stance, able to deal with their superiors at arm's length, possessing usually large tracts, and carrying on their business with a strict regard to profit as agriculturists or extensive graziers. Persons of this description hold, for the most part, on the terms and subject to the regulations that prevail in England and in the best part of Scotland; that is, they insist that their landlords shall construct and keep up the buildings on the land; they make no permanent additions to the soil, or, if they do, take care to exhaust them; their tenure usually is by lease, or at least by definite contract; they seldom or never claim the benefit of usages in force among the Irish peasantry with reference to the conditions of occupation; and, in a word, their views are confined to the temporary usufruct of their farms, which they manage upon commercial principles. Outside, however, this body extends the far more numerous and important class of what may be called the peasant-farmers of Ireland; and, as to these, the position of affairs is absolutely different and even opposite. A large majority of this class are bound to the soil through sheer poverty; they are unable to make an equal bargain, and are thus more or less in a state of dependence; the holdings they occupy are usually small; and these holdings are generally their homes, to which they cling with profound affection. Moreover, apart from considerable exceptions, and these largely upon the increase, where a contrary practice has obtained, these peasant farmers, as is but natural where the small farm system is the rule, have made permanent contributions to the soil, and have added to its value by building and fencing, by draining and other reclaiming processes; in innumerable cases they, or their ancestors, have held their lands during many generations; and in Ulster, and in some degree in the other provinces of the island too, they have gained by usage or acquiescence, rights in their farms of a proprietary kind, more or less intrenching on the owners' dominion. Yet this peasantry, though, in a variety of ways, it has thus acquired a real interest and a real sense of property in its lands, an interest and sense of a most legitimate kind, in spite of all that may be said to the contrary, is, nevertheless, to speak broadly, placed by law at the mercy of its lords, and holds as tenants-at-will only, that is, by a tenure which may be cut short by a notice to quit at six months, and is a merely precarious yearly possession.

Such, with large exceptions and modifications, is the system of occupation that exists in Ireland, considered critically and broadly analysed. It will be seen at a glance how cruelly unequal our law is in its relations with it, and how it clashes with the facts of society. It falls in sufficiently well with the interests of the class of capitalist farmers, for its feudal principle that whatever is annexed to the soil belongs to the owner, seldom operates harshly in cases in which the landlord, and not the tenant, makes the permanent additions to the

land; and its coarse doctrine that Grant or Contract can alone create a right in the freehold, has little tendency to do wrong to tenants secured by a distinct bargain. But it is utterly unjust in its application to a race of small occupiers who hold usually at will, but have generally acquired rights in their holdings, through improvement, or by local usage, outside and beyond their legal tenure; for, as to these it exposes to spoliation what really is property of a sacred kind, and it refuses to give its sanction to what ought to be a secure possession. The rules which subject the Irish peasant to arbitrary eviction and the raising of rent, notwithstanding the interest which he may have in his land by virtue of contributions to it; which make him liable to extrusion from his home, though he may have become its owner by purchase; which obstinately disregard the tenant-right that in the North and in parts of the South gives him really a partnership in the soil; which look only at his status by tenure, and repudiate his status by right; which exclude a consideration of his equitable claims and confine themselves to his legal position; these rules practically, in numberless cases, reduce him to the condition of an outlaw, and deprive him of what is morally his own, in the actual circumstances of society. The law, in a word, as to his position, persistently refuses to acknowledge what justice and usage attribute to him, and to throw over it its sovereign sanction; it stands thus directly opposed to right, and to the sentiments of the people; and what makes this conflict more perilous is, that, while it affords protection to those well enough able to protect themselves, it denies protection to a class entitled to it in a special manner, and whose well-being, nay, whose existence, may and does morally depend upon it. We need seek no further for the real causes of the hatred of law which exists in Ireland; for the lamentable and mischievous feeling of insecurity which prevails among the peasant farmers; for the wide diffusion of the agrarian spirit-that sentiment which too clearly reveals a conviction on the part of a people that there is something wrong in its main institutions, quite apart from the extravagant excesses of crime and outrage to which it has led. In fact, it might be fairly said, that the existing laws of tenure in Ireland, as far as regards the large majority of the persons directly affected by them, would be simply intolerable were they carried out to their extreme length and absolute conclusions. These laws, however, have been mitigated by local usage and acquiescence, by public opinion and by the forbearance of those who have the power of profiting by their abuse. In the North a custom of extraordinary force gives the peasant practically almost a right of occupancy, and a substantial property in his holding; and this tenant-right, wherever it exists in the South, as it does in some districts, although in an imperfect form, is usually respected by the landlords. Any equitable

rights which the small farmer may have besides, in respect of improvements, are not now, as a general rule, disregarded in any part of Ireland; and, almost everywhere, his superiors are very much better than the law of the land. Unhappily, however, instances of wrong and oppression necessarily sometimes occur; and then, the law being essentially unjust, and showing that general injustice is possible, the result appears in wide-spread discontent, in a pervading sense of want of security, in dislike of the whole system of tenure, in serious and dangerous moral disorder.

The great and decisive vice, therefore, of the system of occupation in Ireland is, that the law of tenure fails to protect the just rights of the mass of the peasantry. As in England, in the fifteenth century, the lands of the kingdom were overrun by a vast system of private trusts, to which the common law would afford no sanction, and this led to disputes and confusion; so in Ireland, at this moment, the small farmers are, as a rule, entitled to a variety of equities in their holdings, and these, not being made law-worthy, wrong and disorder inevitably ensue. It is the peculiar misfortune of Ireland, however, that evils in the system of the occupation of land are aggravated by evils in its system of ownership. In by far the greater part of the island, the settlement of landed property rests on a basis of confiscation and conquest, upheld and strengthened by evil laws, disastrous in their protracted effects; and it has never rooted itself in the hearts, the sentiments, and the traditions of the people. After a series of forfeitures and distributions of land, unparalleled perhaps in the annals of Europe, the revolution of 1688 placed the ownership of the bulk of the soil, in three of the four Irish provinces, into the hands of a dominant caste, differing from the nation in origin and faith, and made hostile to it by generations of discord, while the conquered race remained in occupation, to serve and toil for their alien superiors. It was difficult for kindly feelings to grow up between classes, set in this way in the close relation of landlord and tenant, yet morally sundered, and of old foes; and the Penal Code, which, it must be remembered, continued unchanged until 1778, increased the breach between them, and made it durable. The results appeared in an aristocracy of the most harsh and ungracious kind, cut off in sympathy from its dependents, and divided from them by an impassable barrier, in absenteeism ruinous and wide-spread, in property maintained by force only, and unadorned by social affection, in hatreds and animosities of class, and in a peasantry down-trodden and depressed, which cringed to its masters but loved them not, and which gave no willing or loyal obedience. A variety of circumstances tended to prolong the consequences of this state of things; and though the influences of this century, Time, the abolition of unjust laws, and a system of government generally impartial, have done

much to obliterate its effects, they are, nevertheless, distinctly traceable. To this day, in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, the large majority of the landed gentry are, as a body, wholly distinct from their tenantry, opposed to them in politics and religion, and though generally just and humane, not united with them in real concord. To this day, absenteeism throws its cold shadow over immense districts and makes them barren of regard for their owners; and to this day, the relations of landed property, in too many instances, wear a stern, rude, and ungenial aspect. The result has been that, as the people have grown in knowledge, and proved their power, they have learned to dislike this condition of affairs; territorial influence has dangerously declined; and the very institution of ownership in land is assailed by revolutionary passion. In Ulster only, where during more than two centuries society has reposed upon foundations completely different, a better state of feeling exists, and landlords still have very great power; though even in Ulster other causes have caused some jealousy of landed dominion.

The two features, then, in the land system of Ireland which we must keep distinctly before us are, that, as regards the bulk of the peasantry, the conditions of occupation are unjust, and that the system of ownership is not popular. It is not our present purpose to consider the variety of schemes which have been put forward as remedies for this state of things-the conversion of the tenantry of Ireland into owners of land at a fixed quit-rent, the universal extension of the tenant-right of Ulster, the transformation of all tenancies at will into leaseholders for a definite period. The Government Bill is founded on views entirely different from these projects, which, however excellent they may be in the abstract, are confessedly innovations of a serious kind, and have the special defect of applying a single and inflexible rule to rights of a very varying character, and of thus doing considerable injustice. The Bill treats the land system of Ireland on the side of occupation, and on that of ownership, and seeks to deal with it under both aspects. Taking it up on its first and most complex side, it proceeds upon the sound principles of giving the support and efficacy of Law to those equities of the Irish occupier at present without that permanent sanction; of extending those equities in some measure to all analogous cases, with large variations; of discriminating and adjusting these, according to their extent and degree, by the machinery of a judicial process, doing justice in individual instances, and of vindicating them for the benefit of their possessors, whenever they may be in need of them, interfering, however, as slightly as possible with the existing relations of landed property. The scheme, in a word, setting out with the notion of recognizing and establishing existing facts, endeavours to reform the conditions of occupation by bringing these facts into our legal

system; aims at strengthening the position of the Irish tenant by a wide and liberal interpretation of them; and seeks to improve and raise his status, and to alter really the nature of his tenure, but, nevertheless, without violent change, in a gentle, gradual, and easy manner, and without rude disturbance of his superior. To effect these objects, the Bill divides the occupiers of the soil into three great classes, according to their respective equitable rights, and deals with each in a separate manner.

The first class are the powerful body who, whether they hold by lease or at will, have the benefit of the custom of Ulster; and,1 as to these, the Bill simply gives the efficacy of law to the usage, in all cases where it really exists, excluding them from any further advantage. The operation of this custom is to confer upon the tenant of Ulster an interest in the land beyond his tenure, this interest, however, being very different in extent and value on different estates; but, as the custom is not law-worthy, his superior always has possessed the power of weakening or destroying his tenant-right, these wrongs, however, being very uncommon. The Bill effectually prevents such acts; and by legalising the custom in its integrity, assures to the Ulster tenant his right, whatever it may be, in its existing status. The result practically will be to convert many estates in Ulster into mere manors, in which the lords will have the rents and services, and the tenants will usually hold the lands without disturbance, and with a power of disposition of the tenant-right, according to the conditions of the custom.

The second class comprised in the Bill are the occupiers who, whatever their tenure, are entitled to the imperfect tenant-right which prevails in certain parts of the South, especially in the Midland Counties. This right, also, like that of the North, gives a tenant, practically, an interest in his holding of a proprietary kind beyond his tenure; and like that of the North it is liable to be invaded and even annulled by the landlord. The usage, The usage, however, which sustains this right, is much less efficacious and mature than the ancient and honoured custom of Ulster; in fact, it hardly extends beyond acquiescence and forbearance on the part of the landlord; and rights secured by it not only vary, as they do in the North, on various estates, and present various degrees of diversity, but are, speaking generally, less valuable, determinate, and distinctly defined. The Bill deals with this usage on the same principles as with the Ulster custom, except that, as is not unjust, it modifies what is crude and inchoate according to sound and rational views; and it offers the occupier instead of the rights conferred by it, an alternative choice which it assumes will usually be a benefit to him. It declares in substance that the tenant-right of the South shall be made law(2) Sect. 2.

(1) Sect. 1.

2