IRISH IMPECUNIOSITY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sur,—Can any other conclusion be reasonably drawn from the facts connected with Irish farms, but that there is a general conspiracy against rents ? This is, of course, fostered by the National League, in hopes that the landlords will be induced to sell for next to nothing. The outlook is a bad one for English mortgagees and Insurance Companies. But now for the facts, which I have taken from the publications of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, and from the daily papers.
Lord Devon lets a farm to James King for £80; in 1871, King gets a reduction. He dies in 1872, leaving the farm to four nephews, who sublet it to a cousin for £210. In 1887, the cousin applies to the Land. Court, and gets a reduction of £80.
In Kilkenny, a tenant is evicted for non-payment of two and a half years' rent, amounting to £150. The tenant sells his tenant-right for £450. In another case in the same county, a tenant owes £30 for three years' rent ; he sells his tenant-right for £150, equal to fifteen years' rent.
I read in the papers of the 21st inst. that at Thurles the tenant's interest in two farms was put up for auction. In one ease, 2312 was paid for a farm of twenty-six acres, the rent being £14 a year, which was twenty-four years' purchase. In the other, £195 was paid for a tenant's interest in a farm of thirteen acres, or thirty-five years' purchase. The farms are situate eight miles from the town.
In the papers of January 24th, a man states that he offered fifteen years' purchase for his tenant-right to a farmer who would not pay his rent, which offer was refused. Together with all this, we have the fact that whereas in 1851 only one person in fifty- -eight had a deposit in the savings-banks, in 1884 one in every twenty-eight had a deposit. And that whereas in 1851 the deposits in trustee savings-banks amounted to £1,347,617, in 1884 they had increased to 22,119,204.-1 am, Sir, &c.,
G. R. P.
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