Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/110

Rh dealt with, have done so under the compulsion of a landlord. In other words, and to display the case still more explicitly in relation to the whole subject, during the only period for which we have trustworthy statistics, evictions have been effected (supposing the responsibility for them be distributed over the entire landlord class, which is the theory insisted on) at the rate of one, once in every five years, on each estate; or, to put the case geographically, at the rate of one a year over every area of 10,000 acres of occupied land. It is further to be remarked that evictions have been fewest in Munster, the Province from whence the largest emigration has taken place.

Not only, however, do we know the number of evictions during the last ten years, but we also know what proportion of these evictions was necessitated by the non-payment of rent. It is true the returns which give this information again confound the urban with the rural districts, but it may fairly be supposed that the same proportions prevailed in either category; and if that be taken for granted, it would appear that of the total number of evictions which the landlords have effected in Ireland two-thirds were for non-payment of rent.