increase the produce of agriculture; and since there is no stimulant available so potent as a permanent interest in the soil, either the present landlords, or their English mortgagees, to whom the estates of the more impoverished landowners must inevitably pass, would find it to their advantage, if not to grant at once this permanent interest to their tenants, at least to hold out to them, the prospect of acquiring it."[7] To the same purpose, Sir Robert Kane states his belief that "there are not people enough in Ireland for the small-farm system" if it were carried on in the manner which the experience of other countries has shown to be practicable, and which requires only a certain amount of instruction and of encouragement to the tenants, to enable them to raise at least as much produce, and pay a better rent, than large farms would do.[8] But although this appears a very probable, as well as hopeful view, of the position of the cultivated parts of Ireland, and of the prospects of individual proprietors undertaking to reclaim the wastes, yet it is obvious that we can have no security for the landlords taking this view of their position, and that it would be a very questionable stretch of power to compel them to act upon it. And what we wish particularly to urge is, that _it is not necessary to come to any decision_ on the disputed question of the grand or _petite culture_ as applicable to the _cultivated_ districts of Ireland, because the _waste_ lands fortunately furnish a resource which is _clear addition_ to the existing means of maintaining the agricultural population, available at a small preliminary expense only, which, we maintain, ought to be borne by the government of this country. The redundant population being thus disposed of, all the landlords will be left at liberty to try whatever modes of improving their estates they may think fit--subject always to this salutary check, that if by any of these modes they render an additional part of the population redundant, they will be compelled, by the poor-law, to pay more or less for them. [6] _Mill's Principles of Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 387. [7] Ibid. 398. [8] _See the Large and Small Farm Question, considered in regard to the Present Circumstances of Ireland._