Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/194

Rh then, would hardly afford adequate employment to our existing numbers.

But I turn from any calculations of my own to evidence of a more unexceptionable character. Five witnesses besides myself were examined last year before Mr. Maguire's Land Tenure Committee. No one will pretend that the sympathies of those gentlemen were unduly enlisted on the landlord's side. Some of them were members of the National Association, and their bias—so far as their minds were susceptible of bias—was clearly in favour of the tenant.

All were asked the same question. What is the smallest area which a tenant can cultivate with advantage, or over which you would extend the protection of a lease? How did each reply?

Judge Longfield says (Q. 401):—

"To grant a 21 years' lease to the occupier of five or ten acres would generally be no use." "He himself would not grant one." "No improvement on so small an area would pay."

Mr. Dillon says (Q. 1,859):—

"He would not grant a lease to a man who held a very small or bad farm." (Q. 2,108 — " Twenty acres of good land at a fair rent was the holding on which he could live with comfort."

Mr. M'Carthy Downing doubles the desirable minimum. He is asked what he considers a small holding. He replies (Q. 2,562):—

"From 15 to 20 acres."

Again he is asked (Q. 2,563):—

"Do you consider so small a holding is good either for the country, the tenant, or the landlord?"

He answers:—

"If I had land without any population on it, I would rather