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both sides. Or perhaps we shall express the position more truly, when we say of both, that the evils which have arisen have been "more their misfortune than their fault." That system which leaves it to the unskilled tenant farmer to build, fence, and drain, without the landlord's guidance or assistance must in many parts of this country—in model Ulster as well as poor slighted Connaught—result in a great deal of unprofitable outlay. And when, in addition to the imperfect skill of many a tenant, and his deficiency of capital to do the work substantially and well, we have the fact of landlords being non-resident, so that there as no check upon the departure of the tenant from those terms of his covenant or lease which were intended to cause him properly to improve his holding, we have the whole secret of the slow progress made on some parts of the much extolled Ulster Settlement.
The present; landlord of the property of which the lands in question form a part, is now resident thereon, but his predecessors dwelt elsewhere. It will remain for him, and those who succeed him, to cure the faults of the past—to see that by future stipulations and agreements, which should be made the indispensable condition on which the present tenants and their heirs should enjoy security of tenure, proper houses should be erected if needed, proper fences made, and the land properly drained.
These stipulations were duly made in past leases era after era. They were not, for the most part, carried out in the intended spirit; for many of the houses are incommodious and unsightly, the farming too often indifferent, the fences fearful to behold.
Now, are these houses, farms, and fences the property of this landlord, or of the tenant? Clearly the property of the landlord; for in consideration of their being made, improved, kept up, and given up by the tenant at the end of the term, the landlord gave to the latter a lease of the premises for 31 years, at a proportionate rent.
We have taken some pains to prove this, not for the sake of being hard upon tenants in any way, but merely to show, that supposing past "improvements," which are not "improvements," will have in future to be destroyed, those who have made them agreeably to the conditions of such leases have no just claims respecting them. The loss is that of the landlord and his predecessor, who chose to forego the power of letting the land at a higher rent, in order that they might have these things done for them.
There are their "improvements"—Failures—and there's an end of it! For the future we would propose a new state of things. As we have said, we should be willing to leave the invidious right of revaluation to the State, and let it be at certain set
