Under the excitement of war prices, it is observed, agriculture advanced with extreme rapidity. The demand for labour increased, and the population augmented in proportion. Land rose in value from year to year, and lessees realised large profit rents by subletting, one or more persons being frequently interposed between the owner and the occupier who was ultimately liable for the rent, both to the head landlord and the intermediate tenants. It became the practice in most cases, we are told, for the occupying tenant either to sublet, or to divide the land among the members of his family—in the former case a class of middlemen was created, which operated as a bar to improvement, and led to the paying or to the promise of paying higher rents—in the latter case the practice of subdividing led to consequences perhaps still more mischievous. When the farmer of 40 acres subdivided the land among his children, those children were led to do the same among theirs, until the farm of 40 acres was cut up into holdings of one two or three acres, each holding occupied by its particular owner, and yielding no more than was barely sufficient for his subsistence. “Now if the tenant of 40 acres had been prevented from subdividing his land, he would,” as is observed by one of the witnesses,[41] “have provided for his children by sending them one into the army, another into the navy, and then left his holding to a third, and thus the farm would have been continued in its first state.” The cultivation of the land so subdivided and cut up is moreover always of the very worst description. The crops are uncertain, the liabilities to scarcity greater, the cabins are most miserable, and the visitations of fever are more frequent. The soil itself becomes deteriorated by bad tillage, and not a bush nor a tree is left standing; whilst the ease with which a cabin is reared, and the meal of potatoes provided, induces early marriages, and the land teems with an excessive population. ----- [41] Dr. Doyle, the Roman catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, whose evidence is entitled to the utmost consideration on this and every other question connected with the state of Ireland. -----