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good enough reward. A lease implies a time at which, 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 England 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 difference 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 residenters" 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? What about their old residentership—their partnership—their hearthstones and rooftrees? Why, 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 representatives 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 secured 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 discouragement should be given to independent outlay on the part
