says in a note, "I am afraid I have scarcely done justice to the capacity of the soil and climate of Ireland for the production of wheat. A farmer near the town of Tipperary sold a crop of wheat, grown in 1868, on four Irish acres, for £108, at the low price of that year."

Oats [he proceeds] are a sure crop everywhere, even at considerable altitudes, and barley is grown with advantage throughout the eastern [he might have added, and many of the southern and northern] counties. Extensive tracts of land of medium quality, well fitted for mixed husbandry, but which are now laid down in permanent grass, are not only giving a poor gross return, scarcely exceeding in value, even at the present high prices of stock, one half of what they would produce if under the plough, and yielding no better rental to the proprietor. . . . I crossed the county of Meath diagonally, from its commencement near Dublin, to its termination at Oldcastle, and I had no difficulty in ascertaining for myself the truth of what I had learnt from practical men of great experience, that, contrary to the popular opinion, only a small portion of its area is really prime feedingland, such as would be laid down as permanent pasture in England. The greater part, though having a limestone subsoil, has undergone the denudation of the coal measures so fatal to Ireland; and its soil consists of drift, varying indefinitely in depth and constitution, generally light and stony, but producing good crops of oats and excellent roots, even at an elevation of 800 feet above the sea-level. Two of the most competent judges in Ireland, of whom I made inquiry separately, agreed almost precisely in their estimate, that of the ten million acres under grass, forming two-thirds of the area of Ireland, when bogs and waste are excluded, not more than half a million at the utmost are prime feeding-land, and that half of the remainder could be ploughed with advantage; thus nearly doubling the land under tillage in rotation, and adding, at a very moderate estimate, from ten to twelve million pounds per annum to the value of the agricultural produce of Ireland.

The same intelligent and impartial witness thus vindicates the small tillage farmers :

Small farms, he says [p. 16], are frequently being vacated on every estate from a variety of causes, and it is important to inquire whether it is desirable that they should be added to adjoining occupations, or whether a new tenant should be procured for them. [He estimates the number of farms of less than fifteen statute acres whose tenants depend on them exclusively for support at 2,000.] The absorption [he says] of one of these farms means the loss of a family from the population of the country. . . . For this reason, amongst others, I made it a special object of my journey to observe everywhere the condition of the small occupiers and the state of their farms. I need not say that it varied infinitely; but it was rare that a holder of from ten to twelve statute acres had not the means of procuring comforts superior to those enjoyed by the agricultural labourer of the southern counties of England. I say he had the means, but I found also

that he rarely exhausted them, but rather laid aside a part as the wedding portion of a daughter, or as a gift to the son who should succeed him on the farm. Not unfrequently I found men of this class who were known to have saved their £150 or £200, or more. I do not speak now of tenants occupying the magnificent dairy farms of Tipperary or of the Golden Vale, but of ordinary light land farms, such as one meets with in Kildare, in Carlow, in Meath, on the medium lands of Limerick, and elsewhere. I took every opportunity of verifying the opinion which I had formed, and I was particularly glad when I found that the accounts of a small farm attached to an endowed school at Oldcastle, 780 feet above the sea level, containing 16 statute acres, and rented at £33, have been kept with such accuracy from 1860 up to the present time as to enable me to ascertain the precise results of its cultivation over that period, including some very bad and some very good seasons. The course of cropping is the usual fivecourse rotation; and the average return for labour and profit, after deducting rent and all expenses, is £75 per annum. I need scarcely point out how much greater the return would have been if a peasant farmer, working for himself, had held this small place, . . . instead of its being managed by a schoolmaster, whose time is necessarily absorbed in his more important duties, and worked by labourers having no interest in the result.

He says the heaviest crops, taking the soil into account, and the cleanest cultivation, he found was on a farm of eleven statute acres in Kildare, held by a youth of 21 years, and tilled by himself and a younger brother, who, together, support respectably a widowed mother and two or three sisters. It would take five times the amount of acres in grazing to support a family containing the same number of persons.

Mr. Maclagan (p. 24) gives the full statement of accounts of another small farm attached to a national school at Piltown, on the estate of the Earl of Bessborough, in the county of Kilkenny. The farm is only of the extent of eight statute acres, and the rent and taxes amount to £12. 7s. 4d. per annum. Of course the same remark applies to this farm as to that at Oldcastle, that the profits would have been much greater had the occupier been able to devote his whole attention to the farm. The gross produce amounted to the very large sum of £219. 5s. 5d. on the year, and the net profit was £36. 18s. 1d.; to which should be added, both in this case and in that of the Oldcastle farm, the amount expended on labour, because the tenant of such small holdings always tills it himself, or with the help of his family. We do not know the amount expended on labour in the case mentioned by Mr. Samuelson; but in this latter instance it amounted to £17. 8s. 8d., making the total profit £54. 6s. 9d. It would be a great mistake to imagine that the small tillage farms on

which whole families support themselves respectably, and pay their rents punctually, are let at a cheaper rate than the great grazing farms. The contrary is testified by the Times' commissioner and by the other correspondents who have visited Ireland, as well as by the numerous English and Scotch gentlemen who have published pamphlets and tracts on the subject. They all testify that the tillage lands, which are poorer than the grazing lands, are, considering the relative qualities of the soil, almost in every instance let at a higher rent than the grass lands.

Mr. Campbell vindicates the small tillage farmers with equal kindliness of nature and ability of argument:

But whether it is (he says, p. 149) really a good thing further to get rid of our population in order to substitute cattle and sheep, is a much wider question, admitting of great doubts. After all, the greater accumulation of wealth in our country gives greater temptation to an enemy if we have not men to utilize it and to defend it. There was a time when the Scotch Highlands were a great recruiting ground; now we hardly get a man from them. Already Ireland has, in a great degree, ceased to furnish recruits to the army. If we should put an end to the production of men in Ireland, should we be so strong as if we had a contented population there? Even in an economic point of view, it is hinted that there is some reaction in the Scotch highlands; that the grass lands which succeeded to the tillage of the cottiers are going back to a state of unimproved nature; and that both in the Frazer and in the Sutherland country it is found necessary to return to tillage, and to encourage population.

Again, he says (p. 118):—

In the north-west (of Ireland) it seems that a good deal of land has been cleared for sheep farms, the aborigines being driven to the edges of the mountains and bogs. . . Indeed, all over Ireland it may be noticed that the best land is generally occupied by the larger farms; while above and below, along the edge of the mountains and the edge of the bogs, one can plainly trace the lines of small thatched farmhouses, where the most petty farms have been reclaimed from the bog and hillside by the labour of the poorest people. If we reproach them with the smallness and poorness of their farms, we must bear in mind that but for them there would have been no cultivated land there at all. . . . . No man, however determined may be his opinion in favour of large farms, and however conclusively he may prove by the rules of political economy that it is impossible for any man to keep out of the poorhouse on such farms as the poorer Irish hold, can get over the fact that hundreds of these small farmers live happily and contentedly if they are only let alone, rear plump and healthy children, pay their way, pay their rent, keep out of the poorhouse, and are altogether most independent men, who regard the cabin which they have built, and the bit of land which they have reclaimed, with as much pride and affection as

any noble. We call them savages, perhaps justly; but they send their children to school, and pay for their schooling; and no one can see the rows of healthy, happy children who flock to school, decently dressed, without feeling that the system which produces them is not in all respects irretrievably bad. I cannot but again refer to the absence of pauperism among the small Irish farmers. While both in England and Scotland the constant cry is of the increase of pauperism, it may be said that in Ireland the only recipients of relief are children and sick decrepit people. The workhouses are hospitals and orphanages, and barracks for the soldiers sent to keep down the Fenians—nothing more (p. 153).

We must quote one other passage :—

The difficulty is that the small farmers are the very men who have the strongest claims on the ground of improvement, and the claims which it is most difficult to satisfy by mere compensation calculated from the landlord's point of view. It is they who have created their little farms from the bog and hillside. And it is astonishing on how small a farm a steady, industrious man, frugal as an Irishman can be frugal, can live healthily and happily, bring up a thriving family, send them to school, and pay for their schooling. So long as he can pay his way and does not come on the poor rates, it would seem cruel and impolitic to turn such a man out of the cabin which he values as his castle. If he breaks down, fails to pay his rent, or comes for poor relief, he may certainly with justice be required to give up the holding, but not otherwise (pp. 181-2).

We have dwelt on two points at considerable length. First, that in any plan for settling the land question the claims of the agricultural labourer should not be overlooked; and secondly, that the rights of the small farmer should be respected.

But now we must turn to the other side of the question, and see how we are to deal with the large tillage farmers and graziers. As all the writers whom we have read on the nature of the legislation which should regulate the relations between landlord and tenant, take for granted, that in order to be either just or conciliatory, it must regard the past as well as the future, it will be necessary for us to view the matter in the same light, and to consider what legislation is required as regards the past, and what as regards the future. It has been said by Sir James Mackintosh that constitutions are not made, but grow; and the same may be said of the most just and politic legislation. We find the relations between landlord and tenant regulated, not by contract, but by custom, in almost every estate in the province of Ulster. This custom secures the tenant his holding at a fair rent, so long as he pays his rent, and the right of selling his tenant-right, if he chooses to do so, to the highest bidder, under certain restrictions. This land either descends by inheritance or is disposed of by will. The English and Scotch gentlemen who have

visited Ireland in the autumn for the purpose of studying the land question, have fully mastered the question so far as it secures the tenant against eviction, but have failed to discover how it regulates the rent. We explained this in our last article. The rents have been raised from time to time, but the rise was always general over the entire estate. The rent of any single farm was never raised on the occasion of sale or of succession. Since the establishment of the Encumbered Estates Court, the purchasers of small properties, even in Ulster, as commercial speculations, have in some instances. ignored tenant-right altogether; in others, where they permitted the tenant to sell, they have had the land valued, and raised the rent by a few shillings per acre. But this was entirely contrary to the custom on those estates on which, as on the estates of the Marquis of Downshire, Mr. Kerr, Mr. Sharman Crawford, Lord O'Neill, Sir Robert Adair, and other great proprietors in Down and Antrim, and in most of the other northern counties, tenant-right is fully recognized. It is evident that the practice of raising the rents on the occasion of sale or succession, could easily be made to amount to a confiscation of tenant-right. If tenant-right had prevailed as long and as universally in England as it has prevailed in Ulster, the courts of law would have saved Parliament the trouble of legislating on it, for they would long since have declared the custom to have the force of law, and the Ulster farmer would now hold his land like the English copyholder, at the will of the lord, according to the custom of the country, and the tenant's right would have been as firm as that of the lord himself. Mr. Campbell justly wonders that the Irish courts have not long since recognized tenant-right.

But tenant-right is not confined to the northern provinces. It pervades, in one form or another, the whole of Ireland. Lord Portsmouth, Lord Granard, and others, have fully recognized it in other parts of the country. Mr. Campbell (p. 8) gives a copy of the will of a southern tenant from year to year, which shows that he thought he had as good a right to dispose of his farm as any tenant in Ulster. It is worth quoting :

Ceangalin, June 28th, 1869.

The last will and dying declaration of Jeremiah Sheehan, being in sound and perfect memory, thanks be to the Almighty God for His mercies to us all, therefore I bequeath my house and land to my eldest daughter, Margaret Sheehan; also ten pounds more to each of four young daughters, namely, Mary, and Honora, and Catherine, and Nell, out of my holding at Caniguilen.