Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/273

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ested to arrive at a correct estimate of what particular areas could afford to pay. At this moment there are three standards of land valuation in Ireland,—there is the competition, or tenant's rent, which is generally in excess of what his limited skill and capital would enable him to produce; there is the agent's rent, which is regulated by what his experience tells him the tenant is able to pay without embarrassment; and there is the theoretical rent, which the land ought to pay if properly cultivated.^[1] This latter rent would

↑ Supposing that land which, if properly cultivated, would bear a rent of 40s per acre, and for which the tenants themselves would offer 30s at an auction, (which, for the sake of argument, we will admit their want of skill and capital would render them incompetent to pay,)—were valued by the Government officers at 20s, what would be the effect? Why that at the first devolution of the tenancy, the outgoing tenant or his representative would exact from the in-comer a fine exactly equivalent to so many years purchase of the difference between the restricted rent of 20s an acre, and the competition rent of 30s: the effect of the transaction being that the new tenant would be charged with a double rent for all time to come, and that the landlord would have been defrauded of what so far as it represents any value at all, is a portion of the fee simple of his estate. It is useless to object that the vigilance of the landlord could prevent so nefarious a transaction. The landlord in the first place is almost powerless to restrain these surreptitious arrangements, as any one who knows the north of Ireland is aware, and in the next place, he would have no particular interest in doing so. The sagacious legislation we are considering will have reduced the landlord to the position of a mere mortgagee on what was once his property. Nothing that he can do, will either enhance or diminish its value. All personal relations between his tenantry and himself would be at an end, and his functions as a proprietor would be confined to

[p239-1] Supposing that land which, if properly cultivated, would bear a rent of 40s per acre, and for which the tenants themselves would offer 30s at an auction, (which, for the sake of argument, we will admit their want of skill and capital would render them incompetent to pay,)—were valued by the Government officers at 20s, what would be the effect? Why that at the first devolution of the tenancy, the outgoing tenant or his representative would exact from the in-comer a fine exactly equivalent to so many years purchase of the difference between the restricted rent of 20s an acre, and the competition rent of 30s: the effect of the transaction being that the new tenant would be charged with a double rent for all time to come, and that the landlord would have been defrauded of what so far as it represents any value at all, is a portion of the fee simple of his estate. It is useless to object that the vigilance of the landlord could prevent so nefarious a transaction. The landlord in the first place is almost powerless to restrain these surreptitious arrangements, as any one who knows the north of Ireland is aware, and in the next place, he would have no particular interest in doing so. The sagacious legislation we are considering will have reduced the landlord to the position of a mere mortgagee on what was once his property. Nothing that he can do, will either enhance or diminish its value. All personal relations between his tenantry and himself would be at an end, and his functions as a proprietor would be confined to

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