Nearly all of the landlords are willing to sell their estates; many are
glad to get rid of them, because the average tenantry in Ireland are a
very determined class, and are always making trouble. There have been
almost continuous disturbances over land questions of one form or
another in Ireland since the beginning of time. The rents are low
compared with the American standard, but have been difficult to collect,
and when there is a failure of crops they cannot be collected at all.
The landlords complain that all the laws that have been enacted of late
years are entirely in the interest of the tenants; that the landlord has
no show at all. And perhaps that is true, because public sympathy is
invariably with the tenants, and they cast many votes, while the
landlord has only one, even if he tries to vote at all.
Since 1881 the land courts have adjusted the rents of 360,135 farmer
tenants, involving 10,731,804 acres of land. The total rents paid for
these lands annually before adjustment was £7,206,079. They were reduced
by judicial order to a total of £5,715,158, a difference of about
$7,500,000 a year in American money, in favor of the tenants.
Therefore it is perfectly natural that landowners--and especially those
who have had a good deal of trouble with their tenants--are anxious to
dispose of their estates for cash, which they can invest to much better
advantage. The Duke of Leinster, for example, who is a minor, has
realized more than £800,000 in cash, which his trustees have invested in
brewery stocks, railway bonds, and other securities which pay regular
dividends and give him no anxiety.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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