This leads us to consider the question, which is the most momentous of any that can be proposed on this topic--If the plan of locating the idle hands of Ireland on her waste lands is not adopted, what other resource exists for the relief of the redundant population, which is, as we have stated, so enormous and unquestionable a burden on England and Scotland? It is clear that, in Ireland itself, as the law now stands, two plans only are thought of, and if government does not bring forward a third plan, one or other of these must quickly predominate. Either the main body of the landlords, who are known to be quite incredulous as to any improvements being effected by their cottar tenants, must be allowed to pursue their own system of keeping them on hand--_i.e._, only as tenants-at-will--and clearing their lands of them as rapidly as possible, with a view to large farms or sheep-pastures; or else that system must be adopted, which is demanded generally by the tenantry and by the Roman Catholic priests in Ireland, of giving to the tenants one form or other of what has been called "fixity of tenure"--_i.e._, such security against a ruinous rise of rent, or dispossession, as may induce them to exert all their energies, and sometimes to bring forth concealed capital, for the improvement of the soil, and, in many instances, for the reclamation of wastes;--this party maintaining that the main cause of the generally wretched condition of the cottars, and imperfect cultivation of the soil, is not the indolence of the people, but their knowledge that they are constantly liable to a rise of rent, or expulsion from their farms, immediately on its being perceived that they are effecting any improvement. These are the two remedies for the existing state of matters in Ireland, which these two parties wish to apply, and unless a third plan be adopted by government, one or other of these must quickly predominate. Now, let us consider the results to be expected in either case.