Also my daughter Margaret, who is to be the proprietor of the place, is to pay the debts due of the place.

Mr. Campbell justly remarks (p. 8) that even Mr. Trench, in his "Realities of Irish Life," constantly, and, as it were, unconsciously, applies the language of property to the tenure of farms.

"I took as a test case," says Mr. Campbell (p. 9), "the story of one of his heroines. We are told that her father owned a good farm. 'I made inquiries about the girl, and found that her father was owner of some eight or nine acres of land, on which he had a comfortable house.' These are Mr. Trench's words. Mr. Campbell adds :-" We are told that she was heiress to the farm, and courted as such," and at the end it turns out that the farm was simply held by the year. The truth is that in all parts of the country farms held by this tennre descend by inheritance, and are disposed of by will, the difference being that in Ulster the landlords respect the custom, whilst in the other provinces its observance is enforced by the bullet.*

Although several valuable suggestions have been made by those who have published their remedies for restoring tranquillity to Ireland, not one of them pleases us as a whole. To the system of remedying the evil by forced leases we utterly object. Short leases would not allay in the slightest degree the dissatisfaction of the tenant, and they would be most distasteful to the landlords. Longer leases, say of sixty-one years, would not fully satisfy the tenant, and they would make the landlords, for two generations, mere rent-chargers. Besides, either the leases should be made at the present rents, or there should be a Government valuation of rents through the whole kingdom, each of which plans is liable to such manifest difficulties that we need not delay in pointing them out; not to speak of the prospective confusion which would be caused by all the lands of the country reverting to the landlords absolutely and at the same time, that is at whatever period the statutable lease would terminate. Besides, this would be entirely new legislation; it has not, like tenantright, grown up and become indigenous in the country.

*See also Mr. Samuelson's statement (p. 36):-"That some form of tenant-right, complete in one part of the country, rudimentary in another, prevails throughout Ireland."

VOL. XIV.-NO. XXVII. [New Series.]

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We think, therefore, the remedy is to be found in the substantial recognition of tenant-right, and making it good in law. We say substantial, because we think that to pass a law legalizing tenant-right as it exists even in Ulster would be most unwise and useless legislation. It would do nothing for the tenant unless it fixed the rent. We would therefore, as regards the relation between landlord and tenant, legalize a fixed equivalent for tenant-right in Ulster and in the other provinces. We have, moreover, another fatal objection to all the plans before us. They do not define what occupiers are to be affected by the bill, but seem to think that its provisions should extend equally to all tenancies from year to year. Is the grazier, who has never spent anything on the land, who often holds two, three, and even four farms, and some of them ten or twenty miles from his house, to be put on an equality with the tillage farmer, who has reclaimed his fields from the bog, the morass, or the mountain-side? If middlemen were bad as a class (for we speak not of individuals), the graziers are worse. The middleman let his lands at a rack-rent, it is true, but still he let them to small farmers, who preferred having them on these terms to not having them at all. The grazier will not give an acre of land to a poor man on any terms. Some labourers in the county Meath were in the habit of getting yearly from a grazier who held farms which exceeded in extent, we are told, a thousand acres, some eight or ten of these acres at £8 per acre to grow potatoes. Some years ago he refused to grant any more land in con-acre, even at this exorbitant price, and only yielded when he received a threatening notice that his life would be taken if he did not grant the land. Besides, we have shown that two-thirds of the reclaimed soil of Ireland is at present devoted to grazing, a great portion of which would be much more profitably employed in tillage. The graziers, who hold large tracts, will never till any considerable portion of their lands. If they be bound not to divide their farms, tillage will be excluded from them for ever; if they be not, the next generation will see the whole country swarming with middlemen. The truth is, the graziers are a class of small gentry in means and position, who keep their hunters, and not a few of them their carriages, and who have no grievance to complain of except that the landlord will not hand them over the land in fee farm, at what they would call a moderate rent. We will speak of what should be done for the graziers, who hold from year to year, a little farther on.

We must therefore see, in the first place, that justice be done to the tillage farmers, who have either made the im

provements themselves, or derived them from their ancestors, or bought the tenant-right of their farms. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it should in all cases be presumed that the improvements were made by the tenant. We think that no limit should be put as to the size of the farm, either on the ground of its being too large or too small, provided it has been bonâ fide a tillage farm for the last twenty years. We would not, however, exclude a grazing farm which could be proved to have been originally tilled and reclaimed by the occupying tenant, or by those from whom he derived it; and we would extend the same protection to all persons as to farms the tenant-right of which they or their ancestors had bona fide purchased. The tillage farmers often purchase small farms not immediately adjoining the farm on which they reside; and on this account we should not require residence, but the lands should not be sublet, they should be bona fide tilled by the occupying tenant. In fact, we would make the improvements made by the tenant, or by those from whom he derived the farm, the foundation of his tenant-right. Mr. Samuelson (p. 32) estimates the sums paid for tenant-right as ordinarily varying from £7. 10s. to £15 per statute acre. It is by the Irish acre it is estimated in Ireland, and the price ordinarily varies from £10 to £20 per Irish acre, though it often exceeds the latter sum. But such a mode of ascertaining the value of tenant-right would be most unsatisfactory. It never could be ascertained in any instance without actually selling the right; and if the landlord wanted the land himself, or the agent, who would dare to outbid either of them, and to become a tenant on the estate under such circumstances? On the other hand, any rich independent man who might have had a dispute with the landlord could either prevent him from getting the land at all, or force him to buy the tenant-right at three or four times its value. We would therefore establish a uniform law for Ulster: that in all cases where the landlord himself does not demand the land—that is, when the tenant himself either voluntarily wishes to dispose of his land, or is forced to do so for non-payment of rent or any other cause, he should be allowed to sell it according to the custom, and subject to no other restrictions except that neither he nor the purchaser can subdivide without the landlord's consent; because, as we would make arrears of rent in all cases a first charge on the tenant-right, the landlord would always be sure of his rent. If the landlord himself demanded the land for any reasonable purpose, we would give it to him at eight years' purchase of the rent, which is far below what it would fetch in the market; but the tenant should make some sacrifice in return for the

security which he would obtain. If the tenant had manured and prepared his land for crops, and such crops had not been obtained according to the usual rotation, we would give him the value of such manure. This value should be ascertained by arbitration, and should in no case go back beyond three years. We would extend the purchase to ten years, in case the landlord demanded the land without cause. These provisions should be extended to the other provinces, with this difference that as tenant-right is not so defined or so universally recognized, nor has the right been so generally purchased by the occupiers or their ancestors, if the landlord himself demanded the land, the purchase should be six and eight instead of eight and ten years' rent. But in truth this would make no real difference, as the landlord would be very unlikely to demand the lands; and in all other cases the tenant should be allowed to sell to the highest bidder, as in Ulster.

The next question is how to fix the rents. For this purpose, and for other reasons, we would require that in future, except in case of non-payment of rent, two years' notice to quit should be given in writing to the tenant. The six months' notice which is now required to terminate a yearly tenancy, is not a law of Parliament but of the courts, which have determined that it would not be reasonable to terminate this tenancy by any shorter notice. Besides, the six months, at the end of which the tenancy shall cease, must correspond with the end of some one entire year of the letting, so that if the letting was originally from the 1st of November, the six months' notice to quit cannot be given after the end of April in any year, and when the time of year at which the letting has commenced is unknown, one whole year's notice is necessary. Besides the judges have determined that when the letting is for a year, and so on from year to year, this gives a two years' tenure at the beginning. Now it is quite obvious that one year's notice to the occupier of a farm, who pays his rent regularly, is not a reasonably long time to allow him to provide himself with another farm, because land is not like a dwelling-house or a shop, which may be had at any time and in any town; a man must often wait a long time before he can find a vacant farm, and must often look for it in a distant part of the country. Except, therefore, the tenant breaks. his contract, or does not pay his rent, we think a period of two years is the very shortest which should be allowed to him to arrange matters in his present farm, and to provide himself with a new one. It is with reference to this two years' notice to quit, we said that compensation for unexhausted

manuring and preparation for crops should never go back beyond three years, because, having regard to the usual period of rotation of crops, this would be sufficient.

We would require a notice of the same period of two years to be given in writing to the tenant, before the landlord could raise the rent of any such tenant as we are now speaking of,

that is of a tenant from year to year who has been in possession of a tillage farm for twenty years, or has succeeded to the rights of others who possessed it for that period. This would allow time for himself and the landlord to come to an amicable settlement, and if they did not do so, for the tenant to dispose of his tenant-right and to provide himself with a new farm. If the tenant refused to pay the additional rent he would have the option of either selling his holding subject to the additional rent, or of requiring the landlord to pay him the value of his tenant-right, according to the scale we have before settled, and of any manures or preparations for cropping which may not have been exhausted. This would really cost the landlord nothing, for unless the new rent were above the value, he would find plenty of tenants ready to take the land at the new valuation and to pay him the amount of the tenant-right, which he would have paid to the outgoing tenant. But, in fact, such is the competition for land that no tenant would part with his farm on account of any reasonable increase of rent.

Tillage farmers holding under terminable leases at full rent, where the improvements have been made by themselves or by those from whom they have derived the lands, should at the termination of the lease be considered to be in the same condition as tenants from year to year. Tenants like those of Mr. Pollock, holding under landlords who made all the permanent improvements, should be held to their contract.

The graziers who neither purchased the tenant-right nor can prove that they or those from whom they have derived the lands have reclaimed them and made the improvements, who hold from year to year, should be at liberty to till their lands notwithstanding any verbal or written agreement to the contrary. As to the past, in case of eviction or of voluntary surrender of their farms, we would merely give them compensation for permanent improvements. As to the future, all landlords and tenants should have power to make permanent improvements, such as to build cottages for the labourers required to till the farm, to drain the lands, make fences, to build suitable dwelling-houses and offices, and to make the other improvements enumerated in our former article. But both landlord and tenant should give two months' notice