TENURES IN IRELAND: LAND WANTED MORE THAN LAW.
Tnouda aggravated by many other grievances, the deficiency of the means of sustenance for the mass of the population is at the bottom of the sufferings and discontent of Ireland. The Irish peasantry have no notion of supporting themselves in any other way than by getting hold of a patch of land to cultivate ; and there is not enough for them all. There is scarcely any exaggeration in the expression of a writer in the Times of last Tuesday—" The immediate possession of every given five acres out of lease is essen- tial to perhaps each one of some twenty individuals, having wives and children." The relations of the population to the soil of Ire- land require therefore to be accurately known, and in minute de- tail, by any statesman who has measures to propose for the relief of that country. In this point of view, the appointment of the Commission, at the head of which is the Earl of DEVON, was a proper step. But if that Commission is to limit its inquiries, or if the Minister who appointed it is to limit his remedies, to a better regulation of the "relations of landlord and tenant," the real social disease of Ireland will be left untouched. The law of landlord and tenant there is bad enough ; but the master- grievance under which the country labours is deeper-seated, is more powerful, and prevents at present that minor evil from being felt, as it will prevent the redress of it alone from producing any benefit. The best possible law of landlord and tenant will not make nineteen additional "five acres" for the nineteen dis- appointed competitors for every patch of that size that falls out of lease : what the better, then, will the nineteen be for any improve- ment in the law of landlord and tenant ? This is not said in dis- paragement of an equitable law of landlord and tenant—of a law adapted to the social circumstances of Ireland—but for the pur- pose of showing that the balance of population and the means of subsistence must be redressed in Ireland before that or any other good law can, in so far as the-relief of the suffering peasantry is concerned, be more than a dead letter.
Previous page
