The Land-War in Ireland: A History for the TimesGodkin, James
History
The Land-War in Ireland: A History for the Times
Godkin, James
Ireland -- Economic conditions; Land tenure -- Ireland
The consequence of these painful relations of landlord and tenant,
even in this comparatively happy county, is a perceptible degeneracy
in the manhood of the people. Talk to an old inhabitant, who has been
an attentive observer of his times, and he will tell you that
the vigorous and energetic, the intelligent and enterprising, are
departing to more favoured lands, and that this process has produced
a marked deterioration in the population within his memory. He can
distinctly recollect when there were more than double the present
number of strong farmers in the country about Belfast. He declares
that, with many exceptions of course, the land is getting into the
hands of a second or third class of farmers, who are little more than
servants to the small landlords. Even where there are leases, such
intelligent observers affirm that they are so over-ridden with
conditions that the farmer has no liberty or security to make any
great improvements. Were it otherwise he would not think a thirty-one
years' lease sufficient for the building of a stone house, that would
be as good at the end of a hundred years as at the end of thirty. All
the information that I can gather from thoughtful men, who are really
anxious for a change that would benefit the landlords as well as
themselves, points to the remedy which Lord Granard has suggested,
as the most simple, feasible, and satisfactory--the legalisation and
extension of the tenant-right custom. They rejoice that such landlords
now proclaim the injustice which the tenant class have so long
bitterly felt--namely, the presumption of law that all the
improvements and buildings on the farm belong to the lord of the
soil, although the notorious fact is that they are all the work of the
tenant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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