In a back street in this city, where the footfall of the pedestrian is seldom heard, or the bustling barrister seldom seen, and far removed from the ordinary courts of law, stands an unostentatious house, differing in nought from its fellows, as far as external appearance is concerned. Should the visiter's curiosity prompt him to enter, after pushing open the door that swings freely upon its hinges, and following a narrow passage, he will find himself in a moderately sized room, fitted up like a county court-house. There three judges, sitting upon elevated seats, preside; and from twenty to thirty professional persons-a few of them barristers, the rest attorneys-occupy the almost empty benches. The observations addressed to the court are short and pertinent-for they brook not long speeches and their final decision is immediately pronounced in language equally explicit. This, at least, is generally the case. Impressed, perhaps, with an idea that these are puisne matters of no public importance, he is about to retire to some more interesting spectacle, when he suddenly discovers that this is the INCUMBERED ESTATES COURT.

Of all the measures that have ever been passed for the improvement and regeneration of Ireland, none are likely, to prove of so bold or so comprehensive a scope as the Act to facilitate the sale of Incumbered Estates. A superficial legislation had often directed other enactments against the eye-sores that emanated from the diseased condition of the country; but this act strikes deeply at their origin; it is co-extensive with the evils it is intended to remedy, and boldly grapples with them at their source. dispossess the hereditary owners of the

VOL. XXXVII. NO. CCXIX.

To

soil, to break up gigantic estates, to apportion them among a different class of persons, to pay off the incumbrances that hang like millstones round the necks of the inheritors, to introduce new strength, capital, and life-blood into Ireland, to create a yeomanry class—a peasant proprietary, to sweep away the Chancery suits that have been accumulating in a multiplying ratio for years, to unfetter land and throw it into the market, to diminish absenteeism, to place the landlord and lessee in a more wholesome position, with new arrangements for the tenant, and a new system for the people: these, to a certain extent, are among the results likely to follow from this act. The vital importance of the measure was, however, but little understood, even by its framers. It was looked upon more as a temporary expedient to meet a temporary emergency, than as a great and comprehensive plan destined to work a social revolution unexampled in the history of this country.

When we reflect upon the amount of land about to pass through the ordeal of the Incumbered Estates Court, its territorial extent, its pecuniary value; and when we consider the short time that has elapsed since the commission was first constituted, and the rapidity with which so large a proportion of the Irish soil has been brought into the court, it is natural that we should feel a desire to examine the social condition of Ireland at the time, in order, if possible, to ascertain by what agency so great and so sudden a change has been brought about, and how it has come to pass that the landed proprietors of this country, once wealthy and powerful, have been reduced in so short a time to helpless poverty.

In order to examine these matters

U

fully, it would be necessary to review the social condition of Ireland for many years past. But as this paper cannot extend beyond prescribed limits, we propose to trace as shortly as possible the steps by which this consummation has been brought about.

The evils which we have seen in our days are the results of many causes, all tending to the same point. It is not to the embarrassed condition of the landlords, nor to the potato failure, nor the poor-rate, nor the "Public Works "it is not to any one of these alone that the fall of the ancient proprietors of the soil can be traced.* It is to a series of circumstances, extending over many years, and closely connected with the social condition of the country; with the statutes by which we are governed; with the executive administration of the laws; with the religion, the morals, and the habits of the people.

For several years preceding the famine the condition of this country was steadily improving. Farms were consolidated, substantial houses were built for the tenants, an improved system of agriculture, better descriptions of stock and farm implements were introduced, flax was receiving the greatest attention, and extensive works of drainage and

reclamation were undertaken. Such was the condition of Ireland in the year 1846, when the potato, the sole support of seven-eighths of the people, suddenly disappeared, and put an end to these progressive movements.

The principal obstacle to the progress and improvement of Ireland has invariably been attributed to the subdivision and subletting of farms; and the great outcry always raised against the landlords for adopting what was called "the clearance system,” is a sufficient evidence that they, at any rate, were not participes criminis. It is difficult for persons not acquainted with the south and west of Ireland to believe that a gentleman's estate could ever be partitioned not only without his permission, but against his positive will, among persons little removed from the condition of paupers, and not even possessed of "a commodity of a good name." Yet such was constantly the practice in this country. A hut was raised in a night upon some remote portion of his estate; at first it resembled a thatched hay or turf rick; after a few days it was elevated into the re

semblance of a cart-shed, and gradu. ally assumed the appearance of the neighbouring cabins. It was a point of honour with the surrounding tenants to conceal the fact from their landlord, and as soon as he discovered it he generally found that he had to undergo all the difficulties and expenses of a regular ejectment before he could dis possess the intruder. The fee-simple of the land, in many cases, would not have been worth the expense; and the odium that attached to his conduct in the neighbourhood was generally sufficient to deter him. All sorts of expedients were resorted to in order to assist the pauper in this praiseworthy crusade against the landlord. A patient ill of typhus fever was often placed by the road-side in a ditch; a few branches and a little straw formed a kind of shelter, and in process of time a small mud hut bid defiance alike to the weather and the landlord. Another expedient was often adopted, previous to the potato failure, by a tenant, holding perhaps a hundred acres or more, whose lease was within a year or two of its expiration. Such a person would often subdivide his farm, receiving large fines from the poor ignorant people, sometimes equivalent to five or even ten years' rent. And such was their intense desire to become the owners of a small lot of ground, that no friendly caution was sufficient to deter them from so absurd and ruinous a bargain. If there were no covenant in the tenant's lease against underletting, the landlord had no remedy; and even if such a covenant existed, a suit instituted shortly before the determination of the tenancy, against a party who had probably left the country, would, even if possible, have been worse than useless. The landlord had therefore, no option. He was obliged, at the conclusion of the lease, to bring his ejectment against the premises, and, though a just and generous landlord, to incur all the odium that should have been heaped upon another. Such were among the expedients sometimes resorted to where the landlord resided upon his property, or where an active agent filled his place. In the absence of both, or often with the connivance of the latter, affairs were managed in a more open manner. It was no extraordinary thing for a person who had gone abroad for his health or amusement to find his

whole estate crowded with paupers at his return, after an absence of only three or four years; bogs, swamps, plantations, and moors being all covered with squatters. On the introduction of strangers such artifices were practised, but the custom of subdividing their farms among their children, both sons and married daughters, was looked upon as a species of legal right with which the lord of the soil had no power to interfere, and no cause to complain. If any objection were made, the single room, of which the cabin generally consisted, was partitioned into two by a division made of wickerwork plastered with mud, and handed over to the new married couple; and little by little a second door, and finally a second house became planted upon the estate by imperceptible degrees. And this took place again and again, notwithstanding the watchfulness of the most indefatigable landlord.

To receive even a faint impression of the extent to which subdivision of land had been carried in Ireland, it will be necessary for a person who has not the opportunity of obtaining personal information to turn to two maps given in the Report of Lord Devon's Commission (Appendix 14, 1). The first figure shews the subdivision effected in one generation. The townland contains 205 acres, and was formerly held by two tenants, but had been subdivided, at the date of the Report, into 422 separate lots! held by twenty-nine tenants.

"The people had been in the habit of subdividing their lands, not into two, when a division was contemplated, but into as many times two as there were qualities of land to be divided. They would not hear of the equivalent of two bad acres being set against one good one, in order to maintain union or compactness. Every quality must be cut in two, whatever its size or whatever its position. Each must have his half perches, although they be ever so distant from his half acres. And this tendency

is attributable to the conviction of these poor ignorant people, that each morsel of their neglected land is, at present, in the most productive state to which it could be brought."

The next figure shows the new division proposed by the tenants, by which each holding would be in two lots distant from each other. The united length of an average farm

would be about one hundred times its mean breadth, and one of the farms containing la. 1R. 15P. would have had a length of 266 perches, and a mean breadth of 4-5th of a perch, or the length would have been 332 times its breadth !

As we feel that the awful crisis that has occurred, and which called so imperatively for the Incumbered Estates Act, was almost wholly dependent upon these phases in the internal economy of the country, it will be necessary to examine the subject a little farther, not for the sake of vindicating the conduct of the landlords, but in order to place the true merits of the case clearly before the reader. The report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the occupation of land in Ireland says:—

"The cause which most frequently, at the present day, leads to the eviction of tenants on a particular estate, is the wish of the proprietor to increase the size of the holdings, with a view to the better cultivation of the land; and when it is seen upon the evidence, and in the return upon the size of the farms, how minute these holdings are frequently found to be previous to the change, it cannot be denied that such a step is in many cases absolutely necessary, and called for by a due regard to the interests of both landlord and tenant. It frequently happens, that upon the expiration of a long lease the landlord finds his property occupied by a multitude of paupers, who had obtained an occupation of a few roods or acres, either through the want of a clause against sub-letting in the former demise, or the failure of the landlord through some legal defect, or his own neglect to enforce that covenant, if existing. Many of these poor people are found living in a most miserable way, and quite incapable of managing their land property, or so as to derive from their small holdings a sufficient supply even of food for their subsistence."

The Select Committee of the House of Lords, in 1825, also refer in their report to the minute subdivision of land, the extreme difficulty of preventing it, and the number of persons intervening between the head landlord and the immediate occupier. And they state, that they observe with satisfaction, that the increasing intelligence of landlords is now endeavouring to supply a gradual remedy to the subdivision of land, and that they entertain a confident expectation, that, for the mutual benefit of both landlords and tenants, this remedy will

be as extensively applied as circumstances will permit. The Committee on Emigration in 1826 and 1827, speak of the growing conviction among the landlords in Ireland, of the mischief of the system of under-tenancy, and of the excess of population which attends it. In like manner, the Select Committee, in 1830, describe the advantage of agriculture during the war, the consequent demand for labour, and augmentation of the population; the increased value of the land, and so the temptation for subletting. After alluding to the wretched condition to which the subdivision of land and an over-population had reduced the people, their Report proceeds:

"Such was the state of things so soon as a fall in prices occurred after the peace. A change then began to take place in the system of managing lands. The great decline of agricultural produce prevented many of the middlemen, as well as the occupiers, from paying their rents; an anxiety began to be felt by the proprietors to improve the value of their estates, and a general impression was produced in the minds of all persons, that a pauper population spread over the face of the country would go on increasing, and the value of the land, at the same time, diminish

ing, till the produce would become insufficient to maintain the resident population. The new system of managing lands was that of

consolidating farms, and bringing the landlord and tenant more immediately in contact.

It

is stated to lead to better husbandry, to farm buildings, and more comfortable habitations, to the gradual improvement of the quality of the soil and quantity of produce.

Lower

rents are assumed, but on an average of years larger rents are paid; and a race of yeomanry is likely to spring up and to be encouraged. These benefits are so strongly felt, that all the witnesses concur, that they are universally recognised by the landlords and agents, and are carried into practice as far as circumstances will admit. The risk to be apprehended is, not that the proprietors of lands should be insensible to these considerations, but that they should, in some cases, proceed with too much rapidity."

Such having been the policy of the landlords, ever since the year 1825, it will naturally be asked how it happened, under such circumstances, that the evil continued to increase? The causes were manifold. The creation of the fortyshilling freeholders was one of the principal encouragements to the sub-division of estates. As long as they continued to vote with their landlords, they increased his political power, at a

time when political influence was of no mean value to the holder. As soon as the late Mr. O'Connell, by their assistance, had defeated the landlords of Ireland at the elections, he consented to the act for disfranchising them, and abandoned them, unconditionally, to the mercy of the irritated proprietors. A few ejectments which, unfortunately, took place from these motives, served to give a political tone to the question, which seems, even to the present day, to attach to the improvement and consolidation of farms.

The next great impulse in favour of the multiplication and sub-division of farms is the unexampled increase of the people. It was a leading feature in Mr. O'Connell's policy, that "captive Israel multiplied in chains." All his power, he was well aware, resided in the prejudices and bigotry of the lowest of the people. With the enlightened Roman Catholic population he had but little influence, and there were but few of them that did not, at some time or other, come in for the full vial of his wrath. His power lay altogether with the lowest: he could pander to their prejudices, avail him self of their ignorance; awake the bad passions of their hearts, and appeal to their real miseries; and the more the population increased the more powerful he became, not only in the number of his supporters, but in the accumulated ignorance and vice that resulted from adding to an already superabundant population.

In this policy Mr. O'Connell was materially assisted by the Roman Catholic priesthood, who, apart from the fact that they were actuated by motives similar to his, had also a direct personal interest of a different kind in the increase of the population. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Roman Catholic priest is altogether paid by fees. The poorest person in the parish often pays an annual sum equal to that paid by the wealthiest farmer; marriage fees, christening, and stations, sometimes amounting to £10 each, form the residue of his income; and it will be in the recollection of the reader, that Mr. O'Connell, in one of his speeches against the payment of the Roman Catholic clergy, in the latter part of his life (for previous to the granting of Emancipation he had given his sworn evidence strongly in favour of such a measure), said, that it was

not in the power of the British exchequer to pay them as they were then paid. For these and many other motives, which it is unnecessary to specify, early marriages and the increase of the population have been encouraged and fostered in Ireland in every conceivable manner by the Roman Catholic priesthood. The miseries that must result from adding hundreds of thousands to the already superabundant population, and from bringing new labourers to compete, in a market already overstocked, the disease, the crime, and the distress they propagated, were all set at nought; the result was, that the stock of labour was increased till wages fell to zero; that the habitations of the poor became crowded; that disease was disseminated; that theft, and all manner of vice and iniquity have been resorted to in order to procure subsistence; whilst, more painful still, multitudes perished of want.

And here, if it were not digressing too much from the matter in hand, we may be permitted to express our regret that the exertions of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and the very great influence they possess with the people, are not directed less to the furtherance of agitation, with all the evils that follow in its train, and more to the suppression of the crimes and outrages that disgrace this country. Against the single sin of immorality, which, according to Malthus, has the effect of reducing the population, and of superseding the rites of matrimony, their efforts are, it is true, from motives of personal interest, directed; but murders, accompanied with unexampled barbarity, take place in their parishes, and the criminal continues at large, by their sufferance, and meets with the sympathy of the people, receiving a welcome and a shelter in their homes; and yet, that voice, so ready to denounce from the altar their landlord's acts, is seldom raised against the criminal. Farm houses are attacked nightly, the peasant is beaten-often murdered; cornstacks are burned, horses are houghed and maimed, cattle robbed, honest men put in fear of their lives, and capital driven out of the country, to wing its way-carrying with it happiness and the fruits of industry-to some more congenial clime; during all this time we seldom hear the voice of the priest; but should a Scripture-reader arrive in the neighbourhood, or a

clergyman open a school, or a pious layman distribute a few copies of the Book of Life in that desolate region, the Roman Catholic priest is immediately upon the alert; the cry is raised the Church is in danger!-and his over-pious soul is agitated with the most anxious solicitude lest the ungodly should lead any of his flock astray from the holy paths in which he has taught them to walk!

The combined effects of the increase of the population, and the subdivision of farms, led by easy stages to the adoption of the potato as the universal food of the lower orders, as an acre of potatoes will feed as many persons as four acres of corn. The act for the abolition of the distress of growing crops gave also, unintentionally, a great impetus to its cultivation. As the potato, even if left in the ground the entire winter, would not be much the worse; whereas, any other sort of farming produce would be completely destroyed if not harvested at a particular season; and thereby rendered liable to distress.

The facility, then, afforded of defrauding the landlord was a great_evil in itself. It made the tenant ready to promise a high rent for the land, and willing to trust to artifice or chance for the performance or escape from his contract, instead of making him feel that in industry and integrity lay the only road to prosperity. Another great evil that the exclusive use of the potato entailed upon the Irish people was, the inability under which it placed them of accommodating themselves to the particular circumstances in which they might find themselves. In other countries the labourer has the power, should he be overtaken by illness, or should his employment fail, of falling back upon a cheaper and coarser food, at his discretion; and, again, should his industry and good conduct lead to an improvement in his wages, his family immediately feel the benefit; but the Irish cottier lives upon the extreme verge of human subsistence, and the least reduction in his daily food leads to inevitable starvation. It is this circumstance that made the famine fall so suddenly upon the people of this country. As long as the potato lasted they were as well off as ever; the moment it failed, hope even forsook them. Again, the tendency of the potato system is to foster habits of