The Irish Land

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 edition. Excerpt: ... 112 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. left alone, perfectly ready to accept an arrangement which may satisfy the tenants without materially injuring them--that most of the remainder are not intolerably unreasonable, excepting only those who are either embittered partizans, or men who have become more English than Irish; and that thus the dissentients from a reasonable compromise would be reduced to a small minority. If, however, English prejudice is imported into the matter no man can say where the end will be, and we may look to have the way blocked by this Irish question to all the reforms we most want, even if much more serious results do not ensue. THE VARIETIES OF TENURE AND MANAGEMENT. I believe it cannot be said that there is any considerable portion of Ireland, not even that lying immediately round Dublin, in which the British land system has been completely introduced, that is, in which the landlord supplies the buildings, &c. necessary for the cultivation of the land, and lets the land on pure contract principles; but to some extent the system has no doubt been followed near the capital, and since the famine it has been partially introduced in a good many estates in different parts of the country, though THE THREE ZONES. 113 to a much smaller extent than is sometimes asserted. It is impossible then to mark off, even in the simplest way, anything that might be called the proper contract country; but it may be said that there is a certain area made up of scattered portions, more common near Dublin, less common as we recede from that point, in which the land is held on that tenure. In all the rest of Ireland, the tenant who builds his house, reclaims, fences, &c. &c, without law or special contract to secure him in the enjoyment of his property...