M-
 
 /^X^ 4/^-'«-'^»-wi 
 
 THE 
 
 IRISH PROBLEM. 
 
 WHAT LACKS THE BACKWARD 
 FARMER MOST: 
 
 SECURITY, OR SKILL? 
 
 OMAGH : 
 PRINTED AT THE TYRONE CONSTITUTION OFFICB, 
 
 1869.
 
 The five following papers, written by Hibeknicus, are reprints 
 from the Tyrone Constitution. Their object is chiefly to show that 
 instead of less landlord influence more (bnt that of an elevated 
 type) is required in those parts of Ireland, the backwardness of 
 which calls most loudly for legislation. 
 
 The writer had not perused Master Fitzgibbon's recent pamph- 
 let when the above papers were penned. He now feels gratified 
 to find himself in accord, in so many points, with so able a thinker, 
 
 December 1869.
 
 THE IRISH PROBLEM. 
 
 I. 
 
 A PLEA FOR THE IRISH LAND. 
 
 We are going to beg of our readers to join us for a while in con- 
 sidering the Irish Land Question from a new point of view — one 
 at which both Landlord and Tenant can meet, and for a while 
 cast off that cloak of selfish considerations which hinders each in 
 his progress to a practicable solution of the difficulty. "We pro- 
 pose to regard the question neither from the Landlord's point of 
 view nor from the Tenant's point of view, but, with due regard 
 to the reasonable rights of both, from the point at which that 
 oft- quoted personage — the Intelligent Foreigner — would take 
 his stand if asked for his opinion as to what would be best for 
 the community at large. The Intelligent Foreigner regarding the 
 question in the abstract would say — "Here is an island abounding 
 in the elements of productiveness. Much of it is well-cultivated 
 and fertile ; but a great deal of it is ill-cultivated and not made 
 to produce two-thii'ds of what it might. The soil of this island 
 is chiefly owned by large proprietors who have no stimulus save 
 that of a sense of moral obligation, in a greater or lesser stage of 
 development, to induce them to advance the condition of their 
 tenantries. They lack the stimulus of self-interest ; for they can 
 raise their rents, whether they have conti'ibuted to the improve- 
 ment of the soil or not, so that an increase of their incomes is not 
 dependant on their own careful thought and consideration as to 
 the means by which the greatest quantity of produce may be 
 elicited from the soil. They have nothing to do, unless impelled 
 hj their own good feeling, save to eat, drink, and be merry, while 
 others wdthout are toiling 'to make up the rent.' If the property 
 of any given landlord wears a poor and neglected aspect, no 
 odium falls upon him from the side of his fellow-landlords. He is 
 not shunned as a man who does not meet his obligations. But 
 what can you expect? Dirt and rags are proverbial in Ireland: 
 and what wonder if some of her lords of the soil are ' clad -^dth a 
 dirty and ragged estate' on which nearly every cottage and field 
 tells its tale of listlessness and neglect on the part l3oth of the 
 tenant whose abode is there, and of the landlord who does not 
 stimulate the tenant to better things." 
 
 But are the landlords only to blame for this prevalence of rag- 
 ged houses and tattered land? "No" — the Intelligent Foreigner 
 wiU continue — "I have found ample evidence," he wiU say, "in
 
 4 
 
 my journeyings tlirougli this island, of every effort being made by 
 resident landlords and their families, to improve the condition of 
 the people committed to their charge ; and many a tale have I 
 heard of heart-breaking disappointment — of the most persistent 
 efforts to civilize the small farming community being met not 
 only by a want of inclination, but also by what appears to be a 
 downright inaptitude to improve. 
 
 " Make some of them dykes to drain their meadows, and they 
 will not be at the trouble to clear out the weeds periodically 
 unless absolutely goaded to it. Drain their fields and they will 
 let the outfall get stopped up, till by-and-by the wet boils up 
 worse than ever. Eag- weeds and thistles are suffered to infest 
 their pastures. JSTothing will induce them to make straight rigs, 
 nor to keep their fences in anything like decent repair. The pig 
 is always in the kitchen, and a noxious pool in front of the door 
 occupies the spot which amongst the English cottagers a trim 
 flower bed would adorn. They stick perversely to antiquated 
 modes of cropping ; and exhaust your land thereby to the utter- 
 most ; and then turn round good-humouredly — for they are always 
 good-humoured — and tell you that 'it's no odds, so long as it 
 makes them enough to live on after they have paid the rent.' To 
 such men, Ulster Tenant Eight is the Eight to carry on a half 
 civilized existence, no man hindering them." 
 
 This is the sort of sketch which the Intelligent Foreigner would 
 make of our country and our countrymen ; admitting of course that 
 he had only picked out the salient points of backwardness and ne- 
 glect, on the principle that good landlords and well-to-do tenants 
 and trim farms, however plentiful they might be throughout the 
 country, were nothing more than one had a right to expect to find 
 in any civilized land at the end of the 19th century, so that only 
 the negligent landlords or tenants were deserving of special 
 attention as causing blots on the face of the landscape which had 
 no business to be there. 
 
 What cure, then, would be devised for the evil by the impartial 
 observer? Again, and again the words are being reiterated, until 
 they will soon become a bye-word: — " Compel the had landlord hy 
 laio to do that lohich the good landlord ivoiold do from a sense of 
 dutyV Well and good — but is that sufficient? Is there no 
 counterpart to such an obligation? If the good landlord's efforts 
 to advance his tenants to their proper place in the march of pro- 
 gress are often unavailing, what can you expect of the bad land- 
 lord, even if he is put under legal pressure ? Tou must go still 
 further, and you must compel not only the had landlord^ hut also 
 the had tenant, hy law, to do that which the good tenant would do 
 voluntarily and as a matter of course! And this is our "Pleatok 

 
 THE Irish Land." Neither landlord nor tenant must be suffered 
 to disfigure the face of the country with cabins or cottages need- 
 lessly squalid, if the law can do ought to prevent it; neither 
 landlord nor tenant must be suffered to allow wet, and weeds, 
 and bad cropping to curtail the generous yield which a properly 
 cultured soil would produce, if it is possible to make an enactment 
 which shall ensure good farming. 
 
 It ^-ill be said that we here point to a sort of ideal despotism 
 by which the law is to make every body good and happy in spite 
 of themselves. 
 
 Nothing of the sort. "We only propose that the channel of 
 legislation should be turned into such a direction that each and 
 all — landlords and tenants — will find it to their decided advantage 
 to keep pace with the progress of civilisation around them, and 
 to their decided disadvantage not to do so. 
 
 And how can this be eflTected ? We have already observed that 
 the landlord has no stimulus in the shape of self-interest, to make 
 it worth his while to devote himself to property-management as a 
 real mercantile business, which if he manages badly, it will be so 
 much the worse for him, and if he manage well, it will be so much 
 the better for him. The improving landlord who endeavours, but 
 endeavours in vain, till he gives it up in despair, to get his farms 
 to be something like Belgian farms, has at least one consolation 
 if he fails. He gets his rents in full, all the same. Even this 
 amiable individual requires another goad to stimulate him to still 
 greater exertions. Even over his head there must be held the 
 fear of the periodical government valuation which, if his farms fall 
 back in productiveness, must visit him with a depreciation in his 
 rental. He will then see that the backward farmer, by gentle 
 means if possible, or if these fail, by sterner ones, must be made 
 to advsLTice, or to ffive place to another. And that the backward 
 farmer may not have it to say that he had no stimulus, the same 
 periodical valuation which raises or lowers the rental of the land- 
 lord, must give the tenant full credit for all improvements of 
 proved value made by him with his landlord's consent, on or ia 
 the soil. And safeguards must be given against vexatious re- 
 fusals on the part of the landlord or tenant, to make or to 
 acquiesce in the making of such necessary improvements as shall 
 fall to the part of either of them to effect. 
 
 The present idea of Ulster Tenant Eight amongst the farming 
 class appears to be that a farmer should be irremovable so long as 
 he pays his rent, and that he should have the right to sell his 
 interest to the highest bidder. This idea may suit the private in- 
 terests of the farmers themselves well enough; but we — while 
 ready to forego for the public good much landlord prerogative —
 
 6 
 
 assert most decidedly our opinion that such an idea does not tend 
 to the best interests of the community at large. 
 
 The farmer ought to be removable by his landlord for improper 
 cultivation, aye and for persistence in maintaining a piggish habi- 
 tation, (cases of which a government official should be the judge 
 if appeal was demanded). And, in order to restore our patch- 
 work holdings to proper shapes and sizes ,so that they may be 
 farmed in accordance with the laws of economy, the landlord 
 should have the selection of the successor to a tenant about to 
 leave. As for sales to the highest bidder — that may be all very 
 well amongst a certain class who know what they are about ; but 
 we have already alluded in the columns of the Tyiio:s^e Consti- 
 tution to the influences of whiskey and "sweeteners" in transac- 
 tions of this nature ! We beg of the many farmers in favoured 
 and wealthy districts, and of some newspaper writers, whose ex- 
 perience is for the most part confined to the trim farms in the 
 neighbourhood of our towns, to weigh well our very earnest words, 
 written, we honestly declare, in the interest of no particular 
 class, and we heartily trust under the influence of no particular 
 prejudice ; and we hope to unite all our readers, in the name and 
 for the sake of Irish progress, in the opinion we have already ex- 
 pressed that the land legislature of the future ought to be based 
 upon the principle "that the bad landlord and the had tenant 
 should be compelled by law, to do that which the good ones would 
 naturally do from a sense of duty and of their own real advan- 
 tage." 
 
 IL 
 
 ABOUT LEASES 
 
 A GEEAT deal has been lately said on the subject of leases, and 
 more particularly about 31 years leases. We are unable to see 
 what magic there is in the precise term of 31, but we have heard 
 it so often named in certain quarters, that we begin to suspect it 
 is a " shibboleth." We believe that a certain State official, hav- 
 ing to deal with certain State lands once upon a time, gave 31 
 years leases to all the tenants thereon, who have thriven ever 
 since. Hence has arisen a tradition amongst public men grop- 
 ing for light on the " Irish Difficulty," that not only is there 
 luck in odd members, but that there is some special charm in 
 the number of ihivtj-one. 
 
 Let us however make a present of this odd year to its ad- 
 vocates, and join issue with them on the question, notwith- 
 stauding the success of the experiment in question, whether A 
 LEASE is the one and sole panacea for the Irish Parmer's ills.
 
 We say it is not. "We affirm that a lease is too riiaeh foY 
 u lad farmer and too little for a good one in this country, 
 And why ? To answer this question aright we must define a 
 bad Irish farmer and a good Irish farmer. 
 
 The bad farmer in Ireland is a man whose misfortune it is 
 to be a bad farmer rather than his fault. He lacks skill and the 
 habit of order more than he lacks security. It is really pass- 
 ing strange, as one goes from house to house on some Irish 
 estates, to see how the people are marked off, as it were, into 
 two distinct classes. If the distinction went by districts it 
 would be more intelligible ; but it does not. On the same hill- 
 side — on one farm we see the fences cared for, the ground free 
 of weeds and wet, the crop flourishing, the house tidy and clean ; 
 and on the next one to it we see every one of these conditions 
 reversed. And even if some of the slovenly ones do manage 
 occasionally to get as good crops out of the ground as some of 
 the orderly ones, surely life is not all a matter of pounds, shillings, 
 and pence. Deprive it of comfort, and you deprive it of half its 
 sweetness ; and though it may be argued that families which pass 
 a half civilized and dirty existence, are, from never having known 
 better, as happy after their fashion as the cleanest and most re- 
 fined, still it is surely our duty, if we can^ to introduce them to 
 the higher walks of enjoyment, which when they have entered, 
 they vnll never recede from. 
 
 From these remarks it will have been already seen that when 
 we speak of a good farmer, we speak not only of a man who can 
 raise fair crops of oats and potatoes, and turn a ready penny by 
 the judicious buying and selling of cattle, but of one who can 
 raise these crops in a clean and farmer-like manner, and who 
 when he has made a little money by judicious "jobbing," as it is 
 called, considers it a duty to expend some of it as well as a good 
 deal of his spare time in imparting the polish of respectability 
 to his family and his premises. We class, then, the man who 
 (though he may raise very good crops) lives in a slovenly way, in 
 a slovenly house, and cultivates his farm in a slovenly manner, 
 not amongst the good farmers, but amongst the bad — amongst 
 those, who in addition to all these defects, sufter the weeds to 
 choke their crops, and the wet to sour their land, and, by bad rota- 
 tion, poor ploughing, and indifferent manuring, wear out the sod 
 till it is well nigh barren. 
 
 What advantage would it be to the community to give leases 
 to such men as these ? The only thmg that it is posible to do is to 
 bear vdth them as well as you can, and endeavour to train up 
 their sons by dint of good schooling and agricultural teaching, 
 to be more civilized and enlightened than their sires. But if their
 
 sdns will not be trained, and will not improve, how long is fov^ 
 bearance to last ? 
 
 Perhaps what we have written may be rather startling to some 
 Ulster minds accustomed to what is, if not an actual, yet a virtual 
 fixity of tenure. We shall be asked if we really and seriously 
 propose that a man should receive notice to quit w^hen he has 
 paid his rent regularly for years, merely because he chooses to be 
 slovenly in his farm, in his house, and in his person. 
 
 To this we reply that there is too great a tendency now-a-days 
 to be very sentimental in behalf of certain classes, and to reserve 
 all our animadversion for less favoured sections of the community. 
 The present cry is all against bad landlords. Well, hit 'em hard, 
 these bad landlords, so long as you are just and don't class good 
 ones amongst them, or so long as you don't call a man a bad one 
 who is really not so. But be still further just ; and if you are 
 down upon the bad landlords, j)ray be down upon the bad tenants 
 as well If you make it your boast that you are patriotic Irish- 
 men, show your zeal for your country by an impartial disapproval 
 of all who would retard its advancement, whether they be land- 
 lords or tenants ; and don't seek to perpetuate evils by agitating 
 for leases or any other form of security for any but those who 
 have shown some sign that they are likely to turn them to good 
 account. 
 
 But it has been already remarked that slovenliness and bad 
 farming are the misfortune rather than the fault of those of our 
 fellow-countrymen whose name is unhappily " legion." Would 
 We then visit upon them their misfortune ? By no means. But 
 we would make it their interest to do their utmost to rid them- 
 selves of this particular misfortune, by supplying them with the 
 greatest possible stimulus to improve. We who pen these lines 
 are surrounded by many such families. E-ight gladly would we 
 feel assured that these families would remain m the houses of 
 their forefathers till the third and fourth generation. But we 
 should also like to see legislation so directed that they would 
 have to ivin this boon by deserving it ! We are not of those who 
 Would impetuously uproot either landlord or tenant ; but we are 
 of the opinion that the Legislature should not leave a stone un- 
 turned to induce both landlords and tenants, by every motive of 
 self-interest, and by every fear of the consequences of neglect — - 
 to keep pace with the 19th century. It is of the tenant, and not 
 of the landlord that we are now speaking. Of the bad tenant 
 therefore we say that we would give him no lease, lest he should 
 snap his fingers in the face of his landlord and the community at 
 large, and remain a bad one. But what of the good tenants ? 
 We have already said that for them we do not consider a lease a
 
 9 
 
 good enougli reward. A lease ilnplic^^a time at nhieli, sooner or 
 later, it would be in the power of the landlord to make a change 
 of tenants. Now, this sort of argument is all very well in Eng- 
 land or Scotland, where the love of the old fireside is not, as in 
 this country, a national sentiment ; and where the hearthstone 
 and the roof tree have heen set in their places, not by the tenant 
 but by the landlord — where, in fact, the tenant is a customer, 
 taking from his landlord drained and fenced fields to till, and a 
 trim house to live in ; and not, as with us, a partner, who has 
 built most of the house, and drained and fenced the most of the 
 fields himself^ In Ireland, the farmer looks for something more 
 than a lease ; and considering the difierence in the circumstances 
 of the case, it is not without reason that he does so. And right 
 sure are we that if such Irish landlords as are worthy of the name, 
 were to be polled on the question, we should find nine-tenths of 
 them taking a real pride in being able to point to the " old resi- 
 denters" on their estates, whose forefathers were there as long as 
 their own, or longer. 
 
 But how are these sentiments consistent with what we have 
 already said of bad, or indifferent, or slovenly tenants ? AVhat 
 about their old residentership — their partnership — their hearth- 
 stones and rooftrees ? ^^'^^y, we leave it incumbent on them, 
 as we have said, to win for themselves the right to stand their 
 ground, only providing, in the interest of the community at 
 large, that win it and earn it they must ; for, as there is in these 
 modern days no divine right of kings, and no divine right of 
 landlords, so there must be no divine right of the people, to set 
 themselves as obstructions in the stream of progress, which never 
 pursued a more bright and silvery course than it is doing in this 
 our day ! 
 
 We conclude, then, as we began. In Ireland a lease is too 
 much for a bad farmer, too little for a good one. But it should 
 be open to every bad one to become a good one. Not a stone 
 should be left unturned by the State, or by the landlords, who, 
 on their several properties, should be regarded as the represen- 
 tatives of the State, for the improvement of the habits and the 
 agricultural skill of the people. And whereas it best befits the 
 land economy of Ireland that outlay on improvements should 
 rather be the joint work of the landlord and the tenant, than, as 
 in the Sister Island, the sole work of the landlord, the tenant 
 should in all cases have the value of his share of the outlay se- 
 cured to him. And, moreover, as want of skill is so common 
 amongst Irish farmers, and as that lack may cause much of their 
 outlay, if unaided by skilful direction, to be abortive, every dis- 
 couragement should be given to independent outlay on the part 
 
 B
 
 m 
 
 oftKe tenant without consulting the landlord ; while at the same* 
 time due provision should be made against unreasonable objections 
 to reasonable improvement from either side. Let but all this 
 be secured; together with a wholesome modification of the law of 
 eviction, and' we shall gradually glide into such^ a fixity of tenure' 
 as shall reward real worth, while affording no shelter to the un- 
 deserving — a fixity of tenure which will fulfil the conditions of 
 the Plantation of ITlst'er with an entirety which any mere plan of 
 stereotyping, as it were, the state of things as^ they now exis^ 
 would utterly and-signa% fail ^ effec1?i 
 
 HI. 
 
 ^BOtrr LEASES (Part 2m5).^ 
 
 The aim of James L when he devised his " Plantation ScKeme,"^ 
 was to give encouragement to men who were willing and able tb 
 transform the wilderness of Ulster into a garden. Many such 
 men appeared, and thanks to the wisdom of the Monarch, 
 thousands of our northern acres are now rich with fertility.- Bu't 
 in spite of the Monarch's wisdom, other thousands of those acres 
 are still in a state of little better than barrenness; and on many 
 a hillside, squalidity and real or apparent penury reign supreme.^ 
 And this is due to the too frequent departure from the spirit of 
 the scheme in question. 
 
 Now, by whom was this departure made ? Some will reply — 
 "By the landlords, by a denial on their part of that security 
 which was prescribed by the Sovereign, and which was requisite- 
 for the development of the best energies of the tenant." 
 
 Let us appeal to unimpeachable facts in order that it may be 
 seen how far this allegation can hold good. We shall confine 
 ourselves to a case within our own direct cognizance. We 
 prefer not to deal in generalities, and will leave it to others to 
 say whether our conclusions are borne out by their own 
 experience. 
 
 We have before us a lease granted in the reign of William IIL, 
 in the year IVOO, demising two townlands, containing about 500 
 acres, to a single individual for the term of three lives, at a rent 
 of £16 per annum. This lease dropped in the year 1750 when the 
 lands in question appear parcelled out amongst about forty 
 holders, who in their turn receive leases for three lives more, or 
 thirty-one to forty-one years, at about 5s per acre. And we have 
 before us a further budget of leases which, at about £1 per acre, 
 bring all these holdings down to the present generation. Some 
 have fallen in, and have not been renewed j others are still
 
 11 
 
 TTunriiag. But as the coudifeion of all the holders is imchauge'd, 
 ;«ave for the better since the time when the last leases began to 
 'expire, we maj assume that they have all been virtually under a 
 -■Bystem of security of tenure since the land was first redeemed 
 »from its state of wilderness. It will surely then be interesting 
 to see what have been the economic results of this security of 
 ^tenure, and whether it has established a race of model farmers. 
 •Certainly some of the farms and farm steadings lin question are 
 inmost pleasing to behold, the chouses neat and clean, the yard« 
 -tidy, the fences 'Very itolerably tirim, the 'fields fairly farmed. But 
 others again, under exactly the same conditions, are in nearly 
 every respect the reverse. We have recently visited. same of the 
 -holdings of the latter class ; and to eay nothing of the more 
 .purely agicultural defects, have felt dn a state of positive per- 
 plexity when stniving ito devise some means by which the long 
 Irish rows of -ddformed habitations thereon could be converted 
 -•into civilized dwellings, rather than be -totally demolished. 
 
 Let us return ifor a while to our starting point, the lease of 
 1700, and examine some of its terms. 3^hey were such as 
 ►follows: — That the lessee should "erect, or cause to be erected 
 'On the most convenient place on the premiees a ii&,rge dwelling 
 fhouse of good oak 'timber, the walls of stone and lime, at least 50 
 xfeet long and 14 high; and sufiiciently enclose with ditch, and 
 <quickset a plantation acre of land adjoining to said house, and 
 should sufficiently plant the same with good fruit trees." Then 
 .a proviso that the lessee should preserve all the timber grawing 
 4ihen or -thereafter on the land ; uphold and maintain the buildings 
 dn "tenantable repair, and at the expiration of the demise should 
 "*' 80 yield up and leave the same." Also that he should " scour 
 cEnd fence in the mearee and bounds of the premises." And that 
 .he should " not at any time, alien, sell, or convey his estate or 
 interest in the premises or any part thereof, without the epeoial 
 license of the lessor in writing." 
 
 Now, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, there is ndt oven 
 •a tradition of such a house as the one stipulated for having 'ever 
 been built. There ds, however, the most palpable evidence that 
 the sturdy jeoman in question, if he did not do his part to im- 
 prove the face of the country, according to the intention of the 
 Hoyal scheme, commenced even at that early era to lay the 
 foundation of that system of independence of landlords and their 
 rights which has now become so much -in vogue. 
 
 For dn the face of the stipulation not to assign without consent 
 an writing, we find the land, at the expiration of this first lease, in 
 the hands of forty sub-tenants. It is true that on the back of the 
 lease there is a memorandum of assignment ; but not only is thi«
 
 12 
 
 to one individual, and not to forty, but further, it is clearly nought 
 but a little private arrangement between the assignor and the 
 assignee ; for although their respective signatures are duly 
 attested, the landlord's assent does not appear thereto at all.* 
 The forty were evidently this middle-man's squatters. But it 
 would appear that when the lease fell in, the landlord whose 
 tenants they then became, good-naturedly established to them 
 the benefits of the Plantation Scheme ; for they all now received 
 leases for lives with the usual stipulations. 
 
 The family of the assignee who has just been alluded to, come in 
 for about seventy-five of the 500 acres under the new arrange- 
 ment. The love of sub-letting seems still to pursue them ; for 
 although the stipulations against this proceeding were renewed in 
 the leases of 1750, we find in an old note book belonging to the 
 landlord who owned the property in the year 1798, the following 
 memorandum respecting their holding : — 
 
 " This farm is let mostly to under-tenants far a guinea an 
 acre.'' 
 
 Now, mark the rent for which this land had been let by the 
 landlord in 1750. — Five Shillings an acre. Are we to believe that 
 the family of this assignee had themselves so far improved their 
 holding with buildings, fences, and so forth, as to have it made 
 worth twenty-one shillings an acre before they sub-let it, contrary 
 to their stipulation ? We scarcely think so. We fear the assignee 
 did not do by his illicit under-tenants as his landlord had done by 
 him. And what had the landlord done for him? He had let 
 him the land at a rent which would enable him, with much profit 
 to himself to reclaim it, and be able to have a considerable sum 
 to his credit, if he was a thrifty man, at the end of thirty-one 
 years, even after he had delivered up all his improvements in good 
 condition to his landlord, as per agreement. Don't let any one 
 exclaim at the idea of his giving up his improvements ; for was it 
 not a bargain ? The conditions to build proper houses, quick 
 and weed the fences, scour the ditches, &c., were all in the lease, 
 clearly set forth. It was as though the landlord had said, let us 
 suppose, to some holder of twelve acres, " Tou shall have these 
 twelve acres for thirty-one years, not at 21s an acre, the price at 
 which you value it amongst yourselves in sub-letting it in an un- 
 improved state to each other, but at 5s an acre, in other words at 
 about £90 for the whole term instead of £390, on the condition 
 that you add what I specify to the value of my land, and restore 
 
 * The landlord's name does appear at the foot of another and a most pecu- 
 liar endorsement, viz. — a stipulation that if the trusty yoemanand his family 
 attend at the parish church and heai* prayers and sermons, he is to be let 
 off£l pei' annum of his " dues !"
 
 13 
 
 it to me at the eiid of the time with the specified improvemeuts 
 upon it." What an excellent bargain for a twelve-acre farmer, 
 even if he built the best of houses, and made the most perfect 
 drains, and the trimmest of fences. 
 
 The English landlord charges for similar land at the present 
 day 30s per acre and upwards ; having first made the im- 
 provements in a much more durable and skilful way at his own 
 cost. We think the English landlord is the most business-like 
 of the two. What he does in drains, fences, or buildings, will 
 last for a century or more. The Irish tenant of each generation 
 in some of our backward districts shows his taste for improve- 
 ment best, by destroying the improvements of his predecessor : 
 pulling down the old cabin and erecting a better (to be pulled 
 down in its turn by his son who will build a two-storey house), 
 levelling the fences made with much toil, " hoking'' up with 
 difficulty the old shallow stone drains and making deeper ones. 
 But it often puzzles us to discover the grounds on which tenants 
 of this class found their claim for compensation. Heartily as we 
 can sympathise with the tenant, who with a farm already let at 
 its full value, is expected to make thereon drains, buildings, and 
 all the rest of it, without any security assuring him the enjoy- 
 ment of these until he has recouped himself, and who at his own 
 risk carries out these works in a skilful and efficient manner we 
 confess that we cannot extend our commiseration to men whose 
 improvements (being, perhaps to begin with, no improvements at 
 all,) have been effected under a continuous system of leases with 
 rents estimated in accordance with the stipulated work to be 
 done ever since the land was a wilderness. In such cases we 
 reserve our pity rather for the landlord, who, having in the 
 course of 31 years foregone on a farm of say 12 acres an aggre- 
 gate sum of about £300 of rent, finds himself saddled at the end of 
 that time with a number of ungainly fences — many of them super- 
 fluous ; some shallow drains which, from having to be " extracted" 
 before new ones can be made are worse than none ; and a range 
 of unsightly buildings. 
 
 And to crown all, he would be told that the tenant whose ad- 
 vantageous lease had just di'opped, had a right to compensation 
 for all these valuable labours. 
 
 Those who are extensively acquainted with the modern history 
 of Tenant Bight in Ulster will, we are sure, admit that this is not 
 an overdrawn picture of the too common defects of the system. 
 
 While contemplating our sketch we feel sorely tempted to use 
 the words of Lord Palmerston, and say, " what some call Tenant 
 Eight is too often Landlord AVrong !" But on further reflection 
 we feel we must admit that in the past there have been faults on
 
 14 
 
 ':bofli sides. Or perhaps we shall express tlie position more truly, 
 when we say of both, that the ev^ils which have arisen have been 
 " more their misfortune than their fault." That system which 
 .leaves it to the unskUled tenant farmer to build, fence, and drain^ 
 without the landlord's guidance or assistance /must in many 
 ^arts of this country — in model Ulster as well as peor slighted 
 Connaught — result in a great deal of unj^rojitable outlay. And 
 ■when, in addition to the imperfect skill of many a tenant, and 
 his deficiency of capital to do the work substantially and well, 
 we have the fact of landlords being non-resident, so that there as 
 .ao check upon the departure of the tenant from those terms oS. 
 Ms covenant or lease which were intended to cause him properly 
 to improve his holding, we have the whole secret of the slow pro- 
 egress made dn some parts of the much extolled Ulster Settlement. 
 
 The present; landlord of the property af which the lands in 
 ^question form a part, is now resident thereon, but his predeces- 
 ■fiors dwelt elsewhere. It will remain for him, and those who 
 succeed him, to cure the faults of the past — to see that by future 
 .stipulations and agreements, which should be .made the indis- 
 pensable condition on which the present tenants and their heirs 
 should enjoy security of tenure, proper houses should be erected 
 if needed, proper fences made, and the land properly draiaed. 
 
 These stipulations were duly made in past leases era after era. 
 They were not, for the most part, carried out in the intended 
 spirit ; for many of the houses are incommodious and unsightly, 
 the farming too often indifferent, the fences fearful to behold. 
 
 JN'ow, are these houses, farms, and fences the pr-operty of this 
 landlord, or of the tenant? Clearly the property of tiie land- 
 lord ; for in consideration of their being made, improved, kept up, 
 ..and given up by the tenant at the end of the term, the landlord 
 gave to the latter a lease of the premises for 31 years, at a pro- 
 portionate rent. 
 
 We have taken some pains to prove this, not for the sake of 
 ibeing hard upon tenants in any way, but merely to show, that 
 ^supposing past "improvements," which are not "improvements," 
 will have in future to be destroyed, those who have made them 
 agreeably to the conditions of such leases have no just claims 
 respecting them. The loss is that of the landlord and his prede- 
 cessor, who chose to forego the power of letting the land at a 
 higher rent, in order that they might have these things done for 
 them. 
 
 There are their " improvements" — Failures — and there's an end 
 of it ! For the future we would propose a new state of things. 
 As we have said, we should be willing to leave the invidious 
 right of revaluation to the State, and let it be at certain set
 
 15 
 
 pigriods. But we would still claim for the landlord the riglit to" 
 stipulate for those improvements to his property in which his 
 forefathers, and his tenants and their forefathers, have tried their 
 hands and in too many cases failed. We would seek for no 
 evictions save" for non-payment of rent, or fw^ failure or refusal 
 fa carry out 'reasonable stipulations of the above nature ; and lest 
 such should at any time be considered unreasonable, we would 
 submit them gladly to the opinion of same government official 
 appointed forthat purpose. 
 
 And whatever improvements were made at the tenant's cost, 
 2" he had not a set-off in the rent, we would leave to bis credit, 
 claiming the same terms for improvements made by the landlord. 
 
 It is our belief that such an arrangement alone would meet the 
 real intention of the Plantation of Ulstee. 
 
 To the system of terminable leases, as we have already stated, 
 we would not return. A bad tenant slips through a lease. For 
 a good tenant it is, we maintain, an insufficient reward ; if at the 
 present usually prevailing rental (about £1 per acre) the bulk of 
 ibture improvements, supposing that they are to be really improve- 
 ments, devolves upon him. And we have lively recollections, 
 which make us inimical to leases, of an aged relative of our own 
 having been obliged a short time before her death to quit a 
 house in which she had spent most of her life, because her lease 
 had expired, and the house was sold over her head. We Irish 
 love the prospect of handing down to our heirs that which was 
 the home of our fathers before us, whether we be high or low ; 
 and while holding that wilful neglect or mismanagement deserves 
 to be visited, in any class, with the natural penalties, we here put 
 in a plea in favour of secueitt foe the well deseeving. And 
 since, in the foregoing remarks, we have spoken much of the 
 shortcomings of the slovenly and unskilled amongst a tenantry 
 which we suppose we may take as a fair sample of many Irish 
 tenantries, we gladly bear witness to the willingness which exists 
 amongst many of these to improve, if only they can be shown 
 the way. And at the same time we gladly admit that these 
 slovenly and unskilled ones form but a section of the whole. But 
 as with individual estates, so it will be with Ireland. And it 
 should not be suffered, if good laws or good landlordism can pre- 
 vent it, that even a section of Ireland should be left to lag in ar- 
 rear of the age ! 
 
 Believing, for our own part, that in the past, the security of 
 leases has in reality been more general than some would lead us 
 to suppose ; we also hold that this form of security has proved a 
 failure so far as regards the general advance of the country. 
 For the future development of our agricultural resources we look
 
 16 
 
 Witli more Kope to a land partnership, which, commencing by a 
 valuation of actual improvements already made by the tenant 
 over and above any proved stipulation, and not against the con^ 
 sent of the landlord, which shall in all matters for the time to 
 come bring landlord and tenant into mutual co-operation for the 
 general good. Sicjloreat Hihernia ! Erin-go-Bragh ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 LANDLOED AND TENANT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 "We have recently discussed in these columns the relations to 
 each other of landlord and tenant in Ireland, and we feel that we 
 could not better supplement the articles which dealt with that 
 topic than by detailing to the readers of the TYfio:jfE Co]?fSTiTirTioK 
 the substance of some observations and enquiries which we have 
 recently made in a northern county in England, respecting small 
 farms and their management there. "We had an opportunity of 
 prosecuting enquiries on two adjacent properties, both belonging to 
 excellent and business-like landlords ; and from the agent of one of 
 them, a gentleman in every way suited for his position, We gained, 
 the following information: — 
 
 On the property which he represented there were few leases. 
 The bulk of the tenants held by a regular form of Written (or 
 rather printed) agreement from year to year. There were farms 
 of varying sizes, say from nine statute acres to a hundred or up- 
 wards. Part of the soil (lyiug on a bed of coal) was of a black, 
 sandy, loamy nature. The hilly ground Was a heavy clay. The 
 rental varied from 35s to £2 and £3 per statute acre: that of the 
 sandy loam being higher than the heavy clay, and the amount per 
 acre being also higher in proportion to the smallness of the 
 farm. — For instance, a certain farm of nine statute acres on 
 heavy, stiif land paid an amount equivalent to about £2 10s. per 
 statute acre ; while another — a forty-acre farm — with the same 
 soil, paid only £1 15s. A third farm of ten statute acres, 
 without buildings, the soil a stiff clay, let at £1 10s. per acre. 
 
 We now proceed to give the reason for these differences. 
 
 Unlike the Irish usage, the farm buildings, for the most part, 
 were erected, not by the tenant, but by the landlord. They 
 were handed over by the latter in a state of tenantable repair, 
 and materials in the rough were, when necessary, supplied to 
 the tenant to keep them so. In cases where the buildings were 
 old at the commencement of a tenancy, it was usual for the 
 landlord to agree to keep them wind and water tight, for in this
 
 17 
 
 case tlie tenant would otherwise be at a disadvantage as compared 
 with one who entered into new buildings wliich woukl stand in 
 little need of repair. 
 
 In cases where there was a lease, if the land luas let at a hicjh 
 rent, the landlord would erect any necessary new building, 
 even during the continuance of the lease without extra charge. 
 But if the rent was low, he would charge from 5 to 7^ per 
 cent, on the outlay. On the small farms — say of nine or ten 
 acres, let as high as £3 per acre for the best soil — the landlord 
 thatched and otherwise repaired the dwelling-house, the tenant 
 repairing the offices. If a new house were wanted on an un- 
 leased farm of this size, the landlord would build it, entering iiito 
 a new contract with the tenant, and charging interest on his 
 outlay, subject to the same modifications as in a leased farm. If 
 the tenant wished to build himself, he wouhl be allowed to do so, 
 if he would build in accordance with the " office plans." In tliis 
 case he would receive back half of his expenditure if he left in 
 five years, but nothing if he remained in occupation over ten 
 years. It was very seldom, however, that tenants did build for 
 themselves ; and we must in frankness add, that we can scarcely 
 wonder at it, when their interest in a work of so permanent a 
 nature was made, by the terms of their annual contract with the 
 landlord, to expire so soon. Wlien drainage was required, the 
 landlord on this estate supplied the tiles ; the drains were opened 
 and filled by the tenant, subject in all cases to the approval of 
 the office. On the neighbouring estate only the shoughing tiles 
 — i.e., for ditches or " shoughs" being filled in — were supplied by 
 the landlord. 
 
 Such a thing as payment for the tenant's goodwill did not exist 
 on the estate. We may add that the district of which we have 
 been speaking is a rural one. The ordinary yield per acre of oats 
 was stated to us by a farmer to be about 150 stones ; that of po- 
 tatoes, about 5 tons on the low ground The course of cropping 
 we give from the statement of a holder of IG statute acres, who 
 paid about £2 10s an acre as rent : — 
 
 Pirst year, wheat ; second, " wuts" {Angllce, oats) ; third, "we 
 maws" {i.e., mow clover and grass seed) ; fourth, " pluft'." (By 
 a happy thought it occurred to us that " pluff*" meant plough — 
 viz., for potatoes and turnips.) 
 
 Our friend had a lease on a life He kept a horse big enough 
 to eat two of our little " garrons" for his breakfast. The horse 
 and his harness were both in a shining condition, which would 
 make some of our f/enir>/ open their eyes, let alone our farmers. 
 Two cows and a sturk constituted his dairy stock. He did not 
 " go in for" profit oft' poultry. Butter fetched in the nciglibour- 
 
 C
 
 18 
 
 ing market about Is 4d per lb. at present. It had been as higE 
 as Is 9d. 
 
 We feel sure that our farmer-readers have not failed to re- 
 mark on the rent paid by this holder of sixteen acres. "With 
 some £20 or so of rent to pay more than they would have to do, 
 they might expect that his house would look a bit bare. Par 
 from it. Here is the kitchen : — A nicely sanded stone floor; a 
 well-polished kitchen range ; four presses and cupboards, with 
 their brass knobs all shining ; at each side of the fire a rocking 
 arm chair with chintz cushions, scrupulously clean ; a sofa, ditto ; 
 a little cosy round tea-table, with a white cloth on it, and a 
 larger table Jiintjed up against the ivall when not in use ; pictures- 
 on the walls, which were colour-washed ; a long latticed window 
 with three lights, and enlivened with pots of geranium ; the look- 
 out, not on a dunghill or a dirty yard, but on a gooseberry gar- 
 den, bordered with flower plots. It was " cleaning-up day," and 
 the daughter of the house apologised for the litter. — Litter ! — 
 We could have bit our lips through with vexation when we 
 thought of the litter which a similar occasion would present on 
 this side of the water.. Why, it only consisted of a string of very 
 cleanly washed clothes across the room, and well above our 
 heads, and a pile of brass and tin utensils near the fire-place, 
 which she had finished rubbing so bright that they shone again. 
 And the comely lass who had made this " litter" was clad in a 
 coloured cotton bedgown, striped linsey petticoat, and clean, 
 though coarse, white apron. No dirt. Not the faintest appear- 
 ance of a tatter or a tear. The pig was in his own proper abode, 
 the poultry were in theirs, and — part of the secret of so clean a 
 kitchen — there was a scullery, where all the dirty work was 
 done. But that, on the occasion of our (unexpected) visit, was- 
 clean too. 
 
 From all we witnessed here, and all that we had previously 
 heard and have already detailed, a variety of reflections arose 
 within us. 
 
 The first was — Why do so many of our Irish small farmers 
 fall short — too often lamentably short — of this picture of tidy- 
 ness and comfort ? It can't be want of leases, or want of secu- 
 rity of tenure in some other form ; for the chief ingredients to 
 comfort which we have named are such as would be at the com- 
 mand of a family which had a positive certainty that it would 
 have to quit the premises in a twelvemonth. It can't be want of 
 means ; for the English working-farmer, with nearly twice the 
 rent to pay, ought to be the poorest of the two. The English 
 land may be something more productive ; but from such com- 
 parison of soils as we have made, we would prefer to lay that to
 
 19 
 
 tKe score of cleaner fields, aud of richer mamire, arising fi'om a 
 more generous system of feeding to the beasts : and we would 
 ■also remark that the system of growing two similar crops in suc- 
 cession on the same land is absolutely unknown there. 
 
 Though we write from the landlord point of view, we feel no pang 
 of envy of our landlord friends in England with their £2 lO.s 
 per acre — a price which would pay us right well here even if we 
 did all the building, draining, and so forth for our tenants. But 
 Tve do feel a pang of regret at the thought that, from whatever 
 cause, so many of our Irish small farmers, in place of being 
 Tbetter oif with their moderate rents, are worse off ; and^ in many 
 respects stand at a lower level of civiHzation than their fellows in 
 England. The traveller in the present day, when he turns to the 
 pages of Fyne's Morrison's Itinerary," written two centuries and 
 a-half ago, cannot fiiil to be struck with tbe fa<;t,_ that — being 
 then, according to his a<!count, far in arrear of their neighbours 
 — the Irish people have not since made that effort which is 
 requisite to make up the lee way which they have lost. 
 
 Earnestly anxious though we are to see every reasonable 
 security given to the Irish tenant-farmer, so that he may have 
 every possible inducement to improve his farm and improve his 
 own position we are as earnestly convinced that in many an in- 
 'di\ddual case, and in many a wide-spread district, such security 
 will be but the mere ABC of national progress. Other means 
 are needed to reform the whole habits of a people. Can Mn 
 Bright solve thi% problem ? 
 
 V. 
 
 HOPE FOE lEELANDl 
 
 "We Northerns boast ourselves rather vaunfingly of our su> 
 periority over the Southerns in point of civilization and advance- 
 ment, but the boast is one we have littlo right to make. {Some 
 people talk of the "Protestant North," some of the "tenant- 
 right system" in the Korth, some of the admixture of English or 
 Scottish blood in the North ; and all these accidents come in 
 in their turn for the credit of Northern prosperity. But, mean- 
 while, there arises the question: — Is the North so much more 
 prosperous ? — Is it, on the whole, more prosperous at all than 
 the Southern portion of this island ? 
 
 There is good farming in the North, there is good farming in 
 the South ; there is bad farming and squalid poverty in^ the 
 South, there is bad farming and squalid poverty in the North
 
 20 
 
 also ; there are Southern counties in which there is no tenant- 
 right, and where, nevertlieless, there is good culture, and every 
 outward sign of prosperity : there are Northern counties where, 
 in spite of an existing custom of tenant-right, we find bad cul- 
 ture and every outward sign of poverty, backwardness, and want. 
 Now, we confess that these are puzzling facts. Objecting strongly 
 to the continued absence of legislation on the subject of tenants* 
 improvements, we should be too glad to be borne out by facts in 
 the argument that, unless you have tenant-compensation in some 
 shape or form, you cannot have tenants prospering : but facts 
 are stubborn things, they will not come at command ; and here 
 w^e tell and assure you that in parts of the South — in localities 
 where no such custom exists — there is prosperity and success as 
 great as any to be found in the most favoured districts in this 
 province (Ulster.) "What shall we say then ? Have those w^ho 
 have for years been urging a system of tenant compensation for 
 Ireland, from a sincere and earnest desire to contribute to her 
 agricultural advancement (to say nothing of some who have 
 urged it merely for political ends,) — have they all been contending 
 for a mere idea ? Let us try to get to the bottom of this diffi- 
 culty. It is our belief (it may be an erroneous one, and we are open 
 to conviction if we are wrong) that if the wish of the most extreme 
 advocates of tenant right were granted to-morrow, and a system 
 of fixity of tenure, w^ith low rents, were introduced, the great 
 bulk of that particular class of our farmers which stands in spe- 
 cial need of improvement would remain virtually at a standstill. 
 "VVell-to-do men, and men of taste and skill, might build houses 
 and barns, and lay drains, and straighten fences, and make farm 
 roads, fill hollows, sub-soil the land and all the rest of it ; but 
 what of the multitude whichisnot well-to-do — which,not with stand- 
 ing thepossession of considerable experience, f//ife7' afasliion, lacks 
 what we should call shiJl — the skill of the latter end of the 19th 
 century — and which has had little or no opportunity for cultivating 
 taste ? What of the men who, doing their very best most indus- 
 triously, would only, and could only, erect unsightly houses and 
 offices — monuments of industrious energy, if you like, but monu- 
 ments of ugliness and unfitness. And, putting taste and even 
 comfort out of the question, and proceeding to bare utility, what 
 of the men whose notions of draining w^ere entirely erroneous, 
 and who, w4th the utmost of willing hard labour, could only suc- 
 ceed in making "shores" which would throw up boils of wet in 
 place of drying the land — and many a good farmer knows what 
 a trouble and expense it is to have to take up badly constructed 
 " shores" in order to lay proper ones ? What of the men who have 
 no notion of the most approved systems of rotations of crops ;
 
 21 
 
 whose ideas on the subject of manuring arc Lamentably deficient ? 
 What of tlic men who use briars and old carts for gates, have no 
 earthly objection to tumble-down fences, and appear to have an 
 aftection for thistles ? AVould fixity of tenure, or a rental at the 
 rate of five or ten shillings an acre, lead to the uprooting of a 
 single ragweed ? 
 
 And yet we are hearty advocates for tenant right. Tenant 
 right — Yes ! but of what nature ? The right of the tenant to 
 have secured to him, in some shape or form, the value of his real 
 imjirovements, such as are necessary to good husbandry, and pro- 
 portionate to the size of his holding. We do not agree with those 
 who say that legal security is not needed, for that landlords are 
 really to be trusted, whatever agitators may say. If we were to 
 lend a hundred pounds to our dearest friend we should like to 
 have his " handwriting" for it ; " in case of accident." AVe must 
 be business-like even with those whom we trust ; and it is very 
 unbusiness-like for one man to lay out, or to be expected to lay 
 out, time and labour in the improvement of another man's land 
 without even " the stroke of a pen" to secure to him or his heirs 
 the value of what he has done. 
 
 The right, then, to such security as this is one which should be 
 demanded as a charter right : it is a right to which the British 
 Constitution entitles the farmer — whether he can aftbrd to dis- 
 pense with it or not — and the deprival of which is an infringe- 
 ment of that Constitution ! 
 
 But " who is to decide what are real improvements ?" is the 
 instant question. Here comes the rub ! And how is the hacli- 
 tcard farmer, whom we have juot been describing, to be enabled to 
 make sue improvements ? This is another rub ! These two, in fact, 
 are the questions which have puzzled statesmen for years. Shall we 
 strive to answer these questions ? Shall we endeavour to point 
 out how arbitrators should be appointed by Grovernment, as 
 though landlords were opponents to their own and their tenants' 
 advantage ; or how State agricultiu-ists should be appointed, as 
 though landlords neglected the improvement of their tenants in 
 agricultural skill ? 
 
 Let us rather turn aside for a while, and let us dream a dream ! 
 Theorists and visionaries are generally run down in this world ; 
 but unless dreams are first dreamed and theories framed, many 
 things which need reformation will never be reformed. The archi- 
 tect fashions in his mind the plan of the building which he is 
 commissioned to erect ; he dreams in day-dreams of tasteful out- 
 lines and commodious combinations of apartments ; then he 
 sketches them on paper, changing, and altering, and amending, till 
 he gets his perfect plan ; then that plan is drawn out with care,
 
 22 
 
 and the edifice is erected which is to remain, perhaps, for ages, a 
 monument either of success or failure. But ice cannot profess to 
 be architects. The nine tailors of Tooley St, thought themselves 
 great architects after their fashion, and everybody laughs at them 
 to this day. So we must be very careful how we dream and how 
 we plan — nay, we must remember that it is not we who have to 
 build the house, we only have to live in it whether it be well or 
 ill constructed. Still a dream for a few minutes ^dll not hurt us ; 
 and though we have not great houses to build, it may inspire us 
 with a wish to improve our little one. Let us then close our eyes 
 for a moment and enter into the Land of Visions : — 
 
 "We saw abeauteous island, rich in its soil, rich in its mineral pro- 
 ductions, rich in its water-power and other natural resources. 
 The natives of the island were numerous, and the bulk of them 
 tillers of the soil. They were quick and clever wherever their 
 quickness and cleverness were developed ; they were loving wher- 
 ever their love was fostered, but we were told that they could be 
 indifferent and even hate when they were slighted, neglected, or 
 wronged ! In passing through this island we saw many who seemed 
 listless and stupid, lacking in energy and devoid of skill, open- 
 mouthed, vacant-looking, unshorn, unwashed, ragged men, such as 
 would drive to despair the most well-meaning strivers for their im- 
 provement. We asked who these men were, and we were told that 
 they were men who lived without hope, and whose energies had 
 been chilled and stunted vdthin them. "We asked, too, how it came 
 that these listless ones were so numerous, and we were told that it 
 was not so much that they were so numerous as that the better 
 specimens were so few, for that the men of vigour, quickness, 
 and energy had, in innumerable instances, left the island and 
 sought other shores where thev could find a better field for their 
 exertions. We asked why this hopelessness existed, but some an- 
 swered one thing, some another, each according to his own 
 fancy or theory ; and nobody seemed to know. It appeared, how- 
 ever, to most thinkers that a great many were hopeless because it 
 was the custom to be hopeless ; and that many a man who might 
 have put his shoulder to the wheel for himself did not, because 
 other people persuaded him that it was no use, and that he ought 
 to wait for something which was never going to come. 
 
 Then we ask who or where were these people's natural guides. 
 They told us themselves that they scarcely knew ! The country 
 had a Sovereign, they said, but that Sovereign had scarcely ever 
 visited it. The land was divided into estates, owned by landlords 
 — some of them excellent ones, and their tenants prospered in 
 consequence — but many of the landlords scarcely ever dwelt on 
 their estates ; some had never seen them at all ! These landlords 
 
 1
 
 23 
 
 had agents — some of tliem res^ideut, active, and kind ; but sotnc 
 were only to be seen once in the year, or twice at the most, and 
 that was when they came for the rent. There were clergy of 
 different denominations, but their duties were spiritual, it wa» 
 not their place to be temporal guides. 
 
 In many parts of the island, there were substantial farmers — 
 men of capital and skill, and the absence of landlord or agent 
 mattered little to them. They would gladly have welcomed them 
 as friends, and looked up to them moreover with the respect tor 
 which their position entitled tliem, but were to a great extent 
 independent of any aid they could afford as guides or directors. 
 They held their tenements from year to year, it is true ; but they 
 improved them as occasion and good husbandry demanded, with- 
 out security, certainly, and with the chance of having their rent 
 raised for their pains ; but if this was done they had broad 
 shoulders, and they merely grumbled and growled, as well they 
 might, and submitted (having no choice), hoping for better times 
 when enlightened laws would ensure to every man the fruits of 
 his toil. They knew that their landlords would not be so blind 
 as to part with good solvent tenants ; although there were sundry 
 little qualms, about election times, when passions ran high, and 
 proprietors sometimes forgetting themselves, showed a disposition 
 to punish people for having opinions of their own. 
 
 And in some parts of the island, these substantial farmers — • 
 aye, and the poorer men too — had this consolation, that if they 
 did lose their farm, the in-comer would have to pay them for 
 what they or their forefathers had done to improve it. In the 
 parts where this custom did not exist, the moneyed farmer, as we 
 have said, risked his money and his labour notwithstanding ; but 
 the POOR farmer, Tcnowing that lie icas a description of tenant ichom 
 few cared to Tceep, did about as little as he could, (and if he had 
 done as much as he knew, that would have been little too,) and 
 so the chances of anybody caring to keep him laere lessened in- 
 stead of increasing^ as the world advanced around him ? 
 
 And in this, we thought, lay the root of the whole evil. Every- 
 body who cared about the matter at all — everybody who spoke 
 about it — considered the case of the sturdy farmers, who were best 
 ahle to take care of themselves ; but even those who proposed 
 themselves to be the " tenant's best friends," appeared to overlook 
 the case of the cottage farmer with his ten acres, half-skilled, 
 struggling and poor? 
 
 And the hulk of the people held ten-acre farms ; and the hulk of 
 the ten-acre farmers needed guides, and they had none? 
 
 In this island, political agitation of one kind or another waR 
 constantly going on ; and no wonder ; for it had plenty of
 
 24 
 
 fuel, as may well be supposed ; and agitation had readied siicli 
 a head that even those who wished to bring about reform for the 
 real benefit of the people were looked on with mistrust, and 
 deemed self-seekers by legislators and others who, being very 
 comfortable and prosperous themselves, thought that if others 
 were not so, it must be their own faults somehow ; though they 
 did not seek too diligently to study Jiow ! 
 
 Then we dreamed again ; and behold ! an active spirit of love for 
 this poor island filled the mind of the sovereign ; and that sove- 
 reign said — " I will annually reside among this my people ; and 
 furthermore, no subject of mine who derives revenue from the 
 rents paid by this my people, shall find favour in my sight if he 
 does not, in his turn, visit that portion of those my dominions in 
 which under me, he is to his tenants what I am to him and to 
 all. Nor will I receive at my court elsewhere any landholder of 
 this island who has not first paid homage to me at the court which 
 shall be holden by me therein. And I w^ill issue commissions 
 of able men who shall inquire into the condition of the country's 
 natural resources, and learn the nature of the obstacles which 
 impede their development. And then will I exhort my Par- 
 liament to frame sUch just and wise laws as will tend to encourage 
 and facilitate the operations of industry, develop the skill, and 
 augment the wealth and prosperity and happiness of these my 
 subjects." 
 
 And that Sovereign came and dwelt among the people of the 
 island ; and landlords came and dwelt on their estates, and, with 
 their wives, and their sons, and their daughters — following their 
 sovereign's example — visited the poor, considered their condition, 
 worked for their amelioration ! Heirs to landed property were no 
 longer left to amuse themselves, or employ themselves as best they 
 might, till the course of nature should chance to place them in 
 their father's shoes ; but they received a new training. They, 
 like the sons of the new, the manufacturing aristocracy, w^ere 
 brought up to their business. They were taught how to perform 
 the duties of their station ; how the people who were under them 
 could best be advanced, how the properties which maintained them 
 could best be developed. And the rustic youth of that island 
 were especially instructed in the details of the calling by wdiich 
 they had to live, according to the rules of modern agricultural 
 science, so far as they were adapted to their humble style of hus- 
 bandry ; and their sisters were taught to make clothes, to mend 
 them, to cook, and to clean. Poverty vanished, rags vanished, 
 dirt vanished, discontent vanished, the people learned to respect 
 themselves, and they also learned to respect those who were 
 placed over them ; love reigned supreme, and that attach-
 
 25 
 
 ment between chief and retainer for which the iBland had been 
 famed in times of old revived uith twofold intensity. 
 
 The island prospered ; not more, it is true, than other countries 
 on the adjoining mainland had been prospering for years, but 
 then it had been far behind them, and now, like them, it pros- 
 pered ; and Heaven smiled on those who had done their duty by 
 tens of thousands of struggling poor, and most especially on that 
 OxE, that sovereign who had led them by example to do their 
 dutj/ ! 
 
 Our Island Dream is told : God grant it may come true ! 
 
 DESIDEEATA EOE A TEjN'AjS^T EIGHT MEASUEE. 
 
 1. — An admission of the principle that no good landlord would 
 arbitrarily evict a good tenant. 
 
 2. — A definition of a " good tenant." 
 
 3. — Security to the tenant against valuation of his improve- 
 ments for a rise of rent ; and against eviction so long as he ful- 
 filled the conditions of good tenantship. 
 
 4. — Security to the landlord against refusal by the tenant either 
 to improve or suffer the landlord to do so. 
 
 5. — A court of arbitration for the settlement of differences 
 between landlord and tenant, consisting of a Government agricul- 
 turist, and two arbitrators, (one chosen by each of the parties.) 
 
 6. — Clause against subletting or assignment without landlord's 
 consent. 
 
 HIBEENICUS.
 
 :...^ ".•/^. 
 
 r^^^