Thus far the farmer, who so far as the evils of subdivision or subletting are concerned is at one with the great landed proprietor, who, thanks to the recklessness of his predecessors, sees his efforts to improve his property paralysed, and his own personal honour and reputation endangered by the acts of the leaseholders or fee-farm, renters over whom he has no power whatever. Many large holdings are leased to middlemen who have sublet them at extravagant rents, but cannot be dispossessed. This is the system which now exists, yet the great landholders I have consulted describe it as the result which will be brought about by giving the fee-simple of holdings to cottier tenants. "And," I am asked on all sides, "is fixity of tenure to signify the fixture of little tenants in their present holdings, on which they cannot possibly lead a reasonably human existence? Is it intended to stereotype disaster, to perpetuate the blundering of the past? Or is it intended to give them at great expense to the country, larger holdings on partially reclaimed waste lands on the system commended by Mr. Mitchell Henry, and perhaps applicable to Connemara, if not to other places? And is it intended that when Mike, and Thady, and Tim are settled on their new clearings they are to do as they like on them, to subdivide, to sublet, to conacre, to settle their numerous children and their children's children on the original forty-acre farm? And are they, after they have taken possession of it, partly reclaimed and brought under plough, to be allowed to cultivate it or not cultivate it as they like--to let it all go back first to pasture then to sedge, and finally to bog?" Mainly with a view to elicit further expression of opinion, I hinted to the last and most accomplished person who put these queries to me, that it would be absurd to give the cottier absolute control over his land, and that he should have a conditional lease from the Government, the four cardinal conditions being--that he should not subdivide; that he should not sublet; that he should not take in a partner; that he should cultivate some portion of the land according to a prescribed system. I saw the fine Irish "oi" of my friend gleam with triumph. "A second Daniel," he almost shouted; "a second Daniel come from England. But are you aware, my friend, that you have evolved from your own unaided consciousness one of 'Lord Leitrim's leases'--the leases, which cost him his life? Bating the fines which he injudiciously levied you have exactly the programme for enforcing which he was shot, as you would probably be if you attempted anything of the kind. It is not at the signing of the leases that any difficulty would arise, but in carrying their letter and spirit into effect."