecting the people, the land, and the law, and to offer suggestions for amendment and reform. And we shall pre¬ sent, as briefly as is consistent with clearness, the facts and 3 reasons, which have convinced us that the tide of improve¬ ment has set in for Ireland. The most important event bearing on the industrial and social progress of Ireland was the creation, in 1849, of a new jurisdiction, to facilitate the sale and transfer of land.* The circumstances of the time rendered a revolution in the state of property inevitable ; and three distinguished law¬ yers, one a Judge of the Irish Bench, were selected by the Government to superintend and conduct a measure of such severe but necessary justice, at a period when the ruined condition of Irish proprietors, and their utter inability to fulfil the social and economic duties of their position, con¬ tributed, together with the potato blight, the depreciation of agricultural prices, consequent upon free trade, and the pressure of poor-rates, to spread through every grade that uncertainty and despondency, which paralysed the exertions of industry, and precluded the introduction of capital. In 1843,f three years prior to the potato failure, 1,002 estates, representing a rental of £702,822 5s. 2J d, or about one-twentieth of the nominal rental of the country, were under Receivers of the courts of equity, four-fifths of whom were attorneys, generally resident in Dublin, unacquainted with the wants of an agricultural population, and unsym¬ pathizing with their pursuits-^ During subsequent years * Occasional articles have appeared in the Dublin University Maga¬ zine on the policy of this Act, displaying the usual ability of that pe¬ riodical. Macnevin’s “Practice of the Incumbered Estates Court” is the most comprehensive work on that subject, affording all requisite infor¬ mation to practitioners in the Court. f See the Devon Commission Blue Book, Appendix 98 and 99. 1 For an explanation of the gross mismanagement of estates by Re¬ ceivers under the Court of Chancery, see a judgment of the Master of the Rolls in the case of Reynolds v. Reynolds, in Dublin papers of Ja- B 2 Incumbered Estates Act, 13 Vic. c. 77. Critical state of Ireland in 1843. 4 Ireland in 1846-47. the number of estates thrown into Chancery has been nearly doubled, costs and incumbrances have increased tenfold, and arrears of rent in a still higher ratio; while the state of the law respecting the sale and transfer of landed property (as administered by the Court of Chancery) not only pre¬ vented land from becoming a marketable commodity, but ag¬ gravated by dilatory and expensive proceedings the evils it professed to remedy. The annuitant neither, received his annual stipend, nor the mortgagee his interest; and the puisne incumbrancer not only lost the amount of his claim, but frequently also the costs incurred to recover it. Again, the social evils entailed by this miserable state of things were even more ruinous in their effects : the industrial links between the agricultural classes were completely shattered. The owner was only nominal, or at best an ill-paid pen¬ sioner on his own estate ; and tenants, holding on the un¬ certain tenure of leases pending the continuance of a suit, lost all confidence and forecast, and declined to expend ca¬ pital on their farms. In many districts rents were totally absorbed by taxation, production almost ceased, and the soil rapidly deteriorated in value. Among all parties, em¬ ployment of labour, the initial step of national prosperity, was altogether suspended, or applied to unproductive ob¬ jects by an indiscriminating and demoralizing system of Poor Laws and Relief Acts, as they were called. Ireland, in 1846 and 1847, was, in fact, one huge Poor-law Union, under the administration of legal relief and Impe¬ rial charity. At one period, in the latter year, 734,000 persons were drawn away from their ordinary pursuits to an unprofitable system of employment; the advice and en- nuary 16, 1848. See, also, the evidence before Mr. Bernal Osborne’s Com¬ mittee on Receivers, for a detailed account of the evils of the system. p" 5 treaties of the resident proprietary were disregarded, and their functions displaced by an alien distributory manage¬ ment ; the superior cereal products of our soil were exported, and an inferior foreign grain substituted for food ; and mil¬ lions were wasted on works, generally of a useless, fre¬ quently an injurious character, having no relation whatever to the production of food for a famishing population, while the greater portion of the tilth of the Kingdom lay utterly waste. Had one quarter of the sum, expended in a man¬ ner so unsuitable to the dispositions of the peasantry and the circumstances of the time, been devoted to the supply of farm seeds and culture of the soil, an ample harvest (with exception of the potato crop) would have been the result, and a lien on the crop would have amply suf¬ ficed to secure repayment of the Treasury advances, and prevented that embittered dissatisfaction recently displayed at the demand for payment of loans, so arbitrarily and use¬ lessly expended. The difficulties, however, of the juncture were overwhelming; and the noble exertions of the Impe¬ rial Government and British public, to alleviate the dis¬ tress and save the lives of the Irish people, should ever be held in grateful remembrance. We must admit, too, that their task was rendered doubly difficult by the apathy and ignorance of the occupiers of the soil, and the injustice and jobbing of many of those above them.* With the fields * Take one example:—The Author, on a valuation tour in August, 1847, visited a certain townland in the south-west of Kerry, occupying the southern slopes of a hilly tract, at foot of which lay a long reach of swamp bordered by the sea. Of the inhabitants, numbering upwards of 150 souls in the spring of 1846, not one remained in August, 1847. The soil, strewn with the ruins of deserted cabins, was utterly waste ; there was not man nor beast on it. The potato failure brought starva¬ tion to a peasantry living upon a precarious root. From the reeking, undrained swamp, demonstrating the neglect of an absentee proprietor, arose the cholera; and a harsh middleman, dissociated alike from land- 6 abandoned, and their cultivators perishing, it is not sur¬ prising that outrages should have become less frequent; for land 'ceased to be an object of desire to those whose competition a few years previously had raised it above re¬ munerative value. But a vague sense of injury, and hatred of law, still rankled in the minds of the masses, although the motive, which gave vindictive energy to agrarian com¬ bination, had ceased with the extinction of its cause. the^Act^ f ° r Under these circumstances, which (if we may use the expression) struck the long trembling balance of a heredi¬ tary insolvency, it became the interest alike of all classes, that such an anomalous state of things should be put an end to ; and the critical circumstances of landed property in Ireland precipitated measures, to which the principles of free trade inevitably tended, by assimilating the sale and lord and occupier, filled up the measure of ruin. Since that period, pau¬ perism and taxation have reproduced each other in this miserable locality,— the poor rates, in 1851, on the electoral district in which this townland is situate, being 14s. 1 d. in the pound. Laws and Government can do but little to cure the causes of these evils. They are deep-seated in the social rather than in the political constitution of the country, and will never cease, until the people are educated, landlords fulfil their duties, and all classes act upon the basis of a common interest. We cannot express our meaning more clearly than by quoting the sentiments of an illustrious person. Prince Albert, when advocating the cause of “ the Society for Improving the Con¬ dition of the Labouring Classes,” at the public meeting of the Society in June, 1848, thus expressed himself:—“ The interests of often contrasted classes are identified, and it is only ignorance which prevents their uniting for each others advantage. To dispel that ignorance, to show how man can help man, notwithstanding the complicated state of civilized society, ought to be the aim of every philanthropic person ; but it is more peculiarly the duty of those, who under the blessing of Divine Providence enjoy sta¬ tion, wealth, and education.God has created man imperfect, and left him with many wants, as it were to stimulate each to individual exertion, and to make them all feel that it is only by united exertions aud combined action, that these imperfections can be supplied, and these wants satisfied. This pre-supposes self-reliance and confidence in each other.” \ 7 transfer of real property to that facility of exchange, which has been the prime incentive to the progress of manufac¬ tures.* For, after all, what is land hut the raw material for food ? and why should it be locked up, by feudal te¬ nures and impracticable restrictions, in the possession of those who have not means to work it, when capital lies idle in millions, waiting for reproductive investment?! The extension of some analogous measure to Scotland,! perhaps to England also, will soon become matter of legis¬ lative necessity (and this is not the only instance of the extreme case of Ireland forcing political and social reform upon the sister country), and then capitalists, singly, or in association, will be enabled to trade freely in land,—either * The introduction of the liberal spirit of commercial dealing into land transactions may be aptly illustrated by the example of a late purchaser under the Incumbered Estates Court, Samuel Murland, Esq., of Castle- wellan. Upon his first visit to the estate, the tenants met him in a body, and saluted him most obsequiously. His reply was, “ Put on your hats, men. We are met on equal and independent terms, to transact a matter of business. I have land to let, which you wish to hire. Consult together, and tell me what you can afford to pay; and, if I approve your offers and your characters, you shall have your leases.” And, accord¬ ingly, the business was arranged to the satisfaction of both parties in a few days. f “ The commerce in the great raw material of the Kingdom has been opened up nobly by the Incumbered Estates Court; but its operation is too limited in extent. Our overgrown, half-idle money, in savings banks and everywhere, and our uncultured acres, echo, the one to the other, the paralysis of commerce in land. We want the principle, the faci¬ lity, and economy of the Incumbered Estates Court to be made gene¬ ral ; we want a free land-market in Ireland .”—Letter to the Author, from R. D. (i?.), Cork. $ If, for instance, the Islay estate, comprehending nearly three-fourths of the whole island, which belonged to Mr. Campbell, now a bankrupt, was offered for sale in lots by a court constituted with the same powers as the Incumbered Estates Court, how soon it would find purchasers, in¬ stead of being, as it is, the occasion of heavy responsibility and great discouragement to those connected with it. 8 Land Invest¬ ment Societies. Creation of a Middle Class. to purchase large tracts, for the purpose of improving and of re-sale in lots, which under the former system was im¬ possible, as the expenses would have absorbed any mode¬ rate profit; or for thrifty tradesmen or industrious farmers to invest their savings in the purchase of single lots, and, by the application of skilled husbandry, to increase their capital and add to their acquisitions, gradually rising to wealth, as men advance in the pursuits of commerce and manufactures. The facilities now afforded by the Incumbered Estates Act offer opportunities, that should not be lost, for estab¬ lishing land investment societies among the working classes, on such a plan as can be conducted under 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 32. We have had examples enough of the power of popular combination directed to political objects, and in opposition to the spirit of constitutional law, but not one successful association to accomplish practical benefits for the million, under the shadow of legal protection. Such societies, consisting of patient and provident mem¬ bers, and conducted by experienced managers worthy of public confidence, would be of inestimable benefit, not only in establishing an independent political class, but in forming a social link between the landed aristocracy and the tillers of the soil, and rendering that bond of concord a medium of sympathy between classes too long dissevered in interests and feelings. But there are other and more important circumstances tending to the formation of a middle class in Ireland. According to the House of Com¬ mons Paper, No. 598, 1850, there were, on April 5, 1850, 16,130 stockholders in the Irish funds, holding stock to the amount of £1000 and under. This number has been since that period much diminished, under the encourage- 9 ment of an extended land market, nearly one-half of the number of purchasers in the Incumbered Estates Court being for sums not exceeding £1000;* and these men (with few exceptions) are possessed of capital, and are pre¬ pared to apply it to the management of their lands, with that single-minded energy and zeal, that the novel feeling of ownership engenders. A considerable portion of the costs of sale under the Court arises occasionally from the necessity of ordering spe¬ cial surveys, to ascertain boundaries and tenancies ; but this indirectly subserves social progress, by putting an end to the vexatious litigations, consequent upon disputed boun¬ daries and quantities, that prevail throughout the Kingdom. Special valuations, too, when considered necessary by the Court, add to the expense. But, in most cases, the Govern¬ ment Ordnance Survey is found a sufficient auxiliary for reference as to boundaries; and the Ordnance Valuation,! which has been carefully constructed on a fixed scale of relative values (nearly approximating the prices of the pre¬ sent day), is found very serviceable, as a guide to pur¬ chasers and to the Commissioners, in estimatingthe valuation of undivided townlands; although, for portions of townlands and farms, it is not applicable in its present state as a stan¬ dard of value. A Bill however has been prepared, and will probably be passed early this session, directing the sum * See Appendix. The Author has experienced great difficulty in ob¬ taining statistical information from public departments, with the sole exception of the Incumbered Estates Court. It would be well for Statis¬ tical Associations to use their influence to correct this selfish and illiberal spirit. f Where a townland has been improved, by drainage or otherwise, since the completion of the valuation, a new valuation is, of course, requi¬ site: the periodical revisions of the Government Valuation not having as yet commenced. I Costs of sale and valuation. 10 of the valuation of each townland to be allotted amongst the tenements therein contained, according to their compa¬ rative values; making the tenement, instead of the town- land, the unit of valuation, and thus rendering the system generally applicable for economic or financial purposes. Registration of deeds, &c. Indeed, the enormous amount of property, that has been, and will be transferred through the medium of this Court, suggests the propriety of grafting upon it, in conjunction with the Ordnance Survey and Valuation, such improve¬ ments in the registry of all particulars relative to the lands sold, as may facilitate future transfers or partitions, and prevent that accumulation of debts and Chancery litiga¬ tions which hitherto have been the bane of all classes, except money-brokers, lawyers, attorneys, and Chancery Receivers. It would certainly greatly increase the applica¬ tion of capital to the development of the resources of the soil, if all conveyances, annuities, mortgages, leases, and farm improvements were recorded under a well-arranged system of registration,* with a central establishment in the * A general Registration Act (13 & 14 Viet. c. 72) has been lately passed for Ireland ; but the machinery for carrying it out has never been efficiently organized. In fact, it remains a dead letter. That zealous agriculturist, Mr. Mechi, who has at heart the interests of agriculture, although he has not yet profited much by his farming speculations, has the following pertinent observations in his “ Paper on British Agriculture,” read before the Society of Agriculture, Manufac¬ tures, and Commerce, in London, on December 11, 1851 :— “Agriculture has not advanced with the other material interests of this great country, nor can she do so whilst under the trammels of anti¬ quated feudalism. So long as landed property continues involved in mystical legalities, copyholds, live and dead heriots, &c., and withdrawn from the common-sense principles of possession and ready transfer, so long will agriculture be in the rear. “ Until you treat your purchase and sale of lands as you do your three per cent, consols, by an authorized registry and immediate transfer, there 11 metropolis, and branch provincial offices in the principal towns. The course adopted by the Commissioners combines ra¬ pidity with great care and circumspection ; and the costs of serving the various notices, and giving full warning and information to incumbrancers, tenants, and all others con¬ cerned, add considerably to the expense. But notwith¬ standing these unavoidable outlays, the costs antecedent to a sale in the Incumbered Estates Court will be found to furnish a remarkable contrast to those incurred in the Court of Chancery. The partition suit of Herbert v. Hedges, which lasted thirteen years in the Equity Exchequer, would have been satisfactorily completed in the Incumbered Es¬ tates Court in as many weeks, and for a sum not exceeding the amount of stamp duties paid on the Exchequer decrees in that suit. In the Court of Chancery the power of open¬ ing sales frequently deters purchasers, and diminishes the amount of purchase; while some futile objection to title, causing suspicion of defect, may have the effect of deferring the sale, until the incumbrances and costs accumulate to double the market value of the estate; and, in the mean time, it often occurs, that despairing* creditors sell their claims to some money-broker for half value, just for the sake of a little ready money. Among the cases brought into this Court, some have been dragging their slow length along in the Court of Chancery for scores of years, without producing any fruit, except to the legal profes- are no hopes for the perfect development of our agricultural powers. ’Tis true that such a system would test bond fide possession, and affect the mortgage system ; but this would confer a great national benefit, by passing land into the hands of bond fide capitalists, able and willing to improve it, and responsible for its duties, as well as entitled to its rights. We have evidence of this in the Irish Incumbered Estates Bill.” Practice of the Court. 12 sion and the Receivers under the Court. And, notwith¬ standing- the objections of those lawyers, whose profes¬ sional learning is not unfrequently a-head of their com¬ mon sense, and of certain legislators, whose ingrained prejudices render them incapable of understanding facts or appreciating truths, we believe that public opinion would rather sanction a proceeding by petition under the In- cumbered Estates Act, by which the estate would be sold, and proceeds distributed amongst the creditors, within the period of one or two years, than after the termination of a twenty years’ Chancery litigation, to have the residue of a ruined property divided amongst gentlemen of the legal profession, whose fees must decrease in proportion to the advances of that reform, of which the Incumbered Estates Commission is the commencement and the pledge. Indeed, between the complicated and vexatious difficulties and de¬ lays of the law, and the frequency of injudicious and vin¬ dictive litigations, it was expecting too much that the legal agent and consultant could or would stem the flood (auro lutulentus to them alone) that swept plaintiff and defendant, creditors, landlords and tenants, into one common ruin. The law is to be blamed more than its servants; and it is with unaffected sympathy for the loss of their occupation, that we would suggest to some of them to purchase small lots from the Commissioners, and turn their attention to agriculture, rather than pursue any longer the retreating shadow of a quiddam. honorarium. We are free also to ad¬ mit, in mitigation of our strictures upon the opponents of the Court, that even antagonism to innovation possesses a certain negative utility; and the champions of “a creed outworn” serve as a drag on the wheel, to moderate the impetus and secure the safety, while they are unable to stop the chariot of progress. And we would venture upon the consolatory prediction, that when reform shall issue in es- 13 tablishing the freedom of agriculture, and the prolix plea¬ ders of the present time shall pass away, together with the fictions of which they are the solemn oracles, legal employ¬ ment connected with the tenure and transfer of land will be even more widely diffused than before ; but it will as¬ sume a peaceful and commercial character, calculated to promote (not impede, as it now does) social and agricultu¬ ral improvement. The proceeding under the Incumbered Estates Commis¬ sion, instead of the expensive and cumbrous Chancery sys¬ tem, is simply by petition to sell, which, being fiated after a careful examination of title, the searches and other pre¬ paratory measures are conducted contemporaneously to a sale; the ascertainment of priorities and competing rights being matters of subsequent consideration ; and, even if unexpected delay occurs in distribution of the purchase- money, in consequence of the necessity of careful scrutiny of these conflicting claims, this inconvenience is in great part obviated by the fructifying of the money in the funds for the benefit of the parties. For example:—Certain es¬ tates of William Darcy w T ere sold for £47,700, which was invested in the funds; and the profits on stock (£406 8s. Sd.) reduced the total costs of sale and distribution to the trifling sum of £l 11 18s. 5d. In further illustration, we select nine estates from different parts of Ireland ;* and, without deducting profit on the investment of stock, we find * The Mountcashell, Jessop, Dopping, Ryves, Arthur Robinson, Darcy, Thornhill, James M'Cormack, and Gustavus W. Lambert. On the Mountcashell estate a small proportion remains yet to be distributed. The present unsteadiness in the funds must necessarily promote the investment of money in land. The Author is in a position to estimate the state of the land market in Ireland, and he believes it to be steadily, though slowly, improving, especially in those districts of the far West which have been hitherto totally neglected. t Proceedings and costs of sale. Cases in illus¬ tration. 14 Practical effi¬ ciency of the Court. the total sum realized to be £502,093, and the total costs of sale and distribution to be £5104 \0s. 11c?.; or, say in round numbers, half a million of money realized and distri¬ buted at 19-?. 6d. per cent. We have only in Darcy’s case ascertained the profits on stock ; but, had we time to in¬ quire into the results of other cases, we believe the costs of sale, in numerous instances, would be found to average little more than 12s. per cent. One example will give some idea of the enormous quan¬ tity of business transacted by the Commissioners and their small but efficient staff. And in selecting only one, we merely consult our convenience as to space; for in every department of the Court there is an overwhelming amount of business ; and the same zeal pervades all,—to do that business well, and with courtesy to the legal profession, the press, and the public. The accountant of the Court has the small salary of £275 per annum, with an assistant at £2 10.9. per week.* In his books we find, that for the three months ending August 31, the Dr. and Cr. accounts involved an amount of nearly three millions. There were 150 separate investments during that interval, amounting to upwards of three-quarters of a million, and 900 orders for payment had been issued. Let the reader compare these results with the expense and delays of Chancery proceed- * In selecting an example of inadequate salary, we would remind the reader, that in every new establishment it will unavoidably happen, that duties and salary are not at first fairly proportioned; and some will be continually before the public eye, who are best paid and have least to do, while the hardest worked and worst paid are unnoticed. The Commissioners themselves have heavier work than any of their officers; and one serious inconvenience is already apparent, in consequence of the accumulating amount of business, namely, that the distribution of the purchase-money is not maintaining a proportionate progress with the pe¬ titions and the sales. 15 ings, and mark the saving, both in time and money, to clients and to the public. Indeed, the Court of Chancery, the proper duties of which are sufficiently^multitudinous to occupy all its time, was never a fit tribunal for the sale of land; and it is a perversion of the functions of that Court to apply them to such a purpose. There is much misconception abroad as to the sacrifice of property under this Act. We would not wittingly exag¬ gerate the efficiency of the Commission ; but w T e are bound in candour to observe, that in almost every instance where estates have brought inadequate prices, it has been in con¬ sequence of adjournments urged upon the Court by owners, or creditors, and their solicitors. The expediency of ad¬ journment ought to be discussed in Chamber previously to the sale; but if an estate is once put up in Court, the sale should be peremptory. Fee simple estates, situate in sol¬ vent Poor-law Unions, where the tenants have not been demoralized by neglect or mismanagement, bring generally over twenty years’ purchase on the net rental in every part of Ireland. Witness the Mountcashell estates in Antrim, the Belmore in Fermanagh, the Langford in Meath, the Bateman in Kerry, the Parker in Cork and Waterford, and the Aldborough estates in Wicklow, Carlow, Tipperary, and Limerick ; while, on the other hand, estates that have been for a length of time under the management of Chan¬ cery Receivers, or which are occupied by a tenantry paupe¬ rised and rendered insurgent by the neglect of insolvent owners, are sold at apparently low prices, as calculated on a nominal rental; and, even at such prices, are frequently discovered, when too late, to be bad bargains. For we must bear in mind, that in very many cases it is the bare land which is sold, destitute of suitable farm buildings, fre¬ quently exhausted or undrained, with a rack-rented te- Rate of pur¬ chase. / 16 nantry and heavy poor rates; and, taking into account the cost of remedying those evils and deficiencies, the purchase- money will be found to rate^at a much higher figure than at first conjectured. We recommend strangers, intending to invest capital in the purchase of estates in Ireland, to inspect the lands first, or to ascertain their condition by the report of a competent valuator. Reports of the sacrifice of estates are generally traceable to the misrepresentations of the opponents of the Court; which is unpopular with those whose occupation it has de¬ stroyed,—for whom the misfortunes and distress, caused by the confusion of property, have hitherto produced a plen¬ tiful crop of litigation. Those needy proprietors, too, are among its bitterest foes, who contrived year after year, through the agency of money-brokers, to sustain a ficti¬ tious credit, by persuading credulous persons to advance loans upon exaggerated rentals ; the amount of bonus, measured by the desperate condition of the property, being, in fact, a premium to fraud. Indeed, the dishonesty of this brokerage system has been one of the principal hinderances to the influx of British capital into Ireland.* * Other sources of misrepresentation, too, most unscrupulously resorted to, have produced similar effects. We have now before us a letter from an English gentleman of high character, Col. Kitchener, who purchased an estate from the Commissioners in the county of Kerry, where he now resides. He says,—“ I know that many English have been over, intend¬ ing to purchase, and have gone back without doing so, owing to the mis¬ representations of the tenants and agents, and of others whose motives are not so easily understood. British capitalists are impressed with the idea that rents are excessive and not paid, and the country swamped by taxes, never taking into consideration that the improvement of the land would proportionally lessen its burthens, and make it able to bear those which are irrevocable. I was assured in London, by one of the largest capitalists there, that could the confidence that I have of the/safety of life and property be once felt in England, more money would be expended in Ireland directly than had been invested in railways.” The writer sub- 17 But the Incumbered Estates Commission is joyfully wel¬ comed by those creditors who have found it impossible to realize their claims through the medium of Chancery pro¬ ceedings; and it has been found of the greatest benefit to that numerous class whose estates are only partially incum¬ bered, and who wish honestly to pay off all incumbrances and retain the residue for themselves, without the infliction of a Chancery Receiver and a ruinous bill of costs. Numbers, too, who have been entangled in vexatious and hopeless litigations, are relieved by the instrumentality of the Incumbered Estates Court, as will appear from the following statement:—Where property, under the manage¬ ment of a Chancery Receiver, is sold, the Commissioners transmit a certificate of the sale to the Court of Chancery; and thereupon the Court of Chancery is bound at once to discharge its Receiver. The number of certificates issued for this purpose up to January 31, 1852, amounts to 303; and several of these Chancery Receivershaving been appointed over the same lands in different causes and matters, it fol¬ lows, that a multitude of those suits (probably little short of 500), and some of them very old stagers indeed, have been thus happily extinguished. In order that the reader may fully understand the vast benefits conferred on the country and the people by the ex¬ tinction of so many Chancery suits, we must here advert briefly to the excessive costs and delays of Chancery pro¬ ceedings, which for centuries have been the disgrace of our judicature. Indeed, the number is comparatively small of those who have not felt, in some way or other, the wither- stantiates his statements by facts, but we do not feel at liberty to publish them. See also the case of the Macnamara Estate, Appendix B. C Extinction of litigation. Costs and de¬ lays of Chan¬ cery suits. 18 ing effects of such litigation. We give in the Appendix,* for the sake of example, an epitome of the procedure in a few cases. The suits appear to have been originally in¬ stituted each for a very plain and simple purpose, the ob¬ jects of which might have been easily accomplished (one would imagine) within a year. But the proceedings be¬ came complicated in consequence of the multitude of de¬ crees, and orders, and references, and re-references, and abatements by deaths (for a Chancery litigant will not live for ever, though a suit may), and consequent springing-up of new rights, &c. &c. In fact, the system that has pre¬ vailed in the Equity Courts, of each judicial officer, from the highest to the lowest, shifting from himself everything that is difficult or troublesome, led to much of this unrea¬ sonable expense and delay. After a Chancery suit has lasted several years, we have at length a Report, to which, of course, exceptions are taken, and cause set down to be heard before the Court. But if any unfortunate suitor ima¬ gines that he is then about to see the end of his troubles, he is grievously mistaken. He may sleep the sleep of Rip Van Winkle, and awake to find the suit as vigorous as ever. Some of the exceptions are allowed, some disallowed, and the Report is sent back again. Then we have a game of battledore and shuttlecock between the Court and the Mas¬ ter, which may last for generations; for, during the pro¬ tracted proceedings, many of the original parties drop off, or become insolvent, entailing the necessity of bills of re¬ vivor, supplemental bills, fresh pro forma hearings to “ have the benefit of former proceedings,” &c. &c. Chancery Re- No unprejudiced person will deny, that an extensive and radical reform is here necessary. Some trifling alterations See Appendix B. 19 have been lately made in the conduct of Chancery proceed¬ ings, but it is said that the new rules do not work very smoothly, at all events not to the satisfaction of lawyers, who, swayed unconsciously by the impressions of profes¬ sional education, and unable to conceive the necessity for legal reform, are unwilling instruments to carry it into effect. But antiquated forms and useless technicalities, based upon conditions of society long since passed away, must ultimately yield to the spirit of the times. We re¬ quire an amended code, administered by a new official in¬ strumentality, to secure the safe and speedy determination of litigated claims,—to facilitate and economize the sale of land in lots,—to liberate the owner from legal disqualifica¬ tions, such as prevent the most profitable management of his estate,—to afford security to the occupier for outlay on permanent improvements,—in a word, to free the land mar¬ ket from all legal restrictions, that prevent productive¬ ness, and infuse into it the quick life and commercial spirit of the age. Those feudal prejudices, still clinging to the proprietorship of land as the distinctive privilege of rank, instead of a source of profitable manufacture, must be scat¬ tered by the force of opinion in a great mercantile nation, demanding that agriculture as well as commerce should be free. And such result, by energizing inventive skill, and disembarrassing the application of capital to the soil, must have the ultimate effect of increasing the incomes of the territorial aristocracy, whose true interests ought not, or rather cannot be opposed to the social progress of the people, who, by their moral power and deliberative will, impress the character of stability upon all honours and in¬ stitutions of the State. We would be glad to know from the opponents of reform, how many landlords are there in the empire who “ can do what they like with their own.” Let them look back on the c 2 20 past, and reflect on the circumstances of the present time, and ponder well, whether it be wise or prudent to oppose that progress, which they may modify, but cannot prevent. And, in pleading for the necessity of reforming the laws relating to real property, we would not be understood to confine our remarks to Ireland. The various and some¬ times conflicting laws and customs relative to the settle¬ ment and tenure of land, and to the methods of recovery of rent and incumbrances, that prevail in different districts, tend to impede the facility of interchange and free passage of capital from one place to another. And to remedy these inconveniences, a certain unity of purpose should not only be manifest in the intention of the law, but also pervade, as far as practicable, the modes of its administration t hroughout the Empire. % Title to fee- With respect to fee-simple and fee-farm estates, the farm estates^" Commissioners give an indefeasible Parliamentary title to lands conveyed by them, “ discharged from all former and other estates , rights , titles , charges , and incumbrances whatsoever , of her Majesty , her heirs and successors , arid of all other persons whomsoever .”—(See 27 th section of the Act.) The saving clauses enumerated in the following section relate to tithes and certain other charges, all of which, with the exception of tithes, the Commissioners may redeem; and ‘‘shall express, in such conveyance or assignment, that the land conveyed or assigned thereby is so conveyed or assigned, discharged of all quit or Crown rents, or charges under the said Acts (i. e. the Drainage and Land Improvement Acts mentioned in previous section), or either of them, as the case may be, and in such case such land shall be so discharged accordingly.” (28th section). Again,the 49th section makes the conveyance by the Com¬ missioners “ conclusive evidence that every application , pro - 21 ceeding, and act whatsoever, which ought to have been made, given, and done previously to the execution of such convey¬ ance or assignment, inade, given, and done by the persons authorized to make, give, and do the same.” It is impossible, that words more clear and significant could be used to confer a secure and indefeasible title to lands con¬ veyed by this Court; and, if there be a defect, it must lie either in the incompetency of our Legislature to enact the law, or of the English language to give definite expression to their sentiments. We have heard, indeed, of one class Objectors to of objectors, who have likened a grant from the Commis- bered Estates sioners to a conveyance from a private party, liable to be Court Com “ J 1 . . mission, affected by the doctrine of notice as applied to registered and unregistered instruments, and also have complained of the breach of faith committed finder sanction of the Legis¬ lature, by facilitating the recovery of charges affecting In- cumbered Estates, on the ground that every party creating a charge must be understood to have contracted that the incumbrance was only to be raised through the medium of a Chancery suit, and that to deprive an incumbered pro¬ prietor of the enviable distinction of being made a defen¬ dant in a Chancery cause, is more than a debtor’s patience can be expected to endure. Such an unaccountable strain of reasoning may be intended as a veil of fantastic irony to cover an attack upon the opponents of the Commission. But, if the objector be really serious, we can only compare him to the lawyer, Who, loving legal paradoxes, The compass of his fancy boxes, Till he forgetteth what he means, And straight becometh what he feigns, A wight so idiosyncratic, Folk deem him addled in the attic I 22 Objectors to the Incum¬ bered Estates Court Com¬ mission. Title to lease¬ holds. But there is another class of objectors, who appear to be seized with a Quixotic sympathy for hereditary insolvency, and laud, with a sort of hero-w T orship, the fine old Irish landlord, who lives upon the credit of his estate. Such men profess the utmost veneration for the time-honoured system of recovering debts through means of a Chancery Receiver, with his appurtenant solicitor, and periodical statement of facts for the Master, and consequent bills of costs, &c. &c., yet (strange inconsistency !) protest against the selling-price of an estate being in any manner estimated or influenced by a five years’ average, evidenced on the oath of the Re¬ ceiver himself;—who object, that the Commissioners are, at the same time, proceeding too fast and too slow ; that they refuse to follow the injurious Chancery practice of ad¬ journing sales; and again, that they do postpone sales too readily;—who sneer at the Commissioners for making re¬ turns to the House of Commons agreeable to the requisition furnished; because, from the obscure form of the requisi¬ tion, the returns were little worth ;—who, stupidly (we will not say intentionally) misstating our recommendation that the Legislature should confer on the Court power to give a Parliamentary title to leases (as is now the case with respect to land), declare, that we recommend the abolition of the re¬ medy by ejectment for non-payment of rent. But we will not dwell longer upon such like objections. The public will judge of their force or applicability in the strong light of accumulated experience. As to leasehold interests, the Commissioners do not war¬ rant the title of the grantors in such instruments ; but if there is just cause to apprehend any infirmity in the title of the grantor, they invariably refuse to sell or convey the leasehold. Assuming, however, the lease in its inception 23 to be valid, the Commissioners, by their conveyance, bar the rights of all parties who could have any claim or title thereto ; and, in this sense, they give an indefeasible Par¬ liamentary title to leasehold interests sold in their Court. With regard to those leasehold interests, it would be Amendments judicious, perhaps, for the Legislature to empower the su £ gested * Commissioners to ratify (after due notice to all parties con¬ cerned) with a Parliamentary sanction the derivative title to the purchaser, without subsequent disturbance of the owner in reversion, whoever he may be. And such a measure would considerably enhance the sales of leases of lives re¬ newable for ever,* under which, either from corporate bodies or individuals, nearly one-seventh of the land of Ireland is held. This anomalous mode of tenure, the result of the embarrassed position of landlords during the transitionary periods of the several confiscations, is totally at variance with the social requirements of the present time; and the complicated restrictions, conditions, and covenants usually contained in these leases, especially such as relate to waste, turbary, and mines, are found to be very prejudicial to the sales. It may be deemed advisable to authorize the Com¬ missioners to annul those injurious or vexatious restrictive covenants, at least such as prevent investment of capital and improvement of land, commuting those possessing pecuniary value into rent, on the principle of the Renewable Leasehold Conversion Acts (12 & 13 Viet. c. 105 ; 14 & 15 Vict.c. 20); and if the principle of these Acts, with such extended provisions, was applied to every leasehold of this nature * See Report of the Commissioners under the Devon Land Commission. They also quote the opinion expressed by the late eminent Sir Michael O’Loghlen, “ That any person who is much engaged in the investigation of such titles will find in almost every abstract of the titles a statement of the results of one or more suits in equity for enforcing the right of re¬ newal.” 24 Origin of cer¬ tain Irish te¬ nures. Renewable Leasehold Conversion Act. Amend¬ ments sug¬ gested previously to sale, it would prevent many of the evils al¬ luded to. It is curious to trace the historical origin of some of those tenures. The grantors of leases of lives renewable for ever were usually English, who never visited, nor intended to visit their Irish estates, and made these demises for the pur¬ pose of obtaining periodical acknowledgments of their title to the reversion. It frequently happened, too, that the les¬ sees, being also absentees,demised again to sub-lessees under similar conditions; the probability of an improvement of the soil by useful occupancy, of course diminishing as the num¬ ber of middle tenures increased. In tracing back some of the fee-farm estates, it will be frequently found, that where a confiscated tract was intended to be divided among several, one was selected as a kind of a trustee to take out a patent from the Crown for the whole, the others being unable to incur the expense of taking out separate patents, which in former times were a principal source of regal emoluments, and, therefore, too often a covetous incentive to Irish con¬ fiscation. The single patentee then demised to the others, to each his own portion, at a small annual rent. Instances of this nature frequently occurred among the officers of re¬ giments serving in Ireland, who selected their Colonel as trustee. Adverting to the Renewable Leasehold Conversion Acts, and admitting the usefulness of their provisions, we still consider that there is room for improvement. For instance, we do not understand upon what principle a mere Court Receiver is constituted a joint-owner either of the reversion, or of the lease. A Court Receiver is a total stranger, both in fact and in law, to the title and estate; and, assuredly, it is very inconsistent, and practically inconvenient in the 25 working of the Act, that a mere temporary officer, liable at any moment to dismissal, should be required to accept a grant upon which a heavy rent may be reserved, or, in¬ deed, to become a party to such an instrument as a fee- farm grant, in any capacity.— Again, in expressing our as¬ sent to those provisions making fee-farm rents reserved on grants under this Act recoverable as rent service, we object to the inconsistency ofmaking any distinctions in that respect between rents so reserved and antecedently existing fee-farm rents; and though the Act of last session (14 & 15 Viet, c. 20) has in some degree remedied this grievance, by ex¬ tending to fee-farm rents generally, and to other rents in Ireland reserved on grants of land, in which the grantors have no Reversions, the remediesprovided by theRenewable Leasehold Conversion Act for the recovery of fee-farm rents under that Act; yet we find, still retained, the same perverse exception of the Statutable remedy of ejectment for non-payment of rent in respect to all fee-farm rents other than those coming within the express provisions of the 12 & 13 Viet., c. 105. Now, it appears very absurd to put a party, having such a clear and unquestioned right, to his ejectment at common law for conditions broken,—a pro¬ ceeding, not only intricate and difficult, but attended, even when successful, with an almost indefinite right of redemp¬ tion in a Court of Equity by the defaulting party. As to Church and College leases, the Commissioners Incumbered have decided, that they possess no jurisdiction to sell a Amendments lease held under the lessee of the head landlord, though con- suggested, taining the usual toties quoties clause for perpetual renewal. And, as many of these interests are very valuable, we would suggest, that the policy, which authorizes the sale of the lease from the Bishop, should sanction the right to sell the sub-interests likewise. 26 Amendments suggested. Amendments suggested. It frequently happens, also, that an owner is entitled to landed property, which, being held neither in fee-simple nor fee-tail, nor under lease in perpetuity, or for sixty years, does not come within the jurisdiction of the Court, and yet that other portions of his estates may be sold in the Court. Now, we would suggest, that, where a petition has been pre¬ sented for sale of any portion of a debtor’s estates, the Commissioners should have power to order a sale of those minor interests also, on application being duly made for that purpose. In short, that the jurisdiction over any part of a debtor’s property should confer power to sell the whole. Otherwise, incumbrancers must resort to the Court of Chancery, with all its tedious and expensive machinery, to sell those minor, but often very valuable interests, which the Commissioners, as the law now stands, have no power to deal with. Another very important amendment required is, to confer jurisdiction to make a legal apportionment of the head-rent between the several lots, in all proper cases, where a peti¬ tion is presented for sale of the whole of the premises com¬ prised in any lease; the Act (see section 37) conferring this jurisdiction only in cases where the petition is for sale of part only of such leasehold. We are aware of a case now pend¬ ing, where an order has been made for sale, inter alia , of a leasehold interest comprising nearly 100,000 acres, and upwards of 100 townlands, out of which a rent is payable to the head landlord of about £900. Proposals have been made for purchase of some of the lots, into which this lease¬ hold estate has been divided; but intending purchasers are naturally anxious to have the head rent apportioned in such a manner, that a purchaser of one portion should not be liable for the head rent of any other. The head land¬ lord, who is only a tenant for life, is also willing that this 27 should be done, being well assured that each portion sold would be ample security for the rent placed upon it. How¬ ever, the Commissioners have no power to make an abso¬ lute apportionment of the head rent in this or any analogous case, where the petition is for sale of the whole of the pre¬ mises comprised in a lease. Again, in every case where a tenant for life is heavily in- cumbered, and more especially where a Chancery Receiver is in possession of his property, and where also there are incumbrances affecting the corpus of the estate, we would suggest the expediency of allowing an incumbrancer of the tenant for life to petition for a sale for the purpose of clear¬ ing off incumbrances on the fee, and thus enabling the cre¬ ditors of the tenant for life to make good their claims, either by a sale of the life estate or otherwise. Under the Incum¬ bered Estates Act, the tenant for life can now present such a petition, and there is no reason why the same privilege should not be extended to an incumbrancer, who has a more equitable claim to his debt than the incumbered owner to his life estate. It would also be very desirable to remove all legal and technical obstructions, which prevent trust moneys from being invested in the purchase of land under this Court. And if the Commissioners had the power of selling all ar¬ rears of rent together with the estates, it would have the twofold effect of raising the amount of purchase, and pre¬ venting the losses and litigations, that frequently occur in consequence of the confusion of claims (for rent and arrears) arising upon change of ownership. As it now stands, in¬ tending purchasers are deterred, from the disinclination to place themselves in a disadvantageous position with the tenantry, who may be so deeply in arrear with the former Amendments suggested. Investment of trust moneys. Power of sel¬ ling arrears of rent. 28 Land Deben¬ ture Bill. A peasant proprietary. owner, as to become unable to fulfil their engagements with the incoming purchaser of the estate. We are not quite convinced of the soundness of that po¬ licy which dictated the Bill for authorizing the issue of land debentures to half the amount of the purchase money, and bearing interest at five per cent, as a first charge on estates sold ; but such an Act may be useful in enabling par¬ tially incumbered proprietors to retain their properties with a valid title, and in easing the land market from its pre¬ sent glut: and, if it becomes law, we trust it will be carried into effect with diligent care and circumspection, so as not to prop by Statute that ruinous passion for contracting debts, the hereditary fault of an improvident generation. Again—While we warmly approve of voluntary associa¬ tions for the creation of small properties in fee, we would strongly deprecate any legislative scheme for forcing a pea¬ sant proprietary* upon the country. Laws cannot precipi¬ tate prosperity, nor instil instantaneous fitness into the na¬ tional character for an altered social position, with all its routine of novel duties. The great changes that are now reconstructing society in Ireland are the growth of provi- * “ I had a Somersetshire farmer over with me lately, who had much experience in English farming and the agricultural management of estates. He expressed himself much struck with the fertility of the soil. I think a great deal of the opinion of these practical men. I fear we are at present too theoretical in our farming, and too much at the mercy of stewards. I am more anxious for the advent of some of our English yeo¬ manry (a class unknown here) than any other grade ."—Letter from Co¬ lonel Kitchener to the Author. December 17, 1851. This is the description, of middle class, which would be really useful in Ireland at the present time ; but the materials for the formation of such a class are not altogether wanting even in the south of Ireland, although the advantage of the example of the trained English or Scotch farmer is freely admitted. 29 dential circumstances, and will work out their own auspi¬ cious solution, if all obstacles to their free development be withdrawn. Let law and government secure, as far as they can, the inviolability of life and property, and the fidelity of credit; promote improvement, by simplifying and con¬ solidating the Statutes relating to landlord and tenant; and facilitate the sale and transfer of land by some permanent tribunal, either independent, or attached to other Law Courts, but constituted mainly on the plan of the Incum¬ bered Estates Commission,*—and then, the inert capital, which exists in overflowing abundance in both countries will freely stream into ten thousand channels, without fur¬ ther aid than what is now afforded by the various Land Im¬ provement Acts. To render these Acts more generally use¬ ful, they should be consolidated, and extended in their ap¬ plication to loans for railways, and other objects of public importance. In order to exhibit clearly to our readers that condition State of Pro¬ of landed property, which necessitated the enactment of a pfesJ’ Exam summary Statute to give justice to creditors, and restore con¬ fidence to the country, we shall adduce two examples :— First, the extensive estates in Connaught of the late Mr. Martin ; secondly, the estates in Munster of a nobleman who possesses, in the reverses of fortune, the sincere sympa¬ thy of many friends, whom his generous disposition and hospitality have won. The first incumbrancer on the Ballinahinch estates was a Ballinahinch Estates * Petitions for sale cannot be presented after July 28, 1852, leaving two years for closing the business of the Commission. But by that time, the number of petitions will probably have increased to four thousand for sale of estates, the total rental of which can be little less than one-tenth of the rental of Ireland ; and it will then take several years to wind up the business of the Court. 30 creditor for £37,500. And, for the purpose of paying’ off the numerous minor incumbrances, it was agreed, some years since, that the Law Life Insurance Society should advance £160,000 to cover those charges, provided the first incumbrancer released his priority, which was accordingly- done, with implicit reliance on the sufficiency of the pro¬ perty to satisfy all demands upon it. But the incumbered proprietor could not meet his engagements after the fall of agricultural prices, much less develop the varied resources the lands were knowrn to contain ; and the scattered tenan¬ try, who possessed neither energy, nor skill, nor capital to work their farms, and depended upon the potato for sub¬ sistence, were completely ruined by its failure. Now, the total proceeds of the rents for the last two years have been, we believe, inadequate to meet the poor rates and annual outgoings of the estate; and the Commissioners have been called upon to allocate a portion of the purchase-money of a lot sold by private contract to discharge these claims. However, there is no doubt, that when this great territorial district is sold in lots, the many natural advantages of soil, fisheries, and minerals it contains, will yield ample remu¬ nerative returns to the application of capital. The circumstances, that led to the breaking up of this great territorial estate, present a sad illustration of the vicissitudes of fortune among the ancient aristocracy of Ire¬ land. The late Thomas Barnw r ell Martin, who died from fever, caught during the zealous execution of his duty as poor-law guardian (and he was emphatically a guardian of the poor) left one daughter, the last lineal descendant of one of the earliest Norman settlers in Ireland. This lady con¬ tracted a debt for food to support her famishing tenantry in the years of famine; prompt payment was demanded, but, with the characteristic humanity of her family, she would not press her dependents in their distress, and a 9 31 sheriff’s execution swept the mansion and demesne of Bal- linahinch. This was the flash that disclosed the coming ruin. Mrs. Martin, with her husband, fled their dismantled home. She died within sight of a foreign land, childless, and an exile ; thus fulfilling, in the closing scene of the des¬ tinies of an illustrious race, the solution of that melancholy yet triumphant motto, which Ceeur de Lion conferred on her great ancestor,* who fought by his side in the Holy Wars, and shared his subsequent captivity, “ Sic itur ad astra.” We proceed, in the next place, to exhibit the state of the property of the Earl of Kingston. The unsettled estates, situate in the counties of Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, now in process of sale, are thus circumstanced. The in¬ cumbrances for principal and interest amount to about £300,000, exclusive of about £140,000, for which other estates (the settled estates) are liable in the first degree. Now it appears on the printed rental, that, without enu¬ merating a multitude of under-tenants, there are 1607 te¬ nants under the fee, reckoning each partnership tenancy as one ; and of this number, 1010 pay rents not exceeding five pounds per annum. The gross rental is £16,696, giving an average of little more than £10 to each tenant, while the average net annual receipts for the five years ending March 25th, 1850, according to the Receiver’s accounts, is only £5,667 ; the interest on the incumbrances being £12,632 2 s. 4 d. per annum. Thus it appears, that the debt is increasing pari passu with the accumulation of the arrears, at the rate of £7,000 a year. The three lotsf sold on the 17th of June, about which * Sir Oliver Martin. f It so happens, that the sales of these lots offer fair samples of the great and various benefits the nation must derive from throwing open hopelessly incumbered estates to individual enterprise. Mr. Morgan, a Kingston Es¬ tates. 32 such an unmeaning outcry was raised against the Court, brought forty-three years’ purchase of the average net re¬ ceipts ; and the prices will, in fact, relieve the estate from twice as much interest as the rent of the lots sufficed to sa¬ tisfy. The purchasers will, of course, receive remunerative returns for their money ; for there is every reason to believe that they possess capital, and will apply it to the manage¬ ment of their purchases with a concentrated zeal and atten¬ tion, which an incumbered owner was unable to bestow, and which, even were he solvent, he would be likely to over¬ look in consequence of the territorial extent of his property. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that poor-rates must diminish, and wages increase, in proportion as capital is ap¬ plied to employment. Once relieved from incumbrances and from the incubus of a Chancery Receivership, these estates, possessing such varied capabilities, and so beauti¬ fully and conveniently situated, must yield ample return to purchasers.! county of Cork gentleman, and an excellent agriculturist, purchased one lot (No. 7) ; Mr. Peter Brown of Manchester invested his capital in ano¬ ther lot (No. 47) ; and Mr. Dwyer, who by his industry had achieved an independence in the United States, purchased the third lot (No. 28), on which he was born, and directed that the conveyance should be made to his mother, as she had objected in her declining years to return with him to a distant country. Several instances have lately occurred of emigrants returning to purchase land under the Incumbered Estates Court in the south of Ireland; and there is every probability that the number will rapidly increase. The exodus will have its re-action , if the country im¬ proves in peaceful industry. f Instances have been mentioned, where tenants have been rack-rented by purchasers under the Court. Such cases are, however, comparatively few. Should these pages meet the eye of any merchants or professional men, unused to the management of land, who have become owners of large tracts, we would observe to them respectfully, but decidedly, that, in their cases, a tenantry is as necessary to the successful manufacture of land, as the producer is to the capitalist in any other business; and tenants will neither be contented nor rent-producing, unless they are treated with justice and humanity. 33 After perusal of the foregoing plain and unvarnished statements of facts, may we not fairly require objectors to forego their charges against the policy of the Act of Par¬ liament, and the practice of the Incumbered Estates Com¬ missioners, until they are prepared to propound a better plan to save all classes from impending ruin, in a country throughout a great part of which the landlord claims reve¬ nue without profit, the creditor has promises and no pay, the farmer land without capital, the labourer the workhouse dole ; and where attorneys, Chancery Receivers, emigrant- ship owners, and poor-law officials alone flourish amid the masses of social and agricultural decay around them ? We now conclude our observations on the policy and Concluding practice of the Incumbered Estates Court, referring our on The Inc um- readers to the Appendix* for several statistical tables, which bered Estates will exhibit some curious and important particulars. The general results of the working of the Court have been, the discharge of a vast amount of debts and mortgages, to be re-invested in the purchase of land, and the increase of secu¬ rity, industry, and general prosperity throughout Ireland. Now, with respect to the legal tenure and taxation of * land :—the confusion and distresses of late years have aggra¬ vated and brought prominently forward the difficulties of the landlord and tenant question in Ireland ; but the schemes proposed by some who advocate the rights of occupiers would prove to be subversive of the right of owners, and a prac¬ tical reversal of the principle of free trade. The methodi¬ cal tenant-right prevailing in part of the North, and which has no Statutory recognition whatever, arose from the pe¬ culiar position and necessities of the proprietors of the for- V* vUI v« Tenure and taxation of land. Tenant-right. * Appendix A. I) 34 Land in Ire¬ land cheaper than land in England. feited estates centuries since, amongst whom the custom grew up of allowing a yearly tenant to transfer the interest in his farm on payment of all arrears of rent. As a custom, it has generally worked well among a population of indus¬ trious habits and fixed notions of moral equity ; and the neglect of the natural and just rights of tenants in other parts of the country has certainly given rise to much agra¬ rian outrage, as the word itself intimates. But to impose the traditional tenant-right of the North, as a positive law, upon the country, would be a most dangerous and unjustifiable interference with the land market; for laws cannot be framed to control the freedom of dealing between landlord and tenant, without injustice to one, if not indeed ultimately to both of the contracting parties. The appa¬ rent necessity too for such interference has abated, since the tide of competition has turned, and landlords (rather than tenants) are now in the market, competing for solvent tenants at diminished rents.* Indeed, land in Ireland, on a strict comparison of productive capabilities, has always been cheaper than land in England or Scotland ; but want of skill has reversed the comparison, the returns of produce in England per acre exceeding by at least one-third the re¬ turns in Ireland; and this may be instanced also within the bounds of our country. In 1845, the number of arable acres in Down to each head of the rural population was 1J, in Galway 3J, or more than double ;f and yet Down pros- * This is evidenced by the increasing numbers of English and Scotch settlers in the west and south of Ireland, who have obtained tracts at long leases and moderate rents, and on which they are not discouraged from expending their capital by the assessed taxes, that press so heavily on farmers at the other side of the channel, heavy poor rates being the only tax to be feared in Ireland, and that is nearly absorbed by the in¬ creased demand for labour, wherever land is rented by solvent and in¬ dustrious occupiers. f See Sharman Crawford’a evidence before the Devon Commission. 35 pered, living on what grew above the ground, while Gal¬ way starved, depending on a precarious root. The terrible famine has achieved within a short period a reform in Irish agriculture, which half a century of precept would not have accomplished ; and it is the legitimate province of Govern¬ ment to encourage the improvement that has commenced, by endowing tenants for life with still more extended leas¬ ing powers, and by empowering them to charge improve¬ ments on the inheritance according to the principle adopted in the Land Improvement Act, as well as by facilitating all such arrangements between proprietors and occupiers, as tend to cherish industry and inculcate mutual good feeling. We do not know any system of dealing between landlord and tenant preferable to the Scotch method of hiring land, judiciously divided and drained, with all suitable farm- buildings thereon, for a definite term of years; the landlord contributing the raw material and fixtures, and receiving his rent; the tenant contributing the capital and labour, and receiving his profits. The evidence on the Devon Commission records only twenty-one proprietors in Ireland who supplied the whole cost for erection of farm-buildings; and needy owners will, of course, object, that they do not possess the funds to imitate such landlords as Sir Edward Tierney, whose fine estates in Cork present an admirable Specimen of high culture and efficient management, under his own immediate superintendence.* But landlords, who * We may observe here, that the 14 & 15 Viet. c. 25, grants to te¬ nants, in certain cases, the right to remove buildings and fixtures con¬ structed by them, except the landlord consents to take the same at a valuation. But this is only nibbling at the difficulties of a code requiring general reform and consolidation in all its branches. One of Sir E. Tierney’s estates, Churchtown, is an electoral division in itself, and no poor rate has been struck on it (except the rate in aid) for the last five years. This proves the advantage of a good landlord D 2 Landlord and tenant in Scotland. 13 & 14 Viet, c. 31. Suggested le¬ gal improve¬ ments. County Boards. / 36 cannot themselves afford the expenditure, do not appear over-anxious to avail themselves of aid for this purpose; for up to April, 1851, only fourteen loans,* amounting to £7650, have been made under the 13 & 14 Yict. c. 31, which authorizes advances for the erection of farm-build¬ ings, the principal and interest to be repaid in twenty-two years, by an annuity of 6J per cent. Certainly, this Act requires, that whenever there is not a suitable residence for the occupier on the land, the landlord should erect one out of his own funds, at a cost of at least one-third the amount of loan,—a very proper stipulation, but which may occasion¬ ally act as a damper on the proprietor’s desire of improving his estate. However, we would not censure the disincli¬ nation to borrow, which is, perhaps, in most cases, rather a sign of improvement; and we hail with satisfaction, as a proof of mutual good sense and increasing kind feeling between classes too long in antagonism, the fact commu¬ nicated by Mr. Golding, Inspector of Drainage for Mo¬ naghan, to the Commissioners of Public Works, “ that many landlords, instead of borrowing money to improve their properties, have adopted the plan of inducing their tenants to execute drainage works themselves, and have allowed the cost in their rents.” There are two important improvements in the agricultu¬ ral and social condition of Ireland within the province of the Legislature to bestow :—1st. To substitute, for the pre¬ sent system of grand jury assessment, county boards, tri- ennially elected by the principal rate-payers, to administer and a solvent and respectable tenantry. And we may fairly expect simi¬ lar beneficial results on properties now in a ruinous state, which pass, under the hammer of the Incumbered Estates Commissioners, into the possession of independent and enterprising proprietors. * See Nineteenth Report of the Board of Works. 37 the fiscal affairs of each county, and to conduct all useful public works under the guidance of the Commissioners of Public Works, or some other controlling body, similarly constituted; apportioning the tax (which is now borne ex¬ clusively by the occupier) among all classes, on the prin¬ ciple of the poor-rate ; for it is only just, that the partici¬ pants of common benefits should each contribute his quota to their cost. 2ndly. To constitute the assistant-barristers puisne judges presiding over permanent County Courts, with increased j urisdiction,* and power to try cases of eject¬ ment on title for breaches of conditions, especially in cases of alienation or division of farms. In short, to localize jus¬ tice, and make its administration speedy and cheap. In the selection of these county judges, especial care should be taken to avoid the error, too often committed in Ireland, of appointing, under the influence of political pre¬ dilection or personal favour, indiscreet or incompetent per¬ sons to the office. Inferior judicial functionaries, whose sphere of duty is in comparatively remote districts, are, to a certain extent, removed from the control of colleagues, as well as from the jealous vigilance of professional and public opinion, which exercise so powerful an influence on the judges of the superior courts: and hence, when these infe¬ rior legal functionaries exhibit any indiscreet conduct, or administer the laws injudiciously, the fault is often over¬ looked, and the law itself comes to be despised or defied by the masses. The list of our magistracy also requires revision. All insolvent or incompetent persons, holding the commission of * The Act 14 and 15 Viet. c. 57, has extended the jurisdiction of the as¬ sistant barristers considerably ; but there is still room for improvement both in the civil and criminal jurisdiction of their Courts. County Judges. Appointment of County Judges. Revision of the Magistracy. 38 The Ribbon Conspiracy. the peace, ought to be superseded; and no niggardly eco¬ nomy should prevent the appointment of additional and in¬ telligent stipendiary magistrates in districts where local gentry, of sufficient station and ability, cannot be ob¬ tained. A certain number of these stipendiaries, with a trained staff of detective police, should be destined for the special service of every locality disgraced by agrarian com¬ binations; and this should be at the public cost—for, to assess the expense, without discrimination, upon the inha¬ bitants of a district, amongst whom are included the very individuals against whose persons or properties the outrages are committed, is more calculated to awaken the discontent of peaceful and loyal men, than to repress the crime of the lurking assassin and his abettors. The diabolical Ribbon system, which has happily disappeared from the greater part of the country, still erects its bloody tribunals in a few corners of the land, in defiance of all religion and social or¬ der, preventing the investment of capital, and indefinitely protracting the reform of the laws relative to the tenure of land. These agrarian conspiracies ought to be tracked with sleepless vigilance ; and if the peasantry are so wicked as to join their blood-stained councils, or so weak as to become dumb before their threats, a despotic police espionage should be set over every suspected house and family, until the criminals are found, and the system crushed. The mur¬ der of Mr. Bateson was not the sole act of two or three hired ruffians. We do not hesitate to affirm, that every member of every Ribbon association in Ireland is morally guilty of the murder of that lamented gentleman ; and every one, cognisant of the existence of such organized schemes of assassination, who declines, from whatever motive , to inform the authorities, is, in the eye of God, and in the spirit of constitutional law, an accomplice. 39 The practice of allowing an ejectment for non-payment of rent to be brought against a yearly tenant, instead of requiring that he should be served in the first instance (whatever might be his arrear) with a six or twelve months’ notice to quit, and then proceeded against by ejectment on the title, seems to have been felt by the Legislature : for by 15th Viet. c. 57, section 73, the landlord is allowed to pro¬ ceed by civil bill ejectment for non-payment of rent against yearly tenants, when the year’s rent does not exceed £50. Why this excellent law was confined to cases where the rent does not exceed £50, and more especially, why it should be law in the assistant-barrister’s court, and not in the supe¬ rior courts, it is not easy to understand.—Again, the time allowed for redemption, which is nine, not six months, where the tenant has mortgaged his interest, is nothing more than a notable contrivance to keep land out of culti¬ vation during the interval. Or, if the landlord lets the land, subject to the ejected tenant’s right to redeem, he probably sows the seed of a plentiful crop of litigation be¬ tween the former tenant (if he redeems) and the temporary tenant, and between both and himself;—and it is well if the affair is settled between all parties without broken heads, or more serious consequences. Indeed, the too ge¬ neral custom of allowing tenants to run in arrear not only checks improvement, but deteriorates the character, and degrades the independence of the tenant, turning him either into a cringing serf or a vindictive enemy, completely in the power of his landlord, and having no motive to urge his in¬ dustry; inasmuch as the profits of his labour would be all absorbed by the landlord’s demand. Now, legislation may in great part remedy this evil, as also the mischiefs and litigations arising from the present law of ejectment,—by allowing only one year’s rent to be Inconsisten¬ cies in the law of ejectment. Amendments suggested in the law of ejectment. 40 recoverable by the landlord; and (whenever it is deemed ne¬ cessary to resort to ejectment) by abolishing the six or nine months’ clause of redemption ; reserving to the court or judge (on special application) a right to stay execution for a short time, if the circumstances of the case, in his opinion, jus¬ tify postponement; and, should an appeal occur on a ques¬ tion of law, the county judge to have the power of stating the case for the decision of the judge of assize, which is to be final. On application of either party, both Courts to have full jurisdiction to amend errors in matters of mere form, or in such as do not affect the essential verity of the proceeding. And, when unauthorized possession is re¬ sumed by the tenant, or by any claiming under him (a common practice in Ireland), the decree of ejectment to re¬ main in full force, capable of being executed anew, on a magistrate’s warrant, which should be founded on a suffi¬ cient affidavit, made at the Petty Sessions Court of the dis¬ trict, and lodged with the clerk of the peace. However, the land tenure question has been rendered so difficult and complicated by class prejudices and injudi¬ cious legislation, that the whole system must be digested anew, and adapted to the growing requirements of the age, keeping steadily in view these three results :—1st. Facilitating commercial dealings in land;—2nd. Securing both to owner and occupier the investment of capital in im¬ provements;—and 3rd. Sanctioning the summary enforce, ment of those mutual obligations which have been freely entered into in open market by the contracting parties for letting and hire of land.— With peace, security, free con¬ tracts, and cheap and carefully administered law, agriculture must flourish; and manufactures,* the necessary accompa¬ niment of national prosperity, be grafted on its success. * For some interesting particulars respecting the progress of manu¬ facturing industry, see Appendix C. 41 It is an error to imagine, that money capital is wanting Abundance of in Ireland. In public securities, and the coffers of friendly J^ tal m Ire " societies, there are at least forty-five millions lying unpro¬ ductive. And the difference of funded transfers, which for the year ending 5th January, 1850,* was in favour of Eng¬ land to the amount of £810,758 Is., has been reduced for the subsequent year to £44,523 1 Is. 10 d., and will probably be found in favour of Ireland on 5th January, 1852. This is a convincing proof of the increasing amount of capital, that is gradually finding its way into the land market; which is also further evidenced by the fact, that Irish purchasers under the Incumbered Estates Court exceed the English by twenty to one in numbers, and by at least twelve to one in the total amount invested. Even in 1846-7, money freely circulated in those parts of the Kingdom where manufactures flourished ; but, where these were wanting, and land, the chief element of material wealth, was tied up in the possession of incumbered owners, who could neither sell nor profitably use it;—in such cases money was deprived of its circulating vitality. Now, however, that the difficulty of selling in- cumbered estates is withdrawn, money, as the instrument for facilitating exchanges, the link between seller and pur¬ chaser, will be necessarily transferred from the glutted hoards of banks and funds to reproductive uses; and indus¬ try will find its most potent auxiliary in that increased mo¬ netary accommodation the country so much requires; but which could be neither safely developed,! nor smoothly * See Appendix D. The Author could not obtain the returns for Ja¬ nuary 5, 1852. f Witness the failure of the Agricultural Banks in Ireland a few years ago. Alluding to the question of increased monetary accommodation, the gold discoveries must ultimately have the effect of enlarging the re¬ stricted currency of the Empire, and thus raising the profits of capital, and the wages of labour in Ireland. 42 worked, under the disruption of social interests and disre¬ gard of legal obligation hitherto prevailing in Ireland. Board of Pub¬ lic Works in Ireland. Arterial Drainage. Railways and Inland Navi¬ gation. We now proceed to consider the evidence of progress af¬ forded by the nineteenth Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland. The Report declares, that “ at the present moment a feeling of hope has succeeded to apa¬ thy, and a spirit of industry prevails from the highest to the lowest.” And we find that, since the original appropria¬ tion, by the 1st and 2nd Wm. IV., c. 33, to 5th January, 1851, the total amount of public loans and grants in Ire¬ land is £7,785,865 12s. 3d., —£5,959,559 15s. having been expended up to that date, and £1,826,305 17s. 3d. remain¬ ing to be issued. The results of arterial drainage, which, for useful adaptation to the requirements of the country, and economy of expenditure in comparison with the amount of beneficial returns, is without a parallel in any country, may be briefly enumerated as follows:—The area of catch¬ ment or rain basin of the districts in course of drainage is estimated at 6,751,305 acres, or about one-third of the sur¬ face of the island ; and at least a thirteenth, or about 500,000 acres, will be indirectly benefited, and probably not less than 200,000 acres of flooded and marshy lands permanently relieved by these vast drainage operations. It must also be borne in mind, that these improved tracts lie chiefly in the most available localities for culture and export of productions, in the vicinity of railways and along navigable rivers and canals; for the country is now spanned in its length and breadth by railways, 614 miles of rail be¬ ing already open, and one link only wanting to connect Bel¬ fast and Limerick, as Sligo and Dublin, by inland waters. The Lough Erne and Shannon Junction* will be completed * See an admirable article, “The Water-Ways of Ireland,” in “The 43 in two years, at an expense, per mile, of about one-fifth of the cost of constructing the Royal Canal—an expense, too, that will be considerably diminished, in consequence of at least 7000 acres being relieved from flood by this important water-way. And then, the Shannon navigation, with its associated lakes, canals, and river channels, will be little short of 800 miles; opening up the great central plain of Ireland, with its net-work of bog and moorland, to the com¬ mercial enterprise of the principal ports on every side : so that fully one-half of the island, both territorially as well as in respect to population, will be benefited, more or less, by these vast and skilfully designed improvements. We would not be understood, however, to limit the beneficial effects to facilitating the exports of our produc¬ tions. A much more important result, both in a social and economic view, is the springing up of an internal trade, the establishment of regular communication with tracts hitherto insulated, by the natural obstacles of mountain, river, or un¬ traversed morass, from the civilizing influences of frequent intercourse with surrounding districts; while this insula- lation did not even develop the sentiments of freedom and contentment, so frequently exhibited among small popula¬ tions, shut in by natural barriers. Out of the drainage districts,* in which final notices have been issued, thirty-nine final awards were made in Advocate” of Feb. 4. There is every probability, that the opening of this communication will create a demand in contiguous markets for the coal, and perhaps for the iron also, of Arigna. * In several large districts a sufficient amount of assents to constitute the majority are still withheld, while labourers are unemployed and poor rates increasing. We would particularly instance the case of the drainage of the Fergus, where a vast extent of the richest alluvial soil in the Em- Results of Arterial drainage. 44 1849 and 1850, and probably forty additional awards have been completed in 1851. But, according to the report of these thirty-nine awards, 21,032a. 1r. 5p., hitherto totally submerged, have been relieved from water, and thereby in¬ creased in estimated value £7,408 per annum, at an ave¬ rage cost per acre of £3 15s. 6d. ; to be repaid by half- yearly instalments, in periods from twelve to twenty-three years, according to the circumstances of each case. This, in fact, may be considered an additament of territory to the state, a creation of property without any investment on the part of the owner; for the dormant qualities of the alluvial soil being relieved from the floods, which for unrecorded years had deposited the elements of fertility on its surface, are capable of yielding immediate remunerative returns, a single crop in many instances covering the whole cost of drainage. For example: Mr. Gisborne, engineer of the Strokestown district, county of Roscommon, testifies of the works in that locality:—“ The expenditure up to the end of 1850 is £27,666, while the profits during the same pe¬ riod are equal to 40 per cent., and this with little more than one-eighth of the lands relieved being brought into culti¬ vation.” Land Im- Under the Land Improvement Act, 10 Viet. c. 32, 2281 Act^Drainage l° ans have been issued, amounting to £1,042,617. The amount expended in the past year alone was £207,000. The total number of acres drained under this Act is 107,660, at an average cost of £4 10s. per acre ; and a considerable portion of this land has been afterwards subsoiled. Up¬ wards of 30,000 acres have been drained during the last pire, and peculiarly adapted for the growth of hemp, is rendered unpro¬ ductive by floods—See Nineteenth Report of Board of Public Works, p. 54, &c. 45 year, the progress inspections of which have amounted to only £1 14^. per cent, on the gross expenditure. It may be observed, in proof of unabated confidence in the utility of this Act, that in King’s County and Tipperary several applications for loans have been made by purchasers under the Act for facilitating the sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland. By the works of the Loughs Corrib and Mask district, independently of the addition to mill power, and opening up forty miles of navigation into the interior of a country, the mineral and agricultural resources of which are undeveloped, 20,972 acres will be relieved by the drain¬ age. The Ballinahinch and other large estates, that have been sold, or advertised for sale, in these districts, are al¬ ready much enhanced in value by these improvements, the value and importance of which will be widely disseminated by the numerous tourists of last summer, who, like the American ambassador, have admired the picturesque moun¬ tains of Connemara, and gazed upon its unappropriated fer¬ tile plains, and wide-spreading lakes, never yet touched by the keel of traffic. Nature is as bountiful in Ireland as in America; and well might Mr. Lawrence wonder, that the Irishman should devote his labour to cultivate the wastes of the far West, when his native country presented analo¬ gous opportunities for enterprise, with the additional ad¬ vantage of the vicinage of a market for produce. Galway, however, is exhibiting more decided signs of improvement than any other county of the western province; and we may expect, ere long, to see her ample water-power appro¬ priated, by the establishment of cotton and other factories, and the great port of the West* assume the rank to which * The course adopted by the people of Belfast, in reference to the Gal¬ way Packet Station, plainly exemplifies the energy and commercial spirit, that have produced the comparative prosperity of the northern pro - 46 Moral and in¬ dustrial effects of the Public Drainage Works. it is entitled, both from commercial position and the diver¬ sified resources of that extensive lake district, of which it is the outlet and the key. But the widely-diffused drainage works carried on in Ireland have not only been successful as an agricultural speculation, but have also served the practical purpose of an industrial training-school on an extensive scale. The satisfactory nature of cash payments for labour, and the substitution of task-work (which is, in fact, a system of small contracts) for daily employment, have improved the moral character, awakened the self-reliance, and increased the skill of the labourer. Mr. Gray, one of the inspecting engineers in the midland counties, testifying to the advan¬ tages of this system, states, that “ the labourer does forty per cent, more work , and does that work better .” Indeed, there is no doubt, that agriculture in Ireland has received much benefit from the example and advice of educated agri¬ culturists, who have been sent into the rural districts to superintend these works ; and that to the admirable system of reclaimage, which they have so successfully carried out, we owe the cheering result stated in the Report of the Board of Works: “ That tenants, instead of making ob¬ jections to improvements, as was the case two years since, now beset their landlords, imploring them to apply for loans to be expended on their own farms, undertaking to pay the twenty-two years’ annuity of 6^ per cent., in addi- vince. Instead of waiting for the attainment of a controverted claim, that Ireland should be made the pathway of Anglo-American communi¬ cation, they say, “We want a western port for our own commerce with America, and we will complete the railway between Belfast and Galway to facilitate the project.” How quickly such a railway would develop the industrial and natural resources of Connaught need not now be de¬ monstrated. 47 tion to their rent.” In alluding to the improvement of the working classes, we should recollect, that in agriculture, as in other practical pursuits, labour, when not excessive, is one of the strongest incentives to improvement; and that from the school of humble toil and patient observation have sprung those famous inventors, whose names are indisso¬ lubly linked with the glory of England, and the progress of the human race. The Inspecting Commissioners of Fisheries also attest, Fisheries, that the fisheries of the south and west of Ireland afford gratifying proofs of progress, chiefly in consequence of the facilities of transit afforded by the railways, and which must tend to increase the price of those estates, situate on the great lakes and on the sea-coasts of the west, now in the market for sale. The fishery trade, like agriculture, is in course of transition from an ill-regulated to a sound and healthy system ; and wealthy purchasers, who make venture upon these districts, as yet untouched by capital, and fear¬ fully reduced in population by famine and emigration, may introduce a stronger description of fishing-gear, and larger vessels, fitted for deep sea-fishing in the distant offings, that for want of such a class of vessels have been totally ne¬ glected, although known to abound with fish.* With a resident and solvent maritime proprietary, we should never again witness the spectacle of Galway fisher¬ men using herrings as manure, on account of their inability to buy salt to cure them. At the present time, the sale of fresh fish in Dublin is rapidly increasing, and would be even more extensive, if the scale of railway charges was lowered, * Besides the smaller fish, which are to be found in vast numbers, there is every probability of the existence of a cod-bank about seventy miles off the coast of Galway. 48 Report of Poor-law Com missioners. and the present system of auction by fish-factors in Dublin altogether abolished. But our metropolis will not consume all; and Liverpool and the inland towns of northern Eng¬ land offer to enterprising capitalists an unlimited market for the surplus. The Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioners for Administering the Poor Laws in Ireland also affords very decisive proofs of the progress of improvement, and of the abatement of those evils under which the country groaned. Upon examination of the poor-law statistics of Ireland, amid much still to discourage, there are also evidences of considerable improvement. The health and moral condi¬ tion of the workhouse inmates are improved, owing chiefly to judicious educational and sanitary arrangements, the adoption of reproductive labour, proper classification of in¬ mates, and a better dietary. Out-door relief has been ge¬ nerally discontinued, while house accommodation has been increased, and the expenditure has been diminished fully one-half. The number of workhouses has been increased from 131 to 163. The house accommodation, March 25th, 1847, was for 114,129. „ „ „ 1851, „ 308,885. The aggregate extent of accommodation available be¬ yond the number relieved was, at the latter date, 60,491. In 1847, the average weekly mortality per thousand was 25.6; for the year ending 26th April, 1851, only 5.9. The expenditure for the year ending the 29th of September, 1849, was £2,177,651, which in the subsequent year was reduced to £1,430,108. Also, since the 25th of March, 1850, to April, 1851, 1721 persons of both sexes, chiefly youth, carefully and industrially trained, have been sent to the colonies from the workhouses. By the extension of 49 useful employment in trades and in agriculture, and by the instruction of the young in such pursuits, the Government have in great part abandoned the principle of the stone¬ breaking theory, that so demoralized and degraded the pauper, and made him consider poor laws rather a penal re¬ taliation on his poverty than a humane relief of his distress. The quantity of land, too, which may be attached as farms to workhouses, has been enlarged to twenty-five acres for employment of inmates under sixteen (11 & 12 Viet. c. 25, s. 1) ; and although the proceeds of pauper labour cannot, in any instance, entirely supersede the necessity of a poor- rate, yet it will considerably diminish its amount; besides, that reproductive labour has a certain moral value, inde¬ pendently of its material results; and the substitution of useful occupation for compulsory idleness or punitive em¬ ployment, has elevated the character and cheered the hope of the pauper, and rendered him more fit for independent labour, as well as more willing to undertake it, when the market demands a supply. The comparative number of paupers in any Union is too small, and the workhouses too widely apart, to admit the objection, that any injurious in¬ terference with the labour market can arise from workhouse employment. And the prejudiced views of certain political economists should not be allowed to prevent the adoption of a system, proved by its results to be so beneficial to the inmates of the workhouses, as well as to the fiscal condition of the Union.* In Roscommon, where several properties have changed hands under the Incumbered Estates Court, and where ex¬ tensive public works are in progress, the amount of poor- rate has rapidly decreased. Thus, in Ballinrobe Union, the daily average relief in 1849 was 223,415, and daily em- * See Appendix E. Workhouse Employment. E Workhouse employment. 50 ayment of public debts by the Incum¬ bered Estates Commission¬ ers. ployment in drainage 4,550 ; while in 1850 the daily em¬ ployment was increased to 11,936, and the daily average relief fell to 44,055.* It is also to be observed, that the facilities of payment of arrears of poor-rates due on insolvent and mismanaged estates, which are afforded by sales in the Incumbered Estates Court, have greatly contributed to restore the finan¬ cial condition of Poor-law Unions, and prevent the impo¬ sition of additional rates. The amount of arrears duef prior to the sale, and which in such instances would be impossi¬ ble of recovery without tardy and expensive litigation, be¬ ing at once paid by the Commissioners out of the funds of the sale, without any trouble or expense, except a short application by affidavit, stating the facts. Thus, an end is put to those social evils and confusions, arising from the unnatural conflict of financial jurisprudence with the agri¬ cultural interests, and which implant a fixed dislike to civil order and government in the minds of weak and discon¬ tented persons, who ascribe these evils to a bad and despo¬ tic law ; either not clearly perceiving the originating causes, or reasoning unjustly from their effects. The same observation applies to other public debts,—for instance, when there has been an expenditure under the Land Improvement Act upon an insolvent or mismanaged estate, sold in the Incumbered Estates Court, the instal¬ ments due are at once paid out of the funds of the sale. The purchasers also, in many instances, rather than let a debt remain on the property, prefer to increase the amount of their purchase-money, in order to pay off the balance of the loan. Thus, a vexatious litigation to recover the instal- * See a communication from Mr. F. Barry, C. E., in Nineteenth Report of the Commissioners of the Board of Works in Ireland. f Only two years’ arrears of poor-rates can be recovered according to the Statutable limitation. 51 ments due is not only prevented, but the whole amount of the sum expended is repaid, with interest to the Commis¬ sioners of the Board of Works, to be again funded for re¬ issue on works of improvement; while the new proprietorjex- pends his own capital to complete the^drainage|of his estate. But, amid evidences of progress apparent on every side, Emigration, a difficulty, that could not have been anticipated a few years since, is now continually experienced—that is, the occa¬ sional deficiency in supply of labour. And this leads us to the all-absorbing topic of emigration. The great question of over-population, or how to get rid of the (assumed) ex¬ cess beyond the productive powers of the soil to sustain, which has occupied so many Parliamentary Committees, and puzzled so many political sciolists, is now more than solved by circumstances beyond legislative control. The link of patriotism is broken with the mass of the people—or rather, Irishmen fly to another Ireland in America, for a large pro¬ portion of the population, especially of the south and west have relatives at the other side of the Atlantic, who send to their friends at home the means of emigrating; the total sum transmitted during the year just closed being probably not far short of £850,000. The rate of decennial increase in the United States is now more than double that of Eng¬ land. From Ireland man has become the chief article of ex¬ port ; and emigration, which has been steadily increasing since 1815, has swelled into an immense traffic. Compar¬ ing the Census of 1841 with 1851, Mayo, Galway, Roscom¬ mon, and Cork, have lost considerably over 30 per'cent. of their inhabitants : and the Inspecting Commissioners of Fisheries, in their Report for the year 1850, record their be¬ lief, that the maritime population of the south and^west are diminished by more than one-half since 1845. Of these, the famine has had its share of victims; but by far the greater e 2 52 number became soldiers of that great army of occupation, which is penetrating into the vast regions of central and western North America. We learn from the Report of the Commissioners of the Board of Public Works, that in the Loughoughter district (in Leitrim, Longford, and Cavan), where 2,500 men were required for the drainage in October, 1850, not more than 1,300 could be procured. The consolidation of holdings is a principal cause of emigration ; and Major Larcom’s Re¬ turns* exhibit a decrease of holdings between 1849-50 of one twenty-ninth of the total number of holdings in Ire¬ land ; but he also testifies to “ the increasing investment of capital in agriculture, and the abandonment of that un¬ skilled husbandry, which almost invariably attended the minute subdivision of land without capital.” However, it is not only from Ireland, but also from England and Scot¬ land,! that this emigration, unprecedented in history, pro¬ ceeds. The Irishman, driven from fatherland by the ex¬ patriating influence of the clearance system, or despairing of the recovery of his fallen country ; the Briton, under the urgent stimulus of enterprise, or flying from a heavily taxed country to regions where taxation is scarcely felt, and em¬ ployment is in constant and remunerative demand. Amid the tumult and confusion of hundreds of thousands hurrying seaward, one feels distracted, and almost incapable of reasoning calmly upon this national exodus. Yet we * See Appendix F. Agricultural Statistics. f The increase on emigration of 1849 over 1848 is :—from England, 50 per cent.; from Ireland, 40 per cent.; and from Scotland, 62 per cent. But during the years 1850 and 1851, the proportion of emigrants from Ireland has greatly increased. Thom, in an ingenious and well-consi¬ dered article in his Red Book for 1852, calculates the emigration from the United Kingdom in 1851 at 350,000, of which the proportion from Ire¬ land is about 279,000. 53 would draw cheerful conclusions from the event; which will have the double effect of raising the wages of the la¬ bourer and emptying the workhouses at home; while the generous temperament of the emigrant Irish, shrouded here by national misfortune, unfolds beneath more genial skies ; and the spirit, that despair and apathy had well nigh ex¬ tinguished, bursts into life and light, when brought in con¬ tact with the irrepressible energy of the American. Ex¬ periencing the direct rewards of industry in the creation of an inalienable possession by his own accumulated labour (which is capital in the most essential sense of the term), the emigrant learns his value as a man, and rises in the scale of existence. Nor do we doubt that English, Scotch, and Ulster farmers will pour in, in good time, upon the denuded tracts of the south and west, again sowing seeds of hope, and invigorating industry, by the admixture of a more energetic race. Those who fear the effects of a deficiency in the labour- market, forget the wonderful progress, even within the last few months, of scientific substitutes for human labour. The steam-plough and the reaping-machine* will fill the blank left by emigration from England and Scotland, and, it may be, from Ireland also. We would fling open wide, and wider still, the gates of transit to our colonies, and prescribe no arbitrary limit to the exode to stranger lands, which must receive, together * Mr. M‘Cormick, the inventor of the successful reaping-machine, is a Scotchman by birth, though for some years resident in the United States. However, in any point of view, the rivalry of invention must be consi¬ dered a friendly contest between those who speak the same language, and breathe the same air of freedom. The working mechanics in Ame¬ rica are better educated, and display more ingenuity than the same class in England. But in the higher grades of engineering and mechanical sci¬ ence, the English generally surpass their American brethren; and their services are accordingly more in request throughout the civilized world. 54 with our people, the moral influences of our national cha¬ racter and distinctive civilization. Empires of old time planted their colonists in warrior bands, to destroy, and separate, and enslave. Now the system is reversed. Pa¬ triotism is a selfish principle no longer, and every colonis¬ ing emigrant is an additional link in the affiliation of the peoples of the earth. We fear not the consequences to the United Kingdom of emigration ; for we believe that the embassage of universal civilization is stamped upon the destinies of that unrivalled empire, whose children, even now, are grouped on the shores of all oceans which her commerce cleaves. “ Britanniarum majestas, ad ortum Solis ab hesperio cubili porrecta.” Waste lands. It is indeed a strange anomaly, that while we have four millions and a quarter of waste lands in Ireland, our farmers and labourers should emigrate in such numbers to reclaim the wastes of foreign lands. The chain of bog stretching from the borders of Dublin County to the Shannon, and the moors and bogs scattered over the great central limestone plain, alone contain 1,576,000 acres, and are all in the lines of traffic by railroad and water-carriage. These offer every probability of speedy and large returns to the judicious in¬ vestment of capital, especially in those districts opened by Peat charcoal, the arterial drainages. Without alluding to the more du¬ bious success of the oleaginous extracts, the patent peat fuel appears abundantly useful in its varied applications to machinery and manufactures, especially in the smelting of iron, in order to displace from the British market the Baltic iron, which is used in the manufacture of the finer metallic products ; in the preparation of the ore, the proportion by weight of peat charcoal, as compared with coke, being about one-half, while the former imparts three times the 55 amount of tenacity and elasticity. Peat charcoal is also coming into use as a sanitary agent; and, besides its power of deodorising offensive and putrescent substances, possesses the quality of fixing the ammoniacal gases of the atmo¬ sphere and volatile gases of manures, and retaining them for the gradual uses of vegetable growth. We cannot con¬ cur with the opinion, that the raw peat, compressed and pulverised, would answer equally well the economic pur¬ poses of the charcoal; but the latter must be produced at a cheaper rate than at present, if it is intended to be intro¬ duced extensively into the British market. We must not forget, however, that we have a growing home market* for this hitherto neglected material; and when the residual peaty surface is drained, the bogs themselves frequently afford the most suitable alteratives for reclamation, in pits of limestone gravel, or layers of marl formed in the sub- ♦ strata. Where these are not available, a top-dressing of ashes from the burned surface will supply sufficient manure for opening cultivation with a crop of rape. Cattle fed on this may be littered with the turf-mould, and, by the appli¬ cation of their manure, successive green crops can be raised for an indefinite period. * There would have been little distress in the Kilrush Union, had the extensive bogs in the district been turned to remunerative account, in¬ stead of being wastefully cut away, without reference to drainage or ulti¬ mate reclaimage of the subsoils. The value of these bogs, not only in supplying the fuel market of Limerick, but also the infant steam-com¬ merce of the Shannon, will yet be more clearly appreciated. And we doubt not that the intelligent capitalists (all men of Clare) who purchased parts of the Hickman Estate in the Kilrush Union, sold by the Incumbered Es¬ tates Commissioners last month, will set a good example in the manage¬ ment of the bog attached to their several lots. Fire clays are found on the western borders of the great Kilbaha bog. The Rev. Mr. Comyn, P. P. of Kilkee, pointed out to the author, some years since, beds of kao¬ lin of good quality in that vicinity. 56 Green crops suitable for peaty land. It is a great mistake to introduce the usual rotation of crops on reclaimed peat, which is necessarily deficient in silex and the azotised ingredients adapted for the nutrition of the cereals, slight traces only of these constituents being found in the potato, tap-rooted vegetables, and the various cruciferse. We control Nature by following her guidance; and it is a wiser and more economical husbandry to suit the crop to the constitution of the soil, than endeavour to change its nature by the repeated application of expensive alterative manures, which, if withdrawn for a few years, the land almost invariably returns to its originally wild state. We are not putting forward merely theoretical views. We have ourselves grown green crops in uninterrupted suc¬ cession for ten years on clay lands, without increasing the quantities of manure; and we conclude, that the system must prove more successful where soil and products are both carbonaceous.* There are about 150,000 acres of partially reclaimed flat bogs in Ireland; and, deducting 40,000 acres for coarse meadow, pasture, and other uses, we have 110,000 acres, yielding, according to the usual ro¬ tation, one green crop in four years. Now, assuming that continuous green cropping is substituted for this system, and allowing only sixteen tons per acre, we should have for the additional three years an increment of upwards of five million and a half tons of green food, equivalent to the sup¬ port of half a million black stock, young and old. * The inquiring reader will perceive, on comparison of the analysis of the turnip and mangel, with the analysis of various peat soils made by Kane and others, that their chemical constituents are not only identical but nearly in the same proportions : so that when peat, unfit in its crude state for the nutrition of plants, becomes decomposed under the agency of manures that promote the fermentation of its substance, it is then con¬ verted into humus, the proper food for those vegetables, to which we have given the name of carbonaceous, because of their constituents being combi¬ nations of carbon. 57 But, besides the bog wastes, at least one-third of our Moor and waste land consists of moory and mountain pastures, pe- wastes/ rished with surface water; and the superficial drainage (termed sheep drainage in Scotland) appears to be the most economical method of bringing these tracts into profitable use. From the Report of the Board of Works, so fre¬ quently referred to, we learn that this system is being gra¬ dually adopted in Ireland ; and the hardy Scotch sheep, fit for such pastures, have been imported in considerable num¬ bers. If the sheep drainage be steadily persevered in, this stock will increase with a rapidity which it would be diffi¬ cult to calculate. In allusion to the subject of waste land, we are tempted Alluvies of the to include a large proportion of the corcass soils of the Lower ^°™ er shan " Shannon under that head, as their drainage and cultivation have been either totally neglected, or wastefully conducted. The vast extent of alluvial land of the Lower Shannon and its tributaries is from four to fourteen feet deep, and rests upon an uneven bed of fossiliferous limestone. The soil is of almost inexhaustible fertility, and rich in alkaline constituents. It is analogous in composition to those Baltic soils that supply our markets with so much hemp and flax; and yet we scarcely ever observe these crops grown on this land. Indeed, one of the chief causes of the decline of Irish agriculture has been the unsuitability of our farming to the climate and soil, which are more favourable to flax* and * The increased growth of flax is of incalculable importance in extend¬ ing the source of employment, and supplying home-produced material for the manufacture of linen. The history of that manufacture goes far to prove the advantage of free trade. For it was not until all bounties and protective duties had been withdrawn, that rapid progress was ma¬ nifested: the value of linen exports last year probably exceeding £500,000, and 200,000 persons being employed in immediate connexion with the ma¬ nufacture, besides those engaged in the culture of the plant. This branch 58 Partitions and exchanges of land by the In- cumbered Es¬ tates Commis¬ sioners. Law of Waste. hemp, the inferior cereals, green crops, the grasses, and the raising of cattle, than to the growth of wheat. We believe, that the best adapted rotation for the alluvial soils alluded to would be the leguminous plants, root crops, and flax or hemp; one or more of each in succession, as experience might dictate: where flax was not suitable, hemp would certainly succeed, and would find a ready market. In the management of this description of soil, fine tilth is a much more essential requisite to secure productiveness than ma¬ nure; as deep ploughing will, at all times, bring fresh ele¬ ments of fertility to the surface. We have thus briefly laid before our readers our views as to the economical reclaimage of bog and moor-land ; and the Incumbered Estates Court presents peculiar facilities to as¬ sist in the accomplishment of this object; the Commissioners having jurisdiction to partition lands held in undivided shares, to divide and allot intermixed lands, and to arrange and sanction exchanges of land (moorlands and bog wastes being usually held in common, or intermixed) which, under the former legal routine, could not be effected without the intervention of tedious and expensive proceedings in Chan¬ cery. However, further legal reform in the law of waste* is requisite (as already suggested in this pamphlet) in order of industry will also be much facilitated and improved by the judicious division of labour lately adopted, in the introduction of factors, who buy up the raw material from the grower, and prepare it by a careful and economical process for the manufacturer. * According to the law of waste, a tenant cannot change the nature of the thing demised ; so that if he reclaimed waste lands, he would thereby render himself impeachable of waste. This is one of those mischievous le¬ gal absurdities which shows the necessity of radical change, instead of a series of petty and incomplete reforms, in the law affecting the manage¬ ment and transmission of real property in Ireland. Some hundred years ago, when many Irish estates were but oases in deserts of moor or mo¬ rass, and scientific surveys were altogether omitted, or very imperfectly 59 to annul any injurious restrictions and reservations in deeds of settlement or leases; such as now prevent the reclaimage of waste lands, the opening of quarries and mines, the dig¬ ging of tile clay and kaolin, and the uses of turf for manu¬ facturing purposes; and to empower the landlord or tenant, as the case may be, to exercise an unfettered judgment in such outlay of capital, as may bring his property into the most productive condition. In concluding our reflections upon the social and agricul¬ tural condition of Ireland, we would observe, that national prosperity is not so much the consequence of natural re¬ sources, as the necessary result of industrial and moral train¬ ing. That productiveness, which is the creation of human labour, under the impulse of diversified wants, renders the colder and more sterile regions capable of sustaining dense and constantly increasing numbers, while the profuse na¬ tural fecundity of more favoured climes, where food is a weed, but man ignorant and slothful, fails to keep a scanty and scattered population within the limits of subsistence. To bring the comparison nearer to our own times and cir¬ cumstances,—the necessity, that energized the genius of the Dutch to war with the elements, and win a realm from the sea, paralysed the apathetic Irish in a country where earth, sea, and sky are all propitious to the husbandman. Again, executed, the enclosure of waste would have tended to disturb bounda¬ ries, and thus confuse the evidence of title, and was therefore prevented by a legal fiction, not yet entirely done away with. For further information, see Professor Hancock’s “ Impediments to the Prosperity of Ireland,” page 129; and chapters viii. and xv. of “ The Tenure and Improvement of Land in Ireland,” by Messrs. Ferguson and Vance. The latter is incomparably the most impartial and comprehensive work that has appeared on the question, but, unfortunately, it has been printed for private circulation only. Concluding reflections. Causes of na¬ tional pros¬ perity. Holland. 60 Scotland. Ireland. about seventy years ago, the south-eastern lowlands of Scotland, that now present not only the best-farmed, but also the highest-rented land in the Empire, were overrun with pauperism, and inflamed by agrarian discontents and hatred of the union with England. But religious educa¬ tion, combined with industrial discipline, gradually dispelled these self-destroying evils, fostered the germs of improve¬ ment in the minds of a naturally shrewd and provident race; and, within the term of little more than two generations, elevated the character of the rural population to its present high and happy standard. And we are fain to hope, that the chastening lessons of Providence, in forcing upon our notice the sources of national evils, have likewise inculcated the knowledge of their true remedies, and that the success¬ ful progress of a well-organized system of united instruc¬ tion,* suited to the social requirements of the population, has laid the foundation of results analogous to those which have occurred in Scotland, notwithstanding the reckless' op¬ position of those, who would make religion itself the occasion of disunion instead of the bond of concord, and would leave the people in the darkness of ignorance, that they might keep them in thraldom. Hitherto the masses vainly expected national prosperity as a legislative creation from without, instead of a growth from within: but repeated failures and sad experiences have at last instilled the wise lesson, that the scattered elements * The incomparable school-books of the National Education Board, the establishment of Agricultural Model Schools, now thirteen in number, on the same system, besides thirty-four independent Agricultural Schools, have been most successful in disseminating sound and useful information throughout the country, Lord Clarenden’s admirable plan of Agricultu¬ ral Instructors has also conferred great benefit, wherever his Excellency’s good intentions have not been frustrated by gentlemen recommending unfit persons for the situation. 61 of power must not only be united by combined action, but also utilized by an earnest practical direction, in order to accomplish enduring benefits for a people. The last in¬ sane attempt at rebellion, like the surging rage of the sea to overpass its decreed limit, has only eventuated in raising a mightier barrier against its own aggression: and now the political aspirations even of the most enthusiastic do not point to the separation of these islands, but are rather directed to the attainment of peaceful as well as practicable objects. The returns of the Inspector-General of Prisons in Ire¬ land, as far as we have been able to procure them, prove the decrease of crime, as well as the importance of education in improving the moral character of a people ; the number of committals in 1848, 1849, and 1850 exhibiting an increas¬ ing proportion of those who could neither read nor write, as compared with those who had received some share of education. Under the head of Murder, the diminution has been more than one-half between 1849 and 1850; and we believe there has been a further diminution in the year 1851. Such improvement we attribute mainly to the increasing respect for law and order, the progress of industry and edu¬ cation, and the decrease of pauperism.* The year just gone by has impressed many a portentous change on the destinies of the human family. The triumph of free trade has been celebrated by a magnificent Exhi¬ bition, displaying the products and artistic skill of nations in every region of the earth. But the gates of the palace of peace and commerce were scarcely closed, and the trophies of genius and industry withdrawn, ere rumours of * See Appendix G. Statistics of Crime. Diminution of crime. 1851. \ 62 Moral and so¬ cial improve¬ ment of Ire¬ land. coming troubles disturbed men’s minds, and dispelled the vision of the philanthropist.—1851 has been signalized throughout the European Continent by the victory of despotic will over the bloody saturnalia of popular license ; and the closing days of the year witnessed the miserable spectacle of a great people, incapable of enjoying the glo¬ rious privileges won by torrents of their blood, rolling back the stone upon the grave of Freedom.—1851 has also seen the English-speaking race, under the impulse of the sacra fames auri , founding new empires on desert shores, and ex¬ tending civilization to the extreme south and west.— Lastly, 1851 has witnessed the commencement of a revo¬ lution in this remote island, quiet, indeed, and unostenta¬ tious in its signs, yet full of potent significance to the reflecting mind. The edifice of national prosperity is gra¬ dually rising upon the solid basis of moral and social im¬ provement. Ardent in attachment as in hate, the Irish peasantry had long yielded implicit credence to leaders, who appealed to their passions, instead of their reason. Thus the judgment was obscured, the balance of the moral feelings destroyed, and impulse, instead of principle, be-- came the guide of action. To the ignorance and credulity of the masses may be traced all the crimes, and most of the misfortunes, of Ireland since the Union. The people had no real confidence in their own strength. ct Aid yourselves, and heaven will aid you,” never was the motto on their standard. Now, the scene is manifestly changing. Deep and silent influences are at work. Faithless antecedents have lost their spell; and many a political partisan of for¬ mer days would play his part differently, if the past could be recalled. (So let the selfish agitation, that would sever, instead of unite, ever prove “ the triumph of unthankful¬ ness!”) Educational improvement, independent thought, 63 self-respect, regulated industry, are everywhere becoming apparent, even in the seaboard counties of the West, where darkest ignorance and bitterest prejudice hitherto prevailed ; and confidence in the good intentions, if not altogether in the political measures of the Imperial Government, has dis¬ placed rebellious distrust in the minds of the population. We now close our observations, which have been prin- Conclusion, cipally directed to explain the policy and practical results of the Act for facilitating the sale and transfer of Incum¬ bered Estates in Ireland ; viewing that Act as the first of a series of economic measures, calculated to liberate the land and the people from injurious and servile restrictions,—to direct the dormant energies of Irishmen into useful and re productive channels,—and, generally, to develop the natural resources of the country. We have stated the grounds of our confidence, the reasons for our expectation of the social redemption of Ireland, and trust we have impressed the minds of our readers with the same conviction, which has cheered us in our task, that, with the opening year of the half-century, the promise of a brighter day has dawned upon this unhappy land. APPENDIX. -——♦- Appendix A. Statistics of the Incumbered Estates Court, From October 25, 1849, when first Petition was presented, to Janu¬ ary 31, 1852; being a period of two years and three months. Total Number of Petitions presented, 2133. Number of Con¬ ditional Orders for Sale 1707. Number of Absolute Orders, 1458. Of this number of Petitions, 266 were dismissed; 279 were dupli¬ cate (including Supplemental) Petitions; 69 were Assignee or Insolvent cases; and 423 were presented by the owners them¬ selves. 303 Certificates of Conveyance have been transmitted to the Court of Chancery, upon which that Court issued their cer¬ tificates to discharge Receivers; and 1289 Conveyances have been executed. That such a large proportion of the Petitions should be from owners themselves, for the sale of their estates, is a proof both of the efficiency and public utility of the Commission, which has already under its juris¬ diction the estates of one Marquis, fourteen Earls, eight Lords, one Ba¬ roness, two Counts, twenty-five Baronets and Knights, one Right Ho¬ nourable, six Honourables, seven M. P.’s, and seven Ex-M. P.’s. It has been asserted, indeed, that owners petition for sale of their es¬ tates in order to take the carriage out of hostile hands. This has, doubt¬ less, occurred in a few cases; but, in the great majority of instances, the owner petitions either for the purpose of divesting himself of respon¬ sibilities which are impossible of complete fulfilment, and of giving the proceeds of his estates, as far as they reach, among his creditors ;—or of getting a good title, at a cheap rate, to a portion of his property, if he is so fortunate as to preserve a remnant, after payment of his credi¬ tors, but, under any circumstances whatever, to escape the expenses, de¬ lays, and uncertainties of Chancery. F 66 Number of Petitions filed each Month , from October , 1849, to January , 1852, inclusive. 1849, October, . . . 17 55 November, . . 137 55 December, 119 1850, January, . . . 129 55 February, . . . 126 55 March, .... 126 55 April, . . . . 99 55 May, . . . . 135 55 June, . . . . 115 55 J uly, .... 82 55 August, . . . 106 55 September, . . 64 55 October, . . . 73 55 November, 82 55 December, . . 63 Carriedforward , 1473 Brought forward , 1473 1851, January, . . . 68 55 February, . . 59 55 March, .... 78 55 April, .... 53 May, .... 74 55 June, . . . . 39 55 July, . . . . 42 55 August, . . . 43 55 September, . . . 28 55 October, . . . 47 55 November, . . 54 55 December, . . . 42 1852, January, . . . 33 Total, . . 2133 Sale tmcZ Distribution to January 31, 1852. 559 Estates have been sold, in 2698 Lots, to 1640 Purchasers. Table, showing the Number and Amounts of Purchasers. £1000 and under. £1000 to £2000. £2000 to £5000. '’£‘5000 to£l 0,000. £10,000 and upwards. Total. 789 338 387 130 \ 69 1713 67 Total Amount of Sales, £4,682,877 2$. 3d. £ s. d. Total Amount distributed, . . . 2,002,803 3 61- Out of which was allowed to Incumbrancers, who became Purchasers, . . . 237,931 18 Leaving the difference, being the actual amount of capital expended in purchase, . . £1,764,871 4 9 The apparent tardiness in distribution of the funds, alluded to in the note to page 14, is chiefly attributable to delays in the Deed Registry Office; the gentlemen in that department being so overwhelmed with business, since the establishment of the In- cumbered Estates Court, that they are unable to furnish returns to requisitions for searches within a reasonable time. The above Table shows, that the proportion of Proprietors has been nearly trebled by the transition of property, and in by far the greater number of instances the incumbered owner has been replaced by a solvent capitalist. The number of purchasers at £2000, and under, being two- thirds of the whole, proves, that the Commission has been instrumental in the formation of a middle class, these purchasers being generally small capitalists or farmers. It will be observed, that the proportion allowed to incumbrancers, who became purchasers, is about one-ninth of the purchase-money ; and the Author, after examining at various times the statistics of the sales, after the final schedule has been settled, has found that proportion generally to prevail. English Purchasers, fyc. fyc. There have been sixty-seven purchasers from England, one from Scotland, one from the Isle of Man, and one from India; the last mentioned, however, being an Irishman in the Civil Service abroad, may be enumerated amongst the home purchasers. f 2 68 Table of Purchases , English ,