in Europe, thus offering another illustration of Arthur Young's observation, "The magic of property turns sand to gold. Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will turn it into a desert."

The idea of conferring not only on our pauper labourers, but on the whole mass of the nation itself, a permanent interest in the soil, is making rapid progress amongst even Englishmen. We have heard repeatedly from English lips, that the cause of our misery is, that we are living on land that does not belong to us. We hire of a few landlords from year to year the use of so much of our own soil as they choose to lend us, and on such terms as they choose to exact, and we are consequently in the same state as all the rest of our species who borrow and beg. Nothing can be plainer, than that we and our breed for ever must be hopeless paupers whilst we are the tenants at will of a foreigner's farm, dependant for garden ground, and even for standing room on our own island, on the caprice of a few thousand rack-renters. The law that authorizes them to refuse us the use of our own soil, and to scour us off as vermin, is not an institution of peace, but the consequence and the evidence of a state of warfare; and we can in reason and conscience be no more expected to obey it when resistance becomes feasible, than we can be supposed to have enacted it; and hence, since its introduction, we have been pining in unutterable misery, ever ready for revolt, and looking forward to the ruin of England as the means of our redemption; whereas, whenever previously we had an interval of repose from English invasion and persecution, notwithstanding coyne and livery and our own perpetual petty dissensions, we were happy and loyal; our kernes and gallowglasses served England faithfully in her foreign wars; our giants"we were able to feed "giants" then-swam across rivers to take up the gauntlet flung down by the giants of France to the host of England; our material prosperity excited as much respect and admiration as our beggary has wonder and pity and contempt; and as the earlier Romans raised greater crops amidst the fire and sword of hostile incursions, than were afterwards raised amid the continuous peace and large farm system of the empire,* so English writers could

* Isque mos dum servatus est ex perseverantissimo colendorum

say then of this country, what they cannot say now, that it "was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle;" a most populous and plentiful country;'"* populous, well inhabited, and rich in all the good blessings of God, being plenteous of corne, full of cattell, well stored with fish and sundrie other good commodities." ↑

Such was the description of Munster before Elizabeth's wars. So, when peace was established in James's reign, we learn that "the strings of the Irish harp were all in "tune;" that all the people "sit under their own vines, and the whole realm reapeth the happy fruits of peace; "S and that it so progressed in prosperity up to the arrival of the Earl of Strafford, being then "in a flourishing, wealthy, and happy estate. " The following is the description of the whole island during the last short interval of peace that any considerable portion of the people were owners of the soil:

دو

"After the restoration, from the time that the acts of settlement and explanation had been fully carried into execution, to the year 1688, Ireland made great advances, and continued for several years in a most prosperous condition. Lands were every where improved; rents were doubled; the kingdom abounded; trade flourished to the envy of our neighbours ; || cities increased exceedingly. Many places of the kingdom equalled the improvements of England. The king's revenue increased proportionably to the advance of the kingdom, which was every day growing, and was well established in plenty and wealth. Manufactures were set on foot in divers parts; the meanest inhabitants were at once enrich

agrorum studio veteres illi sabini quirites atavique Romani quanquam inter ferrum et ignes hosticis incursionibus vastatas fruges largius condidere, quam nos quibus diuturna permittente pace prolatare licuit rem rusticam. - Colum. De Re Rustic. Proem.

* Spencer's View of Ireland, p. 165.
† Hollingshead, b. vi. p. 459.

|| "Archbishop King, in his State of the Protestants of Ireland, pp. 52, 53, 445-6. Lord Chief Justice Keating's Address to James II., and his Letter to Sir John Temple."

"Lord Sidney's words in his speech from the throne in 1692, from his former knowledge of this country.-Irish Com. Jour. vol. ii. p. 577."

ed and civilized; and this kingdom is then represented to be 'the most improved and improving spot of ground in Europe.'"

This prosperous condition, compared with its subsequent state after a long interval of peace, would, the writer says,

prove this melancholy truth, that a country will sooner recover from the miseries and devastations occasioned by war, invasion, rebellion, and massacre, than from laws restraining the commerce, discouraging the manufactures, fettering the industry, and above all, breaking the spirits of a people."*

In those eighteen years our progress was greater than it has been in the 150 which have since elapsed. So Prussia is said to have recently made, in the ten years subsequent to her conversion of her peasantry into fee-simple owners of the soil, more progress than in the previous century."†

The utility of scattering the soil amongst a numerous body of small proprietors, who would reside upon and cultivate it, has been recognized even by our landlord government and parliament. It was so forced upon the attention of the Devon commissioners by what they witnessed through the country, that they recommended it, and suggested, as the means of carrying it into effect, that facilities should be given for the sale of estates in smaller divisions than they had been usually brought to market. In the last session of parliament the legislature sanctioned the idea by passing the acts enumerated at the head of this article, purporting to facilitate the sale of encumbered estates, and the transfer of real property, and for the establishment of the Farmers' Estate Society. The second of the above enactments merely directs some alteration in the entries to be made in the Register Office; and the first will not be felt in the country for the next ten years, except by increasing litigation, for which provision is made by the last act at the head of this article for the appointment of additional taxing masters in the high court of chancery. The Farmers' Estate Society Act would be a most useful and invaluable measure, were it not for one great defect, namely,

* The Commercial Restraints of Ireland considered, pp. 18, 19.

32. † MacGregor's "Commercial Tariffs, &c. - German States," i. p. 97.

provisions allowing no allotments of less than thirty acres, and providing that if any of those purchased from the society should ever be so divided that any part should be less than thirty acres, the part below that standard should be chargeable to the poor law for half its annual value, to be recovered in the same manner as any other part of the rates. These provisions will totally neutralize this measure. They were intended to guard against the creation of small estates and excessive subdivision. But if the promoters of the Bill, or the members of the legislature whose attention was called to it, had thought seriously on the matter for a few minutes, they could not have regarded the condition of an Irish rack-rented tenant at will of a thirty-acre farm as the normal state of a small peasant proprietor, and overlooked the contrast between a tenancy in fee-simple and a tenancy at will, and framed a measure with regard to the former on data applying only to the latter. We are particularly surprised that the select committee of the house of commons should have raised the standard from twenty, as proposed in the bill originally, to thirty acres, as it was proved before them that in Ulster, the best cultivated, most densely inhabited, and happiest province, there is a larger per centage of the population holding small farms than in any other province; that in Down, the model county, the number of small farms is greatest; and that the holdings from less than one to thirty acres, in the four provinces generally, were about the following: "Under one acre, in Leinster, 133,220; in Munster, 162,386; in Ulster, 234,499; in Connaught, 155,204; making the total 685,309: above one acre to five acres, Leinster, 49,152; Munster, 57,028; Ulster, 100,817; Connaught, 99,918; making altogether 306,915 : above five to fifteen acres, Leinster, 45,595; Munster, 61,320; Ulster, 98,992; Connaught, 45,221; making altogether, 251,128: above fifteen to thirty acres, Leinster, 20,584; Munster, 27,481; Ulster, 25,099; Connaught, 5,790; making the total, 78,954."

On reading the evidence before the committee, we wondered that neither Lord Devon nor Mr. Monsell, M.P. for the county of Limerick, alluded to the existence of most happy illustrations of the small farm system with fixity of tenure, in the immediate neighbourhood of their own properties. So long back as the commencement of the last century, a number of refugees from the Palati

nate were located in various parts of this country. Near the Earl of Devon's property in the county of Limerick, there were two locations close to Rathkeale-one at Ballingrane, the other at Killaheen. The farms at the former place were limited to eight acres each; those at the latter varied from eight to fifteen acres, and had, in addition, a common for pasture. The rents were 5s. an acre; and there was some understanding with the landlord as to perpetuity of tenure. These people lived as happy and independent as possible. The lands were well-tilled; they had large kitchen-gardens and orchards, which supplied them with fruit and vegetables, the rest of the land supplying them with other necessaries. They put the younger children to trades and professions, and never subdivided their allotments. On the contrary, the tendency has been to consolidate. There is a similar settlement at Adare, near Mr. Monsell's property, except that the allotments are somewhat larger. The characteristic of all is neatness, industry, comfort, and independence.* These settlements stand as oases in the desert-as broad landmarks amidst the desolation around, to prove what might be done by small farms and perpetuity of tenure. One of them, too, begins to illustrate the system which has been pursued with respect to all the surrounding property. The people of Ballingrane some twenty years back began to entertain doubts as to the security of their tenure; we know not exactly why, except that we believe the landlord increased the rent on a few of them. Some began to emigrate, and sell their allotments to their fellow settlers. Such of the purchasers as were farmers thus consolidated two or more allotments; while others, who were engaged in town pursuits, re-let at rack rents. The consequence is, that the settlement has been since decaying, and assimilating to the farms of the surrounding rack-rented tenants at will; and that, in all probability, in a few years it will be reduced to the same uniformity of desolation. There is in the county of Tippe

* Arthur Young, commenting upon the favourable terms conceded by the landlords to the German settlers, says: "The poor Irish are very rarely treated in this manner; but when they are, they work much greater improvements than these Germans."Cited in Thornton's 'Plea,' p. 235.