exercise of frugality and improvement, and deprived the tenant of all security for it. And the natural consequence is that neither landlords nor tenants, as a rule, make any improvements, and there are parts of the island in which the soil has actually deteriorated.

The provisions of the Government Bill* relating to tenants' improvements in Ireland have met with the obvious objection, that the valuation is proposed at the determination of the tenure, when no just estimate may be possible of the increased value fairly attributable to the outlay and labour of the tenant. And it is has been suggested that a valuation of the tenant's outlay at the time it is made would insure just compensation. But even this would not suffice. A progressive fall in the value of money, from the increased production of the precious metals, would lead to the repayment of the tenant's expenditure in a depreciated currency, and would not even restore his pecuniary outlay by an equivalent sum. Again, there are many important improvements, such as the reclamation of waste land, which in Ireland are effected mainly by the labour of the tenant, spread over a number of years, and the value of which can only be judged by the result, and cannot be measured while being made by any official valuation. But, thirdly, the main object of legislation should be to induce, and if necessary to compel, landlords to grant sufficient leases to afford compensation by mere length of possession. Leases of sufficient length have the double advantage of disposing the tenant to improve his farm as a whole by all the means

The Bill of 1866, when this article was written.

K

in his power (instead of confining his aim to the particular improvements it may be easiest to recover com- · pensation for), and of recompensing him without the intervention of any external authority, or the risk of dispute with his landlord.

The merit of the Government Bill is that, but for one fatal and contradictory clause, its provisions would make it the interest of landlords to grant leases of considerable length, in order to avoid all claims for specific improvements at the end of the tenure. This merit is

lost by a clause enabling the landlord to avoid all claims by a written prohibition of all improvements, as well as by a lease. It has, indeed, been urged as an objection to leases in Ireland, that the holdings are already too small, and that long leases have been found to lead to subdivision. The answer to this, in the first place, is, that without better security than is afforded at present, neither large nor small holdings can be even tolerably farmed, not to say highly; and the prevailing tenancy at will is the very worst system upon which land can be held, next to that of cultivation by slaves. Moreover, the comparative productiveness of the two systems of husbandry has been by no means decisively settled against small farms. The larger farms in Flanders,' says M. de Laveleye, 'tend constantly towards subdivision, for the very simple reason that when subdivided they yield a much larger rent. This subdivision, too, increases the gross, not less than the net, produce. It is an accredited opinion that large farming alone can give to the soil the proper crops, and devote to it the requisite capital to call all its pro

ductive forces into action. In Flanders it is the reverse which is true. In general, the smaller the farm the greater the produce of the soil. Cultivators and proprietors alike rejoice in the subdivision-the former because it places more land within their reach, the latter because it doubles their rents. It is in East Flanders, the country of small farms par excellence, that statistics most clearly attest the perfection of husbandry, and the amount of production to which land so subdivided gives birth. There each cultivator, having for the exercise of his industry little more than a single hectare (about 2 acres), feeds as many individuals as an English cultivator feeds with the produce of three hectares.' , *

It is true that the small farmers of Flanders derive but scanty incomes for their own support; but this is so partly from the higher proportionate rents which they pay, partly through the immense competition for land which the excess of population and the love of agriculture create, and partly because the customary term of a Flemish lease is altogether too short, although coupled with a tenant-right in unexhausted improvements.

The objection that long leases were found formerly to lead to subdivision in Ireland, deserves little attention on several accounts. In many cases the subdivision was more nominal than real, the land comprised in the

* ́Essai sur l'Économie rurale de la Belgique.' Deuxième édition. 1863. This admirable essay formed the subject of a special report to the Academy of France, by M. de Lavergne. Its author is not only distinguished as an Economist, but intimately acquainted with practical agriculture in Belgium.

original demise having been chiefly waste land which was thus brought into cultivation; and although a division took place, there was no real subdivision of the amount of land in cultivation. Moreover, the subdivision, where it was real, was created partly by penal laws, which prevented parents from providing otherwise for their children: and partly by the expenses attending the sale of interests in land, which made it easier to sub-let than to sell, especially with the aid of the law of distress. An improved system of transfer of all interests in land is an essential part of legislation in favour of tenants and agriculture. Lastly, if it be true that the tendency of husbandry is necessarily towards large farms, it is clear that the small holders will be compelled to part with their farms, and subdivision will be impossible.

The chief practical objections to legislation on the subject are really, on the one hand, the objections of landholders to abandon any part of the absolute control over the soil which, as I have attempted to show, they have no claim to, either upon legal or economical grounds; and, on the other hand, the objection of legislators to grapple with a difficult question. For the Legislature to leave Ireland as it is, would be, in Bacon's phrase, to enact a law of neglect,' not to act upon the economical maxim of laisser faire.

133

LORD DUFFERIN ON THE TENURE OF LAND.*

Ar the opening of his work upon Democracy, M. de Tocqueville sketches in a few sentences the political history of Europe for seven hundred years, from a time at which the right of governing descended with family inheritances, force was the only means by which man could act upon man, and landed property was the sole source of power.' Hardly a single event of importance in history, he proceeds, not one step in human progress since then, not one acquisition material or immaterial to the domain of civilization, but has raised rivals to the great landed proprietors, placed sources of social and political power at the disposal of new classes, and tended to the furtherance of equality. 'Poetry, eloquence, memory, the charms of wit, the glow of imagination, profoundness of thought, all the gifts which Heaven imparts indiscriminately, have turned to the advantage of democracy; and even when they have been found in the possession of its opponents, they have still done service to its cause by bringing into relief man's natural greatness; its conquests have spread therefore with those of civilization

Reprinted from Macmillan's Magazine,' July 1867.