scheme to be put in operation, it would be perfectly justifiable for the state, while in promoting these purchases with public money, to impose stringent conditions against subletting; but such precautions would be found practically inoperative; or only to be enforced by a code of primogeniture, entail, and limited ownership, such as would keenly shock the advocates of the change.[1] Supposing, however, the
- ↑ It is very important that this tendency inherent in the Irish peasant to quarter his children and his grandchildren, his daughters and his sons-in-law upon his farm, either by a successive series of subdivisions or by pecuniary charges under his will, should not be lost sight of, and when surprise is expressed at the alleged unwillingness on the part of the landlords to
who, of all classes, are least likely to recognise the duties of a landlord's position. These are small traders in towns, who by dint of sheer parsimony, frequently combined with money-lending at usurious rates, have succeeded, in the course of a long life, in scraping together as much money as will enable them to buy fifty or a hundred acres of land. These people never think of turning farmers, but, proud of their position as landlords, proceed to turn it to the utmost account."—Mill's Polit. Econ. p. 413.
The result of the evidence given before the Devon Commission on this important subject is thus summarized in the digest.
"It seems to be the general impression of the witnesses that the estates of large proprietors are better managed than those of small; some, however, are of the contrary opinion."—Dig. Dev. Com. p. 1028.
I, myself, have no doubt upon the subject. The tenantry on the larger estates in Ireland are for the most part in a better position than those on the very small estates, not that the larger proprietors are better men than their humbler neighbours, but that they can afford to be more liberal and are less tempted by their own necessities to deal hardly with defaulters.
